I recently told a longtime friend of mine that I am now “fully retired” and he responded with an observation that he hadn’t met any retired individual yet who didn’t enjoy retirement to the hilt.

Today, we got some good news and some great news in the mail. It all relates to our retired status.

The tandem bit of cheer arrived enclosed in a single envelope from the Potter-Randall County Appraisal District, the entity that assesses the value of property in the two counties that Amarillo straddles.

The good news is that the assessed value of our property has escalated significantly in the past year. That didn’t surprise me, given all the commercial/business construction that’s ongoing not far from our home.

The great news is that our estimated property tax bill remains the same as it was last year. Texas state law allows old folks like me to have their property taxes frozen in perpetuity. Ain’t it cool?

That brings me to another point, on which I’ll dwell only for a moment. It’s that taxing entities that seek additional revenue to pay for brick-and-mortar projects — which they submit to voters in the form of bond issue elections — often run into resistance from the least-affected constituency group: elderly homeowners.

For instance, a school system wants to build a new school. The entity calls for a bond issue election, but it might get defeated because older voters reject it. They claim they don’t want to spend more on property taxes; therefore, they reject these bond issues because they don’t want to bear the additional burden.

Except that they don’t bear any additional burden! State law freezes their property tax bill!

But … I digress.

I’ll just salute the state for giving old folks such as yours truly a break on their tax bill, while allowing the value of our property to increase.

Indeed, that increase will come in handy, too, once we get ready to put our house on the market.

Growing older isn’t so bad … you know?