Kansas Senior Press Service News ArticlesKansas Senior Press Service News ArticlesBy Juliet Kincaid
Kansas Senior Press Service
My father, Homer Dale Willman Sr., used to say, “When the corps hired me, they took a great farmer and made him into a half-assed engineer.”
Although he worked more than 20 years for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, my father always had a garden. Until his last summer, he grew at least a little something, maybe vibrant begonias, a geranium in a big pot, a climbing rose, hollyhocks, and usually mint, so he could watch the telecast of the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May with an icy julep in hand. And always, always, a tomato plant or two.
Back in the 1950s and ’60s, the prime years of my father’s backyard gardens, he put lots of effort into those tomatoes. We lived in the region where Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia met, where winters were mild (though Dad always hoped for some snow to put nitrogen into the dirt). After the ground warmed and softened, along about Easter, Dad took his shovel out to his garden patch to prepare the soil.
My mom used to kid Dad about “digging to China,” because to him, preparation meant digging a pit 18 inches across and three feet deep for each tomato plant. He partially refilled each hole with compost, manure, and other nourishing substances mixed with loose dirt.
The newly planted tomatoes — Big Boy, Better Boy, Early Boy and Rutgers — looked scrawny so far apart, their sparse leaves insufficient to fuel growth. They did grow, though. Usually by the Fourth of July, Dad would push aside those leaves, releasing the acrid odor that set our stomachs to growling, and with a gentle tug, pick the first tomato of the season. Mom, Dad, my brother, Dale, and I fought over that first tomato, so ripe the skin peeled off clean and biting the tongue with its acidity. By late summer the plants, lovingly tied to their stakes with strips of old sheet, stood eight feet high and loaded with tomatoes Mom canned, made juice with or begged neighbors to haul away.
Maybe the secret of Dad’s tomatoes lay in his compost pile, which he researched, built and maintained like a true engineer. The pile I remember best was a four-foot cube of vegetable peels and melon rinds, musty grass clippings, twigs, lime and goat manure that he received as partial payment for a ship model he built for a friend who owned a herd of goats.
Dad made a hole in the center of the compost pile so air got inside and furthered the controlled decay. Once, out of curiosity, he tied some string to a thermometer and lowered it into the hole. In less than a minute, the thermometer broke. Later, with Mom’s candy thermometer, Dad discovered that the compost pile had reached 135 degrees.
Dad usually scaled his gardens small, but back in the late ’40s, when we lived in the aptly named Garden Court, he almost filled the back yard with his vegetable plot. Forty by 60 feet, it ran from the house almost to the tree-lined creek. Pieces of string stretched between sticks defined the plot, so meticulously it looked like Dad had laid the garden out with a surveyor’s transit.
Dad bragged that his garden had 50 varieties of plants, including potatoes, corn, green peppers, red peppers, scallions, onions, cucumbers and black-seeded Simpson leaf lettuce. Instead of cantaloupe, which Dad said didn’t prosper in our climate, he grew muskmelons. Radishes started the growing season and beets finished it. Many of the vegetables I’ve forgotten now, but I still love to recite exotic names like kohlrabi and cocazelle.
We all got involved in Dad’s gardens. One year we had so much cabbage that Mom canned it. Dad paid Dale a penny a hundred head to pick bugs and beetles out of the garden. Dad never let me forget that those pretty yellow hollyhocks I picked one year were actually squash blossoms. Once we tried to shell tough-hulled soybeans by putting them through Mom’s wringer washer. The beans popped out the other side and Dale and I chased them as they bounced around the kitchen floor.
My father’s gardens. When I think of them, I see him. Small-boned, with a mustache, my father wears a billed cap to keep his scalp from burning, a tan shirt dark with sweat, tan pants cut off and neatly hemmed above his knobby knees, and muddy shoes too worn to wear to work anymore. He leans against a shovel stuck into a pile of dirt. And dreaming of fresh tomatoes by the Fourth of July, he grins.
Juliet Kincaid lives in Overland Park.
By Elisabeth Birky
Kansas Senior Press Service
Cedar and oak rise majestically
Reaching like the tower of Babel
For the virgin sky
Creating dancing shadows
Over the rippling pool
Forsaken in the nippy waft
Of early spring.
Fragrant hyacinths
Pose proudly
Adorned in Lenten purple
And Easter white.
Scented tulips
Lord their velvety red cups
Over timid violets.
Hoary light
Rounded moon
Darkened abode
Shadowy stalwart against the azure morn
Amber lights peek
Through veiled windows
In this, God’s hour.
Flitting tree to tree
Branch to branch
. . . Alights . . .
Alive, alert
What cheer, cheer, cheer
Lively sounds punctuate the stillness
Of the pregnant dawn
We-ooo, we-ooo
Serenity shattered
A siren wails
Brakes screech
Horns blast
And a fire truck speeds
Down the busy thoroughfare.
Elisabeth Birky writes from her home in Overland Park.
By Shari Tedford
Kansas Senior Press Service
National Public Health Week is recognized every year to bring attention to our public health system. The theme of the week, this year April 6–12, is “Building the Foundation for a Healthy America: Change takes one step at a time.” The goal is to ensure that core public health principles, such as preventing disease and promoting health, are the foundation upon which the nation’s dialogue about health reform is built. Public health is an issue important to policy makers, and no successful health reform can occur without the support of a strong public health infrastructure. As baby boomers age, the strain on the health systems in our country is worrisome.
What can we do to ease the system’s strain? One simple thing you can do every day is walk — one step at a time. It is never too late to implement more physical activity into your life. One of the simplest ways is to walk. Aim for 10,000 steps, or five miles, each day.
For many older adults, this is difficult because of health conditions such as knee or hip disabilities, but swimming and strength training are options. Strength training can be done even if you use a wheelchair or are confined to a bed, and it does not require fancy weights and equipment. You can place one-pound soup cans in a bag, and slowly increase the number of cans you can handle. Swimming is a gentle way to support major joints. If there are any warm-water pools near you, these can be very beneficial to people with joint pain and mobility issues.
Some people believe that once they are “old,” nothing can change. But research reveals everyday examples of how we can continue to make changes through the entire life span. This is especially true with exercise, which has so many benefits:
Together, we can continue to build the foundation for a healthy America — but we need your help. For our efforts to be a success, each and every one of us must contribute. Exercise, like change, requires one small step at a time.
Shari Tedford, RN, BAN, is senior wellness coordinator with the Johnson County Health Department’s Health Education Division.
By Kansas Senior Press Service
QUESTION: I am almost 60 and beginning to plan for retirement. I really don’t know anything about Social Security. Can you brief me on some basics and tell me how to get in contact with the Social Security office? There are a number of questions I would like to ask, but I’m not sure where to direct my questions.
ANSWER: I’m glad you have posed this question, because I am sure many of our readers have common questions and concerns about Social Security.
Social Security is the primary source of retirement income for most older Americans. It guarantees income that replaces about 40 percent of your wages if you were an average earner. A great strength of Social Security lies in its reliability. You may outlive your savings, but Social Security is always there for you. The cost of living may rise, but — unlike most other sources of retirement income — Social Security benefits are annually adjusted for inflation.
Social Security is financed by payroll taxes paid by employees and employers, and is administered by the Social Security Administration. It provides a stable income base for more than 46 million Americans of all ages. Although most people think of benefits paid to retired workers, Social Security benefits also go to younger workers who have become disabled and the families of workers who have become disabled, retired or died. In fact, one in three beneficiaries today is not a retired worker.
To qualify as a retired worker, you need to have earned 40 Social Security credits, and you may decide to start receiving benefits at age 62. The amount of the benefit you receive depends in part on your age when you start collecting Social Security. When you work at jobs covered by Social Security and pay Social Security taxes (identified as “FICA” on some pay stubs), you earn up to four Social Security credits per year. To qualify for a retirement benefit, everyone born in 1929 or later needs 40 credits, or a total of 10 years of “covered” work. If you’re like most people, you will have earned more credits than you need to receive Social Security.
When to apply
Generally, the Social Security Administration advises people to apply three months before they want their retirement benefits to begin. You may apply at a local Social Security office near you. If you have questions, call the Social Security Administration, 800-772-1213; visit its Web site, www.ssa.gov, or go to one of its offices. Normally the phones and offices at Social Security are busiest early in the week or month. With the toll-free telephone number, an automated system provides recorded information and conducts some business 24 hours a day.
If you cannot handle your business through the automated service, you may speak to a Social Security representative between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. If you are deaf or hard of hearing, call may call a toll-free TTY number, 800-325-0778, during the same hours.
When applying for benefits, you will need:
Planning tips
Visiting the Social Security Web site or calling its toll-free number is a good early step in your planning process. Keep in mind that, if you are not getting your Social Security benefits when you turn 65, you should sign up for Medicare close to your 65th birthday regardless of when you plan to retire. If you are getting Social Security benefits when you turn 65, your Medicare health benefits will start automatically. If you wait until after turning 65 to sign up for Medicare, you will pay more.
These articles are also available electronically at the Center on Aging Website: http://www2.kumc.edu/coa/Senior_Press_Article/Topic_Index.htm