ABOUT ME and THE GENESIS OF THIS CLASS
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I grew up on a sheep ranch in Northern Minnesota. When my parents were 65, in these photographs, I was 19 years old and had moved to Oregon.
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My Influences
My parents were 46 years old when I was born. They were white haired and balding my whole life. My sister and I were second crop for each of them, with Dad having 2 sons about 16 and 18 years old upon my arrival. Mom’s kids were 26 and 24 — so she had 3 grandkids already. These parts of the family mostly lived in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. My mom’s daughter lived in California. I never lived with any of them.
At age 48, my folks sold their place in St. Paul and moved up to my father’s farm, the spring I turned two, along with my 5 year old sister. They wanted their kids to experience what country living had to give and teach, and to get us out of the increasing racial violence happening in the Twin Cities.
My parents were born in 1914.
My mom was an immigrant from Ukraine. Her parents were Jewish, though they rejected the religion due to its misogyny. They were social activists and her father fled the country to save his life, before Mom was born. The Red Cross brought her and her family to reunite with her dad in St. Paul when she was 7.
My dad was raised in deep poverty up in the Northland. His dad had suffered intense pain from back problems as a kid, and his parents would not have him tended to due to their Christian Science beliefs. He was bitter. However, since he couldn’t do manual labor on the farm, he was educated. He attended the University of Minnesota and graduated as an accomplished musician. One with a terrible temper towards inattentive audiences, and a drinking problem.
He and his wife moved up to the Lake of the Woods area near the Canadian border as part of the last homesteading act in the lower 48. It cost all they had to get there, and the land was improperly surveyed and unfarmable. They survived — just — for several years prior to the government relocating them to airable land. They lived by poaching, trapping and selling moonshine — often under cover of offering piano tuning services.
In my parents’ lives, in those times, the same inequity that exists today between 1%ers and the rest of the population was already at play — with an added layer of brutality.
They came together as social activists, meaning they wrote letters and marched in the streets and handed out pamphlets to educate the public. They were fighting for 8-hour workdays, fair pay, safe working conditions, ending child labor, 40-hour workweeks, social security, the right to strike — so many social protections we often take for granted today.? They were leaders in the local Farmers Union, attended democratic conventions and were active their whole lives.
They also helped in the community; from helping to raise the pile of kids our neighbors had in very late life, to baling extra hay in recognition that at least one farmer we knew never had enough for his cows in the spring. The farm was also refuge to many people over the years, from teens to elderly, needing to get away from city life for a time.
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Me Then
I was the son. So to speak.
Farm work is hard and never-ending. It is often dirty and even dangerous. One gets a good, hard look at the nature and cycles of life: A clear understanding of the food chain and what it is to make a living turning that baby calf into someone’s meatloaf. There is heartbreak a-plenty and an interesting toughness to be attained. I am glad to have grown up so much a part of the natural world. The work I did followed the seasons. Nature was the boss of us. And, the land and plants and sky and creatures of all kinds were beautiful and nourishing. The work was intrinsically rewarding.? And… did I say never-ending?
I couldn’t leave fast enough once I graduated high school and turned 17. I moved to Oregon.
I tapped into a group of holistic-minded, smart, fun people — many of whom I’m friends with to this day.
My parents, and eventually my sister and her kids followed me out from Minnesota.
My mom lived to be 80, succumbing then to the many cumulative conditions her tough body had harbored. I was 34. Dad lived to be almost 95. I was privy to plenty of age-related changes — some strategic and proactive. Some, more of the “shit happens” nature. I was with them through their aging, illnesses, losses, changes and their deaths.
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Me Later
Out of all that, and my own nature, came a series of work focuses leading me to this class. There were 23 years of licensed massage work, focusing on chronic pain and then on helping those suffering through grief and loss. There were short stints like commercial print sales, retail clothing sales. There were business launches, successes and failures. There was a return to college to collect Business Management and Communications degrees. Then there was Real Estate — morphing quickly and continually into Seniors Real Estate Specialty work. There were 6 years contracted with a Continuing Care Retirement Community, assisting older homeowners through transition from private home to community home. And, after all that, the added service of Home Equity Conversion Mortgage/Reverse Mortgage specialist.
Through it all ran my friendships, music, play, laughter, and the tales we tell each other.
One such tale was “When we are older, we’ll get some land or a place in the country and all live together.” And, the version that goes “when the men die, us gals will live together,” as the realities of actually getting older surfaced.
Working primarily with older adults for the last 20 or so years, my realism about the notion of moving to the country became a buzz-kill on that aspect. But my socialist-leaning, ever observant eye to the culture and economics of aging in America never stopped studying the part about living together.
Several times over the last 2 decades I’ve rallied the interests of an amazing circle of maverick, outside-the-box professional and entrepreneurial, similarly-interested people. We’d come together and discuss the need and possibility of forwarding ways to attain some of the goals of the program I’m working towards with this class. But I didn’t know how to move from concept to action and creation. Nor did anyone else — or not in the way I’m envisioning as a possibility.
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Me Now
So. This class comes forth now from the aggregate elements of my family’s and my own past, and the cultural and economic times we are in, as I see them.
From rebellious social activism comes motivation and tenacity. Needed to pull together the many threads of expertise required to build community the way I envision it, against the odds of our cultural norms.
From the countless, close, caring encounters I’ve had with adults working with age-related changes and transitions comes my commitment to seeing this creation. Seeing form follow function, in the shape of the creation of age-friendly housing design and construction.
From the unlikely development of my self as a business person in Real Estate and Financial fields comes broad knowledge. This from the terrific exposure to the interface of money, physical change, economics, data, real-life consequences of denial and the scope of need for alternative ways to age well.
And from my mama’s fierce admonishment of “You make time for your friends!” comes my community-mindedness.
So I have an amazing array of fabulous folks in my circle, all moving along this path of later life — a circle of amazing, ethical, intelligent, hilarious, deeply-loved friends and colleagues. All of us aging, all of us coping in our ways. The pathway I intend to open and cultivate is for us. All of us. And you too.
Thanks for considering stepping into the adventure.