He said he knows there are things that he cannot physically do anymore and that bothers me somewhat, but he tries. Dan said people call aging the golden years – he calls them the rust years. .
Dan was raised in a close knit Christian household. "Loneliness is a risk factor for functional decline and early death in adults over age 60, according to a University of California, San Francisco study published in July" (Pope, 2012). Dan should not fall under being lonely. His father was a Methodist pastor. He grew up in abject poverty. He said they would live half a month on food items provided by parishioners. To this day, Dan cannot eat potatoes because they ate so much of them. Over the course of my interview I asked several different questions and I could go on for days with this paper telling you about Dan and what happened throughout his life. Dan was born in Eastern Ohio at the age of four his family moved to Indiana and that is where he lived until he graduated college. .
The next thing that really stood out to be was when I asked him what events stood out in his life. Dan's response was I have had many events stand out in my life. The first was living in poverty – no one wants to be poor. The second was his father's deep involvement in the civil rights movement. They actually had Martin Luther King, Jr in their home for a night, and they kept all of the written communication that continued over the years. Dan said this opened his mind to the inequalities in society, and the necessity not to allow that at all costs. The third was meeting John F Kennedy when he was campaigning for President. Dan said he saw a passion that you don't see very often. Fourth was looking forward to be a computer programmer for the Air Force. Dan graduated from college as a 2nd Lieutenant on April 1, 1965. He was allowed to choose which Air Force specialty he wanted to peruse. Dan picked computer programming, since he helped with setting up the university computer system (and I loved it).