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Hobby
Heaven
For some seniors, hobbies are not mere
distractions, they're full-blown obsessions
By
Stephanie Clifford, The Time Online Edition
September 24, 2003
Driving down 1525 West, a quiet road in
Farmington
,
Utah
, you pass meditative cows, grassy fields,
a few modest houses. Then, on the west side of the road, a mirage looms:
10.5 acres of colorful, pint-size railroad trains chugging out of a
replica 1920s station house, snaking through tunnels, over bridges, past
waterfalls and man-made mountains. Here live Steve Flanders and his
accommodating wife Susan, who over eight years watched her husband turn
their farm — and her carefully tended flower beds — into a
model-railroad park.
It seems that
Flanders
, 50, a retired concrete producer, has
taken his hobby to an extreme. It began harmlessly enough when he laid a
picturesque model-train track in his backyard; his wife's pretty tulips
remained intact for the most part. Then he decided that the trains needed
indoor storage, and he ran the track into the barn. After that he added
rails over the driveway, and before long, he was digging a 4-ft.-wide
strip across the yard. From there the park has kept growing and growing.
"It's just, as we started building things and we kept going, I
couldn't figure out a place to stop. As I sit here and work on the track
and the property, I've got more ideas than I'll ever be able to build as
far as expanding it," he says. Good for train buffs, bad for Susan
Flanders' flowers.
Sure, hobbies and retirement go hand in
hand, as quilting grandmas and golfing grandpas will attest. For some,
however, hobbies go from a mere distraction to a full-blown obsession,
invigorating enthusiasts from train lovers to map collectors. Indeed, some
experts believe there's a significant health benefit to be gained by
immersion in a passion. "What gets a person out of [depression] is
when you're engaged in a stimulating endeavor," says Bernard Landis,
77, a psychologist-psychoanalyst. Six years ago, he cut back his practice
and enrolled in art school, and this May he graduated with a B.F.A. in
painting and drawing. "You meet people, you open up new doors, and it
just changes the chemistry. I'm sure it even affects the immune system.
It's such a breath of fresh air."
Consider Carol Lee Lindner, a Haverford,
Pa.
, housewife, who says her life changed
several years ago, when she discovered dragon-boat racing — competition
among colorful boats, each with 20 paddlers, a drummer and a steerer. She
put together
Philadelphia
's first women's team, then organized an
annual 1,400-competitor dragon-boat festival in the city, complete with an
athletes' village and an awards ceremony. "At some point, you share
the gifts you have with others, and that's where I am at 63," she
says.
Giving back is the impetus for a lot of
these older hobbyists. David Rumsey, 59, spent two decades collecting
antiquarian maps. In 1996, having amassed a remarkable 150,000 maps,
Rumsey realized he wanted to leave some sort of legacy. He decided to put
the collection on the Internet, and so far has scanned and cataloged 9,000
maps at www.davidrumsey.com, one of the largest such online collections in
the world.
Others, like Joe Weaver, will leave less
tangible legacies. Weaver, a wiry Tai Chi enthusiast who moved into a
Dallas
retirement home last fall, was dismayed to
find that its Tai Chi classes consisted of residents sitting and waving
their arms around. Though he just turned 90, he leads several Tai Chi and
water-aerobics classes at the home. "At this stage in my life, I'm
blessed with good health and have some ability in the world of exercise,
and if I share or transfer that to other people, it's going to do good for
me directly, and it's going to help those people," he says. "As
a result, I'm going to gain satisfaction that I wasn't even seeking."
But getting too emotionally connected to
your pastime can also drive you a little nuts, as soft-spoken nurse Stella
Henry, 56, can tell you. She's on a quest to round out her 500-strong
Beanie Baby collection. Among her tactics: spending evenings frantically
refreshing eBay pages; lining up a source at Nordstrom's who hides new
models for her; driving from her Los Angeles home to San Diego and Santa
Barbara, Calif., to follow up on rumors of Beanie supply; attending Beanie
conventions; and frequenting a tiny
Barstow
,
Calif.
, shop where she finds rare Beanies.
"It's a supplier. It's like drugs!" she laughs. With display
cases in her living room, a Beanie MasterCard, magazine subscriptions, T
shirts, mugs and pens, and clothes for the toys, Henry knows she's
somewhat infatuated. "It ends up this crazy competitive thing,"
she says.
Dick Rennick, 60, and most others find,
though, that a major benefit of such hobbies is stress relief. As a high
schooler he cruised his town's hamburger stand in a roaring '53 Ford,
juiced up with parts from the local junkyard. As a young man, with no
money for a garage, he would jack up cars in his yard and tinker with
them. Then, as his plumbing company grew successful, he found that cars
offered an escape from work stress. "When you come home at
11 p.m.
, and you're wound up, you go in the
garage, get your wrenches, start working on stuff. Your hands get a little
bloody, a little dirty, and you're ready for bed at
1 a.m.
," he says, perhaps explaining why, in
Rennick's custom-built
Yucca Valley
,
Calif.
, home, the garage is bigger than the
house. (Hey, something has to house the 1948 Minnesota fire truck he just
bought.)
Rennick's day job and hobby are closely
related; it's not uncommon for hobbyists to choose pastimes similar to
their work. Some even use hobbies as an excuse to put off retirement, like
New Yorker Arnold Greenberg, 68. Eighteen years ago, the onetime lawyer
bought a popular travel bookstore on
New York City
's Madison Avenue. Now he works five days a
week, covering his acquisitions in clear Mylar covers and talking with
buyers about Baedeker's guides. He has no thoughts of stopping. "I
just signed a new lease. Let's just hope I live that long!" he says
with a chuckle. As you grow older, he says, "the big mistake you make
is to stop doing what you like doing."
A maxim that
Flanders
couldn't agree with more. His farm of
colorful trains seemed so peculiar in his rural town that it became a
tourist attraction. He offers rides six days a week and opens
Flanders
' fields to onlookers. "This is where
my heart is right now," he explains. That's the simple key to why
people spend so much time on their hobbies: they love them. "Not to
say it's not a lot of work and doesn't have its struggles and trials, but
I just cannot imagine doing anything else,"
Flanders
says. "I literally feel like I'm
living out my dream."
Getting Started
PICKING A PASTIME
Many retirees find themselves facing the question of how to find a hobby
that not only takes up the days but is also captivating and fulfilling.
"The big complaint when people are working 24/7 or raising a family
is, 'I don't have time to do what I want to do,'" says Suzanne Zoglio,
the author of Recharge in Minutes. "Then when they retire or the kids
leave, it's, 'I've been doing what I was supposed to do for so long, now I
don't know what I want to do.'" Here are some questions to help you
zero in on the right hobby:
--What are you naturally drawn to?
"In a bookstore, there's a section you always go into — what is
that?" asks life coach Gail Cassidy. For example, a true-crime reader
might research cold cases.
--What did you used to like?
"Recall what you loved when you were a kid," suggests family
therapist Stephanie Marston, "whether it was riding a bike or acting
in a school play or collecting stamps or postcards. You may discover a
kernel of interest that could apply to your life now."
--What issues get you going? Are you
always reading editorials about animal rights or the environment? You
might get involved with aligned causes that you feel strongly about.
--What absorbs you? "Remember
something you did when time passed and you never even noticed,"
Marston suggests.
--What do you want from the hobby?
"We're motivated to pursue new things only if we know there's
something in it for us," Zoglio says. So identify what the benefits
will be. Exercise? A healthy mind? Time with your spouse? Time away from
your spouse? Relaxation? You'll know you're on to something when "you
get that feeling of excitement," Cassidy says.
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