While I enjoyed Honolulu’s warm Christmas weather, an elderly woman in upstate New York froze to death on Christmas Eve. The local utility had shut off her electricity.

The story, carried nationally by the Associated Press, described the deceased as a recent widow accustomed to having her husband pay all the bills. She had enough money in the bank, but emotionally overcome and mentally confused, she allowed her bill to lapse. Final notice. Click. No power.

This horrible publicity caused state Public Service Commissions to mandate “outreach” efforts to elderly customers. The Federal Government underwrote winter costs with its Home Energy Heating Assistance Programs (HEAP of Help as I called it.) Utilities needed to identify and communicate with their elderly customers—this was something I knew how to do.

Since problems of managing on a shoe string are universal from Maine to Makiki, Craigside’s sprightly residents served as my knowledge base.

I was fascinated by their networking skills: The neighbor down the hall subscribed to the morning newspaper, my mother took the evening paper. Each read “their paper” within a time period and passed it on to the next, then it moved to another person down the hallway, then to others. No dilly dally--read on schedule--someone else is waiting for the news!

Since you don't cook things like casseroles for one person, food dishes and desserts were shared. The ladies "bartered" skills; mother was a mender and chutney and jelly maker—one of the ladies’ nephews provided homegrown fruit.

Another was good with business paperwork. Drivers could be counted on for transportation to the library. (For years that had been my mother’s job. She stopped driving at age 82 and local policemen sighed with relief.)

There weren’t other part-Hawaiians in the complex, so on Sundays “she went to church” by tuning to the service broadcast from Kawaiahao Church. She took the phone off the hook during services.

Younger, more active residents took scheduled walks together and I joined them. (Puff, puff, it was hard keeping up with the briskness of these experienced elderly walkers; I'm inclined to dawdle and want to smell the flowers.)

With their information base I wrote a book about things these single ladies practiced and included ideas applicable to those living in Northern climates. Titled Living Independently, it helped the elderly “stretch their budget and be safer, healthier, and more comfortable.” It was supported by AARP, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs, the American Gas Association, and Edison Electric Institute—it was like having an imprimatur.

“Living Independently” contained everything Honolulu’s Craigside ladies knew and more—safety in the home, cooking for one, home management, staying healthy, money management. New Jersey’s utilities bundled their statewide services into a regional edition and mailed over 500,000 to elderly customers we’d helped them identify. It was a big hit (except for a crank letter from one guy who said he wouldn't last long enough to recoup energy savings to pay the cost of the appliances I suggested).

The next logical step was to encourage interactivity—to replicate Craigside ladies’ behavior with group dynamics. I suggested an outreach program to New Jersey’s Director of Human Services, an RN, serving under Governor Christine Todd Whitman. She told me, sadly, “In government we deal with curing problems, not with preventing them.”

Craigside’s independent sprightly ladies' knowledge base influenced many. Here’s an excerpt from a Quick Home Safety Quiz they helped to devise:

• Do you check for frayed electrical cords and overloaded sockets.

• Do you unplug small appliances after using them? Are cords located away from sinks?

• Are your stairways well lighted? (Mother broke her hip and fell in the dark stairway of Manoa home. It became a permanent downfall. Falls are seniors' greatest peril.)

• Do you mop spills when they occur?

• Are your emergency phone numbers listed clearly near your phone?

• Do you routinely throw out old medications in your medicine cabinet?

OF NOTE:

The World of Rath: Man Before His Time

(Excerpted from “Alternatives, November 1990, announcing "An Elderly Sensitivity Workshop" sponsored by the University of South Carolina, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.)

“Nearly a decade before Joan Baez cut her first record, Art Rath was promoting folk rock music. More than 15 years ago before automatic teller machines became popular in every super market, he came up with a plan for electronic banking. And 25 years before “Time” magazine would report on the “graying” of America, Art Rath authored a book, “The World’s Richest Market,” which identified those over 65 as the fastest-growing age segment in the U.S. In the 1970s, he developed an idealized pre-retirement program for workers, starting when they hit their 40th birthday, subsequently published by the American Management Association (1985). “Predicting these directions before they became ‘trends” won Art Rath the reputation as being a man before his time.”

J. Arthur Rath is a Hawaii writer who can be reached by e-mail at mailto:imua@spamarrest.com

To submit a story to the Slice of Life, Hawaiian Style series, write to Malia Zimmerman, editor of Hawaii Reporter, at mailto:Malia@hawaiireporter.com

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