And Now It Is Done...

11/21/2011

This is the first Monday of my retirement, and as corny as it may sound, it is the first day of the rest of my life.  I was conflicted for many months about retiring, but as the final day moved closer I embraced the idea.  This past Friday was my official last day as a working stiff.  I am a man of leisure now.

The first item on the “Bucket List” I made, which thus far has but one bucket, is to get a photograph of the sunrise on the first morning of my retirement.  Done!

Now knowing the vast majority of you have not been to The Farm, you may not visualize the topography of it.  Our property is in somewhat of a valley between two West Virginia mountains, the Sleepy Creek and the Cacapon – and slopes downward east to west.  Got it!

Friday morning I was up early (I am always up early), and one of the first things I wanted to do was to see the exact time the sun arose over the eastern horizon, after all it takes a bit longer for it to breach the summit of a mountain than it does the flatlands.  I checked the internet and found 7:13 as the local time for the sunrise, then watched very closely from my front porch to see when it would rise above the Sleepy Creek.  I first saw it through the trees about 7:25.  My next thought was brilliant: on Saturday my plan would be to leave the house about 7am and drive up to higher ground to a spot where I could get a clear shot of the fireball as it moved above the horizon, figuring it would do it about 7:20.

I positioned myself at a point with an elevation about 200 feet higher than that at our house and at least a mile closer to the mountain.  Coffee cup in hand, I sat in my car contemplating retirement as daylight moved over the mountain and with soothing New Age music surrounding my ears.  Eagerly, I awaited the arrival of Sol.  It was just 7am.  This was going to be too cool!  However, it soon became quite evident I am a dumbass and my geometry teacher, David Elenbogen, was right-on when he gave me a “D” for his class.  I was now closer to the mountain and had reduced the distance from the mountain to my location thereby greatly increasing the angle between my location and the point where the sun would become visible.  This fact finally hit me at 7:30 as the eastern horizon grew brighter and brighter but the sun was not yet visible.  Slowly, as the minutes crept by one-by-one, the eastern sky began to blaze and Her Majesty made her regal entrance.  The time, 7:38.

If you have ever witnessed the sun rising, then you know you can literally see it move, though it ain’t in a hurry.  As it broke the plane I began snapping photos; I must have taken a dozen or more.  It was awesome, and solidified the moment – I am retired.

This being my first Monday as a retired American and an official senior citizen living on a fixed income, I have decided to sit here in my favorite chair and think about a second item I can add to my Bucket List.  This will not be easy, but then I have all day to do it.

And that is all I have to say about that…