Tea and Memorial for Lakeside Women's Club

 This afternoon the Lakeside Women's Club had a tea on the lawn of the Hotel Lakeside to celebrate 80 years of friendship and programming.  The program began with a memorial for deceased members since last summer.  That included my good friend Nancy Long who was a longtime member and also frequent presenter at the various book reviews. Also, today is her birthday, so the ladies wished her a happy heavenly birthday.   Gretchen Curtis provided an interesting program speaking as Bessie Hoover, the first president of the LWC and wife of A.L. Hoover long time Lakeside director. In July there will be a service for Nancy at the memorial garden at Lakeside.

Nap study mentioned by John Ed Mathison, Got a Minute

 Association of napping with incident cardiovascular events in a prospective cohort study - PubMed (nih.gov)

This study was mentioned in John Ed Mathison's "Got a Minute," 325 daily meditations. He's a retired Methodist pastor who was at Lakeside in 2021, and I attended his morning sermons. I bought this little book and have been using it for the opening meditations at the Lakeside Women's Club which meets at 1:30 on Tuesday.  I try to pick something that's appropriate for the day's program.  Any program about Lakeside would good for a study on napping.  I see a lot of it-- on the hotel porch, on park benches, on towels in the sun and I have a nap almost every day.  

John Ed says on p. 326, "a brief nap is healthy in releasing stress.  The Bible teaches about stress, anxiety, and good health.  I challenge you to put a 5 minute nap together with a reflection on what the Bible teaches.  It might be off the chart how much healthier you could be!"

John Ed usually doesn't give complete citations--after all, these meditations are on phone apps or radio announcements, and I like to think they are reaching people that churches don't, or someone who maybe has a church family but needs a little boost.  That's what librarians are for--we are finders so you can be keepers. That's why I give you the link to the research. And a copy of a painting I did years ago of a napper on the porch of Hotel Lakeside.

Preparing for Lakeside Women's Club

 Evidence that the Lakeside Women's Club has strong leadership is the current president, Barbara Browning.  She has had a long career in teaching and family life, including shepherding her family into their current Lakeside lifestyle.  I've only known her about three years, and as I recall it was cultural issues and not religion or hobbies or book club that brought us together. One amazing feat was her convincing me to prepare brief devotions for the weekly meetings of the Women's Club for summer 2022.  You wouldn't think that someone who loves to write, explain, cajole, argue, research and ramble for 20 years on the internet and who has been scribbling in some form since I was 6 or 7 could be so hesitant to speak in public.  I'd rather pull weeds or clean an attic than speak to an audience.  I get light headed, the room swims, and I can't put a sentence together.  But when Barb asks, you just can't say No. Her secret seems to be she believes in people!  So I came up with a plan to make it more palatable.

Last summer one of the Lakeside chaplains for the week was retired Methodist pastor John Ed Mathison, a well known (but not to me) motivational speaker who established Leadership Ministries in 2008 when he retired after 36 years as pastor of Frazer Memorial UMC in Alabama.  His current ministry includes a Daily Message, a weekly blog, a daily radio message, and weekly videos and of course, extensive public speaking.  He's authored a number of books, and I bought one based on his radio ministry titled, "Got a minute? 365 Daily inspirational messages for those on the Go!" To open a LWC meeting one only needs a minute or two, and it shouldn't be the heavy theological themes I'm drawn to. So along with my own morning devotions I've been checking different "minutes" in his book to use this summer. John Ed does a lot of sports, youth, and goal setting themes.  I hate setting goals, so I avoid those; I'm not athletic, so I skip those.  However, John Ed didn't get to be famous without knowing how to draw in a diverse, busy and even not so religious group.  It's also a podcast, so you can download an app and listen to him in his sweet Alabam voice. https://johnedmathison.org/  I'm looking forward to sharing some of those radio minutes this summer.

Today I read about Liz Smith, a director of nursing, who fostered and then adopted a baby girl, Gisele, who was born physically challenged and extremely premature.  In a minute John Ed told her amazing story. I know so many adoptive and foster parents at Lakeside (and in Columbus) I thought it would be a good story to share. Ever the researcher, I then checked the internet for the story, and found it had been featured on a number of TV and news stories.  From there I went to the Facebook page of Franciscan Children's Hospital in Boston where Ms. Smith worked and read many more stories of some of the children, parents and staff of a remarkable facility. So now I'm a "follower" of that FB page.  https://www.facebook.com/FranciscanChildrens  

 https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/04/06/massachusetts-nurse-adopts-hospitalized-baby-who-had-no-visitors/

https://nurse.org/articles/nurse-adopts-baby-no-visitors/

https://lakesideohio.com/about-lakeside/community-organizations/lakeside-womens-club/

Lakeside 2019, Week 9, the rest of the story

Before starting on Week 10, first I have to say good-bye to Week 9.  Wonderful closing performance of the Lakeside Symphony Orchestra on Friday, August 16 with Angelin Chang performing Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor by Camille Saint-Saens.  Then after intermission, the LSO performed Symphony no. 1 in C minor by Brahms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhkuad0gLM4

Friday morning we had our last class on clutter (Organization 101).  One of the best stories was told by one in the audience who had collected elephants and needed to “let it go.”  He had 3,000 of them.  So he took a statue of 4—2 adults, an adolescent and a baby, all connected trunk to tail.  It weighed 1,000 pounds.  He decided to have it made into his grave marker and found a company that would do it!  In life the instructor suggested we all need to learn “Let it Go” whether that be material accumulation or personal grievances.

In the afternoon Gretchen Curtis reviewed Marilla of Green Gables which is a prequel to Anne of Green Gables.  I’d never read the Anne series, but Gretchen always does such a nice job, it didn’t really matter.  Sat with my neighbor Dorothy.

There were several friends from UALC at Lakeside during Week 9, and for the Wednesday night picnic we all gathered at Perry park (east end), along with our neighbors Scott and Carol, to share a huge table.  Shout out to Mary, Carol, Kelly and David, plus 2 of their friends from Westerville.  It was a fun evening of hot dogs, chips, potato salad, baked beans, watermelon and cookies.

I found the morning lectures somewhat disappointing for Week 9.  The speaker was Jack Barlow of Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa.(Church of the Brethren college).  His conservative  vita looked good, Claremont Graduate School and Carleton College, but he definitely leaned left. He didn't call our Constitution "evolving" or "plastic," but that was the sense I had.  After the Tuesday lecture during the Q & A I raised that issue, and asked him if his students would feel free to disagree (virtually all institutions of high learning weed out conservatives so now there are very few among ranks of faculty, even in religious private institutions). He didn't deny being liberal, but assured the audience it didn't affect his students.  That's odd.  I picked up on it immediately, and if I were a student, I think I'd know how to frame my papers or answers to please a professor.  Anyway, after the lecture there were 5 or 6 people who came up to me an whispered they were so happy I spoke up.  The fact they had to whisper is indicative of the anti-Trump and anti-conservative bias we face here. Then as I headed home, a man caught up with me on Walnut and said he admired me for saying something.  He was not a "Lakesider" as we think of it, and was only in town two days, being a regular at Chautauqua, NY.  He and his wife talked to me for about 10 minutes, saying they were from West Virginia and had been on a very interesting trip including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc., and decided to stop in Lakeside since they'd never heard of it before this trip. He too had lost long time friends and family for being a conservative and voting for Trump.

Monday night we thoroughly enjoyed the silent movie selection "The Kid Brother," (1927) with Harold Lloyd.  The organist was Clark Wilson, and he gave an intro and provided a wonderful background  for the movie.  Tuesday night was the program Bob had been looking forward to--a classical guitarist playing with the Symphony Orchestra--Colin Davin.
https://www.youtube.com/user/colindavinguitar

The opening of Week 9 (Saturday August 10) was Brian Regan, a comedian, and we'd never heard of him, but he's apparently popular on late night TV, because the place was packed with an overflow crowd standing in the back of Hoover.  Very clean, no rough language.  Nothing political.  A great show.

Lakeside 2019, a quiet but eventful Monday

Last night's programs in Lakeside were wonderful. The growing popularity of "Porch Stories" shows people want to know their neighbors' stories. It's based on the very organic movement called The Moth. https://themoth.org/stories  Two Lakesiders told fascinating tales of events that changed their lives. In summer 2017 a group decided to try the Moth Story format here and arranged for a few porches.  However, as the interest in the group grew, it moved to the Women’s Club, and when it outgrew that, to the Chautauqua Hall in the Fountain Inn. 

Then we walked across the street to Hoover to hear songwriter/musician Marcus Hummon https://www.marcushummon.net/ tell a few tales and sing some of his songs--he's worked with Wynonna Judd (who was here a week ago), Rascal Flatts, Sara Evans and the Dixie Chicks, and he's seen it all. I really chuckled at his stories of "feeling old" as he tries to relate to some of the younger, rising stars.

This week is multi-faith, peace week (name changes from year to year), but studying peace and world religions has never excited me (except when I was college age), so instead we did a tour of the old 1912 school house on 7th (south end).  Until the late 1950’s Lakeside had its own school system, but like many other small towns Lakeside year round residents have been folded into a larger system and are now included in Danbury (Marblehead).  Lakeside’s property taxes are the golden goose for that system since it has so few children.  Their computers should be gold platted.

I thought the building resembled the old elementary school in Mt. Morris that my siblings and I attended in the 40s and 50s, but it’s actually newer. The Mt. Morris building served for over 100 years, and originally was both high school and elementary.  The Lakeside school apparently served 40+ years.  Architecture is similar. The soaring ceilings and enormous windows it could be wonderful when restored.

Lakeside Women's Club, 2019

Last week I was a hostess at the Lakeside Women's Club program "A Photographic History of Knitting: 1900to 2019" presented by Gretchen Curtis, LWC President. Gretchen used to be the Heritage Museum archivist and always presented such interesting programs.  She was also one of the Porch Stories presenters its first year.  This week's program was "Here comes the bride and bridesmaids, 1940s - 2010," although one dress was from 1909 and one was from 2018.  It was a fun program, and one woman who talked was 100 years old.  Made me think I should go back to coloring my hair, because she looked terrific--not a day over 80.

I did feel sad knowing my wedding dress, made by my mother in 1955 for my sister, had been given to the Discovery Shop (cancer) when no one in the family wanted it.  I was trying to pare down our stuffed closets, but I wish now I'd kept it--maybe for a style show to be used one more time.

One woman modeled her "mother of the bride" dress from 1984, and it was lovely--could go anywhere today, and she said she bought it for $1.00 at a resale shop. Several women in the audience were married 60 years or more, and they received a small gift.

The photo is my co-hostess Barb Hoffman and I on June 18 although she brought some lovely little fruit snacks on skewers which don't show, and all I did was open two packages of sandwich cookies and make the ice tea.  In the background is the LWC library, which I've been using this summer to do some porch reading--just about finished with "Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century by Jessica Bruder" which will be reviewed on Friday by the ladies who run the bookstore.