This gallery contains 25 photos.
The spring of 2011 brought violent storms to middle America, and some of the fiercest moved through Alabama on April 27. An EF-4 storm cut a swath from Tuscaloosa through parts of Birmingham, killing about 60 people, and an EF-5 … 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
Courtesy of Jerry Murbach, doctormacro.com
Good literature draws us near and shines imagined light on hidden corners of our common nature. In retirement we have time to occasionally relax with a good book and examine some of our own unlighted places.
One appealing aspect of course is that most dedicated reading occurs in a favorite chair, and who is to know if a reader sometimes dozes off? That’s part of retirement too.
I recently read Madame Bovary, written by Gustave Flaubert and published in mid-nineteenth century France. The book is often on lists of great novels, and it concerns a theme that is always in fashion—adultery in marriage. At the same time, it goes deeper than adultery and treats aspects of human nature that bear heavily on today’s world. Continue reading
Much of the eastern United States has been cultivated or otherwise used in agriculture at one time or another. The land was used roughly by our ancestors, though they may not have known how to use it better. Soil conservation ramped up after 1930, but by then the eastern U.S. had endured up to 300 years of untutored soil use, causing great amounts of erosion. Creating new soil is an act of reparation, requiring dedicated work and patience.
Building soil may be like building families, especially for grandparents. Grandparents often work quietly, at odd moments, maybe in the background. Continue reading
Later Living submitted a byline to the Athens Banner-Herald that was published online and in print this morning. The piece offers readers five paths to breaking away in retirement.
Before retirement, most of us live in established routines. We rise early and head to work, where we perform familiar tasks; we come home to our families, have dinner, enjoy the evening, and go to bed. One day grows into the next.
Such patterned living is built on years of small adjustments to the demands of school, then work, family and community. It started in kindergarten — showing up, following instructions, adopting goals and meeting expectations. By the time of retirement, most of us live with a sort of automated proficiency.
At retirement, we chuck the job, but without a deliberate effort to break the routine, ingrained living patterns remain; retirement slides along with new responsibilities gradually filling the time spent at work. There is nothing wrong with that pattern, but it may amount to a missed opportunity.
Read more at Online Athens.
The beginning of retirement, like the first day of kindergarten, is often abrupt.
Some years ago, my mother reminded me of waiting with her for the school bus on my first day. I clutched my lunchbox in a small fist as the huge yellow bus rolled to a stop at our driveway. The doors clattered open; I approached the steps, grabbed the handrail, turned and said, “Bye Mom,” then climbed aboard.
Retirement starts that way for many when they say goodbye on that last day and walk out the door. That is how I retired, and I now realize it helped me know a special kind of freedom.
When growing older, we encounter illness and death more frequently. We may suffer illness ourselves, but we also witness illness and death among friends. In each case we might think of ourselves as called to a ministry, and the relevant issue is how best to serve. Continue reading
Donald Hall is experiencing old age with considerable grace. He is an 83-year-old American poet who started writing poetry as a teenager; he was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate in 2006; he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2010; and he is now living on his family farm in New Hampshire. Mr. Hall spends large chunks of time sitting near a window, from season to season, watching his barn and the surrounding grounds, and his bird feeder with it’s frequent visitors. His balance is growing worse, and he occasionally falls. When he was 80, he had two auto accidents, so he quit driving. Continue reading
As multigenerational families grow, more people are dealing with the difficult task of incorporating a new member into an existing household. There are important generic differences between needy parents joining families of their children, and young adults returning home. Also, each case will have a unique family history. Still, it seems possible to build a framework that will help families chart successful futures.
Here are three elements of such a framework:
There’s still a little magic in every motorcycle ride to the country. When I was young, our family took automobile rides on many Sunday afternoons, and I always loved to watch the farms and forests roll by, imagining what it would be like to live where we passed. Sometimes my father stopped and talked with people we saw near the road.
On a recent motorcycle ride I stopped to watch a small herd of Holsteins in a roadside pasture. They were grazing slowly toward me, but once I dismounted and walked toward the fence, they turned and headed away. Their owner came out from the farmhouse across the street to say hello and ask about my interest in cows. He looked about my age, but he was smaller, more wiry.
“Pretty, aren’t they,” he offered.