Time to Care: Families find more options to keep elderly parents at home

By Jason Lesley
Coastal Observer

Dot Matthews of DeBordieu says the time has come for her to care for her 97-year-old mother.

Jo Cerami suffers from dementia and needs her daughter and son-in-law, John, now.

She has gone from being the caregiver to the recipient. After her husband died in 1976, Jo moved in with Dot and John in Florence to help care for their seven children. “It was me who needed her at that time,” Dot said. “I had my own company, working 24/7. John was working. We needed help. I would stop in at her house, and she’d be crying. She had nothing to do and didn’t have a whole lot of friends. I asked her if she would come and help me so there would be somebody there with the kids when they got home from school. Now she needs me. Turnabout is fair play.”

Dot is granting her mom the wish that almost every aging person has: to remain at home. It hasn’t been easy. “Dementia comes on very slowly,” Dot said. “I didn’t realize what it was. My friends noticed it before I did.”

Continued at:

http://www.coastalobserver.com/articles/2013/102413/6.html

Things to do in the Myrtle Beach area on Oct. 25

Published: October 25, 2013


Oodles of celebrations

So much to do, so many choices of special events:

• “Zombie 5K Mudd Run” and bonfire, for Special Operations Wounded Warriors, 8 a.m. at Low Country Preserve, 466 Indigo Flatts Road, Tabor City, N.C. $50 individual or $135 three-person team. 455-0604.

• Nathan Black 5K Run/Walk scholarship benefit. 8 a.m. from Surfside Pier, 11 N. Ocean Blvd., Surfside Beach. $27.50. 704-500-1696.

• Blind Bowlers Tournament, team competition 8:45 a.m. and scratch competition 1:30 p.m. at Surfside Bowl Entertainment Center, 510 U.S. 17 Business N., Surfside Beach. 919-740-2398.

• Arts and Crafts Fair, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. in Brunswick Plantation’s Brunswick House, 382 Brunswick Drive, Calabash, N.C.. Free. 910-287-4604.

Much more at:

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2013/10/25/3782149/things-to-do-in-the-myrtle-beach.html

Address Hog and Coyote Problems

Published: October 23, 2013

By Jason M. Rodriguez

CONWAY — Horry County Councilman Harold Worley knows a bit about how much of a nuisance wild hogs can be.

“Being an old farm boy myself and being raised on a farm and raising hogs, I do know how vicious they can be,” Worley said of the wild hogs. “I wouldn’t want anybody to get hurt by one of these wild hogs.”

That’s why the county’s public safety committee plans to devise a plan of attack on wild hogs, who have been wreaking havoc on farms, yards and wooded areas this year. It also plans to address coyotes, which are said to be tamed similarly. Coyotes also have caused problems this year in Surfside Beach, which hired a trapper, and neighborhoods along the Grand Strand.Rising river waters are what some people believe are to blame for this year’s seemingly higher number of complaints than in years past, said Nathan Hudson, with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.

Continue at:

http://www.thestate.com/2013/10/23/3054905/horry-county-to-discuss-addressing.html

An Industry of Mediocrity

By BILL KELLER
 

October 20, 2013



“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach teaching.”
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WHOEVER coined that caustic aphorism should have been in a Harlem classroom last week where Bill Jackson was demonstrating an exception to the rule. Jackson, a 31-year classroom veteran, was teaching the mathematics of ratios to a group of inner-city seventh graders while 15 young teachers watched attentively. Starting with a recipe for steak sauce — three parts ketchup to two parts Worcestershire sauce — Jackson patiently coaxed his kids toward little math epiphanies, never dictating answers, leaving long silences for the children to fill. “Denzel, do you agree with Katelyn’s solution?” the teacher asked. And: “Can you explain to your friend why you think Kevin is right?” He rarely called on the first hand up, because that would let the other students off the hook. Sometimes the student summoned to the whiteboard was the kid who had gotten the wrong answer: the class pitched in to help her correct it, then gave her a round of applause.

After an hour the kids filed out and the teachers circled their desks for a debriefing. Despite his status as a master teacher, Jackson seemed as eager to hone his own craft as that of his colleagues. What worked? What missed the mark? Should we break this into two lessons? Did the kids get it? And what does that mean?

“Does ‘get it’ mean getting an answer?” Jackson asked. “Or does it mean really understanding what’s going on?”

At that point Deborah Kenny, the founder of the Harlem Village Academies charter schools, leaned over to me: “That right there, that is why we’re starting a graduate school.”

How America prepares its teachers has been a subject of dismay for many years. In 2005 Arthur Levine, then the president of Teachers College at Columbia University, shocked colleagues (and himself, he says) with a scathing report concluding that teacher preparation programs “range from inadequate to appalling.” Since then the outcry has only gotten more vociferous. This summer the National Council on Teacher Quality described teacher education as still “an industry of mediocrity.”

Continued at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/opinion/keller-an-industry-of-mediocrity.html?src=recg

Code Red

Greater Burgess Community Association Quarterly Meeting

Grand Strand businesses capitalize on popularity of Halloween

By Maya T. Prabhu
October 19, 2013


MYRTLE BEACH — By October the crowds have thinned in downtown Myrtle Beach, but this year you might have to side-step a zombie along Ocean Boulevard.

For the first time, the Oceanfront Merchants Association is aiming to capitalize on the growing popularity of Halloween by introducing Fright Nights in downtown Myrtle Beach on Fridays through Nov. 1 – zombies and all.

Downtown merchants and other Grand Strand businesses are increasingly using the holiday aiming to lure potential visitors during the slower fall season or entice others to stop by their store, attraction or park for Halloween events.

Continued at:

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2013/10/19/3780629/grand-strand-businesses-find-ways.html

Myrtle Beach-area arts and cultural calendar for Oct. 18-24

Published: October 17, 2013


ART & SOUL, AN ARTISAN GALLERY INC., 5001 N. Kings Highway, Suite 105, Myrtle Beach, in Rainbow Harbor plaza. Reception 4-6 p.m. Oct. 19 for release of “Helen Mates: Local Icon in Mid Century Myrtle Beach,” a book by Russell Mates with Carolyn Mates Waters and Peter Waters, with foreword by Dino Thompson. 839-2727 or www.artandsoulmyrtlebeach.com.

AUDITIONS/REHEARSALS

*  BRUNSWICK LITTLE THEATRE, auditions 3-7 p.m. Oct. 20 and 5-8 p.m. Oct. 21 for “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” (for shows Feb. 20-23), in roles for two men and women each, age 25-50, at Summerwoods Property Owners Clubhouse,3745 Sunny Meadows Lane, Bolivia. N.C. Sing a song of your choice a cappella. Call director Sue MacCallum at 910-471-7264 or 910-253-7264. www.brunswicklittletheatre.com.

* CYPRESS PLAYERS, auditions 3 p.m. Oct. 19-20 for “The Cemetery Club” – three women and one man older than 50 – at Cypress Camping Resort, 101 Cypress RV Way, Socastee, off River Road from S.C. 707, by Socastee High School (293-0300 or www.cypresscampingresort.com), for play in later February and early March. 597-9323.

MUCH MORE AT:

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2013/10/17/3768216/myrtle-beach-area-arts-and-cultural.html