Guest post by Jerry Solomon

Today’s sports section was a button-pusher for me. It contained an article, which quoted Bear Bryant, noted former coach of The Alabama Tide football program. His shallow perspective offered that “there is only one major event after retirement….one’s funeral”.

I find this wrong for me and my life hereafter. The difference is that I retired TO, not FROM. My working years do not adequately define my persona. There is so much more of me to discover than materialism and validation by others.

Retirement offers me and many of the retirees I know the challenge to explore, with a long list of criterion, our essential being. Our direction is to engage in every opportunity to develop and expand….Mind, Body and Spirit.

Senior citizens read more materials than bulletins, sales catalogs, and order forms. Our learning takes us from science to history to computer studies and even teaching courses. For example, the world of photography has entranced my being, sharpening how I view the physical world.

Time provides us seniors with the opportunity to exercise, to enhance our health and self-image. Exercise is a dividend which enables us to enter into social encounters without the need to sell or purchase from these experiences.

The spiritual realm is very personal. As I and my fellow retirees have unanswered questions, so we attend interactive workshops regularly. Many of us are seeking a different realm of comprehension of whether there is Divinity and what it means to accept a Higher Power. There may not be precise answers for some who doubt, but I personally keep probing and occasionally arrive at an acceptable personal understanding. Weekly volunteering at a local Medical Center has shown me that I truly care, even for strangers.

I do not judge my peers, who are comfortable with remote controls in their hands. However, I do smirk when I learn of a “silver head” that becomes ecstatic when discovering that Walgreens has changed their end of counter displays from two days before. How shallow!

Our external hearing has diminished, but our inner receptors receive regularly the Peggy Lee song “Is That All There Is?”

Yes, we keep dancing, improving our familiar routines and picking up a few new steps along our way.

Bear: You were fantastic as a teacher to the young, impressionable athletes. Your later, self-defeating philosophy was that of one who resigned from life, rather than a person who retired from a successful career. How sad, to give up the game when it went into overtime. I grade you INCOMPLETE and relegate you to the bench.