Estrogen replacement therapy -- female Viagra?
KSU-AC English professor writes book
It's Bible school time
Seiche hit lakeshore 56 years ago
Trumbull native publishes magazines for parents
of teens "Coming of Age"
Van modifications are at "no charge"
for Rome Township family
Historical home offered free to the right group
Bartholomew family once well represented in county
Book about local Appalachian migration published
All stories and photos by Carl E. Feather except where noted.
Lake Erie and the bright moon that hung over it beckoned insomniac fishermen to its waters in the early morning hours of May 31, 1942.
The lines of 35 fishermen made indentations of silver in the black water off Ashtabula's Walnut Beach breakwall. In Cleveland, Robert Michaels, 14, was awakened from his sleep around midnight and asked if he'd like to go fishing with friends John and Edward Eberling. Michaels dressed and the trio went to Perkins Park, where they dropped their lines from a jetty.
In Bay Village, George H. Forrler, his daughter Evelyn, and Walter and Esther Allen passed the evening and early morning hours waiting on the pier for blue pike to take their bait. On the Harry Ross farm in Perry Township, seven people spent the night fishing from a log that spanned an inlet to the lake.
A few miles east, at Paul Day's boat concession in Madison, anglers bobbed in rented row boats while vacationers slept in the shoreline cottages. Picnickers sat on the beach, enjoying a second round from the basket and a little sparking under the moonlight.
Among the boaters at Day's-on-the-Lake was Merrill F. Riley of Cleveland, who had gone fishing with his brother-in-law, John Austin of Wooster. Cortland residents Merle E. Diehl and Orlo and Esther Lenney, who were newlyweds, also rented row boats from Day's and fished into the night. Fourteen of Day's 17 rental boats remained on shore.
It was a working night for Paul Day, an employee of the Industrial Rayon plant in Fairport Harbor. As he stood at the plant's power station, he noticed a strange change in the wind direction around 2 a.m. Smoke, which was blowing toward the lake just a few minutes prior, was now trailing south. Within three minutes, a cold wind rose from the other direction.
At a Geneva-on-the-Lake pier, Leonard Gaetano of Ashtabula welcomed five passengers fromPittsburgh onto one of his new speedboats and headed toward Ashtabula Harbor. About 15 feet from the pier, Joe Spagnola of Ashtabula glanced toward the horizon and shouted: "Look what's coming!"
Gaetano began to turn the 19-foot boat around and head for the pier. But there wasn't enough time. The wave that Spagnola had spotted just seconds earlier seized the boat in its crest and flung it 200 feet onto shore. The passengers said it felt as if a giant hand lifted the boat from the lake and dropped it on the sand.
Evelyn Forrler and Walter Allen thought a mist was rolling toward the pier when they spotted the wave approaching Bay Village. By the time they realized the mist was a wall of water 8 to 12 feet tall, it was too late.
The wave swept the party into the lake. Walter Allen rescued Evelyn Forrler from the churning waters, but was unable to reach his wife or George Forrler. Esther Allen's watch stopped at 2:10.
At the Coast Guard station on the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, Chief Boatswain William Crapo noticed a sudden, four-foot surge of water climb over the breakwater and rise within a foot of the station pier. The high water remained about 30 minutes, then subsided gradually.
The seven fishermen at Perry and the log they were sitting on were dislodged by a blast of wind followed by the wave. The log and its passengers were tossed into a ravine. Miraculously, there were no fatalities. The fishermen witnessed the wave engulf a bank 20 feet tall.
Near Madison Park, three young men walking along the beach saw an overturned boat and two heads bobbing in the surf about half mile from shore. They launched a lifeboat and fought the heavy waves for a half hour before reaching, and rescuing, McKinley King and M.T. Oliver of Akron.
At Ashtabula, the wave swept all 35 breakwall fishermen into the lake. All of them managed to climb to safety.
Boaters at Day's were caught entirely off guard by the wave. A swell lifted the boat Austin and Riley were in, then dropped it into what Austin called a "terrific undertow." A wall of water caught the boat, flipped it, and threw the men into the water. The Lenneys and Diehl also were tossed into the soup.
Joseph Lamoris and Edward Anderson witnessed the destruction from shore and started toward Austin and Riley in a small outboard-motor boat. The water was choked with trees, small boats and debris that had been sucked into the lake by the receding wave. They plucked Austin from the water and headed for Riley. Then they saw a second monster wave approaching. The men told Riley to cling to the overturned boat and promised him they'd return after the wave passed. Then they headed for shore.
Searchers later found Riley's body in a tangle of uprooted trees.
Mrs. Day heard the commotion of the surf, fishermen's cries for help and screaming cottage residents. She ran to beach, saw the destruction and called for help. The Fairport Coast Guard, Lake County Sheriff deputies, Geneva Highway Patrol officers and 26 Lake County Civilian Defense auxiliary patrol searched the waves and beach for survivors -- and victims.
Diehl's body, locked in a death grip with a life preserver, was found 40 yards from the beach. The bodies of Riley and Mrs. Lenney were found later that day. The lake did not give up her husband's body until a week later.
What was this sudden surge of water that claimed seven lives and destroyed boats and piers along a 100-mile stretch of Ohio shoreline? The Star Beacon called it a "tidal wave," but a more accurate term is seiche because "tidal wave" or "tsunami" infers seismic activity. A seiche occurs when high winds pile up water in a shallow lake. It's like turning a leaf blower on a puddle of water _ the water will collect on one side of the puddle, then slosh about when the air pressure is released.
Seiches are fairly common on the eastern and western ends of Lake Erie, where water levels can rise and fall with strong winds. One of the most pronounced seiches on the lake occurred Nov. 21, 1900. The water in Buffalo Harbor rose 8 feet 4 inches in just eight hours while falling 4 feet 7 inches on the Detroit River during the same period.
But that seiche did not produce the sudden wall of water that barreled down on the shoreline May 31, 1942. A more plausible explanation for that event was the rapid wind shift that Paul Day observed. Joe DeRocher, planetarium coordinator at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, said the phenomenon was probably an "atmospheric water wave" produced by a sudden change in atmospheric pressure over the lake.
"It would have been very localized," he said. "But if you had the right conditions, you could get a pretty good-size wave rolling onto the beach."
The Star-Beacon article stated that the Cleveland office of the U.S. Weather Bureau attributed the wave to a sudden wind shift that "pushed the water with sudden violence after a few minutes of calm during the wind change."
The resulting waves came ashore from Bay Village to Conneaut, with Madison-on-the-Lake bearing the worst of it. Height of the first wave ranged from 4 to 20 feet. The second wave, which hit about 15 minutes later, was pegged at 6 to 8 feet.
While there is the temptation to attribute the wave to an earthquake or similar underwater event, the seismic monitoring station at John Carroll University did not report any activity the morning of May 31, 1942.
DeRocher said the Museum of Natural History now performs that seismic monitoring. He doubts that even a very strong earthquake could create a 20-foot tsunami in Lake Erie. Neither the 1986 nor the 1992 quake produced a tidal wave.
The reason, he said, is that Lake Erie is much too shallow to develop a tsunami such as the one that smashed into New Guinea a week ago. That wave was caused by an underwater landslide from a relatively shallow rim into very deep water.
"Lake Erie is so shallow that to begin with, it would take a tremendous geologic shift to move enough water to create a wave like that," he said.
But the lake's shallowness creates a favorable setting for creating a seiche.
"In a shallow lake like Lake Erie, it wouldn't take much to get the water sloshing around in the lake with that type of atmospheric change," he said.
The Star Beacon reported that "tidal waves" also had occurred in the eastern Lake Erie basin in 1929 and 1933, but took no lives. However, a seiche that hit the beaches at Buffalo on Aug. 8, 1926, took the lives of 11 bathers. Another seiche occurred July 13, 1938, when _ in the absence of wind, rain or storm -- the height of Lake Michigan at Holland, Mich., rose 12 feet in 15 minutes. The undertow pulled five bathers to their deaths.
Seiches were first discovered on Lake Geneva in 1730. A Swiss engineer observed that one end of the lake was sometimes higher than the other. Charles Whitlesey, an early Western Reserve writer and scientist, wrote in 1859 that records of the Jesuit Fathers who first explored the Lake Erie region observed the phenomenon -- "sudden waves and swells, on which their canoes were tossed by some invisible agent."
Lake Erie boaters, fishermen and sunbathers should know that a seiche can rise up at any time and little can be done to predict them. DeRocher said the fact that the 1942 seiche occurred at night probably accounts for the high death toll. The large wave would have been visible as it approached during the day, giving sunbathers and boaters a few minutes to reach higher ground. But on May 31, 1942, the seiche came out of the night as a dark wave of death.
"It can happen any time without a whole lot of notice," DeRocher said.
When retired English professor Claudia Greenwood holes up in her Canadian
cabin this summer, it won't be with a volume of 19th century American literature.
Rather, Greenwood will use her three weeks of solitude to compose a little
handbook that's been stewing on her mind's back burners for 12 years.
Greenwood, who taught English at Kent State University-Ashtabula Campus for 30 years, was awarded $3,325 to write "Go For It: A Handbook for Women Starting College." The grant was awarded by the Thanks Be To Grandmother Winifred Foundation, a New York organization that encourages the creativity of women 54 and older. Grants are provided to develop and implement projects, programs or policies that empower and enrich one or more aspects of the cultural, economic, educational, ethnic, mental, professional, racial, sexual, social and spiritual well-being of women.
"Go For It" will touch upon many of those areas as it guides female re-entry students through the first quarter of college. These students are a rapidly growing population on college campuses _ the National Center for Education Statistics predicts the non-traditional female student will dominate two-year and community colleges by the year 2000. Yet printed resources for this group have been virtually non-existent.
In her KSU-AC classrooms, Greenwood saw the non-traditional population begin to rise in the early 1970s. She responded by starting a Women's Day seminar that introduced nontraditional female students to myriad opportunities open to them through education. She encouraged women to move beyond the homemaking lives they had established and resume their formal education.
"I tell my husband that I've probably been responsible for more divorces than marriages," Greenwood said. "But this helps women focus on their learning by preparing significant others in their lives for the changes that are going to occur."
Through conversations, surveys and journals kept by her re-entry students, Greenwood became aware of the many obstacles and struggles these women face. Some of them were so controlled by a male figure at home that they weren't even allowed to attend "Woman's Day" because the husband was at home that day and expected his wife to be there, too.
"I became really aware of the tremendous difficulties women were having making the choice to return to school," she said.
Her years of observation and working with these students provided Greenwood the topic for her doctrinal dissertation 15 years ago. The dissertation became a mission, as Greenwood notes in her grant application, "to determine how I could better serve this most important but fragile group of students."
Many factors contribute to this population's fragility. There are practical issues of finances, transportation, time and responsibilities at home. There are psychological issues, as well, such as male attitudes toward educated women, personal motivation and fear of failure. The latter is a theme Greenwood has heard repeatedly in entry surveys she took among her non-traditional students.
"Even after they have succeeded and passed the course, they express the fear that they won't make it after this semester," she said.
Greenwood has observed fear on the faces of these students when they walk into class the first day. "I feel they were very tentative at first, very intimidated," she said. "For so many of them, walking through that door the first day was just traumatizing."
Ironically, the non-traditional students also became some of the best to ever sit before Greenwood in a classroom. "They make terrific students," she said. "For me, they made all the difference in teaching during the last 10 years. Their life experiences add so much and they are serious about working."
The key to their performance is support. "Without it, they drop out," Greenwood said. For some, family and extended family could provide that support structure. Greenwood and the local campus also pitched in. Beginning in 1986, she adjusted every class syllabus with the non-traditional students in mind. She also started an orientation class just for this population, a course that was dropped by the university when she took early retirement two years ago.
Greenwood said her heavy teaching load didn't permit her to create the resource that these students needed most -- a handbook that would give them immediate answers, inspiration and encouragement to stay on course. Greenwood calls it a "field guide to re-entry," and although it was never put on paper, she amassed boxes of research that would facilitate production when the opportunity arrived.
She sought a publisher for her idea, but academic publishers felt the book was too mainstream while trade publishers saw it as an academic book. Then Greenwood stumbled upon the foundation's Web site while researching grants for another project. The site froze the computer and Greenwood printed the information on the screen. The glitch became a blessing.
"It was absolutely something I'd been looking for," she said.
Greenwood received award notification in April and began assembling her research. She said the book is ready to spill out of her mind and into the computer, and her three weeks at the cabin will give her the solitude to accomplish that. She plans to edit, typeset and print 250 copies this winter for a spring release.
The book, as she envisions it, will be about 100 pages of information and another 50 or so of interaction. In keeping with her enthusiasm for journaling, Greenwood will encourage the student to record their own college re-entry experiences in the interactive pages. There will be pages for photos and a final page marked "graduation." It will be highly functional, as well, with a sturdy cover that will withstand book bag, glove compartment and kitchen counter use.
Greenwood said the book will be conversational in style and peppered with humor, journal entries and anecdotes from students. Some of her own poetry will be a part of the book, as well. Tam Wise, a re-entry student, will illustrate it, and poems by Norma Sundberg, a nontraditional student with 10 children, will reflect different parts of the re-entry process. Even the printing will be done by a re-entry student, Kerry Purkey.
The book won't be Greenwood's only work in print. She is also self-publishing a book of poems, "Limited Sight Distance," named after a road sign on Route 44 near I-90. "It's a metaphor for life," Greenwood said. And she's still doing some teaching, a graduate-level course for teacher professional development and a poetry workshop for children.
But for the next few months Greenwood will be following the advice of her book's title and canning a project that has been simmering a long time. Once it's out, she plans to distribute it at re-entry seminars for college-bound women. She also hopes to persuade a publisher to produce and market the work for a larger audience.
"I'm just pleased to have the opportunity to get it in print," she said. "Then I figure I can send the completed project out and see what happens."
The Rev. Kevin Horrigan leads a group of Bible school youngsters
in a song at Prospect Presbyterian.
Back in the 1950s, when Fred Mitcham was growing up on Morgan Road, some neighbors invited him and a couple of his siblings to vacation Bible school (VBS) at Grace Gospel Church.
Today, Mitcham is a board chairman at the church, where he's been a member for more than two decades. He looks back at that week of VBS as an important first step toward making a lifelong commitment to Jesus Christ. "I think vacation Bible school had a lot to do with it," he said. "My grandmother was a good Christian and she influenced my life a lot, too."
At Grace Gospel and many other churches throughout northeast Ohio, pastors and VBS workers are working to create a new generation of Fred Mitchams -- young people who are introduced and make a commitment to the Christian faith at any early age. For most churches, it is the single largest mission or outreach project they will undertake during the year, although it often gets overshadowed by Christmas food baskets and Thanksgiving dinners. But the logistics, cost and man hours involved in VBS often exceed the holiday excursions outside the sanctuary.
"It's kind of an outreach thing," said Ann Kelner, a teacher with First United Methodist Church's "Summer Venture '98," which was held last week. "We're reach out to the community to bring the kids in."
Summer Venture did more than reach out, it stepped beyond the walls of the sanctuary to the church parking lot and school playgrounds of downtown Ashtabula. The church teamed up with two elementary schools, Thurgood Marshall and Chestnut, to recruit youngsters for the all-day program that was built around a morning VBS session for children 3 to 13. Lunch was provided for children who stayed for afternoon field trips to the library, police station and downtown business. They also enjoyed special recreational opportunities at downtown parks and the YMCA.
The Summer Venture didn't end there, however. The youngsters returned in the evening, many of them with their parents and grandparents, to enjoy a carnival, ice cream social, intergenerational softball tournament, picnic dinner and closing program. Church members, an Ashtabula Foundation matching grant and donations from businesses underwrote the cost, estimated at $25 per child.
Kelner said that at least 70 youngsters registered for the program, and only 10 of them were from the church. "It's bringing the church to the community," she said.
The Rev. David Adams, pastor at Grace Gospel Church in Ashtabula, said their program last week was an outreach to the immediate neighborhood. Of the 70 to 80 children who attended "Cactus Caravan," less than 25 percent were from the church.
Adams said preparation for VBS began by saturating the neighborhood with leaflets and personal invitations. Grace Gospel members visited about 500 homes to invite youngsters to VBS and their parents to church. Adams said he's sensed an increased interest in VBS among grandparents, who encourage their grandchildren to attend and gain a foundation for life.
However, Adams believes government-sponsored programs cut into VBS attendance this year.
"We've talked to a couple families who have been bringing their children to Sunday school, and they said they would come to VBS except their parents have them involved in a government program and they're not available in the morning, Adams said. He calls it a matter of "our tax dollars paying to keep kids out of Bible school."
VBS attendance has not been a problem in Orwell, however, where workers had to scramble to meet the unexpectedly high enrollment of 93 children in the joint St. Mary's/Orwell Presbyterian North Church VBS. Jill Nock, VBS director for St. Mary's, said last year's high attendance was 50. "We're overwhelmed, but in a very good way," she said.
Nock attributes the near doubling to aggressive promotion and a general increase in the Orwell area population. She said the cooperative effort between the Catholic and Presbyterian communities works well -- the parishes split the expenses and responsibilities and open both buildings to the program. They also agree upon an outreach mission project for the week. This year, youngsters gave donations to the Heifer Project, which provides livestock to third-world nations.
"It helps the children learn that there is a bigger world out there," Nock said.
At Saybrook UMC, vacation Bible schoolers helped third-world youngsters get ready for school. Supplies like crayons, pencils and tablets were collected during the week and assembled in back-to-school kits for youngsters in Central America. Thompson UMC kicked off its week of Bible School last night with a pizza party and visit from "Heaven Train," a church on wheels that operates in inner-city Cleveland. A collection was taken to support the ministry.
It takes an army of volunteers to put on a VBS program. There are snacks to make and distribute; craft materials to collect and assemble; costumes and props to sew and build; teaching materials to prepare and review; music to play; audio and video presentations to set up for; lessons to teach; and youngsters who need registering, supervision and directions to the rest rooms.
Tina Root directed the VBS program for Saybrook United Methodist Church this year. Root said it took 27 volunteers to teach and monitor the 72 youngsters who attended the evening "Space Mission Camp" July 6 to 10. First UMC's ambitious Summer Venture program required scores of volunteers who did the traditional VBS tasks of teaching and leading craft sessions as well as manning a casino at the carnival, leading field trips and preparing lunch.
Ensuring a good volunteer base means selecting a VBS time slot that will accommodate the workers' other commitments. Sheila Lucas, VBS coordinator for Stateline United Methodist Church in Monroe, said the workers' schedule dictates the VBS week selection and time.
"This year we're doing it a week before last year's date," she said of the VBS which began last night. "A lot of it depends on the situation with the teachers. We have to find a week that's good for all the ones who said they'd help with it. That's the key thing."
Even with an accommodating schedule, the pressure to rush home from work, cook a meal and be at church by 6 p.m. can discourage volunteers from signing on. Pauline Burnett, VBS coordinator for Thompson UMC, said their program accommodates volunteers by giving them a home-cooked meal prior to the evening VBS program's start. Child care also is provided. Burnett said the church's senior ladies will cook and serve meals for 70 workers each evening this week.
"The evenings are very high impact, loud and can be too much for the senior ladies. So this gets them involved," Burnett said.
Thompson UMC is geared up for at least 120 youngsters at "Passport to the Holy Land." Burnett said many of the youngsters will come from the two campgrounds in Thompson and may never be back in the area again. The church sees it as a unique opportunity to reach the world, if only for five nights.
"You're making an impact on their lives," Burnett said. "You may not notice it now, but in 10 years, at a time they may be in trouble, hopefully they will stop and remember 'Jesus loves me.'"
The manner in which that message of love will be presented is given much advance research, planning and preparation. VBS planners often attend workshops in the winter months to sample the curriculum offered by Christian publishing houses. Becky Adame, owner of Sonshine Corner in Jefferson, held a workshop in February for area churches. She said the top publishers for VBS materials are Gospel Light, Group Publishing and Standard. Most of the 41 churches she serves selected one of the programs from these groups.
Publishers develop their lessons, music and drama along themes that are exciting to children. "I think having a theme is important," said the Rev. David Drake of PennLine Church of Christ, North Richmond. "You got to have something for it to revolve around."
Drake's church selected "Space Mission Bible Camp," a pre-packaged program that sends youngsters on a different mission each day of VBS. For example, kids learn how to be thoughtful, helpful and believe in Jesus. On subsequent days, every time they hear one of these words, they shout "blast off." Object lessons, like games that teach the youngsters to rely upon and help each other, drive the lessons home. Even snacks tie into the theme -- at Grace Gospel youngsters could sample real cactus leaves as part of their "Cactus Caravan."
An informal poll of area VBS programs shows Gospel Light's "Son Light Island, Living in the Warmth of God's Love" to be the most popular VBS theme program with local churches, followed by "Space Mission Bible Camp" and "Hooked on Jesus."
"Son Light Island's" catchy music and colorful graphics appealed to Sheila Lucas in making her selection. "We just really enjoyed the material," she said. "We enjoy the way it is laid out with the teacher's book and the music is always a plus."
Given the right combination of talent, time and money, a church can make a significant production of VBS. At Thompson UMC, Bible schoolers will explore New Testament cities in "Passport to the Holy Land." Burnett said a different setting has been created for each city. In Nazareth, costumed carpenters will guide children through a woodworking shop and allow them to experience smell of fresh wood shavings and sound of the mallet at work. A marketplace will help them learn about Jerusalem, the city where Jesus was condemned to die for their sins.
"The kids learn about Jesus our savior in Jerusalem," Burnett said. It will take 20 tour guides and a couple dozen helpers to execute the "Passport to the Holy Land" theme rooms.
Churches can spend a nominal amount for materials -- about $2 to $3 per student book -- or large sums if they want to buy a program complete with themed awards, decorations, drama skits, music compact discs and videos. At least one church, Prospect Presbyterian, decided to charge $2 to help offset the cost of materials and snacks this year. But Martha Strong, Christian education chairwoman for the church, said the fee doesn't even cover the cost of a student's book for the "Story Telling Tree" program.
"I think the people of our church would be shocked if they knew what VBS materials cost," she said.
Whatever the cost in time and money, VBS planners say it's a good investment in spreading the Gospel to a population that otherwise might not hear the good news.
"I think it's mainly important as an outreach, a mission, to bring the children in," Adams said. "The majority of the children who come don't go to church any other time, or their parent's don't go to church. This is a way for them to know who God is and who their savior is."
She's had a face lift and tummy tuck; he's got Viagra and a hair transplant. They're ready for the second honeymoon, but there's just one problem -- menopause has decreased her interest in sex. In fact, sex has become painful for her.
A generation ago, the woman might have suffered along with the passions of her partner, perhaps feeling used or dirty. Or they may have settled for a good night kiss and separate bedrooms Either way, it's a topic she wouldn't have thought about discussing with her doctor.
But this is the `90s, and with Viagra turning back the clock on male erectile function, women are showing up in physicians' offices seeking a comparable rejuvenator for "down below."
"I'm definitely seeing more of that, and they are asking when the `female Viagra' will be coming out," says Dr. Sam Ahuja, a PrimeHealth OB/Gyn physician with offices in Mentor and Willoughby.
"I had a couple patients in this week whose husbands got Viagra and the woman said `I thought I was done with this part,'" said Dr. Robert Deaton, an OB/Gyn from St. Vincent's and Humana Women's Hospital in Indianapolis. "That does come up more and more since the Viagra thing."
A survey conducted for The Wyeth-Ayerst Fourth Annual Menopause Report showed that 90 percent of American men and women ages 45 to 65 consider sexuality to be a fulfilling and enhancing part of their lives. But in practice, 59 percent of the current and postmenopausal women reported that menopause had a negative impact on their intimacy and sexuality.
For many of them, the reasons are physical. Forty-one percent of the women complained of vaginal dryness; 22 percent said intercourse was painful. But only 55 percent sought relief with estrogen replacement therapy or prescription vaginal creams.
Estrogen plays an important role in keeping genital tissues moist and elastic through the child-bearing years, said Deaton. When a women becomes sexually aroused, the hormone enables vaginal tissues to become lubricated. And estrogen helps maintain vaginal wall thickness, typically three layers thick in premenopausal women. During menopause, this lining erodes, often leaving only one cell layer.
Estrogen production by the ovaries declines steadily during peri-menopause, the four to five years prior to menopause, Ahuja said. Lubrication decreases and there is a loss of cells in the vaginal lining. Ahuja said estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) can reverse these trends and thereby allow women to continue to enjoy intimacy. The first step is to see your physician or gynecologist.
"It is very important for a woman to be able to talk easily with her physician," Deaton said. "Women are going to live one-third if not greater of their lives in the post-menopausal years." They need to know the long-term things that can be impacted in a positive manner by using estrogen replacement."
Although a woman may experience sexual difficulties during menopause, hot flashes and mood swings are the symptoms that usually bring her to the doctor's office, Ahuja said. ERTcan usually bring these troublesome symptoms can usually can be brought under control within a week or two. But the doctors say women should consider staying on ERT for years because there are scores of studies that document the preventive benefits of ERT.
"The main reason we recommend estrogen replacement is because the patient is experiencing hot flashes and night sweats," Ahuja said. "We recommend them staying on it for their bones and heart and the other benefits it provides."
ERT has been shown to decrease a woman's risk of heart attack by 35 to 55 percent, Deaton said. It also helps prevent osteoporosis, reduces cholesterol levels, improves memory and mental function, and cuts the risk of colon cancer by a third. Those benefits alone are sufficient for women to seriously consider hormone replacement, Deaton said.
Yet less than a quarter of U.S. menopausal and postmenopausal women receive ERT. "Half the women who get a prescription never get it filled," Ahuja said. Deaton said the Premarin brand of ERT has been on the market since 1940, so there is a long track record of the hormone's efficacy and safety. But many women are afraid of estrogen because it is associated with birth control pills and increased cancer risk.
"But the dosage (in ERT) is a factor of 10 lower than the estrogen in birth control pills," Deaton said. As for increased breast cancer risk, Ahuja said studies have shown that there is a slight increase with more than five years of ERT. But Deaton believes that since it takes 20 years for breast cancer to develop from a single cell to a detectible tumor, it is difficult to place the blame on five or 10 years of estrogen replacement therapy. Unless there is a familial history of breast cancer, the woman can probably continue ERT as long as she wants.
There are natural approaches to ERT, as well, such as a diet high in soy foods (hot flashes are virtually unknown among menopausal Japanese women). But Ahuja said the problem with a nutritional approach is that while foods can provide symptomatic relief, they may not contain enough plant estrogens to provide preventive benefits. "We just don't know if its enough to prevent osteoporosis and heart disease," he said.
Ahuja said some women refuse ERT because they don't want to have their periods start again, but a new combination estrogen pill is available to address that issue. Medical conditions such as undiagnosed vaginal bleeding, active liver disease, deep vein thrombosis and a previous history of breast cancer, would be other reasons for not using ERT.
And, in case you were wondering, ERT will not make you fertile again.
Women who seek ERT for sexual dysfunction can expect results within a couple weeks, Deaton said. He likes to use an oral estrogen, which will cost about $15 for a three-month supply, before suggesting creams. Estrogen creams can help improve lubrication and elasticity, but dosage is hard to control, he said. Estrogen also is available as a patch, but the cost is about three times that of oral medication.
Deaton said women also may benefit from small testosterone dosages if they are having a problem with libido, however ERT should be tried first. Testosterone also may produce some undesirable side effects, like acne, masculine hair development and even heart disease in women.
Both doctors say that the male public's enthusiastic reception of Viagra will ensure continued research into a "female Viagra." A European study is under way with 500 women to determine if Viagra can increase blood circulation in the female genitals as it does in the male. Theoretically, this would encourage arousal and response.
But Deaton said women don't have to wait for such a pill to come onto the market. With ERT, and perhaps a little wine and roses, couples can turn back the clock on their love lives.
"Estrogen will do the same thing (as Viagra)," said Deaton. "I don't think it will be a huge difference if they get a `female Viagra' because Viagra does nothing for increasing the libido."
John Masaveg (right) and his son John Jr. display
the modifications they made to the van for the John
Craig Lewis family.
John Masaveg lost two years of his childhood to polio. Perhaps that's why giving up 40 hours of his adult life to help a disabled teenager didn't seem like such a big sacrifice.
Masaveg, a Cleveland native and former Navy officer, owns Spirit Collision Center in Windsor. Last month, Rome Township resident Mary Lewis called Masaveg with an unusual Chevy van modification need. She wanted Masaveg to extend the vertical clearance on the side door opening from 48 to 59 inches. Her 18-year-old son, Vallin, is confined to a wheelchair by Duchenes' muscular dystrophy, and the van did not provide sufficient clearance to wheel his chair up a ramp and into the van.Traveling to a doctor's appointment or church was a major project. Lewis said one of their boys or her husband John Craig had to pick Vallin out of the wheelchair and put him in the front passenger's seat. It took two strong family members to pull the 300-pound chair into the van. "I've had to get permission to get kids out of school so they could help me," Lewis said.
But Vallin travels more comfortably and safely in his "gel" wheelchair seat that conforms to his body. Lewis said her other option, a lift, was outside the family's strained budget. Lifts range from $2,000 to $3,500 or more.
Mary Lewis' idea was to cut out and hinge a section above the door that would provide enough clearance for the chair with Vallin in it. Measure-ments showed that 54 inches was needed, but 59 inches would provide an optimum position of comfort for her son. The problem was that the modification required cutting through the top intrusion beam, which would compromise the chassis' structural integrity.
Lewis turned to the phone book and began searching for a shop or dealer willing to make the modification. "Nobody was interested in doing our van," she said. "I called at least a half-dozen people, including some in Erie. All of them said they didn't do that."
But John Masaveg of Windsor was up to the challenge.
"Mrs. Lewis brought it down and she explained her situation," Masaveg said. "I said we got the means and talent to do it."
Masaveg and his son/business partner John Jr. gave Lewis an estimate of $1,600, but confessed that they never planned to charge her. The case hit too close to home.
"I had mild polio when I was a child and spent two years in Rainbow (Babies and Children's) Hospital," John Masaveg said. "I can remember running up and down the hospital in wheelchair races."
Masaveg was 5 when he entered the hospital. His first year was spent in bed with weights on his legs; the second year in a wheel chair with his legs on a board and device to keep them extended. He wore a brace and strap after being discharged.
The treatments worked _ by the time Masaveg was 12 he was sweeping the floor in an auto body shop. He enlisted in the Navy after school and made a career in it as a jet mechanic and maintenance officer. While in the Navy, he dabbled in auto body work and got practical experience in corrosion control _ keeping aircraft carriers from rusting despite constant exposure to saltwater.
After 22 years in the service, Masaveg retired and moved from San Diego to rural Ashtabula County. Four days after moving here, he had a job in an auto body shop. He has worked as body shop manager for John Rugala Chevrolet in Andover and a technician for Bill Spear Chrysler/Plymouth in Chagrin Falls and KEI Carbody in Chagrin Falls. He and John Jr. opened their shop four months ago.
Masaveg's military "must-do" attitude and compassion for the Lewis family's situation played into his decision to accept the job. The biggest challenge was finding a way to open the intrusion beam without compromising its strength. "Without that, it would just fold in if there was a collision," John Jr. observed.
John Jr. solved the problem by re-enforcing the original piece of intrusion beam with a square bar that is much stronger than the original construction. Two pins hold the beam in place and can be quickly removed to open the space. The flap above the beam hinges out of the way. Masaveg said it takes only five minutes or so to remove and replace the section.
One of the most time-consuming parts of the assignment was making the opening waterproof. "We tried eight or nine different sealants," Masaveg said. "We finally made our own seal and sealed it with urethane." They tested the seal by running water on it for 25 minutes.
"The only leaks we were getting were manufacturer's," he said. "We had to fix them, too, because we couldn't tell if it was ours or theirs."
They delivered the van to the Lewis family's Rome Township home Monday afternoon. Vallin was ill and confined to his room when the van was delivered, but Mary said he was able to see the van from his window. Mary told Masaveg she was "real pleased" with the workmanship" and got ready to write the check. Then Masaveg told her the job was on the house. "I can't handle that," she said.
But the Masavegs insisted the modification be their donation to the family of nine's struggle to make ends meet on one salary. "It was the kid and the way she explained it to me," Masaveg said in explaining why he did the job for free. "Everybody's got problems and these people really got their hands tied up."
Mary Lewis said the family still needs to come up with an eight-foot folding ramp to complete the modification. If anyone has one for sale, she'd like to talk to them. She hopes they can get a ramp before this weekend, when they plan to take Vallin to the Hill Comorah Pageant in Palmyra, N.Y. Lewis said their son recently spent two weeks in the Cleveland Clinic for treatment and is weak, but he's adamant about his mother and father making arrangements for him to see the spiritual drama.
Lewis said the entire family has been "blown away" by the kindness of Spirit Collision's owners.
"I had no idea (he wasn't going to charge)," Lewis said. "I've never had anybody do anything like that for me. It was a complete shock."
Sharon Bezoski wants to give away this 160-year-old house in Geneva. Do you qualify?
Sharon and Earl Bezoski have an incredible deal for some lucky history buff.
They want to give away the century home that is located on their Clay Street property in Geneva. The house was built circa 1837 and was the residence of Peter Bartholomew, whose aunt was Elizabeth Harper, wife of Harpersfield Township founder Col. Alexander. Aside from Shandy Hall, it's probably the oldest house in the Geneva/Harpersfield area.
So what's the catch?
For starters, the Bezoskis want the house to be preserved, preferably as a museum. Essentially, they are looking for historical society ownership.
"We're more than open to anybody who wants to preserve the home," she said. "If somebody wants to use it as a museum, we're willing to donate it. We just thought the house has so much historical value, we hate to see it destroyed."
They also would like to get it off their property, although Sharon says they are flexible on that issue. The lot the house is situated on would make an ideal building site with its large trees and excellent elevation. Sharon and Earl have considered building there, just as they considered restoring the home. But the $95,000 estimate they obtained several years ago couldn't be justified by what they'd get -- a very old one-bedroom home with more history than practicality for a five-member family.
The two-story house measures 32-by-24-feet and features timber-frame construction. Subsequent modifications added closets, rooms, outside chimney, aluminum siding and bathroom/bedroom addition.
The Bezoskis stripped all these additions except the aluminum siding and chimney. They saved the 4-inch-wide oak woodwork, oak cabinets and old doors, which are very similar to those in Shandy Hall. Sharon points out that the floor in their house is just like the one in the home's more notable cousin on Route 84.
The bark is still on the rafter logs and the timber-framer's axe marks are visible on the beams that support them. The foundation is fieldstone. A hole in the center of the floor hints of a chimney that once extended from the basement through the ceiling.
There is no question that the house is very, very old, but Sharon can't say with certainty when it was built. A political token found in the rafters was dated 1837. The property abstract shows that Peter Bartholomew purchased the land in 1839 for $1,200 from Moses S. and Elizan Evans and Jerusha Hewins.
Subsequent owners included the Cadmes and Swartz families. Earl's parents,
Edward and Elizabeth Bezoski, purchased it in 1948. They raised seven children
in the house. Sharon and Earl purchased it in 1982 and lived in it the first
two years they were married. Sharon said that despite the house's run-down
condition and the fact there isn't a square wall in it, she enjoyed living
in it and didn't want to leave.
The house has been vacant since the mid-1980s and is uninhabitable. The couple stripped it to the timbers and removed the electrical wiring. There is no bathroom, kitchen, heating system or plumbing. There's a large hole is in the back wall where the addition was removed.
One thing they haven't touched is the gravestone that appears to be part of the porch's foundation. The stone is face down and Bezoskis don't know whose name is on the other side. Sharon said various family stones have turned up around the property, including that of Peter Bartholomew. However, cemetery records indicate Bartholomew is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, not somewhere on the property. It is likely the old stones were replaced, hauled back to the house and eventually put to good use around the house.
However, there is a local story that a family plot was located in the front yard of the house and a small child buried there. That seems unlikely however, for all five daughters -- Olivia, Flavia, Flora, Gracia and Martha -- lived to adulthood and all but Flavia married. Bezoski said that whatever the land's past might have held, she believes the bodies have been relocated to a proper resting spot and anyone moving the house need not fear desecrating a grave.
The heavily-wooded land surrounding the house once had many fine oak trees on it, trees that were cut by Earl's parents when he was a child. It also supported an orchard, an intriguing fact considering that Peter's aunt Betsey is credited with planting the first orchard in the Western Reserve. It is unclear if Peter's land was the site of that orchard, since his ownership of the parcel did not come until 39 years later.
The property also was used as a chicken farm. A three-story timber-frame barn stood behind the house, but had collapsed into a heap by the time Sharon and Earl purchased the property. One of the old outbuildings, what Sharon believes was a carriage house, provides storage space.
Sharon hopes the Harper/Bartholomew reunion at Shandy Hall next weekend will generate interest in the old house and perhaps move someone to assume the job of moving and restoring the building. The most logical group for such a task, the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS), passed on the house when the Bezoskis offered it to them several years ago. Tamera Brown, a spokeswoman for the WRHS, said the modernizations and alternations done to the home significantly reduced its historical value. Further, the high cost of moving it to another location discouraged the society from acquiring it. She said acquiring the house would not have been in the society's best interest back then and that probably holds true today.
The Bezoskis, however, believe the house could be a good deal for a group interested in preserving a bit of early Ashtabula County history.
"We're hoping somebody will want to save it and can come up with the money to open this house as a museum," she said.
GENEVA -- The Bartholomew name may not be as prominent as "Harper" in the northwest corner of Ashtabula County, but many members of the family called this part of the new frontier "home" in the early 1800s.
Elizabeth (Betsy) Bartholomew Harper, who lived to be 84, was the wife of Harpersfield Township founder Col. Alexander Harper. Alexander died just months after arriving in the Western Reserve wilderness. Rather than return to the comfort and familiarity of their native New York, his widow stayed the winter. Elizabeth, her sons and other members of the party almost starved to death that winter.
Surviving peril was a trait the Bartholomew family had learned in Europe. Elizabeth Harper's maternal great grandparents were French Huguenots, Protestants who came under severe persecution in France during the reign of Louis XIV. They were rounded up for execution, but their daughter, Elizabeth's grandmother, escaped when her parents shipped her to Germany in a wooden box. She immigrated to New Jersey with others from Palatine, Germany.
Elizabeth's parent's, John and Dorothy, had settled in Germantown, Pa., in 1730, then moved to Bethlehem, N.J., and finally the valley of the Charlotte River in New York. She had three brothers -- Theobald (Tewalt), Joseph and Isaac -- and a sister, Hannah.
Benjamin married Abigail Patchin, whose ancestors had come from England in 1634. He was a farmer in Harpersfield, N.Y., until his death in 1797 at the age of 44. Abigail and her children _ Isaac, John, Peter, Mary and Parthenia _ came to Harpersfield Township in 1805 with Theobald and Joseph Bartholomew. Abigail died at Harpersfield Jan. 10, 1839.
Theobald, described as a small man of great courage, had fought in the French and Indian War. He and his family were taken prisoner by Joseph Brant and a band of Indians in 1778. Theobald, his wife and two babies were released on parole and tramped 28 miles through the snow at night to warn other settlers of an imminent Indian attack.
When he moved to Geneva Township in 1805, Theobald became the first settler in that region. His house was on the South Ridge Road near the west bank of Cowles Creek. He died in 1827.
Peter, Theobald's nephew, was born April 23, 1793, in Schoharie County, N.Y. He married Catherine Brakeman in 1822. They had one son, Mark, and four daughters.
Little is known about Peter except that he was a farmer, served in the War of 1812 and was active in the Congregational Church. He died in Harpersfield Oct. 14, 1845. His brother, John, was a soldier, justice of the peace and commander of his militia company (War of 1812). Another brother, Isaac, also served as a soldier during the War of 1812. Their brother Benjamin did not stay in Harpersfield Township. He and his wife left Ohio in the mid-1800s and migrated to Minnesota. He died there in 1868.
One of the most gruesome stories to come out of the early days of the Western Reserve involved the murder of a Bartholomew. Samuel Bartholomew was Peter's uncle and a soldier in the War of 1812. His wife Susanna (Atkins) murdered him as he was eating his breakfast in their Harpersfield home March 24, 1822.
Susanna approached her husband with an axe, split his head open and beat it with the axe. The jury of inquest returned a verdict of willful and premeditated murder. But the trial had a much different ending -- Susanna was acquitted on the grounds of insanity, testimony to the skillful work of her attorneys, R. Harper and S. Wheeler.
`You know kids, I wish every mom and dad would make a speech to their teenagers and say, kids, be free, be whatever you are; do whatever you want to do, just so long as you don't hurt anybody. And remember kids, I am your friend.'
With those words from "Hair" on the premier issue's cover,
"Coming of Age," a magazine "for parents and those who care
about teenagers and young adults," has been published by former Ashtabula
County native Andrea Margaret Pevec.
A baby boomer who is emerging from the storm of raising four teenagers by herself, Pevec lives in San Jose, Calif., and works as an instructional designer for major computer firms. She said the magazine was born out of her frustration of not being able to find information and hope while raising her teenagers. During the past five years, the concept of a magazine for parents of young people grew in her mind as she faced and met the challenges of raising teen-agers as a single mother.
"Coming of Age" isn't a conservative Ozzie-and-Harriet, middle-class magazine. Pevec asserts that young people can think for themselves and parents need to get out of the way and let them pursue their dreams. The bad things teens do, like school-yard shootings and drugs, don't exist in a vacuum, but simply model adult society, insists Pevec.
Nor is "Coming of Age" a magazine of advice or slick four-color pages inked with advertising for mascara, laundry soap, tampons and dishwashers. Subscriptions and Pevec's job pay the printer. "I'm tired of every magazine screaming at me to buy something," she said. "The content gets lost."
"Coming of Age" is all about content -- 32 pages of it in glorious black-and-white every three months. The content is based on personal experiences, not "expert opinion," like many parenting magazines. "I wanted a magazine that told the truth about parenting and teen-agers ... so I created it myself," she said in a phone interview.
Pevec produced 3,000 copies of the first issue, but confesses her subscription list is but a small fraction of that. Nevertheless, she followed up with a second issue and is working on a third. "It's my baby and what I spend my money on," she said. "I'm going to do this until it seems like I should do something else."
Pevec's magazine is geared toward adults but gives voice to teenagers. The writing and photography are anything but white bread and express viewpoints from other cultures, lifestyles and backgrounds, hardly what you'd expect from the word processor of a girl who grew up on a Trumbull Township farm.
Her mother Alma Dawson still lives on the farm, and Pevec returns at least once a year for a visit. But Pevec, 47, said Ashtabula County was "too small a space" for her, and she parted company after graduating from Geneva High School in 1969.
Pevec's early adult life hardly seemed like a pathway to success _ her first child was born out of wedlock and given up for adoption (she's searching for that child, who was adopted in Columbus). She signed up for business college but backed out and landed a bank job using skills learned in her high school cooperative office education classes. She married, had four children and then divorced. Faced with raising the kids on her own, she went to work for a computer company as a secretary. Within three months, she'd gone from temporary to "permanent" employee. A year after starting, she landed the position she really wanted, technical writer.
It is Pevec's personal track of getting along on self-confidence, grit and work experience rather than formal education that she advocates in the "Coming of Age" issue that deals with education. She has little respect for public education, which subtly labeled her "stupid" early in her educational career and sent her into a self-esteem tailspin. Pevec said she tried to regain that self-confidence by getting a college degree, but halfway through she realized that her occupational goal wasn't going to be met by community college courses.
"I wanted to be a writer, and to be a writer I needed to write. I was wasting my time going to school," she said. "I needed to learn confidence more than anything else."
Pevec said it's more important for a teen-ager to find something they really want to do and pursue it with gusto than to trudge through a $40,000-college education full of abstract ideas and no practical experience.
"If a kid can go out and get a job and think about what they're doing, they can start moving toward finding what they want to do and explore the whole realm of supporting yourself," she said.
Pevec believes that parents distract their teens by pressuring them to pursue careers -- and their accompanying required education _ that ensure a high salary. "Our idea of success is a high income, and because of that, I think we push our children into those careers where they can make a high salary," she said. "But what people in my generation are finding is that a high salary is not bringing a lot of joy, a feeling of satisfaction or of contributing."
"The joy of life is finding out what moves your own soul," Pevec writes in "Heart to Heart," her column in "Coming of Age." "The narrow confines of a traditional American K-12 education is often not the place to find out. In my opinion, its biggest flaw is forcing people to be there against their will. Ask any student if they would go to school if they didn't have to. In my experience, the overwhelming majority would say NO!"
She has implemented this policy of choice with her own children. Her youngest, Monica, 17, left school to be an au pair in Italy. She is an actress and writes poetry, plays, stories and songs. Albert, 20, also bowed out of school to pursue his music. He lives in Chicago and works at a coffee house. A middle daughter, Davina, graduated from high school, went to Key West and worked as a waitress for a year. She saved $10,000 and bought a sailboat. When it's seaworthy, she's going to sail around the world. Her oldest daughter, Inara, is divorced, living with a man and expecting her first child.
These are success stories to Pevec because their parent recognized that they are intelligent young people capable of setting and following their own courses. "Anyone can have exactly the life they want," she said. "The hardest part is finding what they want. Going after it is the easy part."
To facilitate this, Pevec believes teen-agers should be allowed to make their own decisions -- and face the consequences -- as early as possible. She said while many parents allow the decision-making part, they bail out on the consequences side. "They modify the effect the punishment would have and (the child) doesn't get that experience of a change in behavior," she said.
Readers won't find this kind of advice expressed directly in "Coming of Age," but they will find anecdotal direction from parents who gave their teen-agers the freedom to choose. s to set their own course. And stories written from the young adults' perspectives allow parents to get inside their heads without getting into an argument. No topic is taboo, from a mother musing over her beautiful daughters' sexuality to the pleasures of homework.
Future issues will deal with drugs, race and work. Pevec encourages input from her readers with quarterly questions ("When do you think you'll be able to say `I'm done' as a parent, and have a peer relationship with your child?"). She's looking for retrospective stories that examine a parent/teen situation and how it was resolved; "hard core" stories that deal with a child's addiction, suicide or coming out; "light side" pieces about the humorous side of parenting; and profiles of youth programs and very special teen-agers. Pevec pays her writers in magazines.
Chances are you won't find "Coming of Age" on an Ashtabula County newsstand, although Pevec is working with a distributor that will eventually lead to national distribution. Parents who want to connect and share can do so for $20 a year by writing to: P.O. Box 700637, San Jose, CA 95170-0637. Be sure to include your name and address. Writer's guidelines for both adults and teens are available for a self-addressed, stamped envelope at that address or by going to the magazine's Web page at http://home.earthlink.net/~comingofage.
ASHTABULA -- Write about what you know.
That's a piece of advice that has come in handy for a good many budding writers. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the Jazz Age; Faulkner wrote about the deep south; Shakespeare wrote about. . . well, just about everything.
The latest writer to tap the trend is Carl Feather, Star Beacon lifestyles editor.
Feather, whose ties with the state of West Virginia are longstanding and deep, discusses the state and its residents at length in his book, "Mountain People in a Flat Land," which was published by Ohio University Press last week.
The 255-page book is an amplification of an award-winning series of articles that appeared in the Star Beacon in March 1994.
The series, which chronicled the lives of West Virginians who migrated north during the first half of this century, was widely acclaimed by readers of this newspaper and judges in the Thomson Newspapers competition.
The reaction and the absence of similar works on the market convinced Feather to create the book. The resulting volume relates -- in 18 chapters illustrated with historical photographs and environmental portraits by the author -- the lives of several Appalachian clans who traveled to the "flat land" of Ohio and surrounding states in search of better jobs, better homes and better lives for their children.
Feather said dire economic conditions in West Virginia forced a sort of bittersweet, mass exodus.
"One million Appalachians migrated to Ohio (during) the time period this book looks at," he said.
Automation of the coal mines, once West Virginia's premier industry, was the primary cause of the dearth of jobs. But the promise of work in Ohio proved a tantalizing lure for many of the state's sons and daughters.
It's a tale that strikes an especially resonant chord with Feather, whose parents _ Carl Jr. and Cossette _ were among the legions traveling north in the mid-1950s. "Mountain People in a Flat Land" is dedicated to them.
Feather was born in Virginia in 1954. But he now lives in Kingsville, a community he has called home for most of his life.
He has visited West Virginia on many occasions, and still travels there with his family at least one time a year.
Talk with him for very long, and it becomes clear there is no place on earth that is closer to his heart.
"The trips back home -- they were the best part of my childhood," Feather said.
His earliest memory of the mountain state? "The pain of leaving it," he said.
Scenes like this one -- taken from near the end of "Mountain People in a Flat Land" -- help explain why the state is so close to his heart:
"Back in Sissaboo Hollow we sat around the stove or kitchen table and swapped tales of mountain and flatland life. Our sides ached from laughter by the end of the evening, a pain encouraged by ample servings of homemade donuts and German chocolate cake smothered in my grandmother's caramel frosting. The cuckoo clock kept track of our mortality in mocking tones as the fog enveloped the mountain and sleep overtook our minds."
The passage conveys the deep feelings of nostalgia that most West Virginia natives still harbor for the mountains of their youth.
Feather notes that Appalachians who settled up north would frequently describe an upcoming visit to West Virginia by saying "We're going home."
It's portraits of that home, the people who left it and the survivors who yearn to return one day that distinguish "Mountain People in a Flat Land."
Books are available at Sonshine Corner in Jefferson and Harbor Topky Library. Call ahead for availability.
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