September 2007 - Human Interest
By Bill Kent
“Being part of the news is something newspapermen try to avoid.
But Ron Avery, a Philadelphia Daily News retiree, has been interviewed on radio shows, and mentioned often in newspapers, even the New York Times.
The subject isn’t Avery himself, but the misinformation about Philadelphia he has heard circulated by tour guides.
“One said that George Washington died from being bled to death by Dr. Benjamin Rush, and that he’s buried in Washington Square,” recalls Avery, 66. “Another said that Ben Franklin weighed 300 pounds, died of syphilis, and had 69 illegitimate children.”
Majored in, taught history
He lists others: Presidents Lincoln and Washington dined together at the Powel House; Society Hill was named by William Penn after the Society of Freemasons; chestnut trees were planted on Chestnut Street, walnuts on Walnut Street, etc., so the illiterate would know where they were.
Avery majored in history at Penn State and taught high school history before turning to journalism — working for the Bucks County Courier-Times, Camden Courier-Post, and, finally the Philadelphia Daily News, where his column, “Poor Ronald’s Almanac,” explored unusual places and people.
In 1992, at the request of the Atwater Kent Museum, Avery organized a tour of the city’s graveyards and has been a part-time, self-employed tour guide ever since. He has led groups as large as 50 and as small as one. Two of his “Urban Explorer” tours were videotaped and are shown frequently on the city’s municipal cable channel 64.
Author of three books
Avery is the author of three books about Philadelphia (his A Concise History of Philadelphia is sold at historic district gift shops), and is working on a collection of amusing Philadelphia anecdotes. He has taught Philadelphia history at Temple University, Main Line School Night and Mount Airy Learning Tree. Since 1992, as a part-time tour guide, he’s been specializing in off-the-beaten-track tours of graveyards, Rittenhouse Square, Society Hill and other neighborhoods.
Ten years ago, noticing that tour guides didn’t always have their facts straight, Avery wrote a two-part series for the Daily News about mistakes he had overheard.
“I thought the guides would be embarrassed enough to want to change,” he says. “It didn’t happen.”
Test the guides?
Earlier this year, Avery left his South Philadelphia row house to deliver letters to every member of City Council, urging a tour guide licensing program similar to those in New York, Gettysburg, Colonial Williamsburg, Charleston and Savannah. Tour guides would have to pass a basic test about the city’s history.
Only one member responded: Blondell Reynolds Brown, who is chair of Council’s Committee on Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs. In May, she conducted a hearing, gaining positive support. A bill has been drawn up that Avery expects will be voted into law by year’s end.
Since then, Avery, a widower with two sons and two grandchildren, has been hired to educate Ride-the-Ducks drivers.
“The truth about this city,” says Ron Avery, “is always better than anything you could invent.”
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By Alicia Colombo
Lissette Ramos grew up in a Spanish-speaking household in North Central Philadelphia, and is fluent in English and Spanish.
Most of her family is from Puerto Rico, and she says she has a deep connection with the Latino culture. That duality has served her well over three and a half years with Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA), first as a care manager and most recently as an outreach coordinator charged with reaching Latino elders.
“Her job is vital to what we do,” says Rick Spector, PCA’s community relations director.
She and Sung Young Yun, who writes and speaks Korean fluently, are his two staffers serving Philadelphia’s two fastest-growing elderly minority groups — Latinos and Asians.
The ‘need is growing’
“Their specific cultural and language differences make it difficult for them to access the social service system,” Spector says. Speaking with an older person about personal health and decision-making options requires sensitivity and an understanding of how a person’s culture affects attitudes and beliefs, he notes.
“You have to find different and creative ways to communicate terms that aren’t in someone’s vocabulary,” Ramos said. “Everything from Medicare to stair glides to utility assistance.”
Yun has been with PCA for three years, working to increase awareness of PCA in the Asian community. “The need for outreach is growing,” she said. “Many Asian seniors are moving into senior apartment complexes. For the first time in their lives, they are living independently and this makes language barriers more complex.”
As community outreach workers, Yun and Ramos are the “public face” of PCA’s multi-lingual services, but others are also working diligently to ensure that non-English-speaking elderly are served. Bilingual workers are actively recruited for the PCA Helpline, at 215-765-9040, which puts people in touch with vital information and services. The Helpline staff includes eight bilingual employees who speak Spanish, Russian and Mandarin Chinese. The ‘Language Line’ telephone translation service is utilized to communicate with callers who speak other languages.
‘Barrier’ to ‘remove’
In addition, interpreters accompany the agency’s social workers on home visits to non-English speaking consumers. “The program has grown as our ethnically diverse elder population has grown,” said Pearl Graub, PCA’s director of professional services for long term care. Full-time interpreters speak Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Russian, Italian, French, Ukrainian and Spanish. Forms are also translated into the consumer’s native language and are currently available in Korean, Spanish and Russian.
PCA’s new website, www.pcaCares.org, utilizes World Lingo, an automatic translation service; and printed brochures are available in Cambodian, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.
“Our goal is to remove language as a barrier to receiving the appropriate services,” said David Nevison, PCA’s associate executive director for planning and development. “As Philadelphia’s ethnic elderly population continues to grow, ensuring their ability to access these services becomes increasingly important.”
For information on PCA services and programs, you may call the PCA Helpline at 215-765-9040 or visit www.pcaCares.org.
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By Kitty Baker
Every Tuesday, Irv Sharf visits Inglis House, in the Wynnefield section of Philadelphia, to help residents play pinochle.
They need his hands to deal and handle the cards. Keeping score is no problem; their bodies are disabled (many are in power chairs), but their minds are alert.
Since 1998, Sharf, a retired pharmacist and World War II veteran, has been a volunteer several days a week at Inglis House, a specialty nursing care facility for people with physical disabilities.
On Thursdays, he’s “chief bottle washer” for residents in the “creative cooking” class, led by Inglis staff member Susan DiBona, a graduate chef.
Not an ‘electric chair’
He is in demand as a photographer at parties when residents enjoy swing dancing on four wheels. He takes unusual action shots of residents like the late Bob Woltanski, an artist who was paralyzed after a fall, but painted with brushes he held in his mouth. The treasured photos are sent to friends or relatives to show what is possible even when mobility is much limited.
Sharf discusses his experiences at Inglis House in an article he wrote for the REAPorter, published by Retired Executives And Professionals, entitled “A Battery-Powered Miracle.” In it, he explains the power chair: “The term ‘electric chair’ is not used. Inglis is a wheelchair community, where residents without the strength to manipulate a hand-powered wheelchair used to be confined to bed.
“With power chairs, residents have been liberated with the freedom to come and go, even to travel on public transportation. If hands are immobilized, pressure sensors can be installed and activated by turning the head left or right. If both hands and head are immobilized, pipes close to the mouth can be used to turn or go straight with a slight puff of breath.”
New interest: kayaking
Still more advances are coming from Hitachi scientists, Sharf notes. These include a device, based on optical topography, that monitors brain activity in paralyzed people, making it possible for them to help operate electric wheelchairs, beds and artificial limbs.
Sharf and his first wife, Bernice Goldsmith, grew up on the same street in West Philadelphia.
He sold his pharmacy after 30 years to be with her during her last five years, when she was fighting cancer.
His second wife, Lolli Satlof, died in 2005.
Now, with energy to spare, Sharf has a new interest. He’s learning to kayak in the bays and lagoons of Long Beach Island.
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