At 65 Jim Average gets his Social Security money and they sell their house and move down to Southern California to retire. How­ever, the amount of Social Security money coming in hardly pays for living on the simplest standard. They get by only because one of the children is able to send them a few dollars each month.

These may sound bitter, the above accounts, but they aren't far off the beam. In one case you have a success and in the other you have an average life.

For my money, neither of them are worth the living. If I had to make a choice I'd probably choose to be Sam Lucky rather than Jim Average, but neither of them has lived a full life. And as far as retirement is concerned, both of them wound up retired at the age of sixty-five in circumstances which neither can enjoy.

Actually, it can be a great deal tougher than even the life of Jim Average which we've painted above. At least he reached the age of sixty-five, which a good many people never do, the pace of modern life being what it is. And at least Jim was able to get jobs until he was 55, a good many find themselves on the scrap heap long before this.

And I didn't even deal with the fact that while both Jim and Sally were working, trying to make ends meet, their kids were out on the streets probably taking their master's degree in juvenile delinquency. Nor did we mention that in the life of Sam Lucky he had a fine chance of becoming an alcoholic along the way in view of the pressures upon him. Or that Mrs. Lucky, in spite of her psychiatric visits, had a strong chance of winding up in a mental institute under the tensions of her frustrated life.