He is 95 now. He calculates that by moving into 2000, he will have a better shot at hitting 100 years of age. At least that's his theory.

This resident of Trillium Park doesn't foresee great things happening in the new millennium, except for the belief that as time goes on change becomes inevitable, sometimes for the good and often not so good.

He has more definite ideas about the 20th century which he describes as a "great time to live:

"The advances they've made in medicine and in saving peoples' lives is the greatest thing that's happened in this century," he notes, adding that other inventions such as television, the computer and motion pictures were important in making life better.

"But I don't see how we could make advances in the next 50 years as we have in the past 50 years," he says. "But things are bound to get better and they will until the end of time, and I don't know when that will come," he shrugged.

Once a sharecropper in the Center Ridge area, Hendricks literally pulled himself up by his bootstraps, selling and buying farm properties and, as a consequence, improving his financial state as the years progressed.

But, he allowed, it was a difficult journey, fighting his way through the Depression that was particularly hard on farmers. He managed to eke out a living as he plugged along until he was able to climb out of his financial morass.

For this widower -- his wife of 69 years died in 1993 -- Hendricks is proud of the accomplishments of members of his family that produced two doctors, teachers, nurses and paramedics.

He managed his last farm outside Conway so his children could have the opportunity to study at State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas.)

His advice for his peers, and anybody else for that matter" "Keep active, keep stirring if you want to live a long life in this century or any other."

The one outstanding negative that will distinguish the 20th century is the removal of prayer in public schools, he said. "People who are responsible for that never read the Bible," he asserted. "And if we don't do something to improve morality it won't make any difference what happens in the future."

He closed on a philosophic, note as his lunch was placed in front of him: "Don't forget, we learn every day as long as we live."