Southern Indiana Living Magazine - Jan / Feb 2023

A Walk in the Garden with Bob Hill
A Reflection on 80 Years
Irecently hit 80 years old, an age
that often begs the ancient question:
“Are you bragging or complaining?”
I have to go with “neither,”
with “grateful” coming closest
to the truth.
Eighty is an age that brings a
lot of personal history; born during
WWII and around long enough to
witness mac and cheese ice cream and
idiots pouring milk into their Pepsis.
I can remember milk being delivered
to our crowded house in a
horse-drawn wagon and now we get
UPS and FedEx trucks delivering dinner
and semi-automatic rifles.
We lived in the horse-drawnwagon
days in a tight neighborhood
in Northern New Jersey maybe 25
miles from New York City and 100
yards from the Passaic River, which
would catch on fire a few times from
industrial waste.
We predated all that, often
swimming in the river on a stony
beach about a 15-minute walk from
the house. No lifeguards. I remember
being so anxious to get to the nearby
grade school I left home at about age
4, walked over and tried to enroll myself
in kindergarten.
It was a blue-collar neighborhood
that would occasionally bleed
a little red. The parents of my best
friend had a cock-fighting ring in
the bottom level of the barn where
they lived, the birds kept in a series
of coops along the edges. I remember
being paid like 15 cents – big money
for a kid in post-WWII – to feed the
birds before I had any idea what they
did for a living.
I later did sneak into the cockfighting
barn to watch, the fierce
birds ripping at each other, feathers
flying, with metal hooks attached to
their already sharp claws. In general,
only one bird walked away.
And all that only about 75 years
ago. I plan on going back for the first
time this coming spring, thinking it’s
all gotta be tight-knit subdivision
now.
Moving along, we moved from
near New York to Sycamore, Illinois,
population 5,000, in the Northern Illinois
cornfields in 1951. It was a move
that broke my heart because I had just
made a Little League team in New
Jersey and had no idea what was up
with Illinois. As it turned out, Sycamore
started Little League that year,
8 • Jan/Feb 2023 • Southern Indiana Living
a game saver.
Our trip from New Jersey to
Sycamore took three days in a rented
Oldsmobile, a sloping, sleek thing
with more chrome than a 90-foot
yacht. Four of us kids, our collie,
Lassie, and the Old Man, were stuffed
in the car as we traveled maybe 350
miles a day, mostly on two-lane highways.
I still remember driving right
through Pittsburgh, smokestacks
belching, and staying in hotels, a luxury
beyond our wildest dreams.
Mom, then very pregnant with
our youngest sister, Lauren, flew into
Chicago, where we picked her up.
Lots of airplanes there.
I never thought much then about
someday being 80. I made the Little
League team, made new friends in
school, went fishing a lot in the nearby
Kishwaukee River, which never
did catch on fire.
But here 80 came – high school,
college, married, our two kids, fun
work, some world travel, park exploring,
lots of gardening, back surgery,
a new hip, our kids doing good,
a fine marriage that’s lasted 60 years
and then the 80th birthday.
With lemon meringue pie
created by that wonderful wife of 60
years. One kid, newly elected state
representative in Michigan, called, as
she always does, for the occasion. The
other kid, who takes a lot of pictures
for the Washington Post, and his wife,
drove out from Silver Spring, Maryland,
to surprise me.
Boy, did they ever.
So here was 80. Right on time.
And what’s that like?
Having no experience at it, I
tend to joke that 80 is the new 80. It
really is a chronological landmark to
be enjoyed when and if possible. The
only other birthday I can remember
contemplating at all was my 35th. It
was like more than one-third on the
way to 100. I was two years at my
newspaper job in Louisville and wondering
what my next step would be,
could be, should be. I soon figured
out I didn’t want to go anywhere. The
best move I never made.
My 50th birthday was really special.
That wonderful wife – and a few
friends – gave me a totally surprise
birthday party at the old Masterson’s
restaurant in Louisville. I walked into
a room filled with about 120 people.
Basically my entire life stood up before
me – family, friends, teammates
and co-workers – and shouted “SUR-
PRISSSEE.”
Yes, I was.
So, what’s it like to be 80, generally
healthy, blessed, loved and appreciative
for the way it’s all worked
out so far? I tend to complain about
things on occasion, but then I look
around and tell myself to “stop it.”
I still have things to do, getting
back into more travel, shaping our
8 acres of flowers, trees and shrubs
into more manageable shape. I have
begun a whole new creative venture
I can remember milk being delivered to our
crowded house in a horse-drawn wagon and
now we get UPS and FedEx trucks delivering
dinner and semi-automatic rifles.
writing children’s books – and stay
tuned for those.
The theme of those children’s
stories is how do we help others, what
can we do, what can I do, to give back
to people and a place that has given
so much to me.
Some of that has been working
with and writing about The Parklands
of Floyds Fork, the Waterfront
Botanical Gardens, the Paint Box
Garden in Jeffersonville and, more
recently, helping to preserve Payne
Hollow in Trimble County, Kentucky.
It’s the former home of Harlan and
Anna Hubbard, who took a shanty
boat down the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers and then lived off the Kentucky
land for 35 years.
What’s next? Who knows. It
is the one-day-at-a-time thing. One.
Day. At. A. Time. And looking forward
to it. •
About the Author
Former Courier-Journal
columnist Bob Hill enjoys
gardening, good fun, good
friends and the life he and
his wife, Janet.