THE GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRIST

Retired folks are a pain in the ass. The more money they have, the less they want to spend. The more they love their hometown, the less they care about the paradise in which they spend the winter. The bigger the engine in their cars, the slower they drive. Nowhere is this immutable law more pronounced than in Southwest Florida, where gleaming-new 350-horse Cadillacs crawl along highways at 22 miles per hour, two skeletal hands clutching the steering wheel the only visible evidence of a driver. In Senior Citizen World, the more time they have to waste – usually yours – the more of a rush they're in. They don't really have to be anywhere, but they figure they'll get more for their nickel by claiming they must be somewhere else right now. It takes a real expert to make an appointment with the "busy" retired because they rarely schedule more than one activity per day.

"Lunch tomorrow, Mrs. Smith?"

"No, I have a doctor appointment."

"How about Thursday?"

"No, Thursday is my hair day."

"Friday then?"

"Well, Friday is bridge." And so it goes. "Can you visit on Saturday? I have the entire day." It wouldn't occur to someone long retired that Saturday is the one blessed day kept for myself.

I've come to imagine myself a psychiatric specialist for wealthy geriatrics. However, my business card says I'm a financial consultant. My job entails getting to know and understand each affluent, retired client well enough to invest their life savings in investments secure enough to allow them their daily three hours' sleep. Of course, the returns on the portfolio must be productive enough to cover the continued spoiling of grandchildren and countless early-bird specials.

Each client's tolerance for investment risk is a little different, and quantifying human character and emotion is always the challenge. Just as a soldier never knows how he'll handle his first night in a foxhole, I too can never predict how a new client will take the first market correction in retirement. Some can only panic, wanting to sell everything at the market's bottom. Many are excited by an upward market surge and want to buy shares at exorbitant prices. Emotions are inexorably linked to one's own money. Unfortunately, the correct move is usually the opposite of that demanded by fear and greed.

The job is all about communication, and that means listening. Every day I suffer through clients' agonizing and mundane details of people and things which no sane individual would examine. However, hidden amongst the mountains of painful stories about perfect grandchildren or the gruesome details of the last trip to the doctor, there's occasionally a diamond-in-the-rough I'll delegate to permanent memory. With a little luck, and mountains of patience, the legitimately true, life-changing narrative eventually emerges. I've heard blistering descriptions of Normandy on D-Day; Iwo Jima and ratholes full of Japs; communist death threats against union leaders in their attempt to control American labor; the creation and loss of fortunes; the genius of invention and the sorrow of heartbreaking loss. It's the best part of the job, by far.

Empathizing with failure is my specialty. When someone has suffered a significant financial loss, their tolerance of risk is forever altered – and gauging risk tolerance is my primary directive. Perhaps it was my father's own bankruptcy, ending generations of significant wealth, that allowed me to see the good things that come from nearly every failure. As a high school kid, moving to Florida and starting over with nothing after our home foreclosure was the highlight of my life. Helping my mother pay the bills while putting myself through college remains my proudest achievement. Isn't it strange how so many of us remember the best times being when we had absolutely nothing? Still, the long list of financial accreditations beside my professional title indicate my intention to master financial matters so as to never make the same faulty decisions as my father, and return to poverty.

Sometimes it is easier for the elderly to forget the fantastic parts of their lives than relive the pain that made those times extraordinary. Difficult as it is to talk about when one's ship was torpedoed and mates drowned, or how a business failed, everyone seems to feel better after discussing the source of their trauma. Importantly, my ability to listen and help clients put it all into proper perspective has created strong bonds of affection and appreciation. In a healthy, geriatric mind, a chronic failure in the past is merely a different-colored thread in the complex tapestry of their character.

Wins or losses, I try my best to pry those memories from clients' wrinkled past both professionally and for my own growth and amusement. My office dialogue is a daily rummage through grandma's jewelry drawer. Mostly cosmetic and the poorly constructed tarnished long ago, there's always one piece of treasure: timeless and exciting.

For me, that rare gem was Donny O'Brien.

MEASURE OF A MAN

Donny O'Brien, 80, walked into my office one quiet summer afternoon and asked if I knew anything about the stock market, which was a silly question to ask a money guy. I was young and eager, not yet 30 years old, but accustomed to dealing with cranky geriatrics of every sort. I assured Donny I knew the stock market intimately, which was the truth, and that I could use it to help him make money. The old guy grinned tightly, that craggy Mt. Rushmore face reshaping itself with a large measure of patience to accommodate this peppy kid in front of it. I asked all the right questions, taking notes, while Donny grudgingly and skeptically shared his relevant thoughts. They seemed quite ordinary at first.

As Donny talked, I was distracted by the appearance that framed him; this old guy had lived hard. Some seniors belie their age through easy living and care, and others through the many miracles of modern surgery. Many have hoed a row few of us could imagine, taking a beating from life while sometimes giving a beating right back. The end results are 80-year-olds who might look 55, or 65-year-olds who look a 110. Donny landed hard in the latter category.

A good half of Donny's scalp contained an outrageous mop of gray steel wool while the other half exhibited a catcher's mitt of spots and scars vaguely resembling a map of the Caribbean Islands. Once a proclaimed six-footer with an athlete's body, Donny had shrunk several inches from lugging around the weight of the world. He fought the stoop gamely, but the fight was abandoning him. Donny's brows, thick as any seniors should be, tangled over shocking-blue eyes that must have seen everything and missed nothing. Those damn...