Most of us, at least the vast majority of the full time musical entertainers I know personally, never figured on retiring. Me, having worked in the medical field for many years, knew that day would come when my mind would try keeping appointments my body could no longer make. That's when you, like or or not, have to retire - you really don't have a choice.

Unlike 95 percent of my musical entertainment friends, I set up a couple retirement accounts many, many years ago, know full that this day would come. Therefore, two years ago, when the body parts went to Hell, I was able to walk away and begin drawing from the retirement accounts and do many of the things I wanted to do beyond the wonderful world of music, sailing, fishing, and just being lazy. Don Mason told me how much fun the lazy part was. It was something I had never mastered, but I'm workin' on it, Don - I'm really workin' on it!

For Fathers Day, my daughter brought me when she described as the photo she likes best. I kinda like it almost as much as she does. This is a camera photo of the photo, so it's not nearly as good as the original, which I will post when she emails it to me.


Now, when I'm not fishing or shooting wildlife photos, I try to spend my leisure time sailing Chesapeake Bay, which lately, had been very restricted because of my lung problem. Fortunately, the lung doc put me on a new medication that seems to be really helping me breathe better, and I can spend much of the day not being tethered to a length of tubing and a portable oxygen generator. This video, which I sent to a few friends, was shot yesterday. The, fat, old guy behind the helm feels and looks like a blimp because of the side effects of my third round of prednisone, but hopefully, when I go off of it in another week or so, I'll shed the pounds.



My reason for posting this is I know that most full timers on this forum have not thought seriously about retirement, and like many of my friends, they figure they will die on stage, which rarely happens. Believe me, it's never too late to create an IRA or Roth IRA, and put that account into place. The best method I found was to pay into it monthly, just as if you were paying a car payment, or your mortgage. At the end of the year, you can deduct it from your income tax on your Schedule C, you get to keep they money instead of giving a big chunk to Uncle Sam, and eventually, in the not too distant future, when that day comes, maybe you can afford to be lazy, do some fishing, sailing, traveling, etc... An old friend once told me "Life is like a roll of toilet paper - the closer you get to the end of the roll, the faster it comes off." Pretty smart person!

Good luck,

Gary