Prime January 2011

A MAGAZINE

INSIDE:

FOCUSED ON SENIOR LIFESTYLES

Every morning, students at Kenwood Elementary School look forward to their visits from Grandma Betty. Foster grandparent Betty French says her role isn't hard, "You just have to really enjoy being around kids.� Page 2

PUBLISHED BY THE KEARNEY HUB

Page 2 • Kearney Hub • Wednesday, January 19, 2011

PRIME

Grandma Betty is doing something

wonderful Volunteer at Kenwood Elementary helps students learn reading, math skills

By BETSY FRIEDRICH Hub Staff Writer KEARNEY — Every morning, students at Kenwood Elementary School look forward to their visits from Grandma Betty.

Betty French, 66, of Kearney works with children one on one or in small groups as part of the statewide foster grandparents program.

“We do a lot of playing games, but it has to do with addition or subtraction and learning. Sometimes, the teacher will hand out three or four of the same book and we’ll go somewhere and they’ll read to me.

If they have any words they stumble on or anything, I help them with it,” French said.

French said she mostly works with Kenwood students in kindergarten and first and second grades.

“It’s a great service. … If they’re just home all day and maybe want to get out for four hours a day, it’s not hard, what I do. You just have to really enjoy being around kids,” she added.

French started as a foster grandmother

Betsy Friedrich, Kearney Hub

BETTY FRENCH, 66, of Kearney works with students in Barb Thompson’s first-grade class on math skills at Kenwood Elementary. She volunteers as a foster grandmother four hours each morning at the school. Students are, left to right, James Dakan, Brooks Paul, Chrissy Gibbs and Layna Beckenhauer.

six years ago when she lived in Fremont and a friend recruited her to the program.

“She was kind of getting ready to get out of it and she was telling me I should give it some thought, so she gets the credit for recruiting me into the program. I was there four years in it,” she said.

French moved to Kearney two years ago

and became the first and only foster grandparent working in Kearney Public Schools.

She visits Kenwood for four hours Monday through Friday to work with children.

“Teachers are so busy in their classrooms, and they have big classrooms with a lot of CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

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Page 3 • Kearney Hub • Wednesday, January 19, 2011

PRIME Foster grandparents offer one-on-one tutoring, can be just the link kids need to succeed “Yesterday, I was working with a student and … we were reading a thing about black kids,” French said. “There’s always in every history and what Rosa Parks did, how one class a few kids who need a little extra one- person can make a difference. I didn’t know on-one time. That’s what we’re about. They it, but when he went back up to his classroom, the teacher asked him some queshave paras (para-educators) in school, too, tions and, boy, he remembered everything but there’s only so much they can handle. he read. They told me I was doing a real Some of them need a little more one on good job with him,” French said. one, a little more repetition of things.”

She said she particularly remembers one The students call French “Grandma Betty” and look forward to her visits, said girl she worked with in Fremont who lived with her father but had no adult women in Kenwood Principal Jill Clevenger.

“Anytime the students can do something her life.

“Every time she walked by me, she had to different or leave the classroom to go with anybody else, they’re excited because they touch me. I think in her life she was really needing a female figure, a mama figure or a feel very special. They love having her grandma figure. She seemed to really need around,” Clevenger said. that connection, that touch,” French said.

“She sees some of the students in the “Even when she would come in from classroom, but then she also helps out in recess and was waiting in line, she would the lunchroom, too. She gets to know more students, too, and they become more always reach out her hand, and I would touch her hand, and even that seemed to acclimated with her,” she added. make a difference. That role can fill a child’s French has four children and 10 grandlife if that person is missing in their life.” children, but most of her family lives too Clevenger said French has definitely far away to visit often. Being a foster made a difference and helped students grandparent, she said, lets her spend time improve their skills. with children regularly.

“I’m very glad to have her. Hopefully it “I like being a grandma. I love working with kids and just the idea that I could make will take off and we can have more foster grandparent volunteers,” she said. a difference in a child’s life,” she said.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

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“In my own opinion we have some students that because parents work at night or just their family situation, they don’t have as much educational support at home as we would like them to have. So to guarantee they’ll get some of the extra reading support, a lot of the teachers will schedule Grandma Betty to work with their students so they can get that support,” Clevenger said.

“She doesn’t only work with kids who need that extra support, though. She works with all kids. Whatever the teacher wants them to work on with Grandma Betty, that’s what they’ll do with her. It’s like having an additional para.”

French said she recommends the foster grandparent program and would definitely recruit friends, just as she was recruited.

“I just think it’s a wonderful program, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to be able to work with children, to help them become more knowledgeable. Education is everything, and it’s going to predict their life,” she said. “If people like children and like to get out for a little bit, I just think it’s a wonderful opportunity, and they’re going to come home feeling really good about themselves, even if you just help one person that day.” e-mail to: betsy.friedrich@kearneyhub.com

BECOME A FOSTER GRANDPARENT The Hub Territory contact for the Foster Grandparent Program is: Senior Action Inc. 212 W. Third St., Suite C, Hastings, NE 68901 Phone: 402-463-1440 Fax: 402-463-2911 Program Director: Julie Nash E-mail: julie@hastingsrsvp.org Board Director: Allen Sjuts E-mail: allensjuts@hotmail.com Serves: Adams, Buffalo, Clay, Custer, Dawson, Hall, Hamilton, Howard, Kearney, Merrick, Nance, Nuckolls, Platte, Sherman, and Webster counties The Foster Grandparent Program is part of Senior Corps, a network of national service programs that provide older Americans the opportunity to put their life experiences to work for communities. Foster grandparents serve as one-on-one tutors and mentors to more than 2,900 young Nebraskans with special needs through a variety of community organizations, including schools, hospitals, drug treatment facilities, correctional institutions and Head Start and day-care centers. To learn more about Foster Grandparents and other Senior Corps programs, visit www.seniorcorps.gov.

Courtesy www.serve.nebraska.gov.

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Page 4 • Kearney Hub • Wednesday, January 19, 2011

PRIME

Kodachrome taking last gasp But avalanche of film forces delay in end of processing at Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas

retirement account to pay it.

Dwayne’s, which once was one of about 25 Kodachrome processors worldwide, is enjoying the attention.

Kodachrome enjoyed its mass-market PARSONS, Kan. (AP) — A southeast heyday in the 1960s and ’70s before being Kansas business that is the last place in the eclipsed by video and easy-to-process world to process Kodachrome has been color negative films, the kind that prints inundated with the elaborately crafted are made from. It garnered its share of color-reversal film as it prepares to stop spectacular images, none more iconic than handling it.

Abraham Zapruder’s reel of President Grant Steinle primarily runs Dwayne’s Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

Photo, the business in the small town of Kodak gave longtime National GeoParsons that his father founded in 1956. He graphic photographer Steve McCurry the said the company received “a tsunami of last roll after announcing in 2009 that it Grant Steinle film” after announcing it would stop prowas discontinuing the slide and motionpicture film.

Associated Press cessing Kodachrome at the end of 2010. day from FedEx and three or four bags of The Kansas City Star reported that the But the distinction of shooting the last VAL ADDIS, customer service employee at stop date for processing the film has been mail from the post office,” Steinle said. roll to be processed will go to Dwayne Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kan., accepts “One day last week, we got 500 packages Steinle, the founder of Dwayne’s Photo. postponed. several rolls of Kodachrome slide film Dec. from FedEx, 250 from UPS and probably Business has been so hectic that for a The pictures are of him and his 60 30. Dwayne’s Photo, the last processor in 18 bags of mail.” time, processing went on 24 hours a day, employees, wearing yellow T-shirts and the world of Kodachrome slide film, was One Arkansas railroad worker who pho- standing outside his business. The backs of seven days a week. Dec. 30 was the deadline scheduled to process its last roll of tographed trains recently picked up 1,580 for submitting film, which has arrived from their shirts tout Kodachrome’s history.

Kodachrome film Jan. 6 but has moved the rolls from Dwayne’s. The $15,798 bill was Toward the end, the shirts say, “we develdeadline back because of a sudden influx of as far away as China, Japan and Australia. so steep that he had to tap his father’s “Normally we get 20 to 30 packages a oped the last roll.” film to be developed.

“Normally we get 20 to 30 packages a day from FedEx and three or four bags of mail from the post office.

One day last week, we got 500 packages from FedEx, 250 from UPS and probably 18 bags of mail.”

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Page 5 • Kearney Hub • Wednesday, January 19, 2011

PRIME

Fit at 50 can mean fit at 60, 70, 80 with changes (AP) — At 45, DeEtte Sauer was a dead woman walking.

She was morbidly obese, her heart disease so serious a doctor warned her to expect “an event at any time.” Eaten up by her marketing career, struggling to raise three kids, she smoked, drank and never, ever exercised.

Sauer remembers a vacation when — at 5-foot-5 and 230 pounds — she couldn’t make it onto a small boat for a day out with her family. “That’s when it hit me. I was an elected cripple. I had done it to myself.”

She got busy, slowly shedding the weight through sensible eating and exercise. She began to walk around her Houston neighborhood, then she discovered the pool. Now 69, the woman who once had a supermom complex is a competitive, medal-winning senior swimmer.

“It literally saved my life,” Sauer said, adding that her best event is the butterfly — a stroke she learned at age 62.

To trainers with lots of clients well beyond 50, Sauer is the holy grail, somebody who works hard and efficiently, taking care to avoid injury while maintaining

“Going from running to walking, going from the treadmill to the elliptical as we age. It can be really frustrating, mentally debilitating. Even for me. I’m 45 and say, oh, God, I can just see it coming. There’s going to be some wear and tear. That doesn’t mean I have to give up, but I have to make some changes.”

flexibility and it’s really important to our tendons and ligaments to stay pliable and keep all the fluids in our joints going.”

She suggests increasing floor work to take pressure off the knees. Can’t touch your toes anymore? Use an elastic band for the same stretch, or to replace weight training that might grow dangerous.

Arthritis can make gripping difficult at a Chris Freytag, a yoga and Pilates instructor and contributing fitness editor for Prevention magazine time when tissue is losing elasticity, which might mean giving up heavy free weights motivation, strength and endurance can be trouble spots and big blows to a in each hand or on an overhead press. through careful workouts. Getting fit later positive attitude for seniors, said Freytag in life is one thing, they said, but staying and fitness expert Denise Austin, who was “The technique isn’t there anymore, it falls that way at 60, 70 and 80 is another.

Jack LaLanne’s sidekick on television and down and they hurt a shoulder. I’ve seen it a million times before,” Austin said.

“Going from running to walking, going went on to do her own workout shows, Taking the time to stretch, to reopen from the treadmill to the elliptical as we DVDs and books. At 53, she has a new joints and muscles after a workout, is age. It can be really frustrating, mentally book out in January, “Get Energy!” increasingly important as we age — pardebilitating,” said Chris Freytag, a yoga ticularly crucial at 60, 70 or older, Freytag and Pilates instructor and contributing fit- Flexibility said. “The lower back and hip flexors get ness editor for Prevention magazine. really tight. The two are correlated. What I Pilates and yoga are great ways to stay “Even for me. I’m 45 and say, oh, God, strong and flexible beyond 50 because both tell people is you are no longer able to I can just see it coming. There’s going to skip stretching after a workout.” be some wear and tear. That doesn’t mean can be easily modified, the experts said.

Freytag recommends at least five to 10 “I’m into the core as you age,” Austin I have to give up, but I have to make some said. “Your spine is your lifeline. Keep it changes.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 11 Back, hips, knees, balance, cardio — all healthy, keep it strong. As we age we lose

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Page 6 • Kearney Hub • Wednesday, January 19, 2011

PRIME

Battle of Little Bighorn resonates after 134 years

By JANET K. KEELER

painting the swaggering Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry as heroes. Nearly all — about 270 men — were wiped out in the HARDIN, Mont. — On Dec. 17, a battle. Estimates of Lakota, Cheyenne frayed American flag, found under a dead soldier on the Little Bighorn bat- and Arapaho casualties vary widely, from just 36 to 300. There is no argutlefield, brought $1.9 million at an ment that the Indians were victors in auction at Sotheby’s in New York. the battle, but the clash between two The swallowtail Culbertson guidon, named after the soldier who found it, cultures would not end well for them.

They ultimately lost the buffalo grazhad been owned by the Detroit Instiing grounds that sustained their tute of Arts for more than 100 years.

That sale is just the most recent evi- nomadic life.

Today, the plains of southeastern dence of our fascination with the BatMontana remain strongly associated tle of the Little Bighorn, a pivotal with history. Hardin, a farming town moment in U.S. history. Dozens of of 4,000 people, celebrates its Old books have been written about every Scripps Howard News Service imaginable aspect and key player of West heritage with a weekend Bighorn Days festival every June. A parade the June 1876 battle.

BILL JOSEPH of the Crow Nation, left, portrays Sitting The story of the battle, also known goes down Central Avenue, past Fort Bull during the annual Custer's Last Stand Re-enactCuster General Store and other small as Custer’s Last Stand, has been ment near Hardin, Mont. Joseph prays for his people businesses. Afterward, many head to retold in movies and song, mostly before battling members of the 7th Cavalry Regiment.

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the re-enactment site, where Custer’s final moments are played out four times over three days. Then they return to town for a crafts fair, Indian tacos and live music. The thought is warming in the midst of winter.

For a more solemn remembrance of Custer’s Last Stand, we drive a few miles farther east to the actual battlefield along the Little Bighorn River.

The National Park Service operates the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

Looking out on the vast plains, that famous Montana big sky forming a dome over us, we can’t help but be moved. We’re on the Crow Indian Reservation, and the weight of what the Indians lost is immense. The grandeur and vibrancy of the land was their freeCONTINUED ON PAGE 7

Page 7 • Kearney Hub • Wednesday, January 19, 2011

PRIME Re-enactors do more than just tell story of Custer’s last stand; they show it as well re-enactment proves to be surprisingly moving. Joe Medicine Crow, the elderly Crow Indian historian and anthrodom, and the clash with Custer was the pologist who wrote the script, is helped beginning of the final, crushing blow.

Though the government and the Indi- onto the grassy “stage� to speak. He is 97 now and last year was awarded the ans lived and traveled the region in a tenuous balance created by joint treaty, Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He speaks in his native language, the discovery of gold in the Black Hills stopping at times to catch his breath; in what is now South Dakota changed his words and the translation come the deal. President Ulysses S. Grant’s budget was in dire shape and he want- over the loudspeakers. There is gravity to his voice, which rises and falls lyried the gold. Custer, who had been so cally, as he welcomes us to the tableau. successful as a Civil War commander, And then the program begins. It’s a and his men marched west.

Wild West show, though not the Annie We walk up to Last Stand Hill, Oakley variety. It starts with the expewhere Custer and his brother, Tom, dition of Lewis and Clark, touches on along with many other soldiers, were killed. Memorials mark the spots where Sacagawea, and then portrays how both they died, and all of the bodies remain the pioneers and Indians lived on the plains. There is a ridge at the far side except Custer’s, which is buried at of the field, and we know that a line of West Point Cemetery in New York.

Not far from the hill is the new Indi- men on horseback will eventually an Memorial, an open, circular walking appear there — at least, they do in the movies. path carved into the earth. A “spirit Indians ride bareback and cavalry gate� faces the cavalry obelisk on Last post up and down in full regalia. SitStand Hill, symbolically welcoming ting Bull and Crazy Horse make their the dead. The names of Indians who appearances — and, of course, Custer, died in the battle are carved on the with his curly flaxen hair peeking out walls.

Even from its cheesy beginnings, the from a worn hat. The battle begins, and CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

men fall all over the now-trampled field, affecting injury and death.

We know they are just re-enactors, but like any good actors, they’ve suckered us in. The weight of history is heavier than even the corn dogs and funnel cakes in our stomachs.

If you go to Custer Country: ■Custer’s Last Stand Re-enactment is scheduled for June 24-26 near Hardin, Mont. The town simultaneously holds its Little Bighorn Days festivities. For information, go to custerslaststand.org, or contact the Hardin Area Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture at 406-665-1672 or hardinchamber@bhwi.net. ■The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument is about 20 miles southeast of Hardin, on the Crow Indian Reservation. A visitors center has a gift shop. The monument, which includes walking paths through the battlefield, is open year-round. Entrance fee is $10 per vehicle or $5 for visitors on foot, bicycle or motorcycle. For Scripps Howard News Service more information, go to the National Park Service website at nps.org.

INDIAN AND U.S. ARMY 7th Cavalry Regiment reDistributed by Scripps Howard News Service.

enactors begin their charge into the battle of Custer’s Last Stand near Hardin, Mont.

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PRIME

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Use an imaginative trick or two to help remember names

By KATHERINE SNOW SMITH St. Petersburg Times Shakespeare’s Juliet declared to Romeo that names really aren’t that important with her famous words: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

But Juliet never owned a service station.

She never ran for office or practiced law. She never taught school. And she had the luxury of hiding behind a feathered mask when she walked into a room full of faces, unlike the rest of us who see the same situation as a minefield of names we might not remember.

“You’ve got to be scanning the horizon when you arrive at a party so you don’t get caught off guard,” said lawyer Harvey Ford when asked about his tactics for remembering names.

“I know it’s important to people that you remember them, and that’s why I try to honor them with that memory,” said Gov. Charlie Crist, who effortlessly greets hundreds of people by their first names. “I’m far from perfect. One thing I try to do is say their name back to them when I meet them.”

Personal development instructor Alan Mong offered the same tip to a Chamber of Commerce group recently during a short program with tips for remembering names. To become really proficient he invited members to attend a seven-hour memory training workshop for $649 hosted by his employer, Freedom Personal Development of Madison, Wis. Mong has led similar programs for SunTrust and Bank of America, among other companies.

“The biggest misconception about memory is that it’s age-related,” he said.

Mong called on the audience to create one list of 15 random things such as pizza, pumpkin, Afghanistan and sunshine. He then dazzled the crowd by reciting the list forward and backward by memory. Chamber members called out numbers from one to 15 out of order, and he named which item on the list corresponded.

Jaws dropped. Mouths gaped. It was as if he had sawed a woman in half.

“My memory is no better than anyone’s in this room,” Mong said. “It’s just better trained. Having a trained memory can make you more money and reduce stress.”

Author and speaker Peggy Post, the great-granddaughter-in-law of Emily Post, once the American barometer of etiquette,

grants us all blanket forgiveness for forgetting names.

“Everybody draws a blank, even with somebody they know very well. Don’t be ashamed to admit it because it’s better than ignoring the person,” she said. “You can say: ‘I’m sorry. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten your name’ or ‘I remember meeting you last summer but I can’t remember your name.’ If you can tell the person other details you do remember about them, it helps the situation.”

Louis Murphy, pastor at Mount Zion Progressive Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg, Fla., estimated he knows half the names in a congregation of 4,500.

“I wish I could tell you I know every last name, but I don’t,” he said. “I hate when I can’t remember a name, and my memory is terrible. I have to be very, very intentional about” remembering names.

When he meets someone he repeats their name several times in conversation.

“Even out of their presence I might say (to myself) ‘Okay, I just met Ian.’ As many times as you can repeat their name after you first meet, the greater chance you have of remembering that name,” Murphy added.

A few years ago he listened to the Mega Memory tapes by marketing guru Kevin Trudeau. They offered different things to trigger memory. If you meet a Curtis, think of some way he can be tied to the word “curfew” or “current.” For Doug, think of “dug a hole,” but for Douglas, think of “dug a glass.”

Ford, who actually professes to be bad with names, offered one of his tactics for remembering names.

“I see a person and I picture them as a character in a movie or TV show, and that sort of locks them in my memory because I can associate them with who they remind me of,” Ford said. “Maybe they have a sense of humor like Jon Stewart and it helps me remember them. Not that their name is Jon, but it still helps me remember them.”

Someone who is inquisitive and speaks very fast is a Chris Matthews. Someone who talks slowly, uses few words and is way cool is a Clint Eastwood.

“The Seinfeld show is a great source of analogies,” Ford added. “Say I go to dinner with someone and they are very persnickety about the way they order from a menu, I think of them as a Seinfeld character.”

Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.

Page 9 • Kearney Hub • Wednesday, January 19, 2011

PRIME

New books explore Jackie’s other life as editor NEW YORK (AP) — When most of us think of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, we think back to the perfectly coifed first lady of the early ’60s in a stylish shift, a string of pearls, a pill box hat. Or the Jackie O of the next decade, the rich widow in huge sunglasses that shielded her from the world.

We probably don’t think of a middleaged working woman making her own photocopies, waiting on line to speak to the boss, or sitting cross-legged on the floor, arranging photos and puffing on cigarettes.

Yet this was Jackie’s third act — the Jackie who joined the work force in her mid-40s and spent nearly two decades as a book editor. By all accounts, it was one of the most satisfying periods of her life.

“She didn’t do this just to have a job,” said Bruce Tracy, a former colleague at the Doubleday publishing house. “She loved this. This is what she was passionate about.”

“Her editorial career was longer than her two marriages combined.

It says more about who she was as a person, because this is something she actually chose to do.”

William Kuhn, historian and author Suddenly, in a span of just a month, two new books are examining this little-known part of Jackie’s life, giving readers a new slant on a woman who has fascinated Americans like no other in our history.

“People think about Jackie’s clothes, about her marriages, maybe her redecorating the White House,” said historian William Kuhn, author of “Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books,” released this month. “But her editorial career was

longer than her two marriages combined.

It says more about who she was as a person, because this is something she actually chose to do.”

Of course, she didn’t need the work.

Kuhn noted how women of Jackie’s generation were taught to be great wives and great mothers, making it all the more striking that she would choose to learn a new career so relatively late in life. “It speaks to a kind of quiet feminism that she and other women of her generation had,” he said.

Jackie was 46 when she was hired by Thomas Guinzburg at Viking Press, not long after the 1975 death of Aristotle Onassis. Clearly Viking wanted her for her name. And her early efforts — she spent only two years there, before moving to Doubleday — were a learning process. But CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

Enjoy a new beginning with carefree l iving at

Associated Press file

JACQUELINE KENNEDY poses Oct. 5, 1960, at the typewriter where she composed her weekly “Campaign Wife” column in her Georgetown home in Washington. The newspaper column included discussion of policies and issues with personal stories and Jackie Kennedy’s advice on everyday matters such as child-rearing and shopping.

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Page 10 • Kearney Hub • Wednesday, January 19, 2011

PRIME Those who worked with Jackie say she was passionate and never acted like a celebrity Lawrence recalled how at an introductory lunch with the couple, Jackie burst into tears at their story, saying, “I want to do her productivity skyrocketed as the years this book!” went on. “Yes, some of this was handed to “Jackie fought for us,” said Lawrence.

Jackie,” said Kuhn, whose book is being published by Doubleday itself. “But the fact “That’s what I really admired about her. is, she amassed a list of books that publish- She had to fight for her books. And when we ran out of money, she would call us ing professionals are in awe of today.” and say, ‘I got you more, just don’t tell That list includes books on everything from art to European and American history anyone.’” Later, she persuaded the couple that the book should be 300 pages rather to photography to fashion to religion. It includes children’s books by Carly Simon, than the 600 they were writing. “That voice, it would just completely disarm and Michael Jackson’s autobiography, you,” he says.

“Moonwalk.” She worked on a trilogy by There were perks to being Jackie O — the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, several books by Bill Moyers, and a series of she worked only part time in her office and spent a lot of time working at her Park Tiffany style books.

And then there was her well-document- Avenue apartment, where she would sit in ed love of dance, particularly ballet, which her library with authors surrounded by her books, smoking out of a long, ivory cigaled to the best-seller “Dancing on My rette holder, Kuhn said — not to mention Grave,” by ballerina Gelsey Kirkland and taking the summer on Martha’s Vineyard. her husband, author Greg Lawrence.

But it was striking to many how quickly Working with her on the book, an account of Kirkland’s descent into drug addiction, she shed the trappings of celebrity, munching on sandwiches at her desk, waiting was “a humbling experience,” said nervously in corridors for face time with Lawrence, who next month comes out the boss, always coming to the reception with “Jackie as Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis” (Thomas area to meet her visitors and making her own calls.

Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press.)

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“She never said, ‘Get me so-and-so on the phone,’” said Tracy, the former Doubleday colleague, now a freelance editor, who assisted her on a number of books.

Mike D’Orso found that out the hard way.

Then a newspaper reporter for The Virginian-Pilot, his phone rang one day and the caller said: “Hello, it’s Jacqueline Onassis.”

“Yeah, right,” he laughed, and hung up.

“Luckily, Jackie called back,” D’Orso said in a telephone interview from his home in Norfolk, Va. “And that’s how my career as an author got started. I owe it all to her.” She edited two of his books, including his 1988 “Somerset Homecoming,” the story of a black woman who helped save the plantation where her ancestors had been slaves.

D’Orso said Jackie didn’t even mind when his 7-year-old daughter answered the phone one day, then passed it to him, shouting, “Daddy, it’s the dead president’s wife!”

“She just laughed it off,” said D’Orso.

He was going through a divorce at the time, and he said the two often had conversations about it. Despite their long collaboration, though, the working relationship stayed on the phone: They never met in person.

Though a friendly editor, Jackie could be a demanding one, said Kuhn, who relates exchanges she had with Stewart Udall, a former secretary of the interior under JFK. Udall was writing a book on Spanish exploration in the southwest. In a series of letters, Jackie tussled with him tooth and nail on certain points of Spanish history, not backing down.

Jackie surely would have loved to continue editing books for decades more, but it was not to be. In January 1994, after months of feeling unwell, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. She continued to work even as she underwent chemotherapy and began losing ground to the disease.

“One day, she came in wearing a wig,” said Tracy. “And I thought, wow, that’s not her usual style. She told us in February that she had this illness, and it was just like she was saying, ‘Remind me to send so-and-so a letter.’ Self-pity was just not in her playbook.”

She died May 19. The next day, her son, John Kennedy Jr., told the assembled media that his mother had died “surrounded by her friends and her family and her books and the people and the things she loved.”

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PRIME There’s no reason to stop working out when older, but some changes may be necessary CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

minutes of stretching after a workout, when the muscles are warm. “Back when we were younger we could skip it.”

Balance Warming up BEFORE a workout is key to balance. For running seniors, Austin suggests five minutes of walking before getting into a gradual run, or intervals of walking and running.

“It’s very important as you age to change it up more, to surprise your muscles and work them differently,” she said.

Runners may need to balance workouts with more strength training and stretching to avoid hip and knee problems, and adding muscle work for the abs is so important for balance and flexibility. Add five minutes of strength training and five minutes of stretching, Austin suggests.

“Really concentrate on the center of your body. Your core. It is truly the powerhouse of your body. It affects how you walk, your flexors, it protects your back.

That’s why Pilates is great.”

Balance issues don’t have to put an end

all her life, she still hits her local gym (“I like to bench press”), but dancing is something she can enjoy with others.

“When I was 60 or something, I got into square dancing,” the great-grandmother said.

“I like the music and the movement of it.”

Take a page from Sauer’s story and hit Cardio the pool. “Swimming is easy on the joints.

With heart disease stalking both men You’ll keep your love of sports.” Robinson and women, aging doesn’t have to mean also loves to swim. the end to a decent cardio workout.

Sauer didn’t start training hard until 11 Riding a bicycle is easier on the hips years ago. She knew how to splash around, than running, for instance. Trim back on keep from drowning, but “I never had a Chris Freytag running to a couple of days a week and swim lesson in my life, nothing.” supplement on the bike.

She showed up for her first session at a to staying fit. Work out in a chair or use “You can get on a bike and spin like health club with a 23-year-old instructor one to lean on if you’re feeling unsteady. heck,” Freytag said. “You can still push “and I couldn’t make it across the pool. I “There’s a ton you can do in a chair,” yourself as hard as you would have but wanted to quit. I felt stupid,” but he Freytag said. “In a gym, there’s a huge with less pain.” wouldn’t let her give up. trend toward functional training, meaning For runners who can’t bring themselves “I’m stronger than I ever was at 45. I’m doing things that kind of mimic the functo give it up, run slower, walk and run, or faster,” said Sauer, who competes in the tionality of your daily activities.” cross-train. She suggests cardio work four National Senior Games and U.S. Masters Standing on a dome-shaped Bosu ball, for days a week but only at high energy twice Swimming events. example. “You’re creating your own passive in that period.

Sauer said her 78-year-old husband is range of motion, whereas a machine in a Dancing is also a good way to get the heart also extremely fit. At a water park with gym is a fixed range of motion,” she said. rate up, Austin said. “It changes movements their grandson they spotted no seniors at Freytag called balance a “use it or lose and it changes your muscle twitchings.” the top of a water slide five flights up. it” proposition. “There are so many classes At 93, Esther Robinson wouldn’t give “They’re missing out,” she said. “I’ve at gyms for folks over 60,” she said. “The up her life of fitness for anything. Active never had so much fun in my life.”

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Page 12 • Kearney Hub • Wednesday, January 19, 2011