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Jim Valley sits amongst his zinnias in his Gig Harbor garden. Photo by Joan Cronk
Jim Valley sits amongst his zinnias in his Gig Harbor garden. Photo by Joan Cronk

Jim Valley has taught kids all over the world, but he calls Gig Harbor his home.  Born in Tacoma and raised in Seattle, Valley has a life-long love affair with the arts, music, kids and gardens.  And Jim Valley has always loved rock and roll.

He learned to play the piano by ear in the 9th grade and then taught himself to play the guitar.  One friend got a set of drums for Christmas, another buddy played the sax and another had a guitar but didn’t know how to play it. “He just sort of beat on it,” said Valley.

Valley wrote his first song “Cassandra” while in junior high school.  One night the group, called Vince Valley and his Chain Gang, was playing a gig at a junior high sock hop and, as Valley tells the story, “I’m playing the piano, this guy is up there with his acoustic guitar beating on it and the drummer and sax player were playing and I realized we were lacking something in our band; it was an electric guitar –so I bought one.”

He says now he regrets not taking advantage of the month of free lessons that came with the guitar due to his bias against country music at the time, telling the shop owner, “I’m going to learn how to play like Elvis.”

Valley bought a guitar book, taught himself how to play and the rest, as they say, is history.

Soon he moved from his spot as the piano player to playing guitar.

The band, which was by then called The Viceroys, earned $60 for their first dance. They became popular in Seattle and played a number of venues over the next four years.

In 1963, having recorded an instrumental called “Granny’s Pad,” they hit pay dirt when it became a huge Northwest hit. The Viceroys became a popular band in the Northwest, along with the Wailers, the Frantics and Little Bill and the Bluenotes.

Later Valley joined Paul Revere and the Raiders and they packed the house wherever they performed. They appeared on the Smother Brothers TV show and at age 23, Valley found he was a teen idol.

Later he began his teaching career, traveling internationally and helping kids learn more about friendships through poetry and song writing

Valley still helps kids discover their imagination, using themes focused on friendship, the environment and self-esteem. In 1983 he recorded his first children’s album “Rainbow Planet” and received the Parent’s Choice award.

Valley has settled down a bit from his rock and roll days, but he still loves music. He also loves gardens.  His home, on the water in Gig Harbor, demonstrates his love of flowers and outdoor spaces.  The gardens are extensive and beautiful with huge zinnias, larkspur, cardoon and perennial lobelia, roses and tons of trees and fragrant mock orange.

Originally built in 1898, the house was once a grocery store, with folks coming by boat to stock up on supplies.  Valley has remodeled the house, but parts of the old store and all of its rich history still live and breathe beneath new walls and roof.

The interior of Valley’s home reflects his love of music with a wall of guitars and masks from all over the world.

In June, Valley’s home was one of the stops on the Gig Harbor Garden Tour. Nine hundred visitors wandered through Valley’s lush gardens and were thrilled with all the little nooks and crannies in his garden area, with spots to sit and rest a while.

Outside Valley’s back door sits a statute of Saraswati, the goddess of music and wisdom watching over it all, blessing and guarding the beautiful home and gardens.

Joan Cronk by — September 26, 2011 in Everything Else

Researchers at VA Puget Sound Health Care System have recently received widespread national coverage about their current Alzheimer’s research.  Dr. Suzanne Craft, a UW professor and Veteran’s Administration researcher with the study is cautiously optimistic about their findings.  The study has concentrated on research of a direct delivery system that provides insulin to the brain of study participants through an intranasal administration.  While the study results have been quite positive, Craft emphasizes that the study has so far been limited and needs larger scale testing over a longer period of time.  The current pilot study involved a sample of only 104 participants over a four month period.  Craft hopes to get funding for a larger study and begin additional research by next summer.  She puts the timeframe for knowing whether the direct insulin approach is a viable therapy for Alzheimer’s at three to four years.

The study results were published this month by the journal Archives of Neurology.

 

Additional story links:

New York Times

CNN

PBS

 

Study results in Archives of Neurology

Archives of Neurology

Bonnie Dickson by — September 26, 2011 in Everything Else
Tax-Aide Seeking Volunteers for the 2012 Season

By Larry Maxcy

AARP Tax-Aide Volunteer

Are you good with numbers? Or maybe math isn’t your thing, but you’re looking for a way to volunteer and give back to your community? Then the AARP Foundation’s Tax-Aide program is looking for you!

AARP Tax-Aide, the nation’s largest free, volunteer-run tax preparation and assistance service, is seeking volunteers across the state to help Washington taxpayers who are seeking assistance preparing and filing their 2011 tax returns.

AARP Tax-Aide volunteers receive free tax training and are reimbursed on a limited basis for qualified program-related expenses. Volunteers should be computer literate, since most AARP Tax-Aide sites provide e-filing for faster tax returns. While it is helpful if you have some experience in tax preparation (even in doing your own taxes); it is not absolutely necessary. We ask our volunteers to provide four to six hours per week from the first week in February until April 15 if at all possible.

We also have openings for volunteers who don’t want to prepare taxes, but who have technical or computer backgrounds, as well as for people to assist with scheduling and intake matters.

Last year, more than 1,100 Tax-Aide volunteers helped over 80,000 taxpayers across the state. They join the more than 35,000 Tax-Aide volunteers across the country, helping millions of taxpayers each year.

For more information on how you can join the AARP Foundation Tax-Aide team, visit our Web site at www.aarp.org/tavolunteer8 , or call our toll-free number, 1-888-OUR-AARP (1-888-687-2277). The deadline for applications is December 15, 2011.

Tax-Aide is a program of the AARP Foundation, offered in conjunction with the IRS.

Contributing Author by — September 26, 2011 in Everything Else

Ingrid McDonald/AARP Advocacy Director

Ingrid McDonald
AARP Advocacy Director

When it comes to long-term care, Washington state ranks second in the nation according to a recently released report issued by AARP in conjunction with the Commonwealth Fund and the SCAN Foundation.

The report, “Raising Expectations: A State Scorecard on Long-Term Services and Supports for Older Adults, People with Physical Disabilities, and Family Caregivers,” provides a detailed comparison of how Washington measures up compared to other states on numerous indicators related to long-term care affordability and access, choice of setting and provider, quality of life and quality of care and support for family caregivers.

Here in the Evergreen State, 63 percent of all Medicaid and state funded long-term care funding is going to home and community-based services—that’s compared to a median rate for all states of 30 percent.

That’s good for people and for the state budget. People can stay independent with the help of a home care worker, Meals on Wheels, adult day health and other supports—rather than feeling like nursing home care is their only option. And fewer people using Medicaid to pay for expensive nursing home care means big savings for the state—up to $1 billion over the past decade.

The news is in and it’s good—if you need long-term care, Washington is one the best states in the nation to live in. But that status is at risk. In recent years the state legislature has cut back on home care hours and other supports that people need in order to stay out of nursing homes. With fewer home care hours, less support and higher health care costs, more and more people will give up their struggle to remain in their own homes and settle for expensive nursing home care because they feel it is their only option.

To continue our popular and cost-effective approach, Olympia lawmakers need to make it a priority to preserve funding for home care, family caregiver supports and the array of supports funded through the Senior Citizens Service Act.

But while the new report scores Washington’s long-term care system second only to Minnesota, there are still many areas that need improvement—particularly in the areas of affordability and quality.

As many are acutely aware, people who pay privately for home care or nursing home care are at risk of quickly exhausting their resources.  While these services are expensive in every state, the Scorecard report showed the average cost of nursing home care in the Washington is 221 percent of the average annual household income of Washingtonians age 65 and older—ranking us 23rd in the nation.

Though less extreme, the cost of home care services is also unaffordable for the typical user, averaging 93 percent of household income for older adults in the state, putting us at 30th in the nation.  Moreover, fewer people in Washington than in other states have private, long-term care insurance to protect them from these costs. On this front, Washington ranks 18th in the nation.

Quality is another concern, but there is little national data to compare how well states are serving people in their own homes or in the community. In Washington, we know there has been a recent steep increase in consumer complaints against adult family homes, an issue that lawmakers addressed last legislative session. In nursing home settings, the Scorecard ranked Washington low compared to many states on the percent of high-risk nursing home residents with pressure sores (29th), the percent of long-stay nursing home residents who were physically restrained (16th) and the turnover rate for employees in nursing homes (44th).  So when it comes to protecting our most vulnerable residents in nursing homes, clearly, there is more work to do.

The recently published Scorecard is cause for celebration—much good work has been done in Washington to promote high quality, person-centered long-term services and supports. Our struggle now is to improve our weak spots and maintain our investment in cost-effective home and community based services so we stay at the top of the chart.  For more information, visit www.aarp.org/wa.

 

For a related story click here.

Contributing Author by — September 26, 2011 in Everything Else