This Active Life May 2002: Voices

A Message from the President

Participate--And Make a Difference

In the spirit of Older Americans Month, which is commemorated each year in May, I'd like to encourage all NEA-Retired members to stay active and to make their voices heard.

Recent events in the economy and politics make your involvement even more critical. One year ago, we were discussing how to use the federal budget surplus. Could it be used to shore up Social Security? To provide a prescription drug benefit to Medicare recipients? To strengthen education and our public schools? Those initiatives are now on the back burner, and the federal government has tapped into the Social Security Trust Fund to the tune of $2 trillion. As policymakers make decisions that affect us all, it will be critical that they hear from you. Now, more than ever, we need you to become active; to advocate for our priorities at the local, state, and national level; and to make sure our issues and concerns are heard.

Your colleagues and elected leaders of NEA-Retired need to hear from you as well. The NEA-Retired Annual Meeting, to be held June 26-28, 2002, in Dallas, Texas, provides ample opportunity for you to influence your Association and become more involved with its work. Members attending the meeting in Dallas will elect officers, debate new business items, raise money for the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education, and socialize with colleagues from across the country.

An example of the business carried out at the Annual Meeting can be found beginning on page 16 of this issue. The 2001 New Business Items approved at the last NEA-Retired Annual Meeting in Los Angeles address a variety of timely topics and can give you a sense of the issues critical to our membership.

Your experience will help influence the road to the future--and will make a difference for our children, public education, and your fellow retirees.

From the Editor

We Need Your Ideas

Jim Sproul's column urges you to make your voice heard. I also encourage you to share some of your ideas, energy, and enthusiasm with This Active Life magazine.

This spring, we are taking a fresh look at the design and editorial content of This Active Life. I welcome your ideas about any aspect of the magazine. Would you be interested in longer, more in-depth pieces? What topics would you like to read about? Would you like to see more contributions by members such as yourself? Also, please let us know your thoughts on the design and readability of the magazine.

More specifically, you can make a valuable contribution by helping us find NEA-Retired members with interesting and poignant stories to tell. Who are the vibrant and hard-working former teachers and ESP that we should be profiling in the "People" column and other features? Also, what questions--on health, finances, or other topics--do you want answered in our "Ask the Expert" column?

We want This Active Life to be responsive to your needs and interests, so please take a few minutes and let us know what you'd like to read about.

Write to This Active Life Magazine, NEA Communications, 1201 16th St., NW, Washington, DC 20036. You also can contact me by phone (202/822-7223), fax (202/822-7206), or E-mail (joneil@nea.org).

--John O'Neil, editor

Our Readers Respond

What's the best advice you've been given about retirement?

Laugh at Yourself
The best retirement advice I ever received was: Stop competing and don't take life so seriously, because you'll never get out of it alive. Laugh at yourself and live longer.

Bill Fullerton
Roxbury Township, New Jersey

Plan on Something Different
A colleague recommended that before going to sleep on school nights, I should mentally plan at least one thing to do the following day that I could not do if I were still working. Of course, sometimes the sun comes up and an unplanned opportunity causes me to scrap my original plan. That's the joy of retirement!

Jacquie McTaggart
Independence, Iowa

Don't Look Back
In Walden, Thoreau gave me the best advice about retirement: "I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one."

I taught high school English for 36 years with gusto, right through to the last day. Then, just like mustering out of the army, I walked off toward a different life with different challenges and never looked back.

Donald Otis
Teaneck, New Jersey

Take Your Time
Be proud of the past, but don't look back. Embrace the future, but not too swiftly. With finances and friends in order, examine your options. First, take time to savor the slow waking up in the morning and the occasional late-night TV show. Tend the garden, read, write, or rediscover old hobbies and crafts for which there was never enough time. Move gently, but surely, into the mainstream of travel, work, or volunteerism. Plenty of opportunities will come knocking at your door, but choose among them with discrimination, selecting the activities that give satisfaction and pleasure as teaching always did. Above all, enjoy!

Jean Bell
Ocean City, New Jersey

Protect Yourself
Protect yourself. Double check everything, and keep copies of all your retirement paperwork. My school district neglected to forward a form to my health insurance carrier, and I didn't know for five weeks that my coverage had been terminated. Luckily, I was reinstated because I had a copy of the form that I had mailed in prior to my retirement.

I also got great advice from a union-sponsored workshop on retirement. I took notes for hours and followed through on many of the suggestions, years before I actually planned on retiring. Securing excellent long-term health and home care insurance is a must these days.

Roberta Sarchet
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

What have you done recently to rally support for issues of concern to retirees, such as health care, pensions, or prescription drug funding?
This Active Life would like to know. Write to This Active Life, NEA Publishing, 1201 16th St., NW, Washington, DC 20036. Or you can E-mail joneil@nea.org.

Correction
A photo of Emma Shephard was inadvertently used in place of a photo of Emma McCoy in the March issue of This Active Life. We regret the error.