Overheard at Senior Homes (Part 6)

A student in one of my senior printmaking workshops.

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.

At a senior home in Lomita, I noticed two men playing chess in the activity room. In lieu of chess pieces, they used empty medicine bottles. One of the men, a retired doctor, told me the ivory chess pieces were stolen so they replaced them with pharmaceutical bottles. I asked how they determined which chess piece corresponded with each medication. “Easy,” the doctor said. “Pawns are the most common like Statins since everyone’s on Statins. Rooks are defensive pieces like Beta-Blockers that defend your heart. Oxycodone is an opioid so it relates to Bishops since religion is the opioid of the masses. Potassium pills are big like horse pills so they’re the Knights that ride horses. Anti-depressants are for Queens since women are always complaining. And Laxatives are Kings since they’re the king of all medication and cause you to sit on a throne.”

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I met a woman at a Hollywood senior home who moved to the facility after losing her house in the Palisades fire. She returned to the property four months later and hired workers to clear the rubble. One of the workers asked if there was anything she hoped to find in the ashes. She said there was a rock carved with the word “Love.” It had…