Search - Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement

Very funny book - I read this while on vacation with the family so it was the perfect book at the perfect time. As strange as it seems, it makes me want to retire to some old folk's community when I get old and live my life in the sun and play shuffleboard, darn it! I know we can bring it back! I know we can!

Enjoyed the essays. This author is easy to read and has many humane and laugh-out-loud insights into his quirky co-retirees and himself. He brings into the story just enough of his memory of Florida-summer-vacation-with-the-retired-grandparents to enjoy its contrast with his present...predicaments.

Rodney is 28. Rodney loses his job. Rodney considers going on vacation. Rodney remembers his best vacations--visiting his grandparents at their retirement home in Florida. Rodney decides to retire 40 years early. Just to check it out, you know. He literally moves into a retirement community, renting out a room in an elderly lady's condo. He has a bit of difficulty making friends with his neighbors (they're all pretty friendly until they realize that he isn't anyone's grandson). He joins clubs--lots and lots of clubs. The Newcomers Club, the Not For Women Only Club, the Shuffleboard Club. He makes new friends and is the scared recipient of a seventy-five-year-old woman's come-on (he doesn't go through with it). He finds the foulest-mouthed old woman in the world (and ends up yelling at her). Throughout the six plus months, we go with Rodney as he experiences the world of retirement and does some investigating into his future.

Not as funny as advertised...but are they ever, really? Not a bad memoir, pretty funny at times. It bothered me a bit that he moved to the retirement community with the book idea in mind, so some of it seems a bit contrived. Overall it was a good read--the elderly friends he makes are pretty darn funny sometimes.