Veterans Corner:

In July we ran a photo of some of the statues at the Korean War Memorial in Washington D.C. Jack Wolverton of Leesburg said, “I looked at that and thought about a picture I had that looked a lot like it. It was the poncho.”

In his scrapbook photo, Wolverton walks down a muddy Korean road carrying a 30 caliber machine gun. The photographer buddy was ahead of him carrying the gun’s tripod and a third soldier carried the ammunition.

In 1952 Wolverton was a 19-year-old Army Sgt. First Class with the 578th Combat Engineers living in bunkers along the MLR (Main Line of Resistance). The MLR was the defensive position of the U.N. Eighth Army, a series of trenches and bunkers extending east to west across the Korean peninsula from June 1951 until late 1953. Nearly half the casualties of the war occurred during this time.

“Most of the time we built pontoon bridges or tore them down. We also laid mine fields,” he said. For three months he was a KMA (Korean Military Advisor), living with the Korean army, eating their food and training them as combat engineers.

His scariest battle was in the Khumwha Valley. Wolverton said, “It was just like the movies, I swear.” After a failed attempt by his platoon to blow up enemy bunkers, they were ordered back. “Before we got back, a Korean machine gunner started an attack on us.”

Wolverton watched as three men around him took bullets. “The bullets were coming so close, and I could see them hitting the ground and I remember thinking ‘man, this is the real stuff.’” While they were getting shot at, one of the guys rolled over on his side with a 30 caliber and shot back, ending the attack.

Another time, he remembers “...going up a draw and I heard a machine gun and the bullets went right over my head. I watched them stitch a line in the snow on the side of the hill above me.”

One of the things the engineers did was make a lift which took supplies from the bottom of the mountain to the top. “Supplies went up the line and bodies came down on it,” he commented.

Before he rotated out of Korea, he was offered a Second Lieutenant field commission, which he turned down. “I regret that I didn’t stay in the military. But I would have had to sign for another year in Korea if I accepted, and I just wanted to get back and get a car and a girlfriend.”

At 17 he first tried to sign up with the Airborne but was rejected because of his flat feet. Ironically, at age 30 he started skydiving and “...made 1,355 jumps and the flat feet never bothered me.”

St. Peter, You Can Call Me,

Dying in the United States is an $11 billion industry – and even Walmart offers caskets today. More and more creative entrepreneurs are looking beyond the great beyond and turning the afterlife into a booming aftermarket.

But it’s been hard coming. The industry has been very change resistant and when death came for a family, they basically did things the way their parents had done them before.

In 1963, Jessica Mitford wrote The American Way of Death, which attacked the industry’s unscrupulous business practices to take advantage of grieving families. The book became a major bestseller and led to Congressional hearings on the funeral industry. And things began to change.

What has happened in the funeral industry since then?

The number one change, everyone agrees, has been cremation as an alternative to the now $7,500 average cost of a traditional burial. Today, nearly 50 percent of all deceased in Florida are cremated (65 percent in Lee County).

Of course, that has brought its own industry. Undertakers have now developed every sort of way to upgrade and upsell cremation. From fancy caskets and fancy funerals of traditional burials, people may turn to cremation and a memorial service – and maybe more.

Whichever way a person chooses, today’s consumer wants things done his own way, according to Bob Biggins of the National Funeral Director’s Association, with special touches for the occasion of a loved one’s dying.

Want to go “green” and bequeath yourself literally to the dirt with a “natural burial”? Eternal Rest Memories Park in Dunedin, Florida, offers that option.

Or go green in a Kinkaraco Green Burial Shroud with pockets for mementos and a stiff backboard and handles for lowering the body. (Would that be “mort couture”?)

Ashes, Ashes, What to do?

Cremation was simple. Have Grandma cremated and someone put her ashes in a box on the shelf. Now the sky (or the sea, or the forest) is the limit as to where your cremains may be placed.

Cremation uses heat, vaporization and flame to reduce the body to its basic elements. In west central Florida, this process costs from $1,000 to $3,000 depending on the level of luxury afforded by the funeral home itself. Then, someone gets the ashes. Now what?

You can be scattered, kept in a box, made into a diamond ($3,500 – $20,000 at LifeGem.com) or launched into space ($600 for an up and back trip or $12,500
to be dropped on the moon). Ashes can be added to planting soil or made into pencil lead.

Jason Rew offers the Great Burial Reef option, an opportunity to actually help create life. His Bradenton company offers a multi-tier-shaped urn made of concrete mixed with six special natural ingredients to create a coralized texture. Even though the 60-pound urn can be left in the yard to add beauty there – buy it ahead of time to have it handy, maybe – once it is put on the ocean floor little fish and marine animals find the nooks and crannies and hide there, creating a new living space underwater.

Andrew Whitaker, vice president of Great Burial Reef says, “The living urn gives families the opportunity to keep the cremains around as long as they want to before the final celebration.”

Families from all over have brought or sent loved one’s cremains to one of their four ports of call (Sarasota, Chesapeake Bay, Miami and Boston). The cremains are then sealed in an urn, put aboard a boat and taken three miles offshore where the urn is lowered into the water.

“If they choose, we take the family out and do a dedication ceremony. Like most memorial events, at first people are quiet and stiff, but by the time it’s over, they’re hugging and laughing and celebrating the memory. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Now the company will ship the $1000 basic sealable Living Urn anywhere in the world and families can find a spot in any ocean for placement.

Take Grandma off the shelf

Well, what about all those shoeboxes and envelopes with ashes in them? Whitaker says, “The National Funeral Directors Association estimates there are 7 to 1 1 million urns sitting in houses because no one knows what to do with the cremains. These are often passed down from generation to generation. I say, get Grandma off the shelf and let your ancestor create life in one of our urns.”

In our present society “where folks are looking for alternatives,” Biggins feels that entrepreneurs – like Great Burial Reef – are giving people what they want, which is a good thing for the industry.

And no matter how hard a funeral director might put his foot down and think that a Star Trek casket or urn is tacky, the fact is, if someone wants to go out as a Trekkie, somewhere online now you can make it happen.

“The funeral industry has been very staid and traditional,” says Whitaker. It’s an industry that others say was the last industry to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. But it’s being reinvented, sometimes one death at a time. 

For more information, visit online at greatburialreef.com.

Richard Gere Brings Puppy Love Home

Pull out the tissues for a Hallmark TV movie starring Richard Gere on Sept. 26 – Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. It’s a story far removed in content from his new movie Brooklyn’s Finest.

Gere, who just turned 61, stars as a professor who adopts a lost Akita puppy (which literally falls off the train into his hands) one winter night.

As anybody who has ever loved a dog knows, no rules apply when a man and a dog set out together into the uncharted territory of mutual love.

There’s a grouchy ticket booth clerk (Jason Alexander) and a disapproving wife (Joan Allen) who can only watch as Parker and the pet form an enormous attachment. It’s all about puppy love as the professor and Hachi share popcorn and watch baseball on TV, play in the back yard and meet a skunk in the garage.

Hachi grows into the most loyal dog ever, returning to the railroad station long after his master dies at work one day. 

Like Gere’s popular 2004 movie Shall We Dance? with co-star Jennifer Lopez, this story is also based on an original Japanese story. Hachi is based on a true 1920s and ‘30s Japanese story known as chkken HachikM, “faithful dog HachikM.” HachikM was an Akita dog remembered for his loyalty to his owner, even many years after his owner’s death.

In 1924, HidesaburM Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo took in HachikM as a pet. During his owner’s life HachikM saw him out the front door in the morning and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station.

The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno died at work and did not return on the usual train one evening.

However, HachikM waited at the station every day for the next nine years amongst the town’s commuters who brought him food and treats. He became a legend which teachers and parents used as an example for children to follow, and it renewed an awareness of the Akita breed.

Eventually, Hachiko’s legendary faithfulness became a national symbol of loyalty. A statue built to honor him was melted down for the bronze during WWII but has been replaced since and still stands at Shibuya Station.

Get your own popcorn and enjoy a good dog story!

Ask Ken

Dear Ken: What nationality was Audrey Hepburn? I loved her in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Did she have any children and what would be several more of her best movies?

The actress was born in Belgium, but her mother was a Dutch baroness and her father was a British banker. She has a son and daughter, Sean and Luca.

Among her many fine films were Roman Holiday, Funny Face, Sabrina, Love in the Afternoon, The Nun’s Story, Charade, My Fair Lady and Wait Until Dark. Hepburn died in 1993 of appendicular cancer at the age of 63. You would most likely enjoy The Audrey Hepburn Story, a 2000 tv movie that stars Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Dear Ken: Where was the late, great newscaster Walter Cronkite born and raised?

He was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, and lived in Kansas City, Missouri, until the age of 10 when his family moved to Houston, Texas. 

Dear Ken: How old is Fess Parker, who played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone on TV?

The tall Texan passed away on Mar. 18 at the age of 85. A businessman for many years in Santa Barbara, Calif., Parker owned the Fess Parker Winery and Wine Country Inn & Spa Resort Bed & Breakfast in Los Olivos, Calif. The actor once said, “There have been several turning points in my life, but the most important one came the day I stepped before the cameras as Davy Crockett. The way I look at things, a man’s life story isn’t his alone, but it belongs to a lot of people who have influenced him and done things for him that he ca n never repay.”

If you have a pop culture trivia question, e-mail Ken Beck via www.sherlocksbooks.com where you can also find classic films and TV shows on DVD or visit Sherlock’s Book Emporium in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Boomer Beat: Is Working From Home Your Solution?

Looking at options for making money – whether from a job downsizing or because of retirement – makes most people think about the joy of working from home. Is it right for you in your individual situation?

Maybe it is. But again, maybe it isn’t. Here’s some help for boomers and seniors interested in replacing traditional employment with work-from-home opportunities.

RetiredBrains.com is an informational website for the 50-plus age demographic with practical information that can help seniors and boomers find success working from home and replacing income from lost jobs.

“Many boomers and older job seekers have not found the kind of job they were seeking, and some have given up looking,” said Art Koff, founder of RetiredBrains.

RetiredBrains.com lets the visitor explore opportunities based on skills and interests. Visitors to the site can find practical, job-specific advice and relevant links where they can learn and explore opportunities directly and even read real-world advice from others who have found success.

Koff said, “These are valuable lessons others have already learned – ideas that can jump-start anyone’s work-from-home career.”

Suggestions for work-from-home jobs include starting a small landscaping, painting or dog-walking business, all of which take virtually no investment capital. Grass cutting and cleaning services also offer opportunities – one man found his niche cleaning out and organizing garages.

Many are tutoring online and in person and several are using the ir s econd language to translate online or work remotely in a multi-language call center.

In addition to the Work From Home section of the website, RetiredBrains.com also offers a Start Your Own Business section that lists a variety of businesses appropriate for retirees, boomers and seniors, along with important advice.

“It’s great to be your own boss, but it’s a risky endeavor that often requires long hours,” Koff said.

Boomers, seniors and retirees considering entrepreneurship often find it hard to determine the “right” business for their interests, needs and the capital they have to invest.

“There are all kinds of ways to start a business, but some are more appropriate than others, especially if you are 50-plus,” Koff said. “Some choose to buy an existing business, and some decide to start one from scratch, freelance or do direct selling with a company like Avon, Mary Kay or The Pampered Chef. Many are now selling online via eBay, Craigslist, Amazon or Etsy. Each requires a different approach, and we provide instruction on how to do so.”

RetiredBrains.com offers a great deal of information to help in the selection process, while at the same time including a list of dos and don’ts to help people avoid the pitfalls and scams often associated with starting a new business. “This is particularly important for those who have never worked in their own business.”

Koff, at 75, is a nationally recognized expert who often speaks on the issues and challenges that face retirees and people planning their retirement. He founded RetiredBrains.com in 2003 and has appeared on NBC and been quoted in Business Week, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine and many other major publications.

Visit the website at www.RetiredBrains.com. Contact Art Koff for information at artkoff@RetiredBrains.com, or call (312) 787-6611.

How to Beat the Back-Home-Again Blues

At first you’re relieved to be at home after a wonderful trip. Then it hits you. It may be months before you see the grandkids again, or a year before you’ve saved enough for another cruise. Mental health professionals are dealing more and more these days with a real syndrome known as post-vacation blues.

If you’re in a post-trip funk, there are good reasons. Bills have to be paid. The grass needs mowing. There are lots of reasons to feel let down. Here’s what the experts say.

• Manhattan-based psychotherapist and advice columnist Jonathan Alpert routinely sees clients who stress out after vacation. “I advise everyone to build in a buffer day to catch up following a vacation. Use that day to run errands, return phone calls and stock the fridge; then go out to dinner as a reward,” he counsels.

• One source of post-vacation angst, says stress and wellness expert Beverly Beuermann-King of worksmartlivesmart.com, is vacation envy. “If your younger friends, family and co-workers aren’t interested in hearing about your trip, this could be the reason. “Yes, you deserve your vacation, but younger co-workers who are under a different contract may see your perks as unfair. Don’t over-do the vacation talk.”

• Referring to the blues, registered marriage and family therapist Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem, M.Ed., advises, “Talk about the trip. Create verbal and visual presentations. Build stories about what actually happened to you personally.” Verbalize what you saw, said, heard and felt.

• Lauree Ostrofsky, CPC, is a certified life coach at www.simplyleap.com.  “I speak to clients about keeping the vacation feeling alive in their minds,” she explains. “First, I have them determine their strongest, happiest memory from the vacation. We determine what was important about that moment such as togetherness with a loved one. Then we attach it to a symbol brought back from the trip.” Displaying that symbol where you’ll see it transports you back to a memory. “The key is learning what came from the vacation and keeping it alive,” she recommends.

• Monica Ricci, CPO, is an organizing expert who blogs at monicaricci.typepad.com. She agrees that it’s smart to come home to a clean house (clean before you go or have a service come in while you’re gone) and also to come home a day or two before you have to rush into your normal routine.

She also recommends doing laundry on vacation! This option isn’t for everyone, but if arriving home with suitcases full of clean clothes would make life easier for you, go for it.

For many seniors, it’s important to vacation each time at the same resort or even the same room. Whatever your reasons (you like the resort’s familiar location or layout or you have strong sentimental attachment to a place), repeat bookings result in a year-round relationship with a place you have made your own.

Last, says Dr. Terry Eagan, psychiatrist at Moonview Sanctuary in California, “There is really no cure for post-vacation blues other than to begin planning your next one. Vacations truly are essential for good health.”

About the Author: Janet Groene wrote “Fantastic Discounts and Deals for Anyone Over 50.” She edits a potluck recipe blog at www.ChurchSupper.blogspot.com and CampAndRVCook.blogspot.com.