|
Adam, you are correct, of course. The Old Man was part of a big cohort of retirees. He spends time to this day bemoaning men he worked with who left work, went home, sat in front of the TV with a six-pack and died in three years.
Dad went up to his 60 acres of timber and added on to his house, built a summer house, built a stone retaining wall along 150 yards of creek (he was a pretty good amateur stonemason) and generally worked physically harder than he had for years.
He had to sell his place after the 2007/2008 floods. Then in his 80s, he had to admit he couldn't recover from major floods any more. Now he and Mom have been living in town for eight years for the first time in their lives, and he hates it. Mom says he still drives her nuts, pacing around the house "like a caged animal," complaining he doesn't have enough to do. He has become a figure of note in the town they live in - an old, old man who walks for miles through the town every day, wearing his "WW2 Veteran" cap.
I hope I do half as well as he has when I get older.
__________________
Ward M. Clark
Author, Lecturer, Traveler & Bum
From Bear Creek
|