Nov 8/99
LAND O'LAKES NewsWeb HomeContributors
History
Image Gallery
Municipal Government
On The Road
Contact Us
Arden from the Air-Edith & GuenterNitche
The Good New Days in Arden David BrisonAn active group of senior citizens in Arden, who could perhaps be content to reminisce about the good old days , are busy pursuing activitiesin the community and in the process creating for themselves the good newdays. In our youth oriented and obsessed society, the media often portray seniorsas memory challenged, semi-comatose, sexually inactive (or Viagaraassisted), and burdened with assorted ailments. Although they admittedlylive longer (a mixed blessing because they of course have to be supported intheir declining years), the dominant image is one of stumbling aimlesslytowards their graves. A competing set of stereotypes of senior citizens is, however, increasingly gaining recognition. Instead of age being a burden and a constraint, it oftencan be a time of new adventure -- an opportunity to try out ideas envisionedin youth, but never put in practice. Freed from the defining roles and dutiesof their generation, for men to earn a living and make it in the competitiveworld of business, and for woman to support and nurture the family, there isan opportunity to experiment, to lose one's self in the pursuit of new goals,and to apply the wisdom acquired in a lifetime to an ever changing set ofpersonal relationships and contributions to the community. Sounds optimistic, but let's face it --aging is a process of physicaldegeneration resulting in death. However, one only has to visit the smallcommunity of Arden to see it in practice. You enter a vibrant world of: sexy70 year olds (as least as seen thorough the eyes of this 65 year old reporter),an active 85 year man who directs his own small band (and incidently startedwater skiing in his 70s -- I suspect that women think he is sexy too), menwith computer proficiency who take up digital photography (and in one casetakes aerial photos while piloting); women who direct plays and choralgroups in addition to teaching Tai Chi and line dancing.
To be sure, the inevitable signs of aging are there if you look for them; for example: bypass operations, hearing aids, crippling arthritis, tremors, the beginning of Alzheimers. However, the striking feature of the Arden sceneis the vitality, exuberance, intellectual engagement, and overall joy andhumour of the participants. These Arden seniors have organized socially tocreate a community for themselves and others, in an era when thecommunity is supposedly dying. The central focus for many of these community activities is the ArdenSeniors Club, which has been in existence for 26 years. Fred Tomkins andhis wife Audree have been members of the club for 14 years (see Reflectionson Moving to the Bush -20 years after. Audree Tomkins ). Fred hasserved as the president for the last 5 years. The Club has an activemembership of around 55 members. They meet monthly with a noon potluck lunch after the meeting is finished. The club has a Sunshine Committeewhich plans visits to those who are sick at home, hospital visits, welcomesnewcomers, and sends cards and fruit baskets to people in the community.The club is also active in areas of concern, for instance, a petition protestingagainst bovine growth hormones has been recently signed and submitted.The Club organizes events such as annual theatre outings (Gananoque,Stratford, Niagara-on-the-Lake) and plans regular get togethers (picnicbarbeques, dances, and dinners). The Club puts on an annual fundraisingBazaar and donates the proceeds to local and other charities. Nobody has to be dragged kicking and screaming to these events. 55 people were at the monthly Seniors Club meeting I attended. Like numbers attend weekly 3 hour Glee Club practices (see description below). According to Audree Tomkins, who has had a major role over the years in organizing activities of the Club, "You can't keep them away and you can't stop themfrom talking even when I want quiet so I can make an announcement." Entertainment at many of the events is provided by a group of local seniorswho call themselves the Ardenaires. The group is: Clint Barnett, clarinet;Bill Miles (an interloper from Maberly), piano: Jim Duthie, drums; GordMcRae, guitar; and Helen Praskey, vocals. They play music from the 30sand 40s. The clarinetist, Clint Barnett (85) has been coming to Big ClearLake since he was a child -- his family came up from Toronto on the train.His grandparents bought property on the lake in 1910 and built a cottage in1914. Clint and his wife Mary have recently moved to a year round home atBig Clear Lake in Arden, having sold their house in Toronto, where theylived for more than 50 years.
The Arden Glee Club, an a capella group which sings a broad range of standards mostly from the 30s and 40s, is composed of Arden seniors, one junior, and the visitor from Maberly. It is the most visible, and arguablythe most successful, of the community activities. The Club, capablydirected by Helen Praskey, has an active membership of around 50 (close tohalf of them are men). They rehearse once a week and for the last 5 yearshave performed at the Royal Bank Seniors' JUBILEE at Roy Thomson Hallin Toronto; for 3 years at the Summer Concert Series in Sharbot Lake and atnumerous other venues in the area such as seniors' homes and shoppingmalls. They recently sang at a home in Merrickville where Florence Parks, aformer President of the Arden Seniors Club is residing. Audree Tomkinsbooks Glee Club performances. Perhaps one day they'll open the Blue Skies festival in Clarendon Station with their rendition of Blue Skies -- before anaudience of dyed in the wool, wannabe, and former hippies, many of whomcould be children or grandchildren of Glee Club members. The Club got its start at an Arden Senior's luncheon. A group, that included Clint Barnett, Rosemary Wadham, and Helen Praskey (playing the piano)were singing. (see photo link) Clint recalls that Rosemary said, Let's start aglee club. Once it started, Helen has been the Director, with a firm buttactful hand. Clint and Helen have arranged music for the Club -- recentlyHelen has been doing the bulk of the arranging. Anyone who wants to singis accepted. There are no auditions. Helen says that they don't even have tobe able to carry a tune, and many of the members say that they can't bythemselves -- but unless they are simply mouthing the words they definitelyare in tune when the group rehearses and performs.
The Club rehearses most every week in the Kennebec Town Hall and the sessions frequently last for 3 hours. Helen directs from a small podium. Attention is rapt -- members don't take their eyes off her. She stops themwhen it is not to her liking, explains what needs to be done, and they go overit until she thinks it is right -- or decides it should be put on hold untilanother rehearsal. The membership (many of them have never sung in achoir before) consists of engineers, CEOs of their own companies, teachersand school administrators, chartered accountants, civil servants, womenwho have run their own homes, ex-arts administrators, nurses, and officeadministrators. In rehearsal, they respond instantly to a complex set ofsignals from Helen which are not in most cases obvious to the observer.Sometimes, however, the signals are crystal clear. At one rehearsal therewere some comments about a particular passage, Helen broke in with, we'llcontinue -- it is not open for discussion. The Arden Glee Club is notdirected by committee! Helen and David Praskey retired to property on Big Clear Lake that wasowned by Helen's parents. Her grandparents farmed in Arden. Helen was raised in Toronto, where she graduated from Wellesley's nursing program.The family summered in Arden where she met David when they were intheir teens. David's father was a CPR station master. David lived until hewas 5 in the railway station in Clarendon, on the K & P line. The family then moved to Perth but vacationed in thesummer at a number of stations on the CPR line (Arden being one). Rosemary Wadham has been instrumental in starting several activities in thearea. She and her husband Peter ( A Walk Through the Village ofArden), immigrated from England in 1963, and settled in Ottawa in the 70swhere Peter worked for Telesat, implementing Canada's satellitecommunications and Rosemary ran a dental office. They retired to a homeon Kennebec Lake in 1991 -- having had no previous ties to the area.Rosemary runs the weekly line dancing group. In her youth she was achampion ball room dancer in England. This summer she revived a dormantArden theatre group and produced two plays to sold out audiences -- FourLittle Words, directed by Rosemary and Tale of the Sacred Caterpillar,directed by Audree Tomkins. Marsden Kirk, another Glee Club member, also chairs the Kennebec Recreation Committee. This committee was revitalized after amalgamationby an influx of seniors, but does not consist solely of seniors. One of theirmain projects has been to rebuild the Arden outdoor hockey rink. A team of40 volunteers, from ages 12 to 85, restored and erected the boards, and putnew shingles on the change house. The committee runs a series of dancesand community parties, operates a summer baseball league, and this year ranthe Walk-a-Thon. They also created a float for the Canada Day parade inSharbot Lake. Over 100 hours of volunteer time went into hand paintingand mounting the provincial emblems on the float. Councillor Jack Nicolson also sings with the Glee Club. He says that he vies with his friend John Menyes, another senior in the Club, to see who is theworst singer. At the practice I attended, he sat with John in the back rowand they chatted like little boys, when they thought the teacher wasn'tlooking. Says Jack, who is frequently late for rehearsals due to a Councilcommittee meetings, Helen always looks at me disapprovingly, and says,"Finally!". Jack and his wife Diane moved to Arden when he retired as aVice-Principal of a Hamilton High School in 1991. He has long standingroots in Arden where his maternal grandparents operated a hardware store.Jack has also started a Marathon Bridge Tournament which has 30 activeparticipants.
The Arden seniors, some of whom have been profiled in this article, are a diverse group. There are some long term residents but most have movedinto Arden on retirement. This diversity is both a challenge and a strength.On the one hand it provides a tremendous talent pool to draw on, and on theother hand requires cooperation and interpersonal sensitivity. Fortunatelyseniors often cooperate better than younger people. The sense that retirement can be a new adventure is typified in a comment made by Helen Praskey. "I thought that my life in retirement would centre around my garden, reading, and continuing Tai Chi " (she teaches weekly classes). She didn't envision music being such a major part of herretirement, although she realizes in retrospect that music has played a criticalrole in her life. "I always wanted to be a singer but I never really attachedmuch importance to what I did musically." In her youth she sang for a shortperiod with professional bands, and was asked to organize and direct musicalevents at various times in her life. However there was an almost 20 yearbreak from active involvement prior to her retirement in 1992. Now music isa consuming feature of her life. In addition to directing the Glee Club, she isthe singing, piano playing director of 2 United Church choirs, and of courseis the vocalist with the Ardenaires. Gardening however has gone by thewayside. When Helen is arranging music for the Glee Club, she frequently willwork for 4 or 5 hours straight, without a break, so absorbed that she forgetsto get up and stretch and is so stiff when she does that she can hardly standup. This is an example of what University of Chicago psychologist, MihalyCsikszentmihalyi, refers to as flow. Flow is experienced by artists and othersas they are engaged in active problem solving -- problem solving thatprogressively leads to new problems. Those engaged report that theyexperience total absorption in the activity, a feeling of being in control, a lossof self consciousness or self reflection, and a feeling that time flies withoutany monitoring. They report that they escape from the concerns of daily life-- there simply aren't enough resources available to invest in them. Mentalchallenge is an important component of flow. Routine activity without somechallenge won't do it. This idea that retirement can be a new adventure and in turn can be at times totally self absorbing -- so much so that many of the problems of living asone gets older are ignored or overlooked, was reported to me by many ofthe Arden seniors. A lot of them seem to be in the flow and in the process appear to have discovered The Fountain of Age. Related Reading: see Betty Friedan, The Fountain of Age (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993). Betty Friedan has visited nursing homes and retirement homes, in addition to talking to thousands of senior citizens. She also has analysed the research literature on aging. The result is a highly readable and informative book on how society views the process of aging and how development continues, and in many cases flourishes, as one grows older. see Carol Bennett and D.W. McCuag, In Search of the K &P (Renfrew, Ontario, : Renfrew Advance, 1981). A story of the Kingston to Pembroke railway. There is a picture of David Praskey's grandfather, Victor Praskey, on a bicycle he rigged up so that he could ride on the railway tracks. David can remember riding on this ingenious device when he was a young boy. The Fountain of Age and In Search of the K & P can be purchased at the Valley Book Store in Perth. Janet will order them for you if they are not in stock. A fast check of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library web site (www.kfpl.library.on.ca/) shows that the Fountain of Age is available at the Ompah branch (in addition to Kingston Central) and that it is also on tape, at the Kingston site. In Search of the K&P is at Kingston Central.
