prime time may 2012

May 2012

active adult living

2 • MAY 2012 • PRIME TIME

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We of beating cancer as a team effort.At Columbus Regional Health’s nationally accredited Cancer Center, we’ve created a continuous care model that allows you to be treated by a single team of doctors and healthcare experts throughout your entire treatment and recovery process for the best possible outcome. First, our team of Pathologists, Radiologists and Surgeons use innovative technology to diagnose cancer early. If a cancer diagnosis is made, a clinical team of Certified Radiation and Medical Oncologists, Cancer Nurse Navigators, a Radiation Physicist, Radiation Therapists and other experts come together to thoroughly plan your immediate treatment. During every step of the way, your team provides you with the ongoing support and state-of-the-art care you need for a successful recovery.

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PRIME TIME • MAY 2012 • 3

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Comments should be sent to Doug Showalter, The Republic, 333 Second St., Columbus, IN 47201 or call 379-5625 or [email protected]. Advertising information: Call 379-5652. ©2012 by Home News Enterprises. All rights reserved. Reproduction of stories, photographs and advertisements with-out permission is prohibited. Stock images provided by © Thinkstock. Publisher: Chuck Wells; Special Publications Editor: Doug Showalter; Copy Editor: Katharine Smith; Writers: Derrick Carnes, Sharon Mangas, Jeanette Menter, Greg Seiter and Jennifer Willhite; Photographers: Mark Freeland, Angela Jackson, Greg Jones and Andrew Laker; Graphic Designer: Phillip Spalding.

Also insideEd Niespodziani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Joint replacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Senior Scribes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16The Chordlighters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Mill Race Center travel schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Jeanette Menter column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

On the cover: John and Marilnn Rondot at the ice cream parlor table that spawned their collecting hobby. Photo by Angela Jackson. Story on page 4

Losing a spouse, page 20


Collecting memories


With love in their hearts — and a whole lot of

stuff in their house — the Rondots remain committed to family and each other

John and Marilnn Rondot have a classic Hoosier love story; their destiny was set when their paths crossed by chance at the Indiana boys high school basketball tournament back in 1958. John was a big city senior from Fort Wayne South, and Marilnn was a small town sophomore from Crawfordsville.

Fort Wayne South beat Crawfordsville in the tournament, and John won Marilnn’s heart, but pursuing long-distance romance wasn’t easy. Marilnn’s parents allowed her just one date every two weeks, and it was a long drive for John from Fort Wayne to Crawfordsville. But they were smit-ten and determined. After a few dates, John told his mother, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry.”

John sealed the deal by giving Marilnn an en-gagement ring in the fall of her senior year. They married on July 30, 1960, shortly after she gradu-ated. Marilnn was barely 18, and John just 20.

“Everyone said it would never work,” says Marilnn, “because we were so young. I was small town, and John was big city. We were both Type-A personalities. … People thought we would clash. I was Methodist, and John was raised Catholic.”

In 1960, interfaith marriage was discouraged, and Marilnn’s parents disapproved of her decision to convert to Catholicism. When she signed up to take instruction in the Catholic faith, her dad refused to let her drive to the classes.

“I walked three miles each way to get to my les-sons, and a good part of that was on a highway!”

From the beginning, they had a strong commit-ment to making their relationship work.

The French spelling of Rondot (rondeau) means song, and it’s a fitting surname for a couple who’ve lived in harmony for almost 52 years. You might say they’ve lived in the key of C — commitment, com-munity, children, church and collectibles.

Within six years there were four Rondot chil-dren: Troy, Tonya, Trent and Travis, now grown with families of their own. A job opportunity at Cummins brought the Rondots to Columbus in 1968. John and Marilnn retired in 2008, he as direc-tor of distribution at Cummins, and Marilnn from Bartholomew County Public Library, where she spent many years as supervisor of adult circulation.

STORY BY SHARON MANGAS PHOTOS BY ANGELA JACKSON

Marilnn and John Rondot look at an old photo of Camp Atterbury in their basement.


SCARY TIMESIn 1970, life hit a C-minor note when John’s

mother was diagnosed with Huntington’s chorea, an inherited disease that causes an incurable, progres-sive breakdown of the nerve cells in the brain. John has now lost his mother, two sisters and a brother to Huntington’s.

“It’s a disease without hope,” says John. “There’s no known cure. It usually destroys your brain within three to four years.”

The knowledge that John had a 50 percent chance of inheriting Huntington’s and knowing their children could inherit it through him hovered over their lives for 20 years.

“We went through a lot of turmoil,” says Marilnn, “but we learned to take it one day at a time. We were so young when we found out. We did some growing up, really quick. We learned to make our own good days — no one makes them for you.

“We didn’t plan for a future then. We didn’t know if there would be one. I was a stay-at-home mom, but when Travis was in third grade — on doc-tor’s orders — I went to work to take my mind off all the ‘what ifs.’”

John and Marilnn are nothing if not resilient, and in spite of an uncertain future, their commit-ment to each other never wavered.

“I believe marriage is 100 percent,” says Marilnn. “It’s me giving 100 percent and him giving 100 per-cent. None of this 50-50 deal!”

“We’ve never had a cross word between us,” John says. “We can discuss anything without raising a voice. We just solve it.”

When he turned 50, genetic testing for Huntington’s became available. After a detailed evaluation he found out he didn’t have the gene, which meant that neither he, nor their children, would get Huntington’s.

“When they tell you that you don’t have the gene, it’s a relief, but you also have guilt feelings,” John says, “like ‘Why does my brother Jim have to have it?’”

As one of the first to go through the genetic test-ing program, John stayed involved as a test subject until he was 65. He hopes his contributions to re-search will help doctors find a cure.

In the late 1970s, John and Marilnn began a hobby that’s grown to an obsession: collectibles. Over the years, they’ve amassed a whimsical vari-

The Rondots’ basement includes several distinct areas, such as the “billiard parlor.”


ety of artwork, antiques and historical items. Their collections have grown and expanded to fill nearly every inch of the lower level of their immaculate retirement home. When asked if their parents were collectors, they both shake their heads and laugh.

“We don’t know where this came from,” John says.

JuST ONE TABLEIt started innocently enough when Marilnn pur-

chased an ice cream parlor table and chairs for the breakfast nook in their then home in Elizabethtown. John took one look at it and said, “Wouldn’t this room be neat as a drugstore?”

Marilnn paused, thinking, “Uh-oh, what have I started?” But she went along for the ride. The two began frequenting flea markets, auctions, antique malls and the occasional garage sale, hunting for items for their “drug store.” Today, John buys and sells on eBay, too.

Their collections begin in the main living area of their comfortable home north of Columbus, where the walls are decorated with framed prints

of their favorite artist, Terry Redlin. Many of the Redlin prints are winter or Christmas scenes, since Christmas is the Rondots’ favorite holiday. At Christmastime, John and Marilnn have decorated trees in every room of their house, including bath-rooms.

On their lower level, a glass curio cabinet show-cases an extensive collection of Santa and snowmen figurines.

“It’s always Christmas at the Rondots’,” John says.

It’s the lower level where every child’s fantasy world comes to life. The nine Rondot grandchildren are grown now (the youngest three are seniors in high school this year), but they spent many happy hours playing in grandma and grandpa’s basement.

Everywhere you look there’s something fun to do or see. There’s a pool hall area, complete with a vintage snack bar and an antique cash register from the old G.C. Murphy store in Columbus. The drugstore’s still a showpiece, sporting a spinner rack of old comics, a showcase full of antique games, and — the piece de resistance — a rare 1946 Jacobs 26


Coca-Cola vending machine they purchased from a fraternity and John put back in working order.

Today, the drugstore morphs into a café area, where visitors can enjoy a meal on a table that be-longed to Marilnn’s grandparents

There are many collections to savor: a fireplace mantel displays memorabilia from Azar’s Big Boy restaurants, where John started his working career in Fort Wayne at age 14. There are antique phones, ashtrays and matchbooks from old restaurants and hotels, vintage U.S. maps and tour guides, historic newspapers, old Indiana postcards, photos from days gone by, and gleaming model cars. There’s not a speck of dust anywhere.

John, with his skill for organization, worked out a timetable for cleaning the collections.

STICK TO THE SCHEDuLEMarilnn and John are busy and content in retire-

ment. They lead an active life, walking at least an hour each day, and when the weather cooperates, they add a 6-mile bike ride to their routine. They eat healthy meals, limiting red meat to no more than a few times a year.

They enjoy spending time with their children

and grandchildren, supporting their many activities. For years they took an annual family vacation, but that’s gotten harder to manage since the grandchil-dren are older and everyone leads busy lives.

“Family is really the most important thing,” says Marilnn. “Friends come and go, but family is with you forever.”

But they give to others on a regular basis, too. Throughout their lives, they’ve volunteered their time and expertise to worthy causes; they enjoy helping out whenever and wherever they can. Daughter Tonya attests to that.

“As long as I can remember, my parents were always doing things for other people, so I was led by example, and it’s something I have tried to pass on to my children as well,” she says. “My daughter took a photo of a sign in a Paris bookstore that sums up the spirit of my parents’ generosity: ‘Be not inhospi-table to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise.’”

Today John and Marilnn volunteer for a num-ber of organizations, among them Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center and Camp Atterbury, where they make themselves available, day or night, to see soldiers off on deployments.

At Thanksgiving, whoever’s home for the holi-

One section of the basement could pass as an old-time drugstore, complete with penny candy and 10-cent Cokes.


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day tags along with John and Marilnn to serve food at the First Christian Church community dinner. Marilnn also volunteers several days at week at Columbus Regional Hospital. Their faith influences their desire to help others.

“The Catholic Church really encourages you to do things for other people,” says John. “You were put here for a reason, and part of that reason is that you should help your fellow man.”

Good friend Gary Norris has been a recipient of the Rondots’ kindness.

“Either one of them would do anything for you,” he says. “When my mother died, and I was driving back and forth to Iowa to settle her estate, John and Marilnn loaned me their van, so I didn’t have to hassle with a rental truck. If they can help you out in any way, they will.”

TIME FOR ICE CREAMA sense of fun permeates their life. For their

50th anniversary, the children and grandchildren arranged a surprise party for them at the downtown Columbus Dairy Queen. When John and Marilnn

were a young couple with four kids and a limited budget, they often celebrated their anniversary with ice cream at the DQ. Bob Franke, owner of the Dairy Queen, knows the family well.

“They’re a unique couple,” he says. “Very good people. They raised a nice family. Three of their kids worked for me during high school, and they were all exceptional workers.”

Asked for their recipe for a long and happy mar-riage, the Rondots don’t hesitate.

“You always have to give 100 percent,” says John, “live one day at a time and remember there’s no problem that you can’t overcome. But you can’t do it alone. You’ve got to do it as a team.”

“Communicate with each other,” adds Marilnn. “You’re not going to understand why someone’s unhappy with you if you can’t talk it out. No matter how trivial or big, you’ve got to discuss it.”

Perhaps their lives are best summed up by the title of a photo memory book their children gave them for their 50th anniversary — “Marilnn and John: A Celebration of 50 Years of Love, Family and Life Together.” PT


When the 27th edition of American Pie counts off May 11 at the Columbus North High School au-ditorium, founder Ed Niespodziani will once again lead participants and the audience through the wildly popular musical history lesson. This year’s show will focus on the changes that took place in America during the 1970s.

The past year has seen a significant change in Niespodziani’s life, too. After 37 years as a teacher, including the last 27 at North, he retired at the end of last school year.

Retired teacher makes pursuing his multiple interests look easy as pie

history tourBY DOuG SHOWALTER

Magical

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So far he is anything but regretting his decision.“This retirement gig is really great,” he says,

greeting a visitor to his home on a sunny spring morning.

The 63-year-old enjoys having more time to spend with Katie, his wife of 39 years. And he also enjoys spending more time in his wood shop, for-merly known as the garage.

Son Nicholas is a musician in Atlanta, while daughter Gina lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and creates animation for smartphone apps.

The Stevens Point, Wis., native and his then-pregnant wife moved to Columbus in the summer of 1978 as the result of what Niespodziani calls an act of God.

“To this day I’m still convinced of that,” he said.The couple came to town because he had a job

interview with Cummins. Since he arrived early and really didn’t want to work for Cummins, he decided to stop by the school corporation office to see if there were any open teaching positions. He had ap-plied previously but never had any luck.

This particular day, the usual receptionist was out sick and her replacement wasn’t sure what to do with Niespodziani so she made a phone call up-stairs. She told the man who answered that there was a gentlemen there inquiring about teaching positions.

“He said, ‘What does he teach?’ and she said ‘so-cial studies,’” Niespodziani said. “He said, ‘Send him up.’ That was two weeks before school started, and just 15 minutes before I got there the guy whose job I got called up and quit.”

He taught his first two years at Southside, then moved to Central Middle School for three years be-fore landing at North in 1983.

TIMES CHANGESeveral things factored into his decision to re-

tire last year, one being what he sees as the state’s emphasis on quantifying the education process to satisfy the politicians.

“They have so many rules, regulations, tests, etc. All they want is a number, not taking into account that every class is different. I think what they fail to see is that the core element of education is the hu-man element.

“Also, it was just time. You reach a point where

you’re not as effective as you need to be,” he said. “I didn’t have the same enthusiasm, and without that I don’t think you should be in education because that’s what’s necessary.

“I really thought I would miss it, but I don’t even think about it. I really miss the kids, but the rest of it, no I don’t miss that at all.”

Libby Arthur, social studies department chair-woman at Columbus North High School and Northside Middle School, taught with Niespodziani for 25 years.

“There are some people who are just born teachers, and he’s one of them,” Arthur said. “He was always very good at removing barriers in the classroom. If a student couldn’t speak English well enough or if they were needy, Ed didn’t care. He was the true public school teacher; he’ll teach any-thing to anybody. He just knew how to reach kids where their interests were.

“Everyone felt special when they had Mr. Niespodziani. He’s just a good, good human being.”

Above: An avid woodworker, Niespodziani made this enter-tainment center in his home. Opposite page: Left, he sings during rehearsals for an American Pie concert. Right, Ilyana Kano hugs him backstage before the 25th anniversary of the concert. She joined fellow alumni for the final number — the concert’s namesake — “American Pie” by Don McLean.

PHOT

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Niespodziani is enjoying his retirement doing “a little bit of everything.” But nearly every day he’s home he spends at least some time in his wood shop. At least until 2 p.m., when Katie begins teaching piano lessons and he must be quiet.

“It’s good therapy,” he said. “You can come out here and just create.”

He took up woodworking shortly after he and Katie married, out of necessity. They went looking for furniture and found they couldn’t afford it.

“So I said, ‘I’ll make it.’ All I had was a drill and a jigsaw. I made a table, and my son is still using it. And it just kind of evolved from there.”

That’s an understatement at best. Over the years he has made the majority of the furniture in their home — a home he helped build. As he gives a tour of the first floor he points to beds, dressers, tables, chairs, vanities, book cases, desks, entertainment centers, plant stands, computer stations, benches, etc.

He recently completed his first post-retirement project, a new vanity in the downstairs bathroom.

“This was the first piece where I could really take my time,” he said. “I didn’t have to finish it this weekend.”

He also makes things for other people, such as the three wedding benches he’s building for summer ceremonies. He’s even been known to barter a bit.

“We didn’t buy shoes for the kids until they were 5 or 6 years old,” he said. He knew the owner of the former Tovey Shoes. “She’d say, ‘I need a bookshelf.’ So I’d build her a bookshelf. Then we’d go in and say, ‘We need some shoes.’”

NO ROOM FOR vEHICLESHe’s come a long way from a drill and a jigsaw,

too. “I had a neighbor who had a table saw. I didn’t have one. He wanted some shelves. We bartered, and he got the shelves and I got the table saw.”

In fact, his shop kept growing until there was no more room in the garage for vehicles.

“Finally it got to the point where I said to my wife, ‘OK, do you want furniture or do you want to park the car?’”

He’s had no formal training; it’s all been learn as you go.

“My theory is you take a bunch of wood, and if it doesn’t look like what you want, you don’t use that wood. Just use another piece.”

Many of the designs Niespodziani paints on or

Niespodziani constructs a large picture frame in his garage workshop.


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punches into the surface of his breadboards and benches are based on Native American culture, which has been an important part of his life since childhood.

He became a Native American dancer at age 8 after seeing a demonstration in his hometown. He joined a dance team and danced all over Wisconsin. While a student at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, he led a dance team of elementary students.

“And I’ve been dancing in the schools here for 25 years,” he said. “I have a presentation I give on various dances and what they mean.”

Jay Lahee, art teacher at Columbus North, began his local teaching career in 1980 at Central Middle School, where he became friends with Niespodziani, who introduced him to cross-country skiing. They became good friends, and more than 30 years later continue to ski together.

Lahee describes Niespodziani as “kind, benevo-lent, wanting to help people and make them feel good about what they’re doing. And he’s been that way forever.”

Lahee said his recent dental surgery shows what he means. Niespodziani and his wife drove him to the dentist on a Friday for the surgery. The follow-ing Sunday they delivered lunch to his house.

“I just thought, what great friends they are,” Lahee said.

He said the friendship has been a lot of fun. He mentioned the time Niespodziani was going to help him build a deck. On the way back from the lumber yard, they took a turn, and the entire load of wood slid out of the pickup truck onto the street. A police officer directed traffic while the two reloaded the truck in the middle of the street.

“We couldn’t do anything but laugh,” Lahee said.Arthur also recalls plenty of fun times. One that

stands out involved a time capsule.“The year of Halley’s Comet we got this bril-

liant idea that we’d put a time capsule in the school courtyard. I was in charge of the directions but lost them, and we couldn’t remember where we put it.

“During the construction project, they found it. Unfortunately we had put it in an old shell casing,

see ED on page 15


“With one knee replacement, I was back skiing three months later,” said Pryor, a Sacramento, Calif., resident who began skiing a half-century ago. “I could have gone skiing sooner, but the snow wasn’t any good.”

Like Pryor, many of his 130 fel-low members of the Sacramento area 49er Ski Club — average age 72 — have dealt with chronic knee and hip problems, and many remain athletically active after joint re-placement surgery.

Pryor also walks every day to stay in shape. Bill Anthony, 83, a retired Roseville, Calif., family phy-sician who had both hips replaced and, most recently, recovered from a broken back, likes to bike three times a week and lift weights when he’s not skiing.

“We also do a lot of hiking,” said ski group member Judy Agid, 73, a

hip replacement veteran and retired Sacramento State fencing coach who has hiked hundreds of miles through Spain and biked across America twice.

“And we kayak in the summer,” said Anthony.

While that level of activity might sound unusual, experts on aging say it hints at a new norm. For more energetic seniors today, knee and hip replacements provide a break from vigorous physical activity, not the end.

In part, that’s because older adults have learned a key lesson: They expect to maintain a good quality of life, because they know that age does not equal infirmity and illness.

“I’d say that age is irrelevant,” said Pat Beal, 74, Senior Center of Elk Grove executive director.

“We have drivers for our Dial-A-

Ride program who have hip replace-ments and can’t wait to get back to volunteering. They tell me how many weeks they’ll be out, and I have to tell them to take their time recovering.

“Seniors recognize that life is short, and they don’t want to take more time away from what they enjoy. They want to get on with life and have fun while they can.”

NO TIME FOR PAINIncreasingly, that quality of life

doesn’t include enduring the aches and pains of joint problems caused by osteoarthritis or previous inju-ries.

Well before the tidal wave of the baby boom generation began hitting retirement age, the num-ber of hip and knee replacement procedures more than doubled between 1996 and 2007, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Today, Americans undergo more than 1 million of these knee and hip procedures each year, and a growing number are performed on people in their 50s and 60s.

For example, almost 5 percent of people age 50 and older have had knee replacement surgery, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says — and so have 10

Joint replacementBY ANITA CREAMER n MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

A lifetime of wear and tear on his joints caused Dick Pryor, a 77-year-old retired landscape architect, to undergo not one but two surgeries to replace his knees. Neither slowed him down for long.

gives seniors leg up on activity, longevity


and they thought it was a bomb and evacuated the school.

“Ed and I kind of looked at each other and went, ‘Oops, we probably shouldn’t have put it in a bomb casing.’”

ROCK FOR A REASONNiespodziani also was a successful musician in

his younger days. While in high school he sang and played keyboards in a band called The Rejects. The band was popular enough that he earned $5,000 during his senior year.

Today his sole musical endeavor is the American Pie concert each May. Even though he no longer teaches at North, he plans to continue heading up the event for at least a couple of more years.

“That’s a labor of love,” he said. “That’s some-thing I really enjoy, and the kids and the com-munity have come to expect it. It started with me and five kids. Today we’ve got over 100 kids in the show.”

He’s proud of the fact that much of the school is involved in preparations for the event and that all

the profits go back to the school.“Everybody gets some,” he said. “It’s a great show

in that regard. The library bought all kinds of furni-ture with American Pie money.

“Nobody walks away from American Pie without a smile on their face. And that’s what I really enjoy about it; everybody walks away with something.”

The American Pie concept has begun to spread. In April, thanks to retirement, Niespodziani was able to travel to Hilton Head, S.C., where former Columbus teacher Cindy Sturgis now teaches and has started a similar program.

“I’ve always wanted to go see it, and I never could. This year I finally can.”

He’s also been busy wrapping up a “rockumen-tary” media package on American Pie, as he’s got-ten inquiries from schools in Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina and Maryland.

Not bad for a guy who on his first try at college flunked out after one semester, with a 1.07 GPA. “I always told my students the secret to success at col-lege is GO TO CLASS!”

Oh well. He seems to have recovered quite nicely. PT

ED continued from page 13

percent of people 80 and older.

“A lot of our older people are trying to keep going and stay active until their maker calls them,” said Dr. Stephen Howell, a Methodist Hospital orthopedic surgeon who performs 420 knee replacement procedures each year.

“I always tell people you only go around once. My father is 88, and he’s got two knee replacements. He swims laps every day. He plays golf. He still lives independently. Without having his knees done, he’d be in a nursing home now.”

Mobility issues and the debilitat-ing level of pain associated with chronic joint problems are two of the major reasons an estimated 210,000 elderly Californians reside

in the state’s short- and long-term care facilities.

ON THEIR FEETJoint replacement procedures

can make living independently in old age possible for many people. And research indicates it can make life itself possible, as well. According to a 12-year study of 135,000 Medicare patients, those who underwent knee replacement surgery had half the risk of dying within the next seven years versus patients who opted against it.

It’s an interesting equation that encompasses a lot of life beyond achy hips and knees: Joint replace-ment surgery enhances older adults’ chances of remaining physically ac-tive. In turn, being active not only

helps mitigate difficulties with bal-ance and falling, it also reduces the likelihood that seniors will become homebound and isolated, leading to a potentially deadly cascade of problems.

“Everybody can be active at different levels,” said Lisa Cirill, who leads the state Department of Public Health’s California Active Communities program. “It’s crucial that they are.”

In a real way, staying mobile — being at least able to walk, if not run and bike and ski — prolongs lives.

“One of the doctors I went to told me, ‘You’re getting older, and you’re doing too much,’” said Agid. “So I changed doctors.” PT


For Barbra Heavner, 84, a true marker of a life well lived is a good story, and she has plenty to tell. What she needed when she joined Mill Race Center in 2010 was a place to share them, and the Senior Scribes provided her with just that.

“The Senior Scribes are just a group of people who like to write,” she says. “We meet once a month and just read something we’ve written. It’s very informal.”

After the former group chairwoman stepped down, Heavner volunteered to be the new leader. Under her direction, the Senior Scribes continue to provide an open storytelling venue for members, but without the critique and judgment of a traditional writers workshop.

“We don’t try to be a workshop,” Scribes member Jim Leahy says. “We’re pretty supportive of one an-other. No one is critical, and yet we all open up and talk about each piece a little bit after it’s been read.”

Despite the informal atmosphere, the Scribes take their writing seriously. With each member bringing expertise to the diverse mix of genres that get read aloud at each meeting, the group has the advantage of having writers from many different areas: fiction and nonfiction, poetry and memoir, those who self-publish and those who are simply writing down their memories.

Some pieces read aloud are funny, rhyming an-ecdotes. Some are short observations. A poem that explores the author’s mortality could be followed by a story about a swindling con man or a con-temporary romance. While some members explore descriptive literary fiction, others search for truth in accounts of personal experiences.

“I focus on genealogy, or historical stories,” member Eleanor Haltom says. “A lot of my stories are little vignettes that have happened in the fam-ily. I just turned 90, so I go back a long way. I have a lot of input.”

RECORDING HISTORYBecause of this style of memoir writing, many

members have learned to see themselves as part of a historical landscape that spans an entire century. Scribe Maxine Wheeler admits to feeling a sense of duty in this writing.

Senior Scribes share love of writing and stories of the way

things were

STORY BY DERRICK CARNES PHOTOS BY ANDREW LAKER

Barbra Heavner listens as Karen Lowe reads her story about how people socialized when she was a child.


MeMorY

keepers


“If seniors do not pass along some of these tales, they will never be remembered, never be known, and that would be unfortunate,” Wheeler says. “We’re just this older group that meets and tells sto-ries about how things were at one time, but history is such an ongoing thing. When you’re in school and you pick up a history book, you seem to think that these are things that happened long ago, but history is happening right now.”

Heavner explains, “I’ve tried in my writing to give a sense of how things were. How we felt when we heard on the radio that Pearl Harbor was bombed. How we got through the Depression. History is important. It repeats itself, and if you don’t follow it, you’re going to make mistakes.”

After casting their stories out into the void, like bottled messages out to sea, the Senior Scribes do not leave empty-handed. Leahy says that aside from camaraderie and companionship, he leaves each meeting with a renewed inspiration for his future creative endeavors.

“I’ve grown some as a writer since I’ve been with the seniors group, and writing more often than I did before,” Leahy says. “Before there might be months where I wouldn’t write anything, but the Scribes challenges you to bring new material all the time, and that normally opens creativity.”

COMMON GROuNDFor Leahy, creative writing is an art form that

can bridge the gap between groups of people that may not be able to otherwise relate to one another.

“Even though this is a senior group, I don’t feel out of place being with other young people that

Attending a recent meeting of the Senior Scribes were, clockwise from bottom left, Sandy Richards, Barbra Heavner, Karen Lowe, Cindy Casey, Janice Waltermire, Jim Leahy, Maxine Wheeler, Carmen Mangus, Marjorie Anthony and Eleanor Haltom.

Eleanor Haltom enjoys the discussions that ensue after a read-ing at Mill Race Center.


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are exploring their creative writing,” Leahy says. “I think writing is a common field or a common playing ground where you can share ideas with one another even though there is quite a vast difference in age or interests.”

For Wheeler, the Senior Scribes not only provide a venue for members to share their stories, but also their passion for the undeniable spark of the cre-ative process itself.

“I enjoy writing, period,” she says. “Writing has been a general interest for most of my life. I love words. I love people who handle words well. They’re just intriguing to me, so anything that deals with words is something I would enjoy.”

Although any creative writer is sure to reap cer-tain benefits from her work — emotional insight, personal redemption or the knowledge of like-mind-ed people — there are still some writers who could not stop writing even if they wanted to. For them, there is no choice but to create.

“After I lost my husband, I started writing in earnest again,” Heavner says. “I had to do some-thing. It was very therapeutic, and it has become a compulsion with me. Writing is just something that I have to do.”

Interested in becoming a Mill Race Center member? Send your questions regarding membership to [email protected] or call 376-9241.

Jim Leahy listens to a fellow Senior Scribe’s story.

PT


At A Coping mechanisms vary for spouses learning

to overcome grief from death or divorceBY JENNIFER WILLHITE

F ew events can change your life as drastically as the loss of a spouse. Whether the loss oc-curs through death or divorce, the time one

takes to traverse the path to healing and adjust to a new normal is different for everyone.

Roger Brinkman, therapist with Centerstone, says one’s ability to cope with a death or divorce depends on the individual’s support system and his ability to deal with challenging changes.

“When it comes to grieving, I think there are a lot of different factors,” says Brinkman. “The bot-tom line, a lot depends on the individual’s coping skills. … One of the things that comes across in research is if a person has some sense of spirituality to make sense out of life, they seem to cope a little better.”

Nick Demas’ wife, Pauline, was 93 when she died in April 2011. Demas says although he isn’t as active as he once was, he spends his time with fam-ily and working around the house he and Pauline shared.

Over the past year, he has found strength in his faith and family. In his living room sits a portrait of a young Pauline, whom Demas greets when he wakes and speaks to before retiring at night.

“I say, ‘Hi, Pauline, I love you. Good morning, kid,’ that kind of stuff,” he says. “You live with a woman 71½ years, you can’t forget her. Life moves along. You got to have faith in the good Lord that everything’s going to be all right, and you’re going to get along.”

We are social creatures. When we experience


deep loss, we undergo psychological, emotional and physical changes. Just as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross described the five stages of grief for the dying in-dividual, those same stages may be experienced by those left behind.

Along with the initial stages of anger, denial and bargaining, survivors often experience varying de-grees of depression before embracing acceptance. It is not uncommon for some to experience multiple stages multiple times before finally moving forward. While in the midst of the early stages, many may also experience anxiety and disrupted sleep and withdraw into isolation.

“I don’t think everybody who goes through a divorce and everybody who has a death of a spouse has to be in therapy,” Brinkman says. “I think it’s a very personal determination in terms of how uncomfortable does it become. Is it affecting their functional capacity, is it affecting their ability to work and concentrate?”

FACING A NEW NORMALJudy McCormick lost her husband of 43 years in

2008.

“I feel comfortable saying every woman experi-ences this loss differently, depending on the circum-stances of her marriage, the circumstances of the death and a myriad of other variables,” McCormick said.

For her, the most difficult adjustment has been facing being alone.

“We can become involved in all the community and church activities, as well as recreational activi-ties we want, but we still come home to an empty house each evening,” she said.

While her faith and family provide much needed support, “they do not fill a lot of the lonely nights when I am alone and desperately wanting compan-ionship.”

Most of her female friends are married and after the first year began to lose touch. She found she needed to find new friends who are widowed or divorced if she wanted to call someone to do some-thing.

McCormick feels it is a bit different when a woman is left alone as opposed to a man.

“Men hold all the potential of trying to form new

PHOTOS BY GREG JONES

Above: Suzy Milhoan writes in her home office. Opposite page: She looks over the manuscript of her soon-to-be-published book, “The Healing Game.” The photo of her late husband, Kevin Taggart, will be included.


relationships with the opposite sex, if they choose, because they are the ones who are socially accepted to make phone calls; women are not.”

She said her faith has been the most important ingredient in her transitioning to widowhood.

“It is also by being proactive in finding new, meaningful relationships (both male and female) in combination with finding ways to contribute to our community, our fellow man and spreading our faith in God to everyone around us that we can ultimate-ly acquire our ‘new normal.’”

‘YOu NEvER GET OvER IT’It was nearly two years after her husband, Kevin

Taggart, died suddenly in 2006 that Suzy Milhoan actively sought counseling to cope with his loss. She’d lost her job, suffered a breakdown and was experiencing the physical effects of having sup-pressed her grief for too long. Cocooning herself, she experienced deep depression and regular panic attacks. Speaking from the healing side of her expe-rience, she calls her journey a real battle.

“You never get over it,” says Milhoan. “I guess I got to where I thought I was supposed to be miser-able and that was what my life was supposed to be. We were supposed to be together; we were supposed to grow old together.”

In a letter penned years earlier, to be read at his death, Kevin said he wanted her to move on and to be happy. Nearly three years later, Milhoan said she decided she wasn’t going to be miserable anymore.

In 2009, she married her husband, Merle. Patient and understanding from the beginning, he has al-lowed her to heal in her own way and time.

“I want to make it clear, I’m not happy because I got remarried,” says Milhoan. “I decided, you decide when you’re ready to move on. Because all that time, even after I was making myself miserable, once I felt like it was OK for me, then I began the journey to start healing myself.”

Milhoan returned to school in 2011. Majoring in English, with a concentration in creative writing, at IUPUC, she credits her writing with facilitating her healing process.

The letters she wrote in the weeks after Kevin’s death became the basis for a short nonfiction story, a requirement for her creative writing class. Working on the story caused her to reflect on the

events leading up to and following her husband’s death. Four years later, Milhoan had reached the place where she could discuss his death without get-ting so emotional.

Age often contributes to one’s ability to deal with adversity in life. According to Brinkman, young adults may not have a support system as deeply rooted as, say, someone in their 50s or 60s. That being said, connecting with others who’ve had similar experiences can be beneficial.

SuPPORT SYSTEMFourteen years ago, then 27-year-old Angel

Walker lost her husband, Richard, in a car accident. The mother of three says she found comfort speak-ing with an older co-worker who lost her husband four months later. Despite the age difference, the

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two were able to relate through experience.“We just got to where we’d meet for coffee,” says

Walker. “I think it was really a big healing for me and her. It was a kind of support system saying, ‘It’s OK, you’re allowed to be like that.’”

Walker says one of her husband’s things was to always say she deserved better. It is the memory of his concern that has helped her move forward. Always in the back of her mind is the question, are you doing this because you’re going to be better?

“Not only do you learn to live differently,” Walker says, “but you learn how feelings and people are so much more important than material things.”

The circumstances of a spouse’s departure or death may also influence the surviving spouse’s abil-ity to heal. A sudden, traumatic death can initiate what Brinkman terms a complicated bereavement; whereas, if one is given a timeline, planning may take place.

“Those are incredibly meaningful moments for people,” Brinkman says. “This is different than someone just tragically dying in something unex-pected.”

Dee Dee Broderick’s husband, Mike, was ill for 10 years before he died in April 2008. The high school sweethearts were married for 34 years and intended to be together forever.

Broderick says she’s now reached a place where she feels it’s all right to move on. But, despite hav-ing gone on a few dates, she doesn’t ever see herself marrying again.

“You have to be honest with yourself,” she says. “I was with Mike for 34 years, and there’s no way that’s just going to be over. That’s not even logical. I don’t think I will ever be over him. I am who I am because of his participation in my life.”

An organ donor, Mike was able to help others in death. In honor of him, Broderick became a mem-ber of the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization and volunteers to help spread awareness about the benefits of organ donation.

“My husband, as sick as he was, was an organ donor,” she says. “That would delight him. And that gives me great honor to know that that sick old man was able to do that. It gives me honor as it honors him.” PT


With a song

in t h e i r h e a rts


The Chordlighters bring fun to music with barbershop harmonies

BY GREG SEITER

B arbershop music was immensely popular in the early 1900s. Today The Chordlighters, a local chapter of the Barbershop Harmony

Society composed of members from Greenwood, Columbus and many surrounding communities, is doing its part to keep the art form alive in south central Indiana.

It’s believed that barbershop quartets originated with African American men as they socialized with one another in barbershops during the last half of the 19th century. Their harmonic, a cappella tunes quickly grew in popularity and were a featured sound in the early days of the recording industry.

For whatever reason, barbershop music faded into obscurity in the 1920s before experiencing a revival some 20 years later.

Today, as it was back then, barbershop music is mostly a chromatic four-part harmony sung by four unaccompanied voices. The melody of a given song is sung by the lead while the tenor part is sung above the lead. The bass sings lower than the lead and the baritone provides the in-between notes that complete the musical chords.

Columbus resident Liston Hinson, a longtime member of The Chordlighters, was hooked on bar-bershop from the first time he heard it while still in college.

“At Campbell University, we had dorms that had day rooms in them with only one television,” said Hinson, who sang while in high school and participated in band during both high school and college. “Back then, when local stations signed off the air for the day, they did so with a quartet sing-ing “Dixie.” It really touched me so I went down to hear it again and again.

“Later, I was in Columbus playing softball with a guy and he invited me to a barbershop practice.

When I walked in and heard those harmonies, I thought it was great, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

COMBINED STRENGTHOriginally, Columbus and Greenwood had sepa-

rate Barbershop Harmony Society chapters, but the two were combined in the 1980s and have main-tained a strong membership base ever since.

The Barbershop Harmony Society is an interna-tional organization composed of 16 districts across the U.S. and in Canada. The Chordlighters are members of the Cardinal District, which consists of Indiana and Kentucky chapters.

“Our actual membership listing is about 45, but I’d say we have approximately 35 regular partici-pants,” said Franklin resident Steve Richards, a retired administrator and women’s golf coach at Franklin College who is a nine-year member and current president of The Chordlighters.

“We aren’t as oriented toward competition as some other groups are. Our involvement is mostly for our own enjoyment and to provide our audi-ences with enjoyment, too.”

While The Chordlighters rehearse practically every Tuesday at Grace United Methodist Church in Franklin, starting at 7:30 p.m., the entire chorus conducts only three major shows each year.

“We do one in the fall, one at Christmas time and our spring cabaret,” Richards said. “We do some other shows, too, including a couple of fairs, and usually perform at about four churches for Sunday morning service.”

However, within The Chordlighters, there are also smaller groups that perform more often and at different venues.

Hinson, a retired division environmental man-ager for Arvin Industries, also participates in The

PHOTOS BY MARK FREELAND

Opposite page: Steve Richards, Dick Wood, Allen Distler and Lowell Lowary, from left, members of The Chordlighters, serenade Etheleen Coffman of Coffman Florist in Franklin on valentine’s Day.

With a song

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Chordlighters’ newest quartet, Speed Bump.“With Speed Bump, I’d say we have two perfor-

mances per month most of the time,” he said. “In all, I’ve been in four or five quartets, most within Chordlighters but some with other chapters and individuals.”

Besides maintaining a genuine appreciation for barbershop music itself, Hinson, who serves as The Chordlighters’ vice president of music and perfor-mance, enjoys the friendship and camaraderie that barbershop singing provides.

“Barbershoppers are generally very welcoming no matter where you go,” he said. “We’re all very close friends, and we have a lot of fun together.

“If you’re going to spend three hours per week doing something, you better enjoy it.”

SINGING FOR ALL OCCASIONSAccording to Richards, The Chordlighters have

fun no matter where they perform, even if things don’t always go quite as planned.

“I was with a quartet one time that serenaded a lady while she was getting a pedicure for her wed-

ding anniversary,” he said. “We’ve serenaded people at restaurants many times, and we even had a lady get up and want to dance with us in an assisted liv-ing center once.

“Probably our most embarrassing performances are when a wife asks us to sing to her husband for Valentine’s Day at a factory somewhere. We’ve had several of those.”

While the ages of participants in The

Director Dave Galbreth leads The Chordlighters during a recent rehearsal .


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Chordlighters vary, Richards and Hinson acknowl-edge that, for the most part, members tend to be 50 and older.

“Our youngest is a junior in high school, and at one time, we had one younger than that, but we also have several members in their upper 70s and lower 80s,” Richards said.

“For us older guys, we still enjoy what we do,” Hinson added.

“We’re always seeking new members and would like to have some younger ones, too,” Richards continued. “People don’t have to be professionals to join. They don’t even have to read music.

“The bottom line is that if you enjoy singing, you’ll have fun with us.”

For Hinson, a big part of that level of enjoyment also involves being part of harmonious music.

“It’s very enjoyable to be inside that sound,” he said. “You can really get wrapped up in the music that’s all around you.

“It’s like a golfer hitting a hole in one.”More information on The Chordlighters can be

found at www.chordlighters.org.

PT


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June 28“Dixie Swim Club,” Derby Dinner Playhouse. Cost $69 members; $79 nonmembers. Depart 4:45 p.m.; re-turn 11 p.m. A touching comedy about five Southern women whose friendships began on their college swim team and span a lifetime.

July 26Ride the Ducks, Newport Aquarium, Newport on the Levee. Cost $75 members; $85 nonmembers. Depart 8:30 a.m.; return 5:30 p.m. Tour the streets of downtown Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and splash into the Ohio River. Visit the Newport Aquarium and take in the many aquatic creatures from around the world. Enjoy free time at Newport on the Levee to shop and enjoy lunch (not included).

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WHO IS THAT PERSON IN THE MIRROR?

A couple of years ago I wrote a piece about feeling like a “piece of meat in the sandwich of life.” This was in reaction to becoming one of the millions of boomers who were not only taking care of their children, but also their aging parents. I didn’t know then that in a few short months I would go from feeling like a little piece of lunch meat to a tough slice of pressed ham.

Time marched on, and the pressures esca-lated until one day I looked in the mirror and saw my mom. Now, as I watch her slip into the quiet nothingness of dementia, I see my-self more and more in her. She knows things she can’t talk about, but I understand. All she has to do is look at me, and I hear her voice in the silence.

Her dark, vacant eyes look to me for guid-ance in the simplest of things, like putting on a pair of socks. And I know she doesn’t like it. I want so badly to talk to her as a daughter, but those days are gone. Sensing what she needs is now my role, and I’ve learned to let that be enough.

As the mother of two grown daughters, I have another sense. Recently, I woke up at 2 in the morning with the haunting sense that something wasn’t right with my youngest daughter, who lives two time zones away. A

phone call confirmed it. I want so much for her to talk to me, but

she is at that point in life where she wants her space. Yet at the same time she wants to know I’m there when she stumbles, as was the case when I called in the middle of the night.

I am pulled at both ends. My mother and my daughter want my help, but both resent needing me. But I have been the tenacious, independent daughter, and one day I may be the feeble, helpless mother. Seeing both the past and the future helps me understand and prepare.

The person in the mirror today is a child missing her momma, a mother praying for her daughters, a woman whose face is showing the fragile combination of youthful optimism and the unforgiving effects of time.

I see the face of endings and beginnings — mothers and daughters. In the middle is the one who feels and understands all of it but knows she can’t control anything.

That’s me. I’m the person in the mirror, and I’m grateful.

Jeanette Menter is a freelance writer and author of “You’re Not Crazy — You’re Codependent.”

She can be reached at [email protected].

JEANETTE MENTER


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