Author Archives for Herb Weiss

Pros Can Win the War Against Clutter

Published in Senior Digest on March 2005

In the early 1980s, I would go into Mort Rosen’s spacious apartment in Bethesda, Md., and find it totally filled to the brim with clutter. The former nursing home operator’s kitchen table, dining room table, coffee table and every available flat surface were piled high with old magazines, catalogs, bills and letters.

Mort, like many, did not believe in the annual ritual of spring cleaning to carefully cull the mountains of paper and accumulated clutter that somehow grew each year. When my good friend tragically died, his family was left with the monumental task of cleaning out his apartment.

After a quick look over by his children, years of clutter were unceremoniously tossed into dozens of large trash Hefty bags to be thrown away.

Cruse the Internet or go into Boarders Books and you will find a growing number of resources available to fight the war on clutter. Today, a growing number of seniors and their families are turning to professional organizers to keep the piles of clutter to a minimum.

Helene Parenteau of Organizing Specialists has been leading a fight against clutter since 1982. Working part time for 18 years as a professional organizer, she kept a day job as a news producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. But with her business and reputation growing throughout Southern New England. Parenteau took the leap to faith into a new full-time career in 2000.

Parenteau takes her job and profession seriously. She’s a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers. The Georgia-based group represents 2,000 organizers nationwide.

At $ 40 per hour, Parenteau offers an array of consulting services to her clients. She says that “general organizing and “de-cluttering” are required for those whose lives have become so busy that they just don’t have time to care of general house upkeep.

According to Parenteau, her senior downsizing business has picked up in the last 10 years. “We really work on more of the psychological and emotional levels. In your later years, it becomes so hard to make a decision on letting go of lifelong possessions and moving into a smaller living space,” she says, noting that anxiety cause by downsizing is up there with death and divorce.

Parenteau will work side-by-side with seniors, listening to their needs and concerns, weeding out unneeded items an assessing what should be kept. She helps clients choose what furniture to take to ensure a comfortable placement and fit in their new home. “I try to keep the process from getting overwhelming,” she said.

In addition, Parenteau will itemize possessions that clients want to donate and will cart them away to the charities of their choice.

Finally, Parenteau will assist people with moving, specifically the tasks of packing and unpacking. By working together with her clients, clutter can be thrown away and not transported to a new location.

“It takes about three months to downsize a home, and it takes between three to four days to pack up an average-size house for a move,” she said.

To keep from hiring unscrupulous helpers, always hire a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers, Parenteau recommends. “Get client references and have a sit-down consult with the organizer to make sure they are truly listening to your needs. You want an organizer your comfortable with,” Parenteau said.

She can be reached at (978) 828-2683.

When getting rid of clutter, sometimes one person’s trash becomes another person’s jewel, says Jake Winokur, proprietor of Lost Treasurers Antiques and Collectibles. More than 100 dealers and 240 cosigners sells their collectibles out of his 5,000 square-foot store in Seekonk.

“Before you dispose of any collectibles, call a dealer to look at it,” Winokur suggests. “One person found out a painting was worth $ 20,000. Another person’s pottery and porcelain was worth $ 8,000.

Generally dealers will pay 40 to 50 percent of the item’s worth because they have to make a living,” Winokur says, noting that the value of a collectible is tied to where it is sold. Something in Rhode Island may be worth $ 50 while it may be valued at $150 in another section of the country.

Finally, when a person dies or enters a nursing facility, the total contents of the house are up for grabs. Wayn

e Patenaude and Glenn Carroll of Antique and Decorating Warehouse in Warren, can be hired to organize an estate sale or buyout the contents of a whole house.

For a percentage of the amount raised through the sale, Patenaude says his company will organize a sale, price each item, advertise and be on site for at least two days to sell the items.

“We have found that estate sales are the best way to liquidate higher priced items along with everyday items, even cleaning supplies,” he said.

Patenaude urges that when you seek out a company to organize an estate sale, always get references to determine the firm’s track record and check for complains filed with the Better Business Bureau.

For those who need help to haul away clutter, Steve Levinson of the Woonsocket=based ACE Transport LTD is at your service. ACE Transport employees come in to pack up the clutter and remove it from a residential or commercial property.

“People use us because they just can’t get motivated to do it themselves, Levinson says.

In many cases after children go through their deceased parents houses, they find years of personal items from old report cards, drawings and clothes to toys.

“The children just call us up and say,” ‘Come clean out the house,’ They just don’t want the junk,” Levinson said.

A Tale of 2 Couples

Finding Love and Romance Later in Life

Published in Senior Digest in February 2005

When young couples recite, “Till death do us part,” they expect their marriages will last for the rest of their lives.

The reality is that many don’t for a variety of reasons, including divorce. And as the divorce rate continues to climb, the number of single aging baby boomers and seniors continues to increase.

Citing the U.S. Census Bureau, a September 2003 article in AARP The Magazine states, “Of the 97 million Americans who are 45 and over, almost 40 percent — 36.2 million – are on the loose.

The dating scene for those singles can be daunting, stressful, especially for the ones who are rusty in the art of dating. Newly uncoupled older persons quickly realize that the rules have changed over the years. And singles in their 60s or 70s may find it more difficult to connect with a partner if they have chronic disorders.

Sometimes fate – “being in the “right place at the right time” – is what it takes to bring single seniors together. Independent radio producer, writer and speaker Connie Goldman can attest to that.

Five years ago, Goldman, 74, reconnected with 77-year-old Ken Tilsen, a retired lawyer who teaches at Hamline University Law School, located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., area. A divorcee, Goldman went back to the Minneapolis area (her birth place) for a book signing at nearby Stillwater. Tilson’s daughter, who owned the bookstore, brought her widow father to the event to meet the author.

Goldman had almost 20 years of marriage under her belt before her divorce. Tilsen became a widower after a half century of marriage. While they were married, Goldman, Tilsen and their respective spouses socialized with each other in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

“We were all having babies and I knew his wife,” Goldman remembers.

A stint at the Washington, DC-based National Public Radio would take Goldman away from Minnesota. Ultimately, she would relocate to Southern California to pursue her career in radio. Tilsen stayed in the Midwest, practicing law.

After their reunion at the bookstore, Goldman would later return to the area for another visit. A six-hour lunch would propel the couple into a long distance relationship.

Daily telephone calls, emails and trips back and forth between the Twin Cities area and Southern California, would finally push the older couple to make a late life commitment to live together, bringing Goldman back from the West Coast.

Joining the almost 10 million older couples cohabiting in 2000, Goldman and Tilsen would not legalize their relationship. “Getting married was just too complicated,” she said, “in figuring out how to put all the finances together. We’re as committed as if we were married.”

Goldman says that a lot of thought must be given to taking on a committed relationship win your later years. “You don’t have long life in front of you, it is not like your’e mating at a younger age. People in their 70s have to look realistically at a shorter life span,” she says, adding that when one partner becomes ill, the other takes on the role of a caregiver.

“You need to look at the changes that aging brings when you get into a later life relationship,” suggests Goldman. “There are things that will come up that will change the pace of what you do and the way you do things,” she adds, noting that her partner’s recent health problems has slowed them both down.

Being single for 35 years, Goldman was forced to learn to take care of herself and to become independent. With her five-year committed relationship, there would be many lifestyle changes “when it was not just ‘me’ but ‘us'” she says.

While the workplace and church are still the best “traditional” places for aging baby boomers and seniors to meet potential mates, matchmaking services and the Internet are growing in popularity as ways to connect.

During his 20 years of being single, Dr. Ray Whitman, 68, a Rockville, Md. resident has sought to meet the right companion at his yoga organization, through personal ads placed in the Washington Post and Washington Magazine, and by being fixed up.

Another avenue that has been useful for Whitman is the internet. “The internet provides more information about a person and can enable you to find somebody to share your interests,” Whitman tells Senior Digest, noting that he has used internet dating services such as E-Harmony.com and Match.com.

Using E-Harmony.com is a bargain when looking for love, says Whitman. The Internet dating service cost s less than $ 30 a month, less expensive than taking a date to a good restaurant.

Through E-Harmony.com, Whitman met Nancy Monro, 62 about three months ago.

A retired nurse and widow, Monro found it easier to use the service than to begin dating because it provides lot of information about prospective dates as well as a safe way to communicate.

Whitman says the fact that Monro had a stable marriage of 40 years initially attracted him to her. “She was also open to the spiritual dimensions, art and music,” he said.

Deborah Beauvais, who operates a Rehobeth, Mass based company, Empowered Connections (www.lovebyintution.com) has provided matchmaking services to more than 100 people. The former executive health care recruiter established her personalized matchmaking company and used intuition to bring people together.

A newspaper columnist, Beauvais also hosts Love Bites on WARL 1320 in Providence. The show is one hour, and it covers a myriad of relationship and dating issues.

While she believes that people can misrepresent themselves on Internet dating services, she spends a lot of time trying to weed out information to find that “perfect match.”

“I meet with people and I look them in the eye, asking the over 50 personal questions,” Beauvais shares. Questions range from how they feel about dating people with children, smoking, pets, politics and sex. “People have to be on the same page on sex for the relationship to work,” she says.

For an initial $375 fee, Beauvais will ask her questions and do a simple background check. She even briefs both parties before their date, revealing interesting points to each person. “It is important to give them the do’s and don’ts in conversation,” she says, such as don’t talk angrily about your ex.

“I become their advocate to find the right person within my pool of clients or will identify others that would be a fit,” she says.

For older couples, Beauvais suggests that matchmaking may be the way to get back in the game. However, she warns that it is important to be independent and heal before jumping into a long-term relationship.


Bush will fight to Privatize Social Security

Published in Senior Digest on January 2005

The Bush administration and aging groups are about to battle over the privatization of Social Security.

More than four years ago, the 16-member Presidential Commission divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats, voted unanimously to send its 165-page final report to the Bush White House. The charge of the commission was to develop a road map to reform the nation’s Social Security program.

With the commission kicking off the Social Security reform debate by releasing this report in December 2001, the federal panel called for three approaches to change the 70-year-old federal program.  All the recommendations involved personal accounts, with a premise that workers’ investments would yield higher retirement benefits.

With President Bush keeping control of the White House and the GOP retaining control of Congress, Social Security is again under attack and the debate is expected to heat up.

According to recent Business Week On-Line article by Richard S. Dunham, Bush will begin to sell the partial privatization of Social Security by launching a “marketing blitz.”

“Advisors say the president, who sees private accounts as essential to his ownership society agenda, is determined to make retirement reform his top domestic priority for 2005,” Dunham wrote.

According to Dunham, Bush’s “three-phase sales plan” started with his Dec. 12 radio address Bush followed by calling for privatization of Social Security at his economic summit on Dec. 16.

Phase Two, a $ 40 million broadcast advertising campaign underwritten by nation’s corporations will tout the economic benefits of allowing workers to put a portion of their payroll taxes into investment accounts and the negative impact of inaction.  Dunham wrote Phase Three would give the public the specifics.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that Bush had his work cut out for him to sell the public. Results showed people are skeptical about any changes to Social Security, and that the public believes it is a bad idea to let workers risk their Social Security taxes in the stock market.

Critics are quick to pounce on Bush for his calls for radical changes to Social Security. They charge that the securities industry which heavily supported Republican candidates in the last election, would benefit financially under the president’s plan.

“Wall Street and big business are seated at the conference table-where are the voices of seniors?” asked Barbara Kennelly, president and chief executive officer of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“This seems like a repeal of the president’s Social  Security Commission, where privatization wasn’t debated. It was a foregone conclusion – and that is a sure path to bad public policy,” she said in a prepared statement released after the White Houe Economic Conference.

Furthermore, Kennelly said that “a carefully orchestrated conference can’t hide the fact that privatizing Social Security may result in cuts in benefits and will dismantle Social Security, while dramatically increasing our nation’s debt.”

Just blocks away at the National Press Club, a diverse coalition of groups held a press conference on the day of Bush’s economic summit. The assembled groups, including the AFL-CIO, NAACP, National Organization for Women (NOW), disability groups, and the Alliance for Retired Americans, announced their strong opposition to Bush plan.

Those groups are part of the Campaign for America’s Future, which intends to mobilize opposition in every congressional district throughout the nation to Save Social Security benefits that would be slashed by the president’s plan.

At the news conference, George J. Kourpias, president of the 3 million plus member Alliance for Retired Americans,” told the crowd that the Social Security system is not broke or in the dire trouble Bush would have American’s believe.

“Let me remind those naysayers who conspired not to save Social Security but to bury it, that Social Security hasn’t missed a paycheck in almost 70  years, Kourpias said.

“With some changes designed to strengthen and secure the program, Social Security is well positioned to keep delivering monthly checks to millions of Americans for decades to come.”

Adds, NOW President Kim Gandy, “Social Security is not in trouble. George Bush is in trouble. More than half of elderly women would live in poverty without the benefits of this guaranteed insurance program. This destructive proposal is effectively economic violence against women- he’s risking our livelihoods to satisfy Wall Street donors and corporate cronies.

AARP President Marie Smith is also weighing in on the privatization issue by placing an open letter to 33 million plus members, on the nonprofit group’s Web site

Smith counters Bush’s statements that Social Security is in danger of going broke. Changes do not have to be drastic, she says. “Creating private accounts would only weaken Social Security and put benefits at risk for future generations.”

Smith estates that a new Social Security system would cost the nation as much as $2 trillion or more in benefit cuts new taxes or more debt.

In Rhode Island, a quick poll of the state’s Democratic U.S. senators and congressmen indicate that they oppose Bush’s retirement policy gamble. (Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee’s position could not be obtained). While each oppose the concept of privatization, the lawmakers are waiting to see the specific legislative proposals that will be introduced.

But even with Bush pushing for a major Social Security overhaul, only a bipartisan coalition of congressional lawmakers can either strengthen the existing Social Security program or scrap it through privatization.

It is crucial for seniors to send a message to Bush and the Republican congressional leadership that it’s time to go back to the drawing board to examine other approaches to strengthen America’s most popular domestic program.