GoldenWatch

Discovering the Golden Years

This is the first sunrise of the New Millennium.

Dressing for Retirement!

Not only should you dress after you retire; you should dress very carefully. Nudity is usually not very appealing in senior citizens so for my own personal pleasure I would rather leave nudity to the very young. Actually most of the young should require community approval for nudity.

 

Your dress speaks to others of your state of mind. If you use retirement as an excuse to dress like a bum chances are people will think of you as a bum. It is easy to take the attitude that now that you don’t have to go to work it is ok for you to wear your old grubby clothing.

Save those clothes for gardening or cutting the grass. Set aside an hour a day for routine household chores. When you are in your grubby clothes it is time to do chores. Now that you have been liberated from the drudgery of the work-a-day world you have reached a rank of nobility that demands proper attire.

 

On the other hand I know that some of you are so conditioned to wearing a suit every day that you will quite naturally continue this into retirement. This also is a wrong course. There should be no suits or ties in retirement. I suggest saving the largest suit for your ultimate burial and give the rest to Goodwill. If you keep them they will just make you sad in a few years, when you can’t get into the pants. Ties also should be given away. Ties are the ultimate symbol of our enslavement to the military industrial complex.

 

One of the world’s great needs is a worldwide franchise business that converts old ties into something useful. This may be the liberation activity you have been looking for! Maybe use some of the most colorful to assemble a liberation banner to put up in front of your home to let people know that you are now free. The drab ties could be used as slings for arm injuries or maybe to secure IPODS while your exercising.

 

If no suits birthday or otherwise are allowed after liberation than what exactly should you wear. The answer is now every day is casual Friday; wear shirts and slacks appropriate for the weather and season. You might need considerable refurbishment of your wardrobe since there are now seven Fridays in every week. In simplest terms there are three seasons – winter, summer and fall/spring. This translates into three weights of clothing – heavy, light and intermediate. For the winter you will need a few sweaters and a few sweatshirts. In the summer you can wear shorts for casual activities.

 

It is very important to add a camping philosophy into your wardrobe planning. What I mean is the layered approach so that you can conveniently add or subtract a layer depending on whether you are having hot or cold flashes. I have always felt that one of the secrets to good health is to keep your body in thermal equilibrium, never allow thermal gradients to establish themselves across your body. This fundamental principle leads naturally into a discussion of head and footwear.

 

I recommend always wearing a hat with a wide brim or bill. As you age your eyes become more sensitive to glare either directly from the sun or from reflections of its image. Even though less blood is surging into your brain as you get older, still a large percentage of the blood flow still goes to the head and without a hat you can loose significant amounts of energy in the winter. In the summer the opposite is true you want to keep the direct impingement of thermal energy on your head to a minimum. We are much more susceptible to sun stroke in our later years.

 

These same ideas also apply to footwear. Always wear woolen socks in the winter. And make sure that if your socks get wet you change them immediately. For this reason I strongly recommend always carrying an extra pair of sock. You feet are very fragile and it is in your best interest to take good care of them. Make sure your shoes are neither to tight or to loose. If you develop any sore spots deal with them immediately, they can lead to bunions or much worse. Cut you toe nails every few days. If you can’t see them or reach them; then initiate a buddy system where you do each other’s toenails. You will be able to determine who your real best friend is. If you are going to walk extensively wear tennis shoes. People fear old ladies in tennis shoes, because they are obviously much smarter than the rest of us. This is especially true of people wearing wingtips or high heels. When the demands of style cause you to inflict pain on yourself you know you are going crazy or already there. The Babylonians invented high heels because they made their harem girls more attractive when viewed for the rear. Avoid harems wear flat shoes!

 

And finally let me discuss underwear. If you already wear Depends some of these comments might not apply to you. It is simple, change your underwear three times a day minimum. If you always find them damp it is time to start on Depends. If you tend to dribble but are still in denial about wearing Depends then wear the hybrid underwear it keeps the pee from running into your shoe.

 

 

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Submit essays to: Wayne R. Hudson at wrhudson@yahoo.com