Volume Twenty Eight, Number 5
May 2014
Photos by Louise Hughes TEEN VOLUNTEERS from neighboring Harriton High School took over recent iPad classes at Beaumont, and residents rated them A-Plus. Andrew Frederick (with resident Julie Williams, above left), created the program, with the help of fellow students Willie Marks (with Wistie Miller and Marty Lewis, above right); Victoria Marks, Charlie Rowe, Nate Rush, Pranav Pillai, Allison Schwartz and Benji Hoog. The final session ended with pizza and a prom invitation set to music and sung by almost all: Invitation from Andrew to Victoria; serenade by resident Ed Rosen at the piano, with grandson Jordan Seres and trumpet.
Where shall we eat? soon it could be, “Down the Bistro!”
By Mary Graff
It may not open before the end of next month, but residents, wait-listers and guests can start planning now for their first visit to Beaumont’s new eating and entertainment center, THE BISTRO! With seating for 35, the Bistro will bring the number of places to dine at Beaumont to 10, though with many added features. Details disclosed by President Joe Peduzzi at his monthly Town Hall meeting March 27 made it possible to envision these scenarios: You start off with bruschette and a cocktail or a glass of wine. Chat with your spouse or a friend or tell your troubles to the bartender. Watch the Phillies on one of
the multiple flat-screen televisions. Join in a game of table shuffleboard or pool. Listen to music with the help of a state-of-the-art sound system and an electric piano. Work the rest of the way through an extensive menu (see Page 6), ending perhaps with a warm chocolate brownie, coffee and a liqueur. Or grab a fast Bistro burger and a milkshake before heading off-campus for an early event. The Bistro will open at 4 p.m. Still hungry when you come home? Working late? The Bistro will stay open until 10. There will be special events in the Bistro, too. The full-service bar will include not only a live bartender but also push-button wine dispensers, wine refrigerators and a full wine, beer and spirits menu. Pricing of menu items had not yet been determined when the BN went to press, but meal credits will be accepted. A floor plan of the Bistro, along with other details, is included in Joe’s meeting handout, available in the Administration office.
CLEO, an 8-year-old Border Terrier who has lived on Pond Lane with Helen (DeeDee) and Ian Ballard for about a year (she was a rescue dog), has a number of pen pals. Among these she recently included a Pond Lane neighbor, Bill Graff. The BN welcomes her as a contributor!
The BN is published monthly 10 times a year, October through July. Contributions are welcome, provided they are the contributor’s own work. The deadline for each issue is the 10th of the preceding month. E-mail to Mary Graff at graffs18@gmail.com and mgraff@BeaumontRetirement.com, or hand in at the Front Desk.
BEAUMONT NEWS The Beaumont News is published by the residents and staff of the Beaumont Retirement Community, 601 N. Ithan Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Beaumont in April. . .
Editor Assistant Editor and Production Manager Graphic Designer Photo Editor Events Manager Proofreader Circulation Manager
Photo by Ann Louise Strong
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Mary Graff John Hall TJ Walsh Louise Hughes Kim Norrett Jennie Frankel Barbara O’Brien
Memories of a well-mannered tour guide
I found that without Lady Jane’s impatient glances and ostentatious sighs, my preparation seemed to please everyone and of course I gained confidence as the miles ticked away. Lady Jane rejoined us the next day, but she asked me to join her at the front of the bus and actually ceded the microphone (even if without much grace). The curse was broken. Well, maybe not quite. A second Smith trip produced a situation which occasionally made me long for Lady Jane. This time Smith and a group from Mount Holyoke were going up the Rhône, beginning in Marseilles, with side trips to Aix-en-Provence, then to Arles and Avignon. For some reason, the Smith group had decided to have two guides, a young French woman and me. We were constantly placed in competitive situations, struggling with the most delicate and difficult fact that her English accent was almost impossible to understand, with the result that I was always asked to explain what she said, and occasionally ended up giving the lecture over again. This did not make for a confrère atmosphere. Worse, the Holyoke group had a French guide of its own, who was as friendly as a puppy, and kept giving me as a reference, which produced glaring from my inadvertent coguide. Making the situation almost impossible, the Smith representative just backed off from any attempt to see or rescue the situation. Finally, the Holyoke group asked me to go with them to Nîmes, saying that their young French guide had had to return home for some family problem. Of course, Nîmes is so interesting that we had a wonderful day, with no pauses about “What did she say?” and embarrassing repeats. Needless to say Smith’s French guide was in a very sour mood because she had seen all the lifted eyebrows whenever she spoke English, and angry because several people had asked where I was. The atmosphere was both haughty and irritated and I was too inexperienced to give the Alumnae representative a piece of my mind. But Fate finally not only smiled on me, she actually laughed. My next trip, bracing for a snub or a personally embarrassing situation, I met a charming young courier, and when I asked about the general set-up and how we would split our responsibilities, she gave me a sweet smile and said, “I’m the courier, you are the guide. Do anything you’ve planned.” !!!!!! We were to have seven happy trips together in England and Italy.
By Barbara O’Brien One of the greatest treats I have had in my life involved guiding in Europe for both Smith College and, twice, my own students from the Shipley School. Of course, as I was their teacher, the Shipley students, as soon as they realized that I was not an artist but was excited by the wonderful things we sketched, worked away with great enthusiasm. We had an exciting show when we went home to Bryn Mawr. (The Doge’s Palace is a more interesting subject than the Bryn Mawr Station!) It also helped that they knew no Italian and actually shrank from the constant attentions of the Italian boys who lurked near us all day. My first trip with the Smith College group nearly caused me to lose faith in myself. I was asked by the Smith College Travel Department to lead a bus tour in Normandy and Brittany, following a week in Paris. After an easy week in Paris with serious sightseers, typical of college groups, we started off to the country with an English courier, Lady Jane Howard, whose job was to pace our tour, get us in and out of hotels, buses and restaurants, reserve our meals, and so forth. As I got into the bus and took the seat behind the driver, with the microphone, Lady Jane informed me firmly that this was her place, and that I was to sit farther back and talk only when she gave me a signal. The signals were almost nonexistent, she completely took over, and I didn’t dare to speak, although I had conscientiously labored over my presentations and had plenty to say. The Smith representative kept coming forward and saying, “We’d really like to hear from you,” but I had not been brought up to interrupt anyone and mostly sat glumly in my seat, passing out the papers I had prepared beforehand, usually without a word. The tour participants often gave me puzzled looks: “Why is she here?” Finally, a breakthrough. We were told one morning that Lady Jane was suffering a migraine and could not be with us that day. Hurrah! But now it really was up to me. First things first; in my halting French I set myself to make friends with the bus driver, Bertrand. He, in turn, was pleased, after days of “My good man,” to find a nonsnooty companion who actually gave the proper deference to his knowledge of distances, roadblocks, entry times and other possible hazards, so I was able to plot what to say and how long to say it.
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In praise of Center City: ‘an impressive transformation,’ even though problems persist By Peter Binzen A similar piece by Peter, a Philadelphia-area journalist for more than 60 years, appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer March 16 with a picture of crowds at last year’s Rittenhouse Row spring festival. The other day, I heard half a dozen of my fellow Beaumont residents talking about Center City. “Oh, my, there’s not much hope for the old place anymore.” “It has lost population.” “It has lost manufacturing.” . . . I thought to myself: Despite Beaumont’s many scheduled trips to cultural and other events in Philadelphia, these folks must not have signed up for any lately. They have totally missed an impressive transformation. Of course, it’s no secret that the city has lost manufacturing. So have most of the nation’s other big cities. But Philadelphia’s population, after decades of decline, has started to level off. And Center City has actually gained residents in recent years. While old people have moved out, many young people, such as my 29-year-old grandson, are moving in. When my bride and I settled in Philadelphia in 1951, the city was duller than seven Sundays in Flatbush. There was possibly one respectable restaurant in Center City, two or three at the most. The others were greasy spoons. Many of the city’s hotels were owned by one company, and they were uniformly second- or third-rate. In one of the city’s largest hotels, you had to run the tap for half an hour or longer to get water warm enough for a bath—I kid you not. Today’s Philadelphia can lay claim to some of the nation’s finest hotels and restaurants. New apartment buildings are popping up in unlikely places. The Inquirer’s Inga Saffron writes that at Ninth and Berks streets, just outside the city center, “You can practically feel the tidal wave of gentrification bearing down from both directions,” east and west. The city’s sidewalks are often jammed, not just on weekends but during the week as well. There’s a buzz of excitement in the city that was totally lacking in the old days.
New Baldwin resident is writing a novel By Margie Manlove
In the short time Ginny Rivers has been living in Baldwin she has been so active and met with so many residents that she scarcely needs an introduction. Ginny is familiar with the area as well, having—with her late husband, Dick, a corporate lawyer— brought up their three children nearby. She says she is glad to return to this area after living for the past 14 years at Ganoga Lake, near Ricketts Glen State Park and Eaglesmere, Pa. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, with a master’s in psychology, Ginny has pursued many interests: reporting for the Main Line Times, writing and editing for Ginny Rivers Girard and Mellon banks and psychiatrist Aaron Beck, and volunteering with Main Line School Night, the League of Women Voters of Lower Merion and Narberth, Youth Service Inc. and Rosemont-Villanova Civic Association, among others. Recently Ginny spent a week in Lititz looking after her daughter’s two children, aged 11 and 8, while their parents were away. She has an 8-year-old grandson adopted from Armenia. Ginny’s father was Armenian. He was born in what was then Russia in 1895 and fought against the Turks in the First World War before emigrating to this country. For the past 25 years Ginny has been working on a novel based on her family history. She has read extensively and traveled to eastern Turkey, Russia and Armenia to better understand her family origins. Her book is completed and needs only final editing. She hopes to get it published in time for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Yes, Philadelphia has terribly difficult problems related to its struggling economy and its woebegone system of public education. But, trust me, Center City is a very different place from yesteryear. And as we used to say in Paris, where my wife and I fell in love, “Vive la différence!”
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Behind the scenes: Our singing hallmen By Mary Schnabel
Many of us Beaumont residents have inhabited two different neighborhoods while living here, the villas and the apartments. Each has its own advantages and charms, as those of us who have experienced both can attest. But in many ways they are very different, and the most obvious one is the landscape. While the villa dwellers walk from villa to garage to sidewalk, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine or braving the rain and wind, those of us in the apartments step out onto our sidewalk, which is a carpeted hall. The experience of fresh air or foul weather is limited for us. Each experience has an advantage over the other in some way, and we are all willing to sacrifice what we lose in one for what we gain in another. We in the Austin and Baldwin apartments, unlike our friends in the villas, are very much in need of daily tending to our neighborhoods. And for those attentions we rely on the critical work of two wonderful men, Larry Dwyer and Donald Coward. Larry is the head man in Baldwin Hall, the man who is everything to the maintenance and upkeep of Baldwin’s three floors. Larry is everywhere in these three areas, and we can usually track him because of the singing he does while he works. Larry Dwyer Austin Hall has Larry’s counterpart in Donald, whose territory is the large spread of three floors in that wing. It is up to these men to keep our sprawling neighborhoods neat and clean. And that keeps the two men working full time! The landscape in these buildings consists of long, rambling halls (our sidewalks), on which hundreds of feet, interspersed by walkers and scooters, travel back and forth every day. In addition there are the Mansion equivalents of small plazas, or lobbies, each featuring an elevator, a trash room and comfortable seating arrangements. With the help of Housekeeping Assistant Director Darryl Dick, I was able to have one-on-one interviews with both Larry and Donald. Those conversations enabled me to nail down just what it takes to keep our two halls in order. Hallmen continued on page 8
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Darryl Dick juggles housekeeping staff, provides music too
By Mary Schnabel
Assistant Housekeeping Director Darryl Dick, a 25-year Beaumont veteran, came to the States with his mother from Trinidad in 1984 and started work as a young housekeeper here in 1988. He estimates there were about 10 or 12 in the Housekeeping Department back then, a number that has roughly tripled as of today. Darryl is not a person who could ever be lost in a crowd! Tall (6-foot-6) and rangy, with a deep voice, he is easy to spot as he walks around the campus, checking on the endless areas where his housekeeping staff spend their working days. Darryl Dick Darryl says his most complex and sometimes vexing job is the scheduling of his housekeeping staff. He has to factor in days off, illness, holidays and emergencies. Every Friday afternoon he has the next week’s schedule finalized and residents are notified of any changes concerning them. Training of new staff members is a big responsibility. Darryl makes sure that new recruits visit every department with which they will be dealing and understand their responsibilities in those areas. Then they follow a seasoned housekeeper around, learning by helping. Darryl and I spoke a bit about the wonderful music from his native Trinidad, and I learned that not only does he love that music, he is actually a deejay himself. Whenever there is a staff party at Beaumont, Darryl is there to provide the music. What a wonderful thing it is to know that throughout the halls and the spaces of Beaumont, music is ringing day and night!
starters
Bistro Menu
lobster spinach queso
shrimp scampi
homemade buttermilk o-rings
tuna steak
A medley of lobster, fresh spinach, tomatoes, Moray Jack cheese & tortilla chips.
Tossed with asparagus with angel hair pasta and finished with tarragon butter. Cast iron seared, topped with a warm heirloom tomato salad & herb butter.
Our own buttermilk onion rings dusted with bread crumbs. Serve with red pepper horseradish dressing.
6oz. filet
Seared filet mignon on rosemary mushrooms.
mini crab cakes
Our own homemade creamy mini crab cake. Served on roasted corn salad. duck confit
10oz. center cut ny strip steak
Seared NY strip on rosemary mushrooms.
& tomato bruschetta
Steaks can be Bleu Cheese crusted or served with BĂŠarnaise Sauce
Slow cooked duck and diced tomatoes bruschetta drizzled with aged balsamic and grilled pita & baguette.
french dip sandwich bistro burger
pretzel crusted cheese
Cheddar and onion stuffed burger with jack cheese and mushrooms.
Served with beer mustard sauce. seared ahi tuna
turkey club jr.
Sliced rare with a citrus soy glaze and seaweed salad.
On a thick cut multigrain bread. portabello mushroom burger
shrimp and garlic
Served with boursin cheese, roasted peppers and balsamic carmelized onions.
Tossed with oregano and tomatoes with sliced baguette.
asian salad
entrees
sides
salads
white truffle ketchup
& steak fries
loaded idaho baked potato mac-n-cheese
Glazed crispy chicken on top of a blended Napa cabbage with wonton, crispy iceberg and scallions with cashew dressing.
rosemary wild mushrooms griddle corn muffins
grilled asparagus with bĂŠarnaise
bistro salad
braised baby carrots
Romaine hearts with fresh tuna, potatoes, haricots vert, egg, Kalamata olives and fried onions with chervil coriander dressing.
desserts bistro milkshakes
steak house salad
(add after dinner liqueurs)
Bibb lettuce with sliced grilled steak, mushrooms, Roma tomatoes, red onions and shoe string fries with red wine balsamic dressing.
warm apple tart with salted caramel ice cream
warm chocolate brownie
greek yogurt cheese cake
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Mike’s Roundup By Mike Bailey, Housekeeping
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Ring the alarm, It’s a milestone anniversary And an engagement going on. First let’s go to the 25 years These loyal employees gave Beaumont, All they had with nothing to spare, From Housekeeping to the CNAs, You have to love the dedication: Darryl Dick, Louise Hughes, Mimose St. Fort, Hulet Samuels, Jennifer Hyman plus Delores Hill, Robert Foster and John Henry, Can share some stories and wonderful memories. Samantha Mohan said yes to Angel Figueroa As he got down on one knee March 29 late Saturday night and started a new chapter in both their lives. Now remember…….. The only reason to ride a bull is to meet a nurse.
Dining Services’ Sam Mohan with fiancé Angel Figueroa
In Memoriam Evelyn McCracken, April 4, 2014 Louise Allinson, April 11, 2014
From top to bottom: Darryl Dick, Louise Hughes, Mimose St. Fort, Jennifer Hyman, Delores Hill (at right), Hulet Samuels, Robert Foster and John Henry.
Members of the Beaumont Community extend deepest sympathy to their families and friends.
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Hallmen continued from page 5 Both men speak from long experience: Donald’s 13 years and Larry’s 11 here at Beaumont. It was a first job for each of them, direct from Jamaica. They both love what they do. “I like coming to work,” says Donald, who does his own share of singing. Austin and Baldwin residents alike say they look forward to hearing the hallmen sing as they work. The way they feel about their work shows up in the way they carry out the daily jobs they attack at 7:00 every morning. Both start their day in places where we residents are unlikely to be at that early hour. Every elevator is cleaned every morning; every large gray bin in Donald Coward every trash room is taken each morning to the big compactor by the loading dock. Trash rooms are tidied daily; then all stairs, lobbies and halls are attended. Every floor is vacuumed every day, spot cleaned and shampooed as needed. Every Tuesday afternoon the big red bins from the trash rooms are taken down to a garage entrance to be picked up on Wednesday morning—trash day for everyone at Beaumont. Empty bins are returned to trash rooms that have, in the interim, been scrubbed. Extra work or emergencies can quickly change a schedule. A cup of coffee is dropped on the way from the coffee bar, a puppy can’t wait to go for his walk, something heavy needs to be lifted, and Donald and Larry roll with the punches. We owe a big debt of thanks to Larry Dwyer and Donald Coward, our singing House Men.
PLANS FOR A MAY 17 WEDDING brought three generations of Mary Disston's family together. Choosing the dress, from left: Mother of the bride, Kathy Williams, Mary's daughter; bride-to-be Molly Buck, Mary's granddaughter, and Mary.
WHALER’S VALENTINE: Carolyn and Alvan Markle pose with their lovingly created variation on the traditional sailor’s valentine, design and shellwork by Carolyn and scrimshaw by Alvan. At the center is a half model of a full-rigged whaling vessel, hull of ebony, whaleboats of whale ivory and sails cut from Sanibel Island clamshells. Whales, carved from the teeth of sperm whales, clockwise from the top: Narwhal, Finback, Sperm and Humpback. Alvan, a long-time collector of pre-embargo whale ivory, said he and Carolyn recently took their valentine (heavily insured) to a show in Sanibel, where it was “much admired,” he said, although being unique, there was no category in which it might have won a prize. Why did they make it? “It was just a Photo by Louise Hughes mutual effort that Carolyn organized,” Alvan said.
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