SOLITAIRE & RETIREMENT

Sorting out more old files tonight and found this. I must have written before I got a computer as I seem to have been playing solitaire at kitchen table at home.. That would have been in about 1997. A lot of things has happened since that time. A lot of them I did not even think about happening way back in what my grandkids think were the "horse & buggy" days.

SOLITAIRE & RETIREMENT

He sat at the table playing Solitaire

No outside work today, with frost in the air.

It was Wed., or Thurs., or some other day,

They all run together now, like a Saturday.

If he wanted to work or to loaf, or perhaps play,

He could do what he wanted, any given day.

He has dug in the yard and gave the lawn a trim

Then “don’t over-do”, his wife would tell him.

He knew it was facetious, this saying of hers.

It was like under a saddle a bunch of burrs,

To get him to move, or to buck or to run,

 But not me today, not unless it is for fun.

It seems strange to have every day as a day off,

Except when you’re sick or you’re starting to cough.

To do genealogy is too hard on the brain,

If you are sick it causes your body to strain.

You have to think, and to process the facts that you find.

It’s easier to play solitaire, than get in a bind,

By trying to do something to tax your recall.

It might even be better to do nothing at all?

I have been retired now for a month, no it’s two.

I’ve been able to keep busy, there is plenty to do.

But I am glad to get out of that every day grind,

To leave all the complaints and gripes far behind.

I miss all the friends I made along the way,

Those that I met with day after day.

My life will now take a new turn I hear.

I’ll spend much more time with those I hold dear.

My consort, my friend, my companion, my wife

With whom I will spend the rest of my life.

And even when life has ended I pray,

In Eternity we will see each other, each day.

As I play solitaire, and out the window I stare

Does it cause anxiety, and give me reason to care

About more important things, in my time of distress

Or am I sick enough to cause worry or cause stress?

“Of course not,” I say to myself with concern,

But these cardboards should go in the fire to burn.

The scriptures I could read, or a classic or two.

It’s not like I sit here with nothing else to do.

A letter could be written to my children or a friend,

Or a note to a grandchild, in the mail I could send

To tell them I love them and I am here to help solve them

Whenever they have one of life’s little problems.

I could write to my sweetheart and tell of devotion,

Or of appreciation she feels in times of commotion.

I depend on her and her unconditional love

To calm my emotions, like balm from above.

The cardboards still slap on the table with haste

As I think of all the time I must waste.

While playing solitaire, as out the window I stare

Thinking, I must stop this game now for other things that I care.

Written by W.R. Baldwin in April 1997

while suffering with a cold and cough,

but not really sick.