The Senior Scene

On March 16, 1962, Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 was part of a secret mission sanctioned by President John F. Kennedy when it went missing on a cross-Pacific flight to Vietnam. No trace of the plane or its 104 American passengers–93 Army soldiers, including seven from Washington, and 11 civilian crew members–has ever been found.

Little is known for certain about what happened to Flight 739, and due to the circumstances surrounding the mission, the names of those lost haven’t been added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., despite their apparent connection to the Vietnam War. Many families are fighting to have their loved ones recognized. So far, the only monument that bears their names was erected by a private citizen, Morrill Worcester, in Columbia Falls, Maine, where a 60^th anniversary commemoration of the losses was held March 16.

“When I first heard the story about this mission, I was shocked that nothing has been done for the families. I said that day that we would do something to make sure these people are honored and remembered, and to hopefully give some closure to these families,” said Worcester, who founded the non-profit Wreaths Across America in 1992 to expand and coordinate wreath-laying ceremonies throughout the U.S. as one of its ways of honoring military members who died in the line of duty.

Among the soldiers who perished in Flight 739 were five from Pierce County– Albert Francis Williams Jr., Wallace L. Walcott, Edison L. Roberts, and Walter Glynn, all of Tacoma, and James C. Sorenson of Spanaway. The others from Washington were Timothy F. Hopkins of Spokane and Howard Gallipeau Jr. of Alderwood Manor in Snohomish County.

Their military ranks ranged from specialist to master sergeant.

Spokesman Sean Sullivan said Wreaths Across America has been “looking to connect” with their relatives, but with little success. Williams’ family is the only one that has been in touch, he said. Sullivan gave Senior Scene contact information for a son and a daughter of Williams, but they couldn’t be reached for comment.

Flight 739 was a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation propliner chartered from Flying Tiger by the U.S. military for the flight from Travis Air Force Base in California to Saigon. After refueling in Guam and resuming its flight, the plane disappeared. Searches for eight days by aircraft and Navy ships found nothing. Reports of a possible in-flight explosion couldn’t be confirmed, leaving possible causes of the demise of the lives and airplane shrouded in mystery ever since.

Flying Magazine, in an article in March recalling the events of 60 years ago, noted the U.S. was quietly increasing its presence in the Vietnam War by sending equipment and advisers, such as those on Flight 739 (which also carried three Vietnamese military members), to support the government of the then-Republic of Vietnam against the Viet Cong. The magazine said the U.S. soldiers on the plane specialized in electronics, communications, and sharpshooting.

The private memorial in Maine that is inscribed with the names of Flight 739’s lost military lives is the only formal public recognition of their sacrifice, but Congress could change that. U.S. Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan is the sponsor of Senate Bill 2571, which seeks to have their names added to the national Vietnam War Memorial in D.C.

Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington is on a Senate committee that is reviewing the proposed legislation.

The memorial “wall,” as it’s also known, currently has 58,318 names of those “who made the ultimate sacrifice during the war,” said Joe Reagan, director of military and veteran outreach for Wreaths Across America. The number needs to increase, he said.

Reagan, citing his experience as an Army veteran who served alongside the American military’s special operations and intelligence communities, said he knows “we may never have the opportunity to share the full story” of what happened to the Flight 739 victims. “This shouldn’t stop us from providing their families and all Americans the opportunity to honor their service by saying their names in our nation’s capital,” he said.

Location, location, location.

It’s no surprise that where you live would make a big difference in how much money you need to retire there. What is interesting, frightening or reassuring (pick your adjective) is just how big of a nest egg retirees need to retire in various locales.

To provide more specifics, MagnifyMoney researchers calculated how much money is required, on average, to retire in every U.S. metro based on average annual spending. Analysts found 28 metros —half of them in California — where retirees need at least $1 million to retire with an average lifestyle.

Seattle is just outside the “millionaires club.” Retiring in the Emerald City requires a nest egg of $995,000, which ranks 30^th on the MagnifyMoney list. Other Washington metro areas that are ranked include Bremerton (52^nd at $898,847 ), Olympia (54^th at $895,528), Bellingham (124^th at $781,000), Mount Vernon ($777,718), Wenatchee (165^th at $746,192), Kennewick ($731,258), Walla Walla (212^th at $708,000), Spokane (240^th at $696,413), Longview (244^th at $694,753), and Yakima (298^th at $659,908). Tacoma doesn’t show up on the list.

Here are some retirement pricetags, on average, for other metropolitan areas around the country:

• You’ll need more than $1 million to retire with an average lifestyle in 28 of the 384 U.S. metros. A retiree in San Francisco needs a nest egg of $1,564,760 — the highest total across the U.S.
• 14 of the 28 metros in which retirees need more than $1 million to retire are in California. San Jose ($1,424,081) and Santa Cruz ($1,351,937) join San Francisco in the top five metros across the U.S.
• You can retire with an average lifestyle for less than $500,000 in just one metro–Jackson, Tenn., at $495,942. Danville, Ill. ($510,202), and two Texas metros (McAllen and Brownsville, both $513,406) are closest.
• Locals may need far less to maintain their incomes near retirement age once they collect Social Security payments. If you focus on the median income of near-retirement workers rather than average spending by retirees, residents in just three metros would require more than $1 million to retire — San Jose, Calif., San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Are you saving enough for retirement? The answer will depend largely on where you plan to retire, and whether the amount you should be saving is more enormous than other locales. And if an average lifestyle won’t cut it, you’ll need to save even more. But if those numbers make your eyes bulge, there’s good news in Texas, Tennessee, and Arkansas, where only about $500,000 is needed at a combined five metro areas.

For the Magnify Money study, analysts based the amount required to retire on the average amount retirees spend in a year in each metro. Researchers calculated the pretax income needed to meet retirees’ average annual spending in these locales, based on federal and state taxes. Then analysts subtracted the average retirement Social Security benefits in that state to figure out how much annual income a person would need from their retirement fund to meet those spending needs. The nest egg size was determined using the 4% rule — a formula where you withdraw 4 percent of your total assets in the first year of retirement, then adjust that amount each year based on inflation.

Source: Magnify Money, an online source of financial information for consumers. Its parent company is Lending Tree.

Winter, spring, summer and fall, the temperature of Puget Sound is between roughly 45 and 53 degrees. To which Bernardo’s All Stars say, So what?

Visit or walk along Tacoma’s waterfront on a late Sunday morning and you’re likely to see members of this adult masters swim club happily embracing some combination of bone-chilling water, rain, hail, snow, wind, curious seals, jellyfish, and menacing sky.

When COVID-19 closed swimming pools, the group took to lakes, rivers, and icy Puget Sound for their aquatic endeavors – year-round. And now that much warmer pools are open, the open-water swimming nevertheless continues, said Chad Hagedorn, head coach of the hardy group whose ages range into the 80s.

They’re not crazy, assures Dianna Hermanson, 56, who after 40 years of dips in pools hooked up with Bernardo’s All Stars  and “fell in love” with the open-water scene.

“Every swim can be different due to weather and tides or current,” she said. “I love the peacefulness and the escape from life’s hustle and bustle. We keep the swims fun and make sure everyone is safe and has a group to swim with. I’m thankful every day for my teammates.”

Hermanson, a Puyallup resident and the team’s assistant coach, helps lead the weekly Sunday morning swims from the shore of Jack Hyde Park on Ruston Way in Tacoma. They ignore the goose bumps in pursuit of personal swimming goals and physical, mental, spiritual, and social health.

Cynthia Hinds, 68, of Lakewood learned how to swim about five years ago. She never had her sights on open water until pools closed, sending her and her teammates into Puget Sound during winter months and American Lake in the summer. “After many baby steps,” she related, she’s enjoying the options “to work on your speed, endurance, and technique. Plus, you get to meet people of many backgrounds and swimming abilities.”

Hagedorn, 49, a Tacoma resident who has had a “passionate relationship” with pools, lakes, rivers and the ocean most of his life, founded Bernardo’s All Stars as a non-profit corporation and has been building it for 10 years.

“It isn’t really a club. It’s a family,” he said. “Swimming encourages friendships and community through group workouts and people with like-minded goals. It can also create unique adventures through events–competitive and otherwise–all over the state, country, and even the world. Our mission is to provide opportunities for adults to learn to swim and achieve goals.”

Four levels of swimming are offered: Masters (intense training, including sets and laps), guided swim (less intense than masters, with more attention to technique and drills), stroke development (basic instruction for all skill levels), and lessons (for beginners and getting more comfortable in the water).

Bernardo’s All Stars is affiliated with U.S. Masters Swimming, which organizes competitive meets and promotes aquatics with information on training, health and nutrition for nearly 65,000 swimmers nationally. It supports about 1,500 clubs and workout groups.

The Bernardo’s bunch don’t just dip their toes in nature’s chilliest water. The pool at the Downtown Tacoma YMCA is also part of their regimen. But many just can’t get enough of Puget Sound.

“I would have never guessed I would be open-water swimming at age 65,” said Janet Holm, who lives in Tacoma. “But each week I get more confident. The hardest part is getting to the beach on a cold day, but when you get out of the water, you never regret going. I’m loving this.”

Failing health, crumbling incomes, and rising home costs are forcing thousands of older adults nationally into homelessness, a dilemma that includes the Puget Sound region.

According to researchers, a full and comfortable retirement is no longer realistic for millions of aging seniors. Many face the double conundrum of needing to work beyond typical retirement age to make ends meet, while health and age-related issues make it difficult to get jobs with employers who shy away from older workers. Those factors, coupled with others like cost of living, can put older adults on the streets.

The number of homeless seniors across the U.S. jumped nearly 70 percent between 2007 and 2017, according to researchers. During that period, the problem in Washington was highlighted in a 2016 survey that found 22 percent of people in King County who were experiencing homelessness were over the age of 50. Also, nearly a third of the clients in homeless shelters funded by United Way of King County were older than 55, according to the Area Agency on Aging for Seattle and King County.

The total number of homeless people in King County was nearly 12,000 as recent as 2020, according to studies by the county and the city of Seattle.

In Pierce County, the annual Homeless Point-In-Time Count (conducted each January) has county-organized volunteers seek out individuals and ask them about their situations. In 2021, of the 1,005 homeless people who were contacted, 162 (25 percent) were 55 or older. Only those living in shelters were contacted due to safety concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, when unsheltered and sheltered alike were counted, 261 were 55 to 61 years old and 167 were 62 and up—a combined 23 percent of the 1,817 total.

Results from the 2022 count, scheduled for Jan. 27-28, weren’t available when Senior Scene went to press.

The state Department of Commerce, in a report posted on its website in August 2020, related a non-profit organization’s experiences dealing with homeless seniors in Olympia. “Very regularly we meet seniors in their 70s and 80s who are newly homeless and come to our doorstep with no idea about what to do or where to go for help,” said Meg Martin, director of Interfaith Works. She said they often have chronic health conditions, “mobility challenges,” and cognitive issues “related to memory or tracking dates and times.”

As housing prices climb, “seniors living on a fixed income will continue to face immense risk and housing instability. Further, once they do fall into crisis and homelessness, the system overall is underequipped to support them in the ways they need,” Martin said.

King County’s senior centers are trying to help. For example, Enumclaw Senior Center has steered them toward medical or mental health services, clothing donations, and places to take a warm shower—the latter through “shower coupons” that the center purchased from a local swimming pool.

On the subject of negative impacts of housing issues on health and welfare, Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department’s director of health, Dr. Anthony L-T Chen, wrote recently that helping people “find housing they can afford is a policy priority. We encourage elected officials and communities to support more choices for housing in our region” through “community-level actions.”

On a statewide level, Governor Jay Inslee is asking the Legislature to bolster Washington’s efforts—with a large pricetag–in finding solutions for homelessness. He has proposed an $800 million investment to pursue new ways to help people remain in their homes (in the case of rentals, by expanding assistance for tenants t pay past-due utility bills and avoid), build 1,500 supportive and affordable housing units and increase support services for people with behavioral health needs, and transition homeless people to permanent housing.

“Unsheltered Washingtonians deserve a safe, warm and dry place to live, with additional resources available if they need them. This is not only the right thing to do for these people, but the right thing to do for our state and our communities,” Inslee said.

Some of the nation’s major cities are facing their own issues. Researchers predict the number of homeless seniors in New York City (more than 17,000 in 2017) will be about 25,000 in 2030; and in Los Angeles, the 14,000-plus seniors on the streets in 2020 is expected to reach 30,000 10 years from  now.

Communities need to lead potential solutions to the problem of senior homelessness, said Nick Saifan, chief executive officer of Vendaval Corp., a Los Angeles, Calif.-area company that is developing affordable housing for older adults and veterans.

“The government can’t do everything,” Saifan said. “We have to start thinking about these issues as a community. More private entities are needed to take the lead on behalf of these seniors. We all need to think beyond ourselves and focus on helping elders enjoy their golden years.”

He noted more seniors have chosen to age in place, meaning they’re holding onto their single-family residences longer than previous generations. But that option may not be possible for all seniors, especially those who need extra help or who rent their homes. Seniors who live on fixed incomes are vulnerable to rent increases.

A partnership of communities, advocates, homebuilders and government “may be the best way to create a better future” through possible options such as fixed-rent controls, the conversion of large shipping containers into housing, and access to vacant land and empty buildings controlled by state and local government, Saifan said.