begin CyberSenior.2.1 ==================================================== ************ THE CYBERSENIOR REVIEW ************ ==================================================== VOL.2 NO.1 JANUARY 1995 ==================================================== The CyberSenior Review is a project of the Internet Elders List, a world-wide Mailing List of seniors. The Review is written, edited and published by members of the Elders. The contents are copyrighted 1995 by the Elders List and by the authors. All rights reserved by the authors. Copying is permitted with attribution. The editorial board of The CyberSenior Review: Elaine Dabbs edabbs@ucc.su.oz.au Pat Davidson patd@chatback.demon.co.uk James Hursey jwhursey@cd.columbus.oh.us ====================================================== CONTENTS, Volume 2, Number 1 EDITORIAL, by Elaine Dabbs THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME, by Maryanne B. Ward Maryanne journeys to New Zealand where she is intimidated by the traffic but awed by the glacier. THE EVENTS AND TIMES OF THE CEDAR BLUFF SCHOOL (PART I) by Langston Kerr Langston reminisces about his depression-era childhood in rural Nacogdoches, Texas. AGE SHOULD BE EMBRACED, NOT FEARED, by Jim Hursey Jim notes that fear of age can be deadly and urges us to stay active and engaged in life. ========================================================================= EDITORIAL by Elaine Dabbs Feeling miserable? Hate yourself? Relax, and read the fourth issue of our CyberSenior Review. Society has taught us to have false expectations after the age of 60 but this need not be so - we can break out of that mould and have a full and happy life. How easy is it for us all to shake off those negative thoughts? It's sometimes very hard for people who want to change old thought habits because they're afraid of the unknown. But where is it written that we shouldn't enjoy our older years? Why are so many of us addicted to habits of thinking that virtually ensure our unhappiness? It would make us feel better to take responsibility for ourselves, it has to come from within. When facing a difficult task, act as though it's impossible to fail, as Maryanne and her husband must have done when they had their trip of a lifetime - in New Zealand where they drove on the left for the first time, on roads that were frequently closed by avalanches! Maryanne found 'downunder' a challenge and exciting. As Jim Hursey relates in his article, we have been trained by our culture to fear aging, even to the point of suicide to escape deterioration. However, with exercise of both the mind and body and a good diet, we can enjoy life to the full and show that age can be a time of great happiness. Learn from our friend Langston's account of his early life that hard work and love for each other shows that, if we know how to live every moment in our life well, then we have learnt the greatest lesson. Langston's father hewed cross ties with a broad ax for 20 cents each, grew their vegetables and smoked their own meat. People came from every corner of the community to help in time of trouble. Read of the exciting days at Cedar Bluff School which was the centre of all activities in the area -- and hear how Langston collected his 'marbles'. At some time in life we start to be just ourselves, no longer stifled by what we have been told we are. So.....read on and be liberated. ========================================================================= THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME by Maryanne B. Ward New Zealand was really wonderful; but no one had told me it was THAT wonderful, so I was constantly amazed and overwhelmed. There was always something new and awesome each day. We weren't particularly impressed with Auckland, probably because we were tired and were driving on the left for the first time and angered a lot of drivers. Yes, we did find driving on the left rather intimidating, especially at first; and as that "at first" was in Auckland, we were in full agreement with an article in the *New Zealand Herald,* "It's hard enough surviving Auckland's discourteous and aggressive motorway traffic without the authorities making things worse by installing confusing signs." We liked the North Island and the lush tropical beauty of the tree ferns (cycads). Some of these very early, primitive plants grow to a height of 15 feet. They have an eerie, almost sinister beauty, as if they are out of time, or worse, as if you are out of time and might suddenly find yourself naked and alone in a primordial swamp with hungry eyes upon you. Sheep are everywhere so it is not surprising that a Bach tune played in my head: "Sheep May Safely Graze" over and over. We expected to see sheep, but we were surprised to see deer being raised for their velvet. Deer velvet is the coating on antlers when they first grow out. Deer velvet, we were told, has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years and is recorded in Russian and Oriental literature. Nowdays, the entire antler is used. The literature of today promises that it is "more than an aphrodisiac." It has been rigorously tested and used to treat blood pressure, effects of stress, asthma, inflammation, skin disorders, menstruation problems, arthritic pain, and general well-being. The deer, we were assured, receive a local anaesthetic, are gently de-antlered and as a result lead lives of greater quality and thrive in their herds. When we got to Rotorua, it was overcast and clouds of sulphurous steam hung in the air. At first, it appears to be your everyday town, but then you notice that in the middle of a normal neighborhood a vacant lot has wafts of steam curling out from under a pile of rocks. This is just a hint of the hot stuff lurking beneath the surface. In the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in the Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve, the lid is off. What lies before you is a modest glimpse beneath the civilized crust of earth we have always known. Mud boils like porridge or pudding. Geysers shoot up above your head and you are engulfed in clouds of steam. In nearby Wai-O-Tapu, there are colors of every tint and hue displayed in pools, lakes. steam vents, and mineral terraces of pink and white. We then took a scenic ferry ride to the South Island to visit with our American friends who have become Kiwis. Christchurch, where our friends Dan & Marie live, is sooo British and I loved it. The central part of town is built around the Anglican Cathedral with art galleries, crafts exhibits, performances on the green, all in full swing on the weekends during the summer. A lovely little river called the Avon with weeping willows on its banks winds through town. You can get a ride on a flat gondola-like boat poled by a skimmer-hatted boatman. There are many parks that are well used and appreciated by the visitors and inhabitants. I especially enjoyed the Botanical Gardens that were fresh and fragrant with flowers and herbs. In a perverse move, we went to McDonalds for a Kiwi Burger which is the regular beef pattie, tomato, lettuce, onion & special sauce on a sesame seed bun, but with the additions of a fried egg and a slice of beet (that's right - beet). We drove across the Southern Alps through Arthur's Pass to the glaciers. In that simple sentence a rush of memories makes my heart beat faster as I think of the snow capped mountains, the chasms filled with mist, waterfalls everywhere! Water falling off mountains on the road, under the road, above the road; water glistening on every rock, feeding the emerald and jade colored carpets of moss on the floor of the rain forest; water that loosened soil and boulders that crashed onto the roads and made driving even more adventuresome. The narrow two-lane roads were constantly being rebuilt because of avalanches and cave-ins. The Fox Glacier was so overwhelming that I can't process the experience within any known time span. As we brawled along a narrow shaky road of dubious safety (the signs warned, "Danger! Unstable Area!) we rounded a bend and there it was, wedged in between two mountains: an icy white-blue monster poised and ready to spring forward to claim more territory. This glacier has gained almost ten meters in the past ten years. As we walked up a path of pulverized rubble (called "scree" as any crossword puzzle lover knows) we approached the monster that loomed hundreds of feet above us with crevasses, chasms and caves. There were streams of water gushing away from its melting base and we could hear sharp shots as chunks of ice broke away and fell around us. We could feel vibrations as if a train were about to appear around the bend. I have never faced such implacable power. I have seen the effects of glacier power in boulders scattered in fields in Pennsylvania; in scooped-out channels along the New England Coast. It was a glacier that sent the Saber-tooth Cat and the Mastsdon into what is now Florida. Cold rain turning to sleet brought me out of my reverie and I reluctantly returned to the warm, dry car. In the days that followed, we drove to Milford Sound through a tunnel that seemed to be chiselled out of pure granite. We flew back to Christchurch over ranges of snow-covered mountains. We said goodbye to our American/New Zealand friends and headed northeast to cross the equator and international dateline to arrive in Los Angeles 14 hours before we left. A fitting finale to a fantastic trip. ================================================================== THE EVENTS AND TIMES OF THE CEDAR BLUFF SCHOOL (PART I) by Langston Kerr The date was December 24, 1938. I am sure the temperature would probably have been in the 30's F range. I know there was a big fire in the fireplace and the kitchen was overflowing with home cooked food. The Christmas tree was all decorated with tinsel, ribbons, popcorn, icicles and what few other items were available at the time. Me...I was wide awake and knew I would have to go to bed before Santa Claus would ever come close to our house and going to sleep on this night is the hardest thing I can ever remember doing. The year 1938 was a year right in the middle of the Great Depression, no jobs, which meant no money; for my parents, there would have to be some big sacrifices made for Santa to visit our home that night. Well, those sacrifices were made, I don't know how and don't need to know because Santa always visited everyone's home in some way. My father was a share cropper, with a very small amount of land to produce our food and a small part of our livelihood. The food was always the first thing to be considered. Good gardens in the spring provided plenty of vegetables to can and put away for the fall and winter. Dry peas and beans were thrashed and stored in large containers, (5 gallon lard cans) at our house. There were also always plenty of hogs raised during the year to be slaughtered. The meat was cured with just the right amount of sugar, pepper and other seasonings and left packed in wooden boxes to cure before it was taken from its storage place, washed with hot water from the wash pot, which was fired with wood, and then hung in the smoke house to absorb the smoke from the small fire placed in the center of the smoke house. This fire was always made from hickory wood and the coals had to burn at just the right intensity to put out just the right amount of heat and smoke. Many pounds of sausage were made. Some of the sausage were fried and placed in large cans with the grease covering them. Others were stuffed in shirt sleeves, cut from old shirts which had seen their better days and could not endure another boiling and scrubbing. After the sleeves were stuffed, they were patted and spread to about one inch thickness, cured and hung in the somke house to cure and smoke along with the other cuts of pork. The morning of December 25, 1938 finally arrived and sure enough Santa had made his way into our house and left a new red wagon, black tongue and white wheels and loaded with oranges, apples and an assortment of nuts and fire crackers. Santa was the only one in those days who had fruit, nuts and fireworks and I knew at Christmas that Santa would leave everyone these items, along with a coconut, always a coconut. Santa also had two very special candies no one else had, one had a white center and covered with chocolate and the other was a very hard and twisted candy in a variety of colors. I didn't even wonder how a big fire was already going in the fireplace and the house was already warm, when I knew in my mind that I was the first one up. I do not know if anyone else got any gifts or not. There being no jobs available, I am sure a man felt a terrible burden of trying somehow to support his family. I do know that in the spring of 1939 my father hewed cross ties with a broad ax for 20 cents each. Can you imagine hand hewing a 7-inch by 9-inch by 8-foot cross tie for 20 cents? First, the tree had to be laid on the ground and cut into 8-foot lengths by a cross cut saw before the hewing could start. This work was usually done by two neighbors working together and I knew the neighbor who my dad worked with. When the ties were finished, they would be paid 10 cents each to deliver and stack them at a rail switch at Appleby. The money from this work would buy the absolute neccessities necessary for day to day survival. One of our flower beds here at my home is bordered by used cross ties and I have one of the hand-hewed ties placed where it can be seen each time we enter and and leave our home so I may never forget how my dad and many other dads around the community labored to support their families. The spring brought on the turning of the soil and getting ready to put in the small crops. Cotton was referred to as the money crop. Everyone had a few to many acres of cotton along with corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes and watermelons. The planting of the crops was always with the belief that 'this will be a good year.' Now that I had turned five years old in December 1938 made me start being a big boy by that spring. Mother had a small four eye wood cook stove and one of my chores (jobs) was to bring in the stove wood each evening. This was no big job for me since I had a new wagon to haul the wood on. There was a storage box by the stove where I would place the wood for Mother to use as needed. The wood for the cook stove was always cut in the summer from the tallest and straightest pines that could be found in the woods. The trees were also picked where they could be reached by wagon pulled by horses or mules. The neighbors again worked together to get the needed supply of 'stove wood' for the winter. When I had the wood box filled, I would then go gather the eggs from the hen house and sometimes in the barn where some old hen decided it would be best for a nest. The next job was shelling corn for the chickens and hogs. This was done with a hand sheller and the crank on this thing was turned just about anytime anyone had a minute to spare. One job I didn't have to do was draw water from the well, for I didn't weigh enough to pull a bucket of water up. The yard was always kept swept clean with yard brooms made from dogwood sprouts. There was no grass in the yards in the country and it was a shame on anyone to let grass grow in their yard. I didn't know for many years the reason for this was lawn mowers could not be afforded. I remember the Spring starting good in 1939 as far as planting of the crops, no floods and everyone looking for some extra cash from their harvest. The Works Project Administration (WPA) was beginning to hire people from the farm and my dad was one who took a job. His crop was up and growing and he desperately needed the extra money so he took a job loading dump trucks with gravel by shovel. I did not know the value of money at that time, in fact I didn't know we didn't have any money. I would get a package of poly pop from the ice man each week and a big Baby Ruth from the grocery truck about every two weeks. I didn't know there was anything else. You need to understand, we lived in the country, 15 miles from Nacogdoches and I remember only going there two to three times a year. We would go to a small town, Appleby, about once a month, maybe. Daddy would be gone during the day and I would help Mother gather the fresh vegetables, peas, corn, potatoes, tomatoes etc. Mother would prepare and can these and of course we always had plenty of fresh vegetables to eat. Daddy always milked the cow, morning and evening so there was always fresh milk and butter. The milk and butter was lowered into the well in a container, (milk cooler) to keep the milk from spoiling. Things must have been going pretty good for us, daddy working, I am helping Mother gather and can the vegetables, and the other crops only needed a couple more plowings and they would be 'laid by'. Then one day Daddy was brought home from his job sick. I recall a neighbor carrying Mother and Daddy to Nacogdoches to see a doctor the next day. I did not know what was wrong but I knew something was bad wrong with my daddy if he couldn't go to work. In a few days I was told that my daddy would have to go away to a hospital for a while so he could get well. Tuberculosis had been diagnosed. Daddy was sent to a TB sanatorium in San Angelo, Texas. The neighbors came from every part of the community and finished his crop, helped with all the canning and even cutting the stove wood that summer and also the wood was cut to be burned in the fire place that winter. We lived in the Cedar Bluff community, which had a school, named Cedar Bluff School. Again, the WPA was taking applications for someone to work on the school campus with the children. My mother applied for and got the job. Years later I could understand why she may have been recommended by the trustees and Principal of the school for the job. Recently I talked to Lois Pack, the Principal of Cedar Bluff School in 1939, and she told me my mother's title had been Activity Director. Any title would have been fine, just so we could survive. On or about the first day of September 1939, my mother went to work at Cedar Bluff School. Cedar Bluff School had been built by my Grandfather, Oscar Kerr in 1911. Using the same blueprint which he drew up, he built three schools within a 20 mile radius. Cedar Bluff School was actually a one room school but was divided in the middle by a removable partition which made it into a two room school with each large room having a very small room known as the cloak room, library, or a place to leave lunches. This room would probably measure about eight by ten feet. As you face the building, it is very easy to see by the two entrance doors opening into the building from an inset porch that the building was designed to function as two rooms. There is a tall belfry over the porch where the huge bell was hung, which could be heard ringing from all over the whole community. The building measures 24 by 52 feet overall. There was a law/ruling in this area in 1939 that a child could not start school before they were six years old and the same law/ruling stated the child must be six years old before the first day of September the year they were to start to school. What all this means is that my mother was going to work the first day of September, 1939. I was five years old, would not be six till December. Where was I going to stay?. You guessed it, I walked to school every day with my mother, sat in the class room with the rest of the children and learned from the same books as the rest of the students. I even had to answer to my mother for my home work. I was just not listed as a student. Babysitters were unheard of and besides my mother would not have left me anyway. I am still remembering things I learned that first year of unrecorded attended schooling. Yes, the County School Superintendant did know I was going with my mother each day and sitting in with the other twentynine students, the total for the school. In one room, grades one, two, and three were taught and in the other, grades four, five and six. A big upright pot bellied wood burning heater sat in each of the school rooms and served more purposes than just keeping the students warm. This stove heated many baked sweet potatoes, melted butter in biscuits, heated cans of home made pork sausage, dried shoes and clothes and always had the kettle of hot water for whatever reason it was needed besides keeping moisture in the room. We were told that keeping moisture in the room was very important. A gentleman who lived just across the road from the school would come to the school early each morning and build a fire in the stoves so our rooms would be warm when we arrived for school. The school was the center of all activities for the community and with a few more men being able to get employed by the WPA, there was a little extra money. This extra means nickels, dimes and a few quarters. At one of the activities at the school, which was fairly often, a suggestion was made that maybe a radio could be bought and placed in the school and then the members of the community could meet and listen to the news, and of course, The Grand Old Opera on Saturday night. Pockets were emptied and a small dry cell battery radio was bought. A special shelf was made from a 1 inch by 12 inch board and mounted on the wall for our radio. This brought our community even closer together as a group. The war with Germany had started now and on the nights the community met to listen to the news, I can remember no one had to be told to be quiet. I can only remember there being two other radios I had heard at that time. I do not know the month or the date, but I would think it must have been in November, 1939. Mother stopped by our mail box when we got home from school for our mail. We didn't receive much mail and didn't have the money to send only what was absolutely necessary. Post cards were one cent and stamps for letters were three cents. We did receive a letter that day. I don't know what exactly was written on those pages but I got a big hug and Mother told me "Your daddy is well and is coming home." I knew Daddy had been gone a long time as for as I was concerned, and I know it must have been much longer for my mother. Daddy did arrive home. I am sure one of our neighbors arranged for someone to meet him in Nacogdoches at the depot and bring him home. The next day after he got home must have been Saturday since Mother didn't work and I didn't go to school. I remember people being at our house all day, from early to late, to see Odis and how he was doing. Daddy was told he would need to do some kind of work which was not as strenuous as he had been doing. Somehow this was also arranged and he went right back to work checking supplies at a local WPA supply house. The good news about Daddy was, it was determined that he did not have tuberculosis, but a blood vessel had ruptured in one of his lungs which caused the haemorrhage. The Cedar Bluff community was showing the benefits of people getting to work from the WPA and at one of the many gatherings at the Cedar Bluff school, it was decided that enough donations could be made to build a cook room, known now as a cafeteria. This project got started right away. It consisted of two rooms also, one to cook in and one to eat in. The room we ate in had two tables about eight feet long with benches along side. The kitchen had a big wood stove, a table for water buckets, a cook table and shelves made from apple boxes I am pretty sure, to hold the necessary items like salt, pepper, and all the good flavorings the two cooks used. Food was donated from every home represented in the school -- potatoes, peas, beans, greens, squash, corn -- anything that was raised on the farm in the community. In the winter, which is when I think it opened, canned items were sent to school, along with fresh turnip, mustard greens and fresh dug sweet potatoes. I can remember each time there was a "hog killing" in the community, the school had fresh pork. This cook house became so popular in the county that the County School Superintendent, when having State visitors at his office in Nacogdoches would bring them to Cedar Bluff for 'dinner'. Two ladies who lived in the community did the cooking, a Mrs. Strahan and a Mrs. Broach. I must also tell you of all the good aromas which came from the cloak room where recess food was stored -- fresh cooked sausage and biscuits, baked sweet potatoes, baked pears, the egg sandwiches with sandwich spread and always peanut butter and crackers. (END OF PART I--to be continued) ======================================================================= AGE SHOULD BE EMBRACED, NOT FEARED by Jim Hursey "Retirement," Ernest Hemingway said, "is the ugliest word in the language." One must take the master of words at his word, for eventually Hemingway killed himself with his shotgun rather than face what he perceived as a forced retirement from his art due to deterioration of his health and writing skills. He was only 61 at the time. A drastic way indeed to avoid retirement. At the time, his long-time friend and biographer, A. E. Hotchner, urged the clinically depressed Hemingway to forget about trying to write for a while, reminding him that he had already produced a body of work that made him one of the great writers of the century. "How the (expletive) can a writer retire," Hemingway replied, perhaps the more accurate version of the above quote. Another troubled writer, Virginia Woolf, in the very last entry she made in her diary before her body was found floating in the "wild grey water" near her home, said, "Observe the oncome of age... Observe my own despondency... I will go down with my colours flying." She, too, was only about 60. It would seem that Hemingway and Woolf, both physically healthy, but suffering from depression, were unable to accept their own aging. Sadly, they may have died from fear of age. They are not alone. Fear of age has built entire industries, from plastic surgery to cosmetics to legions of self-styled self- help gurus. Certainly the spectre of physical and mental decline is a frightening one, enough to cause depression in the hardiest of souls. I suspect that many of us would find little difficulty picturing ourselves in a position where we might prefer to take Woolf's or Hemingway's way out rather than face a bleak future of decline and decrepitude. Indeed, many of us do indicate what may be the moral equivalent when we execute living wills. But, increasingly, this bleak picture of age as decline is in fact the exception to the other, relatively new phenomenon of a long, healthy and active life for almost everyone right up to the age of life expectancy or beyond, which, in the developed world, is now late seventies for men and into the eighties for women, and increasing rapidly. In a strict sense, some decline, such as in strength and agility, is an inevitable part of aging. Presumably, were this not so, Arnie and Jack would still be winning golf tournaments. But a recent episode in the PBS television series "Growing Old in a New Age," cited studies that showed that while elders may have somewhat slower reaction times in controlled tests, much of this slowdown was not so much physical as a wise pause to deliberate before responding. Older athletes frequently outperform younger more agile competitors simply due to age and experience. The accumulated wisdom of age may more than make up for a little slowdown. Another recent study indicates that general failure of the body's systems does not come as soon nor last as long as was previously thought. Biologists Werner Schaie and Gisela Labouvie-Vief have found that the vast majority of people can expect to live well into age with no decline in creative and cognitive abilities and only minimal, treatable physical decline. Their conclusion is that decline is a function of distance from death, rather than age. Thus the perception of gradual aging should be replaced with one of, according to Labouvie-Vief, "a vigorous adult life span followed by a brief and precipitous senescence." In other words, for most, after we are well up into age, decline will eventually come quickly and not last long, resulting in relatively quick death. Thus a long old-age of feebleness and senility is no longer the true picture of age as we approach a new century. Indeed, some statistics suggest that less than 15% of us will ever need long-term care, so actually the odds are not bad. It is only natural to fear, as did Woolf and Hemingway, the prospect of old age, of physical and mental decline, the spectre of nursing homes and senility being truly a frightening prospect. Lucky is the person who keels over after holing out on the 18th green at the age of ninety-five, or who passes away quietly in his or her bed, unexpectedly and without illness. But, as the studies indicate, these kinds of exits will indeed increasingly become the way most of us will go. By taking some rather elementary and painless dietary, drug and exercise precautions, an individual can not only make it more likely that he or she will remain active and healthy literally right up to the very end, but also that the end end itself will come at an age beyond the normal life expectancy. Consider another well-known modern writer, novelist and poet May Sarton, who kept a journal of her eightieth year, in which she wrote of her own old age. "But far more reason for happiness even than these," she wrote, referring to the love of friends and family, "the sovereign reason is that I am writing a poem almost every day." At the very end of her 80th year journal, she wrote, "And where have I been in this journal? Through a thicket of ill health into an extraordinary time of happiness and fulfillment, more than I dreamed possible..." How different this is from the depression of Hemingway, the despondency of Woolf. What might these writers have produced had they kept working into the eighties as Sarton did? What have we missed because of their fear of their own age? Hemingway thought retirement a dirty word, but in fact it was not retirement so much as old age that he feared--his own perception of old age as one of forced physical and mental idleness. But age and retirement from a job need not mean, as it once did, disengagement from life. As May Sarton discovered, age can be a time of great happiness. The lesson is clear: keep active, physically and mentally, stay involved in life; make use of the accumulated wisdom and experence of the years. The new paradigm of a long and healthy life for almost everyone means that age, far from implying disengagement, can become a tinme to get even more involved in the only life any of us will ever have. ========================================================================== end CyberSenior.2.1