50 Plus: Florida pair comes home to Forest

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John Papit, who turned 81 in July, attended the University of Virginia through 1950 before a stint in the NFL and subsequent return to school to study banking. Barbara Papit, 79, grew up in Martinsville.

The couple moved to Florida in the 1970’s, where they lived for over 30 years as John Papit served as president of a bank and eventually retired.

“It’s a great place,” he said of Florida. “Ten months of real nice weather, cutting the grass ten months a year.”

Barbara Papit said she was convinced her husband would want to stay in Florida for the rest of his life.

She was pleasantly surprised, then, when he came to her and suggested a move back to their old stomping grounds.

“After sixteen years of praying, I was so homesick for Virginia, but I didn’t want him to know it, because he liked Florida so much,” she said.

John Papit said he wouldn’t have minded staying in Florida, where he had been active in civic affairs, and even voted “Mr. Seminole,” an award given to civic contributors in Seminole, in 1985.

“I was chairman of chamber of commerce. I was treasurer of the Boy Scouts for the central region. I was president of the Rotary Club,” he said. “So I was very active.”

But he said he felt it was time to move back, given the majority of their family was closer to Virginia than to Florida.

And despite his affections for Florida, Papit said he’s discovered Lynchburg has particular benefits to it.

“It’s just a nice place to live. Just friendly and (people) willing to do things,” he said.

The Papits have scaled back their level of activity since the move, and John Papit said he mostly enjoys gardening outside the couple’s home off New London Road.

Papit said he’s also grateful that the Lynchburg area isn’t so fast-paced as to exclude fellowship with his neighbors.

“In big cities, you could live half your life without knowing your next-door neighbor,” he said.

Plus, he said, Florida wasn’t all oranges, palm trees and easy driving.

“There are too many tourists in the wintertime,” he said. “You can’t go to a restaurant, you can’t go to a ballgame because it’s so crowded,”

The Papits chose their location in Forest because one of their sons lives only a subdivision over.

“We enjoy seeing each other, and my son from Lexington comes up here from time to time,” John Papit said.

His wife said, despite their good fortune finding their house, she just wanted to get back home however possible.

“I told him to go and find us a place, and he said ‘I believe you’d be happy if I found a tent,’” she said.

Despite their laid-back lifestyle, between gardening, visiting family in-state, in West Virginia and in Florida, Barbara Papit said she’s surprised at how busy retired life is.

“I think you find yourself more busy when you’re retired than you are when you’re working. You wonder how you worked with so much going on.”

Barbara Papit said she hardly knew her way around the area, given her long absence.

“I lost my way several times when I came back to Lynchburg, because of the change in the highways and the roads and one-way streets and the buildings,” she said.

The couple is happy to be back in Virginia, and for Barbara Papit, disregarding family, convenience and activities, Virginia has a few other draws that Florida doesn’t.

“Virginia has everything. It has the beach and the mountains and the four seasons.”

“I guess that’s what I miss most of all is seeing the leaves change, and the spring of the year,” she said, adding “but we had some nice winters down there.”