Retirement isn’t for everyone. Some can. Some can’t. Many don’t want to. If you happen to be an Eskimo or a yak herder in Tibet there isn’t much choice. You don’t retire, and you don’t move to Sun City. You keep on working or you live with family until you die.

As an average American, I was fortunate to have retirement choices. At age 67, I retired from Kansas University Medical Center, where I last worked in personnel, now known by the catch-all phrase of “human resources.” My income would consist of a dribble from KPERS (Kansas retiree), small Social Security and an annual check from a family trust. Altogether, it was less than my working pay. However, since writing is my lifetime habit, one that often includes poverty, I felt content with what I had. As it turns out, I would have been more content with more money.

I didn’t dream of having a Rolls Royce or a Rolex, but still, I liked good restaurants or a mode of travel better than hitchhiking or swabbing decks on a tramp steamer. I wanted to live in modest comfort, and I wanted to live in a community with a wealth of cultural resources. Owning a television set hardly filled the bill.

To me, cultural resources meant finding a small city with a major university. So, off I went to Chapel Hill, N.C., Bloomington, Ind., Boulder, Colo., Iowa City, Iowa, and numerous interesting towns along the way. Finally, I drove only 35 miles from Kansas City, Kan., to the main KU campus in Lawrence. That is where I looked last, because it was the most obvious location for me and I wanted to be sure I had looked elsewhere. In particular, I longed to return to Chapel Hill, where I had graduated nearly 50 years before. The North Carolina campus was much the same, but the city had merged with Durham and Raleigh.

While at the medical center, I sometimes drove to Lawrence but never explored it with the thought of someday living here. Usually, I strolled along Massachusetts Street, with its wonderful shops and restaurants, wandered about the KU campus that lies high in the center of town or ate a picnic lunch in South Park near the ornate bandstand and the handsome Douglas County Courthouse. At the end of a pleasant day, I returned to hectic Kansas City with reluctance. So, after making my comparisons, I decided to retire in Lawrence.

Today, after 10 years of living here in a small house not too far from the campus with a lovely woman I married soon after retirement, I am better capable of a well-reasoned assessment of the city I chose. In my judgment, there may be other communities in America that compare favorably to Lawrence, Kansas, but there can’t be many. Upon reflection, I have made many glaring mistakes in my long life, but choosing Lawrence as a place to live is a chance to make sweet atonement for them all.

As I write this, it is spring. Trees blossom in yards and along streets all over town. Birds are making nests and the hormonal juices are aboil in the veins of some 20,000 college students. There is so much to enrich a life here. In Lawrence and Douglas County, there are actors, writers, musicians, poets and sculptors of national, even international, reputation. Working professors do research and teach. Retired academics lend expertise to hundreds of endeavors. Almost everyone becomes involved in the competition and excitement of sports. Hundreds attend the concerts in the park and the farmers market, along with kids and dogs. We have a fine daily newspaper, cable TV and we are connected to the rest of the world by e-mail and I-70.

However, as you might guess, when a town has this much to offer its citizens, there are drawbacks. Those nearing retirement in other places learn of the amenities here and plan to come. Former students leave for a while and then return to stay. So we have major growing pains. My wife and I were a part of the problem, but we have worked hard to justify being added to the population. And we hope, as do many others, that with all the intellectual talent that abounds here, we can learn to manage the growth and protect the wonderful charm of Lawrence.

— Art Lamb is a part-time writer who lives in Lawrence.