No boss. No job. No money.
I'm officially retired, now.
Whatever the hell that means?
OK. Let’s spend some time, today, on the sort of blog that warms the cockles of the feel-good psychologizers. A bit of introspection mixed with geek-speak.
Tomorrow morning, Monday, I will stop by the office and drop off the magnetic signs for my pickup. With encouragement from my beloved Helen, I’ve decided this is the right moment for full retirement. I’ve been down to working part-time for the past four years. But, I’ve spent the past four months or so experimenting with how close I can get to keeping up my share of household expenses with my Social Security check. Close enough for now.
All the decades committed to one or another progressive cause pretty much guaranteed enough instability -- in financial planning if not employment -- that I never did acquire anything that would pass for a pension. No sour grapes there, though. As I look back to the 1950’s, when I got in a VW bus and headed down to the racist corridor surrounding Washington, DC with a couple of shopmates and the college students who owned the van -- it still was legal for a union or a fraternal or business organization to ban Blacks or women from elected leadership. And they did. We were arrested and hassled for ordering Cokes in a drugstore -- being a Black-and-white mixed group -- just 50 miles from the Capitol of these United States.
It was the same for the anti-colonial movements of the time. Many of my friends from Latin America and Africa, the Middle East and beyond, have died in battle. A few have earned what fools will consider respectability; but, most have never lost heart. I have “family” who earned those special aluminum rings the hard way -- on the ground in Asia. Core principles never needed to change because the enemy has never changed: the greedy bastards who believe in the hegemony of nation over nation, “race” over folks with different skin color, male [and masculine] predominance of the ideology of gender.
I don’t go to meetings anymore. Not even for the community out here in La Cieneguilla I respect and care for. Folks range from construction trades to artists, retired professors to this year’s flavor of hippie. An amazing number of homes were forged by owner-builders and the difference is delightful. But, I spent enough of my life wriggling in a chair, wondering when some abomination of an agenda would get past the stage of mythical consensus well enough to satisfy the last insecure activist. Especially those who represented the collective will of one.
I don’t go to town anymore. Except for groceries. My wonderful Helen tolerates this hermit. And she’s happy enough, coming home after a hard day -- the only geek in the family who actually earns a living as a geek -- to just be at home. There are several geeks in the extended family. Even one older than me and at it, longer, as well. Though, I’ve been a regular online since 1983!
Can’t afford the gasoline for Ruff Boy, now. We just use our pickup for shopping on that weekend run to town. But, the world floods into our home via satellite. Little by little, the next level of HD will get accomplished. More realism to the images. The US will only be behind a measured chunk of the industrial world. MPEG4-enabled receivers will start to be swapped out in our neck of the woods probably within the next year. I hope. Comcast isn’t seriously interested in giving us our money’s worth in broadband speed and access; but, it’s still better than the jerkwater Telcom crowd; though, not by much. They have the same dog-in-the-manger agenda.
So, the rest of the world is never more than 16 inches or 10 feet away. I'll have more time for self-disciplined exercise, walks along the fence line with the dogs. Maybe a bit more ingenuity in the meals I have ready for Helen when she returns home from work. A larger slice of time to read, to continue my life’s learning about science and history, people and places and philosophy. A larger slice of time to reflect and write. That ain’t bad.
Posted: Sun - October 2, 2005 at 04:09 PM