Yes, You Are Old. Get Over It!

Getting older? Well, so are we all. Sure, it’s tough, but here are some reasons why old age isn’t all bad:

 

— You have won! I looked it up: half of the people born in my year (1942) haven’t made it this far! You get a gold medal.

 

—You have more perspective. Everyone is fretting about the latest world crisis? Your parents remembered World War II and the stock market crash. You remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Great Recession and 9/11. Been there, done that!

 

—Younger people treat you with respect. You no longer resist if someone offers you a seat on the bus.

 

—You have so many stories to tell. I don’t care who you are, a lot of very interesting things have happened in your long life. Share them.

 

—You don’t have to invest for the long term. You don’t have a long term!

 

—Social Security and Medicare may be in trouble, but they will still be there in your lifetime. If your insurance is good, you don’t pay much in doctor bills, even for hospital stays.

 

—You are not going to die young.

 

—Doctors don’t recommend treatment of some slow-growing cancers. You’ll probably die of something else first.

 

—There are tons of senior discounts. My wife made me join AARP when I was 50.

 

—You are surprised to be considered an expert in historical events. You saw Willie Mays play? Well, yes, didn’t everybody?

 

—You know who you are. No more identity crisis of trying to be a square peg in a round hole. If you hate being alone, seek out other people. If you hate large crowds, avoid them.

 

—You can give up things you never liked anyway. For me, it was swimming.

 

—If a kid beat you up in the school yard at age 13, it would be “boys will be boys.” If you were attacked today, there would be a long prison sentence and an expensive lawsuit.

 

—You save time in your physical workouts by getting worn out twice as fast as when you were younger.

 

—You have nothing to lose. If you are afraid to go on stage, demonstrate for a cause or disrupt a conversation, what is the downside? Why be embarrassed? You have already proven yourself in life.

 

—You take things in stride. Someone wronged you 40 years ago? Forget it!

—Sometimes you connect better with your grandchildren than you did with your kids. The younger ones don’t see you as the authoritarian figure telling them what to do. And you can return them to their parents when you are tired of them.

—If you are retired, you can do what you want. Take an afternoon nap and who is going to complain?

—If you are still working, you have more leverage than a middle-aged person with a mortgage, a family and kids to support. Now you can tell that horrible boss: “I’m outta here!”

10 Reasons to Love the Tobacco Trail

I just love navigating Halifax County’s Tobacco Heritage Trail, a four-milepath of crushed stone that is great for biking, hiking and horseback riding.

In Washington D.C., the trails were too crowded on weekends. On weekdays, the hazard was baby strollers.

Here are reasons why I like South Boston’s trail better:

1.  It’s rarely crowded. In fact, I have to be sure to carry my phone in case anything happens to me at times no one is there!

2.  The people are friendly. Says Gerald King, “It is rare to pass anyone on the trail and not get at least a friendly wave or greeting.”

3.  The trail is kept in good shape. Says Nick Nichols, “South Boston has one of the best maintained trails I have ridden.”

4.  Trees on both sides keep much of it shaded in the summer. There are picnic tables, horse stands and even a bathroom, rare on most trails.

5.  Wildlife is abundant. There are deer, squirrels, rabbits, small turtles and occasional snakes. There have been sightings of black bears, coyotes and bobcats.

6.  The trail was extended from the 2 ½ miles constructed in 2006 to 4 miles in 2018. That made it long enough for a decent round-trip bike ride, though maybe not for younger people.

7.  It’s a great place for community events, such as 5K runs.

8.  Parking is easy. The simplest route to get there is west on Edmunds Street and south on Railroad Avenue.

9.  Its history is remarkable. Most locals know about the Crossing of the Dan at Boyd’s Ferry, in which Revolutionary War patriots evaded British troops near the current South Boston. But there was another crossing, Irvine’s Ferry, which ended up near the current trail. A marker is being considered. Just off the trail is a Diamond Hill Memorial, a cemetery for slaves and others who worked at Berry Hill Plantation.

10.                           When Jefferson Davis fled Richmond for Danville at the end of the Civil War, he traveled right over this trail (well, not on a bicycle!) It was part of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, which later became the Southern Railway before its conversion to a trail.

 

Maybe not all is perfect:

—The lower part floods occasionally.

—Biking is slower on crushed gravel roads than on pavement.

— King recommends insect spray for walkers in the summer.

—There is occasional horse manure (eww.) though I haven’t seen any lately.

— Plans to extend the trail farther west were dropped because of the cost, but there is a possibility of more trail into South Boston.

(You can see more at the Facebook page that I manage: Tobacco Heritage Trail Halifax County.)

Fun and Games Every Four Years

 When I attended presidential nominating conventions in1972 and 1976, I felt they were irrelevant. I still do—unless the Democratic convention turns on President Biden.

This years Republicans meet July 15-18. Democrats Aug. 19-22.

Here’s a look at past conventions, and some highlights that I can recall (or found on the internet.)

1952-As a 10-year-old I was fascinated by the intrigue and ceremony in picking a new president. After watching one of the earliest of such televised gatherings, I even staged my own convention in the backyard. In the playhouse, we opened an “I Like Ike” club complete with banners and stickers. That was until one kid’s mom, a union member, insisted we support Adlai Stevenson. But my dad voted for Dwight Eisenhower, he said, because my 4-year-old sister told him, “He would make a good grandpa.”

1956-The Democratic convention was thrown into upheaval when Stevenson let the delegates pick his running mate (Estes Kefauver). That never happened again.

1960-With crowds cheering, Adlai Stevenson upstaged the eventual Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy.

1964-As he was forcibly removed from the Republican convention hall, NBC’s John Chancellor declared on live television, “I’ve been kicked out of better places than this!”

1968–At an Army Reserve summer camp, I wanted to watch the chaos at the Democratic convention in Chicago. But everyone else insisted on seeing an Elvis Presley movie on the only television.

1972–I got to go! The Associated Press sent me as one of its editors to both the Democratic and Republican conventions in Miami Beach. George McGovern’s  hotel was a wild place with pot smoking, as I recall. When Richard Nixon occupied it for his convention, it was an armed camp. I knew the Democrats were in trouble when disruptions forced McGovern to give his acceptance speech at 3 a.m., not quite prime time. I felt throughout that there was far too much media covering these events.

1976–The Republican convention in Kansas City is seen by historians as the last competitive one. But as an editor there, I recall that Gerald Ford had the nomination pretty well locked up against Ronald Reagan before it started. For the Democratic convention, New York seemed like an odd place to crown an outsider and country boy like Jimmy Carter.

1980-Carter was unable to get his Democratic opponent, Sen. Ted Kennedy, to raise his hand with him to express solidarity after Carter was nominated again. At the GOP event, false rumors swirled that Ford and Reagan would run to be co-presidents.

1984–The first woman, Geraldine Ferraro, was nominated as vice president. Candidate Walter Mondale was criticized for picking the disgraced Bert Lance as his general campaign chairman.

1988–President George H.W.Bush’s pledge of “Read my lips: no new taxes” backfired in his 1992 re-election campaign.

1992–Barbara Bush stole the show with a rousing speech at the Republican convention.

1996–Bill Clinton’s political career was declared doomed after his dreadfully long speech at the Democrats’ convention.

2000-Al Gore planted a passionate kiss on his wife Tipper when accepting the Democratic nomination.

2004-Great speeches by Barack Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger propelled them into national political fame at each party’s gathering.

2008-Sarah Palin delighted the Republican audience with her folksy humor as the surprise vice presidential pick by John McCain.

2012-Actor Clint Eastwood addressed an empty chair in criticizing Barack Obama’s presidency at the GOP meeting.

2016–Republican delegates repeatedly chanted “Lock her up!” in reference to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

2020-Both conventions were largely virtual, with many recorded segments because of the covid pandemic.

 

 

 

 

 

My Fearless Predictions: Don’t Believe Them

         Where is the stock market heading? Will it snow a lot next winter? What’s the next big breakthrough in technology?

 

         Well, don’t ask me. Or anyone else, for that matter.

 

         After publishing forecasts for years myself, I don’t believe in trying to divine the future anymore.

 

         As a technology writer, I got some things right, including the future of the Internet, digital TV and the coming of cell phone towers. But I failed to foresee drones or phones that could surf the Internet. And I thought the year 2000 computer bug would bring worldwide disaster.

 

         And just look at soothsayers’ wreckage from the past: predictions of the 1948 and 2016 elections. Recessions that took most of us by surprise in 2001 and 2008. The stock market crash in 1929. Tornadoes just last month.

         My grade school textbook told us that we would all be flying airplanes to work by about 1970. We would run out of oil in 1955.

 

         If that is not enough, here are some of the bold predictions from the past:

*Airplanes are an interesting toy but of no military value—Marshall Foch, French general in 1911.

*“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers”—Thomas Watson, IBM chairman, in 1943.

*“We don’t like the sound of the Beatles, and guitar music is on the way out.”—Decca Records, 1962.

*Technological advancements will lead to a 15-hour work week by 2030.—John Maynard Keynes, economist, 1930.

*By 1997, the moon will be colonized and used as a launching point for further exploration of the solar system. — Physicist John Rinehart, in 1957.

*“I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”—Robert Metcalfe, co-inventor of the Ethernet, in 1995.

Do you remember the predictions of the paperless office? I went to a demonstration of this idea in the 1980s. Well, what happened? Why do I still need a printer?

I do think global warming is catastrophic, but I don’t think we can predict when the worst will occur.

And who predicted artificial intelligence? (I used AI tools to get some of examples. Hope they’re right!)

Bob Cage sculptures on the Greenway

Serious efforts are under way to line the new South Boston Greenway with the huge sculptures created by the late Bob Cage, who died in 2014.

 

The effort by a volunteer group coincides with two important events: the pending sale of Cage’s former estate near U.S. 360 and the near-completion of the park along the Route 501 Corridor in Riverdale.

 

The whimsical structures that are so famous in this town are available for businesses or groups of individuals to purchase and to be placed in the park.

“It would be a unique entrance to South Boston and a wonderful way to honor Bob Cage’s legacy,” says Ryland Clark, who heads the Greenspace Committee. “People will be able to walk along the trail, take pictures and learn the history of these fine works.”

So far, there are commitments to acquire five or the 12 sculptures,  with prices ranging from $3,000 to $5,000. The sculptures would be purchased from the existing Robert Cage Sculpture Garden and removed by Aug. 30. The money will be transferred to the Town of South Boston, which will reimburse the current owners, Cage’s heirs. Such a plan will need to be approved by the South Boston Town Council.

One of those serving on the committee is Thomas Raab, outgoing town manager. He explains that the sculptures would be placed on concrete pedestals and coated to protect them from any flood waters from the DanRive. Those paying for the structures would have their names placed on an engraved plaque.

Personally, I think this is a great idea! I often refer our bed & breakfast guests to the sculpture garden as my favorite tourist site in Halifax County. The sculptures, made out of metal from junkyards and abandoned businesses, make the town stand out as different.

Says Ron Miller a committee member, “The Greenway will become a tourist attraction in its own right. Anyone who has turned onto 501 is likely to head into the downtown business district with its shops and restaurants.”

 

The Cage family has made about half 0f of Bob Cage’s 100 sculptures available for sale since December, saying that is something he would have wanted. They are loaning some of them to the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center, the museum and the tourism office. At least 50 0f them will remain on the Cage Trail site, being bought by the Skillas family from Florida.

“We know our Dad (and sister Dani) would love it, so we all love it,” says Barbara Cage. “We hope it will be enjoyed for years to come while honoring his legacy.”

She says the family will sell the sculptures at a discount for the project and will help the town with moving and painting expenses.

The Greenspace Committee meets again on July 11, and Clark welcomes others to join. It is also looking into other features for the park, which was created after flood-prone buildings were removed in the past two years.

Among other ideas are a pedestrian bridge, dog park and picnic tables. Those interested in joining the group or buying sculptures before the August deadline should contact Clark at Ryland.o.clark@hitachienergy.com.

There are also details on Clark’s Facebook page.