EDITOR’S NOTE: Author Phyllis McCrossin has decided to retire a second time since she stepped away several years ago. The following is her last column for Townbroadcast. We thank her for her work.
by Phyllis McCrossin
It’s Mother’s Day. King and I went to the grocery store to get a few items for lunch since I didn’t feel like cooking on my day.
(And no, despite what the guy in the White House says, groceries is/are NOT an old-fashioned word. People have been getting groceries since before I was born and will continue to buy groceries long after we are gone. Yes, dear readers, I think he is a putz).
However, I digress. We then drove around to check the water levels in Lake Michgian (still there) and drove to Glenn to check our post office box and then came home and napped. Napping is good.
Our oldest son visited later in the day and then we napped some more. Ahhh retirement.
Our days are pretty quiet now. I work a little in the campground store. It pays for King’s golf scrambles without putting a dent in our monthly budget. King mows the grass at the campground to pay for our long-term stay, as we quietly go about our lives. It’s not exciting or glamorous but it IS steady and has it’s own rewards.
Our new-to-us travel trailer has a kitchen table with a large window and I can watch the comings and goings of people as they set up their campsites on the weekends. Once school gets out, the week days will become a little more busy and we can add kids riding bikes around the grounds to the list of things I can watch.
I’ve set up my loom outside and will be completing more rugs and placemats for friends. Note to family members: you are all getting rugs and placemats for Christmas.
I’ve never been one to want to plan things too far in advance
The most I can commit to is a few campgrounds in California this winter, as reservations MUST be made. The gentleman who has offered us his driveway the past two winters has invited us back. In fact, we are his only respite as his wife slips further and further into dementia. Before we left last spring he told his his family has encouraged him to get out more.
He told us, “I told them you two are the break I need.” I am hoping we can go back. It’s a little up in the air as our new trailer, although shorter than our old trailer, is three feet wider because of a slideout. King sent him the dimensions yesterday and he’s measuring to see if we can fit, or more accurately if he can still get his car out of the driveway with our trailer parked there.
There is a possibility our oldest son will be traveling with us to California and taking a train home after Christmas. We won’t know until it happens.
So life goes on and we take things as they come. The summer will be filled with rock collecting on the beach, weaving, work and golf. It’s not a bad way to pass time.
We will be hosting a McCrossin family reunion this summer as our daughter is flying in from California and renting one of the campground duplexes for a week. The rest of our family will come and go as their schedules permit during the week she is here. On one of the Sunday’s during her visit we will host a baby shower for our granddaughter who is having her first baby this fall. It will be our sixth great-grandchild.
It’s a quiet life.
And now, since Mr. Young has announced his pending retirement from the newspaper business I am announcing my second (or third or fourth) retirement from writing this column. King and I will be slinking back into obsecurity and just taking things as they come.
I wish all of you the best. Enjoy life. Dance while you still can.
Thank you for the stories, and for coming back from retirement and doing it again! I have enjoyed your stories these past years.