Coming Upon Retirement and Being Scared

My wife, best friend, and business partner, Kay, and I are moving into the first stages of retirement. I have no idea what that means.

1964

You see, for almost 60 years, I have worked.  

From age 13, having forged my father’s signature, I started working at the local Ben Franklin store in Princeton, Ky, sweeping floors, stocking shelves, and stoking a coal furnace. I made 75 cents an hour and contributed that to buy my school clothes and books.

Each afternoon as I washed the long plate glass windows beneath Dr. Wolf’s, the former dentist’s bay window, my schoolmates would stroll by as I shined the display case with old newspapers that reeked of ammonia strong.

They ignored me or chuckled behind my back as they eloped to the Princeton Drug Store to hang out at the counter, drink cherry or vanilla phosphates, and chill with their friends.

I felt awkward and ashamed that I was not part of the “in crowd’s” circle. I was a “between the tracks” and “mill kid.” And I was working.

Each day after work, I would walk home, passing the Caldwell County Times newspaper office next door to J. C. Penny and catty-cornered across from the Rooseveltian era courthouse.

I suppose the smell of the ink and solvent created a momentary high. Perhaps, in retrospect, that piqued my interest in working there. <smiling as I write that>

On the day of delivery, every Thursday, I would hear the roar of the flat-bed press, which excited me even more. I wanted to escape the drudgery of being a “janitor” and become the “Scoop Reporter,” chasing down fire trucks and breaking crime stories. I wanted to learn all I could about the newspaper business.

And one day, I just walked in and asked Mr. Gid Pool for a job, any job as long as I was working for the newspaper and for a man I so greatly admired.

My friend Danny Beavers, who later would teach at the local high school and be Mayor of the fair township, left for college at Western and encouraged me and gave me a good recommendation. I was hired to try and fill his shoes. I never did but always gave it my best.

Even through college at Murray State, I always had this image I would run a newspaper somewhere along the coast of the Atlantic.

My efforts would be for a small town community paper, whereas the publisher I was highly respected and admired. In my spare time, I would write stories of local events and characters, and eventually, a book would emerge accompanied by my photographs and become a national best seller.

That never happened.

Instead, I pursued my other interest, behavioral psychology, and developed a fascination with the human mind and how people behave.

I came to understand the importance of the “servant’s heart” and why attaining collaborative, informed consent with people impacted by decisions that organizations and businesses make is so critical to having a mutually successful outcome.

Now, after 28 years of running our firm and teaching hundreds of clients our system and process, I am retiring, and I am scared.

I don’t know what it will be like not having a business to run, clients to assist, or challenges to overcome.

On September 2nd, I will turn 72 years of age; God willing, Maybe I will find my way into a new set of experiences. Keep me in your prayers.