{"id":10830,"date":"2018-04-19T14:59:26","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T20:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=10830"},"modified":"2018-04-19T14:59:26","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T20:59:26","slug":"remote-recline-ninety-six-bisbee-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2018\/04\/19\/remote-recline-ninety-six-bisbee-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote & Recline: Ninety-Six Bisbee Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ninety-six-year-old Joel Bisbee is the oldest and longest resident of Harding Place. The World War II veteran has lived there for 16 years and said he knows almost every resident. He still drives his own car, has scored at least eight 300-point Wii Bowling games since moving in and, according to a member of the staff on his hall, cheats at cards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When his wife Sybil Bisbee got sick in the early 2000s, Bisbee retired from his job at the post office in Searcy to stay at home and take care of her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne day I was cutting wood for our fireplace, and I knicked my knee with that saw. It made a gash, but if I was moving full speed, it probably would\u2019ve cut my leg off,\u201d Bisbee said. \u201cMy daughters got together and decided I didn\u2019t need to be cutting wood. We were going out to eat and they said \u2018Let\u2019s go to this Harding Place.\u2019 I knew what was up when they brought me out here. I didn\u2019t want to move out here, but it\u2019s the best thing I ever did.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Joel and Sybil Bisbee moved into Harding Place in 2002 and were going on 65 years of marriage when she died in 2011.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my wife died, I decided, \u2018Man, this is the best place for me.\u2019 They cook and clean and make your bed on Tuesdays. I don\u2019t have to do anything but read the papers and watch TV,\u201d Bisbee said. \u201cI get a lot of R&R \u2014 remote and recline.\u201d<\/p>\n

He met Sybil while she was working at a power plant in Jacksonville, Arkansas, making ammunition during World War II and rooming with his niece. They corresponded via mail until the end of the war.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They spent 60 days of his leave together before he was stationed in San Diego, California, and it was then that he decided he was ready to get married.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe was 21, and I was 24. She was a Christian, and I was nothing but a hillbilly I guess,\u201d Joel Bisbee said. \u201cShe didn\u2019t know anything about married life and I didn\u2019t either. She put up with me, and I\u2019m sure glad she did. You\u2019re not supposed to be unequally yoked with somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years he would drop her off at church and pick her back up afterward, only visiting occasionally. He said he thought he was unfit for Christianity because he smoked and enjoyed a beer every once in a while.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Washington D.C., they lived in an apartment complex with other Church of Christ families, and he began to attend services with his wife and said he enjoyed gospel meetings with their preacher. However, it took one more positive influence for him to convert. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter became a Christian before I did and that made me think,\u201d Joel Bisbee said. \u201cSomething just came over me, and I was baptized. I stopped the smoking and drinking and everything else and became a Christian and have been one ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through his time in the Navy, they moved around California, Florida, Hawaii, and Washington D.C., but after 24 years with the military, Joel Bisbee retired. He moved his family to Searcy,\u00a0 <\/span>worked for the post office and became a deacon at Downtown Church of Christ, where he still attends.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was an Arkansas guy at heart,\u201d Joel Bisbee said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Joel Bisbee, an avid Razorbacks fan, grew up west of Little Rock and, while he dropped out of school in the 8th grade to work with his dad as a logger, he encourages young people, like his daughters who both attended Harding, to pursue their education.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHang in there and get a good education. I never had one,\u201d Joel Bisbee said. \u201cWhen I joined the Navy I didn\u2019t know anything hardly. I finally got a GED, but that was after the war was over. I didn\u2019t realize what a bad mistake it was to not get an education. That\u2019s why I wanted my girls to get one.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for his age, he considers it nothing but a number.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel any different than when I was 20. A lot of people don\u2019t believe I\u2019m 96,\u201d Joel Bisbee said. \u201cI just grew up and never realized I was getting old.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ninety-six-year-old Joel Bisbee is the oldest and longest resident of Harding Place. The World War II veteran has lived there for 16 years and said he knows almost every resident.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15095,"featured_media":10831,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15095"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}