Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
‘ AndMiles To Go Before I Sleep’
Residents and staff members of Wellington at Hershey’s Mill share their ‘ bucket lists’
In case you’re not familiar with the movie, “The Bucket List” is a list of all the things you want to do in life before you ‘ kick the bucket.’ Wellington residents and staff talk about their own ‘ Bucket Lists’ in the following interviews.
Joyce Hoy, Resident
My husband and I did not share all the same hobbies. We did share gardening, and entertaining at our pool. He didn’t care about traveling, but I did. It was more my thing to do. After he died, I traveled with my friends. One special trip I remember the most started in Hamburg, Germany and continued through England and France. We enjoyed the best of each country and it was a wonderful experience. I can’t say it was always something I wanted to do; but once I did it, it was wonderful!
I should tell you what I least liked to do — cooking! Here at Wellington it is wonderful not having to cook every day, and shop for the food each family member requested. Recently, I made Crème De Menthe brownies for a luncheon I was attending at my church. And oh, my word, the people loved them! I brought some home and it was nice — I felt so good that everybody enjoyed them so much! I had a new appreciation of enjoyment— people enjoying the food I made!
Mae Mollure, Resident
We’ve traveled all over the world. We’ve been to Europe six times, we’ve been to almost any place you can imagine. Whenmy daughter was little, then we went to Florida, for 19 years, every winter for two months. Naples – we loved it, absolutely loved it.
I always wanted to travel. My husband said, we have to travel because I think everybody should travel. Andwhen Carolwas growing up, my daughter, she traveled with us before she got married. After she got married, my husband said, Carol, make sure you travel because it’s wonderful. And she never stopped traveling! She travels like crazy.
We’ve gone to Hawaii, we went on six cruises, we went to Italy, we went to Switzerland. Oh my god. And the United States, I think we’ve been almost everywhere in the United States, maybe a couple places we missed.
My favorite of all places was Europe. Italy, and Switzerland was fabulous! We loved Switzerland, we had a chalet. It’s a little house, it was adorable, we really had fun. We really have enjoyed our life. We’ve had our ups and downs, I’ve been sick and he’s been sick, but other than that, we’re fine. We’re here for good!
Allan Dovberg, Resident
It’s funny that you would bring this up because there is something that was a bucket for me. As you know, I’m a political junky. And I always wanted to find something to do that would aid kids in education because one of the things I’ve done, with many of my hats, was a program that showed the depth and diversity of technology of the educational process. I worked with the Intermediate Unit inMontgomery County and we put on sort of a spectacular exhibition once a year, we did it for about five years. It was to show what the kids could do. We brought the kids and their projects in for an exhibit. And opened it up to the community. We started the first year, we had about 1,600 people who came to see what was going on. We continued and had at least 1600 people coming, during the course of the day, and every politician except one who was on the state educational committee, that decided if I didn’t let him speak, then he wasn’t going to come. That was something in my bucket that I did.
A big ambition in life that was a great bucket was to organize a trip over one summer. Iwas going to take one student in broadcasting from Temple, and one student in Drexel for Photography and visit all the Presidential Libraries in the United States. At one point, there were 10. I had authorization from the federal government, which I found out I had to apply for and I did, and I got permission to go in after hours and photograph and write stories about each of the libraries. Our intent was to make 40- minute segments, and bring them back to the schools, to show the students who probably never would have gone on their own to any of these. And we would have had a series of these. I asked to get a grant for $ 25,000. which would finance the trip. That never happened and neither did the trip! That was my biggest bucket item ever. It was something that, I hope someday, somebody else will pick it up and do it. The whole idea of bringing it to the students in school is what I thought, I hoped, would spur the legislature to give me a WAM, ‘ walking around money’ as they used to call it, or a grant. That never happened.
I was president of the Montgomery County Tax Payers’ Association, which I ran for nine years. I had one of the legislators who was really in my corner and he tried to help get it. He did get me some money from Bell, $ 17,000 for the exhibits that we did. That was called Technology 2000. We ran that with the Intermediary Units. He did get me money for that, so that helped us do that project. But I never got the big grant.
Jayne Smith, Director ofWellness Services
Every time I hear someone talk about the bucket list, and I saw the movie ‘ The Bucket List,’ I always thought to myself I don’t want to believe in the bucket list because if you never get to do something, then you’ll be disappointed, and you should just live your life the best you can and just enjoy what you can do. So that’s how I always thought. I also don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions either. I’ve never made one and I’ve never thought about the bucket list. But, if I had to do something I’ve always wanted to see a whale. So, I’d like to go to New England or where ever we could, I’d like to see a whale. I’ve seen tons of dolphins, I’ve seen a shark, but I haven’t seen a whale. That’s about the only thing I can think of that I’d like to do before I die would be to see a whale!