Over This Past Week, I Spent Some Time Visiting with Resident Thelma Nauck. During Our

Over this past week, I spent some time visiting with resident Thelma Nauck. During our visit, I had the opportunity to read, “Tales from Tella,” to her. After doing so, I had a revelation. My weekly writings of what the residents of BTMC are up to is really pretty, how shall I put it, dull. That is not to say that the goings on here are dull; not at all. For example, we have some very competitive folks here, like Elsie Pelzman and Dale Johnson as well as others, who demonstrate that competitive nature as they shoot the hoop for morning exercise. We also have the friendly banter from the likes of Paula Dedebant or Florence Anderson, who, when asked if she wanted to pick a letter for our game of hangman, which we played until Pastor Betty Lou Deuchler got here, stated directly, “No,” but her delivery was funny!

And if you could see one of our Nursing Assistant trainees listening intently to Lucy Sheehan, who had a lot to say, you’d see there’s a lot going on here that is not on the calendar and is meaningful to residents. It’s not dull stuff, only, perhaps, the way that Ipresent it to you.

But, my hope is that it’s nice to read about your friends or family members; like Lynn Jennings who won along with some of the other ladies when she played bingo. Or perhaps when you read that some of our folks enjoyed watching the Ken Burns series, “The War,” you think to yourself, maybe that’s something I should look at as well.

And I would just bet that you don’t have to take any cue from us to get out to the Ice Cream Parlor like Becky Birnel and Ellnore Larsen did, to cool off with some delicious creamery. But, do you invite a bunch of your friends for a cookie social after youmake some brown sugar butterscotch cookies like we do?

If you want to feel like you’re a game show contestant and play a little Jeopardy trivia with us, you can match your minds against the years of experience totaled up by our folks.

Whatever you think about what’s reported as happening here, I look forward to seeing which one of you steps up to take on Michele Archer’s column for the Senior Citizens Center while she’s away. You’ll see that putting some zing in the reporting of the week can be challenging. Perhaps we wouldn’t even need to report the happenings because you would be here, spending time with us. You know you’re always invited, and, we’ll see you here.