July/August 2015 60 PLUS In Omaha by Omaha Magazine

July/August 2015

PICKLEBALL

more fun than drinking a barrel of vinegar

WORLD TRAVELER, HISTORIC PRESERVER

Susan Bray comes home

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60PLUS FROM THE EDITOR

REFLECTIONS:

traveling the highway of memories

CONTENTS

volume 3 • issue 3

HE LEGENDARY SHOOT-EM-UP WESTERN writer Louis L’Amour believed “No memory is ever alone; it’s at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.” Memory is a recurring theme in this issue of 60PLUS. Memories of travel. Memories of adventure. Memories of love. And of love lost. Even editor David Williams explores the mysteries of memory in closing this issue with The Grandpa Chronicles. We hope the recollections found on the pages that follow give you pause to reflect on your own experiences, your own memories. At our age, after all, we have so many more (as L’Amour would put it) “trails” to travel. May we suggest that you read this issue outdoors in the waning light of a summer’s day as you bask in the serene stillness of a beautiful sunset? What better trailhead could there be for launching a journey down memory lane? Until next issue!

Gwen

Gwen Lemke Contributing Editor, 60PLUS In Omaha

FEATURE Susan Bray World Traveler, Historic Preserver............. S4

FINANCES Discovering How to Apply for V.A. Benefits........S8

HISTORY Ghost Host—The Squirrel Cage Jail................S10

COVER FEATURE Pickleball More Fun Than Drinking a Barrel of Vinegar..................................S14

HEALTH Skin Cancer Continues to Rise.........................S18

FACES Retirement on the Road...................................S20

THE GRANDPA CHRONICLES Lord Acton Said it Best....................................S22

july/august 2015 | 60PLUS

60PLUS FEATURE by mandy mowers | photography by bill sitzmann

WORLD TRAVELER, HISTORIC PRESERVER Susan Bray comes home

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july/august 2015 | 60PLUSâ&#x20AC;&#x192;

60PLUS FEATURE

USAN BRAY HAS NEVER been one to shy away from attention. She built her life around standing out. As a blonde, long-haired “hippie chick” in the 1970s, Bray stood out in some Asian and Middle-Eastern countries that had never welcomed a white woman traveling solo. Her adventures started after she left Nebraska and moved to Honolulu to live with her brother after college. A few years later, Bray married a physicist. They eventually relocated to Guam—“the hottest place on God’s green earth,” according to Bray. And she would know. The travel bug bit hard soon after the couple divorced. She’s visited more than 50 countries in her 70 years of life. Most of her 50 countries came in a span of five years during three different trips. She saw the cage in Titian where she believes Amelia Earhart was held captive by the Japanese until her death. She was goosed by a camel in Afghanistan. And she was horned in the rear by a water buffalo in Nepal. Bray most recalls the kindness of the people in Nepal. It’s her favorite country. While there, she rented a motorcycle and headed toward Mount Everest—at least, until it broke down. She says, “It wasn’t a Harley, I’ll tell you.” But even out in the remote rice paddies, she quickly found help. She went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It is the second most beautiful work of architecture she’s ever seen. The most stunning edifice Bray saw was the Golden Pagoda in Burma (now Myanmar). “It was like eight to 10 stories high, and it had a spiral staircase like the Guggenheim.” In an excited whisper, she then adds, “It was all plated gold. Just startling when you see it.” Traveling cost a lot. She came home to her mother in Omaha in 1976 with about 45 cents to her name. Thankfully, pay phones only cost a dime at the time. Subconsciously, Bray may have been studying art and architecture all over the world because she knew that’s where her heart was. Her passion led her to city planning in Omaha, which evolved into historic preservation. Soon she grew restless and weary of Midwestern winters. Bray bought a house in Hawaii and lived there until her mother

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became ill. To be closer to her, she moved to La Jolla, Calif. Quickly getting involved in historic preservation once again, “I ended up being in charge of the restoration of downtown San Diego,” Bray says. “I did an area called the Gaslamp Quarter. It was all old buildings I did…96 of them.” In her living room is a newspaper clipping from the San Diego Tribune, the headline of which reads, “Gunslinger of the Gaslamp: Susan Bray is the guardian of downtown’s historical integrity—like her or not.” She looks at the photo in the clipping and says, “The guys working on this building gave me a pink construction hat. So cute.” Reflecting on Gaslamp, Bray says, “That’s my biggest contribution. I changed the footprint of a city. And that’s forever.” Bray thinks a lot about legacies because she’s been diagnosed with a rare degenerative brain disease similar to Lou Gehrig’s called Orthostatic Hypotension. It’s terminal. This news came after she already survived lymphoma and breast cancer. Her doctor in California recommended that she live near her burial site. So, six years

july/august 2015 | omahamagazine.com

ago, she threw all her photos, a small red chair, and a blue stool in her car to come back to Omaha. Although she always appreciated the sense of community here, she felt sad to find so many of her good friends had already passed away or moved. She’s grateful for the new friends she has made and some friends from Westide High School she’s reconnected with. Bray does not know the meaning of the term stranger. “I dialed the wrong number the other night in San Diego, and I ended up talking to a 79-year-old woman for an hour,” she says. Even sales calls get a taste of her gusto. “My daily joy is making people laugh,” she says. “I think that’s why God put me on this earth.” So even though Bray has to “fill a bathtub to feel at home” so far from the ocean, she’s made a home again in Omaha. Inside her apartment, Bray’s parakeet, Big Boy, sings in the background. Combine that with the vintage blond art deco floors—“I would only ever live in a historic property”—it could almost be a tropical getaway.

60PLUS feature

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Best of Omaha™ Campaign 2015

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war & Chuck Hagel battles for a future free of the quagmires of the past.

Peace

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60PLUS FINANCE by ryan borchers | photography by bill sitzmann

WADING THROUGH C THE FLOODWATERS discovering how to apply for V.A. benefits

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OMMIE SCHABEN’S 82-YEAROLD FATHER, Ed, is a Korean War veteran who served at Virginia Beach. He survived horrors untold, but last year, he almost died after his small intestine ruptured. Commie was determined to have him live at home with her after that, but she says making that happen without some kind of assistance would have been difficult. “I’d be really hurting,” she says. “I’d be skimping and scraping really bad. I probably would have had to put him in a home. I’d rather have him here with me.” So she went to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website to see if she could

obtain any assistance for her dad along the lines of a wheelchair or bathroom handlebars. She sent them her phone number, asking for some guidance. Dave Olney, a local care advocate, got in touch with her. It turned out the V.A. could do a lot more for her and her dad than she realized. “It’s just wonderful,” she says. It may not be the most widely known aid program, but the V.A. offers benefits to former members of the armed forces, and their spouses, to help pay for the cost of care. The veterans’ benefits program helps eligible members pay for care costs like assisted living, treatment after major medical conditions, etc.

Olney often works with clients seeking to obtain veterans benefits and says a veteran and his/her spouse are eligible to receive $25,000 a year for care. A veteran by him or herself may receive a little over $21,000 annually, and the surviving spouse of a veteran may be eligible for over $13,000 annually. Only about 5 percent of eligible veterans are taking advantage of these benefits. “In today’s society, as you grow older, quite often, the more care you need, and some of our elderly people [are in] need of care and protecting their assets,” Olney says. So, why are so few veterans collecting this money? Olney thinks there are two reasons. The first is that not many people know about the benefits. The second is that the process can be complicated. Even though no one can charge for filling out the requisite paperwork, oftentimes that paperwork can be confusing, and incorrectly entered or missing information may lead to the V.A. denying an applicant without an explanation. Olney says one of his recent clients was denied because of a piece of paper missing from the application. “He would’ve quit right then and there, but that’s the way it is when you deal with government. They don’t always give you all the facts.” Allan Jackson, director of the Douglas County Veterans Services, says the V.A. requires certain forms and documents to establish a given veteran’s service time and discharge status. The V.A. also requests verification of income and assets as well as medical information if the requested benefits are for care; however, he says there are limits to what a Veterans Service officer is allowed to ask of someone inquiring about benefits.

“We can’t get into an individual’s history,” he says. “We can’t get into an individual’s income and assets. Confidentiality comes into play.” Even if you fill out all the paperwork, Olney says, how you answer a given question may alter your chances of receiving benefits. For example, the paperwork asks about your assets. What is considered an asset? If you own a given asset, do you own 100 percent of it? (The correct answer is no.) Questions like those aren’t explained in the rules, Olney says, and a care advocate can help applicants determine their finances and incomes, and how care costs affect their incomes. If you tell the V.A. you make a certain amount of money, the V.A. might deny you benefits because your income is too high. Jackson stresses the importance of itemizing the ways in which your income is spent on care. And if you factor in the cost of your care, Olney says, that might help your case. Olney says he’s found the average veteran who successfully applies and submits the paperwork will start receiving benefits within 90 days. And if more eligible members take advantage of the benefits, there might be other advantages as well. Not only would the veterans and their families be better off, but there would be less strain on other federal programs like Medicaid and Social Security. As for Ed, Commie says, the V.A. sends visiting nurses to their home. Her dad is also at the top of the list of eligible candidates to stay at the new V.A. home if it comes to that, and if her mom were still alive, the V.A. would have helped her get into assisted living. “They are entitled to this,” Olney says. “It’s a thing they’ve sacrificed for…it’s something they have truly earned, so why shouldn’t they have this benefit if they’ve truly earned it?” july/august 2015 | 60PLUS

60PLUS HISTORY by judy horan | photography by bill sitzmann

GHOST HOST

eeriness around every corner (in a place that doesn’t have corners)

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ISITORS FROM OMAHA AND the spirit realm are welcome at the Squirrel Cage Jail Museum in Council Bluffs. Carla Borgaila says she has met several of the resident ghosts. She remembers her hat being pulled from her head as she frantically tried to hold it on. “I could feel the fingers on my head,” she remembers. “But no one was there.” Another time, “a guy came into my office and just stood there.” Despite her personal experiences with ghosts, Borgaila is a realist. “Ninety percent is overactive imagination. Nine percent we can’t explain, but it’s not paranormal. But then there’s that one percent.” Although a ghost has not spoken to her, she has heard her name called. But she never feels scared or threatened. “They’re like Casper the Friendly Ghost. There’s no reason to be fearful.” Borgaila, museum coordinator for the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County, is responsible for arranging paranormal, as well as regular, tours of the quirky Squirrel Cage Jail. Built in 1885, the jail on a turntable is now a museum. Adults who want to spend 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. asking questions of alleged ghosts can call for an appointment. But plan ahead. Overnight paranormal investigation groups are already booked two months out. The outing costs a minimum of $175, which covers the first seven people; additional people are $25 each. Youths age 16 and 17 are not allowed without a guardian; only people age 21 and older can schedule an appointment. Some of the people who died in the building may be lingering. “One is an inmate who hung himself. I firmly believe he’s still there. People describe him to a tee.” Several ghostly jailers also hang around. “People see them.” Groups spending the night at the Squirrel Cage Jail sometime pick up electronic voice phenomena. “You don’t hear it then, but it shows up in the background when later listening to the audio recording,’ says Borgaila. Ghost hunting is not the only activity in the historical building. Regular tours are available for individual visitors and groups of 15 or more. Borgaila also has scheduled bridal showers and birthday parties.

Even if ghost-less, the building’s architecture is worth a visit. Originally, prisoners in pie-shaped cells got in and out when a hand crank turned to line the cell up with a single door on each of the three floors. Because the cage rotated and jailers could view all the cells from one place, fewer jailers were needed. The jail was built to be escape-proof, but 60 inmates escaped over the years. Inmates also had to be careful to avoid getting an arm or leg crushed by the rotating jail. The county jail was used from 1885 to 1969. Inmates still reside close by. “I run into them all the time,” she says. “It’s a badge of honor. They’re proud they were in one of the most unique buildings in the United States.” One of three remaining Lazy Susan jails, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Council Bluffs jail is the largest of the 18 built.

CHECK IT OUT SQUIRREL CAGE JAIL 226 Pearl St. in Council Bluffs. Open daily 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Mondays, major holidays, and the month of January. Tours are available year-round. 712-323-2509.

july/august 2015 | 60PLUS

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Spend your lazy summer days in peaceful Napa Valley, part of California’s wine country region with its incredible weather and unforgettable scenery. Saunter through wineries and take in the beautiful countryside before treating yourself to a souvenir at one of the eclectic shops in the cozy towns that dot the countryside. Just a short drive to the coast, you can also soak in the rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean! Of course, the area also boasts a great variety of dining options, from artisan cafes to Tuscan fare to seafood. Napa Valley is truly a dream for the foodie and wine enthusiast alike!

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60PLUS COVER FEATURE by kara schweiss | photography by bill sitzmann

PICKLEBALL

more fun than drinking a barrel of vinegar

“

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T’S PLAYED ON A badminton-size court, but with the net lowered to 34 inches at the center. The paddles look like a hybrid of racquetball racquets and table tennis paddles. The rules are somewhat similar to tennis, but the serve is underhand. And the ball looks more like a whiffle ball than a vinegarsoaked cucumber. It’s Pickleball—a sport that is quickly gaining a large following, with the local club, Pickleball Omaha, boasting around 225 members. The game’s origins date back to a 1965 Washington state backyard, and even its

creators can’t quite agree on whether the name came from a family dog or a term associated with rowing. Regardless of this, pickleball has evolved over 50 years from an improvised family pastime to a thriving, widely recognized passion. The statewide organization, Pickleball Nebraska, was founded in 2012, and the sport has been part of Nebraska’s State Games of America (formerly Cornhusker State Games) since 2011. It is even going to be part of the State Games of America’s national competition for the first time this summer when Nebraska serves as host state. >

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60PLUS COVER FEATURE

< Pickleball Nebraska President Bill Holt (pictured on the cover) discovered the sport in 2008 while wintering in Arizona. It was popular with the retirement crowd there, he says, but relatively unknown back home in Nebraska—without an organized following or designated courts. So Holt and his wife, Nancy, created a makeshift playing field on an Omaha tennis court that spring and began introducing friends to the sport. Interest has grown steadily since. “There was no place to play pickleball in Nebraska that I was aware of, and nobody I knew played,” Holt says. “We now have 10 places to play listed (on the USA Pickleball Association website at uspaa.org) and there are actually more than that.” More information on this pastime is available at pickleballnebraska.wordpress.com, and players can now also find local places to participate through the club’s page on Facebook. Like Holt, Camille Culp’s association with pickleball originated in Arizona. Her husband, Wayne, played the game for the first time on a business trip six years ago, introduced Camille, and soon the couple found other enthusiasts in Omaha. Culp was one of the first women to play locally, and she

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says introductory clinics, open play sessions, and a welcoming community have helped the sport grow in the area. Women now make up more than half of Pickleball Nebraska’s membership. “That’s the pickleball thing, always chat up whoever stops by,” says Culp, who now serves as the group’s treasurer. “They can try it right away and see what they think, and of course, in my opinion, 95 percent of them are hooked.” Holt says club members range from 30-something to 82, and most participants play doubles. A high degree of physical conditioning isn’t necessary to start, but the game can be very intense and local players selfclassify as A-level, B-level, or somewhere in between to determine if they should play recreationally or competitively. “Anybody can join. The typical person is 60-65 and has played sports; I’ve always been fairly active in one thing or another,” Holt says. “Anyone can learn to play…it’s great for all ages.” “It’s relatively easy to learn,” Culp agrees. “I only see the sport getting more popular.”

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60PLUS HEALTH by susan meyers

SKIN CANCER CONTINUES TO RISE greatest increases among women and men over 65

ONY LAZZARETTI KEPT AN eye on the mole on his chest for some time. When it started getting bigger, he made an appointment with his doctor to get it checked. A biopsy confirmed that it was melanoma— the deadliest form of skin cancer. Lazzaretti, 70 years old at the time, said he was never a “sun bunny,” but he remembers getting some bad sunburns. Lazzaretti had surgery to remove the mole and several lymph nodes, but a couple of years later, the cancer returned. This time the cancer was too extensive to remove with surgery, says Alissa Marr, M.D., an oncologist at Nebraska Medicine specializing in melanoma and lung cancer. “We started him on a new immunomodulatory drug and he has had no reoccurrence

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since then,” she says. “This is a remarkable story of how advanced treatments have become. Over the past four years, there have been six new drugs introduced for metastatic melanoma that have been very effective in a select group of patients.” The cases of melanoma have steadily increased over the past 30 years, notes Dr. Marr. The greatest increases have been among white women between the ages of 15 and 39 years, and in men over age 65. While the cause for the increase is not known, better identification, use of tanning beds, and having one or more blistering sunburns as a youth appear to boost the risk. Some research shows that people who use tanning beds are 74 percent more likely to get melanoma than those who don’t use them, notes Dr. Marr. “If melanoma is caught at an early stage and treated with proper surgical resection, it is highly curable,” she says. Melanoma typically starts as a mole. See a doctor if you experience any of the ABCDE’s of a mole: asymmetry; border irregularity; color variation; diameter (anything larger than a pencil eraser); and evolution, meaning a mole that is changing, itchy, or bleeds. The highest incidence of this cancer occurs on the back of the legs in women, and on the trunk and back for men. However, it can occur on any area of the body, even those that have not been exposed to the sun, says Marr. If you get a suspicious mole removed, it needs to be an excision or punch biopsy by a qualified physician in order to get an accurate evaluation. Basal and squamous cell skin cancers, the most common forms of skin cancer, typically occur on chronically sun-exposed areas such as the head, neck, ears, and arms, and are directly related to amount of sun exposure. Suspicious symptoms include: a shiny, waxy, scar-like spot that may be yellow or white with irregular borders; a smooth bump that is indented in the middle; a reddish patch that won’t go away and may be painful or itchy; or a sore that takes more than three weeks to heal. “Everyone should have a full body skin exam every year by their doctor to check for skin cancer,” says Dr. Marr. “The goal is to find it before it progresses and when it is still very treatable.” Now Lazzaretti tells his kids every chance he gets: stay out of the sun, stay away from tanning beds, and wear sunscreen.

Nebraska Low Vision wishes Mike Riley and the Nebraska Cornhuskers Football Team much success in 2015.

www.NebraskaLowVision.com · 402-905-2794 july/august 2015 | 60PLUS

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60PLUS FACES by anna hensel | photography by bill sitzmann

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july/august 2015 | omahamagazine.com

RETIREMENT on the road

RITZ SAMPSON SAYS HE likes to travel slowly, but the words “travel” and “slowly” can conjure up thoughts of lounging over three hour-long dinners in Italy, or spending an entire afternoon wandering through a village in France. For 65-year-old Fritz, “traveling slowly” means moving about 200 miles a day across Europe and Asia by motorcycle. Last March, Fritz undertook a 115day motorcycle journey through southern Europe, the former Soviet bloc, and Mongolia; but his plans were cut short by more than three weeks after an accident in Mongolia. It’s an itinerary that sounds crazy, but, when explained calmly by Fritz, seems perfectly reasonable. “Whether it’s breaking a shoulder, or getting stopped by police, or running out of food, things are going to happen,” Fritz says. “And that’s why you take the trip, because it’s an adventure.” According to Sampson and his wife of 40 years, Mary, he always had a daring spirit. “That’s what I loved him for, was his sense of adventure,” Mary says. “No one is comparable to Fritz—he’s all out for the experience. The couple met on the Model United Nations Team at Creighton University and married in 1975, right out of college. They, and their two children, moved to Germany in 1998 while Fritz pursued a degree in international tax law. His career took him everywhere from China to Belize; but he still craved different ways to see the world. A long-distance cyclist, he rode for years all over the United States. But as he aged, he turned to a new mode of transportation: motorcycling. He bought a new Harley Davidson in 2007, and in 2008 rode with his son, Marty, from Omaha to Tierra del Fuego, an island chain

off the southernmost point of South America. “One of the reasons I do this—I like meeting people on the road,” Fritz says. After his South American excursion, Fritz was itching to do a similar trip elsewhere. He read about two motorcycle adventures on travel blogs that looked really interesting— one to the Russian far east, another in outer Mongolia—and decided to combine the two by retiring and traveling to 17 countries. He planned to begin in Ireland, meet Mary in Turkey, and eventually end up in Mongolia and Russia, but had no other itinerary. That meant he spent a week in Bulgaria because he felt like it. He chose to go to Kazakhstan instead of Turkmenistan because he met a fellow motorcyclist who was headed

there. And when he told local policemen in Turkey the name of the hostel where he was staying, they told him he shouldn’t sleep there and took him to a friend’s house, where they hosted a barbecue for him. He also had a run-in with corrupt police in Azerbaijan, lost 22 pounds, and experienced that fateful fall in Mongolia that cut his trip short and left him with a broken shoulder. There’s only one thing he’s cutting out of his routine: off-roading on his motorcycle, which led to his accident. But he still wants to ride on motorcycle trips across the continental United States, Alaska, and Mexico. After all, he says, those are “easy” rides.

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60PLUS THE GRANDPA CHRONICLES by david williams

LORD ACTON SAID IT BEST

life through a viewfinder

’VE NEVER OWNED A video camera of any kind. Okay, so I’ve just been reminded that my cell phone gizmo has such a device, but having never used it I still qualify as a video virgin. Sony introduced the first consumer camcorder in 1983, the year my youngest child was born. This made our family a prime target for being an early adapter in what became something of a video mania. Almost overnight a populist paparazzi were born where every dad (Why was it always the dads?) at every kindergarten holiday program was armed with a cinder-block-sized camera that instantly made him some kind of Fellini wanna-be. I refused to join the Betamax Age because my makeup is one where I want to remember things the way I want to remember things— not necessarily how they actually happened. Ample video of my kids’ childhood years exists from the cameras of extended family members, and a couple of clan get-togethers have been marred when some idiot got the

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bright idea that we should all watch old videos together. I’m sure any good shrink would have a field day getting inside my head, but the experience of viewing those picnics and parties and plays unfold on screen was…well, “disturbing” is not at all too powerful a word. It’s not that I am a dispassionate stoic. For whatever weird reason, being confronted with a filmed retelling of events rearranges my mental furniture in an unsettling, almost visceral way. That tyranny of memory has only grown over the years, and we’ve all witnessed the rise of the camera-obsessed malady I’ll call the Fear of Missing Out Syndrome. In a sickness typified by living vicariously through a viewfinder, it’s as if film, and only film, is capable of proving, even to ourselves, the existential reality of a person, place, or thing. “I saw Pope Francis!” “I saw President Obama!” “I saw Garth Brooks!” people exclaim. No, you didn’t. You saw only mere pixels while struggling to center a celebrity’s image

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on your camera. You had exactly the same experience I had when I saw almost identical footage on CNN or the local news, except that my experience was better in that it was rendered by seasoned videographers on professional equipment. You were there, but you weren’t there. Just check out the June 15 Sports Illustrated cover online. Get my point? Our society has become one of dim imaginations reflected in the even dimmer glows of electronic gadgets. As some dude named Lord Acton once claimed, “History is not a burden on the memory, but an illumination of the soul.” I kinda dig that Lord Acton guy, even if his name sounds like a super-classy moniker for a faux-British-bad-guy rassler on WWE. At least according to his lordship, I don’t have an almost pathological relationship with memory. I have an illuminated soul.