November 2005

Bargain Hunter with a Mission

On any given day, one might see Maryland ’s Johnnie Mae Armstrong combing flea markets and discount stores for bargains on chairs, beds, and other home furnishings.

They’re not for herself—Armstrong is on the board of directors of a nonprofit organization in Montgomery County, Maryland, that provides neighborhood housing for people recovering from mental illness. The treasures she buys end up in the 21 houses purchased and renovated by her group, which currently serves 75 county residents.

Armstrong first started helping people with mental and learning disabilities during her 34 years as an elementary teacher. “The beginning and end of my career reflect the two poles of society’s approach to people with mental illness,” she says. “My first year, I saw all the kids with emotional problems drawn out of mainstream classrooms and grouped in isolation. By the time I retired, educators had learned these kids could be integrated into regular classes. It was often difficult, but I saw many succeed.”

Armstrong’s interest became more personal when she learned one of her relatives was struggling to recover from a mental illness.

“Publicly funded help was sorely lacking,” says Armstrong. “The first time I saw people sleeping on grates in Washington, DC, it brought tears to my eyes, and I realized that I needed to help.”

She’s been doing that for eight years. “No one should ever sell a person in recovery from mental illness short,” says Armstrong. “Our residents work as cashiers and as drivers. They’re going to college. They flourish when given the opportunity.”

—Matt Simon 

Globetrotter

Every June, the country town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, opens its arms to visitors from around the globe in a celebration of culture and music. Nearly 6,000 people attend the International Folkfest, and it’s all due to retired educator Steve Cates.

Cates started with an appreciation for his own town’s cultural tradition. To introduce the ways of the past to new generations, he founded the Cripple Creek Cloggers dance troupe in 1967, with colorful costumes and fast fiddling reminiscent of the barn-raising parties of the early 1800s. With the Cloggers, Cates has attended more than 100 folk festivals in nations throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.

Exploring cobblestoned villages in Austria and performing in Puerto Rico, Cates developed an insatiable thirst for travel. And he’s done his share of hosting travelers from abroad. The week-long celebration in Murfreesboro began in 1982 and is still going strong. This year, Cates welcomed troupes from Peru, Jordan, and England.

This is more than a mere hobby. During his 40-year career, Cates frequently used his travel and research in his work. “Teaching social sciences, I was able to talk about the places I have been and people I have met,” he says. “The worst sort of teacher is one who has no life experience to add to the classroom.”

—Daniel Moise

November 2005

Climbing Mountains To Level the Playing Field

It’s a familiar story—an impressionable child connects with an elementary teacher and decides right then to become a teacher. That’s how it was for Elias Chapa of Ypsilanti, Michigan, except that his path wasn’t as easy as for many people. In fact it was very steep going.

For Chapa, the inspiration was Miss Pond, his third-grade teacher in Pontiac. “I fell in love with her and the way she taught—her enthusiasm,” he says.

But when he told his high school guidance counselor about his plans, the reaction wasn’t exactly encouraging. “Why don’t you go to work in the factory making cars” suggested the counselor, “like the rest of your kind.”

Chapa’s “kind” was Mexican, because his grandparents were from Mexico even though Chapa was born in the United States. That counselor set him back a bit, but he still wanted to follow in Miss Pond’s footsteps. Only, there was no role model to show him the way. “I took academic classes, but when your dad can’t read or write, and your mother is working to make ends meet and keep all six of us going—I knew I had to go to school to become a teacher, but it wasn’t like, ‘Make sure you do your best,’ it was more, just go to school. My grades were average.”

He got a scholarship to community college, but “I started out majoring in cards.” He had to pay his own way. One summer, he worked in the auto plant, “down the line from my father.” It took him four years to get his AA degree. Chapa then tried to enroll in a four-year college, but was told he wasn’t eligible. He got a job with the township recreation department, where he met his future wife, Nancy.

He moved on to cleaning a public school, and yet again prejudice tried to push him back—a supervisor fired him for supposedly not cleaning the bathrooms well. “The teachers were so mad, they went to the school board and told them the bathrooms were cleaner than ever before,” Chapa recalls. He kept his job, and, with some pushing from his wife, enrolled in college part-time to earn that teaching credential. Four years later, he got it.

While waiting for a teacher opening, he subbed at the school where he was the custodian. “One kid told his parents the custodian was his teacher. The parent complained, so the superintendent had to explain I was certified.”

Finally, he reached that goal that Miss Pond had started him on, so many years earlier. Chapa taught for 27 years, with many low-income, minority students. “I told them, ‘If I could make it, you can make it,’ and some of them came back to say thanks.”

Meanwhile, Chapa was also following in some of his father’s footsteps, although not to the Pontiac plant. His father was a union man, and Chapa got active in the teachers’ union, even before he had the relative safety of tenure. Serving on many levels including the Michigan Education Association’s board of directors, Chapa pushed for more involvement for Hispanics and support professionals in the Association leadership. Chapa retired from teaching this year. For his work in building and broadening the union, MEA surprised him with its Herman W. Coleman Human Relations Award.

—Alain Jehlen

For More

The high school drop-out rate for Hispanic students is higher than for any other ethnic group, according to federal Department of Education statistics. 

In its efforts to improve education for Hispanic students, NEA works closely with several organizations. Visit their web sites for more information on Hispanic students and how we can help them reach their potential in America :

Aspira

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)

The National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE)

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR)

Also, visit NEA’s web site on closing the achievement gaps.

November 2005

On dues, membership, pensions, and Katrina

NEA-Retired dues will increase in September of 2006. This increase will help meet the costs of our many activities. It will provide for new programs and for retaining and expanding our current successful efforts, like our mentoring program that lets NEA student members learn from retired veterans.

This upcoming increase offers us a window of opportunity to increase membership. NEA-Retired Lifetime dues are now $100. They will be $200 on September 1. This gives us almost a year to sign up retirees who have not yet joined, and it gives us time to recruit pre-retired members from among our active colleagues. Any NEA member can join as “pre-retired,” meaning that when they retire, they will automatically be members. Anyone who joins before September 1, 2006, will get a lifetime membership for half of what it will cost after that. I hope you use this opportunity to help increase our membership.

We want more members. There is strength in numbers. We need members to lobby public officials and to educate the public about the needs of our children and the importance of a quality public education. We need them to work to protect our pensions and improve our health care.

And speaking of protecting retirement benefits, the Administration is still pushing their privatization plan for Social Security even though the opinion polls show Americans are rejecting the idea.

Now, Congress is considering pension “reform” legislation that would make the continued maintenance of traditional defined benefit pension plans completely impractical for most employers. Traditional defined benefit plans—along with Social Security—are the foundation of retirement security for millions of Americans.

Please go to www.nea.org/lac/pension for more information on these moves in Congress, and action you can take to help preserve good pensions.

Finally, I want to thank all of you for your outpouring of generosity for the victims of Katrina. I have heard story after story of state and local Associations and individual members pitching in to help. You are the greatest.

—Barbara Matteson
matteson@dakotacom.net

November 2005

Phil Long

Background
I’ve taught elementary school social studies in Celina, Ohio, for more than 29 years. I’m currently president of my local Association. I’m on the OEA Executive Committee, and I’ve been a delegate to the state and national RA many times. I plan to retire in about five years.

What plans do you have for retirement?
I signed up for NEA Pre-Retired and I plan to stay active in NEA-Retired. As a local Association president, I’ve learned how important it is to work with our state legislature to strengthen our schools. Getting to know your legislators and lobbying on behalf of public education is a skill that takes some time to acquire. I’m looking forward to working with OEA’s emerging leaders in order to pass on what I’ve learned. The leaders I see developing in our Association are dynamic and have a lot to offer. It’s exciting to work with them.

Georgia Goodwine-Christian

Background
I taught elementary school grades 4-6 and special education for 30 years in Talladega, Alabama. I served three terms as president of my local Association, was a district president and vice president, and served on the AEA Rights and Responsibilities Commission.

How are you spending retirement?
I’m as active in education as I was when I was a teacher. But I’m mixing in travel with my husband—any time of the year we wish. I told the Retired Association, “I’ll spend plenty of time as a volunteer, but for 30 years I’ve only been able to take vacation in the summer. Now that’s going to change.” Starting in January of this year, we’ve traveled somewhere every month. And we’re getting set to do some world traveling. When I’m in town, I volunteer for new teacher orientation. Orientation and follow-up mentoring are critical. I enjoy it. I work through the formal orientation program, and I also do informal mentoring for teachers who’ve requested it.

Ramon MacFarlane

Background
I taught 5th and 6th grade and junior high science and math in Dayton, Ohio. Following that, I worked on affirmative action and desegregation issues for the Association in Ohio, then for the NEA in Washington, DC. I finished my career as a professor of criminal psychology at Concordia University, Wisconsin, retiring in 2000.

How are you spending retirement?
I have two loves: NEA-Retired and Rotary. Right now, I’m on the board of my local Retired Association, and what interests me most is Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit. We’re studying that closely so we can educate members and all seniors in the community about what it does and doesn’t provide. It’s too little, too late, or what I like to call “TL-squared.” It only provides substantial coverage if seniors reach a catastrophic level of expense. Below that, we pay for pretty much everything. I’m dedicated to letting seniors and younger Americans know that we need something more—and better.

November 2005

The New Bankruptcy Law

Now, if you’re hopelessly in the hole, it’s harder to get out

It’s called “The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Pro-tection Act of 2005.” These names seem to get longer and longer and to have less and less to do with what the law actually does. This new law makes it harder to declare bankruptcy and forces people to pay more of their debts even if they are bankrupt. It took effect in October.

Bankruptcy is a last resort for people who cannot pay their debts. Most people file for bankruptcy because of a serious illness (affecting themselves or someone else), loss of a job, or divorce. There are two types of bankruptcy filings available to most individuals: Chapter 7 involves selling off most assets, using the money to pay off as much as possible of your debt, and then wiping out the rest of your debts. Which assets don’t you have to sell? That varies according to the state you live in. (You can see the list for your state at www.bankruptcyaction.com.)

The other type of bankruptcy, Chapter 13, allows debtors to discharge certain debts and pay off other debts over a period of three to five years rather than surrender other property.

What are the changes of the new bankruptcy law?

The new law:

• Includes a “means test” by which the IRS determines who can legitimately file for bankruptcy and who cannot. Those with lower income (below the median income for their state) may file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Those with income above their state’s median income who can pay at least $6,000 over five years ($100 a month) will be forced to file Chapter 13, under which a judge will order a repayment plan.
• Requires that people filing for bankruptcy pay for credit counseling.
• Places the burden of proof for bankruptcy on the debtor’s lawyer, requiring the attorney’s signature on the petition and verification that the attorney has investigated the claim sufficiently and found it to be solid.
• Broadens the definition of “nondischargeable” debts (those that can’t be erased through Chapter 7 filing) to include certain student loans, debts to state and local governments, and money owed to “governmental units.”

Will it cost more to file for bankruptcy?

Most filers used to pay a $209 court filing fee and $500 to $1,500 for an attorney to represent them in the simplest cases filed under Chapter 7. With the new law, the filing fee will rise and attorney fees will increase 30 percent to 40 percent because of the extra paperwork.

Are individual retirement accounts (IRAs) subject to the new bankruptcy rules?

No, the Supreme Court ruled last April 5 that IRAs are to be shielded from the reach of creditors in bankruptcy proceedings. The justices said IRAs fall under a bankruptcy code provision that exempts payments a debtor receives “on account of age,” such as pensions and annuities, when they are necessary to support the debtor.

—Doug Terwilliger, NEA Member Benefits

If you’re in serious money trouble …

… here are some resources that may help:

NEA Attorney Referral Program can supply the names of local attorneys. Call 202-822-7080.

American Bankruptcy Institute offers consumer information related to personal bankruptcy.

National Consumer Law Center provides expert consumer law advice for helping low income.

National Foundation for Credit Counseling is the nation’s largest and longest serving national nonprofit credit counseling network. Call 1-800-388-2227.

Personal Bankruptcy Information about federal and state laws related to personal bankruptcy.

Medigap Update

Federal authorities have changed the new Medigap Plans K and L since we wrote our September “Ask the Expert” column. Here are the changes:

• Medigap Plan K pays 100 percent of the Medicare Part A coinsurance and hospital benefits, 50 percent of the Medicare Part B Coinsurance or co-payment, and 50 percent of the blood benefit.

• Medigap Plan L pays 100 percent of the Medicare Part A coinsurance and hospital benefits, 75 percent of the Medicare Part B Coinsurance or co-payment, and 75 percent of the blood benefit.

Also, the Part B deductible, which is not covered under either Plan K or L, does count against the Plan K or Plan L out-of-pocket annual cost limit. 

Here's more on Medigap Plans K and L, visit www.medicare.gov.

November 2005

By Chris Bartolomeo

Looking back, Bernie Williams, a retired biology high school teacher, realized she missed the signs that her husband Roy was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. While the couple vacationed in Europe 10 years ago, Roy dove into the shallow end of a hotel pool and emerged with a bloody head wound.

“I was in denial,” says Bernie Williams from Cinnaminson, New Jersey. “No one wants to believe that Alzheimer’s can strike your family. I passed the pool incident off as an accident. But in doing so I lost six years before he was diagnosed. I’ll never know how he could have been helped if I had acted sooner.”

Today, Williams, 66, still wrestles with guilt, not just about her failure to seek treatment immediately but how she lost her patience when Roy couldn’t perform simple tasks. “It would often take me three hours to dress him in the morning,” she recalls. “I yelled at him and he’d look like a child who had been scolded.” Williams got some relief when she joined an Alzheimer’s spouse support group and enrolled him in adult day care.

“One of the men in the support group reminded me that it was not my husband doing these things, it’s the disease,” says Williams. “After that, I still lost my temper occasionally, but that realization helped me to be more patient.” Her husband died last June at age 79.

The close-knit family of Kathleen Marsh, a retired Kaukauna, Wisconsin, English teacher, united to care for Kathleen’s mom, Rosemary Brantmeier. The wake-up call came when Brantmeier was terminated from her volunteer job at a local school library because she could no longer sort books. “The thing that really worked for us was family,” says Marsh. “The 16 of us met and made decisions by consensus. It was very important that everyone be on board. It was a blessing that there were so many of us, so we could share the burden.”

Marsh learned not to argue with her mother, who, like many Alzheimer’s sufferers, lived in a fantasy world.

“My mother would often say that my dad was coming to pick her up even though he had been gone for many years,” Marsh says. “Our first temptation was to say, ‘No, Mom, Dad is not coming.’

“But it would comfort her much more to say something like ‘Dad had problems at the farm, he’ll be here soon.’ Because a half hour later, she’d forgotten.”

Three years ago, Marsh’s mother showed up for Mass at 11 p.m. believing it was 11 a.m. It was then that the family decided she could no longer live alone on the family farm. But taking her to an independent living facility proved daunting.

“It was the worst day of my life,” says Marsh. “We had to take her from the small Wisconsin town where she lived for 80 years.” Heeding the advice of the local Alzheimer’s Association, the family prepared her mother’s room with all her things to make her feel at home. But when they arrived at the facility, her mother refused to get out of the car.

“My husband had to carry her,” says Marsh who still cries at the memory. “But she looked around, saw her things, and realized she had no choice, so she bravely walked to her new room and greeted everyone.”

Ralph Chamblin, a retired French and Spanish teacher from Albuquerque, New Mexico, says when his wife Isabel began showing signs of the disease he realized that the couple could no longer live in their suburban single-family home. “I knew I couldn’t care for my wife alone,” he says. “We needed a car to get anywhere and my wife needed daily care that was very expensive.”

Chamblin and his wife moved to a life care retirement community that offered many levels of service depending upon need: independent living residence, assisted living, a dementia ward, and a nursing home. And there was lots of supportive staff on hand.

At first, the couple lived in the independent living section. Later, as Isabel’s condition worsened, she was moved to the dementia ward and eventually the nursing home. “I joined a support group where a facilitator guided the discussion about how things were going,” he says. “We were all losing our spouses through a terribly slow death and it helped to be surrounded by others going through the same thing.”

The death of a close relative with Alzheimer’s can leave the survivors fearful about their own fate. Kathleen Marsh lost both her mother and grandfather on her mother’s side to Alzheimer’s, so even at the tender age of 58, she’s very conscious of the threat.

“I look like my mother physically so I think the cards are stacked against me,” she says. “But I take precautions. I’m extremely active, I keep my weight down, eat healthy. But you have to live your life and not worry.” She’s hoping there will be effective ways to ward off Alzheimer’s before it’s her turn.

—Thomas Grillo

Can We STOP Alzheimer’s Disease?

Winston Churchill, actress Rita Hayworth, writer E.B. White, composer Aaron Copeland, and former President Ronald Reagan all had Alzheimer’s disease, an illness that used to be whispered about and is now coming into the open.

Alzheimer’s, or AD, is insidious, complex, and fascinating. It robs sufferers of memory, reasoning, language, and ultimately motor skills—and it can start with a symptom as small as suddenly starting to misplace your wallet when you didn’t do that before. But don’t panic if this happens to you, even if one of your parents had Alzheimer’s. Other common disorders, from depression to B-12 deficiency, mimic the early symptoms of AD. And except for a rare, early-onset form that has a strong genetic link, there is no one definitive risk factor for Alzheimer’s. It seems to be caused by a combination of genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors.

Age is the primary risk factor—the prevalence doubles every five years over 65, although there is some evidence that the incidence is lower among those who get past 90.

No clear family pattern

But age isn’t the whole story. Nor is family history. Except in rare cases, there is no clear family pattern in the most common form, in which symptoms usually appear after age 60, although having a parent or sibling with AD does increase your risk. Other risk factors include cardiovascular disease; a meat-based, high-fat diet; inflammation; viruses; environmental factors; smoking; and a history of head injury.

The list seems so bewildering, you may wonder if lowering your risk is possible. But the cardiovascular connection suggests to experts that exercise and a healthy diet can help, since these are ways to improve the health of your blood vessels. The Alzheimer’s Association also emphasizes maintaining brain health—from staying mentally active and socially involved to guarding against head injuries with seat belts and cycling helmets.

Tangles and plaques

Scientists are still unraveling the mystery of AD. Its hall-marks, observed in autopsies, are knots in nerve cells in the cerebral cortex (the part of the brain responsible for mem-ory and reasoning), and cellular debris called plaques that accumulate around those knots. Over time, the tangles and plaques spread, communication among nerve cells is mass-ively disrupted, and eventually the cells die. At advanced stages, people with AD cannot speak intelligibly, hold their heads up, smile, or even swallow.

Diagnosis can be difficult. Family members often notice symptoms first. The disease can first show itself with a change in forgetfulness. Mild forgetfulness is normal in healthy people growing older. “Forgetfulness starts about as soon as you’re able to re-member something,” says Dr. Bill Thies, Alzheimer’s Association vice president of Medical and Scientific Affairs. But in Alzheimer’s disease, the pattern changes and more severe symptoms follow. Thies says someone without AD might forget where they put the car keys. Someone with AD may forget what the keys are for.

When diagnosing AD, doctors try to rule out other, often treatable causes of some of these symptoms—thyroid problems, drug reactions, depression, brain tumors, alcohol dependency, and blood vessel disease in the brain.

New drugs

No drug treatment to date can halt the disease permanently. But, in the past decade, new drugs have emerged that can sometimes ameliorate the symptoms and help stave off the need for nursing home care.

AD is becoming an ever more urgent priority as baby boomers age. Advocates call on Congress to make Medicare and Medicaid more responsive to AD patients and their caregivers, and improve tax and consumer laws to help families pay for long-term care. They also want Congress to appropriate $1 billion for Alzheimer’s research. With the baby boom generation aging, “we need to short-circuit the epidemic of Alzheimer’s,” says Thies. Otherwise, “we’re going to bankrupt our health care system.”

But Thies is an optimist. Drugs that may prevent or at least slow down the disease are already being tested, he says, and he believes it won’t be very long before AD can be managed the way high blood cholesterol is handled today. “I can’t tell you if it’s five or ten or seven years away,” he says, “but I think I’m going to be here when it happens.”

Thies is 63.

The Alzheimer’s Association has identified 10 warning signs of the disease:

• memory loss (forgetting recently learned information, not occasionally forgetting names or appointments)
• difficulty performing familiar tasks (such as placing a telephone call)
• problems with language (forgetting simple words or substituting unusual words for common ones)
• disorientation as to time and place (becoming lost in your own neighborhood)
• poor or decreased judgment (such as wearing little clothing in the cold)
• problems with abstract thinking (forgetting how to use numbers)
• misplacing things (particularly in unusual places, such as leaving a wristwatch in the sugar bowl)
• changes in mood or behavior (including rapid mood swings)
• changes in personality (such as becoming extremely confused, suspicious, or fearful)
• and loss of initiative (sitting in front of the TV for hours, for example).

Four brain-healthy life choices recommended by the Alzheimer’s Association:

• Stay mentally active
• Remain socially involved
• Stay physically active
• Adopt a brain-healthy diet: low fat, low cholesterol, lots of dark vegetables and fruits

The Alzheimer’s Association Web site is full of news and resources for anyone coping with Alzheimer’s—or just worried about it. Visit www.alz.org .

November 2005

The Good (Retired) Life

The New Retirement: The Ultimate Guide to the Rest of Your Life by Jan Cullinane and Cathy Fitzgerald. Rodale. 486 pp. $19.95.

How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free by Ernie J. Zelinski. Ten Speed Press. $16.95.

Playing a round of golf, reading a bestseller under a beach umbrella or splurging on a Parisian shopping spree may be a satisfying way to spend a day, a week or a even a month of your retirement. But, if you’re looking to pack a lot more meaning and more than a little adventure into the next 30 years, you might want to peruse these two top-selling retirement books for some sound advice and creative ideas.

In The New Retirement, Jan Cullinane and Cathy Fitzgerald tackle the basic questions of what to do during your retirement and where to spend it. Their book is chockfull of worksheets and checklists to help you determine whether you’re ready to retire, whether to relocate and even whether you have the right skills to make a success of that long-dreamed-of bed and breakfast.

The authors, former teachers, advise readers not to turn off their work ethic after they earn those gold watches. They say surveys of baby boomers nearing retirement age show 80 percent plan to keep working, at least part-time. For retirees with enough income, they encourage volunteering.

The book proves especially thorough in helping you decide where to spend your retirement. Cullinane and Fitzgerald give a report card to each community they recommend, grading them on climate, cost of living, health care, transportation and things to do. As you might expect, Florida ’s coastal communities rank among their favorites but so do Reno, Nevada (Perhaps you’ll find a new career at its professional bartending school!) and Asheville, North Carolina.

Ringed by the Blue Ridge and the Great Smokies, Asheville is also a top pick of Ernie J. Zelinski, author of the lively How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free . It’s a city of 68,000 with several colleges, upscale restaurants, bookstores, coffeehouses and a tradition of attracting writers and musicians. It’s also the home of the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement, which offers a variety of options for learning, leadership and community service.

Wherever you live, Zelinski says, you need good time management skills. Otherwise, after a couple months basking in the glow of retirement, you might wake up one day and ask, “Now what?”

Zelinski, who semi-retired 25 years ago when he was 30 and near bankruptcy, doesn’t offer lots of financial advice. He contends that your physical and mental well-being and your ability to make new friends and keep old ones play bigger roles in a happy retirement than the size of your bank account.

Seize this chance, he says, to create a new identity not defined by your job. His graphic organizer, dubbed the “Get-a-Life Tree,” connects activities you’ve enjoyed in the past with ideas for the future. To help you grow your own tree, he lists 300 activities, from scuba diving to writing a fairy tale.

If you’re uncertain about your future, Zelinski’s upbeat attitude may inspire you to discover a new passion or purpose. Choose something fun, he says, something you’d do with or without pay. Some suggestions, like nude model-ing, may make you laugh; others, like being a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas, may pique your interest.

Both The Ultimate Guide and Happy, Wild and Free are books you’ll refer to as you move through different stages of retirement—from the very active to the slightly more sedentary. If you follow the authors’ suggestions, you certainly won’t be bored.                 

—Mary Anne Hess

Short Takes

Unbelievably Good Deals and Great Adventures That You Absolutely Can’t Get Unless You’re Over 50, by Joan Rattner Heilman. Contemporary Books. 324 pp. $14.95

While you’re being Happy, Wild, and Free, you might as well get some bargains. This book may be able to help. You’ll get tips on discounts for everything from college courses to all sorts of travel. In fact, travel is the main—although certainly not exclusive—focus of this guide. Stretch those pension dollars around the world! It even helps you plan intergenerational trips with your children.

Aging Well, Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development, by George Vaillant, MD. Little, Brown. 373 pp. $14.95

If getting a great deal on an Alaskan safari isn’t your idea of joy, maybe you’d like to learn from the accumulated experience of hundreds of men from Harvard, women from California, and white men from Boston, studied through their adult lives and brought together by one of Harvard’s most accomplished and certainly most persistent researchers, George Vaillant. This is probably the longest-running study of aging in the world, following more than 800 people over five decades. Vaillant’s conclusion: your lifestyle choices have more impact on whether you have a satisfying life than either genes or money.

If getting a great deal on an Alaskan safari isn’t your idea of joy, maybe you’d like to learn  of hundreds of Harvard men, California women, and white Boston men, studied through their adult lives and brought together by one of Harvard’s most accomplished and certainly most persistent researchers, George Vaillant. This is probably the longest-running study of aging in the world, following more than 800 people over five decades. Vaillant’s encouraging conclusion: Your lifestyle choices have more impact on whether you have a satisfying life than either genes or money. running study of aging in the world, following more than 800 people over five decades. Vaillant’s conclusion: your lifestyle choices have more impact on whether you have a satisfying life than either genes or money.