Janet B. - Non Participant

Good morning. Thank you for joining me today. Could you state your name, please?

My name is Janet Brown.

Janet Brown. Thank you for joining me today, Miss Janet Brown. Could you share a little bit about yourself? Did you grow up in Milwaukee?

No, I grew up in Racine Racing. Yeah. And I used to sneak up here when I was younger. And the first bus that I ever rode in Milwaukee was the 19. Wow. I started coming here when there was the interns east downtown girl, it was a club. Oh, and I used to go to the palace and stuff like that.

Yeah.

So I really loved Milwaukee back in the days, you know, to me, Milwaukee was. It was only two places. Well, three places in the world. Milwaukee, Mississippi, and Racine. I was young, you know, I never knew about other places.

Yeah.

And.

How was it growing up in Racine? Like?

It was spectacular.

Oh, was it?

It was great. It was always something to do good. We had carnivals and wasn't under this scared to go to the parades because of all the mass craziness. That's what I call it, you know.

Tell me a little bit about your personal interests and activities and things like that.

I'm an active person. I hate sitting still. I rise at 430 in the morning. I end my day at 839 o'clock at night. There's not enough for. There's not enough information for seniors, you know, out there. There's not enough transportation to take us anywhere, you know. Yeah, we fight to keep our independence, but we still need help to keep our independence, especially when I moved back here in 2010.

So I've gotten old here, you want to say, you know, I'm part of the woodwork now. And even being an iris, you know, a client of iris, they can only tell me so much, okay. And to me, it don't be enough. You know, to me, they just tell me enough to, like, say, put the butter on the bread and that's it.

For context, what is Iris?

It is my long term care. What are you gonna call it? The group that does my long term care is part of the human resource building. What it was, I don't know, in I life and stuff like that.

Okay.

So it's just they can never tell you where you can go to get a fee waived for the y or they can never tell you how to get to the y. There's really nothing for us black older people, you know, if you're not in the church or if you don't have a car, you have nothing.

Wow.

You have nothing. You're just sitting bored, and that's my biggest fear? Being alone. Nothing. No one. You know, I refuse to move in senior buildings.

Yeah.

Because the senior building is the first step to the nursing home. And then after the nursing home, there's nothing. So I choose to fight and stand and keep walking and keep talking and keep semi taking care of myself the best way I can.

Yeah.

You know, and some of us have so much pride to where we scared to ask for help. Cause number one, we've been shot down so many times, we just tuck and go in. And when you say we seniors, seniors, seniors, you know, I got girlfriends. I mean, the only thing that they do is church. And back home, you know, some of them got kids that gonna come and get them. They don't got time. There was a lady that I met this summer, Miss Roberta, and she was going blind. And she was out on that bus by herself.

She'd be out trying to make it on her own by herself. She didn't know how to deal with being blind. Her pride was getting in the way, you know?

Yeah. So you think it's partially her pride, but I heard you say loneliness.

That's the key. You know, I'm doing everything in my power to keep my grandson with me, so I'm not alone.

Yeah.

You know, some of us are lucky to have family members that become caregivers. Some of us don't want to be that lucky.

Right.

You know, some of us good caregivers that come for a few hours and 16 hours a day, they alone again. So you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

Yeah.

So.

It'S really interesting because someone that I had interviewed last week, it was actually someone who was previously a facilitator for one of the programs that I asked you to come in and talk about. Well, not for you to talk about, but that's what this interview is based on. She was saying that a lot of people get engaged with the programs because turns out that they're lonely. So they don't really need the services.

They just want to be around somebody.

They just want to do something. They want to be around somebody.

Because when we alone, that 24 hours seems like 365 days. In that one day, you know, I have the privilege of having my family closer, but there are some. Their family is right there, but they're still lonely. I make myself heard. I make myself seen. Nobody's gonna leave me behind, and I'm not gonna leave anybody behind.

Do you feel like that? Like you're, like seniors are left behind or we're forgotten. Yeah.

You know, I just told my grandson this morning, I said, we're born, we're babies, then we become in between, and then we become babies again. You know, as a baby, when they first have us, we don't become a burden. Not a burden. We're joy. But then there's that middle and then there's that end where we're adult babies and we become a burden. Yeah. And that's selfish, because just like our children didn't ask to be brought here, we didn't either.

Is that something that's been kind of going on in your mind? Like something that you've been thinking about?

My biggest fear. Biggest fear is being put in a home.

Yeah.

It's being my independence. Being taken. Because I don't know where to turn. I don't. I don't. My biggest fear is being alone. Dying alone.

Yeah.

I enjoy my peace, but I'm scared I'll be forgotten. Cause I see so many people forgotten. I used to go to work. I used to work in a senior building in a nursing home. And I used to sit there and watch those people say, my son's coming to get me today. My daughter's coming to give me today. And I'm there. A year.

Nobody ever came to see him, not one visit. So I took it upon myself that I would come there on my days off, read to them, help in the cafeteria. I had a big heart. I had a big heart. No, just nowhere to use it at. Nowhere to share my love with him. I don't know where to go, you know? And can't nobody love old people better than old people, you know, we know what we need and just. I like to bake.

Yeah, well, I stuff you to death. I like to bake in my building. It's a lot of sickly older people, but we push hard. There's one guy, he has an oxygen tank. I think Levi is like, 70 something years old. He get up and go to work every day with that oxygen tank hanging on it. You know what I'm saying? Miss Carol, she's from the islands. I mean, we struggle walking, we struggle functioning, but we still get up and go, you know? And to look at us get up and go.

And to look at the younger people just sitting there. Oh, my back. Oh, my knees. Come on, push past and keep going. Cause that's the devil's line. You gonna have your old for. You get old. So I just.

Sometimes I wish I could just, like, get a van or two vans and specialize in just taking seniors to places? Yeah. You know, just so they can not sit in the lobby of the senior building gossiping and, you know, stuff like that. Just give them some fire back. You know, me, myself, I remind myself of. What's those women. Designer women that show used to come on and Betty Whiteningham.

Oh, golden girls girl.

That's me.

I can see that.

That's me.

I can see that.

That's me. Let's go. Let's just do this. You know, I have no fear of trying it. You know, I've told my grandson the only thing I want to try is flying. Mm. Doors falling off planes now and all that, you know, but just take a friend. Come on, girl, let's go try skydiving, you know?

Skydiving?

Yeah. I wish I could steal runs. I'd be out there trying to play basketball right now if I could still run.

But what are some things that you do do, right?

Baking, gardening.

Gardening. So that has the physicality in it, right?

I love gardening.

So what are some other physical things that you do to.

I walk a lot.

You walk a lot? Okay.

I walk a lot. Me and my dog, I can leave out the house and tell my grandson, oh, we finna walk to the corner, girl. We be way down on appletender, coming around apple dog. And we come in the house. I'm ready to go to sleep.

And I saw you walk in with a cane or a walking stick. I don't know.

I've had four strokes.

Wow.

The four strokes. Thought they was having me.

Mm.

Because the first one, I wasn't even supposed to be standing today. The whole left side of my body was shut down. I was in a diaper. I was looking at my husband standing over me, crying. The doctor telling him that she's going to have to be taken care of the rest of her life. And I went to God. No, no, no, no God. This ain't it.

I know you didn't do this to me. And I think within a month later, I was walking. They was looking for me. They brought me home. And when they brought me home, they sat me on the porch, and Washington went in the house to fix my room. And when they came out, I was gone. I had made it off that porch and hobbled down two blocks to the church. And when my husband found me, I was in the church getting prayed on.

What's the rapper name? 50 cent. I done been shot and walked with a limp. But I'm still here.

All right?

I. I'm still here. Milwaukee has chopped it, has tried to chop my strength down as a black woman, as an older lady, it has taken a toll on me, but I refuse to give up the fight.

So you feel like some of your ailments may be environmental?

Oh, goodness. I lived in 53206. I went from a recovering addict of 15 years to a practicing addict over there from 2014 to 2018. By myself, I have been homeless. I'd have been hungry. I've been alone. I've slept in doorways. I've eaten out of garbage cans.

It's okay.

I've been robbed. I've been just. I fought every demon out there to make it to 60, and here you are. And my heart never changed about giving and loving.

That's beautiful.

It never changed through that whole. I call it the muddy. I made it out the mud.

Yeah.

I've watched. I've met people way older than me getting high, wanting to die because I was alone, so they were getting high to die, you know?

You feel like loneliness drove that.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

You gotta have company so that sometimes when you're lonely, you take what you get.

Yeah.

You take the company you get. For a long time, I knew that the company I was keeping wasn't good company, but I just wanted somebody.

So out of all the ailments that you've had, you said you had four strokes. I don't know what else you're dealing.

With, but I've had depression.

Yeah.

I've had serious depression to where it was suicidal, to where it was so, so deep when you hit rock bottom. And even then, I've been long term care here in Milwaukee since I think about 2012, and I've been struggling since 2012. Since 2012.

When you say struggling, what are you referring to?

Happiness. Happiness, structure, stability.

So you feel like out of all the things that you've dealt with physically, you feel like loneliness is the biggest out of them all?

Loneliness will drive you into places where, you know you ain't got no business.

Yeah.

You know, that place ain't made for you to be in, the people ain't made for you to be around.

Yeah.

We just want to grasp hope to something so bad that we will go past the good because we don't trust the good anymore because the good have always reeled us in and threw us out.

Right.

And that's the worst thing for seniors, is when we feel thrown away, some of us don't make it back from that. That's why you see so many older people on the streets. You know, we don't start off that way. We don't wake up and say, well, I'm gonna be hungry. I'm gonna be homeless. I'm gonna be alone. We don't wake up wanting that. And it just.

It makes me so mad that people ride past, ride past, right past them, as if they don't matter. It's been done to me, so I know what they feel. They never look up. They always look down. The rejection that seniors get turn us into bats, turn us into homeless bag ladies and men pushing grocery carts and sleeping in doorways. Somewhere down the line, that person has been thrown away. Then the next thing that we turn to be drugs and alcohol, right? It's for some, they don't get the blessings, like me, to come back. They get stuck out there.

Number one, they waddle in their own pity. Our own pity is one of the worst enemies. Because then they give. Like christian folks, we believe this. It gives the devil time to crawl on you. I used to tell my grandkids, I have, if you ever watch a cartoon, on the right side is the angel always whispering in your ear, and on the left side is always the devil. You know? I know my angel say. Cause I always bounce back.

And now know that I find means to talk, reasons to share my experience. Cause I know somewhere out there, it's gonna help somebody. You know, it's gonna help somebody. Somebody going through it, gonna hear it. If she can do it, I can do it. None of us are no different. We all need the same thing. We need to be loved.

We need to feel love. We don't need to feel like a check. We don't need to feel like an inconvenience. Cause that inconvenience.

Do you feel like society makes you feel that way? Like checkbox. They're taken care of.

Next. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I do. Because like I said, senior building is the first step to old folks home. No, those people that you see going in homes, they don't be like that when they first get there. They be vibrant.

Yeah.

You know, I sat there and watched them go from vibrant, feisty, to like a shroud of orange set in the sun. Within two weeks, I watched one lady go from pow to ping. You know, I wish I could get a group of people where we could take and go visit each old person. When I used to live on 51st, there was a church around the corner from us and Bethel Bethany.

Oh, I think I've heard of that.

And it was just somebody that church was calling my name. And I met Pastor Thad as a senior. I was fighting a slumlord. You know, he stuck by my side through the whole. The congregation just stuck by my side, you know, it's like I was their project and they was mine. We had a pantry, and I met in the alley where I live. Cause my house is in the alley. I met all the old people and the young people that were struggling with kids, single moms.

And I would go to church, stop at the pantry. And then I was on a walker. I would have at least ten to 15 grocery bags on my walker. And on my way home, I knock on each dog and give them something that's beautiful. No. If I could just get a class together, teach them how to bake, you know, share my country girl. Cause my country girl's my pride and joy.

Yeah.

My country girl won't let you be hungry? My country girl won't let somebody be homeless. My country girl ain't gonna let nobody be sad and lonely. Yeah, I'm one of those. I ain't sugarcoat nothing grannies. I'm one of them grannies where you act a fool at. I'm snatching you up right there. You're gonna learn like me. You're gonna end up a good person, just like me.

Yeah.

You know, I'm gonna give you the food that was given to me. I wish I could bottle up all my hurt and pain and all my good times. And mix it all together. And just give it to somebody in a spoonful. So they can go through it and get done with it. Right then.

Right then and there.

Right then. I don't ever want to see. I don't like seeing suffrage. I'm like seeing suffrage.

So let me kind of guide this a little bit. Let me give you some time.

Oh, okay.

It's all good. I love your story, man. You could be helping somebody right now.

Oh, man. My goal. One of my goals in life was to just say I started on the streets when I was 14. And that was my choice, because I come from a dysfunctional home. So I hung out in the streets. Not cause I had to. We were well taken care of. But as far as the mental stage and stuff, our home was a wreck.

So I was running. And from the age of 14 all the way, I say, up until my middle fifties, early fifties, the things that I've been through. I've seen some people my age, boy, we struggle trying to keep up with the youth. Trying to be, you know, up to date and trying to hang so we don't be by ourselves. The stuff that I seen and I've been through out there in them streets, if I could write a book and save a young girl or save a young man from being disrespectful to women.

Yeah.

I've been trying to figure this out since I was in my thirties. But the one thing I'm sure of, my book title. I'm sure of that.

What is it?

Don't let them tell you that lie. That grass ain't green on the other side.

I like that.

Don't let them tell you that lie. It ain't green over there. Stay on that side of that fence where you safe at.

So kind of turning it to how society can support you, specifically the county. Right. So we have these evidence based programs that really we're in here to talk about, but your story is so compelling, so I just. You know what I'm saying? Some of the evidence based programs kind of include things like diabetes care, you know, falling, like how to prevent falling, things like that. But I. It sounds like there are other things that are pressing to it. Right. How could the county better support you in addressing those issues?

Make it mandatory for, like, landlords to put safety things in a home where we paying our money. It don't take much, and it don't take off your property to put that bar in the shower, you know, or to fix that banister. I've had these issues. I lived in a house where I fell down 14 stairs a number of times because he want to put one railing when the lost two. You know, we need more wheelchair accessible things. You know what I'm saying? The biggest thing for us women, even men, say you go into a bathroom at the doctor's office or something, the toilet's so low that they be struggling to get up.

Get up.

I've been in that position grow. I have been in the stall, and I'd be like this, trying to hold on to me. That should be mandatory that all places have that in there because all people of different walks, different colors, and different disabilities need it. That also makes us stay inside. Cause we don't want to go out and struggle.

Accessibility.

Yeah. You know, we don't want to go struggling. The more we go out and have to struggle, the more we decide, well, I'll stay in. You know.

What? So the programs that already exist. Right. Just want to gauge your general interest. Would you be interested in doing anything like that? What I just named? Also like diabetes care, fall prevention, things of that nature? Would you be interested to go talk to people? So you would rather pour into people how to. You would rather do a how to.

I would rather give them, how can I put it? Support.

Okay.

You know that pep talk thing. Come on, we gotta do this this way in order for you to be here this much longer.

Yeah.

You know.

You think other seniors want that? To be able to kind of. Cause it sounds like your thing is to pass something down.

That's my whole thing. Pass on whatever. I know.

Do you think other seniors think like that as well? Like they want them pass?

A lot of them are at the point now where they just whatever, you know, they don't believe in it. They don't have faith no more. I have faith in people. You know, sometimes, like I said, they just get to the point where I've been by myself this far. God gonna take me the rest of the way.

Yeah.

But we all need that somebody to grab their hand and they grab ours. Cause you can't push forward by yourself. Yeah.

Yeah.

Believe me, if I had a car and I could go, I'd be at everybody, though. How old is you? You know, I'm just that given person. I have actually. Like, I moved with my grandson and his mom now at the pandemic, at the beginning of the pandemic. And when I moved next door to them, I started, like I said, I started socializing. I love my neighbors. My neighbor is my extended family. I would seat on the LA.

Was this old lady, she used to always just sit in her yard. And one day that lady came outside her house and I had put flowers and pots on her porch and around her back step where she would sit and stuff. That's what we need to do. That's what we need to do. The stuff that seniors like, it ain't that big. We don't want cadillacs. We don't like. We don't want condos.

We want company. We want love, we want beauty. And that's not on us, but out in the world. We want to save our kids. We want to save the neighbor kids. We want to save everybody's child. Because that's our job. That's what we put here for.

Yeah. So let's say, for example, the county created some evidence based programs, okay. On storytelling. Oh, there it is.

My grandson. My grandson told me, he said, grandma, I love to hear you read.

Yeah.

And my granddaughter, she said, grandma, you could tell when it's been changed. Cause she'd be like, Ann. She said, you be all intuitive, grandma. Your facial expression. It's just. That's how I am. I like to act. I like to be mean, you know.

I know what make em smile. I know what? Make em scared. You know, like when we be reading Bible verses and stuff like that, I'd be like, and Ruth. Because I know where to keep them focused.

Yeah.

You know, a storyteller girl. Yes.

So that would be something that you would be interested. It seems like you would be interested in, like, storytelling, journaling, gardening, like sharing those experiences with others. Maybe even leading some of those experiences to pass on.

What I know what I was taught by my elders. You know, my daddy taught me, if you give a man a fish, he eat that day. But if you give him a pole and you teach him how to use that pole, he gonna eat a lifetime. And that be my thing. I be wanting to share. Come on, let me show you how to play in this dirt. No, come on, let me show you. Let's move this dirt here and put this seed here.

No, you don't need no shovel. Use your hand. That's me. Ain't above. That's me. Let's do it this way. You know, I don't. I'm not a cute granny.

I don't like being clean all the time. Let's go out here and digging this dirt. That's where I come from.

Yeah.

I'm not a high heel wearing granny. I like tennis shoes. I don't like. I don't like being limited.

Yeah.

I don't like. I don't believe in limitations. I don't like that. That puts a. That's an ending. Limitation is an ending. And I feel like as long as the world out there is big, there's no limit for us. Our day ain't done until God say, come home.

As seniors, it ain't that we ain't got nothing to give. We just don't got nobody to give it to. We have to be skeptical now because of the way everybody's attitude is in the world. You know, I could be down teaching somebody how to plant a flower, and here come their mama. Don't be teaching my kids nothing. You know, that's the way it is. Now. When I was growing up, I grew up where Miss Mattie Wheel had the permission to whoop us.

Miss McWhorter had permission to whoop us. Three blocks over, Miss Pat had permission to whoop us. You know what I'm saying? It takes us to a community, and if we do that, then maybe the younger folks will fall right in line. We gotta show. We gotta show it. And these evidence based things come on, they need to get with it, because I feel like this. These people have elders in their family. How would they want their family to be.

Yeah.

How would they want their family to be locked on?

So what do you feel like these programs are missing?

A. If they depend on all the old people to do it, it ain't gonna get done.

Why you say that?

Cause our. Our inspiration, our push come from y'all. Our inspiration and our push come from y'all. If y'all wasn't here, we wouldn't feel like we have nothing to show. We wouldn't. We would feel like we don't have nothing to prove. We would feel like our calling is done. I feel like they should have it.

Where, for instance, the storytelling. A senior and a young person go.

Like an intergenerational.

Yeah. You know, that. That would be the thing to combine that storyteller can become acting. You know, every hand need a hand. Every hand needs a hand.

So you feel like with any program, any of them, with any program, it needs to be more personal, more one on one. One on one. Cause a lot of these programs are like group activities.

And you know what bothers me is when, for instance, when I call aging and disability, they shift me here and say, from there I go there, and from there, I go there. And by the time it's over, I still ain't talk to nobody but that animated operator. And we give up. We give up. I've been on hold for so long, I just say, yeah, you know, senior needs are different than everybody else's.

In what way?

For instance, for us to be able to understand. We don't comprehend like we used to. Our brain is slower. The things we've been through clogs our brain more. So we don't understand. Some of us don't understand. A to b. We get these papers we read and we stuck reading, and we still don't know what we looking at from the first one, from the first paragraph.

And then we just have to forget it. Cause I do that a lot. I just toss the paper. Cause I don't understand.

So do you feel like even, like, let's say, like a healthcare provider or like, medication or whatever the case may be, that's how you process, regardless. Like, it just whatever.

That's because we feel like they saying that to us. Whatever. You figure it out.

Mmm. So you mirror the behavior. You feel like that's what you receive.

That's what I'm gonna give back. You know, if it's not, if I'm not that important to them, then this message they dishing me is just something where they just dishing me something to brush me off.

Okay, I got you.

You know, it's sort of like giving the kid a sucker just to make it shut up. That goes back to me saying they toss us away.

Yeah.

Old people are the most valuable asset in the world. We were the beginning, and we will keep, continue to produce, to keep having more beginnings. Now all this technology is in the way.

You feel like that's like a.

It hinders us because we have to. Okay, Miss Brown, I'm gonna give you this number to call, and then you call their number. Oh, well, I don't know why they had to call this number. Call this number. By the end of the day, we tired from calling numbers and still not getting the answer that we need. Yeah, I've been calling to find out.

Why.

I haven't gotten a call or whatever for my title 19 changement. And then when I call them. Oh, please hold the line. You're sitting there, you push that button. You told me to hold the line so you know I'm still there because that light is still flashing. If I could get to some of them places, girl, they would have hated, they would say, oh, here she come.

How do you stay connected to information? Like, how do you. Cause I know that you said, like a lot of seniors process slowly, girl. Like, how do you. And some of your networks. Okay, Siri.

So the phone, your phone, my phone. You know, I have answers. So, Siri, who do I call? What number do I call to do this, do that.

Okay.

And there he go. And I've actually said, siri, I love you. Because there's no rejection. There's no pushing you back to the end of the line. There's no sending you to the next cubicle. He say what he got to say. He send you that way. And no matter how many times you go back to him with that same question, he's never angry.

Cause he gotta answer you over and over and over. He don't make you feel like this big or you getting on somebody nerve. We thrive connection. Yeah, we thrive it. We live off a connection. You know, I'm from the south, so when you and I make contact outside and I said, good morning, sugar, that's what I expect to see. But some people, like, why is she talking to me? I don't care how bad your day was. I'm your burst of sunshine.

I'm that flower that should have been put in your yoga pail for you walked out of the palace. It is my duty to make people feel what I didn't feel. It is my duty to help a senior older than me.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? God gave me back this life. I'm not going to question why he put me back together, but it ain't to be quiet. It ain't to be quiet. And like I said, when we push to the side, we tend to disconnect. We tend to disconnect. Do you know how many seniors I know that don't know how to work a cell phone?

Really?

They lock themselves out of their phone quite a bit. My dad, for instance, I talked to my dad yesterday. He couldn't hear, you know, turn the fuck the volume up. Mm hmm. They need, like, in these big places, have a class where we can teach again.

Yeah.

You know, we don't like this, but we deal with this.

Yeah.

I couldn't tell you how to work a computer if it saved my life. My daughter had said, grandma, mama, I need you to go in my room. She'll work and turn my computer on. I panicked. Girl, are you crazy? I don't want to touch the thing. Girl, I don't know what I'm doing. She said, mom, I'm going to talk you through it. Soon as I walked in her room and turned to Leno, it was like my brain blocked.

They need programs for seniors like me that don't want a high school GED. We want a high school diploma.

What's the difference in your, in my, in your mind? Yeah.

I said, I'm about that high school diploma. Even though I never get to go to work, it would be an achievement, something I could have done as a young person that I didn't get to do all these years. Girl, I thought I only had two credits. I only needed two credits to graduate.

Wow.

And I've been out of school since the early eighties. Now I have a fear because I don't want to sit in a classroom with the young folks with their pants hanging off and bellies out and all that. So now I have a fear, but I'm finna break that fear. I'm finna go to. What's that school? MHTC. Mm hmm. I'm gonna pay that 60 something dollars, and I'm gonna walk through the corridors like I was 21. All right, I'm gonna get mine.

That's what's up.

I'm gonna get mine. I'm going to get it so my dad can put it on his wall with the rest of his kids. Yeah, that's all. I don't care if I'll never get a job behind a desk and all that long as it's up there with my sisters.

Yeah.

You know, that's beautiful. I gotta do it for my dad.

So, outside of, let's say, high school, for example, would that be, or would this be, like, your first, like, structured setting in terms of, like, being in a class in a class setting? Or have you been in a structured.

Like, two or three before my life? I love structure.

Yeah.

I get bored easy. I get bored easy. I like challenges. I'm sure I'm not the only senior out there that feels this way.

Yeah.

I don't really know how to say what we need because we've been told to shut up so many times.

Yeah.

I don't know if it's okay for me to say right now.

It is. When do you feel like you.

Help? Yeah, help. We need help. We don't know which way to go. We don't know who to turn to. We don't know who to trust. And then after a while, everything gets pushed back in the closet and we just forget about what we need and just keep pushing forward. We need to be pulled out of the closet. And there's a lot of seniors out.

There going through all this, even some of your friends and family that, you.

Know, I call it mental shutdown. It's a lot of us. Like my friend Betty. She's always alone, but she knows so many things, and those so many things are going to waste when they could easily be put into community and help it grow. She a smart lady. She's smart, and she has a heart. Biggest Texas. I mean, you know, it's me, her, and Miss Steph.

And they call us the three amigos. Where you seen one, you seen the other two, you know, and we were feisty. That's why I said we were the golden girls. Now, these are my best friends here. And now Betty is in a senior building now. She's become one of the bored. Nothing to do, sit in the house, you know, I'm just not ready to give up.

Yeah.

I'm just not ready to give up. I'm just not ready to give up. I'm not ready to quit. I'm not ready to lay down.

We kind of veered off from this list just a little bit. I think your experience and kind of your story is probably, like, the most important, obviously, part of this interview, right?

Yeah.

I do want to ask you a couple of questions specifically regarding the evidence based program.

Be patific.

We did talk about the being in a structure program classroom. Have you ever been in one for health or wellness? Have you ever been in any program or structured program for health and wellness?

No. And I've asked for it. I've asked for mental wellness classes. How? My case manager, I told her I want to learn to cope with my depression, how to identify it before it hits me hard, how to, how to have, like, therapy, you know, so I can know when I see signs and I need a list of who to call when I see these bad signs hit me.

Right.

Or when I know they coming. Because I don't care how perfect life is, seniors, we know when it's Finna come.

Yeah.

We know when we finna be depressed. For me, when I start, tears just start coming out of nowhere, you know, we need classes, like, to teach us how to deal with emotional issues. There's something for us besides closing the door and not letting people know what's going on.

So some of these programs that already exist, that already exist are about eight weeks long.

Mm hmm. Okay.

And a couple hours per session.

And that's good.

You like that?

That's good. Especially for somebody like me with nothing to do during the day.

Right.

And like I said, I'm up at 430. I clean my house up. We got a two bedroom, we got a two room apartment.

Yeah.

Even though you bored, when you clean up, like, you got 20 kids in your house every day, I tell everybody, by the time everybody else feet hit the floor, I've done more in 4 hours than they've done it a whole day, you know, so them hours all day that I have nothing to do till 03:00. 04:00 I wanna do something.

Yeah.

There's gotta be something out there. Some program to help seniors that don't have transportation. That's an issue for seniors. Yeah, yeah, we gotta ride to the doctor. Yeah. We get a ride to the grocery store sometimes, like bail transportation, you might find a good driver run you to the grocery store.

Yeah.

You know, but we have bad issues if we can't get to the grocery store, how we gonna get to one of these meetings we need to get to get to.

Right.

How it's too dangerous for us to catch the city bus.

So you feel like you have a lot of barriers that are keeping you in a way of even participating in a program like this.

Yup. And then they so far out.

Yeah.

You know, that's the biggest thing, the transportation and finding them. Finding them, you know, it ain't even the point of being scared to go. Cause I'm quite sure if they put it on the map, we going. Yeah, it's just, we don't got no way to get there. I would. Like I said, I want to join the y. I don't even know where the y is or how to get there, and I just want to go join because there's people my age seeing people to connect to. And I'm sure somebody out there has got some kind of stories.

They help stories. Anything that I can absorb and help somebody else with. Somebody else's story.

Yeah.

That's how we get help. It go from one to the next to the next to the next. Pass it on.

Okay.

Cause there's a lot of things, like, within iris and I life and stuff like that, or my. What's the lady called at the doctor? Social worker.

Yeah.

I've asked them for help on certain things, you know, even the hospital social workers. I used to be scared to let people know my issues, and that's the first issue I got, is seniors getting help to get to these little programs. We love to get out the house.

Yeah.

You know, three, four times a week. Especially me. I be looking forward. I'm gonna go kick it with such and such, you know, and it's a good thing and it's needed.

But you do feel like there are barriers.

There are barriers. There are seniors that still struggle with drug and alcohol addiction recovery, but they're closed in. Cause they ain't got no way to get to where they need to go.

Yeah, I got you.

They're not in our neighborhoods. You know, you find a liquor store, you find a beauty supply store, you find a boarded up building. Ten of these things within a block radius. But you don't find clinics for seniors to go sit down and get this kind of help. If you can have a WIc place in these little strip malls, why you can't have something specific for us, right? You know, human service building will move way out. How we gonna get there? Cause I'm just now finding out aging and disposing is in that building or the valet building.

Oh, yeah, on the 12th estate.

Oh. Who gonna go in there? Girl? That building look empty.

Yeah, it kinda really is. All right, Miss Jenny, we gonna wrap it up.

All right.

I appreciate you sharing your story.

I'm glad that you let me get some of this. Me out.

Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate you coming down here and talking to me about your story and, you know, just kind of your perspective on the evidence based programs. Yeah. I hope this was a fruitful conversation for you as well.

It was, because, like, you know, when you said evidence based, I never looked at it that way.

Yeah.

You know, y'all don't know no more than we tell.

Yeah, that's true.

So.

That's true. All right, well, that will conclude this interview.

Thank you.

Thanks.