Pullman Senior Center Builds Community for Couples Growing Old Together

By Pete Haug | FāVS News

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be….” I recall that wisdom more often these days. The verse continues, “The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith ‘A whole I planned, youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’”

These lines open Robert Browning’s poem, “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” I first encountered them as a 20-something English major. Now 89, I find the words comforting. I’ve also been wedded for 63 years. To the same woman!

Jolie and I married before we were Baha’is, but accepting Baha’u’llah’s teachings was  fundamental to creating the bond between us. Imagine—In the Baha’i writings, God scripturally establishes the equality of women and men! Accepting the different-but-equal roles in a marriage goes a long way toward keeping that marriage intact.

Growing Old Together

As we move through our “last of life,” we often reflect on our decades together, built carefully through earlier years when we faced inevitable problems and joined forces to resolve them.

There is no “perfect” marriage. Every marriage has challenges couples encounter as partners adjust, each seeking to establish a role in the partnership. A good marriage makes it to this “last of life,” partly by recognizing that equal partnership.

One of the joys we’ve shared for nearly two decades has been membership in the Pullman Senior Citizens Association. We joined when the PSCA was housed downtown in the old Pullman City Hall. We sang with the now-defunct Kitchen Band, a rag-tag crew of oldsters playing kindergarten percussion instruments (except for the  piano supplying melody), and a washtub bass for rhythm, (sort of).

Although we never ventured on overnight excursions, Jolie and I occasionally joined like-minded seniors on daytrips, for example, to view the sandhill crane migration.  We never saw a crane, but we enjoyed fellowship over lunch midway through the day. That’s the important thing.

We still enjoy that fellowship over lunches Tuesdays and Fridays at the Pullman Senior Center, now located at 190 SE Crestview St. Meals are prepared under the auspices of the Whitman County Council on Aging.

“Lunches are available to anyone,” said Lendi Bankhead, Senior Center Coordinator for Pullman Parks and Recreation Department. “A $5 donation is requested but not required. All are welcome to visit and use the facilities at no cost. Within Pullman city limits, the center even offers transportation to and from lunches.”

The Center’s normal hours are from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, with occasional closures for day trips, staff meetings, and holidays. Visitors can check beforehand at (509) 338-3307.

“The Senior Center strives to be an inclusive, supportive environment,” Bankhead said, “to promote social, cultural, economic, physical, and mental wellbeing of seniors on the Palouse.”

Facilities provide opportunities for recreation and fitness. Pickle-ball courts in the gymnasium adjacent to the dining hall are always popular, as is the second-story indoor walking track, inviting seniors to “take a hike.” Other activities include yoga and gentle exercise classes.

As coordinator, Bankhead creates and publishes the monthly Active Adults Newsletter for Pullman’s Parks and Recreation Department. It’s available online and in hard copy. 

The PSCA, a separate organization, coordinates and collaborates closely with Bankhead to sponsor additional activities like fund-raisers and memorials for departed members. PSCA publishes its own newsletter bimonthly. As members, Jolie and I helped PSCA move into the new Center from downtown and settle into our new digs. 

Other support has come from the wider Pullman and Whitman County community. For example, after the new Center opened, youth from the Bahá’í community planted bulbs—tulips one year, daffodils another—near the main entrance. In 2023, local artist Cori Dantini volunteered her professional expertise to  guide a dozen youth from Albion Best Adventurers 4H Club as they brightened two 11-foot-deep window wells that darkened the dining room.

Dantini sketched Palouse vistas on the cement walls of the wells, then helped choose bright yellows, greens, and sky-blue for painting the scenes. The kids did the rest, spending hours in the cramped, dark wells. The resulting colorful scenes brighten diners’ experience, especially on sunny days.

Other community support comes from WSU students, who assist PSCA volunteers in serving lunches and cleaning up. These, and many similar contributions, are labors of love—which itself is ageless. The efforts of those volunteers are warmly welcomed and greatly appreciated by us old folks. 

Browning’s wife Elizabeth extolled love’s enduring qualities when she penned her classic sonnet to her husband: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways./ I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight / For the ends of being and ideal grace …” She concludes, “…and, if God choose, / I shall but love thee better after death.”