To most people, retirement is a good word.
It speaks, perhaps, to gardening. To travel. To reading books, to mastering chess, to cruising to Alaska, to going to night school to learn a second language.
To spending more time with the grandkids.
It is a good word, as near as I can tell, but not to one curious segment of the population.
Rock stars.
Increasing numbers of rock stars, for whatever reason, are opting not to hang up the shingle at 62 or 65 and join lawn bowling leagues. Your typical aging rock star is not apt to say: "That's it, thank goodness! Now I can go to night school! And spend more time with the grandchildren!"
Perhaps some do. But I can think of many who don't.
Why, just recently, the Rolling Stones announced they were celebrating their 50th anniversary, and then hinted about a coming tour.
Now I don't know how old the Rolling Stones are, but I think they must be "getting up there," as they say. Let's just say they didn't start making music when they were five or six.
I guess they must still be having fun doing what they're doing, even though there has to be a lot less jump in Jumpin' Jack Flash. Either that, or they're still saving up for a first-class cabin on that cruise to Alaska.
Then there's Tina Turner, who was still doing her onstage stuff when other folks her age were, oh, sitting in the audience and recalling when they'd seen her 40 years earlier, and then going home to drink Earl Grey tea and finish the newspaper crossword.
There have been the likes of Robert Plant and Steven Tyler and Roger Daltrey, none of whom were apparently focusing on Freedom 55.
This isn't to say, of course, that I'm not in awe of people who can still crank it out when they're not exactly spring chickens. I'm also not saying that life ought to change dramatically when someone hits a certain milestone.
I just think it's interesting to consider that some rock stars - The Stones, let's say - started out at a time when eggs cost 32 cents a dozen, and are still at it a half century later.
Retirement? Not for these guys.
Retirement - that's for me. It's still a few years off, of course. But the thought just makes me sing.
