Guest Blogger – Page 17 – Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker

Lorie Sheffer Returns

Lorie Sheffer returns for more of her midlife wisdom. Take it away Lorie:

When people meet my husband, they think he is polite, friendly and rather quiet. While he is all of those things, he is also the single most driven person I have ever known. Never one to announce his dreams or his goals, he just goes about quietly and methodically checking them off of his “to do” list. In the 1960s, he was one of millions of teenagers who were struck with Beatle mania. He wanted to learn to play electric bass guitar, but his father saw music lessons as a waste of money. Gary found a cheap bass and taught himself to play by ear. He got so good that he was able to supplement this income through high school and college, and even into his adult years, by playing in local bands. In high school, he played football and his team became county champions. When he decided he wanted to become an engineer, he was told by guidance counselors that his math skills were too weak, and to consider another career. Five years later he graduated from Penn State with a degree in mechanical engineering. He skied for the first time at age 21, and by the time he was 26 he was a member of the National Ski Patrol. It seemed that nothing was out of his reach if he set his mind to it. And then, at the age of 44, the unimaginable happened. Everything was taken away in a matter of minutes.

February 11, 1996 was a glorious winter day in York County, Pennsylvania. Gary had recently mastered snowboarding, and was taking a few runs while his 11-year-old son was practicing with the ski-racing club on another ski slope. While boarding on a steep but otherwise unremarkable slope, Gary fell. For him, this was unusual but not cause for alarm. What did interest him, however, was his seeming inability to hold his right glove in his hand when he removed it. He boarded to the bottom of the slope and rode the lift back to the top, only to find that it was now difficult to push his boot into his binding. Clearly something was wrong, so he headed to the ski patrol building, where it soon became obvious to his fellow patrollers that something very serious was happening. That something turned out to be a massive hemorrhagic stroke, caused by a congenital arteriovenous malformation, or AVM. Over the course of the next few hours, Gary lost all sensation in the entire right half of his body, lost the ability to speak and understand language, was partially blind in his right eye, and suffered from complete right side paralysis. I was in the shock trauma unit of the hospital when I was told by his neurosurgeon that he was “probably going to live” but would be left with “significant, permanent disability”. My first reaction? “You don’t know my husband. He won’t finish this ski season, obviously, but I’ll dust off my skis and have him back on the slopes when they open next season.” Ignorance is bliss, and I had no idea what we were in for. Had I known then what I know now about traumatic brain injury, I would have fallen apart for sure. I had no idea at that time that his chances of ever even walking again were about 10% at best. After a week in the intensive care unit, Gary was moved to a rehabilitation facility. He was one of the worst cases they had ever seen for a person his age. When I was asked by a group of his therapists about his interests and goals, one of them laughed and said, “Doesn’t this man ever do anything easy?” At that point, they knew they were working with a fighter. They considered it “game on!”

This story is one that can’t be told in one single blog. Patience is something I never had. Patience is something that every survivor of traumatic brain injury has to learn. Patience is what it will take for you to find out how this story ends, or if it has indeed ended. I promise I will let you know what happened, and how it happened. Have patience.

Guest Blogger Miss America

Please welcome back to Mid Life Celebration, Miss America Lorie Sheffer, from Central Pennsylvania. Lorie has been here before and her wit, wisdom and candor are refreshing, and inspiring. Take it away Lorie:

It comes as a surprise to some of my friends when they discover my dream of a crown. Doesn’t really fit the personality of a woman who is politically active, has taken part in a massive march on Washington and who doesn’t put much importance on outward appearances. But ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been besotted. I’ve never missed a Miss America pageant. I get misty when high schools crown their homecoming queen, and I won’t even try to explain how I felt about Princess Diana. Show me a crown and I turn into a star struck six year old. I think when I was younger, it came out of a desire to be “the best”.

I was the girl who sat home dateless almost every weekend. I had boy friends, but not boyfriends. I tried out for cheerleading a total of six times and only made the squad once, for 8^th grade wrestling. We had to sit in the bleachers the whole time, wearing home sewn uniforms, as the “good squads” got the good uniforms. Clearly, we were not “the best”. Every year, I would sit in front of the TV and see Miss America walk down the runway, crown on her head, and think how it must feel to be told you are a winner. I always envisioned her as a benevolent queen who was adored by everyone. In my eyes she was kind and gracious and empathetic.

Part of the scoring for Miss America is based on talent, and back in the day when I was eligible that amounted to 40% of the total score. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, fall if my feet leave the ground, and cannot play an instrument. I took baton lessons once, but my mom made me quit after I kept catching those high throws with my face. I tried ballet, and that ended about as well as the baton lessons. If pie baking was an acceptable talent I may have had a shot.

Years passed and as luck would have it, the same people who ran my daughter’s ballet company were also the directors of our local Miss America preliminary. (My daughter’s natural grace is one of life’s greatest mysteries to me.) I once heard “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” All of those years of pageant obsession paid off! I volunteered my time, became very active in the organization. Over the years I helped to prepare dozens of young women to compete on the local and state level, as well as helping two of them to prepare for Miss America. Last year alone, the Miss America Organization awarded over 45 million dollars in scholarship money to more than 12,000 young women.

I met one young woman whose parents had set aside money for her education, but instead had to spend it on nursing home care for her grandmother. The scholarships she won paid for her final semesters of college. Another young woman paid for her master’s degree entirely with pageant winnings. Where else but in the pageant world would I become good friends with a young lady who holds a Masters in neurobiology from Johns Hopkins and a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA? It felt good to be able to volunteer my time to help make the dreams of those remarkable young women come true.

Over the years, I realized that I didn’t need someone else to tell me I was good enough. When our pageant board discovered that one of the crowns we had ordered was missing a stone, I bought it instead of having our director send it back. I didn’t care if it was one rhinestone short of perfection. I cleared a spot in my grandmother’s antique breakfront, where I can see my crown every day. I don’t need a panel of judges to tell me I’m good enough. I may have “aged out” of the pageant over 25 years ago, but I earned every rhinestone in that crown, and don’t even notice its imperfection.

Lorie Sheffer Guest Blogger

Lorie Sheffer provides us with much “food for thought” today as we journey through our Mid Life Celebration. Ladies and gentlemen, Lorie Sheffer:

What time frame do we put on reaching our dreams? How high do we aim? It’s fine if your dream is more of a whim, and it’s fine if you don’t have complete success. Sometimes getting there is half the fun. But sometimes we hit highs that we never imagined. For the following two ladies, life didn’t begin at 40; life began after 50.

Julia Child was not one to be rushed. She stood 6 feet 2 inches tall, came from a privileged background, was college educated and had jobs as an editor, as well as working for the Office of Strategic Forces during WWII. She married at age 34, which was unheard of in the 1940s, when most young women married right out of high school. Julia loved food, and she wanted something fun to do while living in Paris with her husband, so she took classes at Le Cordon Bleu. She wanted to teach American housewives how to cook the amazing foods she had mastered, and decided to translate recipes from French into English. It took her and her collaborators a decade to write Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and they were dismayed when their first manuscript was rejected. The legendary cookbook was finally published when Child was 49 years old. Julia’s television show, The French Chef, aired its first episode in 1963, when Julia was 51 years old.

Paula Hiers was a 4 year old growing up in Albany Georgia when Julia’s show aired. While Julia was teaching American cooks to “be fearless” in preparing dishes such as Boeuf a la Bourguignonne, Paula was learning how to make her Grandma Paul’s fried chicken. Paula grew up in much more humble surroundings. She married at a young age, lost both of her parents by the time she was 19, and raised her younger brother as well as her own two sons. Her husband, Jimmy Deen, drank heavily and Paula cracked under the stress. She started having severe panic attacks, which soon developed into agoraphobia. She would, at times, be unable to leave her home without having an incapacitating attack of severe anxiety.

Paula would find solace in cooking those wonderful comfort foods from her childhood. She later found the strength to take a job as a teller at a bank near her home, and save enough money to leave her abusive husband. To supplement her income, she made bag lunches for her young sons to sell to area business people. Out of that was born her catering business, The Bag Lady. From there, Paula opened her first restaurant, The Lady, in a tiny rented space at a local Best Western Hotel. Paula put in so much time at The Lady that some nights she slept in a booth for a few hours before starting a new day. She was not making much money, and she longed for a day when she could open a bigger restaurant for herself and her sons. After receiving a loan from her aunt, Paula opened The Lady and Sons in downtown Savannah Georgia. A food critic, who was passing through town, stopped on the suggestion of an innkeeper, and the rest is history.

Gordon Elliott got wind of Paula and featured her on Door Knock Dinners and Ready Set Cook. Paula’s warm presence and down home personality did the rest. Paula’s Home Cooking made its Food Network debut in 2002, when Paula was 55 years old. A star was born. Paula has since written numerous best selling cookbooks, she has a total of three shows on Food Network and sells her own line of cookware. In 2004, she married her best friend, Michael Groover. Unlike Julia, Paula never set foot in a cooking school.

Don’t count yourself out of the game just because of age. Think what these ladies, and the rest of us, would have missed had Julia and Paula thought they were too old to dream.

Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer

Mid Life Celebration readers, I am pleased to introduce our Guest Blogger, Lorie Sheffer, from York, Pennsylvania. Lorie and I graduated from Spring Grove Area High School in 1997 1977. Lorie has a spin on midlife that will entertain and enlighten you. You are in for a treat. Take it away Lorie….

My email box usually contains at least one “Stupid, clueless men” joke a week, sent by my gal pals. The most recent: Q: What is gross stupidity? A: 144 men in one room.

This is one of the kinder jokes. Most involve man parts and the use/misuse of said parts. I’m not so politically correct or dishonest as to say some of this stuff isn’t pretty darned funny. But underneath it all there is this undercurrent of a battle of the sexes as to who has it rougher, especially when it comes to aging. As a woman who has always had male friends, I seem to find myself defending men more and more often these days.

I was out shopping with my grandson a few years ago and the check out girl at the grocery store, when speaking to him, referred to me as “Mom”. “She’s my grandmother”, Carter corrected her. I actually looked into that sweet little face of his and asked him to “Shut it!” Actually, since I am trying to be honest, it was more of a hiss. Was I becoming so age obsessed that I had hoped if some kid who had an after school job checking groceries mistook grandma for mom that magically made it so? As if “Grandmother” is a dirty word. No wonder my grandson looked puzzled. To a small child, Grandma equals magic!

This was about the time the realization hit me. We women are so obsessed with our changing hormones and expanding waist, our hot flashes and our mood swings, we seem to forget that aging is no picnic for the men, either. We tend to talk about it, while men seem to remain quiet for fear of appearing weak. Notice what the overwhelming theme of the commercials are when “guy shows” are on TV. They usually involve a 50-something couple in claw foot bathtubs (I still don’t understand the tubs), baby boomers giving one another “that look” before dancing down the hallway toward the bedroom, or my personal favorite, the teenaged girls advising newly divorced Dad he would be dateable if he used some man-color on that gray hair of his. (Maybe someone should tell Mr. Clooney and Mr. Gere they would be attractive to women if only they hit the Grecian Formula.)

I honest to God have a male friend who colors his chest hair to cover the gray. If men aren’t lucky enough to have hair TO color, then surely they can send for some Rogain. Because, grand sense of humor that God seems to have, men start to lose hair where they want it around the same time women sprout hair in places that send them running to the waxing salons in droves.

Our age group is being bombarded by an industry that is literally making billions of dollars by playing to our insecurities, when in fact most times all you need is some dim light and a little patience. Most men would be thrilled to have their wives call them sexy or hot of whatever words we use to describe the above-mentioned George and Richard. I would be willing to bet most men are so concerned with their own age related issues that they don’t notice if our legs (or chins) are freshly shaved.

Test it out; say something nice to your significant other. Give a genuine compliment once a day, and let them know you appreciate them. Really, I think that’s all any of us wants. Maybe if we all just stepped outside of ourselves and tried to see through the eyes of the opposite sex, we would realize that we all have our issues. We’re in this together.

A friend sent me an email forward photo of a pretty teenaged girl, circa 1968; below the photo was the question, “Where are the cute hippie girls from the 60s?”

I scrolled down to another photo, this of a totally naked, very overweight, out shape, gray haired woman in her 60s. She was covered with stretched out and faded tattoos of Woodstock era images. She wore only flip-flops as she walked down the street, head held high. Amazingly, she looked happy.

Humor goes a long way, so long as the object of the joke is laughing WITH us. As Robert Browning wrote over a century ago, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.”

Mid Life Updates

Happy Monday everyone. Hope you had a great weekend. I actually worked Saturday at my “real job” – yes, I’m a career employee at a large company.

This whole five daily blogs thing is like a hobby, like growing a garden or something. And as any avid gardener will tell you, “It’s a labor of love.”

Quite literally, a labor of love – for a child.

Anyway, back to the updates:

1. Erika Liodice’s Mid Life Celebration Guest Blogger post yesterday was a first here. Please check out her site, Beyond The Gray, if you want a midlife perspective from a not yet 30-year old. Erika gave me “my first big break” as a Guest Blogger.

2. The numbers thing the other day. (gulp) Well, that was sort of like a time capsule to look back on later.

3. February is about Peace. Peace to me means – tranquility, balance, solace, contentment, harmony, simplicity, acceptance.