PENSIONS

       I have a neighbor who lives about 5 houses from me. She has lived in the house since she was about 5. Her parents passed away many years ago. I taught B in middle school and she's been my neighbor for 60 years.

      I often visit with B. Every once in a while the R word comes up. Today I jokingly brought up retirement. So she told me she's 64 and will retire at 65. 

    People who work for government or large corporations have pensions. Usually around 10% is taken from your salary to pay for your pension. You usually contribute to cover your benefit plan. 

     What I found out is that she knew nothing about retirement and how it works. 

     A big part of pension is the benefit plan. The benefit plan looks after us when we're working. So the benefit plan covers things like :teeth, eye sight, physio therapy, drugs, hearing, travel insurance and more.

    When you retire make sure you take the benefit plan with you. You still have to pay for the benefit plan but that's much less than paying 100% of you treatment. . Some people opt out of the benefit plan and that's a big mistake.

   There's much more to know when retiring. Make sure you get reliable advice. 

   I've been retired for 28 years so I know that I've had many benefits and it's given me a good life. 

NUMBERS

      Yesterday morning's local paper had an item about the school I taught in here. They had received an award for a special program they had participated in.

     This item started numbers running through my head. I taught in the school for 28 years. It was a very good school as the district was supportive of education and most kids came to school with the right attitude. Over the years we had 400 to 550 students. Sometimes we were a very good school and other times not. It depended on stars to align like administration, students, teachers and program. 

    I had no intention of staying in one school that long. I applied for transfers but didn't get anything nearly as good as what I had. So 28 years rolled by before I knew it.

    The next number was 26. That's the number of years I've been retired. My retirement time is almost as long as the time I taught in the school.

    The next number is37. That's the number of years I taught. 

    So the numbers have rolled along very quickly.

    I enjoyed my teaching time. Who would have a sad  time in retirement. If things go a little faster, my retirement will be as long as my teaching time. 

                                The beginning

                        First  class 1958

Towards the end

TIME GOES FASTER THAN I DO.

    On Friday I met a young guy who I hadn't seen for a long time. Well, I should go back and edit my last sentence. He really wasn't a young guy anymore. He floored me by telling me that he would retire from teaching in two years!

    In my teacher years, did I tell you I've been retired for 22 years? , I was a department head for the last 10 years. I was a department head in three different areas. I enjoyed being department head as we were able to work as a group and set  up a standard program in an area. It's much more efficient to work as a group.

    One of the things I got to do from time to time is be part of a committee that interviewed teachers applying for a position. Somebody would go through all the applications for a job and pick out three that we would interview. 

    So here's where I first met "young man." He was one of the three picked for an interview. One applicant was in his 40's and had taught in a rural area. One standard question was how would you teach this lesson? The guy missed it completely. The second applicant was a woman in her 30's who was working on a master's program. We thought she was just looking for a short term position. The kid was 21 and applying for his first job. He nailed the lesson. After the interviews and we were going over things we decided to take the kid. Give him a chance. If he didn't turn out we could let him go as it was a contract but we wanted to take a good look at someone for a permanent contract and this was a chance for us and him. 

    Well, that was 1992. Obviously we kept him. Obviously he could teach. I liked watching him teach as he would involve the kids in the procedure. No just sitting there in a day dream for those kids. They had to participate.

    So the other day when I met "him" I was surprised that for him  retirement was right around the corner.

   Time had really gone by me on this one.

Perspectives

      I was in a classroom teaching before my 19th birthday. I remember very clearly being in a teacher seminar when they were discussing retirement and what the requirements were for full retirement. 

      Now an 18 year old is not going to be able to get his head around retirement. Apparently they were showing teachers a formula that would give them the time when they could retire on full pension. I remember the numbers I got when I used the formula. It was 1958 and I would qualify for full retirement in 1995. Now for an 18 year old kid  in 1958 , 1995 was an impossibly long way off. It was something I could not wrap my head around. I was too busy having fun at the moment.

     Well, time moved on. In fact, time moved on very quickly and 1995 did occur. As time was moving on I seldom thought about retirement. I was too busy. The teaching load was heavy. I was involved with professional development for teachers. I went to every conference I could find. I even went to a conference in Washington D.C. in 1992.

    I did not qualify for full retirement in 1995 but finally retired in 1997. 

    Now time really flies! I've been retired for 19 years. Looking back to the start of retirement seems like yesterday. Looking back to when I was 18 seems like an unbelievably long time ago. It was. It was a very different time. 

     Who could have imagined that when I retired the world would be so much different. Technology changed things. The economy changed our economic status. I taught through the best of times as far as the economy was concerned. 

     I've been fortunate to have a pension and to have defined benefits. What did I know about this as an 18 year old? 

     I  wish that 18 year olds today could look ahead and see the same opportunities that I had.

    So perspectives give one a different point of view.

    Here I am as an 18 year old with my first class. 

    Here I am in the summer of 2016 ...58 years apart.

My Limited Perception of Future

    I finished high school in 1957. I'm planning to write a letter to my classmates(all five of them.) I wrote them in 2007 which was fifty years after we finished. I was impressed with the feed back I got from them and they were amazed to hear from me. Our teacher and one class mate have died as well as two spouses. It just feels like a good time to write them again.

   One of the parts in my letter will be about us being young and our perception of our future. How did we ever get so old?

   It got me thinking about my limited ability to see the future.

   In 1957 did we see computers? Modern technology? Modern transportation? 

    In 1957 I was 17 years old. I could not envision being 21 years old. In fact I had trouble seeing the next week in my mind. I had trouble seeing what I wanted to do with my life . I just accidentally fell into teaching. I had no concept of settling down, being married or having a family. I couldn't dream of being 30! In one teacher inservice the topic must have been pensions. I remember being told certain figures and calculated that I could retire in 1995?  This was in 1958 ! 1995 seemed like forever. 

    So I have to stop and think about our perception of the future. I'll admit that mine's not very good. I can't seem to remotely visualize what the future will look like.   Now I'm sitting here and trying to think about being 80 if I make it. What changes will occur in the world in the next few years? What changes will happen to me by the time I reach 80? 

    In my head I feel myself as no different from 1957 when I was 17. Life goes on. We have experiences. We change. ..sometimes more than we think. I am and have been happy. Maybe that's why I didn't think too much about the future.

    I think I'm going to have fun writing another letter to my classmates!

    At this age I don't think I will ever get the hang of seeing the future. I'd have made a very poor fortune teller!

How Our Muscles Age

        I read many excellent posts on aging. Topics covered are health, elder care and the  loss of parents, siblings, children and friends. Volunteering to assist elderly people is another large issue that many people are involved in. People become acutely aware of their aging and begin to think of their own end. People look in the obituaries and start to see that many of the people who die are younger than they are. 


       But there's another  factor I would like to look at. That is the process that gradually happens to our muscles. As we age we become weaker and this brings about difficulties in mobility and participating in daily activities.


      Today I listened to a radio documentary on a 92 year old woman who trains and  competes in all track and field  events. She holds world records in her age category in all track and field events except one. If I considered doing long jump my body would be jarred so severely that I may not be able to move again. This 92 year old trains four or five days a week and travels all over North America to compete. She is compared to someone who would be twenty years younger than her.


      Scientists are interested in this woman to see if there is a gene that allows her to  be so strong at this age. They want to know why she is so very strong while others that age are very weak.


     At about age 75 we lose a large percentage of our strength. Muscles are composed of  particles which are like  "trees". These particles are beside each other head to head and mesh with each other. This is what the process of stretching involves. We stretch the little particles to bring about better use of the whole muscle.  As we age the "trees" move further apart. In our seventies the "trees" are actually beside each other and do not mesh. From this point on the "trees" move further apart and we steadily lose strength. Scientists know that his process happens but they don't know much else.


     So that is why scientists are interested in the ninety two year old who competes in track. They want to know if there is a certain type of gene she has that the rest of us don't have that allows her this extraordinary strength. 


     If they find something, it's already too late for me. Getting up from the floor now takes me great  effort!

Time Flies

        Yesterday I read a fine  post on how the last ten years for the writer have flown by, yet they have been the most important in his life. I find the passage of time to be more than just interesting. Why does time seem to pass by so rapidly?


        Today is my brother and sister-in-laws 49th wedding anniversary. It only seems like yesterday that we were young people standing at the front of the church for their wedding. What an awful lot has happened since then. They have become great grandparents. What a milestone!


       I retired in 1997. It was an important date in my life as my lifestyle was to change dramatically. I've thoroughly enjoyed my retirement, but it has gone by rapidly.


      Last year I celebrated my 70th birthday. It seemed like a more important birthday than many others. I still feel as if I am the same person I was at say age twenty! At least in my head I still feel like the same person. My body won't let me think that I am still twenty. I enjoy life and have lots of interesting things to do and interesting people to associate with.


     There is  a mathematical reason for feeling that time races by us. When I was five  a year seemed to be forever. When I was eighteen a year seemed like a long time . Ted is 40. One year in his life is 2.5 % of his total life. Ted's son is ten. One year in his son's life is 10% of his son's life. So mathematically the ratios are different so the old person experiences a yea of life as a smaller proportion of his life. Now i know I've lost some people and their eyes have completely glazed over. Future shock explained this to me many years ago and I've  never forgotten it.

      So for Ted and his son and everybody else this is why time seems to fly and I hate to tell you that it will speed up as we age. I hope that all people enjoy life as it passes rather than let life pass them by.