ALAA's Posts - AgeLooksAtAging2024-03-28T18:29:30ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAAhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2211004186?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://agelooksataging.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=2geh0mdt1gk5t&xn_auth=noOMG! My Grandparents R My BFF!tag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-05-12:6324823:BlogPost:18012011-05-12T00:06:43.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<div class="articleHeadlineBox headlineType-newswire">THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</div>
<div class="articleHeadlineBox headlineType-newswire"><small>MAY 9, 2011</small></div>
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<h1>OMG! My Grandparents R My BFF!</h1>
<h2 class="subhead">Forget the Sunday night phone call. Grandparents and grandkids are connecting— and connected—as never before.…</h2>
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<div class="articleHeadlineBox headlineType-newswire">THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</div>
<div class="articleHeadlineBox headlineType-newswire"><small>MAY 9, 2011</small></div>
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<h1>OMG! My Grandparents R My BFF!</h1>
<h2 class="subhead">Forget the Sunday night phone call. Grandparents and grandkids are connecting— and connected—as never before.</h2>
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<h3 class="byline">By <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=MOLLY+BAKER&bylinesearch=true">MOLLY BAKER</a></h3>
<p>On a recent Sunday evening, each of my kids was engaged with some electronic gadget or another. I was about to call for a moratorium on screen time and a return to family time.</p>
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<p>Read the complete <strong><a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/page/retirement-planning-05092011.html">Next: Planning & Living the New Retirement report</a></strong> .</p>
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<p>Unbeknown to me, they were already enjoying family time.</p>
<p>My 9-year-old in our Philadelphia home was playing an online Scrabble game with his grandmother on her iPad two time zones away in Denver.</p>
<p>My 11-year-old was video-chatting with his grandfather in Florida on Skype, a program I didn't even know we had.</p>
<p>And my 14-year-old was checking in with his "friends" on Facebook. And whom does he count among his 300-plus friends? His great-grandmother in Minneapolis.</p>
<p>Certainly, it's nothing new that kids are plugging in and staying connected. But what <em>is</em> new is that it may be a grandparent on the other end of that virtual tin can—and that technology is bridging the vast age and distance gap that has long divided the generations. "A group of us was having dinner, and one woman had to tell her husband to put his iPod Touch away. He was emailing his grandchildren," says Mary Henderer, a Wilmington, Del., grandmother of four.</p>
<p>It's a perfect storm of demographics and technology.</p>
<p>As a group, grandparents and grandchildren have plenty in common. They have free time, disposable income for gadgets and gizmos, and a keen interest in staying in touch with people.</p>
<p>As for technology, smartphones, tablet computers and digital cameras have made sharing fun instead of frustrating. And the affordability and speed of broadband Internet have made possible activities like video-chatting and streaming home movies.</p>
<p>The new era is in stark contrast to what took place in recent decades.</p>
<p>"When the baby boomers went to college and moved away, we lost an entire generation of connection between grandparents and grandchildren. They saw each other once or twice a year, and there was a real disconnect," says Andrew Carle, professor and director of the Program in Senior Housing Administration at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.</p>
<p>"Now with technology, we are regenerating those bonds. People say technology is so impersonal, but we are watching it being used to reconnect one of the most personal and important relationships of the species."</p>
<p>Prof. Carle adds, "I watch my own kids talking to their grandparents 1,000 miles away, and I love it," he says. "They may take it for granted, but I only saw my grandfather once a year. Nothing will replace a hug, but this is as close as it gets."</p>
<h6>Building Blocks</h6>
<p>Granted, on the surface, many of the messages that fly back and forth are as trivial as the messages that kids send to one another. But trivial communication are often the building blocks of many close relationships.</p>
<div style="width: 278px;" class="legacyInset"><div class="insetContent"><h3 class="first">Bridging the Gap</h3>
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<p>Eleven-year-old Emily Hykes of Orange County, Calif., likes to make singing and dancing videos for her grandmother, whom she calls Honey, to watch in St. Paul, Minn. But her favorite way of communicating with her grandmother is using her iPod Touch to text or email.</p>
<p>"Honey, I hear it's below zero there. I'm sitting on the beach. Love, Emily."</p>
<p>"Emily, I'm sitting on the beach in Florida. Back at ya. Honey," her grandmother, Carolyn McKasy, texts back.</p>
<p>Emily's mother, Kristi Hykes, who is caught between the two generations of texters, says her mother and daughter's electronic correspondence largely consists of jokes about the weather and photos of their favorite sushi meals. "It might just be a few sentences back and forth, but at least a couple of times a week they are in touch with each other," says Ms. Hykes. "My kids are much closer to my parents because of technology."</p>
<h6>Virtual Christmas</h6>
<p>The family even used their computer's built-in camera, the Internet and Skype software this past December to celebrate a virtual Christmas with the extended family in Minnesota. The grandparents wanted to give their seven grandchildren a Christmas gift at the same time—a water trampoline at their lake cabin.</p>
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A generation ago, grandparents and grandchildren living apart had Thanksgiving, birthday cards and a Sunday night phone call—after 8 p.m., when long-distance rates went down.<br />
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<p>"There used to be a scarcity of communication, and it was very precious," says Thomas Kamber, founder of O.A.T.S., or Older Adults Technology Services, a nonprofit training and support center in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Nowadays, communication is so ubiquitous it's free. Older people are catching on to that, and they want to be a part of it."</p>
<p>Mary Madden, senior research specialist with the Pew Research Center, says: "The most powerful force convincing them to take the plunge…is their families. Especially when it comes to their grandchildren, they do not want to be left out of the loop."</p>
<p>Tabb Farinholt, 73, who lives in Gloucester, Va., joined Facebook about two years ago when a friend from her book club told her about it. "She said, 'You need to do this because you'll learn so much about your grandchildren.' "</p>
<p>Those were the magic words. She has been enjoying looking at pictures and posts of her six grandchildren ever since. Sure, most of it is inane, and she's even considered stopping. But then she thinks of the photos she might miss seeing.</p>
<p>"It does make you feel closer to them—just to see their picture or a few words by them," she says. "They are certainly not thinking, 'How can I be close to my grandparents?' And I wouldn't expect them to. But Facebook is kind of nice to keep up with them a little bit."</p>
<h6>Leveling Effect</h6>
<p>Over the past few years, Facebook has morphed from a closed site for college students to an online playground where barriers of age, distance, background and technological expertise have been leveled. It has become a rare space where generations can meet on neutral turf to share and interact. Currently, users must be 13 years old to open a Facebook account, resulting in the young and old tiptoeing into the space at the same time.</p>
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<p>Says the Pew center's Ms. Madden: "Seniors who have recently retired, teens and young adults just beginning their lives are all going through very significant changes. And this social networking and communicating can be a very powerful force in helping them move forward."</p>
<p>She also says that grandparents can play a unique role on Facebook. Plenty of kids block or limit the access their parents have, but they give free rein to the extended family—enabling grandparents to perform duties of light surveillance.</p>
<p>Just ask Bart Farinholt of Richmond, Va.</p>
<p>Recently, the 20-year-old sophomore at Denison University posted a Halloween photo of himself gesturing inappropriately (in character) on his Facebook page. Not long after, he received an email from his grandmother: "Obscene gestures on Facebook. Just so sophomoric." And she had underlined every word.</p>
<p>"If my mom told me to change it, I might have argued with her," he says. "But it was different because it was my grandmother. So I changed it. It's actually nice to have her checking on me and giving me advice."</p>
<h6>It's So Easy</h6>
<p>Such frequent and casual communication is actually changing the relationship between these two generations—and so far, all for the better.</p>
<p>With his grandmother as easy to reach as a roommate or teammate, Mr. Farinholt was compelled to ask her to help with a study-abroad application. Yes, even after the Halloween incident.</p>
<p>"He emailed me his essay to read. And of course, it was due the next day," Tabb Farinholt says. "But I didn't say anything because I was so thrilled to be asked. I was a high-school English teacher, but this was the first time any of my grandchildren asked me to edit anything they've written."</p>
<p>Dick Anderson, 77, of Bradenton, Fla., fields requests for help, as well. He emails and Skypes regularly with his four grandchildren in Virginia and Minnesota. Recently, he's been engaged in an online discussion on Facebook with his oldest grandchild about investing.</p>
<p>"He was curious and wanted to learn more. He had lots of financial questions for me," says Mr. Anderson. "Sometimes it's on Facebook. Sometimes it's texting. Either way, I'm here for him."</p>
<h6>Toys for All Ages</h6>
<p>Certainly the teaching goes both ways—especially when it comes to technology. The vast improvements in personal computers and phones over the past few years make the new toys the perfect middle ground for the generations to share their curiosity and expertise.</p>
<p>For the Feiner girls of Ridgewood, N.J., teaching their grandfather, Harold Schwartz, 79, of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, is a family affair.</p>
<p>"We teach him how to do things on his new computer," says 9-year-old Amelia Feiner. "And he gives us a dollar and takes us to the candy store to buy caramels."</p>
<p>For the past few years, the girls' grandparents have taken an annual cruise lasting several months. They see plenty of ports, but they don't see their granddaughters. So during those months it's back to emails. Lots of them.</p>
<p>Last year, when 11-year-old Ella Feiner was in fourth grade, she and her classmates joined her grandparents for a virtual cruise around the world. They posted a laminated map of the world on the wall and marked every stop the cruise ship made.</p>
<p>"Every other day my grandparents would send two emails, one for me and one for my class. They like to tell us about their ports or send quizzes and geography games," says Ella. "If I forgot, my classmates would say, 'Did we get a message?' "</p>
<p>Ella keeps an email folder for missives from her grandparents, appropriately named "Cruise Emails."</p>
<p>"My girls have a whole separate relationship with my parents that just skips right over me," says Ella's mom, Shoshana Feiner. Which is perhaps a key component to the success of such interactions. Email, text and Facebook are done on kid time or grandparent time, and they require no intervention or supervision from the parents in between.</p>
<h6>'Being Friends'</h6>
<p>In her day, Ms. Feiner grew up down the street from her grandmother and saw her several times a week. "But if my grandmother was over, that meant she was baby-sitting. She was in charge," Ms. Feiner says. "Their style of communicating today is much more fun. Communicating from afar is about being friends. There's no discipline involved."</p>
<p>No discipline, and sometimes just a single word.</p>
<p>When Mary Henderer in Delaware broke her wrist snow-blowing this winter, she sent an email updating her family on her swift healing after a doctor's visit. Her two grown sons responded with good wishes and lots of questions. Her 15-year-old grandson replied, "Yay!!"</p>
<p>Says Ms. Henderer: "That was the one that mattered to me."</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703280904576247152267875970.html#printMode">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703280904576247152267875970.html#printMode</a></p>Beach Retreat by Betty Breuertag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-04-15:6324823:BlogPost:15162011-04-15T23:46:28.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<br/>
<blockquote><p>Moving down the street</p>
<p>Walkers and our feet,</p>
<p>Who needs a car</p>
<p>Walking's best by far</p>
<p>Slower and slower we go</p>
<p>Sharing the walk with Joe.</p>
<p>It's such a relief</p>
<p>Resting at the beach.</p>
<p>That's our seat -</p>
<p>A beach retreat.</p>
</blockquote>
<br/>
<blockquote><p>Moving down the street</p>
<p>Walkers and our feet,</p>
<p>Who needs a car</p>
<p>Walking's best by far</p>
<p>Slower and slower we go</p>
<p>Sharing the walk with Joe.</p>
<p>It's such a relief</p>
<p>Resting at the beach.</p>
<p>That's our seat -</p>
<p>A beach retreat.</p>
</blockquote>The Pelicans by Laura Olshertag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-04-15:6324823:BlogPost:17072011-04-15T23:45:45.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I sit in an upholstered chair bequeathed to us residents on the tenth floor of the Ocean House where I live. I watch them. The Pelicans. Their black slim bodies and blacker wide spread wings drift through the iridescent afterglow of the sunset. It back lights them in blue, red-orange, gray-green, yellow, gold. They hover in the twilight sky. They are waiting for something.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p>They fly past my window, their regal wings parting…</p>
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I sit in an upholstered chair bequeathed to us residents on the tenth floor of the Ocean House where I live. I watch them. The Pelicans. Their black slim bodies and blacker wide spread wings drift through the iridescent afterglow of the sunset. It back lights them in blue, red-orange, gray-green, yellow, gold. They hover in the twilight sky. They are waiting for something.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p>They fly past my window, their regal wings parting the pink and gray clouds like a vain young girl parting her unruly hair for the prom. So someone, anyone will notice her.</p>
<p>And get his scrubbed fingernails (scrubbed for the prom) tangled in the scrubbed clean girl’s hair. Waiting and waiting.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p>They are so close I could yank the floppy intrusive blinds up into the ceiling, push the window open, reach out and touch them.. They turn their heads to see me with their beady sightless eyes while they wait.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p>No. I would do more than touch them. I would stroke their poor misshapen legs and heads. The beaks long and skinny, like the young girl’s legs and arms. No luscious grace and sexy round around round shapeliness yet. Maybe next year.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p>Swooping and diving now. Every which way. I count them. There are six, no seven. Where are they going? What are they waiting for?</p>
<p>Flying now in a pattern. Almost like man-made. But when could man ever make anything so perfect. Two absolutely identical graceful wings, coming together in a point…three Pelicans on each wing, one in the point.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p>It looks like the sky is trying to rain. In California? In November? Unlikely. The cloud pictures that surround the Pelicans are suddenly of young boys and girls. They are round, curving legs and arms, bouncy breasts blooming amongst the dark hairy arms and hands of the young nervous boys skipping across the sky. They are eating each other’s mouths. Both are eating each other’s faces. The Pelicans pause to watch. Didn’t they have any supper?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p>They are lined up, looking down. What are they looking for? Suddenly I remember. The full moon was last night. The grunion ran last night. Hundreds of little silver fish. The females first, depositing their eggs in the sand on the highest wave of the highest tide. The males on the next high wave depositing their sperm in the eggs. Then all scrambling madly back into the full moon moonlit sea. All that is, except for the slowpokes. They lie stunned and stranded in the shallow water waiting for another high, high tide. To carry them out to sea. It never comes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Pelicans.</p>
<p>Suddenly the Pelicans dive, in perfect formation, their skinny bodies stretched and taut like a broken fingernail, broken from being chewed too much. Wheeling crazily they scrunch their wings together like discarded cloaks on bent and broken wire coat hangers so they won’t break in half when they hit the water. At that exact moment the Pelicans open their beaks. Then snap, splat, smash, they dive into the grunion filled sea.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A blubbering mass of feathers surrounds the empty spot where each one dove. All is quiet for a moment. Then the Pelicans surface, grunion-stuffed beaks dripping water and half-chewed little fish, shake themselves grandly, and fly lazily off.</p>The Sunset for Florence by Laura Olshertag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-04-15:6324823:BlogPost:17052011-04-15T23:44:58.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
I am living at a recovery hotel. It brushes toenails with the sea.<br></br>
<p> </p>
<p>The sun setting into the sea making ever changing multi-colored cloud shapes appear and disappear is my Higher Power.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is how:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I become a part of the panoramic view each and every night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The diaphanous clouds present themselves as sheep, lambs, lions, small auto cars, all colors, every hue of orange and red, redder, redder, pale blue-green aqua blue, dark blue,…</p>
I am living at a recovery hotel. It brushes toenails with the sea.<br/>
<p> </p>
<p>The sun setting into the sea making ever changing multi-colored cloud shapes appear and disappear is my Higher Power.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is how:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I become a part of the panoramic view each and every night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The diaphanous clouds present themselves as sheep, lambs, lions, small auto cars, all colors, every hue of orange and red, redder, redder, pale blue-green aqua blue, dark blue, darker blue with the orange and red frames for the sheep and lambs and lions and darker blue and darker and darker and darker and darker blue and black and blacker and black. There isn’t a breath of fear or anxiety in my higher power sky.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It envelops me. I know the more I watch the sunset the less of my life I will fear.</p>Untitled by Margery Staugastag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-04-15:6324823:BlogPost:17032011-04-15T23:42:58.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<p>What am I doing here? This is a conversation I had with myself a few months ago. What was I doing here. I have all my faculties. Doesn’t everyone fall down? No one can read my writing including me. I’m computer illiterate but who needs a computer anyway?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>These are thoughtful question that I have been confronted with over the last few months. My two best friends have both died, and I don’t have any close relatives. My husband had seven nieces who are all married with children.…</p>
<p>What am I doing here? This is a conversation I had with myself a few months ago. What was I doing here. I have all my faculties. Doesn’t everyone fall down? No one can read my writing including me. I’m computer illiterate but who needs a computer anyway?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>These are thoughtful question that I have been confronted with over the last few months. My two best friends have both died, and I don’t have any close relatives. My husband had seven nieces who are all married with children. They are sympathetic but busy. I just happened to have married a man with two children.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After my husband died I lived alone in a second floor walk up apartment in a convenient location. My friends (very few) likened it to climbing Mt. McKinley. The location provided a bus line, several restaurants, food stores, banks, movie houses and an easy trip to church. What could be nicer? I decided to plan my own future. With imagination, perseverance, financial possibilities, and the help of my stepdaughter I have solved my questions as to what I’m doing here.</p>On the Wall by Martha S. Wallertag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-04-15:6324823:BlogPost:17012011-04-15T23:23:19.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<p>The first thing I see when I wake up is the Buddha rug – yes, it’s on the wall, where it should be. It has a top and a bottom: below are the unchanging rocks of the past and then the ever-moving waves of the present, with the mysterious clouds of the future above. Along the sides the rug tells its history in traditional Chinese characters, with a two-foot square character, BUDDHA, in the center. The descending legends on either side tell us that it was made in 1847 (the ‘twenty-second year…</p>
<p>The first thing I see when I wake up is the Buddha rug – yes, it’s on the wall, where it should be. It has a top and a bottom: below are the unchanging rocks of the past and then the ever-moving waves of the present, with the mysterious clouds of the future above. Along the sides the rug tells its history in traditional Chinese characters, with a two-foot square character, BUDDHA, in the center. The descending legends on either side tell us that it was made in 1847 (the ‘twenty-second year of the Emperor Tao Kwang of the Great Ch’ing Dynasty’), for a devout-scholar surnamed Wang who presented it to Buddha. What is this artifact doing in a Christian household? It is beautiful, and it would never have survived Mao’s Great Cultural Revolution had it stayed in China. My parents bought the rug in 1918, in Beijing, where my father was teaching at the Union Medical School. They wanted an eight-by-five rug for the home into which they were moving, and this mud-daubed one was the right size; they wouldn’t have gone another dollar-Mex higher at this auction of the just-transferred American newspaperman’s household effects, but theirs was the top bid. Only when they got it home and cleaned it up did they realize the beauty of the floor covering; later they hung it on the wall. With the assistance of Chinese friends, they concluded that it must have been looted from a monastery in the hills west of Beijing during the 1911 Revolution. The rug has been a part of my home since before I can remember, first in Beijing, then in the Gwangdong, then in Amherst, and eventually in Indianapolis. It was one of the few belongings I brought to Santa Monica when I moved west in 2005. Other possessions relate to specific times in my life, but the rug has always been a part of it, a sort of changeless focal point, reminding me of my Asian infancy and tuning me in to things Chinese.
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But I have waked up, and my eyes have moved to the left. The next things they see are two pictures, portraits in oils of a woman and a man, a wife and her husband. She wears her long brown hair in a chignon, and she is holding a gold –bordered white porcelain teacup, reflecting her pearl earrings. She is seated in a high-backed wooden chair, and she is dressed in a blue suit. The next portrait, similarly composed against a similar background, but subtly unlike the other, shows her husband, a handsome, strong-featured man with dark hair and bright blue eyes, seated in a burnt-orange upholstered straight chair. He wears a blue suit, white shirt, and blue and white tie, and though like his wife he looks forward, he is holding a pipe and a red-bound book. He looks like a professor – a professor of American history, and he was one for almost fifty years, after nearly five years of making American history in the U.S. Navy. The pictures show us – Mac and Martha – as we were when we had been married only some seven years in the union that was to last for sixty. The artist? William Curtis Holdsworth, then a student on summer break from Yale art school and later with Portraits Incorporated of New York. Back when we were students, Bill had introduced us to each other at a fraternity dance. The pictures were a splendid belated wedding present. I was pregnant with twins, but the picture does not even suggest the fact. Mac and I have changed profoundly, with our five children and our parallel careers. Both of us were to have white hair well before he died.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Moving on to the left, my eyes turn past the wall-wide window, and then they reach the other side of the glass they come to a picture of a different sort, a twelve-by-fifteen-inch framed photograph of the first page of a medieval manuscript. There are the handsome orthography, the rubrication, the brightly colored and golden illumination, and the noble coat of arms. The work opens with the words: “Este libro que es dicho….” Yes, it is written in a Spanish that is almost unchanged by the six centuries that have passed since a scribe took quill and oak-gall ink to vellum. And why should this be on my wall? I have it thanks to the expert paleographer-librarian-curator of a private collection in Madrid who understood when I explained that, in addition to the complete microfilm of the manuscript, I longed for a reproduction in color of the first page. She realized that I needed the steady inspiration which that only splendid page could provide. This is a book that I believe Geoffrey Chaucer must have read in its entirety. I have spent most of my spare time in the last thirty-five years writing the book that will demonstrate the basis of my conclusions. Yes, it too is a part of my life, bridging the time from before our retirement through my widowhood to my move into a single room in a senior residence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My eyes move around another corner to the smallest frame of all, a mere eight-by-eleven-and-a-half inches. What can be so small but so meaningful to me as to go with the rug, the two portraits, and the folio page? A group picture of the family? No, too small. A piece of Victorian needlework perhaps? No. Oh, a diploma, of course. It’s the right size, and there have been so many, Mac’s and mine, from high school, from college, and for post-graduate degrees. Or is it a picture of the destroyer on which Mac served as supply officer from its commissioning in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1943 through V-J Day in Tokyo Bay? Again, no. Actually it is a document that reads: “Military Intelligence Division – War Department – acknowledges with appreciation the loyalty and devotion to duty of Martha S. Waller….” There must be a story about that! Of course there is. But I am still under oath to tell nothing about it. It represents a sort of remote psychological island, just as distinct as, say, marriage in wartime, stay-at-home motherhood, becoming a professor like my husband and my parents, or realizing the deferred dream of literary research.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So I have gone from a toddler to elder senior citizen, under the aegis of Buddha (though I’m a Presbyterian), with a fine young adulthood graced by a happy marriage and children of whom we have every reason to be joyfully proud, followed by a seasoned maturity flowering in the quiet satisfaction of fulfillment and a sense of continuing involvement in our writing. All that, plus the feeling that, besides being incredibly lucky – or blessed beyond measure – we indeed were and will always be members of what Studs Terkel called the greatest generation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Martha S. Waller</p>
<p>November 19, 2009</p>
<p>[There is inconsistency in the Romanization of Chinese, jumping from the obsolete Wade form to Ren Min; I apologize.]</p>
<blockquote>
<br />
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</blockquote>A Different Slant on Aging by Martha S. Wallertag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-04-15:6324823:BlogPost:13132011-04-15T23:21:04.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<p>A friend had read my note on what makes a woman know she’s old. My offspring had read it and responded with interest and sympathy; how would a valued and wise contemporary react? “But you’re NOT OLD! Your body may feel old, but that’s not you – what do you think you really are?” What indeed am I? What is anyone? Are we mind? Soul? Spirit? Whatever William Butler Yeats had in mind when he wrote “…And fastened to a dying animal…”? The animal may be dying, but…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She gave me a…</p>
<p>A friend had read my note on what makes a woman know she’s old. My offspring had read it and responded with interest and sympathy; how would a valued and wise contemporary react? “But you’re NOT OLD! Your body may feel old, but that’s not you – what do you think you really are?” What indeed am I? What is anyone? Are we mind? Soul? Spirit? Whatever William Butler Yeats had in mind when he wrote “…And fastened to a dying animal…”? The animal may be dying, but…
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She gave me a different slant on aging.</p>When Does a Woman Know That She is Old? by Martha S. Wallertag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-04-15:6324823:BlogPost:14202011-04-15T23:20:21.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<p>“You’re married, Mrs. Waller?” My interlocutor was Professor Ellsworth of the English Department at Indiana University. He was taking his turn at the duty of assigning graduate students to seminars. Stifling the temptation to tell him that his question was redundant—how could I be Mrs. Waller without having been married? -- I replied, “Why, yes.” After all, I was feeling out of my depth among the long-haired and under-clothed students at Bloomington in the late sixties. “Any children?”…</p>
<p>“You’re married, Mrs. Waller?” My interlocutor was Professor Ellsworth of the English Department at Indiana University. He was taking his turn at the duty of assigning graduate students to seminars. Stifling the temptation to tell him that his question was redundant—how could I be Mrs. Waller without having been married? -- I replied, “Why, yes.” After all, I was feeling out of my depth among the long-haired and under-clothed students at Bloomington in the late sixties. “Any children?” “Yes.” “How many?” “Five.” “Oh, dear!” Universities were being besieged by students in those days when the teacher shortage was expected to continue and when student status carried exemption from the draft. Then a pleasant thought occurred to him: “Well, it’s just one seminar, and you can always drop out if it’s too much for you.” He scrawled his initials on my card. I had decided not to jeopardize myself any further by telling him that I was also teaching full-time at a small denominational school, Indiana Central College, and that I had regularly taught nearly twice as many semester hours as he was teaching--for the past seven years.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then Indiana Central granted me a sabbatical year, at the customary half pay, to pursue a doctoral degree. I was to have a curious resume: B.A., 1941, M.A., 1942, Ph.D., 1973. So here I was the next fall a full-time student again, older than all but one of my professors. I was the object, on the rare occasions that my fellow students noticed me, of mixed reactions. With the Viet Nam war raging, a few seemed to wonder why that old biddy was taking up a seminar seat that could be put to better use by a young man anxious to avoid military service. (Sometimes I wondered, too.) Other students apparently approved of me for doing my own thing. Feminists evidently sympathized, especially as they grasped my situation. When my fellow students decided I was for real, I became one of them, despite my lack of faded blue jeans or a beard, despite my weird-ness as a woman who had been living with the same guy for twenty-seven years, and was in fact married to him all that time. I was different, yes, but not really old. In the classroom or the library, I was a student, and the others eventually accepted me as such.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When should a woman recognize herself as old? If it wasn’t going back to school, perhaps it ought to be retiring from full-time work—or celebrating a Golden Wedding—or moving out of the big house into a cozy condo—or surrendering one’s driver’s license for a senior ID. Through all of these, I felt simply myself--less spry perhaps, a bit slower, but not really old.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But in 2008 came the watershed, though I was slow to recognize it, camouflaged among the boulders, the outcroppiongs, and the overgrowth of eighty-eight years. I was still simply myself, just moving along, living alone now, taken to market by a daughter, but doing my own housework, getting myself to the doctor and walking to the dentist, picked up by a friend for church, and doing bits of volunteer work. Those five kids about whom the professor had worried were all established in their careers; they probably were worrying about me, but—I bless them for it--they weren’t fussing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In June came a delightful interlude. Son Dick flew down from Anchorage and took me aboard a cruise ship sailing from its winter routes in the Caribbean to Alaskan waters for the summer. We had a heavenly time, more hours together than we’d had in many years. I’d never been before to the charming city of Vancouver, where we disembarked and Ann, his wife, joined us. We ate out, laughed together in the wax museum, and hiked for miles on end in Stanley Park. Then they put me on a plane for L.A. and flew home.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So far so good—I was still myself, used to how my mind and my body would respond to what went on around me and inside me. Then it began to happen. First, as far as I can recall, I was standing by my bed, putting on a sweater. Then colors--my green sweater, the blue bedspread, the curtains—faded to gray and the room began to feel unsteady, with the floor tilting. I felt myself falling—fortunately backward onto the bed. In a moment I was okay again. For a few days, that is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the middle of October, things became really muddled. There were the special days: the twins’ birthday, the date on which I lost Mac (after sixty years)—our wedding anniversary the next day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This time I wasn’t in my room—it was a steep walk with concrete steps I suddenly couldn’t descend (just the way three days before I’d freaked out at the down escalator in the bookstore and fled to the elevator). But this time I suddenly saw my mouth, as if in a mirror, with bloody gums and broken teeth. Then, seconds later, as daughter Marguerite came to my rescue, all was normal again. The next day I was sitting at my dining table using my sharpest kitchen knife to fix the green beans I’d got at the farmers’ market for the supper at which I expected daughter Susan. Suddenly I had cut myself horribly—slicing half-inch deep into my left fore-finger, oozing blood along the edge of the cut. Then everything became vague; the next thing I can remember is seeing Susan and Marg bending over me. I suppose I must have been lying down. Hours had passed. My hand showed no sign of injury. The girls—they are thoroughly adult women--told me I had been talking what sounded like language and was evidently coherent to me but utterly incomprehensible to them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Susan had been earlier exploring the internet on my behalf seeking information on melodies that refuse to stop repeating themselves in a person’s brain. Though there was no connection with music, my recent episodes struck her as symptomatic of TIA—transient ischemic attacks, tiny breaks in blood vessels smaller than a hairsbreadth in diameter, in the brain, healing quickly without causing permanent damage, but warning of the danger of strokes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There followed seemingly endless visits to the emergency room. After fuzzy gray passages of time, there came hospitalization, with endless tests with unpronounceable clumps of letters for names, EKG, EEG, MRI, and more. I lost track of the doctors as well as of the technicians and nurses.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At last the doctors reached agreement. One of them was speaking to me, though I can’t recall whether it was in the room that I shared with two other women, an office of some sort, or a conference room. I can hardly place myself in the hospital, yet I knew I hadn’t left the place. This man whom I had never seen before, as far as I could recall, was speaking to me. He was wearing a white coat, so he must have been a doctor. I don’t remember his name, though at the time I made an effort to call him by it. He must have told me that he was the assistant of my internist. Try as hard as I like, I can’t reconstruct the scene. All I can recall is the diagnosis: TIA.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There followed a week (it seemed endless, and I scarcely slept) in convalescent care, I thought frantically and disconnectedly about things--eggs, milk, fruit--spoiling in the refrigerator, bills piling up, unanswered mail. I needn’t have worried, I suppose; Susan and Marg looked out for the condo, and lawyer daughter Elizabeth, who lived farther away, attended faithfully to my affairs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Next I found myself in a senior residence with a practical nurse who lived in my room and oversaw my every act, hovering over me like a helicopter. I was miserable, but I realized that those five wonderful kids of mine would be worried all the time unless I lived in a place where I would be safe. The place I was in I detested, all except for the two women with whom I was able to eat breakfast. Lunch and dinner were regimented, as was almost everything else, and the food was at best mediocre. There was one redeeming feature: economy. But I said: “Please, not here.” The girls plus son Don, who flew a couple of thousand miles to reassure himself and me, took me on a tour of the sheltered care places in the area, and we settled on the one place I really liked and where my children need not worry about me. I don’t worry, either. I feel all right about myself. And I recognize that, since October of 2008, I am indeed old.</p>Life at Ocean House by Patricia Kinttag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-04-15:6324823:BlogPost:15142011-04-15T23:16:49.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<p>My first meal at Ocean House, I was assigned to a table with two interesting ladies; one, Mabel, age 100, was bright and cheerful and seemed to have all her marbles. The other was a colorful lady named Jessie, age mid-80s, also bright and cheerful and “with it.” We three conversed easily and soon knew each other’s families and early experiences.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mabel had certain stories she told often, which were usually factual. One, however, did not appear to Jessie and me as such, and we…</p>
<p>My first meal at Ocean House, I was assigned to a table with two interesting ladies; one, Mabel, age 100, was bright and cheerful and seemed to have all her marbles. The other was a colorful lady named Jessie, age mid-80s, also bright and cheerful and “with it.” We three conversed easily and soon knew each other’s families and early experiences.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mabel had certain stories she told often, which were usually factual. One, however, did not appear to Jessie and me as such, and we figured Mable had a dream she though was real. Mabel said she didn’t like the door to her balcony left unlocked, as it made an easy way for “the man” to get in her room. When questioned, she said he (the intruder) was the husband of one of the caregivers, who told him where he could find Mabel’s valuables when he broke into her room in the middle of the night. (Mable lived on the 7th floor of our 10-story building.) She kept this narrative up for 3 or 4 weeks before abandoning it, even as far as reporting it to the front desk. Eventually, this sweet lady left Ocean House and moved into more of a convalescent home about a mile away. My daughter and I visited Mabel there and found she was well cared for and happy, so we felt better about losing her.</p>
<p>One day Jessie wasn’t in the dining room for her meals. I asked at the desk what had happened to her and was told they couldn’t destroy a resident’s privacy by telling us. Eventually, a few of the caregivers said that her son had come by and moved her out in the middle of the night. So that’s all we learned; and so, I lost a friend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>New residents have joined me at “my” table since, one for breakfast only, and the other for all three meals. Mary is the breakfast ally, and Jean is the all-day one. Both are extremely intelligent and help me miss Mabel and Jessie less.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are a wide variety of residents here at Ocean House, most of whom are bright and cooperative; with just a few what I’d call “stinkers.” So each of us can find people with whom we’re congenial and want to do things with – whether it’s playing cards, or the Ocean House version of Jeopardy, or bingo, or a trip out to lunch, or to see a special performance, or a tour of an interesting place – we can each find something we’d like to do and people with whom to do it, including sharing a meal.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Names have been changed by P.K. to protect the privacy of residents.)</p>
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</blockquote>The Man in the Weelchair by Patricia Kinttag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-04-15:6324823:BlogPost:15122011-04-15T23:15:25.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<p>He sits in his wheelchair, eyes closed, not sleeping, just escaping. Who knows what he sees? Is he dreaming of the beautiful trout he caught that year in Yellowstone? Or is he remembering his grandson’s first steps? Or is it one of his own children he sees – now grown – but in his memory forever a child? “Don’t run from me, child. Let me look at you. Let me savor the youth, the strength you have, that I may capture some of it for myself.” His eyes open briefly – light up when he sees me –…</p>
<p>He sits in his wheelchair, eyes closed, not sleeping, just escaping. Who knows what he sees? Is he dreaming of the beautiful trout he caught that year in Yellowstone? Or is he remembering his grandson’s first steps? Or is it one of his own children he sees – now grown – but in his memory forever a child? “Don’t run from me, child. Let me look at you. Let me savor the youth, the strength you have, that I may capture some of it for myself.” His eyes open briefly – light up when he sees me – “You’re here. I’m so glad to see you. Shall we go now?” When I explain we’re not going anywhere, he fades back into his trance. He awakens again. Says, “We sang this morning. And I remembered most of the words.” He fades away and then, clear as a bell, asks, “Have you heard from any of the kids? Seems to me Tom is due for a visit today and he and Kathy are going skiing.” And we continue a rational dialog until, abruptly, he asks, “Do you know where I can get my bike fixed? The gears seem to slip when I ride it downhill.” I make appropriate noises and maintain the fiction of a conversation until his dinner is served. He perks up and digs in with gusto. After saying goodnight, I leave. He doesn’t need me now. It will be the same tomorrow – flashes of sanity and the underlying confusion.</p>Tribute to Florence Horne (1918 – 2011)tag:agelooksataging.ning.com,2011-03-27:6324823:BlogPost:9122011-03-27T23:01:57.000ZALAAhttp://agelooksataging.ning.com/profile/ALAA
<p><span class="font-size-5" style="font-family: book antiqua,palatino;"><strong>"Before it's all over...you know what? I'm still here"</strong></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2234840067?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2234840067?profile=original" width="178"></img></a></p>
<p>Florence Horne spoke those words at a meeting of the board of directors on February 3, 2011, and died of a heart attack sometime after midnight the following morning. She had become the face of Age Looks…</p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua,palatino;" class="font-size-5"><strong>"Before it's all over...you know what? I'm still here"</strong></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2234840067?profile=original"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2234840067?profile=original" width="178"/></a></p>
<p>Florence Horne spoke those words at a meeting of the board of directors on February 3, 2011, and died of a heart attack sometime after midnight the following morning. She had become the face of Age Looks at Aging because she came to represent everything this project is about. She was one of the original participants in it, and quickly assumed, if sometimes reluctantly, a leadership role. When the board of directors was formed, she was on it, and the rest of us quickly got that she was the elder of the tribe - because, in the deepest sense of that distinction, that’s who she was. </p>
<p><br/>While I personally still experience a profound sense of loss, I've chosen to see the impact Age Looks at Aging, and all of us who have been involved in it, had on the last couple years of her life. When I first met Florence she was frail, frightened, fragile and confused. She used a cane to support herself, and was afraid to leave the confines of The Gardens of Santa Monica. Crossing Ocean Blvd. was too dangerous for her, and, I believe, her whole world had become uncertain and dangerous. She has shared that the camera got her back into the world. The cane, which was an artistic device she employed in many of her early photos, was set aside as an implement to support herself. She ventured out of the doors and crossed Ocean Blvd. She got back into college. Beyond that, she became the face of ALAA, an articulate spokesperson for who we are, and the proof that our elders need to speak, and we need to listen. </p>
<p><br/>After her last board meeting concluded, I talked to her alone, and she told me that she was very concerned about the bewilderment and fear people experience when they come to assisted living communities. She wanted to offer support to them - something she always did at The Gardens for newcomers. I told her that she might consider blogging on that subject on our website because it would generate a conversation in the world that was important for everyone to participate in. I also told her that I thought this was a really important thing for ALAA to take on, and asked her if she would sketch out some notes on how she saw the program being implemented. She agreed, and the board of directors is now committed to implementing this program as a legacy to Florence. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>From the time I began the pilot project of ALAA, Florence continually expressed concern for "those who don't have a voice" - the people who experience real challenges in their lives that have them be incapable of expressing themselves fully. That has always been the Florence I have known - concerned about others - wanting to make a difference for people.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Because of ALAA, Florence got to be fully expressed and powerful. She saw herself much differently than when I first met her, and was seen and heard as an almost new person by her family, which meant so much to her. She also understood how important she was to us, and thrived on being with us and being such an important part of what we are doing in the world. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>And what would we have been without her? She was our guide, our conscience, and our beacon. She articulated what we are about better than any of us could.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We have lost Florence, the person, but we haven't lost what she taught us, and who she made us. There will always be a seat on the Board for her. She has departed from our physical presence, but her wit, intelligence, conscience and wisdom are still with us, asking the right questions, and guiding us with her gentle, powerful spirit.</p>
<p><br/>Brian Braff<br/>Founding Director – Age Looks at Aging</p>