Why some Chattanooga-area retirees are returning to work

Curtis Johnson was 76, retired and bored — so he went back to work.

“I was looking for something to do,” says Johnson, now 80. “Outside of golf, I didn’t have a hobby, but my body won’t let me play golf every day — and I don’t like yard work.”

So Johnson landed a customer service job at the Food City store on Ooltewah-Ringgold Road, just a mile or so from the Tennessee-Georgia border. According to a late 2024 survey commissioned by ResumeBuilder.com, he’s among 39% of Americans aged 65 to 85 who have “unretired” and returned to the workforce after time away. Forty-two percent of survey respondents say the main reason they returned to work was boredom.

“The freedom of retirement presents an exciting chance to break out of routines and try something new, which combats the potential boredom that can come from suddenly having unstructured time,” says Stacie Haller, chief career advisor for ResumeBuilder.com.

Sixty nine percent of survey respondents said they went back to work because of the increasing cost of living. That wasn’t the case for Johnson, who retired in 2006 after 29 years as an executive with Food City’s predecessors — Red Food Stores and Bi-Lo.

While many retired executives may balk at the idea of working cash registers and bagging groceries, Johnson isn’t one of them.

“I knew what needed to be done, and it’s never bothered me at all,” he says. “I know that’s an important part of the business. I used to tell store managers that the company couldn’t run without cashiers.”

Rebecca Bylsma, manager of the Food City at which Johnson works, said not every employee brings to the table what he does.

“He wants to work,” she says. “You get a much different quality of associate in someone who wants to be here, versus someone who feels they have to have a job.

“He brings a positive work ethic and is really good with customers — he’s known some of them for 20 years or so. Great customer service, very laid back and easygoing — people feed off that. We’re happy to have him here.”

‘I don’t dink. I slam.’

Whereas golf is Johnson’s game, Boo Mullinax likes pickleball. The East Brainerd resident said she plays as much as she can, and can often be found at the John A. Patten Community Center in Lookout Valley.

“I really don’t play properly,” she says with a laugh. “Pickleball’s supposed to be a lot of dinking, but I don’t dink. I slam.”

A Philadelphia native who’s been in Chattanooga for 25 years, Mullinax has no trouble clearing the bar when it comes to recommend amounts of physical activity for seniors. The Center for Disease Control suggests that “older adults” need three types of physical activity each week — moderate-to-vigorous aerobic for 75 minutes, muscle-building on at least two days and balance-enhancing activities mixed in throughout.

“I like to stay physically active, try to stay in some sort of shape,” says Mullinax, who adds that she’ll turn 70 in June. “It’s just what I love — I’ve played sports all my life. My father played golf until he was 90 and tennis until he was 91, so I’m trying to beat him.

“Never stop playing,” she adds. “I like that motto.”

Mullinax said she didn’t so much retire herself as follow her husband, Rev. Eric Mullinax, into retirement when he went that route in January.

“I never really had a career, but lots of jobs — catering, coaching tennis, nannying, taking care of Alzheimer’s patients,” she says. “And a pastor’s wife always wears a lot of hats.”

The couple doesn’t have plans for slowing down anytime soon. In May, they’re scheduled to take a mission trip to Uganda, then celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in August with a cruise around Alaska.

‘I Might Just Join In’

Emily and Rick Auten were married 55 years before they were parted by his death a month ago. Emily Auten says her late husband retired in 2016, but she waited until 2022, when she turned 75.

“I just liked what I was doing so much,” she says of her 30-year career as a licensed clinical social worker. “I could work part time, travel, and I was my own boss.

“I got paid to hear peoples’ stories and help them process life in a positive way. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more.”

The Autens launched their retirement with a trip to Orange Beach, Alabama, and enjoyed a new screened-in porch they decided to add to their home. But health issues began to command more of their time and effort.

“Rick had a shoulder replacement, so that was a lot of back-and-forth to Nashville,” Auten recalls, adding that her husband was later diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. “And I was diagnosed with scoliosis at 65. It got to the point that, if we were going somewhere, I had to make sure I got an injection a month before we left.”

As her husband’s Parkinson’s progressed, she began to realize their shared retirement might not be what they’d imagined. She remembers the day he fell in the garage—and how she lay beside him, crying, because she couldn’t lift him.

That was the moment it hit her: their dreams of traveling together might not come true.

Since her husband’s death, Austen has found herself rethinking how to approach the rest of her retirement — the rest of her life, really — and it all starts with Psalm 118:24.

“‘This is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it,'” she says, quoting the verse. “I’m going to enjoy today, then I’m going to enjoy tomorrow.

“I don’t think I’m going to get a traditional job … but if someone suggests something that I think is interesting, or if I see a need that I might participate in (helping with), I might just join in on that,” she says. “I’ve tried to stay connected to people. That’s how I get my giggles — and I’m not going to let that not happen.”