❘ Cuisine
45 ❘ Klamath Life ❘ SLICE OF LIFE
‘To me it’s more than just delivering meals — you make a connection with clients. I like to visit with them a little bit. Some of them don’t see many people during the week.’ — Joe Primm Meals on Wheels volunteer
DELIVERING SENIOR MEALS
Making a connection, one meal at a time
A
lthough he only saw her twice in the months he knew her, Eleanor Louise David made quite an impression on Joe Primm.
H&N photos by Lacey Jarrell
Ready for the road: After packaging, frozen meals are placed in insulated totes to ensure they stay cold during delivery. Driver Joe Primm travels 21 miles for his Friday delivery route.
David had terminal lung cancer and often stayed in bed or behind a closed door each week when Primm delivered weekend meals for the Klamath Basin Senior Center. Despite David’s illness, Primm remembers her as a woman full of life. David’s May 2012 obituary said she had worked as a blackjack dealer, a model and a hairdresser in cities like Las Vegas and New York City. Shortly before her death, David asked a family member to give Primm a special snapshot. In it, she is smiling, looking radiant in a white evening gown and standing alongside silver-screen By LACEY JARRELL: H&N Staff Reporter
actor Robert Mitchum. “She was quite a lady,” said Primm, smiling back at the image. “Those are the kind of people you miss.” Primm, a 76-year-old retired forest worker, has been a volunteer delivery driver for Meals on Wheels for the last two years. Each Friday, he prepares for his run by loading dozens of packaged meals and single-serving beverages in the back of his Ford Bronco. The clients receive one hot and two frozen meals to help them through the weekend. See MEAL, page 46