Scenario One: While she is only 60 years old, the company where she has worked for 25 years is being adversely affected by the global economy and needs to cut its expenses. The company offers middle management-which includes her – a generous bonus if they will take early retirement. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, she takes it.

She goes home and putters around the house. The children that she had are grown and gone. The husband that she had is dead. She reads, then she watches TV. She thinks that she might like to take up golf, but she can’t afford it. She watches some more TV … and begins to grow old.

Scenario Two: The company where he has worked for many years needs to cut back on its expenses, and so it downsizes his department, putting all eight employees out of work. Even though he is 60, he still wants to work, and so he spends several years looking for a comparable job – but finds none, or at least none that wants to hire a 60-plus person.

The worst part about it is that he has read that thanks to the improvements in medicine and health, today’s 65 is yesterday’s 50. He is a perfect example of that: healthy, sound of mind – and even computer literate. Finally, at the age of 65, he gives up and begins to accept odd jobs, such as substitute teaching.

The principal of the town where he has worked as a substitute teacher calls him one day and says that the high school applied for a grant to have an AmeriCorps VISTA worker in the school, and the grant has been approved.

“Will you take the job?” the principal asks.

“I’m too old. I’m retired,” the man replies.

“That’s not what I asked,” the principal responds.

And so, flattered, he takes the job. He goes through a week of pre-service VISTA training only 50 miles from his home. The principal provides him with a small office in the school, and he works there as an AmeriCorps VISTA coordinator five days a week. His job is educational enhancement, and he and the principal come up with a program of projects to improve the lives of the students and to inspire them to seek a secondary education.

Some of these projects include: obtaining career mentors for junior and senior students, obtaining community service projects, obtaining guest speakers and community volunteers for student projects, helping to make arrangements for an exchange of students with a sister school in Brooklyn, N.Y., informing the media of school developments, and offering writing skills assistance to juniors and seniors.

He suddenly realizes he has a new life and a better one than he had before.

I ought to know: I am that guy.

Retirement at the age of 65 made a lot of sense when President Roosevelt first came up with the idea of Social Security. Not many people – especially men – lived to be that age, and those who did were old.

Now, people are living longer, they are living healthier lives, they are mentally alert (most of them), and they are well-trained. Why should they sit around and just watch TV?

Here’s an idea: If you are collecting Social Security and thus have a base income but want to do something that keeps you occupied and interested-and brings in a little extra money-you might want to look into AmeriCorps VISTA. They have a national Web site at www.americacorps.org that will give you a lot of information. But you also can get information from the special AmeriCorps VISTA project in Maine, Communities for Children and Youth at www.communitiesforchildren.org.

Although I was the oldest person in my VISTA training group, you will find that age is not an impediment. They encourage and welcome older people. The main requirement is that you must have no criminal record.

How much is that “little extra money”? What determines the amount is funny in a way. “We pay you just enough for you to live in poverty – just like the people you are serving,” says Chip Curry, project coordinator of the AmeriCorps VISTA program in Maine. The amount actually is $857 a month. That makes it tough for the young folks who are trying to live on that, but for those who are already receiving Social Security and perhaps a pension, it is a nice amount to “fill in the corners.”

Usually you cannot pick a specific area and a specific job, as I was able to, but you can pick a geographical area of America where you would like to work.

VISTA assignments are for one year, but if you do a good job, the host site can ask VISTA to extend your position for another year – and then another year after that. Then the program ends – or the cost of it is picked up by your host site. My year ends this August, but the host site has asked for another year, and it already has been granted.

How do I feel as an old geezer of 71 working in a place where I am surrounded by a bunch of teenagers, some of whom value my work and take advantage of it and some of whom don’t? I love it – and next school year I plan to zero in on those students who don’t take advantage of it. Since VISTA is a 12-month position, I am in the school all during the summer vacation making plans for the next school year.

The basic purpose of an AmeriCorps VISTA worker in all locations is to mobilize resources, solicit help from the community, organize community events, and to obtain resources for the VISTA projects. Every VISTA job is different depending on the nature of

the assignment.

The original VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) was created by President Johnson and was an off-shoot of President Kennedy’s Peace Corps. Then President Clinton came along and created AmeriCorps VISTA, which was designed to work in the areas of poverty and education.

The final reward? I was told by one of the teachers that my influence on a student had “totally changed her life.” Now, instead of being the school troublemaker, she is on her way to college and a higher education.

An “old geezer” doesn’t often get a reward like that.

Stephen Allen is the AmeriCorps VISTA coordinator at Searsport District High School, in Waldo County.