When I sold my business, at the age of 55, I felt liberated. Now I could do all those things that seemed so interesting, but were denied me by the "ball and chain" of small-business ownership.
Sure, in those twenty years, I had some concurrent professional activities going on. For much of the last fifteen I was a roving adjunct professor, and an occasional consultant. There were even a couple of full-time jobs in there, where frequent phone calls to, and most Saturdays at my business had to be enough to impart my unique brand of management.
So, I am available world! Or at least the greater New Orleans area.
Several months of clearing up my backlog of miscellany were rather pleasant, and then the call came. President of a local economic development agency? That sounds good to me. But I soon found out what a come-down it was from business owner/executive to political whipping-boy. Thanks for the opportunity, but I would just as soon stay home.
After another pleasant interlude of a few months, another call came. Scholar-in-Residence at a local university sounds great! And it was a pleasant two years, including one semester as a visiting scholar in New York. But financial exigency did me in. Last hired becomes first fired. Well, I did mouth-off a little too much about the administration’s shortcomings, but I am pretty sure it was the cash crunch that cost me the job.
It was the summer of my discontent. My backlog was so cleared up that I was killing time with a blunt instrument. The local economy had softened a bit, and there were no jobs to be found that came even close to the level of income and importance to which I had become accustomed.
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