Retirement is What a Son Does

Photo courtesy of Crystal D'Zamba

"Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can't retire his experience. He must use it. 

-- Bernard M. Baruch

Unfortunately, in our lives, feces happen.  For my dad, this was a stroke.  For me, this was dad's stroke.  When someone faces death it can be a wake-up call, a life altering event.  One tends to get straight with God.  This holds true for the people that love them as well.  My mother realized she may lose him one day soon.  I realized my mother would be alone when it happens.  I also realized my dad and I haven't been fishing in a long time, and I don't want the memory of that to be my last memory of him.  I want new memories.

Dad gets sea sick, so the open water is not a good idea.  The new marina though, just blocks from the house, has benches and covered areas where we can throw a line, have a beer, and enjoy our own company and the company of others; a place to make new fishing memories to go along with those of my youth of constantly falling in the lake, stream or river.  If there's a body of water, I'm in it, and so is dad's hat as my hook would usually find it as I cast my line.  If my hook didn't find his hat it would most certainly find his ear.  Fishing with me was actually safer than hunting with me, as my shotgun barrel would inevitably find its way between my dad's legs while we hiked.  God gave me a pretty good childhood, and an even better dad.

With any luck, and with God's good grace, my being there with them will give us all another ten years or so together.  

I can only hope.

As I write this, my sciatica is acting up for the first time in years.  I was so uncomfortable last night I got little sleep.  The body is reminding me of the penalty for an active youth filled with stupidity and a lack of respect for my physical well-being.  This old boat needs to come in off the high seas and finish life in a sheltered portage before I find it dry-docked in some field.

So, in two months, I will retire for the third time in this life.  I will move to Pass Christian and purchase a lifetime fishing license from the State of Mississippi.  I will take dad fishing every day, or at least until he tells me otherwise, because this is what a son does.  I will help build them a smaller home with less maintenance requirements.  I will finish my latest novel and rewrite the first while trying to find a plot to develop for Sonny Daize, the third story line a friend of mine wants to see go forward.  I will help mom with all the cats and yard work.  Her and I will finally start a vegetable garden and, hopefully, a bed & breakfast in the old house which is just a couple of blocks from the beach, marina, and main street of this little town.  I will do this for her because this is also what a son does.  And, who knows, if the B&B takes off I may have yet another retirement in my future.

"I don't even think about a retirement program because I'm working for the Lord, for the Almighty.  And even the though the Lord's pay isn't very high, his retirement program is, you might say, out of this world."  

 -- George E. Foreman