Chesapeake Heartland and Starr Center preserve and honor legacies
GIVING BACK: Delmarva program increases seniors’ happiness
A family’s spirit of entrepreneurship
LIVING WELL: Keeping active with pickleball
New indoor facility in Easton just in time for winter
RESOURCE: The Caroline County Bird Club
Where environmental research and nature intersect
BODYWORK: Swim back the clock
Karen Shook encourages you to make time for your ‘wellness now’
ALocal Family Owned and Operated Company
Large Supply of pool toys, floats, coolers and ProTeam Chemicals at our location in Easton.
EDITORS’ NOTE
Pickleball is really popular.
“Thank you for that, Captain Obvious,” you reply to me in your head (or maybe aloud).
I write the opening like that because sometimes I have to remind myself. But why is this fascinating to me? Editor backstory alert!
In case you are reading an editor letter from me for the first time, you may not know that I was born and raised in a small town in Missouri. Our school had traditional sports available and we learned others in gym class, but the range for physical education was limited. Except we did learn and play this exotic game called “pickleball.”
Although I grew up and moved out into the bigger world, even taking several kinesiology courses that taught me various niche sports, pickleball had faded into a memory of a fun gym class game. Fast forward several years and suddenly it’s booming as an activity and competitive hobby for all ages.
It’s a hot button issue in local governments, as participants vie for space on tennis or basketball courts. But at its core, it is just a really good time. How could this game, created in 1965 and played in my small town USA high school, become a household name? Well, you’ll have to read on to find that out.
Enjoy this riveting edition of Shore as we open the new year with you. Thank you for reading and as always, don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, story ideas or feedback. Happy New Year!
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PROFILES
FIND YOUR BEACH
Music that is nothing but high tides
STORY BY JAKE RUSSELL | PHOTOS SUBMITTED BY CHRIS SACKS
For many, music is escapism. Whether you’re on your morning commute, tuning out the ambience in your everyday life or amongst a crowd of strangers united by lyrics and sounds, there’s nothing quite like being taken to a place away in your mind.
For Chris Sacks, music has always been nothing but high tides on the beach. From the very beginning, smuggled into a Jimmy Buffet concert at age 5 with his parents and people of all shapes and sizes smiling ear-to-ear, he recognized the power of that sort of unity. There was not going to be an office job or a 9-to-5he was driven to make that indescribable feeling a part of his everyday life.
Chris Sacks of the self-titled Chris Sacks Band grew up on the beaches in Maryland and gets to do what he loves as a traveling musician every day, and he doesn’t take it for granted. At each show, he knows it’s a privilege to provide for the people because this was the plan from the very beginning.
“My parents raised me with great taste in music and a love for music,” Sacks said. “I got to see my first Buffet show at age 5. When the lights came on and the shows started there was nothing like. Inside of all of his records and lyrics, everyone was so happy. Everyone was smiling ear to ear in exotic looking places and I
Sacks stays true to his roots as someone who has always gained peace on the beach; in the same way that music is escapism for people, the sandy white beaches of the Eastern Shore and the high tides were his home away from home and his inspiration. As he describes himself as someone with “Caribbean Sea water running through his veins,” the songwriter wants to bring his young at heart life experiences to the stage as a beach for us all to hear.
“I grew up going to Ocean City and spent a lot of time there or spent time in Florida, but going to the ocean on the weekends gave me a love for the beach at an early age,” Sacks said, who still takes his family to embrace the sea life to this day. “It was so much more laid back as we went as a family. Everyone was in such good spirits that I never wanted to leave that place. My friends and family would give me a hard time because I’d disappear and go to the beach for the weekend without a word. It was my quiet place.”
With the album “Life, Love, and High Tides,” Sacks writes about his personal experiences and the people he’s encountered on his journey. There are ups and downs with every wave, but the transformative place that he takes you to on a beach trip is the embodiment of his youthful spirit growing up. Whether it’s the song, “Naked Santa” about a bearded man he saw in Key West where clothing was… optional, or the emotional acoustic ballad of “Rain,” Sacks wants his music to quiet the storm for the listeners.
“When it comes down to being on a stage, I want everyone to forget about life for a while,” Sacks said, in true Buffett fashion. “I’ve been told I was old enough to know better but too young to care and asked ‘Aren’t you too old to be doing that?’ And I tell them no because what it comes down to is you have to be a little crazy to live this kind of lifestyle.”
Sacks has made this lifestyle a community experience, still heavily involving his family in the shows amidst tour life around the country.
“I’ve been able to take my kids with me,” he said. “We did the Jimmy Buffet tribute and had three band members on stage, and my kids were thrilled to be on stage with me. It was one of the coolest shows I’ve ever done.”
PhotobyHannahCombs
Sacks’ community he grew up with on the shore, the fourth generation to have grown in his hometown area along the boardwalk, is entrenched in his music and his values. The moments of going to the local establishments to get a slice of pizza or still skateboarding with his family are comforting nostalgia, and he tries to reciprocate that feeling to whatever that euphoric moment of peace is for the listeners at his shows. That communal experience he’s had his whole life is something he acknowledges is one of the greatest parts of performing live for listeners who figuratively (or literally) let their hair down and dip their toes in the sand.
“I love the fact that when people come to a show, it’s the fact that we are there,” Sacks said. “It doesn’t matter — people get into a whole different place when they go see a show. I’m a court jester that enjoys the moment with them and the band and the people and the phenomenal experience to open myself up and be 100% vulnerable.”
As Sacks continues to tour across the country and play shows in the places where he grew up and raises a family, experiencing life, love, and high tides, there’s not a day that goes by where he doesn’t recognize the privilege of being able to create art every day. The unrelenting positivity and humility are palpable in his writing and in his shows.
THERE’S SOMETHING INSIDE OF ME AND A DRIVING DESIRE THAT I KNEW THAT I COULD DO IT. EVERY YEAR IS BETTER THAN THE LAST GOING FORWARD.
“I think there are no downs on the road of life,” he said. “It’s the coolest meeting people and seeing places you’ve never been. I’m blessed and always wanted to be a musician, and this is all I’ve wanted to do. There’s something inside of me and a driving desire that I knew that I could do it. Every year is better than the last going forward.”
The Chris Sacks Band are riding a wave that only goes up, one trip to the Eastern Shore to experience a sunset at a time. His concerts and his writing may or may not have stories where clothing is optional, but the escapism and the trip that he takes you on is the epitome of finding your beach. S
Photo by Hannah Combs
DELMARVA program increases seniors’ happiness
STORY BY AMELIA BLADES STEWARD
PHOTOS BY CAL JACKSON
THE SENIORS WHO COME HERE ARE HOME ALONE MOST OF THE TIME AND REALLY COME OUT OF THEIR SHELLS AFTER PARTICIPATING WITH US HERE AT THE CENTER
GIVING BACK
The idea of an intergenerational center, where seniors and children interact, is not a new one. At The St. Anne Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which operates one of the first intergeneration centers in the U.S., when they rang the bell, the seniors knew that babies in the daycare center needed rocking. The concept of giving seniors purpose by interacting with children was adopted by the Dorchester Senior Center and Child Care Center, both operated by Delmarva Community Services, Inc. (DCS) in Cambridge, Maryland – keeping seniors active and engaged to benefit their health.
DCS is a multi-service organization founded in 1974 that serves individuals with developmental disabilities, the medically frail, seniors, veterans and individuals living in poverty, as well as childcare and transportation services. The agency takes a 2GEN approach to service delivery. The goal of 2GEN is to serve the entire family and assist them in navigating roadblocks to permanent economic security.
Its programming is offered in its new state-of-the-art building which opened in April 2022. The 42,000-squarefoot Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Intergenerational Center is located at 108 Chesapeake Street in Cambridge. The space consolidates programming for seniors and job placement and vocational services for people with disabilities, as well as a Head Start daycare. A community space is central to the new DCS building and includes an atrium with an inside walking path and a central dining area with a fireplace and large windows overlooking the woods.
“The space was designed to foster formal and casual interactions for the people here,” Andy Hollis, president/CEO of DCS, said. “This is to improve health outcomes, psychological outcomes, and the happiness quotients.”
The DCS Senior Center in Cambridge currently has 72 seniors, ages 60 to 97, with a long waiting list for other seniors to get in. The Center in Cambridge is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and would like to open on Wednesdays to help address the waiting list and to get more seniors engaged in Dorchester County. Seniors are transported from Hurlock, Federalsburg,
Taylor’s Island, and Vienna using the Delmarva Community Transit buses.
“The seniors who come here are home alone most of the time and really come out of their shells after participating with us here at the center,” Arlene Moaney, the senior program manager at DCS, said. “Reducing social isolation for our seniors is so important. That’s what we do here.”
One of the unique aspects of the senior center is its involvement with the DCS Day Care Center on-site which cares for 20 to 25 children each day. Seniors do monthly intergenerational crafts and games and read with the children, as well as rock the babies. In addition, seniors host the center’s annual preschool graduation and provide “Bubble Day” once a month where they interact by blowing bubbles for the children in the daycare – a simple, but fun occasion for all involved.
“The seniors love interacting with the kids and the kids love the seniors,” said Gina Magee, who is the acting director of the DCS Child Care Center. “For seniors who don’t have grandchildren, it is especially a rewarding experience.”
Barbara Reisert attends the Senior Center and teaches a memoir class there on Thursdays for seniors called the “The Write Group.”
“I have five grandsons who I see infrequently,” Reisert said. “Being around the little ones is much fun. You see more smiles from the seniors when the kids are around.”
The seniors who participate at the DCS Senior Center are given a homecooked breakfast and lunch, with hot meals prepared each day. They also can experience special groups and activities and have guest speakers each week. Activities include crafts, special music, dancing, singing, karaoke, Wii games, Tai Chi and outings. Special programs are offered on nutrition and health issues and seniors can get their blood pressure and medications checked regularly by a nursing professional. The seniors who attend are 80% women and 20% men. Six of the seniors are veterans.
Outside the DCS building, the day care center’s playground sits adjacent to the fitness course available to the seniors so as the children exercise, the seniors can do the same.
“I want to be able to touch as many seniors as I
can here,” Moaney said. “It would be wonderful to get additional financial support to provide more programming opportunities for these seniors. There is nothing better than a good field trip to get them out and about.”
The community can support DCS Senior Center both through financial and physical donations. Emily’s Produce brings seniors at DCS extra produce and food products at the end of the season. Recently, the Delmarva Riders Motorcycle Club donated $300 bed comforters to each senior.
Special thanks were also extended by Hollis to Hebron Savings Bank, Bay Vanguard Bank, Queenstown Bank, Shore United Bank, and the Exelon Corporation (Delmarva Power) for their generous donations to go toward the third day of operating the Senior Center.
“These banks are true community partners, and have helped us on our way to securing funds to open a third day,” Hollis said.
“The seniors here are so appreciative because they expect so little,” Moaney added. “The look on their faces, when we give them something or do something special for them, is priceless.” S
For more information about DCS services or to donate to the DCS Senior Center, contact Hennie Hayden at 410-221-1900, extension 10, or visit www.dcsdct.org/. Donations can also be made online.
More than
Chesapeake Heartland and Starr Center preserve and honor legacies
STORY BY NIAMBI DAVIS
PHOTOS BY JENNIFER QUINN
Kent County is the smallest in the State of Maryland but unrivaled in history, culture and traditions that have existed since African Americans first made the region their home.
“The Chesapeake watershed is a heartland, if not the heartland of African American history in this country,” Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director for the Starr Center of the American Experience, said. “From the first Africans who arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake through the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter movements of today, Kent County is a microcosm of that history. This is the history that people carry in their hearts.”
In 2017 Dr. Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, made a trip to the Starr Center for the American Experience at Chestertown’s Washington College. While in town, Dr. Bunch, now the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian,
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visited Sumner Hall, Grand Army of the Republic Post #25. A historic structure in its own right, Sumner Hall is one of two remaining African American GAR Halls in the country.
At the time of his visit, the site was host to “The Way We Worked Kent County,” a Smithsonian Museum on Main Street exhibit centered around the working lives of Kent County’s African American community.
“Dr. Bunch was impressed by Sumner Hall,” recalled former board member Carolyn Brooks. After meeting with the Starr Center and local community organizations, especially those active in the African American community, Dr. Bunch proposed a plan: develop an idea for a collaboration with NMAAHC - “and make it big.” From that meeting, Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project was created.
Since its inception, Chesapeake Heartland has been an intergenerational collaboration — “we have people on this project from those in their teens to their 70s and everything in between,” Goodheart noted. But the sweet spot of success has proven to be the work of its community historians.
“Airlee Ringgold Johnson and Carolyn Brooks have been the most important people in building community relationships, one by one,” he said. “They’re gifted historians, with lifelong connections to the community and its history. This could not have happened without them.”
Johnson and Brooks are Kent County natives, graduates of Henry Highland Garnett High School in Chestertown, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Morgan State University respectively. After college and careers, both
lifelongconnections
women returned home. Their connections to Kent County run deep — any requests for a referral or additional source of information are quickly followed by a list of names, emails and phone numbers with the assurance that your call is expected.
Johnson, who leads a walking tour of Chestertown’s historic African American community, has always been passionate about history and the accuracy of African American representation.
“We have a proud history,” Johnson said. “It’s almost second nature to me to share what has been lost, forgotten, and ignored.”
As she sees it, too often the themes of tragedy, oppression, and subjugation overshadow stories of triumph,
achievement, creativity, and even joy.
“That’s why we’re here — to tell the complete story of African American life,” Johnson said.
For Carolyn Brooks, the love of local history began with hours of poring over family albums, as NAACP secretary in high school, a participant in sit-ins as a student at Morgan State and as a board member of Sumner Hall.
“Because people know us from high school, they consider us reliable and credible,” Brooks said. “We get our collections from people with generations of connection to the community; members willing to share yearbooks, documents, photo albums and clippings.”
Among the collaborators mentioned with Chesapeake Heartland’s digitization project is Melissa Kemp, a former archivist for the city of Atlanta, who in her own words, “brought her shiny new Master’s degree in Archives and Records Administration” to the Starr Center to assist in the digital preservation of African American history in Kent County.
“As a member of the community of African American archivists and digital scholars, Melissa is key to the project’s success,” Goodheart said. “We’re very fortunate to have her on our team.”
Unlike her counterparts who work with written materials, as a digital archivist, Kemp captures photos, documents, newspaper clippings, and audio material to make it available online.
“Anyone visiting our website can click on the media, look at it, listen to it, or view it as if it’s a movie,” Kemp said.
Many of the project’s digital online resources are also available at the Chesapeake Heartland African American Humanities Truck. The blue mobile museum, decorated with the Ghanaian Sankofa bird on its side, fulfills a part of Chesapeake Heartland mission: to bring history to the people, wherever they are, and to serve community members without access to online tools or the internet.
The truck is a familiar, welcome sight at festivals, community events, historical conferences and local schools. Outside the vehicle, community members explore photo albums, yearbooks, newspaper clippings, photos of landmarks no longer in existence and high school team photos that recall rivalries of years gone by. Additionally, the displays encourage the exploration of family and community connections. Twentieth and
African American archivists and digital scholars
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21st-century history is displayed beside older records dating from the 1600s to the 1800s. They introduce visitors to the history into which their own families and communities fit.
“I give credit to Dr. Pat Nugent, the current Thomas V. Mike Miller Director of Civic Engagement, for the vision to go out into the community and showcase our collection,” Johnson said. “Through trial and error, we came up with what works. Now we’re out there in our blue shirts; a group of mixed ages and races, taking information out to the community.”
For Brooks, success is evident in the steady increase of visitors to the truck.
“We’re drawing more visitors than when we began,” she said. “And the younger generation is sharing what they saw with their parents and grandparents. Getting young people involved has helped a lot.”
In every generation of African Americans, music has played a great part in joy and struggle. From spirituals to the blues, to protest songs, from the Last Poets of the 60s, the MCs of the 70s, and today’s musical wordsmiths, words set to music have always been a mechanism to pass the word and tell the story of African American life in America.
Carrying forth this tradition, the Chesapeake Heartland’s Hip Hop Time Capsule uses modern beats and rhymes to explore the history of Kent County. When Nugent asked Shannon Salandy, a 2023 graduate originally from Trinidad and Tobago, to assist with the Hip Hop Time Capsule, she joined a group of college interns and high school students to create a musical project. They made cover art from archival images representing Chestertown’s history, consulted with musicians, and added lyrics and poems highlighting African American heroes in the region.
“We had 15 days to pull this all together,” Salandy said. “It was incredible to watch how quickly we made it work.”
In her piece “You’re Invited”, Salandy performs
every generation
as DJ Trinishay, and pays tribute to Henry Highland Garnett and Airlee Ringgold Johnson.
“Ms. Airlee is mentioned in my song,” Salandy said. “She may not have a statue but she’s well known for all the great things she’s done. And I love the intergenerational connection. Ms. Airlee and I call each other intergenerational besties. We would not have had this relationship if we did not work together at Chesapeake Heartland.”
Salandy recalls conversations outside the Humanities Truck with older residents who’ve shared stories of Chestertown life during segregation.
“It was an amazing connection where we each learned from each other,” she said. ”That is why I do this work; I would do it for free.”
Among the team members who make the work of Chesapeake Heartland possible are two young men with deep family roots, an abundance of talent, experience and passion for the region that is their home. In January 2024 Jaelon Moaney, a former professional staff member of the Maryland Congressional delegation, joined The Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience as Deputy Director. In April 2024, he hosted the Maryland Commission on African American History & Culture (MCAAHC) Public Meeting in Chestertown’s “Uptown” neighborhood.
“It was the privilege of a lifetime to host the meeting where I was raised and to facilitate the public display of an 8mm home movie contributed to the Chesapeake Heartland digital archive,” Moaney said.
The movie featured live footage of civil rights activists — including staff, students, and faculty from Washington College — executing sit-ins in Chestertown that would ultimately continue further south in Easton, Cambridge, Salisbury and Princess Anne. Following the Public Meeting, participants went on a walking tour devised and led by Chesapeake Heartland Project Director Darius Johnson and Community Historian Airlee Ringgold Johnson.
“Inviting all to literally retrace the steps of rural change makers at the invitation of America’s first statewide ethnic commission exemplifies the Chesapeake Heartland’s impact and breadth of immersive learning experiences,” Moaney said.
Darius Johnson joined the Chesapeake Heartland project as a volunteer when he returned home from
a few years of living in Baltimore County. Soon after, he met Nugent who showed the Vita Foods collection (one of the project’s first digitized collections). It was the beginning of Johnson’s involvement. Fast forward to 2023 when an opportunity arose to work as a digital justice fellow for the project as a staff member.
“I’m blessed to do this work in my own community, at my college alma mater, and for a project that will continue to build local, regional and national awareness for its process and impact,” Darius Johnson said. “And I have the opportunity to do it with a team where the majority of us are from the community that we’re researching and interpreting. There isn’t much more I could ask for.”
For more information on the organization and its projects visit chesapeakeheartland.org. S
immersivelearning experiences
Caroline County ird Club:
WHERE ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND NATURE INTERSECT
STORY BY JORDANNA GARLAND
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CAROLINE COUNTY BIRD CLUB
Established in 1951, the Caroline County Bird Club (CCBC) has a rich history of passionate members dedicated to identifying birds and caring for the environment. The oldest Eastern Shore chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society (MOS), the CCBC goes on trips to various state parks, wildlife preserves and environmental centers, eager to know more about birds and their relationship to the ecosystem. Inclusive of all experience levels, the CCBC welcomes both new and veteran birders into their flock, prioritizing learning above all else.
The president of the club, Debby Bennett, joined the CCBC in 1985 after a friend who was already in the club invited her to join. Bennett, who comes from a lineage of birders, met a community of women who helped her learn more about birding.
“I met… some women that were probably in their 50s at the time that took me under their wing and really helped me learn a lot more,” Bennett said. “Now, I'm kind of like the elder and trying to help younger people.”
One notable difference between today’s birding communities and the birding community of when Bennett first joined is that now, birders have technology to aid them in the identifying of different bird species. Merlin, a bird identifying app, can record bird calls and then identify the species based on the call, which differs significantly from the times of bird books and pen and paper.
I THOUGHT THAT WAS A NEAT EXPERIENCE TO SEE THE RECORDS THAT SHE HAD FROM FORTY YEARS AGO
Bennett described the CCBC and the MOS as “citizen scientists” since the data they collect on their trips and walks is used for scientific research and shared amongst other chapters in the MOS, namely the Talbot County Bird Club. The CCBC has research dating back to 1948 of the different populations of bird species native to Caroline County. With the Talbot County Bird Club, they’ve been working to digitize the findings to make them accessible for public viewing.
“I scanned them, and actually it's a friend of mine at the Talbot County Bird Club who has been going through them and helping to organize them, along with our Christmas bird counts that have been 1951 up to the current year,” Bennett said. “I think it’s an important thing to preserve what we've done because… there's a lot of data that was prior to e-bird that needs to be protected.”
Granddaughter of two CCBC original founding members and current treasurer of the club, Robin Lahnemann shared that she remembers her grandparents, Jerry and Roberta Fletcher, being very active in the CCBC meetings when she was younger. She found herself becoming more interested in the work they did so
she decided to follow their path.
Just recently, the CCBC completed gathering their data for Maryland’s third Breeding Bird Atlas, a comprehensive project that logs the distribution, abundance and timing of breeding birds over a five year period. As she was collecting data, Lahnemann was able to see data recorded by her grandmother in Maryland’s first Breeding Bird Atlas from the 1980s.
“I thought that was a neat experience to see the records that she had from forty years ago,” Lahnemann said. “She was out doing the same thing I was doing, but so much different because I have technology that helps me and she was just doing it with a pair of binoculars and a notebook.”
Birders can get involved with the CCBC by coming to any upcoming events, which can be found on their website, carolinebirdclubmos.blogspot.com/. To find more information about other Eastern Shore birding communities, like the Talbot County Bird Club and Kent County Bird Club, birders can visit the MOS website, mdbirds.org/.
“I’d also like to see our clubs become more diverse because they’re still very white and tend to be a little on the older side,” Bennett said. “Even if you pop in once in a while, just come and join us.” S
KEEPING ACTIVE with PICKLEBALL
New indoor facility in Easton just in time for winter
STORY BY JAMES YOUNG
BY CAL JACKSON
Pickleball, a sport which combines aspects of tennis, ping-pong and badminton, has seen a boom in popularity over the past few years. Though it was invented in 1965, the game initially caught on almost exclusively in the Pacific Northwest, but has recently become much more widespread; the Sports and Fitness Industry Association has reported that since 2021, pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport in the United States. Pickleball is particularly popular with senior adults due to its lowimpact nature and lower risk of injury compared to sports like tennis and racquetball.
PHOTOS
SUCH A FUN GAMEA GREAT WORKOUT AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY.
The Talbot County Department of Parks and Recreation has caught on to the sport’s surging popularity, building eight new outdoor pickleball courts in 2023 and even more recently, six indoor courts. Both the outdoor and indoor courts are located at the Talbot County Community Center at 10028 Ocean Gateway. The outdoor courts are available first-come-first-serve at any time during the Community Center’s operating hours, while the indoor courts are available for rental at $20 per hour. Those interested can call 410-770-8050 for availability.
The community center also hosts four open sessions per week, on Tuesdays from 5:30-6:30 p.m. and 6:307:30 p.m., as well as on Thursdays 8:30-9:30 a.m. and 9:30-10:30 a.m.
The community center also offers pickleball clinics for both adults and youth: these clinics are open to all skill levels and are designed to build pickleball
skills and increase confidence and enjoyment for all players. The youth clinics are a 6-week summer program hosted in June and July each year, available to any 3rd through 8th graders for $60 per participant. The adult clinics are held on Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings for four weekly one-hour sessions, at a rate of $75 per participant. Registration is available on the department’s website at talbotparks.com.
Rob and Gale White play at the indoor courts a couple times per week, and have found it helpful for staying active and social.
“We played tennis for years and made the switch to pickleball and never looked back,” Gale said. “Such a fun game-a great workout and social activity.”
Gale particularly enjoys playing on the indoor courts because of the “great competition, nice people and no weather issues.”
Another couple, Tim and Carol Moore, who play together 2-3 times per week, said that the fun atmosphere at the indoor courts was what drew them to the sport.
“It’s fun to play,” Tim said. “Pickleball is great because it accommodates any skill level and any age. It’s a friendly group of people that we look forward to seeing each week.”
Tim and Carol agree that pickleball has “absolutely” helped them stay active, and the lack of weather concerns at the indoor courts is an added benefit.
For many senior adults, playing pickleball is not just a fad, but has become a lifestyle as well as a major contributor to staying in shape. Scientific studies in recent years have proven the benefits of playing the sport regularly: for example, a 2018 study in the Journal of Positive Psychology concluded that “playing pickleball as a form of
serious leisure may add significant value to older adults’ daily lives and contribute to successful aging.”
Among the many potential benefits are increased cardiovascular health, reduced cholesterol, lower risk of muscle and joint injury and heightened cognitive performance.
In addition to pickleball, the parks & rec department offers numerous other programs to get active and stay active. These include public pools and swimming lessons, ice skating and ice hockey, soccer, dance lessons and much more.
Information on hours and locations for these programs can be found on the department’s website. Whether you’re interested in pickleball or any other activity, the community center is a place for increasing your physical fitness while getting more in touch with your community, and most importantly, having fun. S
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BODYWORK
back the clock SWIM
Karen Shook encourages you to make time for your ‘wellness now’
STORY
BY MADISON BATEMAN
PHOTOS BY CAL JACKSON
Karen Shook has a passion for serving her community, which includes encouraging older residents to take care of their bodies now rather than later.
Every week, Shook, 77, teaches four water aerobics classes at the Easton YMCA and two classes at the St. Michaels Community Center on Railroad Avenue.
“I’ve loved water all my life,” she said, “Once on vacation I took a water aerobics class and I enjoyed it so much, I signed up for classes as soon as I got home.”
After two years of taking the class at her local YMCA, Shook was offered a job as a water aerobics instructor, which she happily accepted. She hasn’t looked back since.
“Being in the water for me is so magical,”
THERE IS SO MUCH FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT. IT BOOSTS YOUR MOOD AND IS WONDERFUL FOR JOINTS.
she said. “There is so much freedom of movement. It boosts your mood and is wonderful for joints.”
Shook said walking in water for thirty minutes exerts the same energy as walking on land for two hours.
Although water aerobics is a cardiovascular exercise that works your whole body, Shook said anybody can get in the pool, including those with high blood pressure, diabetes, body alignment issues and pregnant women. Many also use water aerobics as conditioning for upcoming surgery.
Shook also teaches a water aerobics class modified for those with Parkinson’s Disease in the warm pool at the YMCA in Easton.
Matthew Seiden of Preston has participated in that 45-minute class for over a year now.
“Parkinson’s makes you unsteady on your feet, your balance isn’t perfect, but when you get in the pool where Karen has class, it’s like a miracle” he said. “I feel buoyant, athletic and graceful.”
Seiden said he attends the class every Monday morning.
“It’s a wonderful way to start the week,” he said. “I come out feeling refreshed and stronger. It’s a hard workout but it’s restorative … I may be 76 years old but in the water I feel 26.”
The Parkinson’s group includes a wide range of people with various degrees of impairment.
“Karen helps everyone at every level,” he said. “ She knows how to take the class seriously while still making it fun.”
Seiden said his neurologist has shared with him many times the best thing he can do for his health is get as much vigorous exercise as possible. Shook’s class makes that easy for him.
“The class is also a social experience,” he said. “We have all become good friends which is also important when you have Parkinson’s because it’s easy to feel isolated.”
Shook said she gets a lot of satisfaction from seeing people improve. She mentioned the YMCA has so much equipment, such as pool noodles, which allows for a tremendous amount of versatility. It’s important
to her that she keeps the class interesting and fun not only for the students, but herself as well.
“You need to make time for your wellness now or you’ll be making time for your illness later,” she said.
“It’s all about how hard you want to work.”
Shook moved to Talbot County in 2009 from Washington, D.C., where she worked as an established journalist and a member of the DC Board of Education, in addition to teaching water aerobics at her local YMCA. She has been active in numerous local organizations, including the Academy Art Museum and St. Michaels Community Center. S
