The need for transition assistance happens at all ages
Unabridged article from the Life section of the Annapolis Capital, Sunday, October 12, 2019 (The 50-seat Light House Bistro is more than a restaurant. It is also what some people call a “social enterprise” — a business enterprise that has social goals embedded in its business objectives. [Joshua McKerrow / Capital Gazette file]) Several months…
A mission to repair the world does not end with retirement
Places like Myrtle Beach and Wilmington, North Carolina are names familiar to most of us – especially after their recent bashing by hurricane Florence. But if you travel about 300 miles to the west of these well-known coastal communities – to the foothills of the Blue Ridge – you will find Lenoir, a North Carolina…
Bonus years travel comes in many sizes, shapes and destinations
Remember the late 1980s film, “Trains, Planes and Automobiles” – the comedy in which Steve Martin and John Candy struggled with each other’s foibles, challenging weather and nearly every mode of transportation to make it home for Thanksgiving? I thought of this several times during the past two weeks as Mary Sue and I joined…
Renaissance woman finds new calling in her bonus years
The American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, told us that “Vitality exists not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.” For a living example of “Fitzgerald’s Law,” journey down to Annapolis Maritime Antiques on Severn Ave. in Eastport. There, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday afternoon beginning at 2:00, you…
Retirement, for some, is an opportunity to keep on serving
(Dick Libby, of Annapolis, officiated at the Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan at Washington National Cathedral in 2010, 50 years after he had been ordained there as an Episcopal priest. [Capital Gazette]) Poet Robert Browning talked to us about “…the last of life for which the first was made.” For some, the link between the first…
Only a genealogist thinks a step backward is progress
The Maryland State Archives, located on Rowe Blvd. just west of College Creek, is the central repository for what the law calls “state government records of permanent value….” including birth and death, marriage and divorce records, last wills and testaments and records of the history of Maryland – from the earliest times of Lord Baltimore…
Retirement can be an experience with many chapters
(Photo Credit: In 2017, Craig Sewell, longtime chef and owner of A Cook’s Cafe in Annapolis, announced his retirement after 15 years. [Joshua McKerrow / Capital Gazette file]) Annapolitan Craig Sewell is, to my way of thinking, a poster boy for the way many of us will spend our bonus years: in serial retirements that…
Good literature tells truest truths about death and dying
Last December, just before Christmas, I read a retirement story in the Capital about Michael Parker, a US Naval Academy English professor, due to step aside after 38 years on the Yard. A notice that someone is about to retire always catches my attention. However, buried in the Parker story was an added attraction: It…
To live is to engage in the action and passion of your time
Someone once said that “Stories are only stories at the end. In the middle, it’s just chaos.” I thought of that last week as I was talking to Marvin Smith, who has a way to go before he’s at the end of his story. Though Smith is now 61, he still looks every bit the…
Senior leadership, know-how can be a big asset for non-profits
(Image: Peter Cooper, left, and Dale Moeller, members of the 2015 class of the Watershed Stewards Academy, completed this rain garden to handle runoff from the parking lot of their church, Woods Memorial Presbyterian in Severna Park. [Pat Furguson / Baltimore Sun Media Group]) It was 7:30 on a Thursday morning a few weeks ago…