Senior Fitness at its Finest

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I just want to say that I have worked in a lot of Senior Centers, seen a lot of fitness instructors and have never, ever seen anyone who is as dedicated, enthusiastic, or as good as Joe Guardino"
                                       Kathi Bailey, Directo of Senior Services, Town of Yarmouth, Massachusetts 


In the life of the ever-growing group, officially know as the students of "Joe Guardino Fitness", yesterday was the daytime equivalent of "Big Night" and they turned out in full force, not one seat was empty despite the frigid cold weather.

Once a year, Joe hosts a luncheon to honor his faithful following, the hardy and determined senior residents of the Town of Yarmouth who brave the cold, snow, sleet, rain or beastly high August temperatures and humidity, to get themselves out of their homes and into their Senior Center for a morning work out.  And, every day, twice a morning and two afternoons a week, Joe leads these amazing groups, works out with them, and loves, loves, loves every minute.  These are his people.  He is their fitness instructor, role model and, although he would never admit it, in some cases, the "guy with the cute butt".  His students range from their late sixties right straight through late eighties.  His oldest is 93 and still going strong.  This is not a group of old folks sitting around in a circle passing the tambourine.  Not in any way, shape or form.  You come to Joe's class, you stand up, move around, stretch, lift your ten pound weights, and get quite the work out.  He cannot and does not make it easy.  He's a master at what he does and he knows how to get the job done.
To describe the one hour routines here would be way too exhausting.  I am not a current student, shame on me.  I keep promising that I will return to classes but being the woman behind the Master often precludes regular attendance.  Someone has to keep the home fires burning, doesn't one?  Ahem....

Some kids love gym class and some find it to be their own personal horror show.  School-aged kids have a way of ruining weeks at a time for their classmates who are not what they consider the same as everyone else.  If you are not up to their prescribed standard of height or weight, you become the target for so many worded and wordless attacks.  Yes, there was bullying way back when.  It's just that nothing was done about it and educators oftentimes were part of the hurtful process.  Some kids were jocks and some, not.  my husband was not.  And he was not until years later when it was I who suggested that he find a gym that would help alleviate the stress that his older sister's terminal illness had thrust upon him.  Reluctantly, he started regular visits to the YMCA in White Plains, New York and once he started, he never stopped.

An early retirement which allowed him to become the onsite manager for a major home renovation at his mother's, also allowed time to rethink life, the one still ahead of him.  It was a very wise adult daughter who put pieces together, urging her youthful looking, fit and personality-blessed father to use his time wisely and study the rigorous course that would lead to a certification in Personal Training with a specialty in Senior Fitness.  "Dad, what a role model you are" are the words that launched a Renaissance and the rest is history.
This is a man who never stops trying to beat his own personal best.  There's not a Sunday evening when he isn't preparing for the week ahead, giving his students new programs, more challenges, better music, more opportunities for their own personal renaissance.

Joe's is a great story, one that should be told to the masses.  He's a "Senior Citizen" a "Baby Boomer" who does something extraordinary.  He helps people, for the most part, older than himself, to feel their youth again, to realize that they still have potential, vitality and the ability to change those things in their lives that they may not have thought possible.  Interesting to note here, there is a monthly publication here on the Cape, called "PrimeTime".  It is a magazine supplement to the Cape Cod Times newspaper.  It has a target market, Baby Boomers and above, with featured articles intended to showcase "active senior citizens".  In skimming though the pages every month, I've found advertisements for funeral services, nursing homes, assisted living properties, nursing services for keeping Mom and Dad at home and other services which remind the reader that life is tough and you need all the help you can get.  When I contacted the editor and told her that Joe has a story that would grab her readers, a perfect fit for her magazine,  guess what she replied.....

"Our target market is the fifty-somethings, the people next-door.  He's too old for our readers"

I'm not sure what you're thinking, but I know what I am thinking.  One man who seized an opportunity and made a difference not only in his life but in the lives of almost one hundred others to date, versus, one woman who passed up an opportunity to have impacted on thousands.  Once again, Joe Guardino, you are a winner!!!

Oh, and just a tiny post script here....if you are interested in reading more about a couple of fifty-somethings who make little dolls out of dryer lint or about a woman who realized her life's dream to have an apartment decorated exclusively in the color turquoise with silver and white accents, I know just the magazine for you.

I Had A Dream

I, like so many other people my age, have some issues with technology and most of those issues have something to do with the fact that we either do not understand how to use it or we haven't any use for it in our lives.  We like things the way they were.  We miss the "good old" days.  I don't own many of those "devices" and am one of the few who don't have a Smartphone.

But, there is one thing that this brave new world has literally put into my hands, and that is the digital camera.

God's gift to those of us who waited.  Something we all can use and enjoy. My favorite camera was beyond compare and my new one is now totally in action and I am greatly relieved.  

This year, I am planning to do something with some of those photos that I have stored in the canyons of my computer. First of all, I must find out how to lasso them from their resting places.  The Picasa's have to have a meeting with the Kodak Easyshare's and those hanging out in Myphotos will have to join them.  The task of getting them into order seems daunting but the time has definitely come.  My photos tell stories.  A lot of those I have in these computer places have been taken specifically for that reason.  

Years ago, when I was a teenager, I had a dream, a life I had envisioned and one that I still think about almost every day.  In my dream world, I was a courageous young woman, who, dressed in khaki shorts and hiking boots would drive around the country, stopping along the way to meet people.  I would randomly select a person or group and start a conversation.  My camera would capture what they looked like.  My pen would document their words and then I would get back in my car and travel on until I came to the next wonderful place.  I never fulfilled that fantasy.  But, the desire to know more and to celebrate the smallest things in a life is still very much alive.

I'd like to think that I have in some way kept my dream alive.  I often see things that to me, are stories. I know this part of me is alive and well every time I see a shoe on the side of the road or a pair of sneakers hanging on a telephone wire.  I want to know what were the last words those shoes heard.  I want to know if the owner realizes yet that one is missing.  I see shoes everywhere and have taken so many photos of them that I probably should have written a coffee table book by now.  "Shoes" by Lynn Guardino, the Woman With a Dream .

So, before I start the monumental project of re-organizing years of photos, I will leave off with this one as it is one I dearly love.  My beautiful daughter, Sara, is an attorney.  She's a member in good standing of the Massachusetts Bar.  She is also the mother of two little girls, Lucy and Phoebe.  She is and always has been, a creative individual.  When her girls were toddlers, she made a decision, one that really took guts.  She left the law world and officially entered the creative world with the start of her own photography business.  In her fashion, just as she has with most everything she has done in her life so far, she has made it highly successful.  When you think about it, how can you fail when you follow a dream, venture down the path of creativity and contribute beauty to the world. 

So, I love this photo and the little story it tells.  A mommy and her baby on preschool graduation day.  There's so much love and pride in the shot.  I took it so I know the dynamics but it does speak for itself quite beautifully.Sara's taken thousands of photos.  But at this very moment, there's a story telling itself so sweetly and so honestly that it brings tears to my eyes each and  every time I look at it.

The Choice

Every summer, the Colgate Palmolive Company hired a very special group of high school students.  If I recall correctly, the dozen or so lucky teenagers had been selected because they met a rather tough set of criteria.
First of all, they had to apply and only could if they were from a minority group.  Next, and most importantly, they had to have shown great potential, good grades and all the extras that would give a hint or two of their future place in the world.  Once they got into the company, they were assigned mentors and they were expected to prove that they were the best of choices for the small handful of openings.  They met with the program adviser weekly, and throughout the summer, in addition to providing a service to the company, they received coaching and direction in how to succeed in business.  Every week there was a Lunch and Learn. Together, they sat down  for lunch and a guest speaker, invited by the group adviser, would join them. During lunch, the guest gave a brief overview on the who/why/where he or she fit into the corporate structure, a description of exactly what their particular profession was and the path that led to that place. Finally,  there was time for questions and answers.

The lunch forums were a favorite part of the program for the students.  Not only was it a free meal, but they had the full attention of a usually busy and oftentimes very senior member of a management team who had accepted the invitation. They met Corporate Vice Presidents, they sat down with people who made big decisions about the future of a product line, advertising, package design, finance and investment.  Then, one day came my invitation.  The Company Nurse.  Me???  Gulp.  These smart and motivated kids, these tiny little Nerd-like creatures who have had the ear of people who have had their caricatures on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, they want to lunch with me?  Okay.

So, on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon midway through that summer, I lunched with a group of the brightest and most polite young people one could ever muster up.  And, when it came time for the Q and A part of the lunch, I totally winged it.  Everyone knows what nurses do.  Their curiosity was centered on why Colgate had a nurse.  What did I do all day?  Why was I wearing Donna Karan's instead of Nursemates? And, then the inevitable big questions; did anyone ever die in my office, what was the funniest thing that ever happened, who would take care of me if I got sick.  Snicker, snicker.  Why did I become a nurse and not a doctor?  The questions got tougher. These kids were experienced askers.  After all, they already had the opportunity to ask Reuben Mark what it felt like to be one of America's most powerful corporate leaders.

Some of the questions were easier than others.  Some really were amusing but perhaps the one that won their hearts and found me a few weeks later being in the Guest of Honor seat at their final luncheon, the one that brought back the guest they had voted as "our favorite", was the answer to the "Why?".  I suppose I had not really given much thought to that question, or at least to ever having to answer it.  I am sure I must have, in one way or another, had a good one because over the years, I mentored at least three women who had nursing on their minds and, after my wand was passed over their heads, wore caps upon them.  But on the day I was called upon at the Lunch and Learn, I told it straight, they had to know the truth.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, I was always a fat kid.  When I was in high school, I had to decide what I wanted to do with my life.  Nurses wore uniforms!  That made it easy for me to decide.  It was either nurse or nun and I knew I could never make it through the novitiate on the days of silence so, I chose nursing!"

You've never seen a bunch of kids so happy.  For the rest of the summer, they became frequent visitors to my office.  They, and the young man from the mail room who everyone thought mentally challenged because he had Cerebral Palsy. The one who never forgot "Nurses' Day" and remembered my love of cupcakes when it was my last day before retirement.  They, and the young Hispanic man from the kitchen who could not find the words to thank me and to tell me that he was sorry to have taken my time when I patched up his nearly sliced off finger.  They and the countless over-worked, stressed out twenty-somethings who I hid in my resting rooms.  They and the broken hearted girls who cried their hearts out after the break ups.  They and those with chest pains who I gave the traditional kiss of good bye and good luck on the sidewalk of 300 Park Avenue as they boarded the ambulance.  They who showed their real, true, scared and vulnerable selves in my treatment rooms, their secrets locked tightly before brushing their suits off and returning to their own velvet hells.

The other day, my father called my cell phone.  I was shopping and was several miles away.  He sounded confused, scared.  "Something has happened to my check book. There's something wrong.  When can you get here?"  I knew that this was not an emergency. I've helped him with those things that he found confusing before but I also knew in my heart that he was scared and his need for comfort was at hand.  Later, I swung by his house and was greeted by my ninety two year old dad, all one and shaking like a leaf, the piece of paper in his hand flying in the tiny breeze.  "Look!  Something's terribly wrong" He pointed to the line where a balance, a small one, was printed much in the same format as his monthly checking account statement.
My eyes scanned the paper, I needed to be certain of the answer and soon.  I also knew that he had a substantial amount in his checking account, something that was his current biggest source of pride and well-being.  A careful examination and the problem was solved.  "Dad, this is not your checking account.  Everything is okay.  This is a statement of a very small account that is linked to your retirement checks.  Just put is aside for tax time"  After several repeats and reassurances, the furrowed brow, the face of horror, disappeared.  Dad became calm again.  I sensed huge relief and his return to joy was palpable as he picked up the statement of his checking account from the desk and proudly waved it in the air.  We sat down together and had a nice little visit before I got back into my car for the short drive home.

I've been retired for a few years now and haven't been in a clinical area to work since.  Until this day, I had not given any thought to my former career.  Those days are over.  But. on that drive home, in the solitude of my car, I enjoyed five minutes of that same incredible feeling that I used to get on a daily basis in my white lab coat and my Donna Karan shoes. I didn't cop out.  I hardly ever, as it turned out, wore a uniform.  I refused to wear scrubs outside of the delivery room (they make me look like a clown), and I never, ever regretted the choice I had made.

So, ladies and gentlemen.....that's why I chose nursing.

Metaphor Time

I am in constant pursuit of metaphors.

I wish they would come more easily to me.

I admire, worship and adore people who know what they are, where they are and how to use them to get maximum effect when writing.

But all too often I find that they escape me.  Not that I'm not on the look out, but I do have a lot to learn.

Yesterday morning, I think I struck gold.

The day before, responding  to my father's request for something to help him sleep, I went into the far reaches of our linen closet, to the place where the box marked "RX medications" is located, back there behind the box marked "OTC medications" (once a nurse, always a nurse).As I went through little plastic bottles of various and sundries left over from my mom's illness, I opened the stash of Zoloft, the little blue, oval shaped anti-depressants that I thought Dad might need some time in the near future. I  sealed it back up after my inspection and identification of the contents and went on to locate the bottle that held a stash of Ambien, the sleep medication.  I filled the prescription and put it all away for now.

A stick vacuum, one that I used to put to work every day before it started to lose its oomph, still remains in a charger in our Pond Room.  I hardly ever use it now that I have a more efficient version, but we keep it charged and once in a while, we give it a whirl as I did yesterday.  It has seen better days and the sounds it emits, low-pitched groans tell us that it is not really picking much up.

I turned it on, allowed it to take it's time as it glided over the wood floor, first in the area of the linen closet, on to the rest of the little hallways and then to the living room for a quick spin, hoping to collect some tiny bits of debris from the previous evening's fire in the fireplace. The motor was starting to sound tired, as if the battery was already wearing down. One more area, a few more tid bits to suck up. And, as I made this one final demand, it started to rebel the way those stick and hand held vacuums do.

Instead of picking up........it spit out......a Zoloft.

Back on to the charger it went.

New Dawn

A lot of years ago, I read a very nice little essay in a magazine.  I do not recall which magazine or who the author was, which is too bad because there have been so many times since that I have wished I could have thanked that nice person.  I also cannot recall exactly what the entire piece was about but there is one thing that I gleaned from the reading and will never forget.  The author wrote about how she turned something negative in her life into something very positive, certainly not an uncommon theme.  But, this time it was just the theme at just the right time.  The author and I shared a common theme.  Both of us were unable, like so many women, to sleep past a wee hour of the morning.  We wake up.  We stay up.  We get out .  We start early.  My take away......I rise early.  I love morning. I get extras.  This is good.  My dearly-forgotten author taught me something valuable.  We, who wake up early and have to get out of bed lest we get a headache, have extra hours in our days.  We see things that we might have missed.  We have time to pray, plan, think and see our world as it wakes up, most likely our wold at it's most glorious hour.  A world unspoiled. A quiet and peaceful world.  Colors, produced by the rising sun, that cannot be described, have to be seen. Wild turkeys still on their night time perches, sharing the view. The world at 5AM.

This morning, as I looked out the back window, the lamp post that lights up the yard during the night cast precisely the right amount of illumination onto the snow, revealing series of track marks that could only have been made by visiting wild life during the night.  There were sets that went back and forth from the foundation area of the building to a tree and another distinct path that swirled around the ground in no particular order, perhaps made by a nocturnal animal on his or her nightly rounds.  I saw a turkey, clumsily making its way from the tree that sheltered it through the night, back to the snowy ground and I watched as it slowly made its way through the snow down to the pond to join its mate.  Together, they ascended the hill from the pond and went out for breakfast at the feeder, putting down new sets of track marks.  With each new burst of light came more activity as each species welcomed the dawn.  I was only alone in my home, not in my universe. The track marks on the snow, a gigantic white canvas, proved that, long before the sun rose. 

Last night, we attended the opening reception of the All Members Show at our local Cultural Center.  There were dozens of beautiful works of art, contributed by creative people at all levels.  Our eyes were treated to delightful pastels, oils, acrylics, photos, weavings and other hand crafts.  In many cases, we knew the artists and were able to personally offer congratulations on jobs well done.  One of the most beautiful works was done by a woman from whom I took classes in collage and mixed media last year.  At the opposite end of the exhibit hall were two magnificent woven garments, both done by a friend who we had not seen in a while.

An instant re-connection and a promise to not let that much time go by before seeing each other again followed.  Art does so much more than meets the eye.

And this morning, because I have been given the gift of these beautiful extra hours, because I have been afforded the opportunity to spend time in this special world that is missed by the "sleepers",  I start my day reflecting on the essence of creativity, the ability to leave track marks on life that prove your existence.

Plunging Into Warmth

This is a story about a man I know.  A man, who, at the height of the summer, on the hottest day in August, will not run into the water when we are at the beach.  A man who is "scared" of cold water and will only do that final dip in after he has acclimated his body for no less than twenty minutes before.


But when it was time to join in a fundraiser for the Yarmouth Senior Center, his true bravery and his ever-present manhood came out to celebrate. My husband, Joe........

It is very true.  Sometimes, it just takes one picture to say a thousand words.
I could have stopped at this one

Photo by Sara Colket of colketphoto.com

But then, this one also needed to be told

Photo by Sara Colket of colketphoto.com

And, the story could never, ever have been told without this one

Photo by Sara Colket of colketphoto.com

Fa LaLaLaLa La Land

Been away from what I love to do most, jotting down my thoughts here, for way too long.

Holidays took all the creativity I could muster up

Kids are gone, food finished off, dishwasher on, Polar Plunge over

Time to get back to the business of me and I intend to do me very well in this new year

I've made a few resolutions, no biggie.  Most resolutions are abandoned by February any way, aren't they.

But......this year, I will continue to surround myself with people I love and try harder to let them know how very much and why I love them

I will try to be more creative, more expressive and maybe I'll even find my medium.

I will replace some of my underwear

I will curl my lashes before applying mascara

I will keep on trying to find the perfect night's sleep

And I will remember that each year passes very quickly and we only have so many of them, each one of us so I'm going to remind myself of that every day and when I do, I will take more mental photos and I will never, ever take one single thing in my life for granted.

I will.