What was I thinking? When I was 17, I honored old age and accepted an employment opportunity my wise father (48) recommended. I was hired as a counselor at YMCA Camp Roger, responsible for 8-year-old boys — a different group each week of one summer. I was also in charge of coaching soccer at camp, which prepared me for playing soccer in Argentina several years later.
At age 22, I grew to love old composers of classical music (brilliant in their teens, twenties, and beyond). Dating my future wife Kay for Music Appreciation class studies at the U, the last thing that would have crossed my mind was old age. Retirement planning started decades later. As young marrieds, we looked up to our parents in their old age — wise, loving, serving, firm in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and financially successful. I guess that is how I imagined our old age.
Serving a mission together as our parents did, fulfilled a lifelong plan we had imagined for our senior years. Kay’s passing as a young grandmother was a complete surprise, as you can imagine. All of our future travel plans, among other things, suddenly went out the window. My subsequent return to our beloved Colonial Court, settling for the duration in a cozy studio apartment, was to end a long series of moves ... I imagined.
In our youth, Kay & I somehow knew we would be forever in love. That is reality today, as always, for my young bride & me.
