Hats Off to Me: I’m Leaving the Law for Retirement

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Confessional, Men

Tags

Bob Smith, confessional, lawyer, Men, Retirement, The Write Side of 50

I began practicing law in 1984, when I was 29. I’m now 58. One week ago today I advised the management of the law firm where I’m a partner that I’m leaving the practice of law as of October 1. I chose that date because it coincides with the close of the firm’s fiscal year, which will make the settling up of my finances neat and clean. But there’s nothing neat and clean about leaving a career you’ve pursued for half your life.

Most people consider a full-time job something that requires you to be at work forty hours a week. But to a lawyer in private practice, “full-time” means all the time. And perhaps because it’s so all-consuming, the prospect of not doing it any more is daunting – how will I fill up my time, I wonder? While practicing law, my time was so full I couldn’t consider any other activities. Life, it seemed, revolved around my work. Everything I did was defined by the demands of the job – and they are many.

Here’s a non-exhaustive, but nonetheless exhausting, list of the things you have to do to succeed as a lawyer in private practice:

Think clearly, write well, and verbally advocate your client’s position.
Manage expectations, which means having pointed – often heated – discussions with your clients about proposed strategy, potential outcomes, and of course, expected costs.
Train, motivate, mentor and supervise younger associates, paralegals, and other support staff.
Bill your time, which means writing a detailed narrative of the legal work done for each client and how much time it took – down to the tenth of an hour – to perform each task. To meet your billable targets, you should account for eight or more billable hours every single working day. Like J. Alfred Prufrock, who “measured out [his] life with coffee spoons,” for half my life I’ve measured out mine in six-minute increments.
Constantly seek new clients or new legal work from existing clients, which requires you to do things that most people see as recreation: play in golf outings, attend charity dinners, and take clients or prospective clients out to restaurants, concerts, and sporting events. But the fun fades when those activities start to gobble up days and evenings you’d rather spend with your family and friends.
Keep abreast of current developments by attending continuing legal education seminars.
Speak at legal conferences or other public events.
Do pro bono legal work and donate your time and energies to worthy causes that help your community, both because it’s your duty as a citizen and an attorney, and as a way to “get your name out there,” and develop contacts who may refer work to you or the firm.

The list goes on. And the stakes are high: if you don’t do your job right, your clients can lose big money, lose their businesses completely, or be precluded from doing things they want to do. If you make a really terrible mistake, you may be found to have committed malpractice and the firm itself could pay a steep financial price for your misstep, not to mention the personal price you would pay to endure that kind of crisis. In short, you’re under incredible pressure, all the time: to perform, to serve, to produce results.

So why was I so terribly conflicted when I realized I could just get out? There’s comfort in the known, and terror in the unknown. It’s like Hamlet contemplating suicide, and acknowledging that we have no idea what awaits us after death – which ” … makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of.” I was afraid to leap from the relative comfort of a demanding, but well-defined career, into the unknown called “retirement.”

But I’ve done it. I’ve just taken that first leap into the cold pool. And even after only one week, before I’ve fully withdrawn from my life at the firm, I can sense it was the right thing to do. A few months from now I have no doubt I’ll be saying come on in, the water’s just fine.

For now, however, I’m still shivering a bit.

Floating Along for Nine Months

19 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by WS50 in Art

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Anniversary, Art, buoys, Julie Seyler, The Write Side of 50

Buoys on a boat. Photo by Julie Seyler.

BY JULIE SEYLER

Here’s to friends, families and followers of The Write Side of 50, who, much like buoys on a boat, preserve and moor us. You have helped to keep us afloat for nine months now. Thanks.

The Saturday Blog: Silhouettes

17 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by WS50 in Art

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Julie Seyler, silhouette, summer nights, The Saturday Blog, The Write Side of 50

Lincoln Center Fountain. Photo by Julie Seyler.

Silhouettes on a summer night.

A Keg Tale

16 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Food

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Beer, Food, Lois DeSocio, The Write Side of 50

Sun-blocked.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

Yesterday, Julie wrote of a short supply of non-alcoholic beer in bars. I have a beer story, too. No shortage here, though. A party in my backyard last weekend left half a keg of un-drunk beer. It’s been hanging out for almost a week now. And as one who hates to waste food, and even more – alcohol – I’ve been at a loss as to what to do with all that beer. There’s another party lying in wait right outside my back door! But can the beer hold out?

So for the past six days I’ve coddled my keg. I untapped it, iced it, kept it out of the sun, and taste-tested it every morning for, as Julie describes ” … the nice malty carbonated taste of hops.”

“Have a beer!,” I’ve pleaded to everyone who has stepped so much as a foot on my property.

So while the morning taste-testing yesterday passed my muster (I am also someone who enjoys stale Cheez Doodles, and will eat fish that smells fishy), I was sitting on a potential powder keg. The situation was becoming tense. I had to do something with the beer. A lot of beer. And apparently, despite my pampering – flat beer:

Low carb(ination).

I found good use for a good portion:

Beer Garden.

And then I bought 15 pounds of chicken, pulled out my huge container of oil that I never use:

And battered the bird with beer:

Fried it up:

And sent out a come-eat-chicken-with-me text to some friends known for their spontaneity. I managed to lure three. So, with enough beer-battered chicken left over to fill a keg, another party just might be looming. Just bring your own beer.

Hey Bartender, Where’s My O’Doul’s?

15 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by WS50 in Food

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Tags

Beer, Food, Julie Seyler, Non-Alcoholic Beer, O'Douls, The Write Side of 50

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BY JULIE SEYLER

I have a friend who, for one reason or another, and many in between reasons, has given up alcohol. She has no complaints but one. When going out to eat, she would love to participate in the cocktail hour with a delicious non-alcoholic beer, and no, she does not want a virgin Bloody Mary. She wants a beer – the nice malty carbonated taste of hops, sans the alcohol.

She’s on the West Coast and I’m on the East Coast. We got together recently for a mini-reunion. We stayed at a great hotel in a resort town on the beach. We went out to dinner every night, but it didn’t matter if it was upscale, or downscale, she could not score the drink of her choice. Not one restaurant stocked non-alcoholic beer. One proprietor explained because there is so little demand, he simply does not bother. We refused to drop the topic, and asked would it be that big a deal to keep one case of O’Doul’s or St. Pauli Girl on hand? He said he would consider it.

I promised her that when I got back to New York City, I would start a campaign to raise restaurant awareness that non-alcoholic beers should be included on the drinks menu.

So now whenever I go out, I ask for a non-alcoholic beer. If they do not have any, I go through my spiel about how there are non-drinkers in the world who still want the option of having an alternative to a Coca-Cola or a virgin Bloody when they dine out, and restaurants should accommodate them.

On behalf of my buddy in LA, please spread the word.

This “Old Lady” Can Be a Mean Girl

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Confessional

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

confessional, Margo D. Beller, The Write Side of 50

BY MARGO D. BELLER

When I was growing up, and I am sure when you were growing up, too,
there was usually a rundown house in the neighborhood in which lived an
elderly person. In my neighborhood, it was a woman. She lived alone, the
lawn was weedy, and the house needed painting.

We referred to her as “Crazy Mary” or, “the witch.”

I was around 10 years old at the time, and she could’ve been 50 or 60.
Didn’t matter – to us she was old. We’d dare each other to run in her yard,
but ran away when she came out to yell at us. I can’t remember what
happened to her or the house.

Now that I’m in my mid-50s, I know exactly what “the witch” was going
through because there are times I’m the neighborhood’s Mean Old Lady.

My house isn’t rundown, and my lawn hasn’t gone to weeds – quite
the opposite. That is why I get mad when I find children, deer or the
occasional adult, crossing my (unfortunately) un-fenced yard.

I have no children, and until the last few years, my street had few children
on it. But now my neighbors’ kids have kids, and some still live at home.
Three generations live in a house on one side of me, four generations now
live in the house behind, and my last neighbor said the new owner of his
just-sold house has a small child.

In short, I am now surrounded.

Perhaps if I’d had kids I would be more flexible about their random
wildness; the yelling; the running across property lines. After all, I was a kid
myself yelling and climbing over fences, and making messes.

However, I don’t have kids. I know they are capable of wonderful things, but
I rarely see it. To me, they are just noisy at a time when I get more easily
distracted by noise – especially now that I work from home. It has become
harder to concentrate as I’ve aged, and I used to live in some very noisy
neighborhoods in the past. But that was in the past when I was younger.

On occasion I’ve gotten into trouble with kids (and their parents) for
reprimanding them. Embarrassed, I apologize and calmly try to explain
myself. Luckily, we’ve worked things out – at least to the extent that no police
were ever called. I tell myself to leave them alone. As long as they keep
moving, and don’t harm anything, it’s OK. (I think this about deer, too.)

In this era of Facebook, I fear there is a page about a mean old lady with
my picture on it.

My husband and I enjoy the company of our relatives’ children, and when I let down my wariness to speak to some of the local kids, we are friendly to each
other. It doesn’t hurt waving at them, and saying hello.

Still, to them I am “old.” What goes around comes around. When I watch
parents with kids, I wonder about those decisions I made that will come
back to haunt me when I really become old.

No Matter How You Slice It (or Rip It), Bread Rules

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by WS50 in Food

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Bread, Food, Julie Seyler, The Write Side of 50

BY JULIE SEYLER

There are bread people and non-bread people. Bread people eschew store-bought packaged brands as a tasteless waste of carbs, BUT completely justify gobbling up an entire loaf from their favorite bakery because of the divine indulgence imparted from well-baked kneaded flour.

Bread people swoon over seeing a loaf with a golden-brown crackly crust, while envisioning the crunch as that first chunk is ripped off to start nibbling on before they’ve even paid the cashier.

Tearing open bread.

They debate the merits of this loaf:

With that loaf:

And if they can’t decide which is tastier, they buy both, and compare and contrast each until each loaf has vanished in their stomach.

And they definitely know not to buy one of these loaves:

The lack of pop, crackle and crust is all too obvious and sad.

I have been a bread person since, well, since as long as I can remember. I used to have the nickname, “Bread,” coined by one of my best friends in 5^th grade. It may be a gene thing because the entire maternal line waxes romantically over baked dough. When my mother moved back to the city after a 50-year hiatus, she spent endless hours tracking down the best rye breads ever.

A bread person is lucky to live in Manhattan because of the cornucopia of establishments that feature fresh baked bread:

Anyway, this whole line of bread thought came to mind because a recent article in The New York Times reported the declining consumption of bread amongst the French. It has caused much so much consternation that the bread lobby organized a campaign to reinvigorate consumer desire in the baguette. The advertisements promote eating bread because it is “rich in vegetal protein and fiber and low in fat.” It is good for your social life, and most importantly, patriotic, because bread is the symbol of French culture and heritage. It is true that there is nothing more wonderful then wandering through the streets of a small village in France in the early morning while the aroma of bread wafts through the air.

So, while Parisians are being bombarded with the merits of eating bread, New Yorkers are going to court over the size of a soft drink cup. C’est la difference!

Formatting My Music Includes Keeping it “Reel”

12 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Concepts, Men

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8-tracks, cds, Concepts, Frank Terranella, Men, MP3, music formats, records, reel-to-reel, The Write Side of 50

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

If you are on the right side of 50, you have lived through a music migration from records to cassettes to CDs to MP3s. And if you’re someone who never throws out music in any form, you may also have 78s, 45s and 8-tracks. These days, I have to think of the vintage of the music I want to hear to know where to look for it in my house. Beatles – look for records. Bread – look for 8-tracks. Bee Gees – look for cassettes. And if you’re like me, you probably have bought CDs of your favorite albums from the ‘60s that replace records that have more skips than a five-year-old girl.

Because I have gotten tired of buying and re-buying music in different physical formats, in recent years, I have taken to buying MP3s of my music and storing them on my computer, my phone, and my iPad. I back them up on the Internet. But despite all this redundancy, I don’t trust digital formats. They’re too ephemeral. I prefer to have physical backup. That’s why I still keep all the original source material that the old music came on. I also buy CDs as a backup of my most vital music.

Back in 1972, I purchased yet another music source – a reel-to-reel tape recorder. I used it primarily for recording, but I also purchased commercial “albums” that were available in that format back then. For example, I have the Moody Blues’ “Days of Future Past” on a reel-to-reel tape. Recently I dusted off my old reel-to-reel, and played some of those old tapes, and I was surprised at the great sound. Audio enthusiasts insist that records have better sound than CDs, but to my ears, reel-to-reel tapes have better sound than records. More than 40 years of sitting in boxes has not degraded the quality of the tapes. Of course, my children look at my reel-to-reel as if it was a contemporary of Edison’s wax cylinder. But they can’t dispute the great sound.

In addition to music, being on the right side of 50 means maintaining machines to play video cassettes, DVDs and Blu-Rays, but that’s another story.

All this is why I have a home entertainment center that looks like NASA launch control while my son has an Ipod connected to a speaker and an Ipad to stream video. I don’t care. I’m not throwing out any of my music and video formats. Someday I may want to listen to my 8-track recording of “Winchester Cathedral.” What? It’s available for 99 cents in the iTunes store? Anybody want to buy an 8-track player?