Jim Teske, the longtime meteorologist at NewsChannel 9, says the area’s dynamic weather keeps him going. P. 32
DR. MICHAEL ROIZEN: LIVING HEALTHFULLY INTO OUR 100S. HE TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW BOOK ABOUT AGING
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Stop missing life’s greatest moments. Stop planning life around pain. Back Pain should not mean fusion, screws, and lengthy recoveries. Regenerative Medicine is changing how back pain is solved.
Now I am back to shoveling snow, hiking and looking forward to gardening this spring. Dr. Kim and his staff were great with my questions, friendly and attentive to my recovery. —MARCIA
With more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, I began thinking about my family’s philanthropic plan early on. It was important to me that we effectively incorporated charitable giving into our overall financial picture.
Building a financial plan is like putting together a puzzle and charitable giving is an important piece. We set up a donor-advised fund at the Community Foundation because it is a smart way to give. We can make an impact on Central New York now while having our charitable wishes continue for generations.
I enjoy engaging my sons in the current giving from our fund to organizations that support youth and outdoor revitalization. Our fund will receive a legacy gift with a contribution from my retirement investment accounts when I pass away. I am comforted knowing that my sons will carry forward our love for this community through our charitable legacy for years to come.
Caragh Fahy stands with her sons at Onondaga Lake Park
You can collect Social Security retirement benefits and work at the same time but depending on how old you are and how much you earn, some or all of your benefits could be temporarily withheld. Here’s how it works.
Social Security says that if you’re under your full retirement age and are collecting benefits, then you can earn up to $21,240 in 2023 without jeopardizing any of your Social Security if you don’t reach your full retirement age this year. But if you earn more than the $21,240 limit, you’ll lose $1 in benefits for every $2 over that amount.
Full retirement age is 66 for those born between 1943 and 1954, but it rises in two-month increments every birth year to age 67 for those born in 1960 and later. You can find your full retirement age at SSA.gov/benefits/ retirement/planner/ageincrease.html.
In the year you reach your full retirement age, a less stringent rule applies. If that happens in 2023, you can earn up to $56,520 from January to the month of your birthday with no penalty. But if you earn more than $56,520 during that time, you’ll lose $1 in benefits for every $3 over that limit. And once your birthday passes, you can earn any amount by working without your benefits being reduced at all.
Wages, bonuses, commissions and vacation pay all count toward the income limits, but pensions, annuities, investment earnings, interest, capital gains and government or military retirement benefits do not. To figure out how much your specific earnings will affect your benefits, see the Social Security Retirement Earnings Test Calculator at SSA.gov/OACT/COLA/ RTeffect.html.
It’s also important to know that if you do lose some or all of your
Social Security benefits because of the earning limits, they aren’t lost forever. When you reach full retirement age, your benefits will be recalculated to a higher amount to make up for what was withheld.
For more information on how working can affect your Social Security benefits see SSA.gov/benefits/ retirement/planner/whileworking. html.
In addition to the Social Security rules, you need to factor in Uncle Sam, too. Because working increases your income, it might make your Social Security benefits taxable.
Here’s how it works. If the sum of your adjusted gross income, nontaxable interest, and half of your Social Security benefits is between $25,000 and $34,000 for individuals ($32,000 and $44,000 for couples), you have to pay tax on up to 50% of your benefits. Above $34,000 ($44,000 for couples), you could pay on up to 85%, which is the highest portion of Social Security that is taxable. About a third of all people who get Social Security have to pay income taxes on their benefits.
For information, call the IRS at 800-829-3676 and ask them to mail you a free copy of publication 915 “Social Security and Equivalent Railroad Retirement Benefits,” or you can see it online at IRS.gov/pub/irs-pdf/ p915.pdf.
In addition to the federal government, 12 states – Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia – tax Social Security benefits to some extent too. If you live in one of these states, you’ll need to check with your state tax agency for details.
Editor and Publisher
Wagner Dotto
Associate Editor Steve Yablonski
Writers & Contributors
Deborah J. Sergeant Mary Beth Roach, Christopher Malone
Ken Sturtz, Kimberly Blaker, Norah Machia, John Addyman, Charles Ellis
Columnists
Bruce Frassinelli, Marilyn Pinsky, Harold Miller
Jim Sollecito, Marvin Druger Michelle Reed, Jim Miller
Eva Briggs (MD), Donna Cordello Janice Egan and Tim Beauvais
Advertising
Amy Gagliano Cassandra Lawson Pamela Roe
Office Manager Loni Zardus
Layout & Design Angel Campos-Toro
Cover Photo Chuck Wainwright
55 Plus: A Magazine for Active Adults in Central New York is published six times a year by Local News, Inc. at 185 E. Seneca St. P.O. Box 276, Oswego, NY 13126.
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Phone: 315-342-1182 Fax: 315-342-7776 Email: editor@cny55.com
Editor@cnyhealth.com
Q.:
A.: Social Security survivors benefits can be paid to:
• A widow or widower—unreduced benefits at full retirement age, or reduced benefits as early as age 60.
• A disabled widow or widower—as early as age 50.
• A widow or widower at any age if he or she takes care of the deceased’s child who is under age 16 or disabled, and receiving Social Security benefits.
• Unmarried children under 18 or up to age 19 if they are attending high school full time. Under certain circumstances, benefits can be paid to stepchildren, grandchildren, or adopted children.
• Children at any age who were disabled before age 22 and remain disabled.
• Dependent parents age 62 or older. Even if you are divorced, you still may qualify for survivors benefits. For more information, go to www.ssa.gov.
Q.: I plan to retire soon. When are Social Security benefits paid?
A.: Social Security benefits are paid each month. Generally, new retirees receive their benefits on either the second, third or fourth Wednesday of each month, depending on the day in the month the retiree was born. If you receive benefits as a spouse, your benefit payment date will be determined by your spouse’s birth date.
Here’s a chart showing how your monthly payment date is determined:
Day of the Month You Were Born Social Security Benefits Paid On
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carries a thoughtful message for children and adults about life and the world around us.
When a person who has worked and paid Social Security taxes dies, are benefits payable on that person’s record?
Isn’t this just the right time of year to sit back and daydream in living color? Never mind what we “should” or “could” have done in 2022.
Instead, look ahead. Think positively and imagine a direction that leads to new exploits or at the very least, new results.
Want proof? Try drizzling some honey on your pepperoni pizza. Then see how two dissimilar elements relate in a delightful manner not previously experienced. And I say, why not? If not now, then when?
The world seems very black and white now, but that will change. Just as
the white snow melts, gently revealing a rainbow of spring and summer hues. From the ground up, the sky is the limit when it comes to color combos.
Of course, we’d like more results with less work, so plant selection can make a big difference. For example, if a plant doesn’t make a seed (sterility), it is 1) non-invasive and therefore less problematic and 2) can tend to be a repeat or even perpetual bloomer.
Every year more and more of these new varieties are developed and become available for our home landscapes. Like the plants my wife, Megan, captured in this photo.
But it’s not just about picking
the right new plant variety. It is also how you care for plants. As for us, we always plant perennials with a mulch of organic compost. Considered living mulch due to the live microbes and their continuous renewable lifecycle. These are wonderful natural stimulants to healthier plants with bigger flowers and better color.
Remember that Cornell University never recommends using dyed and preserved colored wood that not only doesn’t add anything positive to the growing environment, but also spurs the advent of the horrible Artillery Fungus that plagues many homes with black dots that last forever on siding.
Oh, people often ask why a particular plant didn’t flower as long as it had in the past. Most of the time the answer is the weather — something that is out of our control. A late frost or unusually early warm spell can radically reduce flowering. But cool daytime temperatures can extend bloom time, so weather can work in our favor sometimes.
I routinely talk with plants people, asking what went right and sharing what went wrong. Then try to figure out how to learn from that. I have a whole compost pile of plants that didn’t live up to their hype, at least not in my landscape. We have all eaten chicken that sadly gave its life in vain. A bad meal is no big deal. You know, throughout my life, I am a big believer in the credo that if you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t trying hard enough. It’s not only the best way to learn, it’s the only way sometimes. Most people would learn from their mistakes if they weren’t so busy denying them.
Change can be hard, but it’s the only way to grow. We need to keep improving, even if just by small steps. With a little help from us, our landscapes will improve, too, and explode with unbridled potential. And I just can’t wait!
Jim Sollecito is the first lifetime senior certified landscape professional in New York State. He operates Sollecito Landscaping Nursery in Syracuse. Contact him at 315-468-1142 or jim@sollecito.com.
To hear more of Frank’s story and learn if CyberKnife is right for you, visit hoacny.com
“Our mission is to provide nutritious meals to seniors, the homebound & the disabled in north Onondaga County...”
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Frank chose non-surgical CyberKnife® at HOA –offering 5 treatments instead of 35!
“The original diagnosis was to treat my prostate cancer with seven weeks of radiation, five days a week. I was kind of upset that I was never given the option of CyberKnife,” said Frank. “The precise radiation achieved by CyberKnife, far fewer treatments, and the personalized care I received from Dr. Chin and his team made my decision an easy one. Better, the treatment was a real success!”
Frank Guido couldn’t be happier he had a choice for treating his prostate cancer!
Auburn staple continues its longstanding reputation
It’s been a while since the last time I’ve dined at Lasca’s Restaurant in Auburn.
Even just sitting down, it felt long overdue in a darkened room of the dining area.
From walking in and being seated, to our servers’ (one was training) greeting and the on-point refilling of our water glasses, Lasca’s didn’t miss a beat with the first and continual impressions.
The staff was incredibly friendly, exuding professionalism and simply down to earth.
To kick the meal off: complimentary
rolls and hot tomato dipping oil. The mildly spicy sauce was not overly seasoned. It separated itself from the other Central New York tomato oils in a good way — and dare I say better?
There’s enough oil there to go through two baskets of rolls, if you so choose.
We know, because it happened. Call this a dining out rookie mistake; feasting on the Lasca’s-made carbs, but it was worth it.
For a menu-item appetizer, we thought we ordered the lobster grilled beef tenderloin, but the standard beef tenderloin ($24) with spinach and
white beans came out. Their names sound similar. But it’s all right. We noticed the lobster was missing while digging through the pile.
As delicious as beef with lobster, goat cheese and greens sound, the tender marinated beef on our plate was delicious. The tender beef was accompanied by sautéed spinach and white beans.
For entrees — surf and turf. As it was Friday, it’s one of the two days (Saturday is the other) when Lasca’s offers prime rib. We ordered the king cut with au jus ($43), so my wife and I could easily share.
Similar to John Candy’s Chet Ripley character in “The Great Outdoors,” a masterful and proud cut of meat was placed down in front of me. It was no “Old 96er,” but it was aesthetically intimidating.
The medium rare beef was cooked perfectly and was wading in a puddle
Seafood medley ($37): broiled haddock, shrimp and scallops atop angel hair, covered with a lemon butter white wine garlic sauce.of au jus. The broth boasted the perfect amount of saltiness and let its flavor speak for itself. The horseradish sauce on the side was a medium-intensity creamy compliment.
I opted for a baked potato with sour cream as a side and it was baked very well, meaning the skin of the potato wasn’t rubbery and the sour cream made it even better.
Why get one dish of particular seafood when you can try many? The seafood medley ($37) featured broiled haddock, shrimp and scallops atop angel hair and covered with a lemon butter white wine garlic sauce. The
pasta of the sea dish was joined by tomatoes, capers and mushrooms.
There was a lot of flavor of what could be my favorite seafood pasta dish I’ve had in a while.
The seafood was fresh; the three components didn’t smell or taste briny. The lemon was subdued. Because of that, the sauce really stood out. For the amount of food on the plate, it was overall a light entrée.
The only downsides included mislabeled prices for the beef tenderloin appetizer and king prime rib, which were both a couple bucks more. Along with the two beers ($8
TOP: King cut prime rib ($43). The medium rare beef was cooked perfectly and was wading in a puddle of au jus.
BOTTOM: Beef tenderloin with spinach and white beans ($24).
each), mislabeled prices, the credit card processing fee ($3.95) upped the bill to more than $131.
The service fees are more common nowadays, which can be easily, secretly factored into the food.
Those are something we just have to grin and bear. But the mislabeling of menu items is something that can be avoided and corrected.
Regardless of writing reviews, I’m typically patient and accepting of this. Other people may not be. But it was the only thing that left a bad taste.
The 30-plus year tradition continues for Lasca’s.
Keep in mind the restaurant fills up, so reservations are recommended. For those who don’t want to dine in, the restaurant offers an easy, great carry-out service.
Lasca’s Restaurant
252 Grant Ave. Route 5 Auburn, NY 13021
Restaurant: 315-253-4885 Carry Out: 315-253-6900 lascas.com facebook.com/LascasRestaurant instagram.com/lascas_restaurant
Dinner
Sunday and Monday: Closed Tuesday: Private Events Wednesday and Thursday: 5 - 8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday: 5 - 9:30 p.m.
Carry Out
Sunday – Tuesday: Closed Wednesday and Thursday: 9:30 a.m. – 8 p.m. Friday: 9:30 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. Saturday: Noon - 8:30 p.m.
By Kimberly Blaker
Today’s cost of living for households headed by someone 65 or older is $52,141 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest estimates, based on 2021 figures.
The average retiree household income is only $47,620.
That means many seniors are trying to make ends meet on incomes well below the average cost of living. Fortunately, there are many ways
to keep your costs down without sacrificing your quality of life. So follow these cost-cutting tips and watch your savings grow.
Keeping entertained doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg — or anything at all. Make visiting your library a regular activity. Libraries offer a wide variety of free entertainment, including books, newspapers, magazines (print and digital editions), DVDs, music CDs, and more. If your library doesn’t carry the item you’re looking for, ask about its interlibrary loan program.
Local, county and state parks offer a variety of scheduled activities and programs from bird viewing and nature hikes to concerts and festivals. Parks also provide paved biking trails, hiking and nature trails, fishing, wildlife viewing, and more.
Save on household and clothing expenses by trying these moneysaving ideas. You’ll be helping to protect the environment, too.
• Hit the end of the season sales and save 60% to 80% on clothing.
• Visit resale shops for super savings on like-new clothing. You can find these stores locally as well as online resale shops. If you like designer clothing, look for an upscale resale shop in luxury communities.
• Reel in savings the way people of all ages and income brackets are doing today. Hit garage and estate sales for clothing and other household needs. You can find topquality, top-condition items, for next to nothing
There are many ways to keep your driving expenses down. Try these for starters.
• Increase the deductible on your collision to $1,000, unless you’re accident-prone. The cost difference can be significant. Also, carefully review all the other charges on your policy. Insurance agents often prepackage or tack on unnecessary coverages or higher coverage than you need.
• Avoid purchasing a brand new vehicle. Opt for a low mileage model, one to four years old. You’ll save a fortune on depreciation.
• Despite the rising cost of food, this is one of the easier places to cut costs. Coupon clipping can net substantial savings—as long as you only buy items you’d purchase anyway. For the best savings, look for grocery stores that offer double coupons. But do your math at these stores to make sure they don’t have a higher markup, or else your savings will go down the drain, or may even
cost you more. Also, set guidelines so you don’t use coupons for unnecessary purchases or when it’s a better deal to buy another brand.
• Another strategy, which can cut your grocery bill by at least a third is buying only what’s on sale. Flip through your store flier each week, then stock up with a four- to six-week supply of the sale items. After the first month, you should have plenty of stock to eliminate most non-sale purchases. Although you’ll invest a little more upfront, within a few weeks, you’ll recoup your investment and begin to see your grocery bill drop.
• Avoid wholesale food clubs as well. When comparing prices, the savings are usually minimal and rarely compare to grocery store sale prices.
Food clubs may be good for just a few staple items you’ve researched and
know are always a better deal and that you really need and use.
• When grocery shopping, always compare the price per ounce on various size packaging. Contrary to popular belief, smaller packages are sometimes the better deal. Manufacturers have learned people go for the larger bulk size items because they’re often a better price per ounce. As a result, some manufacturers switch the pricing around knowing consumers will assume the larger package is a better deal.
• Also, don’t let eating out eat up your spare cash. Keep plenty of simple or frozen meals on hand to toss in the oven when you don’t feel like cooking. Better yet, make large batches of soups, casseroles, and other dishes and freeze them in single-serving containers for simple meals.
The following suggestions can yield significant savings and make
banking and loans work for you rather than against you.
• If possible, double up on mortgage and loan payments. If that isn’t in your budget, you can still save by breaking each monthly payment into two. Pay half of your monthly loan and mortgage payments a couple of weeks early. Just contact your lender to make sure both early and partial payments apply to your regular monthly installments, and that interest will be adjusted accordingly.
• Open your checking account at a credit union or bank that offers free accounts with no maintenance or check fees. Also, look into the many banks offering a $300 or $600 bonus for opening a new account.
• Store your credit card rather than carrying it with you, which can lead to impulse buying. Unless you’re disciplined enough to pay off your balance monthly, credit card interest eats up a lot of spare cash.
There are plenty of ways to cut overall energy use without sacrifice. Best of all, it’s better for the planet. So make the following part of your energy-saving strategy.
• Run your dishwasher only when
full, and use the no-heat or air-dry setting.
• Keep your refrigerator out of the sun.
• Turn off the oven a few minutes before your meal is done cooking. The heat already built up in the oven will finish the job. In winter months, open the oven door after turning it off to utilize the heat.
• Wash all laundry in cold water, except for sheets and towels, which need hot water to kill bacteria and odors. As an added bonus, it will reduce shrinkage and fading of colors.
• Clean the lint filter on your dryer before each use, and don’t over-dry clothes. Better yet, hang your clothes to dry.
• Evaluate your lighting needs. Use the lowest watt bulb possible that provides ample lighting. Better yet, use LED light bulbs for maximum energy savings.
• Keep your hot water heater between 115 to 120 degrees, as recommended by The Department of Energy. Warmer temperatures are wasteful, unnecessary, and can lead to scalding.
• When purchasing new appliances, compare energy efficiency. Paying a little more for the more energy-efficient appliances can save a lot of money in the end.
• Turn your computer off overnight and during lengthy interruptions.
There are several exciting scientific developments on the horizon that could help you live longer, but at the same time, feel decades younger than the number of candles on your birthday cake.
This latest medical research into the field of longevity is explained a new book, “The Great Age Reboot: Cracking the Longevity Code for a Younger Tomorrow,” written by Michael F. Roizen, emeritus chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.
Prior to joining the Cleveland Clinic, Roizen had served as dean of the College of Medicine and vice president for Biomedical Sciences at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, starting in 2001. He later served as CEO of the Biotechnology Research Corporation of Central New York.
Roizen left Syracuse after accepting a position as chairman of the Anesthesiology Institute at the Cleveland Clinic and was later appointed to the newly created
position of chief wellness officer, serving as the founding chairman of the Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic from 2007-17.
Roizen, the author of several New York Times best-selling books, helped to develop the “RealAge” health measurement test, which calculates a “RealAge” based on your physical and mental health well-being, a number that typically differs from your biological age. (Although he is 76, Roizen said his “RealAge” is 55.7).
He published those findings in the book “RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?" (Harper Collins Publishers) which landed on the New York Times bestseller list. He also co-wrote several general-audience best-selling books with Mehmet Oz, a television presenter, author, politician and retired cardiothoracic surgeon known as Dr. Oz.
In his latest book, published by the National Geographic Society, Roizen expands on the concepts of health, wellness and longevity, explaining the most current medical research and advancements that are predicated to allow people to live much longer lives — to 100, 120 or even more than 130 — while at the same time, feeling decades younger.
Longevity research is being carried out in several areas, including senolytics (harvesting old cells that are damaging others in the body), gene editing and the development of bionic body parts. It’s expected the general population will see the results of this research in the near future, the physician said.
Lifesaving changes to the human body “could be done organ by organ” in the next 10 years, and eventually, the entire body “from head to toe” in the next 20 years, he said. These are realistic predictions based on the promising medical research aimed at helping people live longer and healthier lives, Roizen said. For example, future medical advancements would allow a person who is 90 years to feel like a 40-year-old, he said.
The longevity research will not only help individuals lead healthier lives, but also more productive ones, which will benefit society as a whole in the future, Roizen added.
Declining birth rates over past decades have been creating a situation where not enough young people will be working to support the older population in the future, he explained. If people can work longer, they will not only save more for their personal retirement, but will help to increase the tax base for important governmental programs such as Social Security, Roizen noted.
“If we don’t get longevity, society and the government could implode,” he said. “We won’t have enough young people to support those who are getting older and retiring.”
For anyone concerned with the potential for overpopulation, “longevity will not be the problem, it will be the solution,” Roizen said.
But the success of any future
medical advancements in the field of longevity depends on what people are doing now to improve both their physical and mental well-being, he said.
Living a healthy lifestyle with plenty of regular exercise, sound nutrition and stress management is critical in preventing chronic medical conditions such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Other factors include eliminating smoking, stopping excessive drinking and avoiding a diet high in sugar and processed foods, all factors that contribute to overall inflammation in the body.
“Today so many people are struggling with stress and other mental health issues,” Roizen said. “It is important to address those as well.”
There are a variety of options for people to reduce their stress levels, such as deep breathing or guided relaxation and meditation, he noted.
It’s important for people to stay healthy because that will determine the success of any future medical advances for longevity. Once your cells are permanently damaged (for example, resulting from a heart attack that blocks blood flow to a heart muscle), they may not be able to be rejuvenated in the future, Roizen said.
In his book — “The Great Age Reboot: Cracking the Longevity Code for a Younger Tomorrow”— physician Michael F. Roizen recommends people strive to reach six goals, plus take two additional preventive steps, to reach their optimum health and put them in a better position to benefit from future longevity research.
He calls this strategy “6 Normals + 2.”
The goal is to reach normal or healthy levels of six key indicators:
Blood pressure of less than 125 mmHG systolic and less than 85mmHG diastolic
BMI (a measurement of height-toweight ratio) of less than 27, or even better, a waist-to-height ratio of 0.40 to 0.55
Fasting blood sugar (associated with diabetes) of less than 106 mg/dL
LDL cholesterol (a risk factor for heart disease) of less than 70 mg/dL
No cotinine in urine (an indicator of tobacco use)
1 2 3 4 5 6
The “+2” are seeing a primary care physician on a regular basis and having all immunizations up to date. “Hitting these goals is a key indicator of lifestyle choices that favor longevity and markers for overall health,” he said.
Contributing writers to “The Great Age Reboot” book are sexpert economist Peter Linneman and demographer Albert Ratner. The book also includes information on how to plan for the future of longevity in the areas of work, family life and retirement.
Afew generations ago, most people married right out of high school or at least by their early 20s.
According to data gathered by Pew Research Center, only 67% of baby boomers married by age 37.
Some choose to never marry; for others, waiting makes more sense.
Marrying later in life occurs for quite a few reasons, including career, education and simply figuring out what they want.
To create a successful marital relationship later in life, it takes forethought.
Grace Puchalski, 58, is a licensed clinical social worker practices as Walk with Grace in Liverpool. She married at 41 and had a child just before age 43.
She said that the key is understanding the role each partner wants to play in the new marriage
and how they will merge their lives.
“If the woman has the traditional way of dealing with having a role in a relationship and the man also has a traditional viewpoint, they may not talk about details,” Puchalski said.
She added that they should also discuss their past, including sexual history, financial history and legal history. Although some information may seem intensely personal or embarrassing, Puchalski said it is important to be forthright as “these secrets will come out. You can never go wrong with taking your time and getting to know each other, even though there’s urgency because we won’t live forever.
“The bottom line is as long as you’re sharing and enjoying each other, there’s no reason to skip some of those important things people need to learn about,” she said. “You’re never too old to talk about any of this stuff.”
Compared with younger folks, older couples’ maturity, familiarity with communication and wisdom usually helps them feel more at ease once they start sharing, and these traits help mitigate the effects of emotional baggage from past relationships. Puchalski recommends pre-marital counseling, as having a third party hear about the couple’s issues can help. Whether a minister or a mental health therapist, “it’s confidential and you can talk about things with someone who’s neutral.”
Couples should discuss where they will live, how they plan to spend their
time, why they want to get married and what they want to do in retirement.
Talking about money can feel awkward even with one’s beloved. However, it is necessary.
“We should talk about paying bills for the rest of our lives,” said Robert A. Rolfe, financial adviser with Harmony Financial Services in Oswego. “You need a financial plan that relates income that will grow that won’t run out before you go to heaven. Make sure you have an emergency fund. Have open, honest discussions. Have a budget. It makes it a lot easier to work on what needs to happen.”
Their retirement and final planning should also be part of these discussions. “You need to understand that if you’re 50-plus, you’re probably going to retire soon and you should create a retirement plan where you’re both successful and where your legacy is planned,” Rolfe said.
The planning may also include rewriting a will and trust work, and planning healthcare proxy and power of attorney.
“You shouldn’t assume the planning you did at 24 or 34 will work,” Rolfe said. “Make sure you have plans on what will happen if someone breaks down. There’s a 25% chance of one spouse living to 92. You need an end-of-life treatment plan.”
The couple needs to make its executor and healthcare proxy aware of information such as their accountant, lawyer, primary care provider and location of their legal documents.
The spouses may have different plans about their charitable legacy. As long as they agree to each other’s plans, they can make it work. Rolfe said that if people do not name beneficiaries, the state selects the closest blood relative.
Snack area at the Coca-Cola Museum built by Dave Phillips near Letchworth State Park. He opened the museum in May 2022. More than 150 people showed up.
By John Addyman
How one Coca-Cola pitcher grew into a cute museum in the middle of nowhere
“My son told me, ‘You’ve gone over the edge.’”
Dave Phillips, 72, was sitting in his garage on a beautiful and unusually warm autumn afternoon.
Well, it was his garage. Now, it’s a Coca-Cola Museum, in Silver Springs, nine miles from Letchworth State Park.
Here you can join Phillips for a hot dog or snack and. of course, a coke.
You can spend hours looking through all his Coca-Cola treasures — bottles from different cities all over the world, historic bottles, trays, pins, clothing, cookie jars, car models, throws, signs, a lot of signs, train sets, Christmas decorations and a lot more.
For most folks, the museum smothers you lovingly with all the red color and the warmth it provides. The Coke advertising signs and trays and mugs and glasses are instant memory-igniters.
Having Phillips around as the docent and guide and barbecue chef means you can ask a question and get a story with your hot dog. Had this
little museum existed 40 years ago, you could have imagined Phillips lighting a pipe like Santa Claus to spin a tale about an artifact while the smoke hazed around you.
The museum became a labor of love and product of determination and has melded into an homage to a very special relationship.
For 10 years, Phillips and his wife, Janet, were partners in the quest for the next interesting Coke thing they could find, and they looked in a lot of places.
She died in November of 2021. For a long while, she was unable to come out and help him in the museum, which he finished in 2019. But she’d often try to accompany him when he was going to look for new pieces at antique shops or flea markets somewhere, even though she was sometimes unable to get out of the car. He’d bring the item to her or send a photo on her phone and ask for her blessing to buy it.
The path to the museum took a long time to start.
Phillips served as a sergeant in the Marine Corps and left to start his own construction company, which he ran for almost 15 years.
“I fell off a roof and messed up my back,” he said. “The doctor recommended I get into something new. The only other thing I knew was farming. I grew up on this farm. I knew that wasn’t going to work. Janet and I were involved in our church. I taught Sunday School and she said, ‘Why don’t you think about teaching?’”
“Teaching? I don’t know…”
He gave it a go. “I went back to school, to college, at age 36,” he said, “to Roberts Wesleyan. I graduated in 1990 and got a job at Letchworth Elementary School immediately. At that time they were looking for males. The superintendent at that time wanted to get a male at every grade level.”
He taught third grade for the better part of 25 years.
“I retired and got back into construction again until last year,
when I retired from that because it was starting to take a toll on me. Now, I’m into this museum and trying to keep all the farming area up to snuff — 90 acres here, another parcel down the road of 40 acres. I rent the land out to local farmers.”
The museum started with a Coke pitcher.
Phillips pushes the Coke hat he’s wearing off his forehead and the story unwinds.
“I had retired in 2012 and Janet and I started doing some traveling. We went to Florida to visit my son. We stopped for gas in Fancy Gap, West Virginia,” he said. “On the way to the gas station, we passed this old rickety shack that had a sign outside, ‘Antiques.’ I said we ought to stop and take a look in there.
“We were not antiquers. I’d never been in an antique shop in my life. We went in, it was a cold day and an elderly woman was huddled around a propane stove because it was even colder in there. The pitcher was on a round table. I simply said to my wife, ‘Wouldn’t that be neat to get for the grandkids? To fill it up with Coke when they come to visit?’
“’What will you take for it?’ I asked the woman. ’$5,’ she said. We brought it home. For five bucks, we couldn’t go wrong.”
The pitcher was happy by itself for a while.
“I filled it up with coke the first time and my wife said, ‘We need to get some Coke glasses.’ So then we went looking for Coke glasses and boom! The next thing I know we’re looking for anything Coke-related,” he said. “That was 10 years ago, in the spring. All of a sudden, all this other stuff started to happen and we were looking everywhere for things that were interesting.”
The interesting stuff began to take on a life of its own.
”It started in the house with one basic shelf unit. That got full, so I put up another shelf and another shelf and another shelf. The trays I displayed on the wall going up the stairs. My wife’s bedroom was downstairs because she couldn’t go up the stairs anymore and I started to go into that room and she asked, ‘What are you going to do, take over the whole house?’”
In 2020, Phillips moved his mom and dad up from Florida to take care of them.
“The Coke stuff had to go. My sons put it all in totes and my wife wasn’t
too happy about it. We moved it all to the garage I built in 2019. She said, ‘You’ll never get that stuff out again after you put it in the totes.’ ’Yes I will,’ I told her. ‘It just takes time.’ I had the second floor of the garage painted; the ceiling and sidewalls were in.”
Phillips saw a near future for him and Janet to enjoy the museum together. It wasn’t to be.
“I didn’t know she was going to pass,” he said.
A minute passed. “All of a sudden, I had the time,” he said, looking around at all the items in the museum.
When he and Janet started collecting, they would make their yearly visits to Florida Coke-hunting trips, too. They’d return to Silver Springs with boxes full of Coke stuff.
“When I took things into the house, I’d put it all in a log book. I still do — the day I get something, where I got it, how much I paid for it, and if I can find the value, I put that in there, too,” he said.
He bought a book, “Petretti’s Coca-Cola Collectibles” and later added the app for his phone.
“I can pull up something on my phone when I’m in a store and tell if
they’re undercharging or overcharging and if I’m going to make a good deal on it,” he said.
They got to be regulars at antique dealers in a wide area, many who would call him if they took something in stock they knew he’d be interested in.
“As time passed, I don’t want to say it became an obsession, but it kinda did,” he said.
“It got to the point where we couldn’t wait to get out for the next trip. Janet was at the point where she was housebound, but if I could get her in the car, she’d go,” he said. “Sometimes she would go with her pushcart. Sometimes she’d stay in the car. I’d send her pictures if she was in the car and she’d say, ‘Yeah, I think so. It’s a good buy.’ Or we’d bandy back and forth determining whether it was a good buy. Yes, it definitely became an obsession”
The range the couple would shop for Coke items: Ohio to the west, Florida to the south, Maine and New Hampshire to the north and on a weekend — the back roads of Pennsylvania.
“During the winter I go out a lot because nobody’s going to come here in the dead of winter,” he said, quickly noting that he will open the museum by appointment during the winter months if someone asks.
What’s the allure of acquiring all
this Coke stuff?
“A lot, of course, is the value, but the color, the uniqueness of some of the items, the signs especially — the colors are so vibrant. I like to find the history behind the item if I can, where they came from. People keep asking me, ‘Are you selling any of this?’ I say, ‘No. It’s a collection. At some point someone might sell it, but it won’t be me.’”
His son told him, “Dad, you’ve gone over the edge.”
“But now that I have the museum up and running, my kids are looking at it differently. I think they’re worried about what to do with it all when I’m gone,” he said. “I told them, ‘Get somebody in here to take the whole shootin’ match; don’t piecemeal it.’”
The dominant color of the museum is, of course, that Coca-Cola vibrant red.
Phillips gets a little smile on his face when he thinks about it.
“My grandkids have a little trick they like to play on my periodically. They’ll slip a Pepsi can in here to see how long it takes me to find it. It doesn’t take me too long. There’s a sea of red in here and a blue can just doesn’t belong.”
Not having Janet around will take a toll on him this winter.
“The hard part is the loneliness,” he said. “There are days when it doesn’t bother me when I’m really,
really busy. But when I sit down in the house at night the house is just plain quiet. Yes, my dad is there with me, but he goes to bed at 7:30. A lot of times I’ll come back out here to the museum and organize, remember stuff, look at something and know exactly where we got it, and when, and what the situation was.”
The museum had an open house on May 14, 2022 and drew 150 people. He cooked a lot of hot dogs that day. And he found out something about himself and the museum and Janet.
“It’s the sharing,” he explained. “When I got it all set up and had my open house, I really hadn’t thought about it. Then all these people came. My oldest son asked, after everybody left, ‘Now what are you going to do?’ I’m going to share, I told him. ‘This is something your mom and I spent 10 years doing and I’m going to share it. This is a dedication to her, like a memorial. There’s a lot of her in here, things that she bought that I may not have bought. Things she encouraged me to buy.’”
He talked about a fine summer’s day when he put a table outside and people stopped by the museum and sat at that table, enjoying one of Dave’s hot dogs and the museum sharing the afternoon with him.
“That was pretty neat,” he said.
In the first article on the “Amazing Life of Charlotte “Chuckie” Holstein,” we looked at how this vibrant, exciting 97-year-old woman became, and still remains, a force in the Central New York area.
It is through living out her ideals that has kept her ahead of history; issues she worked on years ago are now coming into public consciousness. (I recently read a report on the number of pedestrian–car accidents in the United States, which is extremely high compared to other countries. It reminded me that 12 years ago Chuckie was trying to bring attention to this issue as part of her effort to make Syracuse an age-friendly community.)
This article looks deeper at her involvement in local, state, national and international arenas.
Chuckie would see a need and find a way to meet it. Locally, she was a founding member of several nonprofits, including the Syracuse Commission for Women, Meals on Wheels, and the City–County Office on Aging.
In partnership with University College of Syracuse University, she was instrumental in founding the Citizens’ Academy to get citizens involved in learning how their local government works and how they could have an impact. She chaired the Syracuse University School of Social Work advisory committee for many years and was instrumental in creating the All-University Gerontology Center, as well as serving on the Syracuse College of Nursing board of advisers. Other boards are too numerous to mention, but she is perhaps best known for being the long-serving
TOP: Holstein with Haudenosaune Onondaga Nation Faithkeeper Oren Lions.
BOTTOM: Holstein with Pope John Paul in his residence around 2000. Only eight women and men from the American Jewish Committee met with him in his private residence. Husband Alex Holstein is on the left; Rabbi James Rubin is her right.
president of the Loretto board during a period of unprecedented growth.
Not a political partisan, she was appointed by both Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to the New York State Board of Social Welfare and by Democratic Gov. Hugh Carey as an advisory board member to the New York State Division for Youth.
Chuckie’s entree into national issues came because of her late husband Alex’s involvement as president of the local chapter of the AJC (American Jewish Committee), a human rights–human relations organization that fights anti-semitism and all forms of hate. She still participates as a member of The Jacob Blaustein Institute For The Advancement of Human Rights and is an honorary AJC national board member.
Her involvement in AJC has ranged from private meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Pope John Paul, the presidents of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Costa Rica as well as private meetings at the International Court of Justice at The Hague and the Inter-American International Court of Justices.
Preparation for these meetings required very in-depth research into the issues being discussed, as well as
learning about meeting logistics, for example, how to arrange the room so that everyone has equal access to each other and what dress is appropriate for different cultural and religious situations (e.g. head coverings.)
An apocryphal story that gives a sense of how Chuckie operates, is a meeting in 1967 with David Ben Gurion, primary founder of the state of Israel and the first prime minister. She chaired a session at his kibbutz, which took place in a hot room in the desert. His aide felt he was getting tired and said to Chuckie, “He’s had enough, let’s end.” As she tried to close the session, Ben Gurion grabbed her shoulders and said to Chuckie, “Who do you think you are, my wife?” The session went on for another half hour. Perhaps her biggest impact on the local scene is Leadership Greater Syracuse, which she started initially in 1990 with Marty Yenawine, then joined by Judy Mower, who would become her long-time co-mover and shaker and partner. The goal of LGS is to bring together a diverse group of citizens for a year-long intensive process of sharing their visions and learning “how the sausage of community” is made.
Likewise, FOCUS Greater Syracuse,
another group started by Chuckie and Judy, enables citizen engagement through participation in community building. Both programs support the concept of the citizen trustee, with every citizen responsible for actively improving their neighborhoods and greater community.
Recently a close friend of Chuckie’s, geriatrician Sharon Brangman, department chairwoman of geriatrics at SUNY Upstate, suggested she serve as a member of the hospital’s age-friendly advisory committee which is made up of key people from different hospital departments. “Chuckie expanded their way of looking at things from the perspective of an older adult who is actually using our system,” said Brangman. “As an example, she suggested that all chairs used by patients and visitors have arms to make them easy and safe for older adults to use.”
Wherever Chuckie goes, she builds community. Like a garden created with love and care, time and effort, the bonds she has created will continue to grow and feed us all.
Hopefully her story will inspire more of us to think about how we can impact our own communities and leave our own legacies.
Chucky Holstein Holstein in 2014 with Tadadaho Sid Hill, chief of the Onondaga NationHe is the first octogenarian to hold the highest office in the land — but should he run for re-election in 2024?
Every time President Joe Biden appears in public, I cringe, not because of his politics necessarily, but I am concerned about what he might inadvertently say.
Biden observed his 80th birthday on Nov. 20, making him the first octogenarian to hold the highest office in the land, and he has said right along that he plans to run for re-election in 2024.
Shortly after that election, he would be 82, and, if re-elected, four years later when he would leave office, he would be 86.
The question I have been asking, along with many others, is whether this is too old to be handling the affairs of state as president, arguably one of the toughest jobs in the world.
When I have discussed this with friends and others, they facetiously (at least I think it’s facetiously) noted that I am no spring chicken at 83, and I am still writing columns without making incredibly stupid blunders.
Of course, aside from my own perceived competence, I have two sets of eyes which edit and proofread my columns before they are printed or posted online. A thank you to them, because they have from time to time saved me from one of the aforementioned blunders.
But it’s a quantum leap from writing columns for a regional magazine and functioning as president of the United States, just in case you didn’t know this.
This begs the question: Should there be an age limit for all public offices?
For example, even though U.S. Supreme Court justices serve “for life,’’ unless they do something really stupid, judges and justices at the state and local levels here in New York must retire at age 70. There is an exception for state Supreme Court justices who can be “certificated’’ to serve for three additional two-year terms until the year in which they reach 76.
Even with this retirement age, though, some of these “retired’’ justices serve as “senior judges’’ and preside over trials and court cases until they are finally put out to pasture.
Most other offices have no age limits, so the late Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan, for example, was the
longest serving member of Congress at 59 years, leaving in 2015 at the age of 89. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, will be 90 on June 22 and plans to run for re-election when her six-year term is up in 2024 when she will be 91. If she wins and completes her term, she would be 97.
Polling results show that many Americans see Biden’s age as a factor if he runs again. Questions such as his physical and mental fitness have swirled around him since he began his presidential campaign in 2019 and have dogged him ever since, and now with an 80-year-old in office for the first time, those questions are sure to grow louder, especially when Biden commits speaking miscues as he often does or is spotted with cheat sheets telling him what to do and say as was the case during a trip abroad in November.
The previously oldest president, Ronald Reagan, left office when he was 77, but in his later years Reagan was viewed as pushing the boundaries of competent job performance, and it was later discovered that he was in the early stages of dementia.
Former president Donald Trump, who was 70 when he took office, also faced frequent questions about his age and mental fitness, particularly because he was and is prone to erratic statements. Trump, 76, announced shortly after the mid-term elections in November that he is a candidate for president in 2024. He would be 78 at
If Biden run for re-election in 2024 and if he wins, he would leave office at age 86.
the time of the 2024 General Election and, if elected, would be 82 when he would leave office on Jan. 20, 2029.
When I met a friend in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, a Scranton suburb, for lunch recently, I decided to hang out at the Boulevard Diner in Scranton, Biden’s hometown, to find out what registered voters in this part of the state thought of the age factor.
In my very unscientific survey, I included the first 25 registered voters I encountered — 13 Democrats, eight Republicans and four independents. Sixteen or 64% said they believe that Biden’s age and their perception of his stamina and mental abilities would be a factor in considering him for reelection in 2024.
Note that I did not ask any of them about any other issue such as the economy, abortion, etc.
Biden’s doctors have given him a clean bill of health as of now. The question of age irks the president. Although he has said that it’s appropriate for people to be concerned about his age and, on occasion, jokes about it, he insists that he is in good health, exercises daily and eats properly, even though he shows more limited mobility and stiffness after suffering a fractured foot a little more than two years ago while playing with his German shepherd, Major.
While age alone is not an automatic disqualifier, medical gerontologists I spoke to said that if he were re-elected president, someone of his age would need constant monitoring to confirm his continuing well-being.
It also does not help that some officials from his own party are calling for a younger candidate to carry the Democrats forward in 2024.
One of the most salient discussions on Biden’s age took place on the NPR program "Greater Boston" and featured Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, founder and CEO of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, and Mark Leibovich, staff writer at The Atlantic.
Leibovich said Biden should not run because of his age, but thought this was up to voters to decide. Leibovich noted that there are age limits for many important jobs where decision-making can be a matter of life and death. He prefers someone younger and feels the Democrats would be better served by choosing a younger option, although he did not name names.
Sonnenfeld ticked off the names
of politicians and historical figures who have performed extremely well in their 70s and 80s, including Benjamin Franklin and Nancy Pelosi, who at 82 recently ended her run as leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. She was re-elected in November by her California constituents to another term and will serve until at least early 2025.
“We shouldn't fall into this ageism trap,’’ Sonnenfeld said. “There's really no justification for it — if anything we should retire the bias around age.’’
Some presidents bring humor into the age discussion. Who can forget one of the most memorable moments when in October 1984 President Ronald Reagan was asked the question on a lot of minds because of his haggard appearance following a previous debate — whether age should be a factor in a person running for office.
Reagan, who was 73 at the time and running for re-election, flashed an impish smile, then said, “I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.’’ The remark brought a roar from the audience and even a belly laugh from Reagan’s opponent, Democrat and former Vice President, Walter Mondale.
Obviously, the voters had no problem with Reagan’s age as he captured 525 electoral votes to Mondale’s 13 and with it nearly 59% of the popular vote.
When Biden was asked recently about the age factor on the venerable CBS news magazine program "60 Minutes," and whether he was up to the tasks involved in the rigors of the office, he said, “Watch me,’’ as he ticked off positives involving his energy level and scheduling.
Biden is expected to announce his plans soon. "I'm a great respecter of fate, and this is, ultimately, a family decision,’’ Biden told reporters in November. “I think everybody wants me to run, but we're going to have discussions about it."
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“We shouldn't fall into this ageism trap.There's really no justification for it — if anything we should retire the bias around age.’’
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On a 77-acre working horse farm in Chittenango, the line that often separates children with disabilities from their peers has slowly been erased.
The farm is operated under the umbrella of the ARISE organization, an independent living center serving more than 7,000 individuals in Onondaga, Oswego, Cayuga, Madison and Seneca counties. The nonprofit agency provides a range of services and programs for those with developmental disabilities and other physical and mental health challenges.
ARISE at the Farm also offers several recreational opportunities, including therapeutic horseback riding, a sprawling inclusive playground and an accessible fishing pond available to both adults and children throughout Central New York.
At the helm of the ARISE agency is 56-year-old Tania Anderson, the mother of a teenager with a rare genetic disorder, who is also a lawyer, a former journalist and a long-distance runner with 30 marathons under her belt.
“People with disabilities should
have equal access to all buildings, as well as education, employment and other services,” said Anderson, who has served as CEO of the organization since 2016. “That also includes equal access to having fun.”
The mission of offering recreational activities is a year-round one. During the winter months, the ARISE organization provides an adaptive winter sports program at Labrador Mountain in Truxton, just outside of Syracuse. Its program, ARISE & Ski, was one of the first adaptive winter activities in Central New York.
For those who want to express themselves through the arts, the ARISE organization publishes awardwinning work submitted by those with disabilities in an annual magazine, titled Unique. The artwork, including paintings and sculptures, has been displayed in past years at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse.
At the horse farm, the agency
constructed one of the earliest inclusive playgrounds in the area, offering adaptive equipment, such as specialized swings, right next to standard ones. Children of all abilities can also play on an elevated platform that can be reached by an accessible ramp.
“There is nothing more powerful than people with disabilities interacting alongside people without disabilities,” said Anderson, who knows firsthand the importance of inclusive programs that welcome everyone.
Her daughter, Eliza, has WolfHirschhorn syndrome, a rare genetic disorder than occurs in one in every 50,000 births. It typically causes developmental delays because it makes it harder for children to learn and process information.
Anderson was actually serving on the board of directors for the ARISE organization before her daughter was born. “A lot of people don’t realize that I was involved before I had Eliza,” she said.
When Anderson suddenly found herself raising a child with a rare developmental disability in a world that does not always welcome differences, her involvement with the ARISE organization became even more personal. “Once Eliza came, I had even greater affinity for the agency’s mission,” Anderson said.
Eliza was enrolled in the therapeutic horseback riding program at age 3, and has been a big fan of the inclusive playground for years. For both adults and children, the horseback riding also incorporates other activities as well to help them in learning things such as numbers and letters.
“It helps to engage them in the riding lessons,” while they develop their physical and occupational motor skills as they gradually learn how to steer the horse, Anderson said.
The horse farm was donated to ARISE in 1998 by Jim Marshall, a retired veterinarian from Fayetteville. It has two arenas with accessible ramps that allow riders in a wheelchair to transfer themselves or be lifted onto the horse.
Eliza started receiving early intervention services shortly after her diagnosis at 13 months and it made a big difference in her progress, said her mother. She also received community habilitation services through
ARISE, which focus on developing independent living skills within the home and the community.
“She is a really hard worker,” said Anderson. Eliza often exceeded the developmental expectations of health care providers, and “proved them wrong” on several occasions when they believed she couldn’t accomplish something, said her mother.
Eliza is now 17 years old, a high school student learning in a fully inclusive classroom setting. She will probably benefit from the employment services offered through ARISE when she is older, Anderson said.
Anderson embraced parenthood and the challenges of raising a child with a rare disorder in the best of ways. After the birth of her daughter, she eventually applied for the CEO position at ARISE when the previous CEO had retired. She not only stepped into a new and fulfilling career, but
she brought along a strong passion for advocating to provide needed services for clients and families.
A 1987 graduate of Syracuse University, Anderson had worked for several years as a journalist for The Syracuse Newspapers. She later decided to pursue a career in law and enrolled in the Syracuse University School of Law, graduating in 1992.
Most of her legal career was in the court systems, working as a law clerk for the New York State Supreme Court and for the federal trial and appellate courts. She also spent a year practicing communications law for a Washington, D.C. firm.
Anderson still has her law license and serves as in-house counsel for ARISE. Anderson’s previous advocacy work as a lawyer has proved beneficial when clients are having trouble obtaining needed services that are guaranteed by law.
It’s estimated one in five people have some type of physical or mental disability, which may be an invisible one, Anderson said. “We’re constantly educating people and trying to take the fear out of it,” she said.
ARISE at the Farm is supported by donations and fundraisers and has built a strong reputation as a “safe and fun place” for those with disabilities. “People are accepted and accommodated for whom they are,” Anderson said. “At the farm, children are able to have a fun and good experience and the parents know
they’re safe.”
The agency’s recreational programs often serve as a “gateway” for families to learn more about other services available to them through ARISE. These include school-based and outpatient mental health services, employment, community habilitation, respite programs and independent living skills training.
The agency’s motto is “Support Arise – Support Independence.”
For more information about ARISE or to learn how to support the farm program, visit www.ariseinc.org
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When he was growing up in the 1970s, Jim Teske and his family ate dinner with the evening news on in the background.
“And for whatever reason, I don’t know exactly what it was, I gravitated toward the weather,” Teske said.
His fascination with weather was such that when he was 7 or 8 years old he started writing down information from the forecasts on pieces of paper and saving them in a little metal box.
His first humble foray into weathercasting came when he was a student at Pine Grove Middle School in East Syracuse. Each day he would copy National Weather Service information from the newspaper and compile it into a brief weather report to read on the morning announcements.
“For that 30 seconds, that was my little bit of glory,” he said.
Today, Teske is Central New York’s preeminent meteorologist. He’s worked for NewsChannel 9 for nearly 30 years — longer if you count a high school internship — and served as the station’s chief meteorologist since 2017.
Each evening viewers turn to him to find out if it’ll be nice tomorrow to do yard work, if their commute will be affected or how much snow they can expect.
He’s still answering their questions all these years later and he’s still passionate about it. That’s partially because of where we live.
Some regions of the United States have decidedly boring and repetitive weather patterns. On the Great Plains, for example, meteorologists often suffer through two- or three-week periods where it’s hot and sunny every day.
“There are other parts of the country where the weather patterns are stagnant,” he said. “But here there’s enough variety, there’s enough change on a day-to-day week-to-week basis to make it interesting and to make it challenging.”
In some ways Teske has never lost that sense of wonder about the weather he had as a child.
Most people who become meteorologists can point to a weather event growing up that helped spark their interest in weather and forecasting. Although Teske had been drawn to weather early on, the snowstorm that hit on Christmas 1978 sticks out in his memory as something that fueled his fascination. There wasn’t supposed to be a big snowstorm, but that evening the rain changed over and the next morning they woke up to a foot and a half of heavy wet snow.
When he was in the sixth grade, Teske had to do a paper and research project for his English class. He chose weather for his topic.
“I was still fascinated with the weather,” he said. “Part of it was growing up here and dealing with winter and snow.”
As part of the project Teske had to interview someone. His parents helped put him in contact with Bud Hedinger, a popular Syracuse-area weatherman on Channel 3 who also hosted the station’s “Bowling for Dollars” show. Teske met Hedinger and got to watch him do the weather at the TV station on James Street in Syracuse.
Five years later, in the fall of 1981, Teske was starting his junior year at East Syracuse-Minoa Central High School.
Hedinger had moved from Channel 3 to rival station Channel 9. Teske noticed Channel 9 didn’t have anyone doing the weather on weekends.
“I think I got it in my head that I could do that even though I had never been in front of a camera or anything like that,” Teske said.
Without asking his parents, the 16-year-old cold-called the TV station
and asked to speak to Hedinger.
“I got him on the line and I was giving him my elevator pitch and he asked how old I was,” Teske said.
He was too young to be on the air, the weatherman informed him. Instead, he offered him an internship, which Teske jumped at. Soon he was coming to the station after school.
“I ate it up,” he said. “It was fascinating.”
Back then Channel 9 was shoehorned into ShoppingTown Mall in DeWitt. Teske stepped into the chaos of a makeshift station awash in cigarette smoke and where the teletype machines were constantly humming.
The weather forecasts he helped put together were presented using large magnetic boards with maps on them and Hs and Ls to represent various fronts. Two or three times a day one of the fax machines would
spit out a picture from a satellite map; they’d put it on an easel so the camera could focus on the image.
In 1982, the station made Hedinger one of the main news anchors in addition to doing the weather. That put a strain on his time and the station decided they needed someone who could put the forecasts together for Hedinger. There were two interns at the time, but the station chose Teske to be a part-time weather assistant. His parents agreed to let him take the job as long as he could balance it with school. Monday through Friday, Teske would go to the station after school and then come back in the evenings to work on the forecasts. As much as he enjoyed the job, it was difficult to balance with being a high school senior and after six months he left the job. The experience had still affected him deeply.
“That probably cemented what I
was going to do later on,” he said.
Teske attended SUNY Oswego for two years and then transferred to Penn State University for its renowned meteorology and atmospheric science program.
While in college he interned with private forecasting company AccuWeather and by his senior year had a job there doing radio weather forecasts for markets around the country. Teske strongly considered a job offer from AccuWeather after college, but said he decided to take a job as a meteorologist at a TV station in Burlington, Vermont.
The pay was low and the station in Burlington was small, but Teske gained a tremendous amount of experience and picked up downhill skiing as a hobby. After five years in Burlington, he took a job at a station in Portland, Maine.
A year later, a management change had him looking for a new job. He wanted to stay in the Northeast but his most promising offers were in Texas. During a phone call with his mother she mentioned that the weekend meteorologist at NewsChannel 9 had left.
Teske started at NewsChannel 9 in 1995.
“I was ecstatic,” he said. “In the back of my mind there was always that hope that I would be able to come back.”
Teske still loves weather, but he said it’s remarkable how much the technology has changed since he started his first job in the late 1980s and how much the demands have grown.
“I was drawing with magic markers on paper maps,” he said. “Those were my graphics when I
started.”
The station had started using computers, but Teske still started his days by visiting the National Weather Service office in Burlington and bouncing ideas off of the meteorologists there about the day’s forecast.
Now the amount of weather data available is mind-boggling, Teske said. He begins each day by checking to see what happened overnight and if there are any developing trends.
“I mean it starts the minute I get up,” he said. “I open my computer here at home and start working on the forecast early in the day.”
In the past all Teske had to focus on were the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. Now he’s usually at the station by 1:45 p.m. to get ready for the 4 p.m. newscast. He’s also on the air from 5-6:30 p.m. He also has to produce
content for the web and be active on social media.
After years of being on TV, Teske is often recognized in public. Sometimes people blame him if the weather is bad, but most people are nice and say they enjoy his weathercast. He said the hardcore fans who visit the station’s booth at the state fair are especially nice.
Despite his notoriety, Teske leads a fairly low-key life outside of work.
“I don’t want to say I’m a minimalist, but I lead a very simple life,” he said.
He and his wife, Mary, who is retired, don’t have kids or pets. But he said they have plenty of nieces and nephews they enjoy visiting and doting over.
Teske doesn’t downhill ski anymore, though he and his wife enjoy cross-country skiing.
He took up golf when he played on his high school team, but gave it up in 2014 when he had a short stint doing the morning weather and co-hosting “Bridge Street.” He was getting up at 1 a.m. for work and found he enjoyed an after-work nap more than being out on the links, though he’d like to pick up golf again.
The early hours proved to be such a drain that Teske got himself a gym membership.
“I felt like I needed an outlet given these crazy hours,” he said.
He started out doing strength training and running on a treadmill, but got bored and switched to an indoor track, working his way up to three miles. He decided to enter a local
5K race one year and found he enjoyed running.
Now he does a couple races a year in Central New York and has even finished a half marathon.
Despite a demanding work schedule Teske has made time to visit hundreds of classrooms over the years, teaching students about the various kinds of weather Central New York experiences. They’re often surprised to learn that Teske was very shy in high school.
“One of the things that always terrified me in school was speaking in front of the class,” he said. “At the beginning of the school year I would always be looking in the syllabus to see if I had to speak in my classes.”
So how does he manage to provide weather forecasts on TV every day? For one thing, he loves talking about
the weather. For another, most of his job involves talking to a camera, which he likens to a one-sided conversation.
“And as long as you don’t have in your head that you’re talking to thousands of people watching on the air, I think you’re fine,” he said.
Children in general are very inquisitive and often ask great questions about the weather such as what causes storms or how different kinds of snow form. Younger children often ask him if a tornado is powerful enough to pick up a dog or a cow (it is).
“They’re fascinated like I was when I was growing up,” he said. “So hopefully I’m planting a seed in some of these kids, but hopefully they realize if you put your mind to it and work really hard you can do just about anything.”
Here’s a recap of my 2022 hiking adventures. There were no long trips last year, because in April I suffered a spinal compression fracture (ouch). So backpacking was on hold in 2022. I have osteoporosis and recall no specific injury.
My friend and I planned to hike the Foothills Trail, 70 miles along the border of North and South Carolina, over eight days. Seven days of walking with a rest day in the middle.
On the drive down, my back started to hurt. I thought it was just stiff and sore from the long car ride.
After a night in a hotel, we parked our cars three hiking days apart. On that first day my back hurt more and more. I thought I’d feel better because I was up and moving.
In an amazing coincidence, I met up with two women that I had hiked and camped with in Maine’s 100 mile wilderness in 2021.
On the second day of hiking, my back hurt even worse. It was not better the third day, but there was a road crossing only one quarter mile beyond our campsite.
A road crossing with a picnic table on a warm and sunny day. So, I sat down and sent my friend ahead to get her car and come back to pick me up.
On another bright note, a backpacking couple soon came along. They were traveling in the opposite direction and had already crossed paths with my friend who filled them in on the situation. One of them was a massage therapist turned medical student now in his first year as a physiatry resident. Physiatry is a medical specialty also called physical medicine and rehabilitation.
He gave me a free back massage which truly felt good. I then went back to reading my Kindle until my friend picked me up.
We spent a “zero day” (no hiking) at a hotel in Seneca, South Carolina. I took my dog for a walk at nearby South Cove County Park on Lake Keowee, which was beautiful. As much pain as I was in, I was still able to appreciate how beautiful the area was.
Once my back recovered, I decided I would work on the New York State Adirondack Fire Tower challenge. To complete this challenge, a hiker must ascend to 18 of the 23 fire towers in the Adirondacks, as well as all five of the fire towers in the Catskills. There is a separate Catskill Fire tower challenge which involves completing the five Catskill fire towers plus visiting a fire tower that is at a museum in the Catskills. That one is a 0.1-mile hike, so it was a no-brainer to add that. I finished the Catskill challenge and nine Adirondack Fire Towers this year.
I focused on the Catskill Fire towers first. I’d never been hiking in the Catskills previously, and geographically they are closer together than the Adirondack fire towers. I was able to finish those in two trips, one overnight and one two-night trip. Both times I stayed at a very nice state campground, Kenneth L. Wilson Campground. The campsites were spacious, the bathhouse with
hot showers was clean, and there was even a dog park. I didn’t use the dog park as I figured my dogs had plenty of exercise hiking with me.
Compared to the Adirondacks, the Catskill Fire Towers had better roads — pretty much all were paved — but also more people. Although there was a lot of overlap in crowd size. But the proximity to New York City in general meant more crowds. The busiest Catskill hike was Overlook Mountain, 4.6 miles, on a hot humid day. About ¾ of the way up are interesting ruins of an old hotel. As I trudged up in the heat, people kept telling me about a rattlesnake at the top. One woman even showed me a video, pinpointing exactly where it was. But by the time that I reached the top, it was gone. Tremper Mountain was the least crowded of the Catskill Fire Towers, on a September weekday. Alas I lost my glasses somewhere on that hike and had a long drive to find a store that sold “cheaters” so that I could read that night and the next day before returning home.
I re-hiked the only Adirondack Fire tower that I had previously visited, Cathedral Rock. This is a short easy hike located on the grounds of the New York State Ranger School,
one of my alma maters. Although not difficult, be careful because there are some steep drop offs where people have been injured or killed in the past.
The toughest hike so far was Snowy Mountain, 7.8 miles round trip. I should have paid closer attention to the guidebook which states, “Many hikers consider this the hardest fire tower in all seasons.” The start is deceptively pleasant, but the final segment is straight up rock climbing. I was exhausted when I got back home, although by then my dogs were reenergized and ready to run around some more.
The longest hike: Woodhull Mountain, 15.2 miles. Also the least crowded with zero other hikers. The most crowded: Rondaxe (aka Bald) because it is very close to Old Forge and not very long, two miles. Biggest surprise: Stillwater Fire Tower. I mailed in a donation to the folks who maintain it and received a reply from the man who handles donations telling me that his daughter lives just a few houses down from me.
Here’s to hoping that I can visit nine more fire towers in 2023 and finish the fire tower challenge.
Second act is not much different for Paul Gasparini, who retired after 21 years as a Jamesville-DeWitt High School principal
By Charles EllisWhen Paul Gasparini was preparing to retire after 21 years as the principal of Jamesville-DeWitt High School, he knew he really wasn’t ready to, you know, retire.
He had just turned 59. The youngest of his five children was still in college, not yet 20. He still had bills to pay.
The state retirement system offers financial incentives to encourage educators to retire — and it was too
good for Gasparini to pass up.
“I could have stayed at J-D for a long time, but it would have made no sense economically,” he said. “I was going to take a consulting gig or a private school gig or something. Stopping work was never in the cards. Before I retired from Jamesville-DeWitt, I knew I was going to be working. I was looking for opportunities before I turned in my retirement papers.”
That opportunity came quickly. After stepping down from J-D on
June, 30 2022, he started on Aug. 1 as the principal at Christian Brothers Academy, a private Catholic school only about 10 minutes from where he had been employed for more than two decades.
As a devout Roman Catholic, Gasparini was thrilled when he was hired by CBA.
“I have embraced it,” he said. “I have long wanted to serve my faith community in a meaningful way.”
Most of his life, Gasparani hasn’t strayed too far from Central New York. He grew up in East Syracuse and graduated from East Syracuse Minoa High School in 1981. He earned his bachelor’s degree in history from SUNY Albany in 1985 and a master’s degree, also in history, in 1988.
Then he did stray down to Tennessee, originally to pursue a Ph.D. in history at Vanderbilt University. He had just gotten married and he decided to interview for a job at the Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tennessee. It’s a coed private school with students in seventh through 12th
grade and it was looking for a history teacher — and a football coach.
“I’m 5-foot-8 and not very fast and I don’t know a ton about football, but I was enthusiastic,” he said.
The school decided to hire somebody else for that position. A week later, however, Gaspirini received another phone call because the school was looking for somebody with another extremely important skill.
“They said to me, ‘Paul, we’d love to have you for a history teacher, but there’s a catch. We need you to know how to drive a bus,’” he said.
Within two weeks, he had gained the necessary certification to drive a bus, and his career was ready to take off, as it were. Every day, after his last-period AP European history class, he drove the 44-mile round trip to Nashville. He put aside his Ph.D. aspirations and went to work. After two years, however, his first child had been born and he was ready to return to Central New York.
In 1993, he earned his certification in education administration from Syracuse University, then he taught history at Skaneateles High School. After that he took his first administrative position, assistant principal at Liverpool High School.
“I was always interested in systems, and the system of education,” he said. “I really liked teaching and I miss being in the classroom at times, but being an administrator, you get the chance to guide the system and that was attractive to me.”
At the ripe old age of 34, he was promoted to principal of Tully JuniorSenior High. He worked there from March 1997 to June 2001. Some of the teachers in the school were older than he was, but he said that was never a problem.
“You have people who have been there a long time,” he said. “They want the principal to do well because it benefits the teacher and the school. I really relied on the guidance and support of the people at Tully. They were very kind and accommodating and helpful to me.”
Around that time, he and his family settled in Fabius, where he and his wife, Jean, remain today after about 25 years. They’ve been married 34 years and are very active in the community.
At the suggestion of a friend, he
TOP: Paul Gasparini during a graduation event last spring at Jamesville-DeWitt High School. At the time, he was the principal at the school. OPPOSITE PAGE: Gasparini, now a principal at Christian Brothers Academy, stands with CBA cheerleaders.
applied — late in the hiring process — for the principal position at J-D High School. He was hired, and he started there at the beginning of the 2001-2002 school year.
And that began his 21-year J-D journey.
It was a bit of a culture shock because the student body of about 900 students was bigger than the entire Tully school district.
“When I got there (J-D), I was surprised at how small the school was physically,” he said. “One of my great joys was watching the school grow, adding on classrooms, gymnasiums and artistic space.”
Gasparini said his greatest accomplishment was exponentially growing the number of students taking AP courses and exams. When he started, about 85 kids were taking
about 120 AP exams; by last year, it was about 400 students taking 600 exams. And, he said, the average scores of test takers didn’t decrease substantially in the process.
As the end of the 2021-22 school year approached, it was time for Gasparini to make another transition — from J-D to CBA. He was no longer the young principal among other teachers. Some of the teachers at CBA are younger than his own children, but that didn’t matter, he said.
“I’ve been working with young people my whole life and I raised five kids,” he said. “It’s not an issue at all for me.”
The more obvious change is now he works in a faith-based school after a career in public education. That hasn’t been an issue for him, either, he said.
“In all my years in public school, we never had a mass in the gymnasium,” he said. “Christian Brothers Academy is a religious school, so faith permeates everything we do, and I’m very cognizant of that.”
But it wasn’t that much different at J-D, he said.
“One of the great things about J-D is we worked with a lot of faith communities. I love that,” he said. “One of the great things we did at Jamesville-DeWitt was to honor and acknowledge Islamic holidays. We worked very hard with our Islamic friends to make that happen. We worked to be very ecumenical at J-D, and I think it was a beautiful thing. There was no problem there. Kids in public schools can display their religious affiliation in a welcoming environment.”
CBA’s enrollment is a little more than 700 students. Gasparini has come full circle from his days at Tully JuniorSenior High School, as CBA, like Tully, has students in seventh through 12th grade.
Outside of school, he serves as the president of Fabius-Pompey Outreach, which oversees the food pantry and provides other services in his community. For Gasparini, it’s another chance for him to act on his faith, as does working as the principal of CBA.
And he says he’s a long way from retiring for good. He was asked, in jest, if he plans to stay at CBA for 21 years.
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “Be sure to quote me on that.”
“It keeps me young. I’m involved. I’m doing something” he said. This statement by Bernie Bregman is more of an understatement.
The 90-year-old dynamo has indeed been involved in the Central New York community, and continues to reach out to his expansive network of friends, colleagues and contacts to
carry on his work.
The Dewitt resident currently runs his own marketing firm, BBB Marketing, and is the program and membership chairman of the Eastwood Rotary.
Among Bregman’s many other endeavors, he remains involved in various bartering group, his synagogue, Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra
Shas, and his Tip Club.
He’s had had several different careers; he got involved in the practice of bartering and brought it to new heights; he’s impacted the work of numerous organizations of which he’s been a member; and he’s donned costumes in order to attract people’s attention to his various ventures; and he’s even been an advertising model.
In a take-off of an iconic beer ad that features the “most interesting man in the world,” Bregman dressed in a dark suit and a stark white shirt, assumed the posturing of that actor, and posed for ads, among them for Stone’s Steakhouse. And through it all, he’s established a network of contacts that spans the country, if not the globe.
His community involvement keeps him attuned to current events in the area, and his work in bringing in speakers for the Rotary Club meetings, for example, gives him the opportunity
to keep up-to-date with the movers and shakers in the community, albeit, one could argue that he, himself, is one of those movers and shakers.
His work has been celebrated by several of the groups to which he belongs.
When his Rotary Club celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, the organization honored Bregman, its oldest member, with the first Bernard B. Bregman Lifetime Service Award, saying that the club “would not be what it is today without Bernie.” The award, the Rotary added, was created “in order for others to strive to achieve so much.” Mostly recently, the club presented him with a jacket and polo shirt in recognition of his previous tenure as president.
During the CNY Sales and Marketing Executives Association’s annual Crystal Ball award ceremony in 1998, Bregman received a Lifetime Achievement Award. The award has since been named the Bernard B. Bregman Lifetime Achievement Award and is presented by the CNYSME’s board of directors.
What drives Bregman to stay so involved in the community?
“I like people. I try to do what’s best for them,” he said.
It might seem ironic that Bregman, who has become a guru in the sales and marketing field, did not enjoy sales when he was a youth.
He joked that as a boy growing up in East Orange, New Jersey, if he had magazines or something similar to peddle, his mother would sell them for him to their customers at the familyowned grocery store. Watching his father work 12-plus hour days at least six days a week convinced the young Bregman to look to something else as a career.
“I vowed to never go into retail,” he said.
Eventually he went into news reporting, and then sold household cleaning goods and paint door-todoor. He also has turned his interest in bartering into a gainful enterprise, and had had a 30-plus-year career in marketing with the CNY Business Journal before retiring just a few years ago. That doesn’t even begin to include the initiatives he’s taken on, and still takes on, for many are nonprofit
organizations.
To say that Bregman becomes immersed in these various groups would be, again, an understatement. He said he has been president of nearly all the associations with which he’s been involved. For example, he is a past president and past member of his synagogue’s executive board and the board of trustees, and just in 2022, he had been a driving force behind the publication of a special supplement to mark the 60th anniversary of the Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas.
Bregman has always had a penchant for writing since he was a youth, having penned for a weekly newspaper and then becoming editor of his high school newspaper. He attended Syracuse University, where he graduated from its journalism school in the mid-1950s. He would go on to serve as an Army public information officer, based in Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas. Returning to Syracuse, he went to work at the Post-Standard and then WHEN-TV, the forerunner to the current WTVH.
Three weeks before his wedding in 1957, he was let go from the television station. Needing a job, he answered a blind ad for someone “able-bodied,” and ended up becoming a Fuller Brush salesman for several years. Learning that he was to be dismissed from that business, he went to another household goods outfit, and took half of his sales force with him, he said.
It was during his stint with Fuller Brush, a manufacturer of cleaning supplies, that Bregman said he started to hone his networking skills, which has been key to his success over the years.
It was through his connections with the local B’nai Brith organization, that Bregman became an investor in a new paint manufacturing company, Syracuse Paint and Varnish. He also handled its sales and marketing, and he owned a paint store in Shop City.
His first barter happened while he was with the paint company, and it would help launch him into a new venture. A local radio station had approached him to run some ads, but he didn’t have the funding. So, they
worked out a trade — free airtime for a paint job at the radio station building.
Although he left Syracuse Paint and Varnish after about 11 years, that trade would lead to his involvement with the Trading Exchange, which is a clearinghouse offering goods and services to its members, who then earn credits toward goods and services they might need. In 1976, he became its marketing director.
Over the years, Bregman’s work in bartering has been written up in a number of trade journals. In 1983, reporter Jim Mulder wrote a feature in the Syracuse Herald-American Post Standard’s Empire Magazine, about the local bartering operation and its benefits to small companies and those who are starting up. In it, he called Bregman the “barter baron” and “Syracuse’s undisputed swap king.”
Whether “barter baron” or the honoree of lifetime achievement awards, Bregman seems to sum it well.
“I’ve had a helluva a life. I hope it continues for a long time,” he said.
By his own account, you would never believe that the “little boy from the projects” of Syracuse as he calls himself, whose mother completed only high school and whose father did not finish elementary school, would ever turn out to be anyone respectable.
But the Rev. H. Bernard Alex has become not only well-educated but also a communitywide leader, charitable organizer and pillar of the community’s faith. He has done all of those things and still has plenty of plans for his future.
The late Gus W. Alex and Wilma N. Alex raised Alex in Syracuse, his birthplace.
He learned patience and empathy through his brother, Ronald, who suffered oxygen deprivation and subsequent developmental disability from his birth. Alex said that the hospital in Florida denied adequate care to Wilma and Ronald because of their race. Alex also had six sisters, with five still living.
Growing up with a special needs brother “made me sensitive, so now the work I do at the church is advocacy,” Alex said. “I don’t come with a bias. I come with meeting people where they are. How I wanted my brother to be treated is how I treat people who come in for help.”
Alex recalled that he never saw a black teacher at any of his schools. This lack inspired him to want to write educational curriculum “that was culturally and socially sensitive to particularly people of the diaspora,” he said. “Most curriculum at that time was a Eurocentric posture and students who were not didn’t see themselves in the books. There were things stated that were not factual.”
Despite their own lack of education, his parents urged their
children to read. Alex flexed his library card often and read and reread the set of encyclopedias the Alex family had at home.
“I was mischievous,” he said. “My mother would say, ‘Go to your room’ and I’d take an encyclopedia, let’s say ‘H’ and I’d read it from beginning to the end. It helps with ‘Jeopardy.’ I say to kids all the time, ‘Reading opened for me a way to see the world.’ I just loved reading those encyclopedias and books because I could go anywhere I wanted to go.”
His lifelong thirst for knowledge has served him well. Although he was accepted at several prestigious universities, he chose Tuskegee University, where at last he sat under
the teaching of “teachers who looked like me,” he said. “It made such an impact. I could only imagine if I had someone in a classroom or textbook who looked like me before this.”
He began studying as an English education and language arts major. He eventually shifted to religious studies in graduate school, which he referred to as “part of a Divine plan.” Beginning in 1985, he worked in a few different fields in Syracuse after graduation, including education, minority affairs, and, in 1991, as a pastor. He does not count those interim years between completing his education and becoming a minister as wasted years because of all he learned in working with people, administration
and teaching.
Since 2001, he has led Victory Temple Fellowship Church.
During the pandemic, he took virtual classes and seminars from Harvard.
“You only stay vibrant and relevant by stretching yourself academically, socially and relationally,” he said.
In addition to his academic prowess, Alex is a notable musician. He has performed as a vocalist since a young man. While a freshman, he organized the Tuskegee Gospel Ensemble, an unofficial group. During spring break, he and his ensemble members borrowed a school-owned bus to drive to Syracuse for a nonendorsed performance.
“We loved the Lord and were going to sing,” he recalled. “When we got back, President Payton said, ‘Have you lost your minds?’”
Although the nonsanctioned trip got him into hot water, Tuskegee has maintained a gospel group ever since. He has sung in concert halls in venues including Buffalo, Houston and Seattle. More recently, Alex performs with the Syracuse Opera Company and Syracuse Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to his interest in performing art, he serves on the board of the Everson Museum. His community interests include serving as president of the Syracuse National
Action Network, involved in diversity, equity and inclusion training and social justice training.
“I draw from life,” he said. “People ask if I think about retirement, but I can’t imagine that. There’s too much going on, too much happening. I feel a responsibility and accountability for all my parents sacrificed for me to have every academic opportunity possible.”
One of the ways in which he serves is through Victory’s community feeding program. Every Wednesday when he’s not in a meeting, he cooks to help the other volunteers and the team feeds anyone who comes from noon to 1 p.m.
“I cook meals with this thought in mind: I will never serve something I would not serve to my own family,” he said.
A typical meal might include rosemary chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, string beans and a dinner roll. He plans the meal sizes so that participants receive enough food to take some home. As the cost of food has risen, he has seen more people attending.
“It breaks my heart to see children when they get their food and they start eating even before they go,” Alex said. “I’ve seen grown men cry because if we weren’t cooking, their family wouldn’t have had food for a few days.”
Grants and donations for his
501(c)(3) organization from donors like KeyBank Foundation, Allen Foundation and the Community Foundation help the church with the project. During the pandemic, a meal participant’s request for laundry detergent sparked a new way to help. Soon, organizations including Crouse Health began dropping off detergent, bleach and fabric softener for the church to distribute. This experience and so many others have taught him that the Central New York community is full of caring people.
“Some of them don’t know what to do or how to connect but when they find out, they do,” Alex said.
As another example, he cited the church’s Fathers Arise, a community festival that almost did not happen in 2021, its inaugural year. The free event includes a bevy of grilled chicken, hot dogs, burgers and ice cream. Mere days before the event, the church freezer died, allowing all the food to spoil.
“I was going to cancel,” Alex recalled. “I was done. ‘OK, God, what kind of joke is this?’ I couldn’t take another setback.”
That morning, Nicole Sommavilla with WSYR Channel 9 News contacted Alex to follow up on a story about the event. He told her about the loss of the food, and she decided to cover what happened. Her story turned into a request for help. That Thursday and Friday, the church parking lot brimmed with donors ready to drop off cases of food—meat, chicken, buns, ice cream and everything he would need for the festival.
“I even got a call from a beef farm in Tully who said we had someone order half cow and didn’t pick it up,” Alex said. “They said, ‘If you can pick it up, you can have it.’ It was grass-fed beef. It was such a testament to the core value elements that I still believe exist in Central New York.”
The event continued in 2022. Alex hopes to continue to draw the community together through food, faith and working together.
In 1986, Alex wed Jahnjae E., who hails from Monrovia, Liberia in West Africa. The couple met in high school through singing together and now have four grown children, Zeruiah, Zaire, Zion and Zecarjah — and one grandchild, Zeruiah’s son, Asahel.
In addition to spending time with his family, Alex enjoys cooking, traveling, and antiquing.
Soon I’ll celebrate my 90th birthday.
It won’t be a real kick-up your heels celebration, but rather a loving gathering of family and friends whom I have gathered through all these years.
The director of the George Washington University School of Medicine claims that the brain of an adult is much more practical than it is commonly believed. At this age the interaction between the right and left hemispheres of the brain becomes more harmonious, which expands our creative possibilities.
Therefore, among people older than 60 you can find many personalities who have just started their creative activity (think of Grandma Moses who started painting at the age of 80). Of course, the brain is no longer as fast as it was in your youth. However, it gains flexibility. Therefore, with age we are more likely to make the right decisions and less exposed to negative emotions.
The peak of human intellectual activity occurs around age 70, when the brain begins to function at full strength.
Over time the amount of myelin in the brain increases, a substance that allows the rapid passage of signals between neurons. Due to this, the intellectual abilities increase by 300% compared to the average.
Also interesting is the fact that after 60 a person can use two hemispheres at the same time. This allows you to solve much more complex problems.
Professor Monchi Uri, from the University of Montreal, believes the old man’s brain chooses a path that consumes less energy eliminating the unnecessary and leaving only the right options to solve the problem.
A study was conducted that included different age groups. Young people were very confused when they
took the tests, while those older than 60 made the right decisions.
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, these are characteristics of the brain of an elderly person:
Neurons in the brain do not die as everyone around you says. The connections between them simply disappear if you don’t engage in mental work.
Distraction and forgetfulness arise due to information overload. Therefore, there is no need for you to concentrate all your life on unnecessary trifles.
From age 60, persons making decisions don’t use one hemisphere at the same time as young people do, but they use both hemispheres.
Conclusion: If a person leads a healthy lifestyle, moves, has sustainable physical activity and is fully mentally active, intellectual abilities don’t decrease with age; they simply grow and reach their peak at age 80-90.
Don’t be afraid of old age. Strive to develop intellectually. Learn new crafts, make music, learn to plan an instrument, draw pictures and dance. Be interested in life, meet and communicate with friends, plan the future, travel as best you can. Don’t forget to go to shops, cafes and concerts. Don’t be silent alone. It’s devastating for anyone. Live with the thought that all the good things are still ahead of me!
new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that older adults with greater severity of hearing loss were more likely to have dementia, but the likelihood of dementia was lower among hearing aid users compared to non-users.
The findings, from a nationally representative sample of more than 2,400 older adults, are consistent with prior studies showing that hearing loss might be a contributing factor to dementia risk over time, and that treating hearing loss may lower dementia risk.
The findings are highlighted in a research letter published online Jan. 10 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“This study refines what we’ve observed about the link between hearing loss and dementia, and builds support for public health action to improve hearing care access,” says lead author Alison Huang, Ph.D, a senior research associate in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Epidemiology and at the Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health, also at the Bloomberg School.
Hearing loss is a critical public health issue affecting two-thirds of Americans over 70. The growing understanding that hearing loss might be linked to the risk of dementia, which impacts millions, and other adverse outcomes has called attention to implementing possible strategies to treat hearing loss.
For the new study, Huang and colleagues analyzed a nationally representative dataset from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS).
Funded by the National Institute on Aging, the NHATS has been ongoing since 2011, and uses a nationwide sample of Medicare beneficiaries over age 65, with a focus on the 90-and-over group as well as Black individuals.
Our mind is a complex, mysterious entity.
Somehow, we have the ability to remember things. Memories of information fade away, but memories of experiences linger.
My son, Bob, has undergraduate degrees in biology, psychology and chemical engineering from Syracuse University. He also has medical and Ph.D. degrees from Stony Brook University. He has been an ophthalmologist for many years and owns Druger Eye Care in Camillus. He specializes in cataract surgery.
He once jokingly told me, “I didn’t need all that education. All I really needed was to learn how to do cataract surgery.”
Like many professionals, he has to refresh his knowledge periodically, but he does remember experiences. We are basically the product of our experiences. We learn from everything that we do and everything that we do becomes part of who we are.
I earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Brooklyn College and master’s and PhD degrees from Columbia University. I specialized in zoology (genetics) and minored in science education. I taught science, mostly introductory biology, at Syracuse University, for almost 50 years. I taught science to an estimated 50,000 students in my career. I retired in 2009.
One of my many activities was to organize a Saturday science enrichment program for talented students in the Syracuse area. Schools paid a fee and selected those student participants whom they felt would benefit most from the program. I recruited 10 science teachers or researchers to present threehour sessions in a variety of sciences, including laboratory activities. There
were many innovative features in the program and I conducted it for many years. The program was suspended several years ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, I decided to unretire and restore the program during the 2022-23 academic year.
Recently, one of my speakers backed out. She had post-COVID-19 health issues, but I had scheduled the session and I didn’t want to cancel it. The session was supposed to be in genetics, my area of education. My first reaction was to think, “I’ll do the session myself.”
I hadn’t taught since my retirement
in 2009 and I couldn’t remember enough information about genetics to do the session. Perhaps, some of the information would come back to me, but I had no notes or references. I panicked for several days until I found a Ph.D. student in genetics to do the session. Whew!
What struck me was how much information had hidden itself in my mind. Yet, I recall all the details of this negative experience. How could I forget so much information after so many years of studying genetics?
Again, we forget information. We remember experiences. The weird
thing about how the mind works is that we remember tiny, insignificant incidents for our entire lives. Most of our lives are a blur of memories of experiences.
Some are recurring and persistent. These memories are often random and we don’t know what triggers them at a particular time. I’ll mention a few of the random incidents that have become part of my psyche.
I remember my second grade teacher, Mrs. Davidson, grabbing my chin frequently and shaking it. “Be a good boy,” she said. I told my dear, deceased wife, Pat, “That’s why my chin looks this way.” Her response was, “How do you explain your nose?”
My father was in a hospital bed, dying from advanced prostate cancer. I visited him and he said to me, “I won’t see my Marvie anymore.” Those words still ring in my mind.
Pat was in hospice, suffering from advanced lung cancer. I took care of her at home for about three years. Finally, I realized that she needed hospice care and she went to Francis House hospice in North Syracuse. I thought, “She can spend some time here to speed up her recovery.” The hospice administrator approached me and said, “You know that she is not going to get better.” This remark sank into my mind. It was the first time that I realized that my precious love of almost 60 years was going to die.
Pat never complained about her illness. She just lived courageously and carried on. One day, I stood next to her bed and she said to me, “Marvin, please help me!” There was nothing I could do and I felt completely helpless. The memory of that remark is permanently engraved in my mind.
About a year after Pat’s death, I was checking out at Wegmans in Dewitt. An attractive lady was in front of me at the cashier. She was buying all sorts of foods that I never eat, i.e., shrimp, sushi, avocados, mushrooms, etc. I had a bag of lettuce. I said to her, “I only have a bag of lettuce. My wife died last year and I’m alone.” For some unknown reason, she pulled a business card out of her purse and said, “I’m alone too.”
I invited her to lunch and this started a relationship with Victoria that has lasted more than eight years. I am 20 years older than her, but she reassured me, “I like older men.”
My daughter said, “She’s after
your money.” I told Victoria my daughter’s remark and she responded, “I am.” A few weeks later, I said to Victoria, “My daughter still thinks you are after my money.” Victoria’s response was, “You’re not worth it!” This series of incidents stand out in my mind.
I came to Syracuse in 1962. We wanted to buy a house. I remember standing in the back yard with my daughter and the owner of the house. He was an old man whose wife had died and he was moving to a smaller place.
He said to me, “There’s nothing wrong with this house.” I suddenly had a vision that many years later I would be standing in the back yard with some potential buyer and I would say, “There’s nothing wrong with this house.” That vision stays with me.
My family has been wonderful to me. They watch over me with passion. There have been many family incidents that stay in my memory and sustain me. Even so, I cannot erase memories of incidents with my wife and loneliness lingers. But I separate loneliness from solitude. I like solitude, but I don’t like loneliness. Reaching out to help others calms loneliness and my articles in 55 Plus magazine are intended to encourage people to think about their own lives and approach life with vigor. I feel good when someone sends me a positive email about my articles. By helping others, I help myself.
When I was a post-doctoral student with the Commonwealth Scientific Research organization at the University of Sydney, Australia, I was mentored by Dr. Jimmy Rendel. I did research in genetics. One day, I made an interesting observation and I wanted to tell Jimmy about it. He was in the tea room. I rushed to the tea room and Jimmy was lying on his back on a black leather couch with his arms folded across his chest. “Jimmy, Are you OK?” I asked. He barely moved his lips and said, “I’m pondering the definition of fitness.”
This incident was a revelation for me. How often do we stop our daily routine of activities to “ponder?” How often do we think about who we really are and what lies ahead?
I hope this article will cause you to “ponder the definition of fitness.” That incident is now part of my memory and is a guiding principle in life.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in January approved a second Alzheimer’s drug, lecanemab, despite reports of rare brain bleeds linked to use of the drug in some patients.
However, the FDA pointed to the drug’s benefits, as well.
“Alzheimer’s disease immeasurably incapacitates the lives of those who suffer from it and has devastating effects on their loved ones,” physician Billy Dunn, director of the office of neuroscience in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in an agency news release. “This treatment option is the latest therapy to target and affect the underlying disease process of Alzheimer’s, instead of only treating the symptoms of the disease.”
Lecanemab, made by Eisai and marketed by Biogen as Leqembi, will be only the second Alzheimer’s drug to receive the FDA’s blessing in the past 18 months; the agency’s speedy approval of the drug Aduhelm in June 2021 generated controversy in the medical community over its lack of effectiveness, brain bleed concerns and hefty price tag.
But Alzheimer’s experts said the story is somewhat different with Leqembi.
“Unlike Aduhelm, which had an incomplete data set and where clinical trial data failed to demonstrate a definitive slowing in cognitive decline, lecanemab showed statistically significant slowing in cognitive and functional decline, as well as reduction of brain amyloid levels, and downstream beneficial effects on other markers of neurodegeneration,” physician Sarah Kremen, an expert.
Physician Howard Fillit, cofounder and chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, said: “We need — and are on the way to having — multiple drugs we can combine to personalize treatments to match each patient’s Alzheimer’s pathology, which will have a much greater impact on slowing the disease.”
Last issue, I sang the praises of cursive handwriting and the importance of writing letters to our loved ones. The truth of that advice came home to me recently.
This would be the 100th birthday of my mother, Freida Bazan, born in February 1923.
If you asked me if I knew my mom, I’d say, “Of course,” and probably think, “What a silly question.”
Sure, I knew my mom. I knew the taste of her specialty, scalloped potatoes; the smell of yeast as she baked her Polish braided bread; and the touch of her intricate embroidery stitches.
I knew her as a competent career woman, Girl Scout leader and a fan of Dragnet.
And though she left us too soon — I was only 30 and her first grandchild, a month old — I felt I really knew my mother.
Then, nearly 40 years after her death, I learned there was a side of my mom that I had never seen.
On the day of my daughter’s wedding, my cousin handed me a packet from Grandma’s attic — letters, their paper yellowed and brittle, smelling faintly of must. I fingered the 3-cent postage stamp with the Trylon and Perisphere, symbols of the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair. I could see my mother’s maiden name on the address line and the postmark — 1940.
I tucked the little packet away until after the excitement of the wedding, then one day I settled down with a cup of tea and that pile of letters.
I pored over them for hours, fascinated by the picture of the young woman who came to life as I read. I did quick math. My mother was 17 when these letters were written.
Apparently, she was the only one of her immediate circle to go away
to college after high school. For a teenaged farm girl before World War II, that was a pretty impressive feat in itself. I knew my mother had gotten a business school degree, which landed her coveted positions as a bookkeeper, starting in the 1940s. But somehow, I never realized she was so young at the time.
The letters were written in the months after she graduated from high school and they came from three of her best girlfriends. The earliest were still full of high school intrigue. “Can you believe Edna got the Best Student award?”
The letters surprised me, as all letters from that generation did, by their beautiful handwriting, impeccable grammar and literary references. They were also full of French. Must be girls in that era felt it made them appear “tres” sophisticated.
The girls teased my mother for her “big city” life in Albany and her whirlwind social calendar. The
letters asked about her dates — and mentioned one boy, “the Irish lad,” in particular. Apparently my mother had her share of suitors and enjoyed going out and having fun after classes.
The most eye-opening to me was the letter with the Trylon and Perisphere stamp. My mother’s friend was scolding her for taking the train by herself from Albany to the New York World’s Fair without letting anyone know.
She was right to be concerned. The fair took place on more than 1,200 acres of land and over the two seasons it was open, more than 44 million people attended from all over the world. And my mom was still a teenager at the time.
Suddenly, I had a new vision of her. In addition to the working mother who spent her days with numbers and ledgers, and her evenings sewing, crocheting and whipping up family meals; I now saw another side — the independent, sociable and most of all,
brave, young woman who ventured from her parent’s dairy farm as a mere teen to forge a new life for herself and seek adventure.
Carefully, I retied the ribbon on that precious packet of letters, thankful for what they’d taught me about my mother and vowing to do better at leaving a written legacy of my own.
A quick online search showed me there are plenty of ways to do this and some very helpful resources. If you’re comfortable with writing stories, you don’t need anything more than a notebook or journal and a pen. No need to be fancy — a marble composition notebook and simple ballpoint will create a journal just as cherished as one bound in rich leather. You can handwrite letters or record your thoughts on a computer, but be sure to provide a written copy or even self-publish a book, either with a local printer or an e-book on a platform such as Kindle.
If coming up with ideas is holding you back, there are tons of books available that guide you through the process with questions like, “Who was your childhood best friend?” and “What is your favorite recipe to make for your family?’
Some are interactive, to do with a family member, giving the dual benefit of a written legacy and special time with a loved one.
Another double whammy is to gather some pictures of special moments in your life and use them as prompts to jog your memory and get those creative juices flowing. Paste the stories and pictures into a scrapbook or try the self-publishing route, to create a record your family can cherish for years to come.
A special gift is the sound of your voice to listen to in years to come. Make a video or just tell your stories into your cell phone’s microphone. For special family time, enlist a child or grandchild to interview you. There are online resources with questions to ask. Another option is Story Corps at storycorps.org, which saves a legacy of thousands of people’s voices for future generations. You can record your own story on their website and they have resources to help you do it.
It’s easy and fun to tell your life’s story. Grab a pen, a partner and a microphone, and leave your unique legacy for the future.
By Sandra Scott
Did you ever dream of staying in a castle?
If so, there is no need to go to Europe to fulfill your dream. New York has several castles. Wealthy Americans, looking for status, built mansions many of which were inspired by castles in Europe. Today some offer accommodations, others operate as a restaurant, while others are open for visitors.
Here are 10 castles worth visiting:
The crumbling castle is located on Pollepel Island in the Hudson River, near Beacon. The history of the island dates back to pre-Revolutionary times but gets its name from the family, the Bannermans, who purchased it n 1900 and constructed a Scottish-like castle. It was used as a summer residence. It was destroyed by fire followed by further destruction by vandals and the elements. In the late 1960s it was given to the Taconic Park Commission who is working to preserve it.
The most visited castle in NYS is Boldt Castle and Yacht House on Heart Island in the Thousand Islands a short boat ride from Alexandria Bay. Boldt Castle was built at the behest of millionaire George Boldt for his wife, who died before it was finished. Upon her death, Boldt ordered all work to cease and never returned to the island. For seven decades the buildings were at the mercy of the elements and vandals. In 1977 The Thousand Islands Bridge Authority acquired the property and has spent millions of dollars rehabilitating and restoring the buildings. The property is open to the public during the summer for daytime use only. It is a popular place for weddings.
Also in the Thousand Islands on Dark Island, Singer Castle was lived in by members of the Frederick G. Bourne family from 1904 until the mid-1960s. Frederick Bourne was the CEO of the Singer Sewing Machine Co. There are many fascinating aspects to the castle including the servant tunnels and underground passageways. Much of the original furnishings are in the castle. It is a wedding destination that can include a stay in the royal suite. Tours are available.
Located near Little Falls, Augustus Beardslee used craftsmen from Ireland and Switzerland to design and construct the limestone building in the style of an Irish castle. The interior suffered from two fires, one in 1919 and another in 1989. After a two-year restoration, the new owners opened Beardslee Castle as a restaurant. It is a popular venue for weddings and popular with ghost hunters who claim the building is haunted.
Located high on a hill overlooking the city of Amsterdam, the castle was built by Isaac Perry in 1827. Perry is best known as the designer of the Capitol Building in Albany. It originally served as the National Guard armory for Montgomery County, then as a B&B, before being purchased in 2015. The new owners spent four million dollars in renovations. Great Hall with a medieval flair with armament and heraldry is spectacular. The walls are covered with artwork reminiscent of art museums. The accommodations are large and modern, with walls of artwork. The castle host functions including weddings. There is no restaurant, but the accommodations come with light snacks.
Belhurst Castle in Geneva has a complicated and convoluted history dating back to when the site was a Seneca Indian village. In 1852 the land was purchased by Harrison G. Otis and dubbed the property “Bellehurst” meaning beautiful forest. The property changed ownership within the Otis family until it was purchased, in 1885, by Mrs. Carrie Harron who was responsible for the construction of the castle. Fifty men worked for four years using some materials imported from Europe. The colorful history continued when it was purchased by Cornelius J. Dwyer who opened a restaurant and a gambling establishment that operated as a speakeasy during probation. In 1992 the property was purchased by Duane Reeder and has become a popular restaurant and wedding venue.
The castle, near the city of Hudson, was once the home and studio of painter Frederic Edwin Church. Church was a member of the Hudson River School of landscape painting. It is now a NYS historic and a National Historic Landmark popular with tourists. Church and his wife raised their four children there. The name comes from the old Latin name for Persia. The Persian-inspired castle has a panoramic view of the area. There are no accommodations but there are tours including one along five miles of Church designed roads.
Most of the castles of NYS are more than 100 years old, but dreams of castles never die. In Bolton Landing on Lake George, the Highland Castle is the result of a dream and promise. In 1978 John A. Lavender said to his 3-year-old son, “Someday, Jason, I will build you a castle.” And he did, with the help of his son. On the property there are three castle buildings and a restaurant. “Build it and they will come.”
The castle is one of the highlights when visiting Central Park in New York City. The Italian name translates to “beautiful view.” The building was completed on a high rock mound in 1872 and as the name suggest it offers one of the best views in the park. Originally it was designed as an open-air lookout tower so there were no doors or windows. In 1919 the U. S. Weather Bureau added windows and door when it converted the building into a weather station. Today it houses one of the park’s visitor’s centers and a gift shop. Guided and audio tours are available.
There are several castles on Long Island’s Gold Coast. Falaise is one of few intact historic homes. It was built in the 1920s in the style of a 13th-century Norman manor house for Harry F. Guggenheim and his wife, Caroline Morton. The medieval theme includes archways and thick wooden beams. The Guggenhiems furnished Falaise (French for cliff) with 16th and 17th century antiques gathered from their European travels. Docent-guided tours are available.
teams go to study sessions. We’re just trying to provide more opportunities for students.
Q: What are some of your other goals?
Q: You started with the Syracuse City School District in 1986 as a teaching assistant. You held some other positions within the district, moved over to the Liverpool Central School District in 1997. You came back to the City School District in 2016, and then you retired in 2019. You returned in the spring of 2022 as interim superintendent, then were named as permanent superintendent at the end of 2022. What was it about this position that brought you out of retirement?
A: Actually, an opportunity to help the community, our students and families. I think I was familiar enough with it and I really want to keep things moving after Superintendent Alicea had left because I thought he had done some wonderful things. I knew I could help continue some of those practices and direction.
Q: The school district has been ranked as one of the highest poverty school districts in the state. How do you address this challenge?
A: I’ve always had trouble with this particular question because even though poverty is a major impact on our students and their access to many things, I think when we work together with the community, we can deal with a lot of those issues. I think the answer to that question is really working with the community to deal with some
A: I think the major goal is to break down the walls of school in general. I think so many people disengage especially as our students get into older grades, and don’t really have much to do with helping the educational system. In addition to that — providing our staff with professional development. We had an opportunity, when we went through the pandemic, to see how education could look different and how can we maximize those things that we learned during that time. I think it’s about working differently.
Q: You, yourself, are a product of the Syracuse City School District, having graduated from Henninger High School. When did you graduate, and as an alum, how does that background impact on your role now?
of the issues that our students and families are having. Then coupled with the resources that the school district has, we try to mitigate many of those barriers.
Q: The school district is seeing a higher graduation rate in recent years. How do you propose to maintain that trend?
A: I’m going be cautious about that, to be honest with you. Some of the improvements that you might have seen were due to some of the rules of the pandemic to combat some of the things that people were going through during the pandemic. Those things go away. It’s not apples to apples at this point. I don’t think it’s going to necessarily be about maintaining, as much as it is about preparing students.
Q: What initiatives are you looking at to prepare the students?
A: We’re trying to make sure that, while students are in school, we’re giving them everything that we can academically and to help guide them. Then, we’re also partnering with community partners, parents, community agencies to make sure that things are happening outside of school, as well — whether it’s Saturday school, tutoring programs after hours, whether it’s having some of our sports
A: I graduated in 1982. It’s a huge honor to be in this role after going through our school system. I think what it represents is the fact that anyone can come from anywhere and make it to a level, such as this, and have an impact on the community. My family did not have a lot of money. I think by seeing me in this role, I can speak directly to our kids and our families and say ‘I’ve been exactly where you are. And yet I stand here in this particular role, trying to have an impact on what you can do in your future.’ I think being an example just by being here is having an impact of its own.
Q: What are some of the most favorite and least favorite parts of your job?
A: The most favorite is really speaking with students and staff, really talking to them and also community forums — just to speak to people openly and talk about what we’re trying to accomplish and what I think we can accomplish together. I think student voices are just as important as adult voices. I love having those conversations and getting insight from everyone. My least favorite of the job is a lot of social media moments where folks put out things that are very personal. Those are things we can’t answer to. So we have to allow those things to fester and it’s very disappointing. So it’s very difficult living through those times, especially when you know people are being unexpectedly and many times unfairly, blamed for things that may or may not be their fault.
District talks about coming back from retirement to head school
