November 2009
The Soldiers Home looks like a movie set. Built in the late 1800s to house Civil War veterans, it’s a compound of stately brick buildings set on acres of lush grass and perfectly coifed shrubbery. There’s a tank at the entrance, then a chapel to the right, next to the Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter. Farther in is Chilson Hall, the hub of the complex, and home to a library, a tricked-out game room, a good old-fashioned barber shop and a snack bar that’s open to the public.
Residents live in three buildings: Betsy Ross Hall, for the most independent; Roosevelt Hall, for assisted living; and the nursing facility, where veterans crowd the dining area for Bingo – and prizes – three or four times a week.
There have been a few changes lately in the Bingo room.
The Soldiers Home looks like a movie set. Built in the late 1800s to house Civil War veterans, it’s a compound of stately brick buildings set on acres of lush grass and perfectly coifed shrubbery. There’s a tank at the entrance, then a chapel to the right, next to the Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter. Farther in is Chilson Hall, the hub of the complex, and home to a library, a tricked-out game room, a good old-fashioned barber shop and a snack bar that’s open to the public.
Residents live in three buildings: Betsy Ross Hall, for the most independent; Roosevelt Hall, for assisted living; and the nursing facility, where veterans crowd the dining area for Bingo – and prizes – three or four times a week.
There have been a few changes lately in the Bingo room.
- Over a few weeks, I have evolved into the Queen of Home Bingo. The other regular volunteer fell and broke her nose, and has not come back since. So now I run from table to table reading off the bingos to confirm them with the caller, and Jim, Ray’s former Bingo sidekick, pushes the prize cart from winner to winner. I am happy to do this. So much so, that when a pack of Cub Scouts showed up unexpectedly on Veterans Day with tubs and tubs of cupcakes, I felt a little put out. But I also felt secretly special: They were dropping in to do a good deed, and I was able to help them out, introducing them to tables full of wonderful people, and then just taking a load off and sitting down with Mike as he played.
- Mike was a Bingo resister for months. I kept telling him about the prizes (Food! Cash! Stuffed animals!), but he never wanted to come. "I’ll go to Bingo when I’m senile," he said. Well, Mike isn’t senile, but he is now a true-blue Bingo booster. He stopped in one night when it was too rainy to go to the pond, and he won. And he won again. And he is now completely, totally hooked. We try to pick him a lucky card, looking for our birth years and adding up numbers, and we laugh whether it works or not. He’s winning food, which I am always trying to shove into him, and he’s winning money, which makes him even happier.
- Raymond the Bingo King is no longer the regular caller. His eyes were bothering him, and he was getting dizzy trying to shift his focus from the Bingo balls to the machine he slips them into. He still comes to play now and then, but it’s been hard to adjust to his absence. The good news is, Wesley, the young dude, is the new caller. His first night, it took a few calls to get the microphone and the volume set, but he now commands that room with humor and warmth. Leo, who's been known to throw a fit or two when he’s not winning, threw one too many the other night. No one said a word, except for Wesley, who announced right into the microphone, "Now let’s cool down there, big guy." It was the perfect approach.
4. David Fox remembered my name. David ("Foxy" to his pals) doesn’t hear, or remember, everything. But he called me Sandra, and I just melted. "I’ve been working on my memory," he said. "Can I ask you a few questions?" We went through my son’s name, my marital status, whether my son skis, and David promised to remember. Next time I saw him, he asked how my little skier was. He thanks me for coming every time I see him, and he always asks when I’ll be back. My answer is always: The next Home Bingo.