Ed.d. Maria Haendel Koonce

Retirement Rocks: Life's Rollercoaster Ed.d. Maria Haendel Koonce

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 treasured loved ones and the health decline that we all must face.

This autobiographical personal monograph pictures the daily routines of Maria and Bill in their late sixties and early seventies, detailing the specifics of adapting to their new environment. It has humor and pathos. The family and friends relationships reflect universal themes. It includes travel journals of their world explorations (Scandinavia, Mediterranean, Russia, China, and more), as well as practical examples of their activities and their choices. It will provide entertaining, informative, and useful reading for those approaching and those benefiting from the technological medical advances which have afforded us this unprecedented gift of a long life and a rich old age.