I still remember when my father’s boss retired. I was about ten years old and remembered how my father had talked about his boss Harry since I was a little girl. Harry was a great guy. He and my dad shared the same engineer DNA, swapping jokes, talking politics, and exchanging stories about their kids growing up. So when it came time for Harry to retire, my dad was happy for him as he prepared to make his way to a shiny new retirement home in Arizona, but knew he would sorely miss him after fifteen years of working together.
What he wasn’t prepared for was the phone call that came just a month after Harry left for Arizona. My mom answered. “It’s about Harry,” she said, handing him the phone. My father took the receiver and his face fell when he heard the news coming from the other end. Harry had died. Just one month after retiring.
Sadly, this happens to a lot of people at retirement. They feel they have no purpose left in life and their bodies seem to take their cue from this my-life-is-over attitude.
Not so in Germany. Judging by the hordes of sturdy pensioners on the trains in Munich, this doesn’t seem to happen as much here. If you go to work just an hour or so later, the train is no longer packed with harried commuters. Instead, there are groups of 70-year-olds dressed in lookalike waterproof gear, wielding walking sticks, wearing a sporty sun-blocking hat, their feet snug in state-of-the-art hiking boots. Unless, of course, it’s winter. In that case, the walking sticks are replaced by cross-country skis and they’re wearing ski boots.
My father-in-law Helmut fits this pattern to a tee. A spry 84-year-old, around four years ago he felt like he was gaining a bit too much weight around the middle. So he stopped eating cake. Period. This is a big deal for Germans, who regularly indulge in Kaffee und Kuchen in mid-afternoon, similar to the British teatime tradition, one I have most heartily embraced.
He also makes a science out of his leisure time. Last summer when he decided to go on a hike in the nearby Alps, he made sure to leave punctually to be there on time. In this case, “on time” means being there before the gondola operator so that he is the first in line. He also has a lady friend whose late husband was an expert hiker, so the two of them criss-cross their way across the easier paths. More importantly, at least for me: if I need to know of a good café in any mountain town, I just call the Helmut hotline.
“Oh yes!” he says. “I know one. Café Crumble, off Main Street. Just turn into town off the first exit from the Autobahn and take the first parking spot you find.” Sure enough, this will be the best café around, full of pensioners in hiking gear rehashing their just-completed junket. If you’re lucky, there will be an old lady wearing a hat, usually loden green with a feather. The presence of such a hat turns a simple sojourn in the café into a bona fide Bavarian event.
I had a delightful young babysitter once named Maricarmen from Peru, who marveled at the active pensioners in Germany. “In Peru, all the old people just sit around complaining about their aches and pains,” she said. “They get fatter and fatter; their health continually deteriorates, and eventually they just die.” She was in awe of the level of fitness of the old folks here. “Señor Helmut is also very fit,” she confirmed. It was also charming how she referred respectfully to Helmut. I started jokingly calling him “Herr Helmut.” The veneer of formality made him a little uncomfortable, so I made sure to say it often.
My daughter once took a class trip to Paris by train. Like on all class trips, the main attraction is the “trip” part. The teenagers took up half an entire train car, laughing, joking, and doing teenagery things. The other half of the train car was taken up by – you guessed it, vacationing pensioners.
The two groups eyed each other suspiciously at first.
They think we’re too loud, the teenagers thought.
They think we’re too old, the pensioners thought.
The air was uneasy as each group imagined how the other side was criticizing them. Both sides were prepared to defend themselves.
Right up until a gregarious granny started chatting up one of the gregarious girls.
“Where you guys headed?”
“To Paris!”
“That sounds great! I love Paris! What are you going to do there?”
And with that, the ice was broken. The two sides of the train car started chatting away, comparing notes about being young then and now. A whole train car full of unrelated grandparents and grandchildren engaged in a great conversation.
Turns out traveling is just a thing with Germans. They catch the bug when they’re in school and it never goes away, even when they have to turn in their Nordic walking sticks for canes. They simply won’t sit still until they can’t get up. It sounds like a great way to grow old to me!
