Oakwood -
Welcome to "my club" -- I last played in the very early 80s -- and just opened a chessboard again last week -- for starters, I noticed right off the bat that there are a whole lot of new (to me) names for openings. I also left off just as things were changing to algebraic notation. (I also live in a very tiny state!!) I was not nearly as good a player as you, but I loved the game - and, not surprisingly, got much better the more I played and read.
And I think that's where folks like you and me go now. Read and Play. I will say this, I used up my free 10 lessons in the Mentor -- and if I had enough money I would sign up for the top tier to get them. (But my SS payments are so low I can't see them without a magnifying glass!)
I found that my slight chops came back quite fast, but also found myself losing on time. I don't like fast or blitz chess, but I'm playing it to get my speed up. And doing that for the simple reason that shorter games, i.e. 20-30 minutes fit better into my time schedule. In a few games I've played I've been up by 10 or more points but still lost on time, hence my playing 10 min. games.
I hope we can keep track of each other --- though with your skill level I expect we won't often meet up. Anyway, very glad to hear from you and look forward to posts about your re-entry adventures.
One thing you might want to do right away is start keeping a list of "crazy" players and serious ones. The serious games will get you unrusty, the crazy ones will just frustrate you -- so I have my yes list and my no list!
I played competitive chess roughly 30 or 40 years ago (ambiguity of dates, and personal anonymity, intended). I played for just over a year, but in that time period I went from beginner to holding a state, a national, and an international title, and was playing at roughly expert level when I quit. I quit chess as abruptly as I started at it because, frankly, once I began to be noticed, it stopped being fun. In the intervening years my chess involvement has been limited to occasionally dusting off old trophies when I see the patina is too heavy even for me.
But I recently saw my (recently adopted, tiny little U.S.) state's rankings, and a long-dormant competitive impulse caught fire. While I don't have any delusions of becoming a grandmaster at my age, I'm quite certain I can become a dominant player at a state level. And for some reason I'd rather be doing that right now than planning my retirement.
The question becomes where to start.
I have some general ideas. I certainly know I need to hit the books (or the databases, whatever) and refresh my memory on many things. I, oddly, still remember my old weaknesses, in detail, and what it was that I was working on at the time I up and quit. And I know I need to look at a lot of games to get what I used to call my "chess eyes" up and working.
I do not want to charge out immediately to the local chess club and begin play. There are a few reasons I don't want to do this, but the primary reason is that I'm not prepared -- there's far too much I've forgotten that I can't learn by demonstrating I can fall for beginners' traps if I can't remember my openings. That said I know at some point, when I actually can remember something, I have to play.
What I'm having trouble sorting through is the technological changes over the years. When I played, the personal computer, let alone the internet, was years in the future. The meat-and-potatoes of chess study were books, a few periodicals, and the local masters and grandmasters if you were fortunate to have access to any such people. Obviously there are many more resources today, more than I think I'm aware of at this stage, and at this stage I know of too many for me to reasonably sort the valuable from the worthless.