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By HEATHER CHRISLER
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42 Legacy
Where flowers bloom, gifts abound and a business continues to change and flourish … you’ll find Deborah and Stephanie Genrich
46 Lifespan
Mary Rose McBride still enjoys coming to work at Lifespan of Greater Rochester — after more than 30 years doing so
52 Mental Health
This is even more important Important as you age
54 Theater
Dave Munnell: When not directing plays and musicals, this Rochester resident is performing, teaching, writing
58 Grandparents
Poll shows them helping each other
60 Odyssey Project
Transistor radio sparks a lifetime of memories
10 Savvy Senior
How much do you have to make to file taxes in 2025?
12 Dining Out
Galician Restaurant in Rochester’s South Wedge neighborhood serves an impressively long menu of Ukrainian classics
12 Financial Health
What you should know about taxation of investments
50 New Drugs
What’s new this year in the world of drugs
64 Addyman’s Corner
‘I’m just a simple guy’
66 Last Page
Mike Muscolino will retire from the Alex Eligh Community Center in Newark in September, leaving a legacy of service
Gary Lewis during the “Happy Together Tour” in 2014.
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By Jim Miller
How Much Do You Have to Make to File Taxes in 2025?
Whether or not you are required to file a federal income tax return this year will depend on how much you earned last year, as well as the source of the income, your age and filing status.
Here’s a rundown of this tax season’s IRS tax filing requirement thresholds.
For most people, this is pretty straightforward. If your 2024 gross income — which includes all taxable income, not counting your Social Security benefits unless you are married and filing separately — was below the threshold for your filing status and age, you probably won’t have to file. But if it’s over, you will.
• Single: $14,600 ($16,550 if you’re 65 or older by Jan. 1, 2024).
• Married filing jointly: $29,200 ($30,750 if you or your spouse is 65 or older; or $32,300 if you’re both over 65).
• Married filing separately: $5 at any age.
• Head of household: $21,900 ($23,850 if 65 or older).
• Qualifying surviving spouse: $29,200 ($30,750 if 65 or older).
To get a detailed breakdown on federal filing requirements, along with information on taxable and nontaxable income, call the IRS at 800-829-3676 and ask them to mail you a free copy of the “1040 and 1040-SR Instructions for Tax Year 2024,” or you can see it online at IRS.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf.
• Check Here Too — Be aware that there are other financial situations that can require you to file a tax return, even if your gross income falls below the IRS filing requirements. For example, if you earned more than $400 from selfemployment in 2024, owe any taxes on an IRA, health savings account or an alternative minimum tax, or get premium tax credits because you, your spouse or a dependent is enrolled in
a health insurance marketplace plan, you’ll need to file.
You’ll also need to file if you’re receiving Social Security benefits, and one-half of your benefits plus your other gross income and any tax-exempt interest exceeds $25,000, or $32,000 if you’re married and filing jointly.
To figure all this out, the IRS offers an online tax tool that asks a series of questions that will help you determine if you’re required to file or if you should file because you’re due a refund. It takes less than 15 minutes to complete.
You can access this tool at IRS. gov/Help/ITA — click on “Filing Requirements — Do I need to file a tax return?” Or you can get assistance over the phone by calling the IRS helpline at 800-829-1040.
• Tax Preparation Help — If you find that you do need to file a tax return this year, you can Free File at IRS.gov/FreeFile, which is a partnership program between the IRS and tax software companies. Your 2024 adjusted gross income must be below $84,000 to qualify. Or, if you have a simple tax situation and your income is below $200,000, or $250,000 if you’re married and filing jointly, you can now file your taxes for free through the new IRS Direct File program in 24 states at DirectFile.IRS.gov.
If you need some help, contact the IRS-sponsored Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) program, which provides free tax preparation and counseling to middle and low-income taxpayers, aged 60 and older. Call 800906-9887 or visit IRS.treasury.gov/ freetaxprep to locate services near you.
You can also get tax preparation assistance through the AARP Foundation Tax-Aide service at AARP. org/findtaxhelp or call 888-227-7669.
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GALICIA RESTAURANT
Restaurant in Rochester’s South Wedge neighborhood serves an impressively long menu of Ukrainian classics
By Jacob Pucci
From empanadas and potstickers to ravioli and pierogi, just about every cuisine in the world has some form of dumpling.
In Ukraine, they’re called varenyky and they’re among the specialties at Galicia Restaurant, a tiny restaurant in Rochester’s South Wedge neighborhood serving an impressively long menu of Ukrainian classics.
Having grown up on my family’s recipes for Polish dishes like pierogi and golumpki, which served as my point of reference for my foray into Ukrainian cuisine, which while it does bear a strong resemblance to the cuisine of its bordering Eastern European nation, is distinct enough to make it stand out.
mushroom gravy.
Whether you call them golumpki (Polish) or holubtsi (Ukrainian), stuffed cabbage rolls come in many forms, though follow a similar formula — meat and rice filling wrapped in cabbage leaves and cooked until tender. You’ll often see them almost stewed in a pool of vinegarlaced tomato sauce, but at Galicia, the rolls are only lightly coated in sauce and at first glance, look pan-fried, with a thinner layer of cabbage clinging tightly around the beef, chicken and rice filling. These were so good that I might have to tweak my family recipe.
The same goes for the potato DINING
Take the sauerkraut served in the Savoring Ukrainian combination plate ($23), which was a cool cabbage salad with a bite of red onion — a far departure from the usual warm, vinegary sauerkraut dolloped atop a hot dog or braised with bacon and served as a hot side dish.
The crisp cabbage slaw was a welcome contrast to the rest of the hearty platter that also included trios of stuffed cabbage rolls and potato pancakes, five of the aforementioned varenyky, topped with caramelized onions and small bowls of sour cream and
LEFT: The Savoring Ukrainian combination plate ($23) includes trios of stuffed cabbage rolls, potato pancakes and five varenykys (dumplings).
MIDDLE: Exterior of Galicia Restaurant on 489 South Ave., Rochester.
RIGHT: The Ukrainian Home Duo ($24) includes two Ukrainian sausages, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, pickles and grilled bread.
pancakes, accompanied by a smooth, rich mushroom gravy. There are two fatal flaws to avoid when it comes to potato pancakes — soggy, oil-soaked exteriors and raw, dense, bitter-tasting interiors and while it might sound obvious, even a proficient cook can fall victim to these cardinal cooking sins. But these, thankfully, were neither, with the outside lightly crisp and the inside tender and flavorful.
I can only dream of making dumplings as well as Galicia’s varenyky. The fillings vary — Galicia serves both sweet and savory versions, filled with combinations of potato, mushroom, sauerkraut and for the sweet versions, farmer’s cheese. These varenyky were tender, but with just a bit of chew and texture that stands up to the soft potato filling.
It may seem like a small thing, but I couldn’t help but be impressed by the perfectly woven crimped edge sealing the varenyky, a sign, to me, of the attention to detail paid to the food, a demonstration of the Galicia team’s skill, and a reminder that my rustic
Sweet Ukrainian Pancakes is a dessert built for at least two people, with three large cheese-filled crepes topped with seasonal fruit — in this case, strawberries and blueberries — and finished with a drizzle of caramel and sweetened condensed milk.
(to put it nicely) pierogi making skills have a long way to go.
The Ukrainian Home Duo ($24) includes two Ukrainian sausages, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, pickles and grilled bread. Both platters came with a small plum tomato that at first glance seems like a throwaway garnish, but are actually wonderfully ripe tomatoes pickled in-house for several months for a light tang that, like the sauerkraut, adds some zip and contrast to the other, heavier foods.
The sausages, flavored with fennel and garlic, were similar to a familiar Italian sausage. The links appeared deep-fried, which resulted in a lovely snap, but were a bit overcooked and not as juicy as they could have been. The potatoes, boosted by a generous amount of melted butter, were excellent.
Dessert options include homemade tiramisu, a variety of cakes imported directly from Kyiv, Ukraine; syrnyky, a fried cheesecake made with farmer’s
cheese, and sweet crepes filled with a variety of fruits and cheese.
Twenty may seem steep for dessert, but the Sweet Ukrainian Pancakes is a dessert built for at least two people, with three large cheese-filled crepes topped with seasonal fruit — in this case, strawberries and blueberries — and finished with a drizzle of caramel and sweetened condensed milk. The farmer’s cheese keeps the crepes from being too sweet, making the dish feel lighter and assuring you that even after a meal full of varenyky, you’ll still have room for dessert.
The staff at Galicia know that Ukrainian cuisine is new for many diners and were more than happy to explain dishes, offer suggestions and guide diners through their meal. It feels like dining in somebody’s home — both because of the comforting food and because there are only three tables. Because of that, reservations are recommended, especially during busier meal times. The reservation
page on the restaurant’s website reads “Reserve your table now and become part of our extended family!”
That’s exactly how dining at Galicia feels.
Galicia Restaurant
489 South Ave. Rochester, NY 14620
Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Closed Monday and Tuesday.
585-355-4998
Reservations: Yes, encouraged. Available online at galiciarestaurant.com www.facebook.com/ GaliciaRestaurantRoc https://www.instagram. com/savoringukrainian
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Q: What is the estimated average Social Security payment that a person receives each month?
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A: It depends on how much you’re paying the housekeeper. If you pay a housekeeper or other household worker $2,800 or more in cash wages throughout the year, you must deduct Social Security and Medicare taxes. This holds true for a cleaning person, cook, gardener, babysitter or anyone else who provides services for you. In addition, you must report these wages once a year. There are exceptions, for example, when you are hiring a company or independent contractor and paying them a fee for services instead of wages to a person. You can learn more about household workers and tax deductions by reading our publication, “Household Workers” at www. ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10021.pdf.
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By Laurie Haelen
What You Should Know About Taxation of Investments
If you are trying to accumulate wealth for your life goals, it is likely that you own stocks, bonds and other investments.
The income and growth provided by investment vehicles are great — until it's time to file your federal income tax return.
How are investment returns reported and how are they taxed? Even if you use a tax professional, it is a question worth asking and a concept that is useful to comprehend, especially as we approach tax season.
To determine how an investment vehicle is taxed in a given year, first ask yourself what went on with the investment that year. Did it generate interest income? If so, the income is probably considered ordinary. Did you sell the investment? If so, a capital gain or loss is probably involved.
If you receive dividend income, it may be taxed either at ordinary income tax rates or at the rates that apply to long-term capital gain income.
Dividends paid to an individual shareholder from a domestic corporation or qualified foreign
corporation are generally taxed at the same rates that apply to long-term capital gains. Long-term capital gains and qualified dividends are generally taxed at special capital gains tax rates of 0%, 15% and 20% depending on your taxable income. (Some types of capital gains may be taxed as high as 25% or 28%.)
The actual process of calculating tax on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends is extremely complicated and depends on the amount of your net capital gains and qualified dividends and your taxable income.
The distinction between ordinary income and capital gain income is important because different tax rates may apply and different reporting procedures may be involved.
Here are some of the things you need to know.
Investments often produce ordinary income, such as interest and rent. Many investments — including savings accounts, certificates of deposit, money market accounts, annuities, bonds and some preferred
stock — can generate ordinary income. Ordinary income is taxed at ordinary (as opposed to capital gains) tax rates.
But not all ordinary income is taxable — and even if it is taxable, it may not be taxed immediately. If you receive ordinary income, the income can be categorized as taxable, tax exempt or tax deferred.
• Taxable income: This is income that's not tax exempt or tax deferred. If you receive ordinary taxable income from your investments, you'll report it on your federal income tax return. In some cases, you may have to detail your investments and income on Schedule B.
• Tax-exempt income: This is income that's free from federal or state income tax, depending on the type of investment vehicle and the state of issue. Municipal bonds and U.S. securities are typical examples of investments that can generate taxexempt income.
• Tax-deferred income: This is income whose taxation is postponed until some point in the future. For example, with a 401(k) retirement plan, earnings are reinvested and taxed only when you take money out of the plan. The income earned in the 401(k) plan is tax deferred.
Let's move on to what happens when you sell an investment vehicle. Before getting into capital gains and losses, though, you need to understand an important term — basis. Generally speaking, basis refers to the amount of your investment in an asset. To calculate the capital gain or loss when you sell or exchange an asset, you must know how to determine both your initial basis and adjusted basis in the asset.
Usually, your initial basis equals your cost — what you paid for the asset. For example, if you purchased one share of stock for $10,000, your initial basis in the stock is $10,000. However, your initial basis can differ
from the cost if you did not purchase an asset but rather received it as a gift or inheritance or in a tax-free exchange.
Adjusted basis is a bit more complicated. Your initial basis in an asset can increase or decrease over time in certain circumstances. For example, if you buy a house for $100,000, your initial basis in the house will be $100,000. If you later improve your home by installing a $5,000 deck, your adjusted basis in the house may be $105,000. You should be aware of which items increase the basis of your asset and which items decrease the basis of your asset. See IRS Publication 551 for details.
If you sell stocks, bonds or other capital assets, you'll end up with a capital gain or loss. Special capital gains tax rates may apply. These rates may be lower than ordinary income tax rates.
Basically, capital gain (or loss) equals the amount that you realize on the sale of your asset (i.e., the amount of cash or the value of any property you receive) less your adjusted basis in the asset
Schedule D of your income tax return is where you'll calculate your short-term and long-term capital gains and losses, and figure the tax due, if any. You'll need to know not only your adjusted basis and the amount realized from each sale, but also your holding period, your taxable income and the type of asset(s) involved. See IRS Publication 544 for details.
• Holding period: Generally, the holding period refers to how long you owned an asset. A capital gain is classified as short term if the asset was held for a year or less and long term if the asset was held for more than
one year.
• Taxable income: Long-term capital gains and qualified dividends are generally taxed at special capital gains tax rates of 0%, 15% and 20% depending on your taxable income. (Some types of capital gains may be taxed as high as 25% or 28%.)
• Type of asset: The type of asset that you sell will dictate the capital gain rate that applies and possibly the steps that you should take to calculate the capital gain (or loss). For instance, the sale of an antique is taxed at the maximum tax rate of 28% even if you held the antique for more than 12 months.
You can use capital losses from one investment to reduce the capital gains from other investments. You can also use a capital loss against up to $3,000 of ordinary income this year ($1,500 for married persons filing separately). Losses not used this year can offset future capital gains. Schedule D of your federal income tax return can lead you through this process.
The sales of some assets are more difficult to calculate and report than others, so you may need to consult an IRS publication or other tax references to properly calculate your capital gain or loss. Given the complexity of tax codes and all that I have described, remember that you can always seek the assistance of an accountant or another financial professional.
Laurie Haelen, AIF (accredited investment fiduciary), is senior vice president, manager of investment and financial planning solutions, CNB Wealth Management, Canandaigua National Bank & Trust Company. She can be reached at 585-419-0670, ext. 41970 or by email at lhaelen@cnbank.com.
MHappy Unretirement
6 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU UNRETIRE
If you’re thinking about working part-time in retirement, be sure to think these things through
By Richard Eisenberg
aybe you're contemplating closing the chapter of your life where you're employed full-time, but you don't want to stop working altogether. If so, the idea of "unretiring" — working part-time in retirement — may sound enticing.
But don't take the plunge without first asking yourself some essential questions, retirement experts advise.
"I think many people say, 'I'll figure it out' once I retire," said Kerry Hannon, author of "In Control at 50+" and a senior columnist at Yahoo Finance. "They're so busy wrapping up the chapter with their full-time job, they don't stop to think about the next chapter."
Unretirement Is a Big Step
The Retirement Saving & Spending Study from the financial services firm T. Rowe Price found that 20% of retired Americans are working these days. But many people "just step into" unretirement, said Judith Ward, the firm's thought leadership director. "They retire and say, 'OK, what am I going to do?'"
Calling unretirement "a serious undertaking," the "I Used to Be Somebody" podcast host Carl Landau said: "Anyone who doesn't think this
is a big change in their life — they're fooling themselves. It's a huge change."
To help decide whether to unretire and how to do it, here are six key questions to answer.
1. Why do I want to unretire?
Another way to put this is the question often asked in acting class: "What's my motivation?" Hannon urged people in their 50s and 60s to "really do that soul-searching."
One answer may be financial, the reason given by half of unretirees in T. Rowe Price's study.
You may want to work part-time in retirement just to fend off boredom if you have no hobbies, travel plans or nearby friends or family.
If boredom is your motivating factor, said Teresa Amabile, a professor emerita at Harvard Business School and co-author of "Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You," the job you look for in retirement "should provide a stimulating challenge and a regular schedule."
Another reason you may want to work in retirement, particularly in the same field you've been in, is because your identity is so tied to your career.
"That may be more reason for some people to want to continue doing some kind of work in retirement
because they might find themselves lost without it," said Hannon.
Think, too, about how much you value the social interactions from working. "Some people don't realize that when you're done with a job, the emails stop, the phone calls stop, people stop asking you for your opinion that was sought after for all those years," said Landau.
Do What You Love, on Your Schedule
Cathy Buday, managing editor at EIX.org at the University of St. Thomas' Schulze School of Entrepreneurship, said you may find there's another motivating factor to keep working in retirement: work brings you joy.
"When you have work that you love, it energizes you," said Buday. Unretirement can offer an opportunity to continue doing the work you love — just when, where and how you want to do it.
"I wish I had unretired earlier," said Landau, who previously ran an events-management company. "I didn't realize the fatigue I was feeling. Until I actually got away from it, I hadn't realized it had taken a toll on me."
However, if you don't need extra income in retirement and can't think of any type of work you'd like to do,
you might be better off retiring the traditional, relaxing way, rather than unretiring.
2. Am I healthy enough to work in retirement?
Your physical and cognitive health are vital determinants in whether you'll be able to keep working in retirement.
Said Ward: "If you think you want to work at a retail store, are you going to be able to stand for two to three hours at time?"
Amabile said knowing your physical and cognitive abilities is the caveat to any question you ask yourself about working in retirement.
3. How much extra money do I need in retirement?
The answer to that question could help you see whether unretiring could bring in enough money or whether you'd be better off working longer, fulltime for higher earnings, if you can.
You'll want to run the numbers comparing your expected expenses in retirement with income you'll have from savings and investments, retirement plans and Social Security, depending on when you'll start claiming.
A financial advisor can help through software that shows your likelihood of running out of money at different ages.
"I'm a big believer in working in retirement as a safety net," said Hannon.
Working part-time in retirement can not only put money in your bank account, but it can also let you afford to continue saving in retirement and put off retirement-plan withdrawals.
"It helps that you don't have to start tapping into your nest egg," said Ward.
The employment income can also allow you to delay claiming Social Security benefits, potentially increasing the size of those checks when they do come.
How Social Security Fits In
Social Security increases benefits by 8% every year you postpone collecting them from your full retirement age (around age 67 these days) until 70. Conversely, if you start claiming at
62 — the earliest age allowed — you could see a nearly 30% reduction in Social Security benefits compared to claiming at full retirement age.
Keep in mind, though, that if you start claiming benefits before full retirement age, Social Security will withhold $1 for every $2 you earn above a certain threshold ($22,320 in 2024). You'll get that lost money back gradually after full retirement age.
A combination of robust employment earnings and investment returns during retirement could also catapult you into a higher tax bracket than when you had a full-time job.
Should you determine that parttime work in retirement could be beneficial, Amabile advised: "Find the best-paying job you can where the work demands fit your current physical and cognitive abilities."
4. Will I have enough time to work part-time in retirement?
Be realistic about other responsibilities you'll have, such as caregiving, and the amount of time that will take.
But don't be churlish about granting yourself time for fun, friends and family.
The underlying question, said "Revealing Your Next Season" coauthor Leslie Braksick, is: How busy do you want to be in retirement?
"When you have work that you love, it energizes you."
You likely won't know exactly what your days will look like in retirement, but Landau recommended trying to figure out a rough schedule to see how work would fit in. "Don't get sucked into work in retirement that becomes a full-time job," he said.
He speaks from experience. When he first unretired, Landau recorded the podcast and wrote its newsletter weekly. "Then I realized one of my loves was playing pickleball and I was trying to fit that in," he recalled. "So, I reversed everything and changed from a weekly podcast and newsletter to monthly. Once I made that change, I felt I was on the right track."
5. Is my partner on board with me working in retirement?
If you're married or have a partner, experts say, make sure you discuss with that person your unretirement
plans. You may find they conflict with the vision your spouse or partner had for the next chapter in your lives.
6. Will working in retirement help me find meaning and purpose?
Many people find that the "un" in unretirement provides them with a sense of meaning and purpose later in life. In fact, 40% of the unretirees T. Rowe Price surveyed said they're working for meaning and fulfillment.
"I think for many of us, this is a stage in life where you turn around and have that self-realization of 'What have I accomplished? What has my life on this earth meant and what kind of impact have I had?'" said Hannon.
If your primary reason for wanting to work in retirement is for meaning and purpose, said Amabile, "I would advise searching for a job that would allow you to live out an important value or give you a keen sense of accomplishment — regardless of the pay."
Richard Eisenberg is the former senior web editor of the Money & Security and Work & Purpose channels of Next Avenue and former managing editor for the site. He is the author of "How to Avoid a Mid-Life Financial Crisis" and has been a personal finance editor at Money, Yahoo, Good Housekeeping, and CBS MoneyWatch. This story was previously published at www.nextavenue.org.
An Important Thing to Remember
When deciding whether to work part-time in retirement, keep in mind that you can change your mind during retirement. You could, for example, work for the first few years but not beyond that.
"There's no one telling you that you've made this decision and it's forever," said Hannon.
Chuck Gibson has been part of the wildlife landscape at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge for decades. When you see him first thing on a Friday morning at the visitors' center there, he's already been at work for hours, getting ready for to guide visitors.
HE’S ‘MR. MONTEZUMA’
For Chuck Gibson, a wildlife refuge has refreshed his life
By John Addyman
Pick a Friday morning, anytime from April to November. Arrive around 8 a.m. — and watch carefully.
You’ll be refreshed by the clean air, a big sky and the sounds and sights of wildlife all around you.
The one thing that doesn’t fit the picture is the lone car, slowly driving and occasionally stopping at the end of a scene that lies out as far as you can see.
Far away you can see the New York State Thruway, vehicles gliding by soundlessly because they’re so far away.
Closer to you are areas of cattails, open water, grasslands and brush.
And birds. Waves of birds. Ducks. Geese. Owls. Herons. Gulls, bald eagles. Coots and harriers and osprey and Plovers and Mergansers and wigeons and teals and swallows and blackbirds.
Your perspective from here, the Visitors’ Center at the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge, is of a vast, relatively flat area that touches Wayne, Seneca and Cayuga counties.
Scanning the horizon, you see that single car turning toward you from far away and you wonder, “What’s that guy up to?”
A meteorologist does his homework to predict the weather for you.
Reporters do their homework to tell you what’s new.
Chuck Gibson, 85, is about to tell you exactly where you can find the birds you came all this way to see.
He’s in that car. He’s known as “Mr. Montezuma.”
“On my day of work, I come in about 8 a.m.,” Gibson explained. “I do a tour of the property, see what’s going on, what birds are available at that time, check three or four locations throughout the complex and then at 10 a.m. we open the visitors’ center and I have some knowledge of what’s available to pass on to the visitors as far as what wildlife is out there. Most basically, it’s ducks and geese.”
For a birder who has come to Montezuma, Gibson — and the other volunteer service center representatives who work there — is an invaluable resource. He is the guy who knows, who can go through your want-tosee list and tell you where to spot the refuge’s abundant wildlife.
He has a little more to offer because he started his work life a long time ago on the Erie Canal, which borders part of Montezuma. He knows the history of the canal because he’s lived through part of it, when major commercial traffic glided through the locks and waterway.
Those canal days were “interesting times,” Gibson said. “I drove a small boat with a kerosene tank on top of it, a gravity feed, and I went around and filled the kerosene lanterns on the bridges and cleaned the lenses if they
got smokey. I trimmed the wicks so the lamps stayed clean.”
In those days, commercial traffic on the canal was 24 hours a day. He graduated from that job to lockmaster.
“I worked out of Lock 27 in Lyons,” he said, “covering three locks, one in Lyons and two in Newark. You never knew what was going to happen: I’d get a call from my compatriot in Newark that there’s a boat coming and I had to go meet that boat and follow it through, then I would call ahead to the next lock and let them know they had traffic headed their way. This was commercial traffic, of course.”
He went on to a career as the head custodian at Lyons Central High School. With job experience on the canal and in Lyons, he hit retirement age and pulled the plug on work.
“I said ‘good-bye. I’m not going to do this job anymore,’” he said.
That was August 2000.
“The first day of school the next month, I went down to the local coffee shop and watched everybody go by on their way to work and said, ‘Thank God I don’t have to do this anymore,’” he added.
Gibson and his wife came to Montezuma in 2005 to enjoy some of the activities there.
“We got acquainted with the place and programs. We went out one night to celebrate our anniversary,” he said. “About 2 a.m., she woke up screaming, ‘There’s something terribly wrong!’
She had a brain aneurysm, which was like turning the lights off: all of a sudden, I was a widower.
“After her funeral I said to myself, ‘What the hell am I going to do now?’ So, I went over to Montezuma, talked to Andrea VanBeusichem, the visitor services manager, about donating one day a week and it progressed from there. That was 2008.”
One of his first projects was trapping and putting transmitters on two short-eared owls, one a mature bird, the other a juvenile.
“Almost immediately, one of the birds, the adult bird, got predated by maybe a red-tailed hawk or an eagle. We found the transmitter and a few scraps of that bird. The juvenile bird had wanderlust. We’ve been tracking that bird halfway down Cayuga Lake,” he said.
The younger bird came back to Montezuma and made a hummock in a cattail swamp — a place that’s somewhat snow-free — where he spent the winter. “We knew he was healthy and we left him alone after that,” Gibson said.
As Gibson settled in on Fridays
at Montezuma, he was pressed for a higher level of service. He became a member of the Friends of the Montezuma Wetlands Complex, joined the board and eventually served as president for seven years. He has now been a familiar face at the visitors’ center and the Audubon Center on the other side of the refuge for 17 years.
Montezuma is growing
The Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge was born in 1937 when the federal Bureau of Biological Survey bought the land. The Civilian Conservation Corps began work there the next year. Today Montezuma has 18,000 acres of protected land, roughly a 3.5-mile square park. 10,000 of those acres are federal land, 8,000 belongs to the state. The state Department of Conservation has a working office on the site.
And the acreage isn’t static. Montezuma is growing slowly.
Gibson explained: “Whenever land becomes available, we try to purchase it. We have to pay market price, of course, but we have a unique
situation where Ducks Unlimited and a couple of other organizations that have deep pockets can buy the land today and they’ll hold it for us until the federal or state government acts to set money aside to pay them back and take control. Then they’ll use that money to purchase other properties. It’s a symbiotic relationship, you might say.”
The Civilian Conservation Corps built the road that circles around the property in 1937 and also replaced farmland on Howland Island with a building site that was eventually used in World War II to house German prisoners of war.
Gibson’s knowledge of the canal spills into what he learned at Montezuma.
“When the Erie Canal was dug, originally it was four feet deep and 40 feet wide. Then it was deepened to seven feet and when they put the barge canal in, the Erie Canal was 12 feet deep and they rearranged the path,” he explained.
“What we’re sitting on now,” he said, speaking from the Montezuma Visitors’ Center, “this is all spills from the building of the canal. Our Wildlife
The view from the sunroom at the Montezuma visitors' center, a panorama of the refuge.
Drive borders the canal for at least two miles, then it borders the Thruway, which was cut through the refuge back in the 1950s.
It’s the birds
How did Chuck Gibson get hooked by Montezuma?
It’s the birds.
“When I was a Boy Scout going through summer camp, I got interested in birds that showed up in the woods and it kind of snowballed from there. I’ve probably been birding for 60 years, anyway,” he said. “Birds are fascinating to watch and to track and understand where they fit in the ecosystem. And Montezuma is a great place to see birds. That’s what this place is all about — a resting place on the migration path. Twice a year we have an influx of ducks and geese and other birds who are going from the south to the north, then back from the north to the south.”
“Chuck is very much at home at the refuge,” said VanBeusichem, the visitor services manager. “But not only the refuge but the Audubon Center and state conservation area — the wetlands complex. He knows the land, the people, he’s knowledgeable about the work we do, he volunteers; he does whatever we need.
“He’s been a great spokesperson, too, out in the community. Talking to people about his time at Montezuma is a big part of his life. His passion and his knowledge about Montezuma
come through.”
From the dead of winter, Gibson is looking forward to spring and some of the changes being planned in the refuge and those who will come to view them.
“You meet a lot of very interesting people from all over the world,” he said. “You never know who’s going to walk through that door or where they’re from. They are all on their best behavior. They’re all interested in the wildlife, what we’re doing here and how we do it, what’s available.
“We don’t know what’s going to show up this coming year. We know the eagles are going to be here on the Seneca Trail, which is closed while they’re nesting.
“And this year, there will be more aggressive mowing along the shoulders of the wildlife drives to open up some of the viewing that’s been obscured by cattails, to give people a better view of the wildlife without needing to get out of their cars and disturbing wildlife. I think that’s a good move.”
The visitors’ center is a federal building, due to be enlarged to house some federal employees from Cortland. Gibson is concerned that may mean losing the Friends of Montezuma store and a lovely viewing room. But things aren’t certain and time will tell.
He’ll be there to keep an eye on things.
“I plan to live to 100,” he said. “It’s nice to have a plan.”
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These birds are part of the specimens displayed at the Montezuma Visitors' Center.
IS AM RADIO DEAD IN ROCHESTER?
It all depends on who you ask
By John Addyman
You know what AM radio is. Your kids might not. Your grandkids certainly don’t have any idea.
When we were growing up, the radio stations we listened to most were, for a long time, on the AM dial. Not FM … AM only.
If you wanted to listen to a sports broadcast, it was on an AM station. The latest weather? AM. Local news? AM. And a lot of music? AM.
Today, not so much. At least you may not think so.
And you’d have company.
Last year, Tesla and Ford manufacturers started making noise about not including AM frequencies on their new car radios. They announced their new cars would no longer have AM/FM radios, just FM radios.
The AM stations and the companies that advertise on them went a little
nuts and a piece of bilateral legislation was formed in Washington with a lot of support to make sure AM radios come with a new car. As of mid-February that bill was still awaiting almost certain approval.
“If you think about it, the last thing you hear before you go into a store is probably radio...that’s pretty big,” said Phil Mercado, program director at WHAM AM 1180 in Rochester, a newstalk iHeart radio affiliate that highlights local voices like Bob Lonsberry as well as national personalities Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.
“You like the personality of a radio station,” Mercado said. “You feel like you’re a part of the station, you may end up endorsing a product you heard about on radio.
“When you ask someone if they listen to AM or FM radio, they’ll say, ‘No, I listen on my smart speaker.’
But what they’re listening to is on AM radio — they’re listening to a radio on that smart speaker.”
“Fourteen-year-olds aren’t necessarily coming to AM radio,” Mercado explained. “But certainly if you’re a sports fan and want to listen to the NFL, that’s where you’re going to find it. More people listen to AM [and FM] now than they did 20 years ago, proven by Nielsen ratings.”
News and Talk
“The best way to describe AM and I’ve been in this for 60 years,” said Bob Savage, president and founder of WYSL AM 1040 in Avon, “is that back when I started, everyone was playing top-40 music that contained a lot of messages.”
For Savage, successful radio has always been a gathering space for like-minded people. “Back then, in
1. Jim Wright, president of WHIC AM 1460, “the station of the cross.”
2. Bob Savage, president and founder of WYSL AM 1040 in Avon.
3. Jeanne Fisher, vice president for radio operations at WXXI AM 1370.
4. WXXI AM 1370 talk show host Evan Dawson.
5. Brett Larson, general manager at WDCX AM 990 in Rochester.
owners and there’s a good deal of entrepreneurship in the industry. It’s an attractive investment to get started. Keeping it going is something else.
“If the station is not run well, they’re in a lot of trouble,” he said.
For an AM station to succeed, it has to be well-run and meet the needs
Fisher said WXXI’s demographic “is the 45-plus range” and noted that “the industry is changing so much that we will see more media platforms. Our talk show streams on YouTube. There will be more and more different ways 1 4 5 2 3
games. There’s also programming for the Yankees, Syracuse University, NASCAR “and every major sporting event,” Tickner said.
“They emphasize the things that radio is built for,” said Savage, “service elements for the community, news and sports.” community.”
to access news and music.”
She termed the overall spreading of these different mechanisms as “terrestrial radio.”
Religious Radio
An important component of choice for local listeners is religious radio.
WDCX AM 990 in Rochester is what general manager Brett Larson stresses, “life-changing radio.”
“Radio brings people together,” wrote WDCX local personality Neil Boron, who has a daily show. “Radio is way more personal, and in those raw, real and heartfelt conversations, miracles happen.”
A Bible-teaching station with national and local contributors, WDCX is “simplistically operated, with ministries from all over the place,” Larson said.
Echoing and expanding on what others station leaders said, Larson pointed out that “AM fights for the attention of people. AM is still viable if it is content people want and are interested in. It has become a nichetype radio. AM radio used to be the
focal point of community as massmedia center; that’s changed.
“Core audiences are interested in the content that certain radio stations put out — sport, news, talk…ours is Christian teaching radio. AM is not ideal for music, but even certain types of music are fine — oldies, legends format. There’s a place for AM radio now and there always will be. AM is more segmented toward what people want as we see people ingest new media. Today, people consume media at a much greater rate. The pie has gotten bigger. A chunk may have come off AM radio, but the pie is bigger.”
Larson also had advice for someone with the AM radio station bug: “Be surgical about your audience — know who you are, don’t deviate, don’t chase other things, be proud of AM radio, serve your core audience, serve your people and you’ll do a lot better. If you chase FM or internet you’ll never compete because you’re not the same — find the uniqueness of AM and embrace it.
“I think you’re seeing a growing fondness for AM radio, almost a nostalgia. People tired of overdone,
over-formatted radio. People want something real. There’s a realness to AM, a rawness, I think we’ll see a resurgence,” he said.
WHIC AM 1460, “the station of the cross,” is Catholic radio.
“Our main programming is national,” but a segment of every hour is locally generated,” said president Jim Wright. “That programming comes from EWTN, Ave Maria and what the station itself develops locally — public service announcements, community calendar, weather and an ‘Ask a Priest’ show involving clerics, some of whom are local.
“Our motto is to teach the truth of Jesus Christ with clarity and charity. We have honest, well-thought-of hosts who do a great job of entertaining in a Catholic way, with a Catholic spirit, proclaiming the faith.”
Mother Marian and Father Robert McTeigue are two hosts with a faithful following.
AM radio doesn’t look or sound like it used to. But it’s obvious a lot is going on behind the scenes to attract and hold listeners, especially the ones who have an ear to that radio all day.
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Gary Lewis: ‘I Just Like Being a Regular Guy’
About to turn 80, son of legendary comedian Jerry Lewis — and Pittsford resident — talks about his career, his addiction to drugs, his upbringing and his relationship with his famous father
By Tim Bennett
Gary Lewis, of Gary Lewis and the Playboys and son of the famous comedian Jerry Lewis, achieved what few singers do at 19 or any age — reach No. 1 on the pop charts with his first recording (“This Diamond Ring” in 1965) and then churn out another six consecutive top-10 hits.
Lewis’ other hits include “Everybody Loves a Clown,” “Count Me In,” “She’s Just My Style,” “Sure Gonna Miss Her,” “Save Your Heart for Me,” and “Green Grass”
In all, Gary Lewis and the Playboys had eight gold singles, four gold albums and 45 million records sold worldwide.
At the pinnacle of his success, in 1967, Lewis was drafted into the U.S. Army and spent time in Vietnam and South Korea.
While Lewis was overseas, the music industry changed.
The light, innocent tunes of the ‘60s morphed into the hard rock anthems of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.
When Lewis talked with his record producer, Snuff Garrett, about his future, Garrett said bluntly, “There’s no place for your type of music anymore.”
Fearing he had nowhere to go after the military, Lewis sought comfort in alcohol and drugs that plagued him for decades.
Being a die-hard musician, however, Lewis had to play somewhere so he chose the nomad existence for years playing in small city clubs all around the country and
sleeping wherever he could lay his head.
Lewis took time off in 1972 to open a music store in the San Fernando Valley, just outside of Los Angeles. In 1984, a music agent called and said the ‘60s music was back. Ever since, Lewis has been busy doing nostalgia shows throughout the U.S. — often with other ‘60s groups.
Yet, it wasn’t until the late 1990s, when he met his wife-to-be, Donna Grow, that he finally confronted his addictions. Today, celebrating 21 years of sobriety and a successful marriage equally as long, Lewis said he enjoys life more than ever and still loves playing his hits to live audiences.
This interview was conducted via telephone on Dec. 21, 2024.
Q: I was surprised to learn that you lived in the Rochester area. How did you end up here?
A: Actually, I was born in Manhattan in 1945. Then my travels took me to many states to live. I grew up in Los Angeles. In 1997, we did a gig in Rochester at the Eastman Theater where I met my wife. They had a radio station party after the show and my wife was there with a girlfriend. I saw her and we started talking. Then we dated for a little bit and when it came time to go home or stay, I just stayed.
Q: How do you like the Rochester area?
A: I like it so much more than LA. It’s
Gary Lewis in concert in Deadwood, South Dakota, 2012. Photo provided
incredible. Of course, there is snow and all, but it is a big enough city to have everything I need, but small enough to feel like a small town.
Q: What was it like growing up with a famous comedian for a father?
A: The first thing I want to say before talking about him is that I am not purposely out to badmouth him. I also do not want to lie. Having said that, the truth is, my dad was a narcissistic egomaniac. He was so consumed with himself he had no time for anyone else in the family — my mom, my brothers or me. Whatever happened in his life to make him that way must have been horrific. I don’t know what it was because he never talked about his upbringing. All I know is he always said he hated his parents. To give an idea of what it was like in our home, my mom would often tell us, “Go to your rooms, your father is here!” That was because he was always in a rotten mood and it is too bad. After I got sober, I felt sorry for him. He was always looking for external things to fill that hole within him.
Q: Could you talk about your mom and how she influenced your life?
A: I loved my mom. One good thing she did was take all six of us to church. She would say, “I’m taking
you guys to church because your dad won’t take you to the temple.” Though my dad was Jewish, I don’t think he ever saw the inside of a temple so there wasn’t much chance of that happening. She would always tease us, “I’m not going to raise a bunch of heathens.” As a kid, it didn’t really make much of an impact on me. When I finally got clean and sober, though, I realized that she had laid a really good foundation for me. Unfortunately, when I was using drugs and alcohol to cope, I never prayed or talked to God. All I felt was desperation.
Q: What songs were you and the Playboys playing at Disneyland when you got discovered by Snuff Garrett, the Liberty Records producer?
A: We played everything that was popular at the time, mainly the Beatles and all the surf music.
Q: What was it like at 19 to have a No. 1 record just coming out of the gate?
A: Isn’t that the way everybody wishes it would happen? We were so excited and thrilled we couldn’t contain ourselves. Snuffy Garrett, our producer, put a damper on our enthusiasm when he said, “Calm down, guys. Do you know how many one-hit wonders there are in the world? We have to concentrate on number two and number three. If we get those, we
could be on our way.” When our next six records made the top 10, radio DJs would always tell me, “You guys and the Lovin’ Spoonful were the only ones to ever do that.” Looking back, I realize it was God who blessed me with this talent. He was with me, even though I may not have known it at the time. Q: You were drafted in 1967 after cranking out many top hits. Were your parents against you going into the Army during Vietnam?
A: Sure they were, but there was no choice. Even though I didn’t want to do it, it was the best thing I could have done in my life because, believe me, you grow up quickly in the Army. And, you learn to rely on your friends and the others in your platoon.
Q: Did they treat you like a regular guy?
A: They all knew me. But they did treat me like a regular guy because I was a regular guy. I wasn’t about to be a big shot, no way, not when you are living with 50 other guys.
Q: They didn’t ask you to sing your hits to them?
A: No. I went to a military school growing up so when I got in the Army and they found out that I knew a lot of the military stuff like how to march and do the manual of arms, they made me a squad leader, which meant
Gary Lewis' band,, "Gary Lewis & the Playboys." From left: Nick Rather, bass; Willy O’Riley, keyboards; Gary Lewis; Mike Gladstone, guitar; and Todd Bradley, d.rums.
Lewis during a "Flower Power" cruise in 2024 — from Ft. Lauderdale to the Caribbean.
I had status.
Q: Most of your hit songs were innocent, teenage love songs. Do you think your fan base lost their innocence when you were in the Army and, therefore were no longer interested in those types of songs anymore?
A: Exactly. The music went to much harder rock and people started stating their opinions in music. The ‘70s were definitely not very kind to ‘60s artists. That’s when I bought the music store.
Q: Did you really have to work? You had seven top 10 hits! Where were the royalties?
A: Well, I was playing all around the country so I didn’t have a permanent address. This made getting royalties difficult. It wasn’t until much later, when I settled down in Rochester and had a permanent address that I got all that straightened out. My wife, Donna, took charge of my business dealings, made all the right contacts and finally all the royalties started coming in, which was significant. Before that, I was just playing music, doing drugs and alcohol and trying to survive. At one point, I was an inch away from homelessness.
Q: So did you play with the original Playboys?
A: No. The original Playboys disbanded after I got drafted in 1967 into the Army and they had to go and find other jobs. I asked them before I got out of the Army if they wanted to pick up where we left off, but they said no. So, there have been different sets of Playboys all during my career.
Q: Folk rock was popular in the ‘70s. Did you ever consider doing songs like James Taylor and Cat Stevens?
A: No. I have rock and roll in my bones.
Q: How about the bigger venues? Did you think that was over?
A: Yes. I thought that was it. But in 1984, I got a call from this agent in Indiana and he said, “Hey man, the ‘60s are coming back.” I said, “Who the hell is this?” I thought it was a prank call. He said, “No. No. I am an agent and I can book you 60 to 100 dates a year.” Sure enough, that’s what happened and I’ve been doing gigs
ever since. Not as much now, of course. I’ll be 80 in July.
Q: Will you be writing a memoir or will a musical come out on your life like they did with Frankie Valli and Carole King?
A: No. I don’t think so. I’d rather not have to dredge up everything I went through growing up.
Q: When did you first get heavily involved in drugs and alcohol? Was it while you were in the Army?
A: Yeah, I did drink and do drugs then but it wasn’t until the ‘70s that I really got into it heavily. The ‘70s brought much harder rock and roll. When my producer told me my recording days were over, I was devastated. At first, it was just alcohol but then I found out that playing gigs that required four or five sets a night
Gary Lewis On….
• Dean Martin: “My dad loved him and I did, too. He was always so calm and talked slow. I know his daughter Gina Martin and she always told me he was such a good father and such a quiet peaceful guy. He didn’t like to go out and party. He just liked to sit at home with his family and I loved that about him.”
• On his mom, Patti Palmer (who was a big band singer for the Tommy Dorsey Band and The Ted Fio Rito Orchestra): “I adored my mom. I really loved her. She always made sure to give us all individual time. She was great—an Italian Catholic mom, always putting a positive spin on things.”
• Buddy Rich: “To tell the truth, I just thought he was just a friend of my dad’s. Every time he came over to the house he would say to me, “Hey kid, let’s go out to the drums.” That took place from when I was 5 to 12 years old. When I found out he was Buddy Rich, the famous drummer, I was floored.”
are hard when you are drunk. So I started taking pills that would perk me up. But then I became a yo-yo. I’d be perked up and then I would have to take something to sleep. So it was always up down up down. It was terrible.
Q: In other interviews you say your wife, before you got married, influenced you to stop taking drugs and drinking. What convinced you it was time to stop?
A: Well, Donna wrote me a fourpage letter. The whole first page was great. She said, “I love that I met you. I love being with you. You have a good heart. I can tell you have a good soul.” All love. Page two, however, started out with this: “But, I can’t really take this and I can’t really live like this. You really should think about getting some help for this problem.” When I read that I thought, “Oh no, here we go.” When I got that letter in 1998, I didn’t do anything about it until 2003. But the seed had been planted and it germinated during that period. I finally said, “OK” and I checked myself in for detox for five days and then rehab for a month.
Q: How have you been able to maintain your sobriety since 2003? Do you still go to AA?
A: Absolutely. And, I never want to go back to that despicable desperation again. That is so strong in my mind and in my soul now. No matter how bad something is, you know, like receiving some really bad news or like my mom dying, I never think about taking a drink. It just doesn’t even enter my mind anymore. That’s just who I am now.
Q: What do you like to do when you are not performing?
A: Even though it is winter, I like to do normal things like going to the stores and getting what I need. I like to go shopping at the market because my wife doesn’t enjoy it.
Q: Do people recognize you?
A: Yeah. It’s great and I am appreciative of that. The fans put me where I am so if they want to talk, I’ll talk with them. I just like being a regular guy. That’s what AA has done for me. Given me that humility, my faith in God. It gave me so much. AA and my wife actually saved my life.
The new house is half the size of the old, so many decisions needed to be made about what to keep — decisions requiring introspection, fortitude and backbone.
A Lesson in Downsizing
By Jeanne Strining
My life has been full of active verbs these past weeks: sort, sift, purge, clean, pack, lug, donate, unbox, organize, to name just a few.
After living in my home for 23 years, I had begun to feel that I was rattling around.
With the next generation on their own in their own places, I needed neither the space nor the maintenance that went with a large house and yard. I met with a real estate agent and detailed what I would be looking for, also letting her know that given the low housing stock with my particular requirements, I was giving the search 18-24 months. A week later I had my new house under contract.
Suddenly there was an urgency to tackle closets, drawers and a huge basement full of the paraphernalia of years of living. The new house is half the size of the old, so many decisions
needed to be made — decisions requiring introspection, fortitude and backbone.
As I went from room to room, peering in closets and drawers, I was forced to acknowledge that I am a saver. And then, perhaps to make myself feel better, I decided that there are different kinds of savers. I am definitely not a hoarder or even a pack rat.
Things were stored with like things and usually labeled. I will admit however to being a “sentimental saver” as well as a “just-in-case saver.”
Take for instance the rather dusty cardboard box of letters from old boyfriends. These are from the time when people wrote letters! Each sender has his own stack with a different color ribbon. They are a part of my history. Do I really need them? No. But as a writer I know old letters can be great jumping off points for stories
and character portrayals. Have I used them? No. And yet the box now resides in the basement of my new home.
This is not to say that I have not culled much of my memorabilia and excess stuff. How many towels, tablecloths, candles, etc. do I really need “just in case?”
Then there was the pile of backpacks in the back hall closet. I reminded myself that I have only one back so one backpack should be enough. Right? Then I thought about the fact that I had different types of backpacks for different purposes, but, and I patted myself on the back, I did whittle the pile down significantly.
When I got to the closet with my mother’s furs I was stumped about what to do with them. I could remember loving to sit next to her in church so I could pet her arm. What was I to do with these politically incorrect but lovely furs? The animals
had already given their lives and I was trying hard not to add to the landfill. Via the internet I discovered that I could ship them off to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to be repurposed by refugees in cold places.
Goodwill, Restore, the local library, Buy Nothing and Ecopark have all benefited from my clearing out.
Once the move had been accomplished, I realized that unpacking was a new point of stress. As I stepped over and around the maze of boxes in my new home I realized everything needed to be reorganized in new spaces and more needed to be donated or discarded.
Then, too, there is so much more to organize than just the “stuff.” I spent hours at my computer canceling services at one home and setting them up at the new one. I was quickly disabused of the notion that those chores could quickly be accomplished by a phone call.
Businesses want you to complete a form online and strongly encourage you to do this by downloading their app. Every form and app has its own idiosyncrasies that are not always userfriendly. If I could find a phone number and get a voice on the phone it was a robot, so heaven forbid I should have a question or a problem that did not fit the script. I felt like some of these businesses should put me on their payroll for doing their work. More than once I was tempted to chuck my computer across the room!
In other words, moving is not for the faint of heart. I easily get my 10,000 steps in daily and sink into my easy chair at night. Fortunately I have wonderful family help. The next generation took things that they could use or that held special memories for them. My mother’s dining room furniture and my grandmother’s sofa went to other family homes. My family has lugged boxes up and downstairs, packed and unpacked, taken down pictures and re-hung them.
Most of all they have cheered me on and let me know how much they appreciate that I am doing this before it all falls on them.
YOUTH ACCOUNTS YOUTH ACCOUNTS
Jeanne Strining is a retired teacher and school administrator. She currently teaches writing workshop for the Osher Lifelong a Learning Institute at RIT.
25 THINGS TO SELL WHEN YOU’RE READY TO RETIRE
By Andrew Lisa
Many people downsize in retirement as a way to cut back on expenses and make their lives simpler. For some, this means relocating to a smaller home or a retirement community. For others, this means ditching stuff they no longer use.
If your retirement planning includes downsizing, there are numerous things you can sell to clear out clutter and add some extra funds to your retirement nest egg.
Your Home
One of the key things you need to figure out when planning for retirement is where you want to live. This might entail selling your current home, which for most people is their most valuable
asset. You can use the funds to buy a smaller place or put the money toward rent and deposit any leftover money into savings. Downsizing your home can not only save you money, but it also can save time and effort because you have a smaller property to maintain.
Work Clothes
Exercise Equipment
When you’re out of the working world, you no longer need to wear business attire in your everyday life. Hold onto one suit for weddings and other special occasions and sell the rest. You can sell your clothes online on sites like Poshmark and thredUP or sell them at your local consignment shop.
If you downsize your home, you might no longer have room for exercise equipment. But even if you plan to stay at your current house, you might consider selling your treadmill or stationary bike because of other exercise options available to you. For example, the SilverSneakers senior fitness program included in your Medicare Advantage Plan lets you visit select gyms and take fitness classes for free. In this case, there’s no need to hold onto equipment that you can turn into cash instead.
Your Car
Even if you’re done paying off your car, it can still be a major expense
between gas, insurance, maintenance and repairs. If you and your partner each own a car, consider selling one of them. Even if you only have one car, it’s cheaper to sell and get around using rideshare services or public transportation.
Furniture
to hold onto it. You can sell books through Amazon’s Trade-In program or to local bookstores that buy used books.
Collectibles and Antiques
time to sell. You could get hundreds of dollars for your used phone depending on its age and condition. You can sell your phone online via Best Buy TradeIn, Flipsy, Amazon Trade-In, Gazelle and other sites.
Other Unused Electronics
If you plan to move to a smaller home, selling off bulkier furniture pieces you’ll no longer have room for is smart. You can sell furniture through Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or to a consignment shop or used furniture store.
Decorative Items
Holiday decorations and other décor items take up space you won’t have if you’re downsizing. Consider holding a yard sale to ditch any miscellaneous décor items you no longer want or need.
Old Computers
If you upgraded your computer but still held onto your old one, chances are it’s collecting dust when it could be collecting cash. You can sell your computer to Best Buy with its Trade-In service and get a Best Buy gift card for its value, or you can sell it on an online marketplace like Flipsy.
Your Kids’ Toys
If you’ve held onto your children’s toys for sentimental reasons over the years, now is the time to let go. Some of these toys might even be considered collectibles. If that’s the case, you can cash in big by selling them on eBay.
Books
Like books, collectibles and antiques can take up a lot of space that you might no longer have if you downsize your home.
It’s fine to hold onto a few things with sentimental value, but assess whether these items would be worth more to you if you turned them into cash for your retirement savings.
Extra Luggage
Realistically, you probably don’t need more than one carryon bag and one large piece of luggage per household member. If you’ve amassed extra luggage over the years, now’s a good time to sell it.
Handbags You Don’t Use
As with luggage, you might have collected a large handbag collection over time — and you probably only use one or two of them. Handbags can have a high resale value, especially if they are designer brands. Hermes, Chanel and Louis Vuitton tend to retain or even increase in value over time, according to Who What Wear. You might even turn a nice profit by selling a bag with one of these labels.
Sports Equipment
Many sites listed above will also pay you for other electronics you’re no longer using, like tablets and Apple TVs. If you own old electronics that are just lying around doing nothing, cash in by selling them.
CDs and DVDs
Streaming services have essentially replaced CDs and DVDs in many households. If that’s the case in your home, these items might just be taking up needed space in your home. You can sell CDs, DVDs, video games and Blu-rays via Decluttr. Simply scan the barcodes of the discs you no longer want and ship them to Decluttr free of charge. Decluttr will pay you via PayPal, check or direct deposit.
Kitchen Appliances You Never Use
When was the last time you used your juicer or pressure cooker? If you have small kitchen appliances you haven’t used in a year or more, you should sell them as you downsize.
Glassware
Books take up a lot of space and often sit on shelves never to be read again. Unless a book has sentimental value or you honestly think you’ll read it again, there’s no reason
It’s important to stay active in retirement, but you might not be making regular use out of all the sporting equipment you own. If those skis have spent more time in your garage than on the slopes, it might be time to sell them. If you end up needing sporting equipment down the line, you can always rent.
Old Cellphones
If you have old cell phones lying around and plan to downsize or move, there’s no point in bringing these with you to your new place. Now is the
Special-occasion glassware sets you don’t use anymore can take up a lot of space, so consider selling them as you approach retirement. The Replacements Ltd. website buys crystal glassware in good condition, making it a convenient option if you’re selling.
Fine China
Fine china is another item that might just be sitting in your home unused. You can also sell china to Replacements Ltd.
Jewelry You No Longer Wear
Unless it has sentimental value, there’s no point in holding onto jewelry that you never wear. You can sell your jewelry online at sites like Worthy or to a local jeweler or pawnbroker. To ensure the best price, get your jewelry item appraised and then clean it so it looks in top condition.
Watches You No Longer Wear
There’s really no need to have more than one watch, so this is another item you should consider selling as you downsize in retirement. As with jewelry, the Worthy site buys watches.
Musical Instruments
Musical instruments take up a lot of space, so if you don’t play them regularly, you’re better off selling them. You can sell your instruments to a pawn shop or via an online marketplace such as Reverb.
Power Tools
If you decide to rent a place or move to a retirement community, you will no longer be responsible for making your own repairs. If that’s the case, there’s no need to hold onto many of your power tools.
Lawn Equipment
If you plan to move to an apartment or other space where you either no longer have a lawn or are no longer responsible for mowing it, it’s time to sell your lawnmower and other lawn equipment. You can sell your mower, leaf blower, edger and other lawn gear on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace.
Camping Equipment
Unless you’re the outdoorsy type, you’re probably not making much use of tents, sleeping bags and other camping equipment in your home. These items can take up a lot of room, so you should consider selling them before downsizing.
www.gobankingrates.com. Republished with permission.
On the Road with a Young Frederick Douglass …
By John Addyman
You might think it will take some effort to get excited about Frederick Douglass. Until you spend about 10 minutes learning just how unusually gifted the man was and how important he is to this area, to New York, to people everywhere who yearn to live their lives chasing and finding the joy to be free.
There’s a marker near his grave in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester. It states: “Frederick Douglass. 1818-1895. Escaped slave, abolitionist, suffragist, journalist and statesman. Founder of the Civil Rights Movement in America.”
He lived here from 1847-1872,
longer than anywhere else.
Dougas arrived here after spending two years in England, touring and lecturing about the evils of slavery that he knew first-hand.
In Rochester, he published the “North Star” newspaper. He spoke. He advocated. He wrote.
John J. Hanrahan, a New Englander who now lives in Virginia, has written a new book about Douglass, a tour guide of the life of a young slave growing up in Maryland … how his family was torn apart and scattered piecemeal, how he suffered under oppression and how he managed to get an education in bits and pieces and to escape.
“This book is designed to help readers know Douglass better by spending a few days on the Eastern Shore or in Baltimore —ideally both,” Hanrahan wrote. “More and more, Americans — and particularly mature Americans — want to blend relaxation and inspiration-education as they travel.”
In writing “Traveling Freedom’s Road: Frederick Douglass in Maryland,” Hanrahan is your guide and co-pilot on a trip through small towns, country roads, lovely waterways and quiet museums. As the miles go by, the picture of 19th century life is teased out and a young Frederick Douglass emerges.
Hanrahan is your patient friend, providing turn-by-turn details of places that Douglass went through 195 years ago, showing you what only your imagination can grasp when buildings and waterways and forests are gone. He references Google Maps and car GPS readings with line-of-sight directions.
Following the book and taking notes, you’ll spend two days on the eastern shore and at least one more day in Baltimore. Along the way,
Author Jack Hanrahan at the state of Phillis Wheatley, an 18th century African American poet, in Boston. He recently wrote “Traveling Freedom’s Road: Frederick Douglass in Maryland.”
Book on Frederick Douglass' early life in Maryland. A tour guide with elaborate directions for a three-day trip through the history of the young man.
you’ll feel Douglass’ presence through his words that Hanrahan has chosen as accompaniment. There’s a lot to digest — take along a highlighter and some sticky notes because the book is chockablock with things you’ll want to reflect on at the end of the day.
“I like how the book is interspersed with Douglass’ own words,” said Rev. Julius Jackson Jr. of the Pittsford United Church. “Through the narrative of Douglass, you can envision what he saw at that time. The book shows and describes what those sites look like now, so you get both sides of the coin — this is the exact location —this is what Douglass saw back then, what his words were, what was going on at that time.
“There’s one area in the book that talks about various places that were waterways that are no longer there. So, if you’re walking down the street, you’re thinking, ‘Douglass was doing this, that or something else on these waterways.’ You would not even be aware that this was once a waterway, but as time goes on, things change. I liked that aspect of it.”
Jackson has spent 15 years working
‘I
to raise awareness of Douglass in Rochester. With his brothers in the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, he devoted his early years fundraising for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, attending the groundbreaking ceremony on his birthday in 2006 — along with a young Senator Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Ambassador Andrew Young, Tommy Hilfiger and others.
Ambassador Young, a fraternity brother, said from the stage that day,
“Today we turn the dirt for Martin; go back to your homes and turn the dirt there.”
“That was a light bulb for me,” Jackson said. “I thought, ‘I need to go home and do something there. I started the work for Douglass. I started having little events at the Mount Hope Cemetery for Douglass. Many people don’t know he is buried there.
“I started the first Frederick Douglass day. My Alpha brothers locally would go out and recognize Douglass each Dec 27. I go out and put roses on his grave. Yellow roses are our fraternity’s rose (Douglass was posthumously accepted as a brother in 1921).
Jackson and others got help from Monroe County Legislator Harry Bronson and the Douglass statue dwelling quietly in Highland Park was moved, illuminated and a plaza constructed around it.
“Then I proposed renaming the airport,” Jackson said. “I almost got laughed out of town about the airport, but in 2021, that effort, with help from Richard Glaser and Adam Bello, reached fruition as the
Tour the Possibilities
•
•
•
Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport.”
With events of the last 10 years bringing African American historic leaders into deeper focus, Hanrahan wrote “Traveling Freedom’s Road: A guide to Exploring Our Civil Rights History,” deciding from that book’s reception to dive deeply into one of its prime movers — Frederick Douglass.
Settle in at one of the sites you’ve tracked through the text and Hanrahan puts you in the mood to understand how a young man would feel in Douglass’ situation. The environments come to life with Hanrahan’s descriptions and backstories. Then he inserts Douglass’ own words from his many writings and the picture fills in.
Jackson noted that there were “proximity” discoveries in the book, where Douglass came through an area when he was younger, only to return to within steps of that earlier place years later, with a different perspective or a complete different role in his life.
You see where Douglass lived and what he faced day after day. You wonder how he could conquer all the hard-bitten attitudes and privations.
And you hear him observing his situations and thinking them through in his own words. It almost seems like the book, as travelogue, is best used with a friend or three. It isn’t hard to imagine a nice dinner at the end of a touring day, talking about what you saw and reading again some of Douglass’ words. That’s the blend of relaxation, inspiration, reflection and education that Hanrahan sees in his potential audience.
Rev. Jackson had one of those reflections.
“I did not know or somehow forgot that Douglass came back and somehow reconciled with his slave master, Capt. Auld,” Jackson said. “That, to me, was mind-blowing that he was able to have those kinds of conversations. It wasn’t filled with hate or rage. Douglass was able to forgive.
“That’s a good religious lesson on forgiveness, that Douglass and Capt. Auld could come together. We should all be able to come together, no matter what side of the aisle we sit on. I was inspired by the book. I would love to have something similar for all the stops in Rochester for Douglass.”
Rev. Julius Jackson Jr., who has spent years building recognition of Frederick Douglass in Rochester, where the abolitionist, author, former slave and stateman is buried.
©Kitchens by Oaks 2025
gardening
WHEN GROWING IS A FAMILY LEGACY
Where flowers bloom, gifts abound and a business continues to change and flourish … you’ll find Deborah and Stephanie Genrich
By Linda Quinlan
She may not have started her career thinking it would be in the flower, garden and gifts business. But it’s clear that today Deborah Genrich wouldn’t have it any other way.
She has been involved in Genrich’s Garden Center, on Cooper Road in Irondequoit, since she married Ralph Genrich III, son of the business founder, Ralph Jr., in 1998.
Little did she know that 16 years later, she’d be running the business herself with one of her husband’s two daughters, who were 3 and 5 when their father married.
Ralph III died suddenly in February 2014, at 50. His father, who hadn’t been active in the business then, died in 2017. Deborah’s mother-inlaw, Mary Ellen, also a big part of the business, had died in 2006.
Today, Deborah oversees the operation of the business and the retail front end, while stepdaughter (more like “daughter”), Stephanie, manages the greenhouse side and growing.
“It was scary,” when Ralph died, Deborah said. “But I was fortunate the girls were here and old enough and mature enough to step in, too.”
Stephanie’s sister, Heather, also continues to help with the business as she can. She and her husband have relocated to Ohio, where she works in a large commercial greenhouse.
She was married — in the Genrich greenhouse about five years ago — as was another couple a few months later.
“It’s important to us to be a team,” Deborah said, though there have been
challenges, especially as an all womenowned business.
“We changed things to make them work more efficiently for us and we’re hiring more things out …. There’s been a learning curve to some of that,” Deborah said. “Ralph could fix anything and do anything.”
“I feel like he [Ralph] would be proud of us and definitely be proud of the girls,” she said. “We’re always trying to evolve and stay ahead of the curve. This was Ralph’s dream; his baby. I’m happy we’ve been able to keep that legacy alive — as a tribute to him but also to my in-laws as well.”
Stephanie recalled that she started in the greenhouse at a tender age with her dad, filling pots and trays and today feels “like a jack of all trades.
“I love what I do. I love all the different departments, the change of seasons … It’s a good diversity,” she said.
Today, Deborah said she just loves the connections with customers and the community “and just being part of people’s lives … We’re a generational business and I think we’ve become a fixture in the community. I love that.”
The business has a history that dates back to 1960.
Originally from Brighton, Deborah’s grandfather and uncle had a fur business, Berman Furs, in Rochester and later in Brighton for 50 years. Her father had a well-known interior design business and she worked with him for 15 years, then later for a tax service company.
She met her future husband at a
Deborah Genrich stands in one of her favorite places: the always-colorful greenhouse.
bar through a mutual friend and two days after being married, she was fulltime at his garden center.
Deborah and her mother-inlaw expanded the center’s gift shop considerably. The business has been remodeled and revamped over the years. Most recently, an indoor patio area, where classes and workshops are offered, was installed two years ago. Just this year, Stephanie revamped a courtyard area for a U-cut garden for customers. The latter also involved transforming one of the center’s greenhouses for cut flowers. Currently, it’s where 3,500 tulips have been planted for cutting — hopefully, early in the new year.
The florist side of the business has also started offering what it calls “foraged” bouquets from the homegrown selections as well.
The women have homes on either side of the business and both garden at home, “but I’m here (at the business) more than I’m home,” Deborah said.
The greenhouses are still the biggest part of the business, which her father-in-law had started as a small garden center. Her mother-in-law went to floral design school in the 1970s, when the floral department took off.
Since COVID-19, the floral department hasn’t been as big,
Deborah said, but the pandemic had its own “gift.” Since more people were home, more took an interest not only in their gardens, but also in gathering houseplants for their interiors.
“It became a huge hobby because there was a lot people couldn’t do,” she said.
With people continuing to work from home, it’s also a hobby that has continued. “We keep the greenhouse stocked all winter,” she added.
“We’ve been lucky,” Deborah admitted, adding that the gift shop has also become a favored destination with its wide selection of items at various price points. She sets up many of the stunning displays, though Stephanie helps with that as well.
The center employs six to 10 in the off-season, but in season, which starts at the end of February, it has 15 or more employees.
“One of the other things I love about this business is how rewarding it is to see a plant that we start from a tiny little plug grow and mature in the greenhouse, then flourish to its potential, then bring so much joy to the person who purchases it for their garden,” Deborah said.
Then, “It’s awesome when customers return with pictures of their landscape to show us how big
something got or how many tomatoes a plant produces. There’s so much satisfaction in all of that,” she added.
Like Stephanie, she said, spring brings “an adrenaline rush with how busy we are, but at the end of the day, there’s this huge sense of accomplishment.”
Planting is a nearly year-round effort. Boston fern baskets are getting ready now, Deborah said. They start planting hydrangeas around Christmastime so they bloom for Easter. Annuals and hanging baskets are the focus starting in late February.
“We hit the ground running, big time, in March and that goes through at least the end of July,” Deborah said. “In the springtime, it doesn’t seem like there are enough hours in the day …. But, I love getting up every day and going to work.”
Spring is 100 days of a lot of hard work, Stephanie agreed. “But I love watching things grow,” she added.
Off-season hours, when they are open just Wednesday through Saturday, do give her more time for “life,” whether it’s laundry or grocery shopping, Deborah admitted. “It’s heavenly to me.”
Deborah, 66 and Stephanie, 30 and their staff like sharing their knowledge of plants, too.
Deborah and Stephanie Genrich are pictured in the garden center gift shop.
People also ask her “all the time,” Deborah said, when she plans to retire.
The truth is, there is no plan. “I just love what I do,” she said.
Not surprisingly, Deborah likes gardening herself, especially container gardening. She also likes reading and belongs to a book club that has met at the center since the pandemic. She likes traveling and is recently back from Key West, but also enjoys the Finger Lakes area.
The business can still be affected by the variability of the weather. “If we have a cold spring or late frost, that can wreak havoc, but it’s out of our control,” Deborah explained. “And I like to be in control.”
The center still grows about 75% of what it sells, including poinsettias, annuals, perennials, some succulents and flowering hanging baskets. Some more exotic houseplants are trucked in from Florida.
“I just love walking through the greenhouse, especially when it’s not open,” Deborah said. “It’s so tranquil; it’s good for the soul.”
As for what the future will bring, there have, jokingly, been discussions about opening a coffee shop in the beautiful indoor patio area. “We may have something in the works," Deborah hinted.
The center does close for three weeks in January. She and Stephanie do get some rest and relaxation. But it’s also a time for doing inventory and maintenance that can’t be done other times of the year.
“We call it our winter refresh,” Deborah said.
She also finds time to maintain the center’s pleasing and informative Facebook page, but adds that employee Christine Kirchgessner provides the beautiful pictures that populate it.
While Stephanie can be found almost anywhere at the business, she said she loves it all, but especially the quiet days.
She keeps plants at home, too, along with her two dogs, and has a passion for growing zinnias.
Stephanie designed the spectacular holiday-themed hanging baskets sold at the center at Christmastime.
“It’s just me, doing my own thing,” Stephanie said with a smile.
And continuing a family tradition entering its 65th year in 2025.
vice
for marketing
Still Taking On the Challenges
By Mike Costanza
Even after almost 33 years on the job, Mary Rose McBride still enjoys coming to work at Lifespan of Greater Rochester.
“Every day, there is some sort of a new challenge that pops up,” the 66-year-old said. “I like to keep my brain active.”
As Lifespan’s vice president for marketing and communications, McBride has a lot to keep her brain active. Through its many programs, the regional nonprofit offers a host of services for older adults, their families and their caregivers in Monroe County and around the Finger Lakes region. McBride’s duties range from public relations work to helping to manage Lifespan’s annual main fundraiser, the gala Celebration of Aging luncheon.
McBride, who turns 67 at the end of March, has long cherished challenges. In her 20s, the lifelong Democrat worked on the late Democratic State Senator Ralph Quattrociocchi’s successful 1985 reelection campaign, then spent two years working for him as a public relations aide. In 1987, she
put her political skills to use again for her father, the late Robert J. “Bob” Stevenson, when she ran his first campaign to represent the Northwest District on Rochester City Council.
At that time, the Northwest District was the only part of the city that contained a majority of registered Republicans, so Stevenson had an uphill battle. Despite that he won and was reelected four times. McBride managed every one of those campaigns but the one that took place while she was living with her thenhusband in Syracuse and working for the Salvation Army.
After three years in Syracuse, McBride answered an ad from the Regional Council on Aging, a Rochester nonprofit that was looking for someone to run its Retired & Senior Volunteer Program. The federal program helps those who are 55 years old and older find fulfilling roles as volunteers.
Though she knew nothing about aging — her bachelor’s degree is in mass communications — McBride wanted to return to her hometown.
The Regional Council on Aging hired her and she and her husband returned to Rochester.
At that time, the nonprofit had only about 20 employees and an annual budget of about $1.5 million. It had just bought a seven-story building on Rochester’s North Clinton Avenue, but had failed to raise the money needed to cover that purchase.
“The organization was on the brink of closing,” McBride said.
Despite that, she stayed on the job and even took on the task of modernizing the nonprofit’s communication systems.
“One of the first things I did when I was hired was to buy a new phone system for the agency,” McBride said. “We were still taking messages on pink pads.”
In 1994, the agency brought Fran Weisberg on to turn things around. The new president and CEO knew McBride through her political activity and put her in charge of marketing and public relations. Then the two began working on some of the nonprofit’s problems.
Mary Rose McBride, Lifespan’s
president
and communications, sits at her desk at the Rochesterbased nonprofit.
The first one they tackled was the need to change its name.
“We weren’t regional, it wasn’t a council and we didn’t like the word ‘aging’ in the name,” McBride said.
Weisberg and McBride worked with a local ad agency to rename and rebrand their nonprofit and Lifespan was born. The name change signified a break with the organization’s past and with previous views of aging.
“I think 60 used to be ‘old,’” McBride said. “Today, in their 60s, 70s, 80s and sometimes even their 90s, [older adults] want to take on the opportunities of our longer lives.”
She and Weisberg also began reorganizing the agency.
“Every program kind of existed on its own. There was no overarching agency,” McBride said. “We really had to try to kind of bring it all together, so we were one place. It was a hard feat.”
McBride and Weisberg continued working together and eventually became close friends.
“Her vision and leadership brought the agency back from the brink and began a time of growth,” McBride said.
While working with her CEO on other issues, McBride also helped bring Lifespan into the information age.
She signed herself and other employees up for their first email accounts, arranged for the agency to have its own internal server installed and crawled under desks fixing the wiring that connected its computers. Very soon, she was the agency’s lone IT specialist.
Weisberg left Lifespan in 2004 when Ann Marie Cook became the agency’s new president and CEO. The nonprofit now has approximately 200 employees and an annual budget of about $20 million and operates at five locations. Its 30 programs provide a wide variety of services for older adults, their families and their caregivers.
Older adults can get help arranging their finances, selecting their health insurance plans and applying for Medicare. Those living in long-term care facilities can obtain assistance with resolving care issues and care givers can gain respite from their duties.
Lifespan also offers transportation to medical appointments, educational programs and other services of benefit
The Gift of a Rose
Line Mana says Mary Rose McBride is “almost like a guardian angel” to her family.
“She truly helped us through many adversities,” Mana said.
Mana, her husband Kling Maung and their daughters Esther Ki and Elin Ski emigrated from Myanmar to Malaysia. In 2015, they traveled to the US and settled in Rochester. No one spoke English. In Myanmar, family members do not share a single last name.
“I had to juggle many paperworks, my children’s school enrollments, work and learning a new language,” Mana said, through her daughter Ski. “When I needed to take my children out of school for appointments, it was hard to communicate because I couldn’t speak much English.”
McBride, who is a volunteer tutor for the refugee aid agency Saint’s Place, began teaching the immigrants English in 2016. After a time, she began helping them with important paperwork, tutoring Mana for her citizenship test, assisting the girls with their schoolwork and taking them out to local festivals. When Esther and Elin weren’t getting the attention
they needed in a local public school, McBride helped them enroll in the Nativity Preparatory Academy, a small local Catholic school.
“She always looks out for us, and gives my family confidence through any struggle we go through,” Mana said. “I truly appreciate her, and believe we met because of God.”
In the family’s culture, those who are educated are often called “Teacher.” Though Mana and her family all address McBride in this way, they also think of her in more affectionate terms.
“Elin and Esther like to think of her as their godmother, like the fairy godmother in Cinderella,” Mana said. “That really goes to show the amount of love we have for her and the impacts she had on us.”
Elin demonstrated her regard for McBride about two years ago, when she graduated from the Nativity Preparatory Academy. Each of the graduates was given a rose, which they could present to someone who had made an impact on their lives. Elin gave it to McBride.
Mary Rose McBride with Line Mana and her children, all from Myanmar. McBride is a volunteer tutor for the refugee aid agency Saint’s Place helped the family get settle in Rochester and they first moved here.
“She truly helped us through many adversities,” says Mana.
to older adults.
“We’ve grown to meet the needs and wants of our growing population of older adults,” McBride said. “Most people don’t realize it, but in " one in four people living in Monroe County is 60 or older.”
McBride no longer has to maintain Lifespan’s IT systems, but has remained busy marketing the agency, creating brochures, reports and other documents for its programs, applying for grants to finance them and presenting Lifespan and its programs on social media.
“I’m still a team of one, even though we’ve grown tremendously,’ McBride said.
She also tries to make the public more aware of ageism, a form of prejudice or discrimination that targets particular age groups, especially the elderly.
“Ageism is ubiquitous, isolating and limiting for older people; it can even lead to health, financial problems and even premature death,” McBride said. “It’s going to take quite some time before ageism is understood and taken seriously. That’s another challenge.”
Lifespan’s biggest annual fundraiser, the Celebration of Aging luncheon. The gala event has drawn as many as 1,800 people to Rochester to hear keynote speakers who, in addition to being able to relate entertaining and informative stories, are at least 60 years old and role models for older adults. Their speaking fees must be within the nonprofit’s budget.
“The affordable part is the biggest challenge lately,” McBride said.
Pro football hall of famer and former Buffalo Bills coach Marv Levy, actor Henry Winkler and the late Julia Child have all entertained the event’s audiences. The late sex therapist and talk show host Dr. Ruth Westheimer was one of the gala’s more colorful speakers.
“Dr. Ruth was a hoot,” McBride said. “She talked Kegel exercises and other things having to do with sex.”
speak at the gala this year, but her contractual obligation to Apple TV forced her to cancel. After scrambling to find a replacement, McBride managed to sign up John Quinones, host of the ABC television show “What Would You Do?” to speak at the event.
In addition to helping Lifespan accomplish its mission, McBride volunteers as a tutor for Saint’s Place, a local nonprofit that offers free clothing, furniture, housewares and tutoring to refugees who settle in the Rochester area.
In 2016, she began tutoring a woman from Myanmar. Line Mana had come to this country with her husband and two little girls and needed to learn English. McBride grew close to the family and found herself assisting them with all sorts of tasks.
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When properly done, Kegel exercises strengthen the muscles supporting the bladder and can help improve the sex life.
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Even when a speaker meets all of Lifespan’s qualifications, there’s
“I helped with opening bank accounts, with bills, with driving lessons, with the citizenship test, with cultural outings, with school placement, at teacher-parent conferences,” she said.
When the two girls did not appear to be getting the attention they needed in a local public school, McBride helped their parents transfer them to
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a private Catholic school. The family subsequently moved to Nashville, Tennessee, but McBride has stayed in touch with them over the internet.
McBride and her husband eventually divorced. Nowadays, she loves traveling with her long-term partner, Mike Martin. Last year, they spent time in Olympic National Park in the state of Washington and the Adirondacks and visited Spain and the US Virgin Islands. They also enjoy bicycling, exercising in the gym and running.
“I’m not an athlete by any means, but I took first place in my age group in the Lilac 5K last May,” McBride said. “The older you get, the easier it is to come in first.”
She also loves to spend time in the garden of her Rochester home. When asked what she plans to do in the next five years or so, McBride wasn’t sure what path she might take.
“In two years, it will be our 30th celebration and it will mark [my] 35 years at Lifespan,” she said. “I’ll be 69, so we’ll see, but I’m thinking it will be time to do something different.”
For more information on Lifespan, go to www.lifespan-roch.org.
Without Her, the Journey Would Not Have Happened
Fran Weisberg remembers when she and Mary Rose McBride worked together to change what was originally called the Regional Council on Aging into Lifespan.
“This journey that we went on, without her it would not have happened,” said Lifespan’s former president and CEO, who considers McBride a good friend.
Weisberg also spoke of the skill that McBride demonstrated as Lifespan’s vice president of marketing and communications.
“Today, and this is something that Mary Rose created, when the community thinks “Lifespan,” it thinks ‘aging,’” she said.
Ann Marie Cook, Lifespan’s current president and CEO, has worked with McBride for nearly 29 years.
“Mary Rose is extraordinary,” Cook said. “She has a particular flair about things which makes her very special.”
Cook praised McBride for helping to change the way aging is viewed in the community.
“She is the one who came up with kind of a stylistic guide when talking about older adults, and kind of leads our efforts on having people recognize ageism, and of course making sure that people don’t continue to perpetuate ageist conversations, words, thoughts,” Cook said.
It’s easy to get comfortable in this warm and welcoming independent senior living community. Inviting amenities, friendly neighbors, supportive staff, plus an array of convenient ala carte options. Linden Knoll offers:
• Monthly rent of $1,148 includes utilities, cable and internet
• On-site laundry and a small grocery store
• Wellness center
• On-site salon
• Emergency call system with 24/7 on-site response
• Meal delivery and grab-and-go options available
• Weekly physician visits and lab services provided by U of R Geriatrics Group
• On-site physical, occupational and speech therapy
• Transportation to nearby shopping
• Preferred consideration to the Friendly Home (585) 789-4604 or stercero@lindenknoll.org
Fran Weisberg Anne Marie Cook
WHAT’S NEW THIS YEAR IN THE WORLD OF DRUGS
By Eva Briggs, M.D.
Every year new medications
formulations of existing drugs gain approval from the federal and Drug Administration.
Here’s a roundup of a few of these new drugs from 2024.
Because these drugs are new, they are likely to be expensive and therefore often not covered by insurance. But it’s still interesting to know about them. Those that are found useful may eventually become more affordable or available as a generic and perhaps covered by insurance.
The first category of drugs treats dermatologic (skin) problems.
Berdazimir gel treats molluscum contagiosum, a common viral skin infection that causes small bumps. Children are particularly susceptible. It can be applied at home, which is a plus, because laser therapy and certain other topical medicines must be applied in a medical office. But molluscum is a benign condition that usually goes away on its own although that may take months. The benefit of this expensive medicine may therefore be limited.
Lebrikizumab is a new monoclonal antibody for moderate to severe eczema in patients aged 12 or older. It’s administered as an injection, every two weeks to start and then every four weeks. It’s expensive, costing $3,500
per month. The syringe it’s supplied in contains breakable glass parts so if it’s dropped accidentally, the patient must throw it
Sofpironium treats excessive armpit sweating. Alas it is also expensive and benefits only about one in six
There are also some new antibiotic , in the penicillin family, treats uncomplicated urine infections in adult females. It’s actually been available in Europe for years. An advantage is the ability to treat some multi-drug-resistant bacteria. Downsides are cost, the need to take it three times per day and certain drug interactions.
Cefepime -enmetazobactam combines the cephalosporin antibiotic cefepime with a chemical that protects the antibiotic from being broken down by some bacteria. It treats complicated urinary tract infections, those with fever or involving the kidney. It’s administered via IV. Downsides include the administration time of hours to infuse and the need to combine each dose with a large volume of fluid.
A third newly approved antibiotic for urine infections is sulopenem etzadroxil plus probenecid . This drug treats uncomplicated urinary tract infections in adult females. Probenecid is a compound that prevents the antibiotic component from being metabolized and excreted too quickly. It’s the first oral antibiotic in the class called
carbapenems. It can treat drug-resistant bacteria. But it is a wide-spectrum antibiotic increasing the chance that it will interfere with good bacteria in the body. Other potential side effects are the risk of causing gout to flare and increasing the risk of uric acid kidney stones.
A new maintenance medicine for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is ensifentrine nebulizer. It acts to open small airways. It is a maintenance medicine, not a rescue medicine for acute respiratory symptoms of COPD. It can’t be mixed with other nebulized medicines. Possible adverse reactions include back pain, elevated blood pressure, diarrhea, mood changes and suicidal thoughts.
This is a sampling of some newly approved medicines. In 2024, new dosage forms of some existing medicines were approved. The psychiatric drug aripiprazole , used for schizophrenia, major depression, Tourette’s syndrome and autism, now comes as an oral film. Budesonide, a steroid, now comes as suspension to treat a condition called eosinophilic esophagitis. Femlyv is an oral contraceptive that comes as an orally dissolving pill. Alas it costs about three times as much as traditional contraceptive pills. Entresto , which treats heart failure, is now available in sprinkle tabs for use in children as young as 1 year old. This makes pediatric dosing easier. (extended release), used for attention deficit disorder has been released in an oral suspension. Because the tablet form can’t be crushed split, this will facilitate for individuals unable to swallow
in an Epi-pen) is now available as a nasal spray. Although it avoids the need for injection, it’s much more costly than a generic Epi-pen.
mental health MENTAL WELLNESS IS IMPORTANT AS YOU AGE
By Maggie Fitzgibbon
Mental wellness is important at any age but as a person ages it should become a priority for many reasons.
Cognitive health is the ability to think, learn and remember clearly. As we age, these abilities can decline; it’s part of the natural process of aging.
However, good mental wellness can help protect against cognitive decline and dementia.
A dementia diagnosis includes the loss of thinking, remembering, and reasoning so much so that it interferes with a person's daily life and activities. Some people with dementia cannot control their emotions, and their personalities may change.
How does one keep their mental wellness in check?
Registered nurse Kathy CurtisRubin is the senior director for clinical services at DePaul.
“Mental wellness is the ability to manage your daily life. If you are not feeling well physically then this impacts your mental wellness,” she
said. “You should be able to recognize your feelings, and give yourself time to think about how and what you are feeling. It’s also important that we have balance in our lives and not continuously be busy.”
Curtis-Rubin explained that mental and physical wellness go hand in hand.
“As we age, we face many changes. Physical activities that bring a person joy often make a difference in overall health,” she said.
Good mental wellness often leads to better physical health outcomes and curtails the possibility of chronic illnesses. Regular physical activity can reduce anxiety or depression and improve mood. Walking, golf, yoga, gardening, swimming, dance and biking are just a few examples of lowimpact exercise that is beneficial for older adults.
It is no surprise that when a person feels well physically, their mood, spirit and stamina improve, which enhances overall life satisfaction. Happy older
adults enjoy their later years more fully. A positive mental mindset helps older adults maintain their independence and manage daily tasks.
Emotional resilience is the ability to adapt and rebound from stress, hardships, or challenging life events. Aging brings life changes such as retirement, loss, or health issues. Good mental health helps individuals adapt and cope with these transitions.
Curtis-Rubin advises any older adult who has experienced a major life change to stay active socially.
“Don’t isolate or disconnect. Find new connections, and join clubs or organizations that may interest you. Meet new friends,” she said.
Social connections help to ward against loneliness and isolation. Strong mental wellness supports social engagement, which is crucial for combating loneliness that can accompany aging. Maintaining relationships is vital. Friends, family and community can provide support and reduce feelings of isolation.
Curtis-Rubin shared that it’s important to take care of our bodies and minds.
“Eat healthy. Get enough rest. Explore new interests. Stay connected to healthcare professionals. Learn to say no. Be mindful of any warning signs of mental decline and talk to someone you trust,” she advised.
Retirement is a major life change that most people experience. CurtisRubin, age 75, has a 29-year career at DePaul. She continues to work parttime.
“Just because you have reached a chronological age, it does not mean you have to stop working. If you enjoy your work and are able physically to continue, then by all means keep working. This will keep you engaged socially and physically. Most importantly, work will fulfill a purpose by doing something meaningful to you,” she said.
Curtis-Rubin added some age advice. “Be kind to yourself and try not to take things personally.”
If anyone feels like they are in a mental crisis, you should contact your medical provider or go to the nearest hospital. New York state also has a hotline, text, or call 988 to reach a suicide and crisis lifeline that connects to trained crisis counselors 24/7.
DePaul is a Rochester-based notfor-private organization that provides mental health residential, addiction prevention and support services, affordable housing, senior living communities, support programs, and vocational programs.
Registered nurse Kathy CurtisRubin, 75: “As we age, we face many changes. Physical activities that bring a person joy often make a difference in overall health,” she says.
A Life in the Theater
Dave Munnell: When not directing plays and musicals, this Rochester resident is performing, teaching, writing
By Mike Costanza
Dave Munnell began writing works of fiction as a young boy.
“I’ve always loved stories, creating stories, creating worlds of people in my imagination,” the 68-year-old said.
That desire to create eventually led Munnell to a 42-year career in the theater.
During that time, the Rochester resident has acted in and directed scores of stage productions, written stage plays, screenplays and teleplays and run various theatrical programs, including one that honored the late comedienne Lucille Ball.
Last September, he brought the
character of Judge Turpin to vivid life during Blackfriars Theatre’s production of the famous musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”
Munnell was born in a Philadelphia suburb, then moved around Pennsylvania with his family while his father, a Bell telephone Company employee, was transferred to different parts of the state. Besides writing stories, he wrote a stage play and acted in high school plays. Upon finishing high school he enrolled at the University of Delaware, intent upon becoming an engineer.
After taking courses in the theater program, Munnell decided to major
in psychology and minor in theater. After acquiring a bachelor’s degree, he headed to Florida State University to study stage directing. In 1983, he headed off to New York City with a Master of Fine Arts degree in directing in hand.
“I really wanted to be a director,” Munnell said. “I wanted to be the next Jerry Zaks or Hal Prince.”
Jerome [Jerry] Zaks is an awardwinning stage and television director and the late Harold [Hal] Prince was a legendary director and producer who was known for his work in musical theater.
Since then, Munnell has directed a substantial number of stage plays.
Initially, many of them were staged in New York City’s cafes, clubs and small theaters. “Bachelor Holiday” was written by his friend, Alan Ball, who based the off-off-Broadway comedy upon his own experiences.
“Alan at the time was living with other broke, starving artists in a broken-down brownstone in Brooklyn,” Munnell said. “It’s basically a clash of all these crazy personalities.”
The play was fun to direct and got a good response, but never made it offoff-Broadway. Ball went on to become an acclaimed writer and director for film and television. He is best known for penning the screenplay for the film “American Beauty,” for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
After leaving New York City, Munnell directed scores of plays around Upstate New York, including
the Jewish Community Center’s Center Stage Theatre production of “Relatively Speaking,” the Bristol Valley Theater’s production of the suspense comedy “Murder at the Howard Johnson’s” and the Fredonia Opera House’s production of the musical “Always…Patsy Cline.”
When not directing plays and musicals, Munnell has performed in a great number of them, including the Bristol Valley Theater’s production of “Murder on the Nile” and the Fredonia Opera House’s presentation of the musical “The Fantasticks.” He’s most proud of having played the lead in Blackfriars’ 2017 performance of “Death of a Salesman.” Munnell played the aging traveling salesman Willy Loman, who fantasizes about future successes as his world is crumbling around him. That quality allowed him to relate to the tragic character.
“I connected to his feeling that ‘It’s just round the corner,’ that sort of ‘never giving up,’ which is a quality I have,” Munnell said.
Munnell also played the cruel and corrupt Judge Turpin in Blackfriars’ 2024 production of “Sweeney Todd.”
“The roles I like the most are villains and comic characters,” he said. “I actually think there’s a similarity, because both of them usually have an obsession, something they’re obsessed with doing.”
Turpin’s and Todd’s obsessions draw them together to a bloody end. The judge imprisoned Todd on false charges, raped his wife and wants to marry his daughter. Todd is intent upon revenge and cuts a lot of throats on his way to Turpin. Most recently, Munnell played Duncan and Siward in “Macbeth,” a production of the local theatrical group The Company Theatre.
The last "Macbeth” performance took place Feb. 16.
Behind the curtains
In addition to working onstage and behind the curtain, Munnell has also held administrative positions with a number of theatrical companies.
For about six years, he was the executive director of the 1891 Fredonia Opera House Performing Arts Center.
“I was pretty active in programming a lot of multiethnic kinds of performances, African American, Hispanic, which at the time was pretty radical,” Munnell said.
In recognition of his willingness to offer such programming, Munnell was presented with the NAACP Award for Promoting Diversity in the Arts.
Munnell was also the artistic director of what was then called The Lucille Ball Festival of New Comedy for three years.
The weeklong festival, which is now called the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, was held each year in Jamestown, the hometown of the late actress, comedian, producer and studio executive. Munnell was in charge of just about all aspects of the event, which took about a year to set up.
“I created the program, did the artistic vision, also was heavily involved in logistics and contract negotiations,” he said.
Those attending the festival could enjoy plays, vaudeville performances and stand-up comedy acts, participate in play and short comedy film contests and enjoy themselves in other ways. About 60 artists, directors, actors and writers participated in the festival and comedian Ellen DeGeneres and Lucie Arnaz, Ball’s daughter, were among the headliners.
Munnell has also written screenplays and is working with his friend, Jonathan Tammuz, on two television miniseries. One is the medical thriller “Heartless” and the second is a science fiction satire set in Silicon Valley. The two friends have
written the initial episodes of both series and are trying to find producers for them.
“Studios nowadays mostly do distribution,” Munnell said. “So, your first step is you have to get a production company that has some credibility in the business to agree to produce it.”
While spending time onstage and behind the curtain, Munnell has also taught others about acting and directing at SUNY Geneseo and the Rochester Institute of Technology. He was the head of RIT’s theater program and a senior lecturer in that program when he retired from teaching in 2020.
Brynn Tyszka
Jonathan Tammuz
GOING THERE 1,000%
By Mike Costanza
Actors, directors and writers have lauded Dave Munnell’s work on stage and behind the curtain.
Blackfriars Theatre artistic director Brynn Tyszka commended him for his performance in the theatrical company’s recent production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” Munnell played the difficult part of the villainous Judge Turpin, whom Todd murders.
“It’s always tricky having to cast or play the villain to an anti-hero, which is the case with Sweeney Todd, because you have to be an actor who’s willing to be ultimately unlikeable, vile and abhorrent in every way,” said Tyszka, who directed the production. “Only the best and most knowledgeable actors are willing to do that and he [Munnell] was willing to go there 1,000%.”
British-Canadian director, screenwriter and teleplay writer Jonathan Tammuz has known Munnell
since 1999 and considers him a friend and pleasure to work with.
“He is open to ideas, collaborative, writes beautifully and is incredibly fast,” Tammuz said. “I am particularly drawn to his subversive sense of humor when dealing with serious subject matter — my favorite type of material.”
Tammuz directed the Oscarnominated short film “The Childeater” and is also the director of StephenTammuz Productions, which develops and produces feature films and television programs. He and Munnell have written the initial chapters of two television miniseries and are searching for producers for them.
David Andreatta said Munnell can stay in character even with his pants down — literally.
Andreatta played Happy “Hap” Loman and Danny Hoskins played Biff Loman in Blackfriar’s 2017 production of the iconic tragedy "Death of a Salesman." Munnell played their
father Willy Loman, the play’s main character.
“He led that entire cast and played it (Willy Loman) with such conviction that was impressive to everyone involved,” Andreatta said.
Willy spends much of the play complaining about his lot in life, but as the end of the first act nears things are looking up for the family. He’s preparing for bed and talking to his two sons, but in the midst of his monologue something goes wrong and his pants fall down. Munnell didn’t break character.
“He says something like ‘Would you look at this? Would you look at this? You can never find a good tailor in this town anymore,’ adlibbing about the state of dressmaking and tailors without missing a beat,” Andreatta said.
Andreatta and Hoskins then headed to their bedroom, where they struggled to hold in their laughter in while marveling at Munnell’s ability to stay in character. “It was an incredible display of acting and concentration the likes of which I’ve never seen and that I’ll never be able to forget,” he said of his longtime friend.
Grandparents and Grandkids: Poll Shows Them Helping Each Other
Grandchildren are a true blessing for older Americans, helping them avoid loneliness and keeping them on their toes, a new poll reports.
Overall, 72% of people with grandkids say they hardly ever feel isolated, compared with 62% of those without grandchildren, according to results from the University of Michigan's National Poll on Healthy Aging.
People without grandchildren also are more likely to say their mental health is only fair or poor — 13% compared to 9% with those who have grandkids.
“For many older people, becoming a grandparent is a major milestone in their lives. Our findings show there are many dimensions to grandparenting, and possible positive effects of
About half (49%) of grandparents provide care at least once every few months for grandchildren under 18, says study.
grandparenting, some of which may not be widely recognized,” researcher Kate Bauer, an associate professor of nutritional sciences in the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said in a news release.
About 60% of adults 50 and older have at least one grandchild, including 27% who say they have five or more.
Seniors older than 65 were more likely than those in their 50s and early 60s to say they have at least one grandchild, 76% versus 46%
The survey also found that:
• About half (49%) of grandparents provide care at least once every few months for grandchildren under 18.
• About 18% of grandparents see a grandchild once a day or nearly every day, versus 23% who see them once a week, 23% who see them once or twice a month, and 36% who see them every few months or less.
• Three in five (61%) say they've shared at least one meal with a grandkid in the past month, about half (47%) said they prepared or bought food for them, and 36% baked or cooked with their grandchildren.
“Eating, and especially cooking, with grandchildren can be an opportunity for older adults to
Bauer said.
“Given how many grandparents are frequently engaging with their grandchildren around
Grandparents who saw their grandkids more often were less likely to feel isolated or feel a lack of
companionship, the poll found.
For example, 78% of grandparents who see grandkids nearly every day or every day said they hardly ever feel isolated, compared with 65% who see their grandchildren every few months or less.
And 70% of grandparents who see their grandkids more often reported hardly ever feeling a lack of companionship, compared with 57% of those who see grandchildren every few months.
“Health care providers should consider asking their older patients whether they are active in their grandchildren's lives, and perhaps encourage more involvement among those who are struggling with loneliness or depression, even if they live far apart and need to connect virtually when they can't be together,” poll director Jeffrey Kullgren, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, said in a news release.
The poll included a nationwide sample of 3,486 adults 50 to 94 who were surveyed online and via phone in August.
SCENES OF THE JOURNEY HOME
The Odyssey Project gives veterans the chance to use photography as a way of exploring and explaining the journey home from war
By Mike Costanza
Navy veteran Michael Thaxton is particularly happy with a photo he took of a young girl who donned a sailor’s hat and a tiny American flag to attend a Rochester parade.
“I just loved the way she looked,” the 59-year-old Rochester resident said. “It’s the next generation being patriotic.”
Thaxton captured the girl’s image while participating in a 12-week photography workshop that was given by The Odyssey Project.
The project is the brainchild of Buffalo-based professional
photojournalist Brendan Bannon. Bannon created it primarily for combat veterans and those who have suffered sexual assault or threatening sexual harassment while serving their country in uniform, or MST (military sexual trauma).
“The purpose is to give veterans the opportunity to use photography as a way of exploring and explaining the journey home from war,” Bannon said.
Those who sign up for one of The Odyssey Project’s workshops are given Canon DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) cameras and attend a three-day retreat. They then take photography classes
once a week for three months.
“One of the beautiful things about the program is we meet under the guise or auspices of photography, but what we talk about is the life that’s shown in those pictures,” Bannon said.
Vets who complete the workshop get to keep the cameras. Though The Odyssey Project was created to serve combat veterans and those who have suffered MST, Bannon says its entrance requirements are flexible. For example, The Odyssey Project welcomes nurses who used their time in uniform to care for combat vets. Canon Professional Services donates the cameras.
Buffalo-based professional photojournalist
Brendan Bannon created The Odyssey Project primarily for combat veterans who face military sexual trauma.
Bannon has never served in the military, but came up with the idea of The Odyssey Project in part because of a friend, the late Joe Orffeo, a Buffalo-based painter who’d piloted amphibious landing craft in the Pacific during World War II. When Bannon became clinically depressed in his late 20s, Orffeo used the knowledge he’d gained by working through that traumatic experience to help the younger man take on his difficulties through art.
“He leaned on his experiences as a combat veteran and the trauma that he endured and the way he engaged art to deal with that to kind of encourage me on an artistic path as a way of engaging and working through the challenges that I faced,” Bannon said.
Bannon subsequently became a professional photographer and has worked all over the world. For Do You See What I See, a project he undertook in partnership with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, he traveled to Lebanon and Jordan to give
photography workshops to children and youth who had been forced to flee war-torn Syria. The children then shared their stories with the public through photos and texts. The results have been featured in newspapers, magazines and exhibitions worldwide.
In 2019, Bannon set out to give veterans the chance to express themselves photographically. In partnership with the Josephine Herrick Project, the CEPA Gallery, The Harlem, Queens and Buffalo Vet Centers and Higher Ground, he helped establish branches of The Odyssey Project in Buffalo and New York City.
Late last year, Rochester’s Flower City Arts Center hosted 75 photographers who’d participated in the project in the hope of drumming up support for starting a local branch.
From Nov. 1 through Dec. 21, the walls of the center’s Sunken & Community Darkroom Galleries bore scenes from civilian life or from the veterans’ inner landscapes.
Chris Cilento’s photos were among
Chris Cilento’s time in the Army left him with chronic pain and PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder).
Photography became part of his healing process.
them. During 26 years in the US Army he had multiple combat deployments, the last one in Afghanistan.
“I lost a good friend over there and that really stuck with me,” the 51-year-old Spencerport resident said. “I still have trouble with that even now, pushing 13 years later.”
Cilento’s time in the Army left him with chronic pain and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Photography became part of his healing process.
Cilento has enjoyed taking pictures since he took his first photos in high school. After leaving the service, he decided to focus more strongly upon that artistic endeavor and acquired a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. He then started his own photography business and went on to pursue a master’s degree in fine arts. He was at the tail end of his studies in 2022 when he took The Odyssey Project’s workshop.
“That was right at the beginning of my thesis here for my MFA and I was rapidly approaching burnout,” Cilento
Michael Thaxton of Rochester is the fifth generation of his family to serve this country in uniform. After retirement in 2022, he decided to pick up a camera again and took The Odyssey Project’s workshop in Buffalo. “It jump-started my whole career with my photography,” Thaxton said.
said. “The Odyssey Project rekindled the spark.”
Each week, Cilento traveled to Buffalo to attend class with other veterans.
“As veterans, when we’re dealing with PTSD we tend to isolate and this project, for starters, it gets us out,” he said. “We get in there with a bunch of other veterans. We’re able to express ourselves because we’re in safe place.”
As a professional photographer, Cilento specializes in digital photography and often takes photos of waterfalls and other natural scenes.
When Thaxton went into the Navy at the age of 17, he became the fifth generation of his family to serve this country in uniform. Over the next three years, he was stationed in different parts of the Pacific, including Japan and California and in Alaska. One of his jobs was to help search for Russian submarines from the air.
“I flew on P3s (P3 Orion antisubmarine aircraft), chasing subs all over the world,” the 59-yearold Rochester resident said. “Got to see Russia a couple times flying
out of Alaska.”
After leaving the service, Thaxton worked in the field of information technology until he retired. In 2022, he decided to pick up a camera again and took The Odyssey Project’s workshop in Buffalo.
“It jump-started my whole career with my photography,” Thaxton said.
In addition to helping him take better photos, the classes also allowed him to develop friendships with other vets who understood what he’d experienced in the Navy.
“Guys that I can talk to about things that I could never talk to anybody else about,” Thaxton said. “You have memories and flashbacks and you can call these guys up and say ‘How, you know, how would you handle it?’”
Thaxton now shoots concerts for a living.
“That’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” he said.
In 2024 he traveled to Syracuse to shoot the band Santana as it performed onstage.
Since The Odyssey Project’s
exhibition closed, Bannon has continued trying to develop the resources needed to bring it to Rochester.
“We are actively fundraising and building partnerships through Flower City Arts,” he said.
• For more information on Brendan Bannon and The Odyssey Project, go to www. mostimportantpicture.org
• To see some of Chris Cilento’s work, go to: www. christophercilento.com
• For more information on the Flower City Arts Center, go to: https://flowercityarts.org
• To donate to The Odyssey Project, go to: https:// flowercityarts.org/donate/ and designate that your funds should go to "The Odyssey Project."
addyman’s corner
By John Addyman Email: john.addyman@yahoo.com
Transistor Radio Sparks a Lifetime of Memories
I’m sitting here looking at one of my old transistor radios. We’ve been through a lot together.
It’s got dried paint droplets on it, a lot of scratches and its antenna has seen better days.
The paint blotch is blue and it’s from a Sunday afternoon in Altamont, outside of Albany. I was painting the side of my house and in our small town that was enough to draw a crowd. Mayor Jim Caruso and his wife, Rosemary, brought lawn chairs and set them up so they wouldn’t miss a thing and could cheer me on. If memory serves, Rosemary brought a picnic lunch. Jim was a big eater.
To paint the house, I had to climb my 24-foot ladder. With my well-earned fear of heights, that meant adventure might ensure, which brought people over to our lawn to watch.
I found that listening to something engaging kept my mind off the fact that there was a lot of air under my feet while I was painting. I’m pretty sure I was listening to a baseball game
because it was warm out — good painting weather.
While I was on the ladder, I got good advice from the Carusos — which bone surgeons were closest, how important it was to update my insurance, how far away the nearest hornets’ nest was and up-to-the minute data on how often homeowners hit the ground painting. Jim was an expert on statistics and data.
The little radio had a cord attached to it and I hung it on one of the rungs of the ladder, so it swung around while I was stroking the paint on.
I could only pick up AM radio stations on that little radio, but that was plenty.
We had moved to Altamont from the Philadelphia area, with our only daughter, Amy, in tow. She must have been 8 years old then. She missed her friends from back home and was trying to make new ones on her softball team, with me as the coach. There were summer nights that year when she would join me while I sat
in the dark and listened to Phillies games broadcast from KYW 1060 AM in Philadelphia.
The Helderberg Mountains outside our town were perfectly capturing the radio signal from 300 miles away. When the signal faded and we couldn’t hear Harry Kalas or Rich Ashburn, Amy and I would talk about school and baseball and life in a very small town.
When I was growing up, AM radio was it. FM wasn’t common. We listened to Rock ‘n Roll on WARM 590 out of Scranton. In my senior year, someone’s voice on the radio changed a lot of us: that voice belonged to Chubby Checker.
My high school had a recreation room on the ground floor where you could go after lunch in the cafeteria and listen to music out of a juke box and dance — though very few of the guys did.
Old Chubby changed that with his record, “The Twist.” If you could wiggle enough to dry your bottom
with a towel after a shower, you could do the twist.
And if you could twist, you got out on the dance floor ... and chanced other dances. It was such a revolution that I remember a car full of guys on their way to a big football game on a Friday night and as soon as we heard Chubby’s voice coming out of the car’s speakers, the driver stopped the car in the Acme parking lot in Clarks Summit and we all piled out to dance right then and there. It was splendid.
When we moved to Newark in Wayne County from Connecticut, that old AM radio in my truck was so important. We’d snapped up our new house without selling the old one, so my wife and I commuted from Connecticut every weekend, bringing stuff with us we didn’t want the movers to hurt.
My wife and I would come home from work, pack her car and my truck and head for Newark — a six-hour drive. She worked for a bank, so she got on the road earlier than I did many times. She’d take the Thruway to the Chittenango rest stop, park there and take a nap, while I was a good 100 miles behind her.
Those were dark, lonely trips for me and the saving grace was my truck had a good radio and I could pick up baseball games in the summer and football games in the fall. We moved in on Halloween. Because of the distance, I’d listen to one station until it faded, pick up another one and kept at it until I got to Chittenango, found my wife’s car, gave her a kiss and we went on to Newark together in our own little caravan.
And on one memorable night, while we were sleeping on the floor of our new bedroom, we got visited by bats. As tired as we both were, we moved pretty quick that night.
I pulled out one of my younger transistor radios this summer so I could listen to something while I washed my car under our Sycamore tree. I found a lot of talk shows and decided on one of them that was covering local issues. I tend to talk to myself when I wash my car, so what I was doing blended right in with the talk show.
When I got done, the radio had bird poop on it.
Yes, my little radios and I have been through a lot together.
Don’t miss Rochester's premier summer arts festival and enjoy:
Jewelry, Painting, Ceramics, Metalwork
The 15th Annual Emerging Artists Expo
The Annual Fairy Houses Tour
Live Music, Food, Drinks & Performances
Free Bus Shuttles and Admission
By John Addyman
Mike Muscolino, 75
Director of Newark community center to retire after 45 years providing community activities
Q. How did you become the director of the Alex Eligh Community Center?
A. I was vice principal at Wayne Central middle school when the community center director job came open. I was on the board of directors. After driving home at Christmas time in 1979, I said to my wife, ‘I want to make a career change.’ We talked it out, and I approached Lenny Colavito, the board president and asked him, ‘What do you think about me applying for the directorship?’ He said, ‘Done!’ That was at his kitchen table. I’ve never looked back.
Q. How would you describe your job?
A . I am the organizer and networker for recreational activities in our community. Youth baseball, basketball, swimming and softball, along with many adult activities. I grew up at the rec center with Alex Eligh as the head. He was my mentor.
Early on as director I resolved myself to getting involved in other community activities — Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, Elks Club, American Legion — to get out there and see how our community thrives, to see how the community center could network and coordinate with them. That’s been a big plus — being involved in different organizations. The average person in Newark knows about the community center. We are really lucky to have the village leadership be a big part of our program.
Q. You attended many village board of trustees meetings. Your answers to their questions demonstrated omniscience of the issues. How?
A. A little luck. Many times those questions had come to me before the meeting. It wasn’t the first time around dealing with what they were asking about. I knew about complaints
through phone calls, people stopping me on the street or in the store, or today, from Facebook. I prided myself about knowing what’s going on in our community and how it could affect us at the recreational level.
Q. The favorite programs you’ve hosted?
A. The most smiling faces I see, twice a year, are at the Christmas and Halloween parties. I can’t believe how many people we had here last Halloween. You hope you see the same type of smile when a kid gets done playing his youth basketball season, that his experience was as positive as the Halloween party or sitting on Santa’s lap. Another positive is that these parties are family affairs — kids come with their parents.
Q. Truths?
A. As a coach and as a recreation director, I taught that your whole world revolves around respect. Respect for people, respect for other people’s thoughts. You may not agree with everybody in your lifetime, but you can arrive at consensus. To hate someone is not good. Get out there and be the best person you can be. Good things will happen. I told our kids, ‘You’ve got to work hard.” I’m big on — when we have our staff of kids in the summertime — teaching them that they have to be on time for work. Come 15 minutes early, put your phones away and get started for work. Everything I tried to do with kids was to prepare them for life. I tried to be part of that teaching process.
Q. What’s next?
A. I don’t have a plan. I’m not a big traveler. I’ll still be involved with the chamber and Rotary and American Legion and from there, gear down a little bit. All my friends are retired. I’ll spend some time with them in the coffee shop, although I’ll miss sitting and talking at a Newark diner’s counter where you could intermingle with people who have a different bent on things. You always want to hear what’s on people’s minds. It's been a good experience. I can’t say there’s been a day when I haven’t enjoyed the drive to work. I’ve worked with good boards of directors, good mayors, good boards of trustees. It’s been a good ride.
Rui
