Mask Up OLLI Friends!
*SVSU Requires that Masks be Worn by ALL in Classroom Settings*
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OLLI continues to strive to keep everyone engaged, for a complete list of up-to-date programming and events, please check our website or call the office. For community events, please check online for information.
- Check out Scarecrow Fest in Frankenmuth Oct. 23-24 from 12-6 p.m. at River Place Shops.
- Join the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra on October 30 for a Halloween "Haunt-cert" of classical and recognizable music from the spooky to the macabre at the Bay City State Theatre. Admission is $5 per person.
- Grab your grandkids and head to the Children's Zoo at Celebration Square one weekend in October for Zoo Boo! Tickets must be pre-paid online.
- From Oct. 29-31 you can "Rave From the Grave" at the Halloween themed electronic music festival at Washington Lanes Entertainment Complex in Bay City. General Admission is $25.
- As the weather gets chilly, check out a free podcast at iHeart.com or your favorite site, we like "True Crime Garage" for the details on all your favorite homicidal maniacs and unsolved crimes.
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IMPORTANT DATES
Wednesday, Dec. 8--Monthly Meeting: Frankie Lymon: Three Wives and an Unmarked Grave
OLLI at SVSU
In-Person Viewing or Virtual Link
Make Sure to Renew Your Membership Today at svsu.edu/olli
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Greetings to all our friends of OLLI!
How about a new word to help explain the past and give us hope for the future. That word is "TRANSMUTATION." The word was coined by Lalah Delia and she explains it as follows: "Transmutation: Grapes must be crushed to make wine; diamonds form under pressure; olives are pressed to release oil; seeds grow in darkness. Whenever you feel crushed, under pressure, pressed, or in darkness, you're in a powerful place of transformation/transmutation." Most of us in these past two years have experienced these emotions and feelings in many different ways. Our wonderful SVSU-OLLI has gone through many forms of transmutation but never was it defeated. Today as we see the continued growth of our organization, we can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel getting brighter each day. We are ready to show our area what we are all about and open our doors to new members and friends. Our monthly meetings are back, our day trips are gaining in momentum with more travelers joining us, classes are growing and new topics are being offered, our special interest groups are active again, and soon we should hear about the future of extended travel. As chair of the OLLI advisory board I am more than excited as I see what is happening. It does take time. It does take patience. It does take positive thinking. It does take all of us working together and sharing ideas.
Transmutation does involve change and it was mixed feelings that all of heard the news that our director, Dr. Katherine Ellison, has resigned her position. She has led our organization for several years and was extremely determined to keep our OLLI going during the pandemic while other OLLIs were struggling. We owe Katherine a great deal of appreciation for her leadership in never letting our SVSU-OLLI collapse, but she along with her office staff instead maintained OLLI activities every month of these trying times. And now the time has come for Katie to turn the reigns of our program over to new/different leadership. Please keep watch as the new leadership for OLLI continues to unfold. I know the future is in good hands and that the Great Lakes Bay Region is going to share in my excitement as SVSU-OLLI continues to be a major force in the lives of our people 50 and better.
From the advisory board and all our members, we send the very best wishes to Katie and look forward to hearing all about the great things that the future has for her. Keep in touch.
--Roger Spann, Advisory Board Chair
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Born in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe has a reputation as being one of the most macabre and melancholy American authors. Most famous for his poem, "The Raven," Poe was also the modern architect of the short story and inventor of the murder mystery genre.
Poe himself experienced a life that lived up to his morbid tales, experiencing the death of both of his parents at a young age, the later death of his childbride, and a life tainted by the wiles of alcohol, leading to his untimely death at the age of just 40 after being found unresponsive in the proverbial and literal gutter.
Despite Poe's modern-day recognition as an ingenious and creative writer and poet, his work was largely ignored during his lifetime. Instead, Poe worked as an editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia, and Broadway Journal in New York to make ends meet.
This October, revisit Poe's classic work that evokes horror, terror, and passion in every reader. We recommend "The Cask of Amontillado," but "The Tell-Tale-Heart" is always a favorite too. Curl up with a volume of Poe on a chilly, rainy night and take a trip into the darkened recesses of the master's mind.
For more information, see: "Edgar Allan Poe" at poetryfoundation.org, and The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, volumes I and II, 2011.
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Unfortunately, the United States has a reputation for deadly school shootings--Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Virginia Tech just to name a few in recent years. Though these massacres are most in the forefront of our mind, they have not topped the deadliest US school massacre yet.
In 1927, Bath Consolidated School Board trustee, Andrew Kehoe, placed WWII surplus dynamite in and around the Bath Consolidated School, which housed over 300 children from elementary through high school. At 8:45 a.m. that morning, the north wing exploded.
The blast, which could be heard miles away, killed numerous children and teachers instantly, with bystanders rushing to the building to try to lift the collapsed roof off the bodies. As these good samaritans struggled at the scene, Kehoe pulled up in his truck, laced with explosives and shrapnel, stepped out and fired a rifle at the truck, causing a massive explosion. Kehoe, the superintendent, and several bystanders were also killed.
At the end of the day, 44 people had been killed, most of them children.
For more information see: "The 1927 Bombing that Remains America's Deadliest School Massacre" Smithsonian Magazine.
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Long ago, a woman in Ada, Michigan began sneaking out of her house at night, taking a lover. Her husband, wise to her adultery, plotted to catch her in the act and end it once and for all.
One night, the husband pretended to fall asleep and waited for his wife to slip out the door. She did. Following her, he came upon Seidman Park in Ada.
Waiting in the shadows, he watched his wife meet her beaux and embrace. Enraged, the husband attacked the couple, killing his wife first. The men then fought until they killed each other.
The Michigan lore surrounding the Ada Witch claims that the ghostly woman can be spotted around the Findlay Cemetery where she was buried, often followed by an eerie mist. She might tap on your shoulder or just make her presence known as she looks for her lost lover.
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INTEREST GROUPS: PING PONG |
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Meets every Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m.-Noon in the Ryder Center at SVSU |
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Do you love the woosh of the ball, the thwack of the paddle and the competitive atmosphere? Then check out the OLLI Ping Pong interest group. It meets, beginning on November 4, on the ping pong tables at the Ryder Center at 10 a.m. Bring your paddle, bring your game, and BRING IT ON!
*Masks Required on Campus
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CLASS HIGHLIGHT
(174) NEARLY NUCLEAR: A MISMANAGED ENERGY TRANSITION
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Although the title of this talk matches the title of my book published by Michigan State University Press in September, my talk could also be titled “Saginaw Valley Reactors”. I will be talking about how different people reacted to Consumers Power’s plan to build their Midland Plant, which consisted of two huge nuclear reactors on the banks of the Tittabawassee River, directly across the river from where 12,000 people worked and within five miles of where 35,000 people lived.
I will also discuss how everyone involved in this story had to contend with the events of the day: the Vietnam War, the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, The China Syndrome (movie), an accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear plant, and inflation that pushed Consumers’ costs to borrow money to 14%.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s Consumers’ plans for nuclear power did not stop with the Midland Plant. In 1971 they announced plans to build a nuclear plant even larger than the Midland Plant at Quanicassee near Bay City. Had Consumers completed the Midland and Quanicassee plants, 45% of their electric generation would have been from nuclear plants by 1980.
Now Consumers Energy (the successor to Consumers Power) is engaged in their most drastic plan to change electric generation since their attempt at nuclear power. They have proposed that by 2040, 56% of their generation will come from renewable sources. In 2019 only 11% of their energy was from renewables. It remains to be seen how people will react.
*Masks Required in Classroom
Instructor: Lee Smith
Wednesday • 11/17
10 a.m.-Noon
Location: C129
Member Price: $18
Non-Member Price: $25
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TRAVEL HIGHLIGHT
(15) DETROIT HISTORIC THEATRE TOURS
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Harken back to the days of Danny Thomas and make room for the daddy of all pipe organs in this quirky theatre and music hall tour. Begin the day with guide Kim Rusinow, owner of Destination Detroit Tours, for a tour of the Senate Theater, designed by architect Christian Brandt and opened in October of 1925. Though the Senate served mainly as a movie theater, it also was a stage to young comedians and entertainers on their way to stardom, such as the illustrious Danny Thomas. In addition to the Senate’s past connection to old Hollywood, it currently serves as home to the eighth largest Wurlitzer organ ever constructed, originally installed in Detroit’s Fisher building. After a guided tour of the Senate, organ concert, and silent movie showing, the group will enjoy lunch at Fishbones restaurant in Greektown. To finish out the day, OLLI will take you on a guided tour of Detroit’s Music Hall, featuring 90 years of music in Detroit through a detailed gallery of performers, shows, artifacts and more. Please Register by October 29
Thursday, November 11
Member Price: $120
Non-Member Price: $145
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"I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves... if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854.
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SVSU OLLI | SVSU.EDU/OLLI |
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