Lair Davis (Our Man in Costa Rica)
Remember Lair Davis? He was the founding editor of several queer newspapers including the San Diego Gayzette (1982), Gay Times (1988) and Gay/Lesbian Nation (1990). Lair moved on to other community challenges in San Diego before moving to Santa Cruz. In June 2004, the award-winning “Lair About Town” columnist retired to the tropics of Costa Rica. HillQuest is tickled and proud to return Lair to San Diego every week to share his views and ideas. Feel free to email him.
Here's a link to his Yahoo group for gay seniors who would like to share information.
Interested in your own trip to Costa Rica?
Get off the “tourist trail” while $aving time/money with your own travel consultant. Lair would love to help you plan your Costa Rican holiday of a lifetime. He’ll even be your guide in his tropical paradise! Email him to discuss your wish list.
More from Lair in the archives
I Decided to Retire
January 13, 2006
I first visited Costa Rica in 1992 on a typical two-week holiday. It was love at first sight.
In subsequent years I visited regularly, usually once a year, sometimes twice a year if I could find someone to split the costs.
About five or six years ago I slowly began to develop my plan for retiring to Costa Rica. I just knew I would enjoy myself here, that this was the place in which I hoped to live “someday.”
I have always enjoyed Latino culture. Living in San Diego, I visited Mexico quite a bit. I loved it, but I never quite felt welcomed there. One has a sense in Mexico of the resentment — or perhaps it is just a love-hate relationship — that Mexicans have for the United States and its people. I never quite felt “at home” in Mexico. I always felt welcomed and “at home” in Costa Rica.
I spent much of my life as a workaholic — I enjoyed working because I enjoyed my work. If I didn't enjoy it, I would stop doing it and start doing something else that I did enjoy.
That worked for me through my entire life. It didn't make me rich, and it didn't make my Social Security checks very large, but I have enjoyed my life immensely, including my working life.
In the summer of 2004, I experience severe pains in my chest. Sure enough! One day later I was discharged from the hospital with two stents in my heart. I became very conscious of the fact that I had begun to live on “borrowed time.” Every subsequent day has been a “bonus day.”
My old friend, Annie, came to visit me. We went out to dinner, and as usual I began to wax poetic about the joys of Costa Rica.
Annie says, “So when are you going to retire and move down there?”
I gave her my usual response: “I'm not really sure, Annie. As long as I am enjoying my work, I think probably I will continue working.”
Annie gave me one of her looks and said, “Well, if that is what you are waiting for, then forget about Costa Rica. Look, you have the ability to make whatever you do enjoyable, so if what you are waiting for is for your work not to be fun anymore, then you are going to die working. And you really need to shut up about Costa Rica.”
Ah, Annie doesn't pull her punches! But she was absolutely right. What was I waiting for? Did I want to move to Costa Rica or not? I had turned 63 and was eligible to start drawing my Social Security. I had just about as much in my savings accounts and investments as I was going to have. Another year or so was not going to make that much difference.
I knew I could never afford to retire in California, where I had lived for 30 years. I didn't really want to retire in California. I had read somewhere that one could not consider himself to have lived a full life unless he had spent a portion of it in at least one other culture other than the one in which he had been born. Made sense to me.
The very next day I walked into my boss' office and told her that I was giving six-month's notice. I was going to retire and move to Costa Rica. Six months later I was here.