This is retirement?
Retirement ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. I’ve “retired” three times, and still I’m working. I don’t know how to do anything else.
After about ten days into it, retirement goes stale for me. In less than two weeks, I begin to feel an itch that’s scratched only by being in business.
Two simultaneous careers.
My first business terrified me. So many worries, so many possibilities. The answers never seemed good enough and there was never enough time. But, through it all, I was always confident that the problems of the day could be solved and that tomorrow would bring new opportunities. Only later did it occur to me that this is what being in business is all about.
I started my first business in 1972. It was a typesetting, design and printing operation that began on our dining room table. Then I rented offices in Manhattan at 9 Broadway. My wife thought I was crazy.
Fresh out of the cocoon of corporate America—with a regular paycheck and good benefits—I was setting sail on a voyage to an uncertain destination. I had a compass, however, and it reminded me daily of where I wanted to go. Nowadays, it’s called a business plan. Back then, it was a hundred scraps of paper in my desk drawer.
It took about five years to get established, grow the operation, expand the customer base, hire employees, maintain quality, take on partners, and worry about cash flow, payroll, taxes, and deliveries. Ever so gradually, things began to run more smoothly. I found I had free time on my hands.
So I launched a second, concurrent career. It was a real estate partnership based on residential properties in downtown Jersey City. Suddenly, I was involved in two different businesses in two states. It was hard work, but it was fun.
In 1989, I brought those two careers to an end by selling both the printing operation and the real estate partnership. I retired to Pennsylvania. Days later, I was miserable.
Third career.
Talking with people about what they were doing always interested me. And I was always writing about it. It was time to combine the two, and that occurred during the 1990s.
I became a business counselor at the Small Business Development Center. My initial work was at Warren County Community College. While there, I founded and wrote two publications on a regular basis. Later, I counseled business people at Raritan Valley Community College and at Kean University.
Subsequently, I established the Business Owners Institute. Over the next nine years, it grew to some 350 members in 12 states. We did a lot of handholding, problem solving and advising people in small business. We hosted and held business workshops, seminars, and networking sessions throughout northern New Jersey. In addition, I established two publications—a weekly and a monthly.
All this activity forced me to recognize that I was no longer 30 years old. I decided it was time to retire again. Since then, to satisfy that itch to stay busy, I’ve written for and about business.
I talk with business people and write about them every day. Hunterdon Folks is a compilation of stuff I’ve written. Over 750 people discuss their activities, and over 800 names are listed in the index. The book is 550 pages of the stuff that makes Hunterdon work.
