Retirement

I've been retired for a week--"retired" involuntarily. Not bad. Went bike riding, went on walks, read stuff not dealing with finance, hung out with friends, visited friends, did paperwork, wrote a financial column. I'm goingto become a Literacy Volunteer, too. And write a play. It'll be a damned good play, too--despite what you're thinking. "Financial writer thinks he can write a play." You'll eat your words!

Met a smart 4-year-old girl. This is my desk, she said, showing me her room. Oh, is that a desk? I said. It's a toy desk, she said, but someday I'll have a real desk.

Very smart.

What in this room begins with H? she asked.
I couldn't find anything.
"Book," she said. I laughed. "Doesn't that begin with h?" she asked, a little worried.
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Hooray! I'm going to give a talk about Richard Crooks to a local music group. He was an opera singer from NJ, very good indeed, and unfortunately almost forgotten.
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I tell a joke to a social group every month, and I've developed a modest reputation for telling funny jokes. Thank heavens, today Lew Azaroff, a friend, told me a new funny joke.

Golfer can never find balls he's hit.
Hire this old geezer, someone tells him, he's great at finding missing balls. The golfer hires him.

Next time he plays, he hits the ball into the rough--can't find it.
Old geezer runs in direction of ball. Emerges 5 minuts later. "I found it! I found it!"

Great! says the golfer. Where is it?

Says the geezer...

"I forgot."