My father was a great man. He had a tested I.Q. of two-hundred and six and excellent taste in art, clothes, and literature. He was a college professor who had been offered presidencies of universities, but turned them down and cashed out his pension to start a small business. His business, providing training and information to a variety of industries including oil, specialty manufacturing, and hospitality, made millions of dollars and employed dozens of people directly and impacted thousands, perhaps millions, more. He pioneered international business exchange with Kuwait and China, assisted in significant technological innovations in the oil industry, and improved educational processes that are still used today.

He also was a victim of criminal acts by unscrupulous business partners, and had rather bad luck with certain shifts in the economy which doomed major projects in which he was heavily invested. A child of the depression, he distrusted banks and planned for his retirement by collecting rare items of value, which he slowly sold to fund his modest needs. And this plan worked quite well, until into his late 70's, when his memory began to fail, and his estate was all but depleted. At this point, his only income was Social Security. I found a subsidized living situation near my home where he could remain independent, even on his very limited fixed income of $527 a month. We took long walks together by the river, ate baloney sandwiches and meals on wheels, and enjoyed a simple, beautiful last 18 months. Through Social Security and Medicaid, he was able to maintain his dignity and independence right up to the very end.

People would sometimes comment, "It's such a shame your father didn't plan ahead better," or, "Shouldn't he have a pension, if he had been a college professor?" But my father had no regrets, nor a bitter bone in his body. He would watch the sunlight dancing on the river, and say, in cryptic but somehow meaningful Alzheimer's babble"they're old, they're gold, they're all old gold." He was a man who wanted to make great things happen, and sacrificed his own personal security to contribute to society within his own lifetime, with his unique, irreplaceable gifts. And to me, this makes him a great man.

We of Generation X are now told that we should have at least a million dollars socked away someplace to insure a comfortable retirement, and that we can't depend on Social Security to be there for when our personal accounts run out or if we perhaps become disabled. But I can't help but think of all that waste of human capital, delaying the powerful, impossible dreams that keep a culture moving forward through innovative risk, in favor of making an extra few safe dollars to be put away in bond funds with a government bent on bankruptcy, or in mutual funds spread across the globe and terribly vulnerable to corporate fraud.

Shouldn't we, each with our own irreplaceable gifts, be investing our time and talent for the overall betterment of society, and not in fear of our old age? Isn't that truly a better gift to society overall? And shouldn't our government have a responsibility to pay us back for the contribution and sacrifices that we make, with the gift of a modest but comfortable existence, perhaps by a slow, beautiful river, in the dim, fading hours of a life well-spent? All we're asking for is a little money: when what we give is new technology, vibrant culture, quality education: the things that make a country truly great.

cc Emily Cicchini, 2005