Commentary: Retirement — Prepare, prepare, prepare

By Boyd Lemon / Guest contributor

In September 2003 I sat on my beach chair, cream colored sand caressing my feet, a hundred steps from my front door, my sight drifting from the stark silhouette of Anacapa to the purplish-browns of Santa Cruz, two of the Channel Islands off the coast of California, 70 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The scene on Hollywood beach, officially in the City of Oxnard, was dramatic, yet serene scene in a neighborhood that hadn’t been discovered by the hoards of Los Angeles. Serene though it was, I felt tightness in the pit of my stomach that was radiating up to my chest, despite the loosening warmth of a gin martini in my right hand, half drunk.

I visualized my dad 40 years earlier sitting in his forest green easy chair in the living room of my childhood home, as I studied a book on torts during my first year of law school. The evening paper, the Herald Express, that he had read six evenings a week since I could remember, was in his lap, still folded up.  He stared into the space between him and the front window. He had retired from the Edison Company where he had worked for 35 years at the mandatory age of 65. He did nothing but hang around the house. Once in a while he went to the horse races, or the poker parlors in Gardena. Mom had told me she was worried about him. He couldn’t afford to go to the races or play poker every day, and there was nothing else that interested him. “He just mopes around the house,” she said.

A few days later I was in my bedroom putting on a clean shirt before leaving to visit my girl friend. My dad’s bedroom was across the hall from mine. My door was open; his was open a crack. I saw him reach into his dresser drawer, pull out a bottle, unscrew the cap and take a long swallow — a whiskey bottle. It was ten in the morning, and I had never seen my father take one sip of an alcoholic beverage — ever. I turned my head away. I didn’t want Daddy to know that I saw. I never told my mother. He died less than a year later at 69.

I put my martini glass in the cup holder, dug my hands into the sand beside the chair, stumbled up on my feet and began to walk toward the roar of the white capped waves at high tide, hoping to walk off the tenseness. I turned right, parallel to the water, heading toward Ventura Harbor.

In about a hundred yards an older couple holding hands, walked toward me. “Hello, beautiful afternoon,” the woman said. We stopped walking.

“Indeed,” I said, “about as close to paradise, as you can get.”

She smiled and nodded. “Do you live here?”  She asked.

“Yes, just over there,” I pointed. “I just moved in last week.”

“We live about a mile that way,” she pointed up the beach in the direction they had come from. We’ve had a summer home here for years, but we just sold our home in the Valley and retired here. Oh, I’m Doris, and this is my husband, Jack.”

We shook hands and chatted briefly. Jack made a move forward like he wanted to keep walking. “Well, enjoy your retirement,” I said. “See you again soon, I’m sure.”

“We try to walk on the beach every afternoon,” said Jack, turning around, “unless it’s too cold or windy. Well, see ya.”

As I continued walking, I realized that the mention of retirement had heightened the tightness in my stomach and chest. In about four years I’ll be 67 and ready for retirement, I thought. I’m down to working about 30 or so hours a week. I have plenty to do now, but what am I going to do when I retire? The only reason I want to retire is that I’m burned out practicing law. But what will I do? I don’t like golf or bridge or any of the other things that retired people do, except travel. But I can’t travel all the time, can I?  Well, I guess I could — learn to sail and sail around the world, or buy a motor home and travel around the country, like so many old folks do. I don’t know what I want to do. That’s the reason for my anxiety.

I continued walking. What do I want to do? Volunteer to work for some organization that protects the environment? They’ll just want me to do legal work for them. That’s all I know how to do. Work at a food bank? Doing what? I had a feeling I wanted to do something to benefit others or society. I thought it would be different from what I had been doing all my life, but would it be? Working at a food bank or for some environmental cause was still serving others, as I had been doing. I would still be trying to achieve, to perform. My success would not be measured by money, but would be measured by prestige and praise, that is, the judgment of other people.

The images of my father taking that drink of whiskey and his funeral soon after stayed with me for more than 40 years. I didn’t want to end up like that, so depressed during my so-called golden years that I drink to mask the depression.

As I walked beside the crashing waves, I looked up at the Mandalay Bay Power Plant on my right. I had walked a long way, probably three miles. It was getting dark, so I jogged back. By the time I got back to my chair, my right knee ached. I wondered how much longer I could jog for exercise. I picked up my glass and downed the last of the martini, folded up the chair and walked back home. I fixed another martini. It didn’t occur to me that I might be following in my dad’s footsteps, and I wasn’t even retired yet.

When my father took that drink of whiskey, he unknowingly did me a huge favor. He taught me a lesson I hadn’t forgotten 40 years later. I knew I had to prepare for retirement, not just financially, but emotionally.

— Boyd Lemon is a retired lawyer, who re-invented himself as a writer, living in Ventura. He recently returned from a year in France and Italy. His memoir, “Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages,” has just been published. It is about his journey to understand his role in the destruction of his three marriages. He believes it will help others to deal with their own relationship issues. Excerpts are on his website, http://www.BoydLemon-Writer.comThis week the ebook version is on sale for $.99.