Why I Was Meant to Mentor

(SALEM, Ore.) - All of our lives are sometimes a little empty, only it's a matter of degree. We never had children because we got married in mid-life and instead turned our attention to travel. In our 29 years of marriage (it began the years Reagan began his presidency in 1981), we visited some thirty countries, from Russia and China to Colombia and (twice) Costa Rica.

As we aged, we decided to purchase our first home and settle in. We had been "experimenting" cross-country with life in different states. First it was New York, then Northern Virginia, living just outside of DC. When a job opportunity beckoned in that alien town of Roswell, NM, we packed our luggage and resettled there, getting a taste of Western-style life on the prairie.

Finally, heeding Horace Greeley's call to "Go West" a bit further, we vacationed in Oregon and fell in love with its array of greenery. That chance circumstance lead us here, and in 2002 we decided to make Salem our permanent home. At first we rented. In 2005, we saw a neat ranch home in the 55-plus community of Salemtowne. We made a bid and it was ours.

In life, there's often a flip side to a decision. Not long after we became Salemtowners our sense of age segregation became noticeable. Both of us had been in the aging field for years, so we really yearned for a change of pace. Salemtowne has many pleasant folks but the rules dictate that they all belong to the older set. We missed that intergenerational contact.

Adding to our wish for some age balance was the far distance for our nieces and nephews. One was in Georgia, another in New Jersey, a third in Arizona. The closest to us were Californians, a daunting 10-hour drive at best. Bottom line: we were isolated from all our blood relatives.

In 2008, a few years after Katrina struck New Orleans, another Gulf Coast hurricane landed in Louisiana. This one was called Gustav. It wreaked havoc on Baton Rouge and the sugarcane areas nearby. I decided to respond and became a Red Cross disaster services volunteer.

Perceived as a good candidate to organize a children's program due to my interest in the arts, the Red Cross dispatched me to rural Pointe Coupe Parish. Soon I discovered that the shelter was filled to capacity with parents and kids, and tensions were building with schools shut down and electricity failing in many places. The challenge was before me to de-stress things.

* Art Lessons: I gathered the kids in the picnic pavilion outside and we had cartoon lessons. Each child was given a choice of crayons and then they traded. Many expressive pictures of surviving the hurricane emerged. This ventilation was also a safety-valve for some. * Trash Scavenger Hunt: We formed a grounds patrol to pick up the soda cans and wrappers abandoned by the grown-ups. Each youngster was given extra candy bars for their help. * Teen Talent Show: Getting the spotlight usually helps to boost self-esteem, and during any crisis this proves invaluable. We got one talkative teen to sign up the others and organized our own show on stage. Our original plan was for half an hour, but as the momentum grew soon we had to stretch it to over an hour in length. A sense of community emerged.

* Mini Mardi Gras: A few days later, it seemed that Hurricane Ike was headed our way and we were quite worried. However, it went to our west and we were spared. To celebrate our good fortune, we staged a kiddies Mardi Gras by creating our own scary masks from paper plates. As we all marched around the auditorium singing and stomping, we felt alive once again.

All of these experiences convinced me that I had a magic with kids. When I learned that the Youth Impact project (now Mid Valley Mentors) was seeking volunteers, I responded in kind.

My match was an energetic, self-assured 9-year-old with his daddy in prison. He lived with his mother and three other siblings, having been reunited after several stays with foster families. We hit it off extremely well and have been exploring Salem's many nooks and crannies for over half a year. These weekly outings are gratifying to both of us -- yes, we learn from each other. I love the chance to provide choices to my mentee, and permit him a part in making decisions.

Mentoring has reignited the inner me. Communications between the generations, in my opinion, makes our planet go round. That is why I was meant to mentor, a gift one cannot ever buy.

Salem-News.com Community Writer Barry Lee Coyne brings to our readers stories from his combined career of journalism and gerontology, and explains that these paths shaped his values. Lee Coyne once worked for The Civil Service Leader in NY State and covered the Legislature. He has also done features on mediation and arbitration, and believes in healthy skepticism. This writer-therapist often views the world as the masks of comedy and tragedy placed upon the scales of justice. For him, optimism inevitably wins. "Lyrical Lee" has traveled to 30 nations aboard and was once a press intern at the UN. His first published article was in The NY Daily News in '59, dealing with the need for integrity in public office.

He also launched the nation's first tele-conference on health education for shut-ins, created the Eldermentors project in VA to pair retirees with immigrant students needing role models, and was the main catalyst behind CCTV's "Public Public" panel show here in Salem. Lee received his BA in International Relations and an MSW in community organization. He currently serves as a member of Salem's Library Advisory Board. To send Lee an email, please write to this address: luckycoyne@yahoo.com