When the Gay and Lesbian Times caught up with John Lockhart for a telephone interview he was taking a break from skiing Copper Mountain in Colorado, part of a three week ski vacation. Author of The Gay Man’s Guide to Growing Older and founding member of Front Runners, a local running group, the 72-year-old Lockhart is a very active senior who celebrates his age, but believes his interactions with others cross generational lines.

It is immediately apparent that staying physically active plays a large role in Lockhart’s life.

“It’s very important to me,” he emphasized. “I’m a subscriber to the use it or lose it school and I’ve certainly found that be to true in my case. I’m lucky in that if I have any physical problems I don’t know so I just keep going.… Not only are you physically active but you’re in new and different circumstances and you’re meeting new and different people. I rode up this morning with two people on the lift who were astounded that I was over 70 — and by the way, you ski free here if you’re over 70, Monday through Thursday. The interaction with lots of people of different ages is part of it and part of the physical activity as well.”

Lockhart is enjoying his life as a senior, and credits a lifelong habit of taking care of his body with making the experience even better. As a matter of fact, he says taking care of your health is crucial to enjoying your senior years. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke and has had healthy eating habits since long before it became a national obsession.

“If I’m having problems I don’t know it,” he says. “I’m content with the age I am. I’ve essentially all of my life tried to recognize that there are advantages and disadvantages for every age and as I get older my experience is the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, and at this stage of my life I’m not aware of any disadvantages. I’m having a great time.”

As for the mental and emotional aspects of aging, Lockhart believes in always trying to maintain a good attitude. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he began a new relationship 18 months ago and is still blissfully involved with his partner.

“Actually, for the first time in my life I am in a relationship,” he revealed. “That is very rewarding and kind of surprising to me because it’s not something I was seeking and it happened. My partner keeps tell me to enjoy it and that’s what I am trying to do.”

According to Lockhart, there is a strong and supportive senior community in San Diego, with multiple social organizations and a number of senior and senior-friendly programs at The Center.

“I see The Center’s role as a vital one in San Diego as a catalyst and, as the name suggests, a center where people can meet on a variety of issues, including the senior population.… I’ve been impressed with their Friday breakfasts. It’s not a senior program, but the once a month breakfast that is sponsored by Nicole Murray-Ramirez and Councilmember Toni Atkins — I think those are a great social space for seniors. It’s an economical networking opportunity with a substantive program.”

When asked if that kind of interaction helps him feel younger, Lockhart replied that, “I’m not worried about being younger. We are the age we are and I’m content with the age I am. Certainly knowing people of different ages and participating in a variety of activities with people of different ages, I find that to be healthy and it’s very rewarding for me.”

“I can only speak for myself, but I’ve almost never had any ageist problems,” Lockhart maintains. “There is an interesting aspect to that. I find that ageism, if and when it does exist, I have not been the recipient of that from younger men — and I am referring to men who are in their 20s and 30s. Where I have experienced it is with people who are within striking distance of being older themselves, that is, the 50s group or maybe the late 40s group, who are uneasy about the transition in their lives that’s coming and who tend to maybe lash out, or react in an ageist manner. As far as peers are concerned, most of the people I know who are my age are contented where they are at their age and have very fulfilling lives.”

There are some issues that become ever more important as we age — housing and healthcare, for instance. Most people live on a fixed income after retirement. With limited funds and no employer-provided medical care, providing for housing and healthcare can become a challenge — particularly if there is a medical condition or a need for homecare services involved. Many eventually choose to move into assisted-living facilities or retirement homes, but members of the GLBT community face added concerns. Will they be able to live with their partner? Will they be treated well or shunned by staff and other residents?

With GLBT senior residential properties currently in existence or in development in Florida, New Mexico, Arizona and now California, it’s obvious that the community is beginning to pay closer attention to the needs of seniors. Last year’s senior needs assessment program here in San Diego gathered information from several hundred GLBT seniors in an effort to determine what services GLBT seniors need and want, as well as how well any of those needs are currently being filled.

“I think we’ve probably got a pretty good infrastructure in terms of organization — social, political certainly, “ says Lockhart. “We have the San Diego Democratic Club, for example, which I have been a member of since the ’70s and which has a very strong role for seniors in terms of political participation. I think there is a lot out there and I see people participating in that. I have in my life occasionally had a man or so come to me and say ‘I am older, I feel left out, I don’t know what to do’ and I’ve been able to direct that person to two or three places in San Diego that are responsive. As far as I see, the gay and lesbian community in San Diego is well-organized and well-structured, and seniors are a part of that in a participatory and welcoming manner.

“It’s important to be positive and reach out. If there is a little rejection, deal with it. You’ve heard the saying, ‘If you can’t deal with rejection, you have no business being a gay man,’ so get out there and deal with it. I think it’s a fine community with lots of resources and I am pleased to be part of it.”

Jeri Dilno, 67, doesn’t consider herself a very good example of a typical GLBT senior. She still works full time as an editor for a land use consulting firm, remains very politically active and spends most of her time with people 10 to 30 years younger.

“In some ways it’s just another number,” she says of her age.” Certainly there are physical limitations — I’ve slowed down. I’m not quite as active as I used to be, and I don’t participate in sports much anymore, but I have a pretty full schedule. I try to stay involved in different things — I find that very energizing. I’d be bored if I just stayed home.

“[Aging is] part of the life process, there’s no two ways about it. I have too many friends who are gone, who left us far too early. In the early days of the AIDS crisis I lost friends who were a good 10, 15, 20 years younger than me.… It does certainly put a different perspective on it when you see people younger than you dying way too early. It makes you much more aware and appreciative of having good health and being able to continue to do all the things you like doing.”

Dilno believes that not only do men and women experience aging differently, so do GLBT and straight individuals.

“The gay male culture seems to have … more of a fascination with youth and maintaining that persona of youth, whereas lesbians tend to accept the physical changes more. Even when you’re dealing with younger women it’s not as big an issue, the physicality of it. Straight women still have to deal with that physicality, the old story —that seems to be pretty true — of the 50-year-old man leaving his 50-year-old wife for a 30-year-old trophy — that type of thing. I don’t think lesbians experience that concept of aging in the same way. I don’t think we have as much of a throwaway culture, in that way.”

Gordon Wahl is a San Diego resident, who, at 82 years old, is a senior citizen and a veteran, and also happens to be gay and legally blind. Through the myriad of social groups he interacts with, Wahl is committed to uniting the various elements of his identity as effectively as possible, and wants to help other blind GLBT seniors gain access to the active social life he enjoys.

“Learning to live a full and useful life as a blind person is not an easy task,” says Wahl. “Some of us do it fairly well, but what about some other senior GLBT persons? They are lonely, depressed, withdrawn from life, seriously under-financed and often live in quiet desperation.”

One of the biggest issues for blind individuals is transportation, Wahl says. If he wants to go somewhere, he has to arrange his own, guided transportation. “What I find is most [blind] people, they won’t even go that far because it’s just too much trouble. So my question is, how do we activate people into overcoming their depression? To help them find out that there are wonderful ways to live?”

As an example of his independence despite being visually impaired, Wahl says he saw all six plays at the La Jolla Playhouse this year, through special presentations the Playhouse holds for blind and deaf persons on Saturday afternoons. Any seat in the house is $10 per show; two seats for every play cost a total of $120. Wahl arranged for a taxi to and from each performance, and often dined with friends after the show.

In 1989, Wahl developed age-related macular degeneration, a progressively degenerative and irreversible eye disorder that affects people late in life with varying degrees of vision loss. Although people with the disorder may lose the ability to read or drive, the disease does not lead to complete blindness, though untreated ARMD can enable the development of eye diseases, such as glaucoma, that can cause total blindness.

Wahl recalled the first time he noticed a problem with his vision. “I used to ride my motorcycle all the time,” he says. “I was riding on the freeway and I got something in my eye, so I closed it, and I was looking at a freeway sign, and there was a gray spot in the center. The doctors said I had probably had it for some time, but they other eye was compensating.”

Though legally blind, Wahl can make out shapes and faces if he is not looking straight at an object. Macular degeneration results in the loss of central vision only; peripheral vision is always maintained. “I have to tell people, ‘Listen, I’m not checking out some trick walking down the street, I’m trying to see your face,’” Wahl joked.

“Being blind is not a life-threatening disease,” he continued. “I’ve come up with the fact that it is a lifestyle-threatening disease. [After a while] I could no longer ride my motorcycle. I could no longer work.”

Because he is a veteran, Wahl has had access to medical tests, treatment and technological aids that many non-veterans in the blind community do not. “I have gotten training, computers and assistance that I would not have gotten had I not been a veteran,” he says.

All blind and visually impaired veterans are eligible for these services, which are provided free of charge. Upon completion of a six-week resident training course focusing on mobility issues, and CCTV and computer training, a computer with adaptive software is issued to participants. New eyeglasses, many kinds of magnifiers, talking calculators, TV viewing glasses and many more prosthetics are issued based upon individual need. Complete hearing aid services are also available.

“I feel that I have a responsibility,” says Wahl of his activism for blind and visually impaired seniors. “Because I have the physical ability to do a lot of the stuff I do.”

In 1994 or 1995, members of the local blind community center Wahl is involved with put on a seminar for individuals with ARMD. Out of 300 respondents, he received 75 phone calls of people interested in keeping in contact.

“The only mistake I made is — you do this great show and then what do you do for the encore? We had no idea what to do once we identified these people,” he says.

According to Wahl, approximately 90 percent of the San Diego blind community is over 60 years of age. He explained that many are not aware of the services they can access, and even among those that are, many, out of fear, will not attempt to travel or make connections with the outside world now that they are blind because it seems too difficult. Still others do not know of the services available to them, or are hesitant to ask because they are embarrassed by their age related blindness; therefore they don’t ask for help.

“That doesn’t mean that there aren’t organizations around here that supply help, but they don’t access them. How do you motivate these people?… In the middle, you’ve got this large mass of people that, if you can get to them, they can be motivated,” says Wahl, who then drew an analogy: “You hear stories about turkeys, turkey chicks, they have to have their beaks put into the water — or else they’ll die — to teach them how to drink.”

Wahl says that the standard methods of disseminating social service information largely overlook the blind and visually impaired community. “There is a lot of difficulty with that simply because blind and vision impaired people do not have access to the printed word,” he explained. “So you take publications like the Gay and Lesbian Times or other publications throughout the county, they don’t land in areas where blind people go, but even if they did, they wouldn’t see them. So how do they get information? From family, friends, social service and TV.”

Television is a very important resource, because it transmits verbal information.

“The best media for this is using the television,” Wahl says. “Some of our local TV channels carry public service messages and special awareness features.”

Computers are another invaluable resource, but require expensive equipment, time to learn and energy to focus.

“It takes me quite a while to go through [e-mails] because it has to be read to me,” says Wahl. “I can’t scan and pick out the item that I want, so there is a lot of time that goes into that. Vision impairment is also physically exhausting. I’m 82 and I get around pretty good, and I could go around all day and I’m fine, but I get on the computer for two hours and my head is bumping against the screen because it requires very severe concentration; it is physically taxing.”

When asked about solutions to some of these issues, Wahl says he could provide ideas, but did not have any concrete plans to move forward with them himself, mainly because he is involved in so many other activities and has limited supplies of energy. “If there was some way to mix and match people with disabilities,” he suggested. “Why does blindness have to be separate from other disabilities? Why can we not bring people of the disabled community into working together, because those people have a lot of the same issues? That is just one idea, but it doesn’t get anywhere, because how do you put that together?… I know I have some gifts in this area, but I can’t always name those to solutions.”

According to Wahl, there is a lot of inertia in the blind community and even more so among blind GLBT seniors. “It’s like molasses in winter. They need some fire in there. They need to be shown that there is a wonderful life there, just go live it.”

Wahl estimated that, if the stereotypical GLBT “10 percent rule” is followed and there are 4,000 legally blind veterans in San Diego County, then there are 400 local blind GLBT veterans. “Where are they?” he asked. “Why aren’t they involved [with these resources], and how many don’t even know anything about it? How do we get help to them?”

Part of the problem is that many GLBT seniors remain closeted in order to maintain the social life they have.

Wahl says that he has experienced homophobia in some of San Diego’s blind and veteran community centers, where he is active. He recalled a fundraiser a few years ago, held at one of the agencies he volunteers for, that featured a performance by the Gay Men’s Chorus. “We had miserable 13 to 18 people show up,” he says. “The reason was that they’re homophobic. They put no energy into publicity, into telling people about it, and usually when they [have] some kind of spaghetti dinner or Cinco de Mayo celebration, all kinds of people show up. I am not closeted in any way, but being openly gay over there is not a good place to be effective.”

He recalled another evening where, sitting with a group of female friends at the same center, he mentioned that he had gone on an outing the previous weekend with a local GLBT senior group called F.O.G. — the Fellowship of Older Gays. “Even with my eyes, I could see their body expressions, and I could see by the looks on their faces ‘Oh, he can’t be gay.’ That tells me a little bit about the homophobia over there.… You would think that someone with a major disability would be more tolerant.”

Traditional assisted living can also be a problem, not just for the blind and visually impaired, but for all GLBT seniors, Wahl explained. Many apartments require two occupants. “Of course, if you’re a couple, the wife can go along,” he says. “But if you’re a gay guy or a gay couple, how do address [that issue]. If you’re a single person, like myself, and you have to go to assisted-living, am I going to get into a room with some old redneck? I know social service workers now are a lot more open to these challenges than they used to be.”

Dilno points out that, “You go into this environment, which is geared for the needs of straight people, and you don’t have a lot of commonality with people there. In my generation you’re more likely to be in a population where the straight people have not dealt with the gay community and are probably a little less tolerant and less aware. It would probably be almost like going back into the closet again would be my guess. And even if you didn’t go back in the closet you would be the odd person out in many respects.… Your life experience would be very different than most of the people you’re spending your time with.

The Senior Room at The Center is one resource for GLBT seniors that Wahl is working with. Located on the ground floor of the building, the Senior Room began as a way to centralize materials from many government offices that seniors would otherwise have to go all over town to gather. They continually update weekly postings, such as employment and apartment listings, and add new materials when possible, including information for veterans, pet and healthcare needs. Some of the manila folders located in the resource files are AARP, BBB, credit, Eldercare, healthcare and disease information, electronics, food safety and nutrition, foster grandparents, hospice, medical aids and prescriptions, men’s and women’s individual health issues, information about a variety of San Diego hospitals, care facilities and insurance companies, privacy issues, small claims information, substance abuse and mental health, used car purchasing and tenant and landlord rights. The Senior Room does not overlap with services provided by the DMV or United States Postal Service. They also do not offer materials requiring accountancy or legal counsel, such as tax forms.

“The Senior Resource File [at The Center] is outstanding,” Wahl says, but offered the caveat: “To be truly useful to the blind and visually impaired consumer, there needs to be a third-party access person to aid a blind or visually impaired person… unless there is someone there to help a blind or vision impaired person when they drop in, what good is the information if they can’t access it?”

Wahl says that, though his involvement with The Center has been limited to interactions with Center volunteers through SWAP — Seniors With A Purpose — he sees it as a potentially effective resource for blind GLBT seniors. “I want to preface this with, any time I make a complaint, it’s not a complaint it’s a statement of what we need to address,” Wahl emphasized. “I’m not a complainer I’m more of a solution-oriented person.”

According to Wahl, the standard curriculum for social services training requires internships or fieldwork in a social services agency. “Where The Center can come in,” he says, “is they can be accredited to provide social service training.… I don’t know all of the activities that go on at The Center, and I don’t have access to them. But maybe someone who’s going to The Center for one activity could match with the seniors.”

Wahl says he would like to see The Center’s cyber center equip one of their computers with the flat screens, speakers and software necessary to allow blind and vision-impaired people access to email and the internet, but says that acquiring the adaptive equipment and trained volunteers could be costly and time-consuming to an already extremely busy staff.

“I would like to see one computer set up with the three major software programs, which would cost about $3,000-4,000,” says Wahl. One of the programs does both sound and digital imaging. The other two read the screen, one word at a time. Wahl says computers can open up a new world to blind and visually impaired people, but they must first have access to expensive equipment, and then be taught to use it.

Part of the solution, he says, is a one-on-one social and educational approach, involving volunteers willing to learn how to use the software, and then teach those skills to others, but also planned social activities that will get the targeted community to venture into the facility, such as a seminar or a party.

“My ideal is that we would have a core group of people that would come up with some kind of way that we could awaken the [GLBT] community to an underserved need,” he says. “If the needy don’t come in, how can you serve them? And if the needy do come in, where are the people to help them?”

Wahl explained that, because he is active in many other local agencies, he cannot devote the time and energy required to motivate and organize a group of blind GLBT seniors single-handedly. However, he added, he is open to working with other interested individuals and agencies to develop and maintain such a group.

“Sometimes when I think about getting older I think it’s a lot different than what I expected,” says Dilno. “I certainly didn’t expect, at age 67, to still be as active as I am. When I was growing up, people that were 67 were kind of relegated to the back room in a way. You just didn’t see them out. I see lots of people my age out enjoying themselves. It seems that overall, because of advances in health, nutrition and physical activity, that people are staying active longer. [Someone who is] 50 is not considered a senior citizen anymore.… I’ve always said that I can’t quite keep up with the age they give senior discounts for. When I was growing up you could get senior discounts at 50, by the time I hit 50 it was 55, by the time I got to 55 it was 60, when I turned 60 it was 62, and when I got to 62 a lot of them were 65. I think I’ve finally gotten to a place where I can comfortably get a senior citizen’s discount. So even the definition in our society of what is considered a senior citizen is changing.”

“Our population, of course, is an aging population in this country,” Lockhart points out. “The single fastest growing group of people is 85 plus. The largest single group of people in the United States is over 65, and while it will take a while for it to filter down to address ‘G’ and ‘L’ issues, certainly national organizations like SAGE, Seniors Active in a Gay Environment are already there and doing a lot of good work. It will be a developing thing and I think the whole issue is related to the acceptance by society of senior gay people. I come of a generation where people thought when you got older you just kind of vanish and that’s certainly not true anymore.”

For more information on senior resources, call The Center at (619) 692-2077. For more information on The Gay Man’s Guide to Growing Older, visit this article at www.gaylesbiantimes.com for a link to the website.