Posted in A&I

NIT WIT NEWZ

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(Nit Wit Newz is an unauthorized, often unreliable, on-line news source designed to keep Manor residents abreast of the inconsequential, trifling, and superficial events that dramatically shape and inform our everyday lives here at Rogue Valley Manor.)

THE MEAN STREETS OF ROGUE VALLEY MANOR

Hi Mom.

Harold, is that you, dear? I was beginning to get worried. I thought you’d be here by now.

Well, I just got off the freeway and discovered my GPS is on the fritz, so I don’t know how to get to your place. I’m hoping you can phone-talk me there.

Of course, of course it’s very simple. Oh, I’m so happy you could make it up here for Thanksgiving and see my cottage. Now tell me, where you are?

I’m parked on, let’s see, Barnett Street just past Highland and I’m pointed east.

Yes, yes, I know exactly where you are—you’re less than five minutes from me. I’m so excited. I ran across an old photo album of mine with dozens of pictures of you and Betsy as kids. You both were so…

Yeah, that sounds fun, but I should move off this shoulder and get out of traffic. Barnett’s pretty busy.

Oh, for sure. As I say, you’re practically here. One right turn and then just follow your nose.

Sounds good.

The first street you’ll come to, just a few yards ahead of where you are is, oh dear me, it’s— Ellendale, yes, that’s it, Ellendale. It winds a bit, but that’s the only turn you’ll have to get to my place. So, there on Ellendale, turn right.

O.K., I’m making the turn. Ah yes, I can see the entrance to the Manor straight ahead.

Perfect. Now just follow Ellendale into the Manor and you’re on the way.

Yep, I’m driving through the entrance and looking out over a well-tended golf course. Boy Mom, it looks like you and Betsy picked out a great place for you to live. I should have brought my golf clu…

Yes, I love it, it’s just wonderful.

Hey, five, no six turkeys just crossed in front of me. Is this a service the Manor provides the residents on Thanksgiving? Everyone gets to pick and dress their own turkey?

No, don’t be silly, the Manor is delivering a turkey dinner for the three of us right here to my place. Where are you now?

I’m going up the hill past the golf course and, oh, oh. I must have taken the wrong turn looking at those turkeys.

No, you can’t take a wrong turn.

Mom, the street sign says I’m on Rogue Valley Manor Drive not Ellendale.

That’s where you should be. Don’t worry.

You mean the street changes its name willy nilly from Ellendale to Rogue Valley Manor Drive just like that?

My dear, just keep following that road. You’re doing fine. I told you it winds a bit.

Umm, well…hey, I can see some cottages here on my right. How nice. Trees, lawns, well-trimmed shrubs, and, look at that, a huge, handsome park. You did yourself proud picking this place, Mom. Oh, my gosh, there’s a family of deer over there. I suppose you’re going to tell me the Manor brings in reindeer for Christmas. Pretty good, turkeys for Thanksgiving, reindeer for Christmas— what happens on Groundhog Day? But, what the…? I’ve got to keep my eyes on the road—look, the street sign says I’m now on Shannon Drive! I swear I didn’t make a turn.

Harold, you’re fine, just fine. Don’t pay any attention to those street signs. They’ll just confuse you.

Are you sure? I thought they were designed to un-confuse you.

Harold, I hear a woman’s voice. Did you bring a girlfriend with you? How nice. I can set another place…

No mom, my GPS just kicked in. She’s giving me directions to your place.

Well, she certainly has a beautiful voice. I’ll bet she’s a lovely young lady…

Holy smoke, she just told me that I’m no longer on Shannon Drive. How could that…

And she sure seems to know her way around here. If I were you I’d…

Mom, she’s not in my car. She’s just a voice on my GPS. It’s as if she was, you know, on my radio. I don’t know who she is. She just gives me directions.

Well, maybe when you get here you can tell me what CBS station she’s on. I sometimes get a little confused driving around this….

That’s GPS, not CBS. But Mom, can you believe it? Now she’s telling me I’m on something called Malama Way. What’s a Malama?

You know, I asked Dorthea that very same question a couple of days ago—she’s my new neighbor from Maui— she says it’s a Hawaiian word that means, if I can remember— to take care of, or to serve.

Well, the signs up here would do me a service if they wouldn’t keep changing their names.

Just be patient, dear, you’re almost here. I’m standing out on my front lawn in my blue jersey dress—the one you always liked.

But you don’t live on Malama Way, you said you live on Lake Village Drive. Oh wait, there’s a big sign here. It looks like Malama stops and turns into four different streets. And, my gosh, three of the streets have the same name—Lake Village Drive! I don’t get it! Whoever’s in charge of naming streets around here should be charged with malpractice. First Ellendale changes its name four times and then it empties into three streets—all with the same name. You’d think Ellendale could share some of its names with the three Lake Village Drive streets?

Harold, just take the Lake Village Drive that’s on your right. Ignore those other two. Half way down the block, look for me. I’ve got a new hairdo, that’s why I’m wearing that blue dress so you’ll be sure it’s me. Oh, I see your car now. You hoo! Here I am. And here you are. Now, wasn’t that simple, sweetie? Those pilgrims didn’t need silly street signs to find Plymouth Rock, did they?

Well, ’m not so sure. You know the Mayflower was supposed to land somewhere in Virginia not Cape Cod. But never mind. It’s so great to see you, Mom! I love your cottage. I think I’ll park over there across the street.

Betsy should show up any minute now. She’s been here before so she won’t have any trouble finding us. This is going to be such a marvelous…oh, that’s my phone again. Betsy, Is that you?

Hi Mom, I know I’m right close to your cottage, but I don’t think I took the right Lake Village Drive road. Is it the one in the middle or the one on the left?

No, no dear, it’s the one on the right.

Yes, of course. You know, I think I made that same mistake before. Did Harold get there O.K.?

Oh my, yes. It was just like I told him, once you get to the Manor, you can just follow your nose.

—-A. Looney

November Library Display

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by Anne Newins

Manor Library volunteer Liz Caldwell recently compiled a list of the hundred most read books during the past year.  We thought the list might spur residents to see what others are reading and check them out themselves.  It became the inspiration for our November display.

Ellie Cannon, former Library volunteer

The books include an eclectic mixture of non-fiction, mysteries, thrillers and literary novels.  A complete list of authors is too long to include here, but they include best seller authors, as well as ones who may be less familiar.  One of my personal favorites Is Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet. The most read book so far this year is The Sentinel (Lee Child), closely followed by Anxious People (Fredrik Backman), All the Devils are Here (Louise Penny), and The Four Winds (Kristin Hannah).

Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: the origins of our discontents, was the most popular non-fiction book, followed by Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker.   I can’t resist mentioning a large print volume titled The Secret Life of Groceries, by Benjamin Lorr.

Finally, mention should be made of the most circulated RVM publication over time:  Vision With a View, by our own Faye Isaak.   This history of Rogue Valley Manor has been read by many library users as well as people who have purchased or been given their own personal copies.

Virtual Craft Fair

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Read more

What Goes Around, Comes Around

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Finishing a Novel during Covid Time

By Madge Walls

My novels have routinely taken six years to finish. Why? Working fulltime, many other distractions, and sheer laziness. Add in my favorite activity of reading other author’s novels, and you get the picture.

When Covid-19 hit in the spring of 2019 and Rogue Valley Manor closed down all group activities and began delivering all meals to our doors, we had to make peace with being basically shut-ins. How, then, to keep busy?

There in my computer lay my unfinished work, The Visiting Girl, inspired by the early life of movie star Katharine Hepburn’s mother, a suffragist who’d had to fight her guardian/uncle to attend Bryn Mawr College according to her late mother’s will and wishes.

I’d become bored with the novel after working on it for those six years. But when I went back to it, I realized I had unwittingly set the tale in 1900 through 1923 (reflecting the elder Kate’s young life), when my characters’ lives would have been impacted by the Spanish flu pandemic, The Great War, Prohibition, and the women’s suffrage movement.

As I dove deeper into my research, I saw more and more how our life today seems an echo of that era: our own Covid-19 pandemic; the wars of our adulthood—Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan; efforts to prohibit mask and vaccine mandates; and women’s rights that we are still fighting for. I was blown away by the similarities—do we never learn anything?

Guiding my characters (or having them guide me!) through their perilous times a century ago in Philadelphia and Portland led me to take a deeper look at our own dilemmas. The exercise was fascinating and opened my eyes to our recent history as never before (how bored I was with US History in high school!). Not only did I finish the novel, but I gained a whole new and evolving understanding of NOW.

Big thanks to Joanie Fotheringham for the perfect title of this essay: What Goes Around, Comes Around.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Editor’s Note: Copies of Madge’s new novel will be available at the Craft Fair on November 1 in the Auditorium.

2021 Craft Fair Coming

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You are invited

What: 2021 RVM Craft Fair

When: 1 November 2021Craft

Where: Manor Auditorium

When: 9:30 am to 2:30 pm

What: Fiber Arts (crocheting, knitting, quilting, sewing); Books, Glassware, Greeting Cards, Jewelry, Photography, Polished Stones, Miniatures, and Woodworking

Watch for the Virtual Fair on this site in mid-October.

See samples of crafts for sale in the Manor Auditorium display cabinet in mid-October.

Silent Auction in the Manor Lobby the last week of October.

No R.S.V.P. necessary

Turkey, Anyone?

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By Tom Conger and Connie Kent

The wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is a magnificent fowl—so much so that ol’ Ben Franklin favored it over the eagle as the US National Bird. But he didn’t prevail. Nevertheless, there are few Americans who do not recognize the turkey—if nothing else as the national entree come late November . . . And a tip of the hat to Swanson for introducing it as the main course of the original TV Dinner in 1954…!

Thus, since shortly after the Pilgrims suffered through their early years in the Plymouth colony, the turkey has been a reliable food staple, especially at holiday time, and seems to thrive in just about any type of climate across this favored land.

In southern Oregon it seems to flourish particularly well—to the point of becoming a nuisance to residents of RVM, who must acknowledge, evade, and/or sidestep rafts of our local birds, plus watch where they step once the feathered crowd has moved on. So, back in August a program was announced wherein many birds would be trapped and relocated somewhere far enough away that they would be unlikely to return to the Barneburg acreage.

This met with huzzahs in certain quarters and laments from others. But there really were/are a lotta turkeys amongst us this year. So the ol’ bait & box method commenced. Didn’t work. A new technique was adopted: in essence, the plan was to spread corn in selected areas, the birds would converge to eat the chow, and a net would be cast over them—all same the iconic Hawaiian throw-net fishermen of yore.

Didn’t hear much for a while, other than scuttlebutt that trapping had not met with crashing success. We sure didn’t notice any reduction in wandering gobblers. Then this report appeared on the RVMlist on 10/18: “Bugs Northwest, the trapping company, initially tried trap boxes which were unsuccessful. They now are using a net gun and have caught twelve so far. The golf course is allowing them to use the net gun at specific times as the turkeys like to congregate there and netting them is easier.”

One resident snidely suggested the herd might be thinned by Chef Eric serving wild turkey for holiday fare. So I checked out wild turkey recipes on the ‘net. Gameandfishmag.com has “Ten most popular wild turkey recipes.” Several suggest marinating the bird ahead of time. One suggests brining the turkey for an extra 12 hours for best results, the brine consisting of water, salt and brown sugar. But it didn’t specify ‘extra’ on top of what.

Basspro.com’s Steve Brodio enthuses, ““How about real turkey, the wild kind? It actually tastes like bird, not cardboard, and has juice that doesn’t come from chemical butter. Eat one, and you’ll never go back.”

However, in my experience w/the wild turkeys of Upcountry Maui and Lanai, I found that a culinary delicacy wild turkey is not—those suckers are tough as tires, and even the cleverest cooks haven’t really hit on a suitable way to tenderize the meat enough to render it palatable. Perhaps marinating for a fortnight in the eponymous 101-proof distillate might help, but ‘twould seem the simplest way to ingest Wild Turkey might be simply on the rocks . .

Book Review –  The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World

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  by Bonnie Tollefson

Book Review –  The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, Laura Imai Messina, The Overlook Press, 2021

A few months ago a fellow resident said to me with a subtle curl of the lip and a wrinkle to the nose, “Eww, you read series fiction.”  Yes I do.  I enjoy the continuing story of the characters and reading books that feel comfortable.  Sometimes the characters develop and occasionally the author does.  Series can be found in almost every genre of fiction, so it is not as tho I read only mysteries.  However, in recognition of her tastes, this quarter I went to the RVM library to find a book to review that was not part of a series or by an author known for series work, and I found a gem.  The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina is a novel set in Japan, written in Italian, translated into English.  The author is Italian, born and raised in Rome, who went to Japan to improve her Japanese.  Fifteen years later she still lives in Japan with a husband, two children and a job teaching Italian.

Yuri, a main character in the book, became the host of a call-in radio show in Tokyo after losing her mother and young daughter in the March 11, 2011 tsunami.  She hears one evening about a garden with a phone booth where one can talk to the dead.  The Wind Phone helps many people deal with the loss of loved ones.  This is a book about grief, a book about hope, and a book about love.  It can be a quick read or savored, but it contains something for everyone.  The author includes the information on research conducted on how many hugs are required in a day for survival, as well as acknowledging that the truth is “that love is a miracle.  Even the second time around, even when it comes to you by mistake.”  I won’t include a spoiler about what happens to Yuri, but since hope and love are components of the story you might guess. Near the end of the book “Yuri came to understand that there was always joy somewhere within unhappiness.”

The March 11 tsunami was an actual event just as the Bell Gradia garden and the Wind Phone are real.  In the author’s note Laura Imai Messina says “For me the Wind Phone is mainly this: a metaphor that suggests how precious it is to hold on tight to joy as well as pain. That even when we are confronted by the subtractions, the things that life takes from us, we have to open ourselves up to the many additions it can offer too.”  An important lesson for us all.

The book can be found at both the RVM library and the Jackson County Public Library.

October Library Display

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by Anne Newins

This month’s display will feature fiction and non-fiction books about actors.  Why are people interested in actors’ lives?  It seems to me that when young, one reason many people are curious about actors is because it gives them vicarious pleasure.  Most of us are not simultaneously rich, good-looking, and famous.

However, by the time actors have been in the business long enough to have biographies written about them, our interest in them may have changed because we have aged ourselves.  It is hard to believe that a seasoned actors  like Audrey Hepburn, Michael Caine, Robin Williams, or Ingrid Bergman would not have had challenges, some sort of artistic insight, or viewpoints different from our own as well as unusual life experiences.

Fictional work about actors gives an author tremendous leeway in terms of character development, usually skewing towards their flaws.  After all, who wants to read a novel about a boring, nine to five sort of person?  Suspense writers are drawn to actors, including popular authors like Jonathan Kellerman and Michael Connelly.

This month’s display also will include biographies about Michael J. Fox, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, novels by Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, Kristin Hannah, Stuart Woods, and many others.

The display table is located near the main entrance of the library.

 

NIT WIT NEWZ

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(Nit WIt Newz is an unauthorized, often unreliable, on-line news service designed to keep Manor residents abreast of the inconsequential, sometimes fanciful, and most always superficial events that dramatically shape and inform our everyday lives here at Rogue Valley Manor.)

Campus-Wide Newz Briefs

                             

 CUTTING GARDEN (FINAL) SOLUTION AT HAND

Last summer’s devastation of dahlias in Manor’s cutting garden by area squirrels flummox RVM Sub-Committee for Rodent Control.

As reported in July minutes of Resident’s Council meeting: traps, sprays, baits, and fencing prove ineffective. Wily, bushy-tailed rodents prove impervious to deterrents.

Future bleak for dahlia loving residents—until now!

Resolution of squirrel menace reportedly at hand,

Sub-Committee narrows options to two:

-Introduce smoking to squirrels. (Tobacco industry embraces this option. Offers to underwrite feasibility tests).

-Deny squirrels third booster shot. (Non-vaxxers favor this option).

Newly minted Squirrel World wisdom:

Acorns, yes.  Dahlias, no.

 

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MANOR MART MOVE QUELLS RESIDENT DISAPPOINTMENT

Small set of peevish residents express displeasure at new Manor retail outlet not offering maxi-sized Big Gulp or Slurpee drinks.

Nor, group learns, will Mart be stocking other popular convenience store staples—beef jerky and foot-long, red licorice ropes.

Longing for a time past, another Manor group anticipated Mart would include soda fountain, racks of movie magazines and comic books; health aids like hot water bottles, mustard plasters; and beauty supplies including snoods, face powder, and henna rinse products.

In seemingly unrelated matter, Manor Mart announces the addition of beer, wine, and small bottles of liquor to its shelves.

Discontent of fretting groups fades.

Marked increase in Mart foot-traffic expected.

 

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                                                          Is this safe?

THE BRIDGES OF ROGUE VALLEY MANOR

 

Anticipating passage of an infrastructure bill, federal government dispatches members of Army Corps of Engineers to inspect prospective in-need sites throughout country.

Rogue Valley Manor infrastructure included in questionable sites.

Both Manor bridges tabbed for safety inspection.

In day-long examination, engineers put bridge over eastside lake and bridge spanning small lagoon at Village Center Drive and Malama Way through series of rigorous stress tests.

Inspections reveal structural integrity of Manor bridges not compromised.

Report assures residents safe bridge crossings to “…high degree of certainty.”

In addition to walking, residents may cross bridges confidently when using their popular small vehicles—skateboards, e-scooters, motorcycles, et al.

Concluding their work here at RVM, the Corps of Engineers move south for inspections of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.   Before leaving, the safety-cautious engineers suggest to Manor management the posting of “NO DIVING” signs at both Manor bridge sites.

 

 

—A. Looney

RVM DVDs on Aging and Dying

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by Dave Guzzetta

Following the lead of the Book Library, the DVD Library has only a few documentaries about Aging and Dying, but a large collection of movies about Death, Dying & Grief.  

These movies range from several irreverent comedies to some very serious and touching movies.  

 

Documentaries About Aging & Dying

3530 How to Die in Oregon (NR, IMDb 8.3) In 1994 Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide.  How to Die in Oregon tell the stories of those most intimately involved with the practice today — terminally ill Oregonians, their families, doctors, and friends — as well as the passage of an assisted suicide law in Washington State. (HBO Documentary)

1401 Dying Wish (NR) Karen van Vuuren is a former television and radio news producer.  With the documentary Dying Wish, she has found a natural fusion of her journalistic talents and her knowledge of end-of-life issues. Karen has also worked in the field of elder care and for hospice. (29 minute Documentary)

1384 Alive Inside (NR, 8.2) Five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. A man discovers that songs embedded deep in memory can ease pain and awaken these fading minds. Joy and life are resuscitated, and our cultural fears over aging are confronted.  (Documentary)

Movies About Aging, Dying & Grief

3156 The Sixth Sense (PG-13, IMDb 8.1) A boy who communicates with the dead seeks the help of a disheartened child psychologist.

4557 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (PG-13, IMDb 7.7) Greg is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films with Earl, his only friend. But both his anonymity and friendship threaten to unravel when his mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia.

 

2103 Coco (PG, IMDb 8.4) Despite his family’s baffling generations-old ban on music, Miguel dreams of becoming a musician.  Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead following a mysterious chain of events. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Hector, and together, they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel’s family history. (Animated)

 

706   Young at Heart (PG, IMDb 7.9) Documents the true story of the final weeks of rehearsal for the Young at Heart Chorus in Northampton, MA, whose average age is 81, and many of whom must overcome health adversities to participate.  Their music goes against the stereotype of their age group. Although they have toured Europe and sang for royalty, this account focuses on preparing new songs for a concert in their home town.  (One of our favorite movies.  Watch the preview then the movie.)

 

3463 The Bucket List (PG-13, IMDb 7.4) Billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers are worlds apart. At a crossroads in their lives, they share a hospital room and discover they have two things in common: a desire to spend the time they have left doing everything they ever wanted to do and an unrealized need to come to terms with who they are. Together they embark on the road trip of a lifetime, becoming friends along the way and learning to live life to the fullest, with insight and humor.

 

3070 The Fault in our Stars (PG-13, IMDb 7.7) Hazel and Augustus are two teenagers who share an acerbic wit, a disdain for the conventional, and a love that sweeps them on a journey. Their relationship is all the more miraculous, given that Hazel’s other constant companion is an oxygen tank, Gus jokes about his prosthetic leg, and they meet and fall in love at a cancer support group.  (Based on a wonderful book by John Green)

4375 Beetlejuice (PG, IMDb 7.5) Thanks to an untimely demise via drowning, a young couple ends up as poltergeists in their New England farmhouse, where they fail to meet the challenge of scaring away the insufferable new owners. In desperation, the recently dead newlyweds turn to an expert frightmeister, but he’s got a diabolical agenda of his own.

3737 Manchester by the Sea (R, IMDb 7.8) After his older brother passes away; Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.

1059 P.S. I Love You (PG-13, IMDb 7.0) A young widow discovers that her late husband has left her 10 messages intended to help ease her pain and start a new life.

3838 Steel Magnolias (IMDb 7.3) This heart wrenching drama is about a beauty shop, in Louisiana owned by Truvy, and the tragedies of all of her clients.

4535 My Sister’s Keeper (PG-13, IMDb 7.4) Eleven your old Anna Fitzgerald seeks an attorney to earn medical emancipation from her mother who wants Anna to donate a kidney to her sister.  When her older sister had leukemia Anna was conceived to become a bone marrow donor.  She now realizes if her sister had not been sick, she would never have been born.

3686 The Things We Lost in the Fire (R, IMDb 7.2) A recent widow invites her husband’s troubled best friend to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his life around, he helps the family cope and confront their loss.

2731 Death at a Funeral (R, IMDb 7.4) A myriad of outrageous calamities befall an eccentric English clan with more than a few skeletons in its closets, when its patriarch dies an unexpected death. Soon, every complication imaginable befalls the grief-stricken mourners.

2  What Dreams May Come (PG-13, IMDb 7.1) Chris Neilson dies to find himself in a heaven more amazing than he could have ever dreamed of. There is one thing missing: his wife. After he dies, his wife, Annie killed herself and went to hell. Chris decides to risk eternity in hades for the small chance that he will be able to bring her back to heaven.