Klaus Obermeyer was only 103 when I met him holding court at the base of the stands at Aspen’s World Cup in March 2023. I remember he stood tall, tanned, smile wide, engaging with his fans, even flirting a little with the younger women (that is, all of them), cow bells clanging all around on one of those dazzling days that can’t help but make you feel fully alive.He still went to the office, still skied a bit. His main daily exercise regimen, though, was/is swimming and practicing the martial art Aikido. He’ll turn 105 on Dec. 2, sharper than you or me.He came right to mind when Lindsey Vonn, 40, announced last week she was coming back from retirement in 2019 to the U.S. Ski Team.And then I thought I saw that broadcast journalist Chris Wallace was retiring at age 77 after working for about every network, most recently CNN.The big whoa moment for me, though, was a couple of days later when the publisher of the Vail Daily who hired me when our kids were little, Bob Brown, was announced as the Daily’s new publisher beginning when the current one … retires at the end of the year.Bob helped run the company for a couple of decades as COO before we were sold in 2022 and he stepped aside. He was a little sketchy about calling it retirement, I recall. He only golfed like retirement, went on trips like retirement, enjoyed his grandkids like retirement.We talked a few times over the seven years I was publisher of the Vail Daily about the jobs we believed most suited us, the ones we felt born to. That job for him was publisher of the Vail Daily. For me, that was a great job, but it wasn’t the job. The job for me was editor. For another colleague, it was managing a division of papers, her sweet spot.To the degree anything comes most naturally, that you seem to have a knack for, your soul best fits, your true calling, there do seem to be certain roles that light up more than others.I’m crazy busy with this one at The Park Record, logging more hours if I look than ever going back to long ago wildfire seasons, and still I’m only getting to maybe a drop in the sea of what needs doing each day. My wife furrows her eyebrows. “And you like this?” she asks. “Love it,” I reply. And I do.I love this staff, love the mission, love the community, all the great characters and great stories, our bobbing little boat in the daily hurricane. I don’t hardly get a thing done each day and I see great progress looking back and huge opportunity ahead. I might be completely full of crap here, I probably am, but this isn’t about the everyday reality so much as what inspires us, where faith and our sense of the possible rest in our cores. This must be something like the ether or essence or whatever that animates Obermeyer, Vonn, Wallace — and Bob, my old boss, boss’s boss, and soon peer.In the ski towns, plenty of people who can very happily retire in their 40s and 50s, as well as in the “normal” years for calling it a career. I’m still a little young yet, and doors that closed in an era of mandatory age limits for a friend at The New York Times who came to work at my paper in San Diego, my school teacher mother (who was ready), and my Forest Service hotshot crew superintendent who went on to start a whole ’nother crew for the local county have not shut on me, so far.Some friends count the days till hallelujah! Others understand retirement as the normal way of things. They’re old, after all. This is simply the next phase.One retired friend had careers that ranged from Baltimore news anchor to teacher at an alternative high school and elected county clerk/recorder who oversaw elections. I asked her which one was her favorite, mindful of conversations with Bob. Retirement, she said with a laugh, hands down. She was busier than ever, loving every moment.My dad worked into his 80s. He pretty much had to, I believed then. But he later told me: “When you think about retiring, don’t. Just don’t.”Maybe Wallace thought about it. I swear the first report on him leaving CNN was that he announced he was retiring. But that’s not right. He’s going to give independent podcasting and streaming a try like some of his younger peers.Health and wealth have a lot to do with this question, of course. But so must our personal beliefs about the meaning of life, why we are here, right? Or does it come down to what we find satisfying? That is, the real question for everyone: Are you having fun?Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at [email protected] or (970) 376-0745.The post Journalism Matters: Not the retiring kind appeared first on Park Record.