These Minnesotans followed their passion in retirement

Following your passion or finding one in retirement is like winning the lottery.

Not only do you get to spend your time doing something you love, but it can add meaning and purpose to your life, keep you socially engaged and stimulate your mind — all crucial to enhancing life satisfaction in your retirement years.

“Everybody has a passion, but they may not live it; so sometimes it’s about self-examination, " said Ruth Tongen, a certified professional retirement coach in Edina who specializes in aligning people’s lives with their passions. “You may do a couple of years of experimentation until you stumble upon something that lights you up.”

These Minnesotans have figured out what makes them happy.

After working on the Mississippi River as a boat pilot and engineer for most of his life, John Halter, 69, decided to pursue another passion in retirement — writing.

“It was always my dream to be a writer,” said the St. Paul resident. “You get married and have kids and responsibilities, and that passion gets put on the back burner.”

Last year, Minnesota-based Nodin Press published his first book, “Driving Dad Home.” The memoir follows an emotional three-day journey transporting his 96-year-old father from an Arizona trailer park to a memory care center in Minnesota, and the bittersweet reminiscing along the way. His father died in 2014.

“This book has changed my whole life,” said Halter, who now speaks about and reads from his memoir at libraries, book clubs and bookstores across the Midwest. “I’m having so much fun with this. People are relating their own experiences with putting their parents into memory care. It’s so touching and gratifying.”

He wrote most of the book during the COVID pandemic, just after retiring in 2019. He found writing about the father with whom he “never got along” to be cathartic.

It wasn’t Halter’s first attempt writing a book. He stumbled into penning a regular column called “Against the Current” for the Riverview Times from 1999-2005 and was a community columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press from 2004-05. The Minnesota Historical Society’s Borealis Books asked him to write a memoir about piloting on the Mississippi River, but it was never published.

“But I didn’t give up,” Halter said. “You have to get back to the drawing board and keep at it.”

Now, Halter is writing fictional short stories about marine disasters that he hopes to finish next spring.

Debbie Grill has had just one retirement goal — to stay active.

The Plymouth resident and former registered nurse at Methodist Hospital cycles, gardens and cross-country skis.

But it’s more than just a desire to keep moving. She exercises regularly to remain healthy and avoid the diabetes and heart problems that run in her family.

“My father was a Type 1 diabetic and my brother at the age of 5 became a Type 1 diabetic,” Grill, 71, said. Her mother developed uterine and breast cancer when she was in her 70s and the men on her mother’s side are prone to heart attacks.

“I don’t want that,” said Grill, who follows a low-carb Keto diet and stays away from sugar and dairy. “If I have the gene, I’m predisposed to diabetes. If I don’t eat right and exercise, I could develop it.”

Grill, who received her first bike at 5 years old, cycles more since she retired in 2016. She typically rides 30-50 miles a week — and sometimes 100 miles.

She also now leads group rides of up to about 20 miles for the Plymouth Pedalers bike group and more recently took over scheduling all group rides.

“I am actually busier in retirement” than before, said Grill, adding that she enjoys it. “I hate being a couch potato.”

Dennis Chick has figured out how to feed his creative side and his spiritual soul by combining a love of photography with charity work.

After 30 years as the operations manager for Lyndale Garden Center, he joined Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, becoming its logistics manager. In that last job, he began taking photos and videos on mission trips to Africa and Costa Rica to use for marketing and fundraising purposes. He realized that’s what he enjoys.

“It keeps my mind going … and allows my creative juices to flow,” said the 71-year-old Lakeville resident. “I get satisfaction out of it.”

Since retiring in 2018, Chick has volunteered his photography skills to help local charities such as Habitat for Humanity, Lutheran Social Service and Sleep in Heavenly Peace tell their stories. He also does some paid photography, donating 10% of his annual revenue to a different charity.

The key to happiness in retirement, Chick said, is “to take risks, be constantly learning, and be grounded in the past but be willing to move into the future.” Toward that end, he’s taking an iPhone photography class and master photography classes online to become a “better photographer.”

“The big thing is why are we here? We’re here to help people,” Chick said. “For me, what it boils down to is family and faith.”

Courtney Burton left a high-powered retail and sales career in late 2018 to pursue jazz singing.

“At 60, I still had my voice,” Burton, now 66, said. “You never know how long you’re going to have it.”

The high school band nerd who played the flute didn’t start singing until college, when someone heard her singing in the shower and invited her to join the choir.

Now, the mezzo-soprano sings jazz standards, including “Georgia on My Mind,” “Misty” and “That’s All,” at weddings, parties and events — usually with her band, Court’s in Session, or other bands, such as Beasley’s Big Band and the Minnesota Jazz Chamber Orchestra.

It hasn’t all been easy street. Although Burton left her other career to sing full time, the St. Louis Park resident spent her first year of retirement figuring out the music landscape. As momentum built, the COVID pandemic put live performances on hold. Her plan B was to train as a career transitions coach, which still is her other retirement gig, and work on her music website.

More recently, her singing career has reached some high notes. Last year, she began singing on some Viking River Cruises Mississippi River voyages in Minnesota. In June, she performed at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival, her most high-profile performance yet. The week before, she appeared on television for the first time on “Almanac” to talk about her appearance at the festival’s TPT venue.

“I didn’t join a big band for the money,” she said. “It fuels my inner flame. It makes all the effort worth it. It’s the ultimate payoff.”

If you hear a ukulele somewhere in the Twin Cities, chances are you’ll find Tony Anthonisen there.

After his full-time career as a technology trainer for Coldwell Banker Burnet ended in 2008 amid recession-related layoffs, he worked part time for the Apple Store until retiring in May to focus on his true passion — music.

The 70-year-old Richfield resident has always been involved with music, taking piano lessons as a child, playing the trumpet in high school band and later learning the guitar and mandolin. But he couldn’t play the guitar anymore after falling and tearing both shoulder rotator cuffs in 2013. A friend recommended the lighter ukulele, and the rest was history.

Soon after, Anthonisen founded the Twin Cities Ukulele Club, which has grown from about a dozen members to a mailing list of more than 500 names. It hosts musical jams, included in the more than 400 events it sponsors each year.

“The ukulele is so much fun,” said Anthonisen, who lives in Richfield and plays the uke every day. Each year, he leads a couple hundred jam sessions across the Twin Cities and teaches at a Tennessee music camp during the summer.

These days, Anthonisen’s passion is encouraging others to try the uke.

“We really focus on making jam sessions friendly for beginners,” he said. “We make it clear that it’s absolutely OK to make a mistake. We all do. The whole idea is to make people comfortable.”