A senior movement: Older SE Texans staying active
By JAMIE REID, The Enterprise
08/04/2006
Updated 08/10/2006
BEAUMONT - Just because 68-year-old Pete Yannet might be considered old by some doesn't mean he has to act his age.
The Port Neches resident, owner of a Midas Auto Service in Beaumont, snow skis the meanest black diamonds, rides dirt bikes in the mountains and plays tennis with one of his 13 grandchildren.
He's looking forward to turning 70, when he will be able to ski for free at many resorts. And not because he's cheap but because he likes the excitement of racing down a mountain on skis, with his grandkids nearby on snowboards.
"The numbers seem so old," Yannet said of his age. "But if you don't look in the mirror, you still feel young."
Many senior citizens around Southeast Texas share that sentiment: They might be in their 60s, 70s, 80s and older, but they feel young and hip.
Just ask Tom Thompson, a 63-year-old Beaumont electrical engineer, who bikes about 100 miles a week.
Or 78-year-old Betty Hartman, leader of a line dancing class for senior citizens called the Boot Scooters.
Most residents of Hotel Beaumont, an assisted living center downtown, stay active by playing bingo and cards, but few of the seniors are as youthful as enthusiasts such as Yannet, Hartman and Thompson, resident services director Nancy Resendez said.
In 2000, there were 34,269 people older than 65 living in Jefferson County, accounting for 13.6 percent of the total population of 252,051 residents, according to Census figures. Nationwide, there are about 35 million people 65 year and older, about 12.4 percent of the population.
Happy feet
The 78-year-old Hartman, a petite woman, has a penchant for George Strait music and open dance floors.
Every Wednesday night she dances at MacKenzie's Pub with about four other senior couples.
The dancing, which she began as a little girl in Houston, keeps her feeling young in mind and body.
"I'm able to do a lot of things other people my age can't," said Hartman, who has led classes at the Best Years Senior Center in Beaumont since 1993. "A lot of my friends can't get on the floor and crawl around, but I can."
Tuesday afternoon the retired office manager guided a roomful of women through a dance to Strait's "Stranger Things Have Happened:" step, kick, step, touch back. Then a little shuffle and some hip action.
There are dozens of active, elderly women in her classes and in the Boot Scooters, a performance troupe comprised of women in her advanced classes.
Recently, Hartman amazed her doctor during a routine physical because she is so limber, she said. While lying down, she could stretch her leg over her head.
"I marvel at my wife, teaching those dances," said 79-year-old Howard Hartman, a retired salesman and boat shop owner. Howard also dances, but he prefers country and square dancing.
"We are trying to stay young as long as we can," he said of the couple with two children.
Keeping pace
Cyclist Thompson, a married electrical engineer, doesn't consider himself old, either, especially when young whipper-snappers can't keep his pace.
"Most of the young people try to keep up with me," Thompson said. "I probably bike better than most people."
He refuses to take senior citizen discounts, said his wife, 62-year-old Elizabeth.
Although she admires his passion for cycling, she also wishes he were home more because she misses her husband when he's on long weekly rides or taking vacations alone to ride long distances.
Yet she knows the exercise is good for him.
Thompson believes the activity has kept his heart, which comes from a family of bad tickers, healthy. (Both his parents had bypass surgery in their 60s and his sister had the surgery at 55.)
Thompson said he outpaces younger bikers on Wednesday night and Saturday morning rides around Beaumont. Some of them make it a goal to keep up with him, he added.
"I've always been a good biker, but I've slowed down," he said. "But, the ordinary people, I'm still better than the ordinary people."
Thrill-seeker
A luckier genetic heir, Yannet, who walks about three miles every day, inherited good genes from his father, who ice skated in his 80s and died at 94.
Now that Yannet has matured, he pays less attention to numbers.
"I remember when my dad turned 40 and it seemed so old," he said. "And, he wasn't even old for 40."
Now at 68, he proclaims, "I don't ever want to grow up."
During the summer, when he travels to Colorado to see his children and grandchildren, Yannet rides a dirt bike up mountains with his wife, 50-year-old Mary Yannet. In the winter, he skis down steep mountains.
He is a self-described thrill-seeker, who doesn't like sitting on the couch.
He'd rather be playing with his grandchildren, who treat Yannet like he, too, is a teen-ager, he said.
"I think he's the most active person I know," Mary Yannet said.
"A lot of men who are into football just sit on the couch and are satisfied," she said. "Pete has never been that way."
jreid@beaumontenterprise.com
(409) 880-0787
Updated 08/10/2006 11:07:13 PM CDT
ŠThe Beaumont Enterprise 2007