Retirement beckons each of us, promising golden days of golf or travel or visiting grandchildren. But will leisure pursuits be enough to occupy baby boomers who’ve prided themselves on how many balls they can keep in the air? Maybe you need a rest, but do you want to rest for all your remaining years?
Knoxville leadership coach Sharon Hoover was in a restaurant in Italy recently when she struck up a conversation with a couple sitting nearby. “What are you planning to do today?” Hoover asked them. The husband explained that they’d rented a car and were planning to just drive “and have a hundred wonderful adventures” along the way. “Or have a hundred fights,” the wife chimed in.
Yosemite. Check. Yellowstone. Check. Rocky Mountain National Park. Eugene O’Neill’s home. Pinnacles National Monument. Check, check, and check. Hunter and Sylvia Wright have set a goal to visit every U.S. national park and monument, and they’ve already made a good dent in the list.
Ron Frieson toasted retirement, not with a glass of wine, but with an entire wine store—his own. Frieson (Knoxville ’81) took early retirement from his position as president of BellSouth Operations in Georgia, and he and his wife opened WineStyles Cascade in southwest Atlanta last fall.
Many people say they want to travel when they retire. Globe-trotter Ginny Thigpen says, “Do it today.” This retired college professor from Gallatin, Tennessee, has visited six of the seven continents and has Antarctica on her schedule for ’08 or ’09.
How many people dream of following their passion—doing the work they’ve always longed to do? Tish Lowe (Knoxville ’75, ’78) did just that when she moved to Florence, Italy, in 2003 to study painting. Lowe formerly worked for International Finance Corporation, which has a mandatory retirement age of 62.
The UT National Alumni Association gets alumni together for Homecoming, pep rallies, and chapter meetings—you knew that, right? Do you know what else we do? We do some pretty neat stuff, and we’re adding new services all the time.
Jack McConnell doesn’t have anything against golf; he’s played a few rounds in his day. But it takes too much time, the “retired” physician and healthcare activist says—time he could spend helping a sick neighbor or planning a clinic to provide free healthcare in Kenya.
Investing your money can be about as serious as a heart attack. Unfortunately, not every investment is a wise one. Think of the impulsive trader who buys on the basis of a hot tip, regardless of whether the bulls are raging or the bears are hunkered down.
A book about butterflies, solving the mystery of The Big Bopper’s death, a fat camp for pets, and other stories in this issue’s installment of UTopics.
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