Notes from my Knapsack 11-6-2025

Notes from my Knapsack 11-6-2025
Jeff Gill

Preparing for senior life situations
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One of many things my wife and I have learned over the last five or six years is just how many people are worried about elderly relatives, whether parents or grandparents or others they feel some level of responsibility for.

Seniors who are showing signs of fragility when it comes to driving, living alone, or just taking care of business generally, are nothing new to me. I entered parish ministry forty years ago, and such situations were among my first pastoral challenges. People would ask if I'd checked on Mary Alice or George, and it would turn out there were many reasons for concern, and few tools to use in response.

I've been part of at least a dozen "interventions" around the car keys, and some don't end well, despite the best efforts of adult children and close friends, let alone ministers who get called Judas for their troubles. There's no one map or path through this.

You may notice, especially if you're in this age bracket of feeling your years, yet being the active helper for those much older, that around November and December, there's a spike in TV ads about finding "help for Mom" sorts of services. There's a hard practical reason for that. You can kid yourself for months on the phone or in quick visits, but often the Thanksgiving dinner is where the kids see things they'd missed before. Lack of care, loss of memory, confusion on the basics. There are huddles on the porch, and conversations outside about what could be done, what might be offered.

Here's a few thoughts for those entering this anxious cohort. First, a parent or family member on their own still gets to make choices - even bad ones. Interventions are harder than you might realize. But: you can prepare without permission. There's no court hearing needed to allow you to start making preparations. Scout motto and all, you know.

For pity's sake, don't wait for a trip to the emergency department to start. That's when many people gear up, and there are some shocks to come if you don't start researching options sooner. Starting with the hard fact: senior or assisted living is not available on the day or even the week you need it. You will encounter waitlists, and the best facilities have months long ones.

You need to know what the options are in your area; Medicare has a good website to help you get started, but if you say "only three or four star facilities for my X" you need to look at the full range, because when it was a fall or hospitalization that took a person out of their house, it's the hospital that says when they leave, and not always back to the home. Sometimes what's available isn't what looks best on paper, and you will have to adapt.

Planning ahead isn't being pessimistic or mean (even if you might end up being told that, by the person in question if they realize you've done so). It's the difference between choosing and having choices made for you.

Hope is not a plan. Sean Grady, our county emergency management head, reminds me of this truism often. It ain't, either. Being ready and knowing what questions to ask is a gift, one that may not be appreciated in the moment it's needed, but you'll be glad you did.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been asking questions about senior care for what seems like forever, and now he is one. Tell him your solutions at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 10-31-2025

Faith Works 10-31-2025
Jeff Gill

It's the great mass cultural experience, Charlie Brown
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Almost sixty years ago, for nearly three generations, you could at the end of October assume a set of cultural references shared by everyone.

Not religion or church-going, not even football in Ohio or basketball in Indiana.

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" aired in 1966, and became a yearly tradition (first on CBS, later ABC), much anticipated in days before VHS tape or digital media. If you missed it, that was it for the year, and few missed it.

What's hard to believe is that the whole program, credits included, is just twenty-five minutes long. Within that tight time frame, you have Lucy pulling away the football as Charlie Brown tries to kick it. There's Linus explaining to Sally the peculiar theology of the Great Pumpkin, rooted in sincerity as well as the pumpkin patch. We get trick-or-treating, and "I got a rock" not once, but three times. And the idea of a Hallowe'en party with bobbing for apples and kids costumes, not the first time anyone had seen one, but possibly an origin point for the explosion of such events into the festivals we see today from rec centers to High Streets.

And there is the incredible sequence woven in of Snoopy, the World War I fighting ace, shot down by the Red Baron, then making his way behind enemy lines, mournful train whistles in the distance, past ruined farmsteads and French signposts (all geographically accurate at Schulz's insistence) until our hero makes his way to… you know. That "smash cut" is still a vital memory of childhood for me, still delightfully jarring today.

I suspect most of you are remembering each of these scenes with me, in sight and sound, nodding along. Even the subtler elements, such as the usually flat, two-dimensional scenes shifting in Snoopy's fantasy (it is a fantasy, right?) to perspectives and deep background, blending into painted skies which evoke mixed memories with so many autumnal sunsets: it's all quite real to most of us.

We don't have this story, though, as a mass cultural experience anymore. That lament went up first with "A Charlie Brown Christmas" leaving public airwaves, and we've discussed the subject before. From holiday animated specials to MASH finales, the idea of anything being a common touchstone for over 50% of all of us is fading into the rear-view mirror. Many of us have seen "Great Pumpkin," but not everyone, and certainly not all children.

As much as the show is beloved for the reasons I shared above, what makes me want to keep putting this complicated yet simple story in front of children (of all ages) is the ending. The credits include a final closing sequence, but the ending to me is with Lucy and Linus.

Lucy, cranky, mischievous, cantankerous Lucy, wakes up at 4 am (do not ask where their parents are, that's a different universe anyhow), checks her blockhead brother's bed, and finds it empty. She makes a face, dons coat and scarf and hat, heading for the pumpkin patch. She finds the dozing Linus, shivering in the pre-dawn cold; sister walks brother back to the house still mostly asleep, and to his bed. She takes off his shoes, and covers him up. She still looks irritated, but she does all this, then back to bed herself.

Love. Cranky love, but it's still love. Not announced with trumpets or phalanxes of violins, just a simple quiet scene of caring, compassion, and love.

That's what Hallowe'en is all about, Charlie Brown. May you have a delightful one, whatever you do to mark the day.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he gets a chill every year when he hears that train whistle on Snoopy's journey. Tell him where you find love shown unexpectedly at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Coda: https://youtu.be/NIWh_YIRQuM