By Don
I call this event our first retirement because we left the Navy, were years away from Social Security income, and were no longer employed. We had vacationed in Arizona and had dear friends that retired at Sun City from Breckenridge. They were near Tucson and we had visited them. We preferred TUS over PHX for the nearby Mt. Lemon and the greater spread of high and low temperatures. It just had a better feel than sprawling PHX. But this move would be very different in a lot of ways.
Jennifer was now graduated from Drake and was teaching at an elementary school on board the USAF Academy at Colorado Springs. She met Keith Barber and they were soon married. Kent finished flight training at Pensacola and was due to get his wings. After the wedding where I gave the bride away, Jennifer and Keith began life in Colorado Springs. I went to Pensacola and pinned an old set of wings on Kent and in effect, gave my son away to the Navy.
After those two teary events, it was time to find a place to live in Arizona. This search led us to a retirement place about 20 miles due north of Tucson called Saddlebrooke. We found home prices were a bit above our now nonexistent pay grade but we put money down on some property and chose the smallest model available. We needed a mortgage and we were unemployed. The Navy job security was kaput. Fortunately, our friend who had previously retired to nearby Sun City now had a home watch company. He wrote me a letter on letterhead stationary that allegedly gave me a job as his assistant at his real Sun City Home Watch Company. I was even invited to the non existent company Christmas party. We got the mortgage and the sale was later closed when the house was completed.
The next step, as usual, was to put the Breckenridge house on the market, using our realtor friends where Doris still had a job. We hoped for a sale before the Saddlebrooke house was completed. We had a lot of experience in the buy-sell or sell-buy act, courtesy of the Navy. Fortunately, it worked as hoped. We made a bit of money on the sale and now there was the Navy pension.
Meanwhile Jennifer and Keith moved to Western Colorado where they had teaching jobs and Kent was soon to go to Antarctica to fly Helos. The family nest was empty, except for the packers. We packed and packed, box after box. We rented a large truck with a car trailer and loaded up. Hooked to the truck trailer was a semi-new Honda. The Honda replaced a bunch of prior vehicles. The red VW bus had earlier been traded for a used VW pop top camper. Doris drove the VW camper full of boxes and plants and I drove the truck and trailer that got 10 miles per gallon...downhill. In Tucson we lived for a while in a furnished apartment, the furniture being in a storage facility. Then the house was completed and we once again moved. We had the aforementioned Navy pension but Social Security was a few years away. So now I had to find a job.
I found one masquerading as a golf car mechanic. Everyone at al the AZ retirement and golfing communities drove a golf car or cart. I rehabbed old golf cars and sold new ones at a place owned by a PHX golf pro. It was a perfect fit and I worked there until Social Security came along. While waiting for SS, not the Nazi kind, we landscaped our rather large property, digging hundreds of holes and planting hundreds of bushes, flowers, cactus and trees. Grass was verboten and we dug in underground feeder lines to each plant where each plant had a tiny valve that dripped water according to a timer. Gravel was the thing vice grass and our chosen color was apache brown. Little did I know that even in AZ, water could make everything a green jungle, requiring maintenance.
Wait for AZ part two where Don and Doris do golf, plant a garden, go on camping trips in the pop top...alone, and make new friends.