LIFESTYLES
Seniors discarding stereotype

IT’S NOT much short of a year since I began to chivvy the
News about writing a column for seniors. This temerity has
been initiated by the Keep Well people, in fact, and fueled
by their need to get a regular message out about the good
sense of taking considered care of one’s slowly fossilizing
self and staying off that taxpayer’s shoulders.

Keep Well didn’t get quite what
they were Icoking for, 1 think,
and neither did I. | thought I'd
have a forum for some pithy
comment about the old-age syn-
drome, and a wide-open space in
which to air all the good advice
I'd accumulated in my stumble
along life’s frontage road.

Fat chance. The senior scene
has no time for airy-fairy hypoth-
eses — you wouldn’: believe the
frenzy of activity that most of the
seniors are wound up in.

One could attend a decision-
making meeting every day of the
week, could be winded just con-
templating the physical activities
in which many engage.

My mother was a senior, she
didn’t carry on like that. She
played bridge and planned the odd
dinner party, kept her house and
garden and wrote letters to her
children.

She and her friends read books
and listened to John McCormack
records and went to the annual
Old-Timers dance, but otherwise
they minded their own business,
wiich was the business of getting
old as had been prescribed.

What’s with us?

Marvellously, we seem to have
an itch.

So, as we intend to hang round,
prodding, reminding, hoping, cor-
recting, there are some inade-
quacies we would like to see ad-
dressed.

We're here, we’re planning to
stay yet a while we'd like to be
safe and comfortable. I’ve got a
list.

It isn’t my list, it came out of a
meeting in Ottawa of seniors of
diverse parts of Canada, orga-
nized by the Canadian Association
of Consumers.

Alma Reynolds, a member and
worker at West Vancovver’s
Senior Centre, became the
spokesperson for us British Col-
umbians. Alma has enjoyed the
centre since before it was born,
and contributes regularly to the
entertainment offered there. She
believes in ‘‘putting back.”

She was therefore in a conve-
nient location to question seniors
about improvements they felt
would make life easier and safer.
There were meetings held in other
areas of the North Shore, too,
and herewith some of the concerns
that surfaced.

We walkers and wheelchair
users would like audible traffic
signals. Makes a lot of sense when
you think of fading eyesight and
the effect of sunshine on traffic
lights.

We’d greatly appreciate padded
seat-belts, especially for the part
across the chest. There has been
real damage perpetrated by the
present cutting edge of chest
straps.

We would implore that instruc-
tions for using things like micro-
waves and getting into certain
packages be done in black, not
red print, and that the print be big
enough to read.

We wish busy banks would give
numbers, and some seating for the
aged and infirm who cannot stand
in line for 20 minutes.

Would the banks also arrange
for a desk and chair, or a desk-
height counter for the use of a the
physically handicapped? My
North Shore Credit Union branch
has une.

We long for door handles that
open when leaned on rather than
the kind that turn. You've got ar-
thritis in your thumbs, door-knobs
are agonizing.

Would the government furnish
a fist of all the documents re-

Eleanor
Godley

THE VINTAGE YEARS

quired on the death of a spouse,

‘Neil Walton, MSc, Aud
Audiologist
| FF fpacilic
ad Hearing Clinic

Guanes Pacrie io Assoceptes inc

HEARING PROBLEMS? |

WE CAN HELP

putting it in the pension-cheque

envelopes every once in a while?
Would the Posi Office please,

please restore parcel delivery?

Would stores change their
gleaming intimidating floors? We
come in the door, our knees lock;
we walk stiff-legged, terrified of
slipping, and can only think of
getting to saft footing. We'd
spend a low more time (and
money) if you'd use a matte sur-
face.

When will the manufacturers of
men’s shirts give up their archaic
packaging? One new shirt yielded
up 13 miserable little pins, one
piece of rigid plastic, another of
moulded cardboard.

Please decal your giass doors.
Our old eyes are easily bedazzled.

And give us a break on shopp-
ing carts. Some of us will never
learn to drive those coin-operated
jobs. Trust us with a few
“Reserved Fors.””

Good. Thanks. Put ali that in
train and we'll happily go on nag-
ging you till the cows come home.

Maryalyce McDonald, MSc, Aud. §
Audiologist
301-1200 Lonsdale Ave.
North Vancouver, BC.

985-2501

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