My cousin Dennis is a few years older than me. I think he’s the second oldest of all the cousins on Mom’s side of the family. A few weeks back, I was chatting with Mom and she mentioned she was going to a surprise retirement party for him.
My first thought was, good for Dennis. He’s had a long career with a good company, put in his years, and now he’s reached the point where all that work is supposed to pay off. A retirement party, a few speeches, some cake, and then onto the next stage of life.
But after Mom told me, I took a deep breath and let out one of those long sighs.
I walked away from my off-farm career somewhere around the middle of it. Actually, I’d say I was probably just getting to the good part. I had worked my way up, had years of experience behind me, and was finally at the stage where all that time and learning was starting to pay off.
Then I left and became a full-time farmer.
Now, if you ask most of my old coworkers, they’d probably tell you I retired. That’s always been a bit of a sore point with me because I definitely did NOT retire. Apparently retirement means working seven days a week, worrying about rain, getting up in the middle of the night to check lambs, fixing broken equipment and doing it all without the safety net of a guaranteed paycheque.
Some retirement. :-)
I think the sigh came because it was probably one of those hot summer days when I was feeling every one of my 52 years, and I suddenly realized Dennis had a finish line ahead of him that I probably never will. There’s no date circled on my calendar. No countdown. No meeting with the financial planner to figure out what life looks like when work is finally done.
For a moment, I think I was a little jealous of that. Not of Dennis—I’m happy for him. I was jealous of knowing someday you can say, “That’s it. I did my time. I’m done.”
But then I started thinking about all the farmers I’ve known over the years, and I honestly have never been to a farmer’s retirement party. I’ve never even heard of one.
Farmers slow down. They rent out some land, sell a few cows, let the kids carry more of the load—literally and figuratively. Maybe they spend a little more time sitting in the pickup watching everybody else work.
But retire? No.
And maybe there’s a reason for that. For all the whining farmers do—and trust me, we’re pretty good at it—I think most of us actually like this life. There are days when it’s too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry. Something’s always broken, something always needs feeding, and there never seems to be quite enough time or money.
For now, though, we’re still building things up around here. There are more ideas than time, more things I want to try, and plenty of work left that I’m still excited about doing.
Maybe one day, somewhere way off in the distant, barely visible future, I’ll slow down a little. Maybe I’ll get better at letting someone else do the heavy lifting while I supervise from a lawn chair.
But actually retire?
I don’t think so.
And maybe that’s why farmers don’t have retirement parties. For all our complaining, perhaps the little secret is that most of us never really find anything we’d rather retire to.
Farmer Rod