USA: Seniors Heading Back to Work

DENVER, COLORADO (Rocky Mountain News), October 24, 2005: Chuck Lamb worked 31 years for Chevron as a petroleum geologist and another half-dozen years as a petroleum consultant. Then he retired and did nothing. "I realized I didn't like it. It wasn't for me," said Lamb, 80. "My personality is that I need to have something to do. I like to know what I'm doing next Thursday. "I tried some volunteering, but it didn't provide what I needed." So he went back to work. For the past 15 years he has worked four days a week at the Environmental Protection Agency's Denver office, doing computer work in the section that monitors drinking water in Wyoming. "I need to have the mental challenges," he said. "Not being raised in the computer age, this was a real challenge for me." He is among 971,000 Americans 75 and older who work full time or part time (nearly 350,000 of them are 80 and older), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' current population survey from 2004 (the latest data available). Lamb connected with the EPA through the Older Workers Career Center, a national nonprofit that finds retired workers with specific skills needed by the EPA. "The talent that's out there is unbelievable," said Larry Anderson, president of the center, which began as a program of the American Association of Retired Persons. "The availability of people to come back out of retirement and contribute in a meaningful way is endless," Anderson said. "A few years back EPA was trying to find a hydrogeologist with expertise in pesticide runoff in underground water. We found somebody in two weeks," Anderson added. Seniors who choose to continue working or return to the labor force after retiring feel as if they have more control of their lives, said Kathryn Kaye, associate clinical professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center's geriatrics division. "Our society sets up a situation where people who are more productive are more highly valued. I don't know that that's a good thing, but they tend to feel they're contributing," said Kaye, who has a private practice in geropsychology. The age of retirement is too arbitrary to apply to every older American, she said. "We don't have a single point at which a person becomes old. People are able to be productive far beyond a specific age," Kaye said. "People who have plans for their lives after retirement tend to do much better. Social engagement is very important, but creative engagement may be even more important," Kaye said. Many seniors don't want to work but do want to contribute. Of more than 400 people in the Volunteers of America's Retired Senior Volunteers Program, 173 are age 80 and older, including 10 who are age 90 and older. Marie Calaway, 80, volunteers once a week at the Teller Elementary School library, where she mends, cleans and shelves books and helps students find something they want to read. "It gets me out of the house, I enjoy working with the librarians there and it isn't too far to walk," she said. Calaway also knits clothes for premature babies at Denver Health Medical Center through the Community Knitters program. "Manufacturers don't make many clothes for premature babies. A newborn-size dress on a premature baby is like a 10-year-old wearing her father's coat," she said. And for 40 years, Calaway has been a competitive archer who has won both state and national tournaments in her age class. "It keeps my muscles toned and I meet people," she said. "It takes a good eye and practice." By Mark Wolf Rocky Mountain News http://www.rockymountainnews.com Notable Americans 80 and older, still going strong: • Kurt Vonnegut, 82, has a new book out, A Man Without a Country. • Les Paul, 90, plays a weekly gig at a jazz club in New York and recently released a rock CD. • Daniel Schorr, 89, is a National Public Radio news analyst. • Robert McKeague, 80, just became the oldest person to finish the Ironman Triathlon. (In the 2005 Bolder Boulder, 64 finishers were 80 or older.) • Elaine Stritch, 80, appeared in two movies this year and will resume her At Home at the Carlyle show in January. • Helen Thomas, 85, long-time White House correspondent, is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. Copyright 2005, Rocky Mountain News.