Kansas Senior Press Service News ArticlesKansas Senior Press Service News ArticlesBy Barbara Gerhard
Kansas Senior Press Service
In response to President Obama’s concept of “a new era of responsibility,” I find myself with a new awareness of the countless volunteers working in my life. Awareness is the key.
Some of you may know someone who volunteers for senior programs, or perhaps you do so yourself — delivering Meals on Wheels, driving for a volunteer transportation program, helping with insurance counseling, or working with other programs that help seniors in your area. Others of you might think of people at your church who arrive early to prepare for the service. Or what about the people who put on the March of Dimes, which helps fund research for disease, or the volunteers who work with Big Brothers and Big Sisters.
Most of us are volunteers in one way or another, with even the tiniest of acts. When this new awareness of volunteerism starts, so do appreciation and support for the many people who improve our quality of life. As we begin to appreciate volunteers, we begin to realize what is really important in life and what is simply petty. Perhaps, instead of finding ourselves growing impatient with budget cuts, unreasonable requests made of us, or unresponsive relationships, we will seek instead to find positive ways of coping. Instead of adopting the attitude of Eeyore , the donkey of doom in Winnie the Pooh, we can adopt a “things can change” attitude and let it permeate every aspect of our lives. Instead of blaming others for our problems, we can work for something better, not only for ourselves but for the people who surround us.
Perhaps you have been volunteering for just a few months or a year, and even in that time you can point to how the experience has changed your life. Many of you may have volunteered all of your lives and would not have it any other way.
I can’t remember when I wasn’t volunteering. My mother had me by the hand as we visited sick people from our church. I helped my dad as he assisted a sick neighbor with chores. My family participated as 4-H project leaders, Boy Scout leaders, board members at church, and with countless committees in our Rotary, Lions, and other civic groups. We learned to make things happen for the good. Because of volunteering, I know how good I feel when people’s faces light up when they see me.
Recently I took a tiny woman, whom I had never met, to the doctor, and I waited during her appointment. I watched as she anxiously re-entered the waiting room, looking for someone she knew. Her eyes lit up when she finally saw me. I experienced the warmth in her face and a connection that still makes me feel good. She saw someone who valued her enough to wait for her.
Waiting was my gift to her, but the feeling of hope I received from her was invaluable. That connection in a world full of disconnect is one that I can repeat often as I continue to volunteer. A “new era of responsibility” might be new for some, but for many of us it is simply more of the same. Volunteers are everywhere. If you aren’t one already, take that step!
Barbara Gerhard is coordinator of Catch-a-Ride with Johnson County Human Services & Aging.
By Jim Rawdon
Kansas Senior Press Service
I remember clearly that Sunday morning about 40 years back when I was surprised by the realization that senior women could be beautiful. The Sunday School class I was teaching had just ended when Anita, the director of classes for young married people, motioned me over to ask a favor.
I was in my late 20s, with sons in elementary school and a shapely young wife. Anita was over 70, maybe even 80. She was thin and wore a pale pink wool winter dress. Her hair was fading from blond to white and a soft down covered her cheeks.
I was aware of Anita’s beauty. It wasn’t the beauty of my 20-something wife, but she was beautiful nonetheless. I was baffled about that for more than 40 years, until my wife and I moved into a retirement community and joined a church whose membership is drawn from it. We sing in the church choir. As I sit in the back row with the other basses, I stare out over a sea of gray, white, and bald heads. Two women with white hair catch my attention as Anita did, and both strike me as beautiful.
For this article, I determined to clarify my understanding of beauty in women 60 and beyond. Four people shared their viewpoints about aspects of beauty: chronological, physical or external, psychological or internal, and social.
The chronology of mature beauty
From the chronological point of view, beauty among older women is a relatively new consideration. When the 20th century began, the average life expectancy for Americans was 49! Until recent years, not many women or men survived into what we now term the senior years.
My wife and I attended a dinner program last week. Another guest at our table lamented that a longtime friend had died the day before. She reflected that “He was only 62.”
I commented, “That’s young these days. People are living so much longer.”
But another guest, Margaret, who just turned 90, recalled, “When I was growing up, whenever my mother referred to women over 40, she called them old women.”
So the potential for a senior woman to think in terms of physical beauty is relatively recent.
In spite of the reality of aging, modern medical care allows men and women to live longer and remain healthy far longer than our grandparents. Pat Seiple, who oversees the management of four beauty salons that serve many older customers, says, “In 2009, 60 is the new 40 and 70 is the new 50.”
Not quite a senior yet, Seiple observes that when she looks at pictures of her grandparents in their 50s, “They look like people who are 80 look today.”
The physicality of mature beauty
Seiple also jokes that “We look in the mirror and think, ‘Who are you, and what have you done with me?’”
But it happens, doesn’t it? I recall my wife looking at her hands one day and exclaiming, “My hands look just like my mother’s!”
Seiple grouses at seeing women, including seniors “…doing Botox and face lifts, liposuction and tummy tucks. … Actresses and models in their teens and 20s are used in commercials for anti-aging and skin tightening products because they want us to think that’s how we’re going to look if we use this stuff. Wrong!”
Teddi Crawford, area manager for a retirement development, has seen a lot of older women during her 25 years there. When asked what they can do to maximize their attractiveness, she — as well as my three other advisers — instantly listed exercise and a nutritious diet.
“Feeling good and good health translate into beauty,” she said.
Clothing style is a matter of individual taste. Some women feel best in dressy clothes, others are more comfortable in casual attire. What matters most are the cuts, colors, and patterns that flatter each woman’s build, weight, and complexion.
Internet sites that provide information on those matters include http://MyShape.com, www.shoporchards.com, and www.LifeScript.com. MyShape.com describes women according to seven body shapes and shoporchard.com uses four; both sell their own lines of medium-priced women’s clothing. The LifeScript site devotes five Web pages to attractive clothing styles for women based on physical structure. Regardless of a senior woman’s build, easy-fitting clothing is almost always more flattering than clothes that are tight and clinging.
Both Seiple and Crawford also offer a few cautions. Crawford warns women against wearing the same makeup and hair style they wore when they were 30. She cautions that “Trying to recapture youth by mimicking the things we did when we were much younger generally has the opposite effect.”
Seiple worries about the danger of “overdoing efforts to look younger.” She fears for the women who engage in one cosmetic procedure after another in an effort to improve their appearance, noting that “After awhile, it ruins your looks,” rather than enhancing them.
The psychology of mature beauty
Two Johnson County psychologists, Dr. Pat Rebeck and Dr. Steve Nimrod, have a substantial number of senior adult clients. They agree that physical attractiveness is a concern for many older women.
Nimrod observed that “As we get older, our bodies change and how we see ourselves changes. As young adults, we relate a lot of our appearance to how we feel about ourselves — and I don’t think that changes as we get older.”
So major factors in thinking about appearance in later years are self-esteem and confidence. In other words, how we feel about how we look influences our attitude.
Rebeck comments that physical attractiveness “...will be less important to women whose identity has been created around other things beside their physical appearance.”
But that is not something that we can change easily after 60, 70, 80 or more years of thinking.
When asked what factors tend to increase self-esteem, Nimrod cites “…socialization, appearance, and health issues such as nutrition and exercise.”
Crawford’s opinion is that “…a woman who takes good care of herself and pays attention to grooming feels much happier, and therefore looks better.”
Seiple has concluded that “It’s OK to grow up; it’s OK to age. Once you turn 50, that’s when the inner beauty starts coming out. That’s when you see who the woman really is and what she is. Honestly, beauty comes with age because wisdom comes with age, and the two go hand in hand. With every line and every crease comes more beauty.”
I wonder if that’s what I sensed in Anita 40 years ago, and if that’s what the white-haired women on the front row at church provoke in me?
The sociology of mature beauty
When I asked Rebeck what factors tend to override a woman’s physical appearance, she said, “There is good research showing that at the first meeting with someone, we tend to evaluate them more on their physical characteristics — the symmetry of the face, the number of teeth showing. But after knowing someone, we tend not to notice these attributes as much. That’s when other characteristics in the personality become tied to how attractive the person is to us.”
Rebeck added that “The most important thing is the love and affection of the people in a woman’s life, because when she looks in the mirror, what she sees will reflect the feedback she has received more than issues like hair or skin or eyes.”
For many mature women, a sense of beauty is determined by the way their friends, husbands, and lovers feel about them. Crawford affirms, “I believe most men tend to see their wives as they saw them when they fell in love. As a man matures, so do his ideas about beauty. I think a man at any age can appreciate a beautiful smile, bright eyes, and a charming personality.”
Of course, the old saying that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” applies both to the senior woman and to those people who are important in her life. Beauty can be an obvious physical reality that others see. But it is also an internal, emotional state that grows in a woman. Her beauty finds a way to show through.
Jim Rawdon is a retired pastor and freelance writer who lives in Lee’s Summit, Mo.
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Beauty comes with age because wisdom comes with age, and the two go hand in hand. With every line and every crease comes more beauty.”
By Dave Brown
Kansas Senior Press Service
E-mail is everywhere. It is not unusual these days to have 20 to 50 new e-mails in your inbox each day. So it is useful to pay attention to some simple rules that will help the folks to whom you send e-mail.
There are two basic types of e-mail services, and both are free. One is based in your computer and uses a program called an “e-mail client.” These include such programs as Outlook, Outlook Express, Apple’s Mail, and Mozilla’s Thunder. With an e-mail client, all your mail is stored right on your own computer, where you can locate it easily. I like it because I can create folders for categories of mail and quickly remind myself of prior mailings.
The other e-mail is Web based. Examples are Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Google Mail, and Apple’s Mobile Me. The advantage of Web-based mail is that you can access your mail from anywhere — but you must be connected to the Internet.
All these options have resulted in an explosion of e-mail and such problems as unwanted mail in the form of spam, “flame mail” (critical or abusive messages), and unwanted solicitation mail, some of it downright dangerous.
But we want to talk here about courtesy and making the e-mail experience friendly and useful, so here are some simple tips:
Learn how to send blind copies in mailings to groups. I have developed about a dozen groups to which I send mailings — family, old friends, organizations I belong to. It is not good form to send an e-mail to 50 or 100 people and expose all their e-mail addresses to everyone who reads it. Each e-mail client or Web-based e-mail service has a different manner of setting up blind copies, so you will have to do some research. Apple Mail is the simplest: You go to “Preferences,” select “Composing,” and uncheck the box that says “When sending to a group, show all member addresses.” Others, such as Outlook Express, require you to set up undisclosed recipients and put them into a bcc (blind carbon copy) group.
Always title your e-mail in the subject line, and have the title explain what the e-mail is about. When people are looking over the contents of their inbox, they want to be able to see what the messages are about.
Be concise. If you assume that everyone is busy, rambling e-mails just aren’t respectful — except, maybe, to your cousin in California.
Read the e-mails you compose before you send them. It’s easy to misuse a word that could be interpreted as an insult or to say something you don’t mean. So take the time to read your message, and check spelling and grammar.
Do not write in capital letters. IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITALS, YOU SEEM TO BE SHOUTING! This can be highly annoying and might trigger an unwanted response in the form of a flame mail.
Answer e-mails promptly, answer all the questions asked, and try to anticipate further questions. The idea is to make the exchange of information easy and friendly.
When replying, don’t leave out the message thread (the series of e-mails in a continuing conversation). The thread may be useful, especially if you are answering a question that the original sender has already forgotten.
Don’t forward chain mail. These messages are usually just junk. Especially don’t forward such mail to large groups of your friends, who may not have any interest in the topic.
Don’t reply to spam. Spam letters usually invite you to send a message to ask that the spam be discontinued. But all that does is tell the spammer that your e-mail address is a valid one, thereby generating even more spam. Just hit the delete key.
Don’t use e-mail to discuss confidential information. With e-mail, you are in effect publishing your message to the world.
Do use good grammar and spelling. That makes your messages more sensible and easy to read.
Dave Brown is owner of Database Associates, LLC, in Lenexa. He is a member of the FileMaker Business Alliance, SenCom, and MacCore.
By Kansas Senior Press Service
Q: I will become eligible for Medicare early next year and my doctor says I’m due for a physical. Will Medicare pay for it?
A: Since the beginning of 2009, you are entitled to a one-time routine physical exam within the first 12 months of enrolling in Part B. Medicare will pay 80 percent of the Medicare-approved amount of the physical. (In past years, you had to take advantage of this benefit within the first six months of coverage.)
After you have your “Welcome to Medicare” physical, Original Medicare will not pay for any more routine physicals. However, some Medicare private health plans (HMOs, PPOs, PFFSs) cover annual routine physicals.
Routine physical exams with your primary care doctor can be used to screen for many illnesses and conditions that, if caught early, can be treated and managed, and can result in far fewer serious health consequences.
If you enrolled in Medicare in 2008 and did not have a Welcome to Medicare physical, you may have it in 2009, if it is done within 12 months of your initial enrollment. The exam benefit does not include payment for clinical laboratory tests.
The initial preventive physical exam includes:
Source: Medicare Rights Center
These articles are also available electronically at the Center on Aging Website: http://www2.kumc.edu/coa/Senior_Press_Article/Topic_Index.htm