Pee-Wee Herman with Big Adventures, he’s NOT! But Bill Birnbaum shares ‘A Lifetime of Small Adventures,’ making Pee-Wee’s life look -- well -- boring

Have you ever wanted to chuck it all and do something different? Turn your world upside down? Abruptly stop what you are doing and take a quantum leap into the unknown?

IF YOU ARE prepped for something new and different to do as you retire, you might be inspired by Oregonian Bill Birnbaum, who at 64 has already adventured himself silly, starting down his adventure-filled path in childhood, working into an enlightened retirement.

 Bill Birnbaum enjoys the rocky coast. Not sure where -- could be 

anywhere from Oregon to Peru to ...

I found Bill while looking for someone to blog about, someone who fits the nature of my new retirement blog -- someone who could take me where I would like this blog to go.

So I was fooling around with Google, when I discovered him in the Internet ether. Go ahead and try finding him: google “retirement adventures authors speakers” and Bill’s blog http://www.billbirnbaum.com/bills-blog/ pops right up, I promise.

When I ran into Bill and corresponded via email, he alluded that he is finally “retired” as far as some of his more dramatic adventures go – like swimming in wild rivers or dusting off and walking away from plane crashes, but he is still adventuring, just in more refined ways, for instance through introspection and writing a book to share his years of adventuring experiences and his later, deeper thoughts with readers.

Birnbaum’s book, A Lifetime of Small Adventures, starts out when he is a kid in New York and moves into California, through parts of South America and coming to rest in Central Oregon. He enjoyed a twenty-year “serious” career authoring books on business strategy while serving as the publisher and editor of a professional business strategy newsletter. 

But life always required something more for this man to feel vibrant, like traveling around in small planes, in four-wheel-drive vehicles, say in rural Mexico, or backpacking in the mountains and deserts of the American west and leading mountain climbing trips for the Sierra Club.

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One way or another for Birnbaum, there has always been somewhere to go and something to do. Here’s a good one he likes to tell: once in Mexico, he drove up to a remote shack, two guards came running up to his car pointing rifles in his direction. Another time, he sat behind the pilot when their twin-engine plane crashed landed. 

Adventure actually means anything from picking up hitchhikers in college to towing off planes from dry lake beds for Birnbaum. Only a couple of times was he in any real danger, I am sure he told his mother – I am also sure he told her this more than once.

This adventurer's early stories flow like lemmings dropping off the cliff. Once, he hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon; trying to swim across the Colorado River he was caught by the strong current, and as he struggled, he could hear the sounds of the downstream rapids growing louder and louder. Does this story have a happy ending? Guess so, since he's still here to tell it.


But where was Birnbaum going with all of this?

In 2007, when 64 hit, Bill and his wife, Wendy were ready for something entirely new. They sold their home, put stuff in storage and bought plane tickets to a place in South America that most of us have never heard of,  Arequipa Peru. For the next eight months, they lived in this poor community in the Peruvian Andes before heading out for an additional four months traveling through parts of Ecuador, Chile and Argentina.

Birnbaum had already initiated some heavy thinking about life’s meaning as he moved into middle age, the father of two sons whom he dearly loved, and concluding that his adventurous activities were more than just physical pursuit, but were activities that did contain emotional and intellectual dimensions.

The adventurer turned executive turned “deep-thinking” retiree opines that most people are too busy these days, too wrapped up in materialism, and way too concerned at times with “things that aren’t important at all.” In his memoir that he wrote last year, Birnbaum tells stories to highlight life lessons learned along the way, for instance sharing his own personal experiences when located far from home and family on the morning of September 11, 2011 – 9/11.

Birnbaum’s book is both fun and serious reading, even if the reader is never motivated to take a big or small adventurous step on his or her own. There are still plenty of laughs to share, like:

Fourteen year old Billy flooding the basement of his home, or living with the results of too much experimentation with rockets and explosives, and doing “just a little bit” of damage. 

I would love to hear his mother’s take on those activities. You will hold your breath when you read of the plane’s single engine quitting at an altitude of 2,500 feet. And once again, he is still among the living to finish the story. Lucky guy…

Peace Corps stuffed shirts be damned! 

Readers will admire Bill Birnbaum or may think he is just plain nuts, maybe seeing him as screenplay author of the next Jackass movie. After all, who at age 64 would apply to join the Peace Corps? When this bureaucratic agency’s medical department rejected his application, Birnbaum and his wife simply purchased plane tickets to Peru, coming up with their own volunteer opportunities in the Peruvian Andes. 

RETURNING TO THE U.S. from South America, Bill continued his volunteer work teaching English to Hispanic adults. But during summer months, you may find him out on a nearby lake in his red kayak, or hiking in the lush Oregon Cascades. 

In winter, he might flash by on his cross-country skis.

I always liked Pee-Wee Herman, the eccentric man-child  who embarked on the big adventure of his life across the United States mainland, setting out to find his beloved bike, when it was stolen. 

Having found Bill Birnbaum, I know I have discovered another adventuresome guy, maybe a little like Pee-Wee in his younger years, with plenty of fun stuff to share, but now with more common sense and soul.

When asked to describe his memoir, "A Lifetime of Small Adventures," Bill simply refers to the subtitle, "Stories of adventure, misadventure, and lessons learned along the way."

I would place "Heartfelt" at the beginning of his subtitle.

Bill holds both a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from The City College of New York, School of Engineering and a Master's Degree in Business Administration from California State University - Fullerton. 

Susan

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