Grugger’s Way

Since I have retired, I’ve discovered that The Rush if OFF when it comes to to shopping, entertaining and recreation!  What a pleasure it is to not have to squeeze every little errand into the weekend or after work each day.  How wonderful to visit places and do things at a time to my choosing, and avoid the crowds.   My hair stylist always has openings on Mondays.  She begins work at noon and her first appointment is usually open for me on any day of the week.  She also works until 7 pm, so I have choices after the rush hour traffic if I so choose. 

When I go to town for errands, I can limit my drive times to travel between 10 am and 3 pm to avoid the rush.  I can choose to go on weekdays and avoid the weekend rush.

When I decide to have lunch in town, I try to arrive by 11:30 am to avoid the rush.

When I shop for groceries, I can go any time during the day that I desire, and I can choose to shop on the day that fresh produce has been delivered and stocked.

I’ve noticed that a good time to shop Wal-mart is during the dinner hours, 6 to 7 pm, after the rush hour traffic.  Of course, 8 am is also good, since I don’t usually have anywhere else I need to be right then. Ha ha.

When I see an event I want to attend, I can choose the matinees, if appropriate, or the off-days.  Whenever I see an advertisement for “Family Day” or “Kids Day” then I know to AVOID those days.

When I want to visit a national park I try to go before the 10^th of June, or else wait until after Labor Day, in order to avoid the vacationing families with kids out of school.

I can visit the big attractions during the off-seasons, like Disneyland, or a spa in Arizona, etc.

I can find the “off-season” rates in the internet.  The time to do this is a year ahead of time because the “off-season” can be just the opposite in the desert than in the mountains.

All in all, I have discovered many advantages to being “retired” and living without the Rush.  I’m certain I will discover even more as the years go by.

Today I am a grandfather to a baby girl born to my son and daughter-in-law: their first.  She is beautiful (of course) and healthy and a hefty 7 lbs 14.5 oz.  The new Mom and Dad are doing great.

If you click on the little photo, a full size photo should open in its own page.

There is no joy to equal the birth of a new baby.  Grandpa’s like me think it is an extraordinary event in that we are SO FORTUNATE to be around to share it with our adult children.  This is one of the great joys of retirement too: I don’t have to be at work today so I could be at the hospital with the rest of the family.

We can never become indifferent  to such an event. It remains today, as it always has been, a miracle on Earth. 

As compared to MY day, however, there are some big differences about how a new baby comes into the world.  For one thing, and I guess this is the BIGGEST difference, is that the entire family gathers around in a room and watches!  In my day it was a big thing if the Dad was ”allowed” into the presence of this miracle.   Now, it’s grandma and grandpa, the child’s siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, and best friends forever (bff’s).  

Another big difference is the camera!  Wow.  Not just a Brownie snapshot, or a Polaroid instant, but a Digital camera and a Digital VIDEO camera to record the entire event–CLOSE UP TOO– (or TOO close up, depending on one’s point of view).  Yes, the secretive nature of childbirth is now explicit and in living color for all to “enjoy.”  So far as I know, at least in our extended family, the decision for the cameras is still left up to the prospective Mom.  But I have been amazed at how willing they are to have this all shared with posterity. 

Perhaps I am old fashioned, but I still appreciate the privacy of some things, and this special event is one of them.      

Joy of Retirement EIGHT - the joy of Being Lazy is in actuality the joy of guilt-free enjoyment of leisure time.  But I know I am not there yet.  Most of my life I associated leisure time with ”idle hands” being the “devil’s workshop,” which is another of those concepts instilled in us by our early upbringing in the “church of hard work.” 

“We were put on this Earth to work.”  If you come from a Norwegian ancestry, you have undoubtedly heard this many times.  As for the German ancestry…being organized with every minute of every day properly scheduled seems to be a matter of necessity for good grace. 

Well, I am 50/50, Norwegian and German, and there’s never been a lazy moment in my life.  How drull.  Wait, that’s not even a word.  Drab and dull.  “All work makes Jack a dull boy.”  I don’t think I ever heard that one as a kid.  As an adult, I appraised my co-workers based on my childhood standards of work ethic.  That was the only ethic I had and the only one that mattered. Therefore, I came to resent those workers who seemed more interested in ”fun-time” and their recreation plans for the weekend than they were in “getting the mission accomplished.” (There’s an example of that military “stuff” that still shadows my life.) 

Today, just by saying “I want to enjoy being “lazy,” I get odd looks from my spouse who is still working five days a week.  She also spends all weekend working at keeping the house the way she likes it.  I don’t fault her for that, but it makes me look and feel like I don’t do my share during the week when I am apparently just “sitting around at home all day.”

I am trying to associate leisure time with the freedom to do things at my own pace; and to a certain extent, to be able to choose what to do and when to do it.  I also think leisure time should allow me the freedom to read a book without guilt.  In the past I pretty much approached reading a book like it was a job…just another assignment that I need to complete so I can move on to something more important…more “work-like.”  

I don’t associate leisure time with “laziness.”  There is no excuse for laziness.  But I understand the need for some balance in our lives.  That’s a word we hear more and more of…particularly during the past twenty years…balance.  But there really isn’t a lazy bone in my body.   I “too long worked and too little played.” 

I’ve watched my Father age into his 80’s with absolutely nothing to do-now that he can’t work.  He has no hobbies and really no interest in anything going on around him.  I’ve noticed during the past ten years or so that his interest in the lives of his children and grandchildren also diminished. 

I am still working on the adjustment from career to retirement.  It is an entirely new lifestyle for me.  I am still learning about “letting go” and relaxing.  It may be possible that the pendulum will swing too far in the opposite direction and I will not bother to get dressed or shower in the morning; but, I don’t really expect that to happen. 

I know there should be a lot of joy in retirement.  After all, I worked toward this day all my life.  Now I am here and I want to enjoy it.  Without guilt.

Joy of Retirement SEVEN - the joy of Becoming a Spiritual Adult is the greatest joy! 

Faith and Spirit don’t have to be sad and stodgy.  The church I attended as a child soon lost me once I attained the age of “reason.”  I had questions and there had to be reasons and explanations.  Nope.  Just believe, I was told, because the church says so.  I won’t even go into details because it is so sad…a sad commentary on our religious leaders and on our religious faith.  There seemed to me at a very early age to be little that made sense out of what we were told was sinful. And all the “fire and brimstone” talk didn’t make a “loving God” seem very real.  I quickly lost faith in my religious mentors.  So did most of my cohorts…it was all pretty much over for us by the eighth grade.  If fourteen-year-olds could tell it didn’t make sense, then we pretty much lost respect for adults who continued to try to sell this to us.  Either they were trying very hard to sell us a bill of goods that they couldn’t believe in anymore themselves, or else they were simpletons who never advanced to the age of reason.  In either case, I, for one, found them to be sad and out of touch. Many of these most vocal religious leaders have been discredited, revealed as hypocrites, sanctimonious phonies, sexual perverts and predators. Shameful examples of the religious ministry of Christ which they claimed to represent.

Fifty-some years later, in retirement, I have some time to consider that “Something” greater than ourselves, and more and more feel that the “Something greater” is part of us, within us, and that we ourselves are part of “Something greater.” 

We could all be pretty content if we only followed our hearts.  Most of the organized religious groups in the world depend on fear and guilt to control their memberships.  Mostly religion is about earthly power and earthly greed.

When I began to believe that the Universe is integral to my being and that my being is integral to the Universe, I began to find meaning in every day drudgery. I began to believe that it does matter what I do and say.  That I do matter.  I believe in Passion, Love, and “being” rather than doing.  The beliefs that came out of the far east and India, the traditions, the many aspects of the truth that have been passed down for thousands of years, these beliefs that should have been honored in the messages of Jesus’ ministry, were obscured, ignored, falsified, and hidden from generations of the followers of Judaism and Christianity.  Now it has come full circle, and the beliefs are united as one.  In the Truth there is only One.