The Art of Compulsion

If you’re quirky enough,

Howard Finster: Henry Ford fulfilling a prophesy

creative enough, and driven enough, you can become famous – even if you launch yourself at age 60  -- or 80.  

The proof is in the Outsider art exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where artist after artist became compelled, late in life, to do the only thing for which they are now remembered.

Take Howard Finster,  a revivalist preacher in Georgia who got a message from God, or so he believed. At age 60, while painting a bike, he believed that a white smudge on his finger had transformed itself into the face of God and directed him to make “sacred art.” He couldn’t stop cramming his paintings with small constructions and biblical texts, numbering, dating and time stamping each one until they totaled 48,000, said our tour guide, Art Museum docent Meighan Maley.

“He had a fascination for Henry Ford because there’s a prophecy that predicted a man would create a horseless chariot." Meighan explained.  "Finster believed that Henry Ford fulfilled that prophecy.”

Finster became famous in his lifetime, creating prize-winning album covers for groups like REM and Talking Heads, and appearing on the Johnny Carson show.

Sam Doyle drew islands's  first African American doctor 

Sam Doyle, who was born in a Gullah community on Helena Island, S.C., worked as a porter and laundry worker, only taking up art seriously in his early 60s.

 Working often in corrugated metal, he depicts people on the island, especially African American “firsts” – the first embalmer, the first doctor. His art was shown in 1982, three years before his death, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Felipe Archuleta

Felipe Archuleta

Felipe Benito Archuleta, who had worked as a field hand, stone mason, cook and carpenter, at age 54, unable to find work, prayed for help; God told him to carve sculptures. “His animals, to me, there’s a sweetness to them but there’s also a ferociousness about them. Something that reminded him that life was not always easy,” Meighan said.

But it’s Bill Traylor, who really gets the late start. The child of slaves, himself born a slave in 1853, Traylor worked his life as a farmhand. And at age 82, with no wife or kids around anymore, he moves 35 miles away to Montgomery, Ala. where he starts working in a shoe factory. But his hands are so arthritic, he can’t work and becomes homeless, sleeping in the storage area of a funeral parlor. Finally, “he sets up a  box outside a pool hall under an awning and just begins to create art from whatever he can find… scraps of paper on the ground,” said Meighan. A recent art school graduate,  impressed with his work, provides him with materials.

Runaway Goat Cart (Bill Traylor)

Men Drinking, Boys Tormenting, Dogs Barking (Bill Traylor)

Turning to Traylor's piece, “Men Drinking, Boys Tormenting, Dogs Barking, Meighan explains why he's recognized as one of the top Outsider artists, someone with no connection to what was going on in the art world, who nonetheless starts playing with perspective and shape, like the Cubists:  “He’s telling stories that are superimposed, juxtaposed. This is the interior and the exterior of a building," she said. A man in the doorway connects the two. Traylor "really becomes a master of using color, shape and space -- not only the shape of the figures but the negative space that surrounds them (the background) to convey movement and emotion to tell his story. He becomes very well known long after his death.”

Meighan Maley

Our tour had gone well beyond the hour allotted; Meighan's group was thrilled. Meighan, who worked as a hospital pharmacist for 20 years, was too.
"I retired in need of something that, in addition to taking care of my family, would fill my soul," she wrote me later in an email. As a volunteer docent, she said, "I quickly realized I found that 'it', which had been indefinably elusive for so long. For many reasons, this gives me joy."
Of the Outsider art exhibit, she said, "I didn't expect for the artists and their works to touch me so deeply."
The show, "Great and Mighty Things." made up of works from the  Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection, is open  at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through June 9, 2013.

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Leading the Way: Judy and Paul Farber

Keep opening doors. That’s what I vowed to do when I left my job more than a year ago. Don’t get stuck. Don’t get in a rut. And this week, once again, the small effort it took to detour from the usual path of my day made all the difference.

That's how I met Paul and Judy Farber, a remarkable couple who never skipped a beat after leaving their careers. The Farbers found their new paths in much the way I found them, on a guided Art Museum walk along Boathouse Row.

Park House guides Judy and Paul Farber, forever learning

We all started out as strangers the other day, a large group of about 20 people, quickly split into two. Paul, a soft-spoken man with a pleasant, round face, led my contingent down the slope behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art, past the geometric garden designed by Sol LeWitt and the statues of six Revolutionary War heroes, only one of whom was born on American soil. (Already I was learning something). Paul knows his stuff. The neoclassical Water Works, he explained, was built in 1811, “to provide water to the citizenry – the first city to do this.” The pumps were initially powered by steam engines. “That didn’t work out because steam engines required wood and it was too expensive to run. They solved the problem by putting a dam across the Schuylkill River in 1821, at the time the biggest and longest dam in the United States, 1200 feet. It was also a haven for tourists, the second most popular spot after Niagara Falls,” Paul said.

Dodging bikers, we studied the city’s iconic Victorian boathouses, built after 1860 to replace the “ramshackle affairs” that housed the early sculls.

Soon a member of my group, history buff and rower Clifford Pearlman, pulled out his key to let us into the University Barge Club, where he showed off their 19^th century wooden “lady boat,” the Marguerite. With a two-person bench in the back, it was used to row women to social facilities owned by the clubs upriver.

Dating from the 1800s

By the time we reached the statue of the first Viking to land in America, (who turns out to be Thorfinn Karlsefni not Leif Erickson, as many think), we’d become a congenial group. Boundaries had been crossed, doors opened. Finally, we met up with the other half of our tour, who had wondered what had delayed us. Only then did I learn that Paul’s wife, Judy, was their leader.

So how did Paul Farber, DDS, PhD, who taught pathology to medical and dental students at Temple University, and Judy Farber, once supervisor of speech and hearing for the Philadelphia School District, come to be Park House guides?

“We went on a Water Works tour. We had never done that and we’d come to Philadelphia in 1969. We both loved it,” said the chatty, ebulient Judy, who is the same age as her husband, 75.

“We were talking to the guide and we said, ‘How do you get to do this?’ They were starting a new class. We applied, were interviewed and started the training program. It took a year and a half of going to classes one day a week from 10 to 3. We were checked out for various tours and became guides.”

The training doesn’t end there. “There are continuing education classes and trips to historic sites,” Judy said. “We are reevaluated every two years. Paul was just evaluated, and I was reevaluated a few months ago.”

They’re not paid except in the satisfaction and stimulation that they get. “I love it,” said Judy. We both say this is for us. I don’t consider this good works. I love the stories, the people stories. We learn so much.”

Their transition, Paul explained, began with their decision to move from the suburbs into the city.

“That was a big step,” Paul said. And then counseled:

“Don’t let it go too long because it’s a physically demanding thing to move. It’s also a liberating thing. You have to take stock of yourself.”

And downsizing to two bedrooms was a gift to their children. “Otherwise you’ll leave the job to your heirs. We left our kids a good legacy.”

My Friend the Fulbright Terrorist

Patricio Arguello, an American terrorist

Living long enough means that you acquire perspective. (Which is why some people like the term "elders.")
The 26-year-old linked to the Boston Marathon bombings reminds me of  another 26-year-old who became a terrorist.

Forty-six years have past since I knew Patrick (Patricio) Arguello, a gentle, considerate young man, I thought, who proved to be one of the first modern-day terrorists. You’ve likely forgotten his name, but you may well remember the incident.

On September 6, 1970, Arguello --  an American with roots in Nicaragua  -- partnered with a Palestinian woman to try to hijack an El Al plane flying from Amsterdam to New York, one of four planes hijacked that day.  Arguello, was killed by Israeli security agents on board. Leila Khaled, 26, who had already made a name for herself hijacking a TWA flight to Damascus in 1969, was wounded.

Today, investigators in the Boston Marathon bombings are asking the same questions about the Tsaranev brothers that I asked so many years ago about Arguello:

How is it that an educated American student would turn to terrorism? Why did he pick the target that he did, one seemingly unrelated to his own background? And why did he seem incapable of such violence?

Patricio and I met in 1967 in Santiago, Chile. We were both Fulbright Scholars there, right out of college.

Patricio struck me and the other members of our small Fulbright group as a quiet, considerate student, an old-fashioned type who would hold doors for women and go  out of his way to help people in need.

Over our year-long stay, we learned the outline of his story.  He was born in 1943 in San Francisco; his mother was Irish-American, his father Nicaraguan. When he was about three,  the family moved to Managua, Nicaragua, where Patricio attended elementary school. But in his mid-teens, he decided to return to the United States with an older sister. He worked his way through high school and college, graduated magna cum laude from UCLA and won a Fulbright grant to study politics in Chile.

On hearing about Patricio’s death so many years ago, my fellow Fulbrighters –  shocked, as I was -- talked with each other about the young, freckle-faced man with reddish hair that they had known.

Leila Khaled

Two women in our group recalled a memorable Christmas Eve with Patricio. They were spending the holiday in a quaint village in Chile’s lake region. While having afternoon tea, they saw “Pat” trudging past their café with a pack on his back. He joined them as they explored the town and then they all decided to splurge on a steak dinner. Pat insisted on paying the bill  -- and as a result spent a rainy night sleeping under an overturned boat on the edge of the lake. “I think he enjoyed going without a hotel room to do his friends a favor,” one of the women said.

Patricio’s sensitivity inevitably made him irresistible to women. Frequently he dated several at the same time. Once he was so plagued by phone calls from enamoured females that he fixed his telephone so he could call out but no one could call him.

I remember the parties he would have with his erudite British and Latino friends, where we’d discuss books and politics. After all, a war was being fought in Vietnam and the CIA had not kept its hand out of Latin America. In fact, my attempt to spend the summer working on a construction project in southern Chile was thwarted by the student organizers who said that, much as they’d like my help, I might, as an American, be seen as a CIA operative.

Patricio had had his own “radicalizing” experience in Latin America, according to a member of our group. She remembers him telling a chilling story about demonstrating as a teenager against Nicaragua’s Somoza family dictatorship. Marching in the front row as the protestors approached a rank of soldiers with fixed bayonets, he stumbled on a rock, fell and blacked out. When he came to, he felt blood trickling down his face. Feeling no pain, he realized the blood came from the fellow next to him. Everyone around him had been shot.

It wasn’t a story many of us knew. What we did know, though, was that Patricio would mysteriously disappear from Santiago for long stretches of time. Rumor had it he was traveling to Paraguay or somewhere in the jungles of the Amazon, to meet with “third world socialists,” perhaps even Che Guevara before he was killed in Bolivia that year. (Even then international revolutionaries were connecting.)

By June of 1968, Patricio had won a scholarship to the London School of Economics. And we lost touch. He never went. Instead, he returned to Nicaragua to work with students in the Sandinista movement (FSLN) against the government, according to sandinovive.org, a website set up to honor heroes of the Sandinista revolution. He was soon ordered to leave the country and ended up in Jordan with other FSLN members receiving military training in Palestinian camps, the website reports.

There he decided to join with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to bring its cause to the world’s attention by hijacking planes.
According to passengers on the El Al flight, he was elegantly dressed, accompanied  by an attractive brunette carrying a basket of fruit. Before the "Fasten Your Seat Belt" sign had gone off, Patricio rose from his seat and, shouting, the two  rushed the cockpit. Patricio carried a small silver pistol; Khaled held a grenade in each hand. The steward pounced on Patricio and after several shots were fired, fell back holding his stomach. Hearing the commotion, the pilot took the plane into a dive, concerned that a bullet might pierce the pressurized cabin. The dive knocked the hijackers off balance and one of two armed security guards shot Patricio, mortally. In his last act, he took a grenade from his pocket and threw it on the floor. It was a dud. Khaled, traveling on a Honduran passport, was overcome by a passenger.

More than four decades later, how is it that we are still asking the same questions? 

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Steve Shutt -- No End to His Game

Steve Shutt coached team to victory (courtesy Inquirer/Ed Hille)

He's been "retired" a year, but not really. Earlier this month, Steve Shutt, 71, helped coach a Philadelphia school chess team to a national first place in the K-8 category.
"I just saw how good these kids were. I couldn't leave them," Shutt told Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Karen Heller.
There's more to it than that. Shutt has been coaching young chess players to stardom since 1970 in Philadelphia. How could he just let it all go?

Shutt was the guy who led the city's Vaux Junior High School to seven consecutive national titles between 1977 and 1983,  a feat that inspired the movie, "The Mighty Pawns." More importantly, it inspired inner city schools around the country to launch chess teams as a way of engaging students and developing critical thinking.  Thanks, in part, to Shutt, in Philadelphia about 4,000 students at 69 city schools are now involved in the Chess Challenge, under the umbrella of ASAP, the After School Activities Program.

Shutt officially retired last year from  Julia R. Masterman Middle School, where he'd taught since 1990. But he was back working with the students during lunch and after school -- about seven hours a day, twice a week, to help prepare them for the U.S. Chess Federation's SuperNationals V.  More than 5,000 kids showed up in Opryland for the event, which takes place every four years.
Heller calls Shutt's first year post-career his "nonretirement retirement."
Next year? He's keeping his options open, but for now, "I won't quit on them," Shutt said.

A Marathon Man: Bill Iffrig

Screen Grab, Boston.com

If you were watching the blast videos of the Boston Marathon, you might have seen -- over and over -- a man in a reddish-orange tank-top falling to the ground as smoke rose behind him.
That was Bill Iffrig, a resident of Lake Stevens, Wash. He's 78 and this was his third Boston Marathon. He took up the sport in the 1970s after years of mountain climbing.
He got to his feet and finished the race.
He's another of those folks of a certain age who just keeps on running.
See this ESPN interview with him.

Also, a fine article about him from back home.

Lest We Forget: Creating Legacy

Rescued in 1939 by Eleanor and Gilbert Kraus (center): 50 children/courtesy HBO

Part of "unretiring," is working on legacy -- making sure you pass along to others memory, history, experience, knowledge --whatever it is you have of yourself to give.
This week, I had a chance to do a little of that in stories I wrote for both the Foward and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
I was drawn to the story of Philadelphia lawyer Gilbert Kraus and his wife Eleanor and how they rescued 50 Jewish children from Vienna in 1939 because, coincidentally, my own father escaped Vienna and arrived in New York just 18 days before these children.
I wrote a year ago about a documentary that was previewed in Philadelphia (see link here) which brought up for me my father's own experience.
It has been reworked and will air April 8, 2013 on HBO at 9 p.m. and is called "50 Children: the Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus."

Here are links to the stories I wrote for the Inquirer and the Forward. Each is written differently.

How did this story come to light? Eleanor Kraus wrote a memoir of their extraordinary mission. Decades later, when her granddaughter married a journalist, Steve Pressman, he was blown away by the detail, the danger, the daring.

 It's worth watching the film, narrated by Alan Alda and Mamie Gummer (Meryl Streep's daughter.) And I am so glad I got to know at least one of those rescued, Kurt Herman, whose sense of humor and optimism -- and simultaneously his ice cold view of who you can really count on in life -- remind me so much of my father.

At What Age Should there be Age Discrimination?

If 70+-year- olds are out in greater numbers skiing the slopes, why can't their peers remain on the bench? I'm not going to do justice to the judges' argument  here. But a lawsuit before Pennsylvania's Supreme Court seeks to let judges rule beyond the current mandatory retirement age. Is it good public policy to have judges ousted  at 70? Or is it age discrimination, as the suit contends?
Is 80 the new 65? Should the older make way for the younger ? And does merit have anything to do with it? (especially in PA, where judges are elected.)
Your thoughts?

Free Rides Disappearing, Even For "Super Seniors"?

Dad, with his 70+ Ski Club badge

I remember how my parents (gone some 15 years) proudly sported "70+ Ski Club" badges on their ski jackets. It gave them access to many mountains  -- for free. And they took good advantage of it.

Now, so many boomers are on the slopes that a lot of ski areas have upped the age for senior discounts and freebies. Or abandoned them altogether.

This is good news. And bad news. The bad news is obvious -- everyone wants a break, especially when a one-day ski ticket at some places is approaching the $100 mark.  (At Steamboat Springs, it's $114 at the mountain!)

The good news is that we're schussing and wedeling at loftier and loftier ages.

A bit of research found that policies are, literally, all over the map, though there's a slow age-creep.
Most California resorts still offer discounts to those 65 and over.  But at growing numbers of places, there are no breaks until you reach age 70, when you fall into a new category, called "Super Seniors." (Love that phrase!) At that point, you're likely to get a discount, or maybe ski for free.
But increasingly,  you'll have til 80 for that free ride.

My father was still skiing at 80, and when someone asked him how he did it, he'd say, "It's not a problem. But you don't start at 79!"

Do you know of any other types of "senior discounts" that are being pushed to higher ages? Please comment at UnRetiring.blogspot.com or email me at dottyinky@gmail.com

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Do You Feel That You Matter? ... Why? Why Not?

 What makes you feel validated?

Is it work? With pay or without?

Is it just making someone smile?

Do you need others to praise you, appreciate you, pat you on the back? 

Or do you have the ability to feel good about yourself, all on your own?

And then there’s guilt. Do you ever sit down to read a book in daylight?

Feeling validated was the topic at the third meeting of our
Project Renewment group —career women getting together to talk about our transition out of jobs.

This time, 15 of us  gathered in Sue’s living room. Listen in to what happened. Because the conversation was personal and candid, I’m just using first names.

But first,  a concluding observation from Jean:

I go to my book group and we have an agenda about the book, and I go to my French group and we have an agenda about speaking French… Here our agenda is our next step in life, our view of life, our perspective on things and it’s incredibly important.  These conversations will resonate with me.

On validation through work: 

This, of course, is the no brainer. It’s why we keep working, especially if we don’t need the money. And why it can be so hard to step away.

Dotty (former newspaper editor and writer of this blog): I had a lot of respect in my job and people would come to me and thank me all the time for the editing I did with them and the time I spent with them. And now I don’t really have that. And I knew when I was leaving my job that I wouldn’t have that. And I knew it would be hard to find the validation --maybe I’m needy that way.

Essie (works with children with hearing loss): Dotty, when you were talking about the validation, it made me think … I don’t think of needing validation but yet what I do is very fulfilling. Maybe it is validation. It’s not that somebody has to say you’re doing a good job.

Dotty: But you know you’re doing a good job. Your work environment is one in which kids and patients are thrilled that you’re helping them, and you know that. It’s not the words. It’s being in a situation where you know you’re doing the right thing….I think most jobs are that way. It’s when you leave the job and do the next thing...

Carol K. (former businesswoman): I had lunch with a woman who used to be my secretary…. How does she like retirement? She’s fulltime volunteering. She has a schedule the same as when she worked for us but now she’s volunteering.  I said, “So now you’re working fulltime and you don’t get paid?”

Cheryl S. (former librarian; volunteer): I was never a workaholic. I don’t know how you do it all. I wouldn’t want to work that much because then something has to give. I like my house looking a certain way. Cooking is like an artistic outlet. I like to cook meals cause I’m kind of old fashioned, too…

Sue (former breast feeding consultant, now studying to be yoga instructor):  I haven’t worked in awhile. … In certain circles I feel judged. I feel I have to say "but I’m doing this and I’m doing this and I’m doing this." Or I might have to say, "My five year plan. ... "I have to justify my time. That’s one piece of me that has to do that. 

There are other things that I give thanks for. Because I have time, I’m not chained to a position. I’ve been able to help people one on one. People that are sick, having chemo. I was able to help my mother for six months straight because I didn’t have a job I had to go to.

 I find people need something and I often get called and I’m able to say yes.  I say yes so often…. and I don’t have to consult with anyone. On the other hand, I was offered a job part time, the salary was ridiculously high, more than I would ever dream of being paid per hour, and I didn’t really want to do it because it wasn’t about the dollar. If I looked at my finances… they’d say you’re crazy that I retired. Nobody thinks I have enough. But it’s all about what is enough and what you want to do with your time. And it’s really hard sometimes when you’re feeling judged and you have to justify your time. Sometimes you really have to take that breath and stand tall and be yourself. And it’s hard. It is hard.

Betsy (psychologist): You want to feel valued. No matter what it is that you do.

On finding validation in yourself 

Renee (teacher): You have to do a lot of talking to yourself to validate yourself and say this was a good day.

Marlyn (psychologist): You have to get up every day, whether you’re working or not, and say, “What do I value in life? “ and set an intention of what you’re going to do. …You need your own set of
 priorities and to remember what they are and set an intention that “today I’m going to help somebody” or “I’m going to do my yoga today because that’s what I value.” If [doing nothing] is what you value that day, then that’s what you’re setting out to do. You have to say what’s important to me and live your day according to that.

Jean (college instructor and volunteer English teacher): I teach English to Russians. I have been doing it for 16 years and it is as rewarding and gratifying as the much more prestigious teaching that I do. If I go somewhere and say I teach … these old people from Russia, it’s going to sound like, what are you doing there? … But  I love these people. They get a lot from me. I get a lot from them. It is totally gratifying, rewarding, satisfying. And I get more out of it than they do, I’m sure. But that is not the prestige job.

Dotty: There are tasks I do all day long that make me feel good about myself. Even researching what products should go on my deck and spending weeks putting it on. And then going around and saying, ‘Doesn’t the deck look great? … and that’s one of the reasons I can’t relax because reading a book isn’t validating to me. Sitting there fooling around and having fun isn’t validating. So it’s not that I don’t do that once in a while, but it’s not what’s driving me.

Sue: Why is it that the eye of others looking at us becomes our judgment of ourselves? …Why does somebody else have to validate what we do?

Marlyn: Or the question is more, Who do you want to have validate what you do?

Carol K. : I need validation from others much less than I used to. I got exhausted. Trying to be … is exhausting. Plus, it’s not always rewarding. ... I realized one day that I should do for my grandchildren only what brings me pleasure. If I’m having fun with them, then that’s why I should do it. Because if I’m doing it so they’ll love me more, or if I’m doing it so they’ll appreciate it, or I’m doing it because I’ll be the favorite grandmother, it’s not going to work. ... Now if I want to be with them, I’m with them and I have a terrific time with them. And I know they love me and I love them, but my motive is shifted. It’s different now. And it feels better; it’s more authentic. And that way I’m not disappointed because I have no expectations anymore.

Sue: Is it not a gift to walk down the street and smile and to get one back? Did I not just do something? And if I look at my day -- I walked around smiling -- did I do any more or less than the doctor who sat in his office all day and saw 22 patients and asked the same questions?

 About feeling guilty

Carole S. (former teacher): I want to feel validated that I retired. I still feel a little guilty about that. …I didn’t retire on my own terms because I had a health issue. But it was time. … I still feel a bit badly. It took the longest time for me to get used to my clock. I’d go by the school calendar. … It took a long time for me to get over that. Now I just want to know if I’m doing the right thing. I think I am.

Betsy: I found that as I mature or age or however you want to put it, self-validation is more important … making my own decisions and not feeling guilty when I’m at work because I’m not with my family and not feeling guilty with my family because I’m not doing more work, which had been the pattern in younger years. I like going to the office because I get gratification from it for the positive effects for others I’m involved with. But also, I like being able to say I’m going to spend a week or two with my kids and grandchildren and just enjoy it and not feel terrible that I don’t have billable hours. And I do feel fortunate that I don’t feel pressure to bring in the paycheck…. I’m not counting on it to buy groceries. Most people in this world don’t have that choice. And I’m grateful.

Essie: I’m working part time -- working full time. When I had a full time job, I worked all weekend. Now I have a part time job and I work all week. … Why is it always my job that has more work than I can handle? This is me, not the job.

Renee:  I talk to friends and a lot of us are hard on ourselves. One friend retired and she said it was such a difficult year. She might want to read a book but she didn’t feel that she could. After a lot of head work,

Thoughts on Early Explorations

Easing into the next great thing?

Here are some thoughts on starting the process early, while you still have your day job.

This NY Times article was written by a longtime freelancer for the Philadelphia Inquirer.