MORNING
There is a huge addendum today, as I synopsize my findings about retirement—and I’m not even due to retire until I’m 66, if I live that long. I also discuss that. Read the addendum like it was a separate essay full of information you don’t get in the mutual fund brochures. Now back to this blog.
I curled up under the air conditioner last evening and read up on plasma engines. You like those? They are another great idea buffaloed aside by the Space Shuttle. They are the antithesis of rockets because plasma exerts a small pressure over a long period of time. It basically works by stripping away electrons from matter until it is plasma, not to be confused with blood plasma. This material is superheated to provide propulsion.
Cracker Barrel, the made-for-seniors restaurant. I researched some of their history, but from the senior’s point of view. By that, I mean the one time I was in Cracker Barrel, years ago, I found the décor nice, but the theme a little tacky. I can’t remember where this was, but it was one of the early Cracker Barrels that sold Shell gasoline. I found them pricey, but totally agreed with the business model. Appeal to seniors with that old-timey image. This did not appeal to me and I’ve never been back, no dislike, I just never went back.
The problem is the store’s aim is a little off. While I like southern food and traditional brands, I also see two problems. One, those products are for really, really old people, not me. People in their 80s and 90s. I fit squarely in the “Ageless Explorer” category of boomer, the 28% who do not yet perceive themselves as old. Two, I know for a fact that very few people my age ever grew up anywhere near store with porches and rocking chairs, so to me Cracker Barrel lacks authenticity.
I have a potential explanation for why that is. In the boomer era, advertising was not a real career. It was annoying ads, mostly on TV and unsightly billboards. It was the little brother of marketing and did not attract top people. And mostly, you could turn it off.
Advertising was just not a field that attracted intelligent, resourceful people. By the year 2000, the industry had been dominated by young people, who I suspect could not get real jobs, and the campaigns showed it. All advertising was glorifying youth and youth culture. Nobody wanted to be old—because that is the message now arriving from every angle. And you could not turn it off.
That’s my theory. Advertising is an industry where the worst rise to the top. Thus, when they advertise to an older crowd, they do so with preconceived notions. The average advertising employee was raised on cable TV and Google, they don’t actually know any old people. Hence, when they see a rocking chair on the Disney channel, that becomes their association with old. It’s just somehow weird, you know. But I remember the food was tasty.
This morning’s advice column was about a man who found out his daughter is poinking her older sister’s husband. Remember since age sixteen (yes, I have it written down), I warned never to marry a girl unless she was the youngest daughter in the family. Now, at least one family knows what the hell I was talking about. The last thing I’d ever consider is the older sisters of any gal I ever went out with. Few things are as maladjusted as a woman with a cuter kid sister.
NOON
I went over guitar strumming patterns. Kind of to see what I’m up against. I had trouble keeping a unique strum to each tune [during last rehearsal], something I consider essential in a duo. One thing I found was that I had correctly worked out a lot of the bass licks that fit (to the guitar) only to realize that on guitar, the patterns are often so simple they nearly suggest themselves. So much for the mystery of guitar playing. I can now see [in it] why a lot of guitar players can’t play bass so well. The patterns are not directly transposable, guys.
The town already is closing down for Thanksgiving, even the library is shuttering up early. So no scriptwriters meeting. And Thanksgiving is now a two-day festival. Trivia, the Broward library system is one of the biggest and best in the USA. There are around 40 branches, but remember, not all of these are up to standard and their hours can be spotty. Same with parking and closed days. At any given time, a few of them are closed for renovations.
I know, I know, who renovates a goddam library? “Elwood, let’s get with the times and move anthropology to the ninth floor! Hurry, times a-wastin’.”
Nor, except for the really big branches which charge for parking, there is no system to their research department. This time last year in Yakima, I found the city archives in a wink. All in one section. Try that in Ft. Lauderdale sometime. That’s the reason behind this segment’s otherwise nonsensical photo--beer is importanter. I may say retirement can get lonely at times, but then I remember the library research section in this town. Now that's lonely. Those long, empty aisleways. And the tables, yes, the tables. Of all those tables, count ‘em, if one other patron shows up, he will be a noisy stinker and sit at the once next to you.
For the heck of it, I think I’ll go out for a Budweiser. It’s a holiday eve and you never know. Besides, a couple of people have now told me I’m a better guitar strummer than I seem to realize. If anything, that means I certainly don’t have guitaritis and that calls for a celebration. If you want to come along, I’m buyin’.
NIGHT
Another thing I'm finding is that a lot of the "fancy" guitar chords that some people take such pride in are, in fact, ordinary guitar chords where the bassist has played a "wrong" note. See the connection I'm getting at? I'm discovering plenty of situations, where I, as a bassist, know a certain note. And as I'm learning to strum, I'll read a chart that says a jazzy Em+9dim. But I clearly hear it as an Em where the guitarist-turned-bassist did one of his old patterns and made the chord sound funny. This is not an earthshaking revelation, but I'm just sayin'.
This gets me to wondering why I'm constantly discovering such things. When do I reach that age where I know it all? At my age, am I not supposed to know it all like surrounding population? Instead I keep stumbling across new evidence, new ideas, things that make me rethink the situation. Have I missed the boat?
Without exaggeration, this is the quietest night I’ve ever seen in this area. Maybe the odd car on the street, otherwise a ghost town. The shops are open, but nobody there. This is prime tourist season. Yes, it is cold but that just means everywhere else it is even colder. Say, does anyone remember that note that was left on my sidecar last month, saying please call? I sent them an e-mail finally. I asked if they had left the note. They responded saying, “Yes.” (There's a winner for you.)
I’ve got a friend finding out about insurance the hard way. No names, but consider this scenario. Two guys buy wage loss insurance paying the same premiums. One guy meticulously saves and invests over the years, the other guy blows his paychecks and has nothing. At age 55, both become disabled, but hey, they have 80% wage loss insurance. Or do they now?
The bad guy gets a monthly check for $2760, the good guy gets
This tale hurts because the victim was a friend of mine whom I specifically warned about certain activities that do nothing but disqualify oneself down the line. That got me called paranoid when all I did was realize there was a hidden agenda. I’ve lived to see all my critics eat crow on that count, but this was a friend. What’s worse is assets cannot be liquidated so as to qualify because they watch for that. The system helps only those who are destitute—even if they got there by their own hand.
And this is not the type of friend I could have advised to buy a motorcycle and go live in a trailer court. Maybe learn to play a little guitar. He would have called me crazy. Instead, he called me and asked if I had a room he could stay in to get back on his feet. Nope. I know, it’s pretty sad. That I don’t have a room, I mean. I told him to call back next year. He could, by then, have learnt to play guitar?
Not that I’m so smart either, leaving the porch light on when I got back home. People drop by. Now I’m out a set of spark plug wires, two guitar strings, two postage stamps, twelve dollars, a power cable, and one of those super expensive coils of Radio Shack solder (still in the package). I should take that porch light down.
ADDENDUM
My accounts of these mini-adventures are glossing over an emerging factor in my retirement. And I’m nowhere near official retirement age yet, so things won't get any better down the line. Over the previous months, I’ve noted how others around me don’t seem to have any provisions for their own entertainment. In a way, these people are worse off than I thought. They seem to have opted for false security instead of enjoying the rest of their lives.
If so, that was a boo-boo for me. Follow my logic here. I’m the poor guy in the crowd, having been forced into early retirement. That makes me one of the few in my crowd that doesn’t own his own house (I’m working on that). Thus, everyone around me should be financially better off. Not so. It’s becoming clearer that their “security” is bleeding them for their life’s savings and a healthy chunk of their retirement.
Have they not learned you can’t spend your way to security? That you can never save up enough to retire. At some point you have to balance a few things out and learn that a big fancy house ties you down—and it can lose its value in a wink of the market eye. I’d rather have $10,000 in cash than $200,000 in a house if anything major goes wrong, as is bound to happen.
If what I’m experiencing here is the way it is going to be, I need to find a rich gal to hang with. Not to touch her money, but just to have somebody around who do things without bleeding me dry. You know, when I think back on my life, the women I’ve known and like the best were the ones who realized how much we fun could have together if we pooled our resources. I need to find such a gal again. Meanwhile, I getting sick and tired of broke people.
Author's note: another thing I discourage is gift-giving on specific dated occasions. Get me a gift on Tuesday, but not because it is Xmas or my birthday. It should not be up to a calendar or some advertising agency to dictate when to give gifts. Worse, that contributes to reciprocal expectations. I didn’t say forbid, I said I discourage it. But if you must get me something, I prefer it to be something we do only one time together. Guys, that means tickets to the ball game. Gals, that means tickets to the opera. That kind of thing.
Anyway, back to retirement, I am concluding a two-week-long study of how I miscalculated the abilities of others and now have to go places by myself or pay somebody else’s way. I was definitely not expecting that to happen and I am plunk in the middle of it now. Since I tend to describe my progress, not merely the results, you generally have to read every recent blog here to get the big picture. That’s the preamble, now here are my findings and thoughts.
All through my working life, there was information available about retirement planning. But it was mainly from fund managers (think “ulterior motive”) and sources with those compound interest charts. Don’t we love those testimonials from retired civil servants whose circumstances are far too one-off for any of us to identify with? Then the tale of that couple who sold their house, got a post box address in Texas, and now live in their mobile home seeing the country.
The major problem with all that information is two-fold. It is outdated and it is inaccurate. The interest charts make wild presumptions like putting away $100 per week at age 25 and the stock market showing a 12% annual return. In who’s dreams? Have you ever tried putting money away? At age 25? Yeah, me too. The civil servants may have a boat at the marina, but for the most part, most retirees aren’t even couples any more. And most states have enacted laws to prevent non-resident addressees.
Be especially leery of those interest charts. Have you seen that bozo on TV who starts tipping over the blocks? These charts ignore the horrific dual impediments of taxation and inflation. It is impossible to “plan” enough money to retire. Happiness is not a pile of money or a big house, it is knowing you planned ahead enough to be flexible in the face of change. I’ve said it another way, that I’m not rich, but if anything goes wrong, others will be in dire straits long before I even feel it—because I planned it that way.
I have no fear of tomorrow and those who do are not going to like retirement. For the record, if I retire at age 66, I will have planned ahead by 37 years. That’s a hard act to follow. At the other extreme, I know those who fear retirement or who actually plan to die shortly after spending their very last dollar. These folks need reality lessons. My own advice, I followed, which is to get rid of all encumbrances, like credit cards and mortgages, buy the cheapest place you can feel happy, comfortable and safe, and spend your retirement funds doing what you enjoy.
That seems so common sense, I never doubted those better off than myself (financially) didn’t map out the same path for themselves. Instead, I live in a world where millions of my generation are turning sixty still up to their necks in debt. Yet, I cannot point to one of them and say that person had a better life than me. Thirty-year mortgages are nobody’s idea of a great life, except the banksters. However, since what planning information was available came from the establishment, it seems what’s changed is not the rules, but the way people are hitting retirement so totally unprepared. What’s gone wrong?
I found several things. One was that before I was born, people worked until they dropped. Seriously, it was an established fact. Even though social security was available, most people worked until past 65—and back then life expectancy was only 62.5 years. There was no large class of citizenry expecting years of idleness and it should not be expected they would plan for it. Few ever did, and as I found out, nor did they plan any productive use of those years.
What has happened? Why are so many people retired and too broke to go to the movies? Expecting somebody else to pay your way is like begging, really. I’m operating at a surplus, that is, I have cash left over at month’s end--so why cannot those who had more money to start with? (Aside: that alone represents a complete turnaround from my situation 2008-2011, which by the way, was an unprovoked disaster, not a consequence of bad planning, guys.) While I like my quiet, my private reading time, my hobbies, and my freedom to take off any time, if I want companionship in the upcoming years, I will have to adjust my priorities. If I can’t find a woman with personality, how will I ever find one with her own spending money? I swear, this generation is full of people who could not come up with a grand in cash today.
Yet, I don’t accept that an entire generation got it wrong. I’m more prone to think the system has been manipulated to gouge the life’s earnings out of anyone who obeyed every rule in the book. And you never win a game where the other team makes the rules. The American dream of a retirement home as security and a store of value has been compromised. When I look at those who don’t have the ten bucks for Sunday brunch, I keep finding a person who plowed their life into a house. And in the end, they remain tethered to the property. That's hardly the definition of freedom.
What about my life expectancy? I doubt I’ll make 72, the average. I only hope I live long enough for the Mars mission and it would be nice to be here when MicroSoft files their Chapter 11. I do plan on a 15 year retirement, with a difference. Each November is adjusted to be the beginning of a new period. That alone keeps the wolf away. If I make 66, that will drop to a five year window. But that still beats the averages. And as far as having nothing to do—what’s that? Nothing to do never happens around here.
Another unintended factor was learning self-sufficiency, though not the darn-your-socks brand. When you retire, you get efficient or else, and start with buying less. You learn it is possible to climb down off the consumer bandwagon and not buy into the newest and latest gadgets. This helps to see things for what they are. You don’t need a new car, ever. Or a six foot TV. Or a $500 telephone. I defy anyone to show how I’m missing out on one meaningful aspect of life by not having those possessions.
So, I’m at a juncture where I seem to have done okay with my plans, but have overestimated the abilities of others in the same territory. I knew early along one could never reach a monetary point whereafter you sat down and lived off a diminishing pile of assets. Those who do so live fitfully watching the market reports and fretting over daily expenses. Go figure, most people made more money in this life than I did—and now all they can afford is one trip a day to the donut shop. That’s a failing grade.
Conclusion A: I had better get used to the idea of active retirement as a solo gig. Because I planned ahead, I now realize I never saw retirement as the end of a career or really the end of anything, but as a new beginning.
Conclusion B: Retirement has been more like a reshuffling the deck. In many ways the past eleven years, despite losing my entire savings and having to start over, has become one of the most productive eras of my life.
All I can say to my detractors is, you know, without having planned it I’m actually getting ahead again. And you can’t beat that for retirement.
Today’s Togla Treat
Dat da way ting go.
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