Take a Really Deep Breath

I started getting paid to work during the summer of 1968 as a parking lot attendant, food service employee, and occasional lifeguard at Sandy Beach (and Drive-In), owned by Sam Slomowitz, "Mr. Sam," and his wife, "Mrs.Sam" at Harvey's Lake, Pennsylvania. I had turned sixteen that April and I don't think I needed to shave yet. 

I was sixty-six this past April and defined who I was by what I did for a living for every day of that past half a century. Today I retire. 

I feel everything from exhilaration to abject terror in looking at the vast expanse of my life yet to be lived (I hope) without a map, a compass or any idea of where that feeling of 'this is where I belong' should and could be. I think of Joseph Heller's Yossarian (my all-time hero) at the end of Catch-22  preparing to run away and smile (though maybe it's a grimace). 

I suspect I shall probably feel this way for every waking moment remaining. I never worry about getting lost because everyone tells me where to go and now here I am about to have all the time in the world, trying to make each moment count. 

For Patrick and Michelle, our two children, all that bullshit as you grew up when I gave so much of my time to total strangers, always at your expense and could only offer you 'if I had the time' is, I can finally concede, just so much bullshit. The adults you became despite my absence amaze and astonish me every day. 

For Sigrid, the light and love of my life, who married me four plus decades ago and who promised then to love me for better and for worse, I'm wondering if for three meals a day every day may be a bridge too far. I guess we'll find out. I hope you'll meet me in the land of hope and dreams.
-bill kenny