Front Porch: He’s not the retiring sort

My husband needed a job.

You know how some (if not most) people look forward to retirement with eager anticipation, especially if they’ve saved or invested or have enough resources for retirement to be at least reasonably comfortable?

All of our friends are retired now, many of whom counted the days (for decades) until they could stop working. Some managed it so they could do so early. Some have now been doing vigorous volunteering or a little part-time work here and there. Or traveled, participated much more actively in their grandchildren’s lives, spent extended time with family as well as friends and engaged in hobbies they hadn’t had time for previously.

My husband Bruce is not one of those people. This is a man who hoped to work until he dropped in his tracks. I fully anticipated that I’d get a call one day from one of his customers (or a paramedic) that he was found lifeless on the ground with work tools in his hands … and, I fully expected, a smile on his face.

His first job was in third grade in the 1950s when he sold newspapers in the barracks at Fort Richardson in Anchorage. Still underage (it was pre-statehood Alaska, after all), he then worked after school at a gas station. Indeed, the man he worked for would later serve as his best man when Bruce and I married.

He also found time to participate in sports while growing up – skiing, sled dog racing and high school football. When you’re young you can do everything all the time. Sigh.

Back in the 1960s, when we were dating, Uncle Sam grabbed him up and placed him at Fairchild Air Force Base while I remained at the University of Florida working on my baccalaureate degree. When we married and I joined him in Spokane, he’d pick up part-time work to supplement his military pay.

Bruce was always a worker and a saver. His newspaper money went into a coffee can, which, when full, went into a bank account his parents opened for him. As Bruce has said, he never made big money at any one job, but all his life, he earned enough at a variety of things so that the nest egg grew and that a home could be purchased, children could be educated and retirement should work out.

That was back in the day when hard work and sensible spending made it possible to get to the middle class, and stay there. Things have changed – but that’s a subject for another time.

And it’s not like Bruce didn’t have fun along the way. He (and later, we) skied, sailed, camped, vacationed at Disneyland (once children arrived) and at the ocean, took car trips to places we wanted to see, and partook of theater, sports events, concerts and other things we liked to do (at a budget-appropriate level).

Beyond the need for providing for the necessities of life, work is just something Bruce likes to do. He really doesn’t know how not to work. As he got older, the thought of a life without actual employment (also known as … retirement) gave him the heebie-jeebies.

And so, when his genetically bad back started barking loudly and painfully in recent years, he began what we called a slow-rolling retirement – cutting back on the really heavy stuff, turning away certain spine-unfriendly jobs and limiting ladder work – until he officially retired at the end of 2025. At age 82.

Bruce is not a hobby guy. Skiing and sailing are no longer safe. He has a small circle of men friends, but, frankly, most of them have adult children in the area, and are involved in activities with them and with grandchildren or even great-grandchildren. Their social time is limited.

Plus, we all have to marshal and prioritize what we spend our energy on. Once again, sigh.

Our sons live elsewhere (though we visit back and forth as often as we can), and there are no grandchildren. Bruce has been a little lost without his job, without his customers, without the purpose that work gave him.

But then, when we realized that our house may not be the ideal age-in-place location (hilly, stairs, not a walkable neighborhood), we had our eureka moment. We hope we can stay here until our time is up, but as we began to consider other possibilities, it became obvious that either we or our sons would eventually have to sell the house. I know … duh!

And in looking around, we realized there are things that should be done to prepare it for eventual sale, some high-level sprucing up mostly. Not going to modernize it. If you don’t like a 1970s kitchen, this isn’t the house for you. However, there is now a new-purpose to-do list to be addressed.

And I’ve got just the guy for that.

Bruce is currently rebuilding our deck. One 2x4 at a time. With new knee pads in place, he works pretty much every day for 15 minutes, sits for 5 minutes, works for 15, and so on. Once boards are replaced, there’s finishing to come. It’s going to take a long time. But this is a job in which he can set his own hours as his back allows, and take whatever time he needs to complete the work.

There’s a lower deck to inspect and repair. Minor siding repair and painting. And a list of outdoor (spring, summer, fall) and indoor fixes and little upgrades (winter) that will keep him employed for some time.

The man needed a purposeful job. He retired his way into a new one. And he’s happy again.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net.