Turning 94

I traveled to St. Petersburg on Friday to celebrate a friend’s 94th birthday. Bob Francis offered me a job in Hawaii when I was twenty-one and it set the stage for the rest of my entire career. It is safe to say that I owe him a lot. He is still getting around pretty well even if his memory isn’t quite the same.

That is his short-term memory. He’ll say, “I can’t remember anything anymore,” and then tell you the address of the boarding house where he lived in 1952, the weekly rent, his landlord’s name, the name and physical attributes of the girl he was dating, and exactly how much a beer cost back then.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Hawaiian tradition of informal adoption. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but that concept can extend to old folks as well. Playing grandparent to other people’s babies is fun, but spending quality time with adopted grandparents is also gratifying. The one thing babies and senior citizens have in common is that they have plenty of time for you. Give some thought to those people who have impacted your life and go for a visit. You won’t regret it.

The other lightning bolt that struck me during this trip was that Bob has been ‘retired’ for almost half of his adult life. The whole idea of retirement seems a bit obsolete. In the knowledge economy he could easily have kept going for twenty more years. He told me, “I had a really interesting and rewarding career.” Why did that have to stop just because he became eligible for Social Security?

There are second acts in American lives. You just have to create it for yourself. Your community needs your wisdom and your help. If your ‘retirement’ is going to last thirty-plus years you have lots of time and capacity to make a real difference. If you need a model, I’ll introduce you to my mom.