Marin Independent Journal     Wednesday, November 15, 1991

 

MARIN VOICE

Rich Marin said ‘no’ to the needy

 

DWAYNE HUNN

 

       FOR YEARS, I have been asked to speak on behalf of the Buck Center for Research in Ag­ing. I did so without hesitation. On Election Day, I voted — with much hesitation and just bare­ly — for the Buck Center.

    Why did I have to argue myself into voting “yes”? My concern for rodent testing? Give me a break. If rodent experimenting lessens one person’s suffering, then go for it.

    Save Mount Burdell? Get real. Where in developed America does one county have more open space than us rich Marin folk?

    Traffic? Come an. Is that your best NIMBY shot? Traffic from some doctors working non-typical research hours and many living on site?

       Because Marin’s environmen­tal organizations opposed it? Right. How often have those groups supported any project?

       Money shortage? Ah! Now there was some resonance to that argument. Service for the poor? Ah-ha! That clung to me even in the voting booth.

    A high-cholesterol diet and smoking were proba­bly the main contributors to my mom’s stroke al­most six years ago. She can’t see much, can’t walk without holding a sturdy arm, and often her forget­fulness brings on a sobbing fear that Alzheimer’s is about to grab her. Caring for Mom is the hardest job my sister and I have ever had.

    What does one of America’s richest counties offer those severely impaired patients and their kids’ gen­eration whose lifestyle don’t include a mansion on the hill? Compared with my lower middle-class hometown of Parma, Ohio — not much.

    Parma has a sparkling Elder Care Center, with plush, adjustable chairs from which elders can do exercises, comfortably read, knit, nap or chat. In a bright, airy decor, elders engage in daytime activi­ties, take assisted walks and ride in nice buses.

    What does Marin offer? A nonprofit San Anselmo Senior Access offers a drab, dark, almost dreary converted church meeting room and service reduced to four days for lack of funds.

    This isn’t the fault of volunteers or the lightly paid, caring and professional staff. These people turn the confused, depressed, aging moms of working-class people who enter their care into happier, better functioning, prouder people.

    Then whose fault is it? Government, which supplies about 40% of its budget?

The Marin Community Foundation, which is considering  another grant request? The Buck Center’s funding?, Are its funds drying up funds for the increasingly-silent majority?

    Maybe all are at fault, my mind kept saying on Election Day.

    Is a continuing big-buck legal and political hassle the answer? Some of my concern would be relieved if a Buck Center government  “condition of approval” included the following: “Twenty-five percent the Buck Center’s funds will be spent on researching and measuring changes in elders who receive high quality activities, socializing, peer counseling and learning as a means to ward off the effects of ag­ing.”

Adding such a condition might show many voters and Buck Center opponents who aren’t crazed by rodentphilia and NIMBYitis, that the project wouldn’t be just a white-gloved,

Research Taj  Mahal. There would be little argument that these “conditioned funds” would be helping those whom Mrs. Buck would be concerned about if she were alive.

       And places such as Senior Access could partici­pate in funding and work better — especially for those who will be old. You, maybe?

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Dwayne Hunn, who lives in Mill Valley, is a free-lance writer.