Many older people can be slower to recall facts or learn new information because their brains are so stuffed with accumulated knowledge - not because

of inevitable cognitive decline. That's the conclusion of a new study by German researcher Michael Ramscar of Tubingen University.

"The brains of older people do not get weak,"  he said. "On the contrary, they simply know more."

Researchers simulated memory recall from different stages in a lifetime. Computer models with less information in their memory banks retrieved requested data more quickly, mirroring young adults, while models packed with information were slower, in line with the performance of older ones.

Researchers also analyzed the results of an earlier test in which young volunteers outperformed older counterparts at remembering pairs of unrelated words such as "necktie" and "cracker." They concluded that the result, originally attributed to cognitive decline, really reflected older adults having a better understanding of language - thus being naturally resistant to nonsensical pairings.

 ____________________________________________ 

Larry Cron and his painting of the Market Street Bookstore in its previous location at Mashpee Commons

The direction of Larry Cron's life was evident early on. The Boston-born artist was just five years old when his mother gave him a box of crayons and a set of watercolors and he proceeded to create his first "mixed media" work. Shortly thereafter, he made a picture that appeared in the Boston Globe. During his school years, a special art teacher nurtured Larry's talent and his work was recognized with multiple Gold Key awards in the Globe's annual Scholastic Art contest. As a high school senior, he won a national award for the painting he submitted to the Boston Globe/Carnegie Institute Art Contest and was given a full scholarship to the art school of his choice. He selected the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. 

On a snowy afternoon in February, Larry led me on a tour of his new home on Twin Oaks Drive. The experience left little doubt as to what his life has been about. As we descended the stairs to the lower level, he pointed out works of art that hang on every wall -- his art -- woodcuts, watercolors, prints, oils and acrylics. He's tried and mastered all of those techniques. Then we came to his studio area, which Larry describes as "controlled chaos," an indication that someone creative works there. On the wall behind his worktable hang a number of framed awards for his work -- along with one very special award from his daughter for his "having lived 75 years." Next we moved into Larry's "museum space," filled with flat-drawer filing cabinets for renderings on paper, as well as shelving for framed paintings and examples of work from his long, productive career as a graphic designer in the corporate world. All in all, a tangible and impressive representation of a life in art.  

Larry & Sara Lee Cron

Larry graduated from art school in 1961. That year would also become significant because he met Sara Lee Ellison on a blind date; she was 17 and a senior in high school. Before he could put his art education to work, however, Larry volunteered to join the US Army; there was no opportunity for follow-up with Sara Lee. Several years later, with his military service as a medic concluded, Larry happened to be on the Boston University campus when an attractive coed walked by and said, "Hi, Larry." He didn't recognize her at that moment, for the teenage girl from years earlier had grown into a woman, but during a friend's blind date with Sara Lee that evening, Larry met her again. Fate seemed to be sending him a message.

Larry's career in design was launched working for several Fortune 500 companies, enabling him to develop his talent for creating visual presentations, designing publications, and fashioning memorable logos for business identities. In 1972, Larry decided to focus his energy on establishing his own company, Larry Cron Design Associates in Framingham. Larry handled the creative end of this full-service graphic design studio while Sara Lee, his wife since 1964, managed the business's finances.  

Despite his long work hours, Larry continued to create art for his personal satisfaction.

He and Sara Lee purchased a condominium in Mashpee as a weekend home and studio 

Zebras, a woodcut by Larry Cron

where Larry could pursue his passion away from the pressures of his job. As a member of a number of art associations, including the Copley Society in Boston and the Falmouth Artists Guild on the Cape, he continued to exhibit his work regularly in galleries and art shows, winning many prizes for his creations. Influenced by Larry's example and the inspiration constantly surrounding them, the grown-up Cron children have similarly chosen creative professions: Heidi is an architectural design specialist and Peter is a graphic designer. Who knows what careers Larry and Sara Lee's grandchildren will pursue?

When it came time to think about retiring, Larry and Sara Lee knew that they wanted to live on Cape Cod. Having spent time in Mashpee for nearly 30 years, they were familiar with Southport from its earliest days and were delighted to finally move here late last summer. Sara Lee loves to play mah jong and to entertain friends and family, while Larry is especially enthusiastic about the opportunity to "talk with a bunch of guys" at the weekly Men's Coffee. Both enjoy biking, walking, traveling, and getting together with all the new friends they've made in the community. Larry and Sara Lee truly love living in Southport and could not be happier with their retirement choice.

When Southport residents discovered that Larry was an artist, they began to ask him how to learn to paint or how to improve their painting. He had taught others to paint before and decided to offer a painting class, "Perfecting Your Painting," for the Southport community. The six-week course kicked off in January, meeting for three hours on Friday afternoons. Although a key feature of the class is teaching the basics, Larry focuses on the concept of how to "see" and not just look. He paints a theme picture (e.g., a flower) each week and asks each student to paint a picture using the theme, but not replicating Larry's painting.  

Larry's students (Seated, l to r: Fran Szpala, Judy Fenuccio & Ed Bergh; Standing, l to r: Lorraine Albert, Judy Bergh, [Larry], Pam Swift & Bob Schall) are definitely having fun discovering that they can paint. There's a tangible air of enthusiasm and satisfaction in the class.  And as I talked with Larry, I sensed his own pleasure in sharing a lifetime of accrued knowledge and skill with people who want to learn. His generosity is just one more example of what makes Southport such a great place to live. 

 

The next morning, after breakfast, they began to pack a lunch for their little outing. The night before had been wonderful, but they dared not speak of it for fear of ruining the mood.

She began making her sandwich - turkey on sour dough with lettuce and mayo. He began a ham on rye with lettuce, mayo and mustard.

As they worked, they watched each other out of the corners of their eyes. Could this be the one, each thought?

She put a slice of bread in the palm of one hand and deftly dipped the knife into the mayo with the other. Without looking, really, she spread the dollop over the bread in one swirl and put the slice down to start the other.

He suppressed a snort as he placed his first slice on the cutting board, picked up the mayo jar in one hand and slid his knife in carefully. Seeing that he had gotten

a little too much, he wiped off the excess on the edge of the jar as he withdrew the knife. Then, starting at one end, he spread the mayo evenly over the entire surface, returning again and again to make sure he had gotten some into every pore of the bread.

She had begun to squirm after his third pass with the knife and, finally, could restrain herself no longer. "What the hell are you doing?" she blurted. "You're not doing an oil painting!  It's just a sandwich!"

"What?" he retorted.

"Look at you," she said. "Think you've spread the mayo perfectly enough?"

"Me?" he shot back. "All you do is a lick and promise. Yours looks like waves at the lake. Half your bites won't have any mayo on them at all!"

"So what?" she said, her voice rising. "I like it when I bite into globs of it! It's all gonna come out in the end, anyway.

"And, you! By the time you're done, you'll have a masterpiece of a sandwich, but it will be time for bed!"

"Yeah? Well, at least I do it right. How'd you like it if they made 'em your way at the deli?"

"Well, we're not at the deli. We're in the kitchen. Do you want to have a picnic or not?"

With that, she dipped her finger in the mayo and playfully dabbed a glob on his nose. Then, she faced him and stood her ground, challenging him to see things her way.

Snoopy Ruber, PhD

It's March, and you probably will notice grass trying to grow around your condo this month. My dog Snoopy is curious about such ecological events. Let me tell you about a scientific experiment that he conducted.

We had deep snow banks on the lawn last winter, so I tramped out a little plateau where Snoopy, a short-legged Beagle, could perform his regular functions without being half buried. He continued to favor this area even as the snow melted, and by May I noticed that the grass in his spot was taller and darker green than in other parts of the lawn.

In general, scientific progress occurs from three sources: 1) an intuition, hunch or guess, i.e., a hypothesis; 2) an observation that two events, e.g., dog pee and grass growth, occur together in nature (intuition often follows observation) and 3) an experiment in which we control one event to see whether the other one varies. All living things need groups of resources in order to grow and their growth will be affected if even one of those resources is above or below the required range. Plants need nutrients in order to grow--water, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus--plus sunlight and an appropriate temperature.  

Adding nitrogen to a lawn can result in healthier, taller grass.

We've learned from years of study and experiment that urine contains nitrogen and nitrogen stimulates grass growth. Is that what we see in Snoopy's experiment? We're pretty sure it is, but someone might say, "You added a complex product: urine. How do you know it's not something else in urine, like potassium or phosphorus, that made the difference?" How can we determine which one (or perhaps two or three) is the factor that made the difference? It's easy to design an experiment to answer these questions but conducting it can be tedious.

First, we set up four patches (aka "quadrats") and treat them with varying amounts of additional nitrogen--low, medium, high--or none. The last is a "control" that tells us what happens in the absence of additions. To some of the low nitrogen quadrats we can add high or low values of potassium or phosphorus and so on. (The details are important to the experimenters but not for this article.) This can be called an enrichment experiment based on the premise that if something is added and the plant grows better, then the absence or inadequacy of that substance was limiting the plant's growth.

Let's try another enrichment experiment. Suppose you've been at sea for a year and your teeth are falling out, your gums are bleeding and your legs are swollen; you're an unhappy seafarer suffering from scurvy. How to correct the problem? Maybe you need fresh water? Doesn't help? How about fresh meat? Still no help? And so the enrichment experiment goes on until oranges, lemons and sauerkraut are added to your diet separately. All of them rid you of your disease. This sort of experiment gave us the knowledge of vitamins (specifically, vitamin C), which in small amounts are essential to our health. We found what we had been deprived of by trial and error, which led to the study of the chemical nature of vitamins and why and how we needed them at the biochemical level.           

Adding too much nitrogen to the lawn in the absence of sufficient water can kill the grass.

Sometimes the opposite strategy--a deprivation experiment--is used. For example: You have problems with gas and cramps. The first thing your doctor asks is, "For how long?" Then she may try to eliminate causes, "Have you been overseas lately? Changed your diet? Notice anything you eat that seems to cause the problem?"  

Based on your answers and her knowledge she may conclude that a gut parasite is unlikely but something in your diet is the culprit. Certain foods cause more problems than others, so she might suggest dropping wheat products from your diet temporarily to see if the problem goes away. No? Then let's drop all dairy products for a few weeks. If the problem disappears but you can't live without ice cream, she might say, "OK, stay off all dairy except for one tablespoonful of ice cream a day." (This is an enrichment experiment trying to refine the results of an earlier deprivation one.)           

The simplicity of these experiments is deceptive because there is a tremendous amount of previous scientific knowledge underlying the experimenter's application of this method. The concept is simple but powerful, one that we all, scientist or not, can understand and apply to many human problems. For example, "Why doesn't this car start?" Try kicking it; doesn't work? Try some gasoline. "Why won't this kid behave?" Try various rewards or loss of privileges and you'll be experimenting with enrichment or deprivation.  

But back to Snoopy's experiment of adding nitrogen to grass. Do his results mean that we should apply more nitrogen fertilizer to create a lusher, greener lawn everywhere at Southport? The answer is complicated. I showed Snoopy's improved grass to Russ Miller, our landscape/golf course superintendent, and he said, "If you look at the center of these patches you will see some dead grass." The explanation: When nitrogen is exposed to oxygen it can be converted to nitric acid, which kills grass. Too much nitrogen combined with too little water equals dead grass. The problem is greater in summer when conditions are dry, then the spots where dogs urinate regularly show unsightly dead patches. The probable reason for seeing little evidence of dead grass in Snoopy's patch is that we had lots of melting snow last March and lots of rain in the spring, which diluted his urine.  

The lawn on the left is more attractive and can be created by adding more fertilizer and water. But there are significant costs -- both financial and environmental.

So, perhaps we should irrigate more to dilute the additional nitrogen? There are several factors to consider. One is the cost of fertilizer and its application plus the cost of extra water. The second is that Cape Cod's water supply is already inadequate; we need to conserve its use as much as possible. Finally, a significant amount of the extra nitrogen will be flushed into streams and eventually into the bays. There is already too much nitrogen in our coastal waters, resulting in excessive growth of algae--often those species (spinach of the sea?) that are not much eaten by marine animals. The waters become saturated with billions of microscopic plants, which die and stink. Bacteria and fungi, in decomposing the algae, remove oxygen from the water, for lack of which, fish, clams and other invertebrates die. We should not contribute to a problem that promises to be very costly to ameliorate if we are forced (as Boston was) to build sewage treatment plants to remove nitrogen and other wastes.

Mom & Dad with my baby sister in the late 1920s

Growing up the 1930s I had no idea my family was living through a Great Depression until my parents told me about it years later. My father had a good civil service job with the City of New York. He brought home $35 a week, enough to rent nice apartments in the Bronx. Policemen and firemen were also earning about $35 a week then and were moving into those Bronx apartments as bankers and financiers moved out. Once a week, on payday, our family of four had dinner in a neighborhood Chinese restaurant and visited a local movie house, all for $2.05.

Many people were unemployed, of course, and it was common to find several generations living together with one breadwinner supporting the extended family. Few of our neighbors had a car, but my father always managed to own one, used but shiny and dependable. We also had a summer bungalow, which my talented and shrewd father built in Putnam County. Once, with a $200 workers compensation settlement for a minor job-related accident, he bought four building lots for $100 and a truckload of lumber for the remainder of the money. I thought he could do anything.

The vacation house my Dad built singlehandedly

A Putnam County neighbor was an auto mechanic and part owner of a Stutz repair shop in Manhattan. He taught my father how to remove an engine head and clean the carbon off the valves. With that knowledge, my father bought old cars with smoking exhausts for $25 on Fridays, cleaned the valves over the weekend and sold the cars for $50 on Mondays. He used the profits to transform our small bungalow into a three-bedroom vacation home.

Cars played an important role in my father's life and received loving care. The only time I saw him cry was when a truck dented the trunk of his newest used car, a two-tone pre-WWII Super Buick. Once, as a very young child, I wrecked my father's old Chevrolet. It was parked on a hill with the emergency brake pulled up extra tight because my father knew I liked to stand at the steering wheel and imitate his driving. I couldn't release the brake by hand so I kicked it and the car began to roll down the hill. I turned around and watched through the oval rear window as my parents and grandparents ran after me. At a turn in the road, the car ran off a cliff and landed on a rock with the front wheels spinning. I remember my grandmother yelling, "Don't hit him, don't hit him!" The crankcase was cracked and spitting oil.

One of my father's many used cars was a Studebaker President, in which he installed our first car radio.

I have no idea how we retrieved the car from the rock or how we got back to the Bronx with no oil in the crankcase, but the following week we left the Bronx for the country in a used $50 Essex with beautiful "touchy" velour upholstery. After the Essex,

My Dad's first genuinely new car--a 1951 Buick Special

Many years after the Great Depression had ended, while I was serving as a U.S Army combat correspondent in the Korean War, a photograph arrived from America. It was a picture of my father, now a superintendent of construction for the city and earning a lot more money. He was standing proudly in front of his first brand new car, a black 1951 Buick Special. During the rest of his life I received many more photos of each of his new cars.      

David Kapp, with his wife Billie, moved from Connecticut to Southport in 2009. David retired from a career as a university library administrator, after working in the libraries at Brandeis, Harvard and the University of Connecticut. He was a building consultant for the planning of a number of major university libraries and was, for many years, the editor of Connecticut Libraries. Billie enjoyed a career as an educator and social sciences consultant. The Kapps are frequent visitors to Hawaii where their son, daughter, grandson and other family members live.  

 SPECIAL THANKS TO

Larry Cron for his interview,

Ray Schumack for his pictures 

        and to my proofreader Billie Kapp.