Retirement

Coming to terms with 60

/ edebock / 6 Comments

I absolutely loved being 40. By then I’d lived through some of the best and the worst that life has to offer and figured that I’d learned a few things along the way. I had a past filled with memories and lifelong friends and I had a future to look forward to. 40 was a fabulous midway point!

50 was great too! By the time that birthday rolled around, I was looking forward to early retirement and all the adventures that would follow. My fifties have included everything from climbing Mount Fuji to travelling the length of Vietnam on overnight buses to flying over the jungle of Costa Rica on a zipline!

I really haven’t enjoyed being 59 though because 60 has been hanging over my head all year! I want to embrace the next decade with the same enthusiasm that I greeted my 40s and 50s with but it hasn’t come as easily. 60 is such a big number! No longer can I fool myself into thinking that I’m still young. In fact, middle aged is a stretch unless I truly expect to live to be 120!

You’d think that I would have adjusted to being 59 pretty quickly. Immediately after my birthday, we spent several days with my parents. My mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease is obsessed with people’s ages.

“How old are you?” she’d ask.
“Fifty-nine,” I’d reply.
“How old are you?” she’d ask again a few minutes later.
“Fifty-nine,” I’d say again.
Over and over and over again.
“I’m fifty-nine.” “I’m fifty-nine.” “I’m fifty-nine.”
It didn’t really help.

Now 60 is just over a month away and I’ve been thinking about ways to celebrate; ways that might make the transition easier. One of the things that I’m passionate about is making micro-finance loans through Kiva; loans that give a hand up to women who are less fortunate than I am. Last night I invested another $25 in Kiva and gave myself an early birthday present.

Most of the women that I’ve given loans to have been younger than I am because loaning to mothers with children in their care has been one of my priorities but this time I decided to look for a woman who was 60. Kiva doesn’t list borrowers according to age so finding her took awhile. I scanned the long list of women in need, looking at each thumbnail photo for one who looked like she might be 60. Sadly, I clicked on many well worn faces only to find that they were much younger. I was reminded again how fortunate I am to have had the life I’ve had. Finally, after searching through many profiles, there she was. Sofai!  My loan will enable her to purchase chemicals, sprayers, shovels and fertilizers for her small taro plantation on the Pacific island of Samoa.

Sofai

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be looking for other ways to celebrate my “coming of age”. I’m not sure what they might be.

Any suggestions?

Five years!

/ edebock / 2 Comments

Tomorrow is the last day of school and also marks five years since I walked out of the classroom for the last time. It amazes me to think that we’ve been retired for that long already! Where has the time gone? For the past couple of days I’ve been doing some self-evaluation, asking myself what we’ve accomplished over those five years and whether or not we’ve done the things we wanted to do. Overall, I think the answer is a resounding yes!

We had some pretty specific goals in mind when we retired:

  • teach English in Asia for at least one year – done
  • travel – never completely done but 9 provinces and 15 states plus Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Macau, Saipan and Costa Rica are a pretty good start
  • short-term mission work – one summer in ministry has only whetted our appetite for more

Becoming grandparents was something we hoped for and though we can’t take any credit for that being accomplished, grandchildren have been one of the most delightful additions to our life since we retired. Four of them are firmly attached to the family tree and there are five others who also call us Gram and Grandpa. Four of those belong to two families in Japan who ‘adopted’ us while we lived there and with whom we’ve been able to carry on a relationship since our return to Canada.

The past few years have brought other unexpected surprises including becoming seasonal farm labourers! That definitely wasn’t part of the plan but we’ve enjoyed it immensely. For the first time since returning from Japan in early 2009, we weren’t involved in seeding this year’s crop. Louis, our 83-year-old ‘boss’ and very good friend, passed that part of the process on to his stepson and grandson this spring. He still plans to have us help him harvest the crop this fall though.

Surprisingly, we haven’t golfed as much as we thought we would since retiring. In fact, we haven’t golfed as much as we did before we retired! We’ve been too busy fulfilling our other goals. This year eight of the nine greens on our local course are undergoing reconstruction. The course is open but the temporary greens are pretty pathetic so the desire to play hasn’t really been there. It was a good year for us to take up a new hobby; geocaching. Though there are geocachers of all ages, many are retired. In fact, the activity is highlighted in the most recent issue of News and Views, the quarterly magazine published by the Alberta Retired Teachers’ Association.

Writing was always something I planned to return to in retirement. I thought I’d be freelancing again, sending my work off to publishers and waiting with baited breath to find out whether it would be accepted. Instead, I find myself blogging! Though I did experience the thrill of publication, in my early writing days I also received enough rejection slips to paper a small room! Blogging is so much more satisfying and I enjoy the opportunity to interact with some of my readers.

Do we ever regret retiring as early as we did? Never! Would we do it again? In a heartbeat! Have I enjoyed every moment of it? To be completely honest, no. Most of the time, I absolutely love being retired but there are moments, especially in the depths of our long Canadian winters, when I long to be doing something more meaningful with my days; moments when I join the writer of Ecclesiastes in lamenting that “Everything is meaningless, utterly meaningless!” Fortunately, those days are few and far between. I don’t think Richard has experienced them at all. Maybe that’s because he spends so much time playing Farmville that he doesn’t have time for such thoughts. His ‘farm’ is something else I didn’t expect to be part of our retirement but it keeps him happy!

As this school year comes to a close, I wonder what the next five years will hold. Our goals remain the same… more travel (we haven’t seen Europe yet) and more short-term mission work. I’m sure there will also be more unexpected surprises along the way.

 

 

Wild roses and wetlands

/ edebock / 4 Comments

My man had to drive to Wainwright this morning (about an hour northeast of here) to pick up some new tires that he’d ordered for the golf cart. “Why don’t you come with me,” he asked. “We can look for a few geocaches along the way and then have lunch in Wainwright.”

Does that sound like a date to you? It did to me. It also sounded a lot more appealing than weeding the flower beds which was what I probably should have been doing. We’re only home for a few days between trips so there are lots of things that need to be done around here but since retirement means doing what you want to do when you want to do it, I went to Wainwright.

We never did find the cache that was supposed to be hidden in the lilac bushes alongside a rural cemetery but the next one, in a quiet spot overlooking the Battle River, made up for any disappointment we might have felt. The wild rose, Alberta’s provincial flower, is in full bloom at this time of year and as we made the short hike down to the river we were surrounded by them. 

Battle River

I wish I could share their beautiful aroma with you but I don’t have the words to do it justice.

   

I waded into the bushes and risked being stung to get the next picture and others like it but the ‘sting bugs’, as our grandchildren call them, were much more interested in the flowers than they were in me and I came away unscathed.

The next cache had us treading carefully to keep from getting our feet wet! It was hidden beneath one of the bushes out on the point beyond this lookout tower.


We really should have had our rubber boots on but they’re in the trailer which is in Camrose for a minor repair to a leaky valve on the hot water tank. When it’s ready, Richard will be making another one hour drive in the opposite direction to go get it. Perhaps this time I’ll stay home and get something done around here… or maybe not!

The interesting and the bizarre

/ edebock / 3 Comments

We spent most of the past two days on the road driving 1169 kilometres across the Canadian prairie from our home in Alberta to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Originally, we’d planned on doing the entire trip in one very long day but we decided that that would be foolish. After all, we’re retired. We have plenty of time and besides, there are geocaches to be found… lots of them!

We’ve discovered that geocaching gives us reason to stop and look at things that we might otherwise cruise right by. Some are interesting, others quite bizarre.

As many of you know, I love bits from the past. This wagon was no exception. A geocache was hidden nearby.

I love farm machinery too, especially combines, but what about one perched high in the sky? Yes, that’s a full sized combine way up there! It kind of reminded me of a giant insect!

The world’s largest bunnock had to be the most bizarre, however! What’s a bunnock, you ask?

Apparently Bunnock, also known as Glockenspiel or the Game of Bones, was created by Russian soldiers to pass the time while they were stationed in Siberia during the early 19th century. Bunnock was brought to Canada sometime in the early 20th century by Russian and German immigrants, many of whom settled in the province of Saskatchewan. The game pieces were made of horses’ anklebones, something the soldiers apparently had an abundance of! Players set up two parallel rows of bones, each row consisting of two guards and twenty bones. Two teams of four throwers each face off against one another. The object of the game is to knock down the other team’s bones beginning with the guards. The team that knocks down the opposition’s bones first, with the least number of throws, is declared the winner. Apparently the game became highly popular in and around the small town of Macklin, Saskatchewan, now the location of the world’s largest Bunnock. At 32 feet (9.8 m) high, the  giant anklebone constructed of steel pipes, chicken wire and fibreglass also acts as the town’s tourist information booth and yes, there is a geocache hidden close by.

As we crossed the prairies, stopping to view these and other unusual sights along the way, we found 20 geocaches. There are many more waiting to be found on our homeward journey next week!

Found it!

/ edebock / 16 Comments

We have a new toy and a new hobby! The toy is a Garmin Etrex Legend HCx handheld GPS receiver which we are still learning how to use and the hobby is geocaching.

Geocaching is basically a grown up, high-tech game of hide and seek. Participants use GPS units to hide and find containers called geocaches or simply caches and then log their activity online. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the finder records the date they found it as well as their geocaching username. It may also contain small items for trading or a trackable item such as a travel bug or a geocoin that is moved from cache to cache. Each trackable has its own unique tracking number stamped on it and its own online diary that follows its movements. To watch a 2 minute video that explains geocaching in a nutshell, click here.

There are currently more than 1.6 million geocaches hidden in over 100 countries around the world. They can be found on every continent including Antarctica and there are over 5 million registered geocachers out there looking for them! Today we joined their ranks.

Though we look forward to finding caches in many interesting and faraway places, there are lots to be found close to home. This afternoon, we set off in the sunshine in search of two of them. We had a little trouble finding the first one, not because it was so difficult but because we were still trying to figure out how to use the GPS! We’re not the most technologically savvy pair on the planet! Once we figured out how to enter the coordinates and follow the directions, the GPS led us right to what we were looking for. Our first find was an ammo box hidden within sight of the school I used to teach at.

Can you see it?

The second one, which we found much more easily, was a little further from home. It was a camouflaged peanut butter jar hidden in the edge of a farmer’s field.

After just two finds, we’re definitely hooked! Geocaching is a perfect activity for retired folk like us with plenty of time on our hands and a love of the great outdoors.

One aspect of geocaching that we are very pleased to participate in is known as Cache In Trash Out. Geocachers around the world are dedicated to preserving the natural beauty of parks and other cache-friendly locations by picking up trash as we go. It’s easy and it enhances the beauty of our surroundings.

On the way home after finding our second cache this afternoon, we wandered some back roads and found something else that we weren’t looking for but it will be the topic of my next post!

To hell with the bell!

/ edebock / 5 Comments

It’s that time of year again… the beginning of a new school year. Backpacks are packed, lunches made, and school buses ready to pick up excited children. Brand new pencils wait to be sharpened and notebooks with fresh clean pages beg to be filled. For the past few weeks teachers have been making plans and decorating classrooms getting ready for new faces to fill the desks in front of them.

At the same time, across the nation and around the world retired teachers are gathering for their annual “to hell with the bell” celebrations! Since I’m not aware of such an event locally, I won’t be attending one but I’ll be there in spirit.

Did I enjoy being a teacher? Yes, definitely. Do I wish I was back in a classroom? Absolutely not! I still love children and I had an absolute blast working with the kids of Living Hope Church of the Nazarene on the island of Saipan this summer but I wouldn’t trade retirement for the best teaching job on the planet!

No more homework; endless hours of marking and lesson planning. No more school dreams, crazy nightmares that used to plague me at this time of year! They’d start about mid August, dreams of classrooms with black walls and no windows, dreams of crowded rooms filled with students who wouldn’t stay in their desks and do what they were told. Don’t let anyone tell you that teaching isn’t a stressful job but it’s also an honourable profession and one that I’m proud to have made a career of.

So, as I’m out walking or playing golf and hear the school bell ring, I’ll think of my younger colleagues and wish them well. I’ll also smile and celebrate my freedom!

P.S.  To view my Living Hope Kids slideshow, click here.

Senior citizen? I think not!

/ edebock / 2 Comments

I absolutely love being retired and all the wonderful opportunities it affords us and when I’m at home during the summer months, I enjoy seniors golf on Wednesday mornings but I certainly don’t consider myself a senior citizen! I’m very happy to take advantage of senior’s discounts whenever they’re available though.

I’ve carried a bright green and yellow Humpty’s card in my wallet for the past couple of years. It entitles “mature customers” of 55 years and over to 10% off all regularly priced meals. Every Tuesday, the discount doubles to 20%. Humpty’s calls its cardholders the Emerald 55 Club and that title appears discreetly on the front of the card. Not so with my brand new Joeten discount card!

Joeten is a family owned retail company which has been doing business here on the island of Saipan for over 60 years. Everywhere we go, we see Joeten… Joeten supermarkets, Joeten One Stop Shopping, Joeten Motors. J.C. Tenorio Enterprises (Joeten) even owns a Costco! The warehouse store operated as Price Costco from Dec. 1994 to Dec. 2009 when the trademark name expired and the name was changed to Joeten Superstore. Ownership and the licensing agreement stayed the same, however, and it’s still clearly a Costco carrying merchandise from the US including Costco’s Kirkland brand products. The only difference between Costco here and Costco elsewhere, other than the name, is the fact that it doesn’t require a membership.

When we exited the store on one of our first visits, we were asked if we were seniors and told how to go about getting Joeten seniors cards so that we wouldn’t have to show our ID every time we went through the till. Off we went to the office at the Joeten One Stop Shopping Center to get our Hafa Adai cards. Hafa adai (pronounced half a day) is a native Chamorro greeting which is used much the same way that aloha is used on the Hawaiian islands. Like Joeten, it’s seen everywhere including on license plates. Unlike Humpty’s Emerald 55 cards, Hafa Adai cards do not announce our senior status discreetly. Instead, SENIOR CITIZEN appears in bold red print on the front of the card!

Will that audacious pronouncement keep the card hidden in my wallet? Definitely not! It’s worth 5% off any regularly priced grocery item and 10% off other merchandise including anything we buy at any Ace Hardware, also Joeten holdings. Not only will it benefit our pocketbook but it will also assist the church that we’re here to serve as the discount applies to everything we purchase whether it be for our own use or the church’s. That definitely appeals to our frugal nature even if it does mean admitting that we’re a little long of tooth!