Senior Breakfast Club

Location: Mary Hartwell Catherwood Apartments

Date: Saturday, September 19, 2015; 9:00 am-12:00 pm

It had been winter when I was here last and the sidewalks had been covered with snow and ice.  While that wasn’t the problem now, there were water puddles that required some navigation.  Well, there’s never an easy way to get here.  I arrived to see that the only regulars were LaKieth and his mom.  All the other folks have moved on.  One senior stopped to say hi and said she loved here now.  It took me a moment to recognize her but she was one of the fun ladies from ‘Judge Fisher’, having been displaced due to construction there.  It was a pity that her buddy wasn’t here with her.

The Volunteer leader Jack asked me to get working on the hash browns. It's a narrow stove and next to my burner were the eggs and on the back side, we started the bacon.  One thing that is true about this place is that the people are resourceful, and they had electric pots and pans in other areas doing hash browns and bacon as well. As usual. LaKeith’s mom had biscuits in the oven.  I chatted with a guy next to me who was making the bacon.  He was a student from China, doing his masters at ‘IIT’.  He said that since he didn't eat bacon, he had no idea how to cook it.  His lack of cooking skills were quite evident as he put a lot of non-stick spray in the pan, and coupled with the bacon grease that was lot of fat in which the bacon strips were swimming. But he eventually got it right and started doing a good job. 

There were 2 kids in attendance with their mom and it’s always great to see kids getting involved in the community through their parents.  The girl was breaking eggs and the boy was serving juice.  Franklin, who I knew from my ‘One Brick’ days, joined us to do the eggs.  Soon the eggs were done and so I washed my pan and went to chat with the lady from ‘Judge Fisher’.  She told me that Jason was back and had shown her the pictures of his wife, though it would still be some time before she was able to come to the US.  I asked about her friend and she said she too may have to move soon.  I said that hopefully she join her and the 2 of them can get into mischief over here.  I went back to help serve and since LaKieth and his mom had left, we were now short on people. I doubled up by serving bacon using my left hand and hash browns using my right.  We had plenty of eggs and bacon but not a lot of biscuits and hash browns.  In the end we ran out of biscuits with 5 plates to go and so I heaped loads of bacon on those, saying that it ought to keep them happy!

Bingo prizes

Jack would be calling the bingo and there were the usual shampoos etc. and 2 grand “coverall” prizes – detergents, which are popular.  I sat next to my buddy and while she was vocal, the absence of her friend made her less so than usual.  There were couple of seniors who did not speak English and another lady asked me to help one of them.  I started peeking at her chart but after a point she just nudged them towards me.  I was marking them, though she would occasionally do a number if I was a bit slow.  My buddy from ‘Judge Fisher’ won on first round and picked a shampoo.  On the other hand, the lady whom I was helping had no luck, missing out several times owing to lack of a single number, even during the “coverall”.  

The “coverall” was getting competitive, with several folks claiming that they were close.  Jack said that in case of multiple winners, the first hand to go up would win, putting a lot of pressure on the volunteers to spot, though that fortunately did not happen.  In the end my buddy lady said that she would see me over at ‘Judge Fisher’ soon, though I said that probably not till December.  I took the trash out, put away the bingo boards and prepared to leave.  It has been good to come here, and especially see that lady I knew.  Also, the kids with their mom had been fantastic.  They had worked hard and as I left, I saw that the boy was playing classical music on the piano – the same piano that one of the residents whom I had befriended in the past used to play.  He would have been proud.