48 The Business of Prairie Agriculture Better Farming | November/December 2023 RETIREMENT 101: KEEPING ACTIVE Explore your passions & hobbies in retirement. By Ron Settler Tractors, Trucks & Growing Grain Are you one of those people who don’t want to retire? Perhaps you enjoy what you do and don’t want to quit. Maybe you don’t know what you would do if you retired so you just keep working. Sometimes people don’t retire because they don’t think they can afford it. My father-in-law told me about a neighbour who passed away at 93. He was still saving for his retirement. Many farmers have farmed so long and worked so hard that they know nothing but farming. They don’t have a plan for what to do in their later years. Over the years I’ve met quite a few retirees. Many were quite happy and some others you wondered if they were enjoying their retirement. Don’t forget that the couch and the TV kill more people than we think. Regardless of how far you are in your career, you should have some thoughts about what you would want your retirement to be like. Our time on this planet is limited and sooner or later, we’re going to go off to another place. Every day puts us one day closer to our expiry date. Let’s see what a few people have done to enjoy their retirement. Travel Want to see the world or parts of it? A great retirement plan! One couple we knew many years ago bought a new suburban and an Airstream trailer. They spent every summer for 10 or more years on the road. Another couple lived in their motor home for many years. A lady we knew who was single couldn’t wait to get into the new senior’s housing so she could travel and not worry about having to get someone to look after her house. I remember talking to her years ago when she was in her eighties. She was trying to find someone to go with her on a tour of the oil sands. Another couple toured just about the whole continent in their camper van. Drag racing Our friend Ray Dueck has taken up drag racing. While he still is a key member of the farm team, he spends a lot of time fixing and racing his 1961 Ford he has owned since 1972. He dragged it out of the caragana row in 2008 and with the help of a son-in-law and some nephews, they pulled out the 223 six-cylinder and put in a 429 V8. He’s been racing it since 2017 and it runs a quarter mile in 11.3 seconds. He’s raced it in all three Prairie provinces. He says if it gets too loud, he just takes out his hearing aids. He’s found the racing community to be full of friendly people of all ages – many of them seniors. Collecting About 20 years ago, we visited a relative in Eastern United States where his neighbour showed us his two hobbies. His first hobby was collecting items and memorabilia from an obscure and now defunct railway. I think his father worked for this railway. He had amazing stuff, including paper cups with the railway’s name on it. His second hobby has always stuck in my mind. He had a little HO model railway in the basement with a little town site on it. Along the tracks, he had built miniature models of all the buildings that were important to him in his life. He had the houses he had lived in, the train station in his hometown, the church he went to and many other places that were important to him. It was an interesting and special little town for him. Another retiree we knew, a ranchRetired farmer Ray Dueck with his '61 Ford Fairlane. Ron Settler photo
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