The Importance of an Occupation after Retirement!
“Harold is my new inspiration,” Howard Hight reports.
Howard, a graduate of Malcolm Campbell High School in Montreal who now lives in the USA, has shared with us the following message, circulating as an email, which he has affirmed is fine for me to post:
The Importance of an Occupation after Retirement!
As we get older we sometimes begin to doubt our ability to “make a difference” in the world. It is at these times that our hopes are boosted by the remarkable achievements of other “seniors” who have found the courage to take on challenges that would make many of us wither.
Harold Schlumberg is such a person:
THIS IS QUOTED FROM HAROLD:
“I’ve often been asked, ‘What do you do now that you’re retired?’
“Well…I’m fortunate to have a chemical engineering background and one of the things I enjoy most is converting scotch, wine and whiskey into urine. It’s rewarding, uplifting, satisfying and fulfilling. I do it every day and I really enjoy it.”
Harold is an inspiration to us all.
[End of text from Howard Hight]
Comment & Update
The CBC Archives has a great overview of the history of “Canada’s changing relationship with the bottle.” An earlier post about red wine and health can be accessed here.
A Dec. 13, 2013 CBC article is entitled: “Human taste for alcohol linked to apes eating rotten fruit: Apes eating fermented fruit led to our taste for alcohol, says Matthew Carrigan.”
This is too funny!
We owe thanks to Howard Hight, of the MCHS Sixties Reunion organizing committee, for sharing this delightful, carefully constructed message with us! I would add that the message brings to mind what is categorized as a classic Canadian song entitled “Tim Finnegan’s Wake.” The song is featured in a “Classic Canadian Songs” Smithsonian Folkways CD available at the Toronto Public Library.
The album notes for the above-noted CD share the following details about the song:
‘The drinking song ‘Tim Finnegan’s Wake,’ popular in Irish music halls and the inspiration for James Joyce’s last novel, recounts the comical fate of a tippling hod carrier whose love of the craythur (whiskey) proves to be his undoing – and ultimately his salvation. When the inebriated Tim falls to his death attempting to deliver his load of bricks and mortar, friends and neighbors congregate for the ritual wake. In the drunken pandemonium that ensues, a flying gallon of whiskey splashes over the corpse and brings Tim back to life.”