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565 lines
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begin CyberSenior.2.1
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THE
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CYBERSENIOR
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REVIEW
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====================================================
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VOL.2 NO.1 JANUARY 1995
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====================================================
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The CyberSenior Review is a project of the Internet
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Elders List, a world-wide Mailing List of seniors.
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The Review is written, edited and published by members
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of the Elders. The contents are copyrighted 1995 by
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the Elders List and by the authors. All rights reserved
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by the authors. Copying is permitted with attribution.
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The editorial board of The CyberSenior Review:
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Elaine Dabbs edabbs@ucc.su.oz.au
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Pat Davidson patd@chatback.demon.co.uk
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James Hursey jwhursey@cd.columbus.oh.us
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======================================================
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CONTENTS, Volume 2, Number 1
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EDITORIAL, by Elaine Dabbs
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THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME, by Maryanne B. Ward
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Maryanne journeys to New Zealand where she is intimidated
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by the traffic but awed by the glacier.
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THE EVENTS AND TIMES OF THE CEDAR BLUFF SCHOOL (PART I) by Langston Kerr
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Langston reminisces about his depression-era childhood
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in rural Nacogdoches, Texas.
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AGE SHOULD BE EMBRACED, NOT FEARED, by Jim Hursey
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Jim notes that fear of age can be deadly and urges us to
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stay active and engaged in life.
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EDITORIAL
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by Elaine Dabbs
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Feeling miserable? Hate yourself? Relax, and read the fourth
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issue of our CyberSenior Review.
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Society has taught us to have false expectations after the age
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of 60 but this need not be so - we can break out of that mould and have a
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full and happy life.
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How easy is it for us all to shake off those negative thoughts?
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It's sometimes very hard for people who want to change old
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thought habits because they're afraid of the unknown. But
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where is it written that we shouldn't enjoy our older years?
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Why are so many of us addicted to habits of thinking that
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virtually ensure our unhappiness?
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It would make us feel better to take responsibility for
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ourselves, it has to come from within.
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When facing a difficult task, act as though it's impossible to
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fail, as Maryanne and her husband must have done when they had
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their trip of a lifetime - in New Zealand where they drove on
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the left for the first time, on roads that were frequently
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closed by avalanches! Maryanne found 'downunder' a challenge
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and exciting.
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As Jim Hursey relates in his article, we have been trained by
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our culture to fear aging, even to the point of suicide to
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escape deterioration. However, with exercise of both the mind
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and body and a good diet, we can enjoy life to the full and
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show that age can be a time of great happiness.
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Learn from our friend Langston's account of his early life that
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hard work and love for each other shows that, if we know how to
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live every moment in our life well, then we have learnt the
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greatest lesson. Langston's father hewed cross ties with a
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broad ax for 20 cents each, grew their vegetables and smoked
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their own meat. People came from every corner of the community
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to help in time of trouble. Read of the exciting days at Cedar
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Bluff School which was the centre of all activities in the area
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-- and hear how Langston collected his 'marbles'.
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At some time in life we start to be just ourselves, no longer
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stifled by what we have been told we are. So.....read on and
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be liberated.
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=========================================================================
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THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME
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by Maryanne B. Ward
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New Zealand was really wonderful; but no one had told me it was THAT
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wonderful, so I was constantly amazed and overwhelmed. There was
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always something new and awesome each day.
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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
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of drivers. Yes, we did find driving on the left rather intimidating,
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especially at first; and as that "at first" was in Auckland, we
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were in full agreement with an article in the *New Zealand Herald,*
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"It's hard enough surviving Auckland's discourteous and aggressive
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motorway traffic without the authorities making things worse by
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installing confusing signs."
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We liked the North Island and the lush tropical beauty of the tree
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ferns (cycads). Some of these very early, primitive plants grow to a
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height of 15 feet. They have an eerie, almost sinister beauty, as if
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they are out of time, or worse, as if you are out of time and might
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suddenly find yourself naked and alone in a primordial swamp with
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hungry eyes upon you.
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Sheep are everywhere so it is not surprising that a Bach tune played
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in my head: "Sheep May Safely Graze" over and over. We expected to see
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sheep, but we were surprised to see deer being raised for their velvet.
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Deer velvet is the coating on antlers when they first grow out. Deer
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velvet, we were told, has been used for medicinal purposes for
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thousands of years and is recorded in Russian and Oriental literature.
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Nowdays, the entire antler is used. The literature of today promises
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that it is "more than an aphrodisiac." It has been rigorously tested
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and used to treat blood pressure, effects of stress, asthma,
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inflammation, skin disorders, menstruation problems, arthritic pain,
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and general well-being. The deer, we were assured, receive a local
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anaesthetic, are gently de-antlered and as a result lead lives of
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greater quality and thrive in their herds.
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When we got to Rotorua, it was overcast and clouds of sulphurous
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steam hung in the air. At first, it appears to be your everyday town,
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but then you notice that in the middle of a normal neighborhood a
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vacant lot has wafts of steam curling out from under a pile of rocks.
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This is just a hint of the hot stuff lurking beneath the surface. In
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the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in the Whakarewarewa Thermal
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Reserve, the lid is off. What lies before you is a modest glimpse
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beneath the civilized crust of earth we have always known. Mud boils
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like porridge or pudding. Geysers shoot up above your head and you are
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engulfed in clouds of steam. In nearby Wai-O-Tapu, there are colors
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of every tint and hue displayed in pools, lakes. steam vents, and
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mineral terraces of pink and white.
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We then took a scenic ferry ride to the South Island to visit with our
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American friends who have become Kiwis.
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Christchurch, where our friends Dan & Marie live, is sooo British and I
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loved it. The central part of town is built around the Anglican
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Cathedral with art galleries, crafts exhibits, performances on the
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green, all in full swing on the weekends during the summer. A lovely
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little river called the Avon with weeping willows on its banks winds
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through town. You can get a ride on a flat gondola-like boat poled by
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a skimmer-hatted boatman. There are many parks that are well used and
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appreciated by the visitors and inhabitants. I especially enjoyed the
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Botanical Gardens that were fresh and fragrant with flowers and herbs.
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In a perverse move, we went to McDonalds for a Kiwi Burger which is
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the regular beef pattie, tomato, lettuce, onion & special sauce on a
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sesame seed bun, but with the additions of a fried egg and a slice of
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beet (that's right - beet).
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We drove across the Southern Alps through Arthur's Pass to the
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glaciers. In that simple sentence a rush of memories makes my heart
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beat faster as I think of the snow capped mountains, the chasms filled
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with mist, waterfalls everywhere! Water falling off mountains on the
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road, under the road, above the road; water glistening on every rock,
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feeding the emerald and jade colored carpets of moss on the floor of
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the rain forest; water that loosened soil and boulders that crashed
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onto the roads and made driving even more adventuresome. The narrow
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two-lane roads were constantly being rebuilt because of avalanches and
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cave-ins.
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The Fox Glacier was so overwhelming that I can't process the
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experience within any known time span. As we brawled along a narrow
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shaky road of dubious safety (the signs warned, "Danger! Unstable
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Area!) we rounded a bend and there it was, wedged in between two
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mountains: an icy white-blue monster poised and ready to spring
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forward to claim more territory. This glacier has gained almost ten
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meters in the past ten years. As we walked up a path of pulverized
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rubble (called "scree" as any crossword puzzle lover knows) we
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approached the monster that loomed hundreds of feet above us with
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crevasses, chasms and caves. There were streams of water gushing away
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from its melting base and we could hear sharp shots as chunks of ice
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broke away and fell around us. We could feel vibrations as if a train
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were about to appear around the bend. I have never faced such
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implacable power. I have seen the effects of glacier power in boulders
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scattered in fields in Pennsylvania; in scooped-out channels along the
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New England Coast. It was a glacier that sent the Saber-tooth Cat and
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the Mastsdon into what is now Florida. Cold rain turning to sleet
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brought me out of my reverie and I reluctantly returned to the warm,
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dry car.
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In the days that followed, we drove to Milford Sound through a tunnel
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that seemed to be chiselled out of pure granite. We flew back to
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Christchurch over ranges of snow-covered mountains. We said goodbye to
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our American/New Zealand friends and headed northeast to cross the
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equator and international dateline to arrive in Los Angeles 14 hours
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before we left. A fitting finale to a fantastic trip.
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==================================================================
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THE EVENTS AND TIMES OF THE CEDAR BLUFF SCHOOL (PART I)
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by Langston Kerr
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The date was December 24, 1938. I am sure the temperature would
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probably have been in the 30's F range. I know there was a big fire
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in the fireplace and the kitchen was overflowing with home cooked
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food. The Christmas tree was all decorated with tinsel, ribbons,
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popcorn, icicles and what few other items were available at the time.
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Me...I was wide awake and knew I would have to go to bed before Santa
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Claus would ever come close to our house and going to sleep on this
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night is the hardest thing I can ever remember doing.
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The year 1938 was a year right in the middle of the Great Depression,
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no jobs, which meant no money; for my parents, there would have to be
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some big sacrifices made for Santa to visit our home that night.
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Well, those sacrifices were made, I don't know how and don't need to
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know because Santa always visited everyone's home in some way.
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My father was a share cropper, with a very small amount of land to
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produce our food and a small part of our livelihood. The food
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was always the first thing to be considered. Good gardens in the
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spring provided plenty of vegetables to can and put away for the fall
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and winter. Dry peas and beans were thrashed and stored
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in large containers, (5 gallon lard cans) at our house.
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There were also always plenty of hogs raised during the year to be
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slaughtered. The meat was cured with just the right amount of sugar,
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pepper and other seasonings and left packed in wooden boxes to cure
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before it was taken from its storage place, washed with hot water from
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the wash pot, which was fired with wood, and then hung in the smoke
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house to absorb the smoke from the small fire placed in the center of
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the smoke house. This fire was always made from hickory wood and the
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coals had to burn at just the right intensity to put out just the right
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amount of heat and smoke. Many pounds of sausage were made. Some of
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the sausage were fried and placed in large cans with the grease covering
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them. Others were stuffed in shirt sleeves, cut from old shirts which
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had seen their better days and could not endure another boiling and
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scrubbing. After the sleeves were stuffed, they were patted and spread
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to about one inch thickness, cured and hung in the somke house to cure
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and smoke along with the other cuts of pork.
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The morning of December 25, 1938 finally arrived and sure enough Santa
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had made his way into our house and left a new red wagon, black tongue
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and white wheels and loaded with oranges, apples and an assortment of
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nuts and fire crackers. Santa was the only one in those days who had
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fruit, nuts and fireworks and I knew at Christmas that Santa would
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leave everyone these items, along with a coconut, always a coconut.
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Santa also had two very special candies no one else had, one had a
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white center and covered with chocolate and the other was a very hard
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and twisted candy in a variety of colors. I didn't even
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wonder how a big fire was already going in the fireplace and the house
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was already warm, when I knew in my mind that I was the first one up.
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I do not know if anyone else got any gifts or not.
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There being no jobs available, I am sure a man felt a terrible burden
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of trying somehow to support his family. I do know that in the
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spring of 1939 my father hewed cross ties with a broad ax for 20 cents
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each. Can you imagine hand hewing a 7-inch by 9-inch by 8-foot cross
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tie for 20 cents? First, the tree had to be laid on the ground and
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cut into 8-foot lengths by a cross cut saw before the hewing could
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start. This work was usually done by two neighbors working together
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and I knew the neighbor who my dad worked with. When the ties were
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finished, they would be paid 10 cents each to deliver and stack them
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at a rail switch at Appleby. The money from this work would buy the
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absolute neccessities necessary for day to day survival. One of our
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flower beds here at my home is bordered by used cross ties and I have
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one of the hand-hewed ties placed where it can be seen each time we
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enter and and leave our home so I may never forget how my dad and many
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other dads around the community labored to support their families.
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The spring brought on the turning of the soil and getting ready to put
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in the small crops. Cotton was referred to as the money crop.
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Everyone had a few to many acres of cotton along with corn, peanuts,
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sweet potatoes and watermelons. The planting of the crops was always
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with the belief that 'this will be a good year.'
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Now that I had turned five years old in December 1938 made me start
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being a big boy by that spring. Mother had a small four eye wood cook
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stove and one of my chores (jobs) was to bring in the stove wood each
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evening. This was no big job for me since I had a new wagon to haul
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the wood on. There was a storage box by the stove where I would place
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the wood for Mother to use as needed. The wood for the cook stove
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was always cut in the summer from the tallest and straightest pines
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that could be found in the woods. The trees were also picked where they
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could be reached by wagon pulled by horses or mules. The neighbors
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again worked together to get the needed supply of 'stove wood' for the
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winter. When I had the wood box filled, I would then go gather the
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eggs from the hen house and sometimes in the barn where some old hen
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decided it would be best for a nest. The next job was shelling corn
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for the chickens and hogs. This was done with a hand sheller and the
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crank on this thing was turned just about anytime anyone had a minute
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to spare. One job I didn't have to do was draw water from the well,
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for I didn't weigh enough to pull a bucket of water up. The yard was
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always kept swept clean with yard brooms made from dogwood sprouts.
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There was no grass in the yards in the country and it was a shame
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on anyone to let grass grow in their yard. I didn't know for many
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years the reason for this was lawn mowers could not be afforded.
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I remember the Spring starting good in 1939 as far as planting of the
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crops, no floods and everyone looking for some extra cash from their
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harvest. The Works Project Administration (WPA) was beginning to hire
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people from the farm and my dad was one who took a job. His crop was
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up and growing and he desperately needed the extra money so he took a
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job loading dump trucks with gravel by shovel. I did not know the
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value of money at that time, in fact I didn't know we didn't have any
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money. I would get a package of poly pop from the ice man each week
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and a big Baby Ruth from the grocery truck about every two weeks. I
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didn't know there was anything else. You need to understand, we
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lived in the country, 15 miles from Nacogdoches and I remember only going
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there two to three times a year. We would go to a small town,
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Appleby, about once a month, maybe.
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Daddy would be gone during the day and I would help Mother gather the
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fresh vegetables, peas, corn, potatoes, tomatoes etc. Mother would
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prepare and can these and of course we always had plenty of fresh
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vegetables to eat. Daddy always milked the cow, morning and evening
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so there was always fresh milk and butter. The milk and butter was
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lowered into the well in a container, (milk cooler) to keep the milk
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from spoiling. Things must have been going pretty good for us, daddy
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working, I am helping Mother gather and can the vegetables, and the
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other crops only needed a couple more plowings and they would be 'laid
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by'. Then one day Daddy was brought home from his job sick. I recall
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a neighbor carrying Mother and Daddy to Nacogdoches to see a doctor
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the next day. I did not know what was wrong but I knew something was
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bad wrong with my daddy if he couldn't go to work. In a few days I
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was told that my daddy would have to go away to a hospital for a while
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so he could get well. Tuberculosis had been diagnosed.
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Daddy was sent to a TB sanatorium in San Angelo, Texas. The
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neighbors came from every part of the community and finished his crop,
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helped with all the canning and even cutting the stove wood that
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summer and also the wood was cut to be burned in the fire place that
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winter.
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We lived in the Cedar Bluff community, which had a school, named Cedar
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Bluff School. Again, the WPA was taking applications for someone to
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work on the school campus with the children. My mother applied for
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and got the job. Years later I could understand why she may have
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been recommended by the trustees and Principal of the school for the
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job. Recently I talked to Lois Pack, the Principal of Cedar Bluff
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School in 1939, and she told me my mother's title had been Activity
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Director. Any title would have been fine, just so we could survive.
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On or about the first day of September 1939, my mother went to work
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at Cedar Bluff School.
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Cedar Bluff School had been built by my Grandfather, Oscar Kerr in
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1911. Using the same blueprint which he drew up, he built three
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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
|
|||
|
|