Senior Daze

by Katie Bourg

About Katie: Having arrived in time for the Great (?) Depression, WWII, and all other 20th century problems, I am endowed with long and varied memories. Writing classes have long been my home away from home. Other people's stories are fascinating, and sharing is growth at its best. Hope you seniors will join me with your stories. Try it. You'll like it.

I'm thinking of running for Congress. At least I was before I mentioned it to a friend, who had a better idea. She thinks we should all run for Congress.

We've had a couple of women do a pretty good job of it. I don't want to disrupt their work. After all, the longer they stay, the more we will get out of them. And the longer they serve, the shorter time they will have in retirement, where they will continue to draw the same pay. And that is my real interest.



When my husband retired in 1980, his pension sounded pretty good to us until we remembered he would have to give up half of it to make sure I still got it if he died first. Well, in 1980 we felt we could get along with half of what he had earned. And since I kept him healthy, well-fed, and clothed properly for most of his work life, he wanted me to be taken care of. We gave up the half, and accepted something under $400 a month. A disappointment, but livable.

I was not eligible for Social Security for another seven years, so we lived on what he got, something under a thousand a month. We sold our barn of a house, bought a small motorhome, and had some fun for a few years. Then we settled down and built another house. We did our own work, as we always had. We were comfortable. As the years went by, we became aware we were paying out considerably more than we had been.

Illness caught up to us, as it does to everybody, eventually. Our medical costs made a dent in our plan. Our combined Social Security was not keeping us even, and his company pension was frozen at the original amount. Hmmmm.

My husband was a farm boy. His gardens were lush and enormous. Food was not a problem. I had always sewn just about everything we needed. We were not party people, so that was not a problem. We had built our life a good distance from everything else, so we did feel the rise in gas prices, but we handled it. His health eventually required us to sell our nice little nest and move in closer, which cut the gas bill, but burdened us with a rent payment.

At the end of our years together, my Social Security was halted and his SS became mine, within a dollar or two. The company pension remained the same. Nothing to write home about, but still livable.

In the years following, SS has been raised very little while expenses that take a part of it have escalated out of sight. For two years now, the monthly stipend has not been raised at all.

They say gas may go to $4 a gallon by summer. Whatever happened to 1980?

In the same time, Congress has increased their pension plan frequently. It is massive, and does not go away when they quit or get booted out. Their medical is free for the asking. For life. Nice work if you can get it.

So my friend and I devised a plan. Some of our leaders, who don't think we need a little more to stay even but vote themselves whopping increases, just might lose out. If we all run for office and split the vote, a few of us could overtake them. Another election, and we might eliminate a few more.

Of course they would take their healthy pension system with them. But if we got enough of us into the halls of Congress we might be able to stop the bleeding at the top. We could possibly enjoy the benefits of service to the country, and push through a bill that says big boys don't need all they've voted for themselves.

Want to run for Congress? Worth a try.