By Jim Langham

When I was a child, my life was centered around elderly people. My grandmother lived in our home and it was as though she were a second mother to me. She would take me along to visit her elderly friends in the small community where I was raised.

As I grew older, I would run errands for them; I would mow their yards, shovel their snow and take goodies to them from our family. When I became a gardner, I would take them goodies from the garden. Giving to the elderly was a way of life for me.

I remember how upset our next door neighbor, Stella, was the day her house caught on fire. I remember the visits with another neighbor, Mary, after her husband, Jake, was killed in an old Model-T Ford. I will never forget the little visits and sugar cookies she shared when I would carry in her wood and water after school.