MISSION VIEJO : Seniors, Youngsters Find a Lot to Share

Where, the youngster wanted to know, do the people at the Mission Viejo Senior Center sleep at night?

Amanda Greene, a regular at the center, threw back her silver-haired head and laughed.

“Why, we go home and sleep in our beds,” she told the child. “We don’t live here.”

Each Wednesday this summer, seniors will be teaching children how to play table games such as Rummi, Yahtzee and Bunco, which were popular when the youngsters’ parents were young.

But more important, program organizers hope that playful contact with the seniors “will help dispel the myths of aging that kids have,” said Nancy Herrmann, senior center director.

“They think of old people sitting in rocking chairs with nothing to do,” Herrmann said. “That’s not true, particularly for the seniors who come here.”

Rolling dice during a game of Bunco with Greene, Angie Hober thought the senior citizen reminded her a little of her 58-year-old grandfather, who, Angie said, “acts like he’s 13 sometimes.”

“This is a lot of fun,” said the Newhart Middle School student. “I’m coming back next week.”

The weekly game day is a spinoff of a popular program run by Newhart Middle School during the past school year. The school, which is a few hundred yards from the senior citizens’ center, sent students over for a wide variety of activities.

The seniors were a built-in audience for plays and concerts put on by the students at the center. In turn, the children would invite seniors over to the school for events, such as a seminar on how to use computers.

Other events would be planned for both groups, such as a version of “What’s My Line,” in which students tried to guess the former occupations of the seniors.

“A lot of kids signed up to be buddies with some of the seniors,” Herrmann said. “It will be interesting to see how many come back during the summer.”

About 15 children showed up on the first day of the program last week to play games.

“We want this to be a low-key thing,” Herrmann said. “The intent is for everyone to have a relaxed and enjoyable time playing games.”

Florence LeComte and Olga Haysel, who said their ages are somewhere “over the age of consent,” hadn’t expected the children to be around but were delighted to see them.

“I love it; I think it’s fabulous,” LeComte said. “It gets kind of boring when you’re around old people all the time.”

Herrmann said the children are like substitute grandchildren for many of the seniors.

Haysel agreed: “All my kids are raised and my grandchildren are even growing up,” she said. “I really miss having young people around. This is a wonderful idea.”