The Good Life

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I’m living the good life. At least I think that is what you are supposed to say when you are retired.

My transition from the work force to the life of leisure has been helped by the fact that I am still working. Until my former employer finds someone to replace me, they are still paying me a little something to keep working. The first week of ‘retirement’ I worked a little over 30 hours.

From home.

And that is where I need to be, now that my wife Terry is in the middle stage of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. She needs me to be home with her more now than ever.

With modern technology, I can perform about 75 percent of my old job responsibilities from home. I obviously cannot attend the home games anymore, but by now my student workers have been trained well enough to survive without me and I now cover the home games the same way I’ve been covering the away games.

I can watch the games on the computer through video streaming and live stats. I can still interview the coach after the game, I just do it over the phone instead of in person. And I easily can still write the game previews, post-game stories and other press releases from home and post on the web  page and send to the papers.

And through e-mail I can still deliver a joke to all of the coaches to break up the boredom at our dry, monthly staff meetings.

Easy peasy. Now I’m living the good life.

One of my favorite authors, Mark Twain, gave tips on how to enjoy the good life. Tips that I have taken to heart.

He said that first of all you have to approve of yourself. “A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

When I decided to quit my job and stay home to take care of Terry several people close to me and more rational than me tried to convince me I was not doing the right thing.  The difference between them and me is that I was not making this decision with my brain. I was making it with my heart.

I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. “I am retiring, and I approve of this message.” (Maybe I’ve been watching too many political commercials).

“A person with a new idea is a crank, until the idea succeeds,” Twain said. So don’t let what other people think hold you back.

Twain said that your limitations may just be in your mind. “It is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

That goes for my serious decrease in income. I would say that I now have to buy cheaper beer, but that isn’t possible. I already drink the cheapest beer there is. I guess I’ll just have to drink less of it.  And there are other things that I will learn to do without. Tightening a belt is never comfortable, but it is certainly doable.

Twain said to lighten up and have fun. “Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing,” and “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

Terry laughs a lot, every day.  I have always seen to that. And when she laughs, I laugh, or at least smile a lot.

Twain said to let go of anger. “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

I used to be pretty angry about our situation. Why Terry? Why me? But I learned from Frozen to let it go. When Terry has an accident, I no longer get angry. We just handle it and try to make light of it. I don’t even have to say it anymore, Terry says it herself and we both laugh when she says “Gross little girl!”

Along those same lines, Twain said “Don’t go around saying the world owes you something. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Thinking the world owes you something can cause frustration. It is up to me to shape my own life. We all have to deal with the hand we were dealt. Everyone has their own cross to bear.

And the most important advice Twain ever gave was to do what you want to do. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did.”

I don’t want to look back on my life wishing I had spent more time with Terry. That doesn’t mean that is not going to happen. As a matter of fact I am sure that is what I am going to think. But at least I took the first step in correcting that. I retired, to spend more time with my partner, my soulmate, my wife.

We are now enjoying the fall.  The crisp, cool air, the foliage, the pumpkin spice lattes. (okay, lattes are probably the first thing I will have to give up with the stricter budget.)

For almost 40 years I hated the autumn season. In the late 1970s I LOVED the fall. Going back to college in fun-in-the-sun Miami.  But the last two-thirds of my life fall not only meant the end of fun-in-the-sun summer, it meant going back to no-fun work. Sixty hour weeks, working 9 to 5 plus some night plus every damn weekend.

But now Terry and I can really enjoy the fall season. College football, walks in the park through the fallen leaves, fires at night in the fire pit in our backyard.

Yes, I am living the good life. Now I have to go pay some bills.

I think I’ll buy one of those hats that UMass grad designed and made millions on. The ones that say “Life is Good.”

Until next time, read some Mark Twain, and enjoy life. It truly is good.

Bud