Volume 13, No. 6: April 2009

Jim the Manager

….is really Jim Mashek.  It’s easier to refer to him as the former.  Trying to get Jim to talk about himself is like pulling hen’s teeth.  He is always giving credit to our volunteers and staff.  Jim says nobody ever says no.  If you’ve spent any time getting to know Jim, he’s a Jack of all Trades…but not necessarily Master of None.  How did he get here from Texas?  He wanted to spend time with his aging mother. Since he was looking to come this way, he responded to our ad.  It’s been TWO YEARS now, and from my perspective, a record for us.    

            He started in February of 2007 which is the heart of “the season”…one of his first thoughts was “WHOA!!”  But, when the faint of heart departed for cooler parts, he realized that a year- round park can take advantage of the reduction in population and get work done that might be disruptive for residents during high occupancy.    Although it gets pretty dern hot here, digging and water projects, equipment maintenance and repair and maintenance in general, such as painting and refurbishing, are accomplished.  Then when we faint-hearted return -- it’s magic and the park looks better every year.

             Jim says his biggest challenge is working with such a broad diversity of people, individual as well as collectively (committees and the Board).  His vision for the future of the park is to keep it on track as it is, and make it even more desirable.  While expansion isn’t feasible, high standards are.  As with all vision, this would take $$$$.  One way to free up funds is to reduce costs.  The park now has an “on demand” water heater for the Clubhouse and uses Magic Jack which eliminates long distance phone charges...just a few examples of cost savings Jim has brought to us.  In addition, we now have 911 phones lines and a music system by the pool.  For many improvements we have sought and received donated materials.  Couple this with volunteer labor and we all benefit.  A good example is the trim and panel in the Community Center and the Recycling Shack.  Jim is proud of the Town Hall Meetings which give staff a chance to communicate on their efforts and provides a forum for two-way communication.  The tone is more positive than some have been in the past -- this is a good thing.

             On a personal note, Jim spends his off-duty time fishing, hunting and exploring the area.  He also enjoys movies, the theatre and symphony, and “making” garage sales.  He has an extensive sales background and  has been in construction and the restaurant business -- he likes to cook.  Born in Fargo, ND and raised in Minnesota, he called Iowa home for 31 years before moving to Texas.    His bucket list includes revisiting Greece, Norway and (?) Arkansas.  “I may not be long for this world, but I can say I have tried just about everything.”       - Pat

Our new saguaro is standing tall

by our Clubhouse.

We want to thank Mary Fitzgerald for the donation and  Sherry Walker , who gave the concert to fund the relocation of the saguaro.  And many thanks to all of you who came to the concert with your five-dollar bills.  – Jim & Toma

It looks awesome!

You can either complain that rose bushes have thorns

Or rejoice that thorn bushes have roses.

The Park Party was a lot of fun,

 the bonus was $9,766.93.

Bakers’ Blessings

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Romans 10:9

            Have you ever thought that salvation was like a cafeteria where you can pick and choose the aspects of Jesus you want? “I’ll have a little Saviorhood, please, but no Lordship.” Not so, friend. If Jesus is not your Lord, Jesus is not your Savior. What’s the difference?

            Well, suppose I perform a wedding ceremony and say to the young man, “Would you take Mary to be your lawfully wedded wife?” and he responds, “Well, I’ll take Mary as housekeeper.” Then I say to her, “Would you take John to be your lawfully wedded husband?” and she says, “Well, I’ll take him as provider.”

            Friend, we can’t pick and choose what we want from Jesus. We simply take Jesus as Lord over all! Is Jesus Christ Lord of every area of your life?

            Take time today to examine your life — your finances, your relationships, your hopes and dreams.  (Author-Dr. Adrian Rogers)

                                    Don & Lavon

 (I’d like to thank Don and Lavon for their contributions. The challenge has been to get our computers to communicate.  But, we did it.)

Thank you all for your support

From the family of Ray Cummins

            JoAnn Cummins, her son Ray Jr. Cummins, her daughter Pam Salazar and their families would like to thank the residents of Sunscape RV Park and all their friends for their prayers and support in the loss of one of their own, Ray Sr. Cummins.

            It is at times like this that one realizes what it means to have the support of neighbors and friends.  While Ray will be dearly missed, his love for life lives on in the hearts of all who knew him.

            A special thank you to Alicia for her help in the gathering that was held in Ray’s honor.  Her care and concern was a tremendous support.

May God bless you all!

Money can buy a pretty good dog,

But it won’t buy the wag of his tail.

sunscapervresort.info

            Lois and Dick Emmel  do an excellent job as the web masters of this site.

            In their prior lives Lois was a nurse and Dick was an engineer with the Bonneville Power Authority. They both worked with computers on their jobs, so they were not “babes in the woods”.

            They “fell into the job” when the Computer Club assumed the ownership of the sunscapervresort.info and sunscapervresort.com However, they really enjoy the work.

            Previously, Lois had taken three classes in website design and had worked on a genealogy site. Although  he had  had  experience loading information into websites, Dick has been basically self-taught but not a “total novice.” 

             If you’ve never gone to this website or haven’t viewed it recently, you should definitely check it out.  If you don’t have a computer, talk to your kids or grandkids.

What can you do to make this site even better?

            They both expressed a need for: more pictures of what is going on in the park;

·      write-ups of activities during the summer

·      flyers of park activities

·      committee minutes

·      volunteers to help sort through all those pictures and make collages for posting.  They will train!

            You are welcome to send them information by e-mail at jrmlmail@gmail.com.     

                                                - Joyce

Roseanne Owens and Joanne Frank of the Park Party Swap Meet would like to thank all the people who donated items, our volunteers, and, last but not least, all the people in the park who came out and purchased.  It was FUN and a successful contribution to the party.

Why does a slight tax increase cost you $200

and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents?

If you think you’re too small to make a difference,

you haven’t been in bed with a mosquito.

The best thing to do behind a friend’s back is to pat it.

 Mary’s Musings

Knocking on doors!

            Can you believe the ‘08/’09 season at Sunscape is coming to an end?  It sure has been a wonderful and busy season, weather wise also, though not near as wonderful as the comradery  we share here.

             I challenged you all to get to know your fellow Sunscapers.   Well, I did it!     I knocked on doors and found new friends.  I was frantic, I needed 20 actors for the play to be a reality.  Here it was mid-November and I had only eight actors.  I called for an audition. Then I began knocking on doors and asking people to, at least, try and they did. Who else in this park but JJ could have played Mr. Wright? He was born for the part.  Then his wonderful wife said she would help anyway she could.  Little did she know that our director would assure her that she also could act, and she was perfect to play Bertha Mae.            

            People got involved who had never acted before and who did not know each other before we started our play. We were all from different areas in the park. We had Canadians and Coloradans. We had people from South Dakota and from Ohio. I knocked on doors to fill positions and, to my surprise, no one turned me down.  Some came kicking and screaming, but they came. If they felt they couldn’t act, then they said they would help behind the scenes.

            You know, joining the activities in our park is a wonderful way to get to know others and it’s fun. You automatically get to make new friends.  I know this is so. Working on our play for over four months, the  20 actors and 17 behind-the-scenes people were wonderful and the friendships will go on and on. 

               What I am trying to tell  you all is that all we have to do is knock on a door and we here at Sunscape will find friends.  So  next season I will be knocking on more doors and getting to know more of  you.  I hope you all do the same.  The fact that Sunscape people want to help is so true, but we have to ask since most of us are shy and do not know how good we could be at new things in our lives.  We all know we were good at our jobs, but those jobs are over now.   We are learning we can do things we never knew we could do. We can act, we can line dance, and we can make new friends.  If you find a fun job, people,  just go ahead and do it. It won’t hurt. Trust me the  benefits are great.

            So, dear friends who read my strange musings, let me tell you something about you. “Beautiful young people are acts of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.“ Now  it is time to say our farewells. How lucky we are to have a place that makes saying farewell so hard.  Don’t be sad because the season is almost over, smile because it was.  “We may all forget what you said, but we will never forget how you made us feel.”

             I love you all and am so very proud to say, “farewell,  friends.”  Mary, a/k/a Crazy Mary

Bolm the Bookkeeper

            I was out and about to interview Fran Bolm. I believed I was interviewing our bookkeeper but I was wrong.  Fran Bolm is our administrative assistant. You learn something new every day! Fran explained it this way: his job was to do anything  someone else could not do at the time. That “anything” became “bookkeeping.” Fran took this job in May of 07'. He  enjoys helping out our park.

              It’s nothing new for Fran and his lovely wife, Linnea, to be doing something for the park. They came to Sunscape through TAI, as so many of you did. The plan was three weeks free with golf thrown in. They bought in 1993 and the second Sunday they were here Linnea started the choir. The services were so crowded in the tiny AC that she advertised, “Join the choir and reserve a seat.” It worked, they soon had a choir of 30 people.  Fran started Monday golf for the men here.  It was music and golf that kept the Bolms here. We are ever so grateful they stayed.

                Linnea has been Fran’s love for over 60 years.They met when he was 17 and married at 19. Linn was a city girl for the first 12 years of her life before moving to Escanaba, MI from Chicago. There she and Fran met, married, and raised a family of four boys and a girl.  Fran said that after the 5^th child, a girl, he figured out what the cause was and that he’d better stop kissing Linn.                   After three different jobs in four years Fran finally got it right, and for 41 years he had the same job as a cost analyst. That is why we need him so much.  He does know what he’s doing with our books.  While Linn was a mother and a wife, she also was a store clerk, a banking accountant, worked in a Doctor’s office and finally had her own interior home business. And on top of all that she raised five children.  You rock lady!!!

               The Bolms will be celebrating their 60^th Wedding Anniversary on December 31^st of this year.  They were engaged on New Year’s Eve and were married a year later.  What a wonderful couple they are. I don’t believe they have ever stopped kissing.  Keep it up guys, we love seeing such love between two people.

              Thanks for all you are to us and for us.- Mary

A high school class in OK was discussing the qualifications for being president of the US.  The candidate must be a natural born citizen at least 35 years old. One girl started in on how unfair it was that the candidate must be a natural born citizen.  She ended up a long argument by saying, “What makes a natural born citizen more qualified to lead this country than one born by C-section?” (Alban’s Album)

The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table

was Sir Cumference.

 

(I’d like to thank the gentleman in the park who has so eloquently shared with us the thoughts from “his quirky mind” - Millie)

The Evolution of “The Sunscaper”

            “The Sunscaper” is out and the next Tuesday Pat, Joyce, Mary and Millie meet to throw ideas around and discuss what they want to do in the next issue.  A deadline date, usually a week before the expected distribution date, is set for the information to be into the editor’s e-mail box.  That is Millie’s time to relax while the other three “work.”  DD arrives and, hopefully, the articles are in.  This is Millie’s week to assess what has come in.  Sometimes she reorganizes an article, sometimes she cuts some, sometimes she just “pastes” it in.  Then comes the challenging part of getting the pages to fit together.  It becomes a “cut and paste” process.  Done?  Wrong!

            The copies go to the Welcome Center to be printed.  Millie and one of her assistants get on the golf cart and count how many lots seem to be occupied on each street.  (This is needed to know how many to give to each shagger.)  They pick up the printed papers, go to the Clubhouse to count the number for each street and then fold the (approximately 400 to 450) papers.  Done?  Not quite!  They need to be distributed to each of the shaggers.  Wheee!  It’s finally done!

*  *  *  *  *

And today, March 21, we are really done for this season.  We thank all our loyal readers and hope to see you next fall.  Have a great summer!               

Now, picture this!  You have just spent the afternoon beating the pavement at the mall and your feet are yelling, “Give me a rest.”  But you are greeted before you even get in the door by a stack of papers—“The Sunscapers.”  As you start out, you know you will be rewarded by someone who will give you a smile and say, “Oh!  The Sunscaper.”

            Who are these phenomenal people?  Well, five of them have been my assistants for a long time.  Marcy Grimes comes down every fall from Illinois.  You guessed it.  This year she has been assigned IL, and loves it. Then there’s Pat Bloxam, who makes her home here all year round.  A more pleasant and reliable person would be almost impossible to find. She lives on Thatcher, and that is her “beat.”  Marlene Crawford’s home is in Nebraska.  She has to have the most versatile disposition, because both she and Marcy have been on about every street in the park.  Right now, she has been doing Wisconsin.  Way down on the west end of the park, Minnesota, is where Leona Mahoney lives in the park, and that is where she delivers papers.  Come April and she goes back to Iowa.  Vee Lambert has been doing Carolina for a long time.  She says she enjoys getting out to talk to her neighbors.

            Talking to Karen Smith, I found out she and her husband had bought Hollars’ property; and I asked her if she would like to take over Joyce’s route on West Iowa.  I appreciate her willingness to help out.  Well, Marilyn Kennedy was a fixture on Alabama, but now that she is gone Dorothy Hyatt, who also lives on Alabama, has volunteered to take her place.

            Coming over to Indiana, my home street, I have two very willing choices in Leo and Rolande Giguere and Doris Rouleau.  It usually ends up with whomever I see first. On Vermont and E. Idaho, I am missing Denis and Lenore Coutre this year, but last month Bob and Darleen Zabel volunteered. Don’t know if they’ll be up to it again. 

            That brings me to two assistants who can help me with the counting, folding and distributing those “stacks of papers.”  Virginia Garman and Joan Frank are ready to do that or to deliver on a street when necessary.  And standing in the background is Joyce Bingenheimer who can, and has done it once, actually put the paper together when I need her.

Shaggers – I don’t know where I picked up that term.  Someone from way back,  I guess.  I know the dictionary doesn’t have any such meaning, but I like the sound. 

So be it!  Something has to be “original.”