b"Did you ever require the Union's intervention regarding a problem on the job or at a worksite?No, but I did see the social worker years ago. (She's deceased now, she was a really lovely woman.) My middle sonwas diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She helped me with the application for Social Security-SSI. She was really, really anice woman and I was really sorry to hear that she passed away. It wasn't a job-related thing. It was just something I needed help with. That's an important thing. What year did you retire?I retired in 2010. I was 62 years old.If you wouldn't mind, would you tell me what your starting salary was when you began working in theLocal 237 job?Oh, boy, I don't remember that, let me see. It was more than I was making, that's for sure. I think it was somethinglike $45,000 a year or something like that. I don't remember exactly.Do you remember your salary at retirement?My retirement salary was something like 52, I think $52,000.Do you have anything else you'd like to tell us today?I think that as a retiree you need a plan as to how you're going to approach retirement. And my plan was to reallyfocus on my health and on being active and travel. I've gotten into swimming, line dancing, water aerobics and travel. Where have you travelled and do you aspire to travel?Since I retired, I've been on my first cruise. I went to the Panama Canal. That was important to me because my grandfather worked on it. I wanted to see it. All the ports of call were places I had never been. Panama, Colombia, CostaRica, where my mentor Daisy Peart was from. We went to the Grand Cayman Islands and Aruba. I've been to Ghana. I went there on a mission trip to work with children. One of my friends church sisters started a camp there. We went thereto work with the kids. My thing with them was to make fans. I have a fan collection, out of recycled material. I had to bringall the material, my suitcase was full of stuff for them to make the fans. I'm very proud of what we did. My roommate hadthem making placemats. And someone else had them making skirts. My friend who organized this trip is a quilter. She had the kids making these little teddy bears. It was really exciting. We spent the rest of the time visitingthe sites in Ghana, the slave dungeon and all that. That was very emotional. I was there almost two weeks. The first week was spent with the kids, the second week was spent touring. What happened to the items the children produced?They kept them. I still have some of the materials at home. I said I was going to start doing it again, but I haven't gotten around to it. My parents are both deceased now, and they left a house in Winter Springs, Florida, so I go downthere a lot. 189 "