Is there anything you want to learn or better understand – something to sink your teeth in? It could be learning how to stitch, playing a ukulele, trying your hand at poetry, or since you always doodled as a child, learning how to draw. Or how about learning how to use a new iPad, or smart phone? Or even better, how to set up that blankety-blank new flat screen TV with what seems like a thousand different channels. (Remember when there were only three television networks and the only show you could watch after midnight was the test pattern!)

All through our lives we have been learning – from how to read in grade school to on the job training in our professional careers. And now after retirement, there is no reason to stop. In your Passport to Happiness calendar for the month of March you will find, besides a healthy recipe for a Chicken and Dumpling Casserole, and a picture of Pauline Westover reading in the library at Flagstone Senior Living (she was once a school librarian), several tips about how to continue on your own path of lifelong learning.

For example, you can enroll in a class at the Columbia Gorge Community College; or register for the spring Mastery on Aging Classes offered by OSU Extension at the CGCC campus in Hood River (The first class is April 14th on Memory Difficulties. For more information call OSU Extension 541-506-6011.) And at the Center there are the Creative Arts Classes which I’ve mentioned before. But next week I will provide more information about two new opportunities: a Dynamic Drawing Class taught by Joy Kloman and a Writer’s Tertulia (you can look that word up later!) facilitated by Robert Griswold.

In addition, there are Lectures at the Center every Tuesday except the third Tuesdays. Some of the upcoming speakers are Taylor Haag from GREEN HOME Construction on April 1st discussing the advantages of weatherizing your home; Ann Stanley on April 8th discussing the value of walking and particularly what you can do to prevent falls. And then in May, PK Swartz will discuss Advance Directives, POLST and Organ and Tissue Donations on the 6th; and on the 13th, Julie Reynolds will reprise the talk she gave in February at the Original Wasco County Courthouse on “Close Encounters: Wasco County Residents Remember the Rajneeshees”.

Thanks to Meadow Advertising and Katie Cordrey, you can now donate to the “UpLifting Elevator Fund-Raiser” online at www.seniorelevator.com. And by using your credit card you can earn more reward points on your favorite credit card for that trip to London? New York? Portland? Or just a nice overnight stay at the Balch Hotel in Dufur.

And while you have your credit card out, you can also go to the Civic Auditorium’s website at CIVIC27.com and donate $27 or more to support the operation and maintenance of this community asset and living memorial to local veterans. It is easy, simple and you receive your receipt by email which you can print out for your tax records.

Now it is once again time to challenge your cranium by mixing up the words and letters in this week’s Center’s music announcement. So here goes.

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The sixteen B-25s, each with a five member crew, that flew the first air raid strike over Japan in April of 1942 was led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and called the Doolittle’s Raiders. And the Hollywood movie based on the air raid was called “30 Seconds over Tokyo” starring Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson and Scott McKay – really! (And the winner of a Cherry Festival Breakfast is Ron Sutherland.)

This week’s “Remember When” question is from the 40’s and 50’s when many of first learned to read using this common reading series. In this reading primer, what were the names of the brother and sister that became cultural icons? And for the bonus question, what was the name of their dog? E-mail your answers to mcseniorcenter@gmail.com, call 541-296-4788 or send your answers with your first grade report card.