The Timeless Art of Retirement

My father worked hard for his entire life. He still works hard, too hard in fact, as he tries to squeeze more and more hours out of each day. In between the naps, at least. My father is sixty-six years old, although he’ll say he’s sixty-seven, a fact based on that sneaky little belief that life begins before the delivery room hysterics. He has worked hard, and smart, and as a result, he is poised to enjoy his graying years in a way that befits his lifetime of labor. Owing to my own penchant for the gulf coast of Florida, my father bought a little bit of real estate in Marco Island towards the beginning of the past decade. He did this, at least in part, because my brother worked for an airline that handed out companion passes like candy at a Memorial Day parade.

He owned real estate in Marco Island for a while, and for a while it was good. Then the market turned, and he jumped out nearly as fast as he jumped in. My father now rents in Marco, for precisely one month every winter. The owned condo was a one bedroom overlooking a tiki hut at Angler’s Cove. The rented condo is a three bedroom on the ninth floor at Sand Castle with mind numbing views of blue waters and white sand. It is a terrific perch to while away January. But something happens during that month away. My father misses his six grandchildren, who spend that same January tucked into a Wisconsin winter. He misses his chair and his couch, and his commanding view of Geneva Lake. He misses what he knows, and the varied layers of a life that stack up after spending all 67 years in a geographic swath that spans Niles to the East, St. Josephs to the South, and Lake Geneva to the North.

The Wall Street Journal, a publication that I credit for at least addressing vacation home issues that many other, more tepid, publications ignore for fear of appearing elitist in a populist society, published an article on Monday with a grabbing headline “He Says Maine. She Says Florida”. The article, written by Kathleen Hughes (of unknown relation to the late, lake lover John Hughes) discusses the topic that the title addresses. Where to live during retirement. The article is fine, and concise, with nothing profound, nothing revelatory, and the ending paragraph assumes a retirement where she’ll live mostly in some far flung Maleria infected country, while her husband peruses books at the New York Public Library. So much for a consensus.

I blame HGTV for much of this retirement confusion, so let’s clear up a few misconceptions about vacation homes in general. People from Cincinnati buy vacation homes in Roatan, but only for the sake of mediocre television. Ken Griffin might buy a vacation palace in Hawaii, but I’m guessing his mode of transportation doesn’t involve removing his shoes in the middle of a 400 person line at O’hare. If you’re traveling by private jet, reaching your destination with the smallest amount of inflicted brain damage is possible, and probable, but the same cannot be said for traveling to a vacation destination (with connecting flights!) stuffed into row 31 opposite the toilet. But I’m reverting to old habits, and this isn’t about weekend vacations, this is supposed to be about retirement choices, where the duration of stay offsets the inconveniences of getting there.

The article and it’s surrounding arguments fail to take into account the existence of family and primary physicians. Close family and extended family. Does someone really spend a lifetime in Chicago developing careers and families and connections, with the goal of one day leaving them behind in order to study art in Cape Town? I thought I was the shallow one on this page, and even I cannot fathom leaving behind children and grandchildren in search of greater, shallower, sense of self. Yet, according to this article, many retirees are contemplating doing just that. They’re going to pack their Louis Vuitton bags with their new Skype friendly Ipad 2s, and travel to study hieroglyphics in the catacombs of Egypt. Really?

I’ll tell you how I see it. I see Chicago differently. Chicago is not Boulder, and it’s not Las Vegas. Chicago is more sensible. I see this market filled with retirees who are looking to follow a very typical and predictable path. They’re selling their suburban homes, buying a vacation home at Lake Geneva, and another in a southern state with low or no income taxes. Perhaps a third, smaller condo on Michigan Avenue so they can see a few shows on rainy weekends after dinner. They’re setting up residency in that no-income tax state, and spending the other 180 days a year basking in the cleansing power of a Lake Geneva summer, where their children and grandchildren can join them without difficulty. They’re not flying to Indonesia on purpose, nor are they moving to New York City to read Hemingway and stroll through Central Park as if auditioning for a tedious movie starring Jennifer Anniston. They’re not doing these things because their grandchildren and social networks are here. They’re in Hinsdale and Arlington Heights and Lincoln Park. If we’re putting family first, as we pretend to, how does that accommodate the flat in Cape Town? It doesn’t. We’ll vacation, sure. We’ll travel to far flung exotic locales and we’ll explore and we’ll learn and we’ll rest. But we’ll do these things for weeks at at time, and when the saline solution in our travel packs starts to run low, we’ll return home.

The day after the next Christmas, my father and mother will pack up their car and drive to Marco Island. They’ll get there and marvel at the change of scenery. They’ll eat out and watch movies and read books and brood. They’ll rest. And then, after a few days or weeks, they’ll miss young Thomas and my brother’s twin boys. They’ll know they’re surrounded by beauty, but the pull of family will point that car north and back to an enduringly long Wisconsin winter. He says Maine, she says Florida. I say Lake Geneva. I’m glad that’s settled.