Last Friday I had a telephone call from a friend in Atlanta, GA, telling me that our "boss" was retiring from the University of GA on August 15, and she thought I'd like to know so I could send him congratulations. He was a very special friend and I would like to attend his reception - but with the price of gasoline, I'll just send a pretty card instead.
In 1990, I started working part-time (20 hrs a week) for the GA Highway Safety Office through a grant administered by the GA Cooperative Extension System at UGA. Dr. Don Bowers, our boss, was Extension Leader of Family and Consumer Sciences. There were 7 of us (Regional Coordinators) who worked for the Occupant Safety Program. Our home office was in Lithonia, GA, just east of Atlanta. We met there monthly as a group to plan programs, etc. Don was usually at these meetings and we had a close relationship with him. He was much younger than some of us. It's hard for me to believe he's old enough to retire. The office in Lithonia closed and the program became the University of GA Traffic Injury Prevention Institute, now located in a new building in Conyers. Only one of the original 7 staff is still working for the program.
My friend and I talked about all of our co-workers and the fun time we had. We were all college graduates with varying majors. There were two retired law enforcement officers on our staff, a former school superintendant and some teachers. I think they hired me because I had a degree in Home Economics and lived in SW Ga where they needed a coordinator for 13 counties.
When you enjoy your job, you can be most effective. At the beginning we were to educate children and parents the importance of using seat belts - when the State of Ga started requiring people to buckle up. Then we trained workers to teach parents how to use child safety seats.
We met at Jekyl Island, Savannah, and other coastal places for annual meetings and I usually had to take James with me. He loved going to the GA Highway Patrol training center near Macon when I had to go there for safety classes. It snowed one week when we were at Rock Eagle 4-H Camp for a workshop. James was along and he wasn't too happy about the cold weather.
I was not planning to retire when Jim decided one day in May to slow down and stop travelling to operations off-shore. He took his doctor's advice and decided to retire. My co-workers planned a big "going away" party for me at one of our monthly meetings. I treasure the plaque they presented to me. It hangs over my computer desk and I think of my friends every time I walk by and see it.
He didn't plan on retiring early but I'm glad he did. Because of some health reasons, he decided to retire at age 62. In the spring of 1996, we talked about selling our home in Georgia and moving to our farm in Alabama. This was accomplished by June 1996!
I won't say that was an easy move since we were not prepared to move on such short notice. We sold our house shortly after advertising it and the people were in a motel, ready to move in! We hurriedly stored much of our furniture and remodeled a home at the farm and moved to Alabama early in July.
James had a little difficulty with his dad being around all the time. One day while getting ready to go to town to buy groceries, James noticed that his dad was getting dressed to go with us and he asked "Does he have to follow us everywhere we go?" He was not used to his dad going shopping with us. We both had to adjust to having him at home all the time. But we soon got used to having Jim around and our retirement is great!
We haven't set our alarm clock in a long time, but I guess because we're getting older (in our 70's) we wake up early every morning now that we don't have to! We can stay up as late as we want to at night except I start nodding off around 10 PM.
We "celebrate" retirement every day of the year and I'm so glad we got an early start.
