October 2017 | Fifty Plus Richmond

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OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

OCTOBER 2017 • FREE

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OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

Let me explain, again Attention to the photographer: In this column last month, I wrote on the I would like to know where your publisher’s topic “Will a free press survive?” The title was and your printing office have the somewhat tongue-in-cheek — nerve to publish a photograph as though definitely not meant to the one printed on the last page of be flippant — as my words were your newspaper. What point were less about the overall health of you trying to convey EXa free press in America and ACTLY???????? more about the survival of free On television, it is bad enough printed publications like Fifty to flip through the awful stations Plus in the age of the Internet. and [have to] skip over the 600 I discussed the economic pound program [“My 600-lb pressures facing publications Life”]. like ours, and how we are, for If your publisher wishes to conbetter or worse, totally dependFROM THE tact me with any further coment on advertising revenue to ments, I would welcome the be able to print more than PUBLISHER opportunity to tell all of you what 30,000 copies of Fifty Plus each By Stuart P. Rosenthal I think of this publication! month, deliver them to more Please do all of us readers a favor and elimthan 400 convenient drop-off locations throughout the greater Richmond area, pay inate these photographs from your newspapers.

Though the letter was signed, I am not our staff, and cover rent and all the other overhead costs of a business operation today. printing it as a letter to the editor and giving We do all this for you, our readers, so you the writer’s name. Instead, I would like to acwill have a totally free, easily available, trust- knowledge her point and respond to her critworthy, and we hope highly useful source of icism here.

First, I feel it’s necessary to note that the information and entertainment.

So imagine my surprise when, ironically, I back page of our publication is always a paid received the following email last week from advertisement. It is not an editorial comment an irate reader concerning the advertisement from our publication.

Furthermore, the photo was not taken by that appeared on the back page of our September issue (and again on the back page of our photographer, and we, as Fifty Plus, were not trying to “convey” anything. This was not this issue):

a publication of

The Beacon Newspapers, Inc.

Editorial Mission: Fifty Plus is dedicated to providing readers with accurate information, professional guidance, and useful resources. Our publication is intended to both reflect and enhance fifty-plus lifestyles, and to encourage reader dialogue and input.

Fifty Plus is published monthly and distributed free of charge. The advertising deadline is the 20th of each month for the upcoming issue. The entire contents of Fifty Plus are © 2017, The Beacon Newspapers, Inc. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without the express written consent of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed by writers and columnists do not necessarily represent those of Fifty Plus or its staff.

Publisher/Editor: ........................Stuart Rosenthal Vice President of Operations:........Gordon Hasenei Sales Director: ..................................Alan Spiegel Managing Editor: ..........................Barbara Ruben Assistant Editor: ..........................Rebekah Alcalde Art Director: ....................................Kyle Gregor y Operations Manager:............................Roger King Advertising Representative: ................Wendy Bond

Fifty Plus Richmond • PO Box 2227 • Silver Spring, MD 20915 PH: 804-673-5203 • info@fiftyplusrichmond.com © Copyright 2017 The Beacon Newspapers, Inc.

meant to cast aspersions on our readers or to offend you in any way.

As I wrote in my column last month and repeated above, it is ONLY through advertising revenue that we can survive and provide this free publication for your benefit. We do not tell advertisers what to say or what photos to use (though we would certainly not accept advertising from someone known to be engaged in fraud or otherwise illegal activities).

I do agree that the back page ad’s large image of a person’s belly fat, accompanied by the headline “Got Belly Fat?” is attentiongrabbing. It’s not intended to be flattering.

But we understand that a number of readers of Fifty Plus respond to this ad, which has run for the past few months, and attend the doctor’s free workshop, where he discusses how hormones affect our weight, food cravings, and how we burn fat.

In fact, I much more often hear from readers how useful and helpful they find our advertisements and the services our advertisers offer, than I hear complaints.

I want to reiterate: our aim is not to offend.

Far from it! We seek to educate and engage our readers, and to provide a forum for advertisers to promote truly useful products and services.

I apologize if an occasional ad puts some readers off. We would hate to lose a reader

over such a thing, given all the efforts and dollars we invest to make Fifty Plus into a publication you will learn from and enjoy reading.

We want to keep our publication free to you, our readers. I’m afraid the price we all pay — and this is true of television, radio, most printed publications, and even smartphone apps today — is the presence of advertising.

Whether a particular ad speaks to us or not (and whether what it says is “I’ve got just what you need,” or “I will make you uncomfortable in some way”), its presence means readers get something else that’s valuable without having to pay for it.

And so I will repeat (for the last time) what I said last month: We depend on advertising to survive.

That is why we so appreciate your patronizing our advertisers when they offer something you need or want, and why we ask that you mention to our advertisers that you saw their ad in Fifty Plus. It’s really the only way they know their ad works.

Thank you for reading us, and please continue to send us your thoughts about our publication, whether critical or otherwise.

Letters to the editor Readers are encouraged to share their opinion on any matter addressed in Fifty Plus as well as on political and social issues of the day. Mail your Letter to the Editor to Fifty Plus, P.O. Box 2227, Silver Spring, MD 20915, or e-mail to info@fiftyplusrichmond.com. Please include your name, address and telephone number for verification.

Dear Editor: Greatly enjoyed reading about David Baldacci’s life and career (“Native son, David Baldacci, does it again,” September). One or two of his books are frequently on my nightstand and help comfort the sleepless hours

that are the lot of the very old.

I’m proud to know that Mr. Baldacci is a son of Richmond. And glad to hear that retirement from writing is not in his plans!

Fran Nunnally Richmond

M A R K YO U R C ALE NDAR

Oct. 14

SUICIDE PREVENTION WALK If you’ve lost someone to suicide, or you or someone you know suf-

fers from a mental health condition like depression or anxiety, consider walking in the Richmond Out of the Darkness Community Walk to fight suicide on Saturday, Oct. 14 at Deep Run Park at 9900 Ridgefield Pkwy. Registration begins at 8 a.m., and the walk starts at 9 a.m. Walk-ups are welcome. Funds raised support the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and its goal to reduce the annual suicide rate in the United States 20 percent by 2025 through research, education, advocacy and support. For more information or to register, visit afsp.org/Richmond.

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FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

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Feature Story Interest in the Cold War is heating up

Setting the record straight Gary Powers, who is 52 and lives in Midlothian, has spent many years poring through

the mementoes and research materials of both his father’s ordeal and the Cold War itself. He was born in Los Angeles two years after his father returned to the U.S., and was 12 when his father died there in a traffic-helicopter crash.

When his dad’s mother, Ida Ford Powers, died in 1991 in the southwest Virginia community of Pound, Gary went to the funeral and realized he barely knew members of his family. That prompted him to move from California to Northern Virginia, where he continued researching his dad’s career while progressing through jobs that led to his becoming director of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. He received his master’s degree in public administration from George Mason University in Fairfax.

“The first thing I realized in researching the U-2 incident was how much misinformation was out there when my dad was shot down,” he said. “No one knew the truth.

“Some people said he had disobeyed orders and should have killed himself rather than be captured. There was even a theory that he had landed his plane in Russia and was a traitor.”

When Powers’ father went down, the Eisenhower administration not only denied his capture by the Soviets, but concocted a story about weather reconnaissance by NASA — until the Soviet government published a picture of the pilot and revealed that it had the plane and information retrieved from it. This embarrassed the United States internationally.

The CIA thought the Soviets were incapable of detecting or downing the high-altitude U-2s. “U-2s were tasked with taking photos of military industrial complexes, railway stations, sub bases, anything that would help the U.S. learn the Soviets’ strengths and weaknesses in the event the U.S. had to go to war with them,” Powers explained.

“My dad did 27 successful missions prior to being shot down. On the May 1st mission, one of dad’s tasks was to see if the [Soviet surface-to-air missile] base near Sverdlovsk was operational. Dad found out firsthand that it was!”

He was equipped with a small pin laced with poison, concealed inside a hollowed-out silver coin. Thinking of all the torture to which he might be subjected, he was tempted to use it, Gary Powers explained — but he decided against suicide, though he kept the pin with him in case the Soviets did use torture for information. The Soviets later discovered the pin and tested its poison on a dog, which died within 30 seconds, according to Powers’ father.

After extensive interrogation by the KGB (the Soviets’ main security agency 1954-1991), the Soviets found Powers guilty of espionage in August 1960 and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. He was locked up with other prisoners in Vladimir Prison near Moscow, but not physically tortured.

PHOTO BY DAN CURRIER

By Martha Steger Santayana said those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

It may be too late to help us, but a museum in Virginia tells the story of captured U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers and relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The museum’s message is worth remembering as relations with Russia spiral downward — much like Powers’ plane after it was hit.

Flying more than 13 miles high over Soviet airspace in his U-2 spy plane nearly 60 years ago, Francis Gary Powers expected to take photos of Soviet military installations and high tail it back to a landing zone in Norway.

Instead, the mission on May 1, 1960 went horribly wrong.

Soviets detected Powers’ plane, and fired numerous surface-to-air missiles, one of which struck his plane, causing it to plummet toward Earth.

“What was left of the plane [was] spinning, only upside down, the nose pointing upward toward the sky, the tail down toward the ground,” Powers recounted of the plane’s terrifying plunge.

The position of the plane meant that the pilot ejector function would not have worked properly, so Powers opened the canopy and was sucked up out of the plane, still attached by his air hose. He was unable to reach the plane’s selfdestruct mechanism at that point, so he broke the oxygen hose and parachuted to the ground.

If Powers had been able to activate the plane’s self-destruct mechanism, the plane wouldn’t have landed with most of its classified information, including photographs, intact. And if he had used the CIA-issued “suicide pill” he held, he would not have been captured and sentenced to 10 years in Soviet prisons and labor camps. (He was released after a year in a prisoner swap: more below.)

Nor would he have kindled a Cold War diplomatic crisis — which became the basis Steven Spielberg’s 2015 Cold War thriller, Bridge of Spies.

Today, Powers’ son, Francis Gary Powers, Jr., who goes by Gary, is co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Cold War Museum — a nonprofit located in the Northern Virginia community of Vint Hill in Fauquier County. Mementos from his father’s days as a spy are part of the exhibits. The museum also includes exhibits on the Berlin War, ballistic and cruise missiles, and the KGB.

Negotiating for freedom Meanwhile, Powers’ family was doing everything possible to obtain his freedom. His father, Oliver Powers, a south- Gary Powers displays the rug his father wove while impriswest Virginia coal miner oned in the Soviet Union. It is made from a burlap potato and shoe repairman, sack and yarn that his family sent to him. wrote a letter to the Soviet spy known as Rudolf Abel, who was serv- while he was imprisoned — some of which ing a 30-year prison sentence in the U.S. for said he had defected, while others said he’d espionage. Abel replied, but said he was un- told the Soviets everything he knew or that able to help. Oliver wrote Khrushchev, too, he hadn’t followed orders and committed suicide. In reality, he was under no orders to without reply.

But the CIA got wind of his efforts. “When take his own life — the pin was available for the CIA showed up at [Oliver’s] shoe shop volunteer use should a pilot choose to use it.”

A hearing before a Senate committee in 1962 and said, ‘Please don’t meddle in our affairs.

You could make it worse for your boy,’ and fully exonerated Powers, and gave him $50,000 said that they would take it from there, he in back pay to cover his time for incarceration in the Soviet Union. The CIA published its own calmed down some,” Powers explained. report on Powers’ conduct, concluding he acted In February 1962, almost two years after Powers took off from the U.S. air base in Pak- honorably and in accordance with instructions istan in his U-2, attorney James Donovan given to him, according to his son.

Upon his return, he obtained work for a (played by Tom Hanks in Spielberg’s film) negotiated the prisoner swap that secured his few years as a test pilot for manufacturer Lockheed. It was rumored that the CIA freedom.

The U.S. government released Soviet Col. arranged the job and paid his salary to “keep Abel in exchange for Powers on Berlin’s him happy and quiet,” Powers said.

That appears to have been the case, for the Glienicke Bridge — nicknamed “bridge of elder Powers was fired by Lockheed in 1970, spies” for its use in exchanging captured spies during the Cold War. As part of the swap, the shortly after he published a book about his Soviets also released a detained American stu- experiences — Operation Overflight — which was critical of the CIA. In the book, dent at Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie.

Powers said, his dad cited “lack of training for pilots on what to do or expect if captured — Returning home also, a lack of coordination in the release of When the freed pilot returned to the U.S., the cover story, as well as a few other things.” he was not welcomed as a hero. U.S. televiHis dad is buried in Arlington National sion had aired his Soviet courtroom admission: “I’ve committed a grave crime, and I Cemetery, where his gravestone lists two realize I must be punished for it.” And that honors, both awarded posthumously: the Discompliant, contrite manner that helped him tinguished Flying Cross and the Prisoner of win his release didn’t go down well at home. War Medal. A third honor, the Silver Star, was “My father returned home,” Powers said, See POWERS, page 10 “shocked at the editorials that had appeared

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OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

Fitness &

Health

HEADACHE HELP Diagnosing the type of headache you have can lead to effective treatment HIGH-TECH HEALTH Look out for new technologies, like a smartphone EKG and pills with sensors GOODBYE, PET You’re entitled to mourn a pet’s loss, though friends may not understand SHOTS IN THE ARM Older adults can choose between two flu vaccines designed just for them

Drug appears to curb heart attack, cancer

By Marilynn Marchione For the first time, a drug has helped prevent heart attacks by curbing inflammation — a new and very different approach than lowering cholesterol, the focus for many years.

People on the drug also had surprisingly lower cancer death rates, especially from lung cancer. An anti-tumor effect is an exciting possibility, but it needs much more study because the heart experiment wasn’t intended to test that.

Doctors say the results on the drug, canakinumab (can-uh-KIN-yoo-mab), open a new frontier. Many heart attacks occur in people whose cholesterol is normal and whose main risk is chronic inflammation that can lead to clogged arteries.

“We suddenly know we can address the inflammation itself, the same way we learned almost 25 years ago that we could address cholesterol. It’s very exciting,” said the study’s leader, Dr. Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet, and presented at the European Society of Cardiology conference in Barcelona, Spain. The drug’s maker, Novartis, sponsored the study and Ridker consults for the company.

Why inflammation?

Statins such as Lipitor lower LDL or bad cholesterol, and have been the cornerstone

of preventing heart attacks along with not smoking, blood pressure control and a healthy lifestyle.

Yet one-quarter of people who suffer a heart attack will have another one within five years, and inflammation is a culprit in half of those cases.

Inflammation happens after a joint is injured and swells, but similar chemical responses can occur over time throughout the body with unhealthy habits. That chronic, unseen inflammation can damage arteries and set the stage for clots.

Twenty years ago, Ridker helped clarify its role and patented a cheap blood test for a sign of inflammation called high-sensitivity C-re-

active protein, or CRP. Canakinumab lowers CRP and is sold now under the brand name Ilaris for some rare inherited diseases.

The study tested it in 10,000 heart attack survivors with low cholesterol but high CRP. They got the usual heart medicines, including statins, and were given one of three different doses of canakinumab or a placebo as a shot every three months.

Those on the medium dose of the drug had a 15 percent lower chance of another heart attack, stroke or heart-related death over the next four years compared to people See PROMISING DRUG, page 7

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FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

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Are artificial sweeteners bad for the brain?

By Dr. Robert H. Shmerling Sometimes it seems like people trying to choose a healthy diet and watch their weight can’t catch a break.

Past studies have linked the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks with cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and obesity. So it’s easy to understand the appeal of diet soft drinks and other artificially sweetened beverages.

If you drink two cans of Coke per day, switching to diet sodas could reduce your calorie intake by 8,400 calories each month.

As long as you don’t add in new sources of calories, over time that could add up to some serious loss of excess weight.

Alarming findings But now, a study has raised the possibility that artificial sweeteners in diet beverages may increase the risk of dementia and stroke.

Researchers analyzed health data from nearly 3,000 adults who had filled out diet surveys, and determined their incidence of stroke or dementia over 10 years. The findings were alarming.

Compared with people who said they didn’t consume diet drinks, those who had at least one per day suffered three times more strokes, and were three times more likely to develop dementia.

Consumption of regular (non-diet) soft drinks was not linked to a higher risk of these brain problems. And the results were unchanged when accounting for other important factors such as gender, diet, smoking and physical activity.

Some major caveats Before you despair or give up your favorite diet beverage forever, keep in mind that a study of this sort has some major limitations that can lead to faulty conclusions.

For example: • It’s impossible to account for every factor that could affect the results. For example, maybe people with diabetes or a family history of diabetes chose sugar-free soft drinks more often than people without diabetes would. So it could be their diabetes and family history, not the diet soft drink consumption, which were responsible for their higher rates of stroke and dementia.

• This type of study cannot establish cause and effect. Even if there is a higher rate of brain disease in people who drink more diet soft drinks, we can’t be sure that the diet soft drinks were the cause.

• This study did not look at the overall health effects of diet soft drinks. It’s possible they are still a healthier choice than sugar-

sweetened beverages.

• This study was conducted when most artificially sweetened beverages contained saccharin (Sweet’N Low, Sweet Twin), acesulfame-K (Sunett, Sweet One), or aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal). Newer sweeteners, such as sucralose (as in Splenda) were unlikely to have been included.

• While the risk of stroke or dementia was higher among those consuming diet soft drinks, only about 3 percent of the studied population had strokes and about 5 percent developed dementia. So, while a higher risk was observed among diet beverage drinkers, the overall risk in those who did or did not drink diet beverages was relatively low.

• This study only looked at artificially sweetened soft drinks. It didn’t look at use of artificial sweeteners in foods or beverages other than soft drinks.

More research needed To understand how concerned we should be and how artificial sweeteners might cause these health problem (or others), additional research will be needed.

I have to admit, this study has made me rethink my own habits. Would it be better if I started adding sugar to my coffee rather than my current routine of adding sucralose? I’m not sure. And this study gives me no guidance.

But if you drink a lot of diet soft drinks, this study should give you pause — maybe moderation is in order. Or maybe drinking plain water wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Robert H. Shmerling, M.D., is faculty editor of Harvard Health Publications. © 2017, President and Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

M A R K YO U R CAL EN DA R

Oct. 24

DOWNSIZE AND DECLUTTER

Learn how to downsize and declutter on Tuesday, Oct. 24 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at Tuckahoe Library, at 1901 Starling Dr. in Henrico, Va. The Richmond Chapter of the National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professionals will provide tips on simplifying your environment as we age in place.

For more information or to RSVP, call (804) 501-5065 or email tur060@henrico.us.

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Fitness & Health | www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com

OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

Diagnosing and heading off headache pain Q.: I am starting to experience more of sleep are a few strategies that can help reheadaches than I did when I was younger. duce the stress that causes this type of Should I be concerned? What headache. can I do to help alleviate my In addition, there are overheadaches? the-counter (OTC) medications A.: Headaches are common in that can help alleviate the pain adults age 65 and older. In fact, of tension-type headaches. OTC headaches are the 10th most medications include aspirin, common symptom in women ibuprofen (Advil or Motrin), and the 14th most common in naproxen (Aleve) and acetaminmen. ophen (Tylenol).

As we age, it is possible for Check with your doctor beheadaches to change in characfore trying an OTC medication, ter or to appear suddenly when DR. RX particularly if you have an existthey were not a problem before. By Goldie Chang ing health condition such as The most common types of high blood pressure or kidney headaches affecting older adults and liver disease. are tension-type, hypnic and symptomatic (caused by medications or an underlying ill- Sleep headaches ness). On the other hand, the prevalence of miHypnic headaches, also known as “alarm graines, another type of headache disorder, is clock” headaches, can be rare but are usually actually less common in older adults. more prevalent after the age of 50. These headaches develop during sleep and can Tension headaches cause a sudden awakening. Hypnic headache Tension-type headaches often follow a attacks can last from 15 minutes to three major life event that might be causing a great hours and can become a persistent problem, deal of stress or emotion. This type of occurring daily for some people. headache can create an extreme burden on Prescription medications such as lithium your productivity and quality of life. or indomethacin can be effective treatments Meditation, exercise and adequate amounts for hypnic headaches. It is important to talk

to your doctor first to rule out other possible causes of headaches that can develop during sleep, such as nocturnal high blood pressure or sleep apnea.

Medication-caused headaches Taking multiple medications for other chronic diseases can induce headaches as a side effect. If you feel your medications are causing your headaches, discuss with your doctor a dose reduction or possible discontinuation.

Sometimes headaches can accompany a more serious ailment, such as head trauma, stroke, tumors or infections. It is very important to seek immediate medical care if your headache is persistent, doesn’t go away de-

spite appropriate treatment, or is excruciatingly painful.

If the onset of headaches is new or different for you, it can be useful to log your symptoms in a headache diary. You should record your symptoms, pain intensity, the time of day it occurs and any possible triggers.

The information you record can be extremely helpful for you and your doctor in understanding the type of headache you have and determining the best treatment for you.

Goldie Chang is a fourth-year Pharm.D. student at VCU School of Pharmacy. She earned her bachelor of science degree in environmental systems at the University of California, San Diego. Her career interests include critical care and cardiology.

M A R K YO U R C ALE NDAR

Oct. 26

CHECK YOUR MEDS Bremo Pharmacy is holding “Check Your Meds Day… and More” on Thursday, Oct. 26 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., as part of National

Pharmacy week. Call the pharmacy and schedule a free appointment to review medications, organize your list and remove unneeded medications, and get a memory screening or flu shot. Light refreshments will be served. There will also be door prizes. The pharmacy is located at 2024 Staples Mill Rd. in Henrico. For more information or to reserve an appointment, call (804) 288-8361, Ext 132.

804-355-3013 1620 N. Hamilton Street Richmond, VA 23230

www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com | Fitness & Health

FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

Promising drug From page 4 given dummy shots. About 33 people would have to be treated for five years to prevent one of these problems — a ratio that outside experts called very good.

The highest dose also lowered risk but not by enough to say the drug was the reason.

The lowest dose had no effect.

It’s hard to get big reductions in risk by adding a new drug like canakinumab if people already are taking optimal medicines, said Dr. Mark Creager, director of the DartmouthHitchcock heart and vascular center and past president of the American Heart Association.

But even a small improvement makes a huge difference considering how common heart attacks are, he said. “That’s going to save a lot of people.”

The best part is having a new way to help patients, said the Cleveland Clinic’s heart chief, Dr. Steven Nissen, who has consulted for Novartis without fee.

“For the first time we have this new target — inflammation,” Nissen said. “It’s sort of the dawning of a new era. I really think it’s that big.”

An anti-cancer effect?

Inflammation also affects how cancers grow and spread. The cancer death rate was only half as large among those getting canakinumab, and death rates for lung cancer were lower in

people getting the top two doses.

Doctors don’t think the drug prevents new cancers from developing, but that it might slow the growth of any tumors that had already started, based on other research.

The cancer results were unexpected and intriguing, but not consistent across all types of tumors, said Dr. Barnett Kramer, prevention chief at the National Cancer Institute.

He called the lower risk for lung cancer “a promising lead” for future research, but said it comes with concern about the drug’s side effects.

The bad news Canakinumab raised the risk of fatal infections — about 1 of every 1,000 patients treated. Older people and diabetics were most vulnerable.

The drug had no effect on death rates once cancer, infection and heart risks were balanced out.

“The fatal infections are something to be concerned about” but overall trends are in a good direction, said Dr. David Goff of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

The federal agency had no role in the heart attack study but sponsors one underway now testing methotrexate, a pill long used to treat cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. It may give a relatively cheap way to prevent heart attacks if it works, because canakinumab is a biotech drug that’s likely to be expensive, Goff said.

Novartis said it’s premature to discuss price for any use as a heart medicine. It costs as much as $200,000 now for rare diseases, and would have to prove cost-effective to justify its relatively modest benefits and risks for heart disease prevention, Dr. Robert Harrington, chairman of the department of medicine at Stanford University, wrote in a commentary in the New England journal.

The company said it would discuss the new results with regulators and pursue further studies on the lung cancer possibilities.

Drugs called NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen, fight inflammation and pain, but they can raise heart risks, which may seem confusing in light of this study. But they work in a different way, do not reduce CRP, and can affect blood clot formation.

— AP

M A R K YO U R CAL EN DA R

Nov. 9

NORTH KOREA TALK

The Shepherd’s Center of Richmond presents nationally recognized scholar David Gompert, senior fellow of the RAND Corporation and distinguished adjunct professor of Virginia Commonwealth University, as a lunch speaker on Thursday, Nov. 9. Gompert’s topic is “North Korea: Dangerous End Game.” This free talk will take place at First Presbyterian Church, located at 4602 Cary St. For more information, call (804) 355-7282 or visit www.TSCOR.org.

Nov. 4

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TRAIN DAY

Bring the grandkids to the 15th annual Ashland Train Day, a railroadthemed event on Saturday, Nov. 4 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 112 N. Railroad Ave. in Ashland. There will be railroad music, songs and storytelling, miniature children’s train rides, children’s games and activities and many model trains (Lego, wooden and electric), model train racing, food vendors and more. Feel free to dress up in your favorite bib overalls, bandana and engineer hat. Parking is limited, so free trolley shuttles are available from the Ashland-Junction Shopping Center, located at 167 Junction Dr., and Saint Ann’s Catholic Church, located at 105 S Snead St. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.ashlandtrainday.com.

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OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

New technologies to improve your health “Connected� health technology is a godsend for people who want to grow old in their homes and retain their independence. According to an industry report by MarketResearch.com, the market for connected “smart sensors� is expected to reach $117 billion by 2020.

Health tech lets users get help in an emergency with mobile medic alert-like personal emergency response systems; track health and habits via wearable devices that gather biometric cardiac, respiratory, sleep and activity data; and monitor chronic conditions. It also lets patients speak with doctors remotely in real time (known as telemedicine), partake in virtual rehab, anticipate falls and manage medication.

Through GPS, sensors, chips, cameras, voice activation, cellular connectivity and smartphone monitoring apps, technology provides a way to share information, and offers peace of mind to family caregivers and loved ones. An adult child, for instance, can easily access the information by logging onto a smartphone, tablet or computer.

A smartphone EKG Health tech company AliveCor sells a $99 smartphone-connected electrocardiogram that detects abnormal heart rhythms. Called

Kardia Mobile, the app on the smartphone lets the user see the results and take them to the doctor.

And don’t forget mental health and wellbeing. Software such as Posit’s Brain HQ (some brain exercises are free, but full access costs $14 a month or $96 a year) and Rosetta Stone’s Fit Brains ($80 a year) may help keep the brain sharp, though there’s no proof any particular product delays or prevents dementia.

Other technologies let people stay socially connected and engaged. Integrated systems combine multiple functions such as video calling, reminders and activity monitoring (including looking for unusual behavior). Two examples are the GrandCare System ($999 to $1,499, plus $99 a month) and Independa (the Independa-enabled LG smart TV ranges from $699 to $1,199).

Technology can also be used to manage medication. Not taking your medicine properly, or at all, can land you in the hospital — or worse.

Today, there are smartphone apps and physical devices that release pills on schedule, and provide text or phone-call reminders if you forget to take your medicine. Apps, which vary in cost, include Medminder, Reminder Rosie, e-Pill and PillPack.

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Pills that track themselves

Contact lenses and more

And there is a new world of ingestible sensors, too. Proteus Digital Health, a health technology company, is partnering with healthcare systems to prescribe medications with sensors for patients with heart failure, cardio metabolic risk and hepatitis-C. Here’s how it works: The medication is put into a capsule with a Federal Drug Administration-approved sensor the size of a grain of sand.

Swallow the capsule and the sensor turns on when it reaches the stomach. It sends a signal to a small wearable sensor patch placed on your torso. The patch records the time you took your medication, the type of medicine and the dose. It then relays that information to your mobile device.

If no information is relayed to the patch because you forgot to take your pill, the Proteus software sends you a reminder on your mobile device. The ingestible sensor passes through your body like food.

The Proteus sensor is currently being used in eight large U.S. healthcare systems, which are picking up the tab while these smart pills are being tested.

According to Dr. George Savage, cofounder of Proteus, fewer than half of patients take their medication correctly. “Digital medicine helps doctors make better decisions,�

Savage said. Physicians can see if patients are failing to respond to the therapy, or if it’s how they are taking the medicine that is at fault, he said.

All of these technologies are just the beginning, with many more in the works. For example, smart contact lenses are being developed to monitor diabetes by measuring blood glucose from a wearer’s tears.

Novartis is working with Google to create a contact lens that has a tiny antenna that sends data to the user’s smartphone if their glucose level is too high or too low. Another company, Medella Health, has the same goal.

It’ll be a few years until either is tested, approved and distributed.

Also on the horizon: Lighter and cheaper exoskeletons that pinpoint problem areas on the body. Let’s say as your dad grows older, he develops a gait problem. A camera captures his movements and spots his weaknesses, then algorithms analyze the pictures so an engineer can make a brace or other assistive technology.

A few small exoskeletons are in use, such as ReWalk. But they aren’t particularly affordable. “Robotic prosthetic limbs cost anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000,� said Majd Alwan, executive director for LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technologies.

But Alwan says he believes that over the next five years, prices will be halved as competition increases. With so many technological advancements under way, the future of aging looks golden. Š 2017, The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

M A R K YO U R C ALE NDAR

Oct. 21

MIDLOTHIAN MINES DAY

Learn about the vast coal mining history that abounded in Midlothian on Saturday, Oct. 21 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at MidLothian Mines Park at 13286 N. Woolridge Rd. Activities include living history demonstrations, coal mining displays, period music, children’s games and guided walking tours. Enjoy musical performances by the Press Gang, Virginia Folk Music Association and Scottish bagpipe performances at the amphitheater. This event is free and open to the public, and parking is available onsite. For more information, call (804) 751-4946 or visit http://visitchesterfieldva.com.

Oct. 12+

LEARN ALL ABOUT FIREFIGHTING

The Citizen’s Fire Academy in Chesterfield is offering a unique insight into what services the fire department provides and what it is like to be a firefighter. There will be sessions running from Thursday, Oct. 12 through Thursday, Dec. 7 from 9 a.m. to noon at Eanes-Pittman Public Safety Training Center at 6610 Public Safety Way. Sessions include the history of the fire service and fire prevention, fire operations and incident review, portable fire extinguisher training, live demonstrations and hands-on evolutions, Hazmat, dive and technical rescue and more. For more information or to register, call (804) 7481426 or email firemarshal@chesterfield.gov.

Ongoing

DRIVERS NEEDED Shepherd’s Center is looking for volunteers to drive seniors to medical appointments and grocery stories. For more information, contact Susan at (804) 706-9198.

www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com | Fitness & Health

FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

9

Strategies to cope with the loss of a pet

By David R. Topor More than a third of American households own at least one pet, and people often have close bonds with them. In one study, 13 of 16 people said they would give a hard-to-get lifesaving medicine to their pet over non-family people.

The death or loss of a pet can be a traumatic experience and result in grief and bereavement. The loss is unique in a number of ways. While pets may die naturally, through accidents, or by trauma, pets can also die through euthanasia, which often means that the pet owner must decide exactly when his or her pet is put down.

Pets can also be lost when they run away, with no opportunity for closure. Or pets may have to be given away, due to logistical or financial reasons.

There is a lack of formal societal or religious processes for grieving and mourning the loss

of a pet. For example, if a pet is cremated, the ashes are usually collected at the veterinarian’s office or even sent through the mail.

And family and friends may not acknowledge the depth of grief brought on by the loss of a pet (“It’s just a dog”), the need for a period of bereavement, or the inability of a person to quickly replace the pet (“Just get another one”).

Tips to feel better If you are grieving the loss of a beloved pet, these strategies may help: • It is important to recognize the depth of feelings of the loss. Your pet may have been with you through the ups and downs in life and may have even helped you cope with other losses.

Give yourself the necessary time and space to grieve. Individual, group and family

psychotherapy may be helpful to process the loss and make meaning of the pet in your life.

• Identify triggers for your grieving and identify ways you can cope. Triggers can include the pet food aisle in the grocery store, or driving by a special place you shared with your pet.

• Try to find ways to meaningfully grieve.

This can include creating a memory book, journaling, building a memorial, or donating money or time to a pet welfare cause.

• Keep focused on your daily and weekly schedules of personal and professional re-

sponsibilities, and make sure to incorporate pleasant activities for yourself into your days.

• Explore self-help groups at a local animal shelter or ASPCA. Almost all schools of veterinary medicine have telephone support hotlines.

There are also a number of online community forums that allow people to receive support while they grieve and process their loss.

David R. Topor, Ph.D., is a contributor to Harvard Health Publications. © 2017, President and Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

M ARK YO UR CALE NDAR

Oct. 24

ALZHEIMER’S 101

The Alzheimer’s Association of Greater Richmond presents “Alzheimer’s: The Basics” on Oct. 24 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The Towers Retirement and Assisted Living Community, located at 7015 Carnation St. in Richmond, Va. Advance registration is required. For more information or to register, call (804) 967-2580.

When a stroke strikes, seconds count.

When a stroke strikes, Emergency Medical Services (EMS) crews know that every decision can mean life or death.

EMS crews choose Bon Secours for stroke emergencies.

EMS crews recognize Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital as a Joint Commission Comprehensive Stroke Center, delivering the highest level of care for the most complex stroke cases.

We believe in our local EMS crews.

And you can believe in Bon Secours.

In fact, every Bon Secours hospital in Richmond is a Joint Commission Primary Stroke Care Center, recognized for excellence and outcomes.

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Fitness & Health | www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com

Powers From page 3 awarded in 2012 but has yet to be added.

The mission continues Earlier this year, Gary Powers’ self-pub-

lished his own book, Letters from a Soviet Prison: The Personal Journal and Correspondence of CIA U-2 Pilot Francis Gary Powers.

It’s a compilation, with coauthor and militaryhistory expert Douglas E. Campbell, of his dad’s prison writings. A second book — Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 Incident and the Con-

Visiting the museum and more The Cold War Museum is located at 7142 Lineweaver Rd., Warrenton, Va., in the Vint Hill area. There is no fixed admission charge, but good will donations in any amount are accepted. It is open Saturdays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sundays 1 to 4 p.m., and other hours by appointment.

Dr. Jason Hall, executive director of the Cold War Museum and professor at George Mason University, has said, “Vint Hill was perhaps the most important U.S. signals intelligence base during WWII. “The farmer who owned the property was a ham radio operator. When he told a friend in the Army that he could pick up conversations between cab drivers and dispatchers in Berlin, the Army bought his farm. This location is remarkable in its ability to pick up

radio signals from around the world.”

A group bus tour — whose departure point is up to the group booking the tour — is Power’s private enterprise. It costs $135 per person, and goes by CIA headquarters, clandestine meeting places and “safe houses.” The trip includes a Cold War Museum tour, with lunch and wine tasting at the Vint Hill Winery.

Contact Gary Powers for more information about the tour, or to order his book ($25 plus $6 shipping) at gpowersjr@coldwar.org or P.O. Box 1356, Midlothian, VA 23113.

To arrange tours of the museum by appointment, contact museum director Hall at Jason@coldwar.org. For more information about visiting the museum, see www.coldwar.org or call (540) 341-2008.

OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

troversial Cold War Legacy — is awaiting publication.

Meanwhile, Gary Powers is pursuing a second master’s degree, in U.S. history, from Adams State University in Colorado, with the ultimate goal of teaching until he’s 70. He’s a substitute teacher in Chesterfield County, and welcomes the opportunity to teach homeschooled students as well.

“Locating myself in Midlothian,” he said, “was not a planned process. “I met my wife on Dec. 2, 1995, when I was working for the Downtown Fairfax Coalition. We married in May 2000, had a son in 2002 [now a sophomore at Midlothian High School], and moved to the Richmond area in 2005 to get out of the rat race of Northern Virginia.

He opened the nonprofit Cold War Museum in 1996. “I am very proud of that family connection, and what I have done not only to honor him, but also all Cold War veterans who fought, sacrificed — and died — during the Cold War.” When Powers started speaking to high school students about his father’s experiences 20 years ago, he was alarmed to hear they thought he was coming to speak about the Irish rock band named “U2.” Clearly, there was a lot of history going unlearned.

But heightening awareness of the Cold War hasn’t been limited to United States audiences. The success of Spielberg’s historical thriller, for which Gary Powers served as

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consultant, brought more invitations for him to speak about the Cold War period overseas.

He’s spoken in Austria, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Russia (Central Armed Forces Museum) and the UK. Everyone wants to know if Spielberg got the story “right” in the film. Powers responds by explaining that the big picture was accurate, but some individual scenes — such as his father’s escape from his aircraft — were treated a bit differently to heighten dramatic effect.

Along with the speaking engagements that began a couple of decades ago, Powers created an exhibit of personal mementos and spy memorabilia commemorating his father’s life for CIA headquarters in McLean as part of the agency’s 50th anniversary in 1997.

He also put together a traveling exhibit, which included a piece of the U-2 given to the Powers family in 1995 through official diplomatic channels. A Russian general gave it to a U.S. ambassador “as a token of friendship when working together on POW/MIA issues,” Gary explained. “The plane and all of the stuff on the plane and on my dad are in Russian museums. There are very few pieces of the plane outside of Moscow.”

Now that Russia’s relationship with the U.S. is again generating negative headlines, is this a new cold-war era in geopolitics?

“I’m definitely getting more questions as to whether we’ve entered another ‘cold war,’” Powers said. “I say this time it is Cold War 2.0….There is no more Soviet Union…but there is saber rattling.”

He points to “the expulsions of U.S. diplomats from Russia and the closing of Russian consulates in San Francisco and other cities, as has recently happened.” But as an optimist, he said, “I do not think that [the Cold War] will ever reach the level that occurred between 1945-1991.”

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

Oct. 17

CHESTERFIELD PLANNING MEETING

Chesterfield County Planning Commission Meeting Agenda will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 17 in the Public

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www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com | Fitness & Health

FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

11

New options for flu and pneumonia shots Dear Savvy Senior: What can you tell me about the flu shots made for seniors? I got sick last winter after getting a standard flu shot, and am wondering if the flu vaccine for older adults would provide me better protection this year.

— Almost 70 Dear Almost: There are actually two different flu shots that are designed specifically for people age 65 and older — the Fluzone High Dose and FLUAD. You only need to get one of them.

These FDA-approved vaccines are designed to offer extra protection beyond what a standard flu shot provides, which is important for older adults who have weaker immune defenses and have a great risk of developing dangerous flu complications.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that the flu puts more than 200,000 people in the hospital each year and kills, on average, about 24,000 — 80 percent of whom are seniors.

You also need to be aware that these seniorspecific flu shots cannot guarantee that you won’t get the flu this season, but they will lower your risk. And if you happen to get sick despite having gotten the vaccine, you probably won’t get as sick as you would have without it.

Here’s more information on the two vaccines: Fluzone High-Dose: Approved for U.S. use in 2009, the Fluzone High-Dose (see www.fluzone.com) is a high-potency vaccine that contains four times the amount of antigen as a regular flu shot, which generates a stronger immune response for better protection. This vaccine, according to a 2013 clinical trial, was 24 percent more effective than the regular-dose shot at preventing flu in seniors.

FLUAD: Available in the U.S. since last year, the FLUAD vaccine (see www. FLUAD.com) contains an added ingredient called adjuvant MF59 that also helps create a stronger immune response. In a 2012 Canadian observational study, FLUAD was 63 percent more effective than a regular flu shot.

The CDC, however, does not recommend one vaccine over the other, and to date, there have been no studies comparing the two vaccines.

You should also know that both the Fluzone High-Dose and FLUAD can cause more of the mild side effects that can occur with a standard-dose flu shot, such as pain or tenderness where you got the shot, muscle aches, headache or fatigue.

And neither vaccine is recommended for seniors who are allergic to chicken eggs, or

those who have had a severe reaction to a flu vaccine in the past.

The cost of both vaccines is covered 100 percent by Medicare Part B, as long as your doctor, health clinic or pharmacy agrees not to charge you more than Medicare pays.

Pneumonia vaccines Two other important vaccinations the CDC recommends to older adults, especially this time of year, are the pneumococcal vaccines for pneumonia. Around 1 million Americans are hospitalized with pneumonia each year, and about 50,000 people die from it.

The CDC is now recommending that all adults 65 or older get two vaccinations — Prevnar 13 and Pneumovax 23. Both vaccines, which are administered just once at different

times, work in different ways to provide maximum protection.

If you haven’t yet received any pneumococcal vaccine, you should get the Prevnar 13 first, followed by Pneumovax 23 six to 12 months later. But if you’ve already been vaccinated with Pneumovax 23, wait at least one year before getting the Prevnar 13.

Medicare Part B covers both shots, if they are taken at least one year apart.

To locate a vaccination site that offers any of these shots, visit www.vaccines.gov and type in your ZIP code.

Send your questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of The Savvy Senior book.

M A R K YO U R CAL EN DA R

Nov. 6

OPIOID EPIDEMIC TALK

Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic, will visit Virginia Commonwealth University and speak about the growing opioid epidemic that has devastated communities across the country and Virginia on Monday, Nov. 6 at 6 p.m. at the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, at 922 Park Ave. The event will be free and open to the public. Registration is not required, and seating will be offered on a first-come basis. For more information, visit www.vcu.edu.

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OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

Money Law &

REAPING THE DIVIDENDS In buying dividend stocks, look for strong dividend growth coupled with a low payout ratio for long-term success PART-TIME JOBS Working part time can be personally and financially rewarding, but don’t ignore the often hidden tax costs MANAGING MEDICATIONS How to get a review of your prescriptions, and strategies for paying less at the pharmacy

Find out if the Equifax hack stole your ID

By Lisa Gerstner By now you’ve probably heard that Equifax — which as one of the three major U.S. credit agencies collect loads of sensitive data on consumers — suffered a massive breach, potentially affecting 143 million Americans.

In the ongoing saga of rampant data breaches, it’s a stomach-churning twist, and it’s especially galling given that, as one component of its business, Equifax sells credit monitoring and other services to detect whether identity thieves have pilfered your information.

Chances are high that the thieves got ahold of sensitive information on you or someone in your family: the breach touches almost half the entire U.S. population and nearly three-quarters of those who have a credit report on file, according to the National Consumer Law Center.

According to Equifax, “(c)riminals exploited a website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files.” That’s putting it nicely.

From mid-May through July, hackers had

access to all the key information needed to steal identities: Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. Plus, credit card numbers for about 209,000 consumers, and dispute documents containing personal information of about 182,000 people were compromised.

Take these steps now to see whether you are affected, and to protect yourself in the aftermath.

1. Check with Equifax On your computer, go to www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/potential-impact/, click on “Check Potential Impact,” then enter your last name and the final six digits of your Social Security number. Equifax will supply a message noting whether it believes your personal information was compromised.

Even if your information wasn’t compromised, you’ll have the option of signing up for a free year of credit monitoring and identity theft protection services from Equifax’s

TrustedID Premier. (Equifax has also set up a call center, at 866-447-7559, but going online is a better bet. When we tried calling the number, we got a brief busy signal, then the call disconnected.)

A caveat: Equifax includes a disclaimer on its site that if you purchase or use its products, you must agree to resolve disputes through arbitration, waiving your right to participate in a classaction lawsuit. You can, however, opt out of the arbitration provision by notifying Equifax in writing “within 30 days of the date that you first accept this agreement on the site (for products purchased from Equifax on the site.)”

2. Sign up for free protection Sign up for monitoring and protection.

You’ll likely be notified that you must wait until a specified date within the next several days to enroll in TrustedID Premier.

Starting on that day, and until November 21, you can visit www.equifaxsecurity2017.com to sign up. The service includes: • access to your Equifax credit report,

• monitoring for changes (such as newly opened credit card accounts or loans) on your credit reports from all three major credit agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion), • the ability to freeze and unfreeze your Equifax credit report (for more, see the next section), • monitoring of your Social Security number on internet black-market sites, where crooks buy and sell stolen information, and • insurance to reimburse out-of-pocket expenses if you become an ID theft victim.

TrustedID Premier is a legit service, and in particular, monitoring of your reports from all three credit bureaus is valuable in helping spot identity theft. But if you’re wary of relying on Equifax for protection, you have other options.

3. Other ways to protect yourself Among free services, CreditKarma.com offers access to information from your TransSee STOLEN ID, page 13

Fiduciary rule means better money advice

By Ken Heise In a Harris Poll conducted in March on behalf of Personal Capital, a digital wealth management firm, 46 percent of respondents said they believed all financial professionals are legally required to always act in their clients’ best interest. Another 31 percent were unsure whether this was the case.

Imagine those individuals’ surprise (and maybe yours), in the coming weeks and months as their financial professionals tell them that, uh, no, that wasn’t quite the case before — but it is now, and they can’t wait to be transparent about transactions, compensation, and conflicts of interest when discussing retirement plans.

In other words, since the U.S. Dept. of Labor started implementing its new fiduciary rule this summer, you shouldn’t be getting sales pitches disguised as advice anymore.

When it comes to managing your retirement

accounts (those funded with pre-tax money, such as your 401(k), SEP plans and IRAs), your financial professional will be ethically and legally bound to focus more on your success than his own.

Fiduciaries vs. salesmen This level of responsibility is nothing new — it dates back to an 1830 court ruling and the formulation of a “prudent person standard of care,” which requires someone acting as a fiduciary to do what a prudent person would do and to not take advantage of a client.

Congress also has drawn distinctions between broker-dealers, who were regulated as salesmen under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (not under the fiduciary standard), and Investment Adviser representatives, who were regulated under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. And yet, somehow these distinctions have become blurred over the years.

Most financial professionals have been working under the less rigorous “suitability” standard, which requires only that they recommend products that meet a client’s financial objectives.

The products they offer don’t have to be the best or least expensive option. They may be licensed to sell stocks, bonds, mutual funds or insurance products, but not to give investment advice.

And their clients might never have known it.

It’s kind of shocking that we’ve gone so long without exposing the difference — or raising expectations. Instead, we’ve put the burden on the individual to figure it out.

But the world of finance just keeps getting more complicated. With employer pensions going away, putting retirees largely in charge of their own future financial security, people need help. And they need to be able to trust that it’s good help.

Get the most out of new rule How can you use the changes required by the fiduciary rule to your advantage?

• Get a second opinion from a licensed professional who is held to the fiduciary standard. A licensed fiduciary is an adviser who has passed and acquired a Series 65 or 66 designation. Most professionals will review your assets and meet with you at least once without obligation.

Make the most of that opportunity. I often find that prospective clients are unaware of the amount of risk in their portfolios. They’re also unsure about the fees they’re paying to their financial professional and for the products they recommend. We can clear all of that up pretty quickly.

• Ask questions. If your guy was a suitability salesman a few weeks ago and now he’s See FIDUCIARY RULE, page 13

www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com | Law & Money

FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

Stolen ID From page 12 Union and Equifax credit reports, plus monitoring and alerts about changes in your TransUnion report.

Check whether you can get free assistance from your bank, credit card issuer, insurance company, or employer, too. Discover, for example, recently began offering its cardholders free monitoring for new accounts on their Experian credit reports.

Paid services from companies such as LifeLock and Identity Guard offer broader suites of identity-theft protection services, including monitoring of your reports from all three credit agencies.

4. Check your credit reports.

If you haven’t obtained your free annual

Fiduciary rule From page 12 acting as fiduciary, ask him how that will affect his recommendations and, if he’s making changes to comply with the new ruling, why he didn’t have you in the best-interests scenario from the start?

• Get educated. The new rule covers retirement advice only, so make sure you know when your financial professional is acting as a fiduciary and when he isn’t. Read the disclosures you receive and pay attention to any red flags. For non-IRA assets, anyone without a Series 65 or 66 designation does not have

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

Oct. 17

MEDICARE 101

EngAGE and VICAP present Medicare 101, an information session, on Tuesday, Oct. 17 from 10 a.m. to noon at Hidden Creek Recreation Center, 2417 Brockway Ln. in Henrico, Va. Learn to navigate all the benefits and options, and get answers to your questions. For more information or to RSVP, call (804) 501-5065 or email tur060@henrico.us.

Oct. 28

MUSEUM HALLOWEEN PARTY

The National Museum of the Marine Corps presents a free family-friendly Halloween party on Saturday, Oct. 28 from noon to 2 p.m. in the museum’s Leatherneck Gallery, at 18900 Jefferson Davis Hwy. in Triangle, Va. There will be arts and crafts, a reptile show, games and a puppet show.

Costumes are encouraged but not required. Admission and parking are free. For more information, visit www.usmcmuseum.com/calendar-ofevents.html.

credit reports in the past 12 months, now is a good time to do it. At www.annualcreditreport.com, you can get a report from each of the three credit agencies.

Review each one for accounts you don’t recognize, an incorrect address, or any other red flags. If you believe that you may be a victim of identity theft, you can take steps to resolve it.

Freeze credit files The strongest measure you can take to prevent identity theft is imposing a freeze on your credit files (you must contact each bureau separately to do so).

A freeze bars new creditors from accessing your credit report — and as a result, identity thieves will have a hard time opening new credit cards or loans in your name.

If criminals haven’t yet used your personal

to abide or comply by fiduciary standards.

• Be flexible. A professional truly held to the fiduciary standard will tailor a plan just for you and your individual needs. Unlike, for example, a broker — who may be limited to what his firm wants him to sell — a fiduciary will go over many different products and strategies, because he can.

Be vigilant — it’s your money — but keep an open mind to the suggestions you hear. © The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

information fraudulently, you’ll probably have to pay to place the freeze (fees vary by state, but often run about $5 to $10 per credit agency). If you later want to apply for a credit card or loan, you’ll have to lift the freeze during the shopping period then put it back on, which may incur additional fees.

“But that bit of inconvenience doesn’t outweigh the amount of time you’d spend cleaning up an identity-theft issue,” said Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center. (As noted above, Equifax includes the ability to freeze your Equifax credit report for a year with TrustedID Premier.)

Fraud alerts As a less-cumbersome alternative, you can initiate a free 90-day fraud alert on your credit reports (when you place an alert with one

13

credit agency, it will contact the other two companies).

A fraud alert requires lenders to take extra steps to verify your identity when someone applies for credit in your name, but it doesn’t provide a full block on your reports. And unless you are already a victim of identity theft, you’ll have to renew the fraud alert every 90 days to maintain the protection.

Your personal information may sit for years before a thief uses it, so you’ll need to be on guard for far longer than three months.

Identity-theft victims are eligible for a free extended fraud alert, which lasts seven years.

You also get two free credit reports within 12 months from each credit agency. © 2017 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

M A R K YO U R CAL EN DA R

Oct. 21

ARTS AND CRAFT SHOW

The 27th annual Short Pump Ruritan Club Craft Show will take place on Saturday, Oct. 21 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be 70 crafters and vendors selling handmade jewelry, purses, fall and Christmas decor, baked goods, homemade jellies and jams, candy and more. As a bonus, there will also be flu shots and free blood pressure checks provided by IVNA Health Services.

Admission is free. This event is located inside Short Pump Middle School, at 4701 Pouncey Tract Rd. in Glen Allen, Va. For more information or to participate, contact Susan at suebzink@aol.com or (804) 387-6804.

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Law & Money | www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com

OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

A recipe for picking high-dividend stocks

By Eleanor Laise There are almost as many dividend-stockpicking strategies as there are dividend stocks.

You could go for the dividend “achievers,” which have boosted dividends for at least 10 consecutive years, or the “aristocrats,” which have raised dividends for at least 25 years.

You could focus on stocks with the fastest dividend-growth rates, or simply those with today’s highest yields.

But to cook up a portfolio full of healthy, sustainable and growing payouts, you need more ingredients. Recent research suggests that mixing a high dividend yield with strong dividend growth and a low “payout ratio” (the percentage of earnings paid out as dividends) is a winning recipe.

Pankaj Patel, managing director at investment-research firm Cirrus Research, said a portfolio of stocks combining those three factors has beaten Standard & Poor’s 500-stock

index by 6 percentage points annually over the long haul.

Generous dividends are a lifeline for older adults drawing income from their portfolios — particularly when the 10-year Treasury yields 2.4 percent and the S&P 500 yields less than 2 percent.

But dividend growth is slowing and payout ratios are climbing, presenting challenges for investors seeking healthy, sustainable payouts.

Look at dividend growth When selecting dividend payers, “the growth of the dividend is the most powerful part of the formula,” as a rising dividend often buoys the share price, said Charlie Farrell, chief executive officer at Northstar Investment Advisors, in Denver.

Yet a stretch of sluggish earnings growth has made dividend growth more elusive. In the first quarter of this year, U.S. stocks’ div-

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idend net increases (dividend hikes minus cuts) amounted to $10.9 billion — a 39 percent decline from the first quarter of 2014, according to Standard & Poor’s.

A low payout ratio provides some insurance against dividend cuts, which can weigh heavily on stock prices. Farrell generally looks for payout ratios of about 50 percent or less.

But with yield-hungry investors agitating for dividends, the ratios have been rising. In the 12 months ending with the third quarter of 2016, for example, 44 companies in the S&P 500 had payout ratios over 100 percent — the second-highest count in 10 years, according to FactSet.

Some stock recommendations So which stocks still boast that powerful combination of generous dividend yield, strong dividend growth, and low payout ratio?

In its research, Cirrus didn’t set any particular thresholds for these factors — the research firm simply looked for the best combination of the three.

Here are some of the names that came out on top: • Cisco Systems (CSCO). In addition to making the switches and routers that connect computers and computer networks, Cisco makes products for faster-growing segments,

such as wireless, security and data centers.

The company started paying a dividend in 2011 and has boosted it every year since.

• Gilead Sciences (GILD). This biotech company is known largely for drugs that treat HIV and Hepatitis C, but it is building a strong pipeline in other areas, such as inflammatory diseases. The company initiated its dividend in 2015, and its low 20 percent payout ratio leaves plenty of room for future growth.

• Home Depot (HD). The home-improvement retailer is benefiting from a strong housing market, and it enjoys some insulation from e-commerce competition thanks to its employees’ specialized knowledge and bulky merchandise that can’t be shipped cheaply. The company has made quarterly payouts for 30 years, and in February announced a 29 percent dividend increase.

• VF Corp (VFC). This apparel maker owns brands such as North Face, Timberland and Lee jeans. Although reliance on department-store sales has hurt growth in recent years, the company is working to boost its direct-to-consumer sales through its own online and brick-and-mortar stores. The company last year raised its dividend 14 percent. © 2017 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com | Law & Money

By Brian Vnak Some people’s retirement dreams consist of having the time to do what they want, unencumbered by the demands of working. For others, staying in the workforce on a part-time basis, either out of necessity or by choice, is a core component of their retirement picture.

Keeping a hand in the workforce is a growing trend, and for good reason: Part-time employment in retirement is a way to supplement cash flow, maintain employer benefits, and stay mentally and physically engaged.

Many financial benefits Part-time work is very healthy from a financial-planning standpoint. For instance, every year you work improves your earnings history, which can increase the amount of Social Security you receive.

Further, part-time earnings may allow you to delay taking Social Security benefits, which increase by 8 percent every year past your full retirement age, up to the age of 70.

Earnings from a part-time job may also mean you can delay spending down your retirement accounts, giving them more time to potentially grow. An extra three to five years — especially if it coincides with a rising market — can have a tremendously powerful impact on the sustainability of your portfolio.

Finally, part-time work may offer access to employer benefits, such as health insurance and contributing to tax-efficient employersponsored plans like 401(k)s — not to mention getting the employer match, which is literally free money.

As an added benefit, any funds inside your current employer’s plan will escape required minimum distributions at age 70½ and later, as long as you remain actively employed.

Funds in an inactive 401(k) from a former employer would be subject to required minimum distributions. But this can be avoided if the inactive accounts are consolidated with your current employer’s 401(k) account (assuming the employer accepts rollovers).

Hidden costs of working Unfortunately, working part-time in retirement can also complicate your finances.

First, if you’re already taking Social Security, your benefits are taxable based on other income sources, such as wages, dividends, capital gains, retirement account distributions and, yes, 50 percent of your Social Security benefits (among other items). A part-time job means you’ll have more income, but this extra

income may adversely affect your Social Security benefit.

Your part-time income may also put you in a higher tax bracket — not just for income taxes, but for capital gains taxes, too.

Many retirees capitalize on their lower-income years by taking gains when they’re in the 0 percent capital gains tax bracket, so you may not be able to take advantage of savvy tax-planning moves like capital gains harvesting and Roth conversions.

If your part-time income puts you at or above the 25 percent income tax bracket, you may find yourself subject to a 15 or 20 percent capital gains tax rate. In a worst-case scenario, the part-time earnings you make could be eclipsed by taxes you pay on capital gains.

Part-time work can help you stay mentally sharp, socially engaged and physically fit.

And there’s the benefit of putting a lifetime of skills to work, or finally turning your attention to a lifelong passion.

Still, it’s a slippery slope. Part-time work can easily morph into full-time work, especially if you’re prone to workaholism. And for those who put their years of experience to work in consulting may find that running a business, even a tiny one-person proprietorship, more expensive and onerous than imagined.

The bottom line Whether it’s the financial cushion or because you truly love working that’s driving your decision to work part-time, it’s in your best interest to understand how this decision will change your plan for the future.

Ask yourself and/or your adviser the following questions to help you evaluate the pros/cons of working part-time in retirement: • How will working part-time in retirement enhance my ability to achieve my ideal retirement lifestyle?

• What “ripple effects” might working part-time in retirement bring to my financial plan? Would it put me in a higher tax bracket and/or disrupt any existing tax strategies?

• How will working part-time in retirement enhance my ability to achieve my ideal retirement lifestyle?

Finally: Remember that part-time work doesn’t just impact your financial bottom line.

It also affects your mind, body, family and friends. Be thoughtful of how you spend your time. © 2017 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Law & Money | www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com

OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

Prescriptions: manage more and pay less

By Jim Miller Q. I’m concerned that I may be taking too many medications. I currently take 10 different drugs prescribed by three different doctors, which I think is causing me some problems.

I also struggle to keep up with all the drug costs. Any suggestions?

A. There’s no doubt that older Americans are taking more prescription medications than ever before. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, around 40 percent of people 65 and older take five or more medications. And the more drugs a person takes, the higher their risk for medication problems, and the more likely they are to take something they don’t need.

Do a “brown bag” review To help you get a better handle on the medications you are taking, gather up all your pill bottles — include all prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements — put them in a bag and take them to your primary doctor or pharmacist for a thorough drug check-up.

This “brown-bag review” will give you a chance to check for duplicate meds, excessive doses and dangerous interactions, and

for you to ask questions.

Medicare Part B covers a free yearly medication review with a doctor as part of your annual wellness visit, and many Medicare Part D plans cover medication reviews with a pharmacist, too.

You should also note that Oct. 21 is “National Check Your Meds Day.” A number of pharmacies — including Costco, CVS, Sam’s Club, Target, Walmart and many independents — have agreed to support the effort. Some may even have extra staff on hand to help you review your meds. Ask your local pharmacy whether it is participating.

When you have your review, go over the basics for each medication or supplement, such as what it’s for, how long you should take it, what it costs, and any side effects and potential interactions.

Ask if there are any meds you can stop taking, and find out if there are any nondrug options that might be safer, and also whether you can switch to a lower dose.

To help avoid future medication problems, make sure your primary doctor is aware of all the medications, over-the-counter drugs and supplements you take. You should also keep an up-dated list of everything you take and share it with every doctor you see.

Try to fill all your prescriptions at the same

pharmacy — and inform your pharmacist of any over-the-counter, herbal or mail order prescriptions you take — so that there is complete oversight of your medications and possible interactions.

How to save $ To help cut your medication costs, there are a number of cost savings tips you can try.

Start a habit of asking your doctor about prices whenever you get a new prescription.

Bring along a copy of your Medicare Part D insurance formulary — its list of covered drugs.

The list can tell your doctor how your treatment or any alternatives might be covered.

Find out if there are any generic alternatives to the drugs you currently take. Switching to generics can save anywhere from 20 to 90 percent.

Surprisingly, be aware that the cash price for some drugs may be cheaper than the copay you would incur using insurance, depending on your plan. Before you fill a prescription, ask the pharmacist what your prescription will cost both using your coverage and without coverage.

You should also ask your doctors if any of the pills you take could be ordered in a higher dosage and cut in half. Pill splitting allows you to get two months’ worth of medicine for the price of one.

And for any “maintenance” drugs (those you take long-term), ask for a three-month prescription, which is usually cheaper than buying month-to-month.

Because drug prices can vary depending on where you fill your prescriptions, another way to save is by shopping around. The websites www.GoodRX.com and WeRx.org will help you compare drug prices at U.S. pharmacies.

If your research turns up a lower price elsewhere, ask your pharmacist if they would match that price. Your drugstore also may offer a discount program.

Find out if your insurance plan offers cheaper deals through preferred pharmacies or a mail-order service. But be aware that paying cash or using different drugstores for the best price also means that Medicare or your regular pharmacist won’t be able to monitor your medicines to make sure they don’t cause a bad reaction.

And finally, if your income is highly limited, you may be able to get help through drug assistance programs offered by pharmaceutical companies, government agencies and charitable organizations. To find these types of programs, visit www.BenefitsCheckUp.org.

Jim Miller is author of The Savvy Senior book.

The Associated Press also contributed to this article.

M A R K YO U R C ALE NDAR

Oct. 17

ADVANCE CARE PLANNING VCU Health presents “Advance Directives Made Easy” on Tuesday,

Oct. 17 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s Kelly Education Center, at 1800 Lakeside Ave. in Richmond. Join Dr. Danielle Noreika from VCU Massey Cancer Center and Paul Neimeyer, general counsel at VCU Health System, as they discuss the Virginia Advance Directive and the importance of advance care planning at every life stage. They will provide medical and legal advice on how to plan for the future. Admission is free, but registration is recommended. Register online at vcuhealth.org/events or call (804) 628-0041.

Oct.+

LIBRARY ART EXHIBITS Richmond Public Library presents a series of art exhibits open to the public. “Nature as Mentor: a visual education through observa-

tion” in the Gellman Room and “Rescued in Richmond” in the second-floor gallery, will be open from Friday, Oct. 6 through Tuesday, Nov. 28. “Tradition and Modern” in the Dooley Foyer and “Uncertain Boundaries” in the Dooley Hall will be open from Friday, Oct. 6 through Tuesday, Oct. 31. The library is located at 101 E. Franklin St. in Richmond. For more information about the exhibits, contact Lynn Vandenesse at (804) 646-7223.

www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com

FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

Travel

17

Leisure &

Repositioning cruises offer deep discounts. See story on page 19.

Get into the holiday spirit in the Big Apple was a violin concert by her 16-year-old sister at Carnegie Hall the next afternoon.

This article is based on that trip, but all prices and times have been updated for current travelers.

Take the train One thing we discovered on that trip is that the weekend prior to Thanksgiving is probably the best time — both price-wise and fun-wise — to see the Big Apple getting into holiday mode without bearing the mark-up in holiday rates.

Holidays have a way of beginning earlier every year, so be sure to check on blackout periods for advertised promotions before booking planes, trains or accommodations.

We traveled both ways on Amtrak, booking in early October for the Saturday before Thanksgiving departure, returning to Richmond on Tuesday — before holiday ticket prices went up that Wednesday. The lowest roundtrip ticket prices (as of Sept. 30) for travel Nov. 18-21 were $175 for the 6-hour-and-40-minute train trip.

The whirlwind of New York at this time of year goes beyond ice-skaters twirling in Rockefeller Plaza or the two ice rinks in Central Park. The city is in high-preparation mode for Christmas.

We saw room dividers shielding most of the

PHOTO BY SHUTTERSTOCK

By Martha Steger As aging travelers, my husband Tom and I unabashedly honor our eccentricities and decreased mobility: no more apologies that if we just exercised more, we could see and do more in half the time. No more seeing lodgings as just places to put our heads in beds because we’ll run ourselves ragged all daythrough-evening and care only about a modicum of shut-eye between our frenetic paces.

Rare now, too, are big overview tours, as we plan instead, before we leave home, to zero in on our particular, if quirky, interests.

All of this is doubly true of November and December visits to New York City, which Tom and I have made since our dating days at the College of William and Mary in the late 1960s.

In the past few years, our musical granddaughters’ performances and Tom — a native New Yorker who makes return trips with me despite his Parkinson’s disease — have dictated our accommodations and the timing for our travel.

As thoughts turn to regaining an hour’s time in early November with the return to Standard Time, I think of travel as the best way to spend the gift of time. A couple of years ago we had to see a New York performance of La Boheme, in which our 10-year-old granddaughter was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus. And there

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BOTANICAL GARDEN

This year, the New York Botanical Garden’s Holiday Train Show in the Bronx features a miniature Manhattan, from Yankee Stadium to the Statue of Liberty, made entirely of plants.

Skaters glide around the rink at Rockefeller Center in New York City. The city gets decked out for the holidays starting in November

20-foot, blue spruce at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from the public while staff decorated it with the 18th-century Neapolitan angels and cherubs among the boughs, which we’d seen when the holidays were in full bloom years before. This time — by the Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving — we saw the top half of the tree fully decorated, with assurances from a staff member watching us take a peek that it would be ready in all its glory by the following Wednesday afternoon.

Weekend shoppers getting an early start on Black Friday shopping always seemed to be rushing on to the next big thing. For some visitors, it’s the ever-popular matinee at Radio City Music Hall, where the Christmas Spectacular with 140 performers on stage runs from Nov. 10 to Jan. 1.

Where to stay But hold on: holiday getaways should be somewhat relaxing for body and soul. Part of our response to that was our discovery, back in the 1990s, that bed-and-breakfasts aren’t only accommodations surrounded by rolling hillsides or gentrified towns. New York has, by some estimates, more than 1,000 B&Bs (plus another 1,000 or so self-rented digs through airbnb).

We tried several establishments over 25

years, with favorable results and often entertaining stories, such as our room overlooking the East River at a property leased by a longtime actress on the soap opera, “As the World Turns.” (Judging by the chipping plaster from our room’s 10-foot ceiling, this was a rent-fixed apartment. But the library was a great reference for questions following a Shakespeare production, and the breakfast presentation was worthy of photography by any food magazine.)

But finding an accessible NYC B&B with easy entrance and grab bars in all of the right places in a bathroom can be tricky — and websites proclaiming “accessible” in a checked box aren’t always reliable. A property labeled as accessible requires a personal phone call to learn details about ramps, grab bars, etc. In the past two years, on our visits we’ve sought accessible hotels with kitchenettes for refrigerating and heating take-out food when we were too tired to dine at restaurants.

The accessible, 25-story, all-suites Beacon Hotel on the Upper West Side is convenient to the American Museum of Natural History, Lincoln Center, Central Park and the Rose Center for Earth and Space. Its “BeaconBar” opens at 3 p.m. daily for light fare and a good selection of wine, beer, cocktails, coffee and tea.

See NYC HOLIDAYS, page 18

18

Leisure & Travel | www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com

NYC holidays From page 17 The best published rates for the Beacon (ranging from $179 to $284 on a Nov. 18 to 21 trip to $644 for New Year’s Eve) don’t reflect those given a potential visitor who signs up online as a “Beacon Insider” — which offers rates not visible to everyone else. You can certainly find hotels cheaper, but we haven’t found a cheaper place with the very informative, very patient desk and concierge service here — like that of a small, boutique hotel.

Central Park: the best free attraction No matter how close anything seems on a city map, it’s not close at all if you’re pushing a walker or wheelchair, or not up for a brisk walk.

Build a taxi or Uber budget into your planning.

If you choose a free attraction such as Central Park, you can spend what you save on admission for cabs to and from your destinations.

At two-and-a-half miles in length, with diverse landscapes and attractions, Central Park is too much to see in a single visit. Decide between the northern and southern ends of the park, as you can cover half the park that way if you move at a non-rushed but reasonable pace.

If you don’t like following guidebooks and don’t have a local friend to lean on for a Central Park tour, you might choose to shell out $65 for a two-hour “Holiday Sights” group tour ($95 for private tour) that runs Nov. 15

to Jan. 5; other specialty tours include a sunrise yoga walk, a hidden-secrets tour, a photo walking tour, and a gay history tour. If you’re in the city this year on Sunday, Dec. 6, the park will be lighting up for the holidays.

As something different (not for holiday ambiance), we took a cab to the southeast corner of the Central Park Reservoir (Fifth Avenue and 85th Street, near the Metropolitan Museum). It’s often called the “JKO Reservoir” by locals since its renaming in 1994 as the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in tribute to the former first lady for her contributions to the city.

We didn’t go up the steps to the pump house from East Drive — where runners were using the landmark as a starting or stopping point — but checked out the building made famous as the venue for the climactic scene of Marathon Man, that great running movie starring Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffmann.

Like B&Bs, bird-watching isn’t limited to the countryside — or to a time of year: any place, any season in the park is good for birding. Always bring a pair of binoculars along.

We’ve enjoyed lunch at the Boathouse in the middle of the park, where birders know to ask for the blue book with daily entries of bird sightings. It’s fun to see what earlier visitors saw, and to add our own entries for the day.

Small Worlds (ticketed admission) Sometimes a subway ride to a borough

OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

outside of Manhattan is well worthwhile.

That’s the case with the New York Botanical Garden’s Holiday Train Show in the Bronx.

Fans of gardening, trains and miniature worlds shouldn’t miss the Nov. 22 to Jan. 15, 2018 event with a miniature Midtown Manhattan highlighted this year — made entirely of plant parts, all nestled under the glass ceilings of the historic Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.

We marveled at G-scale locomotives humming along nearly a half-mile of track, with bark, leaves and other natural materials recreating Yankee Stadium, the Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty, and Rockefeller Center, among the 150 landmarks featured in the panorama. Activities — such as musical performances, a poetry reading and children’s events — coincide with the train show.

Tickets are $28 for adults; $25 for those 65+; $20 for students and $12 for children 2 to 12.

If you’re a train fan on a more constrained budget, check out the free annual holiday train show at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store at Grand Central Terminal. The train layout features Lionel trains traveling through a two-level, 34-footlong, miniature New York City and countryside scene.

Gulliver’s Gate, a new attraction at Times Square, recreates world famous destinations on a Lilliputian scale. But since it’s a full block wide, it can take over an hour to go through the technologically advanced, interactive re-

creation, complete with trains, self-driving cars and, soon, airplanes. To avoid waiting in line for tickets, we booked our visit online and received our “guest key” upon arrival for exploring the nearly 50,000 feet of miniatures — ranging from the Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower and Buckingham Palace, to the Great Wall of China and the Egyptian Pyramids. Admission for adults is $36; $27 for those 65+ and children 2 to 12.

Contact information • Amtrak www.Amtrak.com, 1-800-872-7245 • The Beacon Hotel, 2130 Broadway at 75th St., www.beaconhotel.com, 1-800-472-4969 • B&B websites: https://www.bedandbreakfast.com, www.airbnb.com.

• Official NYC tourism website, www. nycgo.com (accessibility, info centers, weather, transportation, etc.)

• Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org, 1-800-662-3397 • Radio City Music Hall, www.radiocity.com, (212) 465-6741 • Central Park, www.centralparknyc.org, (212) 310-6600 • New York Botanical Garden, Southern Blvd., Bronx, NY www.nybg.org, (718) 817-8700 • New York Transit Museum & Store, • Grand Central Oyster Bar, www.oysterbarny.com, (212) 490-6650 • Gulliver’s Gate, www.gulliversgate.com, (212) 235-2016

www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com | Leisure & Travel

FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

19

Repositioning cruises offer real bargains area residents. For one-way repositioning cruises, there is the additional cost of an overseas leg — either to get to where the cruise leaves from, or to return home afterwards. Holland America was very helpful, as I imagine most cruise lines are, in finding us inexpensive flights. We paid less than $600 per person to fly from D.C. to Rome, and from Ft. Lauderdale to D.C.

PHOTO BY MAPICS

By Ann Cochran Each fall and spring, a quiet migration takes place as cruise lines move their ships from one geographical area to another. But these ships do not sail empty. They are full of passengers taking advantage of the best value in cruising.

For the past few years, I’ve met people who have taken repositioning cruises and wondered what one would be like. They involve many days at sea — whether they are going from Europe to the Caribbean or Seattle to Sydney — so would there be more to do to keep passengers busy and happy? Or less, because the price was lower than a regular cruise? Would the menus be limited because of all the days far from land?

My husband and I decided to try one out after he retired. We chose a late October into mid-November cruise last year from Rome to Ft. Lauderdale on a new Holland America ship, the Koningsdam, which was launched that spring. It is the largest ship in Holland America’s fleet.

From Italy’s Civitavecchia Port, we’d spend one day at sea, then hit six ports along the coast of Spain and Portugal before setting out across the Atlantic, which takes seven days.

Boarding most cruises usually involves a flight to Florida or elsewhere for Washington

Excellent values Including flights, the price was right. Our 15-day Passage to America cruise started at $1,179 per person for an interior cabin and $1,599 for an exterior balcony cabin like the one we had. Our cruise was similar to one Holland America is offering this fall on the same ship: the 14-day Jewels of the Baltic cruise starts at $2,509 for an interior cabin and $3,199 for a balcony cabin.

Royal Caribbean is currently advertising a 14-night transatlantic repositioning cruise on Freedom of the Seas for $833 per person in an interior cabin and $1,434 in a balcony cabin.

The ultra-luxury line Silversea has great deals as well, relatively speaking. Prices for their 16-day spring repositioning cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Dublin starts at $5,310 as opposed to $10,620 for an Australia/New

Antonio Gaudi’s unique and ornate cathedral La Sagrada Familia soars over Barcelona, one of the ports of call on the Koningsdam’s repositioning cruise. Construction began in 1892 and is still underway.

Zealand voyage of the same length during the same month.

all the surprises were good ones, as one would reasonably expect on a new ship.

With music as their inspiration, designer

A brand new ship The day we settled into the Koningsdam,

See CRUISES, page 20

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OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

Cruises From page 19 Adam Tihany and architect Bjørn Storbraaten created an open, airy atmosphere with plenty of curved lines. Everywhere you looked, you engaged with interesting pieces of art, most of it contemporary.

Floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors enhanced the spaciousness of our verandah cabin. Even for people like us who do not pack light, there were more than enough closets and storage spaces.

The comfortable queen-sized bed was made up with crisp white linens, and there were perfectly placed bedside reading lights.

The bathroom had a large shower.

The TV was of-the-moment: flat screen, high-definition. Lots of channels and on-demand movies, as well as the entirety of “Downton Abbey,” provided relaxing interludes between meals and events.

The music-themed ship lived up to its intention. The main World Stage, which had a three-quarter-way-around seating layout, was surrounded by walls upon which gorgeous video and photography were sometimes projected. At a cast chat, many performers praised the lighting, sound and design technology, calling it superior to that of most Broadway theaters.

If there’s a head on every pillow, the Koningsdam can accommodate 2,650 passengers.

Cruise lines encourage loyalty with discounts and perks. At a reception, we learned that out of the approximately 2,400 passengers, only 200 (including ourselves) were first timers.

Plentiful activities onboard I needn’t have feared boredom. Besides the nightly main stage shows, there were many other options, including a classic piano bar. At B.B. King’s Blues Club, the band played current hits.

A classical quintet, easily transitioning from Mozart to Sting, performed at the Lincoln

Center Stage. This strategic partnership with Lincoln Center was a huge hit. With their piano, cello and three violins, these elegant musicians seemed to be the most beloved performers on a ship that was rich in talent.

In addition to music and dance entertainment, a magician and two comedians were on the schedule. With freshly popped popcorn, we loved watching movies in lounge chairs around the pool. Popular films were interspersed with BBC Earth documentaries.

Before sunrise one morning, there was a stargazing opportunity with two presenters who were attending navigation school.

During the day, lectures, a cooking competition and demonstrations, spa appointments, games and dance lessons given by the gorgeous shipboard dancers kept us busy.

At the gym, you could stare out at the sea as you walked or jogged. The sight and smell of the sea, and its breezes, drew many passengers out to the promenade deck. I joined daily.

I avoided the casino, but it was well-populated every evening.

I planned spa appointments and all our meals in the specialty restaurants for days we were at sea. On all the other days, the two main dining options — a formal restaurant and a sophisticated version of an eatery — were both good to great. At mealtimes, we got to know other passengers and found people to hang out with on the ship, and to tour with on land.

We found the specialty restaurants, except the Italian one, worth the extra charges, which ranged from $15 to a la carte. Of the French bistro, Culinary Arts Center (tasting menu, demonstration kitchen), steakhouse and Asian, the Asian (Tamarind) stood out. But each had its winning dishes.

Spanish ports of call Every cruise line sells land tours, and Holland America is no exception, with classic See CRUISES, page 31

M A R K YO U R C ALE NDAR

Nov. 8

LEANN RIMES CONCERT

LeAnn Rimes will perform at the Beacon Theatre, located at 401 N. Main St. in Hopewell, Va. on Wednesday Nov. 8. The performance is part of her “Love Is Love Acoustic Tour.” Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and the show begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $37 to $57 in advance and $42 to $62 at the door. For more information, visit https://leannrimesworld.com.

Oc.t 29

ISRAELI DRUMS

Weinstein JCC presents “Tararam: Israel’s Stomp” on Sunday, Oct. 29 at 3 p.m. Tararam is a blend of rhythm, movement and wit interwoven with tightly choreographed body drumming sequences. The creative performers produce extraordinary sounds from ordinary objects such as tin cans, metal and plastic barrels, wooden chairs, spoons, industrial tools, vocals and live music. General admission: $18 for members; $50 for non-members. The center is located at 5403 Monument Ave. in Richmond, Va. For more information, call (804) 545-8657 or visit weinsteinjcc.org.

www.FiftyPlusRichmond.com | Leisure & Travel

Cruises From page 20 highlights tours and many off-the-beatentrack options.

PHOTO COURTESY OF HOLLAND AMERICA

They also do a great job of letting passengers know how to explore on one’s own. Lectures with beautiful slide shows gave a rundown of the best of each city, restaurant recommendations, and practical information about unusual scheduling and closings.

Palma de Mallorca in Spain was our first stop. Like many other ports, this island has a lot of fine museums, churches and ruins. Its beach is a quick walk from the ship.

It also has a large department store, El Corte Ingles, where I was delighted to find great variety and good prices for truly local items (after confirming by checking tags) to bring to loved ones back home.

Barcelona was the most alluring stop, and it required the most planning since there’s so much to do. My husband and I chose to spend most of our time at La Sagrada Familia, the The design of the avant garde wine cellar on Holland America’s Koningsdam echoes the curved lines and art theme throughout the vessel, which holds more than 2,500 passengers. It is one of a number of ships that make trans-Atlantic repositioning crossings each fall and spring at steeply discounted rates for passengers.

masterpiece cathedral (started in 1882 and still unfinished) designed by Antoni Gaudi.

I expected it to be more surreal and less spiritual, but the experience was quite the opposite. I was very moved by the structure and the guide’s story of Gaudi’s devotion to the project.

Afterward, we wandered Las Ramblas, the tree-lined pedestrian mall in heart of the city, and enjoyed a great meal. (Yes, this was the site of a horrific terrorist incident this August, less than a year after our visit.)

Alicante is a popular beach town graced with palm trees and a beautiful waterfront promenade, Explanada de Espana, made of 6.5 million marble tiles. This small city has one of Spain’s most important modern art collections in its Asegurada Museum.

Malaga, Picasso’s hometown on the Costa del Sol, honors him with an art museum and a house museum. There are many others here, including the Museo de Malaga, with fine arts and archaeology. From 2015, and scheduled to be there for five years, a pop-up outpost of the Paris Centre Pompidou arts complex was installed in a many-colored glass cube structure at the port. Special exhibits share the space with works from the Paris museum’s permanent collection.

Home to a U.S. naval base, Cadiz is known for great golf and five miles of beach, longrated as having the cleanest beach water in Europe. Since we’d be there on a Sunday,

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with few places open, we decided to take an official Holland America tour, at $80 per person for five hours. About 28 other passengers decided the same thing, and the consensus afterward was that it was worth it. Our intelligent and well informed guide toured us around the old city and a charming hilltop village called Jerez de la Frontera.

At the shipboard lecture about the last stop, Madeira, I was drawn in by the slides of a stunning hotel on a hill. When we arrived, we hired a taxi driver to take us around.

That is common practice for cruise passengers. Sometimes we’d share a taxi with another couple. It costs far less than an organized tour, the drivers know the main attractions, and you get to talk to a local while doing exactly what you want to do.

Before heading to the Belmond Reid’s Palace for lunch, we asked our driver, Bruno, to take us to a grocery store. He looked puzzled, but we convinced him that’s what we wanted, and the three of us walked the aisles, buying chocolates for the cabin stewards and some traditional honey cake to take home.

You can learn a lot about another culture in a grocery store. And at a Belmond hotel, you can treat yourself to a fine Portuguese lunch.

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Style Arts &

A bust of Edgar Allen Poe is displayed among many artifacts at the local museum devoted to his life.

Poe Museum celebrates Richmond author

By Martha Steger If you’ve had a light and cheery Indian summer, you could add a bit of the dark side by visiting the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in the Church Hill neighborhood.

Lovers of Poe’s creepy short stories and who-done-its naturally gravitate to the museum at 1914 E. Main St., celebrating America’s first internationally influential author.

The museum opened in 1922 in what is believed to be Richmond’s oldest house — the Old Stone House dating to about 1740. It comprises an unrivaled collection of works in three buildings by the man sometimes referred to as “America’s Shakespeare.”

As someone who lived a stormy 40 years

(1809-1849), his writings range widely from lyric poetry to sci-fi, horror stories and detective fiction (though the word “detective” wasn’t in use in English at the time Poe was writing). Although born in Boston, he considered Richmond his home and called himself “a Virginian.”

While the Old Stone House stands many blocks from where Poe lived with the Allan family at Moldavia (no longer standing), timetravelers find a visit to this museum offers a journey back to early 19th-century Richmond — Poe’s era.

Beyond the books Check out the impressive model of Rich-

mond during this period, sculpted by local teacher Edith Ragland in the 1920s. This exhibit alone justifies making a trip to E. Main Street.

Though no record exists of the number of years she and sculptor Edward Valentine spent researching old insurance records, elevation charts, drawings and photographs before construction even began, Ragland spent three years building the model in the Old Stone House.

Not just for literature geeks, the museum offers every bit of the romance and mystery that the author, poet, editor and literary critic was known for: letters to and from his loves; manuscripts in his handwriting about women who he believed returned from the dead to connect with him; documents about his mysterious death; and clothing and possessions from the years spent with a wicked adoptive father, John Allan, with whom he lived in various Richmond homes.

If you can’t get to the museum in person, go online at www.poemuseum.org to see highlights from the collections, such as Poe’s bed, vest, trunk and walking stick. Educators and students can access an Educators’ Packet and gain information on Poe’s life and works.

The museum’s gift shop — one of Richmond’s best — is also at the fingertips of online visitors.

Visiting the Enchanted Garden

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We think we know Poe, but chances are, we don’t know the broad plant palette in his writings — “the bristly palmetto” in the South Carolina setting for his short story, “The Gold Bug,” or the sassafras, mountain laurel and Pinkster azalea typical of the Charlottesville-area landscape in his mystery, A Tale of the Ragged Mountains.

Restored five years ago by Riley & Associates Architects in Charlottesville — and financed by the Garden Club of Virginia with proceeds from its 80 years of Historic Garden Week — the Enchanted Garden recreates the place Poe described in his poem, “To One in Paradise.” Four other, smaller gardens exist around the museum. You’ll undoubtedly en-

counter Edgar and Pluto, the museum’s two black cats that make the gardens their home.

Intergenerational appeal The displayed scale-model mentioned earlier, which captures even the slope of Richmond’s hills, captivated our own children and granddaughters long before the fourth or fifth grade (a good age for a first visit).

If you have teenagers in tow, you might find them interested in emulating Poe’s poetry — if only to impress their teachers. But teens can be a challenge for guides.

Murray Ellison, a volunteer guide who is known as a working board member at the museum, gets his share of eye-rolling teens.

“Teens are tough, but I always try to get them to see Poe as real, like themselves,” Ellison said. He’ll ask teens if they have ever felt unloved. Or if can they imagine, at age 13, being married to someone twice their age, as was Virginia Clemm when she married Poe. “I also try to find specifics to engage them — Poe’s hair, his childhood bed, his swimming up the James River for six miles against the current,” said Ellison.

The newest exhibit opened last month and is perfect for this month of All Hallows Eve. “Berenice” focuses on this short story of Poe’s, often considered his first horror story.

A gruesome story, its Richmond connection is that it was published by the Southern Literary Messenger in a building no longer standing at 15th and Main Streets — where Poe served as a writer, critic and editor for two years but continued to contribute works later. In an 1844 letter, Poe wrote that he began working when the Messenger had about 700 subscribers, and left when it had 5,500 paying subscribers.

If you want to extend your Poe experience, the museum is five blocks southwest of St. John’s Episcopal Church, where Patrick Henry gave his liberty-or-death speech, and where visitors can see the memorial marker for Poe’s mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, who was buried in the churchyard. You can See POE MUSEUM, page 23

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FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

Upcoming Poe Museum events A Night of Poetry in the Garden Saturday, Oct. 14, 6 to 9 p.m.

James River Writers and the Poe Museum are co-hosting a special night of poetry in the Enchanted Garden, featuring readings by the acclaimed poets of the 15th Annual James River Writers Conference.

The Poe Museum buildings and exhibits will be open to explore. Free.

Fancy Me Mad Saturday, Oct. 21, 5:30 to 8 p.m.

St. John’s Church Foundation and the Poe Museum present “Fancy Me Mad,” a fall event honoring the spirits of the season with a ghostly graveyard tour and tales by Mr. Poe himself!

Poe Museum From page 22 leisurely tour the church and the museum in a day, and squeeze in lunch nearby at Poe’s Pub or the Proper Pie Company on Church Hill.

Museum tickets are $8 adults; $6 for those 60+, AAA members, and youths (7 to 17); and free for members and children under 6.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday.; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday; closed Monday.

Free parking is available in the museum lot at the corner of E. Main and 20th Streets and on museum-side of E. Main St. Self-guided and audio tours are offered with admission whenever the museum is open; guided tours are usually daily at 11

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

Ongoing

FALL CLASSES

The Shepherd’s Center of Chesterfield offers a series of classes on Wednesdays, from now through Nov. 15 at Chester Baptist Church, located at 4317 School St. in Chester, Va. Classes and activities run all day and include hula hooping, tai chi, essential oils, Bible study, theater, Celtic history and more.

There will also be stress relieving activities like reading and coloring.

Enjoy some or all classes; doors open at 8:45 a.m. The cost is a one-time payment of $25 for members and $40 for non-members. Lunch includes a forum speaker and costs $5 extra. For more information or to register, call (804) 706-6689.

October Unhappy Hour Thursday, Oct. 26, 6 to 9 p.m.

The Poe Museum hosts an Unhappy Hour in the Enchanted Garden every fourth Thursday of the month from April through October from 6 to 9 p.m. There is typically live music, a cash bar, light food, and Poe-themed activities during the event.

Dress is casual and the event is open to all ages.

This month’s Unhappy Hour features live music from Tin Can Fish Band. Dress for Halloween, and pose for your post-mortem portrait in a death photo booth. Poe-themed fun for the family; $8 admission, free for members and children under 6.

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a.m., 1 and 3 p.m. but are subject to change.

Most exhibits are wheelchair-accessible, and staff are more than happy to assist, but remember this is a multi-building complex that includes one of Richmond’s oldest buildings.

For more details, including information about Poe’s birthday celebration in January 2018, go to www.poemuseum.org, or phone (804) 648-5523.

The winner and a guest will receive airfare and 4-star hotel accommodations plus: • Visit the locations of popular PBS series such as Poldark, Doc Martin, and Downton Abbey • Private viewing of the magnificent costumes from Downton Abbey and Poldark • Participate in a traditional Cornish cooking class • And much more!

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OCTOBER 2017 — FIFTYPLUS

Fall in love with a colorful autumn garden

By Lela Martin With a son getting married in October in either his backyard or mine, I started thinking of outdoor plants to provide color, since many summer blooms will be spent by then.

In addition to perky pansies and gorgeous garden mums, there are some less obvious choices for autumn color among fall-blooming bulbs, perennials, grasses, shrubs and trees.

Fall-blooming bulbs, corms, and tubers, which should be planted in late summer, provide the color profusion of spring-blooming bulbs. Think of the three Cs for autumn color:

Beautyberry

crocus, colchicum, and hardy cyclamen.

Cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium) blossoms are pink, rose-purple or white, accented by leaves in a mottled two-tone. Cyclamen grows well in partial shade, although the other two bloom better in full sun.

Saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), the source of the valuable spice, has purple flowers with dark veins. Meadow saffron (Colchicum autumnale) produces four to six pink flowers from each corm.

Sun-loving perennials for fall color include native aster in white, pink, blue and purple; false sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides), with its yellow petals and brown eyes; dusty pink to rusty red sedums such as ‘Autumn Joy’; the sun-kissed yellow goldenrod (Solidago); lavender anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum); the unfortunately named sneezeweed (Helenium), with flowers in shades of gold, yellow, rust and mahogany, topped by a brown button; Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum) in pinks and purples; and monkshood (Aconitum), with its colorful spikes of blue, violet and cream hood-shaped flowers belying the fact that the plant is poisonous.

Shade perennials that bloom in autumn include Japanese anemone (Anemone × hybrida), with delicate blossoms that range in

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color from snow white to dark pink and purple; turtlehead (Chelone) with flowers in white, pink, purple, rose and red that resemble, well, turtle heads; toad lily (Tricyrtis hirta), which has small, orchidlike flowers, speckled with white and shades of purple; Kamchatka bugbane (Cimicifuga simplex), with its dramatic white bottlebrush flowers; and balloon flower (Platycodon) in purple, blue, pink and white.

The foliage of the following turns a lovely yellow in fall: sensitive fern, royal fern, Solomon’s seal and hosta.

Shrublike perennials (aka sub-shrubs) add to the color profusion: tall, blue caryopteris; lavender Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia); as well as Mediterranean varieties of heather (Calluna vulgaris) and winter heath (Erica), with flowers in pink, rose and white.

A heather’s evergreen foliage changes and intensifies in hue as the weather gets colder.

For example, the copper foliage of Calluna vulgaris ‘Firefly’ deepens to brick red in winter.

Ornamental grasses often are at their peak during early autumn. The native Muhly grass (Muhlenbergia) has stunning, wispy pink inflorescences. Grasses in the Miscanthus family (often called maiden grass) provide attrac-

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tive, flowers and seedheads. Several switchgrass cultivars (Panicum virgatum) and flame grass (Miscanthus sinensis var. purpurescens) have bright red leaves before turning tan in winter. A couple of native grasses, such as Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) and little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), sport See AUTUMN GARDEN, page 25

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FIFTYPLUS — OCTOBER 2017

Autumn garden From page 24 yellow to burnt-orange fall color.

Shrubs also provide vibrant autumn color.

The native beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) develops stunning purple berries. The leaves of native Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica) turn a purply red color. Another native, oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia), has leaves with a deep rich burgundy color in the fall.

Deciduous trees put on a show in the fall.

Most of us know of maple trees with their orange and reds; however, some maples turn yellow.

Ginkgo leaves

Trees that you might not consider also can provide lovely leaf color. The maligned native sweetgum produces leaves in a range of colors on a single tree. Dogwood, known for its spring blossoms, has attractive red berries and red leaves in the fall. Ginko leaves turn a striking yellow. Crape myrtle, most often known for its summer blooms, has fall color that surpasses many other trees, with fall fo-

anthocyanin pigments develop in trees such as dogwood and sweetgum. Anthocyanin is responsible for colors ranging from red through maroon to purple.

Intermediate colors, such as orange tones, may occur when leaves contain a mixture of two or more pigments. The pigments and mixtures are primarily species-specific.

— Lela Martin

ANSWERS TO CROSSWORD

FROM PAGE 26 ANSWERS TO SCRABBLE

Why do leaves change color?

As autumn days become shorter and nights cooler, trees slow the production of the green chlorophyll in their leaves. As a result, pigments, called carotenoids, are revealed. These are responsible for the yellow to brown colors, as in hickories.

Bronze tones come from tannins, which accumulate in the older leaves of some species such as beech. In other species,

liage ranging from yellow to orange to red.

Although the adage for the mother-of-the groom may be “Show up. Shut up. Wear beige,” the corollary for her October garden should be “Show off. Pretty up. Explode with color.”

Lela Martin is a Master Gardener with the Chesterfield County office of the Virginia Cooperative Extension.

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Across

Down

1. Location for detoxification 6. Outdoorsy org. with an eagle, shield, and two guns in its logo 9. Outdoorsy org. with an eagle and shield, but no guns in its logo 12. Humble ___ (starter house, perhaps) 13. Cut of beef or lamb 14. Distribute justice (or just ice) 15. The V in CVS, originally 16. Jaws craft that inspired the catchphrase “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” 17. Latin lover’s word 18. First item on Dr. Franken-Veggie’s grocery list 21. Artsy town 70 miles north of Santa Fe 22. Devours 23. Make a choice 26. “Level of Effort” (written with less effort) 27. Flue symptom 28. Set back(wards) 29. Dr. Franken-Veggie’s next list entry 33. Partner 34. Our current one is the Cenozoic 35. Disable the security guard (in a heist film) 38. More items on the list 43. ___ Aviv 45. Bookkeeping notation meaning “paid in full” 46. Prefix with sects (and the cities) 47. Target of $172 million of 32 Down’s funding in 2017 48. Physical feature of Long John Silver 50. No ___ for the weary 52. Last thing Dr. F-V is searching for 58. Groan’s belly-aching buddy 59. Prayer pronoun 60. Merit a service charge 61. Ready, willing, and ___ 62. Provide a clue 63. Like war god Odin 64. Originally named 65. Clorox-owned brand of pot cleaners 66. Like war god Ares

1. Give a five-star review 2. Internet co. originally named AuctionWeb 3. Golfer’s goal 4. “___ bunny makes a lovely Val-lint-ine” 5. Offspring of bison and cattle 6. Cheers shout 7. The end of three continents 8. Poetic rhyming unit, and an anagram of “PEASANT” 9. Rule over 10. Liberty island lady 11. ___ Fables 13. Paper, ready for easy binding 14. Actor Damon or Dillon 19. Place for solar panels 20. Island typed in block 6b of Barack Obama’s birth certificate 23. Physics unit with omega symbol 24. Green soup base 25. Young snitch 27. Where to hold an urban festival 30. Homophone for do and due 31. Drop an easy fly ball 32. Fed. health agency (seen in Atlanta, not D.C.) 36. https://crosswordcheats.com, for example 37. Another name for a wildebeest 39. Cartel founded in 1960 in Baghdad 40. Pizza portions, probably 41. Miner fortunes 42. Seeking carp, or compliments 43. Unanimously 44. Get dressed 49. TV’s Firing, Date, Front or Money 51. Male singing voice 53. The Buckeye State 54. Baseballers Griffey, Jr. and Sr. 55. 43,560 square feet 56. Tricky diversion 57. Journey with Kirk and Spock

Answers on page 25.

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