Thursday, May 22, 2014

My First Retirement

Here is a picture of Elaine and I taken at the Washington, D.C. Headquarters Office reception to Honor me on my retirement from the USDA Soil Conservation Service. Elaine and I also had a joint reception involving Forest Service people as well as SCS folks. Elaine had worked for the FS for several years but wasn't eligible to retire. Though I was retiring from Federal Service, I went directly to work for the Nebraska Natural Resources Commission in Nebraska. Elaine transferred from the FS to the SCS in Lincoln and took her Federal retirement when she reached 62. We had bought an 80 acre farm near Seward that had a full set of old buildings and thought it would be an ideal retirement situation. What we didn't realize was how demanding our new jobs would be nor how difficult it was to do all the things on the farm that we wanted to do. My job provided an excellent opportunity to get to know the State's Natural Resources as well as many people across the State and in Government. We debated giving up the farm or my job for some time and after 8 years and having completed some studies, gave up my State job. After a year of full-time farming, we decided to give that up as well and headed up the International Soil and Water Conservation Society Office in Ankeny, Iowa. After about 3 years we decided to retire to the home we had in Seward and enjoy the virtues of retirement that include: travel, golf, gardening, morning coffee, Kiwanis, etc. 

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