When I started in public accounting in 1973 my annual
salary was $12,500, which included an extra $500 for the master’s degree. That was at least a little improvement over
what I could earn with overtime at Pan Am by then. By way of contrast, I was earning considerably
more than that per month in my best consulting years, which were 2007,
2008 and 2009. Once the financial crisis
and the “great recession” hit, I had trouble staying busy, and was forced to
reduce my hourly rate. By 2011 I was
working about half-time, and by 2012 I was only working sporadically, and my
heart was no longer in it.
I also found that my skill set was becoming obsolete, as
I fell further and further behind in the use of the tools that rapid
technological advances were creating. I
had picked up the use of electronic spreadsheets and the like slowly over
time. Now things were happening too
fast. When you become part of an
accounting team at a new client, there are many things to learn quickly. I could hit the ground running, so to speak,
in terms of the accounting and auditing and controls issues, but I struggled
with the tools. I would need help from people who were probably thinking, “Wait
a minute. You are supposed to be here to
help me; not for me to help you!”
The transition to retirement was non-traditional, but
helpful because we were able to get a taste of retirement life a little at a
time, and ease into it. It still wasn’t
easy, because Sandy likes her “space” and her routines, which my physical
presence is evidently disrupting; and the decrease in income threatens to put a
damper on her spending routine, as well.
But we have always been able to work things out. What we realized is that, while I was
retiring from being an accountant, Sandy was not retiring from being a
homemaker. I was ready to retire, but
she was not. I wanted to travel more, spend more time at Michelle’s in Canada,
Kathleen’s in Palm Springs, visit with Don and Audrey in Tennessee; see family
on Long Island, and use our timeshares to the maximum. Sandy wants to stay home more and not be gone
for more than a week at a time in order to take care of her home and lawn and
garden. But we are both flexible and are
working it out.
A quip just popped into my mind that I believe was first
written by a poet named Ogden Nash. He
said that he didn’t see how a couple could be incompatible as long as one has
income and the other is “pat-able.” In
his frame of reference, the husband had the income, and the wife had her
feminine wiles, if you will. These days,
of course, women are allowed to admit that they want their husbands to be
“pat-able,” too, and both may admit that they want the other to have
income. In any case, in retirement I
don’t have the income that once perhaps made me more “manly,” but Sandy is
still quite pat-able!
Ogden Nash either invented or popularized the “limerick,”
which is a poem of only 5 lines, with the 1st and 2nd lines rhyming
with each other, the 3rd and 4th lines rhyming with each
other, and the 5th line rhyming with the 1st two. His limerick that I wanted to share, because
I marvel at it, will also serve as an example and help explain the rhyming
scheme I have just described, if you are new to the limerick. The clever thing about a limerick is that
when you hear the last word of the first line you start trying to imagine what
could possibly rhyme with it and where the author is going with the poem. In my favorite, Ogden Nash starts with: “A
wonderful bird is the pelican,” and I think, what in the world can rhyme with
pelican; and don’t forget that the last word of the 5th line, and
thus the last word of the limerick, also needs to rhyme with pelican. And you are thinking, “Nothing rhymes with
pelican.” The 1st mystery is
solved in the 2nd line: “Its bill will hold more that its
belican.” (belly can – get it?) He
continues: “He can take in his beak food enough for a week.” Wait for it…wait for it…”But I’m damned if I
see how the helican” – an all together amusing and satisfying limerick. The first limericks I learned were in the
Army and decidedly unsuitable to repeat here.
I must confess that our interpersonal communications were
not always as they should have been. We
did well with the envelope money management system at the beginning of our
marriage, but believe it or not, after we moved into the house in Belmont in
1973, Sandy told me that she had never wanted that house. I don’t know if she said she hated it, but
she didn’t like it. I was floored. I had no idea she didn’t want us to buy that
house. I don’t know whether I never
asked her, or I missed some nonverbal signals or what. She was pregnant with Amy and taking care of
two pre-schoolers; maybe she just didn’t have the energy to speak up! Fortunately, it worked out great financially,
as described elsewhere, and she loves our home in San Jose…a home it would not
have been possible for us to buy, had the 18-month Belmont move not worked out
so well.
She has been very happy here. Without the Belmont gain, the areas of San
Jose that we possibly could have afforded would not have been pleasant to live
and raise our kids in. In fact, since
the great mortgage and financial crisis of 2008-2009, the value of our home in
Almaden Valley has come all the way back and, as of 2013, has surpassed the
inflated values that precipitated the crisis, while homes in the lower income
areas of San Jose are in many cases still down 30-50% and would sell for less
than half of the selling prices in Almaden Valley. We have been very fortunate.
Our latest communication challenge revolves around using
the equity in our home to finance our retirement years. In my usual clueless way, I had no idea how
emotionally tied to this house Sandy is.
I had thought that we would sell, live inexpensively somewhere, and
travel while we were still young enough to enjoy it. I figured age 65 to 75. After 75 we can’t assume that we will be able
to do the walking, stair climbing, etc that it would take to enjoy visiting the
various European cities. Well, I guess
that is not going to happen. At this writing
I am about 45 days away from age 70, and it may be a couple of more years
before we need to have access to the equity in our home. We won’t be doing much travelling after that,
except in the U.S. and to Michelle’s in Canada.
I personally don’t care. I
thought she wanted to see Greece, Ireland, Italy, France, etc, and she does –
but it is not going to happen without tapping the equity in our home. We qualified for a $100,000 equity line of
credit while I was still working some, but now with only our social security
income we would not be able to borrow more against the home, or it would be
very expensive and unwise to do so.
Somewhat off the subject, I have looked on-line for
information and options relating to retirement communities. It seems they all are touting the
availability of golf, tennis and boating; and of course the purchase prices
reflect that. I came to the realization
that I am not interested in any of those activities, which raises the question:
“What am I interested in?” Again, I come back to reading, writing,
exercise, music, certain TV programs, and watching the grandkids in their
various dance and sports activities.
When we go on our timeshare vacations Sandy is able to relax more and we
have time for swimming and sunbathing (“laying out,” she calls it), going for
walks, sitting at a sidewalk café, etc.
She feels freed from her “homemaker” job and the needs of the garden and
landscaping at home.
Working seems out of the question for me now. When opportunities come to mind to do
anything part-time, or to volunteer my time, I find that I do not want to be
committed to being anywhere on any kind of a scheduled basis. I love sitting up in bed reading at night
until I am sleepy, then going to sleep knowing that I can stay in bed as long
as I want in the morning, and that I can linger over my morning coffee for as
long as I want. Then I can go to the gym
or go for a run (more recently walk) whenever I get around to it, or not at
all.
I do like to work on my physical fitness for my own
benefit, but also because Sandy appreciates it.
She has little patience for “couch potatoes,” as they are called, and
hates to see anybody, man or woman, let themselves go. So I am internally and externally motivated
to exercise, especially since I am not a successful dieter. I have never been able to sustain a
diet. I have lost the same 15 pounds
probably a dozen times. I used to be
able to convince myself that this
time I am going to get the weight off and keep
it off. But my crafty little brain now
says, “No, you won’t,” and I know that’s the truth.
I have been a reader for as long as I can remember. In my roommate days I had a rectangular
shaped shipping trunk that I stood on end next to my bed. It stood on the handle, so was wobbly and not
level. The nice, large light bulb I
bought cost more than the Salvation Army lamp.
I borrowed books from the public library, so they didn’t cost me
anything. One of my roommates announced
that he liked to keep the books that he read.
I figured I didn’t have that luxury: First, I couldn’t afford them, and
second, where would I put them all? I
guess, thirdly, was I trying to impress someone with what and how many books I
read? At this writing I probably have
50-75 books that I have kept over the years – mainly classics or by favorite
authors. The rest are passed on.
The local community center has a section called “Friends
of the Library,” where you can donate books and you can buy books on the honor
system: 50 cents for paperback and $1.00 for hard bound. I drop by every few months. That’s where I have picked up a number of
books (and donated them back) with titles that are familiar to me from movies I
have heard of but never seen, such as: The Right Stuff, The Shoes of the
Fisherman, Russia House, The Constant Gardener, Zorba the Greek, The Cider
House Rules, God’s Little Acre, Death of a Salesman (a play), Street Car Named
Desire, The Pelican Brief, etc. It is
particularly helpful if I know who the movie actors were, so can visualize them
as I read.
Getting back to the Vietnam Era, I had plenty of things
going on in my life in my twenties that could cause me to ignore or have no
emotional connection with the major social issues of the time. I worked full time and went to college full
time from age 23 to 29, during which time Michelle and Bobby were born. Amy was born less than nine months after I
started my first post-college job. I was
of course aware enough to be very thankful that I had completed my military
obligation before the Vietnam War started.
I was discharged in October 1964, and the big build up of U.S. troops in
Vietnam began in early 1965. As a
married man with three years active duty behind me, there was no way I would be
called.
We did not stay long in the South San Francisco apartment. It was a fairly “low life” place, even by my
(lack of) standards, but Sandy was the driving force in us moving to the
downstairs floor of a nice house in Burlingame, a little south of the airport. She was right – it was a wonderful
improvement for us, including a separate entrance, nice windows and daylight, a
charming breakfast nook, with quiet and privacy. Having seen how nice things could be, I was
ready when Sandy suggested we think about buying our first home. By 1968, only two years into our marriage, we
were proud and happy home owners in the town of San Carlos, about ten miles
south of the airport. If I may add, we
kept the gardener that had been serving the previous owner, on the same fee
basis of $15 per month. Never in a
million years did I expect ever to have a gardener. I was far more likely to be one than
to have one.
It was a tiny place, about 1,000 square feet, with two
bedrooms and one bath. Michelle and
Bobby were born there, and shared the same bedroom until 1973 when we realized
that Amy was on the way. We like to tell
her that she is the one who moved us out of our first house. It worked out really well, though, because we
bought a place for $47,000 in Belmont and sold it 18 months later for $65,000 –
a gain of $18,000 in 18 months! That
doesn’t sound like much these days, but it was a great boon for us in those
days. This enabled us to buy the home in
San Jose in 1975 for $62,000 that is now worth over $1 million (and the
gardener now costs $150 per month!). I’m
pretty sure we had replaced that “Good Deal” bedroom set while living in San
Carlos.
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