Senior news

This article is from the "Retirement Options" special section in this week's Local, available wherever the Chestnut Hill Local is sold.

Senior writers’ group brings life experience to the ‘table’

by JIMMY J. PACK JR.

George Herold reads his work, “Longings,” at the “First Fridays at One” event sponsored by the Chestnut hill Senior Center’s writer’s group.

The Chestnut Hill Senior Center is home to an elite group of people who, every Thursday morning at 10 a.m., come together to discuss the fate of the world.

Well, not the whole world, but their world. For over three years the Senior Center has been running a writing program for its members. Some write memoirs, others work on short stories or poems, but all come together to experience the art of the writing workshop.

The group has been so successful that their former workshop leader, Diane Kristjansson, was able to have an anthology published of all their writing. Titled Square Table: Anthology 2005, it is available for $12 at the Chestnut Hill Senior Center, located at 7999 Crittenden Street.

Kristjansson left the group a few months ago to return to Canada with her husband, but the group has stayed together, meeting every Thursday morning for discussion and critiques.

Unfortunately my meeting with them was only for one day, but in that one day it’s easy to understand why they continue to meet. The discussions are stimulating, passionate and moving. This is a group of writers with more than just the love of the written word in common — it’s the love of delving into the human condition.

What I wanted to do was an interview — pretty standard format, feature-article kind-of stuff. But most of the time my pen was still and my pad had very few things written down. From the first question on, we started talking as though we were all old friends meeting for our daily cup of coffee.

The group members present that day — husband-and-wife team of Dodie and George Racette, Hanna Seckel, Miki Frank, George Herold, Caroline Seeger and the Local’s own Pat Stokes — took me to task. I presented the question:”Since the majority of you are part of the World War II generation, I have to ask; do you think that in the last 50 years people have changed for the better or worse?”

“Well, simply put,” says George Herold, “the cliché fits —the good old days weren’t always good.”

Everyone at the table laughs.

I respond, “Well, what I know of the past I learned from what I’ve read, seen in movies and learned in school, and you folks lived a lot of those things. I guess I’ve idealized the past. I think of people as being more friendly than they are now.”

“You are a pessimist,” says Seckel.

“He’s a realist,” defends Frank. “In my childhood, when I grew up in Brooklyn, it wasn’t uncommon for a neighbor’s mother, or even some woman you didn’t know, to scream out the window to discipline children. You do that today and you can have a lawsuit on your hands.”

“I agree with George,” says George Racette. “The old days weren’t always good. Some things were better, yes, but everything changes.”

“Look at science,” interrupts Herold. “People are living longer and there’s so many things medicine can do you.”

“Like plastic surgery,” says George Racette. “When we were younger if you were in an accident and there was severe scaring or damage, you had to deal with it. Now they can help so many people in accidents that scar or disfigure them.”

“Still,” I say. “There’s so much more of a past for writers like you to explore than someone my age. You lived it — you were there.”

“The project I’ve been working on,” says Dodie, “involves a lot of delving into my past, but it’s my personal past. I do a lot of reflection in my work and think about the relationship between my mother and me. I’ve learned so much from looking back and writing about it.”

“In a lot of ways, “ says Stokes, “there’s a lot of therapy going on in the workshop. Sometimes I think of the group as therapy. We talk about everything in here.”

And we did talk about everything. From politics and religion (the two big no-nos of conversation) the Depression, bra-burning and sexual politics. Nothing’s taboo here and that freedom of conversation and thought is what brings real fire to the Chestnut Hill Senior Center Writers’ Group, and what makes great writers. I’m going to have to go back again, very soon. I’ve learned so much in two hours; imagine what these folks learn every week ...”

The writers’ group meets every Thursday at 10 a.m. in the community room of the Chestnut Hill Senior Center. They also hold “First Friday at One” reading sessions on, naturally, the first Friday of the month at 1 p.m.