Do you ever feel overwhelmed and want to retire as soon as possible? You may think that you are already old and unable to work as you did when you were young. Maybe you just feel old already. After this story you will change your mind, no matter how old you are.
Max Oliver is seventy-eight years old and he works on a lobster boat. Yes yes, you read well seventy-eight years. But that is not the most shocking news. If that’s unbelievable to you, he’s his mother, Virginia Oliver, who is one hundred and one years old. Amazing isn’t it? Virginia Oliver operates the ship three days a week, from May to November. Max and Virginia Oliver work together on a lobster boat. They actually have one of the riskiest jobs in the country. Max’s job is to pull the lobster traps that are set in the water on the Rockland coast, Virginia’s job is to measure the catch, keeping only the large lobsters, and releasing the small ones and releasing them back into the water.
Virginia has been doing this job since she was eight years old. Olivia went lobster hunting with her father, with whom she traveled extensively. Her father was a lobster trader. After she got married, she hunted lobsters with her husband by boat. The name of the boat “Virginia”. With the development of the lobster industry, the workload has increased and at the same time the demand for lobster on the menus in restaurants. It can be said that lobster as a food has become a delicacy over the years. Virginia reveals how the price of lobster has grown over the years, so she says that in her youth the price of lobster was 28 cents, while now the amount is 15 times higher. In her youth, lobsters were hunted with wooden traps, and Virginia still uses some classic tactics. She uses a little trick to lure the crabs by putting a small fish in the traps. Olivia’s day starts very early, before dawn.
Virginia had an accident a few years ago, when a cancer cut her finger and she got seven stitches. Doctors recommend her to retire, but she does not accept. Virginia is still committed to her craft even though doctors do not understand it. She explains that this is what she enjoys and what fulfills her. Maybe that’s the secret to her longevity. She says she will continue to do so as long as she can. Despite advice from doctors to retire, she does not give up her job. Virginia is not giving up her job and is not planning to retire. To anyone who asks her how long she plans to work, she answers – Until I die, and I do not know when it will be.
The next time you feel too old to keep working, just think of Virginia Oliver, her age, and her job, and your melancholy thoughts will go away. As the saying goes, age is just a number, it’s important how you feel inside. Remember that.
