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TUES, 29 OCT 2002

65-year-old outdoorsman returns to school


By Morgan Winsor
Argonaut Staff


CANDICE CARPENTER / ARGONAUT / T.J. Elsbury, 65, sits in his Communication Law and Ethics class Thursday.

Recently T.J. Elsbury saw a group of four young college women chatting on University of Idaho grounds. Three of them puffed cigarettes. Elsbury walked up to the group, tapped the only non-smoker on the shoulder and said, “I feel so sorry for you, you poor thing.”

The woman turned to Elsbury and with frightened eyes replied, “Why, what’s wrong?”

“When you die, all your friends won’t be alive to attend your funeral,” Elsbury said.

Although the soon-to-be 66-year-old Elsbury may have come across to the group as a professor offering some old-fashioned health advice, fact is he’s one of a handful of non-traditional undergraduate students over age 60 at UI. His majors are journalism and wildlife. And as he strolls from class to class and witnesses young men or women smoking or chewing tobacco, he can’t help but jab their minds with his words of wisdom.

“Some students run away from me when I see them smoking,” he said.

Born in 1936, Elsbury was part of a pre-baby boom beat generation that wasn’t warned of harmful effects caused by tobacco. He has watched many pals and loved ones die from cancer spawned from pinching the pouch or lighting up. His last wife died two years ago from lung cancer. Before that a good friend shot himself in the head because he couldn’t take the chronic wheezing and pain caused by emphysema, he said.

“These young kids think they are invincible. I’ve got a daughter and a boy who smoke, and they just don’t get it. This stuff will kill you,” he said.

Elsbury’s roots are grounded in Delmont, Penn., where, after graduating high school, the young adult boarded his lowered, 1951 Desoto hardtop and hit the road. His destination: wherever. Arrival time: whenever.

He said exploring the country after high school was a reverie he and his older brother vowed to accomplish. However, his brother ducked out of the commitment when he married. So Elsbury went alone.

For two years he cruised the open road, making ends meet working odd jobs.

At 23 he was drafted into the Army, but a few loopholes later he switched to serve four years in the U.S. Air Force. After the military he worked as a contractor and a taxidermist.

But his life took a commanding turn 1990 when he was bit by a tick carrying lyme disease. The disease left him half paralyzed, which in turn caused him to lose his business and wife.

“Everything went to pot. I lost everything,” Elsbury recalled.

In 1995, after a multitude of therapy and antibiotics, Elsbury went back to work as a contractor. But nine months later, after doctors took him off oral antibiotics, the disease attacked and Elsbury was bedridden once again.

About two years later, when Elsbury was mobile on crutches, his girlfriend at the time told him about a friend who had gone back to college. Because the lyme disease had eaten away much of the cartilage around his knees, manual labor employment was no longer an option for Elsbury. So he enrolled at a community college in Victorville, Calif. Being out of the classroom for 42 years, the then 60-year-old Elsbury was forced to take remedial classes to build skills for college level courses.

While attending community college, Elsbury sent applications to universities. He was astonished when every university replied with an acceptance letter.

Being a lifelong hunter and outdoorsman, Elsbury chose Montana State University in Bozeman. Short on cash, Elsbury said he sold both wheelchairs for extra income for the journey to Montana.

While at MSU, evening entertainment for Elsbury was a bit different than for students a third of his age. Once a week he’d set aside the crutches and pull up a stool inside a country western tavern to watch people dance.

“I love country western dancing. It’s been part of my entire life,” Elsbury said.

One night, while heading home from a night out, Elsbury met a man who said he could help him walk again.

“He was an alternative medicine doctor vacationing from Seattle,” Elsbury said. Elsbury began taking anti-inflammatory medicine coupled with hefty doses of cartilage-building pills. About four months later, during the night, Elsbury walked to the bathroom without the aid of his crutches.

And it wasn’t long after that Elsbury was twisting and twirling on the dance floor of the country western tavern.

About a year after enrolling at MSU, Elsbury received a call from a dean at UI who offered him a scholarship.

Elsbury accepted.

But just after making the move to Moscow, Elsbury’s lyme disease hit him again, this time in the shoulders. Instead of taking oral antibiotics, Elsbury was given drugs intravenously.

Six weeks later, while hunting in southern Idaho, Elsbury said he was “running up and down those mountains like a boy.”

Although Elsbury may not graduate until he’s 69, he said he chose majors that will have a positive influence on his future.

“I picked journalism because nobody’s going to hire a wildlife biologist at 69. But I sure can write about it,” he said.