Struggling to Remain Relevant

 

Two university professors’ sons got into an argument when I was a teen. Instead of shouting expletives, one of them sputtered: “You’re irrelevant!”

 

Oh mercy, what an insult! But sometimes I think about that argument. After 15 years in retirement, am I irrelevant? I no longer write about national affairs or publish advice to businesses.   I’m not bringing in newly earned income to our family.

 

The biggest drawback when I hung it all up in 2009 was losing my identity. I could no longer show my press pass or ask embarrassing questions to powerful people in the name of a free press.

 

I think many of us strive to remain relevant. I was afraid I would spend all day watching C-SPAN coverage of political events. Or sit in the library, reading the kind of obsolete publications I used to work for. Or at best, I would write advocacy articles for bicycling. None of these things ever happened. In fact, not once.

 

A week after I retired, I went to a meeting at our church in Washington, D.C., where they were looking for someone to run communications: web page, social media and press. All eyes turned to me. What was I going to say: I’m too busy? So I did that for 11 years.

 

I discovered music, something I had never focused on. Three simultaneous choruses and playing piano in public. And writing to promote my favorite nonprofits. Plus this column.

 

I guess my advice to someone contemplating retirement is: Don’t be afraid of it. Take chances. You don’t need a detailed plan. Things will just happen!

 

Subhead: The Unfriendly Skies

 

OK, time to get up and catch the plane. I know it’s 3:30 in the morning, but what’s a few hours lost sleep to save a few bucks on the flight home?

 

Good thing we got “Pre” boarding to speed our way through TSA! What’s this, Pickett? Your birthday is wrong on your boarding pass? You have to go back and get it fixed before the flight leaves? You give me your bag and say, “You go ahead!” Aw, you’re like Jack in “Titanic,” who magnanimously tells Kate to stay on the floating board while you choose to drown! Oh, but you get the boarding pass fixed fast and are right behind me.

 

Well, how do you plug in your phone on the plane? How do you get wi-fi? The 35-year-old tech wiz glued to his laptop next to us shows us how. Why are half of the people on the flight just like him? And why aren’t there any old people? (Maybe they know better than to fly?)

 

Now that we have landed in Raleigh, where do we catch the parking lot shuttle? And how do we pay the $144 parking bill at the exit gate? I can’t figure it out and get out of the car to put the card in the machine. Don’t put the credit card in the same slot! Argh!