A SENIOR'S VIEW THE

Remember Burns and Allen? George Burns once said: "If you live to be one hundred you've got it made. Very few people die past that age."

There are a few of us in the county who are working toward that. Hal Goodyear had a birthday Nov. 22 and I believe he's a year older than I. Happy belated birthday to you, Hal, and to some others in November: Carol Pasch, Frank Wall, John Wallace, Steve Crouse, Rita Bottini, Kim Rasmusen, Ann Humphreys, Lynn McElroy and Ven Moffatt. Ven might be pushing 90, but the rest of you are far behind. Every day should be special, no matter what age. Life is so full by just living.

Thanksgiving is one of those special days for family and friends to mingle, laugh, cry, visit and hug. My son Richard Talvola, daughter-in-law Jean and granddaughter Kari arrived from the Bay Area. Reservations had been made at Weaverville Hotel and LaGrange Cafe. Because I've been taking antibiotic for a toe infection, I was unable to go out, so they brought my dinner to me. We visited until almost midnight. They were leaving the next day for Humboldt County to visit Richard's brother Tom whom, I understand, has become quite a well-known artist with several articles printed in the Eureka Times-Standard.

We had such a short time to visit that after they left I remembered so many things I forgot to ask, i.e., About my new great-granddaughter, Ashlee Talvola, and her father, my grandson, Gregory and his lovely wife, Kim! They read this column every week so I hope they'll forgive me! I knew grandson Zachary was taking care of the home front and the two basset hounds. One nice thing about reaching my age, people forgive forgetfulness!

Having Richard and part of his family here made the day so wonderful. Other family members called from Virginia, Washington, D.C., Colorado, and friends from Texas and New York. It's such a small world now, yet far away!

I had some excitement though about my computer, receiving an e-mail that my provider wanted me to check and change my security code. I couldn't do it because of vision so Kari, who is very computer literate, tried to; fortunately, it didn't respond. Friday I called the provider. They told me to have my computer completely scanned because they never send an e-mail like that. Bless Jim Love for coming over and cleaning up everything before any harm was done.

My daughter-in-law, Charlotte Payne, who works for a computer company in the Bay Area, said sometimes if the computer is not completely scanned the scam could install software in my computer and be able to get everything about me.

I was told by several computer experts to never open any link from a provider without checking with them. Sounds like good advice!