Ecumen Centennial House Treats Apple Valley Police Officers
Ecumen Centennial House hosted several police officers and detectives from the Apple Valley Police Department this week for “Coffee with a Cop.”
Ecumen Century Club: Happy 100th Birthday Margaret Rose
Ecumen honors Margaret Rose, a resident of Ecumen Centennial House, who is 100.
Ecumen Century Club: Happy 100th Birthday Elaine Altstatt
Ecumen honors Elaine Altstatt, a resident of Ecumen Centennial House, who is 100.
Ecumen Centennial House Resident Charles Hearn Went To Battle on the Silver Screen
Charles (Chuck) Hearn was a good soldier who took a few bullets over the years. He was always comfortable on the battlefield — a place where he could feel connected to the memory of his relatives who fought in the Civil War.
If you’ve watched any of the epic Civil War movies of the last 40 years, you might have seen Charles in the battle scenes. He was in “Dances With Wolves,” “Glory” and the TV movies “North and South,” “The Blue and the Gray,” and “The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd.” A strong sense of history drew him to his hobby of Civil War reenactments as a member of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry reenactment group.
Now, at his home at Ecumen Centennial House in Apple Valley, Charles has thick photo albums of his years working on movie sets with famous actors such as Kevin Costner, Dennis Weaver and Patrick Swayze. He can talk at length about how the sets were designed and how the battles were choreographed, flipping through years and years of pictures. He is a stickler for detail and proud that his unit went to great lengths to make sure their uniforms and gear were authentic.
That commitment to authenticity put them in high demand for Civil War movies back in the 1980s. Charles, who worked as truck driver, would spend his vacations on movies sets in South Dakota, Georgia and Louisiana. And on weekends, he worked as a gate guard at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis.
Charles actual military experience was not as exciting. He volunteered for the U.S. Army in 1954, the year he graduated from Washburn High School in Minneapolis, and was sent to Korea. By this time, the Korean War was over and his active duty was fairly mundane, which was fine with him. “I’d hate getting shot at for real.”
Charles gave up his reenactment hobby a few years ago, but his memories are lasting. “I enjoyed this tremendously,” he says.
Charles gets Kevin Costner's autograph on the set of Dances With Wolves
Kevin Costner poses with members of the First Volunteer Infantry reenactment group. Charles is standing right behind Costner.
Ecumen Centennial House Named “Best of Assisted Living” by National Senior Housing Listing Service
Ecumen Centennial House of Apple Valley has received a SeniorAdvisor.com award for “Best of Assisted Living” in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metro area.
SeniorAdvisor.com, the nation's largest senior living review site, gives the awards to recognize senior living and home care providers who receive consistently high ratings from online reviewers.
Fewer than one percent of providers nationwide receive the “Best of Assisted Living” award, says SeniorAdvisor.com.
“We’re very grateful to receive this award,” said Janis Rivers, Housing Director at Ecumen Centennial House. “It’s especially meaningful since it’s based on actual reviews by customers.”
Ecumen Century Club: Happy 102nd Birthday Erma Lundberg
Ecumen honors Erma Lundberg, a resident of Ecumen Centennial House in Apple Valley, Minn., who is 102.
Ecumen Blogger Jim Klobuchar: If You Think Politics Today Are Loopy, Here’s a Lesson From 1972
There’s a chance that the recent brawling of the mid-term election campaign has left you exhausted. You need some form of civilized rescue.
I’m here to remind you that it could be worse.
In a few weeks the Democrats will choose the site of their national convention to nominate a presidential candidate to run in 2016 against the Republican’s choice, which will be made later this year in Cleveland, Ohio, the city the Republicans have already chosen to rally their warriors.
The Democrats most likely choice for their own site right now is Philadelphia and possibly Brooklyn.
But it doesn’t matter. They don’t make conventions any more like the ones in Miami Beach in 1972. To this I can offer personal testimony, having covered every raucous day of it. You should know that this was the year of the Yippie rebellion when thousands of young folks descended on Miami that year. Their aim was to disrupt the Republicans as well as the cops — the symbols of law and order who had earlier grapplings with the youth rebellion over the war in Vietnam.
Abbie Hoffman was there rallying the discontented youth who showed up by the thousands from around the country, occupying parks, and raising particular hell generally. Hunter Thompson also starred among the New Age journalists. So, too, making far more than a cameo appearance, was the actress Jane Fonda. You may be curious about what I was doing among this crowd of the disaffected. In those years the Minneapolis Star and Tribune were owned by the politically active Cowles family. I wrote a daily column for the Star and managed to stay a few strides ahead of hanging posses and football fans demanding to know if the Vikings would ever win the Super Bowl.
The Yippies in the 1970s, though, were impossible to avoid. They filled the beaches at night, staged allegory plays in the park and climbed the banyan trees when the excitement slowed down.
I covered the convention business that on the Republican side produced no unexpected news because Richard Nixon was the clear choice for re-election and Spiro Agnew his sole choice as the vice president. But the clear side story at both conventions, in effect the dominant story, was the Yippie rebellion that included such overt nastiness as flag burning, blocked traffic, midnight marches through the city, and then on the climactic day a brawl with the police when they surged toward the convention center.
It didn’t take the powers of a professional sleuth to be aware of all this. From the convention center I filed the usual stories as the selection process droned on. But I decided in the late stages that there was a bigger story outside: the Yippies advancing against the forces of law and order amid waves tear gas. So I strapped my little Olivetti typewriter into my vest, wired the office in Minneapolis to pick up all of the relevant convention news from the wire services and walked into the gathering night, where the Yippies we’re trying to take over the street against a half dozen platoons of police.
“Don’t go too far,” one of the cops said. “The street is full of tear gas.” I nodded my thanks, pulled my shirt over my mouth and nose and inched my way into the street, where the action between the police and protesters was getting heavy. I wanted to ask these folks what they hoped to accomplish and if there was another way to do it. Another cop appeared and said I better finish that interview in a hurry, and then, suddenly, Miami Beach went black.
I was flat on my back and a young man in priest’s garment was saying, “Do you speak English?
I started to answer but couldn’t . I gargled and tried it again and said, “Under normal conditions, yes.”
He introduced himself as a priest from a Latin American country working in the states and a volunteer to law and order during the convention.
“Can I walk you back to the safe zone,” he asked.
I smiled heroically and said I was sure I could manage.
I landed on my butt after two strides.
The priest took the Olivetti and walked me back to the convention center, where Spiro Agnew was joyously being greeted as the vice presidential nominee.
The newspaper’s chief editor called me the next day.
“Nice coverage,” he said. “The next time you decide to take on young revolutionaries, get rid of the Olivetti and switch to a gas mask.”
I said I would consider it but how about my billfold?
“What about it?”
“I Iost it climbing a banyan tree. There we’re better stories there than on the convention floor.”
Friend, if you think the political times of today are loopy, let me reintroduce you to the Yippies.
Top 5 Blog Posts - October 16
Ecumen employee Chuck Zimmerman topped Ecumen's list of most popular blog posts last week. In case you missed out, here are the stories our online visitors found most interesting:
Chuck Zimmerman: The Joy of Service Defines His 35 Years with Ecumen
An Unlikely Caregiver Batles Dementia with Friendship at Ecumen Prairie Hill in St. Peter
"Glen Campbell I'll Be Me" Tells Powerful Story of Music Legend Living with Alzheimer's
Ecumen Opens Its First Senior Living Community in Michigan
Elsie Williams, 9 Months Old, Is Changing Aging as Ecumen's Youngest Volunteer
To read more Changing Aging stories or Ecumen news, visit www.ecumen.org!
Ecumen Centennial House Honored in Readers Choice Awards
Ecumen Centennial House in Apple Valley, Minn., was named “best assisted living” community in Sun Thisweek newspaper’s Readers Choice Awards.
The results were published January 24, 2014, based on a total of about 15,000 reader votes cast both from in-paper ballots and online.
“We’re so pleased by this vote of confidence we have received from the community,” said Janis Rivers, housing manager at Ecumen Centennial House. “We pride ourselves on the care we provide, and it’s an honor to be recognized in this way.”
Ecumen Centennial House provides assisted living, memory care and home care. For more information go to www.centennial-house.org.