When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
For a long time I wanted to do the kind of work my dad did. He was going to ask his foreman at the mill to put me on after I graduated. So I worked at the mill for about six months. But I hated the work and knew from the first day I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life.
By the mid-70s, I wanted to get out of the business. I was tired anyway.
When I was younger, I thought about retiring.
I spent thirty-two years in a paper mill in southern Ohio, and before that, I worked in a meatpacking plant and a shoe factory.
I never wanted to retire. I wanted to kind of shift my work pattern so I could stay fresh and invigorated, and use the experience that I had gained in 30 years, but in a slightly different direction.
When I came out, I was 68, and I was totally prepared for my career to recede when I spoke to the press for the first time. What happened after that blew me away. I started getting more offers. My career blossomed.
I went to a public high school that had a very small graduating class of 156 students. I lived a relatively normal childhood until I turned probably around 16. Things started to take off career-wise.
Had I pursued my education long enough to learn all the conventional dos and don'ts of starting a business, I often wonder how different my life and career might have been.
Eventually I lost the idea that I could have a career. I thought I was too old.
I'm so lucky to have a career in my fifties. And to still have the desire to do it. I don't think about retirement.