Drew, Alex, Devon
A pond occupies the center of our neighborhood, and a goose and two ducks live there. They have become, well, friends. In most places, geese hang with geese and ducks with ducks, so our pond, with an inter-species friendship going on, is a little more interesting. Continue reading
Sunset on Lake Champlain
Who reads these posts? What’s going on here?
This blog is now two years old and we might take stock of our efforts. Two years ago I expected most readers would be retired. Now it’s clear that many readers are not even close to retirement but instead work serving a senior population.
“I cut my own firewood,” said Frank. “Helen likes a fire in the winter. Of course it’s messy, what with the dirt on the wood and then the ashes, but she likes a fire. And truth be told, I like to cut and split the wood.”
It was a bright cold day, and I had stopped by Frank’s place to plan some deer hunting. We were out back of his house at his log pile, in the middle of his 4-acre woodlot.
I needed to go to Walmart yesterday and I headed out to the truck. In the driveway I noticed a stranger in shorts, sneakers and a T-Shirt with the word, BREATHE, across the front. He was trim and fit.
“I am Buddha,” he said, smiling.
Dogwoods in Georgia
After spending three months in Vermont, it is good to be back home in Georgia. When we drove into our place, forsythias were blooming, redbuds and dogwoods were opening, and our azalea’s looked ready to pop. Continue reading
Old age comes gradually, yet its arrival is often punctuated by unwanted events, like a visit to a dentist. So it was for Daniel Klein, author of, “Travels with Epicurus—A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life.” Mr. Klein’s dentist recommended he spend thousands of dollars to buy implants, which would require nearly a year of painful appointments with an oral surgeon and several weeks of living on the equivalent of baby food. Continue reading
We’re all sliding toward the grave, and older people naturally think about it more. Maybe that is one of the reasons many old people sink into despair. I say, “To hell with despair.” We all know where we’re going, so let’s have some fun along the way. Humor surely gives as much help for despair as a shrink, and it’s free.
Photo by Bill Davenport, Kentville, Nova Scotia, CA
During working years we often do things under pressure—to provide for our families, to advance our careers or maybe to set an example for our children. But in retirement many of these obligations fade into the background. So the choices we make seem to beg for reasons.
People often grow more spiritual as they move through later life, and especially for men, that growth can be halting, timid, and incomplete.
People enter Twelve-Step programs to rid themselves of addictions, and central to the method is acknowledgement of a “higher power,” which may be God for the religious, but may be something else, something people choose or define for themselves. Continue reading
People often idealize friendship, talking about true friends and soul mates with whom deep and lasting relations abide and in whom true sympathy resides. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that way in 1841 in an essay on “Friendship.” He describes friendship as a high-minded, God-given relationship between persons.
Writing in January on our blog, Later Living, I took a more practical tack, speaking of friendship as human companionship offering goodwill and affection; writing that friendships make people healthier and help them live longer, and that to make friends retirees need to join activities with other people.
Is Emerson’s a more helpful view—one that leads to a healthier or more fulfilling later life? Continue reading