Retirement offers us a chance to reignite the imagination concerning what we can do with our life. We are no longer young and we cannot aspire to some things that require a youthful body. But other than that we are free to explore to our hearts delight

Retirement affords us a special time in life when we can pick and choose how we spend our time. One could do worse than making movies a big part of retirement. Music, dance, visual art and drama all come together. I'm constantly amazed.

One time after a snowstorm I went with him to brush the snow off the wings of one of his planes. Under the snow the wings were covered in fur. He was trying to see if fur would change the performance of the plane. He made a profession of poking life.

Brenda and I had careers that were mental not physical. We worked mostly with our minds. We were teachers. When we retired one of our delights was to build things with our hands. We wanted to be able to see the results of what we did. Household projects have filled this role to a T.

I know: money is important. But is it the only thing that is important? I recently read a study of happiness as it relates to money. Retired folks might want to give this some thought.

I don't want to have any regrets. It takes a certain amount of forward thinking to conclude this. It also takes a certain amount of courage to realize it. Maybe the young man in the coffee shop did the math concerning one thousand months.

We have to learn to be kind, gentle, and compassionate. We are not born possessing these qualities. This thought has been like a brain worm of late. I can't get theme out of my mind. These three qualities would look good on a grave stone.

We don't have to have the biggest house, farm, car or anything else. They may not be the most desirable. As a matter of fact; in many instances small is much better - if not beautiful.

We retired folks have a perfect opportunity to talk to younger people. We have had a lifetime of experiences and education. We have been down many roads; made good choices and bad. We just need to learn how to tell a good story - with a point.

No matter what is scheduled, we go to coffee. It is a social hour for us. When we retired and relocated we took into consideration the distance to restaurants, grocery stores, drug store, book shops and of course, coffee shops. We wanted to be able to walk to all of them. We can, and we do.