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The CyberSenior Review Volume 2 Number 1
begin CyberSenior.2.1
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************
THE
CYBERSENIOR
REVIEW
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VOL.2 NO.1 JANUARY 1995
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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
