Awhile back I ran into one of my new neighbors out taking the air. I introduced myself as the guy across the road and he told me his name. \u201cSo, Bernie,\u201d I asked, figuring this was his retirement house after years in a career, what he\u2019d been saving that nest egg for and whoopee, the Golden Years had finally arrived, \u201chow do you like retirement?\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernie looked a bit bemused over the spectacles he peered over to take \u2018the full measure of me\u2019, some impertinent upstart probing too deeply on first contact. \u201cIf you don\u2019t mind me asking,\u201d I added a little impishly. He took a little while, either pondering the question or wondering whether to dignify it with an answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot much,\u201d he said finally. \u201cIt\u2019s harder to accustom to than I thought it would be.\u201d I asked why he felt that way and he said he\u2019d had some prestige in his former career that was now suddenly missing. \u201cI demanded respect,\u201d he said sternly, \u201cand I got it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, Bernie,\u201d I grinned, \u201cI\u2019d get over THAT. Nobody down here gives a hoot or holler what you did before. You get to start brand new. Nobody\u2019s gonna salute the old generals now and anyway, the war\u2019s over. Take a load off. Enjoy the sunsets. Walk the beach. It\u2019s why we call it retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if Bernie ever did get over it. Some folks hang their awards and medals on the wall, hoping, I guess, to just keep on re-living their Glory Days. Me, I say high school\u2019s come and gone, good riddance. The South End\u2019s a funny melting pot, mostly us yahoo retirees bent on figuring out how to make the rest of life interesting without hauling along the weight of the past. Retirement\u2019s hard enough starting from scratch and not driving the mizzus insane being underfoot. And I know for a steel hard, take-it-to-the-bank fact, the mizzus isn\u2019t going to salute either. Down here, we\u2019re all privates in this woman\u2019s army.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Awhile back I ran into one of my new neighbors out taking the air. I introduced myself as the guy across the road and he told me his name. \u201cSo, Bernie,\u201d I asked, figuring this was his retirement house after years in a career, what he\u2019d been saving that nest egg for and whoopee, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[577,6186,6185],"class_list":["post-17323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-golden-years","tag-lost-glory-days","tag-retirement-blues"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17324,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17323\/revisions\/17324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}