What Retirement? - Aug 22, '99

A funny thing happened on the way to retirement. Just as the finish line seemed to be coming into focus, emerging as it was from the shadows of relentlessly passing time, current events have stirred up those mists and shadows, casting faint doubts upon the probability that we will achieve our goal soon. The current event seems innocent enough, Daryl and Julie have announced that they are pregnant. 

Sharon's ecstatic! On the other hand, I'm not so enthused. Since he was just a youth Daryl has delighted in trying to find ways to make me feel older than I was. A favorite antic of his was to repeatedly ask if it was time to "buy the RV and move to Arizona". Well, we moved to the desert but it will be ski season in Hades before I own an RV. Although I can shun the RV, avoiding the age-marking epitaph of "Grandpa" has finally been rendered inescapable. I can remember only one "grandpa"; a wonderful old man who from my earliest memories seemed ancient - wrinkled, gray headed, male pattern baldness, slow and deliberate of stride - for thirty-some years I thought he must be in his eighties. This can not be allowed to happen to me!

But what, you may ask, does Daryl's and Julie's family condition have to do with my retirement plans? Good question - let me try to explain. 

When Daryl was born the sum of all costs, including pre-natal, post-natal and the hospital, came to about $325. That was $10 more than the original estimate, because the baby was a boy. In deference to the ladies in the family and Daryl's modesty, I won't go into details about why I was clipped for the extra 10 bucks. The other day, Sharon realized that her first grandchild will represent the ultimate of "photo-ops", most of which will be either taken as, or rendered into, electronic bits of ones and zeros for emailing to the general population of the universe. She immediately announced that even though it is wonderful and worthy machine, our trusty old printer was not up to the task. Therefore we went off to Best Buy and purchased a new Cannon BJC-6000 Color Bubble Jet Printer which was described by the on-site Cannon rep as having been designed specifically for Photo reproduction. Amazingly he managed to extol it's virtues without once mentioning baby pictures. The cost $267.43 + tax, minus $50 rebate, or just slightly less than the cost of the birth of our son.

What the Cannon rep failed to mention, and which is found only by reading the small print on the shipping container, is that the BJC-6000 is only "highly compatible with ..."; you guessed it, our new printer thinks that it is too good to talk to Sharon's old, slow computer. Fortunately, it does condescendingly talk to my laptop, so all is not lost. But I can see the writing on the wall - there is a new baby in Daryl's future and a new computer in Sharon's.  She's thinking about laptops - entry prices start around $1400, about 4 times more than the cost of the birth of her son. Looking a little further into the future, if a person is equipped with a printer and computer which are specifically conceived for the purpose of photography, can the electronic camera be far behind? Starting costs begin around $450 - but her grandchild will certainly require the top of the line, so forget the starting prices. 

Adding it all up, Daryl's and Julie's family condition is going to cost me $267.43 + ~ $1400 + >$450 all of which rounds up to more than $2100, plus taxes, and, hopefully, minus some rebates!!! This is just the beginning of my task of supporting a new grandmother - retirement is definitely in question..

On to the more mundane.

I asked for a change in my responsibilities at work, I was getting extremely frustrated heading up the service department, a task that I was singularly ill prepared for - now I have returned to run the plant where I had started. The plant is in midst of a major renovation and expansion - the crew is not up for the changes which has resulted in several shutdowns. The manufacturing plant will not tolerate any shutdowns so there is a lot of pressure - talk about jumping from the pan into the fire!! As a result, I haven't had any interesting or humorous things to write about. In fact, Sharon and I both have gotten to the point that we decided that we were going on vacation - whether it was approved or not. (It was.) Therefore we have a two week vacation planned for the last two weeks in September. We will go visit Daryl and Julie for a few days in Seattle, then on to Honolulu to see Natalie and Mort for the rest of the week. And finally we will go the big island of Hawaii for a week at our time share beginning Sept 26th. Just veg'ing, sewing swimming and golf - I can't wait. There is plenty of room for anyone who can get there - you're all welcome.

Speaking of Swimming, this summer I was so busy that I let the pool go for a couple of weeks. It turned a beautiful shade of green and we feared that it would be declared an environmental hazard. It took me two weeks and several trips to the pool store to restore the crystal clear water - very embarrassing to a man who's profession is producing pure water.