Fall thoughts

By Jim Magdefrau

Well, it’s been spell.

The retirement plan seems to be working. It includes a lot of volunteer things, but that’s expected.

One afternoon I helped with planting trees near the driving range of the country club. Some day the trees will be moved around the course. It just does my heart good that someone 30 years from now will be hitting one of those trees, and they’ll grumble, “Who was the idiot that planted this tree here?”

That would be me. You’re welcome.

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Continuing on sports, I’m reading how athletes can make money off of not playing well. If I could make money off of living up to my low expectations, I could be a millionaire. 

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Continuing on retirement. We are of that age now that some of our college friends have moved on to get a degree in not being around anymore. That doubles down in the effort to have our existing crew get together when we can. The most recent one was Iowa State’s game against BYU. 

We have an ongoing conversation now, with pauses between thoughts reserved for our friends who aren’t here, and scoring bonus points if we can fill in those thoughts in the voices of those friends. 

We also stress the importance of continuing to make new friends. Our tailgate with a local friend and relative led to being right next to some of the Nolan crew. 

Now let me see if we can get this right. Jeff Nolan was boss of someone who was the wife of Rod’s boss. Plus Nolan worked in Jefferson for a spell which led to talks about our piano-publisher friend Rick Morain. And Jeff’s brother Scott is from Scottsdale, which is near where Rod and sister Joni winter in Arizona. 

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The game was cold. Sleet bounced off of us. We felt old, then saw a section of bleachers being gradually filled up with shirtless college fans who entertained the whole stadium with their synchronized cheering. People asked if we took off our shirts. Folks. We’re retired. If anything we’ll be adding shirts. This would be because of the warmth factor. Plus, we’re retired. You don’t want to see us without shirts. In fact we’re looking at getting electrified shirts and vests. And socks?

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The experience of game day is one that we do about once a decade. We might be stepping that up. For our friends who are gone. And those who are here. And those we’ve yet to meet.