The Rules of the Game
Winston put on his floppy sun hat, slid his fanny pack around to the back, put on one more application spf 30 lip balm, grabbed his walking stick and headed out for his morning walk. Winston was 73 and had been retired for over five years now. He had no particular long-term goals for himself other than staying as healthy as he could for as long as he could. While Kathleen was in good health and a good partner, he spent most of his time inside his own head.
His house was in a pleasant and small exurban community set on a hill in the greater San Diego area. His personal views did not favor gated communities, so he was happy to have found this spot. The area didn’t need to be gated since it was small and remote, and a gate would only cause more attention and nuisance. The neighbors ranged from other retired folks, a few childless couples, and a couple that lived in New York and had bought their home for future retirement plans. It was a sunny and warm hilltop that had glancing views of the distant Pacific Ocean. The difference between being near the water, with all its attendant traffic and added property value, and having a distant view of the water was just fine to Winston. He had spent his career fixing the effects of sea air and he knew it was no bargain.
Winston had spent his life as a career naval aviator, actually a helicopter pilot to be specific. He had come of age with the conflicts of southeast Asia on the horizon. He knew when he went into Naval OCS that he would likely be needed in Vietnam sooner or later. That did not concern him. Getting to fly did concern him and it was his big life goal. He had been the black sheep of his family of physicians, preferring art and sports to his other studies. He had left his small Georgia home town determined to do something different and yet noteworthy, so he could hold his head high when he went home to visit. He had had to study harder than ever in flight school, but he had just made it. He was not high enough in his class to make jets, but he was man enough to pass on transport and take on the challenge of helicopters. As a rugby player in college he was no stranger to pain and suffering.
Now, with his rugby replacement shoulder and two shaky knees, he was forced into a less aggressive state. He could go to the gym, but since weights were off limits, he preferred to just walk his way to daily cardio-health. In fact, walking was what he looked most forward to every day. He asked himself if that was depressing and had long ago decided that it was not. This was retirement for Winston and he had made his peace with it. Everyone had to make peace with their life, he figured. Some play golf (not for him). Some pretend to be able to keep playing tennis (he liked tennis, but that required a partner and he didn’t like to rely on anyone else for his happiness and exercise). Some skied (non-starter since it involved cold weather). And some walked. He was a walker and proud of it.
Winston was the proud recipient of three pension checks per month. There was his Navy pension check, his California State Teachers retirement check, and his meager Social Security check. They were all direct-deposit so he never even had the pleasure of touching them, just spending them. Actually, he didn’t even spend them for the most part. Kathleen had assumed the controllership of their family during his years of deployment, so she continued in that role. She had a few pension checks of her own so she just managed their lives within those constraints, trying her best to toss a few bucks into the savings account when she could so they could afford the occasional trip of extravagant gift to the kids and grandkids.
Winston’s job these days boiled down to staying alive and well and not making too much of a mess around the house. The walking helped with all of those as best he could tell. When he was not walking, he was reading. Some people his age had gone mostly to audiobooks, but not Winston. Some people swore by their Kindles or tablets, but not Winston. Winston was a hardcover guy. That was perhaps his one indulgence (one that Kathleen regularly berated him about). He did not like the feeling of a paperback. So rather than spend his pension check at the bookstore, Winston was a regular at the local public library. He always remembered Matt Damon’s line from Good Will Hunting where he says to the pompous Harvard grad student, “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.” Except Winston was careful never to incur late fees.
Winston was a man of his age. He was too young to have been a part of the Great Generation, but despite being born in 1946, he didn’t feel much like a Baby Boomer either. Like his WWII forefathers, he had served his country. His four combat tours in Vietnam and his five search & rescue tours in Antarctica made him more like his forbears than not. But his lifestyle and southern Californian ways were decidedly more Baby Boomerish. He was sort of stuck in the middle of the generational cohorts, and felt just that. Maybe that’s why he preferred solitary exercise to group sports.
Winston has followed the American Dream into retirement. He made sure his kids were educated and properly launched. He made sure his bills were paid on time. He was a man who did his duty and did it quietly and honorably. Now he would keep himself fit to the end, and then simply salute his departure when it was his time. Those were the rules of the game and Winston always played by the rules.