I'd like to use this first entry to explain the title of this blog. Vintage Living is the original name that I put into place in 1998 for a URL and a web site that was going to focus on seniors. It was the outgrowth of the daily interaction with my stepfather, Reg, who was in his 90's at the time. He lived in a cottage on my property, a stone's throw from my small house. By choice, other than me, he saw few people and those infrequently. The possible exception was a former girlfriend of mine, Anita, for whom he admitted he had the"hots," even at 90. He was a remarkable man, for his intellect and his wide-ranging interests, for his impatience with arrogance and the abuse of power, but mostly for his enthusiasm for life. But then that's a story for another time.
I thought that Reg, along with many other seniors with restricted mobility, would be a natural for a targeted internet site, mixing social interaction, chat sessions, reminder calendars, health forums, searches, senior specific shopping and an online library to name a few of the features. With a business plan in hand, I tested the idea in the venture capital market and was told that the idea had no merit. Although seniors were one of the fastest growing segments of internet usage and despite the fact that they controlled a far greater portion of wealth than any other market segment, the VCs said no one wanted to market to seniors. There was no sex, no sizzle and, therefore, no interest. As life comes and goes, Reg died in the spring of 2001 and I moved on to other projects. I did keep the domain name, Vintage Living, however, because I liked the way it sounded, epitomizing the promise and rewards of being in one's intellectual prime.
In my sixties, I'm now doing the Vintage Living bit "live;" albeit, that this is a far cry from the senior web site that I originally envisioned for Reg and his contemporaries. Rather this blog, this medium, will focus on the experiences, thoughts and ideas of those who have proven themselves to be vintage, to be time tested. Is this a single age, such as the age of 50, when all of us start to receive notices from AARP? Hardly, it's a state of mind, where we've come a long way, accomplished a great deal and currently feel that we have more to offer than at any period in our lives. Unlike the perception of the VCs about whom I spoke earlier, people in the Vintage Living stage of their lives are more interesting and more dynamic than any other population segment, simply because we have more depth of experience and, therefore, greater insight into the workings of the world. In addition, we also tend to have more time for reflection and communication, further enhancing our perceptions.
With the above having been said, you might ask, where do we go from here? I see those of us who have arrived at the Vintage Living stage of our lives as having attained a platform from which to speak on any and all of the many subjects which interest us. No matter how esoteric and eclectic they may be, each subject can give the rest of us a new vantage point, a unique window, from which to see ourselves and the subjects that are particullarly dear to us. Let me give an example by sharing with you some observations about crows. Yes, crows; those emminently successful, large, black opportunistic birds which seem to be everywhere, feeding on everything.
My office has windows that look South and I am invariably in my office early in the morning and frequently there in the fading light of evening. Our house sits on top of a long terminal moraine which runs North to South. A couple of winters ago, I noticed early one morning that crows were flying over the house from the South, heading North. On subsequent mornings, this daily migration was repeated. In the evenings, I noticed that, as strange as it might seem, the crows were flying over the house heading South. This happened each evening without fail. I told Barb, my wife, about my observations and jokingly suggested that the crows were commuting, like most of the people who live in our suburban town of Wilton, Connecticut. The more that I saw of this phenomena the more curious I became.
One evening I decided to try and follow the flight of the crows. Getting in my car I took a road South, one we call Super 7, which paralleled the ridge upon which we lived. Approximately three quarters of a mile from the ridge, going South, I witnessed a steady stream of hundreds of crows winging their way to some destination, of which I could only guess. As I neared the end of the road, just before it meets with I-95, the crows, streaming from East and West as well as North, had alighted and seemed to be collecting in the trees lining Super 7. There were thousands and their cawing was deafening. I felt that I had somehow slipped into Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds." As I watched, many of the crows, after pausing, would take off again, only to circle and fly on. That first evening, I did not find their ultimate destination.
The following evening, watching the crows commute from my window, Barb joined me in my car on my search for their home base. We followed the crows to what was ultimately their rookery, a large cemetary in Norwalk. Many more than the previous evening, crows were on the ground and on all of the branches in all of the trees covering multiple acres. It was as if, in the middle of winter, the trees had grown thick with many large, black, independently moving leaves. The din was incredible and, although we were in a car, we felt totally intimidated by their numbers, noise and the fact that they treated us as if we were not even there. We left in awe; but we also left with many questions unanswered.
Did they congregate for protection, socialization and warmth, much like the medieval peasents in their towns, only to work the surrounding fields during the day? Did status determine which crows roosted in the safest and warmest places as it determined the location of a peasent's home in the town? Was it age or status that determined how far afield one had to go to either forage or cultivate one's land?
I've since found that rookeries, numbering up to and over ten thousand birds, are a common phenomena in winter for crow populations, but the questions above have not been answered. In looking at animal behavior, I have always been impressed with how much we can learn about ourselves by understanding them. While the tendency of most people is towards anthropomorphism, I believe that the opposite is true. Animals are not like us; no, we are like animals. We have many facets which can only be explained and understood through an appreciation of the animal side of our nature.
I thought that Reg, along with many other seniors with restricted mobility, would be a natural for a targeted internet site, mixing social interaction, chat sessions, reminder calendars, health forums, searches, senior specific shopping and an online library to name a few of the features. With a business plan in hand, I tested the idea in the venture capital market and was told that the idea had no merit. Although seniors were one of the fastest growing segments of internet usage and despite the fact that they controlled a far greater portion of wealth than any other market segment, the VCs said no one wanted to market to seniors. There was no sex, no sizzle and, therefore, no interest. As life comes and goes, Reg died in the spring of 2001 and I moved on to other projects. I did keep the domain name, Vintage Living, however, because I liked the way it sounded, epitomizing the promise and rewards of being in one's intellectual prime.
In my sixties, I'm now doing the Vintage Living bit "live;" albeit, that this is a far cry from the senior web site that I originally envisioned for Reg and his contemporaries. Rather this blog, this medium, will focus on the experiences, thoughts and ideas of those who have proven themselves to be vintage, to be time tested. Is this a single age, such as the age of 50, when all of us start to receive notices from AARP? Hardly, it's a state of mind, where we've come a long way, accomplished a great deal and currently feel that we have more to offer than at any period in our lives. Unlike the perception of the VCs about whom I spoke earlier, people in the Vintage Living stage of their lives are more interesting and more dynamic than any other population segment, simply because we have more depth of experience and, therefore, greater insight into the workings of the world. In addition, we also tend to have more time for reflection and communication, further enhancing our perceptions.
With the above having been said, you might ask, where do we go from here? I see those of us who have arrived at the Vintage Living stage of our lives as having attained a platform from which to speak on any and all of the many subjects which interest us. No matter how esoteric and eclectic they may be, each subject can give the rest of us a new vantage point, a unique window, from which to see ourselves and the subjects that are particullarly dear to us. Let me give an example by sharing with you some observations about crows. Yes, crows; those emminently successful, large, black opportunistic birds which seem to be everywhere, feeding on everything.
My office has windows that look South and I am invariably in my office early in the morning and frequently there in the fading light of evening. Our house sits on top of a long terminal moraine which runs North to South. A couple of winters ago, I noticed early one morning that crows were flying over the house from the South, heading North. On subsequent mornings, this daily migration was repeated. In the evenings, I noticed that, as strange as it might seem, the crows were flying over the house heading South. This happened each evening without fail. I told Barb, my wife, about my observations and jokingly suggested that the crows were commuting, like most of the people who live in our suburban town of Wilton, Connecticut. The more that I saw of this phenomena the more curious I became.
One evening I decided to try and follow the flight of the crows. Getting in my car I took a road South, one we call Super 7, which paralleled the ridge upon which we lived. Approximately three quarters of a mile from the ridge, going South, I witnessed a steady stream of hundreds of crows winging their way to some destination, of which I could only guess. As I neared the end of the road, just before it meets with I-95, the crows, streaming from East and West as well as North, had alighted and seemed to be collecting in the trees lining Super 7. There were thousands and their cawing was deafening. I felt that I had somehow slipped into Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds." As I watched, many of the crows, after pausing, would take off again, only to circle and fly on. That first evening, I did not find their ultimate destination.
The following evening, watching the crows commute from my window, Barb joined me in my car on my search for their home base. We followed the crows to what was ultimately their rookery, a large cemetary in Norwalk. Many more than the previous evening, crows were on the ground and on all of the branches in all of the trees covering multiple acres. It was as if, in the middle of winter, the trees had grown thick with many large, black, independently moving leaves. The din was incredible and, although we were in a car, we felt totally intimidated by their numbers, noise and the fact that they treated us as if we were not even there. We left in awe; but we also left with many questions unanswered.
Did they congregate for protection, socialization and warmth, much like the medieval peasents in their towns, only to work the surrounding fields during the day? Did status determine which crows roosted in the safest and warmest places as it determined the location of a peasent's home in the town? Was it age or status that determined how far afield one had to go to either forage or cultivate one's land?
I've since found that rookeries, numbering up to and over ten thousand birds, are a common phenomena in winter for crow populations, but the questions above have not been answered. In looking at animal behavior, I have always been impressed with how much we can learn about ourselves by understanding them. While the tendency of most people is towards anthropomorphism, I believe that the opposite is true. Animals are not like us; no, we are like animals. We have many facets which can only be explained and understood through an appreciation of the animal side of our nature.
