Geezers-in-training advocate for others in the community

For some years now, I’ve played with the word “geezer,, a very old English Cockney word that means “disguise”. So to me, a geezer is a person (no gender required) with a vital spirit and hopeful outlook in the disguise of gray hair and wrinkles.

I’ve also used the term “geezer-in-training,” someone 60 years and older; but I haven’t often followed through to suggest what we are in training to do and be. We are in training, friends, to increase our capability to keep learning, even to our last breath.

I have my own biases about what I want to learn, what I need to learn in order to live the values I have decided guide my life. You have your own biases, too, as well you should. I do hope, however, your biases don’t start and stop with yourself. I hope you have a passion for other people.

I strongly believe that one training all geezers do well to remember is to keep both an inner and outer balance in caring for yourself and caring for others — in your family and in the community. That balance nourishes us as individuals; but it also nourishes our interdependence on everyone and everything around us.

With that introduction, I want to invite you to think of how you can be an advocate for other persons. Advocacy is a great word that asks us to speak out and act out for other persons. I see so many persons in Bonner County speaking and acting to make our community safe and nourishing.

But the needs for that safe and nourishment are unending. I offer you one great way we can advocate for others. It’s called The Walk to End Alz-heimer’s. Dementia comes in a surprisingly large number of ways; and Alzheimer’s disease is by far the most common.

Every last Saturday of September, North Idaho does its part to raise funds and awareness about the physical and emotional devastation brought on by Alzheimer’s. So there will be a Walk to End Alzheimer’s in Coeur d’Alene on Saturday, Sept. 29.

The Geezer Forum is signed up to sponsor a team to walk that day, as we did last September. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take part this year.

However, we can still field a team if we can do two things:

1. Find a person to be the captain of that team;

2. Recruit people who want to walk and who will contact their friends to donate to that walk. If you want to join the Geezer Forum team as captain or walker, please let me know.

The Sept. 29 walk is a three-mile walk loop from McEuen Park in Coeur d’Alene over to the walking trail around North Idaho Community College. Donations are not determined by how far we walk, but because we walk.

If you want to walk, but not as part of the Geezer Forum team, there are other walking teams organized in Bonner County. If you contact me, I will be glad to point you in their direction.

Also, you certainly don’t need to be a geezer-in-training to make this walk. I’ve seen preschool children marching along (or ahead) of their parents, and parents pushing infants in strollers. It’s a great family outing, and wonderful training for being part of a caring community.

Please consider joining The Walk to End Alzheimer’s.

Paul Graves, M.Div., is Lead Geezer-in-Training for Elder Advocates, a consulting ministry on aging issues. Contact Paul at 208-610-4971 or elderadvocates@nctv.com.