By MARIE ATKINS

By MARIE ATKINS

■■PpahMBdk Newt Contributing Writer

A man who onced briefed U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara regularly is now urging senior citizens to do something interesting in theirjives.

Howard W. Holschuh, who likes to be called Howdy, retired to Rappahannock County about 15 years ago, after a career in U.S. Navy Intelligence which took him through three wars and around the globe.

Now, he is the volunteer editor of The Voice of Experience, the newspaper for senior citizens in the five-county Planning District 9. One thing he likes to write about is the need for older people to have hobbies and special interests which keep them active and involved with life.

He and his wife Helen are the perfect example of practicing what you preach. They live in a passive solar home which they designed themselves, perched high on a Rappahannock hill. They have a sauna and a hot tub, but more to the point, they have a thriving garden and a unique office where the Voice is created.

A living room on the main floor of the house goes up two stories with two levels of sun-gathering windows. A loft stretches about halfway across with a railing enclosing it which puts someone sitting behind it at the level of the top row of windows.

Here, in a long office lined across the front railing with a desk and counterspace, Mr. Holschuh sits with articles, some contributed and some he has written, and a word nrocessor and photos, and puts together the little newspaper. While he works he can look out on a beautiful yard (mostly Helen’s project) and watch the variety of birds attracted by their bird feeders. Currently the Holschuhs are particularly pleased with a long term visit by a pair of Canadian geese.

Another hobby is made to order for the V.O.E. A photographer with his own dark room, Mr. Holschuh