Retirement was, is and always will be an unenjoyable situation.
I have always worked and worked hard. My idea of work hours has always
been from "Can to Can't." When I first retired I had a lot of things I
thought I wanted to do, such as paint the house, clean the windows, work
on the yard, clean the grill, go fishing, plant hedges, clean out the
ditch, and on and on. Once you have done all that, what do you do for an
encore? Trying to teach my dog, Margo, how to use a computer was a
complete flop. She would not even use paper.

	I bored everyone I knew with a flurry of letter writing but
after awhile they quit replying and one way correspondence is not much
fun. I found myself sitting in a chair in the yard and looking at the
clouds and talking to Margo about life. She understood but never said
anything.

	I went to work at Radio Shack in Oxford, trying to sell
computers. Rudy Irwin had been there forever and no one wanted to talk
to me about a computer. They preferred to wait until Rudy was available.
I quit that job and later went to work at the Radio Shack in North
Anniston. I had good luck there and was top salesman in the district for
a long time. I enjoyed working for Frank Villalpando, no matter how
sloppy and disorganized he was. Then Rudy left Radio Shack and I was
sure I would be selected to replace him but they selected another
employee with about one percent of my experience and I quit again.

	Things were so boring that I went back to Radio Shack, working
for Frank again. Employees that knew nothing about computers were
selling computers and I was having to support the ones they sold and I
finally quit again. A little later Rudy opened a store front computer
store and I went to work for him. I worked for him well over a year but
he had an awful temper and it got to the point I could not work with him
and quit.

	I was running a computer Bulletin Board Service all this time
and spending more and more time on it. It was difficult as I was
dependent on contributions and expenses were several times higher than
contributions. Then BBS systems started springing up all over Anniston,
Oxford and Jacksonville and contributions fell off more, with expenses
going up. I was getting a few small repair jobs here and there and had
one consulting client, but expenses were so much greater than the
miscellaneous income that I had to close the BBS totally. That left
nothing much to do.

	I gave my BBS equipment to Mike Stultz, my adopted grandson.
Mike had Cerebral Palsy and a spirit larger than all outdoors. I helped
Mike keep the system going until he learned his way around.

	I opened another BBS and ran it awhole longer but it was too
expensive and I had to quit again.

	And that brings us to the present. The present is a life of some
bitterness and much boredom. Retirement is not what it is cracked up to
be. I spent most of my time taking care of Frances. Not that I resented it.
I am sure Frances knew I never minded taking care of her and if she had
lived I would have taken care of her forever. We stopped being lovers in
1984 and about 1991 or 1992 we began to be very close friends.