Only rarely do I use this space to record the trivia of my life. Other folks’ quotidian events may be fascinating enough for that treatment, but mine aren’t. Not even I truly care what I ate for breakfast, how much it rained today, what I did last weekend, etc.
Today I make an exception, if only as an excuse to post the accompanying photograph. At the end of this month, I’ll be retiring after 21½ years with my current firm, and some of my colleagues marked the occasion with a cake, the icing of which reproduces a picture taken of me in much younger days. (I have no idea how the image is transferred from pixels to cake; it is truly a miracle of modern technology!) The date was July 1977, soon after that year’s Westercon in Vancouver, B.C. The painting I’m holding is the first piece of artwork that I ever purchased at a science fiction convention. (It hangs today in my living room.) The red beret was then my favorite headgear, unfortunately lost a couple of years later in the course of moving from New York to Chicago. The photographer was my old friend Bill Seil, who was at the time a newspaper reporter and is now ensconced in the Boeing PR apparat. In between, he wrote a mystery novel that I recommend to fans of Sherlock Holmes or the Titanic or both.
One effect of impending retirement has been light blogging. Who knew that stopping work took so much effort? Next week all that will be behind me. Of course, I may discover that, when I’m free to choose, updating a blog won’t be one of my preferred activities.
Actually, I won’t be giving up professional work completely. After three decades enveloped in ERISA, that would be too traumatic a change of pace. Also, I don’t want to let my employable skills atrophy right at the moment when, as Instapundit puts it, the country’s in the very best of hands. I may even resume blogging about pension matters, which I used to do but largely abandoned for fear that I might write something that would contradict the interests of a client.
According to news reports, many new retirees are nervous and fearful these days. I’m not. During most of my adulthood, our country has been in better shape than anyone would have predicted circa 1977, because Jimmy Carter inoculated us against liberalism. Barack Obama looks to be the booster shot that will get us through the next 30 years.
Congratulations on your impending retirement!
Curiously enough, I've been laying out and updating employee benefit handbooks containing "Your Rights Under ERISA" sections for pretty much the same amount of time you've been with your current employer.
Posted by: Geri Sullivan | Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 12:13 AM
Best of luck, Mr. Veal.
Posted by: Mike Kriskey | Monday, April 27, 2009 at 08:20 PM