Final Fall Lecture Free on Zoom
Pat Ingalls for Lorna Bray and Jill Burnham
LifeLong Learning wraps up its fall lecture season Monday, Nov. 2, with a 10 a.m. free Zoom presentation called Native American/American Native. Closed captioning is available for this lecture.
Indigenous people occupied the land now known as Arizona for thousands of years before the first European explorers arrived in the 16th century, bringing new ideas, customs, religion, and disease. Today, more than a quarter of Arizona is Native American country. With 21 federally recognized tribes, Arizona has the second-largest Native American population of any state.
This lecture will focus on how “nativeness” has been portrayed in the past and how that framing can be problematic. It will explain how indigenous people see themselves in relation to the land, how to honor them better for their contributions to U.S. society and history, and how to understand Native American thinking.
The instructor, Rowdy Duncan, is a member of the Cherokee and Pueblo First Nations People (and not raised in his tribal culture.) He is director of Paradise Valley Community College’s Diversity Inc. and is an active member of the Healing Racism Public Dialogue Series. He produces a bi-weekly “Inclusive Activism” podcast and is on the faculty of Phoenix College’s communications program. He has worked in the field of diversity and inclusion for more than a decade.
Visit www.lifelonglearningatpc.org for more details and to register. Lecture capacity is capped at 100, and each lecture maintains a waitlist. Registration for each begins 30 days prior to the lecture. You must have a LLL online account to register. If you do not have one, go to the LLL website and click sign up on the right side of any webpage.
Free November Classes Still Open
Pat Ingalls for Carole Korzilius
Registration continues for November’s variety of free Zoom classes, including popular repeats from previous years, as well as new offerings. Making its debut is a head-y, in-person class called Brewing Beer at Home, also offered for free.
The complimentary 90-minute Zoom classes, which all begin at 1 p.m., are:
* Social Security Planning (Wednesday, Nov. 4) Update your knowledge about maximizing various benefits, how they’re calculated, when to begin collecting, and more. Instructor: Jack Burns, a public affairs specialist with the Social Security Administration.
* Developing Technologies: Greening Our World (Thursday, Nov. 5) Enlighten yourself on the current and future impacts of disruptive technologies for energy storage, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cryptocurrency. Instructor: PebbleCreek resident Dru Bacon, a chemical engineer devoted to sustainable energy and fair utility rates.
* How to Plan and Control Your End of Life (Tuesday, Nov. 10) Learn how conversations, decisions, and advance-planning discussions can give you more control over the process of dying, when your time approaches, as well as more support for your survivors. Instructor: Cathy Lindstrom, retired clinical psychologist, PebbleCreek resident, and LLL president.
* Goodyear at 75 (Thursday, Nov. 19) Explore how your home city of Goodyear developed from its 1946 beginnings to its current status as a growth-oriented community. Instructor: PebbleCreek resident and history buff Mark Pelletier, who is active with Three Rivers Historical Society.
* Brewing Beer at Home (Tuesday, Nov. 17, 1 p.m.) Discover the craft of brewing your own beer. Retired Marine Mike Anderson invites you to peek into his PebbleCreek casita, which he has outfitted to support his home-brewing hobby. For this in-person class, to be held on his large outdoor patio, he can accommodate a maximum of ten people, safely masked.
Visit the LLL website at www.lifelonglearningatpc.org for more details and to register. Class capacity varies, and each class maintains a waitlist. Registration for each class begins 30 days prior to the class. You must have a LLL online account to register. If you do not have one, go to the LLL website and click sign up on the right side of any webpage.
Happiness Through Gratitude
Dawn Spiak
We all want to be happy, but how do we get there? Where does happiness start? An interfaith scholar and Benedictine monk, David Steindl-Rast, suggests we can find more happiness by slowing down, looking where we are going, and being grateful.
He shares that being grateful brings inner peace, less fear, and more compassion for other points of view, which during this political season is sorely needed. Following these beautiful words of wisdom: to stop for the moment, look to the opportunity that life gives us, and then go, is a great way to maximize the joy and gift of life.
The 14-minute TED Talk is titled “Want to be happy? Be grateful.”
Go to TED.com, click on the header Watch, then TED Talks, and in Search talks input the title above. You will be grateful you did.
Let Fry’s and Amazon Donate to LifeLong Learning for You
Pat Ingalls
Authorize Fry’s Food Stores and Amazon to make donations to LifeLong Learning (LLL), at no cost to you. You can easily initiate the process online, allowing each company to donate a portion of your future purchases through them directly to LLL.
Since the fall of 2016, when LLL entered the two corporate programs, they have deposited a combined total of more than $2,700 into LLL’s treasury. This is thanks to about 220 PebbleCreek supporters who have designated non-profit LLL as their charitable recipient. Purchases by those who travel or maintain a second home out of state still apply when shopping at any Fry’s affiliate, such as Kroger and King Soopers.
“We appreciate this boost to our bottom line,” LLL Treasurer Wendy Frumkin said. “Especially during this unprecedented pandemic year of adapting and making do, with our board waiving fees, even while still offering lectures and classes this fall via Zoom.”
Register LLL as your charitable choice by going to lifelonglearningatpc.org. Under Donate, click Fry’s Community Rewards Program, and follow the prompts to link your Fry’s card with LLL. Click AmazonSmile to activate your Amazon purchase donations.
Pulling Together, Not Apart
Cathy Lindstrom
When you receive this edition of the PebbleCreek Post, we will likely be close to a very contentious election, while still dealing with an ongoing pandemic that has changed our lives. It would be so easy to turn toward anger, rage, and putting down others, since we are all so stressed.
I want to offer a different view, with which I hope we can all agree on. We live in PebbleCreek because we love it and because our neighbors and friends are all important members of our community. We are strong when we pull together to help each other.
Recently I was reminded of that when some of our Republican neighbors lost their political yard signs to theft. It was so heartening to read an email from one area in PC where Democratic neighbors replaced their friends’ Republican signs.
We are at our best when we learn to take a step back, to breathe, and to not to react in the heat of anger, but rather to engage in listening and understanding, coupled with respect. I have had discussions with people who see the political world through a different lens, and that is okay. There is so much we can learn from each other to expand our thinking and understanding of how the world can be made better. After all, isn’t that what it’s all really about—making the world a better place? We may argue about the how, but we can be united on the goal. That’s a big part of what makes us PebbleCreek.
LLL Contact Information
Pat Ingalls
Website: www.lifelonglearningatpc.org
Email: [email protected]
LLL Center hours: Closed until further notice