Men Still at Work: Professionals Over Sixty and on the Job (25 page)

He also volunteers for American and international groups overseas. “It’s important to stay in contact with others who often are of different ages and in different circles than those encountered during my daily routine. This adds to a lifestyle of remaining intellectually challenged, active, vigorous, and in good shape and good health while having a great deal of fun.” Nancy Kapstein is also an active volunteer with various groups that support the activities of Americans overseas, and she writes an online tourist newsletter. One of her publications,
The Hints Book: Living and Working in Belgium
, was credited as a resource for
Inside Brussels
, a guide for journalists covering Belgium and the European Union.

Jon does admit to a problem that has arisen since he shifted to working part time from a home office. “It’s the old saw that one’s spouse marries a life partner for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health—and now for lunch as well.” In nearly forty years of working as a journalist full time overseas on four continents, he always had a one- or two-person office with wide regional responsibility. But he always made sure his office was not at home. It was important for him and for the family to separate the two. “The major change in lifestyle in the last three years has been my working from home, which has required some mental adjustment on my part—and, I am sure, a considerable amount on my spouse’s part.”

Jon told me that at first he wondered if the experience of an American working and living overseas was relevant to my study. But he soon realized that the interview questions apply equally, domestically and internationally. “The difference is that Americans often continue to work far into older years, whereas Europeans tend to retire much earlier. The cynical European comment is that Americans live to work and Europeans work to live, but that is not necessarily true. What is true is that Americans derive great satisfaction from work and are easier with the concept of working later in life. This does not apply, of course, to those forced to eke out a living due to corporate corruption-and-collapse à la Enron or by the long-running economic downturn or, indeed, by huge and uncovered medical bills. The latter is not a problem in Europe or the rest of the developed world.”

Partial as the Kapsteins are to Europe in general and to Brussels in particular, Jon hastens to add the following pronouncement: “To be sure, we are both still proud Americans from New York and New England. Even at my age I also stand tall on indefinite status as a US Navy reservist.”

While using their
abilities
,
skills
, and
training
is just as important to my respondents as to SHRM’s, I think the men I am studying mean something somewhat different by
satisfaction
, for three of the next top-ranked reasons in table 7.1 (
enjoying clients, patients, students, customers
;
helping others, contributing to society, making a difference
;
enjoying colleagues and coworkers
) are more about giving of oneself than receiving. Generally speaking, my respondents seem to be at an age where
finding meaning in work
becomes more important than financial gain. Supporting this notion are the relatively low ratings of the seven financial items in my survey:
needing the income
;
saving in 401(k) plan or other retirement plan
;
reaching the
peak of career (high earning power, authority)
;
boosting Social Security benefits
;
meeting rising health insurance costs
;
accruing pension benefits
; and
having
other financial pressures
. To call finding meaning in work more important than financial gain “altruism” may be too much of a stretch—after all, 48 percent of the men say that they depend on the income from work—but a glance at their comments bears out the point.

For every man who said “A good salary will make things easier in later life,” “I need the money,” “Adding extra income to my Social Security benefits,” “Uncertain about the adequacy of my retirement savings,” or “It’s an opportunity to make substantial income from expertise gained in the last twenty years,” there are men whose work has become almost a cause. Three of them happen to be sixty-nine years of age. “My work is truly a calling,” a child psychiatrist confides. “There is tremendous need for child psychiatry,” and, he goes on, “I have been trying to help as many children and families as possible.” A long-term-care advisor enthuses, “It’s a great joy to help people at a difficult time in their lives.” And an anesthesiologist says, “The income is nice but not an absolute need.” What he really enjoys is “the challenge of new anesthesiology agents and being part of a paradigm shift” in his field. There’s a sixty-five-year-old businessman who enjoys giving back to others and a sixty-seven-year-old social service provider who feels that he is making a difference for his clients. And there are older men, like Norman Bridwell and Henry Schniewind, who say they are working so they can help their adult children and their grandchildren financially.

Norman Bridwell, the creator of
Clifford, the Big Red Dog
and other stories, is beloved by children (and their parents) all over the country and the world. Norman, eighty-four, helped Clifford, his publisher, and his fans to celebrate Clifford’s Big Five-O in September 2012. Children and their teachers won’t let Norman stop working.

Profile: Norman R. Bridwell

Norman Bridwell has been working for more than six decades. He feels
obligated
to keep working because he gets letters every week from children and teachers asking for another story. Were it not for Norman, Clifford the Big Red Dog would never have been born let alone celebrating his fiftieth birthday (in human years). Norman is the author and illustrator of the beloved literary classic as well as other children’s books about witches and funny-not-scary monsters. His Clifford series has more than 126 million books in print in thirteen languages. Clifford’s animated television series, in its twelfth season on PBS Kids, is seen in dozens of countries. In honor of the Big Birthday, Clifford’s publisher, Scholastic, presented a live Clifford musical in theaters and performing arts centers nationwide from October 2012 through March 2013. Scholastic also ran a Be Big Campaign, a contest promoting community action that demonstrates Clifford’s BIG ideas for making the world a better place.

Clifford’s September 24, 2012, birthday celebration in New York City was webcast to more than five thousand classrooms around the country and Scholastic made it available as an app. For the event, Broadway was closed off temporarily when Scholastic unfurled a nine-story banner down the front of its building. Norman answered questions from kids and from TV host Diane Sawyer. In the evening, Norman was reunited with four of his ex-editors (the ones still alive, he was quick to inform me). One of them was the Harper & Row acquisitions editor who had looked at his unique drawings of a red horse-sized bloodhound fifty years ago and told him he was not a very good artist—if he added a story to the pictures, that might help. It certainly did.

For eighty-four-year-old Norman, the celebration was exhilarating but overwhelming and exhausting. Nevertheless, he was glad that his wife, Norma, had insisted that they make the trip from their home on Martha’s Vineyard to attend. Their daughter—the
real
Emily Elizabeth, who plays a prominent role in the Clifford stories—and a seventeen-year-old granddaughter also attended. Emily, a pre-K teacher and art teacher, told the press that when she and her younger brother, Tim, were small children, they did not realize that their father’s drawings and stories about the big-hearted dog were enjoyed by children everywhere; they thought the stories were theirs alone. (That may be one of the stories’ many appeals for young readers today.)

Norman has been making up stories and doing funny drawings since his own childhood in Kokomo, Indiana. “I had four dogs and a vivid imagination when I was a boy,” he recalls. After attending art school in Indianapolis and at Cooper Union in New York City, he became a commercial artist, working (when he could) as a freelance filmstrip and slide illustrator. In 1962, Clifford was born and that all changed. “I never dreamed Clifford would live fifty years. If I’d known, I would have written him sooner,” Norman tells me.

He goes on to explain why he can’t stop working. “It’s the letters from kids and teachers that pull me back into it. I get the greatest satisfaction from knowing that I have entertained children. Children are always a treat for me. And teachers tell me that Clifford gets their students started as readers.” Adults learning English as a second language may also get to know Clifford. Norman takes pleasure in recounting the story of a young Chinese man who told him that he was helped to learn English by reading Clifford books. He liked the illustrations, became an artist himself, and now owns a graphic design studio.

Norman receives some fifty letters per week and answers all of them himself. He used to make school visits, but he doesn’t do that anymore because declining health has forced him to curtail his travel. He thinks it is important to encourage kids to be proud of who they are and what they do. Someone may criticize their work—editors, for example, may reject it—but they shouldn’t give up. “You never know who the child will become, what he or she is capable of accomplishing some day, perhaps as an artist or a writer. Still, that’s a hard way to earn a living. Many want to do it, and few succeed. I was fortunate to have fifty years of success creating books, despite a few flops along the way.”

Even though the recession and ongoing economic slump have affected book sales to schools and individuals have less money these days for purchasing books, Clifford and Norman are still hugely popular. “I approve the television scripts about Clifford, but I don’t write them. Ironically, the television programs compete with my books,” Norman observes.

After undergoing a quadruple bypass, Norman suffered a second heart attack. His cardiologist told him that there wasn’t much more he could do for him. The doctor gave him two more years to live, and that was several years ago. “I am going downhill rapidly and probably don’t have much time left until the end,” Norman says matter-of-factly, “so I am never bored with my leisure time.” When he is not answering the mail, Norman enjoys reading a good book, such as a history of the French Revolution or a World War II story. In addition, he and his wife come to Boston regularly for Norma’s art classes at the Museum of Fine Arts and the occasional doctor’s appointment. Norman tells me how proud he is of his wife for donating her paintings to Vineyard charities.

Although he still enjoys sketching and drawing, since the second heart attack Norman has found it harder to come up with story ideas that he hasn’t already implemented. He has always been especially fond of turning things around to get a different viewpoint, thinking about what a real dog would do and imagining what clumsy Clifford would try to do and the trouble he would cause. These days, an editor often suggests story lines to him, and Norman produces the illustrations. Happily, there are at least two or three more Clifford adventures and witch stories in the pipeline.