The week before I retired, I attended a modern art exhibit. I found myself in front of an installation that displayed hundreds of ties of various types, as well as tie clips, tacks, and pins. It brought home that I was indeed retiring. After 40-plus years of working in an office – where a tie was de rigueur for many of those years – the jumble of repurposed ties instilled in me a sense of relief: I no longer needed to endure the literal and figurative constraints of a necktie. And it inspired me to contemplate the freedom that was about to be mine. 

I’m at an age now that no matter how successful I become from here on in, I’ll never be called a Boy Wonder! Even if my cumulative youthful accomplishments to date are finally recognized as brilliant by someone other than my reflection, I’ll never, ever be called Boy Wonder! Even that reflection, which, admittedly is prejudiced for me, is not blind. Rather, I am at the age where a colonoscopy is n