Taking Care of Parents and Retiring at the Same Time

This post originally appeared in the Cameron Herald on 2020-01-16.

Many people my age are trying to figure out how to care for aging parents with retirement staring them in the face. Some of us have already dealt with those issues. Some have it all sorted. Some don’t know where to start.

As this column goes along, I’ll talk more about helping elder parents—or ourselves—stay at home longer and remain more independent while doing so. Today, I just want to introduce myself and say a word or two about my new company, Hearts, Homes, and Hands.

As you can tell from the byline, my name is Ernest Lee Bruns. I’m a junior. I chose to retire from the corporate world several years ago when I was caring for my father, who was in the last stages of cancer.

Dad taught me a lot about perseverance and tenacity. He always said, “Don’t let that old rockin’ chair get you.” He didn’t. He planted and cared for forty acres of corn the year he died. He was 92 years old, and this was his second bought with cancer. When he was in the hospital for the last time, he was more worried about his corn than anything else. The first thing he asked when he came out from his final round of chemo was about the yield.

When the doctors allowed him to go home to die, my nephew Chris and I knew we had more on our hands than we could handle and still do this wonderful man justice—even with the help of hospice and home health. Chris hired a personal assistance service to help with bathing and other needs.

I’m proud to say Dad died at home, surrounded by people who loved him and cared for him. He could look out his bedroom window and see the house where he was born 92 years before.

When Sue Ann and I started planning how we would wind down our final years without putting an undue burden on the kids, we were surprised to find out there wasn’t a state licensed and insured personal assistance service (PAS) around. From where we live, the closest ones were in Bryan/College Station or Temple. Standard has the home health and hospice support covered, but if we needed help staying at home—help with housekeeping, running errands, cooking, bathing, and so on—we’d either have to ask the kids to give up part of their lives or hire someone privately.

When you hire individuals, you’re responsible for their unemployment insurance, for their medical bills if they get hurt in your service, and for finding a replacement if they fail to show up. None of this is something we wanted to do while we were struggling to take care of ourselves or each other. You have enough on your mind at that point without worrying about finding someone to help your loved one get to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

We called my niece Kathleen to see if she wanted to help us start a PAS. She had been the administrator of the PAS Chris hired to help take care of Dad and had more than a decade of experience running a successful PAS in Victoria. She and Chris fell in love and got married the year after Dad died, but that’s another story. She came up to Cameron; we came to agreement; and Hearts, Homes, and Hands was born.

Hearts, Homes, and Hands is licensed and regulated by the state of Texas. We are responsible for providing the care you need. We’ll be there for you, even if the person originally scheduled has a “family emergency” or something and can’t show up. We cover their workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance if they get hurt and do everything necessary to ensure your peace of mind—at least with regard to caring for yourself or a loved one.

And the bottom line is this: I’m not just an owner of the company, I’m a client. We take care of you like we take care of our own—in this case, Sue Ann and me.

We Make News!

Okay. I admit it. This publication is part of our advertising package. But Still! Photo source: Cameron Herald

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on the Hearts, Homes, and Hands blog on 2020-01-18.

It’s a steady job

But he wants to be a paperback writer

— John Lennon and Paul McCartney

This is more of a personal note than a business update. My first column on aging appeared in the 2020-01-16 edition of the Cameron Herald. This is a big deal for me because it marks the first time I have been published by a third party since a couple of my short-shorts appeared in Six Sentences. Before that, everything I’ve written was owned and distributed by my corporate overlords.

Happiness abounds!

Again?

Businesses close, especially in small towns. It’s not usually that big a deal. Unless it’s your business or your employer. But all closures affect the community at large.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2020-01-14.

In the past month or so, two chain restaurants in Cameron closed their doors: Bush’s Chicken and the Sonic (again). When businesses close, the fault usually rests with the management, not an elected official no matter how much he promotes himself as a problem solver, as has been suggested on Rantbook. The management issues at both of these restaurants were obvious. My opinion: both closed because management failed to manage their personnel.

Both Bush’s and the Sonic have a reputation for good, fast food. Bush’s is my favorite chicken house by far, and I have a loving relationship with Sonic that goes back to the 1970s. My first job was at a Sonic, and my first entrepreneurial ambition was to own a Sonic. If I went out for chicken or burgers, it was to a Bush’s (since I discovered them a decade ago) or to Sonic (since I was 14). So, I was saddened to find both of these restaurants in Cameron were the worst, in my experience, of their respective chains. I mean, how many of you Cameronians ate at either one regularly?

Bush’s built a new building. If they don’t reopen in the same location, that’s a lot of money to just walk away from.

The last four times I went to Bush’s, they were out of chicken. That happens occasionally with chicken places—but four times in a row? The staff was always friendly, new, and basically clueless. They seemed more interested in gossiping in the kitchen than taking care of business. The food was edible, but not up to Bush’s standards. The management failure here was in instilling a culture of customer service.

When I went to the Sonic, the service had improved dramatically since it closed and reopened. I had hope at first, but the quality of the kitchen remained well below Sonic standards even as the speed of delivery improved. Over the last year, I seldom got cold, stale food, but neither did I get food of the quality the Mayfield Dairy Queen down the street provides with a smile. Although service there was still slow and seemed to be reluctant—as if I were bothering them by wanting to eat something.

The Sonic looks even more desolate than the last time it closed.

It’s no wonder the parking lot was often (and now permanently) empty. Sonic has even removed the signage, which did not happen the last time this location closed. Again, the management failure was in personnel.

I don’t think the Sonic is coming back this time. They even took all the signs.

In fact, the Department of Labor published a study showing more than 80% of jobs created by tax-incentivised businesses went to people who moved to the area to take the jobs, not to the people who were already there. The new businesses increased the tax base of their new communities, and those communities grew as a result of the economic infusions. But the people who already lived in those communities failed to reap the benefits and were sometimes pushed out to even fringier areas.

The solution of to this problem is neither within my area of control nor Judge Young’s. But it is within the collective control of the community. Rather than ranting about the closings, we should be asking what we can do to promote the success of the businesses we rely on. Little things—like buying a shirt from the Bling Box instead of Land’s End or buying chicken feed from Cameron Farm and Ranch instead of Tractor Supply or Chew.com—help build our community and keep jobs in Cameron. Rather than griping about a stagnant economy, let’s ask how our small decisions contribute to stagnation or growth. What can we do to make our jobs better? How can we do more to help local businesses, especially the ones we work for.

In the mean time, it’s time to ask a question I’ve asked before. What would you do to repurpose a closed Sonic?

What Is Greatness, Anyway?

Very few dispute the goodness of Mother Theresa, but she is still not infallible. At least not semantically. Photo source: St. Josemaria Institute

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.

—Mother Theresa

Maybe it’s the American Bias in me that makes me think all of us have the potential for greatness—whether or not we attain or even choose to pursue it. Maybe I have a semantic problem with the term “great things.”

What does that even mean? Does a thing have to affect millions or change the course of history to be “great”? Isn’t it a great thing if it changes only one person—no matter how transiently, even that person is yourself—for the better?

But I have no argument with the second sentence. We can all do small things with great love. Doing so should be a daily goal approached humbly and quietly. Wouldn’t that be great?