tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265400123510642917.post3678262404277109364..comments2023-06-07T09:11:33.288-06:00Comments on Old Salt - New Tack: Extending Our Stay on the Planet - Part 2 Adaptability and GoalsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06546840413431176072noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265400123510642917.post-19640794819607044142007-04-14T07:35:00.000-06:002007-04-14T07:35:00.000-06:00I think both you and Deepak are right. I am lookin...I think both you and Deepak are right. I am looking forward to the birth of my second grandchild next month and as soon as school gets out I am going to St. Louis to visit him (and my daughter, her husband, and my granddaughter). I love teaching at the college level and I won’t have to face any mandatory retirement age. I enjoy writing and researching (I have a book chapter coming out next fall) and have more of that to look forward to.<BR/><BR/>I look to my paternal grandfather as an example of a productive old age. He passed at 98 and was always active and had things to do and look forward to. He was a cabinet maker by trade and when the depression came along and he was out of work, he turned part of the house into a hat shop for grandmother and another part into a neighborhood grocery store. He told me he never really had any money until he opened that grocery store. In his 80s he retired from the grocery business and turned it into a woodworking shop. He prowled the allies in his neighborhood and dragged home furniture to repair, refinish, and then give away.<BR/><BR/>I went through the El Niño floods in Southern California and ultimately lost everything, two businesses and our home. Nineteen families were similarly affected in my neighborhood. When I was still fighting to save our property, and our equity, I got up every morning and went from the accommodations provided by the Red Cross or the rental across the street from our property at day break and shoveled mud (we had four feet of mud and water in our home and our businesses on four separate occasions). At noon I stopped for lunch, at dinnertime I ate again and usually well after dark I went to our temporary home and slept. I repeated this for weeks. One of my neighbors later told that I was an inspiration to her. I said I didn’t feel like an inspiration, I was just doing what was right in front of me at the time. She said seeing me diligently working kept her going.<BR/><BR/>We could have survived 2 or even 3 floods, but four was too much so we started a new life, this time in a classroom in a new state. I had positive expectations and wasn’t disappointed. I love it and have never regretted the change in my life. The El Niño floods were just a bump in the road.<BR/><BR/>ProfBush<BR/>http://profbush.blogspot.comJoelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03804512134504205506noreply@blogger.com