I used to envy people who could take that sentimental journey back to the old home place. You know, sleep in your old room with the sports trophies still on the shelves and the Pink Floyd posters still on the walls. Hang out in the backyard and reminisce about epic Wiffle Ball games or the
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Ol’ Leadfoot has surrendered his car key. My dad got into a little fender bender down in Dallas recently and knew at last, the way an aging slugger who whiffs at a pitch he used to wallop into the cheap seats knows, that it was time to call it quits. I tried to cheer him
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It’s a great workout, but at my age, I can’t help picturing myself gasping, collapsing and being hauled, half-frozen and ghastly gray, to the ER, where they would know what happened just by looking at me: another middle-aged, snow-shoveling heart-attack victim.

Here’s a definition of retirement that may not be what most of us envision when we contemplate the blessed moment when we turn in our employee ID badges: Bowing out of the workforce means having the time to take care of your aging parents. This is not my situation, but it is, thank goodness, my
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It was my dad on the line, obviously distraught. He thought Mom might be having a stroke. I asked if he had called Simone, the woman from the elder-care service we had contracted with last year. He hadn’t thought of Simone. He thought of me. I told him I’d get there as soon as I
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In the long-ago days when I could stay up past midnight, I once found myself on the wrong side of the dead-bolted door of a West Philadelphia row house at 1:30 in the morning. I started pounding. The door shook. The house shook. Either the door or my hand was going to break, but I
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The result of this ambivalence about work is a culture where people both complain and boast about how hard their noses are pressed to the grindstone.

My dad turned 90 this year. He still drives (though if you’re heading for South Florida I can tell you which streets to avoid), still reads the paper and gets riled up about the state of the world (though he doesn’t yell at people on street corners), and still thinks he can tote that barge
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