Senior News August, 2003 Vol. 24. No. 6

 

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Ruth Mountaingrove is taking a semester off after 17 years

Gulp! I'm finally eligible for HSU's classes for seniors

Arts program teaches 100-year-old craft

Timber Ridge builds 48 new senior units

Three delightful selections lure travelers to the warmth of So. Humboldt

How a paycheck affects your Social Security benefits

Briefs

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On turning 60
Gulp! I'm finally eligible for HSU's classes for seniors
by Barbara Clark

Barbara Clark in the Senior News editorial office. Photo by Andrea Georgeson

      For almost ten years I've been writing in Senior News that the best
reason to retire to Humboldt County is the opportunity to attend HSU classes
for only six dollars in the HSU Over-60 Program. Now that milestone is here
for me-and as those of you know who have wandered beyond it, it's a serious
one.
     I am a product of this period of history. When I was born in 1943, many
dads were at war. Mine wasn't-his health kept him home and kept the war at
some distance. My birth date falls between August 6 and August 9, the dates
when I turned two and atomic bombs were dropped on modern cities Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. I grew up during the post-war 40s and 50s, fed at the table of
the American Dream-when we wanted at least two cars in every garage and
girls became wives rather than professionals. Then as now we (the US of A)
are still killing people to save them. Then as now we are using more and
more of the world's resources to run our cars. Then as now women make
pennies on the dollar compared to salaries earned by men. As I turn 60,
these thoughts depress me. Have we accomplished anything?
     Of course we have. Our culture has created more comfort and wealth
than any other time. I am a consumer, too. I'm proud that this job provides
me sufficient wherewithal to be co-owner of a local home, no small goal
these days.
     But what niggles at me at this momentous turning point is this: aren't
we overdoing it? How could we stop the extraordinary over-consumption, waste
production and loss of bio-diversity that we know is damaging the earth that
provides for us? What if we really did give peace a chance? Isn't it better
to try to understand others than to go to war with them?
I wonder about the world I will leave behind, and I realize that I have a
finite number of years to figure out what I will do when I grow up. I have
to accept that these questions might remain unanswered, and I wonder what I
can learn at HSU to help me find the answers.
     Now that I can afford to attend, I've long thought that I would benefit at
this editorial desk by some "real" writing classes. My journalism degree
could use some dusting off after 33 years. I've wondered if I should even
test the waters for a Masters of Fine Arts in writing.
     I realize that whatever I write, whether in the pages of Senior News or
elsewhere, the writing now is for my love of words and the feelings they
generate. On the eve of turning 60, this motive is enough.
Barbara Clark is editor of Senior News.

• HSU Over-60 Program
  Orientation for seniors attending the Over-60 Program at HSU is
  10 a.m. Aug. 18, room 405 in the Student and Business Services Building.
  Your application for the fall semester is also due by 5 p.m. that day.
  Rhonda Geldin in the HSU admissions office at 826-6213 will mail an
  application if you call her. You can also print it from the web site
  www.hum-boldt.edu and click on the admissions button. Cost is still $6, plus
  $5 for first-timers.