Brave Little State is Vermont Public’s listener-powered journalism podcast. Every episode begins with a question submitted by our audience.
Today, we answer this question from Gerry Quinlan:
“How do you maintain a social life in Vermont once you can no longer drive?”
Note: Our show is made for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript. Transcripts are generated using a combination of robots and human transcribers, and they may contain errors.
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Steve Finner: I’ve had many animals, but she is the closest, for obvious reasons. Sleeps on the bed with me and we’re very close.
(Cat meows)
Steve Finner: Alright. I’m glad you agree.
Burgess Brown: This is Steve Finner and his cat, Mitzi. Steve just turned 87. We’re sitting on the bed that’s right across from the kitchen in his studio apartment in Barre.
Burgess Brown: What are these paintings on the wall, here? Are these former pets?
Steve Finner: Yeah. My wife and I, when she was alive, had a ministry of adopting senior dogs. Which meant, of course, they would die. And so we had Cooper — cancer. Toto. Toto got deaf.
Burgess Brown: It’s a Monday, which means that, in about half an hour, Steve is going to catch the Green Mountain Transit bus to the Unitarian Church of Montpelier for choir practice.
Steve doesn't drive anymore, so the bus is how he gets most places.
Burgess Brown: What should people know about you? What do your days look like?
Steve Finner: Well, I'm old. So a large part of my days are spent on self care, just taking care of an old man and his cat. Because one of the things that happens as one ages is everything takes longer.
Bobbi Utley: Pammy Jean, this is my friend, the reporter. Say hello to the reporter. She's our fill-in chef today. Oh, she made nasty beef gravy, blegh!
(Laughter)
Burgess Brown: Bobbi Utley is giving me a tour of the Riverside Life Enrichment Center in Lyndonville. It’s like a community center with health services for elderly and disabled Vermonters. And Bobbi’s here five days a week.
Bobbi Utley: RCT brings me here. Most of us here are RCT riders.
Burgess Brown: RCT is Rural Community Transportation — a non-profit with free bus routes and taxi-style car services in Northern Vermont. Bobbi, and a lot of her friends here, don’t drive. And so RCT buses pick them up and drop them off at Riverside.
Bobbi Utley: Yesterday, what did we do yesterday? Carol, what we do yesterday for— Oh yeah, bingo. Mondays and Thursday afternoons is bingo. Wednesday is bowling, and Tuesday, it might be cornhole, it might be bocce ball.
Burgess Brown: It's pretty, it feels pretty busy in here today. Is this like, a typical day in terms of how many people are here?
Bobbi Utley: No, this is light. Casino day is usually packed. Once a month we have casino day, and they give us $5 worth of chips. And you get to keep what you win!
Gerry Quinlan: I could go a whole day without talking to one person, it would be possible. So I try hard to see as many people as I possibly can.
Burgess Brown: Gerry Quinlan is 92 and hasn’t driven in two years. She’s got macular degeneration, which means that she’s slowly going blind.
Melanie Meilleur: Two things that Gerry is gonna miss when she can't see is gardening and cooking.
Burgess Brown: And this is Gerry’s friend Melanie, who often drives her around when she’s got somewhere to be.
Melanie Meilleur: You tell him how much you garden?
Gerry Quinlan: Oh, yeah. I, I have a vegetable garden. I have a large flower garden and a small flower garden and many shrubs. And it's what I do all summer. It's what I look forward to all winter.
Melanie Meilleur: Gerry wants to do everything by herself. She has a hard time asking for help, a very hard time asking for help.
Gerry Quinlan: That's true. That’s true. It is hard to ask for, for a ride. Who likes to be, who likes to inconvenience other people? Nobody does.
Burgess Brown: I’m sitting in the car with Gerry because Gerry sent in a question to Brave Little State. She wants to know how Vermonters like her are maintaining their social lives after they can no longer drive.
So to answer that question, we’re riding along with three Vermonters — Steve, on his way to choir practice; Bobbi, at the adult care facility; and Gerry, who’s on her way to meet about a dozen friends for a longstanding coffee date at Martone’s Market and Café in Essex.
Gerry Quinlan: It's vital to, to be able to keep up with people and see everybody.
Burgess Brown: We’ll chat with them on the bus and in a rideshare and in a friend’s car — about getting around, but also about grief and independence and aging and friendship.
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Steve Finner: This is the bus stop. Now, it took us about eight minutes. Which is okay. I used to do it in five.
Burgess Brown: Tell me about how you’re feeling today.
Steve Finner: This is the first time I've been out of the house in three days, because I haven't been doing well. But boy, it takes the wind out of me not having been.
(Inhales supplemental oxygen)
Steve Finner: It's obvious that the interstitial lung disease — something's going on, so…
I have outlived everybody in the past generation of my family. Sometime in the next, one, two, three, four, five, six years, I'm going to die. And the only thing I want is that it be drama free, because two years ago, in May, I lost my younger son to a heart attack.
When you lose an adult child, your world changes. And it makes me, obviously, more comfortable with the thought of my own death.
(Inhales supplemental oxygen)
Steve Finner: Ah, look who's coming. Right on time.
Bobbi Utley: I had to surrender my license because I had a stroke. I was working at Kinney Drugs in St. J, in the pharmacy. And I'd gotten to work and I had a wicked headache, and I sat down and drank some water and took some Tylenol, and the bell rang that somebody was at the drive-through, and I stood up to wait on him, and down I went. Spent, I think, three weeks down at Dartmouth.
Then when I finally went home, my ex-husband couldn't deal with a handicapped wife. But that's neither here nor there. So I went and lived with my niece and had home health. And then it got to be where she— it was just too much for her. And they put me into this AFC program, which is adult family care.
But they told me I would never walk again, which I can. That I would never be able to do anything for myself. It’s just not easy. But I don't give up. I don't give up. Too damn stubborn. (Laughter)
Would I like to drive again? Yes, I would. I mean, I'm only— I'm not even 65 yet. I'm 64. I shouldn't be doing nothing. I expected to work until I was at least 70. But there's not, not a lot you can do with one hand.
Oh, today we had our hands waxed. We have paraffin wax, and you dip your hands in it, and see how soft it makes them.
Gerry Quinlan: It was two summers ago. It was kind of a cloudy day, and I drove up to town to do some groceries, and I had some trouble. I went in the wrong driveway. And the next day was brighter, and I thought, see, I won't have any trouble now. So I went and did much the same thing. And so I came home and had no, no difficulty deciding that I would not drive again.
I remember telling someone, “Well, I feel like I've cut my legs off.” That was the feeling I had. I could not go. I couldn't do things. It’s not maybe, a good way to look at it. But that was my, my first feeling.
Burgess Brown: Can you tell me about the last time you drove?
Steve Finner: Yes. I was living in Baltimore with my son and driving my car. And he said, “Dad, I'm not comfortable with your driving.”
So when he said that, I pulled over to the side of the road, I gave him the keys, and that was the last time I drove.
Burgess Brown: Why were you so quick to make that decision?
Steve Finner: Because of the alternatives. The alternative was to have an accident. And there could be a high probability that I would injure or kill somebody.
Now, if I had a choice as to who I was going to kill, then I might have kept on driving. But it doesn't work that way.
Bobbi Utley: I used to love to polka.
Burgess Brown: You used to polka?
Bobbi Utley: Yep. Square dance, you name it. My husband and I did them all. And then that stopped.
I got to go to the grocery store a few weeks ago. That was pretty cool. Do you know how long it has been since I've been in the grocery store? When did groceries get so expensive?
Um, but there again, I can't do it unless somebody helps me. I have to ask for rides. I just can't go. And that really kind of sucks.
It makes me feel useless, because I've been on the other end of that spectrum where I was the caregiver, not the care receiver, and that's tough when the tables are turned like that.
So, see, I used to work for home health. I worked for home health for 13 years. I was a home health aide. And like here, at Riverside, there's a couple ladies that I had taken care of their husbands. Bonnie in the big wheelchair — I took care of her.
So, I love coming here. It’s— I like it, I like being with people. And usually we have joke days. So I mean, I try to make jokes and laugh because you need to laugh every day. And I mean no disrespect, but what do you call a line of rabbits hopping backwards?
Burgess Brown: I don’t know, what?
Bobbi Utley: A receding hare-line. (Laughter)
Burgess Brown: For the listener, I am bald.
Bobbi Utley: (Laughter) I'm sorry.
Burgess Brown: Ah, that's good.
Gerry Quinlan: Isn’t this a nice group? I told you, it’s an amazing group.
Dorothy Bergendahl: You’re looking at more than 20 years of friendship.
Burgess Brown: So, why is this important, this group?
Liz Schick: Oh, it's so much fun.
Dorothy Bergendahl: We are available to help each other when help is needed. That is the main thing. You know, I pick somebody up at the train. Somebody else drops me off at a train.
Liz Schick: Me too. And Gerry, she picks Gerry up every Friday.
Dorothy Bergendahl: We all have a vast experience with medical issues. We all know a bevy of doctors that we pass around, pass around. We're extended family,
Liz Schick: Yeah. And it may be even more so now that so many of us are alone.
Libby McDonald: When we started this, there was one widow at the table. Now we have seven.
Burgess Brown: What does it feel like to support each other? It feels good to get support, I imagine. But what does it feel like to be giving support?
Libby McDonald: Natural now, we've been doing it for so long. It's like helping our sisters out, I think.
Karen Handbridge: But it's hard, though. There's a loss of independence, you know, when you're take— when somebody takes your car away and you have to call somebody for a ride. It takes you a while to realize that, “Yeah, I need some help,” and, “Sure, I'd love a ride,” kind of thing.
Liz Schick: The hardest thing for Gerry was asking for help. And she still has trouble with that, because she's been so independent all her life.
Colette de Loeschnigg: And Gerry has abandoned me. I used to take her home, and now she's got her favorite. (Laughter)
Gerry Quinlan: That’s alright. I'll call you tomorrow.
(Laughter)
(Piano)
Steve Finner: Hello, Sue. Hi, Mary. Hi, Rosemary.
I sit here because I’m the only bass in the group — today. There’s usually two of us. And the other one is off travelling. He’s a youngster. He’s 75.
Donia Prince: Alright. Here we go. Why doesn’t everybody stand up.
One, two, ready, go.
(Vocal warmups)
Donia Prince: Oh, so nice.
Bobbi Utley: Welcome to my ride.
Bye, Taylor! You don’t know what you’ve got yourself into with me. (Laughter) He’s just locking my chair down. They have straps with big hooks on it so that my chair doesn’t move when he’s driving.
I hate being alone. You know, I was married for 28 years, and … just all the things we used to do. Sunday afternoon, we might just get in the truck and go for a ride.
Burgess Brown: What's scary about being alone?
Bobbi Utley: Just, you know, when you’re used to having somebody by your side all the time, and, I mean, we used to have dinner, and then we'd sit and watch the news and discuss it, and— or read something in the newspaper.
I suppose I could do that with my family I live with, but I sit— after supper, I will usually go into my room and I sit alone and watch what I want to watch. I like the happy stuff, like I watch “Heartland,” which is about a horse ranch. Or “When Calls the Heart.”
Burgess Brown: What's something that's gotten better about your life?
Bobbi Utley: Closer friendships. I mean, I've had some things happen that I had no control over, but— and if I'm having a bad day, I know I can go to Riverside, and my friends are there. And there's always something in the day that makes you laugh.
Liz Schick: Gerry is our role model. Yes, we all want to grow older and—
Dorothy Bergendahl: Gerry and Louise are what we want to be when we get that old.
Colette de Loeschnigg: She has a better memory than I do, and I'm only 83. I'm a baby.
Burgess Brown: What does it feel like to hear from your friends?
Gerry Quinlan: It's embarrassing. (Laughter) Yeah, beyond belief, beyond belief. I don't, I don't give that much, but I’ve I've always thought, isn't this wonderful? This is a group of bright women and fun. Just, um, how lucky, how lucky we are to have this group.
(Choir sings “My Lord What a Morning”)
Burgess Brown: That’s a lot of work for you to get out there. Why is that important to you?
Steve Finner: Oh, this choir?
Burgess Brown: Yeah.
Steve Finner: I was born a Jew. I am a Jew. And I had joined the Unitarian Church when I had married a non-Jew, and really got very involved. It's been my faith now for 52 years. And I started singing the music, I hadn't sung for a long time. And I just found the spirit of that music to be talking to me. And the way that I put it, metaphorically, is: When I sing that music, I touch the face of the god or great spirit. That doesn't have to be the “God” word, but I touched the face of that which I don't know, don't understand, and don't have a name for, which is fun. And so that music has fed my soul now for over 40 years.
(Singing continues)
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Credits
This episode was reported by Burgess Brown. Editing and production from the rest of the BLS team: Sabine Poux and Josh Crane. Additional editing from Erica Heilman. Our intern is Lucia McCallum. Angela Evancie is our Executive Producer. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.
Special thanks to Lilias Ide, Andrea Stauffeneker, Laura Brooke, Martina Anderson and Andrew Bernstein.
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