I met Debra Boronski – again – when I was visiting East Longmeadow’s Pleasant View Senior Center to sit in on the center’s every Friday podcast taping.
I was doing a story on the center’s venture into this new media form for the March issue of Prime and Boronski was that morning’s scheduled guest.
She looked familiar. It was then that I realized I’d met her before, in another place. A Chicopee Chamber of Commerce meeting.
Though I’ve been the editor of Prime on and off for most of my 27 years with Reminder Publishing, I’ve also had stints when I reported on the area’s cities and towns, either as a side beat or to help out our weekly reporters during vacations and other crunch times. I suspect I met Boronski during one of those helping-out-the-weeklies gigs.
I remembered her as a polished business professional with a mission to support her small business membership.
That Friday morning at the Pleasant View Senior Center she came in carrying a box containing a half-dozen unusually colored, freshly laid eggs, a bottle of honey, a jar of elderberry syrup and a small, pump-action spray of a calendula-infused healing oil.
Boronski was appearing as the guest of one of the podcasters, her friend and fellow East Longmeadow resident Mary Jenewin-Caplin. She was there to talk about her new life raising chickens, bees and herbs in her backyard homestead called Quarry Pond Farm.
I was fascinated by the snippets of her story I caught as I concentrated on taking notes about the podcasting process for the story I was working on. But in the back of my mind, I tucked the idea that Boronski might, in fact, make an interesting story herself.
When I reached out to Boronski a few weeks after the podcast, she was open to the idea of chatting about her change of focus. I booked a visit to her home – and a photographer to take some images – and we met to chat about her radically different “second act.”
I’m always fascinated by what sparks someone’s passions in retirement. Is it a long-simmering hobby or desire – or is it something new that catches their interest? Every story is different, I’ve found.
I hope you enjoy discovering what prompted Boronski to go, as she said, “from business suits to garden boots.”
It’s almost Senior Games time!
The Massachusetts Senior Games are more of a year ‘round event now – with skiing in the late winter and road races stretching into late fall – but it wasn’t that way when Springfield College professor Dr. Jack Neumann hosted the inaugural games on the college campus back in 1991. That first Senior Games was a weekend event, showcasing walking, track and field, swimming, basketball and a handful of other traditional, Olympic-style competitions.
Today’s games are much more than that, and the organization’s new Games Coordinator Joan Simmons is hoping to reignite interest in the annual slate of competitions by introducing some more modern sports – such as disc golf and cornhole – and inviting athletes as young as 30 to try their hands at some of the newer sports this year. She’s even offering a discount if those younger athletes bring their parents to compete with them!
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Mother’s Day, May 14. That said, I want to send a shoutout to my own mother, Indevez Fuller. I’m blessed to still have your wise guidance at 94. Wishing all who are also moms – and grandmas – a Happy Mother’s Day as well.
As always, thanks for reading.
Debbie Gardner
dgardner@thereminder.com
