Mountain Views News          Saturday, January 30, 2016

THE GOOD LIFE

11

Mountain Views-News Saturday, January 30, 2016 

FINANCIAL PAPERWORK: 

WHAT TO KEEP, WHAT TO TOSS

SENIOR HAPPENINGS


HAPPY BIRTHDAY! …January Birthdays*

 Gerald Day, Mary Tassop, JudyWebb-Martin, John Johnson, Mary Bickel, Marlene 
Enmark, Ross Kellock, Ruth Wolter, Sue Watanabe, Sandy Thistlewaite, Bobbi 
Rahmanian, Fran Syverson, Shirley Wolff, Judy Zaretzka and Becky Evans. 

* To add your name to this distinguished list, please call the paper at 626.355.2737. 
YEAR of birth not required

...................................................................

ACTIVITIES: Unless listed differently, all activities are at 
the Hart Park House (Senior Center) 222 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra 
Madre

 

 

 ACTIVITIES AT THE SENIOR CENTER

 YWCA San Gabriel Valley - Intervale Senior Cafe 

Seniors 60 years of age and up can participate in the YWCA Intervale daily lunch program held 
at the Hart Park House Senior Center. Meals are served Monday through Friday at 12:00 pm 
and participants are encouraged to arrive by 11:45 am. Meals are a suggested donation of $3.00 
for seniors 60 and over or $5.00 for non-senior guests. Daily reservations are necessary, space is 
limited. Please reserve your lunch by calling 626-355-0256.

Tech Talk: Held on Monday, January 25th from 1:30-2:30pm. Learn how to use your new 
technology devises. Please reserve your space with the Hart Park House by calling 626-355-7394. 

 

Hawaiian and Polynesian Dance Class: Every Tuesday morning from 10am to 11am. Join 
instructor Barbara Dempsey as she instructs you in the art of hula. 

 

Bingo: Every Tuesday beginning at 1:00pm. Cards are only $0.25 each! Everyone is welcome to 
join. May be canceled if less than 5 people. 

 

Free Blood Pressure Testing: 2nd Tuesday of the month from 11am to 12pm. No appt. is 
necessary. 

 

Brain Games: Thursday, January 21st, 10:30am - 11:30am, improve your memory and strengthen 
your brain. Activities facilitated by Hugo, Community Liaison for New Wave Home care of 
Pasadena. 

 

Free Legal Consultation: Wednesday, January 27th from 10:30am to Noon. Attorney Lem 
Makupson is available for legal consultation. He specializes in Family Law, Wills, Trusts, Estates, 
and Injury. Appointment are required by calling 626-355-7394. 

Balance Class: No Balance Class due to Martin Luther King Holiday. 

 

Chair Yoga: Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:00 to 11:45 am. A suggested donation of $5 at one 
of the classes is requested, but is not required. 

 

Case Management: Meets the 2nd Thursday of the month. Case Management services are 
provided by the YWCA and provide assistance in a variety of areas. Appointments are required 
and can be scheduled by calling the HPH Office at 626-355-7394. 

 

Birthday Celebrations: Every second Thursday of the month at the Hart Park House. The free 
birthday cake is provided by the Sierra Madre Civic Club. 

 

Game Day: Every Thursday starting at 12:00pm. (Please note the time change.) A regular group of 
seniors play poker. Other games available for use. 

 

Free Strength Training Class: Every Friday from 12:45pm to 1:30pm with Lisa Brandley. The class 
utilizes light weights for low impact resistance training. All materials for the class are provided. 

 

Senior Club: Every Saturday at the Hart Park House Senior Center. Brown bag lunch at 11:30am. 
Club meeting at noon. Bingo 12:30-3:30pm. Annual Membership is only $10.00. 

Dear Savvy Senior,

How long should a person hang on to old receipts, stock 
records, tax returns and other financial documents? I have 
accumulated boxes full of such papers over the years and 
would like to get rid of some of it now that I’m retired.

Getting Organized

 

Dear Getting,

This is a great time of the year to get rid of unnecessary 
or outdated paperwork and to organize your records in 
preparation for filing your tax return in the spring. Here’s 
a checklist of what to keep and what to toss out, along 
with some tips to help you reduce your future paper 
accumulation.

 Toss Out

· ATM receipts and bank-deposit slips as soon as you 
match them up with your monthly statement.

· Credit card receipts after you get your statement, unless 
you might return the item or need proof of purchase for a 
warranty.

· Credit card statements that do not have a tax-related 
expense on them.

· Utility bills when the following month’s bill arrives 
showing that your prior payment was received. If you wish 
to track utility usage over time, you may want to keep them 
for a year, or if you deduct a home office on your taxes keep 
them for seven years.

 To avoid identity theft, be sure you shred anything you 
throw away that contains your personal information. It’s 
best to use a crosscut shredder rather than a strip one, 
which leaves long paper bands that could be reassembled.

 Keep One Year

· Paycheck stubs until you get your W-2 in January to 
check its accuracy.

· Bank statements (savings and checking account) to 
confirm your 1099s.

· Brokerage, 401(k), IRA and other investment statements 
until you get your annual summary (keep longer for tax 
purposes if they show a gain or loss).

· Receipts for health care bills in case you qualify for a 
medical deduction.

Keep Seven Years

Supporting documents for your taxes, including W-2s, 
1099s, and receipts or canceled checks that substantiate 
deductions. The IRS usually has up to three years after 
you file to audit you but may look back up to six years if 
it suspects you substantially underreported income or 
committed fraud. 

Keep Indefinitely

· Tax returns with proof of filing and payment. You 
should keep these for at least seven years, but many experts 
recommend you keep them forever because they provide a 
record of your financial history.

· IRS forms that you filed when making nondeductible 
contributions to a traditional IRA or a Roth conversion.

· Receipts for capital improvements that you’ve made to 
your home until seven years after you sell the house.

· Retirement and brokerage account annual statements as 
long as you hold those investments.

· Defined-benefit pension plan documents.

· Savings bonds until redeemed. 

· Loan documents until the loan is paid off.

· Vehicle titles and registration information as long as you 
own the car, boat, truck, or other vehicle.

· Insurance policies as long as you have them.

· Warranties or receipts for big-ticket purchases for as long 
as you own the item, to support warranty and insurance 
claims.

Keep Forever

Personal and family records like birth certificates, marriage 
license, divorce papers, Social Security cards, military 
discharge papers and estate-planning documents (power of 
attorney, will, trust and advanced directive). Keep these in a 
fireproof safe or safe-deposit box. 

Reduce Your Paper

 To reduce your paper clutter, consider digitizing your 
documents by scanning them and converting them into 
PDF files so you can store them on your computer and back 
them up onto a USB flash drive or external hard drive like 
icloud.com or carbonite.com. 

 Your can also reduce your future paper load by switching 
to electronic statements and records whenever possible.

 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.


KATIE Tse.....................This and That

“GREEN MANSIONS!” PART II

Welcome back to Part II of 
“Green Mansions!” For those 
of you who missed my last 
column (and those of you who 
wished you had!), here’s a recap. We left our hero, 
Anthony Perkins, rushing back into the jungle to 
warn Audrey Hepburn, the mysterious “lady of 
the forest” and her grandfather, Lee J. Cobb, of 
the impending danger awaiting them at the hands 
of the local tribe, headed by Henry Silva. (If this 
summary lacks essential details, it’s only because 
Part 1 was VERY long. I encourage you to watch 
the 1959 movie yourself!) Back to the action...

 Silva stirred the natives into a blood lust for 
Hepburn by falsely accusing her of murdering his 
older brother. Perkins desperately searches for 
her, but finds Cobb hiding 
with an illicit barbequed leg 
o’ lamb instead. (Having 
grown up in the jungle, 
Hepburn’s a real vegetarian 
tree-hugger. But a man gets 
a hankering for a juicy steak 
now and then!)

 Cobb also confesses that 
he is not Hepburn’s actual 
grandfather. In his youth, 
Cobb took up with some bad 
company who massacred 
nearly all the inhabitants of 
a small village, from which 
Hepburn is descended. 
Despite Cobb’s objections, 
Perkins spills the beans to 
Hepburn, who lashes out at Cobb for lying to her 
all these years. The young lovers escape over the 
hill to Hepburn’s village, Riolama.

 Once there, they find only desolate ruins. By 
now, Hepburn has softened to Cobb, and the two 
return to find him. But they are too late. Silva has 
murdered Cobb in their absence, and now he and 
his gang are out to get Hepburn. Being the jungle 
chick that she is, Hepburn escapes by scrambling 
up a tree. This is just what Silva wanted. “Burn the 
jungle witch!” he shouts to his cronies as they stack 
kindling around the base of the tree. The smoke 
rises and it looks as if Hepburn will be fried to a 
crisp. (This is especially bad because her chiffon 
dress is probably flammable.)

 Unable to climb to Hepburn’s rescue, Perkins 
pursues Silva to a waterfall where they duke it out 
on the slippery rocks. Silva boasts that, by taking 
out the jungle witch, he’s now ready to step in as 
the new chief. In a surge of impassioned fury, 
Perkins strikes Silva and leaves him floating face 
down in the wash.

 Perkins wanders through the charred jungle, 
but there is no sign of Hepburn. Overcome with 
emotion, he falls to his knees and weeps at the sight 
of a special flower, now withered, that Hepburn 
showed him days before. In the midst of his tears, 
Perkins recalls Hepburn telling him to not cry over 
the flower when it dies, because, somewhere else in 
the jungle, another one is getting ready to bloom.

 The “Green Mansions” theme music reaches 
a crescendo as Perkins turns to discover Hepburn 
standing in a light flooded 
clearing. She smiles as 
she holds out her hand, 
beckoning him to join her. 
It’s a happy ending, and I was 
enjoying the warm fuzzies 
until my Mom shared her 
interpretation of the ending.

 According to her, Hepburn 
did meet a toasty end, which 
is confirmed with her words 
that “whenever a flower dies, 
somewhere else another is 
getting ready to bloom.” 
Then the ending becomes 
like “Somewhere in Time” 
with Jane Seymore and 
Christopher Reeve reuniting 
in a misty afterlife (you gotta watch that one, too, 
it’s a real tear-jerker).

 I have problems with this interpretation. Having 
Perkins join Hepburn in the bright jungle sunrise 
implies that either Perkins is dead, too, or that he 
sees dead people (e.g., “The Sixth Sense”). I like to 
think that Hepburn miraculously escaped the fire 
--that’s what I thought when I first saw it at seven 
or eight years of age.

 By now I imagine that my scintillating summary 
of the film has you scouring the Internet for it 
(Ha!). If you do happen to watch it, I hope the 
alternate endings I’ve posed don’t cloud your 
artistic judgment. 

 Next week, “Plan 9 From Outer Space!” (just 
kidding --but that’s a funny one, too!) 


SHARE SOME 

GOOD NEWS! 

 “The Kindness of Strangers” feature encourages readers 
to share their stories. I can assure you, they will be 
uplifting especially in contrast to all the the challenges 
and issues we have to deal with daily. So, if you have 
something you would like to share, please submit it to: editor@mtnviewsnews.com. It doesn’t 
matter where you were or when it happened. Share your good expeiences in hope that it might 
bring a little joy and/or inspire someone.

 

-Susan Henderson, Editor/Publisher MVNews


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