All Seasons for Every Season
Grandpa Al would have been there. The first day of school took on new meaning for the last ten of Al’s 97 years. He’d have been there to greet our students on their first day of school and for every event to follow. He was our first grandpa at All Seasons, the pioneering senior who said “yes” to being a regular reader to our first group of children in 2009. As much as our new school needed a grandpa reader, maybe Al needed the children during this changing season of his life. Maybe youthful spontaneity and unpredictability is more appreciated when life becomes a little bit too predictable.
“Water Wars” between the preschoolers and seniors was one of his favorites. He showed up in his shower cap and rain poncho, but the children still managed to soak him every summer. There was not a preschool event he didn’t attend, often leading a group of seniors he recruited to join us, showing off his agility by breezing through the children’s little door. Pumpkin painting, ice sculpting, sing-alongs, campfires - no activity was too big or too small for Al.
Typical of males born in 1919, Al was not a softie. He and his children were the first to tell us he was a strict disciplinarian:
“I was pretty strict when my kids were little. When I look back, I wonder why I took everything so seriously. Now I don’t know what I was so worried about.”
Not only was he a strict disciplinarian at home, but professionally Al was also a time estimator at Honeywell, vigilant of employees on or off-task, necessarily looking for gaps in productivity. Knowing all this made his gentle attentiveness to our preschoolers more treasured. Maybe children in the spring of their lives are more easily enjoyed by someone living in their winter. Al had entered a new season of life and the children were there not only to accompany him, but perhaps to joyfully guide him through his slow and beautiful winter.
Al died at the end of 2019 and his preschoolers have all moved on from their time at All Seasons. But Al and his ten years of preschool children did not come to an abrupt ending. As with the seasons, people have a natural cycle. In June our All Seasons Preschool teenage alumni returned to trouble-shoot technology challenges our current grandmas and grandpas were having. The alumni stationed themselves at a table in the seniors’ dining room over their dinner hour, tackling puzzling questions on devices that are likely older than the teens. Vintage smart phones, laptops that needed updating, and even flip phones were all fair game. After a few sessions, our teen tech buddies decided to start making house calls to senior apartments, which expanded the range of troublesome devices to desktops and remote controls. Not surprisingly, our former students were naturals with the seniors, offering the seniors the same limitless patience they had been shown by Grandpa Al.
Teen “Tech Buddies”
If Al had been here, there is no doubt he would have been the first one in line, bringing his friends along to see “his” kids at work. And our “new” seniors who are now living their winters will once again be guided by our youngest and not-so-young children.
A few of All Seasons’ first alumni, grown up - examining a flip phone!