Retire. What a lovely thought. Each day belonging to me and only me to do with what I want...

Wait a minute! That's what I'm doing now! With the exception of the homework thing but that really isn't that onerous.

One of my required reading books is titled Mariquita, It is the story of a young woman in Guam before and during the Japanese occupation. It is written in a very simplistic style. The author wasn't a professional writer. He was Mariquita's son and he wanted to tell her story. She didn't survive the war.

It is a good way to get a handle on the lifestyle out here. Though the story is over 60 years old the Chamorros still have a similar family centered way of life.

Another point I recently learned about Guam and the Chamorro. In the old pre-European days each village had a men's house. When boys reached adolescence they were taken to live in the men's house where they received the training they needed to be a man. This included nightly visits from a woman of the village.

When the Europeans heard of this they made the very Western assumption that the woman was a prostitute. However, they didn't understand the culture. In traditional Chamorro society the wealth of the family flowed through the woman's side of the family. When two people married the woman went to live in the man's home and her portion of the wealth went with her. Her sons would go to live in her fathers house. She could, if she so desired, take the wealth and return to her father's home if the man didn't live up to her expectations. So, the visits to the men's house were to teach the young man how to treat a woman properly.

If the woman became pregnant then the young man was seen to be a prize to marry because he was virile.

Stop and think about that. In the West a barren marriage was blamed on the woman. In ancient Chamorro society it was the other way around.

Very healthy life style in my humble opinion.