To retire, or not to retire...

Sound of bees…

Charles: Your garden looks even more vibrant than I ever remember. What’s that song the bees are singing?

Richard: Ha! Yes, too slow for the flight of the bumblebee, that’s for sure. Soothing, it is. But, did I hear you’ve taken a JOB?

Charles: Yes. I must confess, after a few years of retirement, I found myself longing for the intellectual stimulation of teaching. So, I took up a part-time lecturing position.

Richard: Teaching again, Charles? After all those years of counting down the days until retirement?

Charles: I know, I know. But there's something about passing on knowledge and engaging with eager minds that I missed. It's not a full-time gig, just enough to keep me intellectually active.

Richard: You did say once that you missed being able to say you were associated with an institution.

Charles: Ah yes. The affiliation. I must admit that also drew me in.

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Voice-over

Some seek peace in retirement, others are drawn back to the stimulating buzz of the hive.

A Hotel for Marigolds

 Options on the future…

Judi: The house is too big.

Maggie: Good to have space.

Judi: Yes, but by yourself, it’s spooky. A family used to live here. All their stuff is still stacked up in the rooms.

Maggie: It could hold a lot of people.

Judi: The trick is to find the right mix.

Maggie: A Marigold Hotel?

Judi: That’s the story.

Voice-over

Sometimes a film sparks great feelings and introduces a novel concept. A care home in a hotel? We may not get to choose who comes in with us but they need to be amenable and stimulating. We need to accommodate changes in people. Like giving up the motorcycle and handing it over to someone younger.

Mapmaker: Inō Tadataka

A worthy second life...

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Inō postage stamp

Ian: This Inō was an interesting man. No ordinary person for Edo. Businessman, scholar, surveyor, cartographer.

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Ivan: First a businessman, then a scholar?

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Ian: Retired from business at 49. Then studied western astronomy, geography and maths.

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Ivan:  productive second life that extended his retirement?

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Ian: A long one. Lived to 73. Physically strong too. By his seventies he’d walked more than 35,000 kilometers to map Japan.

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Ivan: A contract?

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Ian: Not at first. Used his own money, then negotiated with the government suggesting it was important to map the coastline, arguing that Russians were arriving in Hokkaido.

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Voice-over

Inō Tadataka (伊能 忠敬)  lived in the Edo Period  between 1745 and 1818. His atlas of Japan was completed by his disciples 3 years after he died. Evidently he knew how to foster followers who completed his work and archived appropriately.

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The final farewell party

A WhatsApp exchange...

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Riquito: You retired two years ago. After 30 years. Why did you go to the graduation party?

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Basil: The cherries in the garden. I wanted to see the god of rice come down to sit in the cherry trees and tell them it’s warm enough to plant rice now.

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Riquito: What rot.

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Basil: Well, OK. I saw it as my final farewell. And I still had a grad student.

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Riquito: Did he show up?

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Basil: Actually no. He’d told me he wouldn’t. But in a sense, that was a relief. I didn’t have to spend all the party with him. Instead, I could mingle.

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Riquito: Mingle?

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Basil: With people I hadn’t seen for years and years. Oh, and perhaps it was fortunate you weren’t there. The new dean offered me your job. I thought he was your friend.

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Riquito: I’ve lost it?

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Basil: Well there were mutterings. In the order of, “Well he’s never here.”

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Voice-over

And the band played on...

So many overseas leaves. So many sabbaticals. Not all work can be carried out remotely. Absence often doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Quite the opposite in fact. But when you have been retired for more than a couple of years, and you turn up at a function, incumbents are mostly perplexed. Some are unsettled. The band played stirring numbers though.

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