Retirement ROCKS is an insightful case study of the Golden Age that offers both great new opportunities and deep, heartbreaking challenges. Since June 2007, the author and her gringo have embarked in this stage with enthusiasm and zest: they moved to a small retirement home and experimented with activities and relationships that fit their interests and abilities. Retirement ROCKS because it can be incredibly rewarding and adventurous as we leave behind the normal worries of child-rearing and professional pressures, and it ROCKS because it will inevitably bring the disappearance of...

Many years ago, after Bill and I returned from conducting a teacher training session, we were having lunch in our Florida room, rehashing the experience and laughing at our mishaps. A young man, Bruce, was busy building a new wet bar for us when he interrupted his work to inquire. "Excuse me, but I am in the middle of a nasty divorce, and you two seem to have such a happy relationship. What does it take?"

Taken off guard, we improvised. "A good sense of humor, a common interest, mutual respect . . ." When Bruce started to leave, I stopped him. "Bruce, it is none of the above. It is...