I've been thinking a lot recently about this strange transformation that occurs as people reach retirement. I've been thinking about this for a long time, really--ever since I noticed that outgoing faculty members in whatever department I happened to be housed in at the time frequently went outright crazy before they went out the door. We used to think it was the asbestos in Adams Humanities. Now I just think it's the encroaching horror of endless free time.
More about my outgoing colleagues later, maybe. For now, I'm remember the various oddities of retired people as I was growing up. In my teen years we lived in little suburb in Dana Point, full of identical stucco houses overlooking the valley of San Juan Capistrano. Ordinarily, suburbs make you think about normal people doing normal things--people have jobs, they go to work every day, they mow their lawns, they shop at Ralph’s and Albertsons, and they make dinners out of little plastic bags that they microwave for ten minutes until the stuff gets soft enough to chew. So it was always kind of strange when you saw one of your neighbors doing something other than minding his own business. And because we lived so close together in the suburbs, and because we could see practically into one another’s bathroom windows, it was almost impossible to get away with doing something that wasn’t what other people expected you to be doing.
Two doors down from us lived this retired couple. We could see straight through the post fence, past or an immediate neighbor, into their yard. The older gentleman liked to sit on his lounge chair in the California sun, shooting pigeons. He had bought a BB gun especially for this task, and we could all see it as we sat in our own backyards. He did not seem to mind being observed at all. He would leap to his feet, grab his gun, kneel down, and take aim at these hapless pigeons that liked to sit on those post-fences and poop all over them. Nor did he always aim straight backward off the embankment of his yard, where there was at least no immediate danger of hitting the neighbor’s dog or even the neighbor himself. He was just as apt to take aim through the fence toward our own backyard and toward us kids. We were nosily and probably obnoxiously watching him in open horror, so we probably deserved this.
But anyway, here is the thing about retired people. Little things really bug them. Little things like squirrels and garden moles and pigeons.
So, being retired, they buy air guns and shoot them.
What's up with this?
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My retired father-in-law does the same damned thing with squirrels! Out there plinging away with his little air pistol like a 12 year old. He also traps raccoons on his property, then gives them to a retired neighbor who allegedly disposes of them in a much less humane fashion.
My retired Dad has our yard on lock down. He installed a squirrel trap which humanely catches them and then he "relocates" them to a nearby canyon he calls squirrel gulch. He has rat poison traps in the four corners of our yard (we live on a canyon,and my favorite is the motion censored sprinkler to ward off free-loading rabbits. At night when the coyotes get too close to the fence, he has a mega-watt spot light always on charge to blind the little beasts before they have a chance to even think of hopping our fence. He has tried shooting things with a bb gun but this came to an abrupt end when one martini drenched day he missed the bird and broke his favorite bird feeder...don't worry he glued and duck-taped it back together.
Wow--that's priceless! Okay, now I know I'm not just making this phenomenon up. Hilarious.
Outside a DC Metro station. An old man in a cowboy hat walks up to a street vendor. They hug and exchange pleasantries. The old man says "You see any dead pigeons fall out of the sky? Because I been shootin' at them out my window up there."
I hope you're well.
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