I’ve always looked forward to my “golden years”. I have been working in one form or another since I was about 10 years old. I asked for a snow shovel for Christmas 1962, why? because there was money to be made shoveling the sidewalks of the private houses that were wedged between the apartment buildings in the Bronx neighborhood I grew up in. That spring I took to delivering sample copies of the Journal Home News (a weekly local paper) for 1/2 cent per copy. You committed to dropping at least 1000 copies in the various apartment buildings and private houses (very few had elevators and most were 5 floor walkups) with the goal of having them subscribe. The carrot (other than the $5 made for doing this…(btw, the average 5 floor building, had 4 units per floor so each building only amounted to 20 copies…think about that for a minute will you…) was that if you got enough interest from your samples, you were rewarded with a weekly route (I neglected to mention that in addition to picking up the 1000 copies, you had to put an personal insert in each one so they would know it was your sample that created the subscription if it came through). Well, after a few weeks I reached the required 25 subscriptions and was given my own route weekly, though I didn’t abandon the sample delivery either.

Turning 16 brought my ability to get my legal “working papers” and I was hired at Honig’s Parkway a local “department store”. They sold housewares (my department), electronics, toys, sporting goods, furniture etc. My parents shopped there, as did most in the neighborhood, frequently putting Christmas gifts on “layaway” that my dad would, I later learned, schlep down to pick up late on Christmas Eve well after I was asleep [while I worked there we were open on that day till well after midnight, well later than a 16 year old was legally supposed to work, but no one cared, least of all me as tips were also plentiful when helping folks pick up the layaway items…did I mention that my salary was $1.60 per hour? so the traditional .50 or $1 tip was the equivalent of somewhere between 33% and 63% not too shabby]

A job at Sears Roebuck followed when I turned 18 for the huge salary leap to $1.90 per hour, followed by a three year stint at the announcing voice at S.Klein in Yonkers “Ladies and Gentlemen a repeat of a sellout, right now and for the next 20 minutes, all ladies dresses will be 30% off”, “Mr. Johnson call 225, Mr Johnson call 225” “Ladies and Gentlemen, S.Klein will be closing in 10 minutes, please bring your purchases to the nearest register so that you don’t get closed out” Just an example of my 5 hours a day while I was an undergrad.

A stint at the NY Athletic Club boathouse on Traver’s Island as the attendant, filled up all my Saturday and Sunday mornings (I was able to do both jobs since my announcing was 4-9 pm). Both jobs allowed me to do my coursework during the time I was working a double benefit.

I could go on with listing things but it’s too long and totally uninteresting a catalog, so I’ll zoom to the “professional” life. Graduating in 1974, I turned down an offer from the National Security Agency which, with the blessings of hindsight would have been very lucrative over the years, instead I went into education. Partly due to my wanting a “Peter Pan” life where I never had to grow up (summers off..and all that…[spoiler alert: never had a single summer off till I was in my late 50’s], partly due to my admiration for Uncle Dominic P. Starace, and partly because it was just fun. Lots of years of work, to quote Southside Johnny “Money got made, baby, money got spent”…

All the while I was looking toward the future a bit, looking didn’t mean good planning, maybe just dreaming…I was looking toward when my kids where grown and happily ensconced in their own lives and families and the ability stop working 5 days a week on the clock and most of all move to a warmer climate (if you’ve read any before you know how I hate winter).

So how does this account for the title…well here we are….We are in the process of putting our home up for sale with the intent of moving to the last paragraph of my dream…but wait….

Education has given me a wonderful life, but it has not put us in a position of being comfortable and independent. Granted, we have often chosen to spend where, maybe, we should have saved, but it was not to excess. Now, we are in a position where we have an older home, and as we get it ready, we are NOT in a position to do all that we should to make it as visually appealing as possible, couple that with the fact that things we have done, like have the driveway fixed a year ago have been totally undone by the fact that the plowing this year has ripped it totally up, along with trying to deal with a very “energetic” dog and having to leave during a showing, and all in all the dream seems to be further distant than it was 35 years ago…

So I ask again…where do you go when you get to the end of your dream?