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Central Edition | Vol. 46 | No. 5 | May 2020
Activist uses art as threshold to build community
advocate
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PHOTO/ JÜRGEN LOBERT
Jürgen Lobert
a chemist with a camera explores the night world Story on page 4
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AARP resources to help caregivers By Mike Festa, State Director AARP Massachusetts
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GET THE FAMILY CAREGIVING SUPPORT YOU NEED, WHEN YOU NEED IT Your caregiving journey can be challenging in all kinds of ways. You never know where it might lead you next. At AARP Family Caregiving, we're here to help you get answers, connect with other family caregivers and find resources online and close to home. So you can take care of what matters most To learn more, visit aarp.org/caregiving.
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f you are not currently a caregiver, chances are you will be in the future. In Massachusetts, approximately 840,000 family caregivers provided an estimated 700 million hours of care — worth a staggering $12 billion — to their parents, spouses, partners, and friends Mike Festa in 2017. The complexity of family caregiving increases as medical and nursing tasks continue to enter the home, and family demographics change amidst an aging population. Nationwide, AARP is fighting to support America’s 40 million family caregivers who help make it possible for older Americans and other loved ones to live independently at home— where they want to be. Every day, millions of Americans perform a great labor of love by helping their parents and spouses remain at home. While these family caregivers wouldn’t have it any other way, they need some support. Family caregivers help their older loved ones with medications and medical care, meals, bathing and dressing, chores and much more. Many do it all while also working full- or part-time. Some are on call 24/7, and often they can’t even take a break. We can support family caregivers so they can safely care for their older loved ones at home—keeping them out of nursing homes, and preventing unnecessary and costly hospitalizations. We can help with some basic support—and commonsense solutions—like training, help at home, flexibility at work, and tools to make big responsibilities a little bit easier. Family caregivers are the first line of defense against older Ameri-
Every day, millions of Americans perform a great labor of love by helping their parents and spouses remain at home. While these family caregivers wouldn’t have it any other way, they need some support.
cans being forced from their homes and into nursing homes or back into the hospital—and it’s not easy. Caring for mom or dad can be expensive, stressful, and isolating. Family caregivers often put their own health and well-being second, third or fourth. Family caregivers perform unpaid care valued at $470 billion a year, helping their loved ones stay at home—and out of costly institutional care, often paid for by Medicaid. In every state, the value of this unpaid care is greater than the annual cost of Medicaid for institutional stays, like nursing homes, and services to help people remain at home. It can be difficult to navigate through your role as a family caregiver, but AARP is here to help. Please visit AARP for caregiving resources at www.aarp.org/caregiving. You will find resources and support guides, an online community, and a toll-free caregiver support line at 877-3335885. For more articles visit www.fiftyplusadvocate.com. Mike Festa is the state director for AARP Massachusetts. Archives of articles from previous issues can be read at www.fiftyplusadvocate.com.
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Jan Devereux, life-long learner
ALIGN YOUR RETIREMENT STRATEGY WITH YOUR RETIREMENT DREAMS.
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RETIREMENT CHALLENGES: Living Longer – Am I going to outlive my money? Taxes – Are there tax implications for my retirement? Market Uncertainty – Is market volatility and low interest rates eroding my retirement? Where is my money coming from – What can I do with my Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) and/or Deferred Compensation? PHOTO/COURTESY PAUL BRYMER
CAMBRIDGE - Have you ever wanted to know how cities work? Perhaps being a member of the city council would be the way to learn about this. That’s what Jan Devereux, 59, found out when she worked as both a member of the city council and vice-mayor for Cambridge. “Being a councilor was a unique opportunity to drink from the firehose of information about how cities work. My four years at this work were the equivalent of a graduate degree in urban planning, housing and transportation policy, and human psychology,” she explained. “As a life-long learner, I was constantly stimulated by the chance to absorb new information and gain new perspectives.” While some may be daunted by working in the political realm, Devereux, though she never saw herself as a career politician or really a politician at all, was motivated to run to bring about changes she saw as important for Cambridge. “I was initially inspired to run in 2015 by what I perceived as a lack of civic engagement among many residents and by the perception that the council had become an old boy’s club. I wanted to get involved to show that you didn’t need to be a typical ‘politico’ to step up and serve,” she said. “There was only one woman councilor at the time. It seemed to me that the council was not working very hard to involve residents in decisions.” Devereux admits her civic work was very demanding at times. “The volume of email can be overwhelming,” she said. “When I ran I said I would make it my fulltime job and I did, but I had trouble setting boundaries and it became a job that felt as if there was always something more I could be doing.” But she has no regrets that she worked hard on behalf of Cambridge. “I’m proud of the progress we made on bike safety and reducing speed limits throughout the city. I’m also proud of launching the Urban Forest Master Plan task force process and raising awareness that we need stronger protections for mature trees on both public and private property, as well as much greater public investment in tree planting and care,” she said. Complaining about the way things are may be the way some people deal with what’s happening around them that they don’t like. “After living in Cambridge for 20 years and not really taking much interest in local politics, I found myself complaining about city decisions and
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decided that if I wanted to change that conversation I needed to step up myself,” she noted. She also recalled her undergraduate college’s motto: “Princeton in the nation’s service”. For Dereveux that motto became more than just words. In addition to her now former political life, Devereux continues to enjoy writing. She has written a novel for children called “Poe, the Crow”, personal essays, and opinion columns. She also wrote a weekly e-newsletter when she was a councilor. “I explained complex issues and highlighted public meetings and events. When I announced I’d not be running again, I received countless emails from people saying my newsletter had helped them feel engaged and informed about local issues. It made a difference in their lives and that makes me feel proud,” said Devereux. Devereux is not sure what’s next for her. She admits she’s not a big goal-setter. But, as she noted, “I want to remain useful, challenged, and productive in my work life and have more time for my friends, family, and creative interests.” She’s an environmentalist, activist, mother, writer and community advocate so she’s not without many paths to choose to work on. But it’s hard to predict these things. Devereux herself didn’t end up doing what she thought she’d do. When she was young, athletics were her focus. But she credits her years playing competitive tennis beginning at age 12 with part of who she is today. “Those years of practice, persistence, and stamina required to become a top player has served me well in lots of ways,” she said.
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Jürgen Lobert
a chemist with a camera explores the night world By Peg Lopata Contributing writer MEDWAY - Jürgen Lobert is a night and day man, a man of two lives. His daytime occupation is as a research scientist. His night life is an exploration using long exposure and infrared photography to capture the night’s beauty. “I want to go beyond simply documenting something that is already there,” he explained. Teaching these techniques is also part of his life as an artist. Using long exposure photography, Lobert captures the feeling of time moving, and the nuances of shadow and the brilliant colors of lights at night. He transforms dull and ugly daylight scenes into vivid nighttime landscapes. He said, “I’m inspired to this kind of photography because I’m intrigued to create views of what we cannot see with our eyes.” As both scientist and artist he makes this possible. Lobert has had a long career in the environmental sciences publishing some 40 technical papers. Born and raised in Frankfurt Germany, he has a Ph.D in chemistry and has worked for various academic institutions, such as the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany, and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, La Jolla, Calif. In 2003, he moved to Massachusetts for a job with Entegris, Inc., a company that is in contamination control for the semiconductor industry. Photography caught his attention in his teen years. Later, career travels to such places as the Ivory Coast, Australia, and Antarctica deepened his interest in photography.
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Being a photographer has made me a vastly more aware and observant person. I see more art in everyday life, be it a certain way that products are displayed, to how a meal is presented, or how people go about their lives and work.
But, he explained, “I didn’t really embrace photography until I took a workshop at the New England School of Photography (NESOP) in 2011 to learn the art of night photography. That kicked loose a lot of hidden interest and talent. I fully embraced it as a new hobby because the teacher used Adobe Lightroom software, which is really easy to use. That was the tool I had needed to expertly edit photos to make them look the way I wanted. Two years
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later, I started to give presentations about night photography at camera clubs, later, at conferences and in 2017 started to teach the very workshop that got me started at NESOP.” Lobert is drawn to night photography because as he said, “The play of light and shadows at night is very transformational.” He favors abandoned locales and industrial places.
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Vets make, donate face shields for healthcare workers By Ed Karvoski Jr. Culture Editor
Commander Rick Currier of American Legion Post 234
NORTHBOROUGH – Members of Northborough’s Vincent F. Picard American Legion Post 234 are accustomed to answering the call of duty. The shortage of personal protective equipment due to the coronavirus pandemic prompted Post 234 members to make and donate face shields for healthcare workers. Leading the effort is the post’s Commander Rick Currier, an Air Force veteran who served from 1968 to 1972. “We’ve been doing community service for as long as I can remember,” he said of his colleagues’ civic commitment. “I can’t consider not doing it. Now, we’re helping people who are helping other people.” Assisting healthcare workers is a personal mission for Currier. He learned how to make shields that cover the entire face via an online tutorial forwarded to him by his daughter, Dr. Danielle Currier, a dentist in New
York City. “The face shield goes from the forehead all the way down to past your chin,” he explained. “If you wear a face mask, then you can put the shield that we’re making over the mask. When dentists extract a tooth, they wear the shield to protect themselves from bodily fluids. They use the shield almost as much as they do the actual face mask.” Materials needed to make the face shields are sheets of plastic, foam strips that are typically stuffed between an air conditioner and window frame, and glue or double-sided tape. The cost for materials is approximately $5 per shield. Other American Legion Post 234 members who were quick to offer their help with making face shields are Bill Callaghan, senior vice commander; Matt Edwards, finance officer; and Alan St. Jean, junior vice commander and vice president of American Legion Riders. They’re mindful of physical distancing. “We’re very careful,” Currier not-
Jürgen Lobert - a chemist with a camera explores the night world Jürgen Lobert | from page 5
“The mundane can surprise you,” he noted. “I teach that even garbage can look good at night.” The metamorphosis is much like a chemical reaction. “In industrial places, which we find noisy, smelly, and unsightly during the day, by night they magically turn into something like a tourist attraction with intense mixed lighting, starbursts and shadows. It all makes for an impressive display,” he said. Lobert shares his love of his art via his Facebook pages, Instagram, a blog, a meetup group, and his website leyetscapes.com. He also judges photo com-
petitions at camera clubs to give back to the photographic community. “I found the feedback from competition judges that I had received was useful for my own growth and thought that I could contribute by sharing my experience and photographic approach with others. “Judging other people’s photos is a very humbling and challenging experience. Even if a judge is trying to keep it objective, judging is somewhat inherently subjective. I try to keep my judging to the technical and compositional aspects and to gauge the photo’s impact. Nobody cares if you like a photo or not. They want to know if they
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succeeded in creating a good photo. I always joke that if you submit a photo to four different judges, you get five different scores.” Though photography is Lobert’s creative outlet, it was in academia that he learned to be an explorer no matter what he did. “My Ph.D. advisor, Paul Crutzen, taught me to question everything and to keep exploring even the most unlikely scenarios,” he said. “This type of fundamental curiosity has never left me.” So Lobert continues to grow as a photographer because he’s driven
to explore, but he admits he has also developed keener eyes. Years looking through a camera lens has sharpened his vision. “Being a photographer has made me a vastly more aware and observant person,” he said. “I see more art in everyday life, be it a certain way that products are displayed, to how a meal is presented, or how people go about their lives and work.” This expansive perspective continues to inform Lobert, the chemist wandering about at night in lonely places with a camera, ready to reveal nighttime’s hidden beauty.
www.fiftyplusadvocate.com + May 2020 + fiftyplus advocate ed. “We make sure that we’re six feet apart and wearing rubber gloves. Also, this gets you out of the house and gives you something to do.” Within their first few weeks of making face masks, 400 were donated and delivered for healthcare workers and first responders at several venues: St. Vincent’s Hospital, Worcester, 80; two Veterans Administration facilities, Worcester, 75; Holy Trinity Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Worcester, 75; Spectrum Health Systems, Westborough, 50; Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, Burlington, 45; Shrewsbury Nursing and Rehab Center, 25; Northborough Fire Department, 25; and Northborough Police Department, 25. As a military veteran, Currier recognizes parallels with the coronavirus outbreak and wartime. He considers the tasks of first responders and all healthcare workers akin to soldiers fighting on the front line. “Except with the virus, you don’t see the enemy coming and that’s probably even scarier,” he said. “I have so much respect for these first responders – many of them are young with spouses and kids. I sometimes cry when I see what they have to go through. And they’re doing it day in day out.” Tax-deductible donations are being accepted to cover the cost of materials. Checks made payable to “American Legion Post 234,” with “donation for face shields” stated on the memo line, can be mailed to P.O. Box 234 Northborough, MA. 01532. Donations can also be made online at Venmo@AmericanLegionPost234. According to Post 234’s website, “There are many American Legions that pop up, so please make sure it goes to Post 234.” For updates, visit americanlegionpost234. com.
Matt Edwards, American Legion Post 234’s finance officer
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American Legion Post 234’s Commander Rick Currier and Junior Vice Commander Alan St. Jean
Except with the virus, you don’t see the enemy coming and that’s probably even scarier. I have so much respect for these first responders – many of them are young with spouses and kids. I sometimes cry when I see what they have to go through. And they’re doing it day in day out.
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South Boston activist uses art as a threshold to build community By Ed Karvoski Jr. Culture Editor BOSTON – South Boston artist Michael Dowling felt compelled to complement his successful career as a painter with creative activism. As founder and artistic director of Medicine Wheel Productions, he strives to build a more unified community by helping Southie residents express themselves through art. Dowling worked as a landscape painter after graduating from Boston University with a BFA in 1977 and MFA in 1979 in painting. His current mission began in 1992 with an art-as-healing project named Medicine Wheel. When this and other public art projects grew, his efforts became incorporated in 2000 as the nonprofit Medicine Wheel Productions. “Every spoke of a wheel is significant; if one spoke is broken, the wheel is incomplete – that’s at the core of what we’re trying to do,” he noted. “My life’s work is to create equitable opportunities for people’s voices to be heard collectively.” In 1992, Dowling accepted an invitation from Boston Center for the Arts to create a ritual in its Cyclorama Building for Day With(out) Art, aka World AIDS Day. The arts community has nationally observed the day to remember AIDS-related deaths and inspire positive action each Dec. 1 since 1989. For Boston’s 1992 inaugural, Dowling scattered blocks of stones around the cyclorama. He asked participants to lift stones and carry them to the room’s epicenter to build a memorial cairn. Noticing two women pushing an unusually heavy stone, he offered multiple attempts to help. Dowling recounted, “One of the women looked at me and said, ‘You don’t get this, do you? Her son, my nephew, just
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died from AIDS. This is our weight.’ I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. It gave me insight into what I was called to do with my art. I had some dissatisfaction as a gallery artist and started to see that art is not a commodity.” Each year’s Medicine Wheel installation is based on an element: air, earth, fire or water. 2019’s element was water. “We invited artists to decorate water buckets,” Dowling noted. “Many artists decorated the buckets – amateur and professional, kids in grammar and high schools, anyone can take part in this project.” Dowling has observed an increase in older attendees at the recent years’ installations. “The survivors of the lost generation are showing up in large numbers,” he said. “There’s still a real need to connect to the stories that perhaps only we remember.” Another public art project rooted in the 1990s has prompted several current year-round programs for youth. In 1996, Dowling helped residents of all ages reclaim an abandoned space between South Boston High School and Dorchester Heights known as No Man’s Land. He encouraged them to bring stones as well as stories that described what connects them with their Southie neighborhood. “To my surprise, 300 people showed up with stones and stories,” he relayed. “We all placed our stones in a spiral circle that is still the center of the work at No Man’s Land.” Two years later, Dowling responded to a request for assistance from a group of Southie youth who needed a safe space to grieve amidst stigma associated with addiction and suicide. “Kids were dying from heroin overdoses, and suicide became an alternative for many young people,” he explained.
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O God, heavenly Father, by whose gracious will the rain falls, the earth bears fruit, and creatures are plentiful: look mercifully, we beg you, upon the suffering of your people, and grant that this time of sickness may be transformed into a time of health and abundance; for the love of Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, now and for ever. Amen.
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Essentially non-essential Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. – Publilius Syrus
By Marianne Delorey, Ph.D. Executive Director, Colony Retirement Homes
O
n March 23, Gov. Charlie Baker ordered all nonessential workers to stay home. I had been worried about this move, and I had been planning for this as a possibility. I was lucky enough that I could work from home easily although many of my staff was not as fortunate. We considered ourselves essential. Through countless snowstorms over the years, we had focused our efforts on what parts of the organization just *must* continue to function. We planned how we could continue to keep these core operations going if people would not be allowed to come to work. As it turns out, Baker exempted all of our operations. How validating! I work in affordable housing. My residents are low income, community dwelling elders. While our elders are independent, and we provide no medical services, we do provide some services that keep them independent and without which, many would be in nursing homes. Being labeled essential made me think long and hard about our role. On the other hand, it was an acknowledgement that the walls of a nursing home do not contain all the care that is provided for all our elders. But more tellingly, I was left to wonder if our government would acknowledge the inconsistency between the essentialness of our functions and the coordination of dollars that support those functions. • Over the past 50 years, HUD’s role in funding affordable housing has changed dramatically, shifting costs and responsibility from a centralized resource to tax credit investors. While affordable housing is still being built, sponsors now have to spend years raising funds instead of helping addi-
Housing Options
tional low-income elders. Many affordable housing sites have at least a dozen funders, including some federal funds, state funds, local funds and many private donations. • Home and community-based services, such as those provided by Aging Service Access Points, have undergone a similar shift. Whereas the Massachusetts Home Care agencies were once able to control the funds for at home services, now there are multiple players from Senior Care Organizations and others that also offer services. While the home care agencies play a role in elder case management, the decentralization encouraged by the financial resources makes it harder to navigate and partner for the sake of our elders. These changes should also be set in context. Nursing homes all over Massachusetts are closing due to low reimbursement. All around us, the choices of elders are being limited or obfuscated by decentralization and a desire to slash federal costs. And now we are expected to rise to the challenge of being considered essential during a public health crisis? There is no central source for information and help. Masks are widely not available for anyone not in an acute setting. This hardly seems fair. Our government has some explaining to do to all of our essential workers. Perhaps it is time to hold our representatives accountable if they vote against the resources in their communities that are providing services to home bound seniors. Not surprisingly, coronavirus has become my every waking thought and most of my sleeping thoughts. Since late February, I have been scrolling through the “what ifs” and planning around factors I cannot control. It doesn’t help my planning that the entire landscape shifts every three days and I have a new set of “what ifs” to imagine. We went from a world where this was a possibility to a probability to an inevitability. Until there is enough herd immunity, this virus is going to continue to spread. And then, it will enter our buildings. Where my elders, my residents, live.
Marianne Delorey, Ph.D. is the executive director of Colony Retirement Homes. She can be reached at 508-755-0444 or mdelorey@colonyretirement.com and www.colonyretirementhomes.com. Archives of articles from previous issues can be read at www.fiftyplusadvocate.com
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Bassist shares music and health passions with multiple generations
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By Ed Karvoski Jr. Culture Editor NORTH SHORE – David Landoni of Danvers began his career as a bassist touring on the road nationally and worldwide. Although the COVID-19 pandemic stay-athome advisory halted his usual gigs throughout New England, he continues teaching music as an adjunct professor at UMass Boston – albeit remotely. On the upside, he now has more time to travel on the North Shore’s backroads as an avid bicyclist. Landoni was already a multi-instrumentalist while growing up in Gloucester. After seeing a talent show at Gloucester High School (GHS) where a band performed sans bassist, he concentrated more on that particular instrument and soon became a bandmate. His father, Bob, is also a multi-instrumentalist. “Once I started getting proficient on the bass, my dad asked me to play with his band, too,” Landoni relayed. “Playing the old standards with my dad is how I got into jazz. It was good training for me.” A 1982 GHS graduate, Landoni attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music while working weekends as a bassist at weddings and other gigs. He graduated from Berklee in 1986. In 1989, he got hired to tour with the Artie Shaw Orchestra led
DAVID LANDONI PHOTOS/SUBMITTED
by multi-instrumentalist Dick Johnson of Brockton. Landoni was recommended for the gig by acclaimed jazz trumpeter and fellow Gloucester native Herb Pomeroy. “I had zero big-band experience, so I hit the ground running,” Landoni acknowledged. “It was fun playing with a 17-piece orchestra, and seeing a lot of the country and different parts of the world.” Along the way, the orchestra’s namesake Artie Shaw joined the musicians to lead rehearsals on a cruise from San Juan to Barcelona. Another highlight for Landoni was the opportunity to perform for a national audience on the 1991 PBS television special “Big Band Ballroom Bash” cohosted by song-and-dance star Juliet Prowse and cabaret singer-pianist Bobby Short. Countless concerts continued on the road. “We were playing five or six days or nights a week,” Landoni recalled. “We’d travel thousands of miles in a week, going from town to town, all one-nighters. We’d go on 10-week tours and by the end of the 10th week the band sounded so good.” He left the road in 1991 to perform and record with some of New England’s top jazz artists. In the mid1990s, he began a 10-year stint with the Herb Pomeroy Trio, performing in Gloucester and recording CDs.
AY 872
www.fiftyplusadvocate.com + May 2020 + fiftyplus advocate Landoni instructed bass at Salem State University from 2006 to 2015. He has taught at UMass Boston since 2015 and welcomes the chance to share his firsthand knowledge of playing electric and upright bass with the next generation of musicians. “A lot of my students have gone on to study at Berklee College of Music, have graduated and have become teachers themselves,” he noted. Additionally, Landoni typically plays various musical styles with a number of performers at many New England venues. His last gig before the pandemic restrictions was March 14. He’s looking forward to returning to his eclectic schedule. “One night I’m playing straightahead jazz, and the next I’m playing pop music on electric bass,” he said of his usual routine. “I love working
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with different people every night because it’s always a new experience while making new friendships. There’s nothing like a collective of people sharing the common goal to make great music.” A longtime bicyclist, Landoni credits his father as a role model not only for his musical skills, but also for an appreciation of physical exercise. His father competed in rowing races in Gloucester from the late-1960s to mid-1970s. “As a kid, I had training wheels on my bike for maybe an hour before my dad took them off and I went riding,” Landoni recounted. “My dad always worked out. He’s now 83, still exercising and reaping the benefits.” Similarly, Landoni benefits from bicycling. With some downtime while pandemic restrictions are in effect, he has been riding 150 to 200 miles per week. “Cycling on the North Shore is fabulous with so many backroads to explore,” he said. “I ride up to 80 miles on all backroads with very little car traffic during the day. My doctor says I have the heart of a 20 year old. It’s extremely important to keep moving.”
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money matters
Reverse mortgages: Timing and words matter By Alain Valles, CRMP, CSA, MS, MBA Nonprofit Charitable Managing Director
Coronavirus and reverse mortgages I am not only concerned about global health and the economy but more specifically on the impact to senior homeowners and how a reverse mortgage might be a financial solution. I had hoped COVID-19 would no longer be the main headline but it has literally and figuratively infected every aspect of our lives. I hope you, your family, and friends are safe and sound. But I can surely guarantee that each of you has had an immediate economic impact that may
Reverse Mortgage
Timing is critical – With all the economic damage occurring, I strongly suggest that potential eligible older homeowners learn how a reverse mortgage may provide financial protection. linger or exacerbate to an unmanageable level. And that is my concern for older homeowners in this article. Words matter Fear: an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat Anxiety: a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome For many of us, just reading these words instantly causes an emotional and physical reaction to whatever is churning away in our subconscious. For some, the worry for the health of our families and how we’re going to pay the bills while sheltering in place is all but freezing us in place. When animals perceive a threat, the typical four survival stages are: freeze (camouflage), flight (run away), fight (attack), and succumb (perish). As a seasoned experienced licensed
reverse mortgage professional, I have helped so many older homeowners “fight” back against financial uncertainty and then be able to live a better quality of life with less worry. But unfortunately, I have witnessed many others become paralyzed with fear and anxiety, to “succumb” to their circumstance as if they lost the will to “fight” when a solution was available. The word that best describes this is: Resigned: having accepted something unpleasant that one cannot do anything about And then, months or years later, that same person will reach out to me and share that their situation has worsened, that events out of their control have taken place, that life has inflicted more pain and NOW they want to get a reverse mortgage to only learn that they no longer qualify or the lending rules have changed. And that leads to the most painful
word of all: Regret: feel sad or disappointed over something that has happened or been done, especially a lost or missed opportunity. For me, it is demoralizing when I may have had the chance to help a family’s financial position, but that person was afraid. Afraid to make a decision of perhaps obtaining a reverse mortgage, or moving, or implementing immediate drastic cost cutting actions, or taking proactive measures to protect their family for uncertain life events that we will all face. It’s a heartbreaker when my client says, “I regret….” because it’s so hard to unwind. One must take action. Action: the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim For homeowners with at least one person 62 years or older, I im-
SUPER CROSSWORD PUZZLE
Reverse mortgage | 16
“WHOO-HOO”
www.fiftyplusadvocate.com + May 2020 + fiftyplus advocate
viewpoint
Our Secret Mom-Poetry Project
By Janice Lindsay
Birth of a Child
T
Once you reached out toward eternity And caught and held a planet as it whirled; Just so you hold within maternal arms One whole new life, one perfect world. And even in this instant as you gaze Into the wonder of the sleeping face, This tiny world will slowly start to spin And orbit in its own appointed place.
hroughout the secret project, the children impressed me the most. They all knew the secret, they all helped, and they never told. The Secret Mom-Poetry Project began a few months before my mother’s ninetieth birthday. Our mother, Eleanor Campbell of Jefferson, Maine, had been writing poetry all her life, but especially since the late 1950s when the youngest of us seven children were little. My mother loved little children, and most of her poems were about family life. Many had been published; most had not. A year or so before her birthday, I realized that almost none of her poems had been entered into a computer. Typewritten copies were stored
Inklings
Answers to Super Crossword
~ Eleanor Campbell
in file folders. If anything happened to those folders, her life’s work would be lost. Mom had macular degeneration and couldn’t see well enough to work on the computer. So I offered to enter her poems into word processing software and copy them onto CDs so that we could all have them. I made the offer before I realized there were 432 poems. But I soldiered on, and, little by little, I typed all the poems. I finally copied the collection onto CDs and spread the CDs among a dozen different households. What next? It seemed a shame to let the poems just sit there on CDs. A small collection would make a fine book, but Mom wouldn’t be able to see it well enough to enjoy it. What if she could hear the poems? What if we could read some of the poems into a recorder so she could listen to them? What if each of us – seven children, 16 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, assorted spouses – a total of 45 -- each picked a favorite poem and recorded it? We could edit the recordings into one CD.
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Janice Lindsay’s mother, Eleanor Campbell
And what if we could keep it a secret, and give Mom the CD when she celebrated her ninetieth birthday? It seemed impossible, secretly coordinating all those people in six different states. But we decided to try. Our brother who is a music teacher had good recording equipment that we passed among some of the families. Others had their own equipment and
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submitted poems separately. He collected them, edited them for volume and flow, and created the CD. We had managed to record 40 people reading 60 poems (some of us couldn’t pick just one). Our brother who is a graphic designer created a CD cover and included a list of readers and poems. At our mother’s ninetieth birthday party, the children sat in a row on the floor as we watched a slide show another brother had prepared about our mother’s life. Then we all listened to the CD. The children had read slowly and with expression, their voices clear and sweet. As they heard their own voices, some of the younger ones wriggled with embarrassment and pride. They listened with polite attention to the grown-up readers. My mother was thrilled. But to me, the children were the most delightful part of the whole secret project. I believe their grandmother/great-grandmother thought so, too. Contact jlindsay@tidewater.net
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By Jane Keller Gordon Assistant Editor NORTHBRIDGE/SOU TH DENNIS - Growing up in northern New Jersey, Don Wilding visited Cape Cod when he was four, but had no idea that the history of that region would play a central role in his life. An award-winning writer, Wilding considers himself a storyteller, and many of his stories are about Henry Beston, an American writer and naturalist. “Beston is the reason that there is the Cape Cod National Seashore,” Wilding said. Beston’s book, The Outermost House, published in 1928, brought attention to the natural beauty of the Cape and was referenced in the report that led to the 1961 bill signed by President John F. Kennedy Jr. that established the National Seashore. “Outermost House has never been out of print,” Wilding said. “That’s amazing.” Wilding’s connection to Massachusetts began in the 1970s when he attended Grahm Jr. College in Boston. He went on to earn an associate degree in public communications from Mount Wachusett Community College. He has enjoyed a 35-year career as an award-winning newspa-
PHOTO/JANE KELLER GORDON
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per writer and editor. He wrote for the Associated Newspapers in the Stoughton area, the Community Newspaper Company in Mansfield, the Sun Chronicle in Attleborough, and then the Foxborough Reporter. In 2003, Wilding and his wife Nita moved to the Cape. He became a writer for the Cape Codder in Orleans, and then the Cape Cod Times in Hyannis. He has been a freelancer since 2014. His focus on Beston began years before his move to the Cape. In the late 1990s, when Wilding was spending time with his wife at
Reverse mortgages: Timing and words matter
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Reverse mortgage | from page 14
plore you to take action and obtain factual information about how a reverse mortgage might be the solution to immediate or future cash needs. I fully empathize that many of you reading this article are facing life threatening situations and severe economic challenges while many of you have less dire circumstances. Please don’t give up hope. Please exhaust every option to maintain or improve your quality of life. Please invest 10 minutes of time to learn if you may qualify. If you do, then in an orderly fashion I’ll explain all the details and the process. You’ll then be able to make a fully informed de-
cision if a reverse mortgage is the best plan for you. Don’t succumb to fear! Get accurate information A great place to start is the free “How to Use Your Home to Stay at Home” 36-page book. This is the official reverse mortgage consumer booklet approved by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and published by the National Council on Aging. Or, please feel comfortable to give me a call at 781-724-6221 and I’ll be happy to have an educational conversation with you about your unique situation and mail you the free 36-page book. Thank you.
Alain Valles is the Managing Director of Helping Hands Community Partners, Inc. and was the first designated Certified Reverse Mortgage Professional in New England. He obtained a Master of Science from the M.I.T. Center for Real Estate, an MBA from the Wharton School, and graduated summa cum laude from UMass Amherst. Valles can be reached directly at 781-724-6221 or by email at reversemortgage@hhcp.org.for more articles visit www.fiftyplusadvocate.com.
www.fiftyplusadvocate.com + May 2020 + fiftyplus advocate
PHOTO/NAN TURNER WALDRON
collection of photos. Beston’s house had washed away in a 1978 blizzard, so photos of the house were precious. In 2002, Wilding and his wife founded the Henry Beston Society, which became a launching board for lectures and exhibits. A documentary film has been in the works. “My first lecture took place in Eastham in 2001 when the town was celebrating its 350th anniversary,” said Wilding. In 2003, Wilding published his book, Henry Beston’s Cape Cod – how The Outermost House inspired a National Seashore. Wilding wrote, “Forty years following the establishment of this land being set aside for preservation by President John F. Kennedy, Beston and his nature classic were still being praised by United States Representative William Delahunt of Massachusetts (who said),
Henry Beston’s Outermost House, circa 1970s
his in-laws’ home in Provincetown, he and his wife decided to read about the Cape. They purchased two books: Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau and The Outermost House. It was Beston’s prose that moved them the most.
Around that time, Wilding connected with Nan Turner Waldron, who had written about Beston in her book, Journey to Outermost House. Nearing the end of her life, Waldron gave Wilding her research, including an extensive
• 17
‘Sometimes the incredible becomes so familiar, we don’t notice. Then along comes someone like Henry Beston… to put into words the spectacular splendor of the Outer Cape.’” About 10 years ago, Wilding’s interest in the history of the Cape expanded beyond Beston. “My son Matt put me on the history path and got me interested in shipwrecks and other stories. Matt used to work for the Freedom Trail and now has a small tour company in Boston,” said Wilding. Since 2015, Wilding has written a column called “Shore Lore” for the Cape Codder. In 2017, Wilding published another book, A Brief History of Eastham – on the Outer Beach of Cape Cod. He lectures about Beston as well as Cape Cod shipwrecks, storms, rum runners and other historical events. He has taught Cape history classes for Open University of Wellfleet. Wilding also works as a tour guide for bus and walking tours on the Cape. As a child, this New Jersey native never heard of Beston or thought much about the Cape. Now it’s the center of his life. For more information about Wilding, visit dwcapecod.com or contact him at Henrybestonsociety@yahoo.com.
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Nonprofit RIP Medical Debt helps those in need By Matt LaBarre Contributing Writer
ic serv
will see a news story about us, and appreciate the extent of this very real crisis for families of all income brackets and demographic groupings around the country, and work with us to create a fundraising campaign.” For every $10 raised, RIP Medical Debt is able to eliminate about $1,000 in debt through purchasing that debt in the debt market. “So far, roughly 500,000 families have had their debt eliminated!” Antico continues. “We send the family or individual a yellow envelope, which contains the surprise, the news that their medical debt is gone!” “This is a random act of kindness,” Antico explains. “Our recipients are selected randomly, sometimes because the association or faith-based organization requests that people in a geographic area receive this assistance, sometimes because the folks raising funds belong to a group, such as the Massachusetts Nurses Association, who raised $15,000 that was used to assist nurses in the state who had this kind of debt, or because the folks raising funds for us were specific to an illness or condition, and people who have that illness or condition.”
But the people at RIP Medical Debt never know specifically who they are assisting, with families and individuals selected without knowing names, and strictly on the basis of data pulled together within the general perimeters. “We’d encourage anyone, any association, foundation, or faith-based organization to contact us and discuss how they can be of our efforts to eliminate the next billion dollars in debt!” Antico said. “We’re still working with just a small percentage of hospitals and healthcare providers, and really have just begun letting people know about what we do!” “The coronavirus will, sadly, affect so many individuals and families, and a percentage of those folks will incur medical debt through having to undergo treatments they have no health insurance to cover, and we anticipate an increase in the levels of medical debt throughout this year,” he said. “So we’re looking for more people to join our work!” For additional information, or to learn more about how to organize a fundraising campaign, visit www.ripmedicaldebt.org.
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REGION - Many Americans may find themselves in dire financial straits, with increasing medical bills, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Others may fortunately not become ill from the virus but feel helpless and wish for a way to help those in need. A unique nonprofit, RIP Medical Debt, offers a way for donors to Craig Antico help those who are in financial straits. RIP Medical Debt, co-founded by Craig Antico and Jerry Ashton, has since 2014, eliminated $1 billion of the medical debt owed by Americans who have been often financially crippled by this kind of debt. Both Antico and Ashton were previously debt collectors in the medical debt industry, where hospi-
tals and other healthcare professionals pass along debts that they are unable to collect. Those debt portfolios are sold to debt collection companies, usually at pennies on the dollar. The two had learned about the enormity of the problem, and had decided they were, because of their expertise, to evolve from being part of the problem to helping people who often experience financial ruin from medical debts. “Then we had to figure out how to do that!” Antico says. “We had no nonprofit experience, and there was no model to follow.” The organization’s big breakthrough was a report nighttime show host John Oliver presented on his program. “John Oliver talked about it, and our donations sky-rocketed!” Antico said. Shortly after that, other news outlets such as the New York Times, CBS, The New Yorker, and others, began spotlighting RIP Medical Debt, and donations flowed, along with interest from associations and faith -based organizations that raised funds for RIP Medical Debt. “We still conduct no outbound fundraising,” Antico said. “People
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High expectations and support for blind and low-vision people By Serena Howlett Contributing Writer
PHOTO/SUBMITTED
REGION - Amy Ruell was born in western Massachusetts about three months ahead of her due date. Ruell’s survival was a near-miracle, but the oxygen that saved her life destroyed the optic nerve. “ M y Amy Ruell parents treated me as they would have treated any other child of theirs,” she recalled. As a result, “being blind was not a big deal.” Ruell’s brain learned how to navigate the physical world she could not see. “I walked to the school bus
stop,” she reminisced. Using her fingers she learned to read words written in raised dots (“Braille”). Using her intelligence and indomitable spirit, she graduated from high school and went on to earn degrees at Smith College and Simmons School of Social Work. She married, had two children and pursued a career as a social worker and advocate for blind people. Ruell observed that her lack of sight “has never been an obstacle,” adding “blindness should not prevent anyone from enjoying a full life.” According to Ruell, a blind person can accomplish almost anything a sighted person can do, albeit not in the same way. “The one limitation,” noted Ruell, “is the low expectations blind people confront.” Sighted people frequently ignore or talk down to blind people, she said, giving two examples from her own experiences. “I was seated with my husband
in a restaurant,” Ruell recalled. “The server first took my husband’s order, then asked him for my order, as though I couldn’t speak for myself.” Similarly, at a medical appointment, the nurse asked Ruell if she needed help getting undressed. “Such low expectations,” remarked Ruell, “are not only unfounded, but hurtful.” Repeatedly confronted with low expectations, a blind person may begin to believe they are less capable than they really are. “Most people think going blind would be the worst thing that could happen to them,” said Ruell. “It’s not the end of the world.” Social isolation is the worst thing that can happen to a person experiencing declining eyesight or blindness, she believes. “With older people, physical or mental illness may occur simultaneously,” Ruell pointed out. It is important to maintain social contacts and pursue interests throughout life,
Newly Remodeled Apartments with a contemporary flair
no matter what happens. A licensed medical social worker, Ruell juggles three jobs: director of low-vision adjustment services at the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, overseeing 36 support groups; psychiatric consultant to insurers concerning emergency hospital admissions; and advocate for the National Federation for the Blind. In her professional life, which includes local and national travel, Ruell takes full advantage of 21st century technology, such as a smartphone, and innovations, such as ride-hailing services. “Sighted and blind people benefit from the same innovations and technological tools for navigation and communication as sighted people,” said Ruell. She expressed concern for blind people who cannot afford the latest technology. Ruell said she considers herself “very lucky.” Visit www.fiftyplusadvocate. com for a list of resources for blind and low-vision people.
• Contemporary styled 1 & 2 bedroom apartments • New kitchens with built-in microwaves and granite-like countertops • Small pets welcome • Heat and Hot water included • Bus route / ample parking • Beautiful landscaped grounds with gazebo
Within the building amenities include: • • • • • •
A Theater-like media center Handicap-accessible lounges on every floor Library equipped with two computers and free internet access Physical fitness center Game room with billiard table Community room with bingo board and large screen TV
Green Hill Towers
27 Mount Vernon Street, Worcester, MA • Office Open Daily 8:00am - 4:30pm To receive an application please call 508-755-6062 TDD# 508-755-0228 Now accepting applications for 62 years of age and older and those who are under 62 years of age and are permanently disabled. Applicants must meet HUD annual low income guidelines. Preference is given to individuals 62 and older.
Managed by Financed by MHFA
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fiftyplus advocate + May 2020 + www.fiftyplusadvocate.com
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