It’s Tuesday. And Tuesday means one thing around here: BINGO with Curt and Richard. I think BINGO is a cultural phenomenon precisely because it is so simple (to learn and to play), because it involves no skill and very little knowledge (other than the alphabet, numbers under 75, and the “concept” of five in a row), and because the game has no agenda other than to reduce lower back pain, alleviate Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, improve cognitive function, and… just kidding, it’s actually pretty pointless. Except around here, where you can win cans of potato chips shaped like hyperbolic paraboloids called Pringles (both original and sour cream and onion flavors), a wide assortment of chocolate candies, and, potentially, hundreds or thousands of dollars – California Lottery scratch cards are among the prizes, one resident won $400 off a scratcher!
Curt and Richard are a gay couple that are an inspiration to everyone. Richard was born and raised in England, served for a time in the UK Foreign Office, and had been stationed at the UK’s consulate in New York. On one of the late Queen Elizabeth’s visits to the former colonies of the United States, Richard was assigned to accompany her about town; when he asked if he could bring his American “partner” along, she replied, “of course – there are many queens in Buckingham Palace, but only I wear the crown.” Richard was also at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969! His partner Curt is one of the kindest, most amiable people I have ever met in 58 years of life on this planet. Always approachable and always cheerful, he’s the kind of person that would smile and ask you how your day was going after you’d just run over his foot with a combine harvester. He is also a very talented painter, who has frequent shows throughout the Coachella Valley. I have two of his paintings, as did my late parents in the house on Cleveland Road. After almost 30 years as a couple, Curt and Richard have decided to move in together, this month – those crazy, impulsive kids! We’ve all told them not to rush things, but they say they are “in love.”
Curt and Richard are among a number of men and women who give freely of their time as volunteers; they have been here at Stonewall Gardens Assisted Living since the beginning, ten years ago this month. They’ve since been joined by “Jim the Tech Guy” who comes in once a week to help residents with their computers, phones, and other electronics, or just to help someone call customer service at their insurance company and navigate a phone menu (“If you would like to hear a duck quack, press 7”), and Ron, a barber who comes every other Monday to give free haircuts (not that I have much use for that), and Chuck who is always up for a game of Scrabble or Gin Rummy, and Danielle who not only donated a brand new electric piano to us but comes in and plays it every Thursday at our wine and cheese social called “Cheese and Chat.” And others.
Volunteers are unsung heroes, not just here, but wherever you find them. In a cynical, transactional world, where nobody does anything for free, they do what they do – for free! I’m not one for board games or cards, the sing-a-long is a bit too boisterous for me (maybe because of the wine!), and I’ve only recently started showing up for BINGO (mainly for the Pringles), but I do hold in my mind a thought: the volunteers are giving us a priceless gift: their time. I imagine they have busy-ness in their lives, errands to run, and all the other things that go to make up a life. They’ve got rent, mortgages, and car payments to pay, lawns to mow, carpets to vacuum, maybe even a good book they’re reading to finish or a show to binge on Netflix. And in the middle of it all they stop and spend a few hours with us.
It’s remarkable when you think about it. None, not one, of our volunteers have a relative or a friend who lives here (although they’ve become friends to many of us), so it’s not like they’re helping out to help out a loved one. As far as I can see, they are motivated by pure altruism, which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as:
altruism
noun,
1. : unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others. charitable acts motivated purely by altruism. 2. : behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species.
To do something for someone else, disregarding yourself is, presently, almost a countercultural act. But I was heartened to learn that it’s something almost a quarter of Americans do. A study conducted by AmeriCorps and the US Census Bureau on volunteering in America, released in early 2023, found, “An estimated 23% of Americans – or 60.7 million people – formally volunteered with organizations between September 2020 and 2021. In total, these volunteers served an estimated 4.1 billion hours with an economic value of $122.9 billion.” Whether it’s at an assisted living facility, a food bank, a shelter, or a museum, volunteering gets us out of ourselves and reminds us not only that others exist but that we are, fundamentally, social beings who depend on one another.
My father lived to be an old man, retiring at 65 from a career spent designing the infrastructure for this country’s defense and living another 28 years until he died at 93 just two years ago this month. Though he’d definitely earned the right to, he did not just sit around on his tuchus those last 28 years. He did play tennis (which he always called “hitting a few balls”), but that was because he’d always been into fitness since his days as a track athlete at University High in what today is the Culver City neighborhood of West Los Angeles.
And every week, until he became too frail, he donned a white smock and reported to Verdugo Hills Hospital near our home in Glendale. He pushed wheelchairs, he delivered flowers to rooms from the gift shop purchased by far-away relatives and friends of the sick over the phone, he got someone an extra serving of Jello if they were a bit hungry in the afternoon.
He volunteered.
We are on the precipice of a new administration in Washington DC (arguably, an old one come back to haunt us) led by a man who only ever does what benefits him, a man so brazenly self-absorbed that using descriptions like selfish and self-centered seems unfair to genuine narcissists. A vulgar, petty, opportunist who has somehow managed to convince millions he cares about them – their struggles, their fears, their futures.
But you know who really cares? Someone who does what they do with no tangible reward to themselves.
A volunteer.