6 Local News Let There Be Light
A Publication of Presidio Communications • August 2016
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By Ilene Hubbs
It all started with a dream. He was a music lover and a talented composer, whose Masters degree was in music composition. But sometimes life gets in the way. First a marriage, then children and the dream of a music career turns into the practicality of staying with a business that is growing and growing, enabling him to provide a good life for his family. And so he stayed with it and became very successful. Fast forward many, many years and he finds himself and his wife retired to the good life in San Diego. He now has a beautiful home in Rancho Santa Fe, a happy healthy family, all grown now, and all the trappings success can bring. But he needs mental stimulation and the company of other vital and interesting seniors. He enrolls in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UCSD and is drawn toward the Theater group, who put on staged readings of plays and one musical a year. It’s fun, it’s rewarding, but one day in a group of fellow thespians, he mentions his dream. He has always wanted to write an original musical production. I take the bait!
That sounds like fun, let’s do it, I proclaim. And so it began. We put the call out to anyone interested in working on an original musical. We set a meeting date and to our surprise, many Osher students showed up. After a few meeting, we saw that more and more interested parties lost interest. The early meetings were a bit hectic. It was brainstorming on steroids. The thought of what they were tackling was daunting and so, one by one they dropped out leaving just a core of five of us diehards, but this core was dedicated to making it happen. Here we were, a businessman, a Navy officer, a music librarian, a non-profit CEO and a psychology professor, all retired, and all working as a collaborative entity. The first thing we needed to agree on was what the play would be about. Then the appropriate music could be composed. One song was already written by our leader, a song about what was needed to produce a play. The song was titled “Let There Be Light” and it was beautiful. Everyone agreed we need to fit this song in. But how? One day a light bulb went off on all of us at the same time. How about a play about a bunch of seniors putting on a show. A play within a play. A play that would end with the new play about to begin.
After that the ideas began to flow. There could be a love angle too, a spark of interest between a widow and a widower both working on the play. He’s all for the relationship, she feels she’s not ready, conflict, drama, resolution, a reason for more songs to be written. Our brainstorming sessions became more productive. Each participant in the writing process took ownership. Soon we had the first scene written, the second, then a third. Each scene begged an appropriate song. It was magic. I wrote lyrics, someone else put it to music. It was working. We were all seemingly amazed, but secretly confident that we knew deep down that it could work. We knew it all along. Confidence builds with success and with each meeting we became more and more convinced we can do this. Then one of the group created a storyboard to keep us visually on track. Now we could see where each scene was going, who the characters are, what music was needed and whether the sequence made sense. Now, after many months, we are well into the process. We have no idea how long this will take to complete or how good the finished product will be. The joy is in the creating. Once the musical is written, we are done, and that will be “the end,” or not.•
Patty Ducey-Brooks Publisher
Ilene Hubbs Associate Editor
Michal A. Tuzinkiewicz Creative Director
Phyllis E. Zawacki Graphic Designer
Contributing Writers Blake Beckcom Rick Brooks Melody Brown Ian Campbell Richard Cone Cath DeStefano Violet Green Barry Hager Ilene Hubbs David Kamatoy Philip C. Lee Alice Lowe Aubree Lynn George Mitrovich David Rottenberg Anne Sack
Mission Hills Has One of By Ginny Ollis
Four Diabetes Food Banks in the U.S.
Several years ago the idea was seeded in Ruth Henricks’ mind. 20 percent of the clients of her Special Delivery service are diabetic, which means they need not only to receive specific diets, but to learn how to eat for health. Her clients are not generally people with bountiful funds, and yet the requirements for diabetic meals emphasize produce, whole grains fish, white meats, and the more expensive foods. It had been Henricks’ good fortune to meet Jennifer Gilmore (whom Henricks refers to as “Saint Jennifer”). Gilmore is the executive director of Kitchens for Good, and past executive director of Feeding America San Diego. Gilmore has led efforts to expand emergency food distribution to communities affected by limited access to grocery stores and farmers’ markets, low wages and the high cost of quality food. Gilmore gave Henricks a lot of information and contacts. Henricks then traveled to one of the three existing diabetic food services in the U.S., which was located in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her initial goal was to determine the means and ways of creating a similar service in San Diego. While in Texas, Henricks met a family with a small foundation that offered to fund a startup here in San Diego. Voila; San Diego benefits from Henricks’ vision and tenacity.
• PresidioSentinel.com
Today, San Diego’s diabetic clients can participate in weekly, educational meetings. The meetings teach them about healthy lifestyles, from mental to physical to foods. After attending the meeting, they are given a “ticket” and welcomed to the special food van with a diabetic pantry to shop for their week’s food needs. According to Henricks’, the diabetic pantry is already realizing substantial results with clients moving off diabetic medicines and restoring healthy glucose readings naturally. Support is beginning to expand as the value and careful management of the program is being recognized Ruth Henricks had a vision and the tenacity to for its benefit and successes. start a diabetic pantry to serve San Diegans. Stores are donating, including Trader Joe’s, which has been donating medically homebound people living to Special Delivery even before the with AIDS, diabetes, cancer and diabetic pantry existed. However, with other critical illnesses throughout increasing funding and donations, the San Diego community. The Henricks can expand this needed volunteer staff helps to keep service to a larger proportion of San overhead low and maintain its strict Diego’s population. commitment to serving the clientele Special Delivery was founded it’s committed to. in 1991 and is a non-profit that, Volunteers and donors are invited thanks to the efforts of volunteers, to call Ruth Henricks at The Huddle, guarantees 91 cents of every dollar a Mission Hills restaurant institution donated is put into meals and care for decades. She can be reached for clients. It provides meals to at 619.291.5950.•
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