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Home My WebLink AboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1983-01-12, Page 19iiisummemeaviow People keep on asking me, "But what will you do when you retire?" It's always asked in the same, rather petulant way, suggesting that I will immediately be- come senile, die of sheer Bill Smiley A Retiring, Writer boredom, or succumb in- stantly to some unknown disease. These ideas are gross canards, implanted in people whose retirement is far in &he future, often by Jewish writers who have an over- whelming sense of guilt because they put their old man in a nursing home when he interfered with their life- , style. They didn't dare try to put their mothers- away. In the first place, it's none of their business. Maybe grow a beard, get drunk for three months, take a 20 -year- old mistress, never wear a tie agaip, and write dirty poetry. Maybe I'll turn into a clay - footed pillar of the com- munity, serving on commit- tees, running raffles, .trying to teach young hoods that a, past participle is more im- portant than a past bank, holdup, and attempting to beat the toughest game in town — Death. Maybe I'll cultivate my own garden, as Voltaire sug- ' gesfed. Perhaps I'll do all the things my mother tried (tried is the key word) to prevent me from doing: swimming on Sunday, hang- ing around the poolroom, drinking anything but tea (she had a few drunken uncles) . Maybe I'll kick up my heels entirely: go around barefoot; use a lot of four-let- ter words; never change my underwear; leave my wife in pitiable financial circum- stances; buy a raincoat and go flashing in the park. Before you call in the Mounties, take a deep breath. I'm not likely to do any of those things, or only a few. It happens in novels, but not often in real life. I'll probably just go on being Bill Smiley: confused, angry, happy, lazy, hopeful, pesim- istic, sweet, sour, greedy, generous, stupid about some things, bright about others, a good grandfather, a lousy husband, a so-so father, an illiterate scholar, an ob- server of the trivial — you name it; I've got it. The possibilities of retire- ment, of course, are bound- less, and fascinating. My wife is scared stiff, because I'm difficult enough to dom- inate on weekends, let alone the forever that is retire- ment. On the very rare occasions' when we exchange heated words (three or four times a week). 1 have the trump card. I merely say, "O.K. You take your blank house and your blank car and your blank blank bank account, (that requires a careful tongue) and I'll take my pension and move into a Sale ends Saturday, January 15th, 1983. We reserve the right to limit quantities. Crossroads—Jan. 12, 1983—Page 7 boarding house." That usually makes her trot out into the kitchen and start making a pumpkin pie or something. She knows the boarding-house is right across the street, and all I'd have to do is pack a bag and my typewriter, and there I'd be, fifty yards away, watch- ing as she sank into genteel poverty, unable to pay the gas bill, the taxes, the plum- bers and electricians and TV repairmen and all the other ghouls who haunt us. But 1 think she's planning counter-measures. It's a ' bit like the 13ussian KGB and the U.S. CIA. We respect each other, but we plot. She's been buying tools hand over fist, and can repair pracitic- ally everything 'except her husband. She's talking about taking some music pupils again (a secret source~of in- come?) Well, to get back to retir- ing. When I look across the street at my neighbor, cut- ting grass or shovelling snow, or patching his roof, I don't worry about dropping dead threee weeks after I re- tire. He quit teaching about 20 years ago and could prob- ably wrestle me to the ground with both hands tied behind his back. Another neighbor climbs high ladders and fixes things while I cower at the foot, holding the ladder. He's re- tired. Another plays golf while I sit on the back lawn, contemplating the birds and my arthritic foot. He's re- tired. Another retired teach- er, two blocks away, skis in the Alps for four months in the winter while I plod through the snow to teach, for the 22nd time, that • Macbeth would have been a pretty decent sort if his wife hadn't been so greedy. And, of course, what it all boils down to is that I'm not even retiring, which con- founds mine enemies and friends alike. I am merely ceasing the teaching of school. When the war ended, I re- tired from being a fighter pilot. When I'd had enough, I retired from the weekly newspaper business. Now that I've had a bellyful of teaching, and all the trivia that goes with it, I am not re- tiring, but beginning' a new career. I plan to write. Not letters, which I never seem able to get around to. Not Harlequin romances, though I think I could rattle off some good ones, if my sense of humor didn't get in the way. 'Mot great fiction, dealing With little people re -discovering great truths, sprinkled with symbolism and sensitivity. Not penetrating poetry, though I can rattle off a pret- ty dang good poem, on order. No. None of that detriva- tive stuff for me.I'm going to write the messages on greet- ing cards. I hear there's good money in it, and any idiot could improve on what is now offered. The difference is that mine will be person- alized. And they will be twenty bucks a throw. How about this for a sym- pathy card, on the death of a loved one? Sorry, I couldn't be with you when I knew you had a special yen For more hi-jinks with good old Dave With Abner cooling in the grave. 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