2000-10-11 - 22:34:54

October 11, 2000

The Survivor invites guest contributions and this one is on---------------------

"DESCRIBE YOUR WORLD"

----------------------My world begins primarily with the gray matter in my skull, and feeding it are my eyes and other senses reaching around the world. I guess with most of us the central hub of the world is ourself. The hub -- me -- but surrounding me is the wheel made by Heather, our kids and their kids. The world exists beyond them of course, but the wheel is the symbol of our family, growing ever larger as the great grand children start to make the outer reaches of the family. The axle is our creed, the family wheel rotates around it and is steadied by it.

I am seventy-nine and Heather my wife is a few years younger. I retired at age sixty-nine, not because I wanted to, if I could I would have stayed, happy at being one in a group of people who were all younger than I, including the ranks above us. I think that being with younger people helped me to keep a young outlook and understanding, at least younger than the hidebound, "world going to hell in a handbasket," rocking chair pilots.

Heather and I live in a fairly nice apartment in a complex which has townhouses, four high rise buildings surrounding pretty walks, with trees, greenery and a nice pond. It is a very civilized place occupied by people of many different ancestrys. It has heated underground parking, swimming pools, exercise rooms and many other amenities.

We sold our house and moved into a ground floor apartment here as bad backs never get better but gradualy worse and I could no longer climb up and down four flights of stairs and take care of the outdoor maintainence. One of our daughters was married in the huge front room, our youngest daughter had the house filled with sparkling girls and constant activities. After she married and left with her husband, the house was too big and so very empty, Heather and I would huddle together over coffee in the sun room remembering all the good times there. But we loved that old house and its yard and the big cottonwood tree in front and our special little hidey hole, carefully pruned out of large bushes and shaded by the overhanging brush. We had our little outdoor table and chairs there, with pots of greens and flowers around it -- a very pleasant place to be in the summer. Every facet of that house we loved and still miss -- but life goes on and we are trying to adjust according to reality.

Back in the present again, two blocks away is a beautiful park where Heather and I walk, talk and sit on benches to rest a bit before going on. At this season different kinds of trees there are doing their thing at their own pace, some just now turning into colors, while others are shedding crackly, brown leaves, interspersed with great, well shaped evergreen trees.

We are about five minutes from the supermarket and seven minutes from our clinic. In Denver where we live malls and shopping centers are everywhere. Amusements are rife, two of my favorites are the Denver Art Museum with the new Denver Public Library building next door to it. Almost anything a person wants to do, from sightseeing in town and the mountains, ball games, dancing, barhopping and going skiing and snowboarding close by in our mountains, and more can be found close by.

From any hill or high spot in town the mountains are visible in all their glory. Some having snow on ther tops the year around.

My world has many countries and states, some that I have seen, lived in and loved -- some that I haven't yet got around to visiting and do the tourist bit but they are books yet unread and part of my world too.

My world has the limitless oceans and the caressing skies and everywhere I have been it has been among people of my kind. The language might be different but every where people driven by the same needs and joys. Working, saving, enjoying families and raising kids they have all been generous and hospitable. I have sat on the equivalent of a front porch, bouncing a baby on my knee while being entertained by Asian people. I have also seen the look of innocent wonder and acceptance in a tots face -- same as in my home town. I have been approached in Japan by young folks who bashfully, super politely ask for conversation for two reasons, one to practise English and two - to find out how things work in my country.

Heather and I were on a Mediterranean Cruise in 1994 and were well treated everywhere we went, although we were carefully escorted to and back from Cairo with armed security before and after the bus.

This year I have found another way to travel and sightsee, visit art museums around the world and become one of the diarists with many friends and acquaintences on the widespread net, and have admired some beautiful and frequently changing splash pages, they are really great. But the reason I keep returning is the content, the text, the meat of that person's personality -- their reactions to things. That is the thing that helps me live a bit of the other wrter's life.

Another thing that holds me to the net are the forums where any of us can speak our own thoughts on diverse things. Communication has always been a great part of my world, two way of course, and for a creaky old man who is hard of hearing, and limited in walking, the cyber state is of his world too.

Although I cannot run free any more, but drag along, my world is still out there and I am of it and of its people. What more could I say about the beloved sphere I inhabit ?

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