Celebrating Life Over 50 in the Puget Sound Region and Beyond

Local Interview, Bill Johnston

LIFE LESSONS: College Senior Talks with Senior Citizens

August 1, 2014 at 12:01 p.m.

...by Reed Strong

Reed Strong, Northwest Prime Time’s summer intern, is a senior in Western Washington University’s journalism program. He speaks to Northwest area seniors and baby boomers for the series LIFE LESSONS. Each is asked the same four questions: thoughts on growing older; advice for the younger generation; what are they most nostalgic about; and how the world has changed for the better.

Bill Johnston, age 69, was born in Port Angeles, and later moved to Tacoma where he now resides. Johnston worked as a union organizer and ran political campaigns in his working years, until retiring at the age of 57. Johnston has been married for 48 years, with 2 children and 3 grandchildren who take up a lot of his time. He studies genealogy as a hobby. “I don’t understand people who say, ‘When I retired, I got bored.’ I have not been bored one day!”

What have you found are the best aspects of growing older?

“It’s an easy question: grandchildren. No one without grandchildren can possibly even imagine just the absolute joy of having them. I enjoy them tremendously; my wife and I are so happy that they’re just two blocks down the street. We see them almost every day. It took me about a year to get over the feeling of getting up in the morning and having to go to work. That becomes so engrained in your mind. I still have my date-book, I have things I have to do. I work-out in the morning, and that’s so important. It’s a different kind of satisfaction, where you can set your own goals and say this is what I want to do. It’s other people; if it were just me and some sort of narcissistic pursuit, I don’t think I’d be happy doing that at all. It’s got to be for my family, or other people. At least for me. You can’t live for yourself: you have to live for other people.”

What’s the best advice you could give to a younger person?

“The thing is to not get bogged down on yourself. That is the biggest danger that can happen to anybody, because then you start feeling sorry for yourself. You get demoralized, and you turn in on yourself, and everything is ‘Oh, poor me,’ and that is so dangerous. Look at these people who go out and shoot people, they think, ’The only way I can feel is to go out and shoot five or six people at the mall.’ That is that the most self-centered incredible thing you can do to yourself. But, there’re so many good people in the world. Journalism focuses on the negative, because negative is the news, and that’s unfortunate. I get a kick out of obituaries, because you don’t hear about these good people until they die! The Irish have a saying that goes, ‘If you want to be loved, die.’ Gee, you’d think we could appreciate a poor soul like that when they’re alive. Stay involved. Surely, there’s got to be something you’re interested in, be it coin collecting or politics. Find what you want to do, and don’t get bogged down.”

What thing from your childhood are you nostalgic about?

“Talking to my grandmother, or my parents. I do a lot of genealogy stuff, and I find myself looking for stuff that had I asked my grandmother, she could have told me. I miss talking to them. I have run into a wall with my great-great grandfather, and I can’t find out anything beyond that he lived with a family named the Carlyles in Ohio in the 40s. I know his name, I know from there on, but that’s it. I could have asked my grandmother. I was raised near Lake Mills, which isn’t there anymore. Beautiful place. I remember my brothers and I went out in the woods and played. A day like this up on the peninsula is just incredible. One of the most beautiful places in the world.”

What changes in the world do you think are for the better?

“The best changes happen to you. My family life has been the most positive and great change in recent years. I fear for our country. I don’t think anyone can look out there and say our government or economy for the average person has improved. There used to be newspapers all over the place, I used to work for a radio station. For me, it’s just been my family and the additions to it. You don’t appreciate things when you’re young. I once had a teacher who told me, ‘We used to be taught about this great democracy, and we believed it! When we discovered it wasn’t true, we got pissed.’ It’s never got better, it’s just got worse. The problem with men my age is they’re blaming the wrong people, instead of the people on Wall Street who are pulling the strings. We grew up expecting more, and it didn’t happen. But, we can make our private lives better.”