The Day We Are Given

145 days ago I took a major step on the road of life. I retired from my position as a County Court Judge here in Onondaga County. Much to the surprise of many, I left one year before my term was up. I’ve been asked by many people if I have any regrets about doing so?

I don’t, but the best way to answer that question is to share the decision making process and what the last several months have been like along with what might be valuable to others my age who are contemplating the same decision.

I retired at age 66, the same age my father should have. He had been a Syracuse City Court Judge for over sixteen years. He had just been re-elected to a new ten year term although like me, he would have only been able to serve until he was 70. Instead of retiring before his last election, he chose to seek another term because he wanted to boost his pension since the judiciary had gone a long time without a raise. (Yes, Virginia, history does repeat itself!) In 1981, the year after he had been re-elected, he suffered a stroke in his chambers and was dead a year later.

So, being the same age, I took stock of where I was in life. I was and am healthy. I have a beautiful wife and best friend, Terri, whom I adore and would like to share many happy years and experiences with. I have two very talented, successful, lovely daughters Meghan and Kate, with whom I enjoy every minute I spend with them. I have a three year old granddaughter, Claire, who is the light of my life even though she prefers Terri to me. I want to share as much life with them as I possibly can while I can. That made the decision easy.

You can’t retire without a plan and I don’t mean just a financial one. You have to have interests and give some thought to what you will do each day. To that end, Terri bought me a book entitled “How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free,” which is an excellent guide to planning your retirement routine and putting together a “bucket list.”

One of the items on my bucket list, being a political junkie, is to visit every Presidential Library in the country. My friend and colleague Tom Miller suggested attending a baseball game in every stadium in the country. That, alone, would promote longevity.

Another way to keep my brain active is learning to play the piano. I thought it would be easier than learning a foreign language. It is, but not much. There will be no concert tours.

Posting on this blog once a week requires me to think too.

I also vowed to play more golf and get my handicap down from 39 to say……37.

Daily routines involve a trip to the gym with Terri and whatever we decide to do for the rest of the day. During the winter I plow out the driveways but have the luxury of staying in bed until it stops snowing. With the weather getting warmer I am mowing and clearing the 19 acres we have on a zero turn mower. Sometimes I stay in bed until the grass stops growing.

We have vowed to do more traveling whenever the mood strikes us. We spent this past March in Asheville, NC which was the subject of an earlier blog post.

People ask if I miss being on the bench or in the legal world. I do miss my day to day interactions that I had with Cathy, Kelly, Lisa and Bob whom I consider to be part of my family and worked and laughed with every day. I miss those same encounters with the lawyers, ADAs, court reporters and court security, clerks and personnel, whom I also established friendships with and also my colleagues on the bench.

I don’t miss the defendants.

My good and close friend, the Rev. Denny Hayes, always concludes Mass with the declaration “This is the day we are given, rejoice and be glad in it.”

I do.