Last week I attended the Conference for Older Adults in the Gorge at One Community Health in Hood River. The event was spearheaded by Teresa Obregon who works for One Community Health’s Connected Care Program and Roni Hyde who is an Older Adult Behavioral Health Specialist for GOBHI.
The conference featured six older adults who demonstrated how as we grow older, we can live rich vibrant lives, can still be active and engaged in our communities, and how there are many ways to stay healthy and independent.
But while listening to their inspiring stories, I realized they were living examples of being “old at heart”.
I know for many of you that just doesn’t sound right. Who wants to be “old at heart”? I’m sure my wife doesn’t want to be! But our society has this misconception that anything young is good and anything old is all downhill: frail, inactive, and uninterested in life. But what I heard from these individuals was that they were in their own ways active and engaged with their families and community.
We talk about wanting to be “young at heart”: staying active and trying new experiences – and we should. But if young at heart means waking up every day and enjoying that day as a gift, unburdened by regrets, and understanding the importance of friends and family, I’m not sure that is what I was experiencing when I was “young”.
That is more like how I feel now. And besides I feel I’m more patient and resilient, a little wiser from my life experiences, learning how to accept the blessings and burdens of life, and discovering what is truly important. And I’m considered “old”! So couldn’t we see those attitudes as “old at heart”?
I’m still growing up and still need role models showing me how to navigate this thing called aging. And these six individuals, who for me exemplify what it means to be “old at heart”, I consider inspiring role models. And if I just look around, I’ll find many more!
You can read about another inspiring role model in this month’s “Through the Eyes of an Elder.” Linda Chamberlain describes her travels to Uganda starting when she was 58 and now continuing into her 80s supporting women through knitting, dancing, laughing, and singing who are undergoing life-changing surgery.
BRAIN TEASE:
Last week if you were scratching your head trying to figure out how I came up with the answer 56, well, I shouldn’t have. As Jay Lyman pointed out, the answer should have been 40.
So, to make up for last week’s blunder here is one more number puzzle. Let’s see if I can get it right this time!
111, 13, 112, 24, 113, 35, 117, ??? Is the answer A) 46, B) 57, C) 68, or D) 79?
The pianist, singer, and songwriter discovered and first recorded by Sam Philips at Sun Records was Jerry Lee Lewis. I received correct answers from Sandy Haechrel, Karen Mielke, Nancy Higgins, Donna Mollet, Lana Tepfer, Rebecca Abrams, Keith and Marlene Clymer, Patty Burnett, Jay Lyman, and this week’s winner of a quilt raffle ticket Kim Birge who enjoyed listening to Jerry Lee Lewis’s cousin Mickey Gilley.
I still laugh when I watch the comedy routine “Who’s on First?” in which a peanut vendor named Sebastion Dinwiddle, is talking with Dexter Broadhurt, the new manager of the mythical St. Louis Wolves. Broadhurt is identifying the players on his team, but the players’ names can simultaneously serve as the basis for questions which leads to repeated misinterpretations and frustration. For this week’s “Remember When” question, what comedy duo made this routine famous? Email your answer to mcseniorcenter@gmail.com, call 541-296-4788, or send it in with a copy of the December 26, 1999, Time magazine where “Who’s on First” was named the best comedy routine of the 20th century.
Well, it’s been another week trying to avoid those moral dilemmas. Until we meet again, as I was recently told, “I have most my marbles. I just don’t where I put some of them!
“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice I don’t know what is.” Kurt Vonnegut
Nutritious home-delivered and in-person meals are available at noon Monday through Friday unless otherwise noted.
Seniors of Mosier Valley (541-980-1157) – Mondays and Wednesdays; Hood River Valley Adult Center (541-386-2060); Sherman County Senior and Community Center (541-565-3191); The Dalles Meals-on-Wheels (541-298-8333)
For meal sites in Washington, call Klickitat County Senior Services – Goldendale office (509-773-3757) or the White Salmon office (509-493-3068); Skamania County Senior Services (509-427-3990).
Answer: The answer is D) 79. The answer is the last digit and the sum of the digits of the preceding number.
