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Retirement Talk is a weekly podcast intended for seniors, boomers and retirees. We will examine all aspects of retirement: actions, ideas, memories, and plans. We will consider travel, life goals, family, community, exercise, relocating, housing, continuing education, friends, health, and end of life issues.
"Keeping up" with technology certainly has its advantages. It makes life more interesting. It allows us to communicate in ways we can hardly imagine. It keeps doors and windows open. It ties families and friends together as past generations could have never envisioned.By Del Lowery
Kenneth R. Rosen has written for The New York Times, Wired, The New Yorker, and many other publications. His new book is Troubled: The Failed Promise of America's Behavioral Treatment Programs. “When I report, I keep two journals. … I keep my reporting notebook, which is sort of an almanac of dates, times, names, quotes, phone numbers. And then I h…
A listener to these podcasts wrote recently and ask that I address the issue of losing friends, both younger and older. Grief is not a topic to which I lay any claim to being and expert. But like most of us who are retired we have had to deal with it at various times in our life.By Del Lowery
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Episode 365: Carvell Wallace, author and podcast host
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1:09:42
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Carvell Wallace is a podcast host and has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. He is the co-author, with Andre Iguodala, of The Sixth Man. “So much of my life experience coalesces into things that are useful… All those years that I was obsessing over this that or the other thing, all the weird stuff that I would do, all the w…
It is the end of the year, the year 2020. What a year it has been. What are we retired folks talking about? Well, we talk about the passing year more than we ever have in our lives.By Del Lowery
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Episode 378: Ashley C. Ford, author and podcast host
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Ashley C. Ford is a writer and podcast host. Her memoir, Somebody's Daughter, is forthcoming from Flatiron Books. “For the first time I felt like I had so many more choices in my life than I originally thought I had. That was my first realization that I did not just have to react to the world, that I could be intentional in the world, and just curi…
In a recent email to Retirement Talk, John from McLean, Virginia wondered if I could talk a bit about Tai Chi. He exercises regularly, is close to retirement age and feels a bit tense at his work. He wanted to know if I thought Tai Chi might be worked into a routine that might help him.By Del Lowery
Ed Yong spent 2020 covering the pandemic for The Atlantic. His latest feature is "How Science Beat the Virus." “I am trying to give readers a platform that they can stand on to observe this raging torrent that is the pandemic, this cascade of information that is threatening to sweep us all away. I’m trying to give people a rock on which they can st…
Over ten years have now passed since talking with my friend concerning his move to downsize. He seems to be fairly content with his decision. He moved to the place that offered more space for his work as a guitar luthier. He did not go for location above all else.By Del Lowery
Nilay Patel is editor-in-chief of The Verge and hosts the podcast Decoder. “The instant ability—unmanaged ability—for people to say horrible things to each other because of phones is tearing our culture apart. It just is. And so sometimes, I’m like, Man, I wish our headline had been: ‘iPhone Released. It’s A Mistake.’ … But I think there’s a really…
Retirement gives us time to think things over. Maybe the existentialists had it wrong. The real life of the absurd would be if we were to live forever. The older I get the more I think so.By Del Lowery
Wright Thompson is a senior writer for ESPN. His new book is Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last. “If you’re going to write a profile of someone … you have to find some piece of common ground with them so that no matter how famous or good or noble or bad—or no matter how cartoonish their most well-known attributes a…
What’s a person to do? Move? Leave the community that you know and follow your children across the country? Or, perhaps encourage your children to move back to your community. That doesn’t seem like a very wise nor fair thing to do.By Del Lowery
Melissa del Bosque is an investigative journalist covering the U.S.-Mexico border. “What I really want people to know is the context within which this traumatic event is happening. It doesn’t have to happen. It’s happening because certain people made certain decisions. Or they made a decision to do nothing. … There are laws, there are policies on t…
We have now been vegetarians for ten years. We have deviated into the pescetarian world. We added fish. Becoming vegetarian or pescetarian opened a lot of doors for us. I can't imagine falling back in the habit of eating dead animals.By Del Lowery
Reggie Ugwu is an arts reporter for The New York Times. “I find that even though I talk to celebrities or popular artists, I’m not all that interested in celebrity. I’m pretty uninterested in celebrity. But I’m really interested in creativity.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @uugwuu Ugwu on Longform Ugwu's New Y…
The Social Security dilemma, climate change and health care are going to demand change; big change. Now may be a good time to let your imagination run wild.By Del Lowery
Stephanie McCrummen is a national enterprise reporter at The Washington Post. “I do have to psych myself up. There’s always something awkward about it and that never goes away. … No matter how long I do this job, that part of it doesn’t get any easier. It’s always a bit awkward and you’re always sort of humbled when someone actually is willing to t…
Here is a project for retired people. Our knowledge of history seems to be needed now more than ever. Maybe I'll have to have more conversation with my grandchildren. I know my children are set.By Del Lowery
Olivia Nuzzi is the White House correspondent for New York. “I don’t think that, broadly speaking, this a group of redeemable people. … But I do think there is tremendous value, in this first draft of history, trying to understand why the fuck they are like this. … There is value in understanding why these people are like this because they are the …
Risk taking is where life rises to its highest level; when we are challenged and step forward; when we throw ourselves into the present moment and risk failure and tempt success. This is when we overcome ourselves.By Del Lowery
The best part of producing 700 podcasts has been being engaged in the process. It has been a force to include sitting quietly and thinking about life on a regular basis. What have I been doing? What have I been thinking?By Del Lowery
Reeves Wiedeman is a reporter at New York and the author of the new book Billion Dollar Loser. “You get inside these companies and … you assume everything is running based on models and numbers and then you get inside and it’s just people. And sometimes they have MBAs and sometimes they don’t. … At the end of the day, whether you’re running a media…
"Picking a fight" is not something our parents told us was a good thing to do. Perhaps we need to rethink this advice. Retirement might be the perfect time to look around and pick a fight.By Del Lowery
Latif Nasser co-hosts Radiolab. He also hosted The Other Latif and the Netflix documentary series Connected. “It’s so easy to hate everything and be cynical. There’s a kind of ease to that. It takes a lot more courage to go up in front of everybody and be like, This is awesome. I love this. That takes a lot of guts, I think.” Thanks to Mailchimp fo…
Retirement allows us time to expand our horizons. New experiences may be closer than we think. You might want to sit in on a trial or two in your own home town. It might prove to be more interesting than the trial on television.By Del Lowery
Barton Gellman is a staff writer for The Atlantic. and was previously a Pulitzer-winning reporter at The Washington Post. His latest book is Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State and his latest essay is "The Election That Could Break America." “I have found that I have a talent for accidentally pissing people off. ... I’m …
How do you fill your days in retirement? Now that we are retired, we have lots of choices of new and different ways to spend our time. Are you feeling good about those choices, or are you seeking new ideas?By Del Lowery
Latria Graham is a writer living in South Carolina. Her work has appeared in Outside, Garden & Gun, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Her latest essay is "Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream." “My goal as a person—not just as a writer—is to be the adult that I needed when I was younger. That’s why I go and talk to college classes. That’s why …
Life makes severe demands for many years on our time and energy. We are consumed with providing for our very existence; ours and our children's. We somehow work through providing answers to questions and daily demands. Then we retire. Then different questions require attention.By Del Lowery
Nicholson Baker is the author of 18 books of fiction and nonfiction. He has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s, and many other publications. His latest book is Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act. "In the end, I don’t care how famous you get, how widely read you are during your lifetime. You’re going to …
I like to think I followed this advice. But as soon as I say that I know that I do that only some of the time. I like to think that I choose and then go with it. But that is one of those little truisms or sayings that can get you in trouble.By Del Lowery
Elizabeth Weil covers California and the climate for ProPublica. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, California Sunday, and more. “As a journalist you’re endlessly asking people to tell you really personal, really vulnerable stuff about their lives. And I feel like you have to be willing to be in that conversation too—or really think a…
I am not advocating disregard of problems in the world but I am suggesting the need to be a bit selective in those we want to assume. It seems like there should be a time when we may choose to retire from more than work.By Del Lowery
Jiayang Fan is a staff writer for The New Yorker. Her latest article is a "How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda." "I think considering the unusual shape of our lives—the lives of my mother and I—from bare subsistence to one of the richest enclaves in America … it made me think about what the value of existence is. ... It made me wonder, Wh…
When I was seven, I wanted to be an author. No doubt about it. Fireman? Test pilot? Those careers had moments of interest, but never rose to more than a second choice.By Del Lowery
Claudia Rankine is a poet, essayist, and playwright. She is the author of the new book, Just Us: An American Conversation. “I began to wonder, why am I maintaining civility around things that are actually very important to me? This might be the only chance I get to stand up for myself. As Claudia. As a Black person. As a Black woman. As an American…
Retirement makes new demands. It takes some adjusting and thinking. Knowing ourselves, imagining and creating ourselves. Not so easy. No wonder people prefer golf, books and television.By Del Lowery
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an author and journalist. He served as guest editor for the September issue of Vanity Fair, titled "The Great Fire." “There’s this pressure to say something. Say something. The world’s burning, say something. But I try to stay where I’ve been or where I’ve tried to be in my career. ... Good things take time. You gotta let things…
Retirement gives us time to pause with poets both living and dead. We could do worse than spend some time with poetry.By Del Lowery
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Episode 407: Brandon Soderberg and Baynard Woods
58:08
58:08
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Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg are the co-authors of the new book I Got A Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad. “We really wanted to create some kind of leftist, anti-racist true crime story that we really haven’t seen. The conventions of the thriller often smuggle in all of this really right-wing, pro-police propa…
As most of us know, especially if you're of retirement age, is how the unexpected can come at any time and in any form. Going from driving in an RV for an extend visit with family to ending up in a hospital bed being prepped for surgery in less than 10 hours.By Del Lowery
Andrea Valdez is the editor-in-chief of The 19th*. “You know how sometimes you hear a song and you think, Gosh, it feels like that song has always existed and an artist just plucked it out of the air and played it and now it’s a part of our musical canon? I really hope that The 19th* is a news organization where it feels like it has always been, sh…
There are many ways around the mountain. I guess it is up to each of us to find our own route. We know that without good health life itself disappears. That tells us how important it is when we consider what we are doing with our life on a daily basis. It is always best to put health in first position.…
Jason Parham is a senior writer at Wired. “I think of myself some days as a critic. Some days I think of myself as a journalist. But I essentially mostly think of myself as an essayist, somebody who is trying to bridge those two traditions. My approach to writing now is kind of simple…I’m always writing about things I like and want to hear about.” …
What is the key to keeping healthy in life? There are about as many theories as there are people. The older I get the less attention I pay to all of these "secrets to a long life". What I like are ideas that fit in with what I am already doing.By Del Lowery
Jenny Kleeman is a journalist, broadcaster and the author of the new book Sex Robots and Vegan Meat: Adventures at the Frontier of Birth, Food, Sex, and Death. “It’s better to cover one thing in a really illuminating way than to try and explore every single aspect of a topic in a really superficial way. So if there’s one thing that particularly int…
It is past time that I try to think a bit more critical about Covid-19 and how it affects retirement. We all feel the pressure and changes in our lives. There are people who refuse to accept the reality of the situation. They refuse the statistics and the science. The rest of us have to deal with the tragedy as it is.…
Seyward Darby is the editor-in-chief of The Atavist Magazine and the author of Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism. “The most enlightening thing I learned in working on this book ultimately was that when we think of hate we think of animosity. Hate means I do not like someone or I do not like something. I deplore…
When the talk is all one way it ceases to be conversation. It is more of a lecture. It is this one-way street that discourages honest conversation. Retirement gives us time to think about what we are doing. We can learn to listen as well as talk whenever we get a chance.By Del Lowery
