Ties That Bind - Part IV

Seniors receive two key benefits from service - legacy and health
By Bret Bradigan

It wasn't going well for Chatel Powell on a sunny March morning. The unwieldy length of the fly rod was hard for her to wrestle into regular rhythms. Her wrist would bend, and the fly line would flop, rather than unfurl.

Ray Johnson, a retired school teacher and regular visitor to the classrooms of Chaparral High School, worked with the sophomore girl for a few moments. "Make sure when you're doing a forward cast, that the loop is strung out, so the line will pull itself out," he said. Sure enough, after a few moments her casts become more rhythmic, the rod tip sending an iridescent arc of line shooting through the guides and out onto the school's lawn.

"These are rods, not poles. What's the difference?" he asks. No one answers. "Poles are made of a willow branch, rods are made special for fishing; you don't just find them growing on a tree," he answers himself.

Johnson has handcrafted, or helped handcraft, several thousand rods, most of them as a teacher for volunteer projects for fly fishing clubs, school classes, and for neighborhood kids. Though it is unlikely that these students, on this particular day, will take up fly fishing with the same passion and purpose that Johnson does, they do learn to appreciate his intent, one that is informed by the experience that greater rewards are to be found in service than self.

They also learn that it takes a tremendous amount of direct involvement from thousands of people to make Ojai run.
"It's really cool of him," said Noé Rodriquez, a senior at Chaparral. "I go fishing with my dad, and someday, when I'm a dad, I'll be able to teach my son how to fish."
Powell said, "I like helping people. It sets yourself up as a role model."

The No. 1 indicator of people being involved in their community as adults is their having being involved as youth, according to Robert Putnam in "Bowling Alone." "Those of us who were involved in youth groups or did youthful volunteering are half again as likely to donate to charity as adults and twice as likely to volunteer as those of us who were not so involved as youngsters," he writes.

And for Powell and Rodriguez, despite being perceived as "at-risk" students by their enrollment at Chaparral, a continuation school, this bodes well for wherever they end up as adults. Powell played track and field and has been a cheerleader; Rodriguez played recreation league basketball. And regular visits from community volunteers such as Johnson to their classroom enhances their chances of success.

"The Children First Story," by Robert D. Ramsey, details how St. Louis Park, Minn. was facing an onslaught of trouble related to the decline of its social capital in the early 1990s; teen drug use, gang activity, racial tensions, dysfunctional families and lagging traditional values. The school superintendent, Dr. Carl Holmstrom, spoke about this at a Rotary Club meeting in 1992.

The focus of the speech was on how "we have become a self-centered society perpetuating ourselves as adults and, then if there's time left, we deal with our children. We point blame at everybody and everything else and take little responsibility ourselves. The deterioration of the family is a major impediment for young people. And while some children do receive the support they need, the achievement gap between groups of students with supportive homes and those without is widening."

The speech struck a nerve, and the Rotarians offered to donate money, but Holmstrom turned them down because there was no plan in place to spend it. He challenged them, instead, to donate not just their money, but their time. So the Children First Initiative was the formal response to that challenge. It joined forces with the Search Institute, which had developed the 40 developmental assets; the more of which were present in a child's life, the better their chances of succeeding in life and in the pursuit of happiness.

The Rotary Club of Ojai has adopted that Children First Initiative as a service project, and has enlisted the aid of a dozen or so community leaders and groups under the direction of Kym Pietsch.

The infectious nature of altruism is at work with Johnson's fly rod building or fly tying classes, as it is with the Children First Initiative. People do good for others because others have done good for them. "People of the community tend to try harder to live lives of quiet asset-building because others are watching. Expectations can be a constant source of self renewal," according to the Children First Story.

A growing body of evidence also suggests that active, engaged senior citizens such as Johnson get as good as they give.
"Social capital might actually serve as a physiological triggering mechanism, stimulating people's immune systems to fight disease and buffer stress," according to Putnam.

A dozen large studies during the past 20 years have shown that people who are socially disconnected are between two and five times more likely to die from all causes, compared with matched individuals who have close ties with family, friends and community. Other studies have linked lower death rates with membership in voluntary groups and engagement in cultural activities. In fact, if you belong to no groups, joining one group can cut your chances of dying within the next year in half.

Sometimes these medical findings are counterintuitive: researchers at the Carnegie Mellon institute have found that the more social ties you have, the fewer colds you get.
These findings are being put into practice. Roger King wrote in a 1996 article in the Gerontology Manual: "Positive adaptation leads to successful aging, This is characterized by involvement in activities that are of interest and are enjoyable; good health, social interaction, meaningful life, continual quest for new knowledge, skills and growth experiences, and sufficient financial resources. Negative adaptation to losses results in the absence of the above qualities to varying degrees.

"Of the unlimited types of leisure activities the elderly may choose to engage in, volunteering is unique in its integration of a broad range of benefits for its participants."

The seamless flow from working life to retirement does have its advantages. Johnson has learned this because he keeps in touch with several of his former students, including one standout athlete, Gary Hall, who was the starting safety for three Rose Bowl teams at the University of Southern California and is now a top officer with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

"So many of them were just outstanding people. The satisfaction, for me, was in getting to know them. That makes you feel good. Gary Hall drove all the way up here to play golf with me."

Another memorable experience was teaching Billy White. "He was just the best athlete, all through junior high through college; MVP of every team he ever played for, even though he was only 5-feet, 4-inches, 120 pounds. He now teaches special education, and the kids just adore him."

Johnson should recognize that look of adoration. He sees it in the faces of the Chaparral students when he pulls up alongside the walkway in his shiny truck, their attention turning away from the classroom toward the rod-builder, then back to each other.

© 2003 The Ojai Valley News

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