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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Citizens Journal: Friends color late stages of life

Roger Cochran, 90, is a reading tutor at Hamblen Elementary School. He sits in the school library with books he might use in tutoring sessions. (Christopher Anderson)
Roger Cochran Special to Voices

On Oct. 13 a Front Porch column by Stefanie Pettit dealt with the loss of a dear friend after a lifetime of memories and shared experiences and also spoke about how life is transforming for aging Baby Boomers. This prompts me to write, being as how I’m way ahead of all the Boomers by several decades, having lived this period of so-called declining time the last 25 years.

Yep, I turned 90 this year. The writer is right-on in her assessment of the way things will be for Boomers. Life for me came in 20-year sections. One was growing up. Two was learning how to be an adult. Three, producing and accomplishing the best in my work. Four, making adjustments to fit my needs and style of life. And five, OK, this is slowdown time, time to handle affairs.

Bob Hope described this latter time as sleeping until noon, then time for a nap. For me, however, I will be reading with K-3 kids at Hamblen Elementary three days a week in one-hour sessions. I’m not inclined to nap. Tutoring kids so they learn to read is something I’ve been doing for the past 18 years. But let me go back and tell you a little about myself. I’m from Corvallis, Ore., and first came to Spokane in 1942 as a B17 pilot at Geiger Field. I returned here in 1952, working as a merchandise manager at Montgomery Ward and later at the Crescent. In 1959 I opened a laundry and dry cleaning equipment company, the Roger Cochran Co., and retired in 1993.

I became a caretaker for my wife, who has dementia, 12 years ago. That was part of that adjustment stage. It’s best that we remain in our home, which is less expensive and keeps things familiar for her. This is life for us now and a totally new experience.

At Jefferson Elementary, where I first started as a volunteer as the paper distributor, binder guy and watcher of who went into the boys or girls first-grade restrooms, the fifth-grade kids showed me how to use the computer. Children are marvelous instructors if you listen to them, though they do talk fast. It was a tradeoff. As I’d help them with their spelling on their compositions, they taught me well enough for me to gain confidence and buy my own computer.

Email is so easy and fun! The purpose of caring for my wife provides the necessary part of my life – being needed. Shopping, cooking (not bad finally), cleaning, laundry – this stuff becomes routine. Oh, I have wonderful kids, a son and a daughter, who check in with me constantly, too, so we are a connected family growing old together. There are four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. At the elementary school, I am known as Gramps, and there I maintain new friendships with my children in reading, and with their teachers and fellow volunteers. This keeps me in tune with current events and helps me be articulate in conversation.

Last year two dear lifetime friends departed. One was a doctor and one an engineer, and we had known each other for 80 years. We had everything in common. Our frequent phone conversations allowed us to relive together our wild youth and paths through marriage, children, grandchildren.

 Over the years of class reunions, one of my classmates, a girl – we never dated, but were in some dramatic plays and musicals in our high school days – started calling members of the class of ‘39, just to say “hello.”  Well, she lost her husband a few years ago and we became the kind of friends who had mutual backgrounds and childhood and teen years in common. So we talk. We can talk about anything and everything, have opinions, speak our minds and look forward to each phone call. We are many states apart and will probably never meet again, but this doesn’t matter. She remembers when.

A lot of changes. It’s nice to have connections back to boyhood in Corvallis and also to be Gramps to new young friends. Life is life. You just have to live with it. I am becoming a patient listener, and this is almost a new section of my life, really hearing what people have to say.

“Gramps” Roger Cochran can be reached by email at rcc1921@comcast.net