Framed picture of me with the scales of justice presented by my colleagues when I retired
Originally published February 6, 2018, the first time we did the prompt Retirement.
I loved being a lawyer. I can't think of any other career I would have rather had. Except for being a rock 'n' roll singer - that would have been the best.
I loved being a lawyer. I can’t think of any other career I would have rather had. Well, except for being a rock ‘n’ roll singer – that would have been the best. But besides playing Linda Ronstadt at my office holiday party and singing a few local gigs with my first husband’s band, I never even came close to that career track. So lawyer was the best obtainable career I could have. However, I wouldn’t say I was ever that gung ho, and I liked the idea of retiring, unlike my two older sisters, who will probably never retire.
When I turned 50, which was the earliest age to collect benefits from the State of California’s retirement system, I started thinking about it seriously. I just wasn’t that motivated to go into the office any more, and the types of cases I was handling at that point involved suing welfare recipients who had been accidentally overpaid to get back the overpayments, or suing heirs of someone who died after receiving Medicaid to recoup some of the costs from the estate. These kinds of cases I actually didn’t want to win.
But then a friend of mine was appointed to head up the Attorney General’s Crime and Violence Prevention Center, and he offered me a really sweet deal to work on a program called Safe from the Start. I told him I was planning to retire, and he said, try this out, you might like it even better than retirement. It turned out to be a lot of fun, planning conferences and making videos, and I did that for almost six years. Eventually my friend left for a job in the Governor’s Office, and when the conferences started seeming repetitive, I decided it was time to go.
My last day at the Attorney General’s Office was June 5, 2007. That night I took a redeye flight to Boston to attend my 35th college reunion. As I walked around Cambridge over the next few days, I wasn’t sure if I was really retired or just on vacation. But when I got home on Sunday night, and didn’t have to go to work on Monday, or ever again, suddenly it became real.
So now it’s been close to eleven years [now in 2023 it’s been 16 years!]. I have never once felt bored or thought I had “too much time on my hands,” as the Styx song says. And while I have continued to pay my State Bar dues every year – just in case – I don’t really see myself practicing law ever again.
For the first seven of those years, I still had my youngest daughter at home, and she was high-maintenance. She had health issues, and learning issues, and the general angst that comes with the pre-teen and teenage years, so I needed to pay attention to all of that. I was the leader of her Girl Scout troop and also the Cookie Manager. (Oh those Girl Scout cookie sales, they were all-consuming every January, February and March!) She did her last two years of high school online, so I was her coach and her tutor and her editor. When she took chemistry, I was her lab partner. We did all the chem labs on the dining room table, and there are still a few discolored spots to prove it.
Additionally, it turned out that when people heard I was retired, they said “oh great, now you have time to . . .” whatever project they were working on. So I was added to the law school reunion committee for the 30th, and then later the 35th and the 40th, and pretty much took the whole thing over. I was also recruited to be the chair of the Harvard Schools & Scholarships Committee, which means coordinating all the interviews of high school students applying to Harvard from northeastern California. (While most of the students are from the Sacramento area, my territory goes north all the way to the Oregon border, and east all the way to the Nevada border, and finding alumni to interview kids in the outlying areas can be quite challenging.) When I took this program over ten years ago, I instituted a training session for interviewers every fall, and I also started reviewing all the interview reports before they were submitted, about 250 per year. As a result, my region has a reputation in the Admissions Office for producing the best-written and most reliable reports. Of course that doesn’t mean we get a higher percentage of kids in than other regions, but it might help in some cases.
In the last three years, since Molly went off to college, I have added more activities. I had already been singing in my temple choir for about 20 years, but I recently joined another choir as well, and I also took up tap dancing until I broke my ankle. I sometimes play the oboe with a chamber group. I have joined two book clubs, one with a handful of friends that meets monthly, and a larger one that my rabbi organized which meets quarterly. I learned to play mah jongg, and play every Monday afternoon. I am on the board of my temple Sisterhood, currently Secretary and soon to be Vice President for Membership, and will be going to a Leadership Conference in Nashville next month.
Words are a focus for me. I generally do the New York Times crossword puzzle on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays (the ones early in the week are too easy). I play Scrabble and Words With Friends online with several dear friends who don’t live close by. Of course I also write for Retrospect almost every week, which is very important to me.
My most recently added activity is the Sacramento Ethics Commission. In December 2017 I had the honor of being appointed one of the first five members to this brand new city commission, which was created by the City Council, at the behest of the League of Women Voters and Common Cause, to deal with ethical violations in city government. We had our first meeting last month, and I think what we are doing is profoundly important, especially in contrast to the current federal government which has no concerns about ethics at all.
[Addendum: Betsy reminds me to add the voter protection work I did in Georgia for both the 2020 and 2022 elections. For more on that, see Georgia On My Mind.]
When acquaintances or strangers have asked me over the years what I do now that I’m retired, I generally say “Sit around and eat bonbons.” In fact, I wouldn’t even have time for that if I had them. But a bonbon now and then would be nice.
Suzy
Your life as a retiree seems so full! When I read that you were your daughter’s Girl Scout Cookie Manager I somehow read Cookie Monster and I had to laugh. I also love your last paragraph about bonbons. Do you ever wonder how you ever fit in work when you had it?
No, not a Cookie Monster, although I do like to gobble those Peanut Butter Patties! Most of my professional life I only worked half-time, and I did always wonder how people (especially lawyers) who worked full-time managed to do anything else.
Suzy! We do like to stay busy, don’t we? I’d say we have followed similar paths, though you have gotten busier, while I, less so. But working with our children (very impressive work with Molly), then moving on to alumni work (and taking it over, as time goes by), then branching out to the enjoyable (like singing) seems to be the trajectory. My eyesight is such that I have trouble reading now, so no book groups for me, though so many other women I know are in them. My husband and I go to a lot of movies and even a movie festival or two each year (though this year is an off year for us…he’s been too busy with other things). But our paths seem quite similar. Keep up the great work. No time for bonbons, indeed!
Hadn’t realized the similarity of our retirement paths until you pointed it out. Yours has spanned a much longer period of time, so you have more exciting stories, like your phone call from Mike Wallace. Maybe I should have included my political meeting with Jane Fonda. 🙂 Reading each other’s Retrospect stories over the past two years (!), we certainly have discovered a lot of commonality in our lives, starting with Interlochen and Plymouth Valiants and moving on from there.
Shall we call ourselves the “Retrospect Twins”?
Oh…and I love the photo!
Thanks, I was so glad I remembered it. The actual framed picture is fairly large, 16″ x 20″, and it had been out in the garage all these years. Now that I have retrieved it, I’m planning to hang it on the wall somewhere in the house.
A terrific story, Suzy, and particularly inspiring for those of us still edging up on retirement and worried about the abyss. Your activities are especially interesting because of the enormous range of them — from highly personal, family ones (e.g., with Molly) to governmental (Sacramento Ethics Commission) to institutional (all the Harvard-Radcliffe stuff) to musical. So both bon bons and bon mots to you — a true Renaissance woman! And I love that your story picture above was totally not photo shopped.
Well if it had been photoshopped (which I’m not admitting), it would have been done by a professional graphic artist in the employ of the Department of Justice.
You really do have a full life! I’m glad writing for Retrospect is one of the things you’ve chosen to spend your time doing—and thanks for getting me into it as well. And, LOVE that photo!
Thanks Kit. I’m glad that you’re here too.
When I read your Retro posts, I’m always struck by the impression of you sitting down to write with a clear sense of a story to tell. I’m always blown away by the easy ambience of your voice and your ability to render the complex circumstances into a warm, clear narrative. I loved your epiphany: “But when I got home on Sunday night, and didn’t have to go to work on Monday, or ever again, suddenly it became real.” Thanks, as always for sharing. What a life!
What a great comment, Charlie, thank you! Not sure I sit down with a clear story to tell, often it evolves while I’m writing. You know the quote about writing so that you know what you think, stated (in slightly different ways) by both Flannery O’Connor and Sacramento’s own Joan Didion.
Great title, as usual (though I must admit that I was half -expecting the Airplane’s “Volunteers”) and a terrific picture of you, too. I am so impressed with all that you have done post-retirement, particularly as I just now embark on that journey and am already worrying about, yup, “too much time on my hands.”
Happily, at least I can spend more time writing/reading Retro stories now – -and, yeah, maybe a bon bon or two, not that I need it. Thanks so much for the inspiration, and may I actually turn it into something constructive.
John, thanks for commenting again. I guess your perspective now is a tad different from two years ago when this story was first posted. And no, the song “Volunteers” doesn’t really fit, I don’t look at my activities as volunteering the way Betsy does, I’m just doing things that interest me.
Really good point about the evolution of my perspective from two years ago. Back then, even though it was all laid out, I didn’t really believe I was on the “abyss” and actually going to retire.
And let me pile on my kudos for all you do for Retro despite your busy schedule!
Suzy, our Retro friends have said it all above, so I can only add my voice to say brava to you for all you have done and do, and for administrating this wonderful website, and again many thanx to my friend Betsy for bringing me in!
Would be wonderful to have a Retro reunion for all of us to meet face-to-face, maybe in Chicago which sorta seems in the middle. We’ll all come prepared to shower you with bon bons!
Thanks, Dana. All the comments you saw above were written two years ago (although now JS has written again). I’m excited about all the new writers we have acquired since then, and hoping others will read my story too. Most of it hasn’t changed since two years ago, except that Molly has now graduated from college! Oh yeah, and I’ve taken over ownership of Retro!
And so glad you did!
Suzy, you are sooo busy, and actually because Molly is launched (to some degree), it gives me hope that I will be able to balance more fun with caregiving. That image is just awesome. You had great colleagues, well deserved.
Thanks, Marian. I have the original hanging in my living room. It’s fun to look at! When I wrote this story two years ago, I retrieved it from the garage where it had been stored, wrapped in newspapers, since I packed up my office 10 ½ years earlier.
You are a force of nature, Suzy! And as I’m coming to realize, your “writing for Retrospect,” as you put it, involves a LOT more than just writing your story. I would think it’s practically a full-time job in itself. When I was reading this story, the Bob Dylan song “Forever Young” came to my mind. I think you just might be forever young.
Barbara, that is one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me! Thank you so much!
Wow, Suzy, your “retirement” years are exhausting in the best possible way. Yours is a life well lived and certainly never boring. I love your prompt image. When I finally completely retired from the school I founded (I had tried to retire prior but ending up staying to mentor the new director and serve as communications coordinator), they hung a portrait of me in the front hall next the the school’s namesake. That was seven years ago and as I age, the picture stays the same. It’s a weird feeling to see it now.
Thanks, Laurie. I bet you still look a lot like your portrait from seven years ago. On the other hand, you could be like Dorian Gray, and have a portrait that ages while you stay the same!
A good tale, Suzy. “Encore presentations”, the reformulation of what were once called reruns on TV can be every bit as rewarding and interesting as the first time around. Just like encore careers. You go, girl.
On an irreverent note, your exchange about portraits and aging made me think of a George Carlin (my fave) bit where he imagined the ideal existence: we start life as aged and grow increasingly younger through childhood and infancy, ending our lives in an orgasm.
Thanks, Tom. Encore stories are what we get when we rerun a prompt that we have used before. Something I prefer not to do, although new writers keep asking for prompts that we have already done, so it may happen again.
Love the George Carlin bit. Like the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, only I don’t think that had an orgasm at the end.
Great story! I especially like the picture. If it were me, I’d have that hanging proudly in my house!
Thanks! The picture was in the garage from 2007 to 2018. I found it two years ago when I wrote the story, and it has been hanging proudly in my living room ever since.
Suzy, I think you need to add one more item to your lengthy retirement resumé: poll watcher in Georgia elections! That was important volunteer work that you and Ed took on during TWO election cycles, as we are seeing from this past week’s indictments.
Betsy, thanks for reminding me. I have now added it, with a link to my story about going to Georgia for the January 2021 Senate runoff.
What a fascinating career in law you had, Suzy, but it sounds like your retirement career has been great, too! Thanks for sharing. I didn’t see this back in 2018, for some reason.
Suzy, can’t wait to read ‘Georgia’. You certainly are quite busy in your retirement. Tried to help my DIL with her first year Girl Scout cookies assignment, what a mess. Gladly she passed after that. Love your Safe From The Start gig, seems it made an impact. Oh, sorry bout that ankle, did you ever go back to dancing?