This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

You’ve heard the story already.

I’m not yet retired fully from the working world. However, I am enjoying many of the benefits of retirement.

My wife and I pay a little less for meals at buffet-style restaurants; we get AARP discounts at hotels; our property taxes, under Texas law, are frozen in perpetuity … and we are on Medicare!

The closest thing we have in this country to “socialized medicine” comes in quite handy, I learned yesterday.

The company where I work part time was handing out flu shots to employees. You had to be covered by company-sponsored insurance to qualify, given that the company was paying for the inoculations.

I work there part time, right? I am not insured by the company plan. I brought up my Veterans Administration coverage to the woman who was administering the shots. I had to get my shot at the VA clinic in Amarillo. Oh, darn.

Hey, what about Medicare? She checked with her office. No problem! Medicare’s insurance pays for it.

So, I got my shot hassle free.

Yes, indeed, this retirement thing — which hasn’t yet arrived fully for my wife and me — is turning out all right.

We’ve already paid into the Medicare program throughout our working lives. We now are getting some of the benefit back from the program that was founded in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill that created the law.

Thank you, Mr. President.