Community Service…Marilyn Clough

I would like to thank Edith and Dan Boonstra for volunteering to help with the Back-Packs Schools Drive. There will be a supply of Life Files at the next meeting for those of you who need them. Don’t forget neighbors and friends who could use them. Thank you, Boonstras and Angie, who picked up my responsibilities while I was negotiating mountain passes and fire damage on my vacation in the Sierras–very much fun with my family, and the smoke was blowing in the other direction!

President…Ken Schieck

I spoke at the August general meeting about AAPR’s National Day of Service, which takes place on Tuesday, September 11. Please volunteer on your own with a group in your local community. This is such an important volunteer commitment that there is a separate category for it on your service/ volunteer hour report at the bottom of the general meeting agenda and the Dispatch. For more information, visit aarpfoundation.org/volunteer. As part of your volunteer effort, consider helping anyone you know who might be experiencing social isolation. Help is available for them at connect2affect.org. We are looking for volunteers to staff our table at two senior resource fairs this month. The first one will be held at Wesley Manor (right up Winchester next to Campbell United Methodist Church) on Friday, Sept. 21. The second one will be held at Liberty Towers in Santa Clara on Friday, Sept.28. We are asked to staff the tables on each day from 10 am to noon. If interested, please call me, Ken Schieck, or see me at the general meeting on Tuesday, Sept.18.

VOLUNTEER HOURS

PUT THIS REPORT IN THE PURPLE ENVELOPE MONTHLY AT SIGN-IN TABLE! LIST TOTAL HOURS FOR THE MONTH / NUMBER OF DIFFERENT TIMES

VOLUNTEER HOURS REPORT: NAME______________________________________MONTH: __________________ ADVOCACY/LEGIS. ______/_______ EDUCATION _____/________ FUNDRAISING______/_______

HEALTH/WELLNESS _____/______ HUNGER _______/________ HOSPITAL/NURSING HOME ______/________ NATL AARP DAY OF SERVICE ____/____ TEACHER: DRIVER SAFETY ___/___ TAX-AIDE _____/_______ ALL OTHER ________________________________________________________________________________________

Community Service…Marilyn Clough

Thank you for your contributions to the Sacred Heart Pack-A-Back program, which is such a good cause. If some supplies appear this month, that’s okay too. The need is really year-round. The purple folder with your volunteer hours inside is always a treat to record and try to get into the correct categories each month. I try to remember to put mine on my calendar as I do them, but we all know what happens to good intentions! I’ll be on vacation at the time of the next meeting so my helpers will sort out my responsibilities and keep my work for me until I return. All our board positions have back-up arrangements so we can keep the ball rolling. It’s always good to be going on vacation instead of the hospital!

Opportunity Tickets…Barbara Robinson

August drawings at three for $1 are:

SAM’S BBQ $25 Gift Card 1110 S. Bascom Ave, San Jose

(Thanks to Libby Harbour)

HABIT BURGER GRILL

Free Charburger w/Cheese OR Equal Value Item)
2000 S Bascom Ave

(Thanks to Angie Jaggars)

Campbell Express ONE FREE subscription 408-374-9700 (Thanks to Stephon Hansen)

July winners were:

CAFÉ SAN JOSE $25 Gift Card – IRENE ELARDO

HABIT BURGER GRILL

Free Charburger w/Cheese OR Equal Value Item Bascom Ave – PADDY WRAY

MYSTERY PRIZE ?? $15 STARBUCK’s Gift Card – ADELE MUZZIO

Medicare Coverage and Enrollment (paid ad)

Whether you plan to retire soon or continue working, you need to make an important decision about your Medicare health cover- age.

Are you already on Medicare?
Are you new to Medicare?
Do you have Medicare and Medi-Cal? What’s the difference in the plan and rates?

Let Mary Lee (spouse of Campbell AARP Treasurer, Rick Loek) help you choose the right health coverage. NOTE: In April of 2018 Medicare will begin issuing new Medicare cards.
If you want your Medicare ID card laminated, for free, she offers this to AARP members and clients.

Call Mary Lee today at 408-459-8383. California Insurance License: 0F34289.

DATES TO REMEMBER

DEADLINE for articles for the Dispatch First Tuesday each month e-mail to mar2hruby@sbcglobal.net snail (US) mail: Dispatch, 2156 Orestes Way, Campbell CA 95008

Executive Board Meeting, Wesley Manor Dining Room, Second Tuesday each month 10:00 am

Chapter Meeting Campbell Community Center Room Q80, Third Tuesday each month 9:30 am

TO THE CHILDREN OF THE SILENT GENERATION… (and their children – so they will understand)

Born in the 1930s and early 40s, we exist as a very special age cohort. We are the Silent Generation.
We are the smallest number of children born since the early 1900s. We are the “last ones.”
We are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, that can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.

We are also the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to lard to shoes to stoves.
We saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans for the war effort.
We collected scrap iron and old clothing to support the troops.
We hand mixed ’white stuff’ with ‘yellow stuff’ to make fake butter.
We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available. We can remember milk being delivered to our house early in the morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch. [A friend’s mother delivered milk in a horse drawn cart.]
We are the last to hear Roosevelt ‘s radio “fireside chat” assurances and to see gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors.
We can also remember the parades on August 15, 1945; VJ Day.

We saw the ‘boys’ home from the war, build their Cape Cod style houses, some pouring their cellar, tar papering it over We remember trying to buy a new car after the war. Some new cars were coming through with wooden bumpers.
We are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead we imagined what we heard on the radio. As we all like to brag, with no TV, we spent our childhood “playing outside ’til the street lights came on.”

We saw the ‘boys’ home from the war, build their Cape Cod style houses, some pouring their cellar, tar papering it over We did play outside and we did play on our own with neighbors.
There was no little league.
There was no city playground for kids.

To play in the water, we turned the fire hydrants on and ran through the spray–or swam in the nearby creeks and lakes. The lack of television in our early years meant, for most of us, that we had little real understanding of what the world was really like.
Our Saturday afternoons though, if at the movies (which cost a dime), gave us newsreels of the war sandwiched in between cowboys and cartoons.

Telephones were one to a house, often shared and hung on the wall.
Computers were called calculators, they only added and were hand cranked; typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.
The ‘internet’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that didn’t exist.
Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and news was broadcast on our table radio in the evening by H.V Kaltenborne and Gabriel Heatter.
We are the last group who had to find so much out for ourselves.
As we grew up, the country was exploding with growth.
The G.I. Bill gave returning veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow.
Veterans Administration loans fanned a housing boom.
Pent up demand coupled with new installment payment plans put factories to work.
New highways would bring jobs and mobility.
The military veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.
In the late 40’s and early 50’s the country seemed to lie in the embrace of brisk but quiet order as it gave birth to its new middle class (which became known as ‘Baby Boomers’).
The radio network expanded from three stations to thousands of stations.
The telephone started to become a common method of communication and “faxes” sent hard copy electronically around the world.
Our parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.
We weren’t neglected, but we weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus. They were glad we played outdoors by ourselves ’til the street lights came on.
They were busy discovering the post-war world.
Most of us had no life plan, but with the unexpected virtue of ignorance and an economic rising tide we simply stepped into the world and started to find out what the world was about.
We entered a world with overflowing goods and opportunities; a world where we were welcomed.
Based on our naive belief that there was more where this came from, we shaped life as we went.
We enjoyed some luxury; we were at peace and felt secure in our future. Of course, just as today, not all Americans shared in this experience.
Depression poverty was deep rooted. Polio was still a crippler.
Then came the Korean War which was a dark presage in the early 50s and by mid-decade school children were ducking under desks–just as we did in the 1940s.
Russia built the “Iron Curtain” and China became Red China.
Eisenhower sent the first ‘advisors’ to Vietnam; and years later, Johnson invented a war there.
Castro set up camp in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power in Russia.
We are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no existential threats to our homeland.
We are the Silent Generation“The Last Ones”.
I feel privileged to have lived in the best of times!