Accepting Retirement?
In baseball, three strikes and you’re out. In life, they say (whoever they are) the third time is a charm. But for me, the third time to retire was the charm. The first time - a “need to”. The second time - a “have to”. The third time - a “want to”.
I was always a broadcaster, if I don’t count the time I stocked shelves for my father’s corner market, or fried thousands of fabulous Indiana tenderloins. I actually started my broadcasting journey as a cameraman in Marion, Indiana (yes, there was a TV station there) during my junior and senior years of high school. I then disc-jockeyed while at the University of Arizona and fell in love with the biz. Back then, little did I know that I would be spending my working life in radio and television. It actually was the perfect career track for an extroverted C-student.
My radio career grew from DJ into management. There were moves from Tucson to El Paso to Lubbock in radio, and then from Lubbock to Madison to Amarillo and back to Tucson in television. Each move for the better.
My first retirement was the “need to” retirement. My son battled a brain tumor for 33 years, from the time he was two. Brain surgeries, radiation, and chemo all intertwined around him as he was growing up, and he actually accomplished many amazing achievements. In 2010, his lifetime journey started its turn toward the end. He needed his mother and father and we wanted to do nothing but help him. So, I retired and we were blessed to be there for him until the morning he died peacefully.
Circumstances like this certainly takes a toll. It did with my marriage, and soon after his life ended, so did my marriage. And the “need to” retirement headed towards its end.
Less than a year after my son’s death, an opportunity presented itself. I began running a cluster of two TV stations and four radio stations in Tucson. They needed me and I needed them.
Four years later, “have to” retirement came. The industry I loved was being taken over by conglomerates where HR and digital wiz-bangs hung the moon. I was tired. Older. Fed up. So the conglomerate types and I reached a peaceful agreement and my “have to” retirement began.
I was doing well enjoying life and lowering my golf handicap. Then the call. An entrepreneur friend and a radio colleague asked me to breakfast. I asked “what’s up?" The reply? - “Big fun! Bring your checkbook.” Soon after, I was part owner of a local radio station. One little local station competed very well against groups of four, six, and even seven stations. We survived the pandemic, but being able to do everything we wanted required more cattle and less hat! After four years, we sold the station and I headed to the “want to” phase of my retirement trifecta.
While settling into the “want to”, two things happened: major heart surgery and a re-joining with my ex-wife. This also brought me back into my family with a wonderful daughter, son in law, and four grandsons.
What have I learned after acceptance? 1) It’s OK to enjoy life mostly unencumbered; 2) unless you’re running for President, no one wants to hire a 78 year-old, so get over yourself; and 3) accept the premise that it’s ok to be somewhat lazy, a fun grandparent, and happy and proud to have accepted retirement. As the famous TV ad said “Go ahead, try it. He likes it, he really likes it!”
Editors Note: For those readers who were born after the mid-seventies, our Contributing Editor, Jim Arnold, like the broadcaster he is, is referring to the Life Cereal commercial knowns as Mikey: He Likes It!
