Never to Late to Learn -9/3/2009

Here I am again. I received several comments on my first blog which gave me the incentive to go on blogging. In fact, I have found out that I do not know much about it and have spoken to Vivian, a representative of SeniorNet, to see if the new learning sessions at Kent Library (which will be starting in several weeks) will include a workshop. She promised to look into it. I hope it will become a reality, because I really hate to call on my daughter for solutions to computer technical problems.

I became a single Mom in 1948. I re-entered the business-world in 1949 until I retired at the age of 80 in 1990. During most of this time, I kept it a secret that I was a divorcee; it was considered very scandalous to be one. You must remember this: I had to make a living for me and my children. My parents were aging; there was no monetary support for the children and no alimony; and I worked at two different jobs, daily, for about ten years...until I reached the status of Executive Secretary. My children (then only 5, 7 and 9) attended boarding school in Dutchess County (Greer School in Verbank, New York) with only holiday visits and summer vacations at home with me and grandparents.. They lived with me just a few years. Tom, in college, came home one day: "Mom, I must fly." Off to Texas, to eventually serve two missions in Vietnam, and retire as an Air Force Major. Floyd found an interest in Horses, spent lots of his time in libraries, even as a very young boy, reading about horses, and accomplishments of world leaders in the early centuries. In his late teens, he dropped out of college and enlisted in the Army with duties in the States and in France. He came back home to work as an Agent for Eastern Airlines,; then retired from American Eagle as Manager of the Washington, D.C. Office Angela attended New York University and then worked and retired from Social Services.
Angela went back to work to be able to send her son, Christopher, to Berlee College in Boston. She retired once more, but she is now in the throes of a more difficult job: at my beck and call when I get into a computer-technical problem I have a lot to learn. As far as Christopher
is concerned: he is one of the lucky graduates, in this very bad economy; he has become a wonderful muscian and works as a sound designer for video games.

I'm a "saver" and a "clipper" and among my papers are My Memories. When I was 96 years old, on one of my frequent trips to Kent Library to see about signing-up for a computer course, a SeniorNet representative, Adrian Baker, suggested that I write my biiography, so I signed-up for the SeniorNet Life-Bio course, as well as the computer course. Since I am now a blogger, what better way is there to tell the world "NEVER GIVE UP". I survived by never feeling sorry for myself, doing the best that I could. I was working all the time; I never had time to be depressed. Work doing something - anything, but do something. Keep your brain working: Use it or lose it. I'm writing my biography to inform all those that I love: ....How I overcame adversities.....How I enjoyed the many amenities life offered.....My reaction to the new inventions of the past century (the airplane, private-indoor cleanliness facilities, the telephone, the automobile, the radio, the television, the lost art of stenography 'shorthand', and now the computer).....How and why thoughts rattled through my brain.....How ideas which popped into my head became creative tools.....How I frequently used the attitudes of "I CAN DO" and "I WANT TO" to become positive attitudes, instead of embracing negative attitudes, such as, I CAN'T DO" and "I DON'T WANT TO".....and most of all,, How and why I loved and showed compassion to those who passed in front of me.

These are the reasons for my interest in Life-Bio: to show how I survived, and to help them avoid the mistakes I made. I have found during my long tenure on this Earth that gifts of money and material things are insignificant compared to the gift of knowing WHERE YOU CAME FROM and WHO YOU ARE.

With the World changing so rapidly, my advice to all retirees is to scan your brain for all those MEMORIES, and start writing your biograph.