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| Lee and Anne in Churchill, Manitoba, October, 2009 |
I recently had a chance to catch up with our globe-trotting friends and clients, the Samuels. When you read their story, you’ll see how remarkable it is that I was able to corner them long enough to grab the salient points of their lives well lived, squeeze a couple of pictures from them, and then send them packing ---- literally! On their next adventure, that is!
Teachers with a passion for excellence in education who helped raise thousands of great kids in a relatively quiet part of our state, they take their positive thinking and inquisitive minds to the greater world, and I imagine there will be no global stone left unturned in their journeys. We first met the Samuels during a “blind date” arranged by USA TODAY. Marilyn and I had just joined forces to create our firm and one of the first opportunities we had with the press was to help with one family’s finances by pitching in with hopefully helpful suggestions to make their already remarkable lives even better. Our lucky day, because not only did we have a great time and enjoy a small moment in the press sunshine, but even better, we made a lasting friendship with two of the coolest educators, kindest and most generous world citizens ever.
Living their life-long dream of world travel might seem like a simple and foregone conclusion, but they made important choices, living on teacher’s salaries while fully funding every retirement plan they could. They made a decision to trade short-term instant spending gratification for long-term happiness, retiring relatively young and living their dreams. What’s even more remarkable is their upbeat attitude through a few serious challenges, including Anne’s ongoing battle with cancer. I know you’ll want to keep reading and learn all about our friends, the Samuels.
Lee, we met in an unusual fashion in 1998 through a USA TODAY interview while you were both still teaching. Your goals were clear: as much as you and Anne loved teaching, you wanted to be able to plan a healthy retirement filled with lots of travel! You also wanted to have the space to indulge another great passion: cooking! Not many would be as willing as you have to be a featured financial planning case study in such a national publication as USA TODAY! How did this come about for you?
As early as 1988, Anne and I were placing significant portions of our paychecks into our 403(b) plans. Portfolio growth was markedly slow, and we were looking to make a change from our investment counselor. We had become acquainted with USA Today during its infancy period as we visited Europe, becoming subscribers by 1990. The financial section became my initial morning read accompanied by that first cup of coffee. After reading a USA Today notice of an opportunity for a financial makeover with expert consultants, I told Anne that we should apply. Never really believing that we would be chosen, we were surprised when we received a phone call from a representative of USA Today asking if we still wanted to participate. If we agreed, we would be interviewed by one of their financial reporters, who would match us up with an up-and-coming financial management team from Northern California.
At our initial phone meeting, we received short and long-term advice offered by Lynn and Marilyn (long distance may I add, as we live several hundred miles south of their Lafayette office) and we turned our financial lives over to them. We never looked back as Ballou and Plum recommended changes to our financial plans and have continued guiding us up to and into our retirement.
Several inheritances over the years have been wisely saved, we continued adding to our 403(b) and IRA funds, giving us the ability to travel and otherwise enjoy our retirement years. Since our initial phone contacts, we have visited their offices many times and grown to think of them as dear friends.
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| Lee and Anne enjoying food and friends, 2013 |
Tell us a bit about your careers in teaching and what lead you to pursue your careers, your specializations, and how you and Anne met.
Anne and I spent our earning years as high school teachers. Anne knew she would be a teacher at age seven after playing school with neighbors, her sister and cousin. She always played the role of teacher and enjoyed helping others learn. With her allowance, Anne purchased "Dick and Jane" books and math workbooks to assist in her “instruction.” During her 35 year career, she taught various levels of English. Besides being the English Department Chairperson for her last 17 years, she instructed Honors English at the 9th and 11th grade levels, and AP Language.
From my first experience as a high school student in a drawing and design class, I knew I'd be an artist. Teaching entered the realm of possibilities when I was a senior at San Diego State University. Following 18 months of teaching 7-8 grade art in La Mesa (east county San Diego suburb), I became a Proposition 13 casualty. Only two visual art vacancies were listed in Southern California that summer (1979): Corona/Norco and Eagle Mountain, a Kaiser mining company owned town situated in Riverside County's low desert between Indio and Blythe in the appropriately titled Desert Center Unified School District. I was hired immediately following a July 3rd interview. Anne, whose EM tenure predated mine by five years, and I began dating (much to the amusement of extremely bored students) the following spring. Our wedding in April, 1982, was the community’s social highlight that spring. Kaiser terminated mining operations the following year, subsequently closing our school and the community. Eventually, Anne and I moved to Apple Valley and taught in the Hesperia District for 23 years.
As life-long learners I know you are always reading, Anne, and Lee, always pursuing art. And then you have a shared love of cooking! Tell us about these interesting hobbies. And do they enhance your enjoyment of travel?
I instructed 2D visual arts (painting, drawing, graphic design and advertising art) for 30 years. I loved teaching and miss interacting with students ("my children") and colleagues. We remain committed to public education, and I continue to volunteer, mentoring teachers and working in classrooms integrating the arts into core subjects (English, social sciences, life sciences and industrial design/ engineering). I still have a passion for the learning process and enjoy witnessing students make connections in a proactive and creative environment. And being with students has kept me thinking young. Both of us feel some of our most satisfying accomplishments lie in the legacy of our “children.”
30 plus years as a secondary teacher is time entirely well spent...time for some other educators to have the opportunity to teach and, hopefully, create a positive impact through their interaction with students. When Anne and I began our careers immediately out of college, our goal was to retire in our 50s. Not having children (except for the 9,000 we taught between us) of our own meant using vacation time for travel opportunities. And take advantage we did. While our house was being constructed during the summer of 1985, Anne and I escaped for six weeks of independent travel primarily in the British Isles and Italy. We fell in love with the folks we met, the local cuisines, sites, art and aesthetics of place. Talking with locals whenever possible, we quickly realized, with the exception of minor cultural nuances, we're all really seeking the same goals out of life.
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| Anne and Lee in Ireland, October, 2011 |
Your passion for travel is infectious! Where have you been and what’s been the best trip yet. Where would you still like to travel? Any booking or travel tips you’d like to share?
In 1990, while visiting Prague, Anne and I witnessed the campaigns for the first Czech legislative elections resulting from that country’s Velvet Revolution. Two years ago, we spent two weeks in Ireland and before that Iceland. In April of 2012, Anne and I traveled to Krakow, Poland, with my cousin to research our family’s roots. (I have investigated fascinating ancestral archives and studies while building family trees for our respective families). We’ve been to all of the US National Parks except Kobuk Valley and Gates of the Arctic (both located in Alaska), American Samoa, Virgin Islands and our newest park: Pinnacles. We intend to visit each of these parks eventually. Recently, Anne and I spent three weeks in England, touring the southwest (Wiltshire, Cornwall, Somerset, Hampshire) and London. Culture, history, the arts, and of course, sampling regional cuisines are central to our travel experiences.
However, it is sharing native cuisine with locals that provides true insight to a culture. On my final evening in Italy (following a seven week education journey), I was invited along with several in our travel group to a penthouse overlooking the floodlighted Roman Forums. Over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, guests (American and Italian) and our hosts discussed politics, debated foreign policies, enjoyed operatic performance and, upon our departure, exchanged warm embraces early the following morning. On the same journey, I was invited into a Roman kitchen (trattoria) where I learned and then participated in preparing saltimbocca and carbonara. Earlier, in Venezia, on Giudecca, a gray gato of medium size pointed, then directed, five of us into a house fronting the Grand Canal. Stripped of its living quarters downstairs and outfitted as a kitchen-trattoria, we shared platters of frito misto (cozze, vongole, calamaro e polpo) accompanied by a stupendous Veneto vini bianchi da tavola with locals and the proprietors as one contented (well fed and petted) gato gazed out to sea.
My dream trip to Israel occurred three summers back. On behalf of my parents and grandparents, I recited Kaddish at the Western Wall then strolled its tunnel alongside ancient foundation stones and, upon exiting, walked the Via Dolorosa continuing into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Accompanied by a former Israeli Defense Force member who fought in the Yom Kippur War, my friend and I scoured the Golan Heights Syrian bunkers that his platoon recaptured. That same morning, we studied the Lebanese frontier in the shadow of an Israeli military forward post and drove northeast for lunch with Druze community members. That same afternoon, we met up and shared cookies and milk with 20-something IDF Merkava (tank) commandos conducting drills near the Syrian frontier. Proceeding that late afternoon southbound to Golan wine country we toasted our complete day with Yarden Syrah and Chardonnay. Another private tour, escorted by Palestinian Jordanians, enabled a visit to the shifting sands and camel caravans of Wadi Rum followed the next day by that Indiana Jones moment revealed as El Khasneh (The Treasury at Petra) appeared between walled canyon escarpments. Perhaps the most stirring portion of the journey “home” was an emotionally intense day at Yad Vashem’s museum Holocaust Memorial. Touring exhibits documenting events and atrocities with IDF conscripts, men and women no more than 18 or 19 years of age being instructed in hushed tones by older leaders…and penultimately arriving at The Hall of Names with its memorial to each Jew who perished, photos of the murdered reaching skyward as their portraits reflected in a pool of water carved below into Mt. Herzl’s bedrock will remain forever seared into my consciousness.
We’ve taken several trips to Alaska (Anne’s favorite destination) where we have watched bears snag king salmon atop Katmai Falls, traveled to wilderness destinations by float plane, taken raft trips, hiked on glaciers, snow-mobiled on groomed trails and viewed Aurora Borealis from Chena’s hot springs in -55 Fahrenheit temperatures. The perfect Alaska day: Anne and I departed our Port Alsworth (Lake Clark National Park) lodge for a rendezvous with river guide. Following a scenic 20 minute float plane flight, we deplaned 20 feet from shore and gingerly hip-waded our way to the nearest bank, carrying provisions for a two mile tundra and muskeg portage before rafting several hours of a pristine river with no trace of other humans; bald eagles soared on the thermals above and grayling swished about underneath. The river emptied into Sixmile Lake where our raft was attached and towed by floatplane across to Nondalton Townsite where we met Athabascan children offering us hot tea.
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| Too close for comfort, Churchill, Manitoba, October, 2009 |
What’s next for the Samuels?
Come February, we embark from Ushuaia (Quark Expeditions), Argentina on a 21-day epic voyage to the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands, South Georgia Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula (traveling below the Antarctic Circle). High points will include encountering Emperor along with other penguin breeds, shore birds and aquatic life during twice daily zodiac shore excursions. Our Antarctic voyage will provide a fantastic bookend to recent Icelandic explorations, as well as viewing polar bears several years ago at Churchill, Manitoba.
Two years out, Anne and I envision traveling to Botswana’s Okavango Delta, Moremi Game Preserve, Linyanti, and Chobe National Park on a photo safari of African Big Five. Perhaps we’ll include wild Namibian dunes and Zambia’s Victoria Falls in our itinerary. Occasionally friends request that I share travel ideas and tips. Most of what I have learned comes through extensive research. For domestic travel I refer to Frommer’s and Insiders’ guides. For international travel I’ll checkout Frommer’s, Michelin and Lonely Planet sources. Also, for those impossible-to-book or one-in-a-lifetime tours, I’ll contact experts as provided by Conde Nast's Wendy Perrin (Top Travel Specialists) which costs more, but instead of being tourists, we’re elevated to traveler and partaker.
Lee, we know that Anne has experienced some health scares in her life, which together you’ve faced and continue to battle head on. Tell us more about these challenges.
In 1998, not long after we joined the Ballou Plum family, Anne was diagnosed with breast cancer. Fortunately, we’re about an hour and a half from City of Hope in Duarte, a nationally acclaimed cancer research and treatment facility. After a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, Anne went 4 1/2 years before we discovered her cancer (Her2 Positive) had metastasized. Another bout of radiation kept the cancer at bay for six additional years. Four years ago, we learned it had once again spread, resulting in more chemotherapy. At this point, she has an infusion (Herceptin) every three weeks which has prevented the cancer from returning, and throughout all of this trauma, she has lived a normal active life—traveling, quilting and, of course, reading.
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| Bruce Springsteen meets Anne backstage before his May, 2009 show at Hersheypark Stadium, Hershey, PA |
So fast forward 15 years, and if USA TODAY were to visit you now, what would be the most surprising thing you would share with their readers?
If USA Today conducted a follow-up interview we’d love to share our “secret” for success with fellow readers. Our rich and varied present lifestyle is possible because of our pensions and other assets that we focused on growing during our working years. We own our home, have no loans and pay off our credit cards every month.
Anne and I are able to engage our love of independent travel. We garden (organically) and I enjoy preparing meals (especially during the summer and autumn months incorporating our vegetables and fruits into a variety of recipes). We are fortunate in having family and a group of retired teacher friends with whom we observe birthdays, go to movies, have parties, and celebrate our lives.
If readers would like to reach out to you, how can they best do so?
We’d love to chat with Ballou Plum “family” members and can be reached at: leesamuels@mac.com
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| Lee and Anne in Iceland, July, 2011 |
