Hinsdale Doings, July, 2006 The next time your phone rings, grab it. It could change your life forever. My call came in April. It was from Sun-Times columnist Ron Rapoport. He had a personal question: "How old are you?" Sixty-eight. "How many years with the Sun-Times?" Forty-two. "How long are you going to keep going?" Pardon me? "A voluntary buy-out is coming. You might want to look into it unless, of course, you're planning to drop dead over your laptop 10 years from now." That thought had occurred to me but, all things considered, I would rather be smelling flowers on Earth than pushing them up underground. Still, I waffled. Twenty-seven of my Sun-Times years had been covering the Cubs and White Sox. It took a Sun-Times personnel department woman to seal my decision. She called to say, "Joe, you have 11.2 years left to live." What? How does she know? Should I call Bronswood Cemetery? Do I have time to kiss my wife, Carol, two daughters and four grandchildren goodbye? The personnel woman must have realized her announcement of my upcoming death had stunned me because I didn't say anything. "Sorry to scare you," she finally said. "I'm just going off actuarial charts. We hope you live 22.2 more years." Gee, thanks. So do I. There was no time to waste. Concerns about retirement had to be addressed: Can we afford to do this? (check yes). Create a family budget (check). Update insurance coverage (check). Review family wills (scheduled). Dave Van Dyck, my longtime friend with The Sun-Times who's now with the Tribune, had another concern: "Do you have enough to do to stay busy?" No problem. More on that later. Thus, with only 11.2 years left to live ringing in my ears, I pulled The Sun-Times plug, accepting the buy-out package in May without looking back, thus ending a fascinating career of analyzing about 5,120 Major League Baseball games, including the World Series and playoffs, All-Star contests and exhibitions, and staying in some of the nation's finest hotels. I must have been OK at it because twice I finished second in Baseball Hall of Fame balloting. The retirement word got out quickly when The Sun-Times gave Rapoport and me a rousing two-page sendoff under the heading, "The Final Farewell". Here's what Sox manager Ozzie Guillen had to say: "Goddard is a real quiet man who always treated me kindly. Every time he wanted to ask me something, he'd call me off to the side. I don't have a bad thing to say about him. Good for him. I hope he enjoys his life after this, but he will be back." Then came a letter from Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf: "Before you lose yourself in gardening and footsore ventures around Civil War battlefields, I would like to invite you to throw out a ceremonial pitch before one of our games this year." I called to see if he was serious. He was. We'll settle on a date later. Now, then, about staying busy. Writing "Time Out" for The Doings has been a passion since publisher Peter Teschner hired me as a stringer in 1970. (Sept. 1 marks the 37th anniversary). I have more than 300 Civil War books and an extensive collection of artifacts that I show at grade schools and high schools; I'm engrossed in music with emphasis on country-western and opera, and I read everything - even graffiti. More important, I have a gorgeous wife, inside and out, who created a Better Homes and Garden backyard for us, a Yorkshire terrier that was found by friends while he was walking along the side of a road and a cat born in our woodpile. Retirement? Easy! This site maintained by John Reagan and last updated January 06, 2008 |
Retirement
decision easy after 42 fun-filled years