Retirement does seem to suit me.  Is that because I don’t have to put a suit on everyday or dress for success?  I get up and put my running shorts on and sometimes I don’t get out of them until early afternoon – when I take an invigorating shower or drink a Diet Coke to keep from napping.   I get a lot done in the morning – just as it was at the office, but I begin to lose steam just after lunch.  I’m currently feeling refreshed and that writing in this blog is much more constructive than napping – whether anyone actually reads this or not.

I got my three miles in early this morning as my wife got ready for work, and had the dogs out for their second walk by 10a – we all got our treats from Starbuck’s.  I vacuumed and dusted in between, made some travel arrangements, scheduled electrical work, and organized some ancient paperwork.  The word “ancient” is appropriate, since many of the old newspaper clippings, proposals, and pictures are starting to turn yellow.   I really didn’t think I had much of an ego and never shared my successes with others, but these scraps of achievement must have been important to me.  Those that my biggest fan, my mom, didn’t save – I did, and kept them in files out in the garage.  Almost any time I was in the newspaper (good and bad), every certificate of achievement, any acknowledgement by my peers and bosses are still with me.

I couldn’t just throw them out (there’s that ego that I didn’t think I had), and I doubt that anyone out there but me cares in the slightest.  It’s my own personal museum; the “software” that goes with the “hardware” that sits on shelves in my office.  This includes plaques, trophies, ribbons, pins, and pictures that are very much overshadowed by my sports heroes that dominate the room.  I went to a office supply store and bought several binders/sleeves to store them in – much the same way I preserve my baseball cards, autographs, programs, and ticket stubs from “Mike’s Greatest Sports Moments.”  They are all listed with dates and notes of who attended and what happened.  The collection has expanded to several binders.  This was one of my first retirement projects, that started several years before the day finally arrived.  It was all part of “Practicing for Retirement” that I’ve written about in prior blogs.

Now that I’ve actually been retired for about six weeks, it was time to preserve “Mike’s Greatest Business Achievements” into a similar binder.    It felt pretty good to reflect on my career, especially since I didn’t have a retirement party.  I realize that someday these will be in a trash dump, but all the people that contributed to my career have been recognized by at least me in the last few days.  Their notes of congratulations at various stages of my life, their letters of support, and their efforts to get others to read about them through newspaper and magazine articles are all now preserved in plastic.  Each contribution obviously meant a lot to me or I wouldn’t have kept them, so it’s my effort to honor them.  I’m sure if others were to find it without explanation, they would probably view me as an egomaniac.  I just think I’m a bit over-organized and compulsive.  At least I’ve made it easy for a story someday, should I somehow achieve the fame that I missed over the last sixty-five years.

I’m doing the same “binder” thing with all my photographs, although that will take a lot more time since there were several photographers in my family.  I can safely say that I did not take any of these pictures.  Selfies did not exist.  Once again, these should probably be thrown out – but I just can’t dispose of all the hard work that went into taking, developing, and saving these captured moments of time.  I’m just glad that most photos today are digital and can be easily stored.  Yes, I could convert all my photos into thumb drives and get rid of the bulk.  We’ve already had them converted into VHS tapes and then CD’s , but I’ve never been able to throw out the originals.  So, if I add a thumb drive version, I’ll be defeating the purpose of trying to save space.

I have a small trophy on my shelf that my Grandfather won for his photographic skills.  I will keep this memory of him and the photos that he took of my family.  Photography was apparently an important connection between father and daughter, as my mom learned his skills behind the camera.  They both also collected stamps, and spent their retirement years carefully organizing and cataloging these treasures, so that I could build this “museum” that I call my office. Over the next thirty years, I’m not so sure my son will be excited someday to receive all of these collections – so maybe he’ll just finally throw them away.