You have a different perspective when you believe it won’t happen to you – when you can’t imagine you will need intense physical therapy (I have always been fit), or the doctor will ever find a spot on your chest x-ray (I never smoked). And certainly you can’t imagine ever falling down and breaking your hip (I am too young for this). But when it does happen, your perspective changes from sympathy – a sense of feeling sorry, to empathy – now I understand!
Over the last several years, I have experienced what I never thought I would when I was thirty years younger: hearing loss, eye floaters, and then the trip, the fall and the broken hip. No longer do I feel infallible – just the opposite. And when I hear what others at the Center have experienced, I now listen closely for any lessons learned.
But I have gained a greater empathy and less self-consciousness towards “getting older” as I experience both the blessings and the “wish that didn’t happens”. I no longer feel uncomfortable talking about toilet seat risers, because after my broken hip (when I was sure someone had lowered the toilet seat by two feet as I painfully tried to pull myself up), I can now extol their benefits.
And I never appreciated the need for foot and nail care. It wasn’t something I could imagine needing. But since 2009, when Judy Merrill started offering foot and nail care at the Center, I have learned how important it is to care for your feet and how difficult that may be for many older adults because of physical, vision and health problems. And now I can imagine Judy’s foot care may be something I will eventually need.
Judy, who has been a registered nurse for 37 years, offers monthly foot and nail care clinics at the Center every first Friday. And her clinics have been so successful, extra ones have been scheduled. In addition, Judy also sees folks in their homes, in facilities and community settings throughout the Mid-Columbia area. For more information or to make an appointment, you can call Judy at 541-980-5038.
Next Saturday, July 28th at 1:00 PM at the Rorick House, 300 W 13th, Karl Vercouteren will present a “hands-on workshop” on using block prints with petroglyph designs. And to make it easy, materials will be provided. You may also want to put on your calendar two other presentations at the Rorick House this summer: August 11, Bill Johnson will be discussing The Oregon Trail in Wasco County and on August 25, Gerald Richmond will be discussing The Civic Auditorium – Then and Now. The Rorick House is open every Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 – 4:00 PM through August.

Carol Mauser, manager of the local office of Aging and People with Disabilities, sent me the following warning from the FTC. Scammers have been making phone calls claiming they are from the government and they need to verify some information because of the Affordable Care Act. If you receive a call allegedly from the government – or from anybody – asking for personal or financial information, you know the routine: Hang Up. And then report it to the FTC at 1-877-FTC-HELP or the Oregon Attorney General at 1-877-877-9293.
as Carol Burnett
Tonight at the Center, the “Jazz Generations” are playing and next week, on the fifth Tuesday of the month, “For the Good Times” will be knockin’ your socks off. Music starts at 7:00 and donations are appreciated. .

Bucky Beaver wanted you to “Brusha…Brusha…Brusha” with Ipana toothpaste – the answer to last week’s “Remember When” question. (And the winner of a Saturday Breakfast is Ed Anghilante.) This week I will stick with television – specifically, TV Game Shows. What was the name of the television game show that aired from 1961 to 1967 on CBS; hosted by Allen Ludden, where celebrities would team up with contestants to guess secret words using word associations? Email your answer to the mcseniorcenter@gmail.com, call 541-296-4788 or mail it with a 1962 home version of the game distributed by Milton Bradley.

Well, it has been another week, trying to stay grounded when the winds a blowin’. Until we meet again, every experience is a teacher and there is still so much left to learn.

For age is opportunity no less/Than youth itself, though in another dress/
And as the evening twilight fades away/The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, “Morituri Salutamus”