I know I'm retired ......

........ it says so on my ID card.

Yesterday, I was asked "what do you do?"

My usual reply is to the effect that I write, publish, and do a number of other things, for some of which I am even paid. In this instance, the preverse elf that runs my vocal chords decided to make them say "I'm retired."

"Really, you don't look quite that old. I bet it's great to be able to kick back, right?"

I muttered something generally positive, and that was about the end of it...

OK, technically I'm retired. nothing wrong with that. I served 26 years in the USAF (enlisted, 1966; commissioned, 1978; retired, 1992), and I receive a stipend entitled "retirement pay", so I am retired.

On the other hand, since 1992, I have completed a doctorate, taught classes from K-8, as well as undergraduate and graduate college courses. I have been a consultant, an author, an editor, a maker of musical instruments, a home remodeler, a general carpenter and a landscaper. There are one or two other things, but the list is long enough. Please let it be known that any level of expertise I may have in a number of these occupations probably doesn't extend beyond the limits of my rapidly expanding forehead.

In the years from 1992 until now, I have also lost a wife to cancer, lost another one to the mutual realization that we should never have gotten married in the first place, bounced in and out of clinical depression a couple of times, and tried to help my son get through the loss of a mother and deal with growing up.

Fortunately for us all, Ian, who is now 22, has done all right despite my less than perfect parenting. He has earned a B.A. in English (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa), and is now teaching English in Japan. He had originally planned to get his graduate degree in teaching first, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. He teaches at the Japanese equivalent of a Middle School, works extremely hard as an associate member of the faculty, and is having a ball. He speaks Japanese, Russian, English, and American....and he can understand Strine. He's an amazing young man. He is also a first rate, prize-winning cook.

I can take very little credit for Ian, nor for getting the recent years of my life back on track. It seems that the young lady to whom I was engaged 1n 1966 (and who called it off in 1967 so she could marry someone else), came back into my life with the turn of the century, formed an instant bond with Ian, and probably saved both his life and mine. We were married a couple of years ago. And finishing this paragraph is probably another half-dozen posts in itself, so I'll leave it here for the nonce.

So if I pause before telling you that I'm retired, you'll understand.......I hope. The truth just takes too long for a casual conversation.