Games For The Elderly

Subsidized taxi program serves Vallejo seniors

"It's my only way to move around," said Robleto who no longer drives, and has such sore knees she can't climb the steep steps of the Vallejo Transit buses.

She is one of dozens of seniors who rely on the subsidized taxi scrip program to get around, and among riders Vallejo transportation officials are trying to serve with new programs and other services.

Besides an expanded taxi scrip program, a county-wide transit panel has met regularly for more than a year to seek money and push for expanded services.

Vallejo Interim Transportation Department Superintendent Jeanine Wooley said the city is trying to expand services for seniors and disabled riders, and is not eliminating any bus lines any time soon.

"We are not making cutbacks. We are working to implement new programs that will offer more options," Wooley said.

Vallejo now has two subsidized taxi scrip programs to help disabled and senior riders. One is for riders over 65 or who have a disability and need to get around Vallejo only. Those who qualify pay $6 for $10 in scrip and can use the coupons within the city limits.

Robleto said the taxi scrip service is good but she wishes it cost less. Living on a fixed income she can buy only so many coupons during the month, she said.

The other program is newer and is an intercity taxi scrip service for disabled riders who cannot navigate buses and other forms of public transportation on their own.

This services allows riders to travel throughout the county.

Though not geared specifically for seniors, many who qualify are elderly, officials said.

"We know most of the seniors qualify for that program, and that allows them to travel throughout Solano County," Woolly said.

Ticket booklets valued at $100 are sold for $15, she said.

The new program has shown good success in its first year, said Vacaville Fleet and Transit Manager Brian McLean who helps coordinate it among the county's seven cities.

Vallejo sold 270 of the intercity booklets and made 705 passenger trips, McLean said.

Riders can go anywhere in Solano County 24 hours a day but must be able to get in and out of a taxi vehicle on their own.

If they are using a wheelchair it must be the kind that can be folded and stored in a trunk.

Elderly Thespian: DVD Review: New York Street Games

The documentary New York Street Games now available on DVD is as much a celebration of a simpler time in this country's history, a time when parents felt the world was a safe enough place to allow their children to spend their days running and playing on the streets of the world's biggest city, a time when a pink high bouncer and a sawed off broomstick were all the equipment a child needed to keep busy with friends from lunch to dinner, as it is a nostalgic look back on what for many of us were the games of our youth. The streets, the empty lots, the school yard—any place that offered the space to hit a ball or draw a court with a piece of chalk was ripe for a playground. Kids didn't need organized sports like the Little League, whether it was Kick the Can or Punch Ball, they organized their own games. Now their games are legendary. New Yorkers look back on them with a nostalgic passion for their idyllic youth. The film is filled with them waxing eloquent about the games of the streets. Whether it's C. Everett Koop talking about Ringaleavio, Regis Philbin describing his first kiss during a game of Hide and Seek, or Whoopi Goldberg explaining how her brother sat her in the crate of his home made soapbox derby cart, these are people glowing with happy memories of a vanished past. While you may have to wonder if things were quite as wonderful as their rose colored visions seem to make them, there is no question they think so. There is nothing so powerful as the happy memories of youth. Stick Ball is probably the best known of the New York Street Games . Played between the sewers in the middle of the street, the batter would toss a Spaulding—pronounced 'Spaldeen' by the true New Yorker—in the air and swat at it with a broomstick. If he hit it, he would run the make shift bases, first base at the right curb, second at the next sewer, third at the left curb and back home. It was the street urchin version of baseball. Good hitters could hit it over two sewers; great hitters three. Legend had it that baseball great Willie Mays would play with the local kids, and he could hit it two sewers down the next block. With the profusion of cars clogging city streets today, Stick Ball and the other street games—Stoop Ball, Slap Ball, Punch Ball—are little more than relics of days gone by, although the documentary does describe some of the efforts to keep the games alive.

Motion in Games, First International Workshop, MIG 2008, Utrecht, the Netherlands, June 14-17, 2008, Revised Papers

Human-Computer Interaction, Second IFIP TC 13 Symposium, HCIS 2010, Held as Part of WCC 2010, Brisbane, Australia, September 20-23, 2010, Proceedings

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