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Christiane G. Karas specializes in ecologically conscious
properties. including active solar and passive solar construction,
in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Baja California, Mexico
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| HUMOR: Too Young to Retire, Too Old to Die |
| Bill Hudson | 6/4/10 |
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| Back to the News Summaries |
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Retirement. What a remarkable concept.
 I’ve never imagined myself as a retired person. I’ve been self employed almost my entire life and never made it a priority to set aside anything, in the way of savings, for an eventual retirement. I think, when you work for yourself — without any promise of a paycheck at the end of any particular month — you get used to the idea that God provides for you and your family in spite of your own total incompetence as a business owner.
So why wouldn’t He provide for you when you get too old to work?
My kids — who will probably have to figure out what to do with good old Dad when I eventually reach that point — should have developed a healthy dose of skepticism about self-employment, seems to me. They watched me and their mother struggle to pay the monthly bills and furnish the house with second-hand furniture. They watched us skip one family vacation after another, because we simply couldn’t afford the time off — or were afraid of missing out on a potential job.
Who, in their right mind, would want to live like this, they had to be asking themselves, as they dressed themselves for school — in second-hand clothes.
Remarkably enough, all three of our kids are now grown and, heavens forbid, they are all self-employed.
And apparently, they are already set to retire.
Yesterday, my youngest daughter, Ursala — who runs a local graphic design business called White Rabbit Studio — officially received her AARP card in the mail.
Ursala is 22 years old.
I was so shocked by the arrival of Ursala’s AARP card that I broke a sacred family rule, and opened her mail for her. Yes, it was true. AARP had enclosed a plastic card, already stamped with Ursala’s name and AARP membership number.
I was a member of AARP for a few months, but they kept sending me this magazine filled with photos of old people doing semi-active things, and interviews with withered-looking movie stars whom I remember looking young and viril. It was too depressing, and I canceled my membership.
I guess I just didn’t want to admit to being that old.
Now, it seems, I have become so old that my youngest daughter is an AARP member. My lord, I never expected to see the day |
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| Visit the Pagosa Daily Post |
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