Observing International Day

Several years ago our Diversity and Inclusiveness Committee added to our annual observance of International Day a program emphasis on our heritage from a particular country or culture.  Our committee, made up of both residents and staff, plans this event each year for residents, staff, and board members.

 The first year we did this our Polish heritage was presented by Tony Liska, a retired professor from Denison University whose family came to the United States from Poland.  The following year our presentation focused on our Welsh heritage because the first settlers in this area were from Wales.  This year our Committee chose to feature Scotland. Luckily we discovered that the chief of our maintenance staff, Bob Doherty, spent his boyhood in Scotland.

We were most fortunate that Bob not only agreed to make a presentation but joined our committee to help with the overall planning of this event.  The program on Friday, October Fourth turned out to be a huge success opening with a presentation by a genuine Scottish bagpiper dressed in full regalia.  He not only played but he explained the history of the   bagpipes, how they were made, how they worked, the meaning of each of the numbers he played and each piece of the outfit he wore.  Bob presented us with beautiful pictures of Scotland as he talked about Scottish history and people mixed in with memories of his youthful days living there. 

 Following Bob's presentation we had the opportunity to enjoy the refreshments provided by our dining staff which included Scottish eggs, shortbread, salmon and other delicacies.

Just one more example of life at Kendal exemplifying the way staff and residents join together to make possible an enjoyable and educational  afternoon in our celebration of International Day.

 

Originally published 10/14/13

 

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.

Rachmaninoff rocks

It's been said that everyone secretly wants to conduct a symphony orchestra. Well, maybe that's so, though it's a hope few of us will ever fulfill. But many of us may also harbor a related secret ambition: We want to be music reviewers. And this is an ambition that some of us can contrive to find ways to realize. Which is exactly what I now plan to do – in a kind of quirky way.

Last evening a large contingent of Kendal residents took the Kendal bus to the Midland Theater in Newark to attend a concert by the Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra. The featured work was Sergei Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto, performed by Antonio Pompa-Baldi. On the bus ride home it was very clear that the general impression Mr. Pompa-Baldi had left with us was: WOW!

Despite its reputation as one of the most technically challenging works in the piano repertory, Rachmaninoff's third has been widely recorded and is therefore a reasonably well-known piece. It features Rachmaninoff's celebrated, heart-wrenching lyricism, and is studded with the kinds of sweeping melodic gestures that movie fans became accustomed to in films from the 1950s. (Though Hollywood's emulators never matched the master's sureness of effect.)

What attendance at a live concert allowed us to see and appreciate was the sheer physicality required of a performer of this work. It was not simply the fleetness of fingers that caught our eye, though several residents commented on the bus that it seemed impossible to have done what we had just witnessed with only ten of them. It was, rather, that facilitating that digital dexterity were two fast-flying arms – alternately pounding, stroking, and teasing the keyboard, and all the time leaping about from its uppermost to its nethermost reaches. I don't have the score before me, but I wouldn't be surprised if Rachmaninoff's dynamics ranged from ppp to fff. Certainly a perspiring Mr. Pompa-Baldi employed them all. It's no wonder that he used his periodic breaks to flex his hands and exercise his forearms. For when he was engaged with the keyboard, he was bombarding us with wonderful music. At the end of the evening Kendal residents joined all the others in attendance in standing to applaud a grand performance of one of the towering works of the Romantic period.

And I've now had fun pretending to be a music reviewer. But you don't have to warn me: I won't quit my daytime job.

Kendal at Granville Talent Review--September 10, 2013

Kendal at Granville residents enjoyed our first talent show.  It was a huge success!  It was an absolutely fun evening.  In addition to residents, the staff and board of trustees were invited to participate.  The display of talent was wide ranging.  Being a fun group of folks anyway, there of course were some clever comedy routines.  Several vocalists reminded us of their long careers in musical endeavors. That was particularly special to those of us who are new to the greater Granville area.  A violin solo offered by one of the dining room staff was a delightful surprise and display of her talent that she shares with her violin students.  The leadership team's skit highlighted the ongoing construction projects with great humor and fun props.  The best prop of the night was the sidekick to one of the comedians. The topic was "Bill Grogan's Goat" and the goat made a calm appearance on our new Amelia Room stage.  The evening was not a "dog and pony show" but an awesome representation of Kendal's talent.

Stories Told by Our Posters

The current exhibit in our Art Gallery, made up of posters loaned by our residents, tells   stories about us.  Our Gallery Committee, of which I am a member,  arranges for a new show every two months.  Earlier this year we invited residents to share posters they have in their homes with our community at large.  We received responses from fifteen persons offering all together a total of 34 items.  This in itself tells a story about the generosity of the people who live here at Kendal.   Their willingness to share with each other has made possible three exhibits of fiber arts works created by members of our community, three exhibits of art created by Kendal residents, and an exhibit of photographs taken not only by residents but also by staff personnel. Each of these has brought a very positive reaction from viewers. Not only are the people who live and work here generous and willing to share what they have with others but they have revealed a variety of talents.

The items in this exhibit tell us of the diverse interests of those who live here as well as where they have traveled, what kind of art appeals to them, where they have lived before,
what their hobbies are,  what they like to collect, and more as we talk with them about how they came to have a particular poster.

Some of the posters feature announcements of  exhibits at well known art museums here in the United States and abroad such  as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City,  and The Museum of Fine Art in Boston., They include work of famous artists such as Claude Monet's The Stroll, and Vincent van Gogh's Blossoming Almond Tree.  Others are by relatively unknown local artists such as Vearl S. Wince right here in Granville .  The techniques displayed range from traditional oils and water colors to more modern abstracts to Tseng-Ying Pang's wash art to a LanSat Image (Landscape Satellite) of the Agricultural Land Usage of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay area.  Together the story they tell us is of a population whose interests in art are rich and varied/

As you approach the Art Gallery on the left you will see a poster of Naples, Florida by Paul Arsnta ult.  To its right is one by Ted Rhodes titled  Country Road at the Bluffs located in California.    Further along in the Gallery itself you will see a group of three posters made up of that LanSat Image of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay, a print of Gary Niblett's gaucheros in Canyon Diablo located in California on either side of a poster of Red tulips by Mary Marks an artist who lives in Cincinnati.  Incidentally since hanging the show we have learned that Mary Marks is the daughter of a good friend of one of our residents. The story told by these posters is that they carry the memories of the former homes of their owners. At the same time they tell us our residents have found there way here one way or another from opposite ends of our country as well as well as from throughout the heartland bringing with them their heritage from their past.

On the left inside the Art Gallery proper is a group of three posters each of which relates to travel.  The first of these is s picture of the Silver Jubilee train, the first streamliner train in 1935 from London to the northeastern parts of England.  Part of the story here is that the owner of this poster has a collection of trains.  One of the others in this group transports us half way across the world  with its poster from the Fine Art Series of the Alaska Airlines.  The third poster in this group reminds us that all travel starts from home.  It is Vearl S. Wince's A Personal  View - featuring the local train station here in Newark which borders on Granville.So the story continues telling us how our interests  which reach from sea to sea.

Sprinkled throughout the exhibit are five beautiful reproductions of paintings by different artists with a common interest - tulips.  These come from the collection of posters by one of our residents who obviously loves the annual festival of tulips held in Holland, Michigan..

Actually each of the posters tells us something about the life of its owners, but there isn't room here for all of their stories.  For me the common thread that runs through this show is the story of a diverse lively community of residents that make Kendal a pleasant place to spend this time in my life.