This post is a few hours early but I will be busy tomorrow.

Tom Lewis is dead. I just heard he died last year at 65 a couple months before retirement. He wanted to get a sailboat and sail the Caribbean. 
Now he can't.

Bill Michaels just stroked out and left his dream of taking a Winnebago all over the country in the crap can. He can't live his dream anymore because his health crapped out.

Tom and Janie Sanchez just bagged their plan of opening a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire by the wayside because Janie got sick.

Bob and Gail Wellington just sold their business and got a whole lot less than they thought they should have. So much for their retirement plans of going on a couple cruises a year.

My friend Dick has a heart condition and seems to have lost interest in his dream of camping and canoeing in Minnesota. 

Another soon to retire coworker has confessed he seems to have lost a lot of his drive and isn't going to take up fly fishing like he always swore he would do when he retired.

Fred and Lois are screwed. Their daughter was born with brain damage and likely will be living with them until they die. It's sad but those are the cards they were dealt.

Laurel and Hardy (Frank Hardy married a woman named Laurel so the nickname for them is a slam dunk) just took a pretty good hit. 
He retired last year but got cold feet. He doesn't see a good economy in the future so he returned to work as a consultant. He doesn't see retiring for several more years. His plans are on hold.

Personally, I don't see retirement as a viable option. I forsee getting my savings stolen from me by inflation and having to work for as long as I can.

What I have that nobody but Alzheimer's can take away from me is that I can look back and remember the neat things I did in my 20s and 30s.

The fishing, sailing, tipi dwelling, the traveling all over hell, my hitch in the army and general hell raising are very fond memories. I did this when I was young and healthy and could. Sixty-three is a little old to go fishing in the Bering Sea or wintering in the Rockies. (It is also too old to run like hell from someone chasing me!) 

The truth is that when I started my career and present lifestyle just shy of forty I managed to do well and get the house paid off in record time. I daresay I had the place paid off before some of my peers that had 25 or 30 year notes. If you want to call it 'catching up'--and I wonder catching up to what-- I did it in about 7 or 8 years.

As I see it unless I had managed to go into investment banking and make a gazillion bucks I would not be able to retire anyway with the future economic situation. I have little faith in our constantly increasing  national debt. The older I get the more I am convinced that I did it right.

I'm damned glad that I ate dessert first.


To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY