AARP Bulletin - November 2010

In the News ;
231,170 Number of patients age 50 and older who were admitted to substance- abuse treatment facilities in 2008, a 125 percent increase since 1992.
More than 12 million im- migrants arrived at Ellis
Island in New York Harbor be-
tween 1892 and 1954. Now you
can hear first-person accounts
of their ocean journeys, daily
life in their home countries
and experiences at the federal
government’s former process-
ing station. ; The genealogy
website Ancestry.com is pro-
viding free access to more than
1,700 taped interviews with immigrants, a collection that was once
available only to visitors at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.
; “Every story is unique, and some people listen to them for hours,”
says Diana Pardue, chief of the museum’s services division. ; Some storytellers be-
came overwhelmed by their memories, like Lawrence Meinwald, who sobbed while
recalling his arrival as a young boy from Poland: “There were people of all denomina-
tions, some on their knees making the sign of the cross, Jews in their prayer shawls
as we were passing the Statue of Liberty—it was a great sight,” said Meinwald, who
died in 2002. ; To hear stories, go to ancestry.com/immigration. —Elizabeth Pope
Immigrants
Speak in Their
Own Words

; Now Hear This

People, Trends and Ideas

; Immigrants
arrive at Ellis
Island in 1905.
In July, Tokyo o;cials decided to honor the city’s oldest resident, a 111-year-old man. After a relative wouldn’t let them into the man’s home, police were called. The man’s remains—he may have been dead for 30 years—were found, and the family was questioned about collecting the deceased’s monthly pension. ; The centenarian isn’t the only one who has been missing. It turns out that thousands of aged Japanese have seem- ingly vanished. ; The furor intensified in Sep- tember when Japan’s Justice Ministry reported that the existence of 234,354 centenarians listed as “alive” in family registries couldn’t be confirmed. ; Despite frenzied media coverage, so far no one has verified either massive pen- sion fraud or foul play in the disappearances. The Justice Ministry’s survey of family regis- tries only showed, embarrassingly, that vital residency data hadn’t been updated nationwide for decades. —Frank McCoy

Where Did All the Centenarians Go?

A Man and His Guitar
Eight years ago, a crook gave musician Doug
Duncan the blues by stealing his vintage gui-
tar. Today, Duncan, now in his mid-50s, is
singing a new tune since finding his Gibson
Les Paul Special on eBay. Duncan never lost
hope of recovering the 1957 guitar after it was
stolen from his Minnesota home. He signed
up to get e-mail notifications when similar
guitars went on the block. After Duncan rec-
ognized the serial number, he contacted the
police. Duncan’s insurance company techni-
cally owns the guitar, worth about $17,000,
because it had replaced the instrument.
Hospital Couture
Traditional hospital gowns—
with their flesh-exposing
flaps and flimsy feel—may
soon be replaced by a
splash of haute couture.
The Cleveland Clinic is
testing new gowns de-
signed by fashion icon Di-
ane von Furstenberg, 63.
The unisex prototypes can
be worn with the opening in
the back or front, and provide
complete coverage. “We believe that
providing our patients with a comfort-
able, stylish hospital gown that helps to improve
dignity will improve the overall hospital experi-
ence,” says executive liaison Jeanne Ryan.

Foreign Affairs
If Foreign Service officers can’t work at the
State Department after they turn 65, why is
it that Hillary Clinton could? Because the
mandatory retirement age rule doesn’t ap-
ply to the secretary of state or ambassadors,
among others. However, it does cover officers
like Elizabeth Colton, 65, who has filed a law-
suit calling the requirement unconstitutional.
The Foreign Service Act of 1980 sets the re-
tirement age but allows for extensions, a State
Department spokesman says. —Mike Tucker