October 2020 - Atlanta Senior Life

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Monica Pearson stays busy in her ‘rewire ment’ PAGE 12

out & about

Ghost tours carry on -- socially distanced, of course PAGE 22

Senior Life Atlanta

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Solving electronic storage issues PAGE 14

OCTOBER 2020 • Vol. 5 No. 10 | AtlantaSeniorLIFE.com

WAITING FOR CURTAINS TO RISE AGAIN People who bring Atlanta theater to life

Clockwise from left: Lisa Adler of Horizon Theatre Co., Michael Hidalgo and David Thomas of ART Station, Jeff Watkins of the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse, and actor and playwright Tom Key Photo by Phil Mosier

Contents

H U M A N A M E D I C A R E A D VA N TA G E P L A N S

OCTOBER 2020

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COVER STORY

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Meet some of the people who bring Atlanta theaters to life

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PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE Georgia Audubon chair Esther Stokes gardens for the birds

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MAKING A DIFFERENCE A Q+A with Monica Pearson in ‘rewirement’

That’s human care.

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Care that’s centered on you is nearby.

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PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY Finding more storage in the cloud

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PERSONAL HEALTH Avoid gaining weight while waiting out the pandemic

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PERSONAL FINANCE Ask Rusty: Should we get married for Social Security purposes?

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PERSONAL SAFETY Beware scams in these pandemic times

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PEOPLE Showcasing the power of the pen

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OUT & ABOUT Ghost tours are back!

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22 Atlanta Senior Life focuses on the interests, accomplishments and lifestyles of the active senior population in metro Atlanta. It aims to inspire readers to embrace a more rewarding life by informing them of opportunities to expand their horizons, express their talents and engage in their community.

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COVER STORY

WAITING FOR THEATER CURTAINS TO RISE AGAIN It’s been a long, dark spring and summer for Atlanta’s theaters.

Metro playhouses turned out the lights months ago to slow the spread of Covid-19. Unable to gather audiences in their theaters, actors, directors and playwrights were left to wait out the pandemic and hope for the safe return of live theater someday.

Several Atlanta theatres are trying or planning new ways to reach audiences. Some are going digital and streaming shows online. Others propose new ways of staging: The Atlanta Opera plans to perform Pagliacci this month in an open-sided tent with masked audience members clustered in small groups; The Alliance Theatre wants to start its 52nd season in November with shows staged in several different

Pearl Cleage

Playwright in residence, Alliance Theatre Playwright. Essayist. Novelist.

Poet. Political Activist. With so many titles next to her name, it’s a wonder that Pearl Cleage can recall specific details about her first night in Atlanta back in 1969.

She went to see Black Image Theater put on a play. Cleage remembers the actors wore jeans and black turtlenecks. They talked about the Black community and

what needed to be done in the post-Civil Rights Era. “And I thought to myself, ‘I’m home!’” Cleage said. “’This is exactly the kind of theater I love.’”

The new city welcomed her with open arms. Cleage credits the encouragement, as well as Atlanta’s lively political and artistic scene, for much of her creativity.

“People wanted me to write

ways, including a drive-in version of “A Christmas Carol.”

We thought this [presumably brief] pause before curtains start to rise again across the metro area would be a good time to meet some of the people who create Atlanta theater.

On the following pages, we present a half-dozen metro Atlantans who have devoted their careers to building theatrical groups and bringing stirring performances to the community. Their paths to Atlanta’s stages have varied widely – from writing plays to acting in plays to building an audience by staging Shakespeare year-round.

Let’s hope they will be able to turn on the lights in their theaters soon. what I know. And that’s the best gift that a place can give you,” Cleage said. “To make you feel like you’re able to be deeply rooted in that place and reflective of that place. And I hope that’s what I’ve been able to do in Atlanta.”

She would go on to write many plays and books – love letters to the community that fascinates her the most: Black women.

“Because I’m a Black woman. I know myself, so I feel that I know those characters and I want to see women like the women that I know, like the women that I see, on the stage. Because their lives are so

and relatable. But to address gender, race, sexual preference, and economic disparity in American society, she had to learn what it means to be a brave storyteller. Especially after an editor excoriated her debut novel.

“To tell the truth, fearlessly,” Cleage said. “To not always feel that as an African American writer, I have to write noble women who are always correct, who are long-suffering matriarchs.

Those are not the only stories we have to tell.”

The book that the editor criticized was 1997’s “What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day” – the story of a young Black woman diagnosed with HIV. It went on to be featured in Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club and it became a New York Times bestseller.

Cleage’s play, “Blues for an

Alabama Sky” (1995), was directed

by Kenny Leon and starred her Howard University classmate, Phylicia Rashad. The Cosby Show actress gave such a believable performance, an audience member reached out to catch her as she portrayed a staggering, drunken 1930s nightclub singer.

Her play “Flyin’ West” (1992), was featured at The Kennedy Center. It told the story of African American pioneers, starred the late Ruby Dee, and became the most produced new play in the country in 1994. But Cleage calls it all icing on the cake.

“The moment I will always treasure is the first time we had an audience of 200 people at the Alliance Theater,” she said. “And people went crazy. They gave it a standing ovation. They laughed at all of the stuff I hoped they would

— Tiffany Griffith

Co-founders, ART Station

interesting,” Cleage said. “I could write those stories forever.”

Though her stories center around women of color, Cleage believes the themes are universal

ART Station, a cultural mainstay in the ever-changing landscape of Stone Mountain Village, has been pummeled by the global pandemic.

Every employee was furloughed, except for one who takes care of the historic building, which houses a 150-seat theater, a cabaret theater, five art galleries, classrooms, production and administrative space and gift shops.

Co-founders David Thomas, the center’s president and artistic director, and Michael Hidalgo, its producing director and designer, are now “working pretty much as volunteers,” Thomas said.

Two productions of the nonprofit’s professional equity theater company and its summer arts camp were cancelled, along with its biggest fundraiser, the March 17 “Raising of the Green.”

ART Station programs have served more than 50,000 patrons and students in past years. As of now, there’s no telling when the facility will reopen.

“We’re in a really weird place because we’ll be the last kind of

OCTOBER 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com

stalled the theater community, Cleage says she’s inspired to write faster. “All of us, by doing the best work we can possibly do, we make those audiences hungry for more good work,” Cleage said. “It’s very important to me that this theatre community thrive. And I’m always grateful to be a part of it.”

Among the shows put on hold by the pandemic is Cleage’s latest work, “Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous” (2019) – a hilarious and poignant story about getting older, as told by an aging actress. And with age, Cleage hasn’t lost any of her spunk either.

She’s currently exploring film noir.

“It’s been fun for me to see if I can write a bad girl.”

Michael Hidalgo and David Thomas

Special From left, ART Station founders Michael Hidalgo and David Thomas

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laugh at.”

Cleage also remembers her critical father praising the performance, and it brought tears to her eyes.

More than 50 years have passed since Cleage made Georgia her home. She still sees America battling some of its same social demons, including in the theater community, where there is still room for diversity.

“There’s a lot of holding these theaters’ feet to the fire and to say, ‘Okay, we love the rhetoric, but what are you going to do about it?’” Cleage said there needs to be voices for women and people of color on every level of a production. “These are great American theaters, and they need to be about the business of telling great American stories.”

Even as the coronavirus has

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business to open up because of what we do, which is bring people together,” Thomas said.

“All of our training and all of our experience for at least the last 30 to 35 years has been just that — to bring people together for live theater,” Hidalgo said. “Our hands are not only tied behind our backs, our legs are tied together too. We can’t even walk, let alone run.”

It’s a tough spot for these two partners in work and in life who are used to blazing through 20-hour days filled with projects, both at home and at work. Together since they met, and married since 2015, when they were legally able to do so, they live within walking distance from ART Station in a 1940s bungalow they are renovating.

These days, much of their time is spent applying for business grants and loans and working toward the day they can finally stage their onhold productions of “Murder for Two” and “Looped.”

“There’s one word that really summarizes what we’ve been doing.

That’s planning. We always plan,” Hidalgo said. “David’s a huge dreamer, and I try to make it realistic. What we do normally is plan, but this is abnormal planning. … It keeps us challenged.”

Thomas and Hidalgo seem to thrive on challenges.

They met in 1983 in graduate school at Virginia Tech and worked together in outdoor theater in Wilmington, N.C., before moving to Atlanta in 1984.

“I was working in insurance to pay the bills while David was living the dream, doing arts stuff,” Hidalgo said.

Thomas was traveling around the state to consult with arts groups as grants director for the Georgia Council for the Arts. He had been thinking of opening an arts center in Midtown Atlanta, but “I came to an arts festival in Stone Mountain … and I saw the Trolley Barn and I just got tingles,” he said.

The Trolley Barn, at 5384 Manor Drive, was built as a trolley station and streetcar barn in 1913, part of a streetcar line from Stone Mountain to Whitehall Street in downtown Atlanta. continued on page 6

OCTOBER 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com

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continued from page 5 Thomas was dazzled by the old brick building, but, “It was in horrible, horrible shape,” he said. “The roof had caved in. You had to wear a mask to go in there. It was full of asbestos.”

And yet, he forged ahead, forming a founding group of artists, government, corporate and community leaders that raised $3.5 million to renovate the building for an arts center. The theater company Thomas founded in 1986 moved into the building in 1990.

Historic restoration and renovations have continued since, including a project primarily completed in Oct. 2019 that replaced 11 brick archways lost to asbestos removal, renovated the lobby, and installed and added all new seats to the theater.

A Fox Theatre Institute grant funded another major improvement completed after the center shut down in March.

“We now have a brand-new stage with a brand-new turntable inserted in the stage, which is fabulous. Nobody’s seen it yet, but we’re very much looking forward to showing that off,” Hidalgo said.

— Donna Williams Lewis

Lisa Adler

Co-founder and producing director, Horizon Theatre Co.

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Lisa Adler left the vibrant theater scene in Chicago and came to Atlanta. But in the early ‘80s, she noticed something was missing: contemporary theater. She believed Atlanta was missing performances that addressed current issues in modern times with relatable characters.

It was a dream both Adler and her husband, Jeff, were willing to bet on.

“The first play we did we used $1,000 of our wedding money,” she said with a laugh.

With the help of a producer who also wanted to create original work, the seeds for the Horizon Theatre were planted. The show that started it all was “Bonjour, La, Bonjour” by Michel Tremblay – a French-Canadian play Adler had first seen at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. “At the time we were growing up, the Steppenwolf Theatre was the hot, young place with all the great young talent that people wanted to be part of,” Adler said.

The couple received heavy praise for their efforts. A second performance soon followed – “Top Girls,” a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill about women in the workplace. “Caryl Churchill was a very cutting edge, popular writer at the time,” Adler noted.

Adler was inspired to run the show because she was determined to showcase plays by and about women.

“Both of those plays had never been done in Atlanta,” Adler said.

“And we were looking to bring fresh voices to Atlanta.”

From there, multiple plays snowballed into a season. Atlanta’s theater community showed its support as 300 season tickets were sold that first year. Adler now holds the title of co-founder and Co-Artistic/ Producing Director of Horizon Theatre.

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The troupe sought original works. In Horizon’s early days, Adler saw the potential in a story submitted to her on onion skin paper by a local college student. The notes detailed the young Black woman’s experience of being raised by the many women in her life during the 1960s in the segregated South.

“It wasn’t really a play, but I was like. ‘You’ve got something.’ This girl can write,” Adler recalls.

With a little work, that heartwarming story, “Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery” by Shay Youngblood, premiered on the Horizon stage in 1988, and had two additional runs at the theater. It thrilled and entertained audiences and was performed nationwide. Youngblood continues to have a thriving career. This and people waiting in the rain for Horizon performances, are memories Adler holds close to her heart.

In addition to laugh-out-loud comedies, such as Avenue Q, Horizon also has addressed sober topics, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, sexual abuse, human trafficking, gentrification, and autism.

Adler said the variety in their programming reflects Horizon’s mission.

“To connect people, inspire hope, and promote positive change through the stories of our times,” Adler said.

Being a contemporary community theater means reflecting the community the Horizon Theatre is in, Adler said. “It’s a goal of ours to put different races, different ages on stage together,” she said.

Adler has seen Horizon’s audiences grow from being mostly white viewers, to a 60 percent white audience and 40 percent people of color.

That number grows to 85 percent when an African American focused show is performed. But Adler said the Black Lives Matter movement is holding them to a higher standard.

“Black Lives Matter has also hit our community really, really hard.

That has been very stressful and emotionally draining for everybody in the community,” she said. “There’s been a lot of accusation of theater

being too white, nationally. Locally a lot of anger and frustration coming out over many, many years of what people feel like is racism.

Even though there’s a lot of diversity in the work in Atlanta, a lot of the producers are mostly white people.”

Adler said the current power dynamic and culture in theater is under debate about how to make it better. New tools are being utilized, antiracism plans are being created, meetings and trainings are being held.

The pandemic has also stalled live theater. “This is the longest time in my entire adult life that I haven’t done a play. And it’s very strange,” Adler said.

The Horizon Theater has weathered the storm with a July furlough, a Paycheck Protection Program Loan, and money in reserves. But she fears layoffs might be unavoidable.

Adler hopes the shutdown will teach people about the value of live theater.

“With the pandemic, people realize what it brings to the community.

When you can’t go, suddenly they realize this arts community thing is kind of important,” she said.

In the meantime, the Horizon Theatre is experimenting with new ways to present entertainment– streaming performances and interactive programs. Adler is optimistically commissioning work for a return to safe, in-person acting in January.

“What’s exciting to me is the opportunity to create a world. People walk into an environment, and you create everything that happens to them,” Adler said.

“You’re responsible. You take them on a journey. And the ability to create that world and impact people is addictive.”

— Tiffany Griffith

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Jeff Watkins

Here’s Where to Find Theaters

Artistic Director, the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse Jeff Watkins learned early to play to the crowd.

When he was very young, his father worked as a professional magician and ran a magic shop in Texas. Young Jeff would watch his dad perform close-up magic (the kind with card tricks and disappearing balls) at magicians’ conventions and other gatherings.

After college, Jeff took up street magic for a while himself.

With a freshly minted college degree, including a minor in theater, he moved from Texas to New York to make his fortune in show business. He auditioned for acting jobs and paid for groceries by doing sidewalk shows.

“Washington Square was the most fun,” he said. “Wall Street is where I made the most money.”

Like most starting actors, he spent much of his time just looking for work. He landed a job with a six-actor company that toured the northeast in a van and a car and staged shows in schools and community centers about various literary figures. In the early 1980s, he headed west to Chicago to join some college friends who were organizing a theater group there.

A couple of years later, as Watkins was driving from Texas to New York for yet another audition, he stopped off to visit a friend in Atlanta. She ran a group that staged readings of Shakespeare’s plays in local bars.

When his friend decided to move

to New York herself and leave the Atlanta Shakespeare Association behind, “I said can I have it?”

Watkins said.

Watkins became the group’s artistic director. In 1984, the group staged a production of “As You Like It” in a back room at Manuel’s Tavern, a storied Atlanta watering hole where politicians, cops and journalists gathered.

One early show, Watkins said, was a political fundraiser.

Playing Shakespeare in a barroom turned out to be a

revelation. Watkins saw what he thought his productions should be – directed to the audience and, for lack of a better word, entertaining. “I had been a street performer,” the 64-year-old said.

“I know in my stomach – I know in my gut – when it’s working with an audience. I cannot be

dissuaded from that.”

He calls his style of presentation “Original Practice,” meaning he stages plays as he believes they originally would have been performed.

Productions follow the text, employ no dramatic modern sets or updated sound effects, and use only fabrics and clothing from the period. His actors don’t pretend there’s not an audience sitting just a few feet away. “At Manuel’s, I said this is the vibe I’m after,” he said.

At first, his plays weren’t always popular with critics who thought Shakespeare should be treated seriously and updated to reflect modern times, he said.

But his shows found an audience.

Watkins’ company has staged Shakespeare for more than 35 years. It has presented more than

230 productions of Shakespeare’s plays, he said, and twice preformed the full “canon” -- 39 plays attributed fully or in some form to Shakespeare.

“I’ve done more Shakespeare than anybody else on the North American continent,” he said one recent afternoon as he sat on the porch of his Decatur home, “and maybe more than just five or six people in the U.K.” In 1990, the company moved into the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse at 499 Peachtree St. in Midtown Atlanta. The 200-seat Tavern staged more than a dozen plays a year until the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close in March.

Watkins doesn’t know when his troupe will return to live performances – mid-next year, he guesses – but he has plans to expand so he can someday do even more of the kind of plays his fans have nicknamed “Shakespeare for NASCAR fans.”

And he’s convinced that sitting back with a draft Guinness and watching a sword fight from your bar table as you dine on shepherd’s pie is the best way to see Shakespeare. “What I’ve created connects to the audience,” he said. “If you think Shakespeare isn’t your playwright, you need to spend more time at the Shakespeare Tavern … and this beer will help.”

— Joe Earle

For current information on when individual metro theaters plan to reopen their main stages and on whether and how they are presenting theatrical events now, check their individual websites.

7 Stages Theatre: 7stages.org Act3 Playhouse: act3productions.org Actor’s Express Theatre Co.: actors-express.com Agatha’s A Taste of Mystery: agathas.com

The Alliance Theatre: alliancetheatre.org

Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre: earlsmithstrand.org

Out Front Theatre Co.: outfronttheatre.com

ART Station: artstation.org

Found Stages: foundstages.org

Atlanta Lyric Theatre: atlantalyrictheatre.com

Georgia Ensemble Theatre: get.org

Pinch ‘N’ Ouch Theatre: www.facebook.com/pnotheatre

Atlanta Opera: atlantaopera.org

Horizon Theatre Co.: horizontheatre.com

Aurora Theatre: auroratheatre.com City Springs Theatre Co.: cityspringstheatre.com

Dinner Detective Murder Mystery Dinner Show: thedinnerdetective. com/atlanta

OnStage Atlanta: onstageatlanta.com Out of Box Theatre: outofboxtheatre.com

Synchronicity Theatre: synchrotheatre.com Stage Door Players: stagedoorplayers.org Theatrical Outfit: theatricaloutfit.org Village Theatre: villagecomedy.com

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Actor, playwright, director Atlanta actor Tom Key has never been one to shy from a difficult topic, conversation, decision or role.

At 70, he’s still at it. After retiring in June as artistic director of the Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta, Key is auditioning for film and TV work, has gotten involved in social causes and is hopeful he’ll be back on stage in Atlanta again by the spring of 2021.

The author of the “Cotton Patch Gospel,” a show that reimagines the story of Jesus set in the rural South of the mid-20th Century, also is contemplating writing another play. “I am working to develop a writing habit,” he said. “I’m about two months into it. I want to get to the point where I’m writing every day, because the times are so challenging.” continued on page 10

OCTOBER 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com

Legacy Theatre: thelegacytheatre.org

Dad’s Garage Theatre: dadsgarage.com

Tom Key

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Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Co.: truecolorstheatre.org

Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse: shakespearetavern.com

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PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE continued from page 8 He wants his new project “to show that what unites us is greater than what divides us, and that we all belong to each other.”

Key grew up in Birmingham.

In 1963, when he was only about 13, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in his hometown and the deaths of four young girls in the bombing showed him powerful, horrifying lessons about race and the need for community. “My whole view of reality was changed,” he said. “It was a formative experience.”

Fast forward to 1968. Key made friends with a roommate who was a young man of color and made plans to bring him home at Thanksgiving. No, said his shocked parents. If you do that, we’ll stop paying for your tuition and your car.

“So, I took them up on it,” he said simply. “We maintained a civil relationship, but there was a real gap or wound that was just there.”

After moving to Knoxville, he emerged from the University of Tennessee in the late 1970s with an undergraduate degree in English literature and a graduate degree in theater.

“Cotton Patch” followed. It started as a one-man show and flowered into an off-Broadway musical. Key toured with it, eventually landing in Dallas for a two-year stint with a theater company there.

In 1986, Key and his family moved back to Atlanta. About a year later, he was offered a job as artistic director an off-Broadway theater in New York. He decided to stick with Atlanta, his “home place in the South,” he said, because he felt it offered a better environment for broadening his directing and writing skills and perhaps starting a small theater company. “New York theater is like the state fair where the tomatoes are judged,” he said.

“But the tomatoes are not grown in the soil of the midway.”

He carved out his reputation through extensive work at the Alliance Theatre and through touring “Cotton Patch” and “C.S. Lewis on Stage,” a one-man show based on the British writer. Film and TV opportunities came along.

An artistic director’s job came calling again in 1995, this time with the Theatrical Outfit.

It encompassed a grab bag of duties from picking out, casting and occasionally acting in and

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directing plays to forming and encouraging creative teams.

Key also functioned as a public advocate and money-raiser for the theater.

The theater’s plays ran the gamut, but more than a few tackled thorny questions related to race, sexual orientation or faith. “I always ask the question, ‘What do we need to have a conversation about right now?’

And sometimes the answer was, ‘We really need is to have a good time right now.’”

The longtime Atlanta theater veteran recounted how presenting envelopepushing productions sometimes occasioned pushback.

In some places where ‘Cotton Patch” was being staged, fundamentalists took out ads in local newspapers calling it “blasphemous” and urging people to stay home.

And Key remembered how a 1982 run of the play at the Alliance Theater featured a live discussion following each performance.

One night got especially ticklish. “A woman in the front row asked, without any hesitation or apology, why I made the [Ku Klux] Klan a bad force in the story because [she said] it was an organization founded to protect Christian women and children,” he recalled. Key said he paused for what seemed a long time, then -- “in the same way that bombs are defused-slowly and carefully.”

-- he explained why he had the KKK play a role in the lynching of Jesus in his play.

The longtime Atlanta actor said over the years he was asked to join productions that espoused a stance or an opinion and sought to demonize those who deviated from it. He always politely refused, he said.

“I turned down a play about the Holocaust because with it came a vision that we are animals just surviving and humanity has no moral basis. It wasn’t just that I disagreed with the idea, I literally would not know how to play that role.”

Now he returns to writing. “I plan to write about the human condition,” he said. “I believe fundamentally in the core of my being that we are part of a story that’s going to end well, even when we’re in the worst of times.”

— Mark Woolsey

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Her garden is for the birds...and bugs Around Town

Joe Earle is Atlanta Senior Life editor-at-large and has lived in metro Atlanta for over 30 years. He can be reached at joeearle@ reporternewspapers.net

When Esther Stokes moved into a new home in Brookwood Hills a couple of years ago, the yard sprouted many familiar flowering plants with roots in foreign places. Now those imports are disappearing.

Stokes is replacing her azaleas and camellias with Joe Pye weed, cardinal flowers and other types of greenery that grew up here in the wild.

With her new plantings, Stokes, a landscape designer by trade, is going native. Why? Because her garden is for the birds.

It’s a bit for the bees, too. Also, the bugs, to tell the truth. But it’s mostly for the birds Stokes has been paying close attention to since she was a child growing up in Virginia and that she supports as chair of the board of Georgia Audubon, a bird-centered nonprofit that claims it builds places “where birds and people thrive.”

“Literally, that is what we try to do,” Stokes said one warm August morning as she sat on the shaded patio in her native-plant-filled garden. “Whether we are restoring or establishing new habitat or whether we are maintaining what is there, everything is through the lens of birds. And if birds are thriving, those are good places for people.”

These days, Stokes said, Georgia Audubon wants to do more to support birds. The 1,700-member organization, based at the Blue Heron Nature Center in Buckhead, is spreading its efforts across the state, is adding staff, and has changed its name to reflect its new aims.

Until August, the organization was known as the Atlanta Audubon Society, or, before that, the Atlanta Bird Club.

Stokes says Georgia Audubon intends to work with the other, smaller Audubon societies around Georgia and will sponsor projects to help fill the gaps between various local clubs and state Audubon societies in neighboring states.

“I feel like Atlanta Audubon, and now Georgia Audubon, has become a part of the conservation community,” she said. “We have been very intentional about that, and because we think partnerships are critical — you can’t do everything yourself — we’ve begun a lot of that sort of work. And there’s lots left to JOE EARLE do.”

Esther Stokes checks on Joe Pye Weed and Interest in birds Cardinal flowers growing in her backyard. came naturally to Stokes. “I’ve been interested in parks and birds as long as I can remember,” she said.

There was a time, back when she was in her 20s, that she enjoyed simply keeping an eye on birds and kept lists of the different kinds of birds she’d seen.

Nowadays, with the coronavirus keeping everyone at home, more people are discovering the pleasures of birdwatching, she said, and Georgia Audubon is providing online classes and virtual bird walks on Facebook to help both longtime bird fans and newcomers expand their participation in the hobby. “We have found people are staying at home and watching their feeders and it has opened a window and their

minds,” Stokes said. “People have noticed that not all birds look alike.”

But Stokes’ chief interest these days is watching the bigger picture, the overall habitat that supports the birds. Her new interest came as a natural outgrowth of her work as a landscape designer, which she started in the 1980s, and continued as her volunteer work with Piedmont Park led to work with other Atlanta parks and eventually back to birds through Audubon.

Native habitats are important she said, because birds and bees and bugs do best when they live among the sorts of plants their kind long have lived among.

“For the last 50 years, in the landscape area, we have imported all these plants from China and Japan that do well here, but the insects don’t recognize them,” she said. “They are beautiful, but they don’t provide ecosystem services.”

And some birds depend on those bugs as a source of food. So, what’s good for the bugs can be good for the birds, too.

Stokes says the people at Georgia Audubon intend to foster native habitat across the state. One of the organization’s new employees will be based at and work on projects on the Georgia coast.

“Research has shown us that ‘if you build it, they will come,’” she said, as birds occasionally darted through the shrubs and trees in her yard in search of late-morning snacks. “We’re losing things like grassland birds because they don’t have habitat, but if you build a grassland, they will come back.”

Georgia birds now can find a number of recently restored habitats, with more added every year. In Brookwood Hills, for instance, they can just check out Esther Stokes’ backyard.

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11

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

MANSIONS

Former TV anchor Monica Pearson stays busy in her ‘rewire ment’ Monica Pearson no longer graces metro Atlanta’s TV screens nightly, but she remains a significant presence on the local landscape.

Pearson arrived in Atlanta after TV and newspaper reporting jobs in her native Louisville and became the first African American and the first woman to anchor a major Atlanta evening newscast, at WSB-TV in 1975. After a 37-year career, countless major stories and a veritable truckload of awards, she stepped away in 2012.

Nowadays, she keeps busy doing radio endorsements, accepting some-but not allspeaking engagements, handling voice acting for various clients from her own home studio and exercising religiously. She still moves at a rapid pace, but slowed down long enough to chat recently with Atlanta Senior Life contributor Mark Woolsey.

Q. What are you doing these

days as a retired person?

A. I am not retired, I’m rewired.

I call what I do “rewirement” and here’s the reason: I have to stay active to keep my mind sharp.

In my rewirement, I’m doing things I want to do versus things I have to do, meaning I will say no to some organizations [who want her to get involved with or speak to their memberships]. I’m doing things I couldn’t do as a journalist -- endorsing companies and places, things like Stone Mountain, which is somewhat controversial at times, but they’re also companies I use. I’m also putting together a website to speak my mind on things I

12

couldn’t do before…and I am walking.

Q. What do you think about

the changes in journalism that have occurred since you stepped away?

A. It’s very confusing for a

viewer -- even me (laughs). I think people need to learn how to watch TV now. By that I mean there are certain channels with a political bent and you need to be aware of that. I stick with my local news and spend a good deal of time reading newspapers. I want to make up my mind for myself. The only one I’ll admit to watching every day on cable is Rachel Maddow, because she’s fair. On a normal day I do sample CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Most people will look at just one thing and that concerns me…If you look at both sides, you can make your own decisions.

You have to delineate between people who are paid to be opinionated and people who are paid to present the news. Most viewers don’t understand the distinction between commentary and journalism.

OCTOBER 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com

Q. What advice would you give

to prospective journalists?

A. The first thing I would say

is get into it because you love news, you like telling stories that affect people’s lives. Far too many people are getting into the business nowadays because they think it’s going to make them a star. It’s “I want to be an anchor” and it’s not about the anchoring, it’s about the reporting. It’s about helping people make decisions about their lives.

Q. If you were still in

journalism, how might you have covered this year’s pandemic?

A. The only thing I would have

done differently is that people are just now taking note of how this affects seniors, and young people, who didn’t take it seriously because they think they’re bulletproof. I think these kinds of stories should have been done sooner. Another story I wish we had done sooner is on essential workers.

Q. What’s your opinion on the

“Black Lives Matter” movement?

ASSISTED LIVING & MEMORY CARE A. At first, I didn’t understand Black Lives Matter because I hadn’t done my research. Once I did, I was very comfortable.

Put it this way: if Black lives mattered ,why are Black and brown people being the “essential workers” who are most exposed to COVID and paid the least? If Black lives mattered, why would we see an education system that’s still very segregated and in many cases “less than” for Black children? If Black lives mattered, why would a young white man who shot three people be to walk toward officers with his hands up and allowed to go home, whereas a Black man who is walking away and getting in his car is shot in the back? The movement is being demonized right now.

On cancel culture: if you know your history, you don’t mind some of your history being canceled. I know I’ll get in trouble for saying this, but some people don’t know what the Confederacy was about, the history of people being enslaved for economic reasons and not being treated as human beings.

You don’t have a problem taking down the statue of a man who was a slaveholder.

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Q. On a lighter note, do people

still comment on your hair the way they used to when you were anchoring?

A. They still do that. And I

change my hair all the time. As a matter of fact, that’s where I’m headed. I have a noon appointment to get a haircut.

You have to remember that for me, hair is an accessory. As you change your jewelry, I change my hair.

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13

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY

You have choices for electronic storage As a senior, you may have electronic ones (solid state downsized your living space, but drives or SSDs), they need less you’ve likely increased space to manage the your need to store data. To keep prices more electronic stuff – lower, they’re offering such as photos, videos, smaller drives. music, and data files However, you containing important have more and more personal information. electronic stuff – and And if you’ve that’s where “the purchased a new cloud” comes into phone, tablet, or play. The industry computer, you’ve has created huge probably noticed banks of servers, all Gene Rubel a couple of trends connected through that seem to pull in the internet, to hold The Digital Device opposite directions: all the stuff you want Doctor cures digital your phone and anxiety for seniors and to keep. Think of tablet have more home/home-office users. them as electronic storage space, and storage lockers and A graduate of Haryour computer has understand that you vard Business School, a smaller hard drive. can have storage “Doctor Gene” spent This dichotomy is not more than 30 years in lockers scattered as strange as it seems, international business. throughout cyberspace and you can easily for free or for a few He can be reached at manage your storage generubel@gmail.com. bucks a month, all needs at surprisingly accessible from every little or no cost. device you own.

First, a little context. As a In addition, electronic storage mobile, connected society, we makes it easier to share with are making much more use family and friends as needed. of phones and tablets. More While we think of sharing and more seniors continue to photos and videos, we can also read books, newspapers and share music. In addition, by magazines and listen to podcasts carefully managing access, on phones and tablets because we can store documents with they’re easy to carry. It’s also important personal information easy to customize type size for or instructions that can help better readability and to use designated family members earbuds or some other listening manage your affairs if necessary. device to hear better without So, what are some of the best disturbing anyone around you. choices for you and what can Tablets can also be used for you expect to pay? Here’s our handling email, shopping online rundown of some well-known and streaming video content. storage providers and some you Personally, I hardly watch may not be familiar with. anything on a TV anymore; my Google wife does.

Google is my favorite for In addition, we use our online storage for its capacity, phones to take pictures, shoot accessibility and capabilities for videos, play music – and do all working on files and sharing the things we do on a tablet. them. If you have a Gmail Those files and all the apps we account, you already have all of use take up storage space on the this for free in Google Drive. devices.

For starters, you get 15GB At the same time, computer (gigabytes) of storage, the most hard drives are getting smaller, of any free plan. How much is and you can chalk that up 15GB? It’s enough space to store to a technology change. As several thousand photos, plus the industry switches from a few hours of video, maybe mechanical hard drives to

14

OCTOBER 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com

another thousand songs and lots of Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

It works across all devices and operating systems, and you can provide links to share files or collaborate on Word files or spreadsheets. That can

come in really handy when doing volunteer work or family projects.

If you somehow manage to blow through 15GB, you can switch to a paid plan – which will be under the name of Google One. Plans start at 100GB at $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year and top out at 2TB (terabytes) at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

iCloud

iCloud is really designed for Apple users, but if you have an Apple account, it can work for you if you have an iPhone or iPad and a Windows-based computer. It’s built into your Apple devices, and you can easily set them up to back up your pictures and videos as well as your contacts. In fact, you should make sure you have this set up if you are planning to buy a new Apple device. That’s

because your setup will depend on sending all the data on your iPhone or iPad to an iCloud account and then transferring it to your new device.

You get 5GB free, but you can easily expand it to 50GB for $0.99 per month. Plan on getting extra iCloud storage because of the ease of taking so many high-

resolution photos and images and downloading music. iCloud is also good for instantly sharing files with other iCloud users.

Most iPhone/iPad users sometimes misunderstand the difference between device storage and iCloud storage, and that can lead to problems.

Your device can come with 64 or 128GB storage space, but that needs to handle the operating system and the ability to run apps as well as store stuff. That storage is finite. When you hit the limit, you need to offload or delete files and apps, and this is where you need to be careful.

Removing photos, videos, music and other files from your device will also delete it from your iCloud. But as long as you have iCloud capacity and automated backup, the device will move files to the cloud.

Dropbox

You might be tempted to dismiss Dropbox out of hand because it only gives you 2GB of free storage, but it can fill a useful role as part of an overall storage plan. I find it works best as a replacement hard drive for files I work on or need to be able to access quickly from any device anywhere in the world.

You can set up folders for documents and photos, just as

you do on your computer and give access to those who need it.

It’s more for collaboration with one or two other people rather than a huge group, such as you might have with Google Drive.

All they need is their own free Dropbox account to share – and everyone can access the files from up to three devices. If you need more space, you can get Dropbox Pro with 2TB for $120 a year.

The best example of why I like

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Dropbox for fast access is when I renewed my driver’s license.

Using the cellular network, which is more secure than a WiFi connection, I was able to pull up the documentation I needed on my phone. I didn’t have to bring along a birth certificate or passport.

Amazon

Amazon is another one of those storage places you might forget you have. Everyone with an Amazon account gets unlimited photo storage and up to 5GB of video storage free. If you have Amazon Prime, you

subscription of $69.99 gives you 1TB of OneDrive storage, and the family subscription of $99.99 per year for up to six family

members gives everyone the apps and 1TB each. OneDrive allows you to share files, folders, and photos with friends and family by sending a link via email or text. The caveat is that people must have the ability to access the internet to use the link, and it can be complicated for some. However, you can also simply attach a file or photo to an email.

Backup and Restoration can also use their cloud to store music, like I do. But in today’s world of integration, you can also use Amazon print and share photos and view them as virtual photo albums on Amazon devices like Fire TV, Echo Show, and Fire tablets.

However, the most important benefit is that your photos can live forever on Amazon. Once you save them to the Amazon Photos app, they’re there in perpetuity, and you can safely delete them from your phones or cameras to free up space on the device.

With other services, most notably Apple, deleting photos and videos from the cloud or device deletes them from everything connected with that provider. But you can always buy more space: 100GB for $1.99 per month or 1TB for $6.99 per month.

We’ve discussed five storage options out of the dozens available today. None is mutually exclusive; you can mix and match them. However, they’re

not designed for automated backup/restoration operations.

If you think about these services as storage lockers, putting your files there is more like putting stuff in boxes and putting the boxes wherever they physically fit. And no matter how well you organize and stack your boxes, if you need something from the back of the locker, you need to move the boxes to find what you want. It’s a laborious process.

Services such as Carbonite do the heavy lifting. They can automatically backup your computer’s files and use a special routine to restore files to your computer. They are not free, but they are relatively low cost and, in my opinion, highly valuable.

Once you set them up, these services pull all recent files from your computer or device and file them in appropriate online folders. When you sustain damage to a hard drive or decide to buy a new computer, you can use these services to restore files – and even application

software in some cases – in the same way you had them on your computer’s hard drive.

Backup and restoration services are not meant to be used to retrieve individual files or folders. Again, that’s what those online storage lockers are meant for.

But unlike physical storage lockers and physical things, electronic files can easily be copied multiple times and stored in multiple locations. Businesses do this all the time. They store copies all over the world to make sure a natural or manmade disaster in one place doesn’t wipe out their ability to recover and restore operations.

You can use the same tools as a Fortune 500 company to store retrievable files and backed-up files from anywhere in the world and access them all from one place with a few keystrokes.

And for little or no cost, we don’t think you’ll ever run out of space.

Microsoft

Microsoft and OneDrive are worth mentioning because if you have a Microsoft account, you get 5GB of free storage. But if you subscribe to Microsoft 365, you get a lot of storage space on Microsoft OneDrive along with regular updates of the popular Microsoft apps Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The individual annual

OCTOBER 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com

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PERSONAL HEALTH

Avoid gaining weight during the pandemic My 92-year-old friend Bill disorder symptoms are likely Roselle, who lives in California, to exacerbate during a time of reads my Atlanta Senior Life higher anxiety and stress.” And the articles online.

2020 pandemic is He sent an email stressful. yesterday and said “Taking care of he wanted to let me your mind, body, know he’s gained and soul is more 10 pounds since important now the coronavirus than ever,” Eckstein pandemic took says. “Lastly, hold of Californians finding joy in the (not to mention the small things — September wildfires whether gratitude and unprecedented for each day of early fall heat waves). health, reading an It’s been a rough enjoyable book Judith L. Kanne, year! (or even joining a RN, BSN, BA I did not write virtual book club), back to discuss my or looking forward is a registered nurse and “new” 19 pounds to the day where freelance writer who lives (gained since early hugs are safely in in Atlanta.

March). It wasn’t abundance,” she something I was said. particularly proud of. But weight The International Journal of gain for older adults during this Eating Disorders suggests that pandemic isn’t unusual and “binge eating might also occur experts are saying it’s almost simply due to [our] proximity to inevitable for many of us. food, an emotional reaction to With “increased time spent the pandemic, or even because on the couch, it’s no wonder of stockpiling food” (in an effort weight gain has been a common to prepare for self-isolation). In experience,” states an article I fact, those with a history of eating spotted in Sharp Health News. The disorders are “beginning to exhibit article reminds older adults that worsening symptoms.” maintaining a healthy weight is A Few Silver Linings important to prevent a manage a But there’s good news, too. number of health conditions, such “One silver lining of this pandemic as high blood pressure, obesity is there are now more virtual and diabetes. treatment and support options Those conditions, by the way, than ever, which is great for people are the same ones that place who were previously unable to older adults at a higher risk for access in-person treatment,” COVID-19 complications, should Chelsea M. Kronengold, we unknowingly have contracted communications manager for it. Either way, weight gain can the National Eating Disorders be uncomfortable — and, as Association (NEDA), wrote in an mentioned, dangerous to our email. overall health, especially if binge “Older adults who struggle with eating is involved. food, body image and exercise Becca Eckstein, executive issues are experiencing the added director of Veritas Collaborative’s challenges of being ‘high risk,’ and Adult Hospital in Durham, N.C., are likely taking extra precautions wrote in an email that there can to self-isolate. …Whatever you are be added “hurdles to recovery” for feeling right now (e.g., loneliness, people who gain weight because of anxiety, anger) is valid. Connection inactivity. and community are key during “During a time when social this unprecedented time.” distancing is key, a pandemic Many grandparents have taken can create greater feelings of this time to get more comfortable loneliness for an individual with using video platforms such needing additional support,” she as Zoom or FaceTime to remain wrote. “Eating disorders can connected to family members thrive in isolation and eating

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and close friends, and video technology seems poised to take on a new cultural significance, some experts say. In a 2018 study, researchers found that the use of video chatting has actually helped to reduce the risk of depression in people aged 60 and older, a group that is more likely to be socially isolated than its younger counterparts.

Another study, conducted by researchers in Oregon and published in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, found that of four online communication technologies – video chat, email, social networks and instant messaging -- using video chat to connect with friends and family appeared to hold the most promise in staving off depression among seniors.

However, all those video chats will not keep older adults (or younger ones) away from the late-night snacks and refrigerator tours.

Aging Adjustments

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us that as we age, our “body composition

gradually shifts — the proportion of muscle decreases and the proportion of fat increases. This shift slows our metabolism, making it all the easier to gain weight.” In addition, we may become less physically active while we age, increasing our odds for weight gain.

Clinical psychologist Karen Samuels is an expert in the field of eating disorders. For more than 30 years, she’s been a workshop leader and keynote presenter.

Samuels has published extensively on a number of issues related to treatment of eating disorders across our life span.

Samuels gives special attention to women at midlife and beyond. “Eating disorders do not discriminate,” she says. They seem to thrive in isolation and can reactivate (at times) in mid-life (especially for women). Samuels tells her readers, it’s OK to let our bodies change.

Not everyone, however, is gaining weight. Along with binge eating are bulimia and anorexia nervosa. Both can add to significant weight loss and even life-threatening conditions:

“Anorexia has the second-highest mortality rate of any psychiatric diagnosis — outranked by only by opioid use disorder,” according to The Eating Disorder Foundation’s fact sheet.

One survey in July found 62% of people in the U.S. with anorexia seemed to get worse when the coronavirus hit. The more common binge-eating has already reported an increase for the year in helpline calls.

Bulimia and anorexia were often thought of as problems facing young people, but many experts say women (and some men) who struggled with eating disorders as teens and young adults appear to renew those old habits during a late-in-life crisis. In fact, “Eating Disorders are not a lifestyle choice,” states the National Institutes of Health, “they are biologically-influenced medical illnesses.”

People struggling with anorexia nervosa will avoid food and severely restrict food intake by eating minute amounts.

They can become dangerously underweight, suggest the experts.

Those with bulimia nervosa eat

large amounts of food followed by forced vomiting, excessive use of diuretics, fasting, laxatives and (in some cases) excessive exercise.

Eating disorders can affect anyone at any time, regardless of age, gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexuality or cultural background, according to Medical News Today. According to other experts, triggers can include menopause, natural changes connected to aging, retirement, feeling a need to compete with younger people, an empty nest, becoming a grandparent and divorce, among others. Remember, NEDA and other organization offer help at any age.

Ways to avoid gaining weight ■ Get moving ■ Self-monitor your weight ■ Watch what you eat

(particularly portion sizes) ■ Get the support you need Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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17

PERSONAL FINANCE

Should we get married or just live together?

Dear Rusty:

and her Social Security entitlement at her full My question is about retirement age (which is benefits and getting 66 years and 8 months) is more than twice the married. I am a retired full benefit amount you man, 65-years-old, and were entitled to at your collecting Social Security full retirement age (even plus two pensions. My though you claimed your girlfriend will turn 62 SS earlier). In that case, in October of 2020 and you would become eligible plans to apply for Social for a spousal benefit from Security benefits on her your new wife after you Russell Gloor are married for one year.

62nd birthday. is a certified Social SeIf, however, your If we were to get curity advisor with the potential bride is the married, would we be Association of Mature lower earner and claims affected money wise? at 62, but is entitled to a American Citizens Or should we just live Social Security benefit at together? her full retirement age (FRA) that is less than Contemplating 50% of your FRA benefit Marriage amount, your new wife may be entitled to a “spousal boost” from Dear Contemplating you after you are married for a year.

I cannot tell you the answer to those Marriage: questions without knowing your Your own Social Security benefit respective benefit amounts at each of will not be affected in any way if you your full retirement ages. get married, unless your potential You may also wish to consider new bride is a very high earner potential survivor benefits. If you

are married and one spouse dies, the surviving spouse is entitled to 100% of the amount the deceased spouse was collecting at death, if the surviving spouse has reached full retirement age (otherwise the survivor benefit is reduced for claiming it early). The surviving spouse gets the survivor benefit if that benefit is more than they are entitled to on their own.

In any case, neither of you would be eligible for a Social Security spousal benefit or survivor benefit from the other unless you are married (you must be married for at least one year to get a spousal benefit and at least 9 months for a survivor benefit).

Note that so-called “common law” marriage isn’t recognized in most U.S. states, and Social Security goes by state law on that topic. The only states which currently recognize common law marriages are Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah (and the District of Columbia).

So, unless you were to live in one of those states, or in D.C., cohabitating would not be considered a “marriage” for the purposes of Social Security benefits, and no spousal or survivor benefits would be available to either of you.

SECURE YOUR FUTURE TODAY New Name, Same Care.

This article is intended for information purposes only and does not represent legal or financial guidance. It presents the opinions and interpretations of the AMAC Foundation’s staff, trained and accredited by the National Social Security Association (NSSA). NSSA and the AMAC Foundation and its staff are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other governmental entity. To submit a question, visit our website (amacfoundation.org/programs/social-security-advisory) or email us at ssadvisor@ amacfoundation.org.

The 2 million member Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC] [https://www. amac.us] is a senior advocacy organization that takes its marching orders from its members. We act and speak on their behalf, protecting their interests and offering a practical insight on how to best solve the problems they face today.

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PERSONAL SAFETY

PEOPLE

Watch out for scammers in these crazy times It amazes me that although we are in an international pandemic crisis, we still have to contend with scammers focused on ripping off naïve and trusting people, many of them seniors, who, like all of us, never have experienced such an event before.

Because the virus itself is dynamic and with the rush to find and develop vaccines (and soon, I hope, a cure), the scams too are moving in new

directions.

If you are on Medicare, be especially mindful of unsolicited requests for information. Along with your Social Security number and date of birth, fraudsters often are looking to acquire your Medicare number.

Here is where you need to be “politely skeptical” of people looking to acquire information from you: --Never give your Medicare

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OCTOBER 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com

number to anyone other than a At some point, the U.S. Food doctor, a health care provider, and Drug Administration will or a trusted representative. bring us, even if only a trickle Treat it like a at t time, better and credit card. Those better news regarding coming doorvaccines. Do not jump to-door offering on the unicorn just free coronavirus yet, because along testing, supplies or with the legitimate treatments probably reporting will come are not legit. Don’t the fraudsters. provide information How do you verify to them and just for that something is fun, call your local legit? police department, Online is the STAY SAFE Steve Rose is a retired so we can check best avenue. Go Sandy Springs Police them out. the internet and do Captain, veteran Fulton --Don’t click some investigative County police officer and on internet links freelance writer. He is the work, perhaps typing author the book “Why before you verify in the new wonder the source. Domain Do My Mystic Journeys drug’s name and Always Lead to the Waffle names can vary look at the results.

House?” and the column only slightly, a If it is a scam, there “View from a Cop.” letter or number has been something here and there, written about it. and still look legit when they Verify that piece with 2-3 more aren’t. Put your glasses on online searches. (Hint: if you and read the fine print closely see a couple of scam articles before you click. On that note, regarding the subject you are make sure your antivirus researching, close the book on program on your computer is it because it is probably bad up to date. Keep in mind that news.) during epidemics and disasters, The FTC Consumer the number of fake charities Information site is good. and crowdfunding sites will (consumer.ftc.gov/blog.) The increase. Don’t assume a fancy FCC (Federal Communication website is a legit one. Check it Commission, fcc.gov/covidout. scams,) also provides current --Remember that fraudsters information on fraud related to are looking for the path of least Covid-19. resistance, including those who Not only individuals are won’t ask questions or don’t targets for frauds, but small verify information they’ve businesses as well. Scammers been provided. (The only dumb are hoping to grab some of question is the one you don’t the funds from the Paycheck ask.)

Protection Program, designed A friend told me that she to help small business owners simply could not understand survive this mess. a human mind that prioritizes So, the word of the day scheming to steal rather than to is ignore. Ignore the emails, help in such a time. Talk about robocalls and websites. Do your naïve. We could be vaporized own research on legitimate by a nuclear disaster and there websites. would be that one guy selling As bad as things seem at radioactive wonder drugs times, remember that somehow, guaranteed to have you back we’ll figure it out and get back on your feet in no time. The to normal, or in my case, uh… term “We’re all in this together” so, so. does not apply to all. It is May the forces of evil unfortunate, but true. become confused on the way to Do not let your guard down. your house!

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Boys & Girls Club leader pens 267 letters to kids

By Donna Williams Lewis

“I wanted the letter to be about the questions I ask them each day,” said Johnson. “The gift of writing is part of your soul you’re giving to someone else. It has

When Warren Boys & Girls Club closed for the coronavirus quarantine, its executive director Gail Johnson got busy calling members’ families about their needs and securing money for gift cards to help them buy groceries.

“At some point I realized I’m just talking to parents and telling them to tell the kids ‘hi,’” she said.

That wasn’t enough for Johnson, who’s now in her 42nd year with Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, an afterGail Johnson confers with a teen at school program the Warren Boys & Girls Club. whose mission is to “positively impact the lives of to be intentional and has to be children and teens, especially heartfelt.” those who need us most.”

She recalls reminding a boy “These kids didn’t even have named James to stop aggravating time to say goodbye to their his sister and told him his beloved teachers,” Johnson said. “All of a LEGOs would be ready for him sudden everybody was gone.” when he returns.

She wanted the kids to know “The hardest letters to write how much they matter and how were the ones to my kids who much they were missed. were seniors this year,” she said.

So, she took pen to paper and, One of them had been at Warren over a period of about two weeks from the age of 6. in April, handwrote She chose to 267 personalized write instead of type letters — one for every because “that’s me child on the roster going the extra mile, — and then mailed to give a part of me.” them in personally She used a variety of addressed envelopes. colors of ink, selecting Johnson’s letterthem “depending on writing project was “a the personality of the testament to who she child.” is,” said her supervisor, Aside from getting Nikki McClain, Gail Johnson her supervisor’s regional operations approval for postage, director for Boys & Girls Clubs of Johnson told almost no one about Metro Atlanta. her project until it was done.

“She loves what she does,” Letter writing is said to be a lost McClain said of Johnson, who art, especially among youth, and started with the nonprofit while she didn’t want to be discouraged still a sociology major at Spelman by potential naysayers.

College. “She’s impacted so many The response she got to her people in this city. She’s definitely labor of love blew her away. treasured.”

Parents told her how excited Instead of composing the their kids were to get, in some letters at her home, Johnson cases, their very first letter. wrote them inside the thenOthers told her about their kids shuttered Warren club in Grant being upset that a sibling’s letter Park, where she’s worked since came but theirs hadn’t arrived yet.

1991. She hoped to recreate the Some kids spoke for mental space she’s in with each themselves and wrote Johnson child when she greets them upon back. their arrival.

“It gave me hope that, despite

the pandemic, things are going to get better,” she said.

Grant Park resident Canveta Burke’s son and granddaughters were among those who replied to Johnson, attaching candy to their letters.

“The Boys & Girls Club is just their home away from home.

Miss Gail has been a key part of their lives,” Burke said. “They cried when they got their first letter from Miss Gail. If only I could have recorded the look on their faces. Each child had their own letter. It was specifically for them, for the person she knew

they were.”

In late August, Warren Boys & Girls Club began a partial reopening.

Johnson is there by 7 a.m. each weekday, helping a limited number of students who begin arriving a half hour later with the challenges of their virtual school day.

“With the kids returning, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “It’s like we were holding our breath for five months. This is giving us an opportunity to exhale and move forward.”

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OCTOBER 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com

21

OUT & ABOUT

PETS

Ghost tours return despite pandemic

By Joe Earle Come October, ghost tours seem thick as pumpkins around metro Atlanta. So many pop up that it can feel like about every metro community is haunted by that spectral someone just waiting to tell his or her story or produces an eager tour guide willing to tell the living about the dead.

This year is different, of course. Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, many tours are being cancelled, presumably so this year’s ghost fans won’t show up on future tours in a different way.

Still, it’s hard to keep a good ghost story buried, and some metro guides and tour-hosting institutions are going ahead with their shows, which can offer a good way to learn a little local history.

Some tours have moved online, while participants in other tours are being asked to don masks and socially distance themselves for inperson strolls through their haunted hometowns.

Here are few tours that, as of mid-September, organizers were planning to present this year. If you want to join one, check the company’s website to make sure the tour still is on and that tickets still are available.

Adopt a pet

participants stroll around downtown Decatur and visit sites such as the DeKalb County Courthouse, High House and the city cemetery.

Tour guides retell the stories, both historical and paranormal, of some the city’s haunted spots. Masks are recommended, but not required, and tour groups will be limited to 25 to allow for social distancing. Tickets cost $15 for adults, $12 for children 10 and younger. For more: decaturghosttour.com

Lawrenceville Ghost Tours

The Aurora Theater presents 90-minute tours on weekend evenings through Halloween of reputedly haunted spots in downtown Lawrenceville. Tour groups will be limited to 15 people, guides will wear face shields, and participants are asked to wear masks and stay at least 6 feet apart. Advance reservations are required. Tickets cost $20 for adults, $15 for children.

For more: https://www.auroratheatre.com/productions-andprograms/view/lawrenceville-ga-ghost-tours

Ghosts of Marietta

she just might wobble a little bit! Because she’s a bit shy, Coventry is looking for a patient adopter. She is spayed, microchipped, up-to-date on vaccinations.

Don’t let this 5-month-old sweetheart’s grumpy face fool you- Coventry may be a bit shy at first, but she loves to play with all sorts of toys and is learning more about how to be a cat every day. Coventry originally came to the Atlanta Humane Society as a tiny newborn kitten who had been abandoned by her mother and needed to be nursed around the clock. This little girl is a fighter who pulled through against all odds, and now she’s looking for a home to call her own. As she was growing, we noticed that she had some slight tremors and an abnormal gait, and some tests revealed that little Coventry has cerebellar hypoplasia, which is a neurological condition.

Her case isn’t too severe, and she will still live a normal, healthy life…

Services directory

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Oakland Cemetery’s popular tour, a major fundraiser for the cemetery, is scheduled to return Oct. 15-Nov.1. Visitors who take the tours meet ghosts who inhabit the historic cemetery and retell the tales of their lives. Due to the pandemic, fewer tickets are being sold for each night this year than in the past to allow for greater spacing between people on the tours. Participants will be required to wear masks. The cemetery will offer hand-sanitizing stations, not use paper tickets for the tours, and require payment by credit or debit card. It also is making videos of the ghosts’ presentations, in case the tour must move online. Tickets cost $40, $28 for children aged 4 to 12. On VIP night, Oct. 16, admission includes a three-course meal and tickets cost $150.

For more: oaklandcemetery.com/event/capturing-the-spirithalloween-tours-2020

Decatur Ghost Tour

This guided walking tour covers a little more than a mile as

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While the Atlanta Humane Society is closed to the public, you can apply to adopt a pet by visiting atlantahumane.org/adoptionapplication.

To advertise, call 404-917-2200 ext 110

Capturing the Spirit of Oakland Halloween Tour

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Georgia, an affectionate, 6.5-year-old Boxer mix is hoping her perfect match is out there somewhere. She’s potty-trained, crate-trained, knows basic manners, loves going on long walks and doesn’t pull much on the leash, and she’s looking for a low-key home where she can relax, get as many cuddles as hear heart desires, and go on a nice long walk every day. Since she has done so well with her foster brothers, we believe Georgia would likely be successful with another dog. Georgia is spayed, microchipped, up-to-date on vaccinations.

OCTOBER 2020 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com

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Guides lead a 90-minute, lantern-lighted tour through downtown Marietta. Ghosts of Marietta says its guides base their presentations on documented sightings, first-hand experiences and local history.

During the tours, they scare up a ghost or two at some of the Cobb County city’s best-known spots. Tours are held year-round on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, starting at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $17 for adults, $12 for children 12 and younger.

For more: ghostsofmarietta.com

T

Tour of Southern Ghosts

For its 35th anniversary, the ghost tour put together by ART Station in Stone Mountain is going online because of the pandemic.

The tour will include ghost stories from across the South. To link to this year’s tour, presented Oct. 15-31, go to artstation.org, Tickets cost $17.

For more: www.artstation.org/current-events

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Roswell Ghost Tour

Owner David Wood said his company shut down its tours for several months this year because of COVID-19, but now is back in operation. They re-started in June, he said, because of popular demand – customers kept calling and saying they wanted to take part in outside activities again. “It an outdoors exercise thing,” he said. “People are just dying to get out of their homes.” Guides lead groups of up to 40 or so tourists on a 1.5-mile walking tour and share local ghost stories as they pass landmarks such as Bulloch Hall or the founder’s cemetery. Masks are recommended, but not required.

Tickets cost $20 for adults, $10 for children 12 and younger.

For more: roswellghosttour.com

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