Disability not a black-and-white issue

By Jon Peirce

If you’re like most people, you tend to divide the world into two groups: those who are fully physically abled, and those who are disabled. In this typology, the latter group is made up of people with visible or at least readily discernible disabilities: those in wheelchairs or using walkers or canes to get around, those whose eyesight is so poor that they can no longer drive and need special technology to be able to read, those with emphysema or other lung conditions requiring oxygen in order to breathe, or those whose dementia has reached the point where they require constant supervision.

The reality is much more complex. Disability, certainly for those of us age 65 and over, is generally not an either-or proposition, but a spectrum or continuum. After a certain point, the question isn’t whether one has some kind of disability, but what kind of disability one has and how its effects play out in daily life.

One example of a disability that may not be immediately apparent but that is nonetheless very real is the all-too-common enlarged prostate requiring twice-hourly trips to the washroom. Other examples include hearing difficulties that make it hard to hear in conversational situations where more than one person at a time is speaking and certain types of arthritis that don’t prevent one from walking but do make it hard to sit for long periods of time or to get up from low seats. Walking around in our midst are all sorts of folks fully capable of doing a good day’s work, but who could more easily pass through the proverbial needle’s eye than get up from the floor unassisted, or sit through a two-hour meeting without bathroom and stretch breaks.

What makes these partial disability issues more complex than the types of issues referred to in the first paragraph is that it isn’t always clear to the partially disabled individual whether he or she should acknowledge the partial disability, particularly in situations that might involve a request for help or accommodation. When do you play that “handicapped” card? Many of us (including yours truly) are feeling our way through a maze of ambiguity here.

To give just one example: the arthritis in my hips is almost certainly severe enough to entitle me to put a handicapped sticker on my car. But I have thus far refrained from doing so, largely because I don’t like the optics of driving into my tennis club with a handicapped sticker on my car. (Against all apparent good sense, I continue to play tennis as well as swim and dance, partly out of the fear that if I stop doing these things, my muscles and joints will atrophy and my condition will worsen).

Given that many people with partial disabilities aren’t always clear about acknowledging them, it’s hardly surprising that public policy hasn’t progressed very far in this area. The one notable exception is legislation concerning doorknobs, which are often a problem for boomers, particularly those who aren’t very big or who have issues with shoulder mobility. Various cities have long been addressing this problem for public buildings, requiring them to use accessible levers rather than knobs. Now the city of Vancouver has gone one step farther. Last November, it amended its building code to outlaw the use of doorknobs in all new buildings, including private homes. The ban became effective this March. A similar ban is being considered here in Halifax, NS, though no decision has been taken as yet.

With regard to most areas of life, however, partial disability remains a grey area. For instance, what to do about items placed on a bottom shelf 2" off the floor in the grocery store? (I avoid buying such items whenever possible, but when I absolutely must buy them, I will now ask a store clerk for help). At what stage of disability should one feel free, on an overcrowded bus, to ask a fully abled younger person to give up their seat? (I have thus far refrained from doing this, though many fully-abled people have given me their seats voluntarily). This list could go on. Complicating matters still further is the fact that certain types of partial or even near-total disability, notably those arising from severe arthritis of the knee or hip, may indeed be reversible (e.g., through joint-replacement surgery).

Normally, one adapts to such conditions by making changes to one’s living arrangements, such as buying furniture that’s easier to get in and out of or even moving to a one-storey building to avoid stairs. The potential reversibility of your condition raises the question of just how far you should go in modifying your surroundings. Does it make sense to move to a one-storey building when, in a year or two (or perhaps sooner) you will again be able to negotiate stairs with your new knee or hip? Here again, there are obviously no hard-and-fast rules. You must balance the inconvenience and expense of short-to-medium-term adaptations such as moving or replacement of hard-to-use furniture against the improvement in your quality of life that will result, almost immediately, from your being more in tune with your immediate surroundings.

Adding to the uncertainty (at least for those contemplating joint replacements) is the fact that one never knows exactly when one will be called in for surgery. I’ve been told I’ll receive one month’s notice when my name comes up on the hip replacement list. What one can tolerate for six months or a year may be quite different from what one can tolerate for two or three years. What assumptions should one make about the likely date of one’s procedure?

In short, the “answer” for how to deal with partial disability is that there aren’t many easy answers. Make no mistake: you are frequently in situations where you must make important decisions based on severely inadequate information, often decisions with significant cost implications that could have a major impact on your quality of life. The prime requisites for living with a partial disability, I’ve concluded after some years of trying to deal with one, are a high tolerance for ambiguity and a good sense of humour, something I don’t always find easy to maintain on cold, wet mornings when my knee sounds like the middle shelf of the hardware store every time I take a step.

To be continued! In the meantime, if grocery and drug stores could put their lowest shelves twelve inches off the ground instead of two, many boomers would be grateful. So would the store clerks who currently have to do our low bending for us



This article is another in a series by Jon Peirce, a retired professor and union representative and long-time free-lance journalist, on subjects of interest to boomers. Some of Jon’s previous work has appeared in such publications as The Globe & Mail, the Christian Science Monitor, the Ottawa Citizen, Books in Canada, the Toronto Star, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, and the Kingston Whig-Standard. Jon currently writes, teaches writing courses at the Nova Scotia Seniors’ College, and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Silver Economy Engagement Network, all of this while doing an M.A. in history at Dalhousie. He is a professional member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. His interests include tennis, swimming, improvisational dance, and cooking, and he has recently returned to the stage after a 46-year intermission, playing Judge Omar Gaffney in a Dartmouth Players production of Harvey. His second book, Social Studies; Collected Essays, 1974-2013, has just been published by Friesen’s Press in Victoria; his first book, Canadian Industrial Relations, originally published in 1999, is now in its third edition with Pearson Education Canada.

photo credit: wikicommons

Changing the paradigm of boomers and retirement

Editor's Note: Bevan Rogel is the president and founder of Encore Tampa Bay, an organization that helps Baby Boomers understand the exciting new stage of life development where anything is possible. This article was originally posted on the Encore Tampa Bay website.

Recently, Marc Freedman was honored with the Social Entrepreneur of the Year award at the World Economic Forum. Freedman is the founder of Encore.org (formerly Civic Ventures) and a primary thought leader for the encore social-change movement.

One of Freedman’s latest articles focuses on the confusion and ongoing contradictions of the “structural lag” that drastically changes lives related to work and retirement. Social institutions, organizations and public policy seem to be stuck in the “Del Webb era” of a life of leisure while at the same time, our country is experiencing a 50 percent increase in the percentage of Americans 65 and older continuing to work in some capacity.

For those stuck in the old paradigm, boomers that choose a life of leisure are viewed as a drain on our economy and society. On the other hand, the growing surge of older Americans staying in the workforce are viewed as “greedy geezers” occupying jobs some believe are better suited for younger workers.

"I believe that there is not a 'Silver Tsunami' here but a 'Silver Lining,'” Freedman said. “Never before have so many people had so much experience, time and capacity to put those assets to great use. It is all in how we look at this – we need to make a paradigm shift!"

I was invited to speak at the Spark Growth Leadership Conference in Bradenton, Florida. I participated in a panel on “Innovation: The Treasure Hunt of Talent." Mireya Eavey, executive director of CareerEdge, talked about how CareerEdge is leveraging community assets and matching those assets with industries that are still in need of older, experienced workers. Amy Rettig, senior vice president at Nielsen Media, explained how Nielsen capitalizes on the many generations in the workforce.

In preparing for this panel, I found numerous examples of organizations that are successfully engaging, recruiting and helping older workers transition into retirement. A recent survey by SHRM and AARP found that 60 percent of human resource executives are implementing new practices in all of the above areas. A Sloan Center of Work and Aging (Boston College) study described best practices such as workplace flexibility, retooling, phased retirement, job-role-shift programs, part-time, on-call and Encore on-call where retirees come back to do project work, consulting or mentoring.

There are also great examples of organizations making this paradigm shift right here in Tampa Bay. Patina Solutions is a place where seasoned professionals want to continue working in a fast, flexible way on an interim basis. Boomerswork provides services that can match boomers who are out of the workforce with businesses in need of high-level part time or project work.

It’s time to take a fresh look at this incredible opportunity that can benefit not only the people who are approaching this age but also the organizations that have the foresight to tap into this boomer talent.

Here are the fundamental keys to this social innovation:

Changing our perceptions of what work can look like for all generations.

Changing the paradigm for this stage of life – from one of seclusion and deterioration to one of generativity and positive aging.

Changing the language, the culture and policies that embrace this new windfall of talent in our community and organizations.

What are some examples of this paradigm shift in your organization? Join the conversation!

Seniors are most eager learners

By Jon Peirce

This Thursday afternoon, as I have done every Thursday afternoon since late April, I will walk into a small classroom at the Bloomfield Community Centre, where the Seniors’ College of Nova Scotia (SCANS) has its headquarters, and greet my class of 12 aspiring writers, all of whom are at least 50 and most of whom are well into their 60s or older. I may start off our two-hour session by giving a few pointers about writing, but as likely as not, we will proceed directly to the pieces themselves, moving either in direct or reverse alphabetical order.

The “rules of engagement” are simple. Students may write in any genre they wish—poetry, prose fiction, prose non-fiction. I’ve already had a children’s story, a children’s poem, and a scene from a play, and I expect more surprises in the two weeks we have left together. The only caveat is that pieces must be relatively short (preferably not more than 1,000 words long and definitely not more than 1,500 words, or 10 minutes’ reading time). The length restriction is necessary to give every student a chance to share in each class.

Each student reads his or her piece out loud. We then proceed to an open discussion and critiquing of the piece, which the author will usually have sent out to the class by e-mail a day or two before the class. I encourage students to be as positive as possible in their critiques, while still being honest, and to focus, in class, on big-picture issues such as structure, tone, and point of view, providing detailed criticism on matters such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation by e-mail rather than taking up class time with such matters.

Over the five weeks since the class started, I’ve been equally impressed by the variety of pieces produced by my students and by their diligence in producing them. Bear in mind that the Seniors’ College is a non-credit institution. Its courses have no formal assignments, no grades, no papers, and no exams. So people are writing simply for the love of it: because they want to write and have their pieces critiqued in a friendly, non-threatening environment by their fellow writers.

Even more impressive is my students’ commitment to the workshop. Attendance has averaged about 90 percent. Those who can’t make a class generally notify me in advance. This is a most pleasant and marked contrast to my experience, earlier in my career, teaching “standard-age” university students. There, attendance was often spotty, and getting a discussion going could be well-nigh impossible. After more years of that than I care to remember, I find it a pleasure to be teaching people who want to be there and who always come prepared to engage the subject.

The Writers’ Workshop, which is the fourth course I have taught for SCANS since the beginning of 2013, is just one of 24 courses SCANS currently offers. (Aside from the Bloomfield Centre in Halifax, SCANS courses are or have been offered at Keshen Goodman Library in Clayton Park and in Dartmouth, Bedford, Tantallon, Chester, Mahone Bay, Truro, and Liverpool). Among the other courses being offered this term are “Interesting Mathematics,” “Historical Dynamics of Clothes and Fashion,” and “Development of the Atlantic Provinces,” as well as courses in Japanese history, music appreciation, philosophy of art, art history, and an introduction to Islam. Like me, most of my fellow instructors have graduate degrees from major universities and have been full-time professors in the past. In addition, some have extensive practical experience in the fields in which they offer courses.

For example, the Japanese history instructor spent over a decade in Japan as a scholar and financial analyst. The music appreciation instructor taught music in the Halifax public schools for more than 30 years, and even in retirement has continued to conduct, perform, and compose and arrange music. And the instructor in “Historical Dynamics of War, Law & History,” a retired career legal officer with the Canadian Forces, was a member of the Commission of Experts appointed by the U.N. Security Council to investigate allegations of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

Who can take SCANS courses? The courses are open to all seniors (age 50 or over) living in Nova Scotia. A single annual membership fee of $135 allows you to take as many courses as you want (subject to class-size limitations) during the three semesters after you join. You may also attend any of the occasional special lectures, such as one held recently on Glenn Gould, take part in general membership meetings, and participate in making recommendations for courses.

SCANS was created in 2007 by a Task Force from the Association of Dalhousie Retirees and Pensioners. It started with just over 100 members and its initial offering was four courses. Since then, its membership has expanded at the rate of about 20 percent per year, and the College, as noted above, has begun offering courses in many centres around the province.[1]

SCANS is part of what appears to be a much broader movement to provide non-credit courses to older learners. In Cape Breton, Cape Breton University has had a similar organization in place since 2005, offering courses since 2005. In southern New Brunswick and northern Nova Scotia, Tantramar Seniors’ College offers the seniors of Moncton, Riverview, Port Elgin, Dorchester, and Shediac, N.B. and Amherst, N.S. unlimited courses for a yearly membership fee of $100. And a similar organization offers non-credit courses for seniors in Queens, Kings, and Prince Counties, P.E.I.

Nor are these ventures confined to Canada. The state of Maine, to give just one example, has a Senior College Network of 17 independent groups across the state, offering non-credit courses to those over age 50 for a small annual membership fee plus a modest tuition charge for each course.

The growing popularity of Seniors’ Colleges attests that an increasingly large number of boomers are interested in keeping their minds as well as their bodies active well into old age. Clearly non-credit education for seniors is an idea whose time has come!

This article is part of a series by Jon Peirce, a retired professor and union representative and long-time free-lance journalist, on subjects of interest to boomers. Some of Jon’s previous work has appeared in such publications as The Globe & Mail, the Christian Science Monitor, the Ottawa Citizen, Books in Canada, the Toronto Star, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, and the Kingston Whig-Standard. Jon currently writes, teaches writing courses at the Nova Scotia Seniors’ College, and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Silver Economy Engagement Network, all of this while doing an M.A. in history at Dalhousie. He is a professional member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. His interests include tennis, swimming, improvisational dance, and cooking, and he has recently returned to the stage after a 46-year intermission, playing Judge Omar Gaffney in a Dartmouth Players production of Harvey. His second book, Social Studies; Collected Essays, 1974-2013, is forthcoming from Friesen’s Press in Victoria; his first book, Canadian Industrial Relations, originally published in 1999, is now in its third edition with Pearson Education Canada.

[1] Information for this paragraph has been drawn from Melissa Shaw, “Seniors college experiences strong enrolment growth,” in Unews.ca, Feb. 11, 2013.

Boomers redefine retirement through encore careers

Baby boomers have been the trendsetters of society for decades, and what they want informs more changes than any generation has before. It makes sense that boomers should redefine retirement through encore careers. But a lot of people don't know what an encore career is or how the process works. The concept is working well for a lot of boomers. Here are a few reasons why:

A Backup Plan

Often boomers are the targets of layoffs because they tend to have the highest pay grades and are seen as having the least amount of working time left. If you think of it from the perspective of a 35-year-old boss, would you rather keep the trainable 23-year-old recent graduate or the 60-year-old boomer who may be perceived as out of step or behind the times?

For better or worse, layoffs and downsizing are still a part of the American corporate landscape. Many boomers who used to fear for their financial security have now found that encore careers in a new field or different positions in the same field can open up interesting opportunities to stay connected to the workforce. Employers are recognizing the value and expertise of boomers, too, opting for part-time or consulting assignments to boost areas of their businesses.


Building the New Three-Legged Stool

The old three-legged stool was Social Security, personal savings and a defined-benefit pension. Social Security benefits are not increasing alongside consumer prices and the entire program is running a deficit. Defined-benefit pensions are almost as extinct as the woolly mammoth. The national savings rate is near the lowest levels it has ever been, which makes encore careers the best way for seniors to build a new stool. Encore careers provide possibilities for part-time work, part-time entrepreneurial pursuits or even experimenting in career paths that you never even considered before, enabling boomers to let their savings to continue to grow.


Pursuing Your Passions

Encore careers let you retire from one workplace and start something entirely different. Perhaps you made a career in the sciences but you always felt that you had the charisma for sales, or maybe you considered being a programmer back in the '70s but didn't see a future in it at the time. While you can't live in the past, you can explore areas you are passionate about.


Enjoying New-Found Freedom

Working isn't always about exploring the path less traveled or keeping your head above water. Sometimes it's about meeting new people and having the freedom to enjoy yourself in new ways. You may have faced a lot of stress in your previous career, but the freedom of an encore career on your own terms opens up a lot of possibilities.

Learn more about being matched with employers seeking experienced talent for flexible employment opportunities.

photo credit: SalFalko via photopin cc

Train Service Still on the Rails—For Now

By Jon Peirce

On Wednesday, June 11, I will board VIA Rail’s “Ocean” train in Halifax for the 22-hour trip to Montreal.

It’s a trip I have made dozens of times since my arrival in Canada in 1970. I love everything about the train, from the relaxed pace of travel to the freedom from my usual routine and the opportunity to meet all sorts of fascinating people in the dining and lounge cars.

As a writer, I find the freedom from daily routine exhilarating, and a strong stimulus to reflection and creative thought. Much of my best work over the years has been done while I was riding back and forth between Halifax and Montreal. As a grad student in English, I did much of my course reading on those marvelous, long train rides. More recently, three of my published newspaper pieces had their genesis on the train.

I also appreciate not having to put up with anything connected with flying, which over the years has degenerated from a glorious adventure to a form of torture. (Globe & Mail writer Konrad Yakabuski recently said flying makes the Book of Job look like a fairy tale). The problems include, among other things, cramped seating, narrow aisles with low ceilings, appalling washroom facilities, terrible or non-existent food, long lines at security counters, lost and damaged luggage, and marathon-length treks between departure gates, not to mention costly and time-consuming trips to and from airports.

When I booked my train ticket several months ago, I thought I might be preparing to make my last trip on the “Ocean.” Until early May, there was a very real chance that the train would be discontinued, which would, quite unbelievably, have left the entire Atlantic region without any passenger train service whatsoever.

Fortunately, this isn’t going to happen. On May 12, Atlantic Canadians received some excellent news with the announcement that VIA Rail had agreed to spend $10.2 million to repair tracks in northern New Brunswick used for passenger rail service to the Maritimes.

The deal, announced by federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, provides for repairs to a 70-kilometer stretch of track between Miramichi and Bathurst. Previously, CN Rail, which owns the line, had said it would abandon it, while for its part, VIA Rail had said it couldn’t afford to buy or maintain the Miramichi-Bathurst track. Without this track, the Montreal-Halifax passenger service could not have continued to operate.

According to Dartmouth-Cole Harbour MP Robert Chisholm, one of those most heavily involved in attempting to save the train, the deal followed a lengthy and intensive lobbying campaign by the local municipalities that would have been affected by the loss of the train, as well as groups like Transport Action Canada, the union Unifor, and the federal New Democratic Party. In addition, thousands of individuals signed petitions and wrote letters to their MPs, and in March three Halifax-area MPs rode the train from Halifax to Ottawa in a bid to raise awareness of the need to retain the service.

Although passenger train service to Atlantic Canada has been saved, that service is far from healthy or robust. The “Ocean,” the only train still serving the region, runs just three times a week in each direction. As recently as two years ago, it was making six weekly round-trips. (The reduction from six trips a week to three appears to have cost the train significant ridership, as many people couldn’t spare the time to wait over in Montreal for the return leg of the trip).

Worse still, a large part of Atlantic Canada has been unserved by passenger train service for many years. In Nova Scotia, this includes all of Cape Breton Island, everywhere in the province northeast of Truro, the South Shore, and the Annapolis Valley. In New Brunswick, unserved areas include the cities of Saint John and Fredericton, as well as the entire southern part of the province west of Moncton.

Today’s skeletal service is a far cry from the service available to Atlantic Canadians when I arrived in Halifax as a student in 1970. There were two daily round-trips between Halifax and Montreal, both of which offered connections to and from northeastern Nova Scotia and Sydney. A third train ran daily between Montreal and Saint John. There was also dayliner service between Moncton and Saint John and between Halifax and Yarmouth. More than once I took that dayliner to Yarmouth to connect with the Bluenose ferry headed to Maine.

Why has Canada’s passenger rail service been allowed to deteriorate as it has? The reasons are too numerous and too complex to explore in detail here. But one of them, surely, as Ted Bartlett notes in an excellent article in the May 5 Chronicle-Herald, has been a strong anti-rail bias within Transport Canada throughout the past half-century. As Bartlett says, “Of the 24 transport ministers of various political persuasions who have held office since 1964, only three are known to have been openly pro-rail.” One of the results of this anti-rail bias within Transport Canada has been successive waves of cutbacks to VIA Rail passenger service under governments of both parties, the worst cuts coming in 1981, in 1990, in 2004-5, and now under the present government.

The effect of all these cutbacks has been brutal. Canada has been left, in Bartlett’s words, with a passenger rail network that’s “clearly the worst in the entire G7, even lagging behind that of many developing nations.”

There are many reasons why Canada should rebuild its sagging passenger rail network. At a time of mounting concern about climate change, with greenhouse gases from transportation singled out as being among the leading ‘culprits,’ passenger train service offers an environmentally friend alternative to road and air travel.

Long-distance trains like the “Ocean” are also a great tourist attraction. Many of the people I have met over meals in the dining car have been visitors from other countries. And rebuilding and maintaining the rail system is a good way to create steady, relatively well-paying jobs.

It’s particularly important for boomers to have passenger rail service available. Many boomers can’t or shouldn’t drive long distances. As for flying, it’s an understatement to say it is not a boomer-friendly form of travel. If adequate train service were available throughout the Atlantic region, I’m sure many more boomers would avail themselves of it.

Granted, getting Canada’s rail network back up to speed will require a significant infusion of money. Coming up with that money would be a big but not insurmountable problem. One possibility would be to allocate a certain percentage of gas tax revenues to rebuilding the rails. Another would be federal-provincial partnerships, along the lines of the federal-state partnerships that have become such an important element of Amtrak, the U.S.’s passenger rail network. These partnerships help support passenger rail service in 15 U.S. states, including some of the biggest, such as New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and California. They have been key to the 55-percent increase in passenger train ridership the U.S. has experienced since 1997.[1]

At a time when many other countries, including the U.S., are improving their passenger rail services, Canada cannot afford to let its rail service deteriorate any further. As Ted Bartlett concludes, fixing that service is, quite simply, “the right thing to do.”


This article is the first in a series by Jon Peirce, a retired professor, union representative and long-time freelance journalist who writes about subjects of interest to boomers. Some of Jon’s previous work has appeared in The Globe & Mail, the Christian Science Monitor, the Ottawa Citizen, Books in Canada, the Toronto Star, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, and the Kingston Whig-Standard. Jon currently writes, teaches writing courses at the Nova Scotia Seniors’ College, and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Silver Economy Engagement Network, all while doing an M.A. in history at Dalhousie. He is a professional member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. His interests include tennis, swimming, improvisational dance, and cooking, and he has recently returned to the stage after a 46-year intermission, playing Judge Omar Gaffney in a Dartmouth Players production of Harvey. His second book, Social Studies; Collected Essays, 1974-2013, is forthcoming from Friesen’s Press in Victoria; his first book, Canadian Industrial Relations, originally published in 1999, is now in its third edition with Pearson Education Canada.

[1] Source: Robert Puentes, “New Partnerships for American Rail,” in Brookings Institute Up Front series, March 1, 2013, No. 44 of 89.