My retirement speech

My Retirement Speech - given at a reception at the Hoover Building in my honor July 26, 2007


Contrary to what some may think I have not always thought about Retirement. I remember well the day it seriously occurred to me. It was in 2002. After a six month remodeling project to fix the flood damage caused by burst frozen pipes on the Hoover building south side was completed, our software support team was moved into spiffy new cubicles. The only negative was that the new air-handlers were so quiet I could hear voices from several aisles away which I found somewhat distracting. After a few days I was learning to block out the sounds and one morning as I was typing I was vaguely aware of a conversation off in the distance between a man and a woman which I wasn't really paying attention to until I heard the guy say ...” do you know Art Dunbar?” then I heard this young woman's voice answer "you mean? the old guy?". At that moment two things occurred to me: 1) retirement and 2) earplugs.
Retirement is bitter/sweet , happy/sad affair but in the IT business you have to learn to bounce between the positive and the negative. It’s sometimes a roller coaster ride between optimism and pessimism. First the glass is full, then it’s half full then its empty, then it’s full , now it’s empty. Full, empty... I saw that happen a quite a few times the other night.
I’ve often been asked "What will you do in retirement?". To be consistent I try to give everyone a different answer. One of my favorites is "they say the best thing about retirement is waking up and not having to go to work so I plan on doing that several times a day". But I have been warned that if you don't have anything planned for it, retirement can be a slow death. My response to that is "hey, I’m not in a hurry!" .
How to answer the question "what are you going do in retirement?" brings to mind the story about a Buddhist Monk in Chinese occupied Tibet who every morning on his way to the dharma house to meditate walked by a Chinese guard. One day the guard asked him "where are you going?' . The monk quietly replied "I do not know." The guard angrily arrested the monk and took him to jail for interrogation. He asked the monk "why did you lie, you know you were going to meditate like you do every morning?"
The monk answered " it was not a lie, I really did not know I would be going to jail.". So I guess the truthful answer to "what will I be doing in retirement is " I don't know". But if I do end up in jail, please come visit and try to bring a file.
Actually I do have some plans which include traveling . My favorite trips are car camping visits to the National Parks and en route I hope to visit friends and ex-coworkers who have moved out of state. There are also many hobbies I want to try. Everything from bird-watching and Frisbee golf to bike riding and yoga. I also have a very long reading list. You gotta have dreams. Speaking of which I did have a dream the other night in which I was returning to the Hoover building to meet some friends for lunch but I could not find the Hoover building I seemed to forgotten where it was. So I had to find a telephone and call for directions but no matter what number I dialed I could only get vital statistics.


(note: for probably the last 10 years my work phone number was 281-4949. Vital Statistics is 281-4944. Sometimes as many as 3 or 4 times a week I have gotten calls from people mostly wanting birth certificates who somehow dialed the wrong number.)

Working for the State has been a great job for me. It has been rewarding in many ways. I have worked for and with some wonderful people. I have made some good friends who I hope to keep in touch
with into the distant future.