by Gale Lederer, OLLI member

Gerry and Jerry Kaminski, finding that "grandchildren are magnets," migrated recently from Cincinnati to the Bay Area. The "magnets" were located in both San Diego and Berkeley, but after careful consideration, the Kaminskis opted for the Bay Area because they felt it had superior political, cultural, and environmental riches. "We're mountain and forest people," Gerry explains, "not beach people."

Jerry, a retired lawyer, worked for forty years for the Department of Justice in both Washington, DC and Cincinnati.  For the first five years of his career, he prosecuted school desegregation cases in the South for the Civil Rights Division. At that time, he had to call headquarters every four hours to give his location and let his coworkers know he was still okay. "I was working with all young people," he says, "It was exciting work. It was good to be part of that." Jerry's wife Gerry is not yet fully retired; after pursuing a varied career in the clinical quality improvement and medical education fields, she still returns once a month to Cincinnati to teach at Children's Hospital.

The Kaminskis have been "blown away" by OLLI @Berkeley's intellectual rigor. Their first OLLI course here-taught by Dr. Michael Thaler, a UCSF emeritus professor who as a student worked with James Watson and who in his eighties is still on the cutting edge of his profession-got them hooked, and now they are all-inclusive members and "huge supporters of OLLI." They love it all, including the lunchtime lectures and their New Yorker interest group, but they especially value the opportunity to meet like-minded people and develop friendships. "Everybody is so interesting," they say, "everyone has a story to tell." They enjoy volunteering as class assistants and encourage others to do likewise. "It's important to give back," they remind us. We in the OLLI community are very pleased the Kaminskis feel this way.

Reese Erlich has published a new book: Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect, with a forward by Noam Chomsky. Inside Syria will be available beginning October 7 and has received widespread critical acclaim.

Cal Performances presents Paul Dresher, Electro-Acoustic Band, and Amy X Neuburg in They Will Have Been So Beautiful: Songs and Images of Now on December 5 and 6, 2014. Neuburg and Dresher commissioned 10 composers to create songs inspired by Diane Arbus's Guggenheim grant application, American Rites, Manners and Customs. 

Details and tickets.