Me, Retire?

By Grant Emrick

“What will I do with myself?” I asked my wife, Lynn. By now I was almost 75 years old and retirement discussions were becoming more frequent. Lynn had retired and she wanted me to retire so that we could spend our “golden years” together. She was planning a 75th birthday party and decided to call it a retirement party from my 50 years in accounting. If I had enjoyed a retirement party I would be too embarrassed to start working again.

Lynn was quite willing to stop working and indulge her passion for doing crafts, knitting, and volunteering. I, on the other hand, never had the desire to chase a little ball around an open field or try to outwit the creatures swimming around in lakes, creeks, or oceans. I had not developed any hobbies or other outside interests at all.

It wasn’t as if I were a stranger to retiring. I had already retired twice, first moving to Arizona to be near my youngest son. After a couple of months of inactivity, I was itching to “unretire” when an opportunity came to go to Haiti for a year to work on the financial records of an American-supported hospital. Lynn reluctantly agreed to go. (When the year a was up, she admitted that while she went “kicking and screaming,” it had been the best experience of her life.)

While in Haiti we decided that we didn’t want to return to Arizona nor move near any of our four sons for fear of being accused of favoritism. Thinking of places we had lived, we finally decided that Winston-Salem was the place we were the happiest. We liked the four seasons, not too harsh winters and especially the beautiful countryside in the springtime.

This was to be my second retirement. Lynn soon settled into a job she loved, working as a nanny for two young boys whose mother was a resident at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. I did find temp assignments and soon was in such demand I had to request time off between assignments. After a couple of years, I was asked to take a position that would lead to a permanent job. A big plus in this job was permanent health insurance, since Lynn was not yet covered by Medicare and had no coverage through her employer. This permanent position lasted six years, followed by nine months as a consultant before I was ready to retire again.

I wanted to see the United States. Lynn wanted to visit our four sons in Massachusetts, California, Arizona, and Huntersville (NC). Our decision was to sell our home and purchase a motor home. We would be like turtles, carrying our home on our back. It seemed ideal. We could arrange to be at one of our sons’ homes for holidays, birthdays, etc., and, most importantly, I would be busy with all things RV and travel so I wouldn’t miss working at all.

Bear in mind that I am not mechanical in the least. Living this new traveling life would require that I perform multiple mechanical functions at every stop. The electricity, water supply and sewage lines would have to be hooked up on arrival at a camp-site and unhooked upon departure. Also, the natural gas tank would have to be kept full and sewage tanks monitored and emptied frequently. The biggest job would be to hook our car to the motor home at departure and then unhook it upon arrival. At each campsite I would have to unhitch the car and maneuver the motor home into an assigned site, positioning it so that the electrical, water and sewage connections could be made.

Could I manage this? I calmly assured Lynn that I was up to these challenges. Secretly though I had my doubts but put them out of my mind and moved forward intrepidly.

We had known others who had done this and thought they were crazy. However, when we began to consider just how we could accomplish our retirement dreams, the idea didn’t seem nearly so absurd. While no one expressed it directly, surely some of our friends and family must have thought that we had slipped a cog. Why would anyone give up a comfortable life in retirement to live in a tiny motor home, spending a lot of time on the road in who knows what kind of weather. Were we crazy? Or, as our daughter-in-law asked. “R V crazy?”

We had made our decision. Now all we had to do was find the perfect vehicle. Using the internet, we found one in Rock Hill, SC, and it was love at first sight. We had it inspected, made an offer and became the proud owners of a nice, gently used motor home. Our first jolt of reality came when we filled the gas tank (55 gallons) at $3.30 per gallon, but we plunged forward, eagerly awaiting the time when we could hit the road for real.

Our friends, John and Mary (names changed to protect their identity), offered to go with us to show us how to do things. We picked Savannah as a destination while saluting their courage for volunteering to “chaperone” our first trip.

We arrived in Savannah; nothing really happened until we were ready to leave. I managed to unhook the electricity and water and was ready to unhook the two sewer lines. John suggested draining the “blackwater” tank (the nasty stuff) first and then the “graywater” tank which would rinse the hose somewhat.

I did this without incident, then noticed there was a water hose connection to flush the “blackwater” tank. This sounded like a good idea so I hooked it up and waited for it to come out the drain hose. Nothing happened until Lynn and Mary came out screaming. The water was running out of the sink, onto the floor, towards the door. After some discussion, we moved the drain hose to the “graywater” tank, the excess water drained out and we didn’t have too big of a mess to clean up in the vehicle.

(We later learned that the “graywater” and “blackwater” drain labels were reversed. With this incident indelibly burned into memory, I never made that mistake again.)

My next rookie mistake was deciding to close the slides while I was inside. I pushed the button and immediately heard a terrible crunching sound. I went outside to assess the damage. In my haste I had failed to close the storage door over the compartment housing the hook-ups. The door caught the molding of the slide and pushed it out. John came to my rescue and helped secure the molding so it wouldn’t come loose on the trip home. Despite these two incidents, I considered the trip a success.

We soloed on our next trip…to a campground in South Carolina with no untoward incident. We took two more trips with only minor mishaps. (I learned to make sure the gas line to the heat was on and I learned how to light the oven.)

With four trips under our belts, we were ready to hit the road, riding the highways without a care, enjoying the beautiful scenery throughout the USA and spending precious time with our far flung family. Our retirement was set.

(To be continued in the summer issue of The Retirement Resource Guide.)
Part 2:  Life on the Road