Rambles of a Right Thinking Man

In the Blink of an Eye

Yep - it was over nearly that quick. All of the preparation, exasperation and -honestly - trepidation and the retirement ceremony came and went.

I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout - many of my co-workers showed up, I was happy to see them there. We still overplanned on food, taking nearly half of what we made back home with us. Looks like we'll be eating ham and turkey sub sandwiches for lunch and dinner the rest of the week.

The most surreal part of the entire ceremony was listening to CDR Wiseman's remarks about my career. He certainly made it sound much more glamorous than I recalled. On a couple occasions I thought to myself, "Is he talking about me?"

Yesterday I posted about not knowing what direction to go in my speech. Well, I did a little of both. Wasn't even sure what the content would be until I started talking - all I had was an outline. Intro, talk about the past, thank family and friends and then discussed what we were doing next.

Appropriate to the name of my space here, I concluded with the following comment:

I'm thankful to have enlisted under President Reagan, been commissioned under President Bush and now retiring under yet another President Bush.

I guess it just can't get much better than that. Thank goodness I didn't have to go through life with John Kerry's name at the bottom of my retirement certicate!

posted by subbob @ 1:38 PM 0 comments

Contemplating Retirement

Wow! Hard to believe it's been a year since I wrote my first (and only) entry on this blog. I guess I just wasn't ready to start writing one yet.

Tomorrow is my retirement ceremony - after close to 21 years in the Navy. As I write this, less than an hour before the rehearsal, I still don't know what I'm going to say tomorrow. Do I look towards the past, citing events gone by, friends of yesteryear and perhaps a humorous anecdote, aka sea story? Or do I speak of the present and future, of goals not yet accomplished and high and lofty aims in the coming years? More than likely, I will choose somewhere in between - speaking fondly of the past and looking forward, even if with some trepidation, to the stability of the future.

My family and I have lived here for four years now - the longest time in one place in over 20 years of frequent moves. Will this be our ultimate destination? or is it just another stop on along the way? It's hard to say right now - we are here for the foreseeable future, 3 to 7 years, until the children are done with high school and college. After that, who knows? Will the roots be too deep to move again? or will we become restless and have the need to move on?

posted by subbob @ 7:20 AM 0 comments