Tag Archives: retirement

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 50

I am absolutely certain that a number of you are concerned about Toby the Puppy’s adjustment to his new home.

The three of us — my wife, Toby and yours truly — have moved to Fairview, Texas. My wife and I spent more than two decades in the Texas Panhandle. Toby’s time there? All four years of his life on Earth.

How’s he doing? Better than I am, to be candid.

Our puppy is the most adaptable creature God ever produced. Nothing — not a single thing — bothers him as long as he is within earshot and eyesight of his mother and me. I kid you not!

He hasn’t lost a single night of sleep. He hasn’t missed a meal. He continues to insist we dote on him constantly, which my wife and I are more than willing, let alone able, to do.

Here might be the coolest part yet: Our move puts us closer to our granddaughter and to her puppy, a hulking black Lab named Madden — who happens to be one of Toby’s best friends.

Emma is so very loving with Toby; she’s gentle and she is acutely aware of how to approach him. As for our puppy, he loves little Emma — a lot!

And Madden, aka “Mad Dog”? Toby cannot wait to see him every time we approach our son and daughter-in-law’s house in Allen. He pulls on his leash, quick-stepping his way to the front door, as if he’s saying, “Let me at him!”

Our move now enables Toby the Puppy and his BFF, Madden/Mad Dog, to spend more quality time together running at dead sprints across Madden’s back yard.

This retirement journey on which my wife and I have launched doesn’t just involve our lives. We have Toby the Puppy to consider, too.

I am happy to report here and now that our puppy is doing just fine.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 104: Half in, half out

2 Comments

I am at this moment in the midst of a curious emotional state.

My wife and I have taken up residence in Fairview, Texas, which is tucked neatly between Allen and McKinney, or just about a 30-minute drive north of Dallas.

It’s not entirely that simple. Nor have we completed the move entirely.

Our other “home” is our fifth wheel recreational vehicle, which at this moment is parked in an RV park in Amarillo, the city of our residence for the past 23 years.

We’re in. We’re out. We’re back and forth.

I tell friends in the Texas Panhandle that we have moved. I say so with absolute confidence and, to be candid, supreme pleasure. We had planned for years for the move; or, more to the point, we started planning the moment we learned that our granddaughter was on her way into this world. Our son and daughter-in-law live in Allen, so the deal was done when they told us of their pregnancy.

The RV has served as our home since October, when we vacated the house we built in December 1996. It’s our Panhandle home to this day. Our Fairview home is still a work in progress. You see, we are still trying to stuff many of the contents of our house into our new, and considerably smaller, dwelling in North Texas.

What’s more, we have decided where we’re going to store our RV when we’re no longer living in it. That transition will occur in about three weeks.

I have complete faith that we’ll succeed in this endeavor. The new place will be comfortable. We are looking forward to calling it our full-time residence. At this time, though, we remain tied to our former community as well as to the current one.

Family matters will keep us attached to Amarillo for the foreseeable future. Eventually, we intend fully to make the turn toward Fairview.

I guess you could call this the “long goodbye.”

local news

Happy Trails, Part 103

1 Comment

A word to the wise if you’re intending to “downsize” while you ponder moving from one dwelling to another: Make damn sure to commit to it and be sure you get rid of everything you don’t want/need before you make the move.

We are settling in to our new digs in Fairview. My wife — the boss of this operation — has discovered that “We didn’t downsize nearly enough.”

The house we sold is roughly twice the size of the “luxury apartment” we now call “home.” We sought to rid ourselves of much of the major items we had accumulated over many years of marriage; it’s 46 years, in case you’re interested. Yes, over time any normal couple can collect a lot of, um, things. We are pretty normal, so there you have it.

We didn’t do all we needed to do to get ready for this big step.

But there is light out there. It’s in the distance. I can see it shining a bit more brightly today than I could just a day or two ago.

My bride is hard at work finding places for most of the items we brought with us. I found the nearest Salvation Army site; it’s just up the road in McKinney. We now plan to become the Army’s next major deliverer of unwanted, unneeded goods. We have a lot of them!

Yes, this retirement journey on which we set forth a few years ago has been relatively hassle-free. It remains so even as we unpack items and store them in our new digs.

Wish us well, please.

local news

Let’s make every day a Sunday

I have come up with a fantasy I know will never be achieved, but I need to express it anyway.

Is there a way to make every day a Sunday? I guess when you’re retired, as my wife and I are these days, every day is a weekend of sorts. We lose track of time occasionally.

What day is it? Is it really Thursday? Gosh, it feels like a Saturday.

We’re getting acquainted with our new surroundings in Fairview, Texas. This morning, we awoke and then headed out for a Mother’s Day breakfast and a little shopping at the grocery store.

We took our Prius to a busy east-west thoroughfare and noticed that there was nobody on it. We made the turn west to U.S. Highway 75, then turned south.

No one was on the freeway, or on the frontage road, either.

We pulled in to the restaurant. We ate our meal. Then we drove the store that was just a few hundred yards away.

No one in the store!

Sunday morning is the time to do whatever it is you want to do, providing the businesses you need are open at the moment.

And with the legendary traffic snarls that occur in the region just north of Dallas, we enjoyed the morning of our first full day in our new digs just fine, thank you very much.

Why can’t every day be so quiet and peaceful?

Monday awaits. Oh, boy!

local news

Happy Trails, Part 102

FAIRVIEW, Texas — We have done it. Our task is far from complete, but we have executed successfully the next major phase of our retirement strategy.

We have relocated — although not yet completely — to Collin County, just a bit north Dallas, within a short drive to our granddaughter’s house.

Don’t break out the bubbly just yet. We have some work to do.

You’ve heard the saying about trying to shovel “10 pounds of stuff into a five-pound bag.” C’mon, you’ve heard it, except that the version we’ve said uses a profane noun in place of “stuff.”

That is the task facing my wife and me.

We vacated our southwest Amarillo house this past fall. We moved into our fifth wheel recreational vehicle; where until yesterday morning we were living full time. We’re not living full time in the RV any longer. Actually we aren’t yet living full time anywhere at the moment. We’re still in a state of transition, shuttling back forth: RV to new digs; back to the RV; back to the new digs. This will go on for a little while as we sort through some family matters as well as look for a place to store our RV when we’re not hauling it hither and yon across our vast continent.

I’m generally a glass-is-half-full kind of guy. Here’s how I look at this move we’ve just made. Yes, we moved from a house into an apartment; the apartment comprises roughly half the square footage of our house, but the apartment is about three times more spaceious than our RV.

Thus, I will fixate on the latter comparison as my wife and I try to figure out where to put all these possessions the mover delivered bright and early today.

Here’s a final word to the wise: If you’re going to downsize, be sure you commit to doing it thoroughly.  My bride and I are kicking ourselves that we didn’t sell more than we did when we prepared to move out of our house.

Blogger’s Note: I won’t be providing a Fairview dateline on future blog posts from our new home base. It will be evident where we’re located when I comment on local happenings and issues. I just need to get up to speed … in due course.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 101

We’re getting into a sort of countdown mode as we prepare for the next big challenge in our life.

There’s some sort of saying about how you put Amarillo “in your rear view mirror.”

That ain’t gonna happen as we head on down the road toward the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Yes, our big day is just hours away as we execute our relocation strategy, but the Internet is going to keep me connected to Amarillo — where we have lived for 23 years — possibly for “the duration,” if you know what I mean.

I received several heartfelt goodbyes today from friends I have made over the years in the Texas Panhandle. My response to them is the same: We’ll be back; we aren’t gone forever, as we still have family in Amarillo. Yes, we also have family in Collin County, where we’ll declare official residency very soon now.

And our friends know with absolute certainty that a little 5-year-old girl, our granddaughter, is the reason we are making this big move in the first place.

However, that thing called “The Internet” keeps me connected to what’s happening in Amarillo. I’ve noted many times on this blog how delighted I am at the progress that’s occurring in Amarillo. I intend to keep my eyes focused on what I believe is a huge prize that awaits the residents of the city.

Thus, the goodbyes I’ve been getting seem to presume that we are walking away, turning the page, putting Amarillo in our book of memories. Not exactly.

It occurred to me not long ago that the longest stretch of time we spent anywhere was in our southwest Amarillo house we had built in 1996. It now belongs to someone else and my hope is that the new owner puts as much love into the place as my wife and I did.

So, our retirement journey is about to take another turn as we head on down the road.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 100

So many questions get tossed at us as we prepare for this next big phase in our life together.

We have let it be known that we intend to rent our next dwelling. We sold our house and then decided that we no longer want to be saddled with the responsibility of home ownership: no more yard care, no more home repairs, no more property taxes.

We are moving soon into a “luxury apartment” just north of Allen, Texas.

The question associated with this move? Are you going to move into one of those 55-and-older “retirement” communities?

My answer? Hah! You’ve got to be kidding! I might be an old man, but I don’t feel like one and I don’t want to hang around a bunch of old folks.

Yes, we looked at some of those “retirement communities” on our search for new digs in North Texas. We opted out of them. I was a bit turned off by the pitch from property managers that extolled all the “activities” available to residents: tours, shopping, shuffleboard. They pick up residents up and ferry them around to do things as a group.

Umm. No thanks.

We decided instead on a place that provides us easy access to entertainment, shopping and dining — that we can enjoy on our own time! What’s more, it’s only about 30 minutes from Dallas, 45 minutes from Fort Worth, and even closer to outdoor activities where we can haul our fifth wheel RV for a weekend outing.

Our retirement journey has taken us to this critical juncture in our life. We are preparing to vacate the “home” we’ve known for the past 23 years. We intend to forge new friendships, familiarize ourselves with new surroundings.

However, our retirement will not slow us down for a moment from our intention to travel throughout North America. We’ve seen a lot of it already, but there’s a lot more of it to enjoy.

Oh, yes. We also have a precious, adorable and beautiful granddaughter with whom we intend to share this new life.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 99

1 Comment

I get asked occasionally a question that challenges me to come up with a concise answer. One of them came today from a friend who asked: What does it feel like … to be in your particular place right now?

My friend was referring to my impending move from Amarillo to Fairview.

After thinking for a total of about, oh, three seconds, the concise answer came to me: I feel as though I am having an out-of-body experience.

Why? My wife and I have no particular intermediate- or long-term plans waiting to be executed once we make the move. We are free to do whatever we want, or not do something. The “body” I am looking at in this out-of-body state is my former self.

It’s the body that for decades carried me from one job to the next, or from one task to the next one.

The move that’s coming up in a few days will lead us to a life we haven’t yet charted out precisely. All we know for certain is that we have found a dwelling where we intend to stay. The immediate task awaiting us involves unpacking boxes and rediscovering possessions that have been stashed in a warehouse for the past seven months.

We’ve done this before. The most recent time occurred when we took possession of our newly built house in Amarillo; it was just before Christmas 1996 and it provided a joyous experience looking at possessions that had been stored away for nearly two years. That was a memorable Christmas, indeed.

After we unpack the boxes now? Beats me, man.

Therefore, our retirement journey is leading us to that proverbial fork in the road. As Yogi Berra once supposedly said, we plan to “take it” — wherever it leads.

Once we do, I suspect that’s when the out-of-body experience will end and I’ll be whole once again.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 98

I didn’t used to get annoyed or troubled by the Texas Panhandle wind.

Instead, I would joke that the wind was beneficial in at least one critical way: It kept the bugs away. No self-respecting fly, bee, wasp, hornet or dragonfly or gnat would dare try to fly in this wind.

However, I had the luxury of making that joke while living in a structure that was attached to a concrete slab.

That changed in October when my wife, Toby the Puppy and I moved full time into our fifth wheel. We vacated our southwest Amarillo house to prepare it for sale. We got the prep done and then sold it in early March.

Hot diggedy!

The Spring of 2018 — which followed an extraordinarily dry Winter of 2017-18 — has been windier than the dickens. It’s also annoying me in a way I didn’t anticipate.

Life in the RV has been good. We’re comfortable in our 28-footer. It’s cozy. But the damn wind howls and causes us to sway in a manner that I find bothersome.

Our RV is fastened and secure. I have no concern about the 30-mph wind picking us up and flying us to, oh, Kansas. I just dislike the wind in a way that I had not during our more than 23 years living in the Texas Panhandle.

The good news? We’re close to making a move into another land-tethered structure. We’ll move about 350 miles down the road to the Metroplex. Yes, it gets windy there, too.

Not like this.

Once we’re settled into our new digs, the wind we’ve been enduring seemingly forever will make me turn to our puppy and say, “Toby, we’re not in Amarillo anymore.”

local news

The blog isn’t going away

I feel the need to repeat this one more time.

I’ll type it slowly. So … read verrry carefully.

I intend to keep writing this blog until I no longer am able.

This restatement comes in the wake of some interesting responses to an earlier post that went out on High Plains Blogger. I wrote about the upcoming move my wife, Toby and Puppy and I are set to make to Fairview, Texas — a little village tucked neatly between Allen and McKinney, about 30 miles or so north of Dallas.

It’s in Collin County. It’s a bustling place, full of new things to do, places to see and explore.

Yes, the newness will be a joy to experience.

However, some things won’t change with the move from the Texas Panhandle to the Metroplex.

High Plains Blogger will remain alive and, hopefully, well. Some of the responses along my social media network come have asked whehter I’ll keep writing it.

Yes! A thousand times yes!

I don’t pretend to have an infinite wave of fans who hang on every word that comes from this blog. I have my share of critics and political foes. Many of them are actual friends, not just social media acquaintances who like to bitch at me.

One of the greatest joys of writing this blog is how many of my actual friends — those who disagree with my politics — remain my friends despite our world view differences.

The folks who have asked me whether I intend to keep writing the blog generally are those with whom I agree politically.

I intend to keep firing off these missives and musings for as long as I have most of my marbles. There are times when I’m a bit slow on the uptake, but I don’t think the butter has slipped off my noodle just yet.

I retired from full-time print journalism in August 2012. I kept my head in “the game” through some part-time work. I wrote feature stories for Panhandle PBS and NewsChannel 10 websites in Amarillo; I helped produce the weekly Quay County Sun in Tucumcari, N.M. They kept me active and engaged in the community I have called home for the past 23 years.

Some new digs and new experiences await my wife and me. Toby the Puppy will be just fine as long as we’re nearby.

One element of constancy remains intact. High Plains Blogger is here to stay for as long as I’ve got my wits about me.

It’s what I do.