Retirement Aug.22,2020

Retirement post date August 22, 2020 As is so often the case, blogger has improved upon something that was working perfectly well so now I can’t use it properly anymore! I am resorting to writing my blog on a word processing program and transferring it over. I can’t make the type larger anymore on blogger. In Sept., I may no longer be able to blog since blogger only let us borrow the ‘old’ version until Sept. 1st, when the new model is imposed and I can’t blog on it at all. Last week, I met a couple of friends in the park who are not yet retired. I retired 13 years ago, as soon as I could. My health had begun to deteriorate and I wanted to spend the next few years as a free woman exploring my options and my world. My first year, I took off entirely. Some days I would get up and get in the car, pick a road from my New Jersey Road Atlas, and just drive to see where it would take me. In this way, I discovered so many wonderful new places such as Bivalve and the Bayshore Discovery Center there. After my year of total freedom, I settled in to volunteering for the next half dozen years. I volunteered at several local historic sites such as Red Bank Battlefield, Alice Paul Foundation, Gloucester County Historical Society, Camden County Historical Society where I also worked part-time for a couple of years as a suitcase history storyteller in schools. These were such fruitful years because History was a bit outside my former fields I taught English and Art in my education career. I loved it! Learning about the history gave me additional places to seek and discover. For instance working at Red Bank Battlefield opened the whole world of Revolutionary War History to me and we, the volunteers formed a club and took many field trips for instance to the homestead of William Penn. On my own, I explored South Jersey sites such as the site of the Battle of Chestnut Hill and Trenton Barracks, Battle of Princeton site, and Monmouth Battlefield. Now I had the opportunity to join the Outdoor Club and explore hiking and kayaking. So many new places were opened up to me such as Jim Thorpe, in Pennsylvania where I hiked up a waterfall in summer and when it was frozen in winter. My knees and back began to give me trouble so I was no longer able to manage stairs, or long hours of tours. I took up painting again and got re-acquainted with some old Rutger’s College fellow artists from the print-making program. We formed an Art Club. Soon I had a lot of paintings and I began to look around for local, group show notices. I showed work at the first annual Atsion Arts and Crafts Fair, Fortnightly Annual Scholarship Art Show, Haddonfield, and at, my favorite, Eiland Arts Center, located in the old historic Merchantville train station where, this Spring I won first place in the BRAVE 100 Art Show celebrating the Centennial of the Women’s Suffrage Amendment. I began to write again and participated in Poetry readings, a couple of writing groups, Riverton Writers, for a decade, and Owl Grove for two or three years. After putting an entry in The Mad Poets Society Annual Poetry Contest, I was thrilled to win first prize and get published in their Journal with my poem RAIN. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? But that’s not all. I also now had time to try my hand at writing books and I wrote three which I independently published: a historical novel called White Horse Black Horse, a relationship novel called 181 Days, and a memoir called 1969 On The Road. When I worked all the time I had neither the energy or the time for any additional hobbies or even a social life. At that time, also, I was raising a child and by the time I retired, she had grown up and launched herself on her own creative and independent life. I was free from responsibility and had only the usual household chores to hold me down. As they say in advertising - WAIT!! There’s more! I had so much free time that I tried some new hobbies in arts and crafts. I made a scrapbook for my sister for her 50th birthday, and my daughter for her 30th, then one for myself for my 70th! And I began a long and, of course by its very nature, endless foray into family history. It is amazing what you can do when you are free! So if you contemplate retirement and don’t know what you will do, perhaps this will help you just a little to explore a few ideas I have posted. Some of the things my retired friends do, now that I have time for friends too, are: volunteering at Animal Shelters, Wildlife Rescue, Political Campaigning, gym memberships and fitness, a few have written books, some have developed new careers that are offshoots of the old careers they had, and many do art and writing. A few have taken cooking courses and one or two like to travel. One gardens and one has done various projects related to her church. Many friends are history volunteers, which is where I met them, and the ones I met in the Outdoor Club still hike and kayak. Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com