Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What are you doing or planning to do, with your retirement years

Thought I would ask others about what they plan to do with their upcoming retirement years, or what they are currently doing.

I'll be 58 this summer. After having surgery this past summer for early stages of cancer, it brought me back to why I trained to work in the medical environment after college when I was on active duty in the Army.

My MOS was 91 C, Clinical Specialist. I was able to get licensed in the civilian world as a Paramedic and an LPN in Washington State where I was stationed at the time. Afterwards working at the University of Washingon Hospital, I received a RN certification, based on my level of military training, and previously having a college degree.

After getting married for the first time and raising a family, I migrated into medical sales as the money was much more lucrative and there was no need to keep all those medical licensures current.

At this stage in my life, I decided after Cancer surgery, that I want to spend the next batch of years, working with my fellow man in need. So recently I have taken the basic course to get reinstated as an EMT. I had to start at the bottom of the list once again. Next I am going to be taking a refresher course on line from Washington State that will allow me to renew my LPN licensure.

this fall I am enrolling in Advanced EMT or Intermediate EMT at the local community college.

Definitely not doing this for the money. But at this point in my life, I want to go back and work with those who are injured or ill. Ideally I would like to get on staff at the VA Hospital in Roseburg, or the local VA Domiciliary that we have in White City.

First desire is to work with Fellow Veterans. if not available, then to work with private citizens at one of the local hospitals.

I desire to give back to God to thank him for the life he gave, regardless if it has been a good one or not. There is no greater personal reward than serving your fellow man, in his time of need. So this is what I want to do, when I grow up.. and about this time in life, I am grown up.

This also brings up one other thing we don't think about in life, is appreciation for the life that we all have been given to live. 40 years ago this morning, at 4 AM.. I cut down my 16 year old brother from a rope, after he had committed suicide when my folks were going thru a divorce.

My 16 year old brother never got to live the life that the rest of us have been blessed with the opportunity to live.
He made the sad decision to cut his short.

So when it is my time to leave this world, I want to be judged, not by what I accomplished, but what I gave of myself to my fellow man.

I have been doing it for the last six or seven years. Hunting , Shooting, Building my own rifles, Traveling, and Internet. Life is Good

I want to have a garden, raise chickens, work in my shop and be left the [bleep] alone.

Seafire, very interesting post, I am truely sorry about your brother at such a young age.
That being said, I was forced into early retirement due to a loss of sight in my right eye. It is the hardest thing I have ever gone through, as I have always put in long work weeks that average 90 hours and then being reduced to "0". I am in the process of looking for a part time job of some sort just to take up that idle time, you can only do so much yard work around the house. I try to shoot a couple times a week and after awhile that also gets old. I think staying busy is the key to retirement and enjoying the years one has left.

Me too.

Works for me!

I didn't mention fish, hunt and shoot as I figured that was a given.

Retire?? ME?

Only when I'm too decrepit (sp?) to work.. Then I may volunteer at functions to rid this government of democrats..

A worthy goal, IMHO..

I'm just hoping that I can find some type of work that I can handle at that age.

I'm trying to do this, and most of it's working, except for the leave me the [bleep] alone part.

I agree with steelhead, be self suffcient on a small acreage and live off the grid!

I reckon that's a given for all of us.

Wear better camo to make it harder to be found.

Spend some money early doing some of the strong healthy things that you always wanted to do. When it's too late.... When I first retired, I did an eight day tuna trip out of San Diego and also tuna fished a couple of days at Venice, LA. I wanted to do an elk trip, but it's too late now for me to do any long fishing/hunting trips. I took my 16yr old grandson and one of his buddies for a 2 week trip to the Tetons, Yellowstone, and the Black Hills.

My wife and I did a 4 week motorhome trip to Alaska before we retired. If you have not been there it should be on your list. Retirement should be for your enjoyment. Giving back to the community should come second to yourself and your family. Good luck and a happy retirement.

I am a retired troubleman from the electric company. Happiness is the phone not ringing on a stormy night.

I will be 66 in October of this year. Plan on working about two more years from now, so totally quiting work in April or may of 2012. I won't get full Social Security as I worked for 27 years and didn't pay Social Security Tax, but did pay Medicare tax. I plan on moving back to Missouri where my children and grandchildren live. West of St. Louis there is an excellent shooting range and hunting and fishing is excellent in Missouri. Plan on spending time managing my investments and volunteering time with church and CMA. Might help with PGR as well. Having a garden again, hunting, reloading shooting sounds like a plan to me.

I am almost doing that now except I am still working 60+ hours a week.

I plan to work the farm and do several farmers markets and shows a year. I am going to add two kinds of mushrooms to the farm and work the forge into a craft business.

For me retirement means something a lot different than it does for many people. I think retirement is when I quit doing what others want me to do and start doing the kind of work I want to do.

I did a lot of volunteer stuff when I was off work for that five and a half years. I like Seefire's ideas.

The girl in my avatar keeps making bikinis out of my camo.....

I'll be retiring August 1 of this year.

Except for the chickens we think alike. It'll be nice to hunt and fish weekdays whenever I please. And I have a new grandson I'll be introducing to the outdoors..........

Still 14 years away but I'm thinking about it more with each passing year. Raise more livestock, more gardening, hunt and fish a little more, I'd like to get the old traps out and catch a few coon, coyote and bobcat, some volunteer work through the church and last but not least more travel. Hard to work the travel around the gardening and livestock, but I'll find a way!

The travel part is probably of less concern to me than some others. Whilst I'm sure I will still travel some, I'm looking forward to finding out what it's like being in the same place for more than 3-4 years. 30 years of moving around in the military and currently flying 2 weeks out of the month for work as pretty much taken the luster off of traveling.