Several years ago, a man I knew professionally was on the brink of retirement and found himself anguishing in the throes of indecision. This was at a time when retirement from work was still a sensible proposition. It was before Wall Street permanently retired a sizeable army of the American labor force by paralyzing the economy, passing out executive bonuses while 10 million people lost their jobs.
     I asked my friend to describe his dilemmas. “I’m ready,” he said. “I’ve done the work. We’ve saved money. I want to fish. I want to play slow-pitch softball. I want to write poetry. I want to watch the swallows come back to Capistrano. I’m a Grandpa and I want to run in Grandma’s Marathon.”
     I thought all of these were reasonable grails for his later years, and he deserved them. He said he was secure in his job but he was ready for freedom. “The trouble is trying to stay relevant,” he said. “Basically, I’m worried about disappearing if I retire. I know that sounds awfully self-absorbed.”
     I said I thought self-absorption in small doses was not a capital crime. “Test the waters,” I said. “Tell your boss you want to feel the joys of retirement. You can work out your own agendas, goof off, read Ovid’s Art of Love if you’re out of practice. Tell your boss you’d like to consider this an extended leave, and if it didn’t work out you’d like to come back and burn up the pavement with your old zeal.”
He laughed hysterically. “Name me one guy who could do that,” he said. I couldn’t then. Today I can and he has become avatar of retirement in the 21st century, Brett Favre.

     Let me re-introduce Brett Favre. He is here. He is there. He is in the commercials selling Wrangler Pants. He is in the Minnesota Viking huddle not only calling plays but happily ignoring signals from the bench. He is No. 4 in your program and No. 1 in the hearts of students of abnormal psychology.
     This is Brett Favre, the retiree of the year. He is also the retiree of last year; and the year before that; and the year before that. There is every probability that he will be the retiree of next year. He has already announced that this will be it, his final season, and the makers of Wrangler Pants are delirious about the possibilities of next year’s promotion campaign when Brett shows up two days after training camp ends. For your records it’s Aug. 23, a Tuesday.
     So let’s say you are 65 years old and want to know what all of this portends on the broader scale. Let’s say you are 35 and just as baffled as your venerable elders. What it means basically is that Brett Favre has succeeded where Ponce de Leon failed miserably. There IS a Fountain of Youth. For Brett Favre the Fountain of Youth is football. Never mind that some of his contemporaries—Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway—and a few thousand others made their pile and decided it was time to grow up. Favre recognizes no such generational protocols. A hundred yards of green grass is to Favre what the big bend in the Mississippi River was to Huckleberry Finn. It is an instant invitation and a jolt of adrenalin. It is his renewal. It is the same reason why some aging globe-trotters keep going back to the Himalayas to trek. It is not to prove they can still do it. No, not that. It is reconnecting with a part of life that has fueled their glands and created for them a kind of rough-hewn but special community. For Favre that isn’t necessarily defined by throwing a touchdown pass to the tight end with two Neanderthals draped around his collar bone. Horsing around in the locker room is a big part if it, slapping butts, hollering in the pure primitive joy of winning with a bunching of guys who share both the pain and the euphoria.
     That is basically what motivates him. Year after year … So why not say so? So why doesn’t he drop all of the goofy mimes about not being sure, the ones that turn this extraordinary athlete in to a caricature? Is it a crude negotiation for more money? Fundamentally, not. Somewhere he has choreographed the right time and right way for Brett Favre to retire. The worst way is to be throwing interceptions in the final moments of big games. “I don’t want to fail,” he says. And when he has, in January the last three years, it depresses him and he wants out. Until three months later.
     Most people understand a sensible time to retire. Favre agonizes and puts conditions on it. The best way to figure this fellow out is to sit back and to enjoy watching him play. Never mind what he says. Watch what he does. Which is right about now. It will be a show—again.