Service Slippers

This Monday at the Veterans’ Home I helped out in the Volunteer department for a while and then headed on over to Crafts and Hobbies. I expected to see Joe there. He’s the staffer that usually works in crafts. But to my surprise, he had taken the day off. Apparently his kid has some health issues that they had to go to the hospital to have checked out. This meant it was just me and the residents. It was just me and the residents then. It’s kind of fun to hangout for the afternoon with all of the residents. They are all so relaxed. It’s a really nice break from the craziness we all call college life.

One of the ladies came in with some new house slippers she’d just gotten. The problem with the slippers were that the kept falling off. So, we found her some edging material that would work well for a strap. Then we cut some pieces and I sewed them on for her. Now her slippers stay on. It was cool because I know that the residents basically get given everything, but on the flip side, hardly anyone goes beyond what is expected or required. She didn’t expect me to do that for her, even though there really wasn’t much else for me to be doing, and she was so appreciative. She kept telling me over and over how thankful she was and how nice I must be to be willing to do a thing like that. I’m pretty sure I made her day.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in there too. There are Christmas ornaments and trees and bouquets everywhere. Charlie has been quite busy. He’s the one that makes the bouquets of false flowers and stuff. It’s cool how other peoples’ birdhouses, ornaments, and figurines find their way into his bouquets and he makes them fit so well. 

Service at Home

The beginning of the this week saw me and my ENGR 131 team frantically trying to get our project done so we could have an actual Thanksgiving break. Thus, I didn't make it to the Veterans' Home on Monday. (I let them know, so it's all ok.) Since I cannot just regurgitate what happened at the Home, I'm forced here to take a little different of a view on service. Specifically, a more broad and more organic view--service in the home.

This week was (as you all know) Thanksgiving. My mother's side of the family consists of some 15 or 16 people and usually comes to our house for 2 or 3 days to celebrate Thanksgiving. My mother is more than a little particular about keeping our house clean, and so the first several hours of my break were spent preparing the house for our guests. Seeing as how I am a boy and a teen-aged boy at that, I don't much like cleaning.

Throughout the four days between then and now, I've helped make, serve, and clean up meals. I've re-cleaned parts of the house for new, incoming parts of the family, and done other little things to help. But not till now when I sit down and think back did I realize how much I've served others through all those little things. Serving family should be fairly natural and for me it is. (My mom tells me if I need to do something). But shouldn't there be something reciprocal about this kind of service too?

What do we get back from serving our family? I know I got some great games and some great meal out of it, but what else? I think that love and a place to belong are some of the most important things that family can give us, and that all starts with serving one another. Service is more common and more important than I'd thought before. 

A Feast for the Veterans

This week has been crazy! You all probably don’t care about how buisy I’ve been, so I’ll get right to my service related stuff. Then again, you probably don’t care about that either, but that’s what I’m supposed to talk about, so you’ll have to survive.

This week at the Veterans’ Home was rather a special one. In recognition of their service to our country, Golden Chorale donates a meal for the entire Veterans’ Home once a year. They used to have all the residents come to the Chorale, but you can certainly imaging the logistical nightmare of taking 350 elderly people anywhere. Now, the food comes to the residents. Mostly.

This whole event was actually rather a surprise to me. I went up to the Alzheimer’s Unit like I usually do when I get there, and the one nurse in sight told me that all the residents from the unit were downstairs for lunch. After a few minutes, I found them. They weren’t in the dining court though, they were in the auditorium (a large, round room that gets used for everything imaginable).  In fact, I say that somewhere around 250 of the residents had made their way down or been brought down and were now sitting at the tables that had been set up. I quickly found out that everyone was waiting on the food to get there and it was a little late.

Soon the food did arrive though, and we served all those residents fried chicken, beef pot roast with veggies, mashed potatoes, macaroni salad, and green beans with banana pudding for desert. It turns out that old people cannot eat lettuce salad, but they can eat breaded, fried chicken with all the bones in… beats me. Oh, and it also turns out that they really like fried chick and banana pudding. 

For Love of Country and Sweethearts

I realized Monday that I’d totally forgotten to post on my blog for the week. I guess that was ok though, because my day at the Halloween party was pretty boring (except for a great conversation with a WW II vet who had been on an LST (Landing Ship, Tank) for 11 invasion in the Pacific Theater.)

Monday of this week, I took Charles from the Alzheimer’s Unit down to the Mitchel dining court for lunch. The Alzheimer’s unit is on the second floor of MacCarther and the residents are never allowed to leave that floor unless they are escorted by someone. Charles loves to get out just to see the world, but he especially loves going to the Mitchel dining court because that is where his wife eats lunch, at least that is what he told me. He hears an understands very well, but he speaks very softly. Try talking quietly, without moving you tongue or bottom jaw. Now you know what he sounds like.

Over lunch he told me a lot of things. How he’d been an infantry man and fought in World War II. His large, cowboy-esque hat displayed two patches. One patch indicated that he had served in the Pacific campaign meaning that this man had fought some of the toughest battles of this century in the jungles of tiny, coral islands. The other patch told that he had earned the Bronze Star for Heroism. This is the fourth highest combat award of the US Armed Forces. That puts it just above the Purple Heart!

Charles also told me repeatedly how he wanted to move back into the big rooms in Pyle because there he and his wife could live together in one big room, one big bedroom. I couldn’t believe how insistent this old gentleman was, but after being married for 49 years, I guess you’re pretty committed. Unfortunately we didn’t see his wife and he’ll not ever move back to Pyle, but he still had a smile on his face when I dropped him back off on Mitchel 2 and headed to crafts.

The Renegade Alzheimer (Episode I of Adventures in Arts and Alzheimer’s)

I think I’ve mentioned here before that I intended to spend my extra hour or so a week with members of the Alzheimer’s ward. Well, I made it up there for the first time Monday. It’s an interesting place. Every exit is secure. Even the nurses’ station has gates on it to keep the residents out. Compared to most of the nursing units, the Alzheimer’s unit is pretty nice, but if you consider the fact that these residents are never allowed to leave, the little extra sunshine and decorations seem kind of feeble.

As I mentioned, I successfully made time to get up there last Monday and asked the nurses if anyone might want to go out for a walk or downstairs for lunch in the normal cafeteria. They informed me that there was one gentleman who was about to have lunch but loved going outside so much that he’d probably rather have lunch later. It turns out that she was right. So, he and I took a spin into the sunshiny and brisk day. We were both enjoying ourselves, but it wasn’t long before I was chilled and he was freezing so we returned to the buildings to warm up and get my coat for him.

We ventured out once again the 15 minuets I had left before I need to be in crafts. This time we ventured out a back door. There turned out to be a small step to bus he insisted we should try it. We navigated that and as I turned around I saw three more full sized steps in from of us. Let’s just say that I found out wheel chairs work relatively well on steep grassy slopes… just take it backward.

Join us next time for more Adventures in Arts and Alzheimer’s.

Dead Fish and Fishy Students

The fish died. This was a sad and shocking event in crafts this week. Crafts and hobbies had 3 fish swimming in a tank large enough to handle 3 or 4 more. So, not surprisingly, the gold fish that had been in there for about 6 years had grown to around 10 inches long. This average goldfish of extraordinary size died last Monday. This caused several distraught residents and a little more work for Joe, the regular staffer from crafts and hobbies. I wonder if they’ll get any new fish now…

Honestly, that was the most exciting thing that has happened in the last two weeks in crafts and hobbies. Otherwise, there has just been a lot of working on projects like clothes for a teddy bear, false floral bouquets (as always), antique toys, and bracelets and necklaces.  The distinct advantage of my situation is that I can be helpful to all the residents, but if they are all happily working on project, I can study. This is especially useful since I volunteer on Mondays and have exams two Monday nights per month throughout the semester.

I’m a little frustrated with the fact that no one seems to find it necessary to work in this class. I mean, seriously. Sure, it’s easier than most other classes and it may not “directly” apply to each person’s  major, but if you commit to something, you owe it your best. When the teacher assigns 11 pages of reading and less than a quarter of the class reads it, then they are wasting their time and his. Sure, we all have to learn fairly independently in this class, that’s kind of the point. It’s accelerated composition because we don’t discuss the “how” in class, but we should all still read the “how” in the book and learn what we can.

ENGR 131 Flow Chart

The estimable Greg Reifke created this beast. Well done sir.

BINGO and Old People

I’ve played bingo before, but it’s been a while. I was with a bunch of old people the last time I played bingo. We were visiting an old lady we knew and visited at least weekly. She happened to be playing bingo one afternoon and they let me join in. I was about ten years old and I won!!! I chose a stuffed, white unicorn off the prize cart and decided that I liked bingo a lot. In the intervening eight years, I’d never played bingo.

Today, I played bingo again. There is a bingo at the Veterans’ Home every Sunday afternoon and usually one on holidays too.  Today happens to be a miniscule, but government recognized, holiday; I think it’s Columbus Day or something like that. Anyway, most of the staff have the day off and so they have a bingo because many of the residents will attend and enjoy it, but it doesn’t take many staff members to put one on.

I arrived and had some difficulty figuring out where to be and such, but was soon put to work going to get the weaker residents and pushing them down to the auditorium where the bingo would be. Once we were all ready for the bingo, I sat down next to Bruce* who has lost both of his legs and most of the movement in his arms to chronic sickness since arriving at the home over a decade ago.

I was happy to be able to work with Bruce throughout the bingo, but it was genuinely sad to see his lack of ability to control himself. I saw tears in his eyes multiple times because he couldn’t even lift his arm and push over the tab on a bingo card or muster up enough of a voice to tell me what floor of the building he lives on. One of the other volunteers told me that when she started there over a decade ago, his sons used to come take him for walks and to go fishing in the pond. Now he can’t even play bingo by himself. May you find grace and peace, sir.

*Please note that names have been deliberately changed to comply with HIPPA requirements.

Crafts, Hobbies, and Cats (108)

If you know me very well, or pretty much at all, you know I’m not very much of an artsy fartsy kind of a guy. In fact, I think it would be a stretch to say I’ve made anything pretty or cute this year, and the year is 85% gone. The fact I made 10 out of 12 months into a statistic, almost subconsciously is perhaps more revealing than anything else I could say.  All this to say, I’ll be going in a couple days to do my third Monday afternoon in the Crafts and Hobbies room at IVH.

The people who visit me seem to be a fairly religious group. Charlie, for example, has made dozens, perhaps a hundred false floral bouquets. He loves what he does and hoped they’d sell well at the sale they have at the annual state wide VFW reunion. That sale was today, so I’m sure I’ll hear how it went on Monday. The reason it’s important that their crafts sell well is because that is how the Crafts and Hobbies department justifies its extra programing costs, they sell the crafts made. 

One of the residents’ favorite parts of Crafts and Hobbies (besides Charlie and his flowers and Harold and his paintable clay figurines) are the cats. Rascal and Lucy keep everyone entertained.  Rascal is a slightly scrawny, male cat who loves attention. Rascal also loves the pillows some of the residents have on their wheel chairs. If one of them sits in a regular chair to work, he’s sure to crash out on their wheel chair. That is, he’ll take a nap there if he’s not too busy laying on my physics or chemistry book I’m trying to read between helping residents. Lucy is a little more timid and refined. She doesn’t like walkers, carts, or wheel chairs. She doesn’t even like being walked up to very much. But if she’s on a table, she’s happy to let you pet her, a lot.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m really enjoying it. It’s so peaceful and nice in that little, colorful room with the big windows.

Making New Friends: IVH and the Alzheimer Unit (108)

I’ve mostly made it through another week of school. It’s trying to kill me, but hasn’t succeeded just yet. My chemistry exam Monday and calculus one on Tuesday may though.

I spent my last 3+ hours reading the Indiana Veterans’ Home (IVH) volunteer information. I am tired of reading it, but hey, I’m done now and I learned quite a lot about the Home.

Basically, they take care of about 300 people. About 250 of those people are Hoosier men who have served in the military during time of war and the 30-50 women are primarily spouses of men in the home or widows of veterans with a few female veterans mixed in.  IVH is a large and State run institution, so it naturally has many inefficiencies, but it is readily apparent that they truly care for the residents and want what is best for them.

One other cool thing about the Veterans’ Home (especially applicable to me) is the way they use volunteers. They really work to put volunteers to work in a way that will use their skills, time, and motivation to bless and help care for the veterans. They do not ask you to do silly things or tell you there is nothing you can do. They encourage volunteers to work in dozens of roles all over the home, helping residents in every way from helping them get their meal trays to visiting with them to wheeling them all over creation to flower and garden work to who knows what else.

When I was there Thursday for orientation, we went on an extended and detailed walking tour of the campus. Carolyn (the Volunteer Coordinator) took us up to the Alzheimer unit because it was getting late (past 8 pm) and that’s the only place you’re sure to find people up. About eight very awake residents were sitting on couches and in various types of wheelchairs having ice-cream and sherbet. We got to spend about 10 minutes talking to them. Despite a few very sad comments from patients about wanting to go home and such impossible things, I had a blast with the residents and now I think I may do my service at least in part there in the Alzheimer unit. I never would have thought of doing that before.

Serving Those Who Served (108)

Over the summer between my junior and senior years of high school I completed the largest voluntary project of my life. By voluntary I mean two things; both that I chose to do it under no sort of requirement and that the point of the entire project was to volunteer and involve others in volunteering.

The project was in fulfillment of one of the requirements for my Eagle Scout rank. The requirement says “While a Life Scout, plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project helpful to any religious institution, any school, or your community.” Simple enough, right? All I have to do is to get a few people to do something nice and someone else to sign my book.  Not quite. I am a member of Boy Scout Troop 307 and we are over-achievers. One of our Scouts built a 200 foot board-walk, another got donations and built shelves to stock an entire new food pantry, and his brother did the same for the corresponding clothing closet. As you can see, I had a rather high bar set for me.

I asked some people for suggestions and ultimately came to the conclusion that I would like to do something for the Indiana Veterans Home. They are good and friendly people with an obviously good mission. They provide retirement community and nursing home type care for veterans who have seen active service and their spouses. I personally had benefitted from their benevolence because they have allowed the homeschool soccer team I play on to use a large field of theirs for soccer practices and games for some five or six years now.

Over the hundreds of times that I had come there for soccer practices and games I had noticed that the massive military graveyard adjacent to the Veterans Home receives relatively little care. It is not overgrown, but the stones are discolored and many were slanted. Because the Veterans Home’s budget is perpetually tight they do not spend any more time or money on the graveyard than is necessary to keep it decent. Therefore, I proposed to them that I might be able to serve them and honor the deceased veterans by cleaning the stones in the graveyard. There is a rather long story about what happened in the middle, but in the end, I was able to straighten the stones instead. I got many other individuals I knew - and a number I didn’t - to help me and we wound up putting in about 350 volunteer hours and straightening nearly a thousand stones.

When I was informed that I would need to spend time volunteering somewhere for English 108, the first place that popped into my mind was the Indiana Veterans Home. They have literally hundreds of volunteers that put in thousands of hours each year. Volunteers are such a vital part of their operation that I honestly think they would have difficulty staying open without volunteers.

I am very excited to get to work with Carolyn Johnson and all my friends at the Veterans Home again. But it makes me even more excited that a number of my class mates will be joining me there too, as the Veterans Home’s motto says, Serve Those Who Served. 

Purdue>or=Impending Doom

The estimable professors of Purdue University have now had one full week to attempt to kill me, and every other student on the campus. However, we have all survived (I believe).

I suddenly realized that it would not be surprising if one of my fellow 40,000 college students had managed to kill themselves this week, so I checked. To the best of my knowledge, it appears that none did at Purdue.

However, one student did fall 25 feet to his death from a building at Florida University this week. I do not believe that suicide is suspected, but I might jump too if I attended a school called F U. I mean, most schools will screw you over by charging you both arms and both legs, but not many will come out in the open like that and tell you.

I would say that the possibility of someone dying is probably a couple of orders of magnitude higher right now (approaching midnight, the first Friday of the school year) then they ever are in the labs and shops on campus. This leads to an interesting point: If the University is so worried about safety, then why do they spend so much time on teaching us how to be safe in a lab (where no one has been hurt, or had fun in years) and so little time teaching all these dumb kids how to make responsible decisions about drinking, drugs, and sex (all far more likely to kill you than lab).

You may have noticed that this is my first post. Big woop. I’ve been contemplating the idea of having a sarcastic vent to help me get through college and since I am required to make blog posts for my Engl 108 (composition class) I thought now would be the perfect time. So, here it is.

Insincerely your cynical collegiate commentator,

Luke A. Mishler

P.S. I really hope my instructor doesn’t hate me for having to wade through all my other blog posts to find the class related ones. Oh well, I’ll try to identify them somehow.