The Blooming of Cultural Opportunities at Kendal

We all knew that the opening of the Amelia Gathering Room would create exciting and new opportunities for the residents of Kendal at Granville. Some of these events have begun to occur, and I've mentioned them in earlier postings - visits from local choirs, lectures by people of interest, a resident talent show. But the schedule of happenings is growing apace, and the reach and vitality of our cultural calendar is steadily widening. The evidence for that claim lies in two coming ventures that I'm pleased to announce.

First off, on Thursday, January 30, Kendal will host a concert by the Newark-Granville Symphony's newly-minted Chamber Orchestra. This will be the first large-scale professional musical organization to perform at Kendal, and its appearance is still another dividend from our decision to include the construction of a performance venue in our Phase II expansion plans. The concert will be, in effect, a guided tour of western music from the 16th to the 20th century, with visits from both familiar and less-familiar composers. Both Kendal and the NGSO expect that this concert will mark the launching of a long and happy cooperation between the two organizations.

But that's not all. The technology that supports the activities of the Amelia Gathering Room now allows Kendal to participate in large-scale interactive telecommunicating. As a consequence, Kendal will be partnering with the Distance Learning project of the Cleveland Museum of Art to bring classes in art history to Kendal. In these sessions, to be held in the Amelia Room, docents at the museum will use representative art works from the museum's distinguished collection to offer classes on such subjects as Impressionism, Renaissance Art, and Twentieth-Century American Art. These programs will be beamed exclusively to an audience at Kendal. And the nifty part of the linkage is that participants at each site will be able to see each other and to engage each other in real time question-and-answer exchanges. The dates for these classes are yet to be fixed. But we hope to get them started in March. And as with the NGSO project, everyone involved contemplates future interactive programing to occur between the museum and Kendal.

In future postings I'll be reporting on the success of these two ventures. For right now they represent our first steps into the wider arena of cultural access that digitization makes possible. Among people I am talking with here at Kendal, there is a palpable surge in expectations. The Phase II construction project is allowing us to enter a new phase in our engagement with the cultural world and to widen still further our redefinition of retirement in America.

My A-tearm

Before I moved to Kendal at Granville in July 2005 I lived in a western suburb of Philadelphia in a ranch style home situated on a three-quarter acre lot.  After the death of my husband in 1995, I had the sole responsibility of maintaining my home.   Depending on the season I had to see that the grass was mowed, the leaves raked, the many trees trimmed, the garden watered and weeded, the trash removed, and the driveway (long enough to accommodate eight cars) cleared of snow/.  If there was a problem with the plumbing it was up to me to either fix it or find a plumber.  If a light burned out, I had to replace it.  In other words I was the maintenance department.  And I was getting older and my arthritis was getting worse.

Is it any wonder that after moving to Kendal at Granville and discovering the joy of having at my disposal a maintenance department that took care of all of my needs in that area that I began to fall in love with each and every one of those persons who made my life so much easier?  These are just a few of the things they did to win my heart:  replaced my washer-dryer combo with controls too high for me to see with one with dials I  could see; figured out h9w to put a light in the unlit closet where  my washer-dryer is located so I could see the dials when my eyesight failed me; removed the door from my den to provide better access to my files when I reconfigured the den to accommodate my new video magnifier; added  caulking to the area around the patio  door and window  when the recent polar express revealed leaks of icy cold air chilling my living room, etc.

Of course they also handle all of the snow removal from our sidewalks and roadways, replace light bulbs in high places - as well as all of the routine sort of stuff like moving furniture in the community complex for special events, helping with the community Christmas decorating, maintaining the pool, etc.   They do it all with a smile even when it involves working all night to get the snow removed and salt spread.  I have yet to hear a complaint about having to crawl in and out of or over and under all sorts of odd places.

They are my A-team and a blessing for all of us who live here at Kendal.  They certainly are one of the reasons I give thanks that I moved here almost nine years ago.