Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Author: Karen Putz

  • Karen and Judy’s Story: Growing Bolder on PBS

    Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of meeting Bill Shafer from the TV show, Growing Bolder, which is broadcast on PBS stations nationwide.  Bill, and cameraman, Jason Morrow, were on hand at the World Barefoot Center to capture the story of how I met Judy “The Old Lady” Myers and went back to barefoot water skiing after becoming deaf from a barefooting fall as a teen.   Bill is the Executive Vice President of Growing Bolder Media and was a news anchor for WESH Channel 2 for 25 years.  From the moment I met Bill, I was instantly comfortable with him and it was easy to see why he is considered one of America’s best storytellers– within minutes, he was entertaining us with stories of people he interviewed over the years!

    I first discovered the Growing Bolder website while doing some research on Banana George for a book that I’m working on.  From the first moment I set eyes on the site, I was intrigued by the stories of people living bold, exciting lives.  Growing Bolder is about folks who break the boundaries of ageism, and it’s reflected in their motto:  “It’s not about age, it’s about attitude.”  Growing Bolder reminds us that we don’t have to settle for ho-hum lives as we get older– we can break the stereotypes and reinvent ourselves along the way.

    After interviewing me and Judy– Bill and Jason joined us in the boat with Keith St. Onge.  “Watch me fall in front of the camera,” I dryly remarked to Judy as we walked toward the dock.  Sure enough, I went tumbling in the water on the first deep water start.   There’s a lesson right there– don’t go entertaining negative thoughts or you’ll put them right into action.

    “Watch what she does on water,” I told Bill, as Judy got ready to do some barefooting.  “You won’t believe she’s 68!”   It was amusing to watch Bill’s mouth fall open as Judy did one foots, toe holds, tumble turns and backwards.   When it was my turn, I shakily lifted my foot for a short one-foot ride and then did some backwards barefooting on shoes.  I ditched the shoes to try a backwards start on my feet and made it up for a very brief ride before falling over.  Judy claims it is an official “you got up and rode it” start, but I’ll have to wait to see the evidence on the Growing Bolder show.

    Growing Bolder is broadcast on over 250 PBS stations.  To check if it will be shown in your area:  Growing Bolder TV by Zip Code.  If you don’t see your local station listed, you can contact your station and ask them to add the show to their line up.

    “I feel like I’ve known you for fifteen years,” Bill said as he hugged me goodbye.  “Except you’re not that old!” he grinned.

    Karen, Bill and Keith

  • Women’s Barefoot Week Featured in Waterski Magazine

    Back in November, 2010, I spent a week barefooting with gals from all over the U.S.  We gathered at the World Barefoot Center for a week of fun skimming on the water.  Waterski magazine joined us for a morning and took a snapshot of all of us barefooting off two booms, two boats (see below).   The article and short clip about my return to barefooting are in the March issue of Waterski magazine.

    Waterskier magazine included a blurb about Women’s week in their newsletter (reprinted below).  The World Barefoot Center will host another Women’s Barefoot Week in November and it promises to fill up fast, so reserve your spot!  This is your only chance to see Keith St. Onge, David Small and Swampy in a dress!

    WOMEN’S BAREFOOT WEEK

    Judy “Old Lady” Meyers, 67, is on a mission to prove that barefooting is not just a sport for the physically young, but is a sport that everyone, especially women of all ages, can safely enjoy.

    Judy organized the recent “Women’s Week” barefoot clinic at the World Barefoot Center, Nov. 1-6, in Winter Haven, Fla. Fifteen women’s barefooters – 12 over the age of 40, with four of those being over age 60 – enjoyed a week of barefooting and camaraderie.

    World Barefoot Center

    ‘Footers pictured above are (back row, left-to-right): Keith St. Onge and Lauren Lindeman, World Barefoot Center; Karen Putz, Chicago, Ill.; Claudia Landon, Post Falls, Idaho; Judy Myer, Alpine, Calif.; Coach Gary “Swampy” Bouchard, World Barefoot Center; Valerie Shinn, Redmond, Wash.; David Small, World Barefoot Center; Lorraine Piskura, New Fairfield, Conn; (Kneeling, left-to-right): Charlene Portman, Clearwater, Fla.; Joann O’Connor, Oshkosh, Wis.; Kay Wiser, Winter Haven, Fla.; and Lisa Browning, Winter Haven, Fla.

    For information about women’s barefooting and future events, contact Judy at oldbarefooter@mac.com.

  • A Size Six? You Gotta Be Kidding

    Over on AOL That’s Fit, I shared my story of losing weight and taking up barefoot water skiing again.   Here’s the link:

    Karen Rediscovered Her Passion

    The story was posted earlier in the week and was featured on the front of the AOL website several times.   Emails, tweets and Facebook messages have been coming in, mostly with people expressing shock at the before picture.  At a recent ZVRS presentation, a senior citizen came up to me and said, “Wow, you lost weight!  That’s much better!  You were so fat before!”  Gotta love those seniors, they tell it like it is, in colorful sign language.

    My oldest son even did a double-take at the photo of me.  “Mom, I didn’t realize you were that… big,” he said.  He glanced at me and then came over and gave me a hug. 

    Debra Poneman, the gal behind the “Yes to Success” seminars, said, “I nearly fell off my chair when I saw the photo of you at 220 on the That’s Fit article.”  

    Well, Debra, you and me, both.  I guess that’s why I avoided the scale and the mirror for a long, long time.

    I still have a ways to go to get rid of the rest of the pounds.  It’s a work in progress.  During the last couple of weeks, I have been going to Bikram Yoga.  Most days, I actually enjoy the challenge of getting through 90 minutes of poses in a hot, hot, hot room.   Then there are other days when I want to run screaming out of the room into a tub of ice.

    The most amusing part of the whole losing weight saga has been the comments left on the That’s Fit story.  Here’s one:

    I am really happy for her and her weight loss. But somehow I find myself wondering when I read this article and many magazine articles where people are said to “finally buy a size 6 jean” at 168 lbs??? I bobble between 158-162 and I am in a 12 comfortably and can still squeeze in my 10’s on a good day. I might get one leg in a 6. Exactly what kind of jeans are these people buying??

    I have two pairs of size six jeans, one from St. John’s Bay and the other from Target.  At 168 pounds, people are scratching their heads trying to figure out how that could possibly be true.  I wonder the same thing myself at times, because I weigh exactly the same as I did back in November when the barefooting photo was taken, yet have gone down two sizes since then.  But then again, jeans vary in sizes like crazy.  I can’t get into a size six in jeans from Eddie Bauer. 

    So to give you an idea of my jeans one year ago and my jeans today, take a look:

  • Chicago Tribune TribLocal and Chicago Now Posts

    I’ve been writing for the Chicago Tribune TribLocal and the Chicago Now blog since fall of 2010. It has been fun seeing my stuff in print and online.

    Yesterday, I had the opportunity to interview Kristi McNaron and Laura Ball from The Dave Ramsey Show about their weight loss success. This is a wonderful, inspiring story of friendship:

    Co-Workers Lose 150 Pounds Together

    To read the rest of my Chicago Now posts:

    Barefoot in the Burbs by Karen Putz

    From the TribLocal:

    The Importance of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Role Models

    To read the rest of my TribLocal Articles:

    TribLocal by Karen Putz

  • Michael Janger, Business Consultant

    Tell me about your job. How did you get into this line of work?

    I am a strategy consultant who provides finance, strategy and marketing advisory services to clients in the assistive technology industry, including nonprofits that serve people with disabilities. A finance industry veteran, I worked at American Express, Thomson Reuters, and IBM, and was the second profoundly deaf student to receive an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to my work, I write about disability issues and business at michaeljanger.com.

    I was born profoundly deaf, and not having the sense of hearing in a world full of hearing people presented me with challenges on an almost daily basis. Socially, academically and professionally, it was very difficult to communicate on a functionally equivalent level with my peers. The saving grace for me were innovations in technology that have enabled me to prosper in my career and my personal life. So, it is a passion for me to work with companies to better market products that make a difference for people with disabilities.

    With my finance and strategy experience in Fortune 500 companies, it was a natural progression to a line of work where I could offer my skills in a market I know well, as a person with a disability.

    What is the best part of your job?

    I enjoy working with clients to solve their business problems. It feels good to know I am helping them perform better, and more importantly, provide consumers with disabilities with better choices when evaluating products that enable them to function in a non-disabled world.


    What are some of the challenges of your job?

    This is my first entrepreneurial role. It was not by choice that I left American Express in 2009 — the Lehman collapse and credit crunch resulted in major layoffs at American Express. In a difficult job market in finance, I decided to lay the groundwork for a consulting career where I could provide my substantial finance and strategy experience to companies in a market that I know intimately. But it is a lot of work. You have to be disciplined day in and day out, and network as much as possible to build your business and get to know the major players in the amazingly diverse world of people with disabilities.

    What was it like growing up deaf?

    An important starting point — especially for those who are hearing — is that as someone who was born profoundly deaf, I did not lose anything. I have no memory or knowledge of what it is like to be fully hearing — to speak easily on the phone, listen to a podcast, or appreciate the finer points of music. The experience I have every day is of someone with a limited sense of hearing growing up in a world dominated by people who can hear perfectly well.

    This meant adapting to situations where the odds are always stacked against you. In high school, I did not have a real social life in a day and age when there were no cell phones, e-mail, or Internet. My hearing classmates called each other by landline phone, and I could not use the phone on my own. Sometimes I had to ask my parents to make the calls for me — which was very awkward to do in the image-conscious world of adolescence. It was not until college, where people see each other constantly in dormitory halls and campus greens, that my social life flourished.

    My childhood experiences have given me a strong desire to be connected to everything, to have access to as much information as possible. Which might be too much of a good thing today, in the age of information overload. But it has come in handy for me in my work, as I tend to be pretty good at collecting and analyzing data, and doing exhaustive research on the various business issues I face in my work.

    What advice would you give a deaf/HH person who is looking for a career like yours?

    As a finance industry veteran, it is important to build up substantial credentials in your field of expertise before venturing into a business of your own. Unlike marketing or creative writing, finance tends to be a pretty conservative industry where intelligence, trust, and solid academic credentials are key success factors. To shift from finance into a business of your own requires a strong network of people who can help you make your business work, and a vastly different approach to work that relies less on analyzing numbers and more on creative, team-oriented problem-solving.

    In whatever you do, it is important to follow your passion. A friend of mine, who is also deaf, put it very succinctly: “The best job is one where I can work for free.” And when it comes with a paycheck, it’s even better.

  • Dad’s Cancer Journey

    Cancer is a crappy disease.  Just saying.

    My latest TribLocal article is a story about meeting Pat Becker this summer.  Pat is the sister of Joann O’Connor, the gal that I barefooted with in Wisconsin this summer.  Pat and Joann are tough gals.  Joann can tear up the water on her bare feet and she has me in awe every time I watch her footin’. 

    Pat was diagnosed with cancer and given a few months to live.  Her family prepared for the day that they thought they were going to lose her.  That was sixteen years ago.  Pat endured 132 chemotherapy treatments and she managed to kick the cancer on its rear end.   Pat inspires my Dad to keep going every day.  Everyone needs a “Pat” on their cancer journey.   Thanks, Pat, for reaching out to my Dad.

    Read more:  Finding Support for Cancer

  • Losing Weight — A Work in Progress

    At the beginning of this year, I joined Loser Moms in an attempt to lose weight for barefoot water skiing.  I was heading down to the World Barefoot Center in March and I wanted to lose a few pounds before getting on the water.   Part of the requirement to join was to post a picture on a personal blog.  So with a heavy (yeah, pun intended!) heart, I went searching for a picture to post.   I had to close my eyes when I hit the “publish” button.

    The thing is, by the time that picture was snapped, I had already lost a few pounds.  I’m estimating at my heaviest, I was probably 215 pounds.   I wouldn’t know– I avoided the scale, the mirror and the camera every chance I could.    The only exercise that I got around to doing was playing a weekly volleyball game in a league.  A local bar sponsored our team, so we were obligated to head over there after the game and hang out.   I filled up on appetizers, sometimes late at night.

    I grew up waterskiing and barefooting and I really missed those activities.  My niece convinced me to try water skiing again on July 4 in 2008.  I got up on two skis and kicked off one.   I went back and forth across the wake a few times and called it a day.  I was out of breath and had no strength to continue.  It was one very short ride on the water.   I was in a size 16 jeans and wearing 2x tops.  No, it wasn’t pretty.   You would think after seeing this photo on my niece’s Facebook page– that I would be motivated to lose weight.  I wasn’t.

    Ever hear the saying by Buddha:   “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”   Well, that’s pretty much what happened.  The teacher turned out to be Keith St. Onge, from the World Barefoot Center.  Keith went through a metamorphosis of his own several years ago.   He was packing on too many pounds as a professional athlete and wasn’t feeling healthy.   He became serious about his health, made some changes in his lifestyle and eating habits and went on to win two World Championships.    At the end of May, Keith sent me some eating guidelines to improve my health.  I was ready, finally ready, to make some lifestyle changes.

    “You have to cut out pop,” he told me.

    I loved my Coke and Pepsi.  I lived each day for the moment I could sip the soda.   Every time we went out to eat, I ordered soda.  And now it was time to kiss it goodbye.  My friend Sue had kicked the pop habit and she was trying to get me to kick it a year ago.   But now, I was ready.

    I wanted a lifestyle change, not a diet.  Keith’s guidelines fit right into that.  I made healthier choices, but I enjoyed the food.  Instead of boneless chicken wings, I went for grilled chicken on a salad when eating out.  Salmon with asparagus.   I went for more fruits and vegetables and less of the processed stuff.  I found ways to cut out white flour– but I have a weakness for Panera Bread’s sourdough rolls, so eliminating that completely felt like death.   So I saved it as a very rare treat.   And I got hooked on quinoa.  “Keen-wa”– the whole grain with funny name.   I introduced my book club to it one day and they liked it.  I brought in almond and coconut milk and the kids went crazy for the almond milk.

    I also had two other barefooters who provided support and encouragement, Joann O’Connor and Judy Myers.  Both of them had wonderful weight loss stories of their own.  I joined Donna Cutting’s weight loss group on Facebook, and it helped tremendously to be surrounded by others walking the same journey.

    It’s a work in progress– as I still eat emotionally and I deal with that all the time.  It’s a work in progress, I remind myself again and again– as I still have a ways to go to get healthy and lean.  In a weak moment this fall, I texted Keith after I had scarfed down two rolls at a fundraiser.   “Always bring healthy snacks with you for moments like that,” he said.  Then he shot me a modified Dave Ramsey quote:   “If you want to live like no one else, make decisions like no one else!”

    I put my fork down when the dessert came.

    I had two incredible highlights this year:  the day that I learned to go backwards on the water… and the day that I slipped on size eight jeans.   Thanks, Keith, for both of those highlights.

  • The “Second” That Lasts a Lifetime

    I came across the tweet on Twitter:  “Thought Of The Day:  It only takes a second to make someone feel special, but that second may last a lifetime in their mind.  The tweet was produced by Steve Harper, a guy who specializes in teaching  The Ripple Effect: Maximizing the Power of Relationships for Life & Business (Second Edition).

    Funny, I couldn’t get that tweet out of mind.  I copied it and saved it, because I knew a blog post was brewing from it.   I thought back to one of my religion school teachers, Mrs. Marshall.    She taught a class that prepared a group of us for our confirmation at St. Mary’s Church in Dolton.   One Saturday morning, the class was being especially rowdy that day.   The boys were boisterous and creating havoc in the classroom and Mrs. Marshall was quickly losing control.   All of her attempts to settle down the class were falling on deaf ears.   She finally resorted to raising her voice and losing her patience.  Everyone eventually settled down to do some paperwork that she handed out.   Mrs. Marshall sat back in her chair and I saw tears in her eyes.

    My heart went out to her.  I got out a sheet of paper and quickly wrote her a note.  To this day, I don’t even remember what I wrote, but I wrote a couple of paragraphs about the situation in the classroom and that I thought she was a wonderful teacher.   I handed her the note after class had ended.

    At the start of the next class, Mrs. Marshall came up to me and thanked me for the note.   After my Confirmation in May, she sent me a thank you note for the flowers that I gave her.  In the note she shared:

    Congratulations on your Confirmation!  My wishes for you are these:

    When you are lonely, I wish you love.

    When you are down, I wish you joy.

    When you are troubled, I wish you peace.

    When things are complicated, I wish you simple beauty.

    When things are chaotic, I wish you inner peace.

    When things look empty, I wish you hope.

    And may the gifts of the Holy Spirit help you to have all of these throughout your whole life.  Thank you so much for the lovely flowers.  I wore them with so much pride.  And I was so proud of you.   Sincerely yours,  Mrs. Marshall.

    In July of that year, my father received a phone call.   “Mrs. Marshall died on Sunday,” he told me when I arrived home from a friend’s house.  “She had a severe asthma attack, followed by a stroke.  Her son called to tell you because she  had your letter in her hands when she passed away.  You were her favorite and that letter was special to her.”

    She was only 56 years old and left behind a husband,  three kids and a grandson.

    Which leads me back to that quote above.   “It only takes a second to make someone feel special, but that second may last a lifetime in their mind.”

    I never forgot Mrs. Marshall, but I had forgotten the note she wrote to me.  I found it a year ago, when it fell out from the back pages of my bible.   I passed the words on to a friend who was going through a difficult time in life.   There’s a powerful lesson here– taking  just a moment to tell someone that they are special can last a lifetime in their mind.   Thanks to Mrs. Marshall, that ripple goes on.

  • Getting Into a Wetsuit

    karen in wetsuit

    From:

    Your SENIOR Magazine:

    Overheard at the doctor’s office:  “I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my doctor’s permission to join a fitness club and start exercising.  I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors.  I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But, by the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.”

    This cracked me up!  Then I thought back to the second time that I went to the World Barefoot Center back in April.  I had to buy a wetsuit and I went into the pro shop to buy one.   Judy Myers took a women’s size 14 off the rack.  “Here, try this on,” she said.

    I looked at the wetsuit and shook my head. “I haven’t been in a size 14 since I had kids,” I told her.

    “Try it on,” she insisted.  “Wetsuits are always very tight when you try them on dry.  When you get in the water, they stretch out.”

    I tried on the wetsuit and couldn’t get it over my shoulders.  It went back on the rack.  “I’ll need a men’s size,” I said.

    Judy pulled off a men’s size medium.   I looked at it and shook my head again.  “That’s not going to fit.  I know my body and I can’t get in that one!”

    “You gotta try it on,” Judy said.  And hey, when Judy tells you to do something, you do it.  She’s a former gym teacher –and I was afraid she would make me drop down and give her ten pushups if I didn’t obey.  I dutifully stepped into the wetsuit and slipped one arm in.  I had to “bend, twist, gyrate and jump up and down” to get the other arm in.  Judy remained positive throughout the ordeal.  “We can zip this up!”   Keith St.Onge was standing in the corner, trying not to laugh.

    I looked at the half-donned wetsuit.  The zipper was a long way down and the two halves of the wetsuit were parked near my shoulders.  I didn’t see how it was possible to get the female parts of me into a too-small, men’s wetsuit.

    “This ain’t going to happen,” I told Judy.  “Let’s go up a size.”  She pulled a bigger size off the rack.

    “We can zip this up!  I promise you, once you get this in the water it will loosen up!”

    So there we were– Judy trying to zip up the wetsuit while I tried to minimize my upper chest.   The zipper only went up a few inches.  “Here, you zip it up while I pull the suit together,” Judy suggested.   We wrestled with the suit for a few more minutes, inching the zipper up a bit more.  Finally, out of desperation– or perhaps it was the eagerness to get on the water–Judy stuffed the puppies in while I managed to zip it up.

    “Um, I can’t breathe,” I said.

    When I look back at my year of getting back to barefooting again, I realize that the hardest part wasn’t learning to put my feet back on the water– the hardest part was getting into the wetsuit.

  • Lipreading Strangers at the Door

    The short woman at the door was of Asian descent. A teenager stood by her side, I assumed it was her son. “Oh you’re here for the dog cage!” I said. “Come on in!”

    The woman shook her head and said something. Said a few more things. None of which I could lipread. “I’m deaf,” I explain. “I read lips.”

    The woman said a few more sentences. Nothing made any sense, it wasn’t anything I could lipread. “I put a dog cage on Craigslist, are you here to pick it up?”

    The woman shook her head. More mumbo jumbo. Every once in a while, I encounter folks that are just physically impossible for me to lipread and this was proving to be one of those situations. “Oh! Are you here to pick up your daughter?” Lauren and her friend were standing nearby, and her friend happens to be Asian.

    “That’s not her parents,” Lauren told me.

    I was stumped. I couldn’t figure out why this woman was at my door. She tried again to help me to understand why she came knocking at my door but it was futile. I couldn’t lipread even a single word. Then the gal whipped out her iPhone and started a movie. As it turned out, she was from the Church of God and she wanted to tell me about God, our Mother. She brought a bible out of her purse and pointed to the scripture of Revelations that made reference to God, our Mother.

    “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I won’t be able to understand the movie, I’m deaf.”

    She pressed play. The movie was captioned.

    After she left, I just had to smile. Accessible movies– we’ve come a long way. Now all I need is the Accent/Lipreading Translator app and I’ll be good to go next time someone knocks at my door.