Once again time for an annual letter, so let's start by saying we are delighted to be among the living - - - and we are feeling Younger Next Year after reading the book and going to the Pritikin Longevity Center four times in the last two years. After our 2019 doctors appointments, we rode the motorcycle towards the Pritikin in Miami and did pretty well until the driveshaft broke on I-10, 30 miles west of Mobile, Alabama. BMW Roadside Assistance got us a tow truck (2 hours later) to take us to the nearest BMW motorcycle dealer - in Pensacola, Florida, nearly 60 miles away. The tow cost us nothing, and the driver even dropped us off at our hotel. All was well until we both woke up sick the next morning. Three days later, I woke up clear-headed, the motorcycle shop was still waiting for a driveshaft (presumably on a slow boat from Germany), so I decided immediately to rent a car and drive to Miami, arriving at the Pritikin as scheduled. Because we were both recently sick, we did not visit friends on our way south, but I did go visit friends in the Florida Keys. That ride over all those bridges out to Big Pine Key is really lovely in the off-season, and those tiny key deer are just too cute.
Again our stay at the Pritikin provided us results and new exercises to improve our enjoyment of everyday life. It is one of the ironies of aging that you need a daily exercise routine to enjoy the activities of daily life. Surprisingly, the lectures and exercises have changed in many ways from what we were taught two years ago.
At the Pritikin, we met Pat Wells, and Cynthia discovered that Pat is from LeMars, Iowa, where Cynthia lived and was a girl scout troop leader for a few years. Pat's parents owned Wells Dairy, makers of Blue Bunny ice cream. Next day we visited Jan & Dorothy Wissmuller '70 in Sarasota before retrieving our motorcycle from Pensacola. Then we rode south through Mexico Beach and were astounded at the hurricane damage there. Whole forests of pine trees were snapped off 30' above ground for miles and miles. The Hotel Governor, where we love to stay, was less damaged than I feared, but the first floor rooms, 30' above the normal high tide, had been demolished by the storm surge and waves. There were far fewer houses between the roadway and the gulf, and there were few signs that there had ever been houses there. Our ride was ill timed, and we got drenched by a downpour as we rode back north.
We took lesser traveled roads to Atlanta, where we enjoyed a cousin of a cousin, Angi. Angi is working on the Dehaven book that Dorothy Bertine had started but been unable to finish before she passed away at age 101 last year. Next stop was to see Greg and Donna in Columbia, SC, and of course we enjoyed dinners at Ruby Tuesday with the rest of our friends in South Carolina. Sadly, Greg's abilities have diminished due to numerous mini strokes. As we rode further north we visited Hans in Loris, SC and Ed and Mary in Lake Wilie, SC.
We spent 3 months in Mt. Airy, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia, mostly in the basement of the Lutheran Archives, working with Peter Craig's collection of books and papers. We stayed on campus, sharing a house with another retired pastor, David, so the commute to work was a minute, but David's bachelor housekeeping was a challenge for Cynthia's obsessive cleanliness. She purchased an air conditioner after a couple of warm nights. Mt. Airy is fun for us, and the weather stayed mild enough for us to walk the mile to Chestnut Hill for lunch every day at Fresh Market, a grocery with a nice salad bar. We enjoyed one dinner with Eric.
After summer heated up, we hustled north into Vermont in a mere four days to cool off and spent the next three months hiking - except that Cynthia's children mandated that she fly to Houston to celebrate her birthday with them. She came back from the flight with a cough that soon turned into bronchitis and later into pneumonia. These colds stressed her system so much that she became afflicted with shingles for a month. After a month, when she was starting to recover thanks to medications, I caught her bronchitis. I assumed that my body would eventually take care of it, but a month later my body had not overcome it, so I resorted to drugs too. We booked the first 2 weeks of October at the Pritikin to take advantage of a seasonal discount, so were compelled to leave Vermont just as the leaves began to turn fall colors. At least we did see a few marvelously colorful displays of leaves in Vermont and New York before outrunning fall south, and we enjoyed a bon voyage Pasta Loft party with Drew & BD, Mike and Irja, Rick and Sherry, and Bob and Rachel.
Samantha and Adam's wedding was a joyous occasion, vindicating our early arrival in Texas in November, long before our scheduled doctors appointments the first week of January.
So Karen, you now have a thorough answer to whether I am OK or not. I am quite touched that you thought of me. I don't participate in the Infinite Connection, so am unfamiliar with the reunion book and page.
Perhaps you can use what follows for the reunion book page.
Ron is now 72 years old and getting younger every year, thanks to daily morning exercises, very limited dietary choices (no meat, no fat, no oil, no butter, no cheese, and no salt - right, no ice cream for the former ice-cream-aholic), a wonderful wife, and lots of activity. Life is grand. I am still enjoying to the extreme my marriage with Cynthia; we were married on my 64th birthday. I continue to tell people that I had the perfect life as a bachelor, but leave it to God to improve upon perfection. (Cynthia is a retired Lutheran minister.)
I retired from a career as a computer programmer. (My resume is on my web site for anyone interested in alphabet soup.) Now Cynthia and I travel most all of most years. We do not own a house or a car, just a motorcycle. Our hobbies are genealogy, travel and hiking.
If anyone wants to know more, they can check out our blog by Googling: Where is Ron
My site shows up first. After all, I am a computer geek; that is how it is supposed to work. Here is the URL: whereisronnow.blogspot.com.
Too funny that for the last week I've been listening to the Grateful Dead concert from the 1970 class prom on May 7.
Click here to return to Ron Beatty's home page,
These links are on all my web pages:
Eve's Garden Organic Bed and Breakfast, a wonderful, eclectic, artistic papercrete alternative living learning mecca in Marathon, Texas
Rambo family genealogy, Bankston & Bankson family genealogy, the Camblin family genealogy, the Dorsey Overturff family, cousin Jean's Schenck and Hageman genealogy, and