Since fully retiring a year ago I’ve been transforming myself. Again.

I’ve had to reinvent myself lots of times. The first was when I left the safety of home to enter school, with its variable authority figures, and needed to learn to socialize with others. Leaving a tiny high school and going to college far from home was challenging. Graduating, I had to learn the professional role of pharmacist. And finishing medical school, I had to make myself into a doctor. After a full career in medicine, I did another do-over back into pharmacy for another ten years.

My previous personal changes began abruptly, the day I entered a new domain. During my career I felt like Harry Nash, from Kurt Vonnegut’s short story: Who Am I This Time. Harry is an extremely shy clerk in a small town hardware store who prefers working in the stock room to meeting the public.

He regularly steals the show in the local amateur theater’s productions. On stage, Harry completely becomes the person whose role he’s playing. After the final curtain falls he bolts out the stage door and retreats to the safety of the store’s back room.

With no further significant professional roles to play, I’ve spent the past year letting the dust settle from living in the public square of health-care commerce. From now on, my personal development will be the discovering and unfolding of me.

For now I’m refining and expanding the interest in writing I’ve been nurturing for over a decade. Almost from the beginning, an English-writing professor has been helping me hone the craft. I have a regular newspaper column and accumulated a list of a couple of dozen people I e-mail articles to. I’ve also written magazine articles and done professional health-related writing.

In the past I’ve disciplined myself to articles with 600 words. Sometimes it’s been challenging juggling a semi-retired personal life, work schedules and publication deadlines. Occasionally, I’ve selected or limited the scope of my topics based on time pressures and my self-imposed word limit.

From now on, I’m going to write however many words I need to get my point across, hopefully without boring readers or leaving them wondering what I meant to say.

And I’m expanding my writing interests to the web-based realm of thoughts and ideas. For some time, Karin Haggard, a daughter-in-law who is an artist and graphic designer has been after me to set up a website/blog to make my writing available to a wider audience.

About six months ago I decided to give it a try. I call the blog A Diary of Aging. The website is rifey-04.ru. Readers can sign up to receive free postings/articles and leave comments.

I’m curious to see if strangers find what I have to say interesting and helpful.

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Since I fully retired, I’ve been taking more time to learn about curiosities embedded in everyday life.
On a recent trip I noticed a semi among the string of trucks with the words, DIESEL EXHAUST FLUID, blazoned across its shiny tank. From Google I discovered that the Fluid is a purified urea solution in deionized water. It’s injected into diesel exhaust systems, in a process called selective catalytic reduction, to remove nitrogen oxides – harmful air pollutants.

Later, after a long day of sight-seeing and driving, we pulled off the interstate at the Ft. Payne, Alabama exit. With its usual assortment of chain motels and restaurants, the place resembled everywhere USA. But what about the “Fort” Payne, I wondered?

Driving through town on our way to Lookout Mountain and the Little River Canyon National Park the next day, it resembled a host of other places that lost their manufacturing base and population. But among the empty store fronts I noticed a Trail of Tears Museum. Open occasionally.

I learned that The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing project following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Forty-six thousand Native Americans were forcibly removed from their homelands in North Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida and sent to Indian Territory – present day Oklahoma. Around a quarter died of disease, exposure and starvation on the trek.

Fort Payne, named for Captain John Payne, was one of thirty-one stockades, concentration camps, constructed in the Deep South to store Indians awaiting the big walk. Only a chimney remains today.

One way to look at the Trail of Tears is as a clearing away of one group of people with different colored skins and culture to make way for the development of a new, white culture based on enslaved dark-skinned Africans. It’s probable that some of the today’s suspicion and tension between the races follows from those times.

I was reminded of an experience I had visiting with Shawn, an Army Ranger, in Chicago’s Union Station. Our train was indefinitely delayed due to winter weather conditions. Military personnel, the elderly and families with small children were allowed to wait in a separate, more spacious but drafty and poorly heated area.

Shawn was an enigmatic, imposing figure with a facial tic. He was of medium height and obviously a body builder with bulging chest, shoulder and arm muscles. Except for his hands and face, every inch of his body is covered with tattoos. He periodically paced back and forth and alternated between wearing a sweatshirt and only a tee shirt. We barely kept warm with winter jackets.

I felt like I had to meet him, thank him for his work and see if we could strike up a conversation. We visited several times over six hours. He was friendly, soft spoken, and always called me “Sir.”

I learned he was 32 years old, a full blooded Indian and on his way to visit family on Walpole Island, a Canadian First Nation (Indian) reservation in the St. Clair River. He left Walpole as a teen to live with his mother in Michigan, dropped out of school, and joined the army. He’s been injured and wounded four times in Afghanistan and has shrapnel in his leg.

His tattoos are his autobiography. Each has a particular significance. The largest, a Masonic Lodge emblem, stands for his core values: Belief in God, brotherly love and charity/helping others in need. He said that some people glance, then shy away from him. He described being with a group where a server wasn’t able to make eye contact with him.

He trains younger soldiers now and is disgusted at their lack of respect. He’s leaving the Army when his tour is up and wants to work in law enforcement.

With what I learn about curiosities, I hope to understand my life better. But I don’t expect it to make sense of it.

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The ‘gang’ began developing at Christmastime, when we offered to subsidize a trip to Disney for our youngest grandchildren and their parents during Spring Break. It grew after we invited the Florida branch of the family to think about joining in.  The size varied from 7 to 14.

I’d enjoyed our trip to Disney a decade ago with another set of kids and grandkids, and wondered what it would be like this time. I was curious to see how I would handle five ten-hour days of almost constant activity, standing and walking up to seven miles a day. How would my age interfere?

Disney has a new, wireless wrist band system that improves efficiency of every aspect of the experience. For instance, up to three fast passes, appointments for rides and shows, can be made per day. In order to do and see what you want, and minimize waiting times, days can and must be carefully planned. My wife and daughter-in-law spent hours doing that. The planning worked out really well for all of us.

During the week, there were plenty of priceless moments of sharing the sheer joy of being alive with grandkids. One was when we were playing in the pool at our hotel-resort. I was throwing four-year-old Grant into the water for what seemed like the eleventy-ninth time – forward, backward and summersaults over and over again – he grinned, gave me a hug and told me I was the best grandpa.

On the last day I had a couple of hours to myself before the gang-lunch to aimlessly wander around, mingle in the crowd, and watch and listen to the nearly constant array of Disney street entertainers. I discovered that Disney is as much for the elderly as it is for the young.

I found how my age affected me the very first morning, on a clam-shell ride to view simulated wonders under the sea. The shell repeatedly rotated a quarter turn back and forth to view exhibits. When it came time to climb onto a belt moving the same speed as the ride, I lost my balance and went careening into a wall. Besides the terror of not knowing how or where I was going to end up, I skinned several knuckles on my left hand.

Several months ago I’d experienced a couple of weeks of vertigo and, while I no longer feel dizzy, I found that my brain’s circulation hasn’t fully recovered. I also hadn’t heeded my cardinal rule of carefully standing up and planning position changes to protect myself from stumbling. In the excitement of the moment, I’d reverted to automatic behavior, expecting my body to naturally adjust. It didn’t.

I went on several similar rides later and, when the time came to dismount, I’d make a plan. I’d stand carefully, step off with the right foot and use the left hand for support, then move the left foot out with right hand support, looking ahead in case I began losing my balance. Each time, my wife handed me my backpack once I was safely up and walking.

After the goodbyes, as the kids and grandkids were returning to two feet of snow and almost daily flurries in Michigan, we headed for a condo on the Gulf. Watching the surf, with a cold beer in my hand, my mellowness turned to fatigue. I had planned on reading and listening to the surf late into the night, but fell asleep around nine.

During the week, I thought I’d handled the long, busy days quite well. But after it was over I realized age had taken more out of me than I’d thought.

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He called it red, but its color was closer to rose, or perhaps mauve.

If it had also been a camera we would have a fascinating, sometimes humorous and ultimately sad documentary of the final years and days of a gentle man’s life. Purchased from a discount chain when he moved to the retirement center at age 90, it, along with a love seat and desk, were the only furniture he every bought for himself after my mother died.

A model of frugality, fellow residents, retired professors and professionals, were amazed that a barber could afford to live there. He was a friendly, distinguished looking man with good posture, perfect grammar and a large vocabulary gained from a life long practice of doing cross word puzzles.

Initially, the chair was a comfortable place to meditate, read, or rest after a long walk or round of golf. With his feet propped up, he’d occasionally nap while watching Jeopardy, golf and football on TV.  He spent many evenings quietly sitting in his chair, doing crossword puzzles and listening to classical music.

The chair’s role began changing as age gradually took its toll on him. When he became too tottery, he stopped playing golf. Senile dementia began creeping in and disrupting his life. At first his daily routine of meals, activities and chatting with friends stayed the same. But nights became tortured after he started seeing faceless strangers silently sitting in his red chair. During the day he knew they weren’t real but he couldn’t stop seeing them in the middle of the night.

One day on his way to lunch he suffered a slight stroke and fell. Leaving his independent living apartment for good after a brief stay in a hospital, the center’s nursing unit became his new residence.  The stroke took away his night visitors but left him more easily confused and irritable during the day.

He lost interest in TV; the chair and radio remained his connection with past pleasures. His chair remained a comfortable place to watch birds and weather changes. Naps lasted longer. He continued to enjoy visiting with friends and relatives but became paranoid thinking that the staff was playing tricks on him by making him go to picnics in the middle of the night when they awakened him for meals.

As his dementia worsened he became increasingly more “turned around”, confused and disorientated. On assisted walks in the halls, he often failed to recognize familiar landmarks. Scooting around alone in his wheel chair, he’d become lost and panicky.

Sometimes, recognizing the red chair from the hallway he’d have a beacon shining through his mental fog guiding him back to the safe harbor of his room. Finally the beacon failed but he still used the chair’s comfort to rest and nap.

One day, shortly after breakfast, he died peacefully. Bought at a discount, no expensive chair could have served him better. Had it also been a camera, I’d have more than a mental tape to replay to provide me with his important lessons on aging gracefully.

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What’s the score?” I asked. “I dunno,” my partner said. One of the guys in the old guys’ tennis group had a dentist appointment and asked me to sub for him while the match was in progress.

We played a few points and, hoping to get a better fix on the match, I asked an opponent on the other side of the net: “What’s the score?” “I dunno, but I think you’re ahead”, he replied.

Even for us, that’s a little unusual, but in this case not knowing really didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were happy to be playing the game together. About 30 minutes earlier, John showed up and the group quickly arranged to get him into a game. He’s almost 92 and doesn’t play all that often anymore. He’s the most senior of us old guys and holds his own on the court quite well, even if he can’t run as much or play as long as many of the rest of us.

There are 25-30 of us old guys from the late 50’s to 91. We need that many to keep the group going. Someone’s always got a cold, too busy to play, out of town, or something. Occasionally someone new joins the group and someone moves away. The group changes with the seasons as some go south for the winter and a couple go further north in the summer.

Between 5 and 18 show up to play on three courts for 2 hours or so on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. We have a few unwritten rules of etiquette. Everybody that’s there plays. Better players adjust their games so that the games are competitive and weaker players aren’t taken advantage of or humiliated. The first four that arrive make up the first foursome. Stragglers wait their turns or play singles until a third or fourth shows up. Foursomes are arranged to be as evenly matched as possible. We switch partners between sets, trying to see that everybody plays with and against everybody else. Sometimes we play four instead of six game sets so that everyone gets about equal opportunities to play. When necessary, we take turns sitting out.

But, everyone plays to win: old guys are pretty much still guys. In the 11 years the group has been playing tennis together, two died, another got angry and quit the group, and another occasionally quits in a huff and leaves early but comes back again the next time we play. Occasionally, injuries keep someone out for weeks to months.

Sadly, a couple developed dementia and had to quit playing, a couple of others have gotten too lame to play.

The group formed about the time I stopped running and gave myself a 60^th birthday present of tennis lessons. Fortunately, the guys patiently endured my learning to play the game.

Over the years, we’ve also become pretty good friends. A couple of times a year we get together for lunch and/or invite our wives and significant others to join us for dinner.

Old guys’ tennis is a group where dwindling skills don’t interfere with good exercise and having fun.

And, at least sometimes, it doesn’t matter whether or not you know the score.

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