by Marlene Bumgarner | Aug 31, 2015 | Community, Family, Grandparenting, Technology
Hearing Loss in the Silent Generation: Even without Ear Buds Hearing loss was part of my childhood. Both my parents lost their hearing in their 40s. My mother’s early dependence on hearing aids was attributed to working in a laundry for twelve hours a day at...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Aug 11, 2015 | Aging, Community, Family, Grandparenting
Before I retired from teaching, I thought of Santa Cruz as a place to go for the day, but never as a place to live. Whenever the subject of Santa Cruz came up it seemed that someone would quip “That’s the town that’s still living in the 60s.”...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Jul 27, 2015 | Community, Family, Grandparenting
Keeping Life Fun Life can be dreary for children when one of their parents is ill. My daughter was scheduled for her third chemotherapy infusion today. Based on the way the last two treatments went, she expects to be seriously under the weather the rest of this week...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Jul 20, 2015 | Aging, Community, Family, Grandparenting
Learning to Sketch I spent last weekend learning to sketch with a parallel pen. Saturday morning had begun with a phone call and some troublesome news. My first instinct was to stay where I was and worry, something I’m very good at, as I’ve mentioned...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Jul 13, 2015 | Community, Family, Grandparenting
I awoke today to an Instagram post from my daughter. A closeup photo of Bean’s face, looking very earnest (and as cute as a bug), along with this comment from her mother: “She appears by my bed when I’ve been sleeping, ‘Mama, do you need...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Jul 6, 2015 | Aging, Community, Family, Grandparenting
The Journey In a recent post I wrote about grandparents who are challenged by the many miles between them and their grandchildren. Today I read an article in the New York Times about grandparents who have moved to live closer to their grandchildren. It was very...