Sherry makes the point that in her neck of the woods there are a lot of retirees returning to work.

It was a timely comment, because I have been seeing the same phenomenon here, thousands of miles away. My unit trains "new hire" people for entry level positions.

It used to be, not so many moons ago, that these new people were, for the most part, youngsters just graduated from high school or twentysomethings newly married looking for a job with medical and dental benefits.

Nowadays we're training retirees returning to work. Many of these people held responsible high-level positions before they retired, but in this economic climate, no one will hire them at a managerial or administrative level (not a little age discrimination involved, as well).

The benefits to us are marked, because we get people in these positions who are used to holding down a job, understand the chain of command and, high on our list of why we love them, they come to work every day. The few who do fall prey to the ravages of time are outnumbered greatly by the healthy seniors who are reliable and intelligent and competent.

I've asked many of them why they are returning to work. They say that, even with retirement planning and money saved, they can't make ends meet.


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Or they suddenly have out-of-work adult children, and their children's children, to support.

A couple of them said they got bored and felt useless and wanted to return to making a contribution to society and become involved again.

But over and over, from all the rest, I heard, it's the money, honey, needing a part time job to fill the retirement gap.

Each time I think of retiring, I think about this. If the cost of living goes much higher, it will be impossible to retire. Maybe I'd best keep on keeping on.