Overheard at Senior Homes (Part 2)

A senior home resident displays her self-portrait woodcut print.

I teach writing and printmaking classes at senior homes in Los Angeles. Over the years, I’ve kept a journal of the memorable things I’ve seen and heard.

While teaching at a memory care facility in Glendale, I noticed a resident wearing a name tag sticker inscribed with the name “Eugene.” Midway through class, a female resident pulled off the man’s name tag and stuck it to her own blouse. Eugene saw the woman wearing his name tag and asked, “If you’re Eugene, then who the hell am I?”

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At a senior home in Woodland Hills, a resident escaped from the memory care unit. Staff and local police searched a two-mile area around the facility. The 78-year-old woman was found in an oak tree, clinging to a thick branch over the 101 Freeway.

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At a senior writing class in Chatsworth, an 83-year old man named William wrote a story about surviving a brain aneurysm. He had emergency surgery and woke in a hospital room confused and scared. He noticed a small bird poised on the ledge outside the window. This calmed him as if the bird was a visiting angel. William remained in the hospital for six weeks. The bird visited every morning and William named him Peter (after actor Peter Finch). William read his story aloud in class. After he was finished, we heard tapping on the window. I opened the…