Retirement
In 1986, Jesse retired to Charlottesville. The Department of Sociology at UVA recruited him to teach an occasional course as a lecturer. Fully retiring in 1991, both from teaching and as editor of the Tocqueville Review, he concentrated on writing his war memories and devoted much time with former crewmen of the Penny Ante and other friends from his Bomb Group the 379th. He also joined the Virginia Chapter of the Historical Society (Eighth Air Force) and launched its Newsletter: Plane Talk, and served as editor until 1997.
His health declining, Pitts barely finished his Memoirs. He died peacefully on August 2, 2003 and was buried in Charlottesville with military honors. His Memoirs were published in 2004, under the title Return to Base, in hard cover followed by a British paper back edition in 2006. A French translation, Retour sur Kimbolton, was published in Paris in 2006, and a second edition appeared in 2009.
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Famous quotes containing the word retirement:
“The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“Douglas. Now remains a sweet reversion—
We may boldly spend, upon the hope
Of what is to come in.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.
Hotspur. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)