Montana Senior News June/July 2010

June/July 2010 Dancer photo

by Rhonda Lee

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Sharing Stories and Secrets: Sons and Daughters of Montana Pioneers

By Bernice Karnop Marjorie Gray, Highwood, and Mary Lou Garrett, Helena, both have ancestors who settled in Montana in the exciting gold rush days of the 1860s. They have something else in common.

Pioneer women in their families kept secrets they feared would tarnish their reputation.

Marge and Mary Lou belong to the Sons and

Daughters of the Montana Pioneers, a group to which only direct descendents of men or women who settled in Montana before December 31, 1868 may belong.

Marge’s grandmother and grandfather were members of the Society of Montana Pioneers, and Mary Lou’s grandmother and aunts were members.

The Society of Montana Pioneers organized in 1884 and the Sons and Daughters of Montana Pioneers organized eight years later in 1892.

Marge’s father, an avid history buff, told her it was a group she needed to be part of and bought her a life membership in 1962. She became active about ten years ago after family and ranching responsibilities slowed down and is now secMary Lou Garrett (l.) and Shirley Herrin from the Sons and Daughters of Montana Pioneers dressed up in period clothing for the Helena History Fair in May 2009.

[Photo by Bernice Karnop]

ond vice president.

Mary Lou did not know about her grandmother’s membership until a little more than a decade ago. She joined Sons and Daughters of Montana Pioneers in 1987 and is now secretary/treasurer.

About 500 individuals belong to the organization. A Chinese family from California seldom misses the annual convention. People from all over the United States belong, including young people right down to the babies. We have lot of baby members,” says Mary Lou. “People who are really involved just feel it is an honor to sign up family.”

Last August more than 100 people gathered in Fort Benton to hear speakers tell about the “Birthplace of Montana.” They visited the old fort and cemetery and walked along the levy. Mary Lou was amazed to learn how many luxury items were brought up the Missouri on steamboats “from the states” and sold in Fort Benton.

Marge Gray invited the group to a barbeque at the ranch her grandfather started 140 years ago - the Harris Land and Cattle Company - on Highwood creek. The ranch was honored by the Montana Stockgrower’s Association as a Centennial Ranch - one of the few in the state owned by the original family (Continued on page 42)

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Montana Senior News A Barrett-Whitman Publication

P.O. Box 3363 • Great Falls, MT 59403-3363 406-761-0305 or 800-672-8477 FAX 406-761-8358 www.montanaseniornews.com email: montsrnews@bresnan.net The Montana Senior News is published six times each year in February, April, June, August, October and December at 415 3rd Avenue North, Great Falls, MT 59401 and is distributed free to readers throughout the state of Montana.

The mail subscription rate is $8.00 per year (6 issues). The Montana Senior News is written to serve the reading interests of mature Montanans of all ages. Readers are encouraged to contribute interesting material. Views expressed in opinion stories, contributions, articles and letters are not necessarily the views of the publisher. The appearance of advertisements for products or services does not constitute an endorsement of the particular product or service. The publisher will not be responsible for mistakes in advertisements unless notified within five days of publication.

All copy appearing in the Montana Senior News is protected by copyright and may be reprinted only with the written permission of the publisher. Advertising copy should be received or space reserved by the 5th of the month preceding the month of publication.

Jack W. Love, Jr., Publisher/Editor Colleen Paduano Kathleen McGregor Angie Erskine Rhonda Lee Peter Thornburg Sherrie Smith

Production Supervisor Advertising Sales Advertising Sales Advertising Sales Graphic Artist Distribution Admin/Production Assistant

Contributing Writers Bob Campbell Connie Daugherty George Engler Clare Hafferman Sue Hart Kim Thielman-Ibes Gail Jokerst Bernice Karnop Craig Larcom Liz Larcom Michael McGough Dianna Troyer © 2010

Passing on the Good News I have enclosed $8.00 to cover the cost of a subscription for my cousin.

Your paper is a treat, and I have my desk littered with articles I want to save or pass on to friends. I ordered the Butte Cookbook, reviewed

by Clare Hafferman and it is wonderful! I’m so glad that I had a chance to read about it. I plan to surprise my husband with the Irish Pasties! He is a native of California and needs to be introduced to the “letters from home.”

A lot of the information you print is important for seniors all over the United States. Many thanks for such an interesting publication.

Shelley O’Connell Smith Granada Hills, California

Butte Has Museum Resources I am writing in response to the new State museum project that was featured in the Montana Standard (Tuesday, April 21, 2010). I certainly support developing the art and history exhibition venues in Butte, but they are already here.

Since 1977, the Butte Silver Bow Arts Foundation (BSBAF) has exhibited fine art, historic, and cultural artifacts in the Charles Clark Chateau.

The Charles Clark Chateau museum already displays hundreds of significant local and statewide artifacts, including a furniture collection on permanent loan from the University of Montana and a beautiful collection of work by renowned artist Elizabeth Lochrie. During my 13 years as the Executive Director, the BSBAF has provided

thousands of artistic and historic experiences for the citizens of Butte including annual art and music festivals, Experience Art Days, open mics, poetry readings, wine tastings, art classes and art camps for children. BSBAF has hosted hundreds of local, regional, national, and international artists and exhibitions.

Regarding the William A. Clark collection, over the past six years, the BSBAF has developed a relationship with the Corcoran Museum, where Clark’s 800-piece collection is exhibited. The BSBAF has hosted Corcoran staff and faculty in Butte and we have visited Washington D.C. to talk about building the Museum of Fine Arts Butte (MoFAB, the old uptown YMCA) in hopes of exhibiting parts of Clark’s collection in the future. In addition, Janis Goodman, Professor of the Corcoran School of Art and Design is currently a National Advisor to the BSBAF. Since those meetings, the BSBAF has invested many hours and dollars in the design and development of a new museum that could exhibit 30,000+ square feet of historic artifacts and fine art. Currently the BSBAF has the architectural plans and costs analysis for the first phase of this project.

Without the community support necessary, the BSBAF will be forced to sell the MoFAB. I do not understand why for the past 33 years the work by BSBAF has gone virtually unnoticed and underfunded. I know that the BSBAF Board of Directors is willing to work with the Governor Schweitzer, state agencies, local representatives, and investors to realize the vision of MoFAB. I believe that

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the BSBAF’s Chateau, MoFAB, World Museum of Mining, and Mai Wah deserve to be considered as museum sites for mining and heritage artifacts and art exhibits.

Let’s go with what we have - excellent museum resources! We have already broken new ground!

Visit www.bsbarts.org for more information.

Glenn Bodish

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 5

Executive Director Butte Silver Bow Arts Foundation 406-491-5636 MSN

Medical Marijuana In Montana On January 1, 1932, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was created as a unit of the Treasury Department and Harry J. Anslinger was appointed Commissioner. He mistakenly classified marijuana as a narcotic and spent a lifetime creating a national hysteria to criminalize marijuana and set this nation on the most costly and ineffective war in our history.

The American Medical Association strongly opposed the criminalization of marijuana because of

its centuries of proven medical use in America and throughout the world. Now that thirteen states have recognized medical marijuana and we are becoming a nation controlling and taxing marijuana, we should discontinue trying to discourage drug use by expensive and ineffective incarceration costing $45,000/year.

In 1972, Congress was so concerned about the hundreds of thousands of small amount marijuana cases that were clogging the courts that they

appointed a National Commission to study the problem and report its recommendations. The Commission members were shocked to find that not a single jail in the nation would let one of the commission’s members stay overnight because of the high risk of injury. The Commission asked why we were sending our young people to jails that cannot protect them from injury.

Although thirteen states have recognized and legalized medical marijuana, bankrupt federal

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policy still erroneously classifies marijuana (like heroin) as a Schedule 1 drug without medical use and challenges states that have made this decision.

Legalized medical marijuana not only eliminates the cost to law enforcement as well as the entire correctional system, but also now taxing medical marijuana provides much needed revenue to cash strapped states.

The Children, Families, Health and Human

Services Interim Committee of the Montana legislature is holding hearings to propose legislation and it is considering the creation of a state board of medical marijuana to become part of the commerce department. It can recommend individuals with knowledge in the field be committee members and it can enact regulations just as other boards control various areas of the law.

Finally, perhaps some common sense will prevail! MSN

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford; Ballantine Books, 2009.

In a recent presentation, Jamie Ford explained to the audience that he “set out to write a simple love story.� His first novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, is anything but simple, although admittedly it is a love story. It is a story about the love of a child for his parents. The love of parents for a child. The love of a boy for a girl, a man for a woman, and of friends for each other. It is about young love and mature love. And like all love it is complex, wonderful, happy, and sad.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet has some aspects of historic truth, well researched by Jamie Ford that make the story even more poignant. The writing is so skillful it is almost invisible and the characters are honest and memorable.

This novel is sure to be one of those favorite few that will remain on your shelves long after you’ve finished the final page. Jamie Ford’s first novel tells one man’s story of coping with prejudice as seen from both sides of the division during a time when

prejudice and insecurity were rampant throughout the world.

Although we meet Henry Lee in 1986, his story really begins in 1942. “Young Henry Lee stopped talking to his parents when he was twelve years old‌. They‌ told him to stop speaking their native Chinese‌ they were desperate for him to learn English,â€? even though they neither spoke nor understood much English. They pull him out of the neighborhood school and send him to an all white school several blocks away. For them it is a source of pride and accomplishment. For Henry it is pure hell. He is jeered at by his Chinese friends as he passes them on the way to school, and bullied or ignored by the white students once he arrives. Then one day in 1942 his father hands him a homemade button to wear on his shirt, “I am Chinese,â€? it says.

As if everyone he met did not already know that, Henry thinks, confused and irritated.

Then Keiko comes into his life. Keiko, like Henry, is attending the all white school on a scholarship program and therefore assigned to work with the irascible Mrs. Beatty in the cafeteria during lunch.

From the moment he “noticed her soft chestnutbrown eyes,� and “smelled something like jasmine, sweet and mysterious,� his life changed. Within a few minutes of meeting Keiko, Henry discovers that Keiko is Japanese - the enemy of his father’s country, the enemy of his country, but his personal ally in the foreign territory of school. Keiko quickly becomes his best friend, but not a friend whom he can bring home with him. In fact he doesn’t dare even mention Keiko’s name in the home where the

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hatred for anything Japanese is relentless.

In the post-Pearl Harbor days, distrust of the Japanese is also invading the larger community of Seattle - now Henry understands his father’s insistence that he wear the “I’m Chinese� button at all times. However, because of his friendship with Keiko, Henry is more intrigued than frightened by these people who look like him, but are so very different. Henry is Chinese enough never to dishonor intentionally his parents or his heritage, but he is American enough to want to think for himself. “I’ll do what I have to, Henry thought.�

He introduces Keiko to Sheldon, his only other friend, a Black sidewalk saxophone musician, and to his passion for jazz - something else not allowed in his Chinese home. When Sheldon gets his big break - a chance to play with Oscar Holden - Henry and Keiko sneak into Black Elks Club one Saturday night. “[H]ere‌the blackout curtains were drawn, making the mood feel secretive to Henry. Like a place hidden from the troubles of the world.â€? There is bathtub gin, exciting music, and both Black and Japanese couples dancing to “Oscar Holden’s rendition of I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good.â€?

The teenage friendship between Henry and Keiko grows into teenage love. Meanwhile all around them the paranoia about the danger posed by the Japanese is also growing. Even in Japan town, the paranoia has taken over. Henry discovers Keiko’s friends and neighbors burning personal belongings that reflect their ancestry - kimonos, family pictures, and letters in Japanese. None of that matters. The word comes down; all Japanese are going to be sent away to inland camps. Far away from the vulnerable coast, far away from their friends. They are allowed to take only what belongings they can carry.

Henry and Keiko spend as much time together as they can those last few days. “For the first time Henry realized where he was, standing on one side of an unseen line between himself and his father, and everything else he’d known. He couldn’t recall when he’d crossed it and couldn’t find an easy way back.� Then Keiko is sent away.

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 7

Fast forward forty-plus years. Henry is a recently widowed father of an independent adult son. Their relationship is much like his relationship with his own father—respectful, but not close.

Henry is lonely, but managing. Then something happens that makes him feel alive again. The old, abandoned Panama Hotel, the “gateway between Seattle’s Chinatown and‌ Japan town,â€? is being restored. In the basement, stored away and long forgotten, are belongings of several of those Japanese families exiled during the war.

There is one treasure that Henry and Keiko and Sheldon shared back in those days - a oneof-a-kind, irreplaceable treasure Henry has been searching for since that time. He wonders, almost dares to hope. Then one day, “Henry found himself‌wandering over to the Panama Hotel, a place between worlds when he was a child, a place between times now that he was a grown man. A place he had avoided for years, but now he couldn’t keep himself away.â€?

Henry cannot keep the memories away either. It is those memories that fill most of the pages of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

It is those memories that give readers a picture of one year during World War II. It is those memories that make this piece of history come alive. Jamie Ford’s debut novel is a must read.

Jamie Ford is an award-winning shortstory writer. He grew up near Seattle’s Chinatown and now lives in Great Falls with his wife and children where he is at work on his next novel. MSN

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Beauty From animals to gardens, we have beauty covered.

Beartooth Nature Center 615 2nd St. E Red Lodge, MT (406) 446-1133

Summer Adventures in Science for Grandparents and Grandchildren

By Chérie Newman “My granddaughter and I will be eating bugs together, with great relish,” Cyndy Aten says. An image of this trim and stylish woman popping a wriggly insect into her into her pert little mouth fills my head. Eeew!

But when I read the description for Incredible Edible Bugs, I find out that bug-eating is only a small bit of what Cyndy and six-year-old Nina will be doing during their two-day MOLLI Summer Science Day Camp. They will also get to hold a live Rhinoceros beetle, take a field trip to the Rattlesnake Recreation Area, learn which insects are edible and why people eat insects, and make their own bug collections.

For years, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UM (MOLLI) has offered programs that promote the lifelong learning and personal growth of older adults, people 50+ who are curious and love to learn. Starting last summer, MOLLI has offered interactive science day camps for grandparents and grandchildren. Cyndy Aten and another

granddaughter, Lia (9), were one of the first teams to sign up.

During astronomy camp last summer, Cyndy and Lia found out what a spectrometer is and spent time in a computer lab looking up information about galaxies. They identified constellations from the inside of an inflatable planetarium and took a late-night trip to Blue Mountain Observatory.

“We stayed up until one o’clock in the morning,” Cyndy tells me, grinning.

“Lia had good stamina.

She was enthralled, engaged, and delighted!”

The MOLLI Summer Science Day Camp program is designed for grandparents accompanied by 6- to 12-year-old Photo provided by Molli children. One grandparent and one grandchild make a team. On the morning of July 12, teams will gather on the University of Montana Missoula campus. After an opening ceremony in which UM Professor G. Wiz demonstrates the Magic of Chemistry using ingredients like nitrogen and Cheetos, participants will join their instructor and other grandparent-kid duos (Cont’d on page 10)

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Plan Ahead To Avoid RV Mishaps

By Bernice Beard Certain events give RVers true travel adventures. Here are some real-life RV mishaps and prevention suggestions.

One lost seasoned RVing couple driving their RV on an unfamiliar country road came upon a railroad overpass. Its arched opening was too small for the RV to pass through. As they paused in their lane, two passersby told them about a little-used nearby road that would take them safely around the overpass and back in the right direction.

To prevent this situation, it’s wise to assume when you are in an unfamiliar area that there may be nonnegotiable passes or tunnels. When lost, turn around at the first safe place and return the way you came. Maps and atlases generally do not show railroad overpasses. Use a Global Positioning System that includes truck routing in its database, or map out your route with a truck route guide such as the Rand McNally Motor Carriers’ Road Atlas, available at truck stops and online.

As an RV moved along a windy interstate highway, the large curbside awning began to unfurl and flap. As soon as the driver heard and saw in the side-view mirror what was happening, he pulled off the highway onto the shoulder, but heavy winds made it impossible to fully correct the problem. The RVer drove slowly to a nearby truck stop, where he parked beside a trailer that blocked the wind enough for him to totally unfurl and refurl the awning and tie it closed.

To keep an awning from unfurling, after putting it back up after use at a campground, make sure that the safety latch is engaged properly and fasten it with a cord or tape.

One motorhome driver with a blown tire used his cell phone to call his roadside emergency service. That company contacted a nearby tire dealer, who called the RVer to confirm the problem and say he was on his way. Fortunately, the RVer had purposely carried a spare tire. Using a power jack, the tire service person replaced the blown tire with the spare.

To prevent blowouts, avoid running over tire pieces, which may contain wire. Also, check the tread depth regularly. Even if the tread is in good condition, the tires should normally be replaced every seven years because of sidewall deteriora-

tion. If possible, keep a spare with you, especially if your sized tire may not be readily in stock. This helps you to get back on the road sooner.

On the first day of a cross-country trip, a veteran motorhome driver damaged his RV’s compartment doors on the metal corrugated guide rails at a tollgate. The next day in Wakarusa, Indiana, at an RV dealership, he learned of an outstanding repairperson in the area, where the motorhome was built. New compartment doors had to be manufactured so the RVer remained in the area, where he could get an excellent repair without shipping delays. After two weeks he resumed his trip with a fine-looking rig.

To prevent such damage, use the tollbooth on the extreme right, which usually has railing only on one side and is used by many truckers. Watch not only the tollbooth window structure but also the preceding entrance guides.

Other avoidable mishaps include: • Running out of fuel. Make sure your fuel gauge works accurately, and keep the fuel tank at least one-third full (or one-half full in areas where there are not many fuel stations).

• Driving away from a campsite with the electric cord hooked up. Take a walk around the RV or follow a checklist before leaving.

• Being unable to bring in the slideout in the morning because of icing. When in an area with possible freezing temperatures during the night, bring in the slideout the evening before.

The benefit of mishaps is that they usually teach something.

They also give RVers great stories to tell and the satisfaction of having conquered them. MSN

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Summer Adventures in Science (Continued from page 8)

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for a few hours of interactive classroom instruction.

The next day, each group will take a field trip, followed by a closing ceremony back at UM, again with Professor G. Wiz and nitrogen. But this time there is ice cream in the magic.

This year, kids 6-8 years can learn from experts about weather (including launching a weather balloon) or take the bug class. Kids 9-12 years can learn about bees, the human brain (and art), backyard biology, or dig for rocks and bones (anthropology).

Digging for fossils is what great-grandmother Sue Talbot did last summer. The kid part of her team was Grace, her son Peter’s ten-year-old granddaughter. Grace lives in Belgrade, so for her the experience was a summer adventure away from home as well as a science adventure.

After learning about fossil structures and the types of rocks in which they are found, Sue and Grace rode in one of the UM vans to a fossil dig site just outside of Drummond. Sue remembers feeling terrified as Grace, “agile and energetic,” scrambled up a steep hillside clutching her trowel and specimen bag. But what Sue remembers most vividly about spending those two days with her great-granddaughter is the thrill of watching Grace learn and be open to new information.

“Grandparents usually feel like they have to entertain kids when they’re together,” she says.

“But learning things together is important. It shows the child that you value learning.”

Sue is looking forward to this summer’s Science Day Camp when she and Grace will learn about bees. Grace’s sister, Danielle (9) will be there, too, teamed up with her granddad, Peter.

Cyndy Aten’s granddaughter Lia (last year’s astronomy-enthusiast), also chose the bees this year. She and her granddad will soak in some facts about bee biology, learn the basics of beekeeping, and find out how bees make honey and produce wax when they visit a beeyard.

My own granddaughter is only 3 years old, so it will be a while before I can take her to MOLLI’s Summer Science Day Camp. But after talking with Cyndy and Sue and watching their faces light up as they told me about their Day Camp experiences, I am thinking about borrowing a kid. According to Sue, you do not have to be related to your child.

You can bring a neighbor kid, or somebody else’s grandchild.

As for eating bugs, there are many opinions.

Unlike Cyndy who is looking forward to eating them, “with great relish,” one of Sue’s friends said, “I’m not telling my grandson about the bug class because he’ll want to take it and I have no intention of eating bugs!”

Fortunately, MOLLI offers many other science adventures.

MOLLI courses are open to anyone over 50.

Tuition for a Summer Science Camp course is $100 per grandparent-kid team, which includes the required $20 annual membership fee. Financial assistance is available. Find info at 406-243-2905 or www.umt.edu/ce/plus50/Summercamp.htm.

Grandparents and Grandkids Science Day Camp is sponsored in part by Montana National Science Fund EPSCoR. MSN

History & Art at the MonDak The MonDak Heritage Center (MDHC) in Sidney is a regional center for history and the arts in northeastern Montana. Housed in the lower level of the center is a street scene pioneer museum complete with an original homestead shack. The historical archives with genealogical records and reference library, an art exhibition gallery for traveling shows, the center’s permanent art collection, and an art history library are all located on the upper level.

The center is ADA compliant, and the staff and volunteers are available by appointment to assist with tours of the facility and historical archive research at the center.

The MDHC hosts special events throughout the year including Celebrating Chocolate, Spring Fling, Octobre Fest, and Christmas at the MonDak. Several music, history, drama, and book events are also held in the upper galleries each year.

The gift shop in the MDHC features items from local and regional artists, historical toys, and books pertaining to northeast Montana/northwest North Dakota.

For more information, visit www.mondakheritagecenter.org, phone 406-433-3500, e-mail mdhc@richland.org, or mail requests to 120 3rd Avenue SE, Sidney, MT 59270. MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

Concentration and Relaxation Lost and Found

By Jim Brown, Senior Wire “Mindfulness is the solution to poor concentration,” says Roanoke, Virginia, sports psychologist Dr. John Heil. “The idea is to have a mind full of what you are doing at the moment.”

Like children playing a game, a golfer needs to become completely absorbed in the task. For the moment, the goal is to reach a frame of mind in which thoughts that distract most adults don’t even exist.

How do you get there?

• Play a lot of golf. The first way is by playing golf as much as is reasonable. It is hard to simply turn the concentration switch on and off at will.

The more you are in competitive situations, the better your concentration skills become. Better concentration breeds confidence and confidence removes self-doubt. Both come with playing time.

• Practice mental skills. The second path to concentration is by practicing mental skills. You don’t have to get too cerebral here, but there is something to be said for imagining yourself in pressure situations even if you are just playing a practice round. Then you’ll have the benefit of virtual experience during tournament competition.

What Happens When You Lose It? - Just because golfers learn to block out distractions and focus on the moment, doesn’t mean they can concentrate for extended periods of time. In fact, it’s unrealistic. One technique for regaining concentration is to return to the basics of executing skills. Instead of trying to make up for a mistake caused by poor concentration, make the best possible decision about what to do next.

Play the ball, not the opponent, the course, or the score. Think about what you want to do, not what you think might go wrong. If you are going to worry, worry about things you can correct and let go of everything else.

Heil has a three-part plan for re-focusing when you become distracted.

1. Stop what you are doing and will yourself into not thinking about other things. If you have to talk to yourself, do it.

2. Take a deep breath and compose yourself.

Call a 20-second time out.

3. Focus on a “performance cue” such as the ball, your swing, or a target. Ignore the bigger picture.

“By removing distractions,” concludes Heil, “you are training yourself to think less. The ultimate goal is for technique, intensity, and focus to happen unconsciously. If you have to think about it, you haven’t reached that goal. But keep working on it.”

Nervous Is Normal - One of the great myths of professional golf is that elite players don’t get nervous. Let’s make it official. They do. Hale Irwin gets nervous. Tom Watson gets nervous. Tiger Woods gets nervous.

The difference between these great players and some of us is that they have learned how to manage their nerves in ways that don’t run their scores up. Some of them even use what sports psychologists call “performance anxiety” to get an advantage over their opponents.

According to Dr. Shane Murphy, author of The Achievement Zone, many golfers either avoid stressful competition or panic when they are in the middle of it. The ones who pass on tournament competition tend to be good on the practice tee and in low-pressure situations, but terrible when their play counts for something more. Others compete, but not as well as they could if they would work on managing their emotions.

Six Ways to Relax - There are at least six ways to relax under pressure. Although all are more complex than we have room to describe in detail, here are Murphy’s basic strategies: • Take regular, deep breaths during a round and before a shot when you feel a case of the jitters coming on.

• Try relaxing your muscles by contracting them, then exhaling and letting them go back to normal.

• When you get nervous, stop or at least change the pace of your play, re-focus, and calm down.

• Get a mental picture of how you want to swing the club on your next shot.

• Practice getting your body to respond to suggestions or cues you give it (swing through the ball, take a controlled backswing, rotate the shoulders).

• Ta l k y o u r s e l f through situations on the course. Be positive and confident.

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 11

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Murphy’s message is to expect to get nervous at times. It is normal behavior. Select one or more of the relaxation strategies listed above and practice them. You’ll find that your nervousness can be channeled into productive energy and sharpened concentration when you need them the most. MSN

Golf Definitions Submitted by Julie Hollar-Brantley Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle, followed by a good bottle of beer.

Golf! You hit down to make the ball go up. You swing left and the ball goes right. The lowest score wins. On top of that, the winner buys the drinks.

Golf is harder than baseball. In golf, you have to play your foul balls.

If you find you do not mind playing golf in the rain, the snow, even during a hurricane, here is an insight: your life is in trouble.

Golfers who try to make everything perfect before taking the shot rarely make a perfect shot.

The term “mulligan” is really a contraction of the phrase “maul it again.”

A “gimme” can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers... neither of whom can putt very well.

An interesting thing about golf is that no matter how badly you play, it is always possible to get worse. MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

Michael Ober’s Life Is Balanced Between Law Enforcement And Education Photo & Article by Gail Jokerst You would have to look long and hard to find someone better qualified than Michael Ober is to author a book depicting Glacier National Park’s early history in words and photographs. Not only has Michael worked the last 42 summers in the park, he also happens to be Library Director at Flathead Valley Community College (FVCC), an accomplished magazine writer, and a history professor. That means this ace researcher has encyclopedic knowledge of the park and is a deft wordsmith skilled at putting information in the context of its time.

So it probably came as no surprise to anyone acquainted with Michael that he would write Glacier Album: Historic Photographs of Glacier National Park. Nor was his choice of using only rare blackand-white pictures in its pages surprising.

“I wanted to get things out that people haven’t seen before. At the same time,” adds Michael, “I wanted to heighten people’s awareness of Glacier’s human side of history.”

These monochromatic images seem especially appropriate when you consider they were the primary visual medium of the early 20th century. To Michael, they tell the story of the park’s beginning years more eloquently than words ever could.

Among the 135 photos featured in Glacier Album, one of Michael’s favorites portrays nine horse packers and guides. The men all worked for the Glacier Park Saddle Horse Company, which during the 1920s owned more than 1,000 horses and took some 10,000 visitors over park trails each summer.

In Michael’s words, “they were a raunchy, dapper, natty bunch.” The men’s relaxed shoulder-toshoulder pose complete with lariats and sheepskin chaps vividly evokes a long-gone era.

“I’ve always enjoyed looking at neat old-time pictures of the park. It gives me pause to see those faces and the old equipment and wonder what it must have been like for those people who worked and visited here,” he says. “Without those photos, there would be no park memory.”

This Havre native has always had a genuine interest in the past and what took place in people’s lives. As he says, “I like to mentally place myself in different eras to imagine what it would have been like. There’s a closet historian in all of us that wonders about the past.”

In historian lingo, Michael considers himself an Americanist as opposed to a western civilizationist.

And in that arena, he has quite naturally gravitated to the history of his home state.

“That interest springs from my own Montana roots and the backyard dirt under my own fingers,” says Michael, who has taught Treasure State history at FVCC for 22 years. He has found it challenging at times to get students to care about past decades and centuries but feels it is a worthy quest.

“Unfortunately, it’s hard (Cont’d on page 37)

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 13

PAGE 14 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

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JUNE/JULY 2010

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Global Citizen Linda de Kort Aricle & Photo by Gail Jokerst Two words aptly describe Kalispell’s Linda de Kort: global citizen. She was born in Glendive but grew up in the Middle East. She has taught science and biology in Japan and traveled throughout Asia and Africa. She has also lived in the Netherlands with her Dutch husband, Frank, and along with Frank has taken donated canned goods, blankets, clothing, and building tools from Kalispell to a remote Mexican village. And that is just the short list of her international sojourns.

Looking back at the influences that helped shape her expansive worldview, Linda credits Harry Truman’s foreign policy as playing a major role in her father’s - and consequently her - life.

Back in 1949, President Truman enacted Point Four, so-named because it was the fourth part of the president’s post-war foreign policy initiative.

In Truman’s words, Point Four’s purpose was to “…embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.”

“When Point Four started, the government wanted to involve young technicians from America to share their knowledge with developing countries,” says Linda, who describes her father as “an adventurer who wasn’t afraid to try new things.”

An irrigation specialist for the Bureau of Reclamation, Linda’s dad found the prospect of working overseas, as well as the pay, so appealing he signed up for the program. With the full support of his wife, he moved his family to Jordan when Linda was eight years old.

“He was out in the field a lot,” recalls Linda,

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“and came up with ideas to help his Jordanian counterparts with things like crop selection and oasis restoration.”

From Jordan, the family moved to Iraq, where her father introduced higher yielding crops to villagers. When he transferred to Turkey, Linda and her two siblings moved to Beirut so they could attend an American school.

“Dad was a good ambassador and we had a lot of Arabic friends. We were invited to homes and to Bedouin weddings. He always encouraged us to accept and embrace other cultures and to learn

JUNE/JULY 2010

from them. Wherever we went, my parents encouraged us to learn the language and eat the native food while Dad taught people to be self-sufficient,” says Linda. “Living overseas showed me we are all the same. Every culture has its beauty and idiosyncrasies. We all have the same love of family and hope for peace.”

These days, Linda embodies that love of family and hope for peace in her own life. She and Frank share a close relationship with their son and daughter, their spouses and children and have an extended sense of family that stretches far beyond blood relations.

Since leaving the Middle East in 1962, Linda taught biology at Flathead High School for 20 years and during that time, her concern for peace between Arabs and Israelis has only grown stronger.

“After retirement, I knew I wanted to focus my efforts on the Palestinian issue and work with organizations that are trying to forge a just peace,” says Linda. That desire spurred her to join forces with several other Flathead residents to establish a guest-speaker series, The Community Forum on Middle East Solutions, “in the hope that there could be an honorable solution found.”

So far, this community forum has brought five speakers knowledgeable about Israeli-Palestinian issues to the Flathead. These talks have all been open to the public with the goal of helping people better understand the situation.

One of the more visible projects sponsored by the forum was a Middle Eastern dinner followed by a film and a speaker. All donations that evening went toward supporting the Mar Elias Education Institutions (MEEI), a school with Muslim, Christian, and Druze students in Ibillin, Israel. The faculty of this unusual educational institution consists of Jewish and Arabic instructors, who teach everything from preschool to college courses (it is a branch campus of the University of Indianapolis). Founded by a Melkite Catholic priest, MEEI provides a harmonious learning and teaching atmosphere for people of different cultures and religions.

Aside from her work on behalf of peace in the Middle East, Linda has also felt compelled to volunteer her time and resources for other projects around the world. In 2000, she traveled to Costa Rica for six weeks with Frank carrying backpacks and looking for volunteer work.

“It’s such a beautiful country. I had been there before with students and realized there was a great need to help with education. So when I returned, I taught English and did some research on fungus and beetles while learning more Spanish,” recalls Linda. “Frank also helped a family put electrical wiring in their home.” During that visit, the couple reunited and stayed with Costa Rican friends who had worked in the Flathead for Montana Coffee Traders.

The following year, she and Frank flew to Hawaii where they volunteered for two weeks to eradicate exotic plants, mostly ornamental ginger, that grew rampant around the countryside.

“At first we pulled out the plants by the roots and used machetes. But before long, we became chemical converts. That was the easiest way to remove them,” says Linda. “We liked Kauai so much, the oldest island where we lived, we returned and did the same thing in 2005. That allowed us to learn more about Hawaiian culture and gave us an opportunity to hike and explore.”

After returning from Hawaii, she and Frank thought about volunteering somewhere they could drive to and chose Mexico as a destination.

“We wanted to learn more about Mexican culture with its Spanish and Native American influences. We ended up bringing Audubon’s Birds Beyond Borders materials and curriculum with us in Spanish and distributing them to schools,” says Linda. Since 2005, she and Frank have driven their pickup for 45 hours to Mexico not once but four times. Each trip they have spent between two to three weeks assisting the Tarahumara Indians living there.

“We’ve brought baby clothes, school supplies, binoculars, water, and digital cameras among other things,” says Linda, “and assisted with a variety of projects. The first year, we put a metal roof on an adobe house.

My job was to pull out the old nails. I quickly learned they don’t waste anything. On our second

“Every Package Every Day” Leaving A Legacy Of Delivery Service: Retired UPS Driver Gordy Bates Photo & Article by Gail Jokerst Early in his 30-year career driving a delivery truck for United Parcel Service, Gordon “Gordy” Bates learned some valuable lessons about himself and humanity: “You leave your problems at home and make yourself pleasant. It’s easier to get the job done if you greet someone with a smile and a positive attitude. I also lost that male ego thing a long time ago about not asking for directions,” adds Gordy, who in the days before cell phones and GPS, depended on locals to help him find hard-to-locate homes and businesses.

Gordy was obviously successful at putting his cheerful daily philosophy to work and leaving his ego behind. When he retired in 2009, many customers along his Flathead route felt like they had lost a good friend. In fact, so many people appreciated Gordy and his genial attitude over the years they often gave him gifts. Homemade cakes, pies, and cookies seemed to come with the territory; but one present he received stands out above the rest as being especially memorable.

A man handed Gordy $20 and wished him a Merry Christmas before the package car driver could climb back into his brown truck with the gold lettering. Gordy told the gentleman there was no need to tip; he was just doing his job. The man replied, “This isn’t for what you do for me. It’s for how you go about doing it.”

Considering the conscientious approach Gordy always took while covering his extensive 300-mile route stretching from Kalispell to the Canadian border, it was the ultimate compliment.

For him, as for many UPS drivers covering Montana’s rural regions, being conscientious goes way beyond just driving to the door and dropping off a package. If a UPS driver has ever walked in a box along an unmanageable icy or muddy road to your home instead of driving it there, you know how dedicated these people are. Rather than forego the delivery and make you travel to the closest

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 17

trip, we helped build a blockhouse through Habitat for Humanity. In other years, we helped finish a library building and tried - unsuccessfully - to fix a water pump. We ended up leaving them money to get it done because we couldn’t fix it.”

For anyone considering Linda’s mode of travel, she has advice: “When you go someplace new, become aware of the needs of that area and offer to share whatever talents you have that might serve that community. The main part of life is just showing up and that’s very appropriate to volunteer work. All you have to do is show up and say you’re willing to help,” she says. “Invariably, you will be welcomed and people will find something for you to do. And you’ll learn a lot. It enriches our lives to learn how others approach life and deal with hardships and celebrations.”

For more information about The Community Forum on Middle East Solutions or Mar Elias Education Institutions, contact Linda at 406-755-3704 or dekort@montanasky.com. MSN

PAGE 18 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

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UPS office, that driver chose to walk to your door on his or her - not the company’s - time.

“You’ve got something people need and you do whatever it takes to get the job done,” says Gordy. That means he shared his telephone number so people could call him at home at night.

They would alert him to an important package they were expecting so he would get it to them quickly. People would also entrust him with house and business keys so he could leave packages if no one could receive them. Testament to that was Gordy’s key collection. It grew so exponentially, he struggled to fit all that metal in his wallet and still sit on it.

“Sure we deliver the trivial stuff that puts a smile on your face. But we also deliver the things that keep life going. Rural delivery is a lifeline for Montana farmers and mechanics,” explains Gordy. “We’re even classified as emergency vehicles so we can go through roadblocks. We deliver medical supplies and fire hoses, which could save someone’s life.”

Of the various regions Gordy had to traverse, he deems the North Fork of the Flathead River as the most demanding.

“That was more fun than anyone should be allowed to have,” says Gordy in an unmistakable tongue-in-cheek voice. “Our trucks are one-wheel drive vans with a stiff chassis on a one-ton frame.

For 15 years, I bounced up and down daily for sixty miles to make those deliveries. I sat on a metal post welded to the frame of the truck on

some foam rubber on top of a piece of plywood.

And every winter I had to chain up all four tires to drive up there. I can’t tell you how many times chaining up saved me from accidents on glare ice.”

Not only does the unpaved North Fork Road qualify as one of the most potholed in the state, it also lures wildlife seeking an easy path from point A to B. “You always had to keep your eyes open for moose; they’re as bad to tangle with as grizzlies.

One time, I was coming out of the North Fork and I picked up a moose at Big Creek. It was late by then and I followed him at a crawl for miles on a moonlit night,” recalls Gordy, who never got a meal break that day because the moose took so long to finally disappear into the woods.

Besides the critter encounters, there were encounters of another kind that sometimes tested his nerves: meeting up with other trucks where pulling over was not an option.

“I’ve seen the lord in the form of a Kenworth more than once up there,” recalls Gordy.

While rural routes naturally vary in terrain throughout the state, Gordy would argue that they share more similarities than differences.

JUNE/JULY 2010

“You never work in a controlled environment or with a regular delivery situation. And in the winter,� he adds, “you curse every mile wherever you drive in the state. There rarely are places to pull over on steep inclines and because of that, UPS drivers have had a few wrecks.�

Given his ‘druthers, Gordy preferred to meet old-timers along his route rather than logging trucks. He considered getting to know some of the folks who settled this portion of the Flathead a fringe benefit of his job. Since Gordy could take his lunch break whenever he could schedule it into his day, he often tried to visit with the remaining area homesteaders. These stalwart souls loved nothing more than to recount tales of their early days in the valley with him. “I wasn’t just a delivery person to them,� says Gordy, who cherishes the memories of those long-ago conversations with people who came here in covered wagons and those who left their names on the countryside. “We had short, sweet little conversations. These people were our living history. Life wasn’t easy back then, especially here. But I admire that they did what they had to for survival.�

Gordy is the first to admit he owes many of the best things in his life to his career with UPS. Over the course of three decades, he earned a good living. That enabled him to buy and ride his own quarter horses, race horses originally bred to run the quarter mile. He learned someone on his route had tamarack logs for sale that he could purchase to build a log cabin home. He found an experienced carpenter on one of his runs up the North Fork, who could build that house in Gordy’s dream location near Blaine Mountain. And he met his wife-to-be, Pam, a fellow horse-lover, while delivering packages to a pharmacy on his route.

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MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 19

As a man without a college education or trade when he came to the Flathead in 1977, Gordy could have worked in manufacturing or logging “Warm & Comfortable...Just Like Home� when he arrived here from Colorado. Instead, CALL t )PVS $BSF despite the physically demanding stressful nature US t 3PPNT "WBJMBCMF /PX of the work, he jumped at the chance to work TODAY ! t )PNFDPPLFE .FBMT B %BZ for UPS the first year they opened an office in t %JSFDU 57 "WBJMBCMF Kalispell. t 1IPOF )PPL VQ JO 3PPNT Now that he is retired, Gordy loves to in dulge his passion for cooking, horseback riding, 0LVVLRQ 'U ‡ 6W ,JQDWLXV 07 and caring for his and Pam’s cat, dogs, horses, birds, and fish. But he confesses he does miss one thing from his work: the people he got to visit s 7HEELCHAIRS with daily. s 0ROSTHESIS “I was always inters #OMPRESSION 3TOCKINGS mingling, always a part s "EDROOM %QUIPMENT of people’s lives,� says s 3PECIALTY %QUIPMENT Gordy. “I watched people s "ATHROOM %QUIPMENT get married, have kids, s /XYGEN 2ESPIRATORY and raise their families.� %QUIPMENT Unsurprisingly, the successor to Gordy’s RD !VE %AST .ORTH Flathead route, Hans +ALISPELL -ONTANA Rensel, turned out to 406-752-6111 be one of the young 800-525-5982 boys he watched grow to manhood. Nothing could have pleased www.nwhc.org/KME Gordy more than to have someone from one of “his families� carry on his legacy of service.

One Stop

MSN

PAGE 20 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

After something of a real winter, summer is here at last and none too soon.

This is the perfect time to take the warmth of the season and spread it to your heart with a new relationship. Isn’t it time to find that special someone to enjoy all the activities and events of this special summer season? Submit your reply today and who knows...?

To those who wish to respond to any of these personal ads, simply forward your message and address, phone number, or email address to the department number listed in the particular personal ad, c/o Montana Senior News, P.O. Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403.

We will forward your response, including your address, phone number, and/or email address to the person placing the ad. If you answer an ad in this section, there is no guarantee that you will receive a response. That’s up to the person who placed the ad. Please make sure you submit your correct address plainly printed so you can promptly receive responses.

Respond to the ads in this issue and also sit down now and prepare your own ad to run in our August/September 2010 issue. There is no charge for this service and your ad may bring a breath of fresh air to your heart as well.

Responses to personal ads appearing in this column can be submitted at any time. However, to place a personal ad, the deadline for the August/ September 2010 issue is July 10, 2010.

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Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m an attractive, very young, mid-sixties lady seeking friendship and perhaps a life-mate. I have a happy and open personality and am honest, kind, and loving. Gardening - growing flowers - is a passion. I practice natural healing and healthful living. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a very spiritual person, but not â&#x20AC;&#x153;religiousâ&#x20AC;? in the normal sense of the word - a Christian but I embrace no organized religion. I cook from scratch, make bread, grow and use herbs, and live in old fashioned and healthful ways.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m looking to find wonderful, kind, and gentle friends, and in the mix, perhaps a right life mate and special home in the country - someone with similar interests and values, who would like to enjoy life, the outdoors, and gardening and would like to find happiness together.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m in good health, a non-smoker, and nondrinker. I use no drugs, prescription or otherwise.

I have a happy and healthful attitude and lifestyle, a warm heart, and am active in body, mind, and soul. Reading is a daily joy and passion. I love good music and singing.

How about you? If you can communicate by email, that would be good. Send me your home address or email address. I live in southwest Montana and am willing to relocate after time with the right person or in the right situation. If you have a good heart and/or hearth that need loving care, let me know! Reply MSN, Dept. 26501, c/o Montana Senior News, Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403.

I am a single white female in my early 70s. I would like to have a male live-in companion. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t smoke or do drugs. I like to fish, camp, hike, and go on day trips. I own my own home, but it gets lonesome living by myself. Any reply welcome. Will answer all. Reply MSN, Dept. 26502, c/o Montana Senior News, Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403.

JUNE/JULY 2010

I want to meet a nice guy who will sit awhile and talk… and talk… over coffee or a meal. I recently moved to a new town and I’m not finding friends easily. Are you comfortable in the arts community?

Are you over seventy years old? Would you escort a lady to the movies or to public events? I’m no longer slim and beautiful, but my brain still works well and I contribute good work to the art world.

Reply MSN, Dept. 26503, c/o Montana Senior News, Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403.

Things I enjoy are reading, corresponding with family and friends, gardening, and quiet evenings at home. I am looking for someone who demonstrates honesty, compassion, and just really enjoys life. I’m funny, easy-going, and like the simple things in life. I’m realizing that life is truly what we make of it. I love engaging in good conversation and consider myself a good listener. I am also considered somewhat adventurous and willing to explore new things. Communication, compassion, and above all honesty are my best qualities. I feel I am at a crossroads in my life ready to follow a new path. Looking for companionship or possible relationship. I have a stable income and come with no baggage. If you are so inclined to acknowledge my ad, I will reply and send a photo! Reply MSN, Dept. 26504, c/o Montana Senior News, Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403.

I am a 63 years young lady in Kalispell who is interested in a male companion to enjoy all Montana has to offer.

I am retired, own my home, and do not smoke, drink, or do drugs. I am financially, physically, mentally, and emotionally secure. I enjoy traveling, reading, cooking, walks, movies, live performances such as plays and concerts, and just appreciate life in general. I will do my best to answer all responses quickly and provide any more information you request. Reply MSN, Dept. 26505, c/o Montana Senior News, Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403.

Hello. Are you a tall gentleman in his late 60s

or early 70s who owns his own home? Looks and weight are unimportant.

I am looking for someone who doesn’t mind a lady a little overweight and that is not judgmental.

I might be the best thing that has come into your life!

I’m very easy-going, friendly, and warm. I like to cuddle and hold hands.

I am a non-drinker (except socially), nonsmoker, and only do the drugs that my doctor gives me. Communication is a must.

DWF for 14 years. 5’5” tall, dark brown hair and dark green eyes. I am 67 years young and have been told I look 20-25 years younger than my age.

I like going for rides, movies, garage sales, and much more. I love to cook and bake, but also love going out to eat. I love all animals, but especially my cat.

I want to meet someone with the same qualities. If you are ready to commit to making a life of love, you won’t be sorry.

Please send a photo and phone number. I will answer all who correspond. I’m in the central Montana area, but will relocate anywhere. Reply MSN, Dept. 26506, c/o Montana Senior News, Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403.

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 21

I am a retired Naval Officer (Medical), well traveled, and educated, with a home in the Bozeman hills. Being 70, I am pleasant looking, active, neat, clean cut, healthy, 6’1”, 190#, and fun. No drugs.

I enjoy all music (except Rap) and would like to become good at CW dancing. I read everything I can, and spend time working on my house. When I am not working on major landscaping projects, I relax by figure modeling for local folks with art/ photo/video projects. Social/recreational nudity and soaking up the sun are also high on my list of things I enjoy. I am usually fairly conservative, but very open-minded.

Isn’t there a medium to super slender lady 5080+ who is looking for an old-fashioned romantic who likes to listen, pay attention, and is interested in having her own dedicated “Boy Toy” for affection, fantasy, and adventure? I am baggage free, socially acceptable, have a sense of humor, and not afraid of commitment. It would also be nice to meet couples who share my interests and are fun.

All responses with name, address, phone, and photo (or description) will be answered. Be frisky, take a chance, and quit being shy! Tell me what interests you. You are beautiful and perfect! Reply MSN, Dept. 26507, c/o Montana Senior News, Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403. MSN

PAGE 22 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

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By Jim Miller Creating a living will is one of those things most people want and plan to do, but rarely get around to actually doing. Less than 30 percent of Americans currently have one. Contacting your lawyer and preparing one now, gives you say in how you want to be treated at the end of your life.

Advance Directives - To adequately spell out your wishes regarding your end-of-life medical treatment you need two legal documents: • A “living will” that tells your doctor what kind of care you want to receive if you become incapacitated.

• And a “medical power of attorney” (or healthcare proxy) that names a person you authorize to make medical decisions on your behalf.

Do-It-Yourself - Today, there are several free or low-cost resources to help you write your advance directive, and it takes only a few minutes from start to finish. Here are some good places to find help: • Caring Connections: A resource created by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization that provides free information and state-specific advance directive forms with instructions on their website (www.caringinfo. org) that you can download and print. Or, you can call 800-658-8898.

• Aging with Dignity: An advocacy organization that offers an easy-to-use legal document called “Five Wishes” that covers all facets of an advance directive. Five Wishes is legally valid in 40 states and costs $5. To get a copy, visit www.agingwithdignity.org or call 888-594-7437.

• Online resources: For under $15 websites like www.legacywriter.com and www.uslegalwills.com can create a living will and medical power of attorney for you by asking you questions and inserting your answers. Once you’re finished, you simply print it out (or they can mail it to you) and sign it with two witnesses present to make it legal. You may also need to get it notarized depending on the state you live in. Or, if you’re looking for a little extra help, try www.legalzoom.com. This site works like the others but will then have a specialist review your answers for completeness.

• U.S. Living Will Registry: This is a nifty service that electronically stores your advance directive and organ donor information and makes these documents available to your family or healthcare providers 24 hours a day via the Internet or telephone. The cost to register is $125. See www.uslivingwillregistry.com for more information.

Multipurpose Planning - If you are looking for a comprehensive estate planning tool “Quicken WillMaker Plus 2010” (www.nolo.com; 800-728-3555) is a top resource that uses computer software to create state-specific living wills, as well as property wills, trusts, and many other documents.

Savvy Tips: To insure your final wishes are followed, be very thorough when you create your living will and medical power of attorney documents and give copies to your family and doctor. And don’t forget to review your advance directive every few years and update it when necessary.

If you would rather use a lawyer to draft your advance directive, look for one who specializes in estate planning and healthcare related matters. MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 23

PAGE 24 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

Creating “Win, Win, Win” Relationships

A penny saved...

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James C. Soft, President Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch Foundation Whenever I hear of a “win, win” opportunity, I am inclined to pay very close attention to the fine print. However, I will be quick to confess that I use the phrase “win, win, win” frequently in my conversation with CPAs, lawyers, and financial advisors when I am invited to share how charitable financial/ estate planning techniques can produce positive results for the donor, Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch, and yes, for the government.

How is such a “win, win, win” proposition possible? Simply stated, the Government passes favorable laws that offer tax and income incentives

to the Donor who realizes such enticements by making generous gifts to Yellowstone. The Donor wins by saving taxes and often increasing cash flow and spendable income. Yellowstone wins by having more resources to work with at risk children entrusted to our care. And, Government wins because our work ultimately lessens the burden of government.

A bona fide “win, win, win” relationship! And, believe me, after 38 years working with donor friends, their professional advisors, and the tax laws, I have read the fine print. Please call us today at 800-879-0850 to learn more about winning! MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 25

PAGE 26 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

Age Discrimination Far Outnumbers Racial or Gender Complaints

By Tait Trussell, Senior Wire Age discrimination charges by workers are at a record high. And it is not youngsters who are the targets.

According to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, age discrimination complaints are three times those of racial bias and twice those of gender bias.

Age-bias complaints are shooting up, even though for those over age 40 the jobless rate these days has been lower than for young workers. One factor may be that more people age 55 and older are working now - 40 percent - than in previous years.

David Grinberg, a representative for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, explained that some employers might be taking aim at older workers because they tend to be in a higher salary bracket with more costly benefits.

Language that takes a dig at older workers, even if subtle, can have an oversized impact on senior workers and their productivity, as well as corporate profits, according to Bob McCann. He is an associate professor of management communication at University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

McCann said, “Our research has clearly shown links between ageism language and reported health conditions, lowered self-esteem, and even depression.

“It is quite plausible that retirement decisions may be hastened and work satisfaction affected by intergenerational talk at work.”

McCann has worked with Howard Giles of the University of California at Santa Barbara on studies that show ageist talk has been a big factor

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in age-discrimination lawsuits. Ageist comments frequently have been seen as clear evidence of a company’s discriminatory posture toward older workers.

Examples of age-related comments were, “that old goat,” “too long on the job,” “a sleepy kind of guy with no pizzazz,” “the old woman,” “Look at the bags under his eyes,” and “He’s an old fart.”

Those are just examples of scores of similar comments McCann and Giles found in their analysis of age-discrimination lawsuits.

Other remarks included, “We need young blood around here,” “Let’s make room for some MBAs,” and “Let’s bring in some young guns.”

McCann and Giles found “young blood” remarks common in numerous legal cases. One included a company president who expressed his desire for “a young line of command.” Another declared his wish to “get rid of the good old Joes.”

McCann has said he hoped that as older workers stay on the job longer or come out of retirement, that both management and younger workers would appreciate older workers. “Then,” he said, “Maybe ageism comments, rather than workers, will be put out to pasture.”

Name labels such as “old fogey,” “geezer,” and “hag” send this message of negative pictures of older people and the aging process itself.

Older folks are “often judged as incompetent in domains such as driving, maintaining employment, or the ability to consent to medical procedures.”

A study for the Gerontological Society of America found that “ageism continues to represent the most socially condoned and institutionalized form of prejudice in the world today.” MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 27

A Grand Place for Grandkids: Tizer Gardens Article & Photo by Bernice Karnop The Tizer Gardens outside of Jefferson City were designated as an official Botanic Garden and Arboretum in 2005. If that sounds a bit stuffy to you, owners Belva Lotzer and Richard Krott want you know one thing, “We aren’t that way at all!”

Belva says that Tizer Gardens is a destination where you can bring your family, your picnic, and spend the day. “We are about coming out and relaxing, putting your feet up, and enjoying nature at its finest,” she says.

She does not mean adults only. Kids are drawn into nature with fun activities that stimulate their imaginations. Surrounded by humming birds, flowers, and trees, tthey dance through the Fairy and Wizard Festival in their dazzling wings and tutus or stride along in flapping wizard capes and wands. The Scarecrow Festival brings ffamilies out in droves. Tizer Gardens provides the materials and you can make scarecrows, carve pumpkins, roast wieners over a bonfire, and listen to live music.

The children’s garden and the festivities for children flow from inner convictions. Belva and Richard see their 9-year-old grandchildren go through technological withdrawal when they visit Montana. At home, television sets (even in their bedrooms), computers, and iPods are always in their faces.

Their backyards are made of concrete surrounded by concrete walls.

“They don’t get back to nature,” Belva says, “except when they come to Montana.”

Here, the in their face things are birds, bugs, chipmunks, squirrels, and snakes.

She suspects that many people do not realize how much is lost when kids do not spend time in nature. “Kids have all kinds of issues that they shouldn’t have, and wouldn’t have if they spent more time outside.” They are not only a lot less healthy, they are a lot less aware of what is going on around them.

Grandparents understand this concern about getting kids back in nature more than mom and dad, who are part of the technological generation themselves. Everything grandparents did growing up was out in nature.

“Grandmas and grandpas are really, really necessary at this stage of the game,” Belva concludes.

Belva and Richard were not experienced gardeners before they bought the place on Little Prickly Pair Creek in 1998. Belva had helped her mom, a widow with six children,

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JUNE/JULY 2010

in the vegetable garden, which they needed to make ends meet, but her career was in business.

She met Richard when she was working for the Edmonton, Alberta, Chamber of Commerce and the Rocky Mountain Trade Corridor, which assists businesses with trade between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Richard was her American counterpart.

They fell in love with each other first, then with this spot nestled into the Elk Horn Mountains. As an excuse to spend all their time outside, they started gardening.

It was not easy.

One challenge is the climate. “We are lucky to get 60 consecutive frost-free days, so it makes for a very short growing season,” she says. The answer, they discovered, is to grow mostly perennials rather than annuals.

The second challenge is the critters. When you live in the forest and put out something lush and green, they come to eat it.

In fact, she says, everything they planted the first year was eaten. They researched deer deterrents and when they found that the Deer DeFence really works, they became distributors.

“I would not have a garden if it weren’t for that fence, without question,” she insists.

Belva still struggles with such critters as golden-mantled ground squirrels, who share her love for the 150 varieties of clematis she has planted.

Porcupines love roses and raspberries. They pull the canes out of the ground or break them off, destroying the plant. Voles damage roots.

Richard and Belva do not focus on the struggles but on the joys of gardening. “I live in paradise,” Belva declares, with a smile. “We know we have brought something special to a lot of people, and it’s wonderful to see their reaction.”

One man who was blind came year after year and just to listen to the hummingbirds. After this person had laser surgery, he regained his sight and returned to Tizer Gardens simply to watch the tiny winged creatures he had only listened to in

the past. In July 2005, researchers banded more than 750 hummingbirds at Tizer Gardens.

When you visit Tizer Gardens, by all means, bring your lunch, and schedule enough time to listen to and watch the hummingbirds and butterflies, which scatter throughout the gardens from the plot designed to attract them. You will be interested in knowing that the rose garden and the demonstration garden, sponsored by the Denver Botanic Gardens and Colorado State University, provide research on plant varieties that tolerate high altitude, drought, and cold.

The children’s garden has equipment to exercise the bodies as well as surprises that tickle the imaginations of kids of all ages. Flowers spread their fragrance everywhere, and an old time vegetable patch and herb garden add their own intriguing aromas to the mix. Six different bridges take you across Prickly Pear Creek to the Secret Garden, the Meditation Forest Garden, and more.

If you are like other guests, you will want to take some of these hearty plants home with you.

Do not touch your shovel. Belva and Richard opened the Nursery to satisfy this urge. They generously share the information they have learned about flowers, trees, pests, and climate.

The main advice they have for people trying to grow things in Montana, is do not give up.

“Just find the right plants and put them in the right place,” Belva says. “Your garden can be magnificent.”

Tizer Gardens opens on Mothers Day and closes the last week in September. In addition to the special days for kids, watch for such things as High Tea in the Garden, Red Hat Day, and the Things with Wings Festivals. Visit www.tizergardens.com to plan your visit or to take a virtual tour or call them at 406-933-8789. They are located 18 miles south of Helena. Take at exit 176 off I-15, cross over the highway, turn right on Tizer Road, and follow the signs.

Canine Heartworm Disease

By Dr. Colleen Lawson, Horizon Veterinary Hospital Mobile to Missoula, Lolo, and Florence The isolated regions of Montana and Idaho have been long considered to be Heartworm free.

This is no longer the case. A hot bed for heartworm has developed in Salt Lake and is making its way through Boise, Pocatello and up into Idaho. Heartworm is moving in from the east. There are now several Heartworm cases a year in Great Falls.

Dogs travelling through Montana from heartworm

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JUNE/JULY 2010

areas can transmit it to our mosquitoes. Those mosquitoes can then transmit it to our dogs, including coyotes or wolves, which could then hold it as a reservoir for continual transmission.

With the onset of summer, mosquitoes become a nuisance. But even worse to your pets, mosquitoes can carry this lethal blood parasite in its stomach. When the mosquito bites a dog the mosquito regurgitates the parasite and transmits it into your dog. It will grow in the blood and change form and shape until it becomes millions of times bigger. In 6 months it can be up to 14” long and will take up residence in your dog’s heart or pulmonary arteries (lungs). Canine heartworm resembles strands of angel hair. In the heart, the worms reproduce and send more microfilaria (the baby form) into the bloodstream to be sucked up by another mosquito, which will transmit the infective stage to another dog - and the cycle continues.

Meanwhile, back in the heart, heartworm can cause serious illness, difficulty breathing, cardiac heart failure, and even death. They can cause permanent damage on the inside long before you see evidence on the outside.

Obvious symptoms may not show up for up to 2 years or more. Prevention is the best method for combating heartworm disease.

Heartworm has been reported on all 50 states. Our cases have commonly been dogs “travelling through” with their vacationing owners. If was long thought that our intermittent cold weather kept the heartworm from completing it’s needed cycles in the stomach of the mosquito. We now know that mosquitoes often burrow under tree bark, which can keep their core temperature high enough for the heartworm to survive.

There is strong evidence that the need for prevention is at hand. For this area we personally recommend testing every other year and using preventative medication for the 7 months of our warmer weather (April- October).

Heartworm is different from any of our other worms in Montana, which reside in the digestive tract and are easily removed with a good wormer. To kill heartworm means that when it dies it will dislodge from the heart chambers, then go through the blood, and end up plugging a vessel and causing a serious embolism. In addition the better drugs it takes to kill heartworm are very expensive and can still have serious side effects - some long term.

Prevention is by far is the best medicine for this nasty disease. Testing to see if your dog has an infection at the end of every summer season is one option. Although this is not prevention, it will tell you generally when your pet contracted the disease. Much better is testing in the spring, and then going directly onto a preventative as recommended by the American Heartworm Society. With a negative test, you then apply preventative monthly usually between April and October. Later in the fall we get good freezes that will seriously reduce insects for the remainder of the year.

I personally prescribe testing and then Revolution as a once a month preventative, which also takes care of ticks and fleas. Ticks are a significant issue in our area and they carry with them their own set of possible diseases.

Tick season has begun, and heartworm season is now upon us. MSN

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MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 29

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Family owned since 1958 Manufactured & Modular Homes

by Nashua and Marlette

1-800-823-2221 2 0 0 1 W. B R O A D W AY , M I S S O U L A w w w. r a n g i t s c h b r o s r v. c o m

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55+ Communities – A Celebration of Life for Most!

Call Your Favorite Realtor For All Your Real Estate Needs

By Patricia M. Johnson, Senior Wire Celebrating life is the lifestyle the nation’s home builders offer those over age 55. You may have toured many, hoping to find the perfect match. Here’s what I’ve found.

Location is essential to creating your dream environment. The majority of buyers need convenient access to transportation, shopping, culture, community amenities, places of worship, and social opportunities. If you are a golfer you will want a home adjoining or near to scenic links.

Talking with several residents at these 55+ communities, I found some that said, “Of course, the amenities are only valuable if you have time to enjoy them.”

Others said, “With exterior maintenance such as snow removal and lawn care managed by the homeowners association, you’re free to do more things.”

Some have swimming pools and clubhouses. There are scenic jogging trails at many. One lady in her 70s said, “I didn’t jog when I was younger, and I’m not about to jog now.” But you can use the jogging trails to walk your dogs. Most communities expect your pet to be active too, as pets are definitely family members that are expected to move in with the residents.

Let’s Get Started - I suggest making many research visits to help you collect enough data for that important decision. I took along a writing tablet, pens, a 25-foot tape measure, a camera, highlighter pen, small cassette tape recorder, and a pocket accordion folder.

The folder is to file all the material you’ll receive at these model home visits. You’ll be so glad you have it. You’ll receive floor plans, but you may want to measure certain nooks and crannies. Use the tape recorder to mention items of interest to you and your family. If you know one bedroom will not house a family member’s bedroom set, mention that. If the kitchen does not have enough cabinets, record that. Be sure to mention what style of house, name, and site you are viewing.

It is a wise decision to view the surrounding area. Before entering the sales office, drive around and look at the homes. Have they been kept up?

If there is a clubhouse, go into it and talk to any residents willing to talk. Ask questions. Do they re-

FBR

Fort Benton Realty, LLP 1002 FRONT ST. 2 bed/1ba featuring original claw-foot tub. New carpet, new kitchen, updated wiring, plumbing, & ducting for the GFA furnace. Nearly 3 fenced city corner lots w/ a single car detached garage. Fort Benton $112,800 1914 MAIN 3 bed/ba 1700 sq. ft. home w/ central air, garage, fenced yard with deck. BEAUTIFUL LOCATION across from Fort Benton's Old Fort Park. Motivated seller! $123,900 1110 17TH ST T.C. Power-built Craftsman 2Bed+/2Ba,+ great kitchen + porch + history =$119,900 HOME + 21 ACRES 3 bed/ 1 3/4 ba home w/ dbl garage, storage shed, grain bins. 18ac has CRP Contract. 4 miles E of Brady. $195,000 1116 MAIN Incredible Corner lots for an incredible price! Fort Benton

(406) 622-3803

www.fbrealty.com

(800) 406-0946

JUNE/JULY 2010

ally like it here? Are the houses too close together for your liking? Where are the garbage cans? Was there a security car cruising or a guard at the gate?

Now, you are ready to enter the sales office.

Generally, you will receive a brochure and other information, perhaps floor plans of the models. Visit each model. Most well-designed communities now have a standard product model where you will be able to see the “standard” grade of cabinets, flooring, counter tops, appliances, and lighting fixtures.

Remember that there are options or upgrades.

Find out if the lot size is standard or a premium lot.

Premium lots are usually corners, those facing the golf club or lake, and may be a little larger.

Try to tour with your spouse or whoever will be sharing in this venture. If you go separately, you both may miss something very important. Pay attention to the quality of the workmanship, but understand that thousands of people have tracked

through these lovely homes before you. You may also find that the model you are viewing may not fit on another lot and will have to be reversed to fit.

So if you want a garage on the right as you see it now, you’ll need a site location that can house it.

While you are still there, you may want to go back to the model(s) you like and take photos. File the photo in your expanding file after you print it out.

The drawing of the house on the brochure may not look the same.

Go back several times to each house and review your notes each time. Trust me - you will not remember details after reviewing perhaps 10-15 communities and 100 homes. It does not hurt to record driving directions either!

Now that you have survived your first, fifth, or tenth visit in search of your new home... rest up because they keep building more and more! MSN

Still Alice: a novel by Lisa Genova Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, c. 2007, 2009 Reviewed by Bernice Karnop “Even then, more than a year earlier, there were neurons in her head not far from her ears, that were being strangled to death, too quietly for her to hear them. Some would argue that things were going so insidiously wrong that the neurons themselves initiated events that would lead to their own destruction. Whether it was molecular murder or cellular suicide, they were unable to warn her of what was happening before they died.”

Alice, an accomplished professor of cognitive psychology at Harvard University, is highly respected as a teacher and researcher. She is a sought-after speaker for international conferences. Her husband is also a Harvard research professor and together they have raised three successful children.

But do a person’s accomplishments define who they are?

At age 49, Alice notices some disturbing symptoms in spite of her excellent health.

She becomes forgetful and disoriented in familiar routines and locations.

Typical for women her age, she blames stress, hormones, menopause, or being busy. She worries about a brain tumor.

Instead, she is diagnosed with something unfathomable - early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

What sets Still Alice apart is that readers walk into this minefield with Alice. We watch Alzheimer’s progression from the inside out. Still Alice is not so much about the disease, but about the person who has it. Writer Genova, who holds a PhD. in neuroscience from Harvard University, handles the

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subject with tremendous sensitivity and respect. She also uses all the brutal honesty required in dealing with this irreversible condition.

Alice and her family cannot believe that the diagnosis is correct but genetic testing turns up the presenilin-1 mutation. It is a dominant gene, endangering, not just Alice, but also her three children, one of whom tests positive for it. It is comforting that today science is able to test embryos before pregnancy and implant only those who are mutation-free. Even as she wishes the technology had been available when she was having children, she realizes that if it had been, the embryo that was her smart and beloved daughter would have been discarded.

Losses pile up. More than anything Alice wants to spend the undetermined number of good days she has left with her husband. He, on the other hand, has a hard time spending time with her. He responds scientifically with his considerable research skills, checking medications, clinical trials, and more.

But his intelligence and education are no match against Alzheimer’s.

Alice forms a small support group consisting of people who have early onset Alzheimer’s. They draw strength from each other as they share what is happening to them. She accepts an invitation to speak to a Dementia Care Conference.

“When will I no longer be me?” she asks. “Is the part of my brain that’s responsible for my unique ‘me-ness’ vulnerable to this disease? Or is my identity something that transcends neurons, proteins, and defective molecules of DNA? Is my soul and spirit immune to the ravages of Alzheimer’s?”

Lisa Genova researched Still Alice, her first book, extensively but it is much more than a scientific study. It is a novel and you will have trouble putting it down. People with Alzheimer’s and caregivers find it true to the disease and the Alzheimer’s Association endorses it.

By telling Alice’s story in Still Alice, Genova promotes understanding of this devastating disease. Her writing shows great respect for persons with Alzheimer’s and lifts us all.

I recommend this book to you. MSN

Financial Help for Family Caregivers

By Jim Miller To get paid as your parent’s caregiver there are several possibilities you should check into, and a variety of support services that can help, too. Here is what you should know.

Caregiving for Pay - If your mom is eligible for Medicaid, you may be able to get paid a small amount by the government. In 15 states, Medicaid offers a Cash and Counseling program (see cashandcounseling.org) that provides direct financial assistance to their beneficiaries, and that money can be used to pay in-home caregivers. A few other states have similar programs for lowincome seniors, even if the person receiving care does not quite qualify for Medicaid. To find out about these options contact your local Medicaid office or visit benefitscheckup.org - an online service that helps seniors and their families find and enroll in federal, state, local, and private benefit programs.

Other Options - If she has financial resources of her own, find out if she can afford to pay you. If she agrees, it may be a good idea for both of you to draft a short written contract detailing your work and payment arrangements.

Or, if your mom has long-term care insurance that includes in-home care coverage, in some cases those benefits can be used to pay you.

Tax Breaks - The IRS may also be able to help you out if you can show that you pay at least half of your mother’s yearly expenses, and her annual income was below $3,650 in 2009 (not counting Social Security). If so, you can claim her as a dependant on your taxes, and reduce your taxable income by $3,650. Your mom does not have to live with you to qualify as a dependent.

IRS Publication 501 (see www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf or call 800-8293676 to get a copy mailed to you) has a worksheet that can help you.

If your mom’s income, however, is over $3,650, you cannot claim her as a dependent. But if you are paying at least half her living expenses, you can still get a tax break if you are helping pay her medical and long-term care costs and they exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income. You can include your own medical expenses in calculating the total. See the IRS publication 502 (www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p502.pdf) for details.

Support Services - If you do not qualify for caregivers pay or a tax break, you can still get some financial relief through the National Family Caregiver

JUNE/JULY 2010

Support Program (NFCSP). This is a federally funded program that provides aid for specific caregiver needs like respite care or adult daycare to give you a break, counseling and support groups, and supplemental services including the purchase of medical supplies, SOS emergency response systems, and even home modifications. In addition to the NFCSP, you should also check into home delivered meal programs, volunteer companion programs, and even home and personal care ser-

vices. These, too, can lighten your load. To locate all the various programs and support services near you, contact your Area Agency on Aging. Call the Eldercare Locator at 800-677-1116 to get your local number or visit www.eldercare.gov.

Savvy Tip: The best Web resource to search for caregiver support services and programs in your area is the Family Caregiver Alliance at caregiver. org. When you get there, click on “Family Care Navigator,” or call 800-445.8106. MSN

Driving Helpers for Drivers and Concerned Families

By Jim Miller With more and more Americans driving well into their 70s, 80s, and beyond, there are many programs, tools and resources that exist today to help them and their concerned family members. Here are some good ones to check out along with a few tips.

Still Driving - To help keep your loved one safe while she is still driving, see to it that she gets her eyes checked every year to ensure her vision is up to par, and that she is not taking any medications that could impair her driving.

A few simple driving adjustments can also go a long way in keeping her safe, such as not driving after dark or during rush hour traffic, avoiding major highways or other busy roads, and not driving in poor weather conditions.

Self-Assess - To help you and your mom evaluate her driving abilities, a do-it-yourself assessment is a good way to start. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has some great resources on its Web site to help with this. Just go to seniordrivers.org and download “Roadwise Review,” a free screening tool that will test physical and mental abilities that are important for safe driving. Then click on the “DriveSharp Calculator,” another short test, created by Posit Science that will rate crash risk. AAA also offers an online self-survey called the “Drivers 55-Plus Self Rating Quiz” that she can take at aaafoundation.org/quizzes, or call 800-305-7233 and have them mail you the brochure. Also see aaaseniors.com and safedrivingforalifetime.com, two new sites dedicated to helping older drivers.

Get Refreshed - Another option that can help tune-up your mom’s driving skills is a driver refresher course. AAA and AARP both offer inexpensive older driver courses that may also earn her a discount on her auto insurance.

To locate a nearby class contact your local AAA (aaa.com) or AARP (aarp. org/drive, 888-227-7669). Most courses can be taken in the classroom or online.

Find a Pro - If you feel your mom could use some extra help, get a professional assessment done by a driver rehabilitation specialist – they can cost several hundred dollars up to $1,000. They will evaluate her driving skills along with how well she and her car fit together, and provide recommendations and solutions based on her needs. To locate a trained professional, contact the Association of Driver Rehabilitation Specialists (driver-ed.org, 866-672-9466) or the American Occupational Therapy Association (aota. org/olderdriver).

Keeping Watch - If you are concerned about your mom’s driving, a good way to keep an eye on her without impeding her driving is through the howsmydriving.com Senior Driving Program. This program puts a big How’s My Driving ID sticker on her back windshield so other drivers on the road can report improper driving, which can be e-mailed to you. A similar service is available at backseatguardian.com.

Time to Quit - If you find that your mom’s driving is not safe anymore and she needs to give it up, the Hartford Financial Services Group and MIT AgeLab have a resource that can help called “Family Conversations with Older Drivers.” At thehartford.com/talkwitholderdrivers you can find worksheets for evaluating your mom’s driving, tips for talking to her about quitting driving, and what to do if she refuses to stop. MSN

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Live Your Vacation Dreams

By Dusty Reed Fishing was one of my dad’s favorite hobbies. He set aside two weeks each summer while farming was light and took his family to Minnesota and later, to Canada. We stayed at a resort in Minnesota and with friends who owned a log cabin in Canada. I became a hooked angler and had my line in the water every possible chance, whether from the dock or while out in the boat. Dad’s hobby helped create beautiful memories for our family.

After I married and my folks retired, they bought a cabin in Minnesota where they invested their summers. Our place of employment in California allowed us to have several weeks of vacation so we traveled over two thousand miles through beautiful country to my folks’ cabin each summer.

Our son gained a love of fishing and enjoying the fascination of hearing the call of the loon, too.

Many think they must wait until they retire to enjoy travel. There are many means and occasions to travel to desired places worldwide anytime.

First the decisions. Where to go? By what means? How long? What to see?

First, pick up some brochures or check on the internet, decide on a date, and take the necessary steps to make the wishful thinking a reality.

The book, Blue Highways: A Journey into America, by William Least Heat Moon, gives a delightful account of a man who traveled the perimeter of the United States, following what he called blue highways, as secondary roads on the atlas. He invested the three months of his summer vacation from teaching to travel and visit with people in small communities. He commented that the more calendars there were in a café, implying a homecooked meal, the better the food.

Maybe there is something a bit unusual to experience, inclusive of travel.

Maybe it is a desire to study the borealis from Alaska. Maybe you want to learn French cooking from a chef in France. It would be fun to learn to yodel from someone in the Swiss Alps. Maybe you yearn to feel the tranquility of living on a houseboat. Some enjoy just traveling to see geographical areas where they have not been before. Many enjoy visiting museums. Whether it is for just weekends or for an entire month of travel at one time, the journey can be accomplished when it becomes a steady heartthrob.

For local enjoyment, it is fun to be on a familiar route and pretend it is the first time seeing it. With four definitive seasons, the landscape changes and draws attention to ever-new scenic beauty.

Come see the

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The stars in the twinkling night sky will captivate you at the Medora Musical, while the “stars” on stage will have you smiling and tappin’ your toes.

By day in Medora, you will experience some of the best outdoor adventure around hiking in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, taking a swing at scenic badlands golf at Bully Pulpit, and enjoying savory steak at the Pitchfork Steak Fondue. Make Medora, ND your next vacation.

www.medora.com 1-800-MEDORA-1

Rough Riders Hotel

Bully Pulpit Golf Course

Pitchfork Steak Fondue

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

JUNE/JULY 2010

I read a story by an amateur photographer who bought a 30-day boarding pass on Amtrak, boarded a train in Winnipeg, Canada, with no destination in mind, and ended up in Reno, Nevada.

He captured an array of nature photographs and sold some to prominent dealers, which more than paid for his trip.

When I asked some friends about their lifestyle of full-time recreational vehicle camping, they shared that their goal is a different lifestyle, not a harder one. They find this lifestyle as very comfortable with the availability of thousands of public, private, and membership campgrounds all over North America. There are also many scenic spots, not necessarily official campgrounds available that full-timers can call home for as long as they desire.

Full-time campers can live in a country club park setting, artistically landscaped, complete with heated pools, hot tubs, sports courts, billiard rooms, ballrooms, and restaurants. Most have a nice lounge where folks can gather for visiting,

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 35

playing cards, and other games. These special parks charge a fee, with a range as wide as the features offered.

The isolation of a state or national park campground has its own appeal. Entertainment consists of watching the wildlife, beautiful scenery, and sunsets. Music is provided by the birds and the wind rustling through the trees. Exercise comes from walking or hiking nearby trails. Prices for staying in these areas are very reasonable. If you do not own a motor home or camping trailer, rentals are an alternative.

There are so many reasons people enjoy travel. Observing and being a part of the landscape. The lifestyle changes from one area to another. Solitude or visiting family and friends.

Whatever the reason, travel can offer relaxation as well as exploration of new vistas. It is a worthwhile venture.

Set a date. Plan a destination. Plan a means of travel. Enjoy the preparation. Share the plans and excitement with others. Do it! MSN

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Rocky Mountain Parks of Canada Article & Photo by Jack McNeel Just north of our border is the largest concentration of national parks in Canada. Seven national rov ovin inci cial al p arks ar ks con cconstitute onst stit itut ute e parks plus additional provincial parks one of the largest and perhaps most beautiful protected natural areas on the planet â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and they are all within a dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drive of northern portions of Montana and Idaho.

In October 2009, we spent a week visiting portions of five parks, although one could easily spend a week at each location. The mountain peaks are magnificent, stretching high into the sky and often streaked with glaciers. At every turn in the highway, each vista seems more incredible than the last.

Early fall is a good time to visit, when families with children have returned home leaving highways less busy and lodging less crowded. For winter sports enthusiasts, the cold and snowy season is beautiful as well, and the driving conditions are consistent with winter mountain driving conditions here at home. Preparation is key.

Whether you are a hiker, skier, or photographer, the extensive and magnificent scenery is beyond words. Every day your visual senses are bombarded with a dynamic panorama of mountain peaks, lakes, rivers, forests, and glaciers. And

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The human huma hu man n pr p esen es ence ce in the Rocky Mountains The presence dates back over 10,000 years. Native peoples used this area for food, shelter, and medicine while it held sacred and spiritual meaning to them. Young men pursued spiritual visions in this country and sought balance with nature.

Visitors today feel some of that same reverence and awe just by being in such incredible surroundings hiking away from crowds on any of the innumerable trails. There

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Flagg Ranch Resort is centrally located, between Yellowstone National Park, and Grand Teton National Park, 55 miles north of Jackson, Wyoming. Our mountain lodge houses an attractive dining room, pub, gift shop and a convenience store with adjacent gas station. Stay in one of our cozy cabins or at our full-service campground with full RV hookups, pull-through sites and tent sites. Step out your door to hiking, fishing, horseback riding, wildlife viewing and a wide range of other fun activities!

(307) 543-2861 (800) 443-2311 www.flaggranch.com

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are hiking trails for virtually everyone – from the short and easy to those more strenuous for overnight camping.

Banff National Park, Canada’s first National Park, was established in 1885 around the thermal mineral springs that are an essential part of the tremendously popular tourist town of Banff. In summer, unique stores, a vast array of restaurants and motels, and a seemingly endless parade of tour busses bring visitors from around the world so the town is busy from early morning until late night. Things are somewhat quieter during the spring and fall shoulder seasons.

Lake Louise, the Hiking Capital of Canada about half an hour north of Banff, is also noted for its beauty, accommodations, and trails.

North across the North Saskatchewan River is where David Thompson, the explorer and map maker, crossed to the western side of the mountains in 1807 and hit the Columbia River for the first time. Here it flows north before swinging west and then south on its eventual run to the Pacific. At the time, Thompson did not recognize it as the Columbia and referred to it as the Kootenai River where he built the first trading post west of the continental divide.

Jasper National Park is the largest and most northerly of the parks. Called the most scenic drive in North America, the Icefields Parkway stretches 143 miles along the “backbone of the continent” north from Banff. You can tour Athabasca Glacier in a Brewster SnoCoach, a massive bus designed for travel over the glacier. Of course you can hike with a guide should you prefer.

The town of Jasper provides numerous lodging facilities and interesting stores and restaurants in a quieter, less touristy way than the town of Banff.

Throughout the parks are rustic cabins such as the Patricia Lake Bungalows on the shores of Patricia Lake, just 3 miles north of Jasper.

Maligne Lake, 27 miles from the town of Jasper, is renowned for its beauty and accessible from the town of Jasper via the Maligne Canyon road past Medicine Lake. It is also noted as an excellent wildlife-viewing drive.

Yoho, Glacier, and Mount Revelstoke National Parks all lie to the west of Lake Louise straddling Canada’s Highway 1. The scenery remains astonishing. Stop in the quaint town of Fields to visit the Yoho Visitor Centre and grab a meal, one of the few opportunities in Yoho N.P. A side road north out of Field leads to Emerald Lake, where The Lodge was voted one of the top two resorts in Canada in the 2009 Conde Naste Readers Choice Awards.

Farther west, Golden, British Columbia provides lodging and restaurants for visitors and a variety of recreational opportunities in the area of the confluence of two of Canada’s impressive rivers, the Columbia and the Kicking Horse.

Just beyond Golden are Glacier and Mount Revelstoke National Parks.

Each is relatively small compared to Jasper and Banff but offers a variety of historical attractions and hiking trails suitable for all abilities.

Kootenay National Park is a principal entrance from the south for those traveling to Banff and Jasper. Radium Hot Springs, just inside the entrance, is a favorite destination for those seeking the warm, soothing, mineral waters.

Kootenay N.P. offers hiking opportunities and a high probability of seeing wildlife – so much that one section of road has a reduced speed limit because several wolves have been hit by cars there.

The final park in this region is Waterton Lakes N.P., the Canadian extension of Montana’s Glacier National Park and part of the International Peace Park. The townsite of Waterton is fun, funky, and sits on the shores of gorgeous Waterton Lake. Bighorn sheep and deer frequently browse through town and various hikes provide the opportunity to explore off the roads.

Canadian National Parks charge an entry fee that can be paid as you enter each park, which may require sitting in line for a few minutes at peak travel times. Otherwise, an annual permit can be purchased in advance, and seniors receive a discount. Canada does not have a permit comparable to the Golden Age Passport of the United States. MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010



By Gail Jokerst Anyone who has traveled through Colorado and taken the time to explore its byways would have to agree: the Centennial State is full of geological and biological wonders worth viewing.

Whether you prefer to see the camera-grabbing sights from inside the comfort of your vehicle or on foot, you will find plenty to pique your interest in Colorado. Four destinations that should appear on every nature lover’s itinerary include Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Curecanti National Recreation Area, Dinosaur National Monument, and Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

With place names like Devil’s Lookout, Dragon Point, and Cross Fissure, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park announces to the world that it can legitimately (Photo by B. James Jokerst) lay claim to some of the West’s most rugged scenery. And it delivers on the primeval views, especially with sights such as the pink-and-white-striped Painted Wall. At 2,250 feet, it ranks as Colorado’s highest cliff. As the sun sets at this national park, a colorful glow washes over the region’s impressive ribbed walls inspiring artists and photography buffs to capture the fast-changing hues with paints and cameras.

Aside from the colorful light show, the park puts on another colorful show with its resident raptors.

Peregrine falcons, red-tailed hawks, and golden eagles are just a few of the avian stars that draw birders. Hoping to catch flashes of these agile critters riding air currents and landing on ledged perches high above the Gunnison River, visitors line up with binoculars across the steep chasm to watch falcons dart and swoop and eagles and hawks soar in space. While glassing the sky, they listen expectantly for the sound of raptor screams echoing off the rock walls.

Named for its dark sheer cliffs, Black Canyon has an outstanding auto drive that enables visitors to get a feel for the countryside. The park’s six-mile (one-way) Rim Drive includes ten overlooks. Each features a different panorama and interpretive signage. Drop by the visitor center before taking

Michael Ober - Continued from page 13 to find the women’s side of our history. Most of it is about dead white guys. But you still have to know the then to deal with the now,” explains Michael.

“You have to understand where you came from what events made your past - to know where you are going.”

His desire to work in Glacier Park came from his family’s returning to vacation in the park every summer while he was growing up. After Michael graduated high school, he wanted to find summer employment before entering the University of Montana. Hiring on for a seasonal job at Glacier seemed like just the thing for him.

“I couldn’t think of a better place to work and still can’t. I think every college student should spend a summer working at a national park,” says Michael. “You meet people from all over the United States and the world. It’s a mixing bowl for good things to happen.”

Besides that, for Michael and his wife, Alanna, it has also been a great place to raise their two sons, who both worked summers in Glacier as they got older. Michael is quick to add that Alanna’s role, though unpaid and mostly invisible to the public eye, has been a vital one, as well. As he says, “The ranger’s wife holds the station together while you’re gone.”

During the course of his four decades of seasonal park employment, Michael has worked in a variety of locales from Kintla Lake to Walton. He has served as a fireguard, a backcountry ranger, and a law enforcement ranger. The latter post be-

the drive to learn how the Gunnison River has carved a passageway through these massive rock formations and left behind such remarkable vistas.

Named for the 19th-century Ute Indian chief Curacata, Curecanti National Recreation Area is part of the Colorado River Storage Project. As might be expected from a region containing three lakes formed by three dams, boaters, windsurfers, and water-skiers migrate here. But primarily, this is a Mecca for anglers on a quest for rainbow, Mackinaw, brown, and brook trout as well as kokanee salmon. Although water sports lure most people to this canyon land, hikers also have good reason to visit: Curecanti Creek Trail.

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 37

From Pioneer Point above Morrow Point Lake, the trail descends two miles from the rim of the Upper Black Canyon of the Gunnison and follows Curecanti Creek. Starting in aspen groves, it gently switchbacks you down about 900 feet into a lush riparian gorge setting. At trail’s end, you will see the 700-foot spire called Curecanti Needle, which was the logo for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The hike takes you through different suites of wildflowers at each elevation level, which remind you why the town of Crested Butte hosts a popular wildflower festival celebrating phlox, clematis, larkspur, and other botanical delights each July. Heading back (Continued on page 55)

PAGE 38 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

ing the one he has held the longest. It continues to require him to perform everything from emergency medical services to search and rescue missions with some natural history interpretation and wildland fire management responsibilities tossed into the blend.

Much of his job satisfaction comes from interacting with park visitors and making a visitor’s day better by helping that person when needed. Seeing someone leave with a happy smile qualifies as a fringe benefit to him. He also enjoys the spontaneity and freshness of each workday rather than following a rigid outline of detailed duties.

“As a ranger, I find there are new things to address every day and week. You never know in advance what the day will bring to you,” says Michael, who recalls a few harrowing unplanned incidents that have left their mark - without scars - on his memory.

One time he was hiking The Loop Trail during huckleberry season and encountered a grizzly sow munching her way through nirvana.

“That was the first and only time I ever went up a tree because of a bear. It wasn’t scary but it did seem prudent and preventative to get out of the way,” notes Michael. What he did find scary were the fires of 2003. That is when the park had to conduct three visitor evacuations and everyone feared Apgar Village and parts of West Glacier could be wiped out.

Given that it helps to maintain a sense of humor in times of stress, Michael typically looks for and finds lighter moments even amidst fire scenarios like that year’s.

“During the Trapper Fires, we had to close Going-to-the-Sun Road and were trying to get the traffic out of there quickly. All of a sudden, flames blew over The Loop. I will never forget seeing those port-a-potties catch on fire,” recounts Michael with a grin. “It was like a bubbling mass of molten plastic. I even kept a piece that was leftover as a memento.”

Michael’s jobs teaching history at FVCC and working as the Library Director seem relatively

tame by comparison. However, the educational realm does pose its own unique challenges: like figuring out how to engage students and how to stay current with the changes in technology that drive the information age.

“Students keep you thinking young. Working with them gives you exposure to revolutionary trends. Each generation has new ideas, interesting baggage they bring along to the classroom and library. By the end of the school year, I’m ready to change hats and work in Glacier at a new place, at a new pace, with new people. That’s refreshing,” he says. “And by the end of summer, I’m ready to start another semester. It’s a rhythmic cycle.”

This existence balanced between academia and park law enforcement fits him as perfectly as his Smokey the Bear hat. It also provides Michael with more opportunities than he can count to say to someone, “This is the story of my life - a twosided business card.”

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MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 39

Museum of Idaho presents: From Wolf To Woof: The Story of Dogs The Museum of Idaho is going to the dogs... lots of dogs - along with wolves, coyotes, foxes, and other members of the canine family. The Museum trots out its 2010 exhibit season with Wolf To Woof: The Story of Dogs, a traveling exhibit created by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and presented by Wonderworks Exhibits Company. This exhibit, which will be at the Museum through September 11, 2010, is the largest and most comprehensive exhibit ever created to explore the history of dogs and their role in human society.

Dogs are some of our oldest friends, but why? Why have humans formed such close relationships with dogs and not with one of the other species sharing the planet with us?

Why not horses, cows, pigs, or chickens?

Wolf to Woof: The Story of Dogs uses multi-media displays, artifacts, photomurals, and dioramas that explore how our relationship evolved and what makes it so unique. Special interactive hands-on areas let visitors guess what dogs are saying in a “howling area,” test their nose against a dog’s great sense of smell, or climb into an avalanche scene to see what it is like to be saved by a search and rescue dog.

There are four themed sections in the exhibition, each focusing on a different aspect of how dogs have evolved and the roles they have played in human lives over the centuries.

Dogs come in all shapes and varieties, and section one illustrates the amazing versatility of dogs and how their appearance has changed through time, both naturally and with the help of humans. It also addresses the geographical origins and history of select domestic dog breeds, many species of wild canines, as well as extinct canine relatives.

The first domesticated dogs would have earned their keep as hunters, pack animals, and guardians for their human companions. Gradually, different breeds began to evolve based on need and environment.

However, scientists cannot agree on exactly

how this process took place. Perhaps early humans found and adopted wolf puppies, with natural selection favoring the survival of those who adapted to human society. Or perhaps dogs domesticated themselves. Human settlement inevitably creates human refuse dumps, which would have been an easy source of food. Perhaps over time, succeeding generations of wolves became accustomed to being around humans. However it happened - once dogs discovered a warm fire and a regular food

supply, and once humans discovered a bed warmer and companion - the bonds have strengthened over the centuries.

Today, the domestic dog comes in a mindboggling array of shapes, sizes, and colors, from tiny Chihuahuas to Giant Mastiff, some 400 recognized breeds in all. And that does not begin to count today’s popular designer breeds, or Heinz 57 varieties.

Since there is a little wolf in every dog, section two explores why dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, foxes, and their kin do the things they do, and how and when they behave in different ways. Genetically, the DNA makeup of wolves and dogs is almost identical, but selective breeding of dogs over the

centuries for certain characteristics has given them the different physical and personality traits that make one breed different from another, and sets them apart from their wild relatives.

Section three explores the skills dogs have that help humans. From their incredible sense of smell to their stamina, the abilities of dogs have made the lives of humans a lot easier and they have become involved in all aspects of everyday life. Dogs have served as hunters, herders, guards, and warriors, as well as companions. They can help cheer people up, assist people with disabilities, sniff out bombs and drugs, find lost people, and warn their owners of an oncoming seizure.

The fate of many wild canines also depends on humans. As human population has grown, pollution, hunting, and habitat destruction have altered the environments that wild canines need to survive. Some have learned to adapt, like the coyote, who has found a niche even in large cities like Los Angeles and New York, but they, along with other wild canines, still need human help in order to continue surviving.

Special items from the Yellowstone Wolf Project, including radio collars, skulls, and pelts, will highlight the effective but still controversial efforts to reestablish the wolf in Yellowstone National Park and the on-going efforts to provide an environment where humans and wolves can co-exist.

During the course of the exhibit local animal shelters, veterinarians, and the Humane Society will participate with an adoption wall, and events are being planned with local kennel clubs, the Yellowstone Wolf Project, and local veterinarians.

Located at 200 N. Eastern Avenue, Idaho Falls, Idaho, The Museum of Idaho is open Mon-Tues 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Wed.-Sat. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., closed Sundays and holidays. For more information, visit www.museumofidaho.org or call 208-522-1400.

MSN

PAGE 40 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

Montana Historical Society Is Montana’s Memory

By Bernice Karnop Montana grew up fast. She’d been a Territory barely a year when a group of men gathered in Dance and Stuart’s store in Virginia City in 1865 and formed the Montana Historical Society.

“Montanans have long known that what they were doing here on the land in Montana was important and should be saved for future generations,” says Tom Cook, Montana Historical Society Public Information Office.

Montana’s Historical Society is the second oldest state historical society west of the Mississippi River, according to Cook. At first, it was simply a loose organization of people who cared about the stories. They collected diaries, documents, and remembrances so they would not be forgotten.

In the 1950s, K. Ross Toole became the director and developed the organization into a professional society worthy of Montana History. Key events included opening the Montana Historical Society Museum, starting Montana The Magazine of Western History, and publishing books.

“The Historical Society is where Montana lives and will live forever,” states Cook. “We are Montana’s memory.”

Older Montanans, like their forefathers and mothers, are key supporters of the Montana Historical Society and its programs.

The Montana Historical Society Museum.

Are you entertaining grandchildren this summer? In April the museum opened the Children’s Montana History room where you and the kids can play together. They might get hooked on Montana history

without even knowing it.

“Children become a lot better citizens and they learn why this is such a special place in which to live,” Cook explains. They can try out both western and Indian saddles on the model horses; they can dig through drawers, and play games.

The museum is always finding fresh and authentic ways to tell Montana’s story. The current exhibit on Glacier National Park’s centennial includes intriguing video of a grizzly scratching his back on a tree, Baloostyle as seen in the Jungle Book.

M o n tana’s cowboy artist, Charles M. Russell’s work is always on display in the Mackay Gallery of Russell Art. Russell painted Montana history with a broad enough brush to include Native and white points of view. This collection of major oil paintings, sculptures, pen and ink drawings, and illustrated letters is important to understanding both the artist and his subject - Montana.

An example of the importance of the Historical Society’s close relationship to Montana Tribes comes when visitors ask why the ceremonial pipes at the museum are displayed with the bowl separated from the stem. About five years ago Native American elders explained that a Medicine Man is the only one to connect them and when they do, the pipe

JUNE/JULY 2010

misdemeanors in a newspaper article. They have copies of every one ever printed in the state. You will also find all the legislative and governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s records here.

Becoming A Member. You can become a member of the Montana Historical Society by mail, the telephone, or by e-mail. Individual memberships cost $55. Benefits of membership include a subscription to Montana The Magazine of Western History, admission to the museum, discounts at the store and more. You can subscribe to the magazine without becoming a member. Contact them at 1-800-243-9900 or visit www.mhs.mt.gov.

Contribute toward the new Montana Heritage Center. The new Montana Heritage Center will be built right across the street from the current Montana Historical Society Museum in Helena. The two will be connected by a grand underground entryway. The architects rendering will travel the state this summer as they raise funds for this worldc l a s s building. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Giving to this project is a great way to say thank you to Montana and to do somet h i n g positive for future generations of Montan-

ans,â&#x20AC;? says Cook.

If you would like more information about tax incentives or about donating to the building, call Director Richard Sims at 406-444-5480. MSN

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becomes blessed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We never have them together when we display them or when we store them,â&#x20AC;?

Cook says.

The Museum strives to tell all Montanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stories. Some are well known while others are not. Did you know that at one time Virginia City had more Chinese than any other nationality? Or that the Communist party in NE Montana elected individuals from its party to our legislature in the 1920s?

A visit to the museum may include tours of the state Capitol across the street and the restored Original Governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mansion a few blocks away.

Call for tour times and information, 406-444-3695.

Publications. Montana Historical Society began publishing Montana The Magazine of Western History in 1951. The award-winning journal keeps subscribers in all 50 states and 14 foreign nations current on issues, controversies, and new discoveries involving Montana and the west.

The Society also publishes books on western history and currently has more than 50 books in print. The first book they published was on Calamity Jane. The latest one is Red Corner: the Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana.

Montana: Land of Many Stories won several national awards and praise from schools. It includes Native American perspectives on all the events that happened over the years. Photographs are from the Historical Society collection. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Montana history textbook, but it is so well written and so well illustrated that many people buy it for themselves,â&#x20AC;? says Cook. If you do not find it locally, order it from the Museum bookstore by calling 1-800-243-9900.

The State Historic Preservation Office. This arm of the Society is responsible for protecting historic sites, Native American sites, buildings, and properties. They erect the silver informational signs at these places.

The Montana Research Center. Leading historians and scholars call this the best research facility anywhere for western history, and it is open to you at no cost.

People come from all over the world to use it, including television documentary producer Ken Burns, and Montana author Ivan Doig. You may discover where your grandpa lived and what he did, you might find family photos in what is the biggest photography collection in the west, or find reports on your uncleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 41

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PAGE 42 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

Sons & Daughters - (Cont’d from page 1)

to Missouri. Their trip was delayed when acting Governor Thomas Meagher drowned just off the for more than 100 years.

“It wasn’t easy,” she admits, but her dad taught levy. Then the steamboat sank by Cow Island, only her that the land was her heritage. She faced down 170 miles from Fort Benton and they were loaded some daunting challenges but says it was well into crude boats and taken to Bismarck where they found passage on to Missouri. Their father joined worth the effort to hold on to this heritage.

A few years ago the Sons and Daughters of them there at the family farm.

When Adelaide was 13, her mother and sisters Montana Pioneers met at Daryl Abbot’s ranch out of Lewistown. Abbot is a direct descendant of returned to Fort Benton without her father. When she was young, Marge told the old noted pioneer “Teddy Blue” Abwoman that she heard that he had bot, and his ranch is still owned been shot by the sheriff. Grandby the original family. mother killed the conversation Part of the fun of these conquickly. “That’s not true and we ventions is hearing family stories. aren’t going to talk about it again.”

Mary Lou’s great-great But he was indeed shot by the grandmother Mary Ann Busack sheriff. A Southern sympathizer Spiegel came to Diamond City, during the Civil War, James Berry Montana, in 1863 with her two joined Quantrail’s raiders. He little girls, but the family never and another man held up the Big understood why. Mary Lou’s Springs Express train and made grandmother wrote her mother’s off with the government payroll, story as she told it, stating that an act justified in their minds, as her husband died during the Civil a protest against Northern CarWar. Later research shows that petbaggers. her husband abandoned them Adelaide, who married ranchand came to Montana to search Marge Gray [Photo by er John Harris in what is now for gold. This spunky woman Bernice Karnop] Marge’s living room, was well packed up her girls and came loved and respected and felt her looking for him. They found the man, who was obviously no gem, in Diamond City. In the 1970s, the father’s death was a black mark against her. Actufamily uncovered divorce papers in the Meagher ally, Marge says, her grandfather was considered County court house. Mary Ann, who may have a folk hero back in Missouri. “But he wasn’t. He wished him shot in the War, remarried. She died was a crook,” she adds.

These and other intriguing stories heard at at age 33 and is buried in Diamond City.

Sons and Daughters of Montana Pioneer meetings Marge Gray’s grandmother Adelaide Price are examples of why the organization feels it’s Berry Harris was born in Alder Gulch on May 14, 1867, her parents having come during the gold important to remember and honor these pioneers.

To learn more about the organization, visit rush in 1864. She lived into her late 80s and died www.cowboysranch.com or just type in Sons and in 1954. Marge remembers her well as a gracious Daughters of Montana Pioneers.

Their 2010 Anwoman who talked about her mom and sisters, but nual Convention dates are August 6-7, 2010 in never mentioned her father.

Her mother and the children traveled by stage- Missoula. More stories about Montana Pioneers coach to Fort Benton when Adelaide and her twin can be found in Dreams Across the Divide, Linda were just babies, and boarded a steamboat back Wostrel, Editor. MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 43

PAGE 44 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

The Governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conference had to do 42nd Governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Advisory Council on with keeping a jump Conference on Aging Aging, state staff, and ahead of those who local Area Agencies cheat older people out a Huge Success of Aging received high of their life savings.

By Bernice Karnop praise for taking GovThe first dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s agenda ernorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Conference on Aging attendance to included fraud and abuse presenters from around nearly 600 people in three diverse areas of our the state and nation. broad state. Cindy Padilla, the Principal Deputy These people are clever, but we can outAssistant Secretary on Aging in Washington, smart them and our state officials can catch D.C. called it unique, and Percy Devine, regional them and punish them. State agencies encourdirector from Denver, called it brilliant. aged people not to feel helpless but to reach No one called it easy, but most say it was out for help. Call your Area Agency on Aging or worth the effort. the Office of Consumer Protection at 406-444An Advocate for the State and the Tribes 4500 or 800-481-6896. The sooner infractions on the National Level are reported; the more likely the person is to be Ms. Padilla, who was appointed to her post apprehended. The call you make is confidential only four months ago, brings a western states and the people you talk with understand senior perspective and a reservation perspective to the issues. nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capitol. She most recently served as the Attendees were reminded that the old adage Secretary of the New Mexico Aging & Long Term is true without exception, â&#x20AC;&#x153;If it sounds too good Services Department under the administration of to be true, it is.â&#x20AC;? Addressed too were the realities Bill Richardson. of modern technology that make it necessary to â&#x20AC;&#x153;I want to listen to you and take your con- protect personal information including credit card cerns back to Washington,â&#x20AC;? she said. She praised numbers, banking information, Social Security the many years of experience and the caring numbers, and birth dates. If you have doubts, attitudes of our Montana Aging network. She call the consumer protection agency first. Do committed to helping them bring even better not allow someone to pressure you by asking services to Montana. Some of her other goals for money up front, insisting on a quick decision, include serving more seniors, providing more and demanding personal information. home-based services, and supporting caregivers.

People do fall for scams all the time. If that Of course increas- has happened to you, let the authorities know ing services is chal- right away so they have a better chance of catchlenging with our present ing the villain. The state of Montana has recoveconomy. State and ered millions of dollars and you might be lucky. federal entities can alIt was noted by a representative of Montanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ways do better at meet- Lottery that the largest retailer of Lottery tickets in ing the challenges of the state is located in Miles City. And a winning budget cuts versus ticket from them in March for $200,000 has yet growing needs by work- to be claimed! ing together, leveraging Centenarian Recognition resources, and bringing The names of more than three times as many in more partners, said Centenarians as last year were submitted this Padilla. year as last. Of the 123 centenarians identified, The most important 27 said they would attend the luncheon being thing to keep in mind is held for them at each location. In Miles City, who these people are. twelve centenarians plus family members were â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about our fami- recognized. lies and about relationFor those not attending, you might be surships,â&#x20AC;? she said. prised by the reasons they gave. For example, Important Issues Harriet Watkins from Dillon was celebrating her An important part 101st birthday and the city of Dillon had declared of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Aging Smart it Harriet Watkins Day. There were so many parin Big Sky Country,â&#x20AC;? ties and celebrations going on in the town where

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JUNE/JULY 2010

she has lived all of her life she just could not come to the GCA. Harriet still lives in her own home and walks to the Post Office every day.

“It’s amazing how many Centenarians live at home and are still driving,” said conference organizer Brian LaMoure. Brian designed the cover for the Conference booklet with photos of Centenarians and their names.

Mini Grants Mini grants to help community projects get off the ground were awarded this year to Froid Senior Center for new carpet, Nashua Senior Center for a wheelchair accessible entrance, to the Power Whistle Stop for a new range, and the Wathatau Senior Citizens Center in Dodson for a commercial bread mixer. A total of $3,500 was given away.

Max Richtman, Vice President of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare made the presentations to each center with

a ceremonial 4-foot check.

“This check allows our Senior Centers to continue to create services locally for their seniors,” he said. “The Committee is pleased to help sponsor this unique and creative way to assist services to our seniors.”

Coming Up… Planning for next year’s conferences has started already with the moving of the conference to the fall, in late September or October. Areas for the conference to be held include possibly Billings, Butte, Havre, and Great Falls depending on availability.

“Keep out an eye for the next location in the Montana Senior News,” said LaMoure. “We will let everyone know when and where as soon as we can lock in two sites.”

Be sure to check www.aging.mt.gov for aging services news. MSN

Ann Reynolds, Area V board member from Dillon, attended the GCA in Polson, in May, but she cannot wait until June arrives. She and her husband will gather with other members of the North American Railcar Operators Association (NARCOA) for rail trips in Montana, Washington, and Canada. They hop in their privately owned railroad motor cars, or Speeders, and, putt down the tracks at about 30 miles an hour. It is quite safe since they pay a trespass fee and the railroad sends someone along to guide. Speeders were used to inspect the tracks for defects before the railroad started using over the road vehicles with retractable wheels to run on the tracks. The motor cars were called Speeders because they replaced the much slower manually powered pump cars. NARCOA has over 1,800 members worldwide and is dedicated to the preservation and safe, legal operation of railroad equipment historically used for maintenance. To learn more visit www.narcoa. org. Ann says it’s a blast. “We bring the dog and the grandchildren and have a great time.” [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 45

PAGE 46 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

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MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 47

The Veterans Warrior Society color guard performs in full traditional regalia from hat to moccasins. Their outfits include ribbon shirts, breastplates, and leggings. In their presentation, the Eagle Staff precedes the flag to symbolize spiritual protection, followed by the Spear and Shield that symbolize physical protection, followed by the flag itself. The veteran warriors shown are Mike Couture, Bill Rogers, and Dan Jackson.

[Photo by Bernice Karnop]

This crusty sourdough bread bowl with delicious potpie filling brought a smile to Carolyn Kellogg and everyone else at Yogo Inn on Wednesday. Carolyn, who is co-chair of the executive board in Area II, used to make bread from the tangy starter herself and appreciated the special treat. [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

Many Montanans prize their cornflower blue Yogo sapphires, which are found only in Central Montana. Pat Morrison has the additional satisfaction of having dug hers from the ground at the Yogo mines. In her 50 th anniversary ring, the Yogo sapphire is framed by diamonds, one of which is from her original engagement ring. Pat and Jim Morrison moved to Sapphire Village from Laurel six years ago and own rights to dig in the mine. “We love Hobson,” Pat says. And no wonder. She is bookkeeper for the Senior Center and they are active in many other local organizations. Each year they have a necklace made with sapphires they have found and donate it to a raffle benefiting the community. [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

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PAGE 48 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010 Who could resist the brown-eye puppy pictured on the cover of this heart-warming story, PuppityPup gets a Home? Every auntie or grandma who took it home with them also helped support the Foster Grandparent program, for which book sales were a fundraiser. Author Mark Nicolaus, PhD, (l.) is pictured with Gene Auge from Libby. Nicolaus is an outdoorsman who raises horses near Thompson Falls and served as a parish pastor for nearly 40 years. Another book by Nicolaus is Horsehide Devotions daily devotions for horse lovers. There will be more adventures of PuppityPup, he promised. For more information, contact Nicolaus at mnmabgp@hotmail. com, or P.O. Box 2435, Thompson Falls, MT 59873. [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

“I am not the story of myself but of all my family,” said Julie Cajune. And she told elders at the Polson GCA that they are a repository of irreplaceable family knowledge and stories which they need to pass on to the new generations. Cajune’s own family research took her to Scotland, as she is a descendant of Angus MacDonald and his Indian wife, Catherine Baptiste. The Clans, like the Tribes had a fierce attachment to land, she discovered. The Salish-Kootenai are the first tribes to buy back land that was homesteaded and they are the first tribe to put land in protection, she said. [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

Laine Cohen, Polson, delivered a warm welcome as she gave out conference booklets with Montana Centenarians pictured on the cover. Betty Corum from Ronan was glad to be able to attend the conference at the KwaTukNuk Best Western in Polson for the first time because it was close to home. [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

JUNE/JULY 2010

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 49

Toolkit for the Rest of My Life notebook compiled by Tom Wojtowick, Executive Director, Fergus County Council on Aging, includes a plethora of information addressing, “I’m over 60… Now What?” It helps people record their personal history, senior concerns, and final directives.

Brenda Wilmont, shown here with Florence Wacker, 86, of Roundup, talked about the Five Wishes section. The five areas you express your desires, the person I want to make care decisions for me when I can’t; the kind of medical treatment I want or don’t want; how comfortable I want to be; how I want people to treat me; and what I want my loved ones to know. She explained the kinds of problems and family fights that may be avoided when this paper is given to your family and placed in your medical records. [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

Multiple vendors filled the hall around the conference room at the KwaTaqNuk resort, selling raffle tickets, telling what businesses have to offer, pitching organizations, and giving out information.

Here, Jaci Ward and Kelly Williams learned about activities at the Montana Veterans Home in Columbia Falls from vendors Helen Stemborski and Bonnie Stutsman. This state facility provides a resident for honorably discharged veterans or their spouses who need long-term nursing care. If you would like information on the Veterans home call them at 406892-3256, extension 229, or write them at P.O. Box 250, Columbia Falls, MT 59912. [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

My Life. My Death. My Choice.

Don’t Let Anyone Take Away Your End-of-Life Choice Helena brain cancer patient Steve Johnson has a choice today. He may not have one come January.

“I think I should have something to say about my ending, it’s my decision to make, and it’s a great comfort to know I can ask my doctor to honor my choice to die with dignity.”

Our Montana Supreme Court recently decided that end-of-life medical choices are private, between you and your doctor, and that terminally-ill adults can request medication to bring about a peaceful death.

But some people don’t agree. They believe politicians and government should decide how Steve Johnson can be allowed to die.

Opponents of this most personal and private right have vowed to get the legislature to take it away next January.

For people suffering the pain and anguish of a prolonged terminal illness, the decision about how their life ends should be theirs alone, made with the support of family and loved ones.

Steve Johnson

Join the Compassion & Choices Action Network.

Call Compassion & Choices at 1(800) 247-7421 Visit www.CompassionAndChoices.org/Steve Or clip out and mail this coupon:

Yes, I support Steve Johnson’s and my own - right to end-of-life choice!

Your right to self-determination is precious, hard won, and in jeopardy.

Name: ______________________________________________

“I’m standing up to protect my choice. We have to stand up, or our freedom to choose will be taken away.”

- Steve Johnson

____________________________________________________

Please stand with Steve Johnson and Compassion & Choices in protecting the Montana Supreme Court ruling that respects your personal end-of-life decisions. Protect Steve’s, and your own, right to die with dignity.

Address: _____________________________________________

Phone: ______________________________________________ Email: ______________________________________________ F

You may use my name in letting elected lawmakers know of my support.

Mail to Compassion & Choices of Montana, P.O. Box 1348, Helena, Montana 59624

www.CompassionAndChoices.org/Steve

1(800) 247-7421

PAGE 50 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

MON TANA

SENIOR LIVING GUIDE

TM

He’s not the Rehab person in Room 127...

Please visit us online to see all of our services as well as what makes us special in Montana.

In Billings, Montana: “Let Our Community Be Yours.”

His name is Phil.

• Independent Living • Assisted Living 2351 Solomon Ave. • Billings • (406) 652-4886 • www.westparksenior.com

• Rehabilitation • Short- and Long-term Skilled Nursing Care • Memory Care Wing • Accepting Medicare, Private Insurances and Medicaid 1807 24th St. W. • Billings • (406) 656-5010 • www.valleyhcc.com

He is an Engineer, a fly fisherman and chief of the bar-b-que.

Your Dad and Husband.

Our Friend and Neighbor.

• Rehabilitation • Short- and Long-term Skilled Nursing Care • Memory Care Wing • Accepting Medicare, Private Insurances and Medicaid 2115 Central Ave. • Billings • (406) 656-6500 • www.billingshealth.com

In Western Montana:

We Care Because You Care.

How Does Skilled Nursing Care Get Paid For?

By Karen Powers, The Goodman Group

Until it becomes a factor in our life, most of us do not know how skilled nursing care is paid for.

The first hours during admission to a skilled nursing facility are full of information. This is the time when financial responsibility will be addressed with several options presented by the admissions coordinator. For a short-term rehabilitation stay, using a Medicare benefit and a Medicare supplemental insurance might be all that is needed.

When skilled nursing care is required for a long term living situation the options become private pay, long term care insurance or Medicaid benefit.

Questions we all have: How much of my nursing care is paid for by Medicare?

With a qualifying hospital stay and qualifying diagnosis, your first 20 days will be 100% paid for.

Thereafter, Medicare will pay 80% and you are responsible for a co-pay of $137.50 per day (2010 rate).

How long does my Medicare benefit last?

Your Medicare benefit can last up to 100 days as long as you are showing improvement with treatment and rehabilitation.

What is Private Pay? Private pay is using personal funds to pay for staying in a skilled nursing facility. When Medicare benefits are exhausted and a person continues to need care, the monthly expense is billed directly to the resident.

Can Medicaid help me with my nursing home bills?

Medicaid can be a resource for paying for long term care. However, there are age and income requirements with variables involving marital status and financial assets.

What if I still have a spouse at home?

Medicaid has guidelines that take into account a spouse still living at home and relying on the family income.

How do I apply for Medicaid?

If it seems Medicaid services might be an option, you will be directed to the social services representative of the skilled nursing facility. This person is very knowledgeable about the Medicaid benefits, how to qualify and how to apply. They have the applications at hand and can walk you through the process.

“Discover how good life can be.”

• Independent Living • Assisted Living 2815 Old Fort Rd. • Missoula • (406) 549-1300 • www.villagesenior.com • Rehabilitation • Short- and Long-term Skilled Nursing Care • Memory Care Wing • Accepting Medicare, Private Insurances and Medicaid 2651 South Ave. W. • Missoula • (406) 728-9162 • www.villagehealthcare.com • Rehabilitation • Short- and Long-term Skilled Nursing Care • Memory Care Wing • Accepting Medicare, Private Insurances and Medicaid 1301 E. Broadway • Missoula • (406) 721-0680 • www.riversidesenior.com • Rehabilitation • Short- and Long-term Skilled Nursing Care • Memory Care Wing • Accepting Medicare, Private Insurances and Medicaid 4720 23rd Ave. • Missoula • (406) 251-5100 • www.hillsidesenior.com

For any of your questions regarding payment and funding, please feel free to contact any of the skilled nursing communities listed to the right and ask to speak to Admissions or Social Services.

• Rehabilitation • Short- and Long-term Skilled Nursing Care • Memory Care Wing • Accepting Medicare, Private Insurances and Medicaid 225 N. 8th St. • Hamilton • (406) 363-1144 • www.valleyviewestates.org

We Care Because You Care.

JUNE/JULY 2010

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 51

Some people pick up the Montana Senior News because it is free. Ted Richardson ardso picked this issue up at the GCA in Lewistown because he knew the man pictured on the front page. Although Richardson and his wife Karen live in i Somers, they drove to Lewistown for the conference. She represents AARP, AAR and there were plenty of representative in Polson so Karen, who is on the t Montana Executive Council, volunteered to come to Lewistown. It was familiar country since they both taught in Judith Gap a number of years yea ago. [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

It can be overwhelming to hear about all the ways one can be taken advantage of, but it is useful information when you are helping others avoid it. Jim Dettmann, retired Kalispell teacher and AARP representative, and H. James Oleson, are both from Kalispell but met for the first time at the GCA in Polson. Both men found the full day of fraud seminars very helpful. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was interesting and educational,â&#x20AC;? Oleson said.

[Photo by Bernice Karnop] Things were really popping in Western Montana one hundred years ago. Glacier National Park was established, Polson became a town, and the reservation was opened to homesteaders. But for Bill Meadowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family, the biggest event in 1910 was the fire. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I grew up in the shadow of the 1910 fire and spent my life as a fire fighter,â&#x20AC;? said the 23 season smoke jumper. At the Polson GCA Bill â&#x20AC;&#x153;becameâ&#x20AC;? his grandfather, E.J. Thompson, and told the story of that dry, hot summer from his grandfatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience.

He had gone to Thompson Falls the day the fire swept over his farm, fanned by 70 mile an hour winds. His wife, two little girls, and the hired girl wet things down with hoses and saved the house and some of the out buildings. [Photo by Bernice Karnop]

Gallatin Valley Food Bank Fills Empty Stomachs Attention seniors and WIC recipients: The Gallatin Valley Food Bank has extra openings for our Commodity Supplemental Food Programs (CSFP), known locally as the Senior Grocery Program. This is a federally funded program, which works to improve the health of low-income children up to age six, and elderly people at least 60 years of age by supplementing their diets with nutritious USDA commodity foods.

Monthly, food packages include a variety of foods, such as non-fat dry and evaporated milk, juice, farina, oats, ready-to-eat cereal, rice, pasta, peanut butter, dry beans or peas, canned meat, poultry, or tuna, and canned fruits and vegetables. The food can be picked up at various sites in your community.

Applications are available at the Gallatin Valley Food Bank at 602 Bond Street in Bozeman. Also, call your local Food Bank and ask if they also participate. If you have any questions please call 406-586-7600 or visit us online at www.gallatinvalleyfoodbank.org.

MOLLI Summer Adventures in Science: Connecting the Circle science day camp

July 12 & 13, 2010 Camp Tuition: $100 per pair Grandparents bring your 6-12 year old grand kids to UM & learn from each other with scientific exploration in both classroom & field experiences. The fun begins with the Magic with Chemistry with UM professor Garon Smith (G. Wiz pictured above) after which participants will go to their chosen learning path: Wild Weather Wonders, Incredible Edible Bugs, Bones & Stones, Buzz about Bees, Backyard Biology, or Art & the Brain.

To learn more call 243.2905 or visit www.umt.edu/ce/plus50/

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PAGE 52 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

Find the crossword on www.montanaseniornews.com

JUNE/JULY 2010

School may be out but who can forget Montana geography and its colorful place names. Of course, our counties are colorfully named as well. Plants, animals, and minerals take center stage when it comes to putting names on the map.

Our winning contest is from Shirley Barrick of Lewistown whose How Well Do You Know Your Montana Counties? quiz will challenge us to remember many of those little facts we used to know by rote. Thank you, Shirley.

Congratulations to Roy Oliver of Billings who submitted the winning answers to the Doo-Wop Oldies quiz that appeared in our April/May 2010 issue. Thank you, Roy. Two $25 cash prizes are awarded from the “Contest Corner” in each

issue of the Montana Senior News. One prize goes to the person who submits the entry that our staff selects as the featured quiz or puzzle in the “Contest Corner” for that issue. Be creative and send us some good, fun, and interesting puzzles!

The second $25 prize goes to the person who submits the most correct answers to the featured quiz or puzzle from the previous issue. When there is a tie, the winner is determined by a drawing.

Please mail your entries to the Montana Senior News, P.O. Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403, or email to montsrnews@bresnan.net by July 10, 2010 for our August/September 2010 edition.

There is not a print crossword puzzle in this issue, but be sure to work the crossword puzzle on our website www.montanaseniornews.com.

How Well Do You Know Your Montana Counties?

Submitted by Shirley Barrick, Lewistown Below are 32 numbered hints for the names of Montana counties. On a numbered sheet of paper, write the letter of the county that you believe matches the numbered hint and email or drop them in the mail to us. The winner will receive a $25 prize. Have fun!

1.An instrument of manual operation 20. Water falls over steep rocks ________ ________ 2. Land of plenty ________ 21. Two presidents of the same name 3. Small mountain ________ who are related ________ 4. Place where deer stay ________ 22. Silent streams ________ 5. Indian tribe ________ 23. Rock used in building ________ 6. River of ice ________ 24. Instruments used to smooth or 7. Baby rose ________ polish ________ 8. Freedom ________ 25. Neither animal nor vegetable 9. Area surrounded by mountains ________ ________ 26. Wide lake or stream ________ 10. Colored rock ________ 27. What cows like to eat ________ 11. Two explorers ________ 28. ________ 66 12. Large pointed growth on animal’s 29. Twentieth president of the U.S. head ________ ________ 13. General in the Civil War ________ 30. Used in making buttons ________ 14. He made his last stand in Mon- 31. University of Montana site tana ________ ________ 15. Treeless tract of land ________ 32. Associated with lion’s den 16. Gave the Gettysburg Address ________ ________ A. Cascade F. Toole 17. East fork of the Missouri River at B. Sheridan G. Richland Three Forks ________ C. Lincoln H. Jefferson 18. Third president of the U.S. D. Valley I. Missoula ________ E. Broadwater J. Granite 19. Dolly ________ (Cont’d on page 54)

JUNE/JULY 2010

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 53

PAGE 54 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

K. Sanders L. Custer M. Yellowstone N. Flathead O. Prairie P. Hill Q. Liberty R. Madison S. Mineral T. Phillips U. Daniel V. Musselshell W. Deer Lodge X. Glacier Y. Lewis & Clark Z. Gallatin AA. Rosebud BB. Stillwater CC. Sweet Grass DD. Garfield EE. Roosevelt FF. Big Horn

JUNE/JULY 2010

Answers to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Doo Wop - 30 Oldies Quizâ&#x20AC;?

Submitted by Julie Hollar-Brantley 1. c. The movieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s over, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 4 oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock 2. b. Blackboard Jungle 3. a. Angel 4. c. Blueberry Hill 5. a. Mr. Sandman 6. c. Sun 7. b. Charlie Brown 8. a. MacHeath 9. c. Tutti Fruitti 10. c. Alan Freed

11. a. Little Richard 12. c. Annette Funicello 13. b. Don and Phil 14. a. Jiles P. Richardson 15. c. Motown 16. a. 77 Sunset Strip 17. b. Sandra Dee 18. b. The Monotones 19. b. Kissed 20. c. Maybelline 21. b. Bully

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Hostels are our first choice, though they are usually described as â&#x20AC;&#x153;youthâ&#x20AC;? or â&#x20AC;&#x153;backpacker.â&#x20AC;? But at an average age of 75, we rarely increase the median age significantly. We wheel our luggage. During nine weeks in New Zealand and Australia in 2006, we stayed in hostels 38 nights. We always reserve single rooms. Toilets and washrooms are often down the hall, but rarely crowded. We cook most breakfasts and some evening meals in the communal kitchens. Along with saving money for tours and upscale restaurants, we meet enjoyable people â&#x20AC;&#x201C; stoves are great gathering places. Membership in Hostelling International is $18 per year for seniors (55+), opening the door to over 4,000 hostels in 60 countries (see www.hiusa.org).

Our first stop was a good icebreaker. The Pinewood Lodge was a short cab ride from the center of Queenstown on the southern of New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s two islands. We were exhausted from having been on four airplanes and in three airports for more than 24 hours. Arriving in mid afternoon, we limited ourselves to a short nap before walking back downtown for an early dinner.

Going early to bed, we saw no one in our section of a barracks-like building that included three bedrooms, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a dining/ common room with several tables and chairs and a television set.

The next evening we met our suitemates in the kitchen. A young English couple that was traveling for six months throughout Asia, and a young English woman who had lived near San Francisco for more than 10 years shared our cottage. The latter, a concert violinist, was recovering from a broken arm. We learned all this while the five of us were cooking three different dinners over a four-burner stove, a demanding way to get acquainted.

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MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 55

Colorado: Nature Lover’s Paradise - Tilted Rocks. Driving through this weathered land- float down through the confluence ending at Split (Continued from page 37) uphill, you may have to stop frequently to catch your breath. Don’t panic; it’s normal even for people accustomed to hiking who don’t happen to live 8,000 feet above sea level.

Should a guided boat ride into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison sound tempting, from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day you can hop aboard a launch for a 90-minute tour on Morrow Point Lake (prepaid reservations required). A park ranger will relate the region’s geology and wildlife along with its narrow-gauge railroad history.

Located partly in Utah and partly in Colorado with an entry point in each state, Dinosaur National Monument showcases both desert and canyon country. The Utah side of this national monument is best known for its cliff face full of 150-millionyear-old fossilized dinosaur bones and its assorted petroglyphs and pictographs.

A highlight not to miss is the Tour of the

scape, you see layers of time exposed by wind, rain, and snow as well as the intriguing formations dubbed Turtle Rock and Elephant Toes Butte. You will find the 11-mile (one-way) ride even more enjoyable if you pick up a tour guide from the visitor center first. Be sure to stop at the interpretive displays to discover more about the countryside and for intimate views of the wildflowers in bloom.

If you’ve never seen petroglyphs or pictographs up close, this tour offers you the opportunity to change that. Considerably younger than dino fossils, these 1,000-year-old images of lizards and ancient people provide a vivid portrayal of early Native American art.

The Colorado side of this national monument is best known for the Green and Yampa rivers, which merge at Dinosaur’s Echo Park. Harper’s Corner Scenic Drive, which is 32 miles one way, leads to a viewpoint 2,000 feet above the confluence. Rafters take advantage of both rivers and

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Mountain Boat Ramp, one of the stops along the Tour of the Tilted Rocks.

Visitors to this national monument who enjoy walking will also appreciate having eleven hikes to choose from ranging from .4 to 8 miles (round trip).

Most of these trails are classified easy to moderate.

Two of the most unlikely sights in Colorado - a sea of giant sand dunes back-dropped by snow-capped mountains and a beach full of wading children and relaxing adults - greet you just outside of the very inland town of Alamosa. Both are considered highlights of a trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

Unrestricted by trails and unconfined by brush, the dunes exude a sense of openness unlike any dirt or rock pathway you have ever trod. You can take off on foot across the dips and ridgelines of the ever-shifting sands of this 30-square-mile dune field and never feel (Continued on page 58) Minot North Dakota Sept 30-Oct 3rd, 2010 $ 799.00 ppdo

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PAGE 56 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

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Colorado - (Continued from page 55) hemmed in by civilization. Those familiar with the park will tell you the prime times to photograph North America’s tallest dunes come in the early morning or evening when low light drenches them in dramatic shadows.

After the sun has warmed the countryside, you can cool off in Medano Creek, which starts its journey in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. This braided creek changes shape continuously and is the best example in the world of the phenomenon known as surge flow. The sandy creek bed forms little ridges, which act as mini dams. When these dams break every 15 to 30 seconds, Medano Creek pulses in small waves. However, the creek runs only as long as a snow pack remains. Once it melts, the creek barely trickles until the next spring when the cycle begins again.

While this park has justifiably earned its reputation because of 650- to 750-foot high dunes and its rare Tiger Beetles, it also includes grasslands where elk, pronghorn, and mule deer roam and wetlands where pelicans, sandhill cranes, and salamanders gather. The unusual topography and varied wildlife make Great Sand Dunes a memorable destination for vacationers of any age.

For more information: • Dinosaur National Monument – 435-7817700, www.nps.gov/dino • Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park 970-641-2337, www.nps.gov/blca • Curecanti National Recreation Area - 970641-2337, www.nps.gov/cure • Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve - 719-378-6300, www.nps.gov/grsa MSN

How Foster Grandparent Andy Cristaldi Changed A Life as of January 21, 2010.

By Cheryl Ann Weatherell Although Steve must return to court and comLast summer, Steve, 17, got into serious trouble with the law. He has a Mom but no real plete his sentence of incarceration, he plans to home or family support, and there is no father in relocate to Anchorage, Alaska to work and continue his studies in a his life. Steve has been vocational field. Steve’s an Independent Educasuccess is attributable tion Program (IEP) stuto his efforts, those of dent since elementary his team of supporters school and reads at a from the school, and his 5th grade level entering Foster Grandpa Andy’s into his senior year of one on one attention. high school.

Steve was not the When Grandpa only one to benefit. As Andy Cristaldi heard a volunteer, Grandpa of Steve’s difficulties, Andy also benefitted Andy visited Steve and from Steve’s success. offered to help him.

“This relationship Steve took the opporhas validated my belief tunity. that one person can Grandpa Andy then make a difference,” went to the high school says Andy. “Inasmuch counselor, Steve’s pubas the Foster Grandparlic defender attorney, [Photo provided by Foster Grandparents] ent Program has proenlisted them to be part of Steve’s team, and created a plan to present vided the forum for such a relationship to occur, it to the judge. Andy accompanied Steve to all of speaks directly to the positive impact of the Foster Grandparent Program.

Steve’s court hearings.

“After having received his diploma, Steve is The judge, seeing this community support, agreed to a temporary alternative to incarceration now in the hands of the state correctional program. and Steve was given conditions of release that he However, his meeting his primary goal of acquiring had to follow. He was to stay in a foster home, stay his high school diploma has tempered the court’s in school everyday under Grandpa Andy’s watchful approach in designing a sentence that recognizes eye, and complete all requirements for graduation his potential success.

“I don’t know that my life has changed as much in January 2010.

Grandpa Andy attended all of Steve’s classes as it has grown,” Andy adds. “I have received a with him everyday and helped to tutor and men- number of accolades from people in our comtor him. Grandpa Andy also took Steve to sports munity, and I have been taken to task from some events after school hours and to family holiday members of Steve’s family. I know that the goal gatherings at Andy’s home. Steve responded by was accomplished. It does strengthen my resolve exhibiting exemplary behavior. He made the honor to continue to assist young people in need when roll for the first time in his life in the first semester. their supportive resources are limited.”

Cheryl Ann Weatherell is Foster Grandparent He took two core courses in the mainstream curProgram Director for Western Montana Area VI riculum for the first time in high school.

This was quite an achievement since he had Agency on Aging in Polson, and can be reached been in IEP all his life. Steve completed all of his at 406-883-7284 or cherylw@area6aging.org. MSN high school credits and was awarded his diploma

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Where Are They Now - Pat Harrington?

By Marshall J. Kaplan One Day at a Time’s favorite superintendent is still acting, still telling funny stories and still as vibrant as ever!

Pat Harrington, Jr. was born on August 13, 1929 in New York City. His father, Pat Harrington, Sr. was a song and dance vaudevillian. Pat Jr. would hang out with his dad’s friends – crooner Bing Crosby and Irish actors James Dunn and Pat O’Brien. Eventually, Pat Jr. would follow in his father’s entertainment footsteps.

After completing college and military service, Pat returned to New York City where he took a job at NBC during the day and began getting small parts in plays at night. He recalls his first break, “I loved speaking in different dialects – it started with my Dad and his Irish buddies. That was part of my act – different voices. Jonathan Winters saw me doing a character called, ‘Guido Panzini’ – an Italian immigrant, and got me a gig on The Jack Paar Show.”

Many appearances on Jack Paar led to Pat’s becoming a member of the famous 1950s Steve Allen Show segment, “Man on the Street” comedy team – where Pat was part of a group that included Don Knotts, Tom Poston, and Louis Nye. The 1960s saw Pat become a prolific char-

acter and voice actor on almost every television show of the time, from McHale’s Navy to Get Smart and F-Troop. He was also the voice of Inspector Clouseau in the animated cartoon series, The Inspector. However, Pat’s greatest character was just around the corner.

In 1975, Pat was cast as building superintendent Dwayne Schneider in Norman Lear’s One Day at a Time. His role as the sleazy, yet loveable handyman lasted 10 seasons and earned Pat a Golden Globe and an Emmy. His relationship with all members of the original cast continues to this day. He considers Valerie Bertinelli like a daughter to him.

Over the past twenty years, Pat has continued to work steadily in character roles in both film and television. His personal life includes weekly Wednesday lunches with his buddies – including actors James Karen and Kevin McCarthy. He loves to golf, spend time with his second wife, his four children, and grandchildren.

More recently, Pat and his writing partner, former Mork and Mindy director Howie Storm, are writing a play about two best friends – one Irish, one Jewish called, Jimmy and Sam. Surely, whichever of Pat’s unique characters that he brings to the stage will bring the house down! MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

Digital Music Technology Is “Ear” To Stay (NAPSI) - Digital technology has changed many Americans’ tunes when it comes to how they buy, store and listen to music. Instead of a record or CD player or tape deck, today many use a computer or an iPod to listen to the music they love.

In fact, 72 percent of online adults in America used their home computers to listen to audio content, according to a study by the Consumer Electronics Association.

The following tips could help you get more out of your digital music collection: • Sharing the Music - Computer and iPod Dock Speakers - A number of companies such as Logitech and Altec Lansing offer a full range of speaker systems designed specifically for iPods, computers, or other digital music players. These speakers offer different features designed to address the various needs of the digital music consumer.

• Private Listening - Earphones and Headphones - For a private music-listening experience, there are countless headphones and earphones to choose from to improve your listening experience and meet your individual needs. For the best fit, you might want to check out a company called

Wine And Dine For Whitefish Lake Institute Northwest Montana now has a premier regional wine event! The inaugural Whitefish Wine Auction will take place July 8 and 9 at the beautiful Lodge at Whitefish Lake. This benefit fundraiser supports the scientific and educational programs of the Whitefish Lake Institute, a non-profit dedicated to protecting the local lake and water resources.

The two-day event will include a Thursday evening wine tasting under the tent on the shores of Whitefish Lake, where guests also will have a chance to preview the incredible auction lots in store for them. Friday night will begin with a fabulous dinner prepared by the Lodge chefs and featuring Duckhorn wines, followed by a Live Auction showcasing an amazing collection of wines, experiences, and other exciting items.

Tickets are all inclusive for the two day event.

Whitefish Lake Institute members receive a discounted ticket price. Seating is limited so please buy your tickets early. Visit www.whitefishwineauction.org to purchase tickets and for more information, including an up-to-date list of participating wineries and available auction lots. You can also reach us at 406-862-4327 with any additional questions. We hope you will join us this July in a toast to Whitefish Lake! MSN

Ultimate Ears (www.ultimateears.com). It started out as a maker of in-ear monitors for rock bands such as the Killers and now has a consumer line of earphones designed for listening with iPods and smart phones. These earphones offer a customizable fit thanks to different ear-tip options and can help block out annoying background noise.

• Discovering New Music - Wi-Fi Music Players - By using an Internet connection, a Wi-Fi music player can put the world of Internet music at your fingertips. While most of these systems require a stereo system or powered speakers for listening, the Logitech Squeezebox Radio is a compact, allin-one music system you can easily move around the house and access all of your tunes. Wi-Fi music players can make discovering music exciting since there is always something new to listen to.

To learn more about ways to enjoy music, visit www.logitech.com/audio. MSN

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Mohs Micrographic Surgery Offers Higher Skin Cancer Cure Rates

By Dr. Phillip Tallman, Billings Recent studies show that the number of skin cancer cases in the United States is growing at an alarming rate. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, skin cancer accounts for almost 50 percent of all new cancer cases. This year, more than 1 million people will be diagnosed with skin cancer and about 9,800 will die from the disease.

Fortunately, increased awareness on the part of patients and their healthcare providers has resulted in earlier diagnosis and treatment, significantly improving outcomes.

The three most common types of skin cancer are melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma. Mohs Micrographic Surgery is an effective and precise method that is primarily used to treat basal and squamous cell carcinomas, but can be used to treat less common tumors including melanoma.

Mohs Micrographic Surgery is a highly specialized procedure where a microscope is used to examine what is being done during the procedure, resulting in the total removal of skin cancers. Because each layer is examined microscopically, Mohs surgeons can be reasonably certain that all of the cancer has been eradicated while saving as much healthy skin as possible. Mohs Micrographic Surgery enables the surgeon to remove all of the cancer, in several stages, without removing too much healthy tissue, thus resulting in the highest rate of cure. Of all treatments for skin cancer, Mohs Micrographic Surgery is the most advanced treatment procedure for skin cancer available today, offering cure rates of up to 99 percent.

Mohs Micrographic Surgery is especially effective in cancers of the face and other cosmeti-

cally sensitive areas, because it can eliminate all the cancer cells while causing minimal damage to the surrounding normal skin. Overall, Mohs Micrographic Surgery is indicated when: • the cancer has recurred following previous treatment or poses a high risk for recurrence, • the cancer is in an area – such as the eyelids, nose, ears, lips, hands, feet, and genitals – where it is important to preserve healthy tissue for maximum functional and cosmetic purposes, • the cancer is large, • the edges of the cancer cannot be clearly defined, • the cancer grows rapidly or uncontrollably, or • the cancerous area contains scar tissue.

Mohs Micrographic Surgeries are considered minor surgeries and are performed as an outpatient procedure under local anesthesia. Although the procedure typically takes three to five hours, patients should be prepared to spend an entire day if necessary. The surgery is usually performed in stages, with each stage taking approximately 15 minutes to one hour. The stages include the removal of the cancerous tissue and confirmation of complete removal of the tissue. The number of stages required varies with each patient and is determined by the size and depth of the cancer.

With a 98-99% success rate, Mohs Micrographic Surgery is the most effective skin cancer treatment available. The procedure creates the smallest possible defect, therefore allowing for the best possible cosmetic result.

If you have additional questions regarding Mohs Micrographic Surgery consult with your dermatologist. MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

Skin Cancer Information Offerred on NIHSeniorHealth Website Those who have reached middle age and beyond can remember when deep tans were thought to be beautiful and healthy. Back then, it was not widely recognized that hours spent sunbathing could increase the risk for skin cancer. It was not until the early 1980s that public health experts began to advise against tanning as a way to reduce the risk of skin cancer. Older Americans concerned about this condition can learn by visiting NIHSeniorHealth.gov, a website by the National Institutes of Health.

Skin cancer is the latest of NIHSeniorHealthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 32 health topics of interest to older adults. The new Web feature defines skin cancer, covers the causes and risks, as well as symptoms, screening, and diagnosis. It also explains treatments and the latest research on skin cancer. Online quizzes help reinforce the information presented as Web users explore pages within the skin cancer topic area. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Skin cancer can manifest itself many years after an initial tan or burn,â&#x20AC;? says John E. Niederhuber, M.D., director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a component of NIH. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Therefore, it is important for older people to be aware of the risks.â&#x20AC;? NCI developed the content for the new skin cancer section of the NIHSeniorHealth website.

One of the fastest growing age groups using the Internet, older Americans increasingly turn to the World Wide Web for health information. In fact, 68 percent of wired seniors surf for health and medical information online.

NIHSeniorHealth is based on the latest research on cognition and aging. It features short, easy-to-read segments of information that can be accessed in a variety of formats, including various large-print type sizes, opencaptioned videos and an audio version. The site also links to MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s premier, more detailed site for consumer health information.

The NIHSeniorHealth website is a joint effort of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM), which are components of the National Institutes of Health.

NIA leads the federal effort supporting and conducting research on aging and the health and well-being of older people. NLM, the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest library of the health sciences, creates and sponsors Web-based health information resources for the public and professionals. NCI, established under the National Cancer Institute Act of 1937, is the federal governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s principal agency for cancer research and training.

NIH - The Nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Medical Research Agency - includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov. MSN

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 63

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By Jim Miller Most people, when they think about drug interactions or other problems concerning medicine, they think about prescription drugs. But, each year, more than 500,000 Americans end up in hospitals because of unintentional over-the-counter (OTC) drug overdoses, or due to OTC remedies interacting with prescription medication. Here is what you should know.

OTC Dangers - Just because OTC medications are available without a doctor’s prescription does not mean they are safe for everyone. OTC medicines (drugs that can help with coughs, colds, aches, pains, fever, allergies, heartburn, and many other ailments) are powerful drugs that offer real benefits when used correctly and real risks when misused. Those most vulnerable to these risks are seniors because they typically take more medication (OTC and prescription) than any other age group, and the fact is, the more drugs you take the greater your risk for potential problems.

OTC Safety Tips - With more than 100,000 OTC medicines on the market today you need to be very aware of what you’re taking, and as always talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you have questions or concerns. Here are some tips to help you avoid potential OTC and prescription medication problems: • Always read the “Drug Facts” label on the OTC product and follow directions. It tells you what the medicine is for, how and when (and when not) to take the medication, the product’s active and inactive ingredients, possible interactions, side effects, warnings, and more.

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• Choose OTC products that treat only the symptoms you have.

• Use extra caution when taking more than one OTC drug at a time. Many OTC medicines contain the same active ingredients, which means, you may be getting more than the recommended dose without even knowing it. Always compare active ingredients on the label and never take more than one drug with the same active ingredient unless specifically instructed by your doctor.

• Don’t combine prescription medicines and OTC drugs without first talking to your doctor.

Combining drugs can cause adverse reactions or one drug can interfere with the other drug’s effectiveness.

• If taking an OTC medicine becomes more than temporary, or if your symptoms do not go away, talk to your doctor. Most OTC medicines are only intended for short-term use.

• Make a medicine chart (see www.fda.gov/ usemedicinesafely/my_medicine_record.htm) of all the prescription and OTC medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements you take and share it with your doctor. Also make sure your doctor is aware of your health history, if you are being treated by another doctor for something else, and if you have any allergies or side effects from any particular medicines.

• Don’t use OTC medicines after their expiration date.

New Warning Labels - To help ensure safety and ingredient awareness, the Food and Drug Administration will soon be requiring bolder new warning labels on hundreds of OTC products that contain acetaminophen, aspirin, and NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). Here is what to look for in the coming months: • Products containing acetaminophen. (Sold under the brand name Tylenol and in multiple generic versions too. Other products that contain acetaminophen are Excedrin, Dayquil, Nyquil, Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Sinus, Sudafed Sinus & Cold, and many others.) The new warning labels will alert consumers of the risk of severe liver damage if taken in high doses or when consuming moderate amounts of alcohol. Labels will also warn patients not to take multiple medicines that contain acetaminophen.

• Products containing NSAIDs. (Aspirin; ibuprofen, which is sold as Advil and Motrin and in

JUNE/JULY 2010

generic form; naproxen, best known as Aleve also sold generically; and ketoprofen.) New labels will warn of the risk of stomach bleeding in people over age 60, or in those who have stomach ulcers, take blood-thinning drugs or steroids, use other drugs that contain an NSAID, or remain on the medications for an extended period.

Savvy Tips - A great Web resource to check for drug interactions is www.drugdigest.org – click

on “Check Interactions.” And, for more information on OTC/prescription drug safety, visit www. checforbetterhealth.org and www.bemedwise.org.

Send your senior questions to Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit www. savvysenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” books. MSN

They come in all different shapes, sizes, and mixtures of colors - and many of us take them for granted, until something goes wrong. Our eyes serve as windows to the world, but as we age, we face an increased risk of forming complicated eye problems such as macular degeneration and glaucoma. Experts agree that by the time you hit middle age, the best way to preserve eye health is to see a specialist regularly.

“It’s important to be proactive in maintaining your sight and preventing damage,” said Seenu Hariprasad, MD, chief of vitreoretinal service at Weiss Memorial Hospital and associate professor of ophthalmology and visual science at the University of Chicago. “We recommend visiting an eye care professional every two years for a check-up, which will help to detect any hidden diseases like glaucoma.”

To best protect your vision, follow these Healthful Hints from the experts at Weiss Memorial Hospital: • Stop Smoking. Aside from all the other damage that smoking causes, it also increases the risk

for macular degeneration, cataracts, and other eye diseases.

• Wear Sunglasses. In addition to being a great fashion accessory, sunglasses protect your eyes from the sun’s harmful UV rays, which can cause macular degeneration and cataracts. Do not forget to protect eyes in the cold winter months too.

• Eat Right. Carrots have long been the rumored eye health food, but the truth is dark, leafy vegetables actually make the difference. Try kale, spinach, and green leaf lettuce to improve your vision. Fish and seafood will also help to bring about a sharper image.

• Watch Eye Makeup. It is not just food and medicine that carry an expiration date, eye makeup older than three months should also be thrown out. Discontinue use immediately if it appears to be making your eyes irritated and red, and avoid sharing eye makeup. MSN

Be Wise About Your Eyes: Proper Care and Treatment Will Have You Seeing 20/20

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 65

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Giving The Gift Of Sight Through Sound: Montana Audio Information Network Article & Photo by Gail Jokerst For most Montanans, staying current with local events is as simple as picking up a newspaper.

They can read the headlines, turn to the sports section, or scan the weather page to find what they want to know in a flash. However, for those Treasure State residents who are blind or vision impaired, learning who in their community has given birth or won the sheriff’s election isn’t so easy.

Granted, they can catch up with national and regional news by listening to television. And they can glean news updates from radio stations. But, it’s the nitty gritty of local events seemingly too insignificant to be broadcast over radio or television that has long been what this population craves and what Montana Audio Information Network (MAIN and formerly Montana Radio Reading Service) delivers.

“The primary reason this service began in 1979

was to help blind and low-vision people retain some of their independence,” states Kate Cotnoir, director of MAIN. “Our goal is to help them maintain a connection with their individual communities throughout Montana.”

From the feedback received, this non-profit has made strides in the right direction of enabling people to participate more fully in society.

As one grateful listener wrote, “This service allows me to keep up with what is going on in my city and state.”

To qualify for the program, a person must be incapable of reading print material because of sight limitations or physical disability. There is no charge for the closed circuit receiver lent to each participant, which allows listeners to pick up the frequency broadcasting news in their area.

Since these signals are transmitted via Montana and Yellowstone Public Radio, listeners who can tune into KUFM, KGPR, or KEMC, can hear MAIN’s broadcasts on its closed circuit radio channel. MAIN’s local news programs air live weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. From 6:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. recorded segments from the day’s earlier broadcasts are aired. Weekends, MAIN broadcasts excerpts from over 100 current magazines and nationally known newspapers.

Because MAIN is a non-profit, it relies on community donations as well as government funding. One of the organization’s most critical sources of funding comes from its annual August

JUNE/JULY 2010

Wear-It-Again Jewelry Sale held in the basement of Immanuel Lutheran Church. Last year, some 10,000 pieces sold netting over $13,000 in a day and a half. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We needed a signature fundraiser; something that wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t being done. Missoula has a plethora of fundraisers and we wanted to find our niche. Now we get jewelry donations from all over the state new, antique, broken, vintage, costume, diamonds, sapphires, and rhinestones - we take it all,â&#x20AC;? says Kate. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Volunteers work for nine months to get the jewelry cleaned, repaired, tagged, sorted, and priced for sale. Volunteers do all the work, including appraisals. Hundreds of people attend the sale. In fact, people line up outside before the doors open.â&#x20AC;?

According to Kate, about one thousand Montanans, approximately 75% over 60 years of age, currently receive their news from MAIN. But she knows the number of listeners is likely to be much greater. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Some of these radios are placed in nursing homes and rehabilitation centers where they may be in a community room with more than one person listening at a time,â&#x20AC;? she explains. â&#x20AC;&#x153;For our purposes, it counts as one radio but we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how many people in these situations regularly listen.â&#x20AC;?

Aside from what might be considered local breaking news - things such as traffic accidents and school board decisions - MAIN broadcasts news of another sort that matters to these listeners and that sighted individuals take for granted. This includes grocery store advertisements so people know whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on sale that week, society announcements, and obituaries. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The obituaries are an especially critical part of the newspaper readings,â&#x20AC;? notes Kate, who volunteered here before assuming the directorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mantle. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t unusual considering how many sighted people turn to the obituaries in their newspapers first. But we do have to edit some of them for length because obituaries can run on the long side.â&#x20AC;?

Given that each broadcast segment lasts 30 minutes, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s understandable why the 70 volunteers, who read the newspapers aloud each week, must consider the length of each story. Readers donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t edit articles, but they do have to identify which stories to read first and which to hold until later in the broadcast. Over time, volunteers develop a knack for calculating how much news can be

squeezed into each half-hour segment. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We get the timely news read first if we can.

Articles are selected that arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t too long because we have a limited time for each newspaper,â&#x20AC;? explains Muriel â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tottieâ&#x20AC;? Parmeter. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Then we select a few short announcements to hold back until towards the end of the half hour so we can fill in the remaining few minutes.â&#x20AC;?

Like MAINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s other volunteers, Tottie, with the help of a partner, reads three Montana newspapers during each continuous broadcast session. Because these sessions air without benefit of station identification breaks or sponsored advertisements, two readers are a necessity. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We take turns reading back and forth. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very hard on your voice to read a section longer than half an hour,â&#x20AC;? says Tottie, who has been volunteering at MAIN for over 20 years. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have time to even take a sip of water. Having two people gives you a break between each reading.â&#x20AC;?

As might be expected, words occasionally slip into print that shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t and catch readers unaware.

And as Tottie has discovered, mistakes can sometimes turn a serious news article into something that should not be considered humorous. â&#x20AC;&#x153;One time I was reading about a court case.

When I reached the part where it said the judge castrated someone, I told my listeners, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Wait a minute this canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be right. They must mean castigated,â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? recalls Tottie. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But I was laughing so hard it was difficult to continue. When you read something like that to yourself, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always notice the error or that it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make sense. But when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re reading aloud, it jumps out at you.â&#x20AC;?

Because MAIN provides news from eight daily and over 20 bi-

make a lifetime of difference.

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PAGE 68 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

weekly, weekly, and semi-weekly Montana newspapers, the organization obviously needs a large cadre of volunteers for weekday broadcasts.

“We have a steady base of volunteers but are always looking for people willing to substitute,” says Kate. “Many want something meaningful to do. They receive some training but learn by example as they’re paired with experienced readers.”

“Most volunteers are retired because we’re reading during normal work times. We have a wide variety of readers including retired nurses, school teachers, and university professors,” adds Tottie.

“Most seem to be educated or people who have been in a position of responsibility. It’s a selfish pleasure to volunteer because it’s better to give

than to receive. When I finish a session, I feel a sense of fulfillment in the knowledge that I’m helping people who really need this service.”

One thing Tottie has learned from this volunteer work is that misperceptions about the blind being helpless need to be dispelled.

“The people I know who are blind are amazing,” she says. “They still go everywhere. Their attitude is that they’re not giving up; they refuse to accept the limitation of the problem and continue on as best they can and do very well.”

For more information about volunteering for, donating to, or becoming a listener of MAIN call 1-800-942-7323 or 406-721-1998, or email radioreading@blackfoot.net. MSN

George Washington - A difficult denture patient?

By Karla Barnes Many tales have been told over the years about George Washington and his false teeth. Historians sometimes refer to our first President as a difficult denture patient. Despite good hygiene, which included brushing and tongue scraping, President Washington lost his teeth at an early age and struggled with dentures for the rest of his life.

One set of teeth fashioned exclusively for George Washington came at the exorbitant cost of $60 - a lot of money in those days! Our first President’s false teeth were produced painstakingly from the finest materials available. Fabrication was a very time consuming process in Washington’s days, which made owning a set of dentures something only the very wealthy could afford.

According to American legend, impressions were taken using paper and cloth. The materials used to make the plates came from various forms of ivory and the teeth from animals such as pigs, cows, elk, and even humans. The final set of teeth constructed for the President was made of ivory from hippopotamus teeth, human teeth, and brass screws. Contrary to common belief, no wood was used in Washington’s dentures.

Interestingly, springs were incorporated into

the dentures to create more comfort for this historical denture wearer. The theory was simple; the springs assisted in keeping the upper denture up and the lower denture down.

Did Washington wear these atrocious contraptions? I suppose the answer is... sometimes. Like most denture wearers, Washington struggled with the three essentials of false teeth - fit, function, and aesthetics.

Though metals came into play in the 18th century and plaster casts followed shortly after, dentists, denturists, and dental technicians have struggled throughout the decades to please each and every denture wearer.

Washington suffered greatly, as most edentulous people do, however the challenges that our first President faced after losing his natural teeth were much different from those that denture wearers confront today. Today however, the world of dental technology has changed completely to make the denture wearing experience much more pleasant than it was in the days of ivory, lead, springs, brass screws, and the like.

Twenty-first century denture wearers no longer endure paper and plaster cast impressions - instead comfortable impression trays and pleasing impression materials such as alginates and injection materials are used. The technician uses stateof-the-art model pouring techniques that make a good fit much more likely.

Materials for teeth have also changed, and high impact acrylics and multi layered composite teeth are the most popular materials used in dentures.

Some older denture wearers may still wear porcelain teeth because they were some of the first teeth available in the days when extractions were more popular than restoration. In fact, Washington himself may have had one of the first sets of porcelain teeth made in the late 1790s.

Today, more than eighty percent of false teeth are made of plastics and the materials just keep getting better.

Implants, soft liners, and constant technological advances make life for the denture wearer much more appealing than wearing a set of hippopotamus teeth.

If curiosity has gotten the best of you and you would like to see President Washington’s dentures for yourself, the lower denture made

by J. Greenwood is on display at Mount Vernon, Virginia. The dentures and the President’s toilet set (toothbrush & tongue scraper) are part of the special exhibit A Leader’s Smile on loan from the New York Academy of Medicine until the year 2013. MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

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On Track - Traveling Montanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hi-Line by Rail Article & Photo by Bernice Karnop The coach, filled with sleeping passengers, slid past the small depot and stopped in the deserted train yard. The pale moon I had watched rise over the horizon earlier now beamed nearly full from an 11 oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock position in the sky. Overhead lights glared eerily off rows of parallel rails.

It could have been a scene from Murder on the Orient Express.

But no, I was on Amtrakâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Empire Builder, and this not-so-exotic city was Minot, North Dakota.

Now that our kids are in North Dakota instead of Washington, D.C., my husband and I can drive to visit them instead of flying. We have done that a few times, but there is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;greenerâ&#x20AC;? way to get to North Dakota. You can take the train.

Amtrak runs across Montanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hi-Line from Whitefish to Culbertson and across North Dakota to Grand Forks. It is going anyway, and according to the U.S. Department of Energy, Amtrak is 20 percent more energy efficient than commercial airlines and 28 percent more energy efficient than cars.

It makes sense, energy-wise, but is it worth saving the planet to leave our beloved Tahoe behind?

We found several reasons to enjoy this mode of travel.

It is nearly stressfree. Traffic between Havre and Grand Forks could hardly be called stressful, but you avoid the stress of finding gas, food, or bathrooms when you need them, which are readily available on each coach.

The seats are more than roomy, but you do not have to buckle in or stay put. Be sure to hang on to the backs of seats and the handrails on the passageways between cars. Landing in a strangers lap would be stressful and those lurches come without warning.

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Many train travelers spend the bulk of their time in the lounge car. This car with oversized windows allows you to take full advantage of the scenery.

The seats face out high above the terrain.

The popular cafĂŠ/bar, which is downstairs on the lounge car, serves sandwiches, snacks and beverages, including liquors, wine, and beer. You can eat down there or bring it up to the observation area. The store also sells souvenir playing cards, post cards, blankets, and more.

In the lounge car, you find out what everyone else is doing on the train.

One woman knitted a sweater while the person across from her worked on a pair of mittens.

They shared pattern ideas and tips as they clickety-clacked in time with the rails. People also read, wrote postcards, played cards, swapped stories, and one college student worried his math book.

Grandparents from Wisconsin drove to Grand Forks, picked up their five-year-old grandson, and took him to Whitefish where he learned to ski. This grandmother said they would not have attempted a car trip with this bundle of energy. Games, puzzles, books, and other kids kept him busy on the train.

Parents might also consider this quality travel time with the family.

Those who travel long distances may book a sleeping car. This private space gives them an in-room sink, toilet, and shower. You can choose family bedrooms, roomettes, or an accessible bedroom with wheelchair space. Sleeping car passengers receive dining car meals, bottled water, and other amenities.

We enjoyed the spring scenery through Eastern Montana and North Dakota. Great flocks of snow geese were pausing at lakes before flying further north. We spotted wild turkeys, red-winged blackbirds, deer, antelope, and more.

The Empire Builder Magazine, tucked in the pocket in front of the seats, tells a bit about every little burg and geographic and historical site along the route. A tiny camera symbol alerts you to get ready for a photo of places like Fort Union National Historic Site. No mention was made of the spot outside Malta where on July 3, 1901, Kid Curry held up the Great Northern passenger train, blew up the safe, and ran off with the loot. He got away with it so Amtrak may still hold a grudge.

In the summertime, Amtrak partners with the National Park Service for a Trails and Rails pro-

JUNE/JULY 2010

gram. Rangers climb on board with educational presentations and interactive displays, explaining landmarks and historic sites. Call 1-800-USA-RAIL or log on to www.nps.gov/trails&rails to learn more.

Dining car staff is fun and friendly. The food was good and served on a clean white tablecloth. They seated us with friends we would otherwise have not met, and it was nice to see the scenery slip by the big windows as we ate. When we travel by car, we are often hurrying our meals.

The greatest annoyance to our train ride is the time it arrives in and departs from Grand Forks, about 1 a.m. and about 5 a.m., respectively. Passengers might not mind this, but the stationmaster has not adjusted to his schedule, even though he looked like he had been on the job for several decades.

He mostly hid in a room where we could not see him, venturing out to accept and deliver checked baggage. When someone caught him outside his lair, he growled and sighed in exasperation. The train was an hour late but the information is posted

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 73

on the board behind the Plexiglas, and can be accessed without speaking. Better yet, check online or by phone before hurrying to the depot. No one is required to be cheery at 1 a.m., but at 5 a.m., he could swallow a jolt of coffee and make an attempt.

The stationmaster in Havre, on the other hand, was pleasant and helpful. When I said something about the train getting where I was going in the middle of the night, he philosophically replied, “It has to arrive somewhere at night.” Then he added, “I’m just glad it’s not here.”

We bought our tickets online at Amtrak.com and they were waiting for us at the desk in Havre.

You can also get your tickets by calling 1-800-USARAIL. The brochure AMTRAK America gives much information including the routes, the schedules, the amenities, and more.

Prices are reasonable and seniors get a hefty 15% discount just for being seniors. Grandchildren, ages 2-15 ride half price, and those under 2 ride free. Other deals, discounts and the rewards program are listed on the website. MSN

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Historical Highway Markers Delight Generations

By Bernice Karnop Montana history is packed with colorful characters and amazing stories. Lewis and Clark, cowboys and horse thieves, copper kings and immigrant miners, Indians and homesteaders all blend into a patchwork of astonishing tales. While it is easy to be hooked on Montana history, you do not have to read it from heavy volumes at the reference desk. You can read it in bite sized chunks by stopping at roadside markers along Montana’s highways.

In fact, Montana was the first state to set up roadside historical signs. Highway Department traffic engineer Bob Fletcher started promoting the idea in the 1920s. It took him until 1935 to sell the idea to state officials and set up the first 25 as a sort of test run. Some argued that the public would prefer something dignified to Fletcher’s lighthearted messages. Fletcher had no such worries.

“A fancy historical marker is not necessary - just one that attracts the fancy,” he explained.

Take this one on U.S. 2 east of Havre.

Cowpunchers, miners, and soldiers are tolerably virile persons as a rule. When they went to town in the frontier days seeking surcease from vocational cares and solace in the cup that cheers, it was just as well for the urbanites to either brace themselves or take cover. The citizens of any town willing and able to be host city for a combination of the above diamonds in the rough had to be quick on the draw and used to inhaling powder smoke.

Havre came into existence as a division point when the Great Northern Railroad was built and purveyed pastime to cowboys, doughboys, and miners on the side. It is hard to believe now, but as a frontier camp, she was wild and hard to curry.

People across the state loved the signs and their history, and they were not the only ones.

Lewis Gannett of New Yorker Magazine praised

them in a 1940 column. “In Montana the signs are worth reading… So far as I know these are the only official road signs in any state of America which dare to be light-hearted or colloquial.”

World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle commented, “I wish that every state historical society in America would send a delegation to Montana. …Montana makes its history a thing of joy instead of a stodgy sermon.”

Even historian Bernard DeVoto, hardly a “lite” writer himself, liked Fletcher’s signs. In a 1946 issue of Harper’s Magazine he wrote, “Montana does its roadside history exhaustively and well. …its markers use good prose, lightly written, of a humor and realism that exclude the ancestor-worship of the organized descendants of the Pioneers.”

Fletcher’s writing was hand-routed on to thick wooden boards and hung from cross beams set in fieldstone bases so they could swing in the Montana wind. Ace Kindrick, who worked for the Highway Department sign shop, takes credit for the layout and design. Artist Shorty Shope’s western scenes and silhouettes further decorate the signs.

Today more than 200 historical highway markers tell Montana’s story. More than 100 were written by Fletcher, who died in 1972. In them he captures the voice of old-timers he met after coming to Montana in 1908.

More than a dozen historical markers dot the Hi-line along U.S. 2.

Near Shelby you will find one titled, The Oily Boid Gets the Woim. Along with talk of the “turkey track” railroad and the discovery of oil, it says, “The Junction became an oasis where parched cowpunchers cauterized their tonsils with forty-rod and grew plumb irresponsible and ebullient.”

Near Malta you can read about how Kid Curry and his Wild Bunch held up the Great Northern passenger train and blew up the safe. “Take it by

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PAGE 74 MONTANA SENIOR NEWS

JUNE/JULY 2010

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and large, the old west produced some tolerably lurid gun toters. Their hole card was a single-action frontier model .45 Colt, and their long suit was fanning it a split second quicker than similarly inclined gents. This talent sometimes postponed their obsequies quite a while, providing they werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pushed into taking up rope spinning from the loop end of a lariat by a wearied publicâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;?

Another Hi-line sign shows about five dozen old time brands. They are introduced with the sentence, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Many a dogie (not â&#x20AC;&#x153;doggieâ&#x20AC;? - dudes please note) has been decorated with one of these famous Montana Irons.â&#x20AC;? A footnote explains, â&#x20AC;&#x153;A dogie is a little calf who has lost its mammy and whose daddy has run off with another cow.â&#x20AC;?

In the 1930s, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;40s, and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;50s people enjoyed pulling into a wide spot in a narrow highway to read the signs and stretch a bit. To accommodate todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s less patient (and more comfortable) travelers Montana Historical Society Press has published the text of the markers in a book called, Montanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Historical Highway Markers. This revised and expanded edition of one compiled by Glenda Clay Bradshaw in 1989, is edited by Jon Axline and includes the recently installed geological and Lewis and Clark signs, plus photos, maps, and more. You can buy it at your local bookstore or order it from the Montana Historical Society Museum Store by calling 1-800-243-9900. MSN

Montana is about cowboys and we are fortunate in this issue to relate a couple of short cowboy tales with a horse and kids thrown in to finish the picture. And who canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember that gentle olâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; horse that would tolerate just about anything from innocent children.

Our winning Remember When contributor is James â&#x20AC;&#x153;Latigo Jimâ&#x20AC;? Bunton of Missoula whose recollection A Horse, A Cowboy, and Kids reminds us of simpler times and the value of a gentle horse, even when things get a little exciting. Thank you and congratulations to Latigo Jim, the winner of our $25 Remember When prize.

Remember When contains our readersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; personal reflections, contributions describing fictional

or non-fictional accounts from the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Good olâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Days,â&#x20AC;? or reflections on life in general. Contributions may be stories, letters, artwork, poetry, etc. Photos may be included.

Each issue of the Montana Senior News features the contributions deemed best by our staff.

The contributor of the winning entry receives a $25 cash prize.

We look forward to receiving your contributions for our August/September 2010 issue. Mail your correspondence to Montana Senior News, P.O. Box 3363, Great Falls, MT 59403; email to montsrnews@bresnan.net; or call 1-800-6728477 or 406-761-0305. Visit us online at www.

MontanaSeniorNews.com.

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A Horse, A Cowboy, and Kids

By James â&#x20AC;&#x153;Latigo Jimâ&#x20AC;? Bunton, Missoula I remember one time, coming back from town, I noticed some folks over at the wood carving store where they sold woodcarvings such as owls, eagles, and such. The store had a porch with a front rail on it that was about three feet off the ground. I rode olâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Rusty over and said hello to a couple who had three kids about ages six, eight, and ten.

While I was talking to their mom and dad, they asked me if the horse liked kids and could they pet him? I said yes! Rusty loved kids and it is okay for them to come and pet him.

As the children started over, I said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Yes, Sir Rusty loves kids - he eats about three a day, and he hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t eaten yet today.â&#x20AC;? The kids suddenly stopped.

Then I told them that I was just teasing and Rusty would love to be petted.

The kids began petting Rusty on his head, and then they slid down to his neck. All three kids locked their arms around his neck and began to swing from side to side. Rusty held all of them while they were swinging and laughing. It was a good time for both the kids and the horse.

Another time, a friend of my son, who lived across the pasture, was out mowing the lawn.

Before I left to go to work, I thought I would go and say hello. Well, I started around the corner of the house when my sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s friend turned off the mower.

It backfired, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Powâ&#x20AC;? like a pistol shot. Rusty jumped a little, and I drew my pistol and threw down on the kid. The kid started screaming for his mom You may qualify for free assistive telephone equipment through the and dad to help him.

Montana Telecommunications Access Program!

As I put my gun back in its holster, I told the kid I was sorry, as I had thought something else might be going on. I had just acted automatically when MSN the mower backfired.

F Yes, I want to learn more about MTAP! The Montana Telecommunications It sure was a most interesting moment. It Access Program (MTAP) provides Name: ____________________________________ scared me, and I know it scared the kid â&#x20AC;&#x201C; he was FREE assistive telephone equipment really shaking. It turned out that all was well, and to those who qualify, making it easier Address: __________________________________ to use the phone to do business or we ended up having a good visit. Talk about your City: ______________________________________ keep in touch with family and friends. interesting times! MSN

If you have difficulty understanding words clearly over the phone, just fill out this form!

State: _____________ Zip Code: _______________

Equipment available through MTAP includes: x Amplified (louder) telephones x Captioned telephones x Loud bell ringers x TTYs (text telephones) x Artificial Larynxes x Much, much more!

Phone: _____________________________________ Return form to: MTAP P. O. Box 4210, Helena, MT 59604

For more information just mail us this form or call toll-free:1-800-833-8503 Montana Department Public Health HumanServices Services Department of Publicof Health and and Human

ď &#x152;ď Żď Żď Ťď&#x20AC; ď ?ď ľď ´ď&#x20AC;Ąď&#x20AC; ď ?ď ľď Žď łď&#x20AC; ď &#x201A;ď Ľď Źď Żď ˇ 1. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

2. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

3. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

4. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;You stay here, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll go on a-head.â&#x20AC;?

5. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

6. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Keep off the Grass.â&#x20AC;? MSN

JUNE/JULY 2010

MONTANA SENIOR NEWS PAGE 75

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The flattery of wearing pants

By Bill Hall One day years ago, a naturalized American was speaking to an assembly at my grade school when he produced a storm of naughty giggles from his young audience by declaring that, unlike those of us who were born here, he had arrived in the United States with his pants on.

You can imagine how that gag made a bunch of grade schoolers fall out of their chairs with glee. We couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have laughed more if he had told us belch jokes - a sure-fire source of hysterical laughter. Kids then and now are suckers for jokes that involve rude noises.

We were suckers as well for remarks about coming to this country with your pants on. And the assembly speaker used his pants joke to make a flattering point. That was his jovial way of expressing his affection for his new country, saying that, unlike us, he had consciously chosen this place, to make his home.

I have thought about that man over the years every time I encounter an immigrant. You would think there wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be so many of us having a tizzy these days about immigrants, given the fact so many of us have parents and grandparents who signaled their approval of this corner of the world by arriving here with clothes on and bringing their genes along, the ingredients for constructing us.

Similarly, it is strange that some people have a hard time getting along with in-laws given the fact that in-laws are people who have chosen ours as a family they wanted to join. But more often than not, those who marry into our families take a liking sooner or later to most of their new relatives.

In-laws are people who come into your family in the flattering way â&#x20AC;&#x201C; with their trousers on. But there is often more to a new family addition than mere flattery. Such was the case one day shortly after the end of World War II when Uncle Jim, my fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s younger brother, came to visit, bringing along a woman named Ruby. He had met her one day, proposed the next, and they were married within the month.

She was a striking, gregarious, and quite beautiful woman. There was a happiness about her that was the perfect antidote to the grim years of war we had all just come through. The whole family fell in love with her, as quickly as Uncle Jim didâ&#x20AC;Ś especially my mother.

My mother had four brothers and no sisters â&#x20AC;&#x201C; until Ruby came along. She had always wanted a sister.

Suddenly she had one. She and Ruby were as close as blood sisters until the day my mother died.

I would not say what I will say next if it were not absolutely true: I will say that my mother was one of the great fried chicken cooks of all time. But Rubyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fried chicken was even better!

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no insult to my mother. To a kid who loved fried chicken, this is like saying Jefferson was a great president but Lincoln was even greater. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re talking about the major leagues of chicken frying.

Ruby dredged chicken pieces in flour with salt and pepper (and maybe other secret flavors), browned the chicken on the stove top in a cast-iron skillet, and then steamed the delicacy in the oven in a little water with the lid on. Rubyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chicken made its own gravy, compelling you to lick your fingers repeatedly while making cooing sounds.

Ruby died recently at 91. Thus we have lost a well-loved in-law and our premier chicken cook.

But my mother has regained a sister. MSN

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10 Videotapes - any kind $139 (or 20 hours, whichever comes first)

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