You have been my friend.

 “You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.” Charlotte the spider said to Wilbur the pig at the end of the movie. This quote is taken from “As Time goes By” by Ronni Bennett. Ronni writes about the ups and downs and overall joy of ageing. She is now writing about the challenges she is facing as she fights cancer.

For now, she is winning but cancer is slowly overtaking her and she talks about her upcoming death in a brilliant, loving, sometimes with humour, sometimes with pain but her writing deals with the practical and mundane issues she is facing.. A must-read for those of you with chronic or terminal illness or who are dealing with those you love who have a chronic or terminal illness.

The quote she used talks to me about friendship and how important it is for all of us. We live, two words that are filled with meaning and which have a different meaning for each of us. What does it mean to you lived? What does it mean to those around you because you live? When you retire, you can look back over the path that you chose, and you can reflect on what it means to you, but you cannot really understand what you have meant to countless others as you moved through your journey.

In life you have friends and as Charlotte says, “That in itself is a tremendous thing.” Friends support each other, they like each other, they give meaning to each other's life. Some of us categorize our friends as work-friends, best friends, sports friends, casual friends, long-distance friends, weekend friends, etc. Each of these people you call a friend and who call you friend, shape your life and when it is time for you or them to go, sadness will be felt. As we live, we affect others and when we die we hope our influence continues.

 

Paths to Retirement

When I retired in 2006, I returned to work almost at once. I was at odds with what was the norm for people retiring. Traditionally, workers transitioned from fulltime work to full and permanent retirement. Since about 2006, retirement is a process, often occurring in a series of steps over several years. Studies using longitudinal and cohort data show that there are multiple paths to retirement, revealing changes over time and between cohorts in how and when people choose to leave the workforce.

 Some studies show a path leading from full-time to part-time work to full retirement. Others go from a full-time career job to another shorter duration job to full retirement. These intermediate jobs are referred to by researchers as bridge jobs. My brother is currently in a bridge job while he waits for his wife to retire. Other studies reveal a pattern of unretirement in which workers retire completely from full-time work and, after a period out of the workforce, return to either full- or part-time work. Younger generations are not only working longer, but they are much less likely to move from fulltime employment to full and permanent retirement.

One study showed that the traditional pattern was followed by over 50% of men born 1913 to 1917. Of men born just two decades later, 34% follow this traditional path. Forty-five percent of men born 1943 to 1947 move to part-time work before retiring, and 26% of men and 29% of women in this cohort return to work after a period of retirement. Transitional retirements are increasingly the norm. Early Baby Boomers, especially women, are more likely than those in earlier cohorts to move to a bridge job before retiring. Both men and women in this cohort are also more likely than earlier cohorts to leave the workforce involuntarily through layoffs.

Full retirement is defined as reporting currently not working any hours for pay and describing oneself as retired. Partially retired workers are defined as people who report that they are retired but are also working fewer than 35 hours per week.

Over the period 1992 to 1998, about 52% of workers followed a traditional path. The balance of participants reveal a range of retirement patterns: 12.9% move to full retirement and then to part-time work; 6.3% go from retirement back to full-time work; nearly 8% remain partially retired throughout; 13.7% move from work to partial retirement to full retirement and 7.2% go from work to partial retirement back to full-time work. Thus about 30% of workers unretire within six years of retiring.

Overall, younger workers and men are most likely to unretire. Asked if they would like to continue doing some paid work after they retire; the vast majority of workers anticipate their retirement pattern. For this cohort, born 1931 to 1941, only 8% of those who say they had not expected to return to work ended up returning to work. Workers are more likely to return to part-time work than full time, especially if they are eligible for full Social Security retirement benefits.

Some bad dad jokes

Happy birthday and I hope you enjoy your special day and the following Dad jokes

If you were a child when the song “Red, Red Wine: was released

UB40’ish now

 If a car told its life story, would it be an autobiography?

 Shout out to the people who ask what the opposite of in is

 

Why can’t the ocean take an off-colour joke?

Because it is too salty.

Why do ghosts love to eat health food so much?

Because it is Supernatural.

 

I once knew a guy who wanted to open a pastry shop

He could not raise the dough

 

I once had a job building Egyptian Tombs

Turned out it a pyramid scheme.

 

Did you know that the Mississippi river is a girl?

If it was a boy, it would be the Misterssippi river.

 

I never wanted to believe that my brother was stealing from his job as a roadworker.

But when I got home, all the signs were there.

 

A cannibal is a person who is fed up with people

 

What kind of tea do rich people buy?

Property.

 

I know I am in a serious relationship with my girlfriend.

I have not laughed in two years.

 

People asked me why I wanted to become a film editor.

Well, to cut a long story short…

 

What is blue but not heavy?

Light blue

 

My teachers said I would never amount to much because I procrastinate

I said, “Just you wait.”

 

I just got a job at Old MacDonald’s Farm

I am the new CIEIO

 

I had to break up with my archeologist's girlfriend.

She kept digging up the past.

 

My friend is trying to convince me to invest in his sword company.

He makes some really good points.

Yoda, are we headed in the right direction?

Off course, we are.

 

Gonna go for a run after my next bowl of Lucky Charms

 

I know a guy who completed his Ph.D. in Palindromes

 He is now known as “Dr. Awkward”

High school reunion

 As I age sometimes my old students will be in touch. I started teaching over 47 years ago so many of my first students have aged and many are in their early 60’s and many are retiring, which only reinforces my sometimes feeling older. I find it interesting that to me, once a person hits 60 it is difficult to tell how old they might be, they could be 60 or 70 or 75 or even in their 80‘s. This story about how we look or think we look as we age is funny, enjoy.

Have you ever been guilty of looking at some-one about your own age and thinking, ‘Surely I can't look that old?" You'll love this one.

My name is Alice Smith, and I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his DDS diploma, which showed his full name.

Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name who had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago. Could this be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then?

Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was ‘way

too old to have been my classmate.

After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School.

“Yes. Yes, I did. I am a Mustang,” he beamed with pride.

“When did you graduate?” I asked.

He “answered, “In 1965. Why do you ask?”

“You were in my class!” I exclaimed.

He looked at me closely. Then, that ugly, old, bald wrinkled, fat,

gray, decrepit son-of-a-gun asked, “What did you teach?”