Category Archives: Morro Bay

Garden House of Morro Bay: A Love Home for Seniors with Dementia

Posted by judysalamachafeb29 in Alzheimer's & Other Dementias, California, Chambers of Commerce, Dementia & Alzheimer's, Find Your Place, Job Retraining, Living Lavishly Magazine, Morro Bay, San Luid Obispo County, Senior Living

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Since 2012 “Overcoming the stigma of dementia” has been in discussion worldwide by members of Alzheimer’s Disease International. For some, dementia is part of the normal ageing process. For others dementia is considered a mental illness. Rather than seek activities to improve caregiving and quality of life, people are isolated, even hidden away with assumptions nothing can be done to help them anyway. This is counter to ADI’s vision and goal to increase public awareness and understanding, thus, seeking a shift towards acceptance and inclusion of people affected by dementia.

Kasey Watson, administrator/owner of Garden House of Morro Bay, an award-winning home for mature adults, including those with Alzheimer’s and other dementias, has wrestled with overcoming this stigma. In 2017 she discovered the true value of the age-old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Annually her nonprofit produced a calendar so she got the idea to feature willing residence in their favorite daily activity or an activity they used to perform regularly. She thought the exercise would be great for the residence and just might be the magic needed to overcoming ADI’s dilemma to further the international dialogue. Here is Watson’s story:

“Just point your camera, Luke,” said Kasey Watson. “Judy’s moment will be showing you how she hasn’t forgotten how to flirt.”

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Internationally accomplished photographer Luke Severn and Watson collaborated recently to release their 2017 calendar. The seventh annual calendar profits provide subsidies for veterans or their spouses to afford the “gold standard round-the-clock care” provided Garden House of Morro Bay. Previous calendars featured paintings produced by residents during MnemaTherapy sessions (www.artwithoutbounderies.net) conducted by Watson while contracted by Gari Cave, the owner of Garden House before Watson’s family purchased it in 2013. Numerous art pieces have been exhibited locally, at California’s State Capitol in Sacramento and at the University of Southern California.

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However, as Watson witnessed the benefits of the art and music therapy sessions, she realized a gnawing at her psyche – a growing desire to provoke a worldwide attitude adjustment towards those living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

“If the world could see what I see,” she said. “If people – even their families — could see with their hearts instead of what they think they see with their eyes.”

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Case in point, she introduced Severn to Richard Gatchel who had spent a career teaching philosophy and religious studies at the university level. “He is always the gentleman,” said Watson. “He loves to walk arm in arm and finds such peace watching the boats in Morro Bay.”

Severn was in between assignments with clients such as the Guggenheim and Bridges of Hope, South Africa when he decided to volunteer at Garden House. He’d grown up with a loved one who had Alzheimer’s and wanted to spend some time helping wherever he was needed. When Watson discovered Severn’s desire “…to reveal the deep connections between real people with real stories using my passion for photography…” the concept for the 2017 calendar was born.

Watson wanted to capture her residents experiencing that moment of joy remembering what they struggled day-to-day to recall. “MnemeTherapy gave me a solid foundation to recognize strengths and deficits in our residents so I was prepared to operate Garden House,” she said. Being onsite full-time confirmed her hypothesis, “They’re still in there wanting to relive the good times — hungry to tell their story.”

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Wally Jackson retired from PG&E. His children say he was always optimistic. Watson was called in during his darkest days spent in his trailer with alcohol his chosen friend. Secure now at Garden House, he enjoys leading the breakfast table in song yet faces each day with extreme anxiety, a compulsive routine and fears going out. Watson thought his intense politeness might enable him to accept the offer for an outing in a classic car. Indeed, Wally enjoyed a memorable ride around Morro Bay.

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Sybil Crook can no longer sequence or follow pattern instructions, but she loves talking sewing all day any day. Each square sparks a memory of who wore her creations or good times spent quilting with her sister.

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Gerry Maddren was born in San Francisco in 1924. She met her husband while attending college in Oregon. An only child she loved raising seven children while writing books and children’s short stories. Although her creativity today is consigned to coloring books, she continues to model her sophisticated upbringing so Severn recaptured her 1988 pose depicted on her book jacket for The Case of the Johannisberg Reisling.

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Ruth Ericson spent her early years playing golf at Marshall Cangory Country Club in Claremont, CA. Very competitive, she sunk three lifetime holes-in-one. At first, she didn’t mingle well at Garden House. She titled her first MnemeTherapy painting “Misfit.” Ruth called Watson crazy when she suggested they go to the golf course. But Ruth remembered exactly how to grip her putter, exactly how to sink the ball, has exact recall of that memorable day and won’t hesitate when invited to enjoy another moment on the golf course.

 

Tony and Aggie Wisniewski married and operated a citrus ranch in Sanger. They moved to Cayucos in 1978 and Tony planted 80 rose bushes. Each day he brings her his gift. She smells the bouquet then returns his gift – her joyful smile.GH 3

 

“This is me,” all twelve portraits shout, “enjoying a moment. I’m here and I haven’t forgotten…”

 

To find out more about Garden House, MnemeTherapy, or make a $20 donation to receive the 2017 calendar go to www.gardenhousemorrobay.org.Maddie and Marg

Note: the 2019 calendar features residence enjoying life at Garden Housing especially the new gardens created by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo students – from design to permitting with the city and landscape construction, they have produced a student project of beauty and all documented in the calendar.

Another note: Looking for a wonderful place to work. Garden House is periodically looking for caregivers. They will train.

April 6, 2019: Garden House is participating in the Morro Bay Citywide Yard Sale. Check it out. Garden House calendar 2019

 

 

A Hallmark Encouragement

Posted by judysalamachafeb29 in Birds, California, Find Your Place, Job Retraining, Morro Bay, Rotary Programs, Uncategorized, Writing Stories

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In a couple weeks — April 5-7 to be exact — Morro Bay produces another Citywide yard sale. It has become a big deal since it began at least eleven years ago. Tourists visit to discover treasures or trinkets they can’t live without and some even bring trailers to take home furniture or larger items. Local use it as a time to spring clean and make a few extra bucks. There is a gentleman from Ventura, I think, that comes by every year and asks my husband if he has coins to sell. He offers a fair value and we make Bob buy the family dinner that night…or used to before the crab feed!!

The city garage company waives fees for hauling big items away the week after the yard sale. So everyone wins. And now groups are piggy-backing on evening opportunities for tourists to stay and play in Morro Bay.

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Speaking of crab feeds!!! Morro Bay Rotary has an “all you can eat” crab feed with all the fixings on Saturday evening April 6. Proceeds benefit community groups needing a boost of cash. Morro Bay Tourism recognizes this event as a true tourism opportunity so pitches it to visitors.

Only a $60 a ticket and almost sold out!! But then where else can you get a dinner among friends and lots of crab from Tognazzini’s Dockside? My son-in-law consumed 6 crabs last year and we all ate our share. And Rotarian servers even break the parts up enough so lazy-pickers like me can enjoy.

The Community radio station The Rock also has a big night. They offer lots of good songs dancing and adult beverages at the Morro Bay Veteran’s Hall. Have to work off a big crab dinner someway!!

So why am I promoting here besides a couple good causes to enjoy? I’m getting ready for the Citywide Yard Sale. We’ve decided to help out Garden House of Morro Bay this year. Garden House is a a wonderful home a couple blocks from us that helps senior residents with all kinds of dementias. Our Aunt Stella spent several lovely years there and now my good friend Kasey Watson owns it and my mother’s granddaughter Jody is her administrative assistant. Just as Mom found her new satisfying life in Cayucos, Jody has found another career utilizing all her best talents. Mom would be amazed and so proud Jody has found her career-feeder!

Looking through my stuff I found a Hallmark birthday card to me from my mother, Pat McKaye. She moved to Cayucos when she was 80 and was totally involved in her adopted community. She ran the thrift store and coordinated the Cayucos Senior Volunteers, which donated so much back to the community. She made wonderful friends and found her new home away from home — a haven to feed on. She was also proud of me that I had found my first love — the career I wanted in high school. I was writing for the local newspapers. I had forgotten she had given me this story idea.

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Mom was excited Jody and Mike were back permanently from Louisiana. He was from there and she was in school back there, but that’s another story. Somehow she linked that with  the Hummingbirds she loved to watch from her patio-slider door. At our house we would watch out of our kitchen window where we once saw a family of hummingbirds build a nest, birth their children and fly away. Having the kids close was a joy although she never hovered — visited, enjoyed the nectars offered and flew away…then back again another day.

She thought of names like Holly because it was close to their last name of Hollier. The villain bird or was it the hero bird was Anne, the middle name of both my daughter and I. She did mention another bird, a red necked bird who tried to steal the nectar from the feeder, but as you will see Anne protects it for her own.

Birds are jealous of each other, she wrote. “They love to sit on the feeder and chase each other off. They are very curious and love to play especially when the water hose is on. They also like things to stay the same.”

She told how once she got a new feeder and they refused to drink from it or play on it. She returned the older feeder to its roost and they were back again — playfully. Another time a storm was blowing hard even for her protected patio. The wind and the rain knocked over a large gardenia bush. “They flew in and around and around and chattered as if to say, ‘What’s wrong'”

Another time the wind was blowing the feeder sideways to and fro up and down. The hummingbirds would fly around and around begging it to stop. When it wouldn’t stop they finally took a risk and flew onto the branch. They rode it like a bucking roller coaster. When the feeder was empty they would fly to the window and hover as if to say, “We are out. We need more. We want to stay.”

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One time a bird hid in the bush near the feeder or maybe it was refuge in the fallen gardenia bush. Whenever another bird would fly to the feeder, the stalking bird would fly out and chase it away. Contrary to popular belief, he or she would sit there for hours protecting his/her feeder from marauders.

Mom thought Anne was a good name for the bird who captured her favorite place and guarded it as if her own. After a time Anne was the only one using the feeder and one day Mom wrote she came out and there were all kinds of hummingbirds of smaller sizes and variations of green — lighter to darker green — feeding all at once from the same feeder. She wondered if Anne drive them away. Then she saw Anne. It looked like she would try to make them leave the feeder, but instead she joined them and flew around them. Mom thought she is protecting her own. Anne was saying, “Feed my babes. I have captured our safe place for them and you can help me nurture and grow to fly away to make their new home.”

This is the story Mom wanted me to tell — the circle of life — the love of a mother for her own. I’m sure Mom thought the story would most likely in a children’s book at the Cayucos Library and Coalesce Book Store in Morro Bay, but…..

This was about nine years ago when Mom flew away. She found her safe haven or heaven. Who then would have really understood blogging is also meant for storytelling.

And so it goes…..Thanks, Mom.

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Time for Change Again- Commentary Today Based on Stepping Up Column in 2006-7 in The Bay News…

Posted by judysalamachafeb29 in Chambers of Commerce, Morro Bay, Morro Bay Community Planning - Then & Now, San Luid Obispo County and tagged with

Editor’s Back-Story: For a brief time — 2006-07 — it appears, Heather Osgood, then publisher of The Bay News invited me to serve as publisher. It was then owned by the Colhouer family. Heather and Lani Colhouer had developed a partnership to produce what has grown to be the highly successful Inspired Home & Health Expos at Madonna Plaza and the Paso Robles Event Center in 2019. Obviously their budding ownership was taking off and Heather needed to focus elsewhere.

It meant I needed to give up reporting to take on the duties of the publisher — mainly find a productive sales rep to fund the product or do it myself, manage the staff of three, and produce a weekly paper even if it meant staying well into the night to send to the printer. I had great support from the family, but it meant giving up regular reporting which I loved.

However, periodically, I found time to write a community commentary, which in hindsight it was one of the community pieces published at just the right time that was the catalyst for an offer to write my By the Bay column in the SLO Tribune literally the day we closed the Morro Bay office since Bret and Lani Colhouer merged to create Tolosa Press. But that’s another story for another time.

Now in 2019-20 as the current Morro Bay City Council work on current goal setting with new council members led by Mayor John Headding and a fairly new city manager in place, Scott Collins, Additionally, the Chamber of Commerce has established a Governmental Review Committee (GRC) and is working side-by-side with the Tourism representatives.

And City Tourism has assumed production leadership of the Citywide Yard Sale realizing its attraction for a broader network of visitors. And both the Morro Bay Rotary Club and the Community radio station The Rock have created Saturday night events for community and visitors to attend after the Yard Sale neighbors have closed for the evening. April 4-6 is the Yard Sale at NO COST to the vendors to be on the map; Rotary’s 2nd annual crab feed is at the Community Center and The Rock’s Jam Concert is at the Veteran’s Hall.

I thought this flashback timely. Do things really change? I don’t believe positive change happens unless leadership, business and community members seek to work together. It happened briefly in 2006. I’m looking forward to seeing more sustainable fruits of collaboration happening again.

From The Bay News — 2006

Your Community – Stepping-Up  by Judy Salamacha, Publisher

Times, they are a-changing. While most of the changes are subtle they are often significant and noteworthy.

About 18 months ago, four Embarcadero business owners – Ed Biaginni, Stan Trapp, Paul Van Buerden, and Doug Redican – met to discuss what they could do collectively to bring more business to Morro Bay. They discovered the business community’s political strength once they determined their common direction and established a forum to voice concerns and support to elected representatives.

As tourism was currently the only viable industry, supporting events to increase tourism became the common direction.  A loosely structured Business Forum that was open to all began to meet weekly on Thursdays at 9am at Rose’s Landing upstairs. Chamber of Commerce Director Peter Candela was tasked with chairing the forum and offering topical speakers, yet all who attended had a voice, thus it became the methodology to share information and plan strategies.

Speaking out against and suggesting viable solutions with commitments to participate in each other’s event was the action taken. This group would be the last to take credit for the success of event planning in Morro Bay, however, utilizing the Business Forum as a collective body of individuals seeking community success, it is noteworthy that the Harbor Festival recovered from a $40,000 debt with a healthy bank account to plan 2007.

What the group should take credit for is creating a partnership between business and city leadership to implement a vision for a healthier economy through successfully planned and executed events.

And although the Morro Bay Kite Festival was the brightest star so far in 2007 for events held by the Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce, Peter Candela recognized a critical changing community attitude at the Jazz Festival. Not only did the business community and the city support the concept and risks of consuming major public parking on the Embarcadero for a temporary festival staging area, but for the first time Peter saw more than the regular Chamber volunteers at the event.  Community members, city staff and elected officials were there not just attending an event for their own entertainment, but working the event to make it a success.

And if you missed the first edition of the season of Morro Bay Art Association’s Art In the Park, note it was bigger and better this year, but also recognize that again the city staff, elected officials, business supporter and the artists community collaborated with Morro Bay Beautiful to transform ten non-descript trash cans into beautiful works of art and recommend to our visitors they visit all the sites from Main Street to Morro Bay Blvd. to Tidelands Park to Market Street. When was the last time an event collaborated to have visitors visit all parts of the Morro Bay?  Oh!  The Morro Bay City-wide Garage Sale!

And when the Morro Bay Fire Department indicated they needed the community to step-up if we were interested in getting 40 teams and families from all over California to come for a fireman’s muster, a community committee joined forces to allow this event to return to Morro Bay after a hiatus of 20 years.

Times are subtly changing in Morro Bay through the coming together of community members collectively interested and willing to give their time, expertise, and even expendable dollars to build a new economy for the city. Each event has its own culture of community leadership to spark the idea, promote the benefits, reach out for sponsorship and welcome volunteer help.  Yet each time people cross-over to get involved beyond their specific interest area, it has allowed new community friendships and understanding.

If there is a day for community bonding and family fun, it has to be 4th of July.  For years the Chambers of Commerce in both Morro Bay and Cayucos have created an All-American family friendly day. There is music and games and sandcastles and parades and picnics and pancake breakfasts and barbecues all capped by a wonderful Fireworks display.  Yes, they have become tourist-driven community events, however, what Morro Bay has discovered in the last 18 months at the Business Forum is the real secret to making successful community events is not always the slick, well organized activities, it is the “feel-good time” for the visitor realizing they are in a special community where so many smiling residents work together and play together to host guests from afar.

Why not give your Chamber a call today and join the 4th of July family fun in your community. They need you and a successful community needs more smiling people to welcome and host our visitors so they continue to vacation here for the health and wealth of our economies.