Every media source and social network is reporting on the extended work life anticipated by the boomer generation as they approach what used to be an assumed retirement age of 65. Some seem eager to continue, to recoup retirement portfolio losses, or simply because they've hit their stride in a fulfilling career. I’m with them, and frankly happy to have their company, not to feel like such an outlier. The thought brings back to mind what happened to me on a windy day last March.

            Walking home from my office, I met two young lawyers with whom I have a passing acquaintance. We paused on a busy downtown corner waiting for the traffic light to change. They were empty handed and carefree, dressed in sweats. I carried a briefcase, my heavy winter coat open to the warming spring air.

            We smiled in greeting and one of them said, in a jocular tone: Bea, you still working?

            I answered: yes.

            Then the other said: Come on, it's about time you packed it in and got out on the golf course.

            The light changed. Side by side we crossed the street. They walked on, and I turned toward home, saved from having to respond. In the days that followed, I chewed on their words as a dog might worry a bone. Every friend I chanced to talk with heard about this insult.

             But why did I think it was?

             After much thought and conversation, I came to see their remark as friendly needling. Would it have been an irritant if I were not already sensitive about my age, expected to retire, to move over. Is that the message I chose to hear? Not play golf, but get out of the way? I think so.

             My husband joyfully retired at the age of 63, after thirty years of college teaching. Disillusioned with a university administration that valued successful research grant applications over skilled teaching, he contentedly entered a new phase of life and spent the next fifteen years engaged with family, our household, and trips to wilderness fishing spots he could reach in his small plane. I happily continued practicing law.

             Both Len and I were raised by parents who became parents as stock markets crashed and the Great Depression followed. Len's father yearned for retirement to escape from the crushing physical hardship of his blue-collar life, longed to fill his life with music, travel and raising beautiful flowers. My father, also having risen from poor beginnings, joyfully gave up the competitive business world to enjoy leisure, to listen to music and read.

            Our mothers never really retired, Len's helping to care for each new grandchild she could hold close, and mine, an artist, was still painting just weeks before her death at 87.

             Dare I generalize from this small sample?

             Perhaps those of us who are in control of the work we've chosen to do, answerable to neither productivity demands or the discordant values of a system we no longer share or feel able to influence, can cheerfully soldier on, fulfilled by bringing to bear competence learned over a lifetime.

             And after all, aren't the eighties the new seventies?