ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 15, 1996 TAG: 9601160001
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN ADAMS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
Like many folks his age, Tony Payne finds retirement exhilarating - a chance to travel, visit with family and friends, pursue his hobbies and explore new interests. On a typical day, for example, the 68-year-old Roanoker can travel to Japan to study bonsai trees, zip up to Paris and take the metro to the Louvre, and chat with his daughter in North Carolina on the way home. He can do all of this before lunch, without leaving his desk.
Payne is a senior who surfs the Internet.
And he's in good company. According to an article in Time magazine last spring, senior citizens make up an impressive group of computer literates - and their numbers are growing. The article states that the American Association of Retired Persons - at 33 million the country's largest organization of seniors - currently lists 2 million computer users among its membership alone.
With the time and money to invest in computers, seniors are making connections in a big way. They're using the Internet to plan vacations, track finances, trace genealogy, do research, explore ideas, and take classes. Most of all, they want to stay in touch: with family, friends, and the future.
None of this surprises Tom Cecere, who teaches ``Surfing for Seniors'' at Virginia Western Community College. Dr. Cecere knows that scores of seniors - his average student is 66 - have a thirst for learning that expands when they have the time to devote to it.
Cecere's course (two sessions at four hours each, no charge) is open to anyone 60 or older who would like to learn to use the Internet, and so far it's been full. When he offered the first one in August, the whole group showed up 20 minutes early for the 8 a.m. class.
``They're very excited,'' Cecere said. ``They don't want to miss anything.''
``Society is changing,'' Cecere said, ``and people want to keep up. There is so much information out there.''
Cecere, associate professor of business and program head for the Institute for Business Development and Microcomputer Studies at Virginia Western, simply shows people what's available to them and they take it from there. He said many older people are interested because they want to manage their lives more independently. With the help of the Internet, they're now writing their own wills, checking on their health, monitoring their investments and taking classes at universities all over the world - 24 hours a day.
``Lots of people are up 10 or 11 at night and they want to learn something or research something and the libraries are closed,'' he said.
Sometimes, people start using the Internet with a single topic in mind, only to discover a whole new world of interests. Tony Payne, a retired vice president of marketing at Shenandoah Life Insurance, began using the Internet a short three months ago to research Japanese bonsai trees, one of his hobbies. He's since been to all of the on-line ``sites.''
``I've been to Japan and visited a number of Japanese gardens,'' he said.
Payne is the incoming president of the national Master Gardeners Association and also belongs to the local Community Arboretum Council. To find gardening material, he'll simply type in a word - ``arboreta,'' for example - and the computer will lob him all over the world. There are many sources just for specific trees, he said. They have landed him in such places as Italy and Australia.
Payne, who does most of the cooking at his house, also is interested in culinary information. In Cecere's class he learned of the Ragu site (``the spaghetti sauce people''), where users can pick up recipes and cooking tips, and even learn to speak Italian. Payne visited the site, found a recipe for veal parmesan, and cooked it for his wife that night.
Darrell Boles, 65, was interested in computers because he had worked in electronics for much of his life. A May retiree who suffers from arthritis in his knees, Boles began using the Internet to search for information on cartilege regeneration. He can now tell you nearly everything there is to know about this rare technique.
He's discovered some other amazing things too.
``Just last week I read a diary written during the Civil War,'' he said. He found it on the Virginia state site. ``It was written by a person in Harrisonburg, and talked about the troop movements around Harrisonburg and the prisoners that came into the area.''
The diary also mentioned possible European intervention in the war; Boles found it fascinating that people were speculating about it.
Boles recently learned that there are 845 reference sites just for researching genealogy. Suddenly, since so many records are now available, he's become interested in studying his family history.
He praised the computer's usefulness as a resource for anyone who has trouble getting around physically.
``The older you are the more you're likely to need transportation and rely on other people,'' he said. This provides an alternative and it helps people connect to resources and other people at the touch of a finger.
And it links people who might not otherwise talk.
``Now we have 12-year-olds talking to 80-year-olds, and they hardly notice the age difference,'' Boles said.
Cecere said that perhaps the most popular use of the Internet is for personal communication. And because it's so simple to use, it helps to bring people closer together. Payne, who has daughters living in Durham and Raleigh, N.C., and Lynchburg, said he converses with all of them much more than ever before, thanks to e-mail. In addition to sharing family news, one of his daughters might call up and say, ``Daddy, check this wine address,'' or offer a recipe from Gourmet magazine that she got on the Internet.
``Remember the days when you used to get letters?'' Cecere said. ``These folks are very comfortable with letter-writing; they've always written.''
Now they simply write their letters on the screen. He added that many people want to send their own mail and not depend on the post office. It's also convenient: they can send a note at 11 at night if they want, and not disturb anybody. The message will be waiting in the morning.
In a recent class, Cecere showed his students how to plan an imaginary trip to Canada.
``By pulling information sites from the Internet, you can talk to a hotel proprieter and ask, `When are the festivals in Nova Scotia? How do I reserve the golf course? Can you provide special meals? What are the ferry schedules from Maine to Prince Edward Island? What's the currency exchange?''' All of this can be done without worrying about the cost of long-distance phone calls or waking someone up.
For avid readers, the Internet places an instant library at their fingertips. During a class, Cecere mentioned the Gutenberg site at the University of Illinois campus at Urbana-Champaign, where the aim is to have three trillion works of literature online.
``You could pull up and read `Alice in Wonderland,' if you wanted to, or Shakespeare's `A Comedy of Errors,' all four acts,'' Cecere said. Several folks eagerly scribbled the site name in their notebooks.
``Jump in with both feet''-that's Darrell Boles's advice to the nervous. And Tony Payne admitted, ``I thought I'd blow up the house'' at first, but now he's completely comfortable. Many people on the Internet are self-educated, he said.
Cecere said his students are having a ball.
``Some are fast, some are slower, but they are all interested.'' However different they are, they all agree on one thing: This is the wave of the future, and they want to be on it.
Many echo the excitement of intrepid surfer Tony Payne:
``This is just the beginning. There are so many things to learn and so many ways to learn them. It's so great to be living now.''
LENGTH: Long : 135 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Don Petersen. Darrell Boles (left) and Tony Payne workby CNBwith Virginia Western Community College associate professor of
microcomputer studies Tom Cecere. color. Graphic. Robert Lunsford.
color.