Mature Matters

Green Thumb Therapy: An Ancient Tradition

By Sarah Lemnah

As you drive up to Starr Farm Nursing Center in Burlington you will notice a buzz of activity. Residents are hard at work tending to their garden filled with blooming flowers and fresh vegetables. Donna Covais, a Registered Horticultural Therapist, says plans are also in the works for a Farmer’s Market and designing floral bouquets for residents celebrating birthdays.

It is not a new concept to use plants and nature to help promote well being. Egyptian physicians use to prescribe nature walks for emotionally distressed patients in the Middle Ages. However, for years Western medicine was more focused on prescriptions, medical procedures and physical therapy to combat the medical conditions that come with aging. Now it is becoming more mainstream to look at holistic approaches.

Covais is the only Registered Horticultural Therapist in Vermont. She is heading up a pilot project at Starr Farm using horticulture as a way to help residents complement their care. Covais looks at ways to “use plants to promote physical, social and educational changes in people.”  She has formed small study groups to measure the impact this therapy has on the quality of residents’ lives.

For many residents in a facility there is depression, loneliness and boredom. There is a longing for their old life and gardening may be one of the things that made up that former life. “Flowers and vegetables are the universal language. We want to show that you can live in a nursing facility with a lot of hope,” Covais says.
A series of standing beds makes gardening possible for all. Easy for those in wheelchairs and for those with good mobility, it prevents the backbreaking work of kneeling and bending over to weed. Residents plant, tend and will harvest their work. This sense of purpose is a key to enhancing quality of life.  “People in nursing facilities don’t feel needed anymore — in a facility people are always being helped, “ Covais says.  Horticultural Therapy is designed to enhance feelings of purpose, and Covais is the perfect person to help— she is a master gardener, and is blind. Thus, residents help Covais by finding her tools, telling her what color the flowers are and being her eyes in the sea of colors that defines this young garden. Residents are also needed to tend the garden and help nurture and watch things grow.

Covais knows that this program helps lessen depression, improves motor skills, enhances the quality of life and brings hope and beauty to people’s lives. “Feel the texture of lavender, smell the basil,” she says. For those who used to garden Covais knows this brings a “piece of their life back.”

Third Fridays Feature ‘Supper at Five’

By Sarah Lemnah

The Heineberg Senior and Community Center is a very special place.

Filled with warm people, great food and lots of fun activities, it has been the hub of the north end in Burlington since the 1940s when the community center was built. Each person has their own unique story and many of the people dining there today are second generation — following in the footsteps of their parents.

This is truly a grassroots organization where volunteers serve the food, run programs and provide companionship. For many, having lunch at the Heineberg is a tradition and a valued part of their daily routine.

Heineberg and Champlain Valley Agency on Aging (CVAA) work hard to provide nutritious and affordable meals to seniors. For a suggested donation of $3, visitors to the center enjoy chicken & biscuits, baked ham, lasagna and much more.

In addition to regular programs like line dancing, T’ai Chi, Wii, sitting yoga, and bingo, Heineberg developed the “Supper at Five” program. Executive Director Gail Moreau points out that people are “social creatures, we like to get together and have a meal together.” So since last November, seniors have been filling the Heineberg on the third Friday of the month to enjoy this special community supper.

Each month, the Elks Lodge on North Avenue caters the supper for 70 seniors, with a suggested donation of $5 per person. According to regular John Bryant, when he heard the Elks were doing the supper, “we knew the meal would be great.”

Heineberg Senior Center volunteer Rita Bissonette was the one who came up with the idea of having the Elks cater a supper and the idea took off to the point that there is now a waiting list. For Janet Petterson, one unique thing about Supper at Five is that people can bring a bottle of wine to enjoy with their dinner. Supper, unlike lunch, is not a buffet, and is served on “glass dishes and tablecloths, and it brings in people who don’t come to the noon meal,” according to Peterson.

At Supper at Five you’ll see individuals, groups of friends and even some couples on a rare date night enjoying cordon bleu and baked scrod.

As Jeannette Leo remarked, “for the price, I don’t think I could go wrong. The Elks make a great dinner.”
Chuck Smith jokes that he comes for the meal “because I am hungry,” but admits he really comes to “meet other people.”

Making new friends and enjoying each other’s company is a huge draw at the Heineberg. Arlene Woods knows that it is “a great place to come for friends, to laugh and visit and that Gail encourages us to be rowdy.”

Moreau freely admits that she does encourage misbehavior. “If not now, then when?” she laughs.
But there is a serious side to the proceedings. For many seniors, the weekends can be long and lonely, Moreau says. “We don’t serve lunch on Fridays, so sometimes the weekends are long for people. A Friday night social event can combat weekend loneliness.”

If a family is the heart of a home, then the people who attend the Heineberg Senior and Community Center are the heart of the North End Community.

“The best part of my job is the stories. I get to be part of 250 lives,” Moreau says.

For more information about Supper at Five or the upcoming June Barbecue Luau with the George Voland Jazz Band, call 863-3982 or visit www.heinebergcenter.com.

What You Do in Your Sleep Matters

By Sarah Lemnah

Finding yourself a little tired lately, waking up with a headache, or has your partner complained about your snoring yet again? Millions of Americans face this situation every day and most shrug it off.

But a recent study may make some people think twice before they ignore possible fatal symptoms.

Sleep apnea – in which you stop breathing for at least 10 seconds while asleep – affects 12 million Americans and most cases are undiagnosed. Some people may stop breathing as frequently as a hundred times in an hour and often for a minute or longer.

Health professionals have long known that there were serious consequences associated with untreated sleep apnea, such as high blood pressure, weight gain, headaches, memory loss, depression, reflux, nocturia (a need to use the bathroom frequently at night), and impotence. Untreated sleep apnea can increase the risk of falling asleep during the day, and can affect job performance and increase the likelihood of a motor vehicle accident.

A recent study by the National Institutes of Health shows that obstructive sleep apnea is also associated with an increased risk of stroke in older adults, especially men. Men with moderate to severe sleep apnea were nearly three times more likely to have a stroke than men without sleep apnea, or those with mild cases. Women with severe sleep apnea also had an increased stroke risk, but not as dramatic an increase as men.
Loud snoring with periods of silence and gasping for air during sleep is a common symptom of sleep apnea. The brain wakes the person to remind them to start breathing. Though anyone can suffer from sleep apnea, there are risk factors that greatly increase your odds including age, excess weight, a large neck, a recessed chin, being a man, family history, smoking and alcohol use.

So, how do you know if you suffer from sleep apnea? Are you a loud, habitual snorer? Do you feel tired and groggy when you wake up? Are you often sleepy during the day? Are you overweight or do you have a large neck? Do you choke, gasp or hold your breath during sleep? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the American Sleep Apnea Association (www.sleepapnea.org) recommends you see your doctor to discuss it.
Sleep studies that monitor brain waves, and that measure eye and chin movement, heart rate and rhythms, oxygen levels and carbon dioxide levels can help determine if you suffer from sleep apnea. Depending on the severity of the problems, there are many treatments to help lessen or eliminate your symptoms.

Simple solutions that work for some include not sleeping on your back, avoiding alcohol and depressants such as painkillers, sedatives and muscle relaxants, and losing weight. For those suffering from severe sleep apnea, many find relief sleeping with a CPAP (Continued Positive Airway Pressure)device that blows pressurized air at a rate high enough to keep the throat open for easier breathing.

If you think you or someone you know might suffer from sleep apnea, do not ignore it. Make sure your dreams are sweet and your sleep is un-interrupted.

How to Have ‘the Talk’

By Sarah Lemnah

You worry about it for weeks, obsess on it, avoid it, try to get out of it but then you have to just do it, you have to have “the” talk. What is “the” talk? The talk could be talking to your teenager about sex or drugs, the talk could be to your boss about why you deserve a raise, and yes the talk could be to your aging parents about whether they can safely live alone at home or whether their driving days are over. Difficult conversations are easy to put off but can have deadly consequences.

Talking to your parents is always tricky whether you are 13, 30, or 50.

The history of the relationship is the parents are in the ones in charge. But what happens when Dad starts having a series of fender benders and Mom forgets to turn off the burner and is starting small fires in the kitchen?

There is never a perfect time to have “the” talk, and avoiding it only compounds the problem. Conversations about whether your parents can remain in their own home are emotional and present many possible landmines. The goal is to get yourself and your parents on the same page so there is a plan in place to make sure your parents are both well cared for and also as independent as they can safely be. And children may have very different thoughts about their parents’ ability to live on their own.

Gerhild Bjornson, a mediator for the Champlain Valley Agency on Aging, sees families every day struggling with issues regarding living arrangements, financial decisions and issues of independence. Her job is to listen and help untangle these emotional conversations so people really hear each other and find common ground.
People are proud and independent and it is difficult for many to ask for help or to be comfortable needing outsiders to come to their home to provide services, Bjornson says.

Whether you are a professional mediator like Bjornson or a concerned family member, the key to moving forward and resolving issues involves lots of listening. Listen to how your parents and your siblings see the situation. What steps can be taken to make the situation provide a better quality of life? You don’t have to solve all of the problems at once. Is Dad ok driving during the day in his neighborhood but agrees to stay off the highways and avoid night driving due to his eyesight? Does Mom decide to start getting meals delivered to avoid the dangers of cooking? It is important that the adult children of aging parents ask their parents how they see the situation. For example, ask your Dad if he thinks he drives as well as he did 10 years ago. He might admit he is not as alert as he once was and doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

Bjornson knows that like anything else this is a process. The first conversation will not be the last – it opens the door and puts the problem front and center. Then people need time to mull it over and really think about it. Bjornson is also very conscious of the fact that some people are quieter than others and may not feel as comfortable voicing their opinions. Bjornson knows her job is to “make sure quieter voices are heard, even if that means meeting with the quieter person alone.”

Don’t dread opening the door to difficult conversations. Conversations that need to happen are a way of protecting loved ones and opening the door to an even closer connection. If families use understanding, active listening, and respect they will find a path to assist their loved ones to be as independent as is safely possible without denying them the right to make decisions about their lives. It is not about getting your parents to do what you think is best. It is about everyone being honest about concerns and how to address them in a way parents will be comfortable with. Everyone does not have to agree on everything.

Dark Days of Winter

By Sarah Lemnah

It is that time of year when it seems like the sun is never going to come back. The days are long, dark and bitter cold and summer seems like a lifetime ago. It is January in Vermont.

For one in 10 of us, it means we have no energy, want to hibernate in our homes or better yet our beds. We have seasonal affective disorder (SAD). People who suffer from this seasonal depression due to the lack of sun and an interruption in their sleep patterns are sad indeed.

For some people with SAD, each winter puts them in a tailspin, unable to perform their necessary tasks and to even contemplate suicide. But for most of us who suffer from SAD, is like a bad case of jet lag that starts in September, hits its peak in January, and goes away in the late spring. SAD makes you feel like your batteries are run down, that what used to be fun holds no interest, that sleep trumps everything, and you are moody and crave carbs. The binging on pasta, bread, potatoes and sweets brings on weight gain, which makes you feel worse. Sex drive dwindles and there is never enough sleep to make you feel rested. Concentrating is almost impossible and irritability is a guarantee.

If you can’t afford the time or money to spend part of your winter in a warmer climate, then it is time to take action. Depression of any type can be serious and even those with a mild case of SAD find their quality of life diminished and their relationships impacted.

Don’t let the winter blues turn you into a hibernating bear. Ask for help and take action.

Some simple changes can help combat the symptoms of SAD. Eating a diet high in protein and low in carbs, engaging in regular physical activity, and getting out in the sun (no matter how short its appearance may be) can all help people suffering from SAD start the process of re-charging their batteries. Moderate activity for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, along with vigorous activity for 1 ¼ hours a week can help you combat this depression. Moderate activity may be a brisk walk while vigorous activity could be jogging or cross country skiing.

For people more severely impacted by SAD there is counseling, light therapy, and anti-depressants. There are two types of light therapy. One type is bright light treatment where people sit in front of a light box (full spectrum light) for a half hour or longer every day or they use a dawn simulator where a dim light goes on in the morning while you sleep and gets brighter over time to simulate sunrise.

The theory is that seasonal affective disorder is a biochemical imbalance in the hypothalamus due to the shortening daylight hours and lack of sunshine in the winter. As seasons change, there is a shift in your internal clock due to changes in sunlight patterns. The body thinks that when there is no sun that it is night and time to sleep. Vermont and its northern neighbors are hit hard with people suffering from SAD. Snowbirds spending their winters in Florida and other warm locations are much less likely to experience seasonal affective disorder.

If you are feeling sad and tired and just want to spend the day in bed every day, then it is time for you to take the covers off and face it head on. SAD is difficult to live with, but can be treated.

Careful Eye on Your Meds Around Teens During the Holidays

By Sarah Lemnah

The holidays are here and it is the time of year when busy families make extra time for those they love.

During the year, many seniors become isolated as their families scurry about with their busy schedules, but as the Christmas trees go up and the Hanukkah candles are lit families come together.

During the holidays, parents and grandparents should keep a closer eye on their children – making sure they don’t take a sip of wine or sneak into the liquor cabinet. However, the growing danger with teens does not live in the liquor cabinet. It is neatly tucked away in medicine cabinets in prescription bottles from the family doctor. Kids are finding a cheap high can be found in their family’s supply of prescription medications. Many baby boomers and seniors are on prescription drugs ranging from painkillers to heart medication to anti-depressants. These drugs in the hands of a teenager looking to get high can be a fatal.

“There is a pill for every problem today, a pill will cure all,” according to Detective Sergeant Mark Francis of the Vermont State Police. Between 1992 and 2002, the U.S. population grew 13 percent, but the number of prescriptions filled for controlled drugs (those with abuse risks such as morphine) increased by 154 percent. As you look forward to your family returning home for the holidays or pack an overnight bag for a visit to out of state family, it is important to be aware that the medications you are taking can be dangerous to your children and grandchildren – precautions need to be taken.

According to the partnership for a Drug-Free America, nearly 1 in 5 teens report abusing prescription medications to get high. Over 40 percent of teens think that abusing prescription medications is safe or safer than illegal drugs. “Pharming” parties are becoming more prevalent – teens go through their medicine cabinets and bring handfuls of prescription drugs to the parties that are then dumped into a large bowl from which partygoers randomly select pills to take for the purpose of getting high.

According to Sgt. Francis, in 2004 misuse of pharmaceuticals was the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths. In recent years, drug-related poisoning deaths have increased 68 percent. According to the Vermont Department of Health, over 20 percent of 11th and 12th graders have used prescription drugs without prescriptions.

Painkillers (OxyContin, Hydrocodone, Vicodin, Percocet), stimulants like Ritalin, muscle relaxants, and cough medicine are just some of the hidden dangers in your home. According to Sgt. Francis, 56 percent of people abusing painkillers get their drugs from friends and families, often without their knowledge.

The latest thing, according to Sgt. Francis, is “Roboing,” in which teens are taking an excessive amount of cough medicine containing DXM. Abuse of DXM can cause an out-of-body experience, distortions in color and sound, nausea, vomiting, panic attacks, seizures, psychosis, coma and possible death. Also beware that many children are abusing inhalants, sniffing cleaning supplies, art supplies and solvents to get a high. Inhalant abuse can cause permanent damage to the nerves, lungs, liver and brain. Death can result from one single session of inhalant abuse by a healthy individual.

So make sure this holiday season is a safe one. Keep your medications in their original containers, keep medications out of sight, count your pills frequently so you will know if any are missing, and clean out your medicine cabinet often. If medications have expired or are no longer needed, dispose of them.

Prescription medications are serious and they are designed to help people live better lives, but when mis-used to get quick highs, these medications can be lethal.

How to Avoid Caregiver Burnout

By Sarah Lemnah

Caregiving is a rewarding role but it is easy to lose sight of yourself and push yourself to the point of no return. As the ranks of seniors swell, so do the stressed out family members who have a reached a state of burn-out that is hard to recover from.

According to Rachel Lee Cummings, owner of Armistead Caregiver Services, by the time most families reach out for her services, they “are in crisis.”

Many family caregivers are the spouses or adult children of seniors in need. People are juggling caregiving with families, jobs and a multitude of other responsibilities. Often, caregiving becomes a 24/7 job with little rest, and falls on one member of a family.

Caregivers are so focused on the care receiver that they often neglect their own health and well being. Separating their roles as a caregiver or as a spouse or child can be difficult. Many caregivers place unreasonable demands on themselves and become frustrated that their hard work and dedication is not changing the decline in their loved one. The lack of sleep and constant worry and stress can lead caregivers down a dark road.

Caregiver burnout is serious; you cannot provide care for someone without taking care of yourself. As Cummings notes, “it is like what they say on the airplane – place the oxygen mask on you before helping others.”

Families and friends should be aware of the signs of burnout, which include withdrawal from loved ones, loss of interest in activities, feeling hopeless, changes in appetite, changes in sleep, getting sick more often, irritability, emotional and physical exhaustion and feelings of wanting to hurt themselves or those that they are caring for.

Many caregivers feel guilty if they spend time on themselves rather than on their loved one but they need to do just that or they will be of no use to the care receiver.

Caregivers need to ask for help. Ask family members to share caregiving responsibilities, or have them help pay for professional caregivers to give some respite. Caregivers should make sure they eat well, exercise, get plenty of sleep and make sure they do something that they love. Even a few minutes a day of meditation and quiet can help caregivers re-fuel to face another day. It is not a question of right or wrong, but finding a path that will allow both the caregiver and their loved one to have the best quality of life possible, in which good moments are treasured and the bad ones are dealt with.

It is ok to have negative feelings, to be angry. Find people in your life that you can talk to – family and friends or a professional counselor. It is ok to ask for help. It is understandable if the responsibility becomes too much for the caregiver to handle alone. Look into adult day programs and tap into your community for support and help. Support groups are available to caregivers. For more information on caregiver support groups or for assistance , call the Senior HelpLine at 1-800-642-5119.

Well Seasoned

Youthful Exuberance

By K. K. Wilder

When I was young, I sincerely felt sorry for older people, especially those over 30. Thinking everything fun in life was all over by that age, I wondered—to myself and aloud—what such old people found enjoyable about living.

Eventually, I reached 30 and, much to my surprise, was still enjoying myself. Now, I thought being 60 years old was truly sad. For sure, everything worthwhile was behind a person by that age. I couldn’t even imagine living to be that old.

Now I’m 60 . . . and then some. And there’s not a day goes by that I don’t find joy in living. Perhaps it takes less to bring a smile to my face or lightheartedness to my spirit. I don’t know. But, for sure, I know one thing I enjoy now more than ever: youthful exuberance.

I’ve several debilitating conditions, one I was born with and a few I grew into. Consequently, I have caregivers most days but Sunday. Any caregiver I’ve had is young enough to be a daughter or even a granddaughter. And what amazing traits I find in each of them!

One facet of growing older can be the fact that Americans are fixated on youth. Because of that, we are often admired more by our peers if we’re young looking, still very fit, or able to leap tall buildings. There’s an 86-year-old gardener in my community garden who still skis, hikes, and amazes others his own age with his abilities and constant exuberance.

And that’s wonderful; I’m one of his biggest fans. But the point I’m making here is that not all of us can look 50 when we’re 75, or have the strength of a 40-year-old when we’re 84. It took me a long time to feel okay with that. And one of the biggest helps in achieving that comfort was seeing myself through my caregivers’ eyes. They don’t look for me to be peers; they appreciate me as an older person.

One says she likes me because I’m easy to talk to and I care about people. I can say the same for her. Another, in her 20s, says I’m like the grandmother she lost years ago, so that brings her fond memories. I like her because she’s going through the same kind of growing pains I went through when I was her age. Still another says she wishes I’d been her mother. What a terrific thing to say. I wish I’d been her mom, too.

What a great support I receive from my youthful caregivers. Of course, they like it, too, if they see something in me that seems much younger than my age. One of them thinks I don’t look 60-plus and that’s all fine. But I am definitely willing to look my age. I feel sorry for people, especially women, who Botox™ and plastic surgery themselves in a desperate attempt to look young. As some women say, I earned every gray hair and the older I get, the wiser I become. I agree. But that’s another column.

Back to my young people. It’s like a breath of fresh air to experience the sight of their new tats (tattoos), see their latest technology (iphones, iPods), clothing fads (little ballet-type slippers with individual toes for running), and hear the funny and innovative terms they use for what could be drab language. Bad, or sick, means very good, for example. I never laugh at my young workers; I only enjoy the ways they like to set themselves apart.

Young men in my city ride their bicycles naked at least once a year. If it’s cold, they wear shoes, socks, and gloves. That’s it. One of the ways I might not yet quite be an “old fogie” is that I find it outrageously funny when they ride by. It doesn’t shock me; it only reminds me of the crazy things I did when I was their age. And I thank goodness that they still have that spirit to their souls!

Can I say I’m lucky I need caregivers? Well, maybe sometimes I miss the total independence of my earlier days. But we all have to find ways to bring joy to our lives. I consider myself blessed with having the youthful exuberance of my caregivers around me and often enjoy moments vicariously through them.

K.K. Wilder lives in a Senior Citizen high rise in Vermont. Reach her through this magazine or online at KKWilde@aol.com.

Dealing with Regrets

by K.K. Wilder

If you’re old enough to read this magazine, you’re old enough to have regrets about something, maybe even multiple somethings, in your life.

When I was young, I declared to my friends, “I have no regrets.” Don’t you just love the bold statements we make before we know better? Whether it was selective memory or downright denial, I didn’t recall the errors I’d made. Now, however, it has come back to me that I wasn’t faultless. I’m happy to say that somewhere along the way, I did learn to say—and sincerely mean—“I’m sorry.” That has saved many a friendship and helped not only others forgive me, but helped me forgive myself.

And that’s the point of this column: Sometimes the difference between growing older gently and turning into a crank lies in facing up to our shortcomings, and also learning to forgive ourselves and others.

Somewhere in Maine is a woman who, as a little girl, was marching as a majorette in a parade when she started feeling ill. She marched more and more slowly until I brought up the next group of baton-twirling youngsters in the group following her. I was nine years old and thought the fate of the country depended on our groups being orderly and an appropriate distance apart. Besides, my co-leader, Linda Eaton, and I were doing jumping splits, so, when the girl in the group ahead of us became so slow that she was falling back into our line, I poked her in the back with my baton. Hard. She cried out but I don’t remember feeling a bit sorry for her; after all, she was breaking the cadence. But today, many decades later, I still remember the look on her face as she turned around after the jab. She looked as if someone had absolutely betrayed her…and I had. Priorities are probably different when you’re nine years old, but if I didn’t know it was a wrong thing to do at the time, how come I still remember it?

Then there are things we regret without actually having had the power to change them at the time. This kind of regret is a misplaced guilt. We can be sorry some circumstances were beyond our control or ability, yet guilt trip ourselves mercilessly in our older years, a complete waste of time. As I always say, “What is, is.” That’s not to talk as Popeye the Sailor Man, who said, defiantly, “I yam what I yam.” It’s just to realize we’ve made mistakes and they’ve already been made. If we can rectify them, we need to do that. If we can’t, well, we can’t. We need to learn to acknowledge it, live with it, and let it go.

There’s a type of guilt I’ve seen play itself over and over in friends who have lost loved ones, especially to death. They might have treated the person with loving kindness the entire time they knew them, yet, once that person dies, they keep berating themselves for some little slight they made toward that person or argument they had or an imperfection they harped on when the person was alive. What a waste of time! How much better to come to terms with what has been and go forth from there, being mindful of trying not repeat those mistakes with someone else, and just doing the best we can.

One of the most powerful programs to come along in the last century was the AA program with its twelve steps. The steps aren’t just used for alcoholics or other addicts, they are used in everyday life to deal with ourselves as human beings. One of those steps is number nine: “Made direct amends to people we had harmed wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” You can see that it’s direct in letting us know it’s not always possible to make direct amends and sometimes it isn’t even helpful to others. But I’ve come to see that it’s always possible within ourselves and to use the step as a change agent in the way we treat others.

Does this thinking mean I’ve reached perfection? Heavens, no! I still have to make apologies, still kick myself when I fall short — far short — of my goals. I’m still a bona fide human being and expect to be until I depart this plane. But by facing up to our shortcomings and learning to forgive ourselves and others, I believe we can be content with our lives and concentrate more on the great things that come to us every day.

Theologian Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1882-1971) wrote what is known worldwide, especially in all the Twelve Step groups as “The Serenity Poem:”

God, grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

K.K. Wilder can be reached through this magazine or at KKWilder@aol.com).

Nature’s Bounties

By K.K. Wilder

When some of us, those referred to as “foodies,” remember flavors from our past, our taste buds tickle and salivate as keenly as Proust’s when he thought of “…squat, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which looked as though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell.” He said nothing seemed wrong in his world when he recalled those cookies. Some of my food memories happened many decades ago and I expect never to experience them again in my lifetime.

In the ‘70s, when my husband and I lived on the Maine coast, we took advantage of the myriad of foods nature provided—and the provisions were exquisite. There were thick blueberries covering either side of the path to our well, currants hanging profusely behind the barn, apples from the old heirloom Tollman Sweet tree long ago abandoned that my husband pruned back into bearing enough fruit for us, the raccoons, and visiting city friends. We traded my homemade bread, pickles, jellies and jams with the most famous local lobsterman along our part of the Blue Hill Peninsula: Seth Hodgkins. Seth had those blue eyes and deep cheek crinkles you see in pictures of elderly Maine lobstermen. Whenever we took him a batch of my goodies, he’d light up and give us all his culled lobsters of the day. Who cared if they had a claw missing: They were fresh from the sea and we steamed them and froze them for heavenly winter stews. And in the summer, when our Boston and New Haven friends arrived to wash their hair in our rainwater filled wash tubs, eat never-ending kettles of steamed clams, and veggies from our 90’ x 55’ mulched garden, they knew they’d also get at least one meal of lobster stew made with our neighbor’s fresh, raw milk, my homemade rolls and butter, the ripe cucumber pickles I had put away, and blueberry pie.

Is it any wonder that whatever I’m given to eat nowadays just can’t hold a candle to those hippie meals of the ‘70s?

And I’m not alone: I saw an old man recently, walking back and forth in front of the soups at a local store. He looked frustrated and kept picking up one can of soup after another. I asked if I could help him. He said, “I can’t find the lobster stew.” I pointed out a small can of stew, but he said, “No, no, that won’t do. I mean the kind with top milk and whole claws.” He wasn’t going to find it; ever. It was a meal he wouldn’t have again.
Part of the time my husband and I lived in Maine, he was a caretaker of a “summer place” owned by wealthy Massachusetts people — a 26-room stone house so elegant the locals called it “the castle.” The road to the house went through a 30-acre peninsula into the Atlantic. The owners gave us a nine-room Cape Cod to live in. It caught the sunrise on our east side and the sunset on the west. An apple orchard graced the sloping hill to our salt water garden. More often than not, we’d dig clams along the abundant flats and laugh when our dog let zingers out after cleaning up the necks for us.

A few times each summer, however, we’d go to the huge pier outside the castle and jig for young mackerel and pollack. The fish ran together so thick that we need only tie something shiny—anything that glistened in the water—to a long line and count to ten. Our lines would tug a few times and there would be a perfect fish on every jig. Within an hour, we’d have enough for a wonderful meal. On the way back from the dock, we’d dig two huge handfuls of new potatoes, and while he was cleaning the fish, I’d wash the potatoes. In no time at all, we’d have steamed fish over the little potatoes and be sitting back congratulating ourselves on having devoured a meal we knew we couldn’t find at any restaurant.

Mature people all have their favorite memories. Many of mine are food items, gifts from nature. I know you must have some, too. What are they?

KK Wilder lives and writes in Burlington. Reach her at KKWilder@aol.com

Tears

by K.K. Wilder

You’ve lived long enough to read this magazine, so you already know that what draws laughter from one person may shock another. While one might sit there trying to puzzle out the meaning of a joke, another could be chuckling. “That’s NOT funny,” I’ve heard people say when various comedians appear on stage. Make a joke of something many people would call definitely too serious to kid about, and others catch the gallows humor right away and laugh.

Take the time my doctor asked if I had a Living Will. I said I didn’t, but I’d make one. She told me that would be a good idea and to be sure to give her a copy. Since I’d just been diagnosed with heart trouble, I immediately thought she was trying to tell me, albeit gently, that I was on my way out with a one-way ticket. No, I didn’t think it was funny. And I kept the news to myself at first.

But then I began to think of various wakes I’d attended and how many funny stories people told of the departed. I decided I’d really miss hearing my friends speak at my memorial — there would be great stories. So I had an idea. I’d throw a K.K. Wilder Pre-memorial Potluck. I invited my closest friends, those I figured would want to say the most. Strangely, it came out to 12 people and I wasn’t even trying to imitate anyone else’s last supper—it just happened that way. We’d have such a grand time.

It didn’t go as I’d planned.

Yes, everyone I invited showed up. But instead of raising heck and telling humorous stories about me, they were mostly subdued. Instead of lots of various conversations going on at once, some stood around and, in fact, remained in the same place all evening, very quiet. Just one fellow did something silly, as I’d hoped all would do. I laughed appreciatively and genuinely, but most of the others reacted with tepid barely seen smiles.
It’s been 20 years since that gathering, which I now refer to as “The First Annual Pre-Memorial Potluck.” I’m still around, so I guess the joke was on me (sigh of relief).

The time I was most embarrassed by my dark sense of humor, however, was actually my mother’s fault. Her second husband, Bob, had just died. It was a hot summer day, we were both grieving, and so decided to go to a nearby lake for a swim to try to work some of it out. We were ready to leave when she said, “Poor Bob,” and began to cry. “Did I tell you that I called a funeral home to come to the hospital for his body and forgot I’d already told you to do the same thing? Well, two funeral directors from different mortuaries showed up at the same time to claim the body. Poor Bob. He never had so much attention when he was alive!”

Then she started laughing. I immediately burst out laughing, too. We were both sobbing and giggling all at once when there was a knock on the door. We tried to control ourselves, but were still howling when Mom opened the door. It was the next door neighbors. Both had a look of horror on their faces. After a few seconds, one mumbled, “Er, we just wanted to come by and give our condolences.”

Mother said, “Oh, thank you, thank you very much,” but I’m sure they could hear us laughing even harder when we closed the door. We always avoided those neighbors from that time on.

They say sometimes people laugh when they really want to cry. But truth is, some people do both at once.

K.K. Wilder can be reached at KKWilder@aol.com.

Auld Lang Syne

by K.K. Wilder

Many of us, especially Americans, think of the song “Auld Lang Syne” as something sung only at midnight on New Year’s Eve to toast our current friends. Few of us realize that the poet Robert Burns, who referred to it as an “old song of the olden times,” took down the beginning words from an elderly fellow Scottish man. The ballad, printed in 1711 by James Watson, shows considerable similarity in the first verse and the chorus to Burns’ later poem and it is a fair supposition to attribute the rest of the poem to Burns himself.

Many of us also mistake the actual meaning of the song. It wasn’t originally meant to celebrate our friends in the room at New Year’s Eve parties. Rather, it was meant to ask the literal question: Should we forget our old friends? It’s generally taken we would indeed forget the old friends, and never bring them to mind…except on New Year’s Eve.

Old friends might slip our minds, but I don’t believe they ever slip our hearts.

Some unknown poet wrote “A simple friend thinks the friendship over when you have an argument. A real friend knows that it’s not a friendship until after you’ve had a fight.”

I always say some genuine disagreement between friends is unavoidable if both people are being genuine with each other. And it’s when such disagreements happen and the friendship gets tested that we find out what we really want most: to be the “right” one or to respect and love each other enough to truly want to work out our differences and build the friendship on an even deeper level.
I knew a woman once who treated her new friendships like a grammar school crush. She would rave in total appreciation of someone she met who seemed like the perfect person. But, oh, let that new friend make a mistake—act human, if you will—and that was the end of the friendship right then and there. She would never trust them again, she would see all the flaws she hadn’t noticed before, and she’d simply cross them off her list. The only so-called friends she ever had were sycophants, servile people who thought of her in a more powerful position than themselves and flattered her to keep themselves in her good graces. Such relationships never lasted. Inequalities don’t foster true friendships.

People who truly love their friends don’t forget them. They might not be in touch or talk very often, but when they do it’s as if no time has passed and they start right up where they left off.

Over twenty years ago, when I was first diagnosed with heart problems, my physician asked me if I had a Living Will. I was aghast at the question and thought for sure it meant she was trying to inform me in a gentle way that my time was very limited. I wanted to be brave. And I wanted my closest friends to know how important they were to me. I also didn’t want to miss any of the fun they’d have at my memorial party which, I was convinced, would be coming up soon. I gave the whole matter a great deal of thought in the few weeks following my doctor’s question. Then I decided what I’d do.

I’d have the K.K. Wilder First Annual Pre-Memorial Pot Luck. I slipped the “First Annual” in there because I wanted to make light of it; I certainly didn’t expect a “Second Annual.” I started thinking about my closest pals. One lived on the Rhode Island border in Massachusetts; others lived in various parts of my own city and state. Each laughed when I spoke to them on the phone with my invitation. As it turned out, I invited 12 people and no, it wasn’t a knock-off of the Last Supper; it was just a coincidence.

When we recently entered the new year, I began to think of that party and the fun it was for me to gather with them, hear their jokes, and celebrate some of the weirdness in my personality—and theirs. Not all the 12 friends are with me today. Some got disillusioned with me; others have taken strong turns in their lives that our friendship didn’t adjust to. Some, I’m happy to say, are as loving and tender toward me as they were way back then.

So, in answer to that ancient question: Should we forget our old friends? I say let our hearts remember every good moment we had with them. New Year’s blessings on our new friends…and on our old ones, too.

K.K. Wilder can be reached through this magazine or at KKWilder@aol.com

Christmas Past

By K.K. Wilder

Once upon a time, many decades ago, no Christmas toys, wrap, ribbons, or decorations appeared in stores until after Thanksgiving. Lights were strung on town commons around December 1st and Santa arrived on Main Street about the same time. Yet, amazingly enough, all the people who celebrated that holiday seemed to have a great time.

Kids were able to dream of the goodies Santa would bring, but they didn’t have any particular brand names in mind. If a boy wanted sneakers to wear in basketball games, they didn’t have to be a nationally advertised brand to be acceptable. If a girl wanted a doll, it need not be a Barbie™ or Brat™. It could even be a homemade rag doll and a little girl’s eyes would still light up on Christmas morning.

That’s not to say all of us marched in a goose step with all our peers. Not even when it came to accepted customs. I, unlike my little playmates who gleefully climbed into the lap of our largest department store’s Santa, stood to the side, terrified of the jolly fat man with the long white beard. If he had tried to get me on his lap, I would have kicked him and run away screaming. (I was the same way with nuns, who in those days wore long black robes and faces framed in stiff, penguin veils – but that’s another story).

My brother and I did, however, leave something for Santa on Christmas Eve. No, not cookies and milk. Our Santa didn’t care for cookies and milk. He much preferred sherry and crackers topped with extra sharp cheddar. Two glasses of sherry, actually, and a good size plate of the nibbles. Evidently, that was to carry him through his dancing after putting our gifts around the tree. And ironically, he liked dancing to the same song my parents did: The Blue Tango.

So we left Santa the sherry, cheese, and crackers and made sure The Blue Tango was on the record-player. He must have been pleased because early in the morning we’d find exciting gifts he’d left. We were allowed to play with the unwrapped items and use anything Santa had left in our stockings: comic books, candy canes, paper dolls, and the oh-so-scrumptious orange left in the very tiptoe of the stocking.

Good salespeople know that anticipation is half the joy in getting something new. Once our parents got out of bed, which always seemed to take forever, we still couldn’t open the rest of our presents. We all sat down to an outrageously hearty breakfast: eggs scrambled with cheese, Polish sausage, homemade muffins with Mom’s plum butter, freshly squeezed orange juice, and milk. By the time we finished, we were groaning and I, quite frankly, was a little sick. I mean, fried Polish sausage in the morning?!

That didn’t slow us down, though. There were piles of gifts to be opened. We weren’t allowed to open them all at once. Instead, one of us would pass out the gifts, one at a time, to each member of the family. Everyone was to watch as each person opened a gift. It sometimes took us until noon for this part of the day! And I—always Miss Frugal—insisted wrapping be folded and saved, along with bows. So I always volunteered for the job of collecting everything to be stored for next year. It never occurred to me to wonder why we never seemed able to find those ribbons and wrap the following Christmas.

Christmas dinner usually meant more groaning. A table covered with roast beef, potato casserole, creamed onions, celery stuffed with cream cheese and olives, homemade pickles, and rolls came much too soon after the fried Polish sausage, but we all managed to make a dent in the huge offerings. With no room for dessert, we kids were now allowed—finally!—to go outside and try out our new toboggan, sled, skies, ice skates, or whatever piece of terrific winter gear Santa had left us. Shortly after dark, we’d come back inside, shed our wet clothing, and settle down to homemade pie for our supper.

As a youngster, it never occurred to me that not everyone had holidays overflowing with gifts and tables ladened with fancy food. Now, when I look back at Christmas Past, I realize we might not have lived in the fanciest house in town, but we were rich beyond measure. I hope that somewhere this season, there’s a sherry-drinking Santa who loves to do the tango after leaving off gifts for every child.

K.K. Wilder makes her home in Vermont. Reach her through this publication or at KKWilder@aol.com.

Thanks Be

by K.K. Wilder

Poet Max Coots wrote a wonderful poem that had to do with all his friends, comparing each of them to one of the vegetables we might have before us at the Thanksgiving table: “For funny friends, who are silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions….” For years, I sent his poem to my friends in November. As humorous and clever as were Coots’ words, it was definitely a poem of giving thanks.
When I was young there was a popular song sung by Bing Crosby called “Count Your Blessings.”

The lyrics started “When I’m worried, and I can’t sleep/I count my blessings instead of sheep/and I fall asleep/counting my blessings.” I don’t tend to do that. Instead, I look over my slate of good stuff early in the day. First, I’m grateful for waking up, though it’s not as early as it used to be. Then, I read the thought for the day in William Cleary’s latest book, We Side with the Morning, non-denominational prayers that are filled with gratitude and hope. Next, I affirm that I will experience at least one thing that day to make me glad I’m alive.

Setting the tone for the day is very important if I want to gather blessings. Start off right, I figure, and the rest will follow. It might be a smile from a neighbor, the joy of seeing an infant or toddler discovering the world, playing with an animal who is thrilled  just to chase a ball or leap in the air for a cat dancer. These sound like small blessings. This isn’t to say something won’t happen that turns out to be a big, huge treat on any particular day. I remember one gray day in November when I was on my fifth day in the hospital after an illness and hoping I’d be going home that day. Just then, in walked my doc, saying, “We’re kicking you out after breakfast.” I was almost in tears, I was so glad. But I had no time to cry. In came my breakfast tray, carried by a beloved friend who had driven to see me from two states away! Talk about a wonderful surprise.

So what’s the point? Simply this: We never know what the day will bring. My husband used to say, “There’s nothing as unpredictable as the next sixty seconds.” He never gave up hope, and he was right.

Someone was talking to me the other day about the Biltmore Mansion she had visited in Asheville, North Carolina, America’s largest home. I thought about my own home, an apartment in a senior building in Vermont. So many times when I’ve watched the news, I’ve seen people who live in housing that has been bombed by enemies or destroyed by Mother Nature gone wild. When I look around my apartment I realize that to people who are packed 20 in a hut, my place would seem like a mansion. Everything is relative.

We get forms now and then to fill out in our senior housing. Many times two of the same questions are asked: Do you feel safe in your home, and Do you have enough food? Each time I answer “yes,” I feel so fortunate to be able to do so. I can only imagine what it’s like to be aging in a war-torn area or in housing that keeps flooding or collapsing in mudslides. As Jon Gailmor sings, “How can I keep from singing?” If we’re busy being grateful, we don’t have time to complain and whine.

Something that I want particularly to share with you, my readers: I have immense gratitude whenever I think of you. I love receiving your notes and e-mails. Most of the time, you share your own thoughts with me about something that was jogged in your memory when you finish reading one of my columns. Other times, you take me to task because you disagree with something I wrote. Either way, I always learn from you and delight in hearing from those of you I know and others I’ll probably never meet.

I hope you have multitudes of blessings to count during this season of gratitude. May you find many reasons to say “Thanks be.”

K.K. Wilder makes her home in Vermont. Reach her through this magazine or at KKWilder@aol.com.

Backward Glance

Autos I Have Known

By Roger Farley

“Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.
- E. B. White -

You’ve noticed by now that this publication’s logo has changed from Vermont Maturity to “VM.” Since my mind works in very strange ways, I look at the big VM on the cover and see Vim & vigor, (yes my strange mind sees an “i” in the middle of VM.) Vim & vigor is what us old timers should have and which could conceivably come from drinking some V8 juice. When I see V8 in that weird mind’s eye of mine, I think of another V8, the super Ford flathead engine of my old stock car days, way back in the fifties of last century.

However, I have had speaking acquaintances with many automobiles before I started to juice them up for racing purposes. Going way back is the 1924 Model T which keeps my younger brother busy maintaining it. Probably next is the 1936 Ford my dad kept running through and beyond WWII and in which I learned to drive. I could whip that little bucket around street lamps and trees with no sweat although a couple of days before my driving test my dad purchased an upside down bathtub that the advertising people called a Nash. (No, before the Rambler.) Its low profile scraped on a high curb while turning around in a narrow street (part of the test) and caused me to fail my first attempt at reckless driving. I mastered the tub and its faucets though and got my license a few weeks later.

A high school buddy of mine and I decided that, after working summer vacation after graduation, we’d go to Florida. I don’t remember why. To do that, we purchased a 1939 Chevy, tore out the back seat, which we filled with sleeping bags, food, a Bernz-O-Matic stove, a pup tent and a few blankets. We may have brought books, but as recent grads, we thought it was time to wean ourselves from those tomes.  Pop music of the day included, “On the Boardwalk at Atlantic City,” “On Top of Old Smoky” and such. We took that route, stopping to walk the Boardwalk and actually driving to the top of Old Smoky — even after blowing a fan blade in rural North Carolina — and where we had an altercation with an army corporal, a bear and some “livermush.” But, that’s another story.

When the old Chevy refused to go further on the streets of Columbus, Georgia, we sold it quickly for a few bucks and bought some food for our rapidly dwindling bodies. We got work at a carnival and then at a company that traveled us throughout the south and then up to the coal regions of Pennsylvania.

Breaking an ankle by jumping out of a burning building in Philly brought me home after a brief stay in the horse-pistol and eventually to a 1939 Plymouth that I called “Sam.”

After that it was a 1940 Ford convertible with a leaky roof and then to a succession of Chevys and Fords when I went to work for a company that kept me employed for 33 years, they kept me supplied with new vehicles for that third of a century. Wow, just think of it, no insurance, no operating expenses, no maintenance, but just another succession of Fords, Chevys and their big brothers, Mercurys and Buicks. I finally retired, kept a company vehicle, drove it for a while, crunched it and now have driven a Buick Century, bought at the turn of the century, that has taken me from coast to coast, surviving my big foot and giving me roughly thirty miles a gallon for most of that time.

It’s been a long while since I ported and relieved a Ford V8, shaved a flywheel or torqued down both heads on some super thin gaskets for just a little higher compression. Unfortunately, those powerful engines twisted an axle or two off on the tight turns of a third mile dirt track.

But in the racing world—them’s the breaks.

Roger Farley lives in South Burlington.

More Poetry—More Music

by Roger Farley

“The divinest music has not been conceived, even by Bach.”
— Lincoln Steffens

I’ve been severely castigated for leaving out more appropriate examples of “Poetry in Music” in last month’s article.

But, it would be impossible to even list the hundreds – if not thousands – of combination melodic and lyrical examples that were composed or written in the early to mid decades of the last century. The “war years” alone (WWII variety) brought titles such as “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To,” “We’ll Meet Again,” and “Coming in On a Wing and a Prayer.” Those were serious songs, written with hope and fear in the heart of the composer.

But, at the same time, there were novelty airs and light, but still remember-able songs.  The late, much beloved Perry Como was grand at recording these. Remember “Hot Diggety, Dog Diggety?” Some teens learned the alphabet with Buddy Kay and Fred Wise’s, “A, you’re adorable, B, you’re so beautiful, C, you’re a cutie full of charms…,” also vocalized by Perry.

Most music was composed and/or written with not only the teen community in mind, but slanted also toward adults who, back in those days, controlled most of the music-purchasing money. Seems today the teeny boppers have more loot to burn than their three-job parents.

Those boppers back a half century or so ago were busy not only learning the alphabet with song, but were absorbing the proper sequence of months of the year with an amazing set of words in a song that used a unique way of rhyming. I’ll quote those words.

“In the middle of May, I met a girl named June. Took her out in July, ‘neath an August moon. All through Sept, I was kept admiring her charms and all through Oct, we were locked in each other’s arms. From November to Jan, the runaround began, February to March, I was a worried man. It wasn’t ‘til April that she said OK and we were married—in the middle of May.”  This melody was put together by Fred E. Ahlert with lyrics by Al Stillman. Gene Krupa’s band had a big hit with that one.

Unrequited love was a popular theme. “You won’t be satisfied until you break my heart, you won’t be satisfied until the teardrops start. I try to shower you with love and kisses, but all I get from you is naggin’ and braggin’, my poor heart is draggin’.”

“Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative,” was an “up” song. Most tunes were. That one had words like, “To illustrate, my last remark, Jonah in the whale, Noah in the Ark.”

There was a tremendous variety of music, back in the dark ages before the twangy, atonal guitar was invented. Some tunes were downright ridiculous, but fun. All you have to do is hear the name Spike Jones to remember the butchering of any popular melody. But, there were also Homer and Jethro and Allan Sherman to do the same.

Novelty bits were always somewhere around, such as “Cement mixer, putti, putti” or “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and little lambsidivey.”

If you were country oriented, there were scores of, “lost my wife, my house and my dog” songs, wailed by many a cowboy with a classic guitar, banjo or mandolin. But there was great country music also, sung by smooth warblers such as Patsy Cline and Eddy Arnold. If you were a fan of yodeling, Elton Britt or Kenny Roberts kept you satisfied. How can anyone forget “I Never See Maggie Alone?”

Well, once again I’ve come to the end of another diatribe, certainly leaving out everyone’s favorites. If you wish, do some of your own recall and make your own list of love songs, country and western, or novelties, or cutesy kid songs, or poetic masterpieces, or downright silly pieces from the thirties, forties or fifties. Notice the variety and compare it to today’s so-called music, featuring “artists” with half-octave ranges, singing unintelligible words, all trying to emulate someone else along with “me too” wailing.

Or better still, refute my contentions – but with examples.

Poetry in Music

By Roger Farley

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”
- Victor Hugo

Remember music? Do you recall when the radio featured smooth hum-able and whistle-able melodies, plus an understandable set of lyrics that could not only be easily understood, but usually told a story in rhyme?

The forties, during WWII, produced many of these from an extraordinary group of composer/performers such as Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer & Cole Porter. Some of this was Gershwin’s fault, with a lot of his semi-classical pieces rivaling the pop tunes of his day and lingering long after we lost him. Locally, Brian Harwood of FM-101.7 is easing Gershwin into the classical genre.

I’m sure you remember the tunes—so here are some of the lyrics:
“You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”

This standard was written by Herman Hupfield in 1931 for the Broadway musical, “Everybody’s Welcome.” But it was made famous in the movie “Casablanca” with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and sung by Dooley Wilson. But did you know it was also recorded earlier by Vermonter Rudy Vallee of Island Pond?

How about Johnny Mercer’s “Dream?”

“Dream when you’re feelin’ blue, dream, that’s the thing to do.

Just watch the smoke rings rise in the air, you’ll find your share of memories there.”

Or, in 1944, Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer wrote, ““Gonna take a sentimental journey, gonna set my heart at ease. Gonna make a sentimental journey, to renew old memories. Got my bags, got my reservations, spent each dime I could afford. Like a child in wild anticipation, I long to hear that “All Aboard.””

Who can forget Doris Day’s great version, with composer/performer Les Brown and his orchestra?
Again, a common thread of these familiar songs was the combination of a catchy melody that was almost instantly remembered and words that could be readily understood and bereft of the four-letter variety. Lyrics also usually told a little story, rhymed—sometimes very artfully—and made use of multi-syllable words, such as previously mentioned “fundamental, sentimental and anticipation.”

Hoagy Carmichael was a master at this. Remember “Stardust?” When the super-familiar melody impacted your ear drums, your grey matter produced the lyrics, “Sometimes I wonder how I spent the lonely hours, dreaming of a song. The melody haunts my reverie and I am once again with you, when our love was new and each kiss an inspiration. But that was long ago and now my consolation is in the stardust of a song.”

Less familiar is the lead-in verse. Listen in your mind and remember the melody.

“And now the purple dusk of twilight time steals across the meadows of my heart. High up in the sky the little stars climb, always reminding me that we’re apart.”

It goes on to mention nightingales and paradise—more multi-syllabic expressions.

Was that a manipulation of the English language or not? Hoagy is generally credited with the whole composition, but he had a little lyrical help from Mitchell Parish. Stardust goes back to the twenties, but is still with us. That’s going on a century!

Burlington area radio 1230—WJOY—features a Saturday morning big band show featuring a lot of the “oldies.” If you have DirecTV, tune to channel 801 and reverie.

Remember a TV program, based on a previous radio show in 1952, called, “Name That Tune?” It featured a pair of contestants that vied for quick recognition of played music. Familiar names hosted the show, including such as Bill Cullen, Dennis James and Johnny Olson.

Contestants, hearing a few notes, rang a bell and yelled “I can name that tune!”

It would still work today, but only if the contestants were selected from a cadre of old timers such as us.

So, “It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die.

The world will always welcome lovers, as time goes by.”

Roger Farley is a local columnist living in Sourth Burlington.

Baseball Acronyms

By Roger Farley

“The Outlook Wasn’t Brilliant For the Mudville Nine That Day.”
­— Ernest Lawrence Thayer

I get annoyed at times by the use of acronyms, abbreviations and truncations. But then I find I’ve been using those most of my life. I was schooled back in the forties by a very strict language teacher and now have trouble with English “shortcuts.” And these “buzzwords” are getting tougher to keep track of. If you don’t know your acronyms, you’re in tough shape.

But, as a life-long baseball fan, I’ve never had trouble with substituting RBI for Runs Batted In, LOB for Left On Base, or MLB for Major League Baseball, which leads me to the subject of this article.

MLB is now becoming a very common acronym. I’ve watched MLB on TV (Television) now for years, paying extra for a subscription on DTV, (DirectTV). This MLB “Extra Innings” allows me to see most every game, at its game time, for the whole baseball season. I routinely check out MLB.com, (commercial) where both contemporary and historic rosters and box scores are available almost instantly.

Now there’s MLB.TV (baseball everywhere, live or on demand,) and there’s MLB.net on TV, instituted just about a year ago, where you can watch some kind of baseball 24 hours a day all year long. This whole MLB thing is evolving, still confusing, but great!

Nostalgia is a powerful force in our lives, becoming more intense as one grows older. A goodly portion of these memories involve where you were when great events occurred. For instance, I remember being at the Motor Vehicle Bureau (MVB) when the Challenger disaster happened and in a small elementary school in upstate New York when Kennedy was assassinated down in Dallas.

Baseball, though, is my life’s love, so I remember where I was when Bobby Thompson hit an explosive home run off Ralph Branca in 1951 — when the then NY Giants beat Brooklyn in the playoffs –  in a drugstore in Columbus, Georgia. Another home run tweaks my memory, one by Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazerowski off New York’s Ralph Terry, to clobber the Yankees in the 1960 World Series. This time I was in a factory in Minneapolis. I had a sentimental attachment to Pittsburgh, since the Pirates were the mother club of the Albany, NY (New York) Senators AA ball team. I grew up taking the bus most Sundays to Hawkins Stadium in Menands, NY, to watch a colorful doubleheader.

My favorite National League baseball team in those days was the Brooklyn Dodgers. The team had many nemeses, a chief one being the NY Yankees. Finally, in 1955, my Dodgers led by Gil Hodges and a local pitcher named Johnny Podres, finally beat the dreaded Yankees in the big one, the World Series. I listened to it in Whitney’s department store in Albany, where I was a salesman in the sporting goods department. Sadly, the next year the Bombers got their revenge when Don Larsen zeroed the Dodgers with a perfect game in the ’56 World Series. I still listened at Whitney’s.

When my Dodgers left for the west coast, I adopted the NY Mets, a bumbling new team led by Casey Stengel and featuring legends such as Marvelous Marv Throneberry and Harry Chiti. But, they grew up and punished the Orioles in the ’69 Series, with personalities such as Al Weiss and Duffy Dyer. I was sitting in a parking lot of UVM (University of Vermont) listening to that historical fifth game. Notice that I listened to all these games on the radio, letting my imagination color the action.

Now, though, on MLB.net, I can see all those wonderful happenings and despite the grainy pictures, the baggy uniforms and the varying shades of black, white and grey, I can marvel how tight and concise baseball was during those monumental times.

I’ve seen the Al Gionfriddo catch off Joe Dimaggio in the 1947 World Series and Willie May’s catch off Vic Wertz in the 1954 fall classic. True baseball fans will know why these stick in one’s memory.

Where were you?

How Did Boomers Survive the ’70′s?

By Roger Farley

“We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.”
— John F. Kennedy

Last month’s column featured an excursion through the sixties with today’s baby boomers. Let’s move up a decade.

Somewhere in the seventies, the Baby Boomers turned ancient! That is to say they attained the ripe old age of thirty. Too old now for attempting sports—those aching legs just won’t take it anymore. Bones are becoming brittle. It’s time now to stay at home, watch TV and talk to the wife and kids.
But, there’s something missing. You never had time for that marriage bit. Are you too old to have children? Procreate now and by the time they grew you’d be well over fifty, too decrepit to have a spirited game of catch or help with moving the newlyweds into their new mobile home. You could even be a grand parent!

Wise up, Lord and Lady Boomer. It’s time to get your life going. Marry up! Have kids! Take your daily vitamins and maybe you’ll still have the energy to play with the little (or big) tykes. Shave that revolutionary beard, comb out the burdocks and bird nests. Cut your hair, it tickles your shoulders anyway. Scrape the mud from your rock concert boots. Put away your placards and quit protesting everything the “Man” does. Find an empty drawer and put your pet rock away for a nap.

Oh, you did that! It’s now the 21st century and you’re retiring from a big company, with a nice pension and a generous benefit plan.    Congratulations! But, how did you survive the Vietnam War protests, the resigning of a President, the Kent State Massacre? Trends of that time were a growing disillusion of Government, the women’s movement, a growing concern for the environment, increased space exploration and advances in civil rights, including mandatory busing to force school integration. Sound familiar, or did it all pass in one ear and out the other? Were you so involved with your mood ring or watching your lava lamp that you didn’t realize what was going on?

How did you overcome all those distractions? By trying to solve your Rubik’s Cube?

There were other things to think about also. What to wear? Should you don bell-bottom trousers or go with the leisure suit? Do you wear platform shoes with your hot pants or hip huggers? Smiley face stickers probably appeared on them and seemed to be everywhere. An Arab oil embargo caused a major gas and fuel oil crisis, with big increases in prices. Some gas stations closed from a scarcity of supply. Sometimes, you could only fill up every other day, depending on the last number of your license plate—if you could find an open station. There were cries of increasing oil exploration here at home. Sound familiar again?

We went from big cars to small cars, to save fuel, and then found that our interstates were designed for large cars, so driving on them was now dangerous. Computers became all the rage, especially with the introduction of that magnificent new device—the floppy disc and its associated drives. Advancing technology also brought us MRIs, jumbo jets and DNA. Video games and VCRs changed our entertainment radically. Genetic engineering brought the first test tube baby, Louise Brown, (now 31 and a mother.) We were introduced to retail bar code scanners and recorded data on reams of paper with laser printers. Our Presidents were Nixon, Ford and Carter. What a decade!

But, you made it, Mr. and Mrs. Boomer. Once again, congratulations. Others survived the decade also. People with names like Jesse Jackson, Benjamin Spock, Patty Hearst and George Wallace, although the latter, running for the Presidency, was shot and paralyzed. You danced, though, to Disco. The breakup of the Beatles dealt contemporary music a big blow and when we lost Elvis, music fragmented into soft, hard, punk, country, folk and shock rock. It’s still fragmenting.

But you, the Boomers, have gotten it all together. Kudos!

Roger Farley is a local columnist living in South Burlington.

Boomers and Beatlemania

by Roger Farley

“Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.”
— Adlai Stevenson

Looking back, the sixties were, if not always pleasant, very entertaining. So, I’ve been excoriated to writing toward those formerly young, but now ancient baby-boomers. Those Boomers are generally considered to be those born immediately after WWII, when Johnny came marching home, eager to procreate and replace the many thousands of fine youngsters lost in the war to save our country from the feared Japanese, Germans and Italians, all buddies of ours now. We were helped in that conflict by the Russians and Chinese, both contentious now, of course.

Let’s do a little reflecting to bring back what was happening in the early sixties when most Boomers were of the impressionistic age, being thirteen to sixteen and plus.

Beatlemania had taken over the world, causing much distress by those who were used to the poetry and symmetry of the beautiful music featured in the forties and fifties. We went from “Stardust” and “I’ll Walk Alone” to “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Woe, Woe, Woe and Baby, Baby, Baby” and other (in my opinion) abominations of so-called music. To be sure, some outfits, even the Beatles, produced some melody. So did Bill Haley and the Comets and their ilk, but pretty music was generally left to Sinatra, Como, Peg Lee and their like.

Pudginess, at least from the female point of view, was already becoming anathema. The Bikini (less cloth for more bucks)had settled solidly in. Clothing designers and manufacturers found that miniskirts could follow the same trend and statuesque legs became firmly in fashion.

In the sports world, expansion was taking place. Pro football came out of hiding and supplanted, in popularity, those big college events, such as the Army-Navy game. The sixties saw pro teams expand from 12 to 26. In baseball, hurried expansion allowed even the lowly new New York Mets to become World Champions. More sports and more teams meant bigger and better — but expensive — stadiums, with food staples such as the hot dog becoming luxury items.

The absence of good music forced radio to switch to talk shows, which began to proliferate in those sixties. By the sixties, Old Hollywood had died, but as usual helped to color people’s lives. Due to accidents and “accidental overdoses,” we lost Marilyn Monroe, Robert Walker, Jayne Mansfield and Montgomery Clift. We can’t forget the Manson murders of Sharon Tate and company. Big blockbusters, such as Lawrence of Arabia, however, lent somewhat of a positive note.

The topics of sex and drugs became, if not common, talked about more often. Woodstock happened in the New York Catskills, (where I spent a lot of time, but not at Woodstock).

Those goings-on reverberated around the world and are now remembered fondly and celebrated somewhere yearly — I suppose. That accepted behavior of do-your-own-thing, when and where you want, without taking others into consideration, quite possibly led to the awful assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King.

Not helping in that respect was a character named Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor, who advocated, “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” He was a big supporter of and urged the ingestion of, psychedelic drugs, in particular LSD. In his later life, I read that he was trying every form of happy juice available.

Automobiles were generally becoming colorful and fast and furious. Ford’s Thunderbird and GM’s Corvette led the way to a sporty car frame of mind. Air-conditioning was forcing the remake of the rag-top (convertible) into a vehicle that would not disturb the significant lady’s bee-hive (B52) hairdo.

I remember having a lot of fun and a lot of children in the sixties.

Did you? Both?

Roger Farley is a local columnist living in South Burlington.

Savvy Senior

What Health Care Reform Means for Seniors

By Jim Miller

Dear Savvy Senior,
How will the new healthcare bill affect seniors? My wife and I both receive Medicare benefits and would like to know what we can expect.
— Concerned Senior

Dear Concerned,
There are several ways the new healthcare reform law will affect seniors on Medicare and those planning for their retirement years.

Drug Benefit Boost
If you’re one of the 27 million U.S. seniors who has a Medicare (Part D) prescription drug plan, healthcare reform has just upgraded your coverage. Seniors that fall into the coverage gap known as the doughnut hole will get a $250 rebate to help pay for their medications this year, and a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs next year. By 2020, the coverage gap will be eliminated. That means that seniors who now pay 100 percent of their drug costs once they’re in the doughnut hole will pay 25 percent.

Currently, seniors fall into the doughnut hole once they hit their $2,830 annual limit. Then they have to pay $3,610 out-of-pocket for drugs before prescription coverage picks up again at $6,440.

Free Screenings
In addition to the prescription drug plan improvements, Medicare’s preventive services will also be beefed-up under the new law. Currently, traditional Medicare covers a one-time “Welcome to Medicare” physical, but only to new beneficiaries within the first 12 months of enrollment. And, they pay 80 percent of most health screening costs with you footing the bill for the remaining 20 percent. But starting next year, Medicare beneficiaries can get annual wellness exams and preventive tests, like screenings for high blood pressure, diabetes and certain cancers, for free.

Dis-Advantaged
The news isn’t so good for seniors who have a Medicare Advantage plan. These are plans run by private insurers and are an alternative to Original Medicare (Part A and Part B). Many of these plans offer extra benefits that Original Medicare does not provide like free eyeglasses, hearing aids and even gym memberships. These extra benefits, however, come at an extra cost. Studies have shown that Medicare Advantage plans cost the government 14 percent more on average than Original Medicare. That’s why the new healthcare law will cut around $135 billion in subsidies over the next three to six years to the private insurers who offer these plans.

What all this means is that the 10 million seniors that have Medicare Advantage can expect their premiums or co-payments to increase, or their extra benefits to be reduced, or both, over the next few years.

Keep in mind that if you are enrolled in Medicare Advantage, you can switch to Original Medicare and join a prescription drug plan any time during the open enrollment period, which is between Jan. 1 through Feb. 15, every year. To help you compare your Medicare Advantage plan with other plans in your area or with Original Medicare, visit www.medicare.gov/mppf or call 800-633-4227. And to evaluate Part D prescription drug plans, see www.medicare.gov/mpdpf.

Long-Term Care
Another provision in the healthcare reform law that older workers approaching retirement should know about is the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, which is a voluntary long-term care insurance program available through employers. Starting next year, workers can set aside money from their paychecks to pay for services and supports that many will need in their old age or if they become disabled.

This program is meant to help offset the high costs of home-based care, assisted-living facilities and nursing homes.

Those that pay into the program for at least five years will receive an average cash benefit of no less than $50 a day when they need it. The details of the program, including the eligibility, premiums and a mechanism that allows people to purchase insurance if they’re self-employed are being ironed out.

Savvy Tip: For more information visit healthreform.gov along with the Medicare Rights Center Web site at medicarerights.org.

Financial Help for Family Caregivers

Dear Savvy Senior,
I’ve been taking care of my elderly mother for nearly a year now and it’s wearing me out both physically and financially. Is there any way I could get paid to be her caregiver?
— Tapped Out

Dear Tapped,
To get paid as your mother’s caregiver, there are several possibilities you should check into, and a variety of support services that can help, too. Here’s what you should know.

Caregiving for Pay
If your mom is eligible for Medicaid, you may be able to get paid a small amount by the government. In 15 states, including Vermont, Medicaid offers a Cash and Counseling program (see cashandcounseling.org) that provides direct financial assistance to beneficiaries, and that money can be used to pay in-home caregivers. In Vermont, contact Merle Edwards-Orr at the Department of Aging and Independent Living
in Waterbury. Phone 802-241-4496; Email
merle.edwards-orr@ahs.state.vt.us

Other Options
If your mom has financial resources of her own, find out if she can afford to pay you herself. If she agrees, it may be a good idea for both of you to draft a short written contract detailing your work and payment arrangements. Or, if your mom has long-term care insurance that includes in-home care coverage, in some cases those benefits can be used to pay you.

Tax Breaks
The IRS may also be able to help you out if you can show that you pay at least half of your mother’s yearly expenses, and her annual income was below $3,650 in 2009 (not counting Social Security). If so, you can claim her as a dependent on your taxes, and reduce your taxable income by $3,650. Your mom doesn’t have to live with you to qualify as a dependent. IRS Publication 501 (see www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf or call 800-829-3676 to get a copy mailed to you) has a worksheet that can help you.

If your mom’s income, however, is over $3,650, you can’t claim her as a dependent. But if you’re paying at least half her living expenses, you can still get a tax break if you’re helping pay her medical and long-term care costs and they exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income. You can include your own medical expenses in calculating the total. See the IRS publication 502 (www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p502.pdf) for details.

Support Services
If you don’t qualify for caregivers’ pay or a tax break, you can still get some financial relief through the National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP). This is a federally funded program that provides aid for specific caregiver needs like respite care or adult daycare to give you a break, counseling and support groups, and supplemental services including the purchase of medical supplies, SOS emergency response systems and even home modifications. In addition to the NFCSP, you should also check into home delivered meal programs, volunteer companion programs, and even home and personal care services. To locate all the various programs and support services in northern and central Vermont, contact the Champlain Valley Agency on Aging at 802-865-0360 or visit www.cvaa.org.

Pill Splitting: When It’s Safe, and When It Isn’t

By Jim Miller

Dear Savvy Senior,
Is pill splitting safe? I have several friends who split their prescription pills to save money, and several who don’t because they don’t think it’s safe. What can you tell me?
­— Split Decision

Dear Decision,
Splitting your pills – literally cutting them in half – is a simple way to save money on your prescription drugs but be sure you talk to your doctor first, because not all pills can be split. Here’s what you should know.

Savings and Safety
The reason pill splitting is such a cost cutter is because of a quirk in the way drugs are manufactured and priced. A pill that’s twice as strong as another may not be twice the price. In fact, it’s usually about the same price. So, buying a double-strength dose and cutting it in half may allow you to get two months worth of medicine for the price of one. But is it safe? As long as your doctor agrees that splitting your pills is OK for you, you learn how to do it properly, and you split only pills that can be split, there’s really no danger.

What to Do
If you’re interested in pill splitting, the first step is to talk to your doctor or pharmacist to find out if any of the medicines you use can be safely split. It’s also important to find out whether splitting them will save you enough money to justify the hassle.

The pills that are easiest to split are those with a score down the middle. However, not every pill that’s scored is meant to be split. Pills that are most commonly split include:
•     Cholesterol lowering drugs, like Crestor, Lipitor, and Pravachol
•     Antidepressants, like Celexa, Paxil, and Zoloft
•     High blood pressure medicines like, Monopril, Prinivil, Univasc, Zestril, Avapro and Cozaar
•     Erectile dysfunction pills, like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra

Having the right equipment helps too. Don’t use a knife to cut your pills in half. It can cause you to split them unevenly resulting in two pieces with very different dosages, which can be dangerous. Purchase a proper pill cutter. They only cost around $5 to $10 and are available at most pharmacies and large discount stores.

For convenience, you might be tempted to split the whole bottle of pills at once. But check with your doctor first. It’s possible that exposing the interior of the pills to the air could reduce their effectiveness. It’s also important to know that pills are only safely split in half, and never into smaller portions such as into thirds or quarters.

Unsafe Splitting
Many medicines, because of their ingredients or design, cannot be split safely. Here’s a list of pills that should not be split:
•    Blood thinners (Coumadin, warfarin)
•     Chemotherapy drugs
•     Anti-seizure medicines
•     Birth control pills
•     Capsules of any kind that contain powders or gels
•     Pills with a hard outside coating
•     Extended-release pills that deliver medication over time in your body
•     Pills that are coated to protect your stomach
•     Pills that crumble easily, irritate your mouth, or taste bitter.

Again, your doctor or pharmacist will know which drugs can and cannot be split. If you’re taking a medicine that can be split, you’ll need to get a prescription from your doctor for twice the dosage you need. Then you can start splitting, and saving, safely.

Bright Edges

By Elizabeth Hazen

As one of those lucky people who got to live my growing up years in one place, and the years of raising my children in another one place, I am a firm believer in the benefits of staying put.

At the risk of growing a little moss, I can know where the earliest mayflowers bloom, anticipate the day when the rising sun falls directly on my pillow, find the bright orange newts on their home turf after a summer shower, guard the location of the best wild black raspberry patch, and wait for the January hoot of the owls.

As I write, it’s the spring peepers that I am expecting. I know where their call will come from, but only the overdue south wind knows when.

Elizabeth Hazen lives in Colchester, Vermont.