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I can't quite remember when my interest in senior citizens began. I think I was still in my teens. Back then we used to call them "old people" and later improved to "the aged." The latter appelation reminds me of cheese, which I love, but it has a kind of non-human, impersonal ring to it, which I don't.
Twenty-odd years later, seniors still stir my feelings. Take the woman I met while grocery shopping, for example.
I met her in the super-market the other day. She stopped to ask me the date. She needed to write a check but couldn't remember whether it was the 22nd or the 23rd.
"We all grow old, and I'm not afraid to ask," she giggles.
"What's my excuse?" I wonder out loud. At 40, I'm notoriously forgetful, or, should I say, "unmindful" of dates.
"I'll check," I tell her. I fish in my bag, pull out my diary, and before I can get the words out, she says, "I think it's the 23rd." She's right.
"I'm not so old, after all," she laughs.
"How old are you?" I ask.
"I'm 91. I was 91 on December 7th."
This makes me take a better look at her. She stands erect and firm. There's no sign of shakiness in her movements, or even in her speech. Her gray hair licks her forehead and the pale blue scarf that covers her head. She looks at me through not-so-thick glasses, eyes clear, bright, and smiling.
"I walk all the time to the supermarket, since my husband died eight years ago. And I walk back home. I fell once and hurt my shoulder." She touches her right shoulder.
"And did you go to the doctor?"
"No. I didn't. It's okay now," she chuckles.
I ask her what her secret is.
"I work everyday. I even mow my own lawn."
Joyce Hysell is the woman at the top of the ladder, pasting wallpaper trim near the ceiling. Even with the ladder she has to stretch to rub the paper flat with her damp rag.
"I really like it," comments one of her two assistants--the one holding the whitish, wooden ladder so that it doesn't topple over with the director of the Fairfield Senior Citizen Center on it. Her other assistant dips another olive green strip into the bucket of water and passes it up to Joyce.
The cream hearts, inlaid with pale-red plums and green leaves, and set against olive green, indeed liven up the room where senior citizens play Cribbage, Scrabble, Kings in The Corner, or just relax, catching up on the latest. This is also where six can sit around long, bare, plywood tables waiting to be served. First comes a drink, perhaps milk or iced tea, followed by a gray, plastic tray whose sections hold the day's lunch, including two cookies for dessert.
Except for the green trim that stops midway along the ceiling's edge--yesterday's unfinished job--today is like any other day at the center. Pots and pans clang in the background as the staff in the adjoining kitchen prepare today's meal. Joyce walks through the hall, telephone at her ear, telling someone at the other end, "She should be here soon."
Today, like yesterday, she's dressed in a T-shirt, track pants, and sneakers. Her brown hair reaches the sides of her chin, while bangs tease her brows. Although she's probably at least 20 years younger than most, she calls to her seniors like a mother watching over her family.
"Anybody else for tea?"
She continues filling glasses, tinkling blocks of ice with tea, milk, or water.
Her question comes as a signal that lunch is about to be served. Men and women rise, almost in unison, from far-off tables, drawing closer to the food. They know that the half-dozen tables nearest the kitchen are the eating tables.
"Milk for you, Kenny? Here's one. Did everyone get milk, if they wanted, or tea?" Silence probably means consent here.
"Okay. Time for announcements. Bev's gonna give the blessings for today."
The cheerful bus driver stands to thank God for his goodness while her lunch mates support her with silent, bowed heads.
Joyce continues. New recipients of social security checks should know that the office will start staggering checks, "from tomorrow." But the new system shouldn't affect the regulars.
"If anyone has a problem and you're afraid to call, I can call for you."
Then she warns them about scam callers asking for donations for the police or highway patrol.
"It's okay to just hang up. You don't have to talk to them. But if you want to donate to something, there're many 800 numbers you can call." This is greeted with quiet comments and indiscernible mutterings.
"Frances and Earl want to step down from calling the Bingo. They want to play now. Any volunteers? There's a little pay that goes with the job. If anyone's interested, let me know."
News about the wallpaper in the ladies' room is received by a round of applause.
"I'm tired after yesterday," she admits, smiling and stretching out her right arm.
"We're still looking for some for the men's--something with ships, or planes. So if you see some . . . That's it! Ready to eat? Also, Susie says there's salad left if you want some. Bingo tomorrow, we hope!"
By now two ladies stand at the kitchen window where Joyce helps them with passing trays to and from the kitchen staff.
"I already gave you a diet, right?" asks one who might be Susie.
"Now a regular?"
"Yeah," answers a shortish, plump woman who takes both trays to a nearby table.
Steam rises from the trays containing a large biscuit, rice, and meat. Some women open plastic containers and begin scooping in some of the food, presumably for dinner.
Another woman, perhaps nearing six feet tall, waits by the kitchen counter. A gold chain rests on her burgundy sweatshirt.
"What salad did you talk about?" she asks Joyce.
"Pasta salad, here, if anybody wants."
Joyce's lunch comes last. She joins Bev, the bus driver, placing the telephone beside her tray.
They eat quietly, buttering their biscuits, commenting on the food, talking casually with each other.
The Seneca organization subsidizes this food service, providing a hot meal to anyone over 62 for $2.00, at the center, or $2.25 for delivery to your home. Sixty Fairfielders, unable to get out or prepare their own meals, enjoy this service at home. Joyce Hyskell, with one year's experience as director, doesn't know for sure when the center was opened, but Bev remembers that it was in 1973. It moved to its new location in 1982--a rectangular red-brick building, with white glass doors, a crabapple, an oak, and an ash tree, a wooden pagoda, and green wrought-iron picnic tables enlivening the building's plain appearance on a corner on South Court Street. According to a notice on the lobby wall, anyone under 62 who can afford it can pay $4.00 to eat there as well, and there's a little brown box to facilitate the exchange. The center also survives on federal assistance and public donations. But it is more than a dining room to the people that come here. It's obvious that many are old friends who gravitate to the place to share a game, play music, enjoy a show or singalong. They organize bus trips, to Branson, to Lockridge to tour the clock museum, to view the Christmas parade in Oskaloosa, to go on shopping trips, or to visit the gambling boats on the Mississippi.
"They don't gamble but they just like to get away from here sometimes," explains Joyce.
"They're all special to us. They've all got their personalities."
The mailbox at 802 South Sixth Street reads, "Mr. and Mrs. Earl Coffin." Frances, almost 80, and Earl, nearing 88, met at the center and according to him, she "whispered something in his ear" which eventually led him to leave his out-of-town farm, marry her, and move into the house she had bought with her previous, now deceased husband. They've invited me to see their three-wheelers, a way of proving to me that these ocotogenarians actually do ride them.
Earl wheels out his first. A blue three-speed Columbia. Frances owns a Schwinn, Tri Wheeler, Town and Country.
"We ride five to six miles at a time," says Frances. Her speedometer shows 4,390 miles, since 1975, she thinks.
"But do you still ride it?" I ask, somewhat incredulous.
"Sure we do. I usually put my clothes here in the basket and take them up to the laundromat," is her reply.
"And the traffic doesn't bother you?"
"Well, we just observe the signs, like with a car," explains Earl.
In fact, the Coffins also own two cars: the Dodge pick-up truck, which has done 23,000 miles, fitted with much-loved bucket seats, and the Dodge Aries with 45,000 miles, which is better for long trips since "it's got cruise. The truck doesn't have cruise." Such long trips include their visit to Idaho, where Earl's brother lives, but which somehow was via New Mexico, with a stop in Las Vegas. These native Midwesterners have also visited Niagara Falls and New York City.
Earl recalls their visit.
"We also saw some . . . what do you call them?"
"The homeless."
"Yes. One woman was sitting on the sidewalk with a bottle in a bag," he laughs in disbelief.
After about a half-hour, I thank them, signaling my departure.
"Do you want to see my garden?" invites Earl.
We walk over to the side of the garage to a 20-x-15-foot clearing where Earl points out the young shoots of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, beets, carrots, potatoes, and green beans peeping above the ground, and tells me that when he was on the farm he used to grow oats, corn, and hay and kept cattle and hogs.
"I used to be working those tractors." The ruts in his face sharpen as he reminisces. "When I retired, I couldn't watch them anymore. So I started coming to Fairfield."
"This gives him something to do, to keep him out of trouble," adds Frances, with a laugh.
As we walk by the three-wheelers on my way out--or so I thought--Earl invites me to try his.
With his brief instructions and Frances's demonstrations, I climb on. Although there's no need to balance yourself as with a bicycle, there's still the sensation that you might tip over to the side. I peddle a few times more, just to be polite, then stop, getting off a little shakily and much relieved.
"I've got you," assures Frances. She's been holding me the entire time.
.
