Mike Salsbury/The Olympian
On his way to a competition for town criers being held in Anacortes, Doug Turvey of Embro, Ontario, gives a breakfast performance to Panorama City residents, including Tom (right) and Carol Mead. Turvey has relatives who live at Panorama City.

Things get better with age

Panorama City residents have fun growing old together

Orginally published August 15, 2001

Doug Turvey, wearing gold buttons, a velvet cloak and a triangle-shaped hat, bellows in The Restaurant at Panorama City, his voice echoing around the morning breakfast crowd.

"Oh, yeaaaaaa! Oh, yeaaaaa! Ohhhhhhhhhhh, yea!

"My lords and ladies, I wish to convey a song that I learned in my childhood days."

Turvey -- visiting from Ontario before a world competition of town criers in Anacortes -- is no Renaissance relic roaring over the clank of dishes in the kitchen.

He's the speaker at Panorama City's weekly JET breakfast. That's short for Join-Enjoy-Together or Join-Eat-Together, depending on whom you ask.

It's no boring band of breakfast seniors who gather each Tuesday morning at the lively Lacey retirement enclave tucked into 120 landscaped acres just south of Sleater-Kinney Road and Pacific Avenue.

"We hope you win!" a sprightly, scratchy voice calls from a back row in support of Turvey's upcoming competition.

A community of 1,200 senior citizens and 850 housing units, Panorama City bustles with activity inside and out every day. JET breakfasts are just one of many Panorama activities.

Residents -- who log thousands of volunteer hours a year on campus and off -- occupy a special niche in Lacey as one of the nation's largest continuing-care retirement communities.

"I come mostly for the fellowship," Tom Mead says of the JET breakfast.

Mead and his wife, Carol, meet new residents -- who come from Florida to Hawaii to Poland, from all walks of life -- whenever they can.

"We're supposed to be wearing name tags," says JET breakfast emcee Peter Rotar. "It helps. You know the face, but you don't know the name."

All residents receive the white, blue-lettered tags. Many display them as a symbol of pride off-campus.

Rotar munches on toast and sips coffee with friends as they laugh at Turvey's jokes.

"It's a lot of fun," Rotar says, wearing a banner T-shirt which reads: "If things are better with age, then I'm approaching magnificent."

At 72, Rotar is young for the community, which has an average age of 81. Residents range in age from the minimum 62 to the oldest at 107.

That's a reflection of the many activities and security of lifelong care, residents say. Residents with dwindling incomes can stay in nonprofit Panorama City with help from an independent account called the Benevolent Fund.

Though today he's forgotten his name tag, 12-year resident Lester Andersen, who is 87, wouldn't settle for anywhere else.

This is his Lacey.

"It's a wonderful place to live," he says.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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