OU: My retirement community
Balloons, cake and close friends. A send-off worth remembering. The beginning of a new era.
Is this a high-school graduation celebration or a retirement party?
Perhaps they are one in the same.
Many would argue that retirement would be better spent in one's youth; you'd have more stamina and less arthritis. Thanks to the modern college lifestyle, many of us don't have to wait till we're eligible for social security. If retirement is a desire to have fun and enjoy plenty of free time, then I've been retired since I came to Ohio University four years ago.
Sure, I might not have donned the cliché white shoes, wintered in Florida and dug men in plaid pants hiked up to their belly buttons. But I do share a few common joys with my elderly brethren, including a love of Thursday-afternoon yard games and daily crossword puzzles. And it would be a close competition between spring breakers and January-vacationing retirees to see who has better attendance on cruises in the Caribbean.
The realization that college and retirement might be one in the same came to me spring quarter of my senior year. With all my credits out of the way, I chose classes that I always wanted to take, at the times I wanted to take them. I attended lectures, went shopping, visited museums and sat on the green. I took trips and lunched with friends. I slept in. I read for pleasure.
These are the things I plan to do when I retire. I just need to find a retirement center that offers flip cup along with shuffleboard.
True, in my real retirement, I will have earned my recreation, have more money to spend and have some worldly experience behind me. And for now, class is an obstacle in the fight for free time. A more pronounced difference, however, is the difference in purpose between the two eras. While retirement is your second opportunity to do all the things you didn't get to do while you were working, college is the first opportunity to do all the things that you plan to achieve.
But for right now, the fun and free time that make up a large percentage of daily college life are only previews of good things to come.
For example, not unlike some of our grandparents, we play cards with fervor. Everyone knows a grandma or grandpa who might chase you out of the room with a wooden spoon for cheating in rummy. The wrath of a wronged Euchre player is just as fierce. Oh, and is that my grandpa sitting on that porch over there? Nope, just another college guy in a mesh hat.
The similarities don't stop there. Both demographics are in search of discounts and free samples at the grocery store. Drugs are present in both communities, though for different reasons. Both hit the 4 p.m. early bird dinner special. Although for college students, that's not because bedtime is at 8 p.m., but because the morning alarm went off at 3 p.m.
Actually, it is surprising that college students and retirees don't spend more time together. Neither group has to work thanks in part to the government subsidies of social security and financial aid. College students haven't started families yet and retirees' families have spread to different locations. The two communities should be watching game shows together, eating at Bob Evans and meeting to play tennis.
Even if I haven't spent enough time learning from my elders, my time has been spent learning what is important to me in terms of the activities I love. The goal is to spend my retirement years enjoying my free time as much as I enjoy it now.
In fact, a university town would make an excellent place to retire. You'd have access to libraries, cultural events and new trends. The vibrancy of the 18-24 year-old crowd would keep you young. It's certainly something to think about.
By then, hopefully, the bills from my first retirement will be far in the past.
-Jessica Moskwa is a graduate student in the College of Business. Send her e-mail at jessmoskwa@yahoo.com.
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Jessica Moskwa
