Q: I have been living in a retirement community for eight years, and have witnessed a number of turnovers due primarily to health, family and financial issues. I have a network of friends I have developed and enjoyed over these years. We are a small and close-knit community of 54 units.

Recently, I learned of a short-term individual who moved from our complex after living here for almost a year because she felt she was not welcomed. I was disappointed that she felt that way, as we have always felt we were a friendly group.

After that, I realized we do not have a welcoming committee whose responsibility could be to make sure we meet, talk and bond with our residents. How can my friends and I find ways to make new residents and potential newcomers feel they have also found a happy and contented place to live?

A: You may have just found your welcoming committee, become its president and established a solid group of members (your friends).

Sometimes, because of circumstances, seniors find themselves needing to move to new living quarters not because they prefer to do so, but out of necessity.

In our aging we face many transitional decisions over which we have no control, which forces us to move on. Welcoming newcomers will improve the morale and happiness of your entire community!

YOU TELL ON YOURSELF

Q. Often over the course of my lifetime I have questioned myself as to who I actually am. Why was I born? What am I supposed to being doing? Where am I going? I have not found answers to my own questions. Can you offer a simple answer that will help me?

A: Your questions are what we all ask ourselves in the hope we can learn answers that will satisfy our needs. Unfortunately, few answers satisfy our confusion and often while digging deeper for them we become even more frustrated and confused.

However, I recently read a poem and found it interesting and creative. Perhaps it will help us glean satisfying answers to our questions; at the very least it's amusing:

"You tell on yourself by friends you seek,

By the very manner in which you speak.

By the way you employ your leisure time,

By the use you make of dollar and dime.

You tell what you are by the thing you wear,

By the spirit in which your burdens bear,

By the kind of things at which you laugh,

By records you play on the phonograph.

You tell what you are by the way you walk,

By the things of which you delight to talk,

By the manner in which you bear defeat,

By so simple a thing as how you eat.

By the books you choose for the well-filled shelf;

In these ways and more, you tell on yourself,

So there's really no particle of sense

In any effort at false pretense." — Author unknown

I hope you agree with my opinion!

Doug Mayberry makes the most of life in a Southern California retirement community. Contact him at deardoug@msn.com. Betty is a friend of Doug Mayberry, whom she helps write this column. To find out more about Doug Mayberry and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.