Just A Few More Minutes

Blame it on November – the darkest, grayest, most depressing month there is. This is my second in a series on old men who have died recently. My own father died on a November day several years ago. Andy Rooney, the man who shared a few minutes with us at the end of the CBS show “60 minutes,” died Friday. The clock finally ran out for him.

Mr. Rooney (I didn’t really know him well enough to call him Andy) had just retired a few weeks ago at the age of 92. Maybe he should have kept working, but I guess if you are going to retire, 92 seems better than 52.

Some people retire at 52. In Cambodia and Thailand early retirement is thought to be about 50, compared to 62 in the United States. I got this from the computer site Wikipedia. That sounds like a made-up name to me.

I don’t like made-up names, or even made-up words for that matter. We have plenty of good words and names that still have some life left in them. The problem with making up words is that there are no rules, traditions of usage or historical origins to give them any validity or experience.

In Greece and Italy, the early retirement age is 57. From what I read in the newspapers, people in those two European countries want to retire even earlier. I guess that will work as long as there are enough people who will work to support them.

I don’t understand the need to retire early. I think it is more of an indicator of someone working at a job they don’t like. Perhaps what they need is a different job instead.

Plenty of people have worked in their advanced years. Billy Graham is still active and he’s 93. Grandma Moses started painting when she was 78. Ronald Reagan was in his 70’s when he was president. Moses was 40years old when he led the Israelites out of Egypt, but it wasn’t until he was 80 that God gave him the Ten Commandments. I guess God wanted to wait until Moses got old enough to handle such a big responsibility.

My own grandfather worked in a lumber yard until he was 85. He took the job after he moved to town from the farm. I guess he wanted to “slow down”. When I was 16 we unloaded a railroad car together. I had trouble keeping up with him, as he hadn’t “slowed down” yet.

Some people retire so they can take it easy. Some just want to fish or play golf everyday. I don’t have anything against these things, I just don’t like to do them. I think it would get kind of boring after a while. A person needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Something tells me that Andy Rooney had his reason.

Thanks for not retiring early Mr. Rooney. But could we have just a few more minutes? Please Andy.