Retiring Well Is The Best Revenge You'll retire. Then what? Think big! Collect racecars, airplanes, trains. You'll have a blast.
By Brian O'Reilly Reporter Associate Cora Daniels

(FORTUNE Magazine) – You can imagine it already: retirement day. Fond farewells, a new watch, confetti in your hair. Then, time to relax forever! No alarm clocks, no morning meetings. Why, with all that new freedom, you'll finally have time to start enjoying...er...collecting...ah...building...

Just what do you plan to do when you stop working? Or were you so busy getting ready to retire that you forgot about retirement? Golf? Gardening? Sailing? They may sound great, but how long before you get bored looking for balls in the woods or shooing rabbits out of the zucchini patch? Yes, you've been smart or lucky enough to amass a good-sized nest egg. But without a stimulating hobby, how will you enjoy all that time and money? You could wind up driving an Avis bus at the airport just to keep busy.

No such problem for the retired executives and professionals photographed here. All of them have collected an impressive set of toys or trophies that have transformed retirement from what could have been irritating idleness to spectacular satisfaction. Thomas Eagleton, a lawyer and former Senator from Missouri (and George McGovern's short-lived Vice Presidential choice in 1972), found himself plunged into a whole new world: fine art. The subject's vastness intimidated him until an acquaintance helped him get started. Now he spends hours researching favorite painters and identifying the best of their works to buy.

If you're not sure what really intrigues you, think back to what turned you on when you were young, before such practical pursuits as making a living and raising a family intruded on your fantasies. Ed Slane has been interested in racecars since he was a kid; he used to sneak into a racetrack near his home and wound up working on a pit crew for a while. He went on to become a pilot for Eastern Air Lines. When the airline folded, he began buying classic racecars, including a 1948 Kurtis/Alfa that runs on methanol and can go 147 miles per hour. The cars are a magnificent obsession for him now. He races them, maintains them, goes looking for new ones--even has a mock 1950s-era refueling pit in the warehouse where he parks the cars, realistic right down to the old Coke machine.

Roy Anderson can barely remember a time growing up when he didn't have a tennis racquet in his hand. He was captain of the tennis team in high school and at Princeton, and he contemplated life as a tennis pro after graduation. Alas, back in the early 1960s, that meant a lot of unglamorous, unlucrative one-night stands playing exhibition games for pocket money. So he spent three decades at Nielsen Media Research, becoming a senior vice president. But he never stopped loving tennis. Soon after he retired, he joined the U.S. Tennis Association. Playing tennis at the country club is fine, but when Anderson wants something more demanding, he can sign on for a USTA tournament just about anywhere in the country and get all the tennis he can handle.

When you're contemplating a hobby for retirement, think early, think complicated, think big. Why wait until you're 65 to figure out what you enjoy? Start now. Don't settle for some boring, repetitive activity, like guiding a sailboat back and forth across the same lake for 20 years. Find something multifaceted and engaging. If, like Arthur Boone, you decide to buy a luxurious old railroad car, consider making a small business out of leasing it to others. Yeah, there will be some headaches. But plotting out routes and menus for customers will be a lot more satisfying in the long run than going out to the siding where the railcar is parked to admire your purchase.

And don't be afraid to spend money on your hobby. You've earned it. If this isn't the time to enjoy the fruits of your life's labor (not to mention all that smart retirement planning), when is? Sure, you'll cut into the kids' inheritance a little bit, but that beats hanging out at their houses every day, complaining about your arthritis. Someday they'll thank you.

REPORTER ASSOCIATE Cora Daniels