A variant of a talk about my adventures after retiring from college teaching in writing and speaking about Chinese American history that I first presented in April at California State University, Long Beach. My audience consisted primarily of college students, and some former colleagues not yet retired, in the Department of Psychology. It played well, and served to tell students that they don't have a corner on the life of the mind, and not to dismiss us retirees as 'over the hill' intellectually.
Speaking at Chateau Cupertino (just down the street from a well-known computer company), I faced an audience at the opposite end of the age span, some even older than I, and all in some stage of retirement. I gave essentially the same talk, but the implicit message was different. For some of them, the message was "it's never too late!" That is, using your life experiences and wisdom, you might have some meaningful things to write about that you could share with others.
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