"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."--Charles Kingsley

1.)  I have been semiretired for four years and fully retired for almost a year. I have been reading, walking, studying Spanish, visiting grandchildren, taking care of grandchildren on days when there is no school but their parents have to work. My wife and I took a six-week camping road trip last May.

2.)  Yes, I really did, for forty years. Of course work is work. There are bosses. There are irritations. There is worry. There is not having enough time to do a good job. There are times when I've made terrible goofs. But for me, programming computers was like playing with the world's biggest electric train set and I was always surprise that people would pay me money to do it.

On the other hand, I expected to go on doing it just for fun after retiring and but I am finding that I don't actually want to.

3.)  I live for the moment and go with the flow. I find that I have waves of enthusiasm that build and last for three to five years and then fade.

4.)  I would honestly say no. However, in my late sixties, it is true that "at my back I always year/Time's wingéd chariot hurrying near," and in a sense the mark of being old is that one's thinking and planning are affected by the realization of mortality. I would say I have a <em>fear of death</em> but I do <em>not</em> have a "sense of helplessness."

5.)  My grandchildren, my wife, my health.