by Eleanor Lippman

Two things governed the decisions my family made: financial issues and lack of imagination.

The Atlantic City boardwalk taken during a visit when I was an adult

So, when it came to family vacations, the only out of town location my family ever considered was Atlantic City, New Jersey, or as we in Philadelphia called it, “Down the shore”.

Financials determined whether we even saw Atlantic City during the summer or whether we were lucky enough to actually vacation there and how long we stayed.

To prepare for an actual down the shore vacation, my father would empty out his delivery truck, moving its contents to the basement of our house, and we would pile into the truck sitting on suitcases and holding on to beach paraphernalia and other much needed supplies, three and eventually four children, two adults, everything needed for our stay. After unloading and settling us in at our temporary lodging, my dad would return to Philadelphia to work. If our stay included a full weekend or two, he would arrive in his delivery truck on Saturday after his morning run and on Sunday afternoon, he would return to our empty house in Philadelphia. He’d spend his two half days bravely sitting on the beach with us under an umbrella with several bath towels covering his legs completely. You see, my father, with his corn flower blue eyes, had skin the color of milk, skin that was so sensitive to the sun, any exposure would lead to misery. With one exception. My father drove his delivery truck with the driver’s side window down and his left arm resting half outside and half inside ready to manually signal his turn direction. By the end of summer, the skin on his left arm was nut brown from his finger tips to where his sleeve ended with a white band of protected skin under his wrist watch. That arm never feared the rays of the sun. His right arm was always milky white.

My parents on the beach. Notice my dad’s very tanned left arm. I cannot tell from this photo whether he still had his bushy mustache.

During one of our summer vacations, when we rented a beach house for two or three weeks, my father showed up on weekends as was his usual practice and on the final daywith his truck emptied out, he was ready to haul us and our gear back to Philadelphia.

When he arrived to take us home, he had a big surprise, but we had to guess what it was. No clues other than “something new”. All during the packing and loading the truck we pestered him with guesses. All during the ride home there were more, millions of ideas of ‘what was new’. We’d yell out a new guess and hear him laugh and watch him shake his head no.

We reached home, wife and four children, and still had not guessed what was new. After unloading our things and reloading the truck with my dad’s merchandise and still flinging guesses at him, my mother called us into the kitchen for dinner. I was probably about eight years old at the time and I remember my very last idea for what was new. As I stood in the doorway to the kitchen, I was certain the answer was sitting on the shelf across the room: “a new toaster”. Who knows what prompted that thought, but it was the best I could do.

I’ll never forget his big reveal. As his four children gathered around him, he was ready to tell.

The answer: he had shaved off his bushy mustache.

To this day, I still don’t know if my mother had guessed correctly.

by Bob Buddemeier

[Material in italics are editorial comments inserted into the report.]

On Nov 14, RVM resident Steve Harris interviewed Alan Journet and Kathy Conway, founders and Board members of SOCAN (Southern Oregon Climate Action Network, https://socan.eco). This presentation to an RVM audience was part of the “Discussions With…” program series organized by Father Joel, Steve Harris and Laura Monczynski. The series is intended to promote educational engagement with community leaders to bring attention to the controversial issues that are drawing attention in our community. Topics so far have included issues related to homelessness, marijuana, and climate change, with additional sessions planned for the future.

This article is therefore a serendipitous companion piece to the “Green goes to Portland…” article, which describes an RVM Green Team trip to a meeting to build connections with a consortium of Green Teams from six Portland-area CCRCs, all focused on Climate Resilience.  The events were independent, but both oriented to the same issues (Climate Change) in similar settings (CCRCs in Oregon).

In response to Steve’s opening question, Alan outlined his progression from college biology and ecology teacher to community climate organizer. In the process, he raised the point that the science of climate change is diverse and complex. Alan said that he had spent a long time studying the various subjects (e.g. marine and atmospheric sciences, geology, biogeochemistry, etc.), had decided that the science was credible, and that his responsibility was to educate people beyond the college classroom.

Later in the program he returned to the question of the multiple disciplines involved in Climate Change science. Alan remarked that there are many different kinds of evidence for climate change, and all point the same conclusion — that humans have been affecting the carbon cycle and the chemical composition of the atmosphere at least since the industrial revolution.

Steve initiated discussion of the effects of climate change with his personal observation that the number of “hot spell” days (>100^oF) had increased. Alan answered that he had worked with data from the local NOAA office, and found that over the past 20 years the average annual number of 100^o days had increased from 7 to 12, although the annual count is variable, with some years >20. He said that the trend is upward, and will remain so, and he wished that temperature variations were reported relative to the past trend rather than the past average.

Turning to the relationship between severe weather and climate, Alan observed  that elevated temperatures provided the energy that fueled the rapid formation of high-intensity hurricanes, the increased atmospheric moisture that created floods, and the severe droughts that set the stage for wildfires. As long as warming trends persist, we can expect that the frequency and intensity of extreme events will continue to increase.

In response to Steve’s question about a scientific consensus that we are headed for 2.1^oC, Alan replied that we need to hold the global temperature increase to 1.5^oC (2.7^oF) to limit damage, but we are clearly headed for much higher values, and for ecosystem destruction. He interjected that in the early days of climate projection, the scenario of fastest temperature increase was called the Worst Case, but after it was recognized that this was actually the path that temperature increase was following, it was renamed the Business As Usual (BAU) scenario.

Discussion turned to convincing people that carbon budget accounting needed to be done.  Alan said that “money in – money out” was no longer the only accounting that needed to be done; “carbon in — carbon out” is also a critical balance to assess for business, industrial and agricultural activities.

Dealing with climate deniers or disbelievers received a good deal of attention.  Alan cited the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication as having found that the most effective persuasion is by friends and relatives – but these people are relatively unlikely to talk about climate change.  Finding some kind of common ground is important for discussion – perhaps a desire to leave a habitable planet for our children.

Alan related some tragicomic anecdotes about attempts to inform recalcitrant deniers, ending with a brief story about James Inhof (former OK senator), who thought the climate change hypothesis was correct on first reading of the scientific basis, but changed his mind after discovering how expensive it was going to be to cope with it. Alan also told of being asked if climate change was just a natural process, to which he had replied “I hope not; if humans caused it, they may be able to control it.”

[Comments: (1)  The emphasis on dealing with denial in the RVM presentation stands in contrast to the experience at the Portland meeting.  In my Portland breakout group I asked how the other Green Teams dealt with opposition to climate related action, and it turned out that nobody else considered it an issue—their institutions were accepting/supportive of the activities.  (2)  The question of cost vs climate seems to me a major issue; as climate change has become better understood and documented, opposition to action is more often based on expense or uncertainty than on claimed inadequacies in the science.]

The question of what individuals can do, now and in the future, was addressed by Kathy Conway.  In addition to monitoring lifestyle and purchases to minimize transportation costs, plastic usage, and environmentally exploitive products, she stressed the central role of beef as a particularly climate-unfriendly food product because it is a major source of methane (a powerful greenhouse gas) from the ruminant digestive processes. Reducing beef consumption is a practical and economical option available to most meat-eaters.

[Closing observations:

Marketing: one lesson that can be inferred from the success of the ongoing broad and well supported actions of the Portland Consortium is that the climate-related environmental commitment represents an opportunity to do well by doing good – that the presence of these activities is a positive marketing factor, potentially attracting not those who agree, but also those who are generally inclined toward community service.

Extended Community building: Our experience in Portland was that the Consortium members were reaching out to establish links both with other retirement communities and with like-minded community organizations.  RVM is at a different stage in the processes, but the Discussion presentations represent encouragement for outreach and cooperation, and the Green Team’s growing connection with the Climate Resilience theme of the Consortium sets the stage for further outreach and collaboration.]

by Connie Kent

We have indefinite and definite articles. Generally, we use an indefinite article (a, an) to refer to any old whatever it is (a dog, a pillow, an octopus).  We use the definite article (the or that) to refer to a specific whatever. For example, “The dog bit me” (the one right over there); the pillow (the one I use every night); that octopus (the one you can hardly see because it blends in with its background).

Idiomatic Use

But some uses don’t follow the general rules. These exceptions are idiomatic; that is, there’s no explanation. That’s just how we speak. You may not even be aware of these irregularities.

None. We don’t use articles at all before some nouns. For example, names of sports, such as football. For example, “He played football in high school,” unless we’re referring to a specific game, such as the football game last night. No articles before proper nouns, such as the names of businesses (such as Amazon). And we don’t use articles before names of courses, such as chemistry or economics or English – again, unless we refer to a particular class. For example, I don’t like English. But I do like the English class taught by Ms. Kent.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. You go to bed, to school, to bed, to sleep. But you go to the library. If you’re American, you go to the hospital. (If you’re British or Canadian, you go to hospital – no article). Back in the U.S., you go to the police station, to the hardware store, or to the grocery store. If you intend to point to a particular grocery store, however, it’s the Albertson’s on North Phoenix Road (as opposed to the one off West Main).

Some curiosities. One tells a lie, but the truth.

We might travel to Canada or Mexico, but we go to the Netherlands, or to the Philippines.

We might climb Mt. McLoughlin (or, for the less ambitious, Roxy Ann Peak). But we climb the Matterhorn, the Eiger.

By Bob Buddemeier and Anne Newins

And indeed, the show has gone on – under the leadership of Mary Jane Morrison, the Program Committee has put on more than 60 performances in both of the last two years. Programs must be scheduled many months in advance due to the popularity of our performers. The programs are constrained by the budget provided by the Residents Council.  The programs occur almost every Thursday evening, on some Tuesdays, and occasionally on holidays or special events. Over the past 6 months, attendance has averaged about 75 people per evening, and sometimes exceeds 100 for some events.

Although pleased with this level of success, the Committee would like to diversify and expand the offerings and further increase attendance. In order to guide further developments, a survey of residents was recently conducted.

A total of 592 survey sheets were distributed, one to each Independent Living mailbox. Returns totaled 207, or about 35% — a very good response for a survey. Recipients were asked whether the response represented one or two people; the total number of people sampled was 284, or about a third of the Independent Living residents.

The strong response indicates a high level of interest, and the replies will provide a basis for program modifications once they have been analyzed and discussed by the Committee.  Since many of the suggestions and requests go beyond the normal operations of the Program Committee or may not be possible in the auditorium, the results have been shared with the Community Engagement Department.

Although detailed review of the results has just begun, several points stand out about why people do not attend the programs. One of the major reasons was that many people do not want to go out in the evening after a busy day. However, transportation issues were also significant, with parking problems and mobility limitations frequently noted.

In the communication section, nearly a quarter of the respondents did not indicate any internet or computer-based means of learning about the programs; this issue will be explored to see if there are other ways that residents can be informed about upcoming programs.  However, one update that is being implemented immediately is establishment of an email list of people who want to receive personal notices and reminders.  If you did not request this on the survey form, you can join the list by sending a message that says Program List to openinforvm@gmail.com .

Finally, a finding that is at once encouraging and challenging – types of programs preferred. The figure below summarizes the response. People were free to select as many as they wished, and the average per person was more than two types.

The diversity of responses validates the Committee’s practice of scheduling a variety of programming but complicates decisions about overall program modifications.

One of the surprises was the number of people expressing an interest in lectures – a program type that has not been featured very often. The Committee will consider ways of adding more lectures in the future. Most people did not indicate what subjects they wanted for lectures, so it seems likely that a wide variety would be needed.

Overall, it seems that the Program Committee is successful enough to make major improvements a challenge – which is not that bad a problem to have. Review and planning have just begun – stand by for further developments.