This was my first experience interviewing a couple for Southport Village Voices. Fortunately, when I stumbled, failing to account for that added dimension,  

the Rileys bailed me out. This is typical of them, as you'll learn.  

Dan & Anne Riley

Anne Molloy was born and raised in Cambridge, a working class, blue-collar community at the time, far different than its yuppie orientation now. Anne went to a Catholic high school for girls, which she described as "small and strict." She told me with a grin that she was a cheerleader for the basketball team, and a member of the National Honor Society, as well.

Dan, born and raised in Ellington, Connecticut, attended a grammar school attended largely by the children of Polish immigrants and where Polish was taught. He spent his junior year at Archbishop Carroll High School, while attending junior seminary, where he studied Latin, and wound up with a smattering of both languages as a result. His focus in high school was on his studies (he too earned a place on the National Honor Society), but he also had time for athletics, playing on both the soccer and baseball teams.

A scholarship supported Anne's enrollment at the Mount Auburn Nursing School in Cambridge, where she obtained valuable practical experience working part-time in the Mount Auburn Hospital and was honored as Student Nurse of the Year in her second year.After graduating from nursing school, she attended Northeastern University and earned her BSN.

Dan had hoped to enroll at the US Coast Guard Academy following high school, but he failed the eye exam and went to Providence College instead and majored in political science. He was fullback on the soccer team, a position often referred to as the "enforcer," (information I picked up while following my grandson's efforts in the same position), and was a resident assistant for two years. During the summers, he worked in construction or in a testing lab at Pratt & Whitney. He worked his way through college in various jobs and once was employed as a coupon envelope stuffer, earning one cent for each envelope stuffed; paper cuts were an added bonus.

Anne's nursing career began with a decade-long stint at Mount Auburn Hospital; she worked in the emergency room for six years and was nurse manager of the ER during her last three years as nurse manager. She loved the work, describing it as "so varied, always a different case with something new to learn." Then she accepted a position at the Lahey Clinic, opening their first walk-in center and spending the next 25 years of her career there. During her last ten years, she worked in the pulmonary outpatient clinic, as the clinical leader for the bronchoscopy team and participated for many of those years in international conferences on interventional pulmonology.

After graduation from college, Dan enlisted in the Coast Guard. He was an electronic technician prior to being accepted for OCS, from which he graduated in 1973. He attended the National Port Security School and, later in his career, served as chief of the school. Dan headed up part of the Coast Guard team that battled the 1976 Argo Merchant oil spill near Nantucket, overseeing the efforts to protect Nantucket beaches. He also represented the Coast Guard in a simulated oil spill response drill with Mexico. The Coast Guard sent Dan to Babson College where he earned his MBA in financial management.

Dan Riley was in the Coast Guard and Anne Molloy was a nurse at the Lahey Clinic when they met on a blind date in 1989. They were married two years later and set up housekeeping in Arlington.

 1989, a friend of Anne's arranged for her to meet Dan on a blind date. Dan had been married previously and was the father of three children (who have since given him five grandchildren). The chemistry was right and the Rileys were married two years later. They lived in Anne's condo in Arlington prior to buying a house there. Anne worked at Lahey and Dan's office was in Boston, so Arlington was a good choice. Dan describes the town as a hidden jewel, having the advantage of being accessible to Boston but with all the benefits of a well-managed suburb.

Their good life was interrupted in 1996 when Dan suffered what was later diagnosed as a heart attack. He told me that Anne rushed him to Lahey, "which probably saved my life."  Anne, he says, personifies that "better half" expression we so often hear--but seldom with the conviction that Dan expresses! In 1998, Dan wrapped up his his 25-year career in the Coast Guard with the rank of Captain, comparable to the rank of Colonel in the Army.

Dan wasn't ready for retirement, however, so he went to work as a custom project manager for Achieve Global, a  major performance achievement company based in Tampa. During his 12 years with the company, he designed corporate training programs in sales, customer service and leadership. Somewhere along the line, the Rileys bought a second home, in Centerville, planning to retire to the Cape. There they became became friends with Leo and Norine Piscatelli, who later moved to Southport and helped to convince the Rileys that they should move here, too. The Rileys sold their Centerville house and moved to Southport in 2010 and then sold their Arlington home in 2011.  

In Centerville, Dan resumed his athletic activities, planning to play in the Cape Cod "old timers" softball league; but Leo Piscatelli told him that he was too young for the league! He went on to play in the Harwich League for five years and now plays with the Falmouth League known as the Cape Codgers.  

The Grandkids

In 2011, Dan left his consulting position with Achieve Global and decided to devote his full time attention to the serious business of retirement.  Anne now works per diem at Falmouth Hospital, which she describes as a "wonderful community hospital." As busy as they have been with their demanding careers, Anne and Dan have still managed to travel--to Ireland, Hawaii, Italy and elsewhere. Asked which destination she liked best, Anne "liked them all," but Dan voted for their Ireland trip. This past winter they spent a few weeks in Newport Beach, California.   

Incidentally, I had a first-hand opportunity to see Anne at work when I checked into the Falmouth Hospital for a heart catheterization. She was in charge of prep for the procedure and was focused and on top of everything, a professional at work.   

Anne and Dan moved to Southport in 2010. They describe themselves as "enthusiastic beginners" on the golf course, and they both play bocce and tennis. Anne is active in the Garden Club and Dan is a member of the Southport Residents Scholarship Committee. Their impact on the Southport community is reflected in comments from friends and neighbors. "The Rileys are very smart people," according to their friend Leo, "Dan can fix almost anything." Gail Monson says, "Anne is unbelievable. She's a compassionate, positive person." And Karlyn Curran told me, "They epitomize the type of people needed to help Southport remain a vital, dynamic community."

I have my own experience along these lines. When he discovered that my garage was full of wheelchairs, leaving no room for my car, Dan volunteered to move them to the basement, something that I could no longer do. Anne, too, is there for Southporters needing a hand. In the short time they've lived here, the Rileys have become an important part of our community. It's been a real pleasure getting to know them.

 NEW IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD 

Cindy DiMartino and Don Sostek moved to 12 Sea Spray Avenue from Needham about six months ago. Currently, they still work in their health care business in Newton and live in Dedham most of the week, spending four-day weekends at Southport.  

Don Sostek & Cindy DiMartino

Cindy and Don have found it easy to meet people here and say that while you buy in for the property, it turns out that people are the biggest resource. They've tried a variety of activities--stretch classes and aerobics--insofar as these are compatible with their schedule. I've met them in the poolroom, and they're beginning to learn golf. Meeting people is so easy, in fact, that their next-door neighbors are already like parents to them. Wait a minute! They are Cindy's parents. Cindy and Don first looked into Southport for her parents and the rest is history, as they say.

Cindy and Don's business places very high quality live-in aides with people who need help in order to remain in their homes. Their network extends from Boston south to the Cape and Islands. Don has had the business for 30 years and is especially proud of the quality of their placements, conducting extensive personal interviews with prospective caregivers. "It isn't hard to find people who wish to do this work, but it's extremely hard to find the best ones," he says, "We look for people with empathy and a high level of compassion in addition to other qualities. These people sleep over; they may need to do serious physical work with some clients as well as shop, go to the movies and so on. I worry about this being seen as a 'hot' business with a consequent influx of lower quality providers."

Cindy is a licensed medical social worker with more than 20 years of experience in geriatrics, ten of them with Don. She is also a Reiki Master who began a business in this specialty working with animals and, by popular demand, extended it to people. Both are certified balance coaches and are working toward certification as senior fitness trainers. They present programs at several facilities and are effusive about the value, physical and mental, of fitness activities. When they finally get to be semi-retired, they want to do more of this.

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Odin Tidemand

Here in New England, you don't often meet someone who shares his name with one of the major gods of Norse mythology. But in Denmark, where Odin Tidemand was born, he is the eighth member in his family lineage to bear that name. I had also speculated that the name Tidemand might have something to do with water, but I was wrong. In his case, "tide" derives from the Danish word for "tithes," (i.e., taxes); add "mand" (man), and you have "taxman." His ancestors were the IRS of their day, collecting the kings' taxes for some hundreds of years before losing their jobs to Germans in the 17th century. Then they became teachers, ministers and sea captains. As you might guess, Odin is passionate about his ancestry; he's the historian for his family--and for several other families, as well.

And consider this colorful beginning: Odin was born on a remote island where his father, a Danish partisan during World War II, was in charge of a mental institution for the criminally insane. Odin was three when his parents brought him and his two sisters to the United States in the early 1950s and settled in Baltimore. He met his wife, Nancy, in high school and married her after they both had graduated from college--American University in her case and University of Maryland at College Park in his. Odin was into speed walking in those years and once walked the 14 miles between the two schools in one hour and 45 minutes. Young love can do wonders for your energy level!

Nancy took up a career as a nurse, working at Georgetown University Hospital, and Odin became a real estate appraiser. They lived in a funky apartment in Northwest Washington, DC for seven years and then purchased a house in Kensington, Maryland, a close-in suburb of DC. Their daughter Julie was born in Kensington, and the Tidemand family continued to live close to DC for the next 33 years. After many years as an independent fee appraiser, Odin went to work for the District of Columbia, where he trained assessors and wrote procedure manuals for the Office of Tax and Revenue. Unfortunately, Nancy died in 2009 and he has become seriously disabled; he copes with a malady that can cause his bones to break spontaneously, even when he's sleeping.

Odin continued to work after losing his wife but began to think about moving to the Boston area, where his daughter Julie now lives and works as technical director for Watertown's New Repertory Theatre. He needed to find a handicapped-friendly condo on one level, so he began to investigate condos, via the Internet, in communities south of Boston, but the condos he liked were all multi-floored. Finally, with the help of a realtor and visits by Julie and her husband Mark to preview Odin's selections, he worked his way to Cape Cod and discovered Southport. Odin's health prevented him from visiting Southport, so Julie accompanied the realtor for the pre-settlement inspection. Fortunately, the selling agent had posted floor plans and pictures on the Internet. As an expert appraiser, Odin had no trouble visualizing the home he decided to purchase at 28 Pebble Beach Avenue--sight unseen! With Julie's help, he became a resident of Southport in October 2011.

Through Odin's membership in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Falmouth, he's become active in helping the Town of Falmouth to develop a reputation for making their beaches and commercial enterprises more accessible to people with disabilities. And, as I've noted above, he's an expert on tracing family histories; it would be our advantage to find a way to share that expertise with other residents who have a similar interest. Southport has been a good move for Odin. His home meets his special needs and he lives in a supportive community. My 'brief' interview with him turned into a fascinating, nearly two-hour conversation. Read about his efforts to learn to speak New Englandese in this issue of Southport Village Voices--and then find a way to meet him. You'll be glad you did.

Non Compos Mendes   

by Bob Mendes    

• You can't make these things up: A recent study of younger smokers produced an 899 page report concluding that smoking is unhealthy!    
• A little known fact is that there is an 11th commandment:
  Thou shalt not be boring.   
• Have you ever looked carefully at your electric bill? Bette pays our bill so I rarely see it, but looking at it the other day I noticed the cost of electricity was $24.66 and the cost of delivery was $33.48. With delivery costing more than the product itself, I'd be willing to go pick up the electricity if I knew where to get it and if I had something to carry it home in.   
• A recent newspaper article on how to improve your memory as you age said you should exercise regularly and vigorously, eat whole grain foods, vegetables and fruit, read, converse, do puzzles, etc. I was glad to read this because these are all things I already do, but I'd forgotten why.   
• I'm not a Mitt Romney fan, but I think he's taking a bad rap on being a flip-flopper, as do all candidates who change their minds about issues. I've changed my mind a zillion times and I'm sure you have too. When different facts are presented, one is entitled--in fact often obligated--to change his mind. Do you agree with me? Will you still agree with me next week?   
• Because of the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park, there's been a great deal of media coverage about that sacred and sainted piece of real estate lately. I respect Fenway; I respect my neighbors and I respect the Red Sox, but I have some really great memories of a ballpark a hundred or so miles south of here. Since I could ramble on about my youth and Yankee Stadium forever, I would definitely run out of space in this issue. Maybe next month.   
• There's been a lot of talk about "civility" lately, particularly on the political scene.  I have a pet peeve in the area of civility on the domestic scene. Why does no one say "You're welcome" any more. When I say thank you to someone they may return my words and say thank you back to me. Or they may say "No problem," or the dreaded, "No sweat." Why can't the magic words be please and thank you --and you're welcome?   
• Once again my good friend Joe O'Connor takes issue with Southport signs. He notices the new signs erected at the Village Center parking lot restricting parking to ten minutes "while picking up mail." Joe wants to know what the limit is for dropping off mail.   
• This is a fairly grisly subject, but if you knew--absolutely knew as a metaphysical certainty that the earth would disintegrate in six months, what would you do? For example, would you start smoking again? Would you eat all the bad stuff you've been avoiding for years? Would you do something good and worthwhile that you've been meaning to do? What? Let me know and I'll share it with the half dozen or so readers of this column. bob246oncape@gmail.com    
• What's with "closure"? Today everyone wants closure.  A mystery, a crime, a tragedy, a controversy--we must have closure.  Well, some things never reach closure but this isn't one of them. You've finally come to the end of this column. Hooray, you have closure!

I knew that moving from Maryland to Massachusetts would afford me an opportunity to hear a regional variation of American English. New Englanders are well known for their intrusive and absent Rs. "Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd" is the classic phrase that everyone reiterates to gently poke fun at New Englanders.

My daughter Julie, who moved to Massachusetts 11 years ago, warned me about the "funny" speech, but mainly dwelled on issues relating to the Rs. Every time I have visited Massachusetts in the past, I have delighted in listening to the "charming" pronunciation of familiar words. So, before moving to the commonwealth, I practiced dropping Rs and adding Rs in the appropriate places. Little did I know that I would soon be experiencing major anxiety, not as a result of pronunciation, but as a result of differences in terminology.  

One of my first acquisitions after moving to Southport was this handsome trashcan.

After arriving at my new home on Pebble Beach Avenue, during a driving rainstorm at the end of October, my sister and I took inventory of some essential items I would need to set up housekeeping. My furniture had not yet arrived, and I had only two inflatable mattresses and some clothes with me. The next morning we ventured to Home Depot and purchased a few wastebaskets, soap dishes and a trashcan--a Rubbermaid Roughneck trashcan with wheels and an attached lid.

After bringing it home, I placed some rubbish and garbage in my new trashcan and started to feel more at home. The next day my sister flew back to Maryland and I found myself alone in my new surroundings for the first time. The following day I started looking for the Southport rulebook; I needed to know what day trash was collected. Hmmm...I could not find the book! It was in one of the 245 boxes sitting on the floor in my living room, den and bedroom.

Instead of tearing through the boxes, I called the Village Center and was told to put out my "barrel" between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. on Thursday. That was tomorrow morning. Wait a minute. A barrel? I bought a trashcan. Oh no, they use barrels for their trash? Julie hadn't told me about this custom. How could I return my trashcan? I had already used it. I didn't think Home Depot would exchange a used trashcan for a barrel.  

If a "trashcan" is called a "barrel," what should I call this object?

At 6:00 a.m. the next day, I looked nervously outside to see if I could spot any of my neighbors' barrels. No one had placed anything curbside yet, so I rolled out my trashcan under the cover of darkness. I waited anxiously until daybreak and, lo and behold, to my relief, my neighbors were putting out trashcans! I guess they had also missed the memo about the barrels. Well, no return trip to the Home Depot; avoided that embarrassment!

Happily, I called my daughter to tell her that I had dodged a bullet, or rather, a barrel. To my dismay she started laughing. "Dad, I forgot to tell you, many locals call trashcans barrels." How could she have forgotten to tell her dear old Dad such an important piece of information? I then asked her (very smugly) what the locals called barrels. She didn't know.

Since then I have learned that "blinkers" are sometimes called "directionals"; that my son-in-law is not named after Ernest Mach, but the Biblical figure, Mark; traffic circles are "rotaries"; going west over the Bourne and Sagamore bridges is going "off Cape"; returning east is "on Cape"; water fountains are "bubblahs"; a liquor store is a "packie", "packy" or "package store"; a three-story, three-family house is a "tripledecker"; "wicked" can mean good; and "Upper Cape" is the part of the Cape I think should be called the Lower Cape.

So if you meet me and I don't seem to understand what you are trying to tell me, please remember that I lived, for many years, in Bawlmer, Merlyn (Bawlmorese for Baltimore, Maryland). Oh, by the way, what do you call a barrel?