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On Turning Seventy January 7, 2002 Turning seventy is a milestone we all hope we can reach some day, although it's much better to anticipate it by a few decades than to actually achieve it. Fortunately there's nothing that rhymes with the word seventy so there were no little newspaper ads like "Nifty, Nifty, Gene's Fifty" to put up with. But I did have to suffer the indignity of having the waitresses at last night's restaurant gather around the table as they presented me with a birthday cake and proceeded to sing "Happy Birthday" in front of a lot of strangers. (Thanks, kids, that was neat!) I could say things like - old age is just a state of mind – you're only as old as you feel – I'm really seventy years young – or other meaningless phrases, but I think actually my effective age is measured in what I do, so this is an update of what this birthday boy does as he turns seventy. My main priority is writing the weekly, or semi-weekly, articles. Weather permitting, this entails a constant search of libraries, periodicals, bookstores, antique malls, and feedback from my readers to find new topics to write on. There are times I think I will have to scale back because I am running out of ideas, but then suddenly new ones appear out of the blue and I wonder how I can fit them all in. Right now I am in the feast part of the feast or famine dilemma, as I have a dozen or more outlines ready to put into Days of Yore or Monday Morning Musings formats. The rest of my productive time is spent in volunteer work. Last month I started working one day a week at the Strategic Air and Space Museum (formerly called the SAC or Strategic Air Command Museum). Here I work for the curator logging in artifacts that are donated, mainly concentrating on getting all the books cataloged and shelved in the library – a fitting job for an ex book dealer. In addition I am preparing my own display to donate to the museum on the history of the availability of youth literature on aviation available from the days of blimps up through the early years of propeller driven planes to the beginning of World War Two. I will display examples of those books along with narrative panels describing them and how they influenced the generation of new aviators of the 1940's. Much of the work for the Museum is done by Internet research so I take material home to work on and not tie up the museum computers. I am meeting this week with the director of volunteer efforts for the Nature Conservancy to discuss my work at a local prairie restoration project. I plan to visit the site frequently and document on film the annual progress of the work and show the seasonal changes with monthly photos. While there I will take part in clearing the non-prairie trees and shrubs, help with the seed harvesting in the fall, and document all my observations to contribute to the inventory of wildlife and plants as the 281 acres revert from farmland to prairie. I have transferred my Master Gardener status to Iowa and have to maintain several volunteer hours each year and attend classes for in-service education and refresher training. I already signed up for the spring courses which include: Nature in Winter, Developing a Native Prairie, Controlled Prairie Burns, Butterfly Gardening, Spring Flower Hike, Iowa's Woodland Heritage, Healthy Trees Walking Tour and Iowa's Prairie Heritage. To make you jealous naturalists feel even worse, all but one of them are free! I will be doing the usual volunteer projects of clean-up, flower bed maintenance and plant sales, but will also develop for the local group a directory of botanical gardens, arboretums and other horticultural displays within a days ride. I meet on the 24th of the month with the local county historical society to get their approval of two projects. One is to do the ancestry of the early settlers, much like I did for the History of Hubbardston, and the other is to document and record all the existing old barns that are rapidly disappearing from the landscape. This is being done statewide, but so far not in this county, so I will volunteer to do the work and serve as the contact person for our county. These are two projects I am doing on my own, but will ask their blessing so I can use the name of the Mills County Historical Society to gain access and information from people to whom I am a stranger. Am I as dreamer? Naturally. Am I overextended? Of course. Am I happy and challenged? You Bet! And that's the bottom line at turning seventy. |
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