“Looking better” does get our attention. But it’s the lighting, stupid (not you), that can make or break our appearance. Only a few—including Rep. Michele Bachmann—protest the so-called energy efficients for making us, our clothes and furnishings look rather, well, lifeless.

To save lighting energy positively, sharply reduce the excess wattage that has so unhealthfully become the exorbitant norm. If fluorescents must sometimes be used, the warm white tubes and bulbs give off some life-giving rays. The cool whites take it away.

The Lenox Hill Neighborhood House redecorators recently installed obligatory banks and banks of the cool whites, which made the boomers and seniors gathered there look rather weary and wan. Ironically, we were there for expert information on how best to get older.

Don’t get me wrong, kudos galore for these roundtable forums initiated by State Sen. Liz Krueger and her chief aide, Alice Fisher, in 2010. The information from various experts in the field of aging was just invaluable, and every official and wannabe should pick up this torch—pronto! For information about 2012’s final forum in March, call 212-490-9535.

Now if only some 20/20-visioned philanthropists would fund the replacement of those cool white tubes with warm whites, this wonderful old neighborhood house would instantly become aesthetically neighborly. That white blight should be banned. Incidentally, white walls also accent the negative, unlike friendly, flattering, warm earth tones. Yup, all of this will make us look better.

Back to the recent roundtable forum called “Planning Ahead: Boomers and Seniors Living in the 21st Century,” where thirtysomething Council Member Jessica Lappin dropped by.

Now, Lappin heads the City Council’s Committee on Aging and hopes to be the Manhattan borough president. I wished she’d stayed longer and spoken about lifelong family importance. If only she’d repeated her tweet this paper’s editor found fit to print: “Really miss my boys today. First day back after a long weekend is always hard.”

Ah, mama Jessica, now think of the boomer and senior women and men whose sons and daughters are almost always away. Even some mental health professionals tell them, “Just be glad they see or call you at all.” So join my Families Forever movement, Jessica, where the generations stay vitally connected—forever.

Incidentally, do go and see The Iron Lady. It shows how difficult elderhood can be, even for world-renowned and financially secure people like Margaret Thatcher (Brooke Astor was not immune, either). And be most aware of how Thatcher’s Africa-based son has little time for her, even now. Like most parents of adults (grandparents, elder aunts, uncles and cousins too), she doesn’t protest this heartbreaking, socially acceptable indifference.

If ever a screenwriter deserved an Oscar, it’s for The Iron Lady for bringing all-too-commonplace preventable elder life woes out of the closet.

And how we need films, lyrics and forums to overcome our age apartheid system, which undergirds so many of these miseries. It would help inordinately to have more celebs like Stephen Colbert—when his mother fell ill, his show did not go on! Bravo! And amen to Cardinal Dolan for not forgetting his mother since becoming the world’s most likable priest.

Ah, but I do not forget the many mid- and late-life people without children: An intergenerational interdependent culture is one absolute must.

To be continued most surely.

dewingbetter@aol.com

By Bette Dewing

I clip enough from The Daily News, The New York Times, this paper and sometimes the NY Post, to fill a 600 word bi-weekly column a dozen times over. And on every walk or ride on the bus (what else?), there’s more to report, too much that “doesn’t like me.”

The “doesn’t like me” phrase was coined by Bess, my dear and greatly missed mother-in-law on her 81st birthday. “These eighties don’t like me,” she wryly observed. Bess had the gift of speaking hard truths in a no-nonsense but very likeable way. Her chronic knee-arthritis had deprived her of being able to walk around her Chicago neighborhood. We hear what a hardship automobile country is for elders when they have to give up driving, but far worse is having to give up walking—or in truth, have walking “give up” on you.

About this “doesn’t like me” way of critiquing, lamenting and protesting—it’s something that all of us should adopt!

For example, “I hate traffic law-breaking motorists, bicyclists and heedless scooter riders, walkers and joggers!” would become, “They hate me!” Let’s put the blame where it belongs.

And again we are reminded of how the new city hybrid bus interiors surely do “hate us” with their cramped and multi-level design. We must get our laments in soon, however, because they’re ordering more. This is on the advice of Katie, a representative of the Straphanger Campaign. Let’s share our grievances with Joseph Smith, president of the MTA Bus Company, at 646-252-5872. Katie, incidentally, finds these buses that are operating on First and Second Avenues “really quite great.”

So call Smith and 311 and pressure media and elected officials who don’t see the total picture when going “green.” Most of them haven’t thought about the total bus experience but only “fast,” not “comfortable” or even “safe.”

The Civitas civic group’s rider survey on the new Select Bus System on First and Second avenues also needs feedback. Businesses in the area really “hate” the resulting parking and delivery restrictions from the new system. Although the survey can be found on the web at www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q32XJ5W; knowing that many bus riders don’t have this option, I say also call Civitas at 212-996-0745.

Well, The Times seemed to like my letter about the judge who charged a 4-year-old girl with negligence after she rode her bike with training wheels into an 87-year-old woman, knocking her to the ground. The woman suffered (the right verb!) a broken hip and died several months later, which columnist Susan Dominus said was from “unrelated causes.” Oh?

In the letter, I blamed parents and other adult caregivers for failure to train their charges to ride safely and to be concerned for others sharing our cities crowded walkways. I’m more afraid of children wheeling on walkways than adults illegally wheeling because of youngsters’ “inexperience” and their undeveloped sense of safety. I know of two serious (one ultimately fatal), accidents caused by heedless child-wheelers.

Of course, crossing-the-street danger from adult “traffic law-haters” is far worse. But for the safety of both bicyclist and other city travelers, a city bike should make a nice little sound—little jingle bells. But a very traffic-safety concerned bicyclist friend responds with “It would drive bicyclists crazy!”

But you can’t have it all, Charlie! It’s not a right, but a privilege to bring private wheels into a high-density city, one with much public transit. And prudent pedestrians, who bring only themselves into a crowded city, do have a right for safe and low-stress passage. So do public transit riders.

Cameras will now catch motorists riding in the Select bus lane. How about bicyclists? Of course, that would mean a license plate. Safety First persons would definitely love that! So would some bicyclists.
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dewingbetter@aol.com

By Bette Dewing

West Side Spirit’s “Building Service Workers Awards” section from last week’s edition has great news to live by—for everyone, but above all, for local policymakers. So please read it online or contact the paper for a copy. Read, share, emulate.

No, my column wasn’t in this “required reading issue,” but its “voice in the wilderness” and cries to advance our “village” and caring community, were mightily exampled in the 11 page profiles of the winners.

Share it with young people especially, who recent research finds are becoming increasingly less empathetic and concerned with the welfare of others. Small wonder, given the anti-empathy, the me-first themes that rule media, entertainment and the Internet. And the performer Lady Gaga is the number one Halloween costume of choice this year. Help!

All ages should read these stories where empathy and going the second mile is part of the winners work equation. Doing good deeds is the rule, not the exception or reserved for special occasions or only for certain tenants. All faith clergies could learn how their “love one another” creeds are acted out in their own backyard and could be acted by their congregations and parishes too.

This great believer in uplifting song power (everyone singing!) says, help the cause and revive old/good-timey tunes like: “You’ll find your happiness lies right under your eyes, back in your own backyard” and, of course, everyone’s favorite, “It’s a wonderful world.”

“Love thy neighbor” is sure appropriate with noisy ones being the number one lament to 311. Building workers are the front line of dealing with all manner of, unneighborly behavior and conflict.

Gee, this column didn’t start out to be about songs—but they sure help tell a story. So here’s to songs about building workers who create the village/community we need.

Such songs raise awareness of all the works that building service requires: the mental and physical multi-tasking, and being tactful to the untactful. Their street and building smarts are too little heeded by the bosses. And many have lengthy commutes in all types of weather, in darkness of night and early morning—and subway and bus service keeps getting cut.

These “everyday people” are often more like family than family for some residents, especially, but not only, for the elder ones. But one elder says her next annual greeting card shows a photo of her doormen and super. You get the picture.

Those alone, especially elders, know if they don’t show up at the usual time, the doormen will worry and check. These building workers have an empathic ear and response for the problems that tenants may share—more severe now with lost jobs and foreclosures.

And how we need a song about Rose, a truly neighborly East Side neighbor who fell outdoors two years ago with a second surgery needed. And when she finally, fairly recovered (thankfully she had a close and nearby family), she fell in her apartment. Ensuing weeks of surgery and multiple complications sadly caused Rose’s departure from this life two weeks ago.

Rose would surely head the list of doormen’s “favorite tenants.” She was always so concerned with their welfare, and how upset she’d be about Jose, one of her building workers, when he badly fractured one of his feet when it was struck by a car!

Her empathic and neighborly ways were what so endeared her to the staff and to those neighbors who welcomed “the village” Rose helped to create.

Again, read, share and emulate the Oct. 21 “Honoring the City’s Best Building Workers Award” section stories. And remember Rose.
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dewingbetter@aol.com

By Bette Dewing

“Help!” was the final word of my last column, “Overcoming Heedlessness,” and will be the last word of this column. But how to help and change things? Well, many years ago during the city’s acute water shortage, then-Mayor Ed Koch urged everyone “to talk about it” and act. Experience has taught me to copy media with the letters and calls that I make to elected officials, city agencies and 311.

A really out-of-the-box Rx for our ailing society would be for CNN’s new Kathleen Parker-Eliot Spitzer talk show to understand that there’s more to discuss and bring to light in our country than just politics.

There are pressing social conditions and issues such as the one that cost Spitzer his governorship. Sexaholics Anonymous and other such related groups get shamefully little coverage in our society, which increasingly misuses and abuses sexuality.

Why don’t they talk about the incredibly cruel bullying habits of too many young people, which have anguished some of the victims into committing suicide? A prime example is the story of 18-year-old Rutgers freshman and beloved son, Tyler Clementi, secretly videotaped by classmates, who then streamed a very private act over the Internet.

Thankfully, this highly publicized suicide has sparked international concern and support, but “no known cause” suicides like the 18-year-old Fordham freshman, Jacob Miller, who was found hanged in his dorm room that same week, lack such support. Only the Daily News covered this beloved son’s tragic death.

Let’s urge Spitzer and Parker to bang the drum loudly enough so that every despairing young person will know that their life is bound to get better, and also that if they end their lives, those who love them will suffer forever. Male consciousness in our society must be raised so that they know it’s OK and manly to share personal problems. And we must revive Warren Farrell’s Men’s Movement, which addressed the unjust, false pressures and demands that males face, often silently, in our culture.

Those prevention talks must also stress the Sept. 30th New York Times story “Four Suicides in One Week, Takes a Toll on Fort Hood,” about members of the Armed Forces who have committed suicide.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide among military personnel is four times higher than the national average. Attention must be paid!

In our little neck of the woods, I’d like to see more on the Oct. 5 story in the Times, “Subway Work on Second Avenue Orphans Stores,” by raising awareness for all New Yorkers—and above all, elected officials—to give our support and patronage to the stores and eateries that are struggling to remain open.

Also, we must protest sharp service cuts to bus and subway services and yet another fare hike. A severe hardship for many of us, as well as increased traffic dangers as more private vehicles crowd into our high-density streets. We must demand that city, state and federal government provide the funding to restore these essential services upon which the overall health and safety of New York depends.

In addition, we must report how many who complained to Rep. Carolyn Maloney about the new hybrid articulated bus’ serious flaws were told to list them in letters to be sent to the MTA. Then do another report on how the MTA’s page-and-a-half reply justified every unsafe and uncomfortable aspect of the bus’s multi-leveled and cramped interior.

We should also talk about a jury ruling against an elder woman whose pelvis was fractured in a fall caused by a bus driver’s “jack rabbit” start. And then warn how the hybrids start up that way “naturally.”

Just maybe Parker and Spitz will start a talk-show trend where attention gets paid to some basic, not trendy, human needs and dilemmas.

Send your comments to CNN at 212-275-7800, or visit them on the web at www.cnn.com/feedback/. Help!
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dewingbetter@aol.com

By Bette Dewing

For the record, what I wrote in the recent New York Times’ “Spokes” column (“I strongly fear there are too many bicycles in New York”) left out the next sentence after that: “I mean those who break every law in the books.”

And very much do I fear the increasing number of “private wheels” and walkers that are crowding these finite streets and sidewalks. By far, the safest way to travel is public transit and that has been cut back more and more.

Even when they follow all of the rules, the heedless motoring, bicycling, jogging, pram-pushing, motorized-wheelchair operators and walkers create a stressful environment.

If you remember nothing from this column, make sure and remind our elected officials, who are so scarily allowing the crippling of public transit, that traffic tragedies cost the nation more than 150 billion dollars annually. The human cost is, of course, beyond measure and lasting.

Also remember that elders and disabled persons are the most vulnerable travelers.

I tried to get this message across in a recent training class to 50 newly minted Manhattan District Attorneys, many of them from out of town. As much as I dread public speaking, I agreed to sub for local civic leader Betty Cooper Wallerstein. It took some hours to get the talk together with heavily highlighted talking points. A livery car provided the transit—I also have automobile fear. All pretty traumatic. Am I too sensitive? Yes, but most aren’t sensitive enough!

Traveling down East River Drive to the talk, what did I see out the car window, but a large storage company sign reading: “Storage with Parents Means Having to Visit.”

Anti-parents sentiment is everywhere! So I included, “Do stay close to your folks!” in my very brief address (I always fear taking more than my share of time) to the “Quality of life criminal offenses” class. Well, staying close to one’s family can prevent them.

But back to traffic crimes. They’re too often treated like mere quality of life violations. Often charges aren’t filed even when a traffic tragedy occurs. And quality of life problems that aren’t criminal adversely affect health and cause heart-stopping stress. New York has been called the number one fatal heart attack city.

Noisy neighbors are the number one grievance to 311; more than 127,000 calls have been placed this year alone, says an Aug. 27 Daily News “Noisy Neighbor” feature. Invaluable information on sound-proofing measures and overcoming the heedlessness to blame are found there. Yet this number one grievance is not in the mayor’s noise code. And noisy neighbors can lead to friction, even violence.

On to another topic. While the newly articulated speedy bus’ multi-leveled, cramped interior is not illegal; it can’t help but cause more rider conflict, injuries and costly lawsuits. The only official concern is “trip time,” not rider comfort and safety. I fear the speedier bus plan in high density Manhattan—anywhere, really.

One of my out-of-the-box ideas at the District Attorneys conference was dubbed the “smile crusade,” which tentatively noted: “Makes you feel better, calms the troubled waters. Less crime.”

But how to get these young D.A.s to remember or read my handouts? How to get them to remember that I was the only speaker who needed a steadying hand getting up and down the steps to the podium where I also needed a chair? And to make them realize how few disabled and/or elder persons address, or are able to attend, public forums—making this a social injustice they must surely overcome. And we’ll keep trying. Help!
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dewingbetter@aol.com

“Or as Abraham understands God to have told him, ‘heyay beracha’: ‘Be a blessing.’ That is why we are here.” —Rabbi Harvey M. Tattelbaum.

How do we do that? Well, surely by not over-drinking. —Bette Dewing

The above quote once ran in Our Town’s section for multi-faith clergy homilies and prompted my thanking Temple Shaaray Tefila’s then rabbi for his message.

To my request for some “being a blessing” specifics, he replied (in itself a blessing) that saying “thank you, acknowledging another,” was a specific that was too often missing, even in faith communities.

Every Rosh Hashanah eve sundown, I’m heartened to see dozens of Temple Shaaray Tefila members walk by on their way to John Finley Walk where they symbolically throw their sins into the East River. (Did I miss seeing any wheelchairs or walkers used in this year’s procession?)

But there was nothing to inform me on the holiday about the annual outdoor High Holy Day ritual in the “Paper of Record.” Instead, the above-the-fold front-page photo “heralds” Fashion Week in Manhattan opening, showing a bare-shouldered model on the runway. But her head being cropped from the photo made the feminism I embraced cry, “Foul!”

Indeed “foul” it was for a woman to be exploited as a sex object in general back then. Now woe is us that this once assailed sexual persona has become socially acceptable, even mandated.

Being a blessing means to protest, for example, the Times’ priorities and sins of omission because it’s the secular bible of so many movers and shakers. The below-the-fold front page does address the “fringe pastor” threat to burn copies of the Koran on 9/11 and the attendant “media glare.” But nowhere is it asked if the First Amendment should protect such an abhorrent act, one that threatens the security of American troops and Americans abroad and at home.

A “fringe pastor”? No, a traitor to the faith. The Baptist ministers of my Minnesota youth rightly warned against drunkenness from which all manner and degree of anti-social behaviors could derive.

Unlike tobacco and obesity, today’s big secular no-nos, alcohol deadens the brain’s judgment center (and kills brain cells!). And while alcohol-caused traffic crimes are punished (somewhat), the alcohol factor gets a pass in the weekend murders and other mayhem including domestic violence, mainly reported in the Daily News and the Post.

Slighted was alcohol’s role in the flight attendant’s headlined unorthodox, endangering airplane exit. Reviews of Tony Blair’s bestseller soft pedal his over-drinking regrets. Media downplay Michael Douglas’s confession that drinking, as well as smoking, contributed to his throat cancer, and some of his surely regretted behavior. And indeed, my greatest regret is ever having had “one too many.”

In a NY1 talk program, host and Times columnist, Clyde Haberman, seemed unperturbed by the Nocturalist columnist stating that the reported heavy drinking preceding the accidental falling death of the 17-year-old diplomat’s daughter only briefly spiked under-age-drinking crackdowns.

There could be no greater blessing than for the grieving mother and father to start a real movement against under-age, and over-drinking in general, including reviving the underused intervention process.

Over-drinking’s a frequent factor in the number one grievance to 311: more than 127,000 of them were called in this year against noisy neighbors, reports a must-read Aug. 27 Daily News “Noisy Neighbor” feature. A quiet neighbor is not just a blessing, but also an absolute must. But the city’s noise code has yet to include the countless that obviously are not. (To be continued.)

Whew! Time for some Big Apple smiling, and in faith groups (and schools!)—but not at wrongdoers. They need to be “outed” to give us more reason to smile—be a blessing—“why we are here.”
—
dewingbetter@aol.com

By Bette Dewing

Yup, a New York Times review’s claim that no one’s sensibilities would be offended by Eat Pray Love actually got me out to the movies. Except for a few offending words, I left the theater with a glow which made East 86th Street’s maddening crowds seem almost friendly. Do you ever miss the going-to-the-movie experience where your sensibilities weren’t offended and earplugs and deep pockets weren’t needed?

That glow faded on seeing subway construction fences crowding either side of 86th Street on Second Avenue. I’d just read 14th Congressional District Republican Candidate Dino LaVerghetti’s August 26th op-ed lament “Small-Businesses, The Forgotten Victims of Second Avenue.”

He talks about how with too little government help, so many of the affected small businesses in the area have closed since 2007. LaVerhgetti warns, “As it moves southward, the construction acts like a virtual Grim Reaper, felling everything in its path.”

Infinitely more could and must be done to save small businesses that in a 20/20-visioned world would be landmarked.

Meanwhile, the Home Depot invasion has felled 60-plus-year-old Thalco’s Hardware Store on Second near 76th Street, where this three-generation family business was headed by Jerry Cotler, who also owns the building. Cotler can’t help being rueful,

“Too many who now say how much they’ll miss us shopped a lot at Home Depot,” he said.

You know what we have to do to save our walking distance “everyday need-providers.” Their owners must organize and protest! Big time! The good news is Jerry will move to Florida where his closest relatives live. But, it’s more bad news for neighborhood survival.

Families of origin are the forgotten people in the Eat Pray Love heroine’s desperate search for post-divorce meaning. But that’s always been entertainment’s sin of omission, though a “fair and balanced” representation could not be more just, or more needed.

Dr. Martin J. Zion surely tried when he was rabbi of Temple of Israel of the City of New York. This excerpt is from his Aug. 10, 1980, homily, aired in this paper:

“Our fixation with personal autonomy has been psychologically devastating. The old, in their search for independence, end up alone. The young, isolating themselves from the old, in their yearning for freedom, end up confused, bewildered and depressed by problems which could have been handled so much better if aided by the older generation’s experience.’’

Amen! Blame all manner of social engineers; especially entertainment’s powerful pushing of potentially disabling generational divides.

Rabbi Zion lost his son on September 11 and, as we near that date, my thoughts are especially with the mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings of those innocents whose lives were so brutally, sinfully, wickedly taken, especially those mourners with too little emotional support. Doubly wounded are those with little contact with their lost loved one’s children when the surviving parent remarries or moves away, either geographically or emotionally.

Mayor Bloomberg, himself a father, surely got this right: “Children who lose their parents are called orphans, bereaved spouses are called widows or widowers, but there is no name for those who lose a son or daughter, because this loss is a loss beyond words.”

And let Grandparents Day (September 12) not be one day of remembering in a year of forgetting. And never forget how human survival so greatly relates to Rabbi Zion’s impassioned belief, including the Fordham U study urging families to stay closely connected with off-to-college freshman boys, who keep their homesickness and other woes too much to themselves. So do men, in general. Beware of alcohol solace.

Rosh Hashanah Blessings to all!

By Bette Dewing

“We need as much to be reminded as informed,” Dr. Samuel Johnson so rightly opined.

An August 5 Our Town letter about the death of Michael Ward, who was killed in a hit-and-run on the East Side, needs repeated informing of the desperate—but slighted—need to prevent what we need to call traffic tragedies, not accidents.

I arrived too late to hear what the East 79th Street Neighborhood Association said in their August 12 meeting about the traffic tragedy that was so much on my mind.

It was the “Letter to the Editor” distributed on that day which gave me information I couldn’t get from either the 19th Precinct or Councilwoman Jessica Lappin’s office after I learned that the man I’d read about in the Daily News and New York Post had not survived. Those accounts were respectively titled, “Man, 85, struck on E. 84th St.” and “Old man mowed down.” Both told how the Gold Nissan Maxima car responsible for killing Mr. Ward was a hit-and-run crime. Witness Rogelio Martin said, “Cars really speed down First Avenue.” They speed wherever they can!

But I needed the name to send heartfelt regrets to any existing family, and say that their profound loss renews my active outrage against traffic crimes. Also, such victims should never remain nameless.

So, again, how very grateful I was that Our Town’s report of this crime prompted the following letter’s information:

Titled, “Tragic Loss,” it reads:

“The death of Michael Ward, victim of a hit-and-run driver, marks yet another tragedy that could have been prevented if our city government was sincerely committed to making New York an age-friendly City.

“This active 85-year-old man was mowed down by an impatient driver who probably did not wait for the light to fully turn green before barreling through the intersection. When Mr. Ward crossed the avenue, like many others whose gait is slowed by age or disability, he could not reach the curb before the light changed.

“For nearly 40 years, Visiting Neighbors has provided escorts to help seniors safely and confidently reach their doctors offices, go shopping or take care of other necessary tasks. The city’s latest response to this growing need in our ‘age-friendly city’ was to eliminate funding for our program.

“Every year at Visiting Neighbors’ annual Talent Fair, Michael Ward, the victim of this preventable tragedy, regaled audiences with his accordion playing and Irish ballads, demonstrating to enthusiastic audiences that ‘talent is ageless.’

“We will miss him.

“Dr. Cynthia Maurer, executive director of Visiting Neighbors, Inc.”

And more than the usual “lengthen walk time” response, we need real public outrage—a zero tolerance stance—against all crimes of traffic. We need a new law bearing Michael Ward’s name, a law that makes the punishment fit the traffic crime that fatally or severely injures elder pedestrians. Traffic and other crimes against elders need the same coverage as those against young people. The speed limit must be lowered!

Question “rapid bus transit” too!

And speak out; speak out—publicly—as Dr. Maurer so thankfully did.

Save and share this column where attention is most steadfastly paid. We will not forget you, Michael Ward; indeed, let there be a ballad as well as a law to make sure that we remember to keep working for all the above, and whatever will enable safe, and yes, low-stress street passage—not only in New York City.

By Bette Dewing

Weddings—ah, but what’s needed is a great revival of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s wedding message to Diana and Charles; it applies to our culture’s hyper-individualism too:

“Any marriage which is turned in upon itself, in which the bride and groom gaze obsessively at one another, goes sour after a time. A marriage which really works is one which works for others: marriage has both a private and a public face and a public importance. If we solved all our economic problems and failed to build loving families, it would profit us nothing, because the family is the place where the future is created good and full of love—or deformed.”

Put that last line to music and play it again and again! Family and friendship love songs and themes are what the world needs most. Lust and violence and the “can’t live without you” kind have got to go. Tipper Gore, take note! There’s pounds of prevention for every kind of human dilemma and woe.

Failing to build loving families—well, reportedly a family estrangement kept the groom’s only uncle from being invited. But who knew until now? The “not knowing,” in general, prevents intervention, mediation, yes, even in major social policy-makers’ lives. And for the rest of us, secrets, silence, about whatever’s wrong in the family, and the work, school, civic, faith or other significant place, erodes the overall health of life—and societies.

In the extreme, secrets and silence can lead to a distraught mother taking the life of her four children before killing herself. A New York Times’ full page story did not much stress this financially-strapped 30-year-old Staten Island mother’s “going it alone” situation, or ask enough about nearby family or faith group connections. There was no mention of the children’s father in Jamaica. So much is untold—untold suffering.

Surely the First Family and The Clintons read this story. But we hear nothing about Chelsea’s grandmother, or even the First Granddaughters’ primary caregiver. The latter grandmother may now be vacationing in her Chicago hometown and attending the south side church of Father Michael Pflager, whose 1995 sermon made national news. He called the 700-plus heat-related Chicago deaths “a man-made disaster caused by a society that has become disconnected, where people don’t look after each other… and many living alone, usually the old, are made to feel a burden to society so they don’t ask for help.” New York University sociologist, Dr. Eric Klinenberg’s book, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, says it’s “every city.” And not only cities.

Middle and upscale income co-ops and condos are not immune to disconnects. And why, in this extreme summer, are the Times and other mediums’ daily “heat and photo stories” so disconnected to New Yorkers living in stifling, often isolated conditions, and for whom even a short walk can endanger?

It’s not only the old; a Daily News piece reports the heat-related death of a 22-year-old man and a 46-year-old woman on a 93-degree Sunday when the Fire Department received more than 36,000 heat-related emergency calls. A 70-year-old man “with health problems” died on another day.

But who knows how many suffer, sicken and die, because it’s just not a hot topic?

And the hot topic obsession, in general, is a big part of a major unchallenged social disconnect. That belongs in the wedding talk too—and heard big time in the pulpits, which profess the “love one another” creed. And bring back The Waltons!

By Bette Dewing

Why am I crying, I wondered, as I read Juliet Macur’s New York Times story, “Sensing His Own Mortality,” about George Steinbrenner.

More important to me than the avalanche coverage given Yankee baseball owner George Steinbrenner’s dying was how at 74, he spoke “with candor about regrets, death and family, how old age really stinks… and his fear of dying.” He cried several times, which also made the young reporter quite teary.

“Suddenly, he was not the most feared owner in sports but someone’s father or grandfather coming to terms with the end of life.”

His biggest frustration was with how he was beginning to have difficulty remembering names and faces.

I cried, because even this man with all of his wealth and power couldn’t be saved from his mind fading away into the abyss. I cried because there is no known cure for Alzheimer’s and there is even a sort of shame attached to this most grievous disorder that affects many of the 80-plus population.

I am almost too sad to cry over the unexpected leukemia-related death of gerontologist, Dr. Robert Butler, who likely did more than anyone to bring what I call “brain failure” out of the closet and make it a national and world-wide priority to overcome.

You can do your part to help fight this insidious disease by backing both The Alzheimer Association and The International Longevity Center –USA which Dr. Butler founded and headed along with its executive director, Everette E. Dennis.

As my June 24 column noted, what a blessing to be one of 20 journalists taking part in the Age Boom Academy’s five day “immersion seminar on aging and longevity issues,” hosted by Dr. Butler at the International Longevity Center. The various aging field experts’ virtual tsunami of aging and longevity material was made more interactive by being shared around a conference table.

But even unaware of his illness, I would have liked to have heard more from Dr. Butler or “Bob” as he was affectionately called.

His family requests that any contributions be made to ILCenter- USA at 60 E. 86th St. New York, N.Y., 10028. And I also suggest that looking after our vulnerable, often alone and elder neighbors, especially in this relentlessly hot summer, is a way to honor Bob, and also remember Everette and the dedicated ILC staff who miss him so deeply.