CARE, cow's bellies, immigrant histories, and fabulous churches.

 

Escapees CARE is a facility in Livingston, Texas where retired RVers can age in place living in their own rigs.  We volunteered from January 1 to January 30, and here's our account: 

CARE houses ~50 residents, joined by local adult day care folks, whose rigs surround a community center containing a central dining facility, activity spaces, and a small gym. If temperatures drop so that the resident's rigs are  really cold they can sleep inside in recliners.  CARE is staffed by house cleaners, laundry-doers, cooks, administrators, a full time dynamo of a nurse, a CNA, all with huge service hearts.  This January there were also 4 teams of 2 people each who were volunteers.   Bill and I were Team 4.

The core of our job was 'desk duty'.   We counted how many residents wanted to eat, answered phones as folks checked in each day, called or visited those who didn't,  and then  we cleaned the tables and vacuumed the floor. 

Twice we called ambulances for residents who fell or needed one for another reason, and in general watched out for those who needed watching (by far, most do not). And one night of each of our 3-day work rotations, we slept with a phone that would ring if anyone needed any thing.  The morning question was always "Did you have a quiet night?" (by far, the answer was yes).   

We drove folks to their doctor's appointments, to Walmart, to the grocery store, and in general anywhere else they wanted to go. 

We delivered meals to folks who couldn't get to the Community Center and when the freezing  temperatures piled ice on all the wheelchair and walker ramps extending from rig doors to sidewalks, we delivered meals to all the residents.   

But the real story of CARE  isn't what we did.   It's about  what we experienced about care and community. How the staff cares about and for the residents, how the residents care about and  for one another, and how the volunteers quickly get integrated into the culture.  It is not a volunteer activity, although  we had prescribed jobs for which there is no pay, it's a way to learn about life, especially as it nears its end:  It is a little about fear, a lot about bravery, but mostly about loving and caring for those around us.  As the CNA Connie  put it -- its about what's in your heart.  

And in lots of ways, it is about having fun where ever you find it:

Friends come together  to play cards in the afternoon or evening.  They never would tell me if money was involved.

We call this photo "Boys will be Boys."  Meet 90 year old retired surveyor L. who  is always the first to arrive at meals in his electric chair, on which he proudly puts 5 miles a day.  And D., much younger, who goes out to play with him.

Meet B.,age 80,  a woman with several health problems and who self-describes as fiercely independent. (She IS both fierce and independent!)  She's got quite a collection of hats and graphic tees and she likes to make sure her friend K., a widowed 86-year- old homemaker, takes care of herself. That's Bill and another volunteer, Terry, sitting with B. during a restaurant outing.    

This is K. coming in from the cold, with Bill looking on.  She loves bright colors and sports a  pair of fluffy pink earmuffs.  And she almost always smiles, sings, and dances in aisles wherever she finds them.   We took K. to the grocery store, and on the way back she told us that she regretted that, in her life, she has never gotten to rub a cow's belly.   We'll miss every one at CARE, but perhaps K. most of all.

Folks who  can mostly take care of themselves come to stay permanently at CARE or they can come if they just need time off the road.  Here's L. again, this time sitting with M. who had some hand surgery and couldn't drive for a while.  By the time we left he was on his way, too, back to his life on the road.

Team 4 (and all the teams) worked cycles of 3 days on and 2 days off-- we took advantage of those 2 days off to see a little more of East Central Texas, starting with an overnight trip to Galveston with its Pleasure Pier and the Gulf of Mexico.

Another time we visited Nacogdoches, the oldest city in Texas. It is located on  the historic Camino Royale de los Tejas, a road that once connected Mexico City and the Spanish city of Los Adaes, the capital of Spanish Texas, in what is now Louisiana.  It had missions and presidios along it, but few remnants exist now. Present day Nacagdoches is a lovely college town (Stephen F. Austin State University) that's highly walkable. 

 A highlight for us was this beautiful historic Oak Hill church with the orange, blue and white Trinity windows. 

Nacogdoches also has the best visitor center we can remember and it was there we learned about Nacogdoches' original settlers,  the Caddo Native Americans, part of a huge Caddoan Mississippean Mound culture.  Lots of people were thriving here long before all of our ancestors immigrated.   Just saying...  

There is another, later, immigration story recounted in rural Texas between Houston and Austin, and finishing up in Fredericksburg. At the turn of the 20th Century, an influx of Czech and some German people came to Texas and built communities anchored by churches reminding them of their homelands.

Without funds to build replicas of the grand churches of Europe, they built small wooden ones and painted the interiors to create grandness.   They are truly amazing to see, and all still have active congregations even though the settlements are mostly gone.  There's a PBS show about them called The Painted Churches of Texas;  Echoes of the Homeland. https://austinpbs.org/paintedchurches/churches

WOYAYA