On Retirement
Someone recently sent me a passel of jokes about retired people. A bit further on, I’ll share the better ones. But it got me to thinking about my own status. Every so often, when filling out forms, one of the questions I’m asked is if I’m retired. Inasmuch as I’ll be turning 77 in January, assuming I make it five days into the new year, I sometimes get the feeling I should be on the sidelines with my feet up, mulling over the foibles and follies of my life. Instead I’m busier than I’ve ever been, writing three or four articles a week, wrapping up a movie I wrote and co-produced, and with two books on the verge of publication.
Someone recently sent me a passel of jokes about retired people. A bit further on, I’ll share the better ones. But it got me to thinking about my own status. Every so often, when filling out forms, one of the questions I’m asked is if I’m retired. Inasmuch as I’ll be turning 77 in January, assuming I make it five days into the new year, I sometimes get the feeling I should be on the sidelines with my feet up, mulling over the foibles and follies of my life. Instead I’m busier than I’ve ever been, writing three or four articles a week, wrapping up a movie I wrote and co-produced, and with two books on the verge of publication.
I certainly never envisioned that my life would be this hectic at my age. But the truth is that I never envisioned being this age. Years ago, I used to imagine what my obituary in the L.A. Times would read like. (Having been a humor columnist for the paper from 1967-1978 and having had a moderately successful career writing for TV, I had no doubt my death would be covered locally.) But for some reason, I always imagined I would die in my 40s or 50s, and therefore, it would be necessary to explain my premature demise.
However, now that I’m within hailing distance of 80, not only will no explanation be required, but only on the off-chance that Methuselah is writing obits for the Times will the word “premature” appear anywhere in the copy.
A while ago, I read a study that showed that although most people imagined that old people resented being retired, the truth was the overwhelming majority were having the time of their lives. Free of the demands that go with raising families and punching a clock, they were traveling, attending classes, taking up hobbies, improving their golf game and spending more time with their grandchildren.
In my case, let’s just say it’s fortunate that I’m a compulsive writer, because between writing and doctors’ appointments, I don’t have time for all that other stuff.
As for the L.A. Times, it’s a newspaper that has seen its political bias shift so far to the left in the years since I last wrote for it, it’s a wonder the words don’t slide off the page. Not content with displaying its fealty to the DNC in its editorials, it has turned every section of the paper into a bullhorn for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Jerry Brown.
Although I quit subscribing years ago, for some reason, my next-door neighbor, who prefers to read his news in Armenian, gets the Sunday Times home-delivered. He, in turn, places the paper on my car’s hood, knowing that I like to do the Sunday crossword.
This past Sunday, while seeking out the puzzle, I paused to check out the Comics. With few exceptions — Drabble, Get Fuzzy, Dilbert and Bizarro — they were as awful as I remembered. A few were even worse, which led me to write the following letter to the editor: “It’s a shame that Doonesbury, like La Cucaracha and Pearls Before Swine, continues to take up so much of the limited space in the Sunday comics. But at least cartoonists Lalo Alcaraz and Stephen Pastis, unlike Garry Trudeau, don’t pretend to be politically relevant.
"Only Trudeau would still be imagining what sort of soldier Donald Trump would have been in Vietnam, while ignoring the whirlpool of scandals in which Hillary Clinton is swirling.
"For the record, Trudeau, born in 1948, used college deferments to avoid serving in the military during the Vietnam War.”
Speaking of war, I had always believed that the disinclination to light three on a match originated during World War I, when it was said that a match kept lit long enough to light three cigarettes in the trenches would draw enemy fire. As it happens, it originated with Ivar Krueger, the Swedish match magnate, who wanted the world to use more of his matches. It was once estimated that the superstition brought his company an additional five million dollars a year.
As a marketing strategy, Krueger’s was almost as brilliant as the one adopted by the shampoo industry when it instructed people to shampoo, rinse and then repeat.
Although I am not what most people would consider religious, there is a part of me that hopes that there is divine justice in the afterlife that sees to it that the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Osama bin Laden and Bill Maher, get what’s coming to them. And although Hell, with its fiery pits, stench of Sulphur and squads of pointy-tailed devils, has been quite clearly described by centuries of theologians and poets, Heaven is a bit harder to visualize.
Once you get past the pearly gates, puffy white clouds and harp concerts, things begin to get a little vague and, frankly, it all sounds rather boring.
But boring might be preferable to the reality. After all, one hears rumors about being reunited with one’s parents, one’s spouses, siblings, friends and even one’s pets. But do you also meet up with your step-parents or foster parents? What if you’d rather not? What if you were married, say, two or three or four times? Do you flip a coin or what?
I can’t be the only person who didn’t get along with his older brothers. Assuming I manage to fast talk my way past St. Peter, would I be stuck with them for all eternity?
I’ve loved my dogs, but I’ve only had three of them. Three I can handle. But what about people who have had forty or fifty dogs along the way? Do they wind up having to feed and walk the entire pack or are they forced, like Sophie, to make a heartbreaking choice?
I suspect it was such thoughts as these that led English satirist Evelyn Waugh to write: “It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.”
Finally, as promised, the best of the retirement lines:
Q: When is a retiree’s bedtime? A: Two hours after he falls asleep on the couch.
Q. Why don’t retirees mind being called Seniors? A: The term comes with a 10%-20% discount.
Q. Among retirees, what is considered formal attire? A. Tied shoes.
Q. Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement, attic or garage? A: They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult kids will insist on storing his stuff there.
Q. What’s the biggest advantage of going back to school as a retiree? A. If you cut classes, nobody calls your parents.
Now before any of you engage in textual harassment, let me remind you that I didn’t say they were humdingers. I said they were the best on the list.
