Aging Well July 16 2013

When you have misplaced your Tuesday Chronicle - or it is under the cat box, (hey, that’s one thing you can’t do with the digital edition!); and you have a question about the Center, you can always go to the Center’s website at www.midcolumbiaseniorcenter.com. The site is updated weekly and includes the Center’s activity calendar, weekly (and during the summer bi-weekly) newsletter, music and lecture schedules; and for your entertainment - a short video related to the week’s “Remember When” question. But to make the site more useful, you can also find the Wasco County Resource Guide for Older Adults (which you can also find in the back of your Passport to Happiness Calendar); a list of volunteer opportunities and links to the latest Scams Alerts that have come across my desk.

And recently I have included a list of events for active older adults that have been culled from the Chamber’s Community Calendar, press releases and media outlets, but arranged for your convenience by  category: history and culture; exercise and movement; arts and literature; theater, dance and film; and social dances and music. 

The website is the Center’s effort to be a resource for you that is easily accessible and relevant. But there is always room for improvement. If you have any suggestions for what should be added to the website or how to improve it, please email me. I would appreciate any thoughts you have.

If you want to go back in history to 1890 or 1921 and find out who arrived at the Umatilla House on December 20^th, 1890; or how the fighters were preparing for the July 3^rd 1921 Dempsey- Carpentier Heavyweight fight; or the price of a 1921 Studebaker from the Dalles Garage Co. (it was $1335), it is as easy as singing the University of Oregon fight song. Susan Buce, the marketing director of the Discovery Center, informed me that the University of Oregon has finally scanned The Dalles Chronicle archives from 1864-1921 and  has made them available online. You can view the archives at http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn85042448/ for The Dalles Daily Chronicle and http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2003260222/ for The Dalles Weekly Chronicle. But be careful. You can spend hours reliving the days of yesteryear.

It’s Fort Dalles Days Rodeo Weekend and the Center will be hosting its annual Cowboy Breakfast sponsored by Flagstone Senior Living where they offer a several levels of care: Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care. The menu includes traditional Hotcakes, scrambled eggs, your choice of sausage or bacon, fruit and your favorite morning beverage. And in order to give you plenty of time to prepare for the 10:00 parade, breakfast will be served from 7:30 until 9:30. The cost is $5.00 for adults and $3.00 for children - with a $1.00 off for Center members.

This will also be your last chance to purchase raffle tickets ($1.00 apiece) for the one-of-a-kind quilt that has stitched into it fifteen local historical pictures. The drawing will be held at 9:00 AM during the Cowboy Breakfast. 

Before you put the salmon on the grill and the yellow jackets come flying, playing tonight at the Center is “Truman”. And next week “The Good Times” will lay down some hot licks to keep you cool in the summer heat. Doors open at 6:00, music starts at 7:00 and you can be home before dark. Everyone is invited with a suggested donation of $2.00 per person and $3.00 a couple.

Dan Rowan and Dick Martin were the duo that hosted Laugh-in from 1968-1972 which also starred Ruth Buzzi playing the dowdy spinster who was often harrassed on the park bench by the lecherous Arte Johnson. (And this week’s winner is Jim Ayers.) But for the next two weeks let’s stick with television, but shifting to spy thrillers.

This espionage thriller ran from 1965 to 1968 on NBC and broke ground as the first American television drama starring an African-American actor in a lead role. What was the name of the television series that starred two tennis bums/secret agents - Robert Culp as the international tennis player Kelly Robinson, and Bill Crosby as his trainer Alexander Scott?  Mail your answer to mcseniorcenter@gmail.com, call 541-296-4788 or send it with sweatshirts from Temple University and the University of Washington.

Well, it has been another week trying to swing from branch to branch without slipping. Until we meet again, as Jim Holston reminded me “It doesn’t get any better than this”.

"Never take someone for granted. Hold every person close to your heart because you might wake up one day and realize that you've lost a diamond while you were too busy collecting stones."