And the Livin’ is Easy
Summertime was written in 1934 by George and Ira Gershwin with a lyrical assist from DuBose Heyward, the author of Porgy, on which the opera, Porgy and Bess is based. It is at once a jazz song and a folk song and as such may mark the beginning of the trend towards classic black music of the South. Much has been made of the use of the word “and” after the title rather than other connective options like “when”. It is said that it is the most important word in the song because it set the tone of ethnic diction that makes the song sound line a genuine folk ballad rather than something contrived for Broadway. It is considered by many to be Gershwin’s best song, which is saying a lot given his level of accomplishment and prodigious list of songs, which number over 500. Many people, like myself, can sing the entire song, even if they haven’t seen the opera. And most of us can sing it with intonation and feeling the way it was intended. You would think I had spent my days pickin’ cotton in the heat of a South Carolina summer. Fish are jumpin’ on Catfish Row and the cotton is high in the surrounding fields, so all is well with the world as known to the sharecroppers of the early Twentieth Century. Nevertheless, it seems left to this post-reconstruction field hand to reassure some poor little charge of the white landowning elite that they are well-provided for because their Daddy’s rich. And if that’s not enough, their Ma is good lookin’, so this little baby has no reason to be crying. This all-knowing and reassuring hand knows that the future for this little baby is bright and will eventually take it away from the heat and slow pace of Catfish Row in Charleston.
That song is one of two that always come to mind at this time of year, what we tend to call the dog days of summer. For years, my favorite was The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Summer in the City from 1966. It screams to be played during the dog days and it tells of the harshness of summer in the city where Gershwin’s takes the good of the heat rather than the grittiness. The Lovin’ Spoonful feel the objective of the suffering of the heat is to dance all night in the cool. That’s the free-love lesson of the Hippie Dippy Sixties. Gershwin is a product of the Great Depression when there is so little to which to look forward. Summertime is about finding the good in all the suffering and heat and to honor the hierarchy of God’s will. Gershwin accepts in a soulful way where John Sebastian revolts and seeks out the pleasure in life. The Lovin’ Spoonful worked well for me in my youth as I braved the summers in the City. In my retirement on my hilltop, I find Gershwin far more righteous and satisfying.
Today we drove from our hilltop to Borego Springs and back through the alpine burg of Julian. That was a nice round day-trip of about 100 miles, none of which was on highways. The drive passes through our high chaparral, the valleys of the San Jacinto, across the high desert mesa and into the Anza-Borega Desert defore winding down the Whispering Pines to Julian. The temperature went from 70 up to 85 and hit a high of 102 in Borego. The road back saw the temperature recede back down to 80 back here on the hilltop. It was so much cooler than the last few weeks that I turned on the spa heater to raise the water temperature to a soothing 89 degrees after my day of driving. It struck me as funny that 100 miles seemed like a longer and harder day than the 600+ miles we drove some days crossing the country. Being back at home and in our relaxed retirement mode really is Easy Livin’ and it’s even easier to get used to.
There needs to be a song about retirement in the summer. It is the easiest of all worlds. After sitting in a luxury car in the air conditioning for several hours, taking a pleasant lunch in an air conditioned restaurant in Borego Springs, and stopping for refreshments at a bakery in Julian, everyone arrived home thinking it was time for a nap or a soak in the hot tub. Now, I could say it was a Saturday and we all had earned our rest, but a summer Saturday in retirement is just like any other day. Saturdays in the working world are reason enough for rest, but in retirement, the livin’ is simply always easy, as it is supposed to be.
I have plenty of things to fill my day with purpose. I am now finished with two books which are moving into the publishing mainstream. I am not the primary author of either, but I did almost all the work to produce both of them and am being given a “with” credit in publication, which everyone knows means that I was the yeoman who did the work of writing the books. I am preparing two courses, one in Advanced Corporate Finance for this Fall and one in the Ethics of Finance to be given next Spring (with a trial guest lecture scheduled next month). My expert witness work also continues. I am on call to give testimony each week (last week yes, this week no). I have also interviewed for and am expecting to get a new case assignment that will take me into 2022. But my days and my schedule are completely my own and I must say that I like it. It has taken eighteen months of adjustment, but I like it. I still get up early. I still stay up late to write when the spirit moves me (like right now). But I work in the garden as I please, when I please and on what I please. I relax when I am weary and I go for a ride or a drive when I am bored. It is a fine life and the livin’ is easy.
I have spent plenty of time and effort pondering how to make retirement work for me. I wrote a book called Gulag 401(k); Tales of a Modern Prisoner, which was a series of 23 stories of retirement from every imaginable angle. I wrote about the global pension crisis in a more academic book. You might say that retirement has been an obsession of mine for many years, at least thirty years, in fact, since I was put in charge of the Retirement Services Department of Bankers Trust. I genuinely can’t say which is the chicken and which is the egg. Do I write and think about retirement because I immersed myself in the market? Or did I always have a work ethics-related fixation with the concept of making an end to work? I have no idea, but the hard and soft issues of retirement all catch my fancy.
Yes My friend Steve, who retired a few years ahead of me, always comments when he reads one of my blog stories that questions my dedication to letting go of work. Maybe this story will convince him that I am sincere about being retired. It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy. Let’s see if the autumn and winter carry through with the easy livin’ theme. I think if it does, that will validate my contention that I am, indeed, retired.