.
30 Dec, A rainy day means no beach walk! It IS a dreary, rainy day forcing us to stay indoors with our Macs! The SCS Cox Family Group Records was almost ready to send when an error was discovered. Back to the drawing board and it is done! Cynthia saw a hilarious video on FB of a couple who had been married for 70 years. sharing advice. She said, "He's always after my body." He said, "Wouldn't anyone want this gal?" She said, "I haven't ever been attracted to another man." He said, "I haven't been attracted to another man either." Their advice was to be nice to each other. The rain has now decreased to spritzels allowing for a walk. Cynthia opted not to have wet shoes in cold temps. Cynthia stayed warm indoors writing a YDNA analysis and sharing a new year's memory with grandchildren on the ranch;
I remember New ear’s Eve 1993 : After dinner I turned the clock ahead every fifteen minutes. At MIDNIGHT we donned our party h ats, rattled noisemakers and joyously celebrated New Year 1994! And the grandparents got to sleep by real time ten-thirty. The grandchildren were so excited to tell their parents they got to stay up to midnight. Some of them remember!
29 Dec. Beach life means slow, lazy mornings! We are enjoying another day without racing the clock or running to meetings or appointments. All we do is enjoy eating walking on the beach and working on our Macs. Cynthia is writing the Lea YDNA analysis chapter for the James Lea book, while Ron is working on projects for the Swedish Colonial Society. The temperature is 51 degrees with a real feel of 45; that being the case, we bundled up for the post morning beach walk at 1:22 P.M, only to get on the road and discover raindrops keep falling on our heads. Hey that's catchy, someone should write a song about that! We boogied back into the beach house to check the weather. Sure nuff. Rain is forecast for the next hour. And it drizzled all the day long! We dined out at Ocean Grille on Mahi Mahi that included three grilled shrimp for Cynthia. Ron walked tonight despite the cold but no one was home to phone.
December 2018 in Texas. A fun time was had by all of the survivors. The record of this happy month was accidentally deleted by someone whose name will remain confidential, and the computer hero in our family said, "Yup!, It's gone!" If you didn't look at it before it was accidentally deleted, too bad. We did have fun! Cynthia will try to recreate it with photos.
28 Dec, Ron awoke about 2:30 AM to telephone Fidelity to transfer funds from one of those over 70 1/2 IRA's. Mission accomplished. Ron listens to 57 Chevy radio station using headphones while working on the computer until an Elvis song comes on and hands it to Cynthia. Once in a while we rock out dancing to our favorite Rock and Roll. We are Rock and Roll fools. Cynthia was happy because she helped an adoptee find her living birth mother and deceased birth father.
27 Dec, Woo Hoo! We walked nearly 8 miles today! YES! The sunset stroll was splendid. The extremely high tide washed out Karen's sand Christmas tree so she created ski boots when those were washed out, too. Wifi is poor with high holiday volume of residents in their vacation homes. Verizon signal is also weak on the island.
26 Dec, We rode to Galveston via ferry in the rain, ate a delicious meal at Gaido's Seafood Restaurant before shopping at Wally World to load up on supplies for the next week.
25 Dec, Merry Christmas! We awoke early to ride in dense fog leaving Bolivar Island, for the two and a half hour ride into Houston, to spend Christmas with Roxanne, Kiira and Jon. She prepared an elegant and delicious meal.
24 Dec, A quiet day at the beach with two walks. A lovely lady named Karen from Annapolis, MD made a delightful sand Christmas tree with ornaments, and a sand sled with a Santa suit hanging on a line on the beach.
23 Dec, Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere but here. And Christmas for some folks means stress, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, and a reminder of loss and grief. Cynthia likes this letter Ron wrote to a friend yesterday who is grieving at Christmas:
You might enjoy a philosophy of mine about my several great, irreplaceable friends who have passed on. (Peter Craig is one of those. A couple of MIT classmates and a former roommate are more.) It is my obligation to enjoy my life that much more to make up for their inability to enjoy theirs any longer. One way I do this is by refusing to take any obligations more seriously than my obligation to enjoy life - all day, every day.
The only way to compensate for loss of irreplaceable friends is to make new ones. Consider Cynthia and I a couple of new friends who will do what we can to make your life and holidays happier. Family is still family; disconnects will reconnect in time.
I was a life-long bachelor when I met Cynthia, and all of my friends and family were shocked when I married for the first time at age 64. To this day I tell everyone that I had the perfect life as a bachelor; plenty of money to live the life I enjoyed, lots of travel by motorcycle all over the country, lots of genealogical puzzles to keep me thinking, lots of good friends, hiking, camping, athletics, and on and on.
Leave it to God to improve upon perfection by giving me Cynthia, and at church a few weeks ago I discovered why God has inflicted me upon her: it is to restore her spirit so that she can again be a little dynamo spreading God's "Good News" to the world. Not a bad commission, and the pay is wonderful.
As a bachelor, my mother was the keystone in my life, and after she passed away, I simply stopped celebrating any holidays, including my own birthday. Without mom, there was no purpose to holidays. To me they became just another day in the year, but since all my days are good and enjoyable, it was not a bad change. I became (and still am) ironically unmoved by the passions that holidays evoke in most people. Daily life, on the other hand, is wonderful. Only recently do I have two occasions to celebrate, our marriage date (my birthday, May 12th) and Cynthia's birthday, the month of July!
And of course, we celebrate every day of life and each other.
Formerly I was an athlete, played basketball with the "kids" until age 56, ran to stay in shape, and hiked in the mountains energetically. Now my bad knee prohibits anything beyond a walk. So I Thank God for whatever still works, even if imperfectly. Cynthia and I still walk miles daily and hike in the mountains as our travels and bodies permit. Life is still good despite the changes. RSB
22 Dec, We slept, exhausted from two months of running places every day. Son Jon:
21 Dec, We slept, exhausted from two months of running places every day.
20 Dec, We slept, exhausted from two months of running places every day.
19 Dec, We slept, exhausted from two months of running places every day.
18 Dec, We slept, exhausted from two months of running places every day.
We rode the ferry to Galveston to shop at Wally World because the food prices are so high on the Island. Being especially hungry we ate at Gaido's Seafood Restaurant first. Eat first, then shop.
17 Dec, We slept, exhausted from two months of running places every day.
Life on the Beach in a two unit with stellar Texas flag!
16 Dec, We slept, exhausted from two months of running places every day.
Ron Beatty's Sometimes Annual Christmas Letter:
P.O. Box 598
Hempstead, TX 77445
Finally, after all those long, long annual letters, this is a short one and surprisingly early. If you'd like the normal lengthy annual letter, I would be surprised and delighted to send it.
Cynthia and I are still alive and doing well. Yes, we still travel by motorcycle most of the year throughout the continental U.S. Cynthia loves watching the "kaleidoscope of change" that one sees while motorcycling. Just now we are again at the vacation rental owned by Cynthia's son Jon at Crystal Beach on the Bolivar Peninsula east of Galveston, TX, following grandson Eric's wedding in November and our recent efforts to help fund country clubs and yachts for lots of doctors.
My heart has remained mostly trouble-free ever since the multiple procedures in 2016, 5 stents, an ablation and pacemaker installed in 2017. Thank God. We continue to thank God as we count our blessings. Cynthia is my wonderfulest blessing, and she counts me high on her list too.
2018 was great; in April we discovered Greer Lodge in Greer, Arizona (click here), a new beautiful place where we can walk to daily hikes in the mountains. Sedona remains Cynthia's favorite place (click here), and we spent a month there. In Pagosa Springs, Colorado we saw as many as thirteen deer with velvet on antlers during our daily walks around the neighborhood. (Google: Pagosa Springs, CO photos.) Our one "adventure" of the year was fishtailing alarmingly in foot-deep silty dirt on New Mexico state highway 126 between Cuba and Los Alamos. Yes, 14 miles of dirt road on a New Mexico official state highway. Cynthia now dictates, "NO more dirt."
The highlight of the year for Cynthia was meeting a new great grandson and great granddaughters.
After our first visit to the Pritikin LongevityCenter in April of 2017, Cynthia said, "I could live here !!" Our month-long stay at the Pritikin in November of 2017 transformed my creaky old body into a more youthful feeling creaky old body. On our daily walks, we now pay attention to pelvic tilt, tight core, and scapular retraction, and it is transforming. For the last year, we both have awakened and gone through nearly every day nearly pain-free !! Cynthia's back and foot pain and sciatica are also quiescent. It is a miracle !!
We intend to spend the month of February 2019 at Pritikin (in Miami). Besides poshaccommodations and golf resort scenery (click here), a Pritikin experience means exercising a lot, eating a salt-free, plant-based diet, and going to four lectures per day. We are becoming good little longevities, God willing.
We are both feeling so good that we cannot believe it. As usual, you can see pictures and daily descriptions on our blog. (Google: Where is Ron - and our blog shows up first, WhereIsRonNow.blogspot.com). Lupe has our blog set as "home page" for her browser.
Escape winter !! Come visit us at the Pritikin this February to see what we mean when we say, "adopting a Pritikin lifestyle is the best thing we could ever do to enjoy our aging bodies."
We wish you the very best, with love from Ron & Cynthia.
--15 Dec, We arrived on Bolivar Island in the dark; our packing and multiple stops took up the day.
IRS Notes;
13 Dec, Dr. Stavinhoa
12 Dec, Cheri with Dr. Sims
11 Dec, Dr. Beim in Brenham
5 Dec, Cheri with Dr. Sims
3 Dec, Dr. Sims, Dr. Stavinhoa
