Interview with njoynlife, a SteadyHealth member

I had a great privilege to correspond with one of our members, njoynlife. He has been on SteadyHealth for few months now and he helped many. You can say he is a really interesting and funny, but very helpful and experienced guy.
I would like to thank him for having time to participate in this interview.


1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I began life as a baby in 1940. When I reached 18 I liked it so much, I decided to stay there. Now I'm an 18 year old in a 69 year old skin.

I became interested in electronics when I was 10 which developed into my life's work. I got into building dragsters at 14, with an older guy who became my racing partner until we quit racing when I was 32.

I Joined the US Army at 18 to get the electronics training I wanted. After I graduated from the radio repair course, they decided I should be an instructor at the US Army Southeastern Signal School, USASESS for short or as we called it, Us Asses .

My parents sold the house on the seacoast of NH, as soon as I left and moved to Florida, so when I came home from the army I was on my own. I lived in my racing partner's attic for a few weeks until I found a job driving a dump truck. Eventually I went back to work at the TV shop where I started at the age of 12. I was the only one there who had any formal electronics education so I soon became the head technician by virtue of being the guy who had to fix everything anyone else couldn't.

I started my own TV repair shop when I was 36 and that's what I'm still doing. I can't retire because my customers won't let me. Just when I'm ready to hang it up, some long time customer comes in and lets me know how much they need me. But it can't last forever because TVs are not made to be repaired anymore. They have succeeded in building a $3000 throw away TV. Twenty five years ago there were about 20,000 TV shops in the USA. Today that number is around 5,000. We've been losing about a thousand a year in the last ten years. In the 60s a color TV needed to be repaired twice a year. Today the first breakdown occurs at about 5 years old and most are simply thrown away instead of being repaired.

Along the way I got married 43 years ago and we created two to replace us. No girls, two boys.

We own a typical New England Colonial house that was built around 1784 and became ours in 1968. We closed on the house at the end of August and I left my wife to do the move in, while I headed for Indianapolis with my dragster and the NHRA Nationals.

2. In your profile it says that you are interested in Rail speeders. Can you tell us something about?

That's my latest hobby. I was sitting in the local coffee shop about 6 years ago, talking with some friends about how we each ended up with a commercial driver's license. After they left I was finishing up my coffee when a stranger asked me about that story. His deceased brother was the guy who took me for the driving test in his truck. We got talking and he invited me to go with him the next week in his rail car. I rode with him for several years until I found one I wanted last year.

They are obsolete work cars that evolved from the hand pumped work cars used on the railroads in the late 1800s. They became motorized in the early 1900s and were replaced by pick up trucks with rail wheels in the 1980s. When the railroads began dumping them you could find them in junkyards for $200. Today most are owned by hobbyists and are worth several thousand dollars. There are clubs all over the country that get together to ride on abandoned tracks and go on organized runs on active rail roads.

It's a fairly inexpensive hobby once you buy the car and trailer to carry it. They don't require a lot of expensive maintenance and the gas mileage is good with the little engines. There are fantastic views from the rails when you're down low near the ground and it can be breath taking crossing some of the high trestles.

The national organization is http://www.narcoa.org/ and our local club is http://www.cottonvalley.org/

3. What do you enjoy about the forum the most?

Being able to help someone with what experience I've gained in 69 years.
I feel especially bad for the teens who are experiencing sexual growth and have no where or no one to turn to for answers to questions about normal occurrences. They seem to have so much bad information thrust upon them and as a result they are worried over things that are simply normal.

4. How much does participating in SteadyHealth discussions take of your daily time?

It varies a lot. Sometimes I spend an hour just composing my answer to a single question. Other times I don't find any questions I feel qualified to answer so I'm done reading the new posts in a few minutes.

5. What section of the forum do you find most interesting?
I don't really go to a section. I check the posts since my last visit and select ones I feel I can answer, and any others that I think will interest me.

6. Is there anything you don't like about the SteadyHealth community, something that makes you angry or something you would change or would like to add?
I think we have a great community here.
Things that bother me are people who criticize the questioner and/or give obviously false answers. That doesn't happen too often but the people who are hit by that are probably the least capable of withstanding it.

A spell checker for our replies would be nice.

7. What moves you to come to SteadyHealth every day?

There is usually an interesting question or one from someone I feel I can help.

8. Have you made any friends since you joined this community?

I'm not sure, there are several of us who seem to have very similar opinions or outlooks. Kingfreeze is one and I'm amazed by bbfeet9. Often when I read her answer to a post that interests me, it's almost as if I wrote it myself. I've had fun kidding her but when I asked if I could call her my friend for this interview ---- she didn't answer me. Geez Beeb, I wasn't asking ya for a date!!!!

9. Could you make a comparison between medical help before Internet and after Internet?

There is so much information available now if you know how to wade through the BS on the internet.
When I had bypass surgery in 1996 I could hardly find any information about what they did to me on the internet. If you were a doctor, there were some places you could find it, but for me? Nada. Today there are even videos of the operation.

When I was in my teens, medical information was only for the privileged few who had medical degrees. As an individual you couldn't find out much about anything that concerned you. Even when you went to the doctor they treated you like you shouldn't know any details about what ailed you.

Maybe the best example I can give is a few days ago on the Dr. Oz show, a young woman asked a question about female masturbation --- right there on national TV --- in front of God and everybody. And he answered it!!!!!

When I was a teen that was something only boys did. Dirty boys!!! And no one said that word out loud.

She stood right there in front of the TV camera and the audience and said "When I masturbate ------"
There was a rather disturbed looking older woman behind her but most of the audience applauded her question and the answer.

How far we have come, and I credit the internet for it. I thought sex education in our schools would have taken care of all that ignorance and misinformation but the questions I see here from young people indicate differently.


10. Do you have a message for our members and visitors?

Keep up the good work, it gets better all the time.