Mountain Views News          Saturday, September 3, 2011

16

THE GOOD LIFE

Mountain Views-News Saturday, September 3, 2011 

SENIOR HAPPENINGS

YOUR HEALTH MATTERS

Today’s Subject: 

BODY MEMORY

RECIPES OF THE WEEK

SEPTEMBER IS SENIOR 

CENTER MONTH

NCOA’s National Institute of Senior Centers 
has designated September as Senior Center 
Month

“It Happens at My Senior Center”

Even though the Hart Park House Senior 
Center is under renovation, things are still 
“happening” at the center’s temporary home 
in the Community Recreation Center (611 
E. Sierra Madre Blvd.)so please join us:

September 2nd - The Senior Lunch Café is 
serving a special menu of Cheese Burgers 
with all the fixings & apple pie for dessert in

celebration of Labor Day; Noon . $2 donation- 
advance reservations required by calling 
355-0256.

September 7th - Community meeting regarding 
the proposed assisted living facility 
being built in Sierra Madre. Come to the

Recreation Center at 6:30 pm to hear more 
or to ask questions.

September 15th - Senior Excursion to the 
Historic Graber Olive House (see below for 
more details).

September 21th - Lunch & Learn; 12:20 pm. 
Join us for this special presentation by Lending 
a Paw, Therapy Dogs & meet some of 
their certified dogs. A special dry dog food 
collection will take please so please bring a 
bag to donate to families facing financial difficulties 
(donation not required to attend).

September 24th - Wellness in the Park; 9 am 
to 12 noon in Memorial Park. Free information 
including hearing & osteoporosis

screenings and flu shots (Medicare participants 
- $25 for others) plus the Senior Commission 
will be handing out the File of Life

medical information packet to residents.

Come early and enjoy the Kiwanis Pancake 
Breakfast 7 am to 11 am at $5 per person

September 30th - The Final Scoop - come 
build your own ice cream treat as we end our 
month of activities; 12:30 pm

For more information about the activities 
listed, please call the Senior Desk at (626) 
355-7394.

PEPPER STEAK

INGREDIENTS:

3 tablespoons butter or oil

1 1/2 pounds round or flank steak

1 1/2 cups thinly sliced onion

1 cup diced celery

2 cups canned tomatoes, chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon sugar

2 bay leaves

3 large green bell pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons soy sauce

1/4 cup cold water

DIRECTIONS:

Heat butter over medium high heat, brown meat, 
which has been cut into 1/4-inch wide strips. Brown 
the meat in 2 or 3 batches so that each batch just 
covers the bottom of the skillet without crowding. 
Remove meat and set aside. Reduce heat, saute 
onions for 5 minutes. Return meat to skillet, add 
remaining ingredients except peppers, cornstarch, 
soy sauce and water. Add peppers, which have been 
seeded and cut in 1/2-inch strips, simmer covered 
for 10 minutes. Blend cornstarch, soy sauce and 
water in small dish; stir into meat mixture. Cook 
until thick and clear, about 1 minute.

Pepper steaks serve 6.

Whether we want to admit it or not, there’s 
a good reason why doctors’ offices are called 
“practices.” Each patient presents a whole new 
opportunity to learn something that we may not 
have know before.

When Robert came in with a frozen shoulder 
twenty-five years ago, he taught me something 
that changed the way I practiced forever. He 
had recently retired as an upholsterer and had 
awakened with a stiff, sore right shoulder. It 
had never acted up before, and he could not 
remember doing anything that would have set it 
off. When he arrived, the shoulder was almost 
completely immobilized.

As I began working on the area, Robert talked 
about his retirement and how glad he was to 
take time off after so many years of running 
his business. He admitted that there was some 
concern about what he would do with himself. 
After a couple of visits, there was very little 
progress, so I began to work a little deeper and 
more firmly on the muscles and connective 
tissue surrounding the joint. On one occasion, 
Robert began to talk about how his family had 
been taken to Manzanar at the start of World 
War II. As we finished up, he said, “Boy, I haven’t 
talked about that for a long time!” Was there a 
connection between his shoulder problem and 
the long ago traumatic event? I would find out 
the following week in a surprising way.

Robert had gone home with the Manzanar 
experience fresh on his mind and began talking 
about it with his brother. While talking about 
things long past, his brother, who was a couple 
of years older than Robert, asked him if he 
remembered the car accident. Robert had no 
recollection of any car accident.

When Robert was two, he and his brother 
were riding in an open car driven by their father. 
This was in the mid-1920’s. Robert was on his 
mother’s lap and somehow they hit a high curb, 
flinging the passenger door open and throwing 
Robert and his mother from the car. Robert 
landed on the parking strip and dislocated his 
shoulder. His mother’s hair was caught in the 
spokes of the car, and she was carried a way 
down the street. Surprisingly, no one was killed 
or seriously injured. Robert’s father refused to 
ever drive again.

Over the next few weeks of treatment, the 
shoulder began to move more freely and 
eventually returned to normal. What struck me 
most was how Robert became more alive. He 
seemed more at peace, more connected.

There’s a simple statement that touches 
on this kind of experience: Your biology is 
your biography. Robert introduced me to this 
possibility first hand.

Have a healthy week! Dr. John


Dr. John Talevich, D.C. has practiced in Sierra Madre 
for thirty years. His clinic, LifeWorks! Chiropractic, 
offers patient-specific approaches to the alleviation of 
pain and individually tailored wellness programs. 

September Birthdays

Yvonne Osti, Edwina Garcia, Donna 
Anderson, Teresa Chaure, Cathy 
Gunther, Esther Macias, Sheila Pierce, 
Nancy Shollenberger


John M. Talevich, D.C. 

CHIROPRACTIC: Simple, Elegant, Effective

31 S. Baldwin Avenue Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024

626-355-4710

Meals-On-Wheels


Meals are delivered to home-bound 
seniors by volunteer drivers through 
the YWCA Intervale Lunch Program 
M-F (with frozen meals for the weekend.) 

Meals are delivered to the home-bound seniors 
by drivers through the YWCA Interval Lunch 
Program M-F (with frozen meals for the 
weekend.) 

 

 Call the YWCA at (626) 214-9460 for more 
information. 

EXCURSIONS

How to Detect and Prevent Telemarketing Scams

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th - 

Historic Graber Olive House in Ontario. 
Participants will get a short tour 
& history of the Graber Olive as well as 
learn more about how they are harvested. 
After the tour you will venture to 
a local restaurant to have lunch before 
heading back to Sierra Madre.

 The bus will leave the Community 
Recreation Center at 10 am and return 
around 2 pm. Cost is $8 per person 
(transportation & tour only) so please 
bring additional money for lunch.

SAVE THE DATES

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22ND - Big Bear 
Oktoberfest ; $36 per person. Registration 
begins September 7th online or in person.

*THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH - 

Historic Castle Tour & Lunch at the Mission 
Inn, Riverside.

*THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15TH - 

Candlelight Pavilion Christmas Show

in Claremont. Reservation for this excursion 
will start on September 26th either by 
visiting the Recreation Center in person 
or going online at www.cityofsierramadre.
com/onlineregistration

Dear Savvy Senior,

Can you recommend some tips to help protect 
seniors from telemarketing scams? My 80-year-
old mother has been swindled out of several 
hundred dollars over the past year and keeps 
getting calls from scam artists. 

Worried Daughter

 

Dear Worried

Telemarketing fraud is a big problem in the 
United States, particularly among seniors who 
tend to be the most vulnerable and frequently 
targeted. Here’s what you should know, along 
with some tips to help protect your mom.

 

Phone Fraud

According to FBI reports, there are around 
14,000 illegal telemarketing operations that steal 
more than $40 billion from unsuspecting citizens 
each year – most of whom are over the age of 60.

Telemarketing fraud happens when a con artist 
calls you up posing as a legitimate telemarketer 
and tries to cheat you out of your money by 
offering things like free prizes, vacation packages, 
sweepstakes or lottery winnings, discount 
medical or prescription drug plans, buying 
club memberships, credit and loan promises, 
investment and work-at-home opportunities 
and more. They also usually demand that you 
act right away and require some kind of up-front 
payment to participate or receive your winnings, 
which is always a red flag that the call is a scam.

Seniors also need to be careful of fake 
charity and fundraising phone scams, home 
improvement scams, fake checks (see fakechecks.
org), grandparent scams, and invitations to free 
lunch seminars.

 

What You Can Do

The first thing you should do to help your mom 
steer clear of phone scams is to alert her to the 
problem and how to recognize it. To help you 
with this, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) 
offers a consumer education website at ftc.gov/
phonefraud that provides a rundown on some 
of the most common phone scams making the 
rounds these days and what to watch for. They 
also offer some helpful publications you can get 
for her like “Putting Telephone Scams on Hold” 
and “Who’s Calling? Recognize & Report Phone 
Fraud” that you can order for free by calling 
877-382-4357.

The next step is to remind her to never give 
out her personal information like her credit card 
number, checking or savings account numbers, 
Social Security number or mailing address to 
telemarketers no matter what they promise or 
tell her. If she’s getting calls from telemarketers 
requesting this information, she should simply 
hang up the phone because it’s a scam.

If, however, your mom is having a hard time 
recognizing a scam or hanging up on pushy 
telemarketers, get her a caller ID and tell her not 
to pick up unless she recognizes the number of 
the caller. Or, ask her to let the calls go to voice 
mail. Telemarketers rarely leave messages.

Also, make sure her phone number is 
registered with the National Do Not Call Registry 
which will significantly cut down the number of 
telemarketing calls she receives. You can register 
your mom’s phone number for free at donotcall.
gov, or by calling 888-382-1222 from the number 
you wish to register.

Unfortunately, being on the registry will not 
stop calls from political organizations, charities, 
pollsters and companies that your mom has an 
existing business relationship with. And, it won’t 
stop telemarketing scams either. If your mom 
is getting a lot of calls, discuss the possibility of 
changing her phone number. Scam artists trade 
and sell what they call “suckers lists” of prior 
victims, and the only way to get her off these lists 
may be to change her number.

 

Report It

It’s also important that you or your mom report 
any suspicious telemarketing calls she gets to the 
FTC (see ftccomplaintassistant.gov or call 877-
382-4357) and to her State Attorney General. 
Reporting it helps law enforcement officials track 
down these scam artists and stop them. You’ll 
need to provide the telemarketer’s phone number, 
as well as the date and time of the call.

Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. 
Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.
org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today 
show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.


LUNCH & LEARN 

Join the Senior

Community Commission

at the 

Sierra Madre Recreation 
Center

 for a FREE presentation. 
Lunch is available for a 

$2 donation 

Call (626) 355-0256 by 

12 noon the day before. 

DIAL - A - RIDE 

TICKETS

Tickets can now be purchased at:

Sierra Madre City Hall

Sierra Madre Recreation Center

Sierra Madre Library


Pasadena Highlands, an independent and 
assisted living community, is proud to provide 
a special gift basket on the first Tuesday 
of each month. Accredited In-Home nursing 
care will provide a special prize on the 4th 
Tuesday of each month. Bingo takes place 
every Tuesday at 1:30 pm at the Sierra Madre 
Recreation Center while the Hart Park House 
is under remodeling. The game begins at 
1:30 pm but those wishing to play must arrive 
10 minutes before to secure your Bingo 
cards. Join us on the 1st & 4th Tuesday of 
each month 


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