Retirement Day: I Begin a New Journey by Looking Backwards I retire Oct. 1, 2024, after a 35+ year career that started badly and, despite my best efforts, ended with champagne corks. My first job was dishwasher at the Antique Kitchen Pancake House in Portage, Mich. It was hard, dirty work, but all was forgiven when they handed me my first paycheck. To this day, the sight of a flapjack makes my stomach churn. Taking a step up in the world, I delivered pizza for Domino’s where I added tips to my haul. The downside: I got so many speeding tickets, I lost my license and spent ten days in the Kalamazoo County Jail. I shared a cell with four guys who had more serious offenses and longer stays. They were good chess players. We slept a lot, and I was reformed, mostly. The summer I turned 18, I was making batches of pizza dough in a kind of metal butter churn at the Domino’s commissary in Kalamazoo. Pulling the crank that turned a blade through a sack of flour, a pitcher of water and a c...