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Caroline WestbrookElizabeth BergmanFieldwork in GerontologyApril 10, 2012For my fieldwork in Gerontology I volunteeredat Longview: An Ithacare Community who has an amazing recreation department. There is never a dull moment. There is always something going on during almost every hour of everyday.Whether it is chair exercise classes on the garden level, birthday parties, pick-up bridge games and rummy in the kitchen, Scrabble, baking, Friday afternoon tea, crafts or my personal favorite the program,The Good Ol Days, there is always something to do.The Good Ol Days enables residents to reflect on the good times before and even during their time at Longview.The program is held every Wednesday.We sit together and those directing the program are given cards with prompts to start a conversation. Normally ten to fifteen women with the occasional man come to the event. Bree and I decided that because I was so involved in this program that I would try and contribute to it. I created a binder that included topics to get the conversation started.The second week at Longview I participated and ran the Good Ol Days with two other volunteers.We were given prompts to start a conversation.The residents enjoyed it so much that our event went into the next one.The women who were there had no desire to stop chatting with us. The first time I partook in the program I found it was really sad when those who could not remembersignificant parts of their lives, such as how they were proposed to. One woman just kept repeating that she just loves her family for every single one of the questions. Although I was sad that she was not able to contribute much to the conversation I realized that I dont need to pity her, for she truly appreciates the loyalty of true friends and family and she is happy with everything she was gifted with.She did not need to tell a long drawn out story about how blissful her life was.One section of the binderI created was labeled conversation starters. Thissection had everything from icebreakers to questions on the residents childhood, school and work, relationships, sports, vacations, food and drink, entertainment, personal and miscellaneous.The icebreaker page included questions about their lives now. For examplewhat they did this past weekend and what they had plans for this week. The childhood questions had questions like "Where did you grow up?" Or "How many siblings do you have?" School and work questions included questions like "Where did you go to school?" or "What is your dream job or if you had ten million dollars would you have still gone to school and worked?"In the relationship category there were questions about what characteristics they liked in a man or woman and if they have ever been in love. Sports for about their favorite sports teams and sports in general. Vacations are about their favorite vacations or countries they've traveled to or wanted to travel to. I have come to find out that people at Longview love their food and drink. So it was only natural to me to put a food and drink category in the conversation starters. Another obvious conversation starter that needed to be included was that of entertainment: favorite actors or actresses, TV shows, music artists, books. Personal questions included biggest regrets long-term and short-term goals best or worst thing that happened to them during the week. A fun question that was included was What is the craziest thing you've ever done? And of course there was a miscellaneous category that involved random things like Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? and What would you do if you only had 24 hours left to live?The next section was Bree's idea. It is called this week in history. The week I chose was April 22nd through April 28th. This section included daily historical facts and events famous birthdays world history and music history. Did you know that on April 25, 1901 New York became the first state to require license plates for cars and the fee was only a dollar or that according to Kepler the universe was created April 27, 4977 BC? Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history? I think this section was one of the most important. We cannot talk about the good old days without a sense of history. As someone who has only lived on this earth for nineteen years I cannot possibly comprehend or identify with those who have lived through the depression and prohibition.Another section I created was called Now and Then: Prices That Will Blow Your Mind! Comparing the prices of some things today and those same things in 1960 is beyond amazing. I included simple everyday items like milk, the daily newspaper, Coca-Cola, postage stamps and even the dreaded price of gas. It is truly mind blowing that in just 1962 the cost of a gallon of regular gas was only $.31! The residents got a real kick out of this section in particular. We spent the majority of the time talking about the prices of certain goods. Through this section one man stated that that back in the 1960 was truly the good old days. I had to explain to him that what this section did not take into account was the significant increase in wages my any given occupation. Both the worth of goods and occupations has had significant influx. By the end of this section each of us wanted of those five cent Hershey chocolate bars. Who wouldnt with the price of chocolate today?Last but not least I included in a section with trivia; trivia throughout the ages. There are trivia from both the 1940s and the 1950s. I think this was their favorite part of the whole program. I originally was not going to add the section but felt the need to in the hands. I am glad I did! They got a real kick out of one of the questions in particular. The question asked what fast food franchise open to the jingle "Hold the pickle! Hold the lettuce!" in 1954? As soon as I read that first line of the jingle, one of the residents' faces quickly turned into a large grin. The look of satisfaction on their faces when they got the question correct was a treat in itself.I felt my project came together very smoothly but it did not come without challenges. The major challenges I encountered had nothing to do with the date, the residents, or the research of information. Other than the lack of advertisement I did for the program the real challenge had mostly to do with the printing of the actual binder itself. I could not find a printer on campus that would let me use my own paper. Because I wanted to use cardstock to make my project more durable I ended up being able to use one of my friends printer. Her printer did not want to take the paper I was using so we had to do a lot of the pages one at a time. It was extremely time consuming and the printer kept printing duplicate pages decreasing my inventory of paper significantly. I originally wanted each of the sections to be a different color but because I ran out of certain colors I had to settle with multicolor sections.I was worried as to how my project would affect the residents and how they would respond to the binder; praying that the majority would react more positively then negatively I had a few nerves going into my presentation. In the past when we would bring out the cards some of the residents would look at them in distaste because they didnt like random routes they would take the conversation. I think it was more the fact that they wanted to control the conversation themselves not have the cards tell them what to talk about. The week before my project date we had talked about taking the week to think of conversations we could have the following week. I relayed this to Bree and she said not to worry about, that I dont need to follow the binder to the last period, it is more of a guide if there was a lull in conversation.I really enjoyed putting this program together. In the end it taught me about how to make a program, and how to organize an activities binder and make it as easy to use as possible. I felt my program was a great success, all the residents stayed till the very last minute before they had to go to lunch. We actually exceeded our designated time; we had so much fun talking. At the end of my project day one of the residents came up to me and stated that the title of The Good Ol Days never made sense to me till today! Were here to talk about the good old days and whether they were better or just as good as today. I told him that is was not necessarily to compare today with what was but to reflect on our happy and sometimes sad memories that shaped who we are today.