Off Beat
SALEM — In some ways, Joseph Taylor looks his age. He is slightly stooped and sometimes uses a walker or scooter chair to get around.
But, in other ways, in most every way, he defies age.
For starters, he is 94 and has his own blog.
"Joe's Place" debuted last summer at www.joe1915.blogspot.com. Not only is it interesting — he wrote last week about two residents of his Salem condo building who are in wheelchairs — but it is consistently well-written.
"In a few months I will be 94 years of age," Taylor wrote in one of his first blogs. "No wonder I have been thinking about how long I want to live."
In the next paragraph, it got even better. "When I 'retired' from my career (I have had three more careers since then), it felt like playing tennis with the net down."
Taylor conceded that he has a lot of help on the blog.
He types the essays on a Dell computer in the den of his home in the Essex Condominiums using Microsoft Word. His daughter, Barbara, edits them "a little" and then e-mails them to an artist friend in Ohio, who created and maintains the blog.
But he is adept at thinking and writing, which is not surprising for a man who taught at the University of Pennsylvania and was director of a treatment center for disturbed children.
He's also an honest man. The blog was created with an ulterior motive.
"I started it to establish a literary identity to promote the sale of the book," he said.
The self-published book, "My Five Careers, A Memoir: Increasing Brain Power and Longevity Through Strenuous Exercise of the Mind," is due out in a few weeks.
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Off Beat is a weekly feature of The Salem News. Send ideas to sflynn@salemnews.com.
