Good story about the value of owning and maintaining a home

Scott Molloy: An empty house and memories of striving parents
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 14, 2009
SCOTT MOLLOY

AS THE BABY BOOMERS speed past age 60 now, the only thing moving faster is the deaths of their parents. When the 20th Century marched on, Americans escaped childhood diseases, the punishing 1930s, and the European and Asian ravages of World War II. Those who made it through those gauntlets lived longer than their predecessors and parented the largest generation in American history — over 75 million kids — between 1946 and 1964. We Baby Boomers got so used to having our parents around that we became a generation of orphans when they left. They had been through so much, including our tumultuous teenage years, it just seemed they would be there forever.
Less than a decade after my own birth in 1946, my family moved into a new cottage on Sinclair Avenue in Providence, in 1955, part of the post-World War II suburban exodus from the inner city. We were only a mile away from the old house near Columbus Square, but it seemed like a change in time zones. Back then, municipal employees had to live in the urban corridor because of a residency requirement that made sure they paid local taxes. Both my parents worked for the city, my father as a cop and my mother as a school teacher. Mom had gone back to college while my sister and I were still in elementary school.
For the better-off Baby Boomer generation the two-wage-earner family became the norm, although Rhode Island had led the nation in the number of women workers, usually immigrants in lower-paying factory jobs. The new discretionary income gave us a different kind of graduation than my mother experienced when she attended Rhode Island College. Two decent salaries in one family and you stepped out of the working class into a lower middle-class existence in the 1950s and 1960s.
The streets around the outskirts of Providence were filled with police officers, firefighters, teachers and city workers nestled into a piece of the good life on the borders of surrounding towns, such as North Providence, Johnston or Cranston. My family lived on one of the few streets that intersected with Pontiac Avenue in Providence. Almost suburbia. Amazingly, the house was in Providence and the backyard in Cranston! My sister and I grew up in that new home which always seemed so roomy but now looks like a shoebox as houses have burgeoned.
In 1978, the year of the blizzard, my parents moved to West Warwick, just a few years before retirement. My sister and I had already left. At the same time, my grandmother sold her house in Cranston and lived downstairs in my parents’ new split-level residence.
Although I never resided in the West Warwick house, it was convenient, one-stop relative shopping: Nana and my parents only a few steps from each other. When they first moved in, my grandmother was still driving and there were times when no one was home. I just unlocked the door and waited for someone to show up.
My sister and I got to relive our own childhoods when we frequently brought our kids to visit. Holiday feasts continued unabated and what a joy it was to watch our own offspring bond with Mom and Dad. Our proper upbringing, although severely challenged during the 1960s, was now validated. The proof of the pudding was the grandchildren.
The joy obscured the passage of time. By the late 1990s, my grandmother entered a nursing home when my mother was unable to take care of her and our dad, who now had a variety of ailments too. Eventually, he ended up in a health facility as well, succumbing in 1999 at 75. My grandmother held on until age 99, dying in 2001.
After their deaths my mother lived alone in the West Warwick house with the ghosts of her mother and husband. She got along well but was having her own medical problems. My sister and I tried our best to maintain the place but always felt we never did enough. Still there was such festivity when the grandchildren, now in their teens, came by to cheer her up.
One day in 2006, she just called it quits. Stopped taking her mountain of medications and went to a hospice and willed herself to death after a few days. Before leaving she took my sister Jackie and me into the bedroom to show us all the personal papers, bank accounts, and house documents so we would have no trouble finding them. She was 80 years old.
We inherited the delayed treasure of the Great Depression. All those nickels and dimes the greatest generation saved so scrupulously after World War II finally added up. My mother told us to spend it and enjoy ourselves although our own frugal upbringing clashed with any financial Bacchanalia.
There were other savings too. Old lumber in the garage my father could never throw out, the nails carefully extracted and hammered straight again for reuse some day. Leftover linoleum, shingles, and bricks stood ready to do patch work. My mother had squirreled plastic bags around the house, filled with everything and anything that a housewife would ever need. As well as they did, our parents and their generation could never shake the fear that another Great Depression lurked nearby.
We had to clean all this out and sell the West Warwick house just as the real-estate market tanked. Buyers fell by the wayside when they couldn’t dispose of their own homes. Mortgage credit disappeared, and the price of our parents’ homestead plunged. However, the stress of keeping the house tiptop outweighed any loss of unrealized income. My sister and I dutifully kept it neat, cut and maintained the lawn, cleaned the rugs, refurbished the backyard shed, repaired the concrete patio, and blacktopped the driveway. And wished we had done more of those things when they were alive.
But there was more to it than just historic preservation and an eventual sale. We felt an obligation to maintain the property almost out of respect to our parents who had worked so long and hard to achieve the American Dream. And we’d be damned if we would allow the place to deteriorate on our watch, recession or not.
I soon realized that I paid a psychic price by coming by several times a week and walking into a house once so full of life and now a quiet family museum. Most of the furnishings remained and I could visualize my parents still there: my kids in their Halloween costumes, sitting on dad’s lap; the smell of one of my mom’s delicacies; my grandmother’s voice yelling for me to come downstairs to her apartment, filled with family photographs and knickknacks from around the corner and around the world.
After 20 months, a buyer came forth and we closed the deal and a chapter in our lives. We took out the remaining items as the home devolved into just another empty house. And when we closed the front door for the final time, I finally understood why I had continually stopped by like a moth attracted to candlelight.
With every empty visit I subconsciously expected my grandmother to come home from shopping, my mother to reappear from the hairdresser, or my father to walk up the front stairs from some stray errand. But they never materialized. For more than 50 years they had been there for us, our entire adult lives. They had always come home. Now they were gone. Despite the passage of time I still have trouble accepting the reality.
But the hardest passage in life had been made. We were now middle-age orphans like so many other Baby Boomers. The aberration generation had enjoyed our parents, the greatest generation, like no other children before us.
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for all the things we could never fully appreciate until you were no longer here.
Scott Molloy is a professor at the Schmidt Labor Research Center, at the University of Rhode Island.

Interesting Article

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=7857711

I found this on the Abc news website. It had some very interesting statistics. Hope you enjoy!

Gifts for Grandchildren

This post has nothing to do with Senior living on the coast but I thought it has a few good ideas. It is from the Mobile Press Register and was in this week's paper.
Gifts for the grandkids: 15 things to consider when choosing gifts for your children's children
Monday, June 01, 2009
By MIKE BRANTLEY
Staff Reporter
Selecting and then giving gifts to beloved grandchildren are among the greatest of holiday season joys for grandparents. You don't have to give big or expensive presents. The best pleasure in both giving and receiving involves presents that are thoughtful and given with love.
Indeed, love and affection top the list of the most precious and appreciated gifts.
Some gifts must be bought. Others require only time and attention.
Here are some tips, courtesy of The Legacy Project (www.legacyproject.org) and the Oregon State University Extension Service:
Check with your grandchildren's parents about the suitability of any gift you are considering. Don't go against the wishes of the parents.
Never buy a big gift or one that will require special care or arrangements — such as a pet or a trip — without first consulting parents.
Thoughtful selections let grandchildren know you are aware of their special interests and needs.
Select age-appropriate gifts. Finding out what types of toys, books, videos, computer software or games are best for your grandchild's age is often as simple as looking for guidance on the packaging.
Children today have so many toys, many of which quickly become discarded or broken. When purchasing toys, consider those that will gave the greatest play value over the longest time.
Help your grandchild start a collection and then add to it over time. It can be cards (baseball to dinosaur), rocks, seashells, stamps, coins, comic books, miniatures or figurines. Develop a theme for your gifts, such as outdoor items or rainy-day activities.
Try to break the toy stereotypes. Don't just give girls dolls and boys trucks. Perhaps your granddaughter will appreciate a train set?
Small, inexpensive gifts can be as meaningful as expensive gifts. Watch for sales and buy in advance so you'll have a ready supply of small gifts when needed. Too many gifts can be overwhelming for children. Don't try to buy their affection.
Use your imagination for the presentation. Wrap presents in the Sunday comics or decorate a box of cookies with stickers.
Make a photo album of their parent (your child) for each grandchild.
Money is always welcome, even in small amounts. You just don't want it to be the only gift you give, or use it as a way to "buy" your grandchildren.
Something handmade makes a special gift now and can become a treasured keepsake over the years. You might make your grandchild a quilt, a special blanket, a sweater or scarf, a stuffed doll or bear, or even a hand-carved paperweight.
Give a handmade gift certificate of an activity you and your grandchild can do together. A hobby you'll share, a game you will play together, a fishing trip or a visit to a children's museum are all possibilities.

First Post!

Welcome to the Senior Living on the Gulf Coast Blog! Hopefully, this will be the first of many posts. We plan or updating and adding relevant articles or information at least once a week. Please feel free to comment or add any numbers or websites that you have found useful.

Alabama Department of Insurance 800-433-3966
Alabama Department of Senior Services 877-425-2243
Alabama Quality Assurance Foundation 800-760-4550
Elder Care Hotline 800-356-9596
Medicare 800-633-4227
Social Security Administration 800-772-1213
Internal Revenue Service 1-800-829-1040
Veteran's Administration 1-800-827-1000
Military Retirees – TRICARE For Life 888-363-5433
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama - 888-417-4775
Alabama Medicaid for Mobile & Baldwin County (251) 476-4360
Alabama Association of Retired Persons - (251) 470-5235
Senior Citizens Services Mobile (251) 478-3311
Baldwin County Council on Aging - (251) 937-0358
Senior Housing & Assisted Living facilities Mobile County
Brookside Retirement Community – (251) 633-9299
Gordon Oaks Apartments (251) 661-7600
Portier Place Apartments (251) 343-4449
Mercy Medical Hospital
Hearthstone Assisted Living (251) 665-9063
Atria Senior Living
Assisted Moving
National Association of Senior Movers
Baldwin County:
Westminister Village (251) 626-7007
Homestead Village of Fairhope (251) 929-0250
Liveoak Village Garden Apartments 877-231-6981
Mercy Medical Hospital
http://www.adss.state.al.us/