We got slammed with rain last night at about two in the morning. Started with a gentle patter on the roof but it quickly turned into a deluge with sheets of rain and ripping wind. Woke up this morning to standing water everywhere and no paper delivery (washes running too high).
Went out on the road for my daily walk with a sweatshirt on! I swear I have not had a sweatshirt on in seven months. Crazy. It was 55 degrees out and after this last crazy, hot summer, it was a total joy to be walking in the crisp, cool air.
Sunrise Saguaros On Morningstar
The heavy cloud cover started to clear out at sunrise.
Sunrise Over Ratcliff Ridge
Had a sobering encounter yesterday at the Rock & Roll Retirement Home. That is the name Kathy gives to all the assisted living facilities cropping up everywhere here in the Valley. We were visiting her mother, who is 94, and the campus where she is temporarily staying is on a huge, sprawling apartment-condo type piece of real estate that takes up most of a city block.
Kathy thought it would be fun to take a tour of the facility, so she inquired at the front desk, and one of the residents, who volunteers for this kind of duty, took us all around to see all the social areas, the library, the bistro, a high end dining restaurant and a model condo furnished with interior decorator flourishes.
Almost every one you meet in the halls is very friendly and also using a walker. That gets surreal after a while in a walking-dead kind of way. The big man on campus has his own little car (I'm not kidding) and as he shot by us, Kathy's mother said, "I want one of those." I quickly realized they call it a "campus" for good reason because we were encountering all the cliques and popular kids and study hall passes and classrooms of a typical high school. I wondered where the make-out halls were located.
At one point, our guide, who has been living in the facility for ten years, turned to me and said, "What was your career?" I realized she assumed Kathy and I were checking out the facility for ourselves,
I told her I was still publishing a magazine and writing books, but the question really kind of set me back on my heels. No one has ever talked to me about my "career" in past tense. Sobering to say the least, because at some point it will be true, whether I like it or not.
Daily Whip Out: "Midnight Customer"
—Old Vaquero Saying
I don't see your career ever ending. As long as you can tell your stories in one modality or another, you will never retire.
ReplyDeleteThanks Unknown.
Delete"Who did you used to be?" I'm planning to retire from radio next summer so I can begin my next career! I'd say you've got a ways to go yet ..
ReplyDeleteOh heck, I'm still trying to get my career started. Just working a job until I do. My current Management is hard- 'nosing' me about my abilities to be in my middling position, continue to assign increasing volumes of responsibility with associated reporting then want to evaluate my performance as 'lower' to justify potential layoff. My dual goal is to make it to 65.5 and/or hit the Lotto.One goal is much closer than the other!
ReplyDeleteBob, an interesting vignette that makes one reflect. Why do we have to have "a career" that has a defined end? As a military retiree, I work as a military contractor and find that many do what I do because they can't grasp the fact that their military career is passed. Many live in the past, spend hours recounting "glory days", in which all those experiences sound the same. One's work should never end, we should always stay engaged and have "work" that keeps our minds busy. If you accept an end, you will soon end yourself. Now, Get back to work, young man, you've got a magazine to publish! :-) All the Best, Randie
ReplyDeleteHow can your career ever be over? You'd still be writing articles, opinion articles and being consulted on questions on The Kid, the Earps and Tombstone as long as you can talk and write.
ReplyDeleteYou will never actually retire Bob. Your stories are your life's career and you will never stop telling your stories. Whether with words or with color, you will never stop telling your stories for there will always be us old farts who want to hear them and see them. Live long and prosper BBB.
ReplyDelete