I Can’t Wait ‘Till I Retire

Posted on November 2, 2012 by richrockwood

EXPERIENCE AS A FLASHLIGHT:  When I was in my 30’s and my life was in high gear I couldn’t wait until I could retire.  It seemed my life was so busy I never had the time to enjoy things.  I was under the pressure of an 8 to 5 job.  I was paying a mortgage, married and running through my days. I worked in Detroit commuting every day.  I once figured if I worked at the same company until I retired, I would have spent 2 years on the bus going to and coming from work.

When I was in my 40’s and 50’s I had the kind of job that required self-motivation.  I worked at home or in my office next door.  The work was not as demanding, but there were too many meetings at night.  I had to work Sundays.  I was on call 24 hours a day.

It seemed that work was taking too much time and energy.

As I neared retirement, I imagined carefree days of relaxation, having nowhere to be and nothing to do.

I remember noting that I would need to have some kind of focus because I had heard of a number of men who retired and within a year had died.  No focus.  Having nothing to do would be a plan for catastrophe.

I also remember noting that I needed to be careful not to volunteer for too many jobs because a lot of people had shared  “I’m so busy. I don’t know how I ever had time to work.”

I was going to take it easy and NOT volunteer.

As I neared retirement, I began to fear I would die never getting to experience it.

Finally my retirement arrived.  I was ecstatic.  I loved being able to ride my bike around town in the summer while other people were at work.

One morning, however, I woke up thinking “what is my purpose? I don’t have to be anywhere.  I don’t have to accomplish anything.”   I felt hollow and purposeless.

It occurred to me that I needed to find the right balance between things to do and free time.   I gradually picked up some volunteer jobs to fill out my time.  I wrote a book which was a huge project.

In retirement, there have been times of regret that I don’t have a job, not for the money but for the singleness of purpose and discipline.  Even though I know I could not keep up the pace, I miss the focus and discipline a steady job provides.

Retirement is nice.  I can set my own agenda.  I have the freedom to write.  Having a job all those years, however, provided me with a focus and a routine.

I have come to understand that every age of life has it’s challenges and it’s blessings.  The best advice I’ve come across in all my years I heard in the first line of a James Taylor song (“The Secret O’ Life):   “the secret to life is enjoying the passage of time.”

Posted in Adaptability, Aging, Contentment, Enjoyment, Focus, Fun, Happiness, Laughter, Life, Money, Nature, Old Age, Pleasure, relationships, Retirement, Stress, Volunteerism, Wisdom, Work, Youth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I Liked Ike

Posted on October 31, 2012 by richrockwood

LIVING IN THE PAST:  When I was little I remember seeing little buttons saying “I Like Ike.”  They were being worn by people who supported Dwight David Eisenhower, our 34th president.  The slogan was simple and catchy.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was an unpretentious man with a great smile and wisdom to share.  He had been a great military genius as the Supreme Military Commander helping the Allies defeat the Nazi’s in Europe.

As is sometimes the case in America, he was asked to run for President.  Over the years twenty one of our presidents have served in the military:

Washington – Commanding general in Revolutionary War, British officer in French & Indian War
Monroe – officer in Revolutionary War
Jackson – general in War of 1812 , various Indian wars
W. H. Harrison – officer in War of 1812, Indian wars
Taylor – officer in War of 1812, general in Mexican War
Pierce – general in Mexican War
Grant- officer in Mexican War, supreme union general in Civil War
Hayes – general in Civil War
Garfield- major general in Civil War
Ben. Harrison general in Civil War
McKinley – officer in Civil War
Teddy Roosevelt – officer in Spanish American War
Truman – officer in WW I
Eisenhower- officer in WW I, general in WW II
Kennedy – naval officer in WW II
Lyndon Johnson – naval officer in WW II
Nixon -naval officer in WW II
Ford- naval officer in WW II
Ronald Reagan- army officer in WW II
George H. W. Bush — officer ( navy pilot) in WW II
Carter– navy officer in peace time  (Source:  Wiki Answers):

Something about Eisenhower gave you a good feeling.  He seemed honest, capable and direct.  He showed self-confidence.  America would soon be facing the possibility of a nuclear showdown with Russia and that blood thirsty tyrant Joseph Stalin.  School drills were held so we would know what to do in case of a nuclear missile attack.  It was a scary time, but every time I saw Ike, I felt better.

When John Kennedy entered the national political stage, he was young and by that time I was in college.  I voted for him because Eisenhower seemed old and couldn’t serve a third term.  But for me the image of Eisenhower still holds a special place in my heart where there is a button which reads “I Like Ike.”

Times seem tougher now for politicians and America feels divided.    And there seems no end to the War on Terror.  I hope whoever wins our election this year will be as strong for us as Ike was back then.

Posted in Contentment, Country, Courage, Faithfulness, Fear, Memory, Nuclear Holocaust, Patriotism, Perspective, Politics, Trust, War, Wisdom, Worry | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Place for Everything and Everything All Over the Place

Posted on October 29, 2012 by richrockwood

LEARNING FROM LIFE: My late wife used to have this saying about neatness:  “A place for everything and everything all over the place.”  It sounds clever but having everything randomly scattered about was a regular irritant to her.  Me too.  I would have to say in my life I have gone from not caring where I put things to developing systems so I can locate things later.

One of her worst nightmares (and mine) was misplacing important information like a phone number.  The phone number might have been for someone we had promised to call and now we had no way of keeping her promise…they had an unlisted number.  Or it might have been some items we had promised to pick up for a friend and so we had to go through the embarrassment of calling and asking for it again.

I still have a persistent problem of leaving my glasses in many different places which means I have to look every possible place to see if they are there.  And the extra problem I have with finding lost glasses is I can’t see to find them.

I have gotten in the habit of putting my car keys in the same place, but it is impossible to find an old photo or yearbook I just thought about.  I have tried to think carefully before storing things so I can reason my way back to them if I happen to forget (and that happens a lot) where I placed them.  For really important things, I have taken to placing them on a shelf in plain sight.

Right now the basement storage area of our house is an accumulation of things packed on shelves to get them out of the way.  But who knows what’s in those unmarked boxes and what about all those old photos.  Shouldn’t  they be put in albums?  And who looks at albums any more these days?  Shouldn’t everything be scanned into the computer to save space.

What I am learning about life is that neatness is important but one has to have a system for storing things.  In a Seinfeld episode there was character who helped people organize their closets.  I wonder if there are people who help you organize storage areas of your home.  There really should be.

It saves a lot of time and stress if we develop the habit of neatness at an early age when it is not as important as it is in later years.

Posted in Bondage, Happiness, Imagination, Neatness, Old Age, Orderliness, Organization, Peace, Perspective, relationships, Stress, Worry | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Where’s The Book That Explains Old Age

Posted on October 26, 2012 by richrockwood

EXPERIENCE AS A FLASHLIGHT:  In 1994 I experienced what I thought was a heart attack.  It wasn’t, but I really thought I was near the end of my life.  It was just (did I say just) an anxiety attack.  I have since learned anxiety attacks are serious and can mimic heart attacks.  I also learned it was related to a condition called vaso vagal which is a sudden drop in blood pressure that can seem like a heart attack too.

Some time afterward I had the shakes after eating a few apple desserts at a mission talk.  I couldn’t stop trembling.

That seemed to start a series of medical and physical questions that marked a transition from being a young man to “getting old.”

I wondered if someone had written a book about what it is like to get old.  There certainly should be something that helps us understand the physical changes occurring, how body parts are starting to wear down and we can no longer do the things we once could.  I remember thinking at the time that life is cruel.  Just about the time I was getting my finances under control my body started to wear out.  It was not a happy thought.

I found a lump on my right ankle which perplexed the bone doctor.  He ordered an immediate MRI and I spent an hour in an MRI (“magnetic resonance imaging.” A strong and expensive magnet is used to scan the body’s healthy and diseased tissue.) with my eyes closed while I prayed.

I never found a book on what it’s like to get old, but I discovered that we humans have an amazing ability to adapt to new situations.  What shocked me at first became something I learned to deal with.

Today’s entry is not really a warning about the realities of old age, but rather a light for any young person who thinks getting old is a dark time of life.  To anyone who does I am whispering  “you can do it.  It is sometimes scary and sometimes weird, but we humans have an amazing ability to adapt and accept.  Life changes, but so do we as we adapt to things even while we are young.”

Old age is not a scary thing, just like going through youth is not as scary as we thought when first we left the safety of home to interact with the world.

These lessons about life are things you cannot learn in a book, you have to experience them firsthand.

Posted in Adaptability, Aging, Contentment, Courage, Fear, Life, Medical, Nature, Old Age, Perseverance, Perspective, Worry, Youth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

First Man on the Moon

Posted on October 24, 2012 by richrockwood

LIVING IN THE PAST:  As a young child, there were references to the man in the moon which I always took to mean the black splotches on that shiny surface which looked like a human face. I believe there also was a myth in some cultures that a man actually lived on the moon.  I remember the opening scene from Jackie Gleason’s show “The Honeymooners” always showed his round smiling face as though he were the man in the moon.

As a young child I also remember watching science fiction shows (eg Flash Gordon) in which men were able to talk great distances with each other using a video link and travel in fast rocket ships to distant planets.

For all of us those notions were things that existed in the imagination of authors and movie producers.  Before the Space Race began in the early 1960’s, I doubt anyone believed they would see a man ON the moon in their lifetime.

The race to the moon started with the successful launch by a Russians of a satellite called Sputnik in 1957 which was followed by the launch of a cosmonaut into space, Yuri Gagarin in April of 1961.  The United States was not going to lose to the Soviets so a lot of money was poured into our space program.  We thought we would win, but the Soviets seemed able to pour vast amounts of money and manpower into it.  For the United States it seemed like it was a matter of national honor to beat the Russians to the moon.

There were early victories with Alan Shepherd in May of 1961 becoming the second man in space and the first American.  Then there around the earth space trips.  Finally it was time to send our man, Neil Armstrong to the moon.

I was in the Army at the time getting ready to be posted to Korea so I did not get to follow the event very closely.  I only got to see footage of the slow-motion action of Neil Armstrong bouncing lightly on the moon July 20, 1969.  His famous words still echo “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

At the time it was hard to grasp the notion that man was finally leaving earth’s gravitational pull heading out to the furthest parts of our galaxy, but he did.  We are living in the future from that first lunar landing.  What new technologies will man and woman dream up in your lifetime?  Will you be one of the dreamers?  Did the US landing a man on the moon first spell the end of space exploration.  Here is a link to NASA’s website to see what they are working on now:  http://www.nasa.gov/.  We are still living in exciting times.

Posted in Country, Courage, Creation, Creativity, Fear, Heaven, Imagination, Life, Memory, Nature, Old Age, Patriotism, Perseverance, Space, Space Travel, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Short Life of Pleasure

Posted on October 22, 2012 by richrockwood

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT LIFE:  An important lesson for me over my years has been realizing that purchases only give pleasure  for a short time.

When I was quite young with a paper-route income, I became a member of a record club.  As a bonus I received five free records, but I then had to buy five more in the course of a year.  I carefully chose my five records and put the application in an envelope.  Then I waited over ten years (although the calendar said it was only three weeks) for my records to arrive.  I carefully opened them and placed the first one on the turntable.  It was Andre Kostelanetz and his orchestra playing instrumental versions of popular songs.  The violins seemed to float out of the speakers and surround me.  This was during the pioneering days when stereo was first cut into the grooves of records sending parts of the music to different areas of the room.  It was amazing.  I played the other records with the same amount of attention and pleasure.

Then I noticed in a very short amount of time I was tired of those records.  The fact that I had anticipated them like a birthday or Christmas didn’t seem to matter anymore.  They had no more power to give me pleasure.  Sure, I enjoyed listening to them over and over, but it was nothing like the thrill of first touching and then playing them.  The thrill was gone.

Later there were other eagerly awaited purchases:  my first bike, my first car, my first computer with Windows Operating System, my first laptop.   The list is long of things I thought would give me unending pleasure, but they did not.  One by one each acquisition left me feeling nothing for them.

There have been other pleasures I have tasted and found did not have the power to keep me lifted into a cloud of ecstasy as I’d imagined.   Food didn’t do it.  Sex didn’t do it either. At their best, each pleasure had a short life.  Over the course of my life I have learned again and again that I cannot find long-lasting pleasure in things.

I can however  experience lengthy periods of happiness while developing quality relationships with people I care about.  Nineteen years ago, my grand daughter came into this world and I learned my greatest satisfaction came while spending time with her.  This joy overflowed the time I spent with her as I looked forward to spending more time with her and smiled while remembering the time I had spent with her.  I discovered feelings of contentment as I talked to distant relatives about our family’s history, where we came from and what has happened to us along the way, where we lived, what kind of work we did.  This contentment remained as I wrote up a genealogy report and shared it at a family reunion and saw the interest and appreciation in the eyes of my cousins, aunts and uncles.

I think this lesson has helped me keep my focus on people and not things.  Possessions provide only spurts of pleasure while pleasant times with people bring whole seasons of happiness.

Posted in Aging, Bondage, Children, Contentment, Feelings, Food, Grand children, Happiness, Health, Life, Love of Money, Materialism, Money, Music, Peace, Perspective, Pleasure, relationships, Sex | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

They Were Right, But I Only Listened Some of the Time

Posted on October 19, 2012 by richrockwood

EXPERIENCE AS A FLASHLIGHT:  There I sat in the oral surgeon’s chair waiting for his third attempt to clean out a decayed root canal so the pain in the tooth would go away.  On the first two attempts all the grinding and drilling had failed to remove the source of a constant ache.  I knew what was coming after the child’s bib was placed around my neck.  He was going to numb my jaw with a shot that sometimes hit a nerve and splattered pain as fast as lightning.   This was not my idea of a fun morning.  The fact that it was my third time in the chair in the last few months for the same tooth made it really tiresome.

Years earlier every dentist had told me “be sure to brush and floss your teeth.” He and she had even given me a little kit with a small tooth brush, flossing device and tooth paste to encourage me.  It didn’t seem convenient at the time and I had a certain notion that my teeth would be ok if I just left them alone and went about my life.  Besides, who knew how to keep the string from sliding out of your fingers?  I could never get them to work as easily as the dental hygienist could.   The only time I flossed was a few weeks before my yearly checkup and whenever my gums started hurting.  I expected everything in my body would continue working as it always had.  I never envisioned an office that specialized in drilling out decayed canals deep inside my gums!

Meanwhile, in my retirement, I enjoy casually walking around campus hearing the sounds and watching the antics of the students while my college pals ride golf carts to get to our football seats.  They have to ride because the walk is too much for some of them, due to illness or physical condition.  I can’t be sure, but I believe the exercise has made the difference in my abilities.

Years earlier my wife had suggested I begin a program of regular exercise.  I decided to take her up on it.  I enrolled in a fitness club and worked out on machines and in the aerobics classes.  Things I used to do with ease I could finally do again without straining.  At first I resented the fact that I had to jump start my body like a car battery, but finally it dawned on me that at least I could get it started.

The years have slipped by and the blocks of experiences have been pieced together into the shape I now have as a senior.

The block of oral hygiene, I ignored and so it has a big dollar sign over a man holding an oversized hypodermic needle who wears a surgical gown and says “next” to me with a grin on his face .  The block of physical condition has a picture  of me walking somewhere in the country.

Despite the regular visits to the dentist, I still maintain my sense of humor even if it is at my own expense.  To prove it, I am including a quote from Charles Schulz  (American cartoonist, 1922-2000) who wrote in his Peanuts cartoon.  “Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.’”

Posted in Aging, Dentist, Exercise, Health, Laughter, Old Age, Perspective, Sense of Humor, Suffering, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

I’m Too Young for the World to Come to an End

Posted on October 17, 2012 by richrockwood

LIVING IN THE PAST:  The memory is a still life photo complete with sound track.   I am seventeen years old and I see the clutter of cartons with canned goods cut opened, stacked and waiting to be stocked on the shelves.  This is my work for the evening but I can barely see it.  Instead I am paying attention to the loud speaker blaring a radio broadcast reporting the enfolding event which could bring on the end of the world.  It is fifty years ago this month and the Russians have sent more medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles to Cuba because we sponsored the Bay of Pigs invasion attempt there.  Aware of this, President Kennedy ordered a complete blockade of the island, nothing allowed in or out. Nothing. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev calls this “an act of aggression propelling humankind into the abyss of a world nuclear-missile war.”   What will happen when the armed Soviet ships meet the equally armed United States Navy somewhere in the Atlantic.  None of us knows.  None of my fellow employees is talking, everyone is listening.

We have been taught the Communists are evil men who do not value human life.  They will do whatever it takes to gain whatever they want.  The short overweight balding Khrushchev who pounds his shoes on tables claiming communism will bury us is the face of Communist Russia to us.  His control is maintained by an iron fisted spy organization called the KGB.  The entire Soviet Union has an “Iron Curtain” around it. Most of us don’t even know what the word “soviet” means, but it must be bad.

What hope can someone have in a situation where the possibility of nuclear war is only hours away?  Our country is facing a world super bully and our president believes we must not back down.  Is he right or has he made a catastrophic miscalculation.

The suspense lasts through the night.  I decide I can’t control the outcome and so drift off to sleep after asking God’s forgiveness of my sins (just in case).  Then my world goes dark.

The next day the suspense continues as everyone wants to know if there is any news.  Commentators try to fill in what what they think is happening.  Finally the word comes “The Russians have turned around.”

Afterward no one lets on, but I think we’re all feeling a lot lighter since the apocalyptic cloud is gone.

Were you alive during the Cuban Missile Crisis?  If you were, what memories do you have as to what happened 50 years ago this month?

Posted in Apocalyptic, End of the World, Eternity, Faith, Fear, Feelings, Memory, Nuclear Holocaust, Religion, Repentance, Stress, War, Worry, Youth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Refinements and Focus

Posted on October 17, 2012 by richrockwood

After some soul searching, the author has decided to provide a consistent focus to this blog.  In the past it has been his practice to write on a variety of topics while practicing his writing skills.  While this may have been good practice for him, it did not offer a theme or perspective which would encourage any reader to follow it.

Growing up as a Baby Boomer witnessing mind-numbing technological advances with sweeping socio-cultural changes (the birth of rock and roll, the first space travel, Beatle-Mania, the Vietnam War with its protesters, IBM punch cards, personal computers, life before the Internet) the author has a vast deposit of experiences which can be mined for this blog.

Therefore, he is changing the name of the Blog to “Flash-Present: Experience is a Teacher.”  Most people know about flash back (going back in time to look at events that led up to a certain event).  Some have heard the term flash forward (a projection into the future, similar to what happens to Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol”).  The idea behind the word “Flash-Present” is that we can sometimes learn things from the past.  Certain memories recalled can enlighten a present moment.  The subtitle “Experience is a Teacher” further helps explain the name.

The Blog then will have three different emphases.  The first emphasis will be called “Living in the Past” which will be write-ups of what it was like going through historic events like the assassination of President Kennedy.  It will also include descriptions of personal experiences that some readers will find interesting like what it is like to be a serviceman away from home preparing to go to war.

The second emphasis will be called “Experience as a Flashlight” where certain experiences (eg physical changes after 50) will be looked at as a way of educating young people about old age so it does not seem like a black hole patiently waiting, but something manageable that happens to everyone.

The third emphasis will be called “General Observations about Life” in which certain lessons learned will be shared for anyone who would like to try them.  These will be practical tricks the author has learned for living life a bit more comfortably.

These emphases will each get their turn as this over sixty year old American male shares what he believes will be of interest and benefit to many others.

Comments and feedback from readers are especially encouraged.

Posted in Aging, Courage, Fear, Fun, Imagination, Laughter, mercy, Nature, Peace, Perseverance, Perspective, relationships, Service, Stress, Uncategorized, Worry, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Music Changes Me

Posted on October 5, 2012 by richrockwood

I probably have my parents to thank for my appreciation of music.  My dad played an upright bass.  My mom loved singing with her siblings and performed with the Sweet Adelines, an international organization of women dedicated to preserving barbershop harmonies.  From those pulses of inspiration, music has broadened into a major power in my life.

In my early years, the Top 40 songs caught my attention so I synchronized my step to their beats.  As a teen, both the harmonies and lyrics of Doo-Wop captured the whirling ups and downs of the acne years.    People like Dion put into melody the strain of being “a Teenager in Love” as the cavalcade of girls strolled before my watering eyes.  Then in the loneliness of my room, I heard the Beach Boys sing about their lonely times too.

As I matured, I learned that music can help with my chores.  For mindless work, any rock and roll ditty made it easier.  For repetitious exercise, I needed rhythms that fit a certain tempo.  For work that required more concentration, New Age was becoming popular and I could squeeze out the world and enter a place of beauty and creativity.  When the Sony Walkman arrived, I plugged into a stereo world that crowded everything else out except my music.   These days, my overloaded iPod has taken its place.

There was a time many years ago while listening to Mozart I decided some music even proves God’s existence because the sound seems far beyond human reach.  A most remarkable piece to me is the Second Movement (Andante) of Mozart’s Flute Concerto #1 (K. 299).  The violins play a melody inviting my emotions to overflow their bounds.  The idea of music proving God’s existence came to me from the movie “Amadeus” when the character Salieri comments while looking at one of Mozart’s compositions “It’s as if I am seeing the mind of God.”

Music has had a deeply felt impact on my life.  After my wife died six years ago, a group of musicians singing “Will That Circle Be Unbroken” made me feel the immense emptiness.  Once, while singing in a chorus the harmonies seemed to choke my vocal chords leaving me no alternative but to sit and listen.   Hearing the soloist sing “O Amazing,” (a Robin Mark song praising the stunning grace of God) at my wedding captured the mood I was feeling on that amazing day just over two years ago.

I am deeply grateful for the gift of music which collapsed the precipice of denial bringing me full face with my sorrow I needed to be experiencing.  It restored my faith in God bruised from hard times.  And for all the thousands of chores I didn’t really care to do, it helped make them more than tolerable.

Posted in Art, Faith, Feelings, Grief, Heaven, Imagination, love, Music, Perspective, Stress, Suffering | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments