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Busy seniors seize the day

Since starting two years ago, the Northdale Older, Wiser, Lively Seniors group - or OWLS - has kept members active and happy.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published December 2, 2005

NORTHDALE - For most of his life, Sam Adelman kept his calendar full.

He traveled the world as an executive for a major shoe company and, later, as a consultant. He and his wife of 61 years, Evelyn, frequented New York dance clubs when mambo was all the rage, eventually joining the ranks of competitive Latin ballroom dancers.

But after Evelyn died nearly nine years ago, Sam moved to Carrollwood and found himself drifting. He had his son and grandkids near, but lost his base of friends. He didn't get around much anymore.

"I was getting so depressed," Adelman, 90, recalled. "I just said, "Do something.' "

He sampled a few community groups. Nothing stuck. Then he stumbled upon the Northdale Older, Wiser, Lively Seniors - OWLS, for short - operating out of Northdale Park, just five minutes from home.

Before long, Adelman found himself in a book club, learning to use computers and exercising three times a week. He has only good words for the group that got him back into the swing of things.

"There's a difference between getting older and getting old. You don't have to get old up here," Adelman said, tapping his temple, several other gray-haired heads nodding around him. OWLS, he said, is "a great diversion."

Northdale OWLS quietly celebrated its second anniversary on Nov. 18. The group was more than 10 times bigger than the day 46 curious retirees first met. Many of the hundreds of members drive miles to the small community just north of Carrollwood to avoid becoming sedentary and lonely.

Who would have thought that one man's complaint would go so far?

"It all amounted to, they have a summer picnic for the kids, an Easter egg picnic for the kids, a 5K run that I can't run in anymore," said longtime Northdale resident Ray Epsky, 85. "But they had nothing for the seniors."

Epsky told Northdale Civic Association membership leader Bill Castens he would quit the group, maybe others would too, if things didn't change. The defection of Northdale's seniors could have crippled the association, which often has to scrounge for members as it is.

"Ray was challenging me," said Castens, 60. "I told him, I've only been on the board two weeks."

Castens asked for time.

Three years later, nothing had happened. Epsky pressed Castens again, and Castens finally made good on his promise. He put a small ad in the local papers announcing the OWLS' first meeting and opened his house to what he expected would be a small gathering of neighbors.

"I told them, "If we don't have 20 people there, we're not going to do it,"' Castens said.

That night, 46 seniors showed up. Only 12 were from Northdale.

Few expected such wide interest.

But northern Hillsborough, it turned out, had little in the way of senior centers with classes and clubs and trips. So the mere mention of a club for adults 50 and older proved tremendously alluring for people who were (usually) done working but definitely not done living.

They wanted a place to dance, eat, enjoy the company of others. It's what the experts call successful aging.

"We're very social creatures," explained Kathryn Hyer, an associate professor in the University of South Florida's School of Aging Studies. "It is certainly important that you continue to go out, do things, visit people, volunteer, work with people, go to church. Just because you're old doesn't mean that they stop being important."

If you don't believe it, ask Dottie Casper.

Casper, a retired family counselor, moved to Lutz from Miami a few years after her husband, Mark, died. Like Adelman, she had children and grandchildren here, but no longtime friends and little to do.

She saw the OWLS ad, went to the first meeting and never looked back.

"As soon as I saw how active and vigorous everyone was, I wanted to be involved," said Casper, 78.

The first OWLS meeting generated so much buzz that the second drew close to 100 seniors. The next month, that jumped to 150.

Members suggested expanding the group's activities.

Casper proposed weekly pingpong get-togethers. Castens planned monthly luncheons. Others wanted to have exercise classes, shopping trips, dancing - really, a network of activities to fill what had been a void for them.

Everything would be dutch treat. No one would be allowed to moan about life. The key part of the OWLS acronym would be the L, for lively.

It quickly became apparent that Castens couldn't do all this from his Northdale home. Yet after 35 years spent working for a large construction company, he wanted to volunteer for his community. So he decided to organize OWLS - a "job" that now occupies much of his waking life - and turned to the Hillsborough County Parks Department for help with the space.

He found a willing partner in Rick Valdez, who manages Northdale Park.

"I was just in a situation where I wanted to get senior programs going," Valdez said. "He had the same thing in mind." Now, OWLS has a calendar of events that runs six months in advance. About 30 members recently formed a spinoff group, NITE-OWLS, for singles. And with a new, larger community center ready to open at Northdale Park within weeks, expect the organization to grow even bigger.

Thirty seniors - 28 women, two men - stand in three ragged lines across the Northdale Park multipurpose room. A guide dog in training lies passively in the corner. Hip-hop pulsates from a boom box.

Instructor Pat Yarnot hands out white wash cloths, fresh from the freezer, for the class to mop away the sweat from the first half-hour of Jazzercise Lite aerobics. Then Yarnot, herself a 55-year-old OWLS member, tells everyone to grab light weights for biceps and triceps curls.

The group, full of laughter and jokes, follows along so easily that Yarnot announces she'll head to Target later in the day to buy heavier weights.

Throughout the routine, Yarnot issues warnings to protect your knees and back. Don't overdo it. Few pause as the music switches to an easy listening Michael Buble tune for a quick stretch before segueing into another round of rap for leg lifts.

Standing in the middle, dressed in an Oxford-style shirt, slacks and docksiders is Sam Adelman, who hasn't missed a class in months. The ladies dote on him and call themselves "Sam's harem."

They're so vivacious and energetic that Yarnot is inspired.

"When I look out at this class, it has given me a totally different perception of what it means to get older," the retired school teacher said. "They're here working hard for an hour. They're loving it and they're laughing."

As Jazzercise winds down, beginning line dancing revs up.

Helen Bartolotti, who won't give her age but will say she's been married 57 years, leads the group. She tells the dozen ladies in the room that line dancing will help them with short-term memory as they work to remember the steps.

"We know what happened in the past," says Bartolotti, a retired teacher who lives in Carrollwood. "Hey, we could tell stories, couldn't we?"

At first, the group awkwardly follows the box step, grape vine, Charleston and other moves that Bartolotti demonstrates up front. A few stumble over their own feet trying to keep up. There's lots of counting out loud, to track the steps.

When George Strait's Drinking Champagne begins to play, the women giggle at the lyrics, "I'm drinking champagne, feeling no pain 'til early morning." They also start bouncing to the beat like kids, eager to get moving.

Before long, they've found their groove. And time has elapsed. Dancers filter out as yet another group of OWLS claims the room with three pingpong tables from a nearby closet.

Competition is high - everyone wants to beat Castens, who claims the top seed if there's one to be had. Casper takes every chance to smash the ball past him. Mary Bougades of Carrollwood challenges him to a fairly evenly matched best-of-three contest.

Through shouting and good-natured ribbing about missed shots, no one forgets the score. There's much revelry in each win. And when they're done, they head to lunch together.

Of course, anywhere you can find hundreds of seniors under one roof, you also can find someone looking for their business.

Castens understood this when he organized the monthly OWLS luncheons, each of which includes an entertainment and educational segment. He worked to take advantage.

If a business person comes to him seeking an audience with the OWLS, Castens hits him up for free lunch, advertising in the group's newsletter or some other form of support for the group's many activities.

He vets each visitor, too, to make sure they're on the up and up.

Castens and others also remain on the lookout for sponsors, offering the potential of all the members frequenting shops and firms that back the group.

Diane Stoddart, a certified senior adviser for Bankers Life and Casualty, was one of the first people to take up the offer. A Northdale resident, Stoddart first led a workshop on Medicare at the Northdale Country Club - food on her dime - which 71 members attended.

Over time, Stoddart visited the OWLS luncheon quarterly, coming to gain the confidence and friendship of the members. They often ask for advice on things such as where to buy a motorized wheelchair which, she hopes, ultimately will lead to business.

"My philosophy is, if I continue to help with those things, there's going to be calls that pertain to me, so I can do my job for them," Stoddart said.

Bill Kranich, owner of J. Christopher's restaurant in Carrollwood, saw similar benefits in partnering with the OWLS. He donates food to OWLS events, offers discounts to members and makes his meeting room available to card clubs from the group, too.

In return, lots of OWLS members eat at his year-old restaurant.

"You're stupid if you don't get involved," he said matter-of-factly.

With few organizations of its kind rising to challenge its dominance, OWLS shows no sign of abating any time soon. New members like the opportunities it provides, all with no strings attached.

Come when you want, skip when you don't. OWLS has minimal governing rules, lots of good times.

And new ideas are always welcome. Ruth Zeigler began planning day trips, based on a "Discover Tampa Bay" class she once took, just days after joining about three months ago. The excursions are now scheduled through April.

"I had to do something," said Zeigler, 64, who had to move from her active RV community to Carrollwood abruptly last spring. "Now, my social life is the Northdale OWLS."

The OWLS proved a lifeline for new member Ed Gerber, too.

Gerber and his wife, Marie, moved to Odessa from suburban New York after enduring one too many snowstorms. They thought about moving to Florida's east coast, where senior centers and clubs are plentiful, but opted for "a nice community of 93 without a clubhouse."

"We were looking to gather more friends, but it's hard," said Gerber, 73, between pingpong games. "I was looking for a place just like this."

- Jeffrey S. Solochek can be reached at 813 269-5304 or solochek@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 1, 2005, 09:34:11]