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Senior News May, 2004 Vol. 25. No. 5
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.
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Humboldt Senior Resource Center Back issues Table of Contents
 Nutrition -- I remember when
Plus in this issue catch more news, opinions, features, book reviews, and event calendars.
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Adult Day Health Home base for a writer by Joel Geck-Moeller It's been nearly 19 years since I answered the Humboldt Senior Resource Center help wanted ad for a home delivered meals driver. The job didn't promise much in the way of financial reward. Only two hours per day, five days a week at $5 per hour. That's $50 per week before taxes. A recent HSU grad with a Masters Degree in the teaching of writing stuffed in my pocket, I was a bit overqualified. (Or maybe under qualified, depending on one's perspective) Nonetheless, the job seemed just what I'd been looking for. It might provide me an opportunity to do some tangible good in this world. Soon I was delivering some 20 hot meals a day to frail seniors who, for the most part, couldn't get around too easily and who experienced difficulty preparing their own nutritious meal. I can remember many of their names. Bill, Rose, Helen, Mabel, Ruth. I can see their faces and their smiles - sometimes open, sometimes guarded at first - which formed whenever company arrived. The best and also most challenging part of the job was figuring out how to give each of these people, who might not see anyone else all day, a bit of my time without letting the remaining lunches get cold. One of my favorite visits would always be with John, a little man of Finnish birth, who nearly always could be found sitting on his front stoop when I pulled up. I would sit next to John, and he would occasionally offer what I took for pleasantries in a soft lilt nearly inaudible over the Hodgson traffic that whooshed by. I can't recall ever understanding much of anything that John said. I just recall sitting and watching and feeling the sun or fog. A few moments of this would have to do to complete our transaction. As I drove off to my next appointment, John offered a gentle wave good-bye. Word got around the Senior Resource Center that I was an okay guy, and soon I was offered another driving position with Adult Day Health Services. Back then, in all of Humboldt County, only Eureka offered an Adult Day Heath program. So it was my pleasure and duty to travel all the way to Arcata and McKinleyville for our participants. These trips were like Sunday drives through the country. In the back row, Anna would be going on in her native Yugoslavian tongue, sometimes breaking into operatic song. Nan would preach fire and brimstone as counterpoint, and Adam would underscore the divine cacophony with a sweet tune from his harmonica which he always carried. The eucalyptus trees would slip by and the bay would be gray and invisible or green and glistening, but never the same, never repeating a previous performance. One cold winter morning David Jones (now 20 years with ADHS) and I got to talking in the parking lot. David, who began as ADHS's lone driver in a broken down station wagon, now heads up our Transportation Department for two programs, which has grown into a sizeable fleet of modern multi-passenger vans. Participants haven't been asked to get out and push for many years. I climbed my own ladder of success as well, becoming a program assistant with ADHS and then activities coordinator. In 1991 I accepted the program manager position, which I held for nine and a half years. But now, with my kid half grown and a mortgage half paid, I'm busy dismantling my ladder, as I've already explained to my mother, rung by rung. In 2001, I "self-demoted" to driver/therapy assistant so that I might rededicate myself to what had always brought me the greatest reward -hanging with our participants. Twenty years ago we were located in the basement of the HSRC building where the staff lounge is now and it was a really big day if 20 participants showed up. (Now we serve more than twice that figure.) Twenty years ago I thought this place was just the ticket. It might give me a chance to do some good in this world. As it's turned out, it's done me more than a little good as well. Joel Geck-Moeller is a driver and therapy assistant with HSRC's Adult Day Health Services program in Eureka. |
Senior News