Grandma Moses, who began to paint at age 78, is the one who comes most quickly to mind, but there are other “seniors” who didn’t make it big until well into their, shall we say, “later years.”
Colonel Harlan Saunders was a youthful 65 when he franchised his chicken restaurants, receiving a nickel for every chicken sold.
So the point I’m making here is that I’ve still got time. In fact, we’ve ALL still got time. As long as we’re sucking air, we can pursue our goals and dreams with the pedal to the metal, so to speak.
While I spent 30 years as a public school teacher, the prospect of becoming a fabulously famous and wealthy writer hovered constantly in the back of my mind. I began bringing it forward with my humorous, personal experience newspaper column from January, 1993 through March, 2003.
I put 68 those columns into book form and it was published by Kaleidoscope Press in Puyallup. The editor said they’d take my next three books… But time has a way of changing things in ways we could never imagine, and that particular editor is now a missionary in Thailand!
So when I retired from public school teaching in 2006, I began in great earnest to pursue that niggling prod in the back of my head that still clamored to be heard.
To date, I’ve published in magazines ranging from Guideposts to Star to Woman’s World. I’ve been in 17 volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul. I’ve had 12 plays produced, and I’ve self-published 5 volumes of short personal experience stories.
Thus far, fame and fortune have eluded me. But there’s still time. My first fun mystery novel, set right here on the peninsula and starring my alter ego, is out looking for an agent. Everything could change in a single heartbeat!
Success, as Grandma Moses and Colonel Saunders will attest, can arrive at any age, and it still tastes just as sweet!