If one were to list the qualities of life for a resident of Warhaven, surely near the top of everyone's list would be Warhaven Care Center. Perhaps not the young people, certainly not the teenagers whose sense of invulnerability and immortality blinded them to the science of gerontology, but for anyone who was or knew an elderly person, the care center was a great gift in the community's ability to nurture its own, cradle to grave.
Warhaven Care Center was funded by local tax dollars, and if you had lived in the community for twenty years, you were eligible for residency. A sliding pay scale applied, and it was very generous.
One of the traditional responsibilities for the city councilors was scheduling a couple solo visits to the care facility, so each of the five was there once each month. For Christmas and Easter all five would jointly swoop upon the place, with gifts, hot cocoa or tea, and their listening ears. It's safe to say, for George Ansbach, Sheila Berry, Gus Chapman, Orin Holman, and Pete Petrovich, that it always ended as a pleasurable responsibility. This role as an elected official always put their individual joys and trials into true perspective. While it was Gus's ball of wax as committee chair, traditionally, this was one sphere in which all councilors took an active interest. Some day it would be them!
They met outside of City Hall, all parked along Via Valhalla and car pooled in Gus's Suburban. His cargo area was full of beverage thermoses from Jane's Java and dozens of small gift wrapped packages. They had thought of calendars this year, made with shots of the neighborhood, but they decided it might seem a cruel joke, a yardstick to measure their remaining time. Sheila proposed a seven sided paperweight. It was a Kwanza gift, and while she initially received blank stares and raised eyebrows, she explained the African American festivals and its seven principles and they all came around to the idea that these ideals of this holiday no one they knew celebrated actually pretty well summed up the guiding lights of Warhaven: collective responsibility, cooperative economics, creativity, faith, purpose, self-determination, and unity.
Gus nudged P.P. as they drove up the hill, "Well, they can always use 'em to brain themselves if they get tired of the food or the company."
Sheila leaned forward and poked Gus in the shoulder, "Or you, buster!" Gus agreed.
They had decided against Santa hats this year. It had been a big deal for former Downtown councilor Joe Willowwan.
Parked, Orin went in to grab a cart for the gifts and drinks. P.P. and George helped load up the cart as Sheila and Gus struck up a conversation with Sven Delig, the administrator. The city council was fortunate to have this man with his MBA and his MSW and his sincerity. He was hired five years back and it looked like he was planning to stay and make a career of it.
Inside they gravitated to the large living room with its view of the Big and its expanse of open knoll, white with the fresh snow. Three blue spruces in the fore ground were strung with white lights and red, white, and blue glass ornaments. George stepped out through a sliding glass door to the deck. The birdfeeder swayed. As the opening delivered him the sound of many junkos flying up in alarm, a swoosh of air nearly like a brush pile starting.
George came back inside and sat down next to Esther Mortenson. In her day she had been the best woman golfer for hundreds of miles around, long before the WPGA. She touched George's arm, "You know, son, this snow reminds me of the horrible flu of 1918. I was a small child. That year The Last Mile was a well traveled road. Let me tell you about it."
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