If, like Dylan Thomas, they had the skill to write a villanelle*
many oldsters might still be reluctant to say
that their retirement can often be a kind of Hell.
Perhaps they were happy in their day,
with spouses, children and careers as well,
yet with Time , bad things can come their way.
Their skin will wrinkle and limbs will swell;
and their attempts to indulge in love and play
be often awkward and ridiculous as well.
Each day becomes a a Saturday or Sunday
for many making so much time off cruel
when they'd rather be at work on a Monday.
Edward Bellamy long ago rang this bell;
His Looking Backward showed the way:
One should retire at 45, while still young and well.
Or, retirefirst like Prince Charles , that most Royal Snob
and wait and wait...until you're in your eighty's ...to get a job?
hzl
1/28/15
*vil·la·nelle
ˌviləˈnel/
noun
a nineteen-line poem with two rhymes throughout, consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the other tercets and with both repeated at the close of the concluding quatrain.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Author Notes
DT's father was going blind when DT wrote this poem. The dying of the light is a reference to darkness and being blind.
Looking Backward: 2000-1887 is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a lawyer and writer from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts; it was first ...
From: hzlehrer@hotmail.com To: hzlehrer@hotmail.com Subject: 10 Things Retirees Won't Tell Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 05:11:29 -0500
Each day, roughly 10,000 baby boomers turn 62—the average age at which people actually retire, according to a recent Gallup poll. By some estimates, there are more retirees living in our midst than ever before. And their numbers are growing: By around 2030, nearly one in five Americans will be over the age of 62.
Birds do it. Bees do it. Partners who are just as old as these do it.
7. We still get frisky
This may come as a shock to the younger generation, but your grandma and grandpa likely still get it on. While men and women ages 57 — 72 years old have less sex than their younger counterparts, they’re still having sex. Nearly three in four men and about half of women in the age group report that they are sexually active, having sex an average of about four times a month, according to a study published in 2011 in The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences.
All that frisky behavior sometimes has negative consequences. While rates of sexually transmitted diseases are still much higher among younger than older Americans, the 55-and-over set saw an uptick in infection rates for some sexually transmitted diseases between 2007 and 2011, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even HIV is becoming a problem for older Americans: 19% of the 1.1 million people living with an HIV infection in America are 55 or older, and 5% (or 2,500) of the new HIV infections in 2010 were from this age group, according to the CDC.
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Retirees can’t count on this.
9. That big Hawaii trip? It’s more like a pipe dream
But while they lust after frequent trips to far-flung locales in retirement, the reality is much different for most. About 59% of older workers say they plan to travel more in retirement, according to the NPR/Harvard/RWJF survey. But only 31% actually do so; in contrast, 34% of retirees say they take fewer trips than they did in the five years before retiring.
There are many reasons that retirees can’t just jet off to far-flung locales, including financial constraints. One in four retirees say one of the top things they’d change about their retirement is that they would have saved more for travel, the Transamerica survey revealed. Lowenthal notes that health issues, especially those that limit mobility or cause aches and pains, may make travel “less comfortable and more trouble than it’s worth,” while others, like incontinence, are embarrassing. She also notes that spending time with grandchildren, another goal for many retirees, often competes for time and money with more ambitious travel plans.
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