My projects

As you have noticed I have a couple chevy trucks I am working for now. I could just sell them and be done with them. I have some pleasure getting these operational again. I guess this is a hobby of mine working on this old junk, now than my mowing season is over I have time to do this. I have several motorcycles that I brought back from the dead, and don't ride them anymore. if I get tired of the chevy trucks I have other vehicles to go to. When I go to my barn (shop) it's a block from my house, and I'm by myself., just the way I like it. I don't fish, or play golf, this is what I do. I tell people this keeps me out of the bars. My tractors ran good this mowing season. All I need to do before next year is a little maintenance. So long as God gives me the ability to keep going, I will continue on. Stan

Sounds like a good plan.

Butch

I totally get it.

My shop is 100 yards or so from the house but might as well be a world away.

I love fixing old broken stuff: tractors, shop machinery, motorcycles, mowers, snow blowers...pretty much anything really if it can be useful to me or someone else.

I don't keep accounts (learned that lesson early) and have no doubt lost a good deal of money over the years that could have been spent on useful endeavors like booze, pasture pool, drowning worms or some other manly sport.

Stan,
I was denied a childhood.
I had to work on Dad's dairy farm.
Child labor. I couldn't play sports, I had to get up every morning and feed the calves before the school bus. Get home and work until 9 or 10 and try to do some homework.
Good thing the teachers let me sleep in study hall.
I guess I never learned how to play.
Like you, I had to twist wrenches to keep tractors, trucks and my motorcycles going. I still twist wrenches. I've built a few room additions from the ground up, totally rebuilt houses. One was in a fire. I spent a year helping a neighbor rebuild a 110 year old barn that was falling down and he needed a barn for his 3 horses. That was a challenge we'll never be able to do again, too old. It was fun. I did it for Free. Making my neighbor who has battled cancer a few times happy was payment enough.
I don't play golf, I don't smoke, I don't drink, women stop chasing me so I don't have to run. I enjoy a 4 mile trike ride when I can.
My life consists of repairing things like you. There aren't too many engines I can't bring back to life. I collect tools. If I need a tool, I buy it.
At one time I made a body shop out of a 28x44 garage. I lost interest in welding in new body panels and painting cars.
I do enjoy crappie fishing with my sister in the winter.
I have 6 rentals. At one time I had 12. I do all the maintenance work. I could make more money and do less work if I sold them and put the money in the stock market. I love math and the stock market is a cool math game. I keep my rentals so I have something to do. I think everyone needs to have a source of aggravation, rentals properties are one of mine.
I have 2 workshops 18 miles apart. One pole barn has welders, lathe, torch, 20 ton press, table saw, trim saw, wood planner.
I can build about anything I need
I think we are very much alike. We have to be doing something. Life is too short to sit in front of a TV and watch Football.
My days of restoring rust buckets are over.
My days of riding motorcycles are over.
My days of fast cars are over. I once restored a 1962 jaguar XJE and a 1966 triumph 650 MC.
I don't care to make sawdust anymore. I do have reminders of all the furniture I've made out of red oak. I've passed some of my wood tools to my son who has some interest in wood projects..
Cheif, don't give up. Invent something to do.
My sister, my fishing partner, taught special needs until she was 73. Now she can't handle just sitting around so she does volunteer work at an animal rescue center's thrift store. She still enjoys going to yard sales. Now working at the center, the good yard sale items come to her.
I know a retired man who works part time at Menards just to have something to do and he enjoys talking to people. Best part, he gets paid..go figure.
I've been retired for 18 years, no plans to ever go back to work. I seem to find enough to do.
I hope I've given you some ideas about what you can do.
I've even volunteered to get two old tractors running for 2 different people. One was a TO20 and another was a MF35. I completely rewired the MF35 and split the tractor to install a new clutch.
Perhaps you could advertise helping people breathe new life in old tractors, old cars, old motorcycles. Have them bring them to your workshop.
As long as I have get up and go, it's a good day.
I hope it's never the other way around, go before I get up.
It feels good to help people and gives you a sense of purpose.
Invent something to do.
Take care, George

Thanks for sharing, really enjoyed reading this. I am not retired and have a way to go, but I know what I would like to do. Can work by myself and very much enjoy helping people also, volunteer fire fighting lets me meet terrific people.

Keep doing what you have a passion for. Im kind of stuck in a rut. I usually work 6-7 days a week but that is getting old fast. I have to keep grinding away as my youngest son will be starting college in the fall and that needs to be paid for somehow. I came to the conclusion that all the hobbies and activities I have interest in I cant really afford at this moment in life.

Vito

My son is now finding out what I went through paying for his sister's and his college.

I'm happy to have 2 granddaughters attending Purdue.

I can't think of a better thing to do for your kids than sending them to college and they graduate with no student debt..

Then help them come up with a downpayment to buy a house after they get married.

Helping your kids get a good start in life is better than leaving them some money after you are dead..

Pick one project at time and get it done ,dont go flipping around ! You get them all done that way and have more fun

My shop with my wife's sewing room on the back is about 100 feet from the house and we live way off the road.
Spend most of my awake time is there or out doing something with a tractor or splitting wood.
Do whatever makes you feel good.
Richard in NW SC

You are absolutely correct George.

Vito

Sounds like me,I get up and go do what I want that day.

Well said at almost 80 I find something to do ever morning, not going to stop as long as I can keep going.

I guess me being the 3rd child everything had run out even film for the camera lol

Keep up the work sir. You do you. Sounds like a good time to me sir.

Ditto, I was #4.

(quoted from post at 10:13:47 10/16/22) I guess me being the 3rd child everything had run out even film for the camera lol

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ere were 4 from 1931 to 1948 and after the war, Dad made more and more as the years went by, meaning more to be spent on each successive child. The first was shorted the most, but that was no one's fault, just the way life is. He worked at the Ford plant during the war for 75 cents an hour, but by time last child graduated from high school, it wasn't a problem for him to give her a new 1966 Chevelle SS 396 as graduation present. Whereas the first child started life in a one room dirt floor 'house'.

Interesting life you have. At the age of 80 I will not work for others, I did that most of my life. I will still do my weed mowing in the spring. What I am doing now, there is no schedule time to finish. I would like to at least get the motors running in the old chevys to sell them. Then move on to something else. I restored a 61 triumph 500, a few years ago. Stan

Did you make it to Texas and buy a Scout?