A Season of Thanksgiving

This week when we celebrate Thanksgiving and also Hanukkah we are reminded to take time and give thanks for our many blessings and the miracles that we experience in our lives.  For me one of my biggest blessings is that I moved to Kendal eight years ago when I was still able to be quite independent.  I was able to easily become settled in the life that Kendal makes possible.  It was an easy move as I look back in in retrospect.  Oh yes, there were all of the trials and tribulations that go with moving from my home back in the Philadelphia area -  the downsizing and packing and unpacking.  But they have faded from memory as I found a pleasant new way of way of life and made many new friends here at Kendal.  .

I'm thankful that I no longer have to plan meals, buy the ingredients, bring them home, put them away, prepare them and then clean up all of the kitchen when I have eaten.  I am grateful for good company at mealtime instead of eating alone.  I am thankful that I no longer have to worry about snow removal when it snows.  I don't have to make sure the garden is weeded, the lawn mowed, the leaves raked, and make sure the eaves are cleaned out.  I am grateful that there are many educational and entertaining programs right here at Kendal in the evening which I can attend without having to find someone to take me since I no longer drive at night..  The list of blessings is endless.

Most important now for me is the fact that I entered Kendal while I was able to get to know all of the many services that exist here to make our life comfortable and meaningful.  I believe that it has made the adjustments that I have had to make due to the changes in my life that have occurred since I arrived here.  No doubt the most significant of these is the changes in my eyesight this past year.  I have reached the point where I am considered a person with low vision.  I can no longer read without a special device to enlarge the print.  I no longer recognize people until I am very close to them.  But because I came here while I could, the adjustments that I am finding necessary are much easier and for that I am most grateful.

Kendal and the Kids

Kendal is full of teachers. And for the third straight year some of our residents have spent time this fall with second-grade students in the Newark school system in a program (“A Call to College”) designed to put the possibility of attending college in their minds. 

The intrepid Kendal classroom posse, styled “Guest Interviewees” by the program, consisted of Ted Barclay, Reed Browning, Janie Drake, Tom and Myra Gallant, Virgil Hoftiezer, David Skeen, and Harriett Stone. Each – with the Gallants operating as a spousal team – spent a morning at the Newark Public Library talking with the kids (a different group of 40-60 each week) about the way that college had made their interesting lives possible.

The Guest Interviewees took turns with their adult versions of show-and-tell. Some sported odd hats and unusual attire. Others brandished unexpected items – a baseball bat, or a foreign flag, or a nineteenth-century lamp. They all had stories of adventures to tell. In short, the Kendal squad was living testimony to the importance of books, libraries, and education. (The photo shows Myra and Tom Gallant.)

The kids seemed to love it. For many, it was their first visit to the library. They had been prepped for these encounters with rehearsed questions – where did you go to college? what do you like to read? what are your hobbies? - but being kids, they also popped out with loads of extemporaneous interrogatories. How did you get here? (i.e., to the library). How old are you? Have you ever met someone famous?

Several residents returned to Kendal to report that, while they’d enjoyed their chance to meet the kids, they were uncertain about the long-term benefit of such brief interactions. And even knowing that this second-grade program is but part of a wider Newark program of K-12 college-focused interventions doesn’t eliminate that concern. Still, the important point is that since the directors of the program are annually charting its successes, measuring its effects, and working to find appropriate adjustments, Kendal residents can be assured that their participation allows this experiment in inspiring ambitions for college to refine itself with each passing year.

Besides, it gives us memorable anecdotes. My favorite came from Ted Barclay’s visit. He told the kids about a number of sports he had coached, including lacrosse. Sensing some puzzlement among he second-graders, he asked them if they knew what lacrosse was. An eight-year-old girl replied: “That’s what they nailed Jesus to.” How do you top that?

(This piece will also appear in the December issue of Tower Lines.)

"Ladies Night Out" at Kendal

Last Wednesday evening the residents of Kendal flocked to the new Amelia Gathering Room – and hasn't that venue been a grand addition to the Kendal at Granville community? – to hear a concert by "Ladies Night Out," an all-female singing group from nearby Denison University. From the moment the group walked onto the stage, attired all in black and with their short skirts showing lots of knees (lest I be misunderstood: I report that fact because I heard many residents commenting on it), they held the attention of the audience.

The program consisted of nine popular song arrangements of the sort that college singing groups often perform these days, and it afforded solo opportunities to many of the young women. I knew only two of the numbers – one of them, happily, was Roberta Flack's wonderful "Killing Me Softly With His Song" – but I found all of them enjoyable. I'm told that ensemble singing is popular on college campuses these days, and if "Ladies Night Out" is a typical example of what these groups can do, it is easy to see why. In a nice touch, the singers waited around in the lobby hallway after the concert to talk with residents.

When the young women introduced themselves, we learned that they came from all over the country, that they represented all four classes at Denison, and that they were choosing majors from across the spectrum of curricular offerings. Thinking about this event afterwards, I recalled that a week earlier the new president of the university had come to Kendal to talk about his plans and hopes for Denison. In a happy way the concert had now complemented the president's visit. For the members of "Ladies Night Out," gracious and mature, were reminders of the potential and enthusiasm of the Denison student body that the university and its new president serve. Vision, talent, and leadership – these are the essentials to a good college education. Denison seems to have them all.