Simplicity
This past Friday at 5pm my intent to retire from Penn State became irrevocable. At the end of June I’ll step on to a path for the next adventure. One of the siren songs of this new life is possibility of having no schedule to live by. I can’t comprehend what that might be like.
Last weekend I rode into town to meet my friend Paul at Saint’s Cafe and look at some new photographs he made in Nova Scotia. The simplicity of a cup of tea reminds me of what retirement could be — an opportunity to focus on one thing at a time without a chorus of mental heralds shrieking a list of times and places I have to be.
Vespa Riding
The ride from home to town is familiar. So much so that I have to heed that I don’t become complacent on the road. My back still hasn’t recovered sufficiently to entertain long rides. Four posts in September attest to the physical limitations I’m working with.
I’ve been looking at motorcycles again with an eye to adding one to the garage when I retire. While partial to the Vespa scooter it surprises me how little excitement I can generate for any particular motorcycle. The scooter has wrecked me for them perhaps.
Saint’s Cafe, State College, Pennsylvania
Even though the physical space remains the same, and often times I see familiar faces, Saint’s Cafe is like an ongoing story with twists and turns you can’t predict. I never know what I’ll see or experience. Can’t imaging growing tired of the place.
Retirement will test that theory. And I’ll test it again in the morning.
I have a schedule to keep tomorrow. Ugh…
Congratulations Steve,
Now you can enjoy the path ahead, excitement but at a more relaxed and rewarding pace.
Enjoy the future mate.
It’s odd that Vespas seem to have the same effect on us Steve.
Lately I have ridden in two huge herds of bikes, 90+% motorcycles. None stand out as ‘the’ motorcycle calling my name.
Have never ridden a Vespa though one day I hope to do so. Passing through State College last week, my brother and I returning from a Blue Ridge Parkway ride on our Wee Stroms, I ran into an old friend at the Stevens Motel. Wentworth was waiting for friends, in his possession was a BMW Scooter and the following morning he offered it up for a try. Just a brief loop but I really enjoyed it. Highly likely a Scoot of some sort will end up in the garage. BTW … Thanks for and introduction to Saints ?
Congratulations on your decision! I believe you made the right choice!
This year, for the first time, Stephen and I switched schedules. For the past 16 years, I’ve had a 9 am class for an intro course while he had a 1:25 pm class for another section of the same course. For me, that meant getting up around 6 am in order to pull myself together enough to meet that class. At my age, getting all the parts working with each other early in the morning is a chore. With the time switch, I can get up when I feel like it, and leisurely go about readying myself for the afternoon. I can even get a bit of photoing work done for myself. (Photoing is a term that Billie Mercer conceived to mean anything to do with photography.) I must say I like the new schedule, and Stephen likes that he is done with classes for the week as of noon on Wednesday, and can take off to the Vineyard for four days. I guess what I’ve saying is it’s OK to have non-scheduled time everyday. People with a brain like yours will not be idle.
I also have a fleet of bikes and scooters. What you’ll find is while a scooter is an excellent commuter for the trips you make, a motorcycle will open up a whole new world of riding. You should think about something Kissel doesn’t carry like a Honda NC700X or a CB500X. You will never fear a dirt road or highway again. The 700 even has a trunk in the gas tank area.
Offhand how many others you know jumped at the”buyout”?
And the official date of employment determination is?
A former senior partner who was still a consultant decided and planned his retirement.
Purhased somewhere a subtractive number pad whereby each “working day (not weekends) that passed one less number appeared. His contract for retirement was based on actual days worked, not weekends.
Ironically and unknown to me at the time I too was shown the door the day he retired as was his entire department!.
Our services had been “contracted out!”
No employment protection then for support personnel; mind was hired back the next day as a consultant in place of my former partner. A weird turn of events which kept me going for a number of extra years until my employer was merged with four others.
Then it was all over. And was quickly shown the door; mind there was many others out the door the same day!
I’ll take the liberty here of modifying something I once heard about having money:
Being retired doesn’t make your life happy. But being retired has made life easier to bear.
I’m not too far behind you at all.
A recommendation: I recently picked up a book and have enjoyed it immensely so far. Though it’s called The Importance of Living (Lin Yutang, 1937), the true title should be, “The Importance of Loafing.”
Its classic Chinese philosophy at its best and I couldn’t have found it at a better time.
Enjoy some quiet time in your retirement, but make sure to keep it spiced up.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and time is that substance we manage that cannot be given away nor saved – you will use it in some way. I would encourage you to pursue a part-time occupation you enjoy. Like photography. Or writing. Some occupation that still provides a structure with some financial reward. I would recommend not entering retirement without a transition plan to “do nothing”.
If you don’t watch it Steve, you’ll find retirement full of tasks and schedules….
There’s no down side to retirement for me. More time to ride. more time to do tai chi. More time to sit with the dogs. More time for naps, play guitar, work on the house, drink beer, visit coffee shops, listen to music, travel and on it goes. It’s wonderful. Forty+ years was long enough to work.
I was sort of wondering what your decision was but I had a pretty good idea what it would be. I, also, have not found a down side to retirement. There seems to be always plenty of things to do. I still have my office at the university which is handy for things like OS updates (much faster Internet) and I’m still involved with advisory committees and an outside company board meetings. I don’t have a consuming hobby such as your photography unless you want to count keeping a Ural on the road. That seems to take a lot of time and effort.
Now that you’ve made up your mind, the days are just going to start crawling by and June will seem like a lifetime away.
When you first presented the issue of retirement in your earlier post, I had started to respond but then didn’t. Thought it was a bit preposterous to comment on something so life-changing when I didn’t really know you or your circumstances, at least not personally. But I was nonetheless curious to know the outcome.
So I say: Congrats on having made the decision! And I totally agree with what one of the previous commenters wrote: People with a brain like yours will not be idle.
My brain certainly keeps me busy. Hopefully it will continue in that manner for some time to come.
Funny thing about blogs and comments and advice. I suppose the fact that I share such things opens the door to opinions. I’m fine with that. Sometimes I’m asked by people why I share so much personal stuff on Scooter in the Sticks. My response — I don’t share anything I wouldn’t share with a stranger. While it’s personal, it’s not intimate or private. And mostly it’s just my wandering thoughts that bubble up while I’m riding or walking the dogs.
Anyways, thanks for the congrats on the retirement which will arrive in about 270 days!
Congratulations on having the courage to change your life for the better. Although scary at first, you will find retirement fulfilling and enjoyable. The luxury of owning your time will soon be yours.
Owning my own time… I like the sounds of that. Mostly right now I remain a little shocked at how fast my career swept by. So fast…
Let me join in the chorus of congratulations on your decision. I’d say there’s good stuff to come…but don’t let anticipation get in the way of enjoying the path leading to that point of change. 🙂
On the subject of scooters – Vespas, in particular – versus motorcycles: as I’ve written here before, I was originally planning on buying a used motorcycle when I moved from NYC across the river to NJ and decided I was finally going for my MC license; Sig. Other (the big reason behind my moving) thought this was a practical idea for living someplace where public transportation was relatively scarce, but gently beseeched me to consider a scooter over an MC, and sweetening the deal by kicking in some bucks to help buy whichever scoot I wanted. The funny paradox is that I knew exactly which scooter I wanted, and after searching in vain for one in decent shape (and with a clean title), we ended up spending considerably more on a new GTS 300 Super last September. It’s been just a few weeks over a year since buying the bike, and, funnily enough, just a few weeks since retaking my road test, passing(!), and obtaining my MC license. in that time I’ve managed to put about 1500 miles on Melody, and…have somehow lost most of my interest in anything bigger or more powerful. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with bigger bikes, it’s just that my GTS really seems like all the bike I could desire, even for potentially longer rides. If I caught a sudden jones for long-distance adventure touring on a frequent basis, obviously I’d be changing my tune at least a bit, but for the longer rides I envision taking in the not-too-distant future, I don’t see myself pining that hard for more ponies or bigger wheels. Like you, it doesn’t mean a bigger bike won’t happen ever, but it’s certainly not on my radar now – I’m having way too much fun right now, if that’s possible. 😉
Thanks for the congratulations on my approaching retirement. One path splitting into new ones. The journey over the next few months should be interesting.
The Vespa GTS is a pretty amazing machine. All the observations you’ve made attest to how special they are. The long distance adventure touring — it always sounds great until I find out from those who do it how much soul crushing highway miles are involved. It reminds me of the rushing vacations of my youth that sped from one place to the next. If I ever do any long distance touring I hope it’s at a slow halting pace..
As someone almost a year retired, and a recent devotee of a little Honda 90, I can assure you that “no schedule” is when you really start to live…
That’s what I want to hear! Can’t wait to test that theory.