I spoke to some friends from high school over the weekend and it looks like Tony is finally ready to retire. The company he's worked for since college has been struggling of late, but he's had a great career in sales. I rode with him on a couple of calls to hospitals in the hinterlands of South Carolina's low country last October and marveled that his interaction with hospital staffers differed so little from his interaction with friends at the golf course. It's obvious to me that he enjoyed his considerable business success because he simply loves dealing with people and possesses an enthusiasm for it that others can only wish they had. It's his
forte. Some friends suggest he'll "go nuts with nothing to do," but he'll be fine. There won't be enough hours in the day to do all the things that will come to mind. I'm thrilled that he and Donna may now find the time to visit Austin again, now that I'm here.
The first morning of
my retirement - my temporary retirement, my test of the retirement waters - broke clear and cold in Kennesaw on March 1, 2005. I woke by habit at 6:30 to an ice covered landscape of heavy black trees adorned with crystal. This view down the street from my front yard was the first of many pictures I took that morning. I was in gym shorts and bathrobe, wearing flip-flops and my camera and I don't think I went back into the house till about 9:00.
The clearing in the woods that was my back yard was dead quiet, not a creature yet venturing out. Then, the merest hint of a breeze high in the treetops set up what, on another day would be a gentle rustling, but was today a faint tinkling punctuated occasionally by random CRACKS as the weight of the ice proved too much for brittle branches of the Georgia pines.
Back out in the front - I was all over my acre lot (well, 0.97 acres) - I was sure the ice would melt in a blink and I'd have missed "
the Shot". It was a wondrous two and a half hours of picture-taking as the sun rose, slowly melting the cold crust that covered every branch and twig, glistening more now, near the end. I was anticipating a color shift in this filigree world to gold as the sun climbed higher - I
knew it was coming - but then it didn't. Instead, a fog formed east of the house and muted any effects the sun might have promised.
This icy detail of dogwood branches overhanging the patio could appear somber, I suppose, taken alone. But in the context of the glorious change the hard freeze had wrought in the landscape - my landscape - overnight, I think of the phenomenon itself as a wonderful omen for my retirement and these pictures as a retirement gift to myself.
The first morning of my retirement - my temporary retirement, my test of the retirement waters - broke clear and cold in Kennesaw on March 1, 2005. I woke by habit at 6:30 to an ice covered landscape of heavy black trees adorned with crystal. This view down the street from my front yard was the first of many pictures I took that morning. I was in gym shorts and bathrobe, wearing flip-flops and my camera and I don't think I went back into the house till about 9:00.
The clearing in the woods that was my back yard was dead quiet, not a creature yet venturing out. Then, the merest hint of a breeze high in the treetops set up what, on another day would be a gentle rustling, but was today a faint tinkling punctuated occasionally by random CRACKS as the weight of the ice proved too much for brittle branches of the Georgia pines.
Back out in the front - I was all over my acre lot (well, 0.97 acres) - I was sure the ice would melt in a blink and I'd have missed "the Shot". It was a wondrous two and a half hours of picture-taking as the sun rose, slowly melting the cold crust that covered every branch and twig, glistening more now, near the end. I was anticipating a color shift in this filigree world to gold as the sun climbed higher - I knew it was coming - but then it didn't. Instead, a fog formed east of the house and muted any effects the sun might have promised.
This icy detail of dogwood branches overhanging the patio could appear somber, I suppose, taken alone. But in the context of the glorious change the hard freeze had wrought in the landscape - my landscape - overnight, I think of the phenomenon itself as a wonderful omen for my retirement and these pictures as a retirement gift to myself.
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