LETTER: U3A courses are a real bargain
RETIREMENT in 1989 at age 55 seemed like a good idea - and it was.
I did the usual volunteer stuff, as well as the recreational things: played tennis, golf, fishing, and read widely.
Towards the middle and late years of my 70s, the aging joints began to creak a bit.
Mercifully, I discovered University of the Third Age Tweed Coast.
I'm now 82, and have enjoyed over the years classes in life writing, singing for pleasure, and conversational German.
A short stint with the committee brought home to me the realities of the administrative burden that was the infrastructure of what I had taken for granted. I don't any more.
The courses themselves were a wonderful bargain, supported without recompense by the complex organisational wing of enablers.
I "dips me lid" to them, as C.J. Dennis would say.
There was also a huge and unsought bonus for me and for my wife Janice, who teaches Italian language to two keen classes each Wednesday.
That bonus was a growing coterie of friends whom I would never have met without this organisation.
They are among the nicest and most genuine people I've met during a long and (I think) fruitful life.
The learning I've experienced in this warm and unthreatening environment has been a shining example of how rewarding life can be.
And the personal costs for a fiscal year? In the "good old days" (hah!), I spent more money in one morning at the pokie palaces. Lucky me.
And U3A is much more fun!
Doug Godwin
Banora Point
