Grandma T!

Yesterday at the Tosa Senior Club, I met Grandma T. She was sitting quietly at a table by herself until after lunch. About ten minutes before my presentation, this dimunitive woman came up to me and told me to speak loudly so that she could hear me. She had a Senior Olymplics gold medal hanging around her neck. She proudly showed me her medal and said that she had won 25 medals. She led me to the table where she had been sitting and showed me a photograph of her and a newspaper article related to it.

As we walked back to her chair, placed almost next to the podium, she proclaimed that she had won only gold and silver medals - none of those third place ones.

She asked me my name and to make it easy for her I told to remember me as Dr. V. She had already told me her name was Betty but by now she preferred to be called Grandma T.

During the presentation, she seemed to fully absorbed in the subject. As I was leaving, she gave me a hug and told me to remember that after 85 you cannot stop aging and that now she is 93.

Thank you Grandma T for inspiring me to think of aging as beginning at 85! I wish that I had taken my camera with me, I hope to meet you again.

Attendees this week and last week.

At Wilson Park Senior Center, on April 26th, there were 12 attendees in the Brain Jogging Club. (On April 6th, there were 20 attendees.) On of the attendees wanted a certificate of attendance.

In the four-week Understanding and Improving Memory class that started on April 26th evening at New Berlin Libraary, there were 35 attendees.

At the Wauwatosa Civic Center, yesterday, the Wauwatosa Senior Club had more than 40 attendees.

Last week on April 20th, at Washington Park, I had about 40 attendees - this was a return visit, "back on popular demand".

You may call it any name you choose

The following is a copy of an email that I just sent to Cheryl Esch, a retired school principal, who is championing my brain jogging presentations at Barnes and Noble in Racine, Wisconsin.

Cheri,
Frindle brought me to tears just now. What a tribute to inventing and what a tribute to teaching and what a tribute to friendship and what a tribute to love and what a tribute to pen and what a tribute to dictionary and what a tribute to growth! I can go on and on and on and on and on!~

Let's make-up a word for lifelong learning and make it catch. "onandon" Let's call it "onandon"! :) Let's call our club the Onandon club. Onandon is good for you, onandon improves your quality of life, onandon keeps you ticking, onandon invigorates you!

Bloggers of this world, make this the new word "onandon" means ...you know!

Excerpts from Toffler's "Future Shock" - I

The book argues forcefully, I hope, that unless man quickly learns to change in his personal affairs as well as in society at large, we are doomed to a massive adaptational breakdown. ..

Writers have a harder and harder time keeping up with reality. We have not yet learned to conceive, research, write and publish in "real time." Readers, therefore, must concern themselves more and more with general theme, rather than detail.


My personal observation: I wonder if blogging is considered "real time"- when Alvin Toffler wrote this book no one had even dreamt about the Internet - let alone blogging! A change in mindset of writers? A change in the sense of time projected in a writing?

"Slow down you move too fast...

.......got to make the moment last.....................ta ra ra ra ra ..Feeling Groovy!"

Every time I play this song during one of my presentations, I sense a surge of relaxation in the audience. I relax along with everyone and I get grounded.

The reason why I play this song is to emphasize the importance of being in the moment. It is easier to pay attention and create a memory if you are in the moment.