GHSS AND THE HILLSBOROUGH BUDGET HEARING

Greater Hillsborough Senior Services provides a wide array of activities and services for ALL seniors in the Hillsborough region. Maybe you have benefited from one or more of them. MAYBE you did not know what GHSS does: Most likely GHSS does something that can make your life better!

Now GHSS is asking for your support. In the coming Hillsborough town meeting, please support the warrant article that seeks to provide a grant that will enable GHSS to continue to provide these many services that directly benefit the many Seniors in our area.

GREATER HILLSBOROUGH SENIOR SERVICES

FACT SHEET

GHSS this past year served 1618 seniors in 2014.  We have grown by 11% since 2013. SAU 34 population is 1285 while seniors account for 1478 of the town population.

75% of participants (930) are from Hillsborough

Food costs have risen 20-25% for our twice monthly luncheons.

GHSS has reinstated "Dial-A-Ride" for seniors which generated 578 rides equaling 12,541 miles driven.

GHSS has provided 2122 volunteer hours of service to our area seniors.

GHSS creates the monthly newsletter (Senior Moments) which is  distributed to 800 participants.

GHSS provides weekly games/cards/bingo/craft activities.

GHSS assumed responsibility for driving the Youth Services van for "grocery shopping trips" for seniors, mainly for Maple Leaf residents.

GHSS has a Blogspot (like an internet page: http://greaterhillsboroughseniors.blogspot.com/) and Facebook pages for information.

GHSS held a Flu Shot clinic in town, did Alzheimer's testing under the national associations guidance, eye acuity testing through the Lions Club.

GHSS has conducted training for CPR, First Aid and AED (Automatic Emergency Defibrillator).

GHSS held a variety of informational Lunch N' Learn programs, i.e. home safety, ICE workshop, life planning from CRVNA, financial management. 

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GHSS arranged for a "Senior Splashers" water exercise program with Crotched Mountain.

GHSS arranged and executed trips/adventures to Fuller Gardens, Whitmore Center Flower and Garden show, Great Common Park in New Castle, and spent a day at Sturbridge Village and at the Norman Rockwell Museum, we also visited the LaSalette Shrine Christmas light display.

GHSS was incorporated as a non-profit so corporate donations could be accepted by GHSS.

GHSS seniors donated and supported the food pantry's Feinstein grant effort.

We at GHSS expect our growth will continue and it could be as many as 486 “boomers” in the next year or so.

We ask for your support on our warrant article to continue funding for this program for our seniors.

GHSS CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION

Yesterday, 19 February, the first day of the Year of the Gdoat (sheep, ram, ewe.... whatever, some member of the family Caprinae that the Chinese know when they see) was celebrated by a festive lunch in Deering Town Hall. The event was sponsored by the Greater Hillsborough Senior Services in collaboration with Ming Du, or eponymous Hillsborough restaurant fame. Crab Rangoon, steamed dumplings, vege fried riced, beef with snow peas, good old General Tso and his chicken made a welcome appearance along with mystery treat,  Buddha's Delight (didn't know you liked tofu, did you!).  A near capacity crowd of around 110 people tucked into the feast while Riley and Morgan Klumb presented each with traditional gifts in red envelops. It looked to me as though everybody had a good time. Certainly , nobody left hungry!  Here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

PART OF THE GHSS PRODUCTION TEAM

...AND FOR MY NEXT TRICK

MORGAN AND RILEY GIVE OUT GIFTS

GHSS PRESIDENT PAT MATHESON

CRAB RANGOON

BEEF WITH SNOW PEAS

STEAMED DUMPLINGS

TOWN HALL READY FOR ACTION

SPRING BASKET RAFFLE

Tell me I'm crazy, but believe it or not Spring is sure to follow these snow storms we've been having in New England. It won't be long before we're planning our gardens. To help you with this, Greater Hillsborough Senior Services has pulled together a very special Spring Basket -- and we are going to raffle it off. This basket will go to the lucky person who buys the winning ticket! Even if you did not win the Powerball last night, you can still win BIG!

What's in it? For those cool spring nights there is a lovely AFGHAN handmade by Lee Avery. A beautiful WREATH for your door, a wooden sign "SPRING" and one with EASTER BUNNIES, a BUTTERFLY PIN and a HEART-SHAPED SLATE WITH A PICTURE OF A BLUEBIRD will announce to the world that Spring has, indeed, come to your home! For your garden there are three large packets of FLOWER SEEDS, a KNEELING PAD to help you plant those seeds, and  you can stand back to admire your garden on the large GARDEN STEPPING STONE that has a picture of a bluebird on it. 

How can you WIN all this? Buy tickets! The more you buy, the greater your chance of winning, but ALL the proceeds go toward  PURCHASE OF A BUS FOR SENIORS IN THE GREATER HILLSBOROUGH AREA AND FOR USE BY THE GENERAL COMMUNITY. So, really, by supporting this you can't lose!

YOU CAN GET TICKETS at SALON 405, TOPPER'S SALON or any GHSS Committee member.  TICKETS are $1.00 each or 6 for $5.00. 

THE DRAWING WILL BE HELD ON MARCH 26th.

For more information, contact Gene Gould at 464-4007.

A BOOK RECOMMENDATION

Let Me Be Frank With You by Richard Ford, 2014.

Frank Bascombe, sixty-eight, a retired real estate agent living in a well-to-do New Jersey suburb, has been the protagonist of three earlier books by Richard Ford: The Sportswriter, Independence Day (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner award), and Lay of the Land.  In this fourth book of the series Frank is summing up his life in the post Super Storm Sandy 2012 Christmas landscape.  Maybe it's a response to the stress of the storm; of the near miss -- for him. The thin book is really four long short stories, or novellas, where Frank realizes that he has to pare down his life to what is essential. Words, for example. I was particularly amused when he culled words that "should no longer be useable -- in speech or any form." For example: awesome when it only means "tolerable," no problem when you really mean "You're welcome." "Likewise, soft landing, sibs, bond, hydrate (when it just means "drink"), make art, share, reach out, noise used as a verb ....." In the stories Frank meets, in succession, a man to whom Frank sold his house was near the ocean that was destroyed by the storm; a black woman who many years previously, and after many intervening families,  owned his present home and who needed to expunge some demons; his former wife who now has Parkinson's Disease and is checked in to an up-scale care facility; a not-so-close friend from long ago who is dying. These subjects might seem depressing but in this book they are not. I have read very psychologically complicated reviews in praise of this book in national newspapers but, really, they seemed to be written more for the reviewer than for the potential reader. It seems clear to me that Frank Bascombe is doing what he has to do because he is a  good man. There really is no plot or dialogue here to criticize but Frank Bascombe is maybe not unlike many of us. He has lived more years than are left to him and he is taking stock. He has had a good, fulfilling life, but what does he want to leave? Not material stuff but the spiritual, the essence of who he was and is. He is not making big plans for some future. These stories are not moralizing pieces. The stories are sometimes funny but in them he, or Richard Ford, reviews where he is now, and each of the stories is the story of an individual who has a different claim on him. The ruined house in New Jersey: Frank feels some responsibility for having sold the house that was ultimately destroyed. At the same time he thanks his lucky stars for having left that bowling alley of the ocean. Have you sold a house and felt responsible for at least a while after? I have. Frank had to meet the guy even though he didn't particularly like him. A visit to his former wife in a care facility: We see that he is very happily married and we can see how and why his first marriage ended; it was not all one sided. What we also see is the connection that he maintains with his first wife even after many years. The former wife berates Frank for many things, and Frank argues with himself: "Why am I doing this?" 'Till death do us part?  I don't think that means just within the framework of a physical marriage. He can be quite content within his life but still acknowledge the persistasnce of that first love that gave them children and, a life. In the third story Frank is called to the bedside of a dying guy with whom Frank had been friends many years ago. A long time and, as they do, the two went different ways. But, they were friends and friendship implies some kind of responsibility even over time. Frank lists many reasons why he should not go, or does not have any responsibility to go, but in the end really he has no choice. As with his former wife, he is stung by the confession of a rotten deed done by the dying man, of something done long ago, but in the end it is just that:  something that happened long ago. In the second story Frank turns into his drive to find a well-dressed black woman ringing his door bell. What does she want? He has choices: send her on her way or, find out what she wants. Of course the sit around sharing tea or coffee and talking, haltingly but talking. The woman's family had lived there many years earlier and she just wanted to see the old house. Not quite. Turns out that she was a child when her family members were murdered in the house. She needed to confront that sad reality.  The past is the past. We have responsibilities, ties that are important and inescapable but the past is balanced by  what we do and who we are now, at this moment. 

Most of the dialogue in these stories goes on inside Frank's head.  Race, religion, politics: sometimes humorous and not essentially 'deep,' but his thoughts are authentic and, to me, reasonable. Richard Ford's writing is superb. It is a pleasure to read his phrasing and his choice of words. The book is enjoyable and thoughtful.  I have not read anything else by Richard Ford but as soon as I put these stories down, I bought another of his novels.  I enjoyed this book immensely and think that some of you might enjoy it as well. There is a copy of Let Me Be Frank With You in the Deering Public Library; I am certain there are copies in other libraries.