Perils and rewards of foster parenting

 

When we were foster parents, I would often attend required meetings on the fifth floor of an Arlington County office building. I would look down to the street and think: “So many of these people down there are  tearing down society. These are the people propping it up.”

 

There was a couple in their 70s who had dozens of foster children over many years. At this age, they decided against more difficult teen-agers and accepted only babies. Babies, in their 70s?

 

In Cluster Springs, I recently came across a family that has taken in 15 foster children over time, mainly through Halifax County Social Services. Why would they do that? “We did it to make the world a better place,” says Gertrude Slabach, who has had six of her own children with husband David. “Sometimes parents get tired and weary and make bad choices. The goal is to get the kids back to the parents if it is a safe place.” 

 

We got into foster care in 1997 not really to save the world but  because we felt our daughter Sara, age 8 and adopted from Honduras, needed company. . Sara got along wonderfully with a 10-year-old girl, our first foster child.  The girl  acquired a life-long interest in reading when a great teacher read the Harry Potter books in class. After she returned to her mother, we had a Guatemalan refugee whose father paid to send her to find work (unsuccessfully) in this country at age 14.  Her primary language was a Mayan dialect, but she knew a little Spanish and so did we. That was our language at the dinner table. She was miserable in this country and eventually returned to Guatemala.

 

After that, we took two girls whose mother had a crack problem. Another child lived with us for a few weeks and took to skiing immediately on a nearby ski trip. And last came a 14-year-old former Russian orphan who was troublesome but who admitted later she just didn’t want a family. She was quite intelligent, and when I thought she had quickly plagiarized a paper off the Internet, I found that it was really her own work. 

 

Then came the rewards. Last Thanksgiving, our first foster child came to our house with her husband and four wonderful children for dinner with Sara’s family.

  

We kept up with the last, difficult child, now an adult, who ended up getting a B.A. in psychology at George Mason University.  And when I left my last job in 2009, she showed up unexpectedly at my retirement party. With a big smile, she proudly gave me a big hug and a  huge bouquet of flowers. It was worth it!

Getting fit for freee

 

Laverne and Shirley are my heroes.

 Oh, not the girls on the old TV show! I’m talking about Laverne Adams and Shirley Moorefield, two women in my Silver Sneakers class at the South Boston YMCA.

They take turns driving the 35 miles (45 minutes) from Brookneal to South Boston three times a week for Silver Sneakers and a water aerobics class before that.

“It keeps me going. The exercise keeps my back from hurting,” says Adams. “Another thing is the wonderful people. When you get to a certain age you have to remain active to keep your mind employed.”

The two cousins, who turn 81 this month, go through a mild routine of lifting light weights, making aerobics movements and stretching muscles, sometimes seated in chairs. In the background is the pop music from their younger years, such as “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” and “Solid As a Rock.” And they laugh as they play catch like kids with a plastic ball to improve their coordination and balance.

The group is led by Rona Collins, an enthusiastic teacher who shouts out encouragement as if they were a couple of generations younger. “Whoo! It’s happy Friday, everybody. You’ll leave here feeling great,” she says during the seated jumping jacks.

“Everybody’s sweating!” she shouts as we pretend to kick a soccer ball to the tune of Jingle Bells.

“Go on, you can do it,” we hear as we pretend our rubber straps are bows and arrows. “But if it hurts, don’t do it!”

Since Collins began in September the class has grown from about 15 to 25 per session, some drawn from the group she used to teach at the library.  Now it includes five or six men, including me on occasion. She remembers most people’s names and even passes out water to those who need it.

“This is more than about exercise,” Collins says. “It makes them feel good about themselves. And it is about fellowship and community.” 

At one session, a woman whose son had died thanked the others tearfully for sending her a sympathy card. Collins hugged her and comforted her after the class.

Remarkably, the program is free to those who are eligible! In fact, its members can use all of the facilities at the Y or join any of its classes. The costs are paid for by many Medicare Advantage plans and policies that supplement Medica

re coverage. The companies figure they save money if their insured are healthy. The Y gets people who wouldn’t normally come.

To find out if you are covered, simply go to the website, www.silversneakers.com. You only need your card, printed from the website, to enter the Y.

 

In Defense of Soccer

 

My uncle in Newcastle, England, apologized for the boring outcome after he took me to a 0-0 soccer game in 1974. It wasn’t necessary. I had a blast watching the action, including the famous “hooligans” disrupting the game.

 

As I watch the World Cup, I think soccer is more exciting than baseball, though I have been a lifelong baseball fan. I grew up going to baseball games with my dad in a sport where seven players stand around watching two teammates play catch most of the game.  

 

My interest in soccer grew when Sara was in kindergarten and Pickett organized a team in Arlington. She knew nothing about soccer but was good working with parents and keeping the kids from running off the field to pick flowers. It took a lot of effort to get the children to play defense rather than just huddle around the moving ball.

 

As the team grew older, games became more serious. The goalie always cried when someone scored, and several times I saw parents rush onto the field and argue with the referee. One team was given a dreaded yellow penalty card when a dad became too aggressive.

 

For three summers in a row, the team came south to our bed & breakfast for a soccer camp, led by an experienced coach. One year the coach of the Halifax County Middle School girls’ team led the camp and let the girls play her older team on the school field.

 

As play got even more serious in later years, the scores started coming down. At Sara’s high school junior varsity game, the team lost  3-0. “That’s not too bad,” I remarked to Sara’s recreational soccer coach. “Mike, in soccer 3-0 is a massacre,” he said. “An absolute massacre!”

 

The coach was Latino, like many of the players, whose families were from El Salvador. In weeks ahead, I was deeply touched by this coach’s admonition when kids on another recreation league team shouted “Mexicans! Mexicans!” A racist insult.

 

After complaining to the opposing coach, he gathered the kids together and gave them the kind of talk that only a Latino coach could: Don’t be intimidated. Be strong. We have all been through this. Don’t shout insults back at the other team. Instead, be proud of your heritage. Move on  with self-confidence.

 

A lesson not only in soccer, but in life.

How to see and hear better

 

It’s amazing how much technology is available for people with visual and hearing impairments. There are a lot of advantages to living in the 21^st century.

 

I have macular degeneration myself, meaning that my central vision is not up to par, even if the peripheral vision is fine. Glasses don’t help. It makes it difficult to see average-sized type in a book or newspaper.

 

There are lots of work-arounds:

--You can easily magnify type on a computer or tablet. Because I occasionally sing and play piano at the same time, I often print out the lyrics in large type and mark the jazz chords on top in large letters with a magic marker for performing in front of others.

--The cameras on tablets are remarkably useful. Before I go to a church service, I photograph all of the hymns and read them off a 12-inch ipad.

--A phone app can be used as a magnifying glass with a light and with adjustments for choosing distances. You can get a full-page magnifier to put on top of a book page.

—There are talking thermometers and a product called Seeing AI, which tells you out loud the name of the object where you have pointed your phone.

--Audiobooks are remarkably helpful. Computers, phones and tablets also dictate texts of any online publication, e-book or website. When I read back what I write for this column, I tend to miss typos. I can have the computer read back what I write and when it says a funny-sounding word, I know to fix it.

—Voice commands allow you to tell phones and computers what you want. You can dictate texts with remarkable spelling accuracy.

—On the highway, a GPS is useful to anyone, but its turning instructions are a big help if the road sign is hard to make out. On many newer cars, safety precautions include lane assist for keeping you in your lane and automatic stops when an obstacle gets in the way.

 

And there is aid, too, for people with hearing problems, which I also experience.

—Hearing aids today can be equipped with Bluetooth receivers, which send the signal louder from your phone straight to your ears. They’ll connect, too, with the music or audiobook on the phone, as if you were wearing headphones, like a teen-anger. You can groove to the Rolling Stones during a boring lecture or sermon, while the speaker thinks you are inspired by his or her words!

 

So think twice before you curse the latest technology and long for the good old days.

 

 

Are you old? Here’s how to find out

 

How to tell you are getting old:

--The hair cutter calls you “Pops.”

--Funerals are your primary social activity.

–The 12-year-old who stopped your VCR from blinking 12:00 is now retired.

–You look in the mirror and see your Dad.

–The “golden oldies” you now hear on the radio were recorded when you were in your 40s and 50s..

–Your son or daughter joins you in ordering the “seniors’ special.”

–The photo you think is of your daughter is really of your granddaughter.

-When you talk about a 45 record, younger people have no idea what you mean.

--You walk into a room and have no idea why you are there.

–You prefer matinees to a night on the town.

–Your bosses are all younger than you.

–You have outlived most of your doctors.

–”In Memorium” is the only section you read in your alumni magazine.

–Your friends only want to talk about their surgeries.

–Not until the end of a book do you realize you have read it before.

–Spam in your mind is a canned food your parents ate.

–What used to be party time is now bedtime.

–Nobody else remembers Twiggy or James Dean.

–Your former students are now the faculty.

–You still write checks. And you keep making the first two digits “19.”

–You realize you are older than the State of Israel and post-colonial India. (But not as old as dirt.)

–When a young adult introduces you to her grandmother, you find that she is younger than you are.

–The blaring rock music you grew up with is now streamed in grocery stores to soothe shoppers.

--You mail out Christmas cards. You use stamps.

–You and your child have matching pill dividers.

–You wake up with a hangover, but you had nothing to drink the night before 

 

How I Got to South Boston VA...and Why

We should have owned California by now. Like Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford and the other rich titans of the 1800s, my family settled early and made the right decisions. In 1851 they opened a bank and a hardware store in the town of Placerville, right near where gold was discovered three years earlier. But the good fortunes disappeared when the next generation made bad loans and the bank went kaput.

 

I loved growing up in Califonia’s Bay Area, but as a journalist, I was drawn to Washington, the major league of the profession. Lonely in the big city, I went to a Methodist church, also attended by a woman who grew up in South Boston, Virginia. “She’s a single woman. You ought to get to know her,” said a good friend who was playing cupid.

 

I was captivated by Pickett Craddock, a preschool teacher, who had inherited a 400-acre family farm at Cluster Springs, a place I had never heard of. I invited myself down to see her on the Fourth of July weekend in 1981, when another couple with a small child was also visiting.

 

There was no A/C, plaster was falling off the ceiling and there were planks loose in the 160-year-old building. “Pickett, this place is a bottomless pit,” warned her friend, who was an engineer. I gulped. What was I getting myself into?

 

A former tobacco plantation in the South was never my childhood dream. Not for a kid from the suburbs of San Francisco, in the place and time of the movie “American Graffiti and its hot rods and drive-in joints. What are these awful bugs? Why am I sneezing so much? What strange language are these people speaking?

 

Slowly I dipped my toe in the waters, driving the horrific trip back and forth from Washington eight to 10 times a year. I got to know the place better. I didn’t want to just be the spouse of a local girl. One summer I auditioned and got into a musical with the Prizery Summer Theater. That happened again five more summers. Hey, these people are really neat!

 

Using her skills dealing with contractors, Pickett got the place fixed up enough to open it as a summer bed & breakfast. This bottomless pit suddenly had class! We didn’t have to go everywhere–interesting people came here.

 

When I retired in 2009, we were still Inside-the-Beltway stalwarts in the winter, but we got a call from Pickett’s son in California. “The pandemic is coming. Get out of your Arlington apartment and go to Cluster Springs right away,” he said.

 

Dutifully following his advice, we spent the next year down here but kept paying the horrific bills for that apartment in Arlington, though we were never there. Should we move for good?

 

One day during the pandemic I visited Tunnel Creek Vineyards, which had opened the week before in Roxboro. I sat at the piano and played a few songs and the proprietor said, “Can you come back on Saturday?” My jazz piano teacher told me, “You are one of only 10 jazz musicians on the planet with a job right now.” I was paid to play there for three months until my aging hands couldn’t take the eight hours of playing every weekend.

 

I sang solos or joined choruses at three local churches, and I got involved in other groups. I didn’t miss the heavy D.C. traffic. The bed & breakfast business took off during spring and fall, which seemed to be more popular than summer.

 

And then I got this column in the News & Record. When I was writing national news, I rarely got feedback from readers, even if millions of people may have seen or heard my AP story. Now I encounter people I barely know in town who give me good comments. How could I possibly leave?

 

How to See and Hear Bertter

It’s amazing how much technology is available for people with visual and hearing impairments. There are a lot of advantages to living in the 21^st century.

 

I have macular degeneration myself, meaning that my central vision is not up to par, even if the peripheral vision is fine. Glasses don’t help. It makes it difficult to see average-sized type in a book or newspaper.

 

There are lots of work-arounds:

--You can easily magnify type on a computer or tablet. Because I occasionally sing and play piano at the same time, I often print out the lyrics in large type and mark the jazz chords on top in large letters with a magic marker for performing in front of others.

--The cameras on tablets are remarkably useful. Before I go to a church service, I photograph all of the hymns and read them off a 12-inch ipad.

--A phone app can be used as a magnifying glass with a light and with adjustments for choosing distances. You can get a full-page magnifier to put on top of a book page.

—There are talking thermometers and a product called Seeing AI, which tells you out loud the name of the object where you have pointed your phone.

--Audiobooks are remarkably helpful. Computers, phones and tablets also dictate texts of any online publication, e-book or website. When I read back what I write for this column, I tend to miss typos. I can have the computer read back what I write and when it says a funny-sounding word, I know to fix it.

—Voice commands allow you to tell phones and computers what you want. You can dictate texts with remarkable spelling accuracy.

—On the highway, a GPS is useful to anyone, but its turning instructions are a big help if the road sign is hard to make out. On many newer cars, safety precautions include lane assist for keeping you in your lane and automatic stops when an obstacle gets in the way.

 

And there is aid, too, for people with hearing problems, which I also experience.

—Hearing aids today can be equipped with Bluetooth receivers, which send the signal louder from your phone straight to your ears. They’ll connect, too, with the music or audiobook on the phone, as if you were wearing headphones, like a teen-anger. You can groove to the Rolling Stones during a boring lecture or sermon, while the speaker thinks you are inspired by his or her words!

 

So think twice before you curse the latest technology and long for the good old days.

 

 

 

Good Manners Class Gives Me Hope

 

I am so impressed with the etiquette classes I am reading about on the TJM Community Center Facebook page. At the six weeks of instruction in Cluster Springs, kids are taught to respect boundaries and to treat each other with respect.

 

The goal one day: “At the end of this seminar, I will be able to understand what dating etiquette is and how I can use this in my daily life.”

 

The class taught kids to “identify good character in an individual being considered to date.”

 

The session also explained how to eat at a five-star restaurant using a table place setting and how to tie a tie.

 

Another class taught social media etiquette. The youth were also instructed on how to introduce themselves to someone with eye contact and a firm handshake. Other topics included self-grooming,

 

These are the kinds of things they don’t teach in school. I can think of a lot of adults who could use this instruction!

 

-0-

 

You are following a historic route if you ride or walk on our Tobacco heritage Trail. The Richmond and Danville Railroad was the last link from Richmond to the rest of the Confederacy not captured by the Union. The trail is built on the right of way, where the tracks were removed. When Richmond fell in 1865, President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet fled by train via the route to Danville, where they established the last capital of the Confederacy for eight days.  

 

-0-

 

What’s this? Our grandchildren pooled their candy into one bowl to share with the family? When I was a kid, we insisted on keeping it all for ourselves. But when my daughter went trick or treating, we would take part of her stash and give it out to latecomers at our door.

 

-0-

 

Horror movies were all the rage at Halloween. I can’t watch them anymore. If I want an adrenalin rush, how about: A huge bill from the IRS. A lab test showing some horrifying disease. Smoke coming from front burners left heating on the stove too long. Who needs a scary movie?

 

-0-

 

My Pet Peeves: What Are Yours?

 

Do you remember Andy Rooney on “60 Minutes?” He would have asked these same questions. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old curmudgeon (which I surely am), please tell me:

 

·      Why do green and red peppers in the grocery store have plastic wrapped around them?  And why are there little tags on each apple?

·      Why do so many stores keep one of their double doors locked, while the other is open? Was the manager in a hurry to get to work and didn’t have time to open the other?

·      Why do restaurants stuff the paper napkins so tightly in the napkin box that you can’t get them out without tearing them to shreds?

·      Why are there commercials on streaming services that I already pay for?

·      Why do sports broadcasters keep saying “they’ve got to put points on the board” or “they’ve gotta execute?” Well, duh!

·      Why do public radio and TV stations all do their necessary but annoying fund raising on the same week? I know—it is a conspiracy!

·      Why are packages so hard to open? I’m sure there is loud laughter in the board room as executives think up ideas to irritate consumers.

·      Why do I get so many emails now that start with “Hey?” Hey is for horses!

·      When someone repeats an obviously fraudulent post on Facebook, why don’t they just erase it when the error it is pointed out rather than just comment on it? “Guess I was had.”

·      Why are the last 80 comments on a newspaper article online always two people fighting with each other?

·      Why do football teams love to “ice the kicker?” The timeouts just to rattle the guy kicking a field goal just waste my time.

·      What’s with intentional fouls in basketball? No other sport rewards you for misdeeds.

·      How could signing a waiver online really protect the company in court? Nobody ever reads the waivers anyway.

·      Why are so many business voice mail messages so long, often saying, “To better serve you, please listen closely as our options have changed?

·      Why do wait staff serve drinks to the left of your plate instead of the right? I know—I was a PROFESSIONAL busboy.

·      Why do so many drivers fail to use their turn signals? CRASH!

·      Why do some people start every sentence with “I mean” or “Like”?

·      Why does the GPS router take you on narrow winding roads just to save you two minutes? I’m not in that much of a hurry and I don’t drive for Uber! There is no setting to avoid that.

Mdoan96@yahoo.com

What I like about South Boston (and Halifax):

 

After coming here for 40 years in the summer, we finally moved from the Washington D.C., area to Halifax County full time early in 2021. Here is what I like about the area:

 

·      You can see stars at night. And the moon shadows are dazzling, especially with snow on the ground.

·      The only traffic jams happen when the train comes rolling through.

·      When there’s a show at the Prizery, you’re in New York City. When it’s over, and you leave, you’re in South Boston, where it’s easy to get home.

·      The town has two newspapers. San Francisco doesn’t have two newspapers. Your child’s sports photos, even of middle school volleyball, may show up in the paper.

·      Downtown merchants are friendly. When one store owner asks something personal like “how old are you?” you know you are in for a conversation.

·      The YMCA has been beefed up. Classes are more stable than in bigger cities because the teachers don’t tend to move away.

·      Cage’s Sculpture Farm is a true prize that we encourage our guests to see.

·      You don’t need to parallel park often. I couldn’t get over the easy parking at the Harvest Festival and for parades.

·      I love the box turtles that show up after a big rain. I have to put them back on their feet after the dog turns them over.

·      Housing is not expensive. Neither is auto repair.

·      You always come across someone you know at local events. That rarely happened in Washington.

·      The Tobacco Heritage Trail is never crowded, even on Saturdays.

·      There’s plenty of opportunity to use your interests in the arts---and in writing this column.

 

 

Sports Mania!

Look out! Sports fans go to extremes in October, when there’s football, baseball, hockey and basketball.

 

I do know women sports fanatics: one female friend has watched a game in every major league baseball park. But I am talking mostly about men.

 

A hypothetical conversation might start with the woman saying: “Let’s talk. About us. What are your real thoughts? How are you really feeling?”

 

The man’s response? “I desperately want the 49ers to make the playoffs.”

Most men I know share their true feelings best while watching sports on TV. And of course, they talk about sports.

 

It can affect their lives. I used to have an employee who was worthless at work after an old Washington Redskins loss. It was as if a relative had died.

 

Sports mania translates into money. I once had a Hank Aaron rookie baseball card until my mom gave my cards to my cousin. It would be worth $700,000 today if I still had it. A baseball card?

This fanaticism reminds me of my son-in-law, Lance, who was with me watching Virginia Tech win a decisive ACC basketball tournament game on TV last spring.

 

I didn’t know he was that excited. With little notice, he jumped in his car the next morning and drove the 446 miles from South Boston to Brooklyn, NY, to see Virginia Tech in the ACC finals.

To placate his unhappy wife and mother-in-law, he took his 6- and 7-year-old children with him and dropped them off at their other grandma’s house in Arlington, then drove the rest of the way to Brooklyn to see the game with his brother, who lives there. Grandma was quite surprised. The kids weren’t too happy—the TV in the car didn’t work.

 

Fortunately, Virginia Tech won the tournament and Lance picked up the kids on the way back the next day and returned to South Boston.

 

Everyone was disturbed by this stunt—except me. I understood. I wished it was me. My inner sports fan came through vicariously. Next time I saw him, I sneaked $100 in cash to him for gas money.

 

He is my bro!!!

Tiny Town's Famous Figure

 

The amazing achievements of a free black craftsman in the area have been known for a long time. But in coming years, many more people may learn about Thomas Day, who became the largest furniture manufacturer in North Carolina before the Civil War.

 

Little noticed in the most recent North Carolina state budget was $800,000 allocated to restore the Thomas Day House and the bank across the street in Milton, N.C., a few miles from the Virginia border. The house is scheduled to become a museum and a state historic site and restored to its original state as in 1850. It will include the family quarters, a showroom, an office and a workshop.

 

 If the governor gets his way, money will be found in future budgets to hire docents to staff the museum five or six days a week. Currently, the house is semi-finished and only open by appointment. “Then we won’t have to call somebody up and get him off his tractor or something to let people in,” says Joe Graves, a member of the Thomas Day House/Union Tavern Restoration Inc.

 

The restoration group will donate the house to the state, and the owners of the NC State Bank site are willing to sell their building to the state. To get the state more involved, several members of the group met with Republican State Sen. Phil Berger, the powerful Senate president pro tem, in his Raleigh office, and got bipartisan support from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. The beefed-up project should help the little town, full of historic buildings, many of them also being restored.

 

Graves, who has Thomas Day woodwork in his Alton home, says many Southside Virginia homes have furniture or architectural elements designed by Day, including the restaurant at Virginia International Raceway. We have a number of them at Oak Grove, as well. Day’s work is very distinctive with mantel pieces, stair brackets, newel posts and door frames using curves and elongated scroll shapes.

 

Occasionally a tobacco leaf shape can be seen, reflecting the region’s agriculture. Day didn’t just create these works himself.   His shop had both white and black workers and he even owned slaves. North Carolina’s governor back then packed some Thomas Day furniture into his mansion.

 

How did an African-American accomplish so much at a time when slavery was rampant? The prosperous clientele that liked his work bent the rules somewhat to let him create his masterpieces. They waived a rule barring new free blacks into the state when he wanted to bring his wife from Halifax County, VA, to live with him.

 

Day grew quite prosperous, but the Panic of 1857 forced him into bankruptcy, even before the Civil War. His achievements were appreciated more in the past 25 years, and many of his works are on display at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.

 

People can still get a tour by calling a phone number on the sign in front of the house.  But in a few years, expect the site to be open regularly just like other historic museums.