Jim Klobuchar - Coming Back to Earth
Atlantis touched down smoothly and historically, the last of the shuttle flights. Standing in front of my television screen I applauded, joining unseen millions of others across the country.
I also experienced at that moment a wistful might-have been in my own life, a prospect almost too good to be real, a flight into space and infinity for which I was suddenly eligible.
But here was Atlantis rolling along the runway, its crew relieved and proud. It astronauts had flown superbly and accomplished one last mission. The crew was safe. Over their more than 40 years of exploration, most of the space flights had been touched with a fairy tale quality that appealed not only to our pride of country but to our sense of wonderment that we could now actually reach for horizons that were once of the province of sorcerers and science fiction.
But now, the adventure was ending to allow some serious re-examination and search. It will be renewed when the country’s rattled economy can afford it, undoubtedly with goals even more exotic than orbiting space stations and far beyond the moon. They would carry Americans perhaps to the planets and even deeper into space. But like millions of others welcoming the safe arrival of Atlantis, I remembered the spaceship Discovery, disintegrating less than an hour from home, and years earlier the explosion of the Challenger. They reminded all of us once more that the underside of adventure and exploration is risk, and neither the finest scientific minds on earth nor trillions of dollars in technology and research can guarantee success when we lift ourselves into an hypnotic but still alien world, on machines that are marvelous but imperfect.
And then I remembered a day late in 1985, and a notification I received from NASA, the country’s space agency. NASA had embarked on a program to add selected civilians to the professional shuttle crew. It was a candid effort to bring the story of space flight closer to the public by opening it to people representing a variety of civilian disciplines—like teachers, and journalists.
NASA had already selected a teacher, Crista McAuliffe, to inaugurate the program. Sometime while her flight was in preparation, NASA invited journalists in a wide range of media—newspapers, television, radio, magazine and more. In applying, I had never honestly considered the risk. The prospect was too enticing for that. You would be going not only as a passenger but as a performing member of the crew, broadcasting the experience, describing the sensation of space flight, weightlessness, interviewing the astronauts, and conveying the pure spectacle of space.
NASA received 1,700 applications.We wrote papers describing our conception of the role and what we considered our qualifications. I was a newspaper columnist and had been a host of television and radio talk shows, flew light planes for 10 years and parachuted recreationally a few times. NASA was looking for prior experience in stressful situations and so I added my years in mountain climbing. We also were asked to write a visualization of our role on the mission, what we thought would be of highest value to the public in our reportage. NASA conducted a series of eliminations to narrow the field of prospects, culminating in regional conferences in which the applicants were grilled by an interrogation panel made up of men and women drawn from a variety of academic and technical fields. The final eliminations were to be conducted in Houston. We were down to 34 applicants. Walter Cronkite, the great broadcaster so synonymous with space flight, was one of them, and the man who would have been my favorite hands-down. Some time before Houston, George (Pinky) Nelson an astronaut who had flown in space three times, visited the Minneapolis Star Tribune, for which I wrote, and gave me a glimpse from space. The one prominent earthly feature you could see, he said, was the 4,000 mile African Rift, spreading from Syria to South Africa—where I had hiked a few years before. He was encouraging. I was starting to think about Houston.
A few months later I walked into the newspaper’s photo lab where there was a television screen. The Challenger with Crista McAuliffe aboard had just launched. It spiraled upward, ignoring gravity, reaching into space. Beautiful , I said to a colleague. But moments later a thin column of smoke snaked through the sky from the top of the television set. The spaceship was breaking up. We stood and watched, unable to speak.
I wrote for the next day’s paper. For years, I said, we had convinced ourselves that telemetry and mission controls had introduced us to so many marvels ofthe human mind and spirit that somehow they were all going to have happy endings for smiling and modest heroes.
“The thought of risk and catastrophe rarely intruded on the show. It may explain why the country’s grief is so profound when it does. So far has the spaceflight technology progressed. The launch, the rocketry—so far that it was now possible to put ordinary people into the heavens and the unknown…”
I never did receive a formal notice from NASA that there would be no journalist in space. The reason was too obvious.
The DL Tribune Shares the Empowering Stories of Two Detroit Lakes Men Living with Memory Loss
The DL Tribune shared the stories of two Detroit Lakes area men living with memory loss. George Jernberg's transformation since becoming part of our Awaking Initiative at Ecumen's Emmanuel Community has been "like he's truly awoken from a sleep," according to his daughter. You can read the full article on-line. And a volunteer at Emmanuel Community was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's but maintains a positive attitude and stays active through volunteering and technology. Read Steve's story on-line. Visit Ecumen's website for more information about the Awakenings Initiative.
Great Employees Make Great Places to Work
Great people make Ecumen a great place to work! Congratulations to the nearly 4,000 Ecumen employees who are changing aging every day. For the seventh straight year, Ecumen has been named by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal as one of Minnesota's “Best Places to Work.”
Ecumen was recognized in the "Large Company" category and is the second-most tenured award recipient with one thousand or more full-time Minnesota employees. Ecumen ranked seventh on the list of large companies.
More than 220 companies vied for the award, with only 55 organizations being honored. The awards are compiled through anonymous employee online surveys on areas of work environment, innovation and new ideas, people practices, personal development, people in the organization and day-to-day work.
Senior Citizen - Should That Phrase Be Retired?
We have boomers, Gen Xers, Millenials . . . and for years America has used the phrase "senior citizens?" It's a phrase that just seems dated. What do you think? What other ideas do you have? You can read more about this here. Share your thoughts on this blog or here at the Star Tribune.
Star Tribune Talks with Ecumen About its Transformation Work
The Minneapolis Star Tribune had an interesting Q&A Sunday with Steve Ordahl, who oversees Ecumen's senior housing development and fund development work, on our transformation over the last 8 years. You can read the full Q&A here.
5 Tips for Using Facebook from a Senior Housing Community Builder at Ecumen
The very best senior housing communities build "community" outside of their bricks and mortar. Julie O'Neil, who works at Ecumen Scenic Shores in Two Harbors, MN, shares here how she uses Facebook to connect people inside and outside of Ecumen Scenic Shores.
Jim Klobuchar: This Just in From the Dentist
The record will show that at exactly 4:32 p.m. on June 22 I reached into my mail box at the neighborhood delivery station. Mixed in with the daily harvest of fund raising appeals I found a bill from my dentist.
I looked at the envelope postmark with silent amazement. It read 06/21/11. Reviewing my movements of the previous 24 hours, I traced myself to the dentist’s office shortly before noon of that very day, 06/21/11. There I had been booked for one of the twice-annual tooth-polishing rehabilitations that my dentist thoughtfully schedules, mostly to learn if there is a clear and present danger of my teeth falling out.
Working backwords at the mail box, I calculated that no more than two or three hours could have elapsed between the time when (a) I left the dental clinic, clutching my usual complimentary packet of floss and my fruit-flavored mini-tube of tooth paste, and (b) the delivery of the bill at the nearest post office for next-day arrival at my mail box.
I marveled at the speed of this billing transaction. It was more than routine speed. It was record-breaking, Olympic-level, all-world speed. It was a level of speed that deserved asterisks and bold face in the record books, the ultimate in next- day service. You could almost build a company motto around it: “Our customers Always Leave Here With Glistening Teeth and Balanced Check Books.”
I should tell you that my dentist is well respected by his peers and is a friend of mine, stretching back to years when we routinely rode 100 miles a day on bicycles and both climbed the mountain Kilimanjaro, events which we rehash mercilessly. That takes up most of the time of my dentist’s evaluation after the technician has performed her small miracles and slipped peppermint toothpaste into my goody bag. None of this social networking time, I’m quick to tell you, finds its way into the bill. This is an honorable man who runs his dental shop amiably and badgers me only five minutes each visit to remove a disappearing rear wisdom tooth that he now claims he can find only with sonar equipment.
What worries me about that speed-of-light billing is that somebody in the administrative office may have taken a look at the latest actuarial tables, factored in my age, and decided that a good time to bill this guy is sooner than later.
This would sadden me. Yes, I have lost a step and the attendance at my annual high school reunion is approaching single digits. But I have just finished riding herd on 130 Type A personalities on a seven-day bike ride to Minnesota towns like Blackduck, Bigfork and Deer River with interim stops at outposts like The Hoot and Holler Rendezvous and the Gosh Dam café. Still I emerged in reasonably sound mental health and with my love for humanity intact.
But I have to think seriously about the implications of that hot-breathed billing in my mailbox. The average age in America is rising; it does tend to build a new realism among the golden agers. I know completely healthy older folks who routinely pass up big markdowns for jumbo packages of wiring and 65 watt flood lamps in the big box hardware stores and supermarkets. They tell me it’s all about using hard bark Yankee logic, because where they’re going in a few years they may have no use for wires and light bulbs, even at 40 per cent off. I’m not that smart or practical. What worries me more is that lightning fast bill from the dental clinic. The idea could sweep the country and become a model cutting across all age groups. You could get married in a full blown church ceremony with tuxes and gowns and a dinner for 250 guests, and three hours later on your wedding night find a bill for $20,000 on your I Pod.
For sure, this would not be an auspicious beginning for a love traveling through time.
The moral of my saga is that the very next morning after the bill arrived I put a check in the mail for the dental service, reasoning: the way we’re going, Washington could shut down the postal service tomorrow and the next bill might come with 33 per cent interest and immediate cancellation of my bonus tooth paste.
Be smart, America.
Start flossing.
About Jim Klobuchar:
In 45 years of daily journalism, Jim Klobuchar’s coverage ranged from presidential campaigns to a trash collector’s ball. He has written from the floor of a tent in the middle of Alaska, from helicopters, from the Alps and from the edge of a sand trap. He was invited to lunch by royalty and to a fist fight by the late Minnesota Viking football coach, Norm Van Brocklin. He wrote a popular column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 30 years and has authored 23 books. Retiring as a columnist in 1996, he contributes to Ecumen’s “Changing Aging” blog, MinnPost.com and the Christian Science Monitor. He also leads trips around the world and an annual bike trip across Northern Minnesota. He’s climbed the Matterhorn in the Alps 8 times and has ridden his bike around Lake Superior. He’s also the proud father of two daughters, including Minnesota's senior U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Ecumen's Lakeshore Brings Generations Together Under One Roof
Senior living at Lakeshore in Duluth has become a little livelier recently with the addition of the Little Treasures Child Care and Family Center to its campus. Read more in the Duluth News Tribune's article about how this new opportunity is making a difference in the lives of young and old alike.
Join us: CLASS Act Call-In Tuesday, July 26
Please call Congress on Tuesday, July 26, in support of the CLASS Act.
Many of you helped pass the Community Living Assistance and Supportive Services Act (CLASS Act), the country's first voluntary public long-term care insurance plan. Please help keep it from being repealed.
Our nation does not have a sustainable option for financing long-term care. For many, Medicaid - which requires a person to be impoverished - is their only payment option for care and services. That's unsustainable.
Ecumen supports innovation in developing new solutions to fund the increasing health and housing needs of older Americans. The CLASS Act is a big step in creating a national long-term care financing system, but deficit reduction proposals are calling for the repeal of CLASS.
We must act immediately to keep the program moving forward.
CALL-IN DAY – TUESDAY, JULY 26
On Tuesday, our national trade association Leading Age will host a "Call-In Day to Save CLASS." We hope you'll participate by calling 1-888-785-9795 on Tuesday, July 26. The call-in is an opportunity to tell your members of Congress three main reasons repealing the program would be a mistake:
1. CLASS Helps Americans - The CLASS program provides families with an affordable way to plan for future supports and services. CLASS will allow more Americans the ability to remain in their homes while getting the care they need.
2. CLASS Saves Money - The Congressional Budget Office said CLASS will reduce the budget deficit by $83 billion over 10 years. The program also saves federal dollars spent on Medicaid by reducing the number of people relying on the program for long-term services and supports.
3. Americans Support CLASS - A Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard poll found that 76% of Americans support the CLASS Act program.
ALSO E-MAIL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS TODAY
Ecumen's Changing Aging Network has already setup messages to send to your members of Congress. There is no need to wait until Tuesday to send an e-mail, simply visit our Changing Aging Legislative Center web page.
The reality is that CLASS repeal would increase the federal budget deficit. Not only will CLASS bring in revenues, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, it also will reduce Medicaid spending. CLASS will transform financing of long-term services and support, help America's workers and future retirees and promote choice and independence. Repealing it would reduce federal revenues and increase federal spending. It would be directly counterproductive to any reduction in the federal budget deficit.
Please contact your Senators and House members now and urge them not to include CLASS repeal in any deficit reduction legislation.
Make Your Voice Heard: Keeping Seniors Out of the Debt Ceiling Debate
The Ecumen Changing Aging Advocacy Network members are encouraged to contact their elected officials to oppose Medicare and Medicaid cuts being proposed by the Federal Government in the debt ceiling debate. Ecumen cares for thousands of Minnesotans through senior housing options and services. Massive cuts would threaten seniors' access to quality housing and services, and senior service jobs and job expansion at a time we have an unprecedented growth in our aging population. Visit Ecumen's Changing Aging Legislative Center to take action!