Shepherd's Center of Charlotte

As we get older, we realize there are some things worth worrying about and some that are not. We do our best to prepare for when we become ill or injured and hope that our preparations are enough if something were to happen.

As many of you know, I was born and raised in southern Vermont. Thankfully, my family there are all fine, but it breaks my heart to see the devastation from the flooding brought on by Hurricane Irene. Vermont is land-locked and I believe it surprised everyone who lives there that this hurricane did so much damage. Hurricane Irene is to Vermont as Hurricane Hugo was to North Carolina in 1989.

Sunday was a long day for me. I knew the hurricane was over my home state, but I couldn’t get in touch with any of my family. The phone lines and electricity were down and even the national news crews were not able to get to the Green Mountain towns affected by the storm. I finally got through to my brother Sunday afternoon and learned that things were pretty bad there. Ironically, he was getting information from his step-daughter who lives in Florida. She was tapping into information on Facebook! He assured me that our 86 year old parents were OK, but I was still concerned about them and wanted to hear their voices for myself. I had to wait until Monday morning to finally talk to them. They were fine and had suffered no apparent injuries or damage to hearth and home.

But the news was not so good for the area itself. The torrential rain brought about extensive flooding and actually swept away at least four of the iconic covered bridges that pepper the landscape of Southern Vermont. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that people all along the coast lost their lives as a result of this storm and my heart goes out to their families, but I can’t help but mourn the disappearance of the covered bridges. Many of the covered bridges have stood the test of time for over 100 years. They have weathered rain, sleet, snow and nor’easters year after year and have maintained their strength and perseverance, much like the people who live in Vermont. They have embodied the will to carry on in the face of adversity.

I found a video on YouTube that I’d like to share with you. Please click here! As this forlorn covered bridge sits isolated atop the river that it has hovered over for so many years, it sends a message to the people of Vermont and the people of our nation. It sends a message of strength and hope. Vermonters will not let this storm get them down. They will rebound and rebuild and will share their stories of the great flood with their families, neighbors and friends on the long, cold, dark evenings of winter.

I’ve seen seniors who have that kind of strength. They have fought illness, financial difficulties, loss of loved ones and they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, embrace life and live it to its fullest. These are the seniors who embody The Shepherd’s Center of Charlotte and make it the great organization that it is today. These are seniors who are the backbone of our community and who lead by example. These are seniors that I am happy to consider my friends.

Until next time….

Linda R. Pellerin, Executive Director

I was on my commute from Gastonia to Charlotte this morning listening to Big Band music that I had in the car as the result of our Chef Wars event on July 19.  I brought the music to the event because I thought it would make good background music and I think it really set the tone for the morning. Big Band music is crisp and clean and brings you back to a simpler time and place. There is no reverb or rapping and the melodies are soothing.

I was born in 1949 and as a youngster I was proud to have been born in that decade. As I got older I wished my parents had waited a year, since being born in the 40’s just sounded like I was older than I was. And, it was cooler to have been born in the 50’s. 

Growing up, Mom always liked to have Big Band music on when she was cleaning the house on Saturday mornings. Since I always helped, I was exposed to it at an early age and never really lost my attraction to it.  The clear tones of Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby still have special meaning to me. 

I’m not sure life was really all that simple back then, but it seemed like it was to my childhood mind. When I had to go to the doctor, if my parents couldn’t pay the bill, they would work out a payment plan. Some of my poorer relatives paid with homemade cakes and a dozen eggs from the farm. Medical insurance was something the rich folks had. Later the company my Mom worked for offered health insurance and that was a big help.  I also remember my parents telling us that they didn’t need to worry about retirement because Social Security was going to take care of them.  Well, we all know how that worked out.

So I sat in traffic this morning wondering where it all went wrong. Let’s take Medicare for example. Do any of us really understand how it works? I mean how it really works? The government had to establish the Seniors’ Health Insurance Information Program (SHIIP) to have counselors explain it all to seniors. As a SHIIP counseling site, The Shepherd’s Center of Charlotte SHIIP volunteers spend time each week individually counseling seniors on their Medicare options. And just when the counselors have a good handle on the options, Medicare officials or the insurance companies change things. That’s why there is an open enrollment period each year. This is when seniors can take a look at their current supplemental plan and change providers if the current plan is too expensive. Supplemental insurance is needed in most cases because Medicare can’t cover all the costs associated with keeping seniors healthy.  Medical breakthroughs keep seniors living longer and that puts a strain on Medicare benefits. This year open enrollment begins on Saturday, October 1 and ends on Wednesday, December 7.  Please call early to make your appointments, 704.365.1995.

And, when did it become acceptable to pay athletes millions of dollars while children are still starving in our country? Now that the NFL owners and players have come to an agreement, I’m astounded by the amount of money being promised to the players. And it’s not just football. Look at the contracts for baseball, basketball & hockey players! There are billions of dollars being spent on athletes. Our government can’t seem to balance a budget and has to raise the debt ceiling and yet athletes are making billions of dollars. I understand this is a result of free enterprise, but it just doesn’t make sense to me.

In addition, when did it become acceptable for politicians to use seniors and their Social Security checks as pawns in a political battle over the debt ceiling? When did it become acceptable to use the income of our military men, women and their families as tools to embarrass politicians to do the right thing? Our politicians should be ashamed of themselves. And we should be ready to use our freedom of speech and our right to vote to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.

I spent a lot of time covering politics when I was a journalist in the 80’s and the major thing I learned is that politics as a whole is a game of tactics and strategy. Those that are good at tactics and strategy are successful politicians. If you were to look up the professions of most of our current politicians, I believe you would find that they are attorneys. And I’m sure we tend to elect attorneys because somewhere in the back of our minds, we believe they have a good grasp of the law and more attorneys tend to run for office. Since being a politician involves the changing and implementation of the law, it would make sense for politicians to be attorneys.

I wonder what would happen if more CPA’s were elected to office? They have a good understanding of how money should flow, balancing budgets, profit & loss, balance sheets, etc. CPA’s would find a way to reduce our multi-trillion dollar deficit. They wouldn’t care how everyone else felt about it. They would just get it done. They would make lawmakers accountable for special interests and the bottom line would be King. They wouldn’t play politics because they don’t know how.

If any CPA’s are reading this, please consider running for office. You’ll get my vote!

The views and opinions of the above are solely those of Linda R. Pellerin, Executive Director of The Shepherd’s Center of Charlotte. They are not the views and opinions of the Board of Directors or anyone else connected to The Shepherd’s Center of Charlotte.

Now that all of The Shepherd’s Center’s summer programs have been set and the newsletter is at the printer, it’s time for me to focus on my upcoming vacation in July.

I bring this up because this year our vacation is wrapped around my husband’s 50th High School Reunion. This will be the first one he’s attended. At first I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but since it’s not my reunion, I may actually enjoy this one. And here’s why.

My husband and I went to different schools at different times. He’s a bit older than me and when he began high school, I was in second grade. So I don’t know any of these people and they don’t know me. They don’t know about my high school years. My Beatle haircut when I was a freshman (long live John, Paul, George and Ringo), my shyness (I grew out of that by my sophomore year), my complexion (where was ProActive in the 60’s?), the dorky guys I dated (apparently like does attract like) and my wonderfully stylish clothes (it’s really hard to find something to fit a 5’2” 90 pound frame). Ahh, the memories!

Reunions force us to assess our lives using the standards and expectations that were in place when we graduated. Did the valedictorian really go on to become a nuclear physicist or did she drop out of college in her second year due to an unplanned pregnancy? Did the captain of the football team go on to play at college and then the pros? Did we do what we set out to do those many years ago? And usually reunions don’t see those of us who come up short. That’s because it takes a lot of stamina to repeat your failings 40 different times to 40 different people. And then have them say, “You had the most promise of all of us back then.” Even for those of us who are even mildly successful, the stress of trying to impress can leave you depressed by evenings end.

Usually the students who did excel after high school were the ones no one noticed. These are the ones who quietly got through the days with as little interaction or disruption as possible. They went on to college and bloomed into geniuses who developed Apple Computer, Microsoft and Facebook. We usually don’t see them at reunions either.

Reunions should be a time to rekindle old friendships and make new friends, but usually our minds take us right back to high school and we revert to our old selves. We gravitate toward the people we knew then and we tend to stay away from those who did not fit into our comfort zones. We pass judgment on those whose decisions took them down the wrong paths. We don’t look at them as human beings, but rather as fellow classmates with all the baggage that that encompasses.

So what is there to talk about at a 50 year high school reunion? Can any of us remember those days of long ago? Or can we finally strip away all the preconceived notions and actually get to know one another at a deeper level? Or is the evening spent discussing all of our health issues? There’s a fun topic.

In this season of high school graduations, we can only pass on our wisdom to the young, even though they won’t listen. They feel like they have all the answers and in reality they don’t even know all the questions yet. But they will learn and we have to let them make their own way in their own time. And in 50 years they’ll be debating on whether to go to their reunion. They’ll be assessing their lives and in some instances coming up short. And the cycle continues, as it always has and always will.

Until next time….

Linda R. Pellerin,

Executive Director

This past weekend, my husband and I were watching Mary Poppins. Yes, Mary Poppins! He had been surfing the channels and he landed on the movie and before we knew it, we were sucked into the storyline (again). The reason I bring this up is because Mary visits the Banks family “until the wind changes.” Then, she’s on her way again without even a good-bye. Leaving behind a family that was once fragmented by parents caught up in their own lives, but made whole again once they saw their children through the eyes of Mary, the “almost perfect in every way” Nanny.

Well, the wind has changed here at The Shepherd’s Center and Karen Eckert, our Program Director and our own Mary Poppins will be leaving us at the end of May. She’ll be moving with her family to the Raleigh area this summer and I’m sure there will be all sorts of exciting things in the future for her. But we’ll be losing a shining star and one heck of a Nanny.

Karen has been with The Shepherd’s Center for over five years. She was here when I took over as Executive Director and she painstakingly taught me all I know about Adventures in Learning, Seniors’ Health Insurance Information Program and the Tax Assistance Program. Karen has been a great asset to The Shepherd’s Center and the seniors involved with our programs and services. She is one of the few people I know that is able to view a situation from all sides. There have been times in the office when we’ve all had to discuss difficult situations and try to come up with solutions. Karen has always been the one to bring up something out of left field that we had not even thought about considering. We will miss that. And who will be there to bring these things up in the future?

Karen is always considerate of how people are going to view a program, class, or service. She wants to make sure feelings are not hurt and slights are not made toward anyone. It takes a special person to do that and be confident enough to voice her concerns when necessary.

I admire Karen Eckert for her convictions, her determination, compassion, dependability and dedication. She has made many friends at The Shepherd’s Center and she is going to be greatly missed.

But, I don’t want you to worry about us floundering around in a wake of indecision after she leaves. We’ve been fortunate to have been able to hire someone who may not be able to replace Karen in the same capacity, but who will make her own mark at The Shepherd’s Center. Amber Finley has been serving as our intern from Winston-Salem State University this semester and many of you have already met her. As an intern she has become familiar with our programs and services and will be ready to sit in Karen’s chair when the time comes. Amber will be graduating on Sunday, May 15 and will be in the office ready to work by Monday, May 23. What? You thought we wouldn’t give her a week or two of downtime?

For those of you who have already met Amber, you know that she will take good care of Karen’s legacy. She may even start to forge a legacy of her own. And, I don’t doubt at some point she’ll be eyeing my chair – and that’s how it should be. After all, its nature’s way to keep the wind changing.

Until next time….

Linda R. Pellerin
Executive Director

I awoke on that Friday morning to the news that there had been an 8.9 earthquake in Japan, followed by a Tsunami. I know we’ve all been watching the news about this disaster since then, but when I was looking at the early reports and video of the areas that were being overrun by the tsunami, it struck me that the effects of this natural disaster would be far-reaching and a global event.

When we’re caught up in our own lives, it’s hard to imagine that our everyday actions can also be far-reaching and global events. A harsh word to a loved one when you’re having a bad day can get blown out of proportion very quickly. Like ripples on the water, a seemingly innocent action at the time, can resurface many years later. On the other hand, a kind word can mean the difference between life and death sometimes to someone who is going through a tough time.

I’m a touchy-feely type person and when I’m around the seniors involved in our programs and services, I like to lay a hand on their back or shoulder sometimes when I’m talking to them. Once when I did that, the woman I was talking to told me how nice it felt to be touched by someone. She lived alone and she shared with me that no one ever touched her. Something as simple as reaching out to someone else can be very meaningful to them. It doesn’t cost anything except a moment of your time and it can make their day a little brighter.

Three years ago I fractured my ankle after a fall. I can’t tell you now much I appreciated it when someone would hold the door open for me as I struggled with crutches, my purse, etc. I would get a lump in my throat every time. My brief infirmity gave me a new appreciation for those of us who cannot move as freely as they once could. And I never forget that. I am always quick to lend a hand where needed whenever I can.

The simple act of holding a door for someone is like ripples spreading on the water. That person who is helped may help someone else in their own way, thanks to your kindness. And then that person helps someone and so on. A kind word or a touch of the hand can be very meaningful to those who have no one to speak kind words to them or touch them in a loving way. They may in turn speak kindly to another, and another. Again, ripples spreading on the water.

We may never know how far our kindness may travel. There have been times in my life when I’ve been touched by the kindness of others. It’s these times that have shaped my character and helped me to lead my life with compassion and concern for others.

Until next time…
Linda Pellerin, Executive Director

Well, Spring is upon us more or less and that’s when we at The Shepherd’s Center turn our thoughts to Homecoming and our annual Raffle. Homecoming will be held on Wednesday, April 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Pritchard Memorial Baptist Church at 1117 South Blvd. in the Fellowship Hall. We will have a BBQ lunch sponsored by NCBT Bank, the crowning of the 2010 Silver Volunteer of the Year and our raffle drawing.

Many of you have already received your Spring Senior Solutions Newsletter in the mail or via e-mail. You will notice if you received it by mail that on the outside there is some text that has been blocked out. You’ll also notice there are no raffle tickets included this year.

Here’s what happened. Apparently it is against federal law to mail raffle tickets! Who knew? We certainly didn’t and we’ve been mailing them for years. But someone at the Postal Service noticed the little teaser on the bottom of the newsletter telling everyone that raffle tickets were inside. They refused to mail the newsletter and sent it back to our mailing house, where all the raffle tickets had to be removed and the outside had to be blocked out. Luckily for me, this was discovered before the mailing went out because I’ve been told I would be in federal prison right now if it hadn’t.

So this has left us in a quandary. How do we get the raffle tickets out to everyone? We can get about 400 of them out to area churches via the newsletters that are delivered by hand by volunteers. And, there will be a link on our Web site for anyone who wishes to download the tickets that way. The link is www.shepherdscharlotte.org./Raffle_Tickets.pdf. If you would like to stop by The Shepherd’s Center office and pick up some of the raffle tickets to distribute to your family and friends, it would be greatly appreciated. This is one of our fundraisers for the year and since the economy is not as stable as it used to be, we need all the support we can get. Our full newsletter is also posted on our Web site, www.shepherdscharlotte.org and click on “newsletter.”

I’d also like to put in a plug for our trip to Raleigh that is coming up on April 6 & 7. This two-day getaway will explore some of the beauty and culture our state has to offer. You’ll visit Duke Chapel with the legendary Flentrop organ and the magnificent Duke Gardens, often spoken of as the “Crown Jewel of Duke University.” You’ll also be “students for a day” as you dine in Duke’s First green café specializing in local farm and garden products. After a busy day and a fabulous dinner among friends, you’ll rest comfortably at the Best Western Cary Inn. On the following day, you’ll be off to the Executive Mansion, home of our 28th Governor, Beverly Purdue. This stately home remains one of the state’s finest examples of the Queen Anne style of Victorian architecture. Next it’s on to the spectacular new addition to the NC Museum of Art. You’ll dine in the Iris Café with its floor-to-ceiling windows which bring the outdoor courtyard and gardens right into the distinctly modern setting. Now you’ll be ready for a docent-led tour of the permanent collections. This trip includes everything except lunch at Duke University. The bus departs on Wednesday, April 6 at 8:30 a.m. and returns around 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. Your vehicles will be parked safely in the Trinity Presbyterian parking lot in front of the church. The cost for this trip is $210 for a double and $245 for a single. This will probably be the only overnight trip we’ll be offering this year. There is still space available. You don’t want to miss your chance. We’ll need your reservation and check before Tuesday, March 15th. 

Our Travel Committee spends a lot of time researching these trips. Please show your appreciation by planning on taking one or more of the many trips planned throughout the year. For a full compliment of our trips through August, click here.

I hope and pray that we’ve gotten things straightened out with the Postal Service and that the feds don’t come looking for me. If they do, keep in mind that I like comfort food and historical romance novels. Luckily for me we have an attorney on our Board of Directors.

Until next time…

Linda Pellerin, Executive Director

Today I sat in on the last class of “Letters to my Grandchildren” taught by Dorothy Trotter at Adventures in Learning. This was a class to help seniors gather their thoughts and beliefs about their faith journey so they could put them in writing to pass down to their children and grandchildren. Since I was just auditing the class and I happened to have chosen the one class where they were doing a lot of writing, I had time to think about what I would write to my children and grandchildren, given the chance.

I agree that writing about our faith journey is important and something we might want to pass on to our loved ones, but I would take it a step further and include what we’ve learned in life, our childhood memories, things that made us sad, things that made us happy. We could do it in letter form, but maybe even a journal that could be copied and given to each of them.

When you were growing up and complaining about waiting for the school bus in the snow, how many times did you have to listen to your parents tell how they had to walk to school five miles, in a blizzard with no boots, hat or gloves? When you complained because you only had two TV stations, how many times did you have to listen to your parents describe what it was like to have no TV and only one radio that everyone gathered around for the nightly shows? When you complained about oatmeal again for breakfast, how many of you had to listen to your parents tell how they didn’t get a hot breakfast, only stale, dry biscuits if they were lucky? My parents’ stories were mostly true and if they thought that sharing them with me was going to make me appreciate what I had, they were wrong. My brother and I would just roll our eyes and stomp off, muttering under our breath. It’s only now that I appreciate what they experienced and how much they’ve overcome in their lifetime. It would have been nice to have had it all written down for me instead of my having to rely on my memory.

What happened to the stories? What happened to the car rides where our parents would tell us what it was like to grow up in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s? And what about our grandparents? I didn’t want to hear their stories when I was young. Now I would give almost anything to be able to sit with them and ask questions about their lives growing up. My grandfather was a boy from 1910-1920. He did write down some of his memories and we all treasure them, in spite of the fact that he wrote them on an old typewriter with no punctuation; just one, very, very long sentence. At least we have his memories.

Now I find myself regaling my children and grandchildren with stories of my youth. How we didn’t have a remote for the TV and had to get up all the time to change the channel. How we didn’t have iPods, where we could listen to music whenever we wanted. That we only had little transistor radios that only played AM stations, with no hear buds. How we played records, not CD’s. How cell phones and texting didn’t exist and we had to either use the phone at home or use a pay phone to make calls. My grandchildren don’t even know what a pay phone is. During my last visit in December, I was telling my grandsons how we didn’t have computers or the Internet. They both looked at me like I was from another planet.

Instead of having them read about how things were in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s in history books – why not write out our experiences for them. This would give them a personal look at how we lived “in the olden days.” And, it may inspire them to do the same when they are our age.

And what about our “words of wisdom” we can share with them? I don’t know about you, but I’ve learned a lot about people, the business world, life and death and taxes. Well, maybe not taxes, but that’s another story. They may not be ready to hear this now, but there will come a day when they will sit down and read what we’ve written and take it to heart. That can be part of our legacy to them. The words of wisdom my parents never wrote down for me. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by. Share with them why you feel the way you do about baseball, foreign cars, fishing on a Sunday afternoon, playing golf with your buddies, playing cards with your friends, working out, ice cream, Grandma’s apple pie, movies in 3-D, foreign policy, politics, the economy and anything else that comes to mind. They’ll eventually be glad you did.

Until next time…

Linda R. Pellerin

When I was little, I like to sing!  That’s probably an understatement.  By the time I was three, I had memorized songs from the radio and was singing them all the time.  I would sing in the car while going to visit relatives.  I would sing in the tub at night and I would sing while playing with my dolls on the front porch.  I would sing at wedding receptions.  Just picture a little five-year-old standing in front of all those people and singing until they made me stop. 

My Uncle Dan is about 15 years older than me and he would take us kids along in the cab of the truck when he made his milk runs during the summer.  He would look at me with a grin on his face and say, “You sure are cute and I bet you can sing!”  That would be all I needed.  I would belt out my latest song for him, much to the aggravation of my brother who had to listen to me all the time.

Then one evening when I was about 13 I was singing with my Mom while we were doing the dishes.  Yes, no dishwasher in our house!  And when I went to hit a high note, my voice cracked.  I tried again!  It cracked again!  What was going on?  Apparently my voice was changing.  From that moment on, I could no longer carry a tune.  I was devastated.  I loved singing and now I couldn’t do it.  There would be no lead singing in a rock band.  No touring with the Monkees.

I eventually learned to keep quiet when people asked me to sing to avoid embarrassment, but I don’t think I ever got over the disappointment.  But I kept my love of music, records, and the radio.  It would be years later that I learned to appreciate my voice again. 

My husband and two daughters had moved away from Vermont to the Knoxville, TN area.  I wanted to go back to school and decided it would be fun to work in radio, so I signed up to attend a broadcasting school.  It was then that I learned I had a “voice for radio.”  I worked in radio for 11 years and just about every job I got was because of my voice and not necessarily my ability.  I had journalism awards from the Associated Press, United Press International and the Radio & Television News Directors Association, but ultimately I would get hired because of the way I sounded “on the air.”

I believe losing my singing voice was Divine Intervention.  My broadcasting career was great!  I met U.S. Presidents, U.S. & State politicians, movie stars, entertainers, and victims of crimes, murderers, and more.  Everyday was an adventure.  As a journalist, I covered murder trials, robberies, traffic accidents, board meetings, city & county government and state government.  That broadcasting career led me to public relations and eventually The Shepherd’s Center.  Where would I have gone with the singing?  Back then there was no “American Idol.”  It was definitely the right path for me, but at the time it was a devastating disappointment.

As we get older, we face disappointment all the time.  Our joints don’t work the way they used to.  Our senses become dulled.  We can’t see as well as we could when we were younger, can’t hear as well, can’t taste as well.  My husband retired early and spends a great deal of time on the golf course.  He’s a scratch golfer and he gets frustrated when he’s on a team with someone who doesn’t play well.  I keep telling him that one day that will be him and he needs to have some compassion.  Not all golfers are playing to win like he is.  They are just grateful to be able to get on the golf course and swing a club. 

He forgets that some of these guys used to be scratch golfers too, but their bodies won’t let them play that well anymore.  They’ve had to face disappointment in that, but they’ve decided that golf is something they love and they will play as long as they can stand upright and someone will have them on their team. 

When we face an obstacle due to our health or age, we have to re-evaluate and look for the silver lining.  Maybe if you can’t play golf anymore, it’s because you need to spend more time with your grandchildren doing something they like to do.  Maybe if you can’t dance anymore, you need to learn how to play Bridge.  Maybe if you can’t run a marathon anymore, you need to train others who can.  We are lucky in that we have the Internet to meet new people and explore new things.  Sometimes you just have to step back and let things happen.  The right path usually presents itself eventually.

There have been other disappointments in my life, but losing my singing voice was my first.  It taught me to be flexible and that tomorrow is another day with wondrous possibilities.   

Until next time…

Linda R. Pellerin

My cell phone died a little over a week ago. It would still take phone calls, but the screen was black and it’s the kind of phone that requires you to see the screen in order to make a call. This put me in a panic. NO CELL PHONE! What was I going to do? I drive 28 miles one way each day from Gastonia and I couldn’t imagine doing that without my cell phone. What if something happens to the car? How will I get help?

I had a replacement cell phone within a day, but being without this convenient means of communication made me realize just how much I’ve come to depend upon it. I use my cell phone to check e-mail, the weather, the stock market, my Facebook account, play games, and make and receive phone calls and text messages.

I’ve certainly come a long way from my upbringing. When I was growing up, we had a party line at the house. You remember them? Our party line had four families on it. FOUR! Our ring was three. When the phone rang, you had to count so that you didn’t answer the wrong ring. And since we were number three, we had to wait after the third ring to make sure there wasn’t another ring coming along. When I think about it, it was a system that worked well considering. However, when I got to be a teenager, things got a little tense on our little four-family party line. The other families literally had to pick up their phones and tell me to get off so they could make a call. I always obliged but not without a lot of exasperation. To make matters worse, two of the other families were my uncles. Living in rural Vermont, that phone was my social connection to the outside world. We didn’t have computers back then and we only had three stations on our TV set.

When I think of all the ways we can communicate now, it’s absolutely amazing. Computers have done that for us and as amazing as it all is today, it will be even more extraordinary in the years to come. Through programs like Skype, we can talk to relatives and friends via computer video. These are things they used to do on Star Trek and we thought they were so “out of this world.” And now we can do this in our own home.

The point to my rambling is that seniors who do not have a computer are really missing out on wonderful opportunities to connect to people all over the world with like interests. There is a senior member of my Kiwanis Club who refuses to have a computer or anything to do with one. He once told me that when he retired, he turned in his cell phone and his computer and would be happy if he never saw either of them again. He’s happy with that and that is OK. But other seniors would probably be interested in learning more about the Internet and Skype, but are afraid it’s too late for them.

The Shepherd’s Center has a computer program that is designed specifically for seniors. The instructors are seniors and they teach the students about computers in a slow, methodical way so they can understand as well as learn. For just $50, you can take our Introduction to Computers class and get an overview of Windows, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel (spreadsheets), Internet & E-mail, and the basics of how a computer operates. This class is held two half-days a week for four-weeks. We also have classes that are held for just three half days which focus on specific programs, such as digital photos, social networking and e-Bay. And each class comes with a manual!

If you’ve been thinking that you could never get on the computer band-wagon, you need to think again and get started as soon as possible. Don’t get left behind. It’s time to “friend” your grandchildren! By the way, they really love it when you do that!!!

Until next time…

Linda R. Pellerin