Tag Archives: retirement

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Blog logs another year; the fun will continue

Another year as a full-time blogger is about to fall by the wayside.

High Plains Blogger has been at full throttle for more than five years. Given that I no longer work for a living, I am spending a lot of time — some might argue an inordinate amount of it — at a keyboard pounding out musings/spewage on this and/or that issue of the day; I like sprinkling the blog with what I call “life experience” posts, which comprise mostly thoughts about retirement and pet parenthood of the most lovable puppy God ever created.

My daily “hit” count continues to grow. 2017 produced my best-yet yearly total of page views and unique visitors. I’m getting my share of “likes” and commentary from readers.

The blog will continue into 2018 and I hope well beyond.

The only issue I have yet to resolve with the blog is what to call it. I came up with the name High Plains Blogger as sort of a two-pronged tribute: One was to the location where my wife and I have lived for more than two decades, on the High Plains of Texas; the other was to pay a small tribute to one of my favorite film stars, Clint Eastwood, one of whose films is “High Plains Drifter.”

We’ll be relocating — we hope soon — to North Texas. I am torn between changing the name to a more generic title; I have a working name in mind, but I haven’t yet made that decision.

You see, High Plains Blogger has developed something of a following that I don’t want to jeopardize; and by “following,” I don’t mean to imply that everyone is a fan. The blog has its critics.

But as the old year passes on and we welcome the new one, I feel the need to tell the whole wide world — or at least the portion of it that cares to hear this news — that I intend to keep up the pace of commentary for as long as I am able.

My strongest hope of all is that I remain able to a long time.

Happy New Year.

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Happy Trails, Part 66

COLLIN COUNTY, Texas — It appears that my wife and I have quite possibly narrowed our field of choices where we intend to relocate … after we sell our house in Amarillo.

We did something this morning that proved to be quite fruitful.

We awoke today, ate a light breakfast and then headed south from the RV park where we’ve hauled our fifth wheel RV. We left the RV behind and took off on a tour of small towns between Sherman and Allen in North Texas.

We wound our way through Howe, Anna, Melissa, Princeton, Lowry’s Crossing, scouting out neighborhoods and looking for the type of house we might consider purchasing were it to become available while we are available to buy it.

Then we ended up in Wylie, Murphy and Parker.

You know what happened then? We ended up thinking that the Wylie-Murphy corridor is most suitable for us. It’s a fascinating thought, when I think about it.

We went to Wylie some time back, actually before we even thought too much about retirement. We liked what we saw then. We liked it again today. Perhaps even more than we did the first time we laid eyes on the city of 41,500 residents.

(My wife, incidentally, believes the next census in 2020 is going to record a substantial population growth for Wylie since the most recent census in 2010. I think she’s on to something.)

Now I say all this understanding that nothing is cast is stone. It all could change if we find a specific piece of property that bowls us over in an entirely different community.

Wylie and Murphy, taken together, represent a modern, well-manicured greater community where we could get quite comfortable in reasonably short order.

This retirement journey, of course, has some more distance to travel. We’ll make the most of it, but our destination appears to be taking shape. I am not yet comfortable declaring we’ve found it just yet. We have just moved a little closer to that declaration.

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Happy Trails, Part 65

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SHERMAN, Texas — Our retirement journey has entered a new phase.

It’s in a place they call “North Texas.” Why is that, given that Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle are much farther north than this community about 38 miles north of the reason we intend to move to this part of Texas permanently? I refer, of course, to our lovely granddaughter Emma.

That’s another blog post.

This time I want to comment briefly on our intentions relating to Sherman.

We pulled our fifth wheel here from Amarillo. We’re going to spend a few days here visiting with Emma, her brothers, her parents, and we hope other members of our extended in-law family.

The house we have vacated back in Amarillo is undergoing an extreme interior makeover at the moment. The fellows who are performing that makeover have told us “The house will look so good you won’t want to leave.” Umm. No chance of that, pal.

Among the tasks we’ll complete while visiting North Texas will be to do a little recon of some of the communities scattered between Sherman and the north Dallas suburbs. We have identified some of them already. We now intend to take a closer look at them to see which of them are the most physically attractive, offer the most potential real estate opportunities, provide the most amenities.

Our house in Amarillo will be finished upon our return in a few days.

Then … we hope for the best. And the “best” means we sell the place and then relocate to North Texas to continue our search in earnest for the place where we continue our last, great adventure.

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Puppy Tales, Part 44

We’ve all come down with a case of it. We deal with it by going outside, enjoying ourselves, taking in the wide open spaces.

Right? OK. Can a high-energy dog do it whenever he feels the need to blow off some energy?

Not exactly. Toby the Puppy has become afflicted with a case of acute cabin fever. I cannot stress the word “acute” enough. He has gone stir crazy.

Here’s the problem. We’re all — my wife, Toby and yours truly — are now living in our fifth wheel RV. We’re parked at an RV park in Amarillo. The place has rules regarding dogs: leash ’em up, clean up after they do their business. Got it. Enough said.

The park has a nice dog park: two fenced-in yards with plenty of poop bags available just in case.

However, it’s been cold here on the Texas Tundra. We can’t just let Toby out to play in the dog park. We can’t leash him up at our RV site and leave him out there! He gets cold, man! Just like his mother and I get cold.

The adjustment for my much better half and me has been to get used to living in close quarters. We still like each other, which is a blessing — even though I like her more than she likes me. We’re coping, though, just fine.

Toby is having a bit of time of it. Back when we lived in an actual house with walls, a roof, a back door and a fenced-in back yard, he could come and go as he pleased. That cannot be the case in our RV.

He’s a captive audience of one.

I’m sure other puppy parents know of what I speak. I am not asking for advice. We’ve simply learned to take him out, walk him for a few minutes and bring him back. We do this many times during any given day.

We do understand that this became part of the deal more than three years ago when Toby joined our family.

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Season of joy … and big change

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I posted this picture a year ago on Facebook, and the site reminded me of it today as a look back.

Initially, I was reluctant to re-post this image. It made me mildly sad this morning when I saw the Facebook “memory.”

This picture depicts the final Christmas in the house we called a home for 21 years. It’s dark this year. We’re no longer living there. We have moved on — more or less. Our “home” these days is a 28-foot fifth wheel recreational vehicle. It’s parked in a location on the other end of Amarillo. The house? It’s heading for the market, folks.

This is a season of joy for us. It’s also a season of big change that awaits us just down the road. We don’t quite yet know precisely where the road will take us.

Don’t misunderstand. We have a general idea where we’re going to resettle. It will be somewhere near our granddaughter, who’s now 4 years of age. Every friend we’ve told of our plans — and the reason for our move — has expressed total understanding and support for us. “That’s the best reason I can think of,” I’ve heard from many of our friends.

However, as I look at the picture attached to this blog post, I am reminded of one of the precious memories this house brought us.

***

It was Dec. 22, 1996. We had just taken possession of this house, which we had built. We had lived in a one-bedroom apartment since early 1995. Our furniture was stashed away in a storage compartment.

We closed on the house. We called the mover, who then delivered our goods. We unpacked them.

Our Christmas tree that year was a potted live Norfolk pine we brought with us from Beaumont. It stood about 4 feet tall. We found some Christmas lights, strung them around the tree.

We commenced opening our packed boxes and rediscovered the possessions we hadn’t seen in nearly two years.

It was — hands down — a glorious Christmas indeed in this structure that was filled with that “new house smell.”

That, too, was a season of change. To that end, the season has come full circle. We are anxious — and we are ready for whatever awaits.

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Happy Trails, Part 64

A friend of mine writes that he is fearful of watching the film “The Post.” He doesn’t want to sob out loud over what he describes as the demise of a noble craft and the state of play in the nation today.

“The Post” tells the story of the Washington Post’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, which documented the deceit and deception that guided U.S. policy in fighting the Vietnam War. It stars Meryl Streep as Post publisher Katherine Graham and Tom Hanks as the paper’s editor, Ben Bradlee.

I admire my friend greatly and he knows of my great personal affection and professional respect for him.

I want to differ just a bit with his analysis of the film and what it might to do to his state of mind. I want to see the film, because I want to remember the excitement I felt reporting on communities where I lived and worked; I want to remember how much satisfaction I received while chronicling the communities’ progress.

Yes, there were times when I was working as a reporter and later, as an editor, when I sweated telling the tough stories about officials’ conduct. I never felt comfortable doing it, but I usually found a way to suck it up, take a deep breath and plod ahead in pursuit of the mission.

One story stands out. It involved a young businessman in Amarillo who, shortly after leaving the City Commission, secured a grant from the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which offered taxpayer funds for start-up businesses. We perceived that the former city commissioner might have used his influence improperly to secure the grant. We decided to call him on it with an editorial that called for a change in the way the EDC vetted those grant applications.

I told the ex-commissioner that we would comment on the grant and that he might not like what we had to say. “When am I going to become just a private citizen?” he asked with more than a touch of anger in his voice. I responded, “When you stop taking public money.”

Oh, and the EDC did rework its grant application and approval process. Mission accomplished!

Yes, the media have taken a vastly different turn since those days. Newspapers, as many old-school journalists knew them, are fading faster than yesterday’s news.

However, I wouldn’t surrender a single day for the career I chose to pursue after I returned home in 1970 from my stint in the U.S. Army. It was a hell of a great ride. It was full of adventure, a bit of chaos. It exposed me to the most interesting people imaginable. It allowed me to travel to exotic places. I made many lasting friendships and I learned from many mentors along the way.

Will watching “The Post” sadden me? Not for an instant. It will make me proud to have been a small part of a grand craft.

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Happy Trails, Part 63

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I am going to miss many aspects about living in West Texas.

My friends; the big sky and the fabulous sunrises and sunsets; Palo Duro Canyon; the distinctly different seasons of the year.

I won’t miss one aspect of life on the High Plains: the distance one must travel to get anywhere.

Our 23 years on the High Plains has acclimated my wife and me to this reality. It is that you don’t measure travel in miles; you measure it in the time it takes you to get somewhere. If it’s only an hour’s drive, no sweat. Even a two-hour drive is tolerable. Three hours? Eh, it’s still doable.

It took me a while to get used to that element of West Texas life. But I did. It’s no longer a big deal for either of us — and I’m presuming this of my wife — to “commute” 30 or 40 miles in a morning. Hey, it’s still less than an hour behind the wheel!

We moved to the High Plains from the Golden Triangle, where any destination of note was much closer to home. Ninety minutes to Houston; four hours to New Orleans; five hours to Dallas-Fort Worth; 30 minutes to the beach.

Soon (I hope) we’ll be relocating to points southeast of the High Plains. We’ll be settling somewhere in the Metroplex. Our precise destination is yet to be determined.

I’m not yet sure how long it will take me to re-acclimate to travel in a region where destinations aren’t spread so far apart. I suspect it won’t take long. I figure it’s always easier to fall back on what we once knew than to venture into a strange — and largely unknown — way of life.

If only we could take our friends, the canyon and that gorgeous sky with us.

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Puppy Tales, Part 43

My wife and I have been catering to Toby the Puppy for a little more than three years. We’ve grown used to spoiling our newest family addition.

Our lives have changed since we moved full time into our fifth wheel. I mean to say “all” of our lives: mine, my much better half’s and Toby the Puppy.

Here’s the deal. When we were living like a “normal” family in a house with walls and doors, all the puppy had to do was traipse outside whenever he felt like it. That presumes, of course, that the weather would allow us to keep the back door open for him to take care of his, um, business. If not, well, we were at his disposal.

The fifth wheel presents another set of concerns for us.

Puppy cannot just go outside. The RV park in Amarillo — just like every RV park where we’ve stayed — mandates dogs must be on a leash. He cannot run around on his own.

No sweat. We get the rule.

My wife and I do spend a lot of time during the course of a day leashing Toby up and taking him outside.

How do we know when it’s time? He “tells” us, more or less.

Since the puppy doesn’t speak English (even though he understands it as well as most human beings I know), he speaks to us with body language and a most expressive face.

He might walk over to either my wife or myself. He’ll start to scratch our leg. We’ll ask, “Do you have to go outside?” Then he’ll shoot a glance usually to the other parent whose leg he isn’t scratching.

We leash him up, take him outside, follow him around the neighborhood, wait for him to, um, “mark” every bit of territory he feels like marking and then we return to our RV. If he has some serious “business” to complete outside, well, he does that, too.

We’re getting used to this increased level of catering Toby the Puppy demands of us. When we resettle eventually in a permanent location, then we’ll have to re-learn how to merely let him have his complete run of the place.

We’ll figure it out … quickly.

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Happy Trails, Part 62

I anticipated that the pace of transition would quicken as we prepare to relocate from Amarillo to somewhere near our granddaughter, her parents and her brothers.

I didn’t quite expect the feeling of anxiety that would come with the speeding up of that transition.

Most of our belongings are stored away in Amarillo; the rest of them are stuffed into our recreational vehicle.

And today, the painters went to work refreshing the interior of the house we used to call “home.” We don’t yet have a timeline on when to expect them to finish. The lead painter vowed to work extra hard to get it done before Christmas. I am in no position to question whether he can get it done.

Anxiety? It’s not serious. It’s just a bit overwhelming — at least it is for me — to watch these men I’ve never seen before scurrying around our house taping windows, masking kitchen cabinets and laying butcher paper over every square inch of our floor.

It seems like just yesterday that the house was where my wife and I hung our hats, where we relaxed with the joy of knowing the property was all ours.

It’s still ours, but we now are calling another place “home” while we prepare for this next big challenge in our life together.

Get a load of this, though: The painters tell us the house is going to look “so good, you won’t want to leave.”

Uh, let me ponder that one.

OK. I just did.

Not a chance. Get to work, fellas.

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Welcome to grandparenthood

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I have introduced you to Emma Nicole, our granddaughter. She’s now 4 years of age and she’s growing way too rapidly.

Soon — hopefully even sooner than that — we plan to relocate nearer to her and her parents and brothers.

But last night at a Christmas party my wife and I attended, we got to experience something that I found oh, so very refreshing. We ran into a couple I have known for many years. He is a lawyer, she is a former elected official in Amarillo who does some business consulting around the area.

They are brand new grandparents. Their grandbaby is now three weeks of age. They are giddy beyond the stars, the sun and the moon. Their granddaughter lives in Austin with her parents — our friends’ son and his wife.

And guess what they’re planning to do? They’re making preliminary plans already to pull up their deeply rooted Amarillo stakes and move to the People’s Republic of Austin for the expressed purpose of living near their little baby granddaughter.

“I’ve made many trips already,” Grandpa told me last night as we laughed and shouted above the party din. “My wife is likely to drag me down there” to live, he said. Yeah, right, bub. There will be little “dragging” going on here. I heard it in his voice.

We have one thing in common with these good folks, apart from our shared world view of political and public policy matters. Their granddaughter is their first, just as Emma is our first “biological” grandbaby.

I’ve regaled many of our friends and family members over recent years about our joy at becoming grandparents. I’ll continue to do so at every opportunity. Heck, I might even look for opportunities.

Last night’s shared joy with a lovely couple, though, was a relatively new experience for us. We were given the chance to receive their exuberance at welcoming a treasured young one into their lives.

As the bumper sticker says so eloquently: If I had known grandkids would be so much fun, I would have had them first.

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