City of Shoreview and Ecumen Hosting Age Friendly Community Workshop

Is Minnesota a great place to grow old? (Share your thoughts here).

Most communities weren’t built with aging in mind. It wasn’t necessary—there were few elderly persons. But with medical advances in technology and the aging of the baby boom generation, the elderly and the old-elderly (85+) will become a major segment of the population in most communities. 

Key Questions:
What does it mean for a community to have large numbers of elderly? What needs to change? Does it need to change? What innovation opportunities are there? How do the elderly experience life differently from working age persons? From children? How can communities support their older residents while continuing to support and accommodate those of all ages? Do we share any responsibilities as a community to those who are older? What does it mean for a city to be “age-friendly?

What:
The City of Shoreview and Ecumen are convening more than 60 community members in an intergenerational workshop to discuss many of the questions above. It will hold great information for all Twin Cities communities on a new reality that impacts every area of life – Aging.

Where and When:
Thursday, October 25, 6 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.
Community Room, Shoreview Community Center
4580 Victoria Street North  Space is limited.  RSVP by Friday, October 19th by calling Tessia Melvin at 651.490.4613 or emailing her at tmelvin@shoreviewmn.gov


What tops your bucket list?

Young and old alike have dreams of adventures around the world, people we’d like to meet and extraordinary challenges we’d like to tackle. More and more, seniors are using their golden years to cross items off their bucket list – and in the process they’re Changing Aging.

Share your bucket list at www.ecumen.org/mpr. The link will take you to a special web page to share your answer there or via Facebook and Twitter. (You don’t need a Facebook or Twitter account to participate.)


Beginning to Look at Long-Term Care Financing Differently - Own Your Future Campaign Launched in Minnesota

Ecumen CEO Kathryn Roberts participated this week in a press conference with Minnesota Lt. Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon, Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson and other Minnesotans seeking a new future for long-term care financing in Minnesota.  At the press conference an Own Your Future campaign was launched. 

Phase I is a statewide public education campaign on the need to plan for long-term care.  This then leads into Phase II, which is critically important, developing new ways to finance long-term care.  Fewer than10% of adult Minnesotans purchase private long-term care insurance. 

The key is to look at an array of possibilities from private insurance, the CLASS Act, HSAs, making Medicaid a co-insurance for long-term care and others to develop ways that help people's economic security and preserve a safety net for people in poverty.  You can read more about Own Your Future and Phase II and Phase III in this Star Tribune editorial.  You can also visit the Own Your Future website. Kathryn's remarks from the press conference are below:

Good Morning,

I first want to thank Governor Dayton, Lt. Governor Prettner Solon and Commissioner Jesson for their leadership in beginning to educate Minnesotans on the very important issue of aging and financial security.

Our new old age demands innovation and new solutions. We’re living longer than ever. Until the 1970s, the phrase “Alzheimer’s” was largely isolated to medical journals. Today, nearly 100,000 Minnesotans have it, with thousands of more cases to come.

At Ecumen, we have nearly 4,000 employees who provide senior housing and services across Minnesota. They’ve heard me speak many times about the need for new ways to pay for care. Medicaid as a default long-term care insurance policy isn’t viable. And Own Your Future helps us raise that issue.

The issue of aging and financial security impacts everyone, especially businesses. I’m sure there are people here today who have missed work to bring a loved one to the doctor or to provide care. For many, it’s a brutal juggling act. According to national Gallup research, family caregivers of seniors miss work 126 million days a year at a productivity loss of just over $25 billion.

Today’s new old age holds tremendous opportunity to build on the steps taken today and create new ways to help Minnesotans take ownership of their future while preserving a safety net for those who cannot escape poverty.

The Citizens League has introduced a number of good ideas, such as seeking a waiver to pilot Medicaid as a co-insurance that could work with private insurance or other vehicles. Another idea is creating a state-backed home equity product that would safely allow people to access their home equity for Alzheimer’s and other care needs. We need to explore these and other ideas to improve Minnesotans’ lives and their financial security.

In closing, I thank the leaders here today for creating this first step. It’s a step that opens the door to further collaboration to build a better future for Minnesotans. Our new old age holds tremendous innovation opportunity. And we have to walk through that door together to seize it.


Jim Klobuchar - A Sherpa's Last Day in His Mountains

By Ecumen contributor Jim Klobuchar

The news told of an unseemly traffic jam of climbers on the snow cliffs below the summit of Mt. Everest in the Himalayas of Nepal. High winds threatened to launch avalanches at more than 28,000 feet and stopped the advances of hundreds of climbers strung out for miles on the mountain’s snow ridges.

The news was that never in documented history of Everest climbing had so many climbers been packed together, so high, to the point of burlesque; a way that seemed to make a caricature of the ideal of mountain climbing.

There was no mention in the international press a few weeks earlier of the death of a Sherpa guide and porter named Dawa. This was no particular dereliction by the news industry. Hundreds of Sherpas earn their livelihood, often at risk as guides or load carriers on climbing expeditions; or as trail aids on trekking or hiking expeditions, where they are charged with insuring that less experienced hikers will not interrupt their Himalayan ideal by walking off a cliff.

Dawa died of a stroke while fixing rope protection for a climbing team not from the summit. I’d met him in the years when I organized treks in the Himalaya, but the tears that came with the news for me were for his father, who once told me in his struggling English that we would be forever brothers.

We have trekked together for more than 20 years, in the Solu Khumbu of the Everest district and in the great Annapurna Range It is impossible to do that without bonding, in ways that seem immune to time and distance, with those with whom you share the trail or with the faces of the villagers, their struggles and their smiles. I met Lhakpa in Pokhara beneath the Annapurnas. That part of Nepal, primarily Hindu, is not native land for the Buddhist Sherpas, who live in shadow of Everest miles away.   But he was the sirdar or trail leader of the guiding group assigned to our trek. He was old school, not nearly well acquainted with English as the younger guides, but his bronze smile erased all of the linguistic differences. We became friends. He told about his family, one of the sons already a Buddhist monk, about his son Dorje, who would one day make his 15th ascent of Everest, first as a Sherpa load carrier and later as a trusted leader to the summit, first on the rope.

You can’t walk in his mountains, the Himalayas, without being lit not by their immensity but by the history and mystery of them and sometimes the heartbreak. On that hike in the Annapurnas, we found ourselves on an odyssey of sights and sensations, through the shifting cultures of the villages, where life is harsh but not so harsh that it denies the traveler the traditional greeting of “Namaste (nah-ma-stay) which in its most lyrical translation means “I praise the god that lives within you.” Within you, within me. And on the trail you were aware of the caravans of mules whose presence was announced by the sonorous music of their bells filling the mountainscape; and then around the bend in the trail came the lead mule wearing a stately plume of crimson and white. Unreal? No. This is the Himalaya.

And so Lhakpa was leading us now through darkening forests of Himalayan oaks and sycamores, threaded by hanging moss and secret moans. The atmospherics might have been threatening to some in our group; they reminded you of the scenes in the old Snow White film fantasy. But there was no danger here for the romanticists among us. There was no wicked queen in this forest. Annapurna ruled here, the goddess of the harvest in the villagers lore. Ahead the scenes were startling. Waterfalls laced their way hundreds of feet down the forested ravines. Much of this time Lhakpa was quietly threading his prayer beads as he walked, unobtrusively reciting “ Ohm mani padme hum” with each turn of the beads, a prayer to his deities.

And that is how we got acquainted. In the years ahead I sometimes joined him, a little mischievously, in the recital of the beads.  He smiled broadly at all of this, understanding that there was no mockery here but rather a light-hearted bonding-–his prayers and mine. I met his family, his wife, the monk, and Dorje and other family members. Dawa, who died on Everest, had to be alike. They built a small tourist lodge in their mountain village of Phortse at 13,000 feet, with a grand view of the of the mountainscape that seemed to stretch forever.

I have been to the Himalayas some 20 times now, almost all of them traveling with friends to elevations at 18,000 feet and beyond. There is no scene like it on earth. I can’t honestly say whether I will travel there again. But if so, Lhakpa will be my first destination, because I owe him one more gift.

On my last visit to our overnight in the trading village of Namche Bazaar, Lhakpa got wind from my trekking bunch that it was my birthday. His friend, the cook Yeltsen, agitated for a birthday cake. I wasn’t supposed to know about it. But Lhakpa was in a fix.

“Jeem,” he said, “how do we get 83 candles on a cake.

I was terrified at the prospect. “Lhakpa,” I said, “I know you are very smart and will figure out a way.”

Three hours later at our dinner in the dining tent he brought a cake with one giant numeral 1 in the middle.

The choral singers in my group weren’t so kind.

About Jim Klobuchar:

In 45 years of daily journalism, Jim Klobuchar’s coverage ranged from presidential campaigns to a trash collector’s ball. He has written from the floor of a tent in the middle of Alaska, from helicopters, from the Alps and from the edge of a sand trap. He was invited to lunch by royalty and to a fist fight by the late Minnesota Viking football coach, Norm Van Brocklin. He wrote a popular column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 30 years and has authored 23 books. Retiring as a columnist in 1996, he contributes to Ecumen’s “Changing Aging” blog, MinnPost.com and the Christian Science Monitor. He also leads trips around the world and an annual bike trip across Northern Minnesota. He’s climbed the Matterhorn in the Alps 8 times and has ridden his bike around Lake Superior. He’s also the proud father of two daughters, including Minnesota's senior U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar.


Big Heart, Miniature Talent -- Ecumen North Branch Resident Creates Small Worlds

From East Central Minnesota Post Review

Man sees, man imagines, man creates
By Jon Tatting on September 19, 2012 at 11:16 am

When 80-year-old Jean Parson sees a piece of cardboard, a popsicle stick, a paper clip or even a pop can, he can envision great detail in making anything from antique tractors to baby grand pianos — treasures that fit right in your hand.

His talent first surfaced when, barely a 10-year-old, he made what seemed like countless toy tractors by hand for two younger brothers while growing up on the family farm some miles north of Braham. Into his teenage years, Parson refined his craft, especially during the time when he couldn’t get out of bed due to rheumatic fever.

Parson used pieces of cardboard, popsicle sticks and other simple materials to construct these two pianos for relatives who love music.
And Parson’s hobby continues to keep him busy today, as evident by his growing collection of model farm equipment and buildings inside his room at Ecumen senior housing in North Branch.

“I’m not done growing up yet,” smiled Parson while holding his newest creation, a baby grand piano made of cardboard and other everyday materials concealed by a coat of black paint. “See the little bench there? It’s like the one Victor Borge used.”
His eye for detail can also be found in his model bobsled complete with hitch for a horse. A wooden piece whittled by Parson’s pocketknife, it was the first model he made at Ecumen.

“The tough part was getting it to steer, so I used popsicle sticks,” he described. “My dad plowed snow with something like this.”
Many of Parson’s creations are likenesses of what he remembers on the farm or community where he grew up. There’s the side delivery rake, combine, hay loader, Ford tractor, seed planter and a barn that underwent an expansion project. Other creations simply come from his imagination.

No stranger to humor, he says his family lived between the “northern twin cities” – that is, Brunswick and Grasston, nearly 20 miles north of Cambridge. “I was born farther south than that, though, in a house just west of Braham,” said Parson, born in 1932.  Following World War II, Parson recalls the cast iron toy trucks that his cousins played with during family visits in Iowa. Built to last, the toys did have a weakness, however, as the wheels wouldn’t stay on after a week of playing.

So Parson, who was not even 10 years old, started making his own toy trucks and tractors for his younger brothers. And he got pretty good at whittling away on wood from apple boxes and peach crates with his trusty pocketknife. “I made a new tractor a week because they were always wrecking them,” said Parson, who didn’t mind the job for his brothers. “I’d make them to midnight.”

Later in life, he created a hand-sized organ — like the one his family used to have — and a roll top desk with the roll part made of cardboard so it can move up and down like the real thing. From bottle caps to more popsicle sticks, he uses what’s available.
Parson finds great reward in sharing his hobby with family, including wife Lois, son Mike and daughters Sheryl and Kia. And they and relatives appreciate his work in return. He’s obliged requests to create things such as model pianos, with all the correct detail of course, for those with musical interests.

Yet there is one particular creation that Parson won’t part from: a model of his father’s 1935 Allis Chalmers WC tractor, complete with cultivator, which he put together and painted orange 64 years ago. “It’s the first one I decided to make to keep,” he admitted.

A resourceful craftsman, Parson is perhaps more of an artist whose handiwork has been described as “touching, fascinating, special, personal, simple yet beautiful“ to friends and family including his nephew Gaylen Bicking of Rice, Minn.

For Bicking, he appreciates his uncle‘s ability to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary by using everyday materials. “You don’t see those people any more,“ he said of the natural craftsman. ‘It’s hard to put into words.”

What he can put into words, however, are the fond memories he has of being a South St. Paul boy visiting uncle Jean’s place in the country where there were two farms: a real one where uncle mentored nephew and a miniature version in the attic where imagination was met with imagination.

“I would wonder, ‘what tractor should I use to pull this plow,’” recalled Bicking of how his boyhood self played with his uncle’s models during summer visits on the farm. “I was a city slicker and a farm boy both. It was the best of both worlds.”


What surprises you most about growing older?

We celebrate birthday milestones with parties, funny cards and (mostly) good humor. As we’ve grown older, life has changed at every stage.

This week’s question for our Minnesota Public Radio and social media campaign is:
What surprises you most about growing older?

The link above will take you to a special web page to share your answer at www.ecumen.org/mpr or via Facebook and Twitter. (You don’t need a Facebook or Twitter account to participate, just click on the appropriate tab.)

The Changing Aging conversation is important not only to Ecumen; but also to our families and friends. The questions are ageless – we’re all growing older. Please share our weekly questions with the important people in your life so that together we can change the stigma of aging.

Thank you to all who participated in last week's question! A long list of family and friends received the most recognition for "aging in style" last week. We at Ecumen wholeheartedly agree!


How would YOU answer this question?

Today, Ecumen launched its first-ever social media campaign aimed at elevating the conversation around Changing Aging. Our goal is to get people thinking and talking about aging, perhaps even preparing themselves or loved ones for living fully in later years.

Read more


Jim Klobuchar: A Young Man Rolls the Dice

Four years ago at a family gathering on Thanksgiving Day in Arizona I sat next to a young man in his senior year in high school and in the midst of a decision.

I’d known him only briefly. For most of the people at the table I was what we once called an in-law. Today, in the more charitable description of an outsider, I’m a member of the extended family. David was an impressive kid, physically conditioned, well-mannered and deferring to the older folks in the cross-conversation the holiday dinner. Earlier his father had mentioned his son’s interest in the military as one possibility.

“I’m thinking of college,” the young man said. “But I’m also thinking of enlisting in the Marines.”

This was in 2008. American forces in Iraq were still taking casualties. In Afghanistan it was worse and was now formally being described as a quagmire. It was begun as a combined effort with allies to rout Osama Bin Laden’s al Quaida and its terrorist threat to the United States and the free world. In time the Americans and allies experienced some of the historic fate of invading armies in Aghanistan—the bogdown in its mountains and the wiles of its Taliban tribes.

David knew about all of that. My own choices had been narrower. I had served in the Army for two years, drafted at the time of the Korean War a few months after graduating from college. I hadn’t thought about volunteering for the service then. But I had served my two years and later remembered doing so with a gratitude I still feel: Wearing the uniform of one’s country.

It mattered. It still does.

But here was a young man with strong academic achievement behind him and a probable choice of scholarships ahead of him, yet thinking seriously about enlisting at a time when he was almost certain to be thrust into shooting war, either in Iraq and more probably in Afghanistan.

I didn’t ask him why. He did say that he admired the principles of the Marine Corps, the discipline it demanded.

He didn’t say, “The country needs people willing to serve.” He didn’t say, “I’m young. There’s a war. Somebody has to fight it. Am I strong enough to want to do that?”

And somewhere he might have felt it: “If not me, who?”

So this became the journey of a young man who didn’t have to fight. But this was a world he lived in; the citizen-soldiers around him were going back again and again in the National Guard. He felt strong, something tugging at him, and telling him he should be part of it.

Was there also something about the excitement of potential combat? A testing?

I don’t know. I would be surprised if there weren’t. He did enlist. He finished at the top of his class in practically all of his training and in the nails-tough Marine exercises and tests. He had the look of a leader. He advanced to sergeant in time and was assigned to Afghanistan.

I lost connection with him for several years, knew nothing of his action there until I talked to his father by phone a few days ago.

“Tell me about David,” I said.

“He was in the middle of it,” his father said, “in Helmand Province and places like that.” They had battles with the Taliban. Drones flying overhead. Improvised explosives, invisible but there. Sometimes it was a throw of the dice. Strategies and deadly tricks. “Our guys pretended they were pulling out,” his father said, “The Taliban fighters took the bait…and our guys hit them hard when they came.”

And the next day? More of the same.

I hesitated to ask. “And David?”

“He has served his four years and is back in the country. He’s glad he did it and proud to be among the men he served with. He felt he had something to give. And now he’s planning to enroll in pre-law in Pennsylvania.”

“His girlfriend has been studying there and it’s a perfect situation.” His father said he thought David would make it in law.

Would you have any doubts?

About Jim Klobuchar:

In 45 years of daily journalism, Jim Klobuchar’s coverage ranged from presidential campaigns to a trash collector’s ball. He has written from the floor of a tent in the middle of Alaska, from helicopters, from the Alps and from the edge of a sand trap. He was invited to lunch by royalty and to a fist fight by the late Minnesota Viking football coach, Norm Van Brocklin. He wrote a popular column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 30 years and has authored 23 books. Retiring as a columnist in 1996, he contributes to Ecumen’s “Changing Aging” blog, MinnPost.com and the Christian Science Monitor. He also leads trips around the world and an annual bike trip across Northern Minnesota. He’s climbed the Matterhorn in the Alps 8 times and has ridden his bike around Lake Superior. He’s also the proud father of two daughters, including Minnesota's senior U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar.


A Sad Farewell

Faye Florence Green, Ecumen Lakeshore Special Events and Volunteer Coordinator, passed away recently after a hard fight with ovarian cancer. Faye was just 65, and a beloved member of the Ecumen Lakeshore family since 2008.

“Faye truly was a gift to Lakeshore as an employee and lived a life of service to others,” says Paul Libbon, former Executive Director of Ecumen Lakeshore, now Ecumen’s Director of Managed Campus Operations. “She deeply impacted the lives of those she touched and I will always remember her with smiles.”

Faye kept working through all of her various treatments, even when they left her fatigued. She LOVED all of the residents at The Crest, and did such a marvelous job guiding the Auxiliary, coordinating volunteers, and was a wonderful event planner. “She helped with all of our parties, socials, and making sure there was a host of activities and programs to keep everyone engaged, busy and happy,” according to Roxanne Sternberg, Residence Director at The Crest. “I miss Faye's bright smile, enthusiasm and zest for life.  May she rest eternal in Heaven.”

Our thoughts and prayers are with Faye’s family and friends.


In Our New Old Age, Minnesota Must Move Beyond Medicaid

Many of us will spend away our life savings on essential services for our Alzheimer's and other chronic illnesses.  There needs to be a better way than becoming impoverished.  Ecumen CEO Kathryn Roberts discusses ideas in the Minneapolis Star Tribune for Minnesota to lead the way in public policy innovation for services most of us will need in old age to live empowered lives.