In the past week, I have received a handful of e-mails and some voice-mail messages that left me feeling warm all over.

It was last week that I told the world (really, it's on the Internet) that after 40 years, five months, 22 days and three hours, I will be hanging up my blue pencil. For those of you who were born after 1985, I should explain a blue pencil was an editor's trusty crayon bleu in the days before computers.

A pencil, and a 50-lb. Underwood typewriter, were the only tools an editor needed to mentor a budding reporter, a future publisher, or a wannabe news photographer. With a couple of scrawled photo crop marks, I could turn a snapshot maker into a reasonable facsimile of Canada's premier news photographer, Boris Spremo.

(By the way, Boris, also retired, lives part of the time in Innisfil and it has been a thrill for me in recent months to publish some of his outstanding work locally.)

That same pencil could turn a cub reporter's efforts into a "polite" request for a complete rewrite, something a little less Hemingway-like and more of a meat-and-potatoes story for the guy next door, please.

The messages I received this week somehow made the four decades worthwhile. I'm just as vain as the next guy. It does my ego wonders to have someone acknowledge that they enjoy my work, or that they learned a little something that helped them hone their craft.

A lot of people have told me I'll do fine in retirement. "Write that book." "Enjoy the time golfing." "Relax!"

I have to remind myself I'm not quite 60 and I'm not yet ready to rest on my laurels or my butt.

So I have been considering some alternative occupations to occupy my remaining productive years.

As I have frequently said here, "And now for something completely different."

I told a female friend it might be a good time to become a doctor. After all, Barrie is begging for physicians to locate here. I'm not sure whether the shortage applies to the field of gynecology, but it's certainly worth exploring. However, my friend suggested it might require me going back to school for a few years, something I hadn't seriously considered.

Another friend, who is an air traffic controller, offered to start my training in that high-stress field this week. When I told him if he could direct planes to safely get back on the ground, I was sure I could master the skills required, he was quick to agree. Although the fact that he would like to retire sometime soon as well, convinced me he might have an ulterior motive.

But wait … I'm an experienced communicator, a writer, an editor, an Internet gee-whiz kid in an aging body … why not googleize it and find that perfect retirement time-filler?

I discovered a plethora of opportunities.

The Web told me there's a need for people in numerous occupations:
* Forest firefighters: Now there's something with which I have experience. As a young reporter in Northern Ontario in 1971, I was sent to get the story (with dramatic pix, of course) of a bush fire threatening the town of Matheson. I managed to get the company Pinto (of exploding gas tank fame) bogged down on a logging road in the middle of the blaze and was dragooned onto a firefighting crew of local barflies sent out with shovels and axes to battle the big one. I came back to the word factory with a radiant story, smoky photos and a paint-blistered clown car.
* Elevator installer: Sounds good at first glance, but probably has too many ups and downs.
* Insurance fraud investigator: My wife is an insurance adjuster who handles injury claims. Surely she would put in a good word for me with her company? And she's good at her job, having the ability to immediately recognize a lie. That's what she tells me, anyway.
* Commercial pilot. I have always dreamed of flying a plane. Why not? There is that annual physical that must be passed, but I'm sure my cardiologist would fudge the numbers for a swell guy like me. The Canadian airline WestJet is looking to hire a number of people for such non-airline jobs as payroll analyst and enterprise architect. Wait … they also need in-flight co-ordinators … could that be head stewardess? I'm sure I would enjoy being a waiter at 30,000 feet if it meant I could visit exotic locales like Fort McMurry and Deer Lake.
* Soldier: Canadian Forces recruiters are begging for people to sign up for a hitch. And you get to carry a weapon. I might last through half a one-day patrol in Afghanistan before I had to retire once again and enjoy that lucrative military pension.
* Judge: There is a precedent that says judges have to be lawyers by training, but I'm a believer in the American system of justice, where judges can be elected on their popularity alone, regardless of experience. In any event, Canadians love to hate lawyers, but seem to hold judges in high regard for the most part. That's what I need, some high regard.
* Pharmacist: Sure, it's a fancy handle for a druggist, but I think it pays half-decent. And if you count my experience many years ago using tetrahydrocannabinol (but never inhaling, of course); a rather extensive familiarity with ethanol; and one freaky experiment with an exotic chemical called lysergic acid diethylamide when I was 17, I'm more than qualified to dispense the goodies that make you feel better.

Well, I'm still undecided. If you have any suggestions, or better yet, if you want to hire me, drop me a line at lballantyne@simcoe.com.