HELEN NEARING

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MEN: And yet modern communication does allow people to live in the country and do business there. In a way I think it can facilitate homesteading by allowing people to abandon the congestion of the cities.

HN: That's possible. But, I've found that the more I relied on my own devices for independence, the more real it became.

I got an electric typewriter last year. I had a Hermes manual. I disliked the electric typewriter so much that I gave it back, and I'm back to my old manual.

MEN: What about the electric typewriter didn't you like?

HN: My touch was too hard for it. I didn't like the noise and the mechanism of it and the facility of it. I preferred to pound out my own letters, just as Scott preferred to work with his own shovel instead of hiring a digger to come in. We were quite at one in so many things. I with my different background and he with his different background, we coincided remarkably I now think.

MEN: You gave in when it came to the phone though.

HN: Yup. I decided to get one when Scott was in his late 90s just in case something happened. I had it in the barn so that Scott couldn't hear it in the house. I said neighbors could use it if they wrote down their calls. Maybe they forgot. After paying a $90 bill I moved it indoors and reluctantly answer it. I'll have my peace in the garden. If I don't hear the phone, good.

MEN: Hearing how Scott died was incredible. I mean Americans aren't supposed to die.

HN: (Laughs) No, not knowledgeably and determinedly and decidedly.

MEN: He was just sitting among some friends after lunch and said...

HN: Yes. He said, "I think I'm not going to eat anymore."

MEN: The decision seemed as innocuous as saying, "I think I'm going to put on a sweater."

HN: Yes. Well, he obviously had thought about it before. I don't think I was quite prepared for it, but I eventually thought, "Good idea." I'm at one with him in that. It was two months before his 100th birthday. The neighbors had a little parade for him.

Going without food is really quite an agreeable way to die. The body just gradually slows down, and there's very little acrimony. I was next to him when he left, and my love went with him. It was a very peaceful transition.

I read a sentence the other day that I liked very much. If you didn't know when you were born, the year of your birth, how old do you feel? How do you gauge yourself? And I thought, "Gee, I'm 90. How do I feel?" About 60, thirty years younger, I think. And as for the spirit, I probably feel about 30.

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