Thursday, February 16, 2006

retirement quote

Dorothy's reading a book by Fannie Flagg called Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, and she read me a paragraph or two that she thought I might like. I thought it was blogworthy so I'm quoting it here: --- 'As they walked Dena asked what it was like for him now that he was retired. He laughed. "Each morning I wake up so stiff and arthritic I can hardly get out of bed. I go into the bathroom and look in the mirror at what used to be a pretty passable mug and what stares back at me is this gray-haired, old, turkey-necked, geezer and it's pretty depressing. But then I think, Howard, old boy, today you can say any damn thing you want...and that puts a spring back in my step, I'll tell you. That's what I wish for everybody, that they get old enough not to have to please anyone, and ornery enough to thumb their noses at all the idiots in the world. It's worth getting old. I recommend it to everybody."
"You look about ten years younger."
"I don't know about that but I can tell you this, I feel better than I have for a long time."
"Do you ever miss it at all?"
"No, strangely enough, I don't. Not a minute of it. As a matter of fact, I wish I had stopped years ago. I'm just beginning to realize how much of life I missed."

2 comments:

Dawn said...

I passed this quote on to my soon to be retiring dad - he agrees with it, especially since the company he works for was bought out by another one just this week.

Unknown said...

I think your dad will be surprised at just how good life can be after work. Especially if he can find things to do.