"Life begins at retirement."  -Author Unknown

 

   


Retired--Next Phase 

Retirement - the Best Phase of your life!   

 

 Ed and Gail
Ed Topar and Gail Cassidy
 (formerly THE SEMINAR SOURCE)
December 1, 2014       

      Issue #4, Volume 10        


 

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

May your holidays bring you much joy, laughter, and love! 
    

 

Our best to you all,

Gail and Ed  



 

    TOM CURTIS


Tom and Diane Curtis

Charming, intellectual, fun-loving and handsome are four adjectives that only partially describe this month's interviewee. Tom Curtis, former Corporal in the US Marine Corp. and successful corporate businessman who now lives in the arctic region of Norway, Maine. He loves being away from the congested areas of northern New Jersey and Massachusetts where he lived and worked for many years. The small community atmosphere allows him to fully utilize his retirement hours, participate in activities he enjoys, and essentially to make a difference, i.e., to give back.

 

When I asked Tom what the greatest part of retirement was for him, his immediate response was what he told his late wife, Diane, "Now is the time to be able to explore and exploit." To explain "explore and exploit," he stated that this is the time to do what he always wanted to do but couldn't while raising kids and working. Tom explored things that interested him: art/drawing, politics, singing, organizing, managing, all the while giving back to his community.

 

Once he explored and found what interested him, Tom "exploited" each area, meaning he got involved in the "explored" areas that captured his attention. For example, his fascination with art/drawing led him to do a pen and ink sketch of a log house across the pond that he later submitted to the local Norway Fair from which he received a blue ribbon. He is also involved with the Western Maine Art Association.

 

His enjoyment of and natural talent for singing prompted Tom to join the Androscoggin Chorale and also become a member of the choir at the South Paris First Congregational Church.

 

His interest in politics led him to become involved with the Oxford County Republican Committee, serving as former Chairman, current Vice-Chairman, former Finance Chairman, and Chairman of the Scholarship Committee.  

 

Tom is enjoying retirement because he is now doing what he wants to do, and he has a plethora of interests. When he talks to people about to retire, he identifies two key areas: financial stability and the emotional stability to handle being cut off from those with whom you shared a common goal for so many years; namely, work. "In retirement you don't have an everyday job as a common experience, so you have to get involved." He believes retirement is an art. "You have to adapt; otherwise, retirement becomes challenging unless you have latent interests and talents you are ready to exploit."

 

The humanitarian side of Tom is revealed in very tangible illustrations. He has established and funded two local scholarships. One scholarship goes to a deserving Young Republican member and the other one provides funding for an aspiring, local medical student as a memorial for his late wife, Diane, who passed away early this year after suffering for ten years from a debilitating illness.

 

Two additional examples of Tom's giving to others and giving back include his Christmas tradition and his service to his community. Rather than send Christmas cards to friends, he and Diane would donate the money they would have spent on cards and stamps to the local food pantry. "Giving back" to his community, Tom brings his management and organizational skills to his office of Vice President of the Norway Memorial Library.  

 

Tom retired from Gulf Oil at age 55, then wrote an energy newsletter for five years along with doing some consulting, while his wife, Diane, worked at home for IBM. In order to stay out of her way while she was working, Tom started another, albeit less satisfying, career in real estate. Their combined work experience allows Tom to enjoy his retirement without financial worries.

 

The start of Tom's retirement day is not unlike the days when he was gainfully employed--up at 4:45, gym, breakfast with "the guys," then doing what has to be done in the pursuit of his numerous activities. He still skis and kayaks and stays physically fit; and he would like to travel more, visiting friends and relatives he cares about. His only limiting factor these days is finding someone to stay with his dog while he's away from home.

 

When I asked what he would change in his retirement, Tom said, "Absolutely nothing!" He lives where he wants to be; he loves the open space, the lack of congestion, the pond at the end of his dock, his dog, and all of the friends he has cultivated since moving to Maine full time.  

 

As he said, "Going into retirement is an act; enjoying retirement is an art." This delightful gentleman personifies his own philosophy that consists of the five L's: Learn, Listen, Love, Live, and LAUGH! He does them all to perfection!

 

 


 

The Hallelujah Chorus


The Secrets of Happy Families

Some quotes from a book entitled

The Secrets of Happy Families

By Laura Carstensen

 

Holidays bring out the best and the worst in most of us. For those of us who are grandparents, holidays are special in a way different from when we were raising our children.

 

Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity has research to back up her statement, "Older people are happier."

 

Between 1993 and 2005, Carstensen and several colleagues tracked 180 Americans between the ages of eighteen and ninety-four. Every five years, participants carried pagers for a week. Whenever those pagers buzzed, participants were asked to respond to a series of questions about how happy, sad, or frustrated they were. The results were dramatic.

 

As they aged, these people reported having fewer negative emotions. The study found a number of factors that contribute to this increased happiness.

 

First, older people phase out people they're friendly with, but they not particularly close to (like the parents of their kids' friends) and concentrate on the people they actually care about, like family. This reduced circle is usually 5 individuals, a far cry from the 150 people Robin Dunbar found is the maximum number a person can maintain social relations with.

 

"When we're young, we tend to make choices that will expand our horizons," Carstensen told me. "We go to parties; we join clubs; we accept blind dates. As we age, we have less tolerance for hassles. Older people don't go on blind dates!"

 

The second major reason older people are happier, she found, is that while younger adults experience more anxiety and disappointment over their career goals, finding a soul mate, and making money, older people have typically made peace with their accomplishments and failures. This lets them take more enjoyment out of life.

 

As we get older, we're more aware of mortality; so when we experience wonderful things, they often come with the realization that life is fragile and will come to an end.  

 

Having a tear in the eye while you're watching the grandchild play with the puppy outside is special. You know this is not going to go on forever. You know that little girl is going to be an old woman. You know you probably won't see her become an old woman. All these influences come into that experience, making it richer and more complex.  

 

Carstensen believes this population of more emotionally balanced older people is an extraordinary, untapped resource.  

 

"In modern society we've never had extended families before," she said. "We have this image that back on the family farm, you had your grandparents, your great-grandparents. But that's not true. They were dead. Only a hundred years ago, life expectancy was so short people didn't even have both biological parents. Twenty percent of kids had been orphaned by eighteen. Orphaned!"  

 

Today, by contrast, grandparents and great-grandparents are becoming increasingly common. She noted that even with some parents having children when they are older, in their mid- or late thirties, demographers predict that by 2030 the vast majority of American children will have not only both biological parents present, but the full complement of grandparents and great-grandparents.    

 

So how can these older, happy family members help make the families around them even happier?  

 

Carstensen gave three suggestions:

 

1. Offload siblings. A friend of mine was the editor of Grandparents.com, and he shared a memorable detail about their readership: Parents are more interested in websites that cater to the problems of newborns up to three-year-olds, while grandparents are more interested in issues related to five- to nine-year-olds. Carstensen's research backs this up. "What happens is when the first child is born, grandparents don't have a lot to do. Sure they can help around the margins, but the parents still take the brunt. It's when the second child arrives, you see a spike in their involvement."  

 

Carstensen has an eight-year-old grandson, Evan, and a five-year-old granddaughter, Jane. "I remember when Jane was born," she said. "I just felt this incredible connection to Evan. I was worried about him. Here he's been the total attention of his family, now there is this interloper. I felt my role was to protect him and show him that he was still loved. One way my husband and I did that was to offload him from his parents when things got stressful."  

 

2. Be an escape valve. All families have difficult times, and it's during those times that older people can be especially helpful. "There have been times when my son and his wife are fighting and Evan or Jane would slide up to me on the sofa and say, 'Sometimes my daddy yells,' or 'Mommy is sad.' And I say, 'Yes, sometimes mommies and daddies fight' or 'Yes, we all get sad.' And that's all I have to say. They squeeze close to me, and it's okay.

 

What I'm getting at is it would be really great for families if grandparents could provide the stability that sometimes parents can't.  

 

It's just too hard to be a parent. You can't always be calm. You can't avoid fighting. But grandparents have almost conflict-free relationships with kids. I said to Evan recently, 'Do daddies get angry?' He said, 'Yes!' 'Does your mommy ever get angry?' 'Yeah!' 'Does Grandma ever get angry?' He stopped and went, 'Noooo!' What a joke. Grandma would never get angry."  

 

3. Hover. "Parents these days are told not to hover, especially as their children grow older. But grandparents should hover," Carstensen said. There's a lot of research that predicts how well teenagers do if there's an adult in their life, aside from their parents, who is crazy about them. "I think questions like 'Did you do your homework?' 'Did you get a report card?' 'Are you being responsible?' help to show you care." Parents may not always like grandparents to be so involved. "There's going to come a moment, when you want to say, 'Keep your hands off my kid!' But you have to take the perspective that there are many ways to raise children."

 

If you have grandchildren, give them an extra big hug this holiday season!

 


 

QUOTES OF THE MONTH Article Headline
 
"The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning." ~ Mitch Albom

CAN YOU NAME THE YEAR?

- Average cost of a gallon of gas was .55
- Last U.S. troops withdrawn from Vietnam
- Bobby Fischer beats Boris Spassky for world chess championship.
- Dow Jones average closes above 1000 for 1st time ever
- Richard Nixon visits China
- Mark Spitz wins 7 gold medals at Munich Olympics
- No. 1 film of the year is "The Godfather"
- HBO launches the first subscription cable service
- Atari launches 1st. generation video game "Pong"
- Volkswagon Beetle becomes the most popular car ever with 15M+ sold        


SEE ANSWER IN NEXT BLOCK

A BIT OF HUMOR

An eight year old and his younger brother were getting ready to go down to breakfast one morning when the eight year old says..."I think it's time we learned to cuss like adults. So, at breakfast, I'm going to use the word HELL and you use the word ASS in a sentence this morning." The younger one agrees and they head downstairs.
 
Their mother asks the eight year old, "What would you like for breakfast?"

He replies, "Oh, what the hell, I'll just have Cherrios."

With that, she whacks him and knocks him across the room. He starts crying and runs up stairs with her chasing him, whacking his behind with every step, then locking him in his room.
 
When she comes down she asks the younger brother, "Now what would you like for breakfast ?"

He replies, "You can bet your ass I don't want any Cheerios."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------             
The answer to "Can You Name the Year" is 1972

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Gail Cassidy, [email protected]; (908) 654-5216
http://www.Retired-NextPhase.com

Ed Topar, [email protected] 

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