Not just another pencil: Computer-mediated communication from a senior's point of view.
Hilly Scholten, 70+, retired psychologist in Amsterdam, takes us to the Netherlands with breathtaking photos, paintings and stories about the longest skating race in the world.
English is the common language on the Internet, though for some it comes more easily than for others. Also, in Europe, the cost of staying online is limiting, but Dr. Scholten comes through with her art and her stories, illustrated with colourful photographs.
"The eleven cities skating journey, ŒElfsteden Tocht¹, 130 miles in one day is possible on the canals connecting 11 cities in Friesland, a province in the North.
"Abroad they call this event a "traditional folk game". But I can assure you it's not really just a "game": the weather can be very bad and many are wounded. 6000 had to give up one year, besides tiredness also because of freezing toes, noses, broken hips. So we call it of course the "Tour of Tours", or even the "Mother of All Tours".
"Almost all years our winters start in January or February, although many people like snow at Xmas of course, which sometimes happens. But we have many soft winters: there once was a period of 22 years in a row, when no Tour was possible. And most of the time winter is slowly crawling in, "promising" a Tour with every day of freezing, but it takes at least 10 days in a row of good freezing for the ice to be thick enough (6 to 8 inches).
"Already in the 18th century individuals started to visit in one day all the cities of Friesland just for fun, and their bars and café's for a warm drink of hot chocolate milk!.
"Skating is not only fun, but also a faster way of visiting neighbours, when carts were useless. They also have sleighs up there, with horses to do tours on the lake. Sometimes even our Zuydersea is frozen and can carry cars
"In 1909 the Tour became an official event, with only 23 competitors. The 1909 winner made it in 13 hours 50 minutes, but picture this in 1997: 05:30, a misty, still dark morning. 16000 odd people, concentrating. All hoping. A pale sun, rising three hours later, not too much snow falling, a not too hard eastern wind, a feeling temp. of about -4F.
"The Racers start first, mine lamps on their heads for those first hours in the dark. The lesser gods start later, a disadvantage, but only longing to make it in time because the rule is: at midnight it's over! So in the city before the finish, they send you from the ice because it's not possible anymore to do those last miles in 1 hour. Tears for many, arriving there at 11.00!! No cross!
"The winner is famous from that moment on in the whole country. Just to participate and make it to the end: you are a hero too.
"When circumstances are very bad, skaters form groups, to help each other by being the first of a row in turns, catching most of the wind. Once it was so hard that a group of racers decided to finish hand in hand, to share that place. Isn't that great!!
"In 1997 half a million people cheered along the way. 90 per cent of us watched on the TV. Abroad there were 1 to 5 minute reports by CNN, English, Canadian and Australian TV channels. Also pictures in their papers. The winner, Henk Angenent, finished in 06.47.11 hours. Klasina was the first of the women: 07.49.18 hours. (Remember the year 1909 when it took 13.50 hours!)
"But the REAL winner for me was a man 73 years old! And Klaas, 70 years, did the tour for the 8th time, a record.
"A few anecdotes: In 1929 skater no.31 afterwards had to have amputated part of a toe; in 1933 the first woman participated. She also received a bouquet! (The gallantry of men!) One man said that when he sat down for a few minutes, too tired, a beautiful, green-eyed girl suddenly appeared and massaged his back, so, flying on wings of love he could go on! It is said he could never find her again. (The power of women!)
"Our Crown Prince made it in 1986 as a tour rider. Queen Beatrix and Prince Consort Claus very proud of course! One year was beautiful with a thaw setting in, about 32 degrees F. and sunny. In 1963 mustaches and eyebrows were all white and frozen!
"This Tour is a national heritage, though it can never be a real sports event on the International sports calendar. Because of the weather it's only a rare one. It had been possible only 15 times now since 1909"
Mabel Jones lives in Alabama. Her Web site diary includes all the wonderful ways they did things there during the last century. When she was in her early 80s, Mabel began documenting her childhood farm memories of the depression years. She recalls making brooms, churning butter, cooking on a wood stove and other recollections of a lifestyle which could have been forever swept away by today's modern technology. Because this versatile lady took to her computer with the same enthusiasm she had taken to her flat iron in earlier years, that lifestyle will never be forgotten.
"Mama stepped out on the porch with her '38 in her hand, held it up where the moonlight fell on it, and said, I'm warning you, if you don't leave now, I'll shoot! The man didn't take time to walk to the gate, he jumped the fence! To show she meant business, she shot up in the air as he went over."
Alabama wasn't all that different from Ontario, and maybe even Geneva or Glasgow, when you come to think of it. Small differences but the fundamentals were very similar.
"One of the many things the women on the farm did was pick and can the produce that was grown on the farm. Our dad had several acres in peas, butter beans, snap beans, okra, sweet corn, squash, tomatoes, cabbage and Irish potatoes. I guess you would say he truck farmed in the spring. Mom and the girls really came in handy then. Dad also took a truckload to town every morning. I went with him a lot. The Colonial Hotel on Lake Jackson was one of his customers. I did love to go in there with Daddy to carry the produce. They had the biggest stove I had ever seen. It was five or six times as big as our stove at home. I think it was electric. Back then that was unusual. They always bought lots of vegetables.
"We girls got up before day to go to gathering the produce for market. Then gathered again for canning. Mom helped with all of the different jobs pertaining to canning and preserving. When we got enough prepared, she started the cooking of the vegetables to be canned. She always had several closets full of jars, and jars of all the vegetables.
"During fruit season we put up peach preserves, and pickled peaches. Also fig preserves and blackberries. Mom could make such good blackberry jelly. We would gather May haws in May for jelly also. May haw jelly had a tart taste, it was real good with hot buttered biscuits in the mornings, or at night with hot buttered biscuits. Fry up some country ham out of our smokehouse, and you had a meal fit for a king.
"Daddy had a brother living on a farm out from Rockford, Ala. We went to visit them in apple harvesting time and always brought back several burlap bags of apples. We would peel them and slice them fairly thin, and carry them up on the roof top and spread them on something for drying. They were then put in big crocks for using during the year. We always had an abundance of good food. I was brought up during the depression, but I don't remember ever being hungry.
"We put up our food, took our corn to mill to have our meal ground, churned and made our own butter. I guess flour and sugar were the other staples we bought in large amounts, also coffee and tea. Course I was half grown before I knew what tea was. I have written all of this and I have gotten hungry and, wouldn't you know, I don't have a smokehouse or homemade biscuits to satisfy my country appetite! Such is life in town!" (Excerpts from Mabel Jones's Beer and Gunfire.)
Mabel¹s Web site also includes old fashioned courtship, the country smokehouse, syrup making, wood heat and dozens of other intriguing stories, each one a gem.
Elderly netters tend to be comfortable with their age. Only a few resent being part of the senior generation and consider the word "old" to be, paradoxically, insulting.
"Old people you say? I am a pensioner, a senior, and do not consider myself 'OLD'. If you are interested in positive feedback for your research, you may want to have an attitude adjustment. The trick is to live a long time without growing old."
This person had missed the opening premise in our Old Folks at Home on the World Wide Web site which states that it is for people who don't think being old is an embarrassment, avoidable, reversible, disgraceful, a crime, a disease, or even a social faux pas. This same respondent did, however, offer the following:
"We are all individuals doing our thing on the net. And because we are "older" we probably have a wider range of interests than young kids. I check my 649 ticket on the net; I checked the position of Hale-Bopp for times and directions. I checked out the Galileo pics from NASA, and the "life-on-the-Mars-asteroid" pics, too. I looked for info on croquet, because I'm thinking of establishing a croquet court at the resort. Then I found the Vancouver Croquet club, and found Tilley's Endurables is a sponsor. So I checked out their catalogue And of course I like to "listen" to members of the Freenet Seniors SIG (Special Interest Group) natter away. And - oh, and I forgot, we have a Web site for the Resort, and we have people calling in to inquire. So, what do other people use it for?"
Well, there's no pat answer to that question. Worth noting is that the Web sites of most people in this category are not intrusive; they do not try to persuade the reader to do, think, or buy anything.
On the other hand, if you look up the word "seniors" in a search engine you are led to lists of Web sites written, presumably, for seniors, telling them what to buy, where to travel, where to invest, and offering information, pen pals, candy, flowers and services for a fee. Seniors on the Internet are assumed to have money, so everyone who has something to sell targets them.
There are also a few good non-commercial sites which have been set up for seniors with information about health, insurance, and various government services. These occasionally will include some free pen pal lists and places where seniors can exchange information.
The most comprehensive of these sites is the Seniors Canadian Internet Program (SCIP), a highly acclaimed guide to global information and services for retirees and older adults. Another attempt at this sort of service, since abandoned, included an article about a Red Cross offer, patronizingly allowing "Older Canadians to have their very own active living program." This wording leaves one with the impression that the authors find it sort of cute that the little old seniors can actually do something by their "very own" selves. In the reality of cyberspace the cute little old seniors are doing amazing things for themselves, and of great benefit to the entire World Wide Web.
If there is one common denominator, it is diversity.
"When you live in Hawaii you are farther from any other civilized area than you can be on any other livable point. The Internet has special significance out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for two reasons, one is truly isolated and -- more important -- one is threatened with becoming insular. You think you know what that word means until you live in a fully, totally insular society where it's unthinkable that you tell someone what you really think because you will almost certainly see them again in the grocery tomorrow!
"The Internet allows an escape from that. I love the little jargon that goes with "reaching out and touching someone" on the Web, the 'ping' and 'finger' have meaning beyond definition as I'm sure you appreciate. But they're ways of finding someone, ways of perfecting their address and methods to be sure they're still there. I know of no comparable methods involved in other forms of communication.
"I've discovered the one good product that Microsoft offers, FrontPage, which works beautifully for the busy Webmaster and has even better qualities for those few of us whose memory isn't wonderful any more.
"E-mail is most important and I probably get from 20 to 40 communications a day (not counting spam, ads, etc.) connected with loved ones, business or politics. My main URL is Hawaii Island's Magazine. Most of my work on the Internet is research which, these days, is usually connected to forestry."
The quintessential Web site for art in several forms is that of Claire Read, called "Claire¹s Place." This talented, Web connected lady demonstrates examples of computer originated art done on her Macintosh in Adobe Photoshop. She explores LAYERS, another way to vary a theme, and Fractal Design Painter Traditional art. There is also a collection of her watercolor, oil, and acrylic pieces as well as acrylic abstracts of figures. This is a Web site to explore when time is unlimited.
An artist on many levels, Claire demonstrates a variety of methods, describing each with examples. Her site is a source of inspiration and instruction, with surprises on every page. Her poetry is inspired, her original stories are delightful, and her pottery is handmade with slip decoration, no glaze, Indian style. She also has a selection of good music and a very special list of links to her favourite other Web sites.
"Conceptually I paint ABOUT things rather than OF things. So ŒMt. St. Helens¹ is about the eruption in 1980 at the same time I experienced arthritis for the first time, ŒBecoming¹ is about the percolating of life on earth after the big bang and ŒWaves¹, as with most traditional art is self-explanatory.
"Often my paintings contain faces that I didn't consciously put there. Sometimes they become the actual subject of the painting. If you like art, music, poetry and stories, you've come to the right place."
Watercolours by Lorna Bentley Wreford have been exhibited in many galleries around Toronto. Specializing in calendar and greeting cards, she works from a wheelchair to display her work on her Web site which also carries greeting cards and calendars of the Spina Bifida & Hydrocephalus Association of Ontario.
Visit Canada¹s most southerly village, Wheatley, Ontario, via an amusing Web site by Ken Crew, that town¹s poet laureate.
Tour Western Canada with Pat Chenier, who also tells us how to do cross stitch, how to speak Spanish, and gives us the thesis on Horticulture in the North which she wrote at the University of Guelph for her ODH in 1986. Pat covers all aspects of gardening in cold climates and much that is applicable to other areas as well. Her Web site also includes recipes for old world cheesecake, old English fruitcake, potato pancakes, traditional eggnog, pumpkin pie, shortbread cookies, family size brownies and other goodies. Mrs. Grenier is a woman of many talents, including quilting.
"I have developed the philosophy that you are never too old to learn. I strive to learn something new all the time. My latest endeavour is this home page. All too often I come across people who say ŒI don't have time to learn a craft' or ŒI am too old¹. I have made it my goal to help as many people as possible to cross these barriers."
Ann and Lou van Delft of Sarnia, Ontario, give us dandy pictures of birds and bridges and other interesting Ontario sights, which will enlarge to full screen images when you click on them. Hundreds of unimposing seniors' sites all over the Web have no great claims to expertise in any field but just carry uplifting suggestions, like 77-year-old Bill Caldwell¹s message:
"Love life and people, watch the sunrise, appreciate each day, enjoy the simple pleasures, help others, set a good example for children, support education, keep all your promises, compliment others, stay active, be optimistic, and SMILE often, it's a face lift that costs nothing!"
Even if this philosophy were the only contribution to the World Wide Web by its senior advocates, it makes their presence worthwhile.
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Chapter V Forever and ever
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