It may be called lunch, but that's simplistic. It is far more, this daily noontime convening of the clan at the Senior Connection on the south end of Hailey. It is a clan defined not by geography or heritage or faith, but by years. And many of them. The clan settling in for lunch is bonded by a place in time, the joys and vicissitudes of long life, the loves celebrated and lost, the aspirations realized and abandoned, and now, the relentless shortening of time balanced by the quiet joys of family and camaraderie and discovery. And ultimately, satisfaction at just being around. Prevailing!
An attractive woman in her late 40s, the executive director of the Senior Connection, welcomes the group—most of them a generation older—with easy familiarity. They know one another. She talks about films that will soon be playing in the viewing room. She conveys some wellness tips. A few calendar items. And then, with relaxed precision, she tells an apocryphal story of a 65-year-old woman who uses the miracles of modern medicine to have a baby. The crowd is appalled at the very concept and thus chuckles approvingly at a Henny Youngman-style punch line lampooning the arrogance or ignorance of challenging the laws of nature.
A lesson. And a laugh. With great good cheer, a hearty lunch is addressed.
Kimberly Coonis is that executive director, and a leadership force that has defined an innovative, embracing service to the elderly in the valley—while maintaining a cadre of financial backers, large and small, to underwrite it (less than 10 percent of the Senior Connection's approximately $1.1 million budget comes from government sources).
Coonis' path to the Senior Connection, and its daily engagement with 75 to 100 beneficiaries of its services, was circuitous, accidental and fortunate.
As an 18-year-old high school graduate in Southern California, she took a mundane, unrewarding job with a government contracting company.
"It was a horrible job. I was 18 and I would leave crying every day. Then my mom said, 'I'm going to Idaho. Want to go along?' I said 'Yes!'. My grandparents lived there. So I threw my stuff in the moving truck and left."
College at Boise State and a marriage were next, with three years of academics (elementary education) and two or three jobs at a time to make it happen. When her husband got a job in the Philippines, she moved with him and ended up living in a village two and half hours outside Manila. Given her training, she ran a school for about 45 children ages 4 to 7, speaking 22 dialects.
"There were three teachers and it was like National Geographic every day. It was primitive. You couldn't run down to the grocery story and pick things up. You even bought gas in a Coca Cola bottle. But it was pure heaven."
After five years of tropical life, her husband was transferred to Germany and Coonis became a tour guide working out of Frankfurt. She is a natural performer. In person, or in front of a crowd, she conveys ease and an unthreatening authority. She did 152 tours to Paris, and took busloads of people into Switzerland, Italy and other countries. On one occasion, after the Berlin Wall fell, she took a group of aspiring tour bus guides from the former East Germany to see Paris. Showing off Paris to a group of men who had been brought up to believe Leipzig was a city of light was a memorable event.
"Where didn't I go? Then my grandfather in Boise fell ill and it was time to go home. I had left for a year and was gone for 10. He was the John Wayne of my life ... a big, gruff teddy bear of a man."
After leaving her husband and their failed marriage behind her, she ended up a single mother, working in radio in Boise. A second marriage brought her to the Wood River Valley. She didn't want to teach or do property management. So she volunteered as a meals-on-wheels driver for the Senior Connection.
"Within four hours I realized there was something that needed to happen here."
Coonis began innovating and improvising a rapidly expanding outreach program, and two and a half years ago became executive director.
"When I came here seven years ago we had three employees for meals-on-wheels and we did some lunches. Now we have 20 full-time employees, two meals-on-wheels trucks. But our focus is connecting seniors to the community. Our outreach program is to help people so they can stay in their homes and maintain their dignity and personality and independence, with just a little assistance.
"Every day we are out helping. Helping get a dog to a vet. Helping people take showers. Providing a ride to the doctor or a hair appointment. Anything that enhances life and helps keep them independent."
Coonis is known for having spent nights sleeping on the floor of the residences of seniors whose caregivers didn't show up.
"You know that five years to seven years from now a third of the valley population will be over the age of 65?" she asks. "(An executive) of the Sun Valley Co. told us that the average skier on Baldy is now 53 years old."
Coonis and her colleagues know that the impending arrival of the boomer generation—succeeding what Tom Brokaw calls the greatest generation—will bring new social, economic and human challenges to the valley. And to the Senior Connection.
 Kimberly Coonis’s two homes are characterized by laughter and love. During her days at the Senior Connection, she shares in joy and companionship. Express photo by David N. Seelig
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But Coonis, along with her staff and board members and volunteers, are fascinated by the generation that is right now the center of the connector clan.
"They are proud. They don't ask for help. We have a lot of people in their 80s and 90s who talk to their children, a lot of them half way across the country, and say how great they are doing. And the children believe it. They don't know that their mother fell in the shower. Or can barely get out of her chair. These people really don't ask for enough. They think that what they have is all that is owed to them."
America has a peculiar, conflicted relationship with old people. Unlike our grandparents, and those who came from the old countries, our lives today are highly fragmented. Generations of a family do not live together or in close proximity. We are spread across the country, always on the move. Many children grow up only occasionally seeing their grandparents. In the new suburbs they may never see older people.
And that poses a challenge to those committed to serving the older generation. Coonis fears that many people assume that the Senior Connection is populated by fumbling, bewildered oldsters clanking about on their walkers. She frowns at the very thought.
"These are not just old people. They are vital people. They range from 60 to 104, having fun in life. Fascinating, interesting people. Among other things, they also are the history of this valley. We had a woman here who recalled hiding in the outhouse when some Indians came around the ranch. Now that was a lot of years ago. And we throw great parties here. The dancing is not just Glenn Miller. It's the '50s and '60s and '70s and '80s."
Coonis also likes to dispel the notion that her proximity to older people has inured her and her colleagues to death.
"People may think I'm cold about people dying. Hardly. It is hard to lose people close to you, and these people are close to us. We have made their lives better. We've helped them through the tough times. We are not hospice, but we sit with people when they're dying. We smile and hold them. There is no negative to this. When they go, they go with joy. There is a bond of shared joy that transcends the sorrow of death. We owe them this dignity."
The Senior Connection is now extending and modernizing the building on Third Street. It is a comfortable and accessible space but more room will be needed for the boomers, who are not nearly as deferential as their predecessors. Workmen, many of them volunteers, are putting in an exercise room and an ice cream fountain. There is big screen television set for watching films (popcorn provided). A professional kitchen for the meals. And space for the sessions on wellness and exercise and diabetes and blood pressure. The array of issues addressed by the Senior Connection is staggering.
Over the past few years this reporter has been meeting a friend, also a senior, for deliciously unhealthy lunches at Shorty's in Hailey. "You must come with me to lunch at the Senior Connection," she asserts. "There are the best people there. We'll eat healthy and it's good fun." And indeed, as she recently escorted me around the tables at a Senior Connection lunch, I was struck by the vitality and curiosity and engagement of most of the people I was introduced to. And stunned by their ages. Those less nimble physically or mentally were easily absorbed into the vital crowd.
"Being Woman of the Year is a great honor," Coonis said. "But there is a great staff here. Marvelous volunteers. You can't do these things alone. And these (seniors), they are more of a blessing to you than you are to them."
And recently, a miracle was bestowed on her household.
Coonis lives in the China Gardens neighborhood of Hailey with her mother, husband Chet, two sons, Nash, 13, and Zachary, 27, three giant dogs (two St. Bernards and a St. Bernard mix), a snarl of cats and two turtles (one of which hasn't moved for a couple of days).
It is a large, chaotic, loving family, seemingly influenced by the message on a wall plaque hanging above the kitchen:
 At home in Hailey, despite her family’s challenges, the atmosphere is just as welcoming and jovial. (From left, Nash Hartdegen, Chet Hartdegen, Kimberley, Lou Larsen, Zac Gilstrap, front). Express photo by David N. Seelig
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"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. And dance like no one is watching."
And now there is Zac's wheelchair.
Last June 20, Zac was diagnosed with Marburg multiple sclerosis, a swift killer (generally diagnosed in an autopsy) and so rare that, according to one medical document, a neurosurgeon might encounter only one case in an entire career. Within 10 days of the diagnosis Zac lost the ability to walk or hold on to food with his hands.
"By July 10 he didn't know who I was," Coonis recalled. By Sept. 20, he had no verbal communication nor the ability to use any part of his body. But a week before Christmas a dramatic turning point occurred. He slowly began to communicate and then started singing. Everything he communicated was in song. He would sing "I need a glass of water."
"On Christmas day he started singing for 36 hours straight," Coonis said. "He sang all night."
During a recent visit by an Idaho Mountain Express photographer, Zac was perfectly alert and interactive. He could talk and move his head and right arm. And he was watching "Friends" on television. There is no prognosis for Zac. He is unprecedented. And his experience, whatever its outcome, will greatly help the treatment of Marburg patients who come after him.
"What do I do in my free time?" Coonis said. "I take care of my son. That is my free time. He is alive. Most Marburgs are not. Until my son got sick, I went to the beach for a couple of weeks each year. I will get back to that. Someday. Right now, I couldn't do what I do without my husband, mother and Nash. They are there for me at every corner. They make all this happen. I have so much joy in my life.
"I am a blessed person. I believe in miracles."
Photo by David N. Seelig
