what retirement means

I wrote a while back about how my dad was able to retire at age 55, and how I’m a few years on the other side of that and am nowhere near that point. I thought of that when I read a recent article by Bill Moyers.

Moyers has retired two or three times now, only to come back and do more television. Moyers writes about how Walter Cronkite told him that he regretted retiring at age 65. Of course in Cronkite’s case it wasn’t entirely his doing. CBS in those days wanted to get Dan Rather into the anchor chair before they lost him to another network. Nonetheless, I suppose that Cronkite could have negotiated a busier schedule with CBS than he did.

The difference, of course, is that Cronkite loved and Moyers loves television journalism. I am where I am due to a variety of circumstances, happenstance, and good fortune. And as fortunate as I am to be where I am, it is not a chosen vocation.

So if I were to retire, what would I do? Here’s a partial list:

• Write more
• Read More
• Exercise more
• Do crosswords and other mind-challenging games
• Listen to or watch more Great Courses lectures
• Cook more and more creatively
• Shop more at independent grocers where I know the owners and staff
• Maintain my recipe database
• Watch Rachael Ray’s syndicated daytime television show
• Spend time volunteering at the church
• Volunteer at a social service agency
• Travel with Terry more
• Spend more time at the ocean
• Re-engage with photography
• Get up early more often
• Sleep in more often

That should keep me busy.