I founded ACF Property Management, Inc. on March 1, 1968.

That was 55 years ago, or “in the age of the dinosaurs,” as my children will occasionally remind me.

For a long time, I diligently kept a business “To Do” list of the eighteen or twenty projects I intended to complete each day.  I don’t remember a single day when I checked everything off my list, but I do remember those many days when fate intervened. Then I had to give my full attention to other issues and didn’t find time to work on a single project from my list.

Retirement, however, was never on my “To Do” list, then or now.

One of my investors recently wrote to tell me that he was retiring and moving to France.

“Retiring?” I thought.  “How can he do that?”

Then I remembered that he was probably ten or twelve years younger than I am, so I guess he’s entitled to retire.  But I won’t, and here is why.

For many years my dad refused to buy a TV.  He said, “I’d probably just sit and watch the thing all day long.”  But, after I graduated from high school, he bought a color TV.  And he was right.  He sat in front of it for much of the rest of his long life.

But, like Dad, I like working on projects with other people.  He was still teaching music students when he was more than 100 years old.  I enjoy solving business problems with my staff at ACF.  It keeps my mind active, and ACF endeavors are far more engaging than sitting on my sofa watching “The Price Is Right,” or whatever the current TV favorite is for the geriatric set.  (Although I will admit that Daveen and I watch Jeopardy together most weekday evenings.)

So here I’ll remain, working away, and wondering where all the other octogenarians have gone.

Alan

It was the final day of our vacation.  In fact, it was the final evening.  We had signed up for a dinner cruise in Sydney Harbor.

Mistake.  Big.

We could have been packing our luggage, enjoying the Elvis movie on our watch list, or savoring a final meal on the cruise ship.  But, instead, we were slowly touring Sydney Harbor — a tour we had taken several times before and realized, too late, that this was one too many.

Finally, at ten pm, we arrived back at the dock.  We could easily see our cruise ship, only 500 yards away.  But there was a body of water in between where we had docked and our ship. The bus ride back to the ship would take close to half an hour.

I was in a hurry to return and was among the first passengers off the dinner boat.  Soon I was leading the pack to the bus that would deliver us to the Viking Mars.  Then we encountered the first problem.  As we walked up to the landing we nearly crashed into a sign: “Dock closed at dusk.”  Okay.  It was just a sign, and I was not going to let a sign cause me to spend a chilly night on the dock.  Please keep this our little secret: sometimes I ignore signs.

But I couldn’t ignore the two barriers that were strategically placed to block our path.

The first was a fence made of fish net. It was latched to the left with Velcro, so I simply opened it and pushed it aside so the other 40 or so passengers could follow me back to the bus.

The second obstacle was not so easy. I yanked hard on the handle, but it was either stuck or locked in some way.  But since the second fence was only about 36 inches high, I decided to just step over it.  This was not as easy for me as it might have been twenty years ago, but I made it over in one piece.

I’m happy to report that the remainder of our trip back to the ship went smoothly, which, of course, brings my story to its happy conclusion.

I believe I’ve mentioned how much the ocean swells rocked the ship on the last two days of our cruise.  But Daveen and I have solved that problem in advance.  Our next cruise is on the Ohio River from St. Louis to Philadelphia, where we expect calm waters.

Maybe we’ll revisit the Elvis movie on our next cruise. Meanwhile, if you really need to get somewhere – I encourage you to remove or step over any obstacle in your path.

And I won’t tell anyone if you occasionally ignore a sign.

Alan

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the last time it snowed in Los Angeles.  A journalist friend, whom I trust, responded that the snow fell in 1949, not 1952.  So that calls for, if not a retraction, at least a caveat – do not trust me to be entirely accurate in this blog other than about my own thoughts and feelings.  I have always been semi-allergic to researching details because I find any project that takes more than three minutes has the potential to become seriously boring, and at my age I want to be amused, not bored.  Actually, that was true for me when I was younger as well.

During the past week the formerly good (but now, sadly, not so great) ship Viking Mars has suffered the indignity of being refused entry to one port because a freighter is stuck at the dock that was destined for us.  Also, one of the engines isn’t working (on a ship fewer than six months old), so we are headed directly to Melbourne for repairs rather than to Hobart in Tasmania.  Hobart promised to be a lot more interesting.

Also, the ship has run out of eggs – I kid you not!  So, no scrambled eggs for me this morning.

By the time you read this Daveen and I should be back home.  I have found that the best part of any vacation is walking into my bedroom at the end of my travels.  Home is where there are no stuck freighters or malfunctioning engines, and always . . . plenty of eggs.

A few days ago I began to write my rememoirs (I hope I am the first author to use that word).  I intend my rememoirs to be a humorous, perhaps touching, account of my first 83 years of adventures on this earth, or, as Heinlein wrote, in this strange land.  Memoirs are, presumably, what actually happened.  A rememior is what you remember happened.  The two are seldom identical.

Well, it’s almost time for an eggless breakfast (Oatmeal, anyone?).  The ship is rocking and Daveen has been in bed for almost an entire day. But I am reading another excellent book — Chancellor, a biography about Angela Merkel who was the outstanding, but not perfect, former Chancellor of Germany.

One of her guiding principles, for both herself and her country, is that you can’t do it alone.  I heartily second that idea and I’m grateful for everyone in my life who has helped me There are, and have been, many.

I’m looking forward to whipping up some scrambled eggs at home.

Alan