Do you know what the word vicarious means? My dictionary puts it this way:

Vicarious, adjective. 1. performed, exercised, received or suffered in place of another. 2. taking the place of an­other person or thing; acting or serving as a substitute. 3. pertaining to or involving the substitution of one for another.

For instance, if you go to a movie and watch two or three cow­boys kill a hundred or so Indians, you are having a vicarious ad­venture. You aren't doing it yourself, but you are thrilled, excited, titilated by seeing someone else do it. When you read a love story you have a vicarious romance. You yourself aren't kissing or being kissed, but vicariously you enjoy the thrills of love.

For many years publishers specializing in travel guides have realized that the greater number of persons who buy their travel books are not going to actually do any traveling. They are what are known in the trade as armchair travelers. In short they are vicarious travelers. They love the thought of traveling to far lands, the meet­ing of strange peoples, the seeing of the great sights of the world— but they never get around to doing it.

Personally, I have met many of these people. They will sigh in admiration at the many countries I have seen and invariably will say, "All my life I've wanted to travel but I've never been able to afford it. I don't see how you do it." Out in front of their house will often be parked a current model of one of Detroit's biggest monstrosities which cost nearly four thousand dollars. With half that amount they could have taken a leisurely trip around the world. That would still leave them enough to buy a smaller car, or a used one.

They are vicarious travelers, not real ones. They don't really want to travel but just think about it, and read about it, and talk about it.

Or we might mention two friends who publish a small magazine in Florida called the Florida Opportunity Bulletin. It is full of information about retiring to Florida, or setting up a small business in Florida, or finding employment in Florida. They distribute by advertising in national publications and in newspapers in the northern cities. They have literally tens of thousands of subscribers. Most of these subscribers they find are vicarious dreamers who will never take the step. They would love to leave the coldness and drabness of their northern homes but for whatever reason don't. Each month they get their copy of the Bulletin and moon over it, and discuss the various Floridian cities and towns, discuss the various jobs, the business opportunities—but they never actually pull up roots and go.

All of which is a rather lengthy build-up to what I'm driving at.

This book is not meant for the vicariously inclined. There is no way that I can prevent a reader from planking down his money, taking this volume back to the safety of his room and dreaming about getting out of the rat-race and living a real life, but never getting around to doing it. We can't prevent this but we can insist that this book is not meant for such readers.

It is meant for people who truly want to get off the treadmill and retire in comfort and to enjoy a better way of life than is lived by the overwhelming majority of Americans today. We are determined to do it, if at all possible, and it is possible and this book will prove it.

The question becomes WHEN?

And the answer is NOW!

It is either now or never. If you put it off today, you will find even more reason to put it off tomorrow and a double amount of reason to put it off next month. Until finally you will find it is next year, and five years and ten and you'll look up someday and find that life has passed you by. That you've spent it dreaming about a better way of life but never quite had the courage to reach out and take it, although it was always there to take. You'll find youth gone, and many of the best things in life never realized. You will have lived and died just one more sad drop of water in an unhappy ocean.

I don't mean to suggest here that you drop this book right this minute, put your hat on your head, go down and tell the boss what he can do with his job, draw your money out of the bank, and go to the local tourist agency and buy a ticket for Italy (although, frankly, I have known people who did just that and never regretted it).

I do suggest that right this moment you decide in your own mind, and decisively, that you are going to do this thing. That you are going to get off the treadmill and start living. Decide it with determination. Burn it into your brain so definitely that it will remain there until you have accomplished it.

Then read this book right on through with extreme care. Mark every passage that applies to you so that when you are finished you can go back and restudy them. All passages of course, don't and can't apply to you. If I give an example of opportunities for feminine teachers in Rome working part time at enjoyable employ­ment for high pay, it obviously doesn't apply to a male, aged 25, who has no teaching experience but is a good driver.

If I tell of a business opportunity in Southern Spain for anyone with two thousand dollars of capital, it obviously doesn't apply to someone who starts off with no capital at all. Or if I describe a beautiful spot in Greece where a couple with a pension can live in luxury for one hundred dollars a month, it obviously is of no interest to some young man or woman who wants to travel, rather than to settle down.

But mark the sections that apply to you. Perhaps there are only two or three that fit all of your requirements but, if so, there will be many others that will give you ideas which you can possibly develop.

Each reader of this book is an individual, and each has his own particular problems, so obviously there is no set blueprint for all. Each must adapt what I have to say to his own circumstances.

Read this book through thoroughly, then go over and over those case histories that apply to your age group, your sex, your marital status, your desire or lack of desire to travel, your climatic or scenic wants. Start to work thinking about them.

In the concluding chapter of the book you'll find various govern­ment publications, and other reading material recommended. By all means send for those that apply to you. Above all, we do not recommend that you go off half-cocked. Start with a cold deter­mination that you are going to do it and then plan it well.

Nothing in this book is of more importance than that which I have just said in the past few pages. Right now, I suggest that you start back again at the beginning of this chapter and reread it. If this determination that we recommend doesn't seize you, then you may never retire in the manner which I can prove is possible.

As you have probably already noted I have filled this volume with many case histories, as I call them, of people who have actually done what we recommend, who have made their breaks and are currently living a free, comfortable and happy life. All of these examples are true and almost all of them have the correct names of the individuals involved. A few times we've substituted names and once or twice even changed localities for various reasons which we always explain. But all of our case histories are true.

Except one, and it follows. It's a fictional case history but you can put your own name on it if you wish. We hope you don't wish.

CASE HISTORY Jim Sadsack was 25 years of age and increas­ingly of late was coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that life had gone sour some way or another. He couldn't exactly put his finger on any one thing but he wasn't getting the fun out of exist­ence that should have been there. He had a flock of things to be bitter about, but he couldn't see that he was much worse off than his friends, neighbors and relatives, so what was his beef?

Jim Sadsack had a high school education, spent a couple of years in the army, then looked around for a job. He had no par­ticular training so he wound up wrapping packages in the Army Supply Depot in Topeka. It wasn't a bad job, as civil service jobs go. After a while he'd worked up to the point where he had about $75 take home pay a week. That was no great amount, prices be­ing what they are, so Jim picked up additional money by delivering brushes for door-to-door brush company salesmen. He was able to net about $20 a week on this, working three or four nights for three or four hours.

Over a period of several years he managed to accumulate quite a bit of property most of which he was still paying for in install­ments, admittedly, but still he had the use of it. A nice car, a good TV set, a fairly adequate wardrobe, comfortable furniture in his apartment, air conditioning. Of course, he didn't have much time to enjoy most of them what with his two jobs and what with going out with his girl Millie two or three times a week.

One day Jim saw an ad in a national publication suggesting that it was possible to retire while still young, and since the information was free, Jim laughed and gambled a stamp. The information that followed was interesting enough so that he sent for the book and finally even got around to reading it.

In fact, he read it and reread it, over a period of several years. It was one of his greatest methods of relaxation when he became particularly tired, or disgusted, with life. He could always sit down and read about how it was possible to get off the treadmill and start living. Read examples of how others had done it. He sure got a lot of vicarious enjoyment out of reading that book.

Every time he read it he told himself, all over again, "Shucks, I could do that. It'd be a cinch. I'm young. Got a few bucks in the bank. Don't even have the responsibilities that many of these people who've retired had. Shucks, I could do it."

But he never did. Inertia had him. He just couldn't get around to taking the necessary steps. Just couldn't get up and do it. But he continued to read and to tell himself, "Shucks. . . ."

One day a friend called at the apartment, saw the book and wanted to read it so Jim told him to take it along but to be sure and return it because he was thinking of doing what the book said and he wanted to read it some more. So the friend took it along and after reading it, loaned it to another friend. And Jim never saw it again.

Period.

As I've said, this book is not meant for Jim Sadsack and his type. It's not meant for the vicarious adventurer nor the person who dreams of retiring but is afraid to take the steps.

There's no call for any such fear. This can be done. It has been done. It is being done every day. The real security (to the extent it can be found at all in this world as it is) is to be found within ourselves, in happiness and in a full life free from the pressures of the modern scene, and is there if only we'll reach out to take it.

Usually when someone uses the word retirement, our picture is of an elderly person, usually sitting in a rocking chair somewhere, preferably Florida or Southern California. If he or she has been momentarily successful in life, retirement is in comfortable circum­stances—with plenty of solicitous relatives beaming around (hop­ing to be mentioned in the will). But if financial success has passed him by, it is a matter of struggling along on Social Security or other old age pension. It might even be a matter of winding up in some old people's home, discarded and forgotten by the world.

There are many, many exceptions, of course, but largely it has been my experience that such retired folk are seldom happy no matter how much money is available. It is too difficult for them to get out of the old routine, into the new. One doesn't break down the habits of a lifetime in a few years—often one doesn't break them at all.

I have known many people, for instance, who worked and lived out their lives in northern cities. Toward the latter part of it they looked forward to retirement in the southern states where the climate is so much more desirable. And when retirement came they made their move, bought their southern home, complete with orange grove and sat down to enjoy themselves. But didn't.

They found, in short order, that all the things they knew, all their friends, their whole way of life, were back in the old neigh­borhood. The wife missed the gossip of relatives and neighbors, the afternoon get-togethers over coffee or tea, the presence of children and grandchildren. The husband wanted his local cronies, his pinochle games, his glass of beer at the neighborhood tavern. They simply weren't happy away from the only things they had known all their lives.

Many, many such people give up their dream homes in Florida or California and return to the smoke and grime and cold of their original neighborhood. Dissatisfied, disillusioned, unhappy—but there is nothing else for them to do.

Still more pathetic is the retired man who finds himself unable to get out of harness, no matter how old he may be. I use the term "get out of harness" because the analogy comes easily. When I was a boy we lived for a short time on a farm and one of the sights often seen was the old horse or mule put out to pasture after a long, hard life of pulling plow or wagon. Finally the day would come when old Dobbin was not brought in with the other horses but left in the field while the younger animals were being hitched. The distress that this caused him was obvious. He would neigh, run up and down the fence, wanting to be harnessed up, wanting to pull the plow, wanting to do what he had done yesterday, and the day before, and all of the days of his life until now.

And thus we find our oldsters; in the harness so long that retire­ment brings them only distress. Not for them the interest of fol­lowing the arts—they never had time to follow the arts, and they aren't about to begin now. Not for them to travel—they never had time to learn about "all them foreign countries" and have no desire to see them. Not for them some satisfying hobby—they were too busy with their jobs to be ever able to ride a hobby. Not for them, even, the satisfactions of intelligent conversation—all they know about, or are interested in, is their field of work and all the con­versation they can make is shop talk.

It is a sad, sad thing to go to such cities as St. Petersburg, Florida, a town of old retired folk, literally thousands of them, and to stroll around the parks or past the benches along the beach. Con­versation after conversation upon which you can eavesdrop is de­voted to the same subject. How things used to be, back home, how things used to be back on the job, how things used to be done. There is little real happiness and fullness of living among them. All is in the past. Life, to state it brutally, has passed them by and for all practical purposes they are already in their graves.

CASE HISTORY No. 1. The father of Lester May was born in Poland of Jewish stock and escaped the pogroms of the early part of this century, finally to arrive in New York, a young refugee. He was a bright eyed, intelligent, hard working man and soon found himself a position as projectionist in the newly growing motion picture theatres.

From the first Mr. May was highly successful. He was popular, a good worker, and one of the pioneers in the forming of the motion picture projectionist's union, one of the strongest in Amer­ica today. Pay was high and he was fortunate enough to make a few investments with his savings that paid off wonderfully well as the years went by.

Jewish family life is often strong and close knit. In the evenings, Mr. May would gather his four children about him and tell them of the wonders of the world and his lifelong desire to travel and see them. He told them of the Grand Canyon and the redwood trees of California, of the pyramids of Mexico, the great cities of London and Paris. He instilled in them all an equal desire to travel and see the world, to eat new foods, meet strangely garbed people who spoke still stranger tongues, to see the art masterpieces in the museums of Europe.

Even during the depression, Mr. May was never out of work. His seniority in the union protected his job and besides, his investments were secure and well paying. He sent all of his children to school and saw them graduated and into well paying businesses of their own. And still he worked, although now he had financial security.

Lester May, his youngest son, finished school and went into the photo engraving business which thrives in New York since this is the publishing capital of the United States. In fact, after a time Les developed a process of his own, found a partner and began, as he tells it, "To coin money."

Mr. May went on as a projectionist, still accumulating money, still talking in the evenings of the wonder of far lands. And one day he dropped dead on the job at the age of approximately 63.

Les attended the funeral in great sorrow since few men love their father so deeply as did Les. And then he sat down and thought about it for almost a week.

To the horror of his family, he threw up his business, realized what money he could from it, bought himself a Jeep stationwagon and took off. He was thoroughly of the belief that it was his duty to do all the things his father had always wanted to do and see all the things his father had dreamed of.

First he drove about the United States, slowly, appreciatively, seeing his own country. This wasn't one of the mad vacation tours in which you attempt to see the West in two or three weeks, but a slow process in which Les would stop off and spend a few days or a few weeks, if the locality called for it. He spent two weeks on the rim of the Grand Canyon assimilating in all its grandeur these things his father had only dreamed of, seen only in photographs.

After the United States, he dropped down into Mexico and took up residence in one of the cheaper, smaller towns, located not far from the pyramids. And here he found that he was rapidly running out of money.

Aside from his photo engraving experience Les had little back­ground. Oh, yes, except for one thing. He was a camera crank, specializing in color photography. In his spare time, he'd always messed around with cameras.

So now he put his hobby to work. Few tourists—although they all seem to carry cameras—can take really competent photos, es­pecially the more delicate color shots. Les picked out the more prosperous looking ones who came to his town and approached them with samples of his work. He'd pose them with Mexican backgrounds, possibly even the pyramids themselves, and take shots that they could never have accomplished themselves. And he charged sky-high rates.

This he did whenever he felt himself running short of cash. It was easy, and for him, pleasurable work, with little time involved and he was able to continue living the life he wanted to live. The life his father before him had so deeply desired, but never quite got around to realizing.

At this writing, Les is in Mexico City, but I understand that he is thinking of going to Europe. He wants to see Europe as he already has his own country and Mexico and figures he can do his color photography in Europe as profitably as he has been doing in Mexico.

One thing he knows definitely. He is not going back to the treadmill of New York which killed his father before life's dreams were ever experienced.

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