Old-timer’s Budget

Retirement forces a change in lifestyle. In the current bad economy the change is drastic. The retirement income of most people over 60 does not match their need, nor does it promise lasting future income. Portfolios have plummeted. So called safe funds have suffered. If the old folks own a home, the change in residential real estate values leaves many upside down on their mortgages. It has left them unable to take out loans to cushion their need temporarily. www.dayonestories.com/pdf/retirement_facts.pdf

What to do under these economic pressures? This short list has been gleaned from raising nine children on a shoestring:

1.     Always pay your mortgage first. (If you can’t pay utilities, be aware the sun shines all day, the fireplace burns free wood, and in California, by law the water cannot be turned off). This is not to suggest you stop paying utilities. However, many charitable organizations that are unable to help with mortgages can help with utilities. http://money.msn.com/debt-management/how-not-to-pay-your-bills-weston.aspx

2.     Pay your other bills next. Utilities, credit cards, maintenance (same link).

3.     Review which bills are excessive or unnecessary. That means cut up that credit card and talk to the credit card company about lowering interest and offering a repayment plan. Quit gardening services, change to lower end cable programs and bundle them, switch to semi-annual instead of monthly bug service. Give up your maid. Delete duplicate phone services, for example decide on line phone or cellular service. http://frugalliving.about.com/od/frugalliving101/tp/Cut_Extras.htm

4.     Cook your own meals. Eating out rapidly drains a budget. Cooking, on the other hand, allows full control of food expenses. Planning meals, shopping frequently, and limiting high end purchases prevent waste. It’s easy to get caught in the “sales” or “coupon” mentality, but buying bulk or unneeded items makes for throwing out things that go bad quickly. Also senior centers provide low cost meals (same link as 3). http://www.volunteerventuracounty.org/org/10245057753.html

5.     Engage in cost free exercise programs. Take walks, do your own gardening, stretch out on your yoga mat. If you do plan on using a gym look for senior pricing, special sales, or month to month programs. Check community and senior citizen centers. They usually offer free or low cost exercise programs.

http://www.freetrainers.com/

6.     Consolidate your travels. With the high cost of gasoline, make sure you plan your trips to the grocery store, the hardware store, the park or gym together. Even visits to grandchildren can be part of a consolidated trip. One tank of gasoline will go much farther if you can include several locations at once.

7.     Use public transportation and entertainment. Many low cost senior tours are available. http://www.denuretours.ca/ourtours_list.asp?id=18 They go to places like Reno, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and other places of interest. Even local trains here in southern California, like the Metrolink or Amtrack, can provide a fun day in downtown Los Angeles or San Diego. Every city in America has its public means of mobility—subways, buses, senior vanpools.  http://www.aarp.org/travel/travel-tips/info-01-2012/5-scenic-drives-california-wine-country.html

8.     Make friends. Nothing makes retirement lonelier than isolation. Overeating, aimless wandering, and depression brought on by the empty nest syndrome become the biggest health risk for old-timers. A strong base of friends and family provides the psychological support that keeps seniors young and active. Visit children and grandchildren. Join your favorite hobby clubs (astronomy, model airplanes, chess, cooking, gardening, etc.). Make new friends (neighbors you have never visited before, friendly grocery clerks who share your interests, other old folks from your church community).  http://ci.moorpark.ca.us/cgi-bin/start.exe/moorparkcity/index.html?entry=y&thid=75

Other simple cost cutters include cutting your own or husband’s hair, borrowing books from the library, and bicycling to nearby parks or shops.  Even in a bad economy seniors  can have their cake and eat it too.  

Kanon, cont'd--How to Verify a Memoir

Did I mention research in the previous blog entry? Although research requires hours of book and document searches, there is a certain euphoria attached to discovering information necessary for a memoir’s accuracy.

This is taken from “Kanon, the Life of Composer Ara Sevanian:”

        Research

Time constraints force an early farewell to the post-concert gathering.  I need to research names and places dropped in conversation by Ara’s closest friends from Funkerkaserne days. Those from the Wustrau camp talked about a bad camp, one Ara called “the camp before Schultz.” No one remembers its name.  I fear that it was a death camp.  Ara’s description of it was flat and disembodied.  As I turn to leave, Ara hands me an audiotape. “Can you make a copy for me?”

“Sure,” I say, tucking the cassette into my purse.  Once home, I slip the tape into the recorder.  The music’s refined opening bars penetrate like a blade to the marrow.  My hair stands on end.  In spite of the recording’s poor quality, nothing prevents a sense of utter agony and despair from infusing itself within each melodic line. Where did that come from? I wonder. I am convinced the music connects to the unnamed camp. Ara’s transcribed interviews don’t answer to suffering this intense, not even the composer’s loss of his father to the Siberian Gulag.  I withdraw the tape and glance at its nondescript title, “Adagio Cantabile.”

Within days I’m searching the UCLA University Research Library, now named the Young Library, hunting for “The bad camp.”  Shelves display so many books on the subject that I worry if I’ll discover Ara’s camp at all.  I recheck interview notes on the camp’s physical aspects.  I look for a matching date, “after attack on Stalingrad” and a location, “near Kielce.”  Size and diverse population would have to match. Ara mentioned that several camps, “Italian, French, Russian,” were side by side.  Mostly, I count on Kommandant Schultz, “. . . who treat us like kindergarten children.” Whenever I encounter books that exhaust my linguistic abilities I depend on photographs, subscripts, and name lists.  Fruitless hours leave me exhausted. 

On a weary end-of-day try, my computer search yields a book located on a separate shelf.  The oversized Het Boek Der Kampen raises hopes. I flip through its pages.  A camp named Majdanek (My-da-nek) looks promising.  I stumble through words close enough to German for my comprehension, searching for lists of Kommandantura. Otto Schultz appears on a list of “humane” cadre.  The camp included a Jewish section. It was a death camp.

When I visit Ara again I bring the book along. “Do you remember Majdanek?” I ask. Ara shakes his head no. I point at pictures, facts, and the Schultz listing.  Ara’s repeated firm, “I don’t know Majdanek,” confounds me. I return to the library.       Narrowing my search, I discover that prisoners were trucked to the facility from a neighboring city.  The rails ended three kilometers shy of a camp second to Auschwitz in atrocities against Jews.  The city train station sign, Lublin, would burn itself into the memories of Majdanek’s inmates.

Eager for Ara’s confirmation, I wait for an appropriate moment.  At an evening concert, Ara begins to reminisce about the war.  Schultz’s name comes up.  Jumping at the chance, I say, “I know the name of your camp, Papa.”

Ara’s head comes up, shoulders square, eyes query, “Really? What is it?”

“Lublin.”

“You find my camp!  How you find my camp?” he bursts out.

Living Saints

The history of the Catholic Church rests with its collection of ancient relics, original documents, legal depositions, and personal and public letters housed in Vatican City.

The Roman Martyrology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Martyrology, for example, lists Saints of the first centuries of the Church and continues to be used today for prayer. This story of St. Scholastica is taken from the books of Dialogues by St. Gregory the Great. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06780a.htm  It remains part of the Liturgy of the Hours, the Prayer of the Church.

Scholastica

Scholastica, the sister of Saint Benedict, had been consecrated to God from her earliest years. She was accustomed to visiting her brother once a year. He would come down to meet her at a place on the monastery property not far from the outside gate.

            One day she came as usual and her saintly brother went with some of his disciples; they spent the whole day praising God and talking of sacred things. As night fell they had supper together.

            Their spiritual conversation went on, and the hour grew late. The holy nun said to her brother: “Please do not leave me tonight; let us go on until morning talking about the delights of the spiritual life. “Sister,” he replied, “what are you saying? I simply cannot stay outside my cell.”

When she heard her brother refuse her request, the holy woman joined her hands on the table, laid her head on them and began to pray. As she raised her head from the table, there were such brilliant flashes of lightning, such great peals of thunder and such a heavy downpour of rain that neither Benedict nor his brethren could stir across the threshold of the place where they had been seated. Sadly he began to complain: “May God forgive you, sister. What have you done?”  “Well,” she answered, “I asked you and you would not listen; so I asked my God and he did listen. So now go off, if you can, leave me and return to your monastery.”

Reluctant as he was to stay of his own will, he remained against his will. So it came about that they stayed awake the whole night, engrossed in their conversation about the spiritual life.

It is not surprising that she was more effective than he; since, as John says, God is love, it was absolutely right that she could do more, as she loved more.

Three days later, Benedict was in his cell. Looking up to the sky, he saw his sister’s soul leave her body in the form of a dove, and fly up to the secret places of heaven. Rejoicing at her great glory, he thanked almighty God with hymns and words of praise. He then sent his brethren to bring her body to the monastery and lay it in the tomb he had prepared for himself.

Their minds had always been united in God; their bodies were to share a common grave.

http://saintbenedict.org/stscholastica.htm