Students, Retirees Share Lessons of Time

Sizing up the competition, 13-year-old Raynell Anderson knew her team had little hope of snagging Friday’s billiards championship title.

After all, they were up against Daniel Dansker, a 60-year veteran of the game and once a runner-up in a 1930s pool hall competition in the Bronx. He proved to be no slouch.

Dansker, 80, and his partner, 67-year-old Jeffrey Null, claimed an easy victory over students from Holmes Middle School.

The game was part of an ongoing community service project in which children mingle with seniors at Northridge Gardens retirement home. Several of the 36 students cleaned windows; others chose gardening or arts and crafts.

But nothing was as intense as the pool room as each shot brought a hush over the small crowd.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Raynell said, slightly frustrated as Dansker calmly leaned over the table and sank a ball into the corner pocket.

But Dansker, dressed in light blue pants and sneakers, a fedora on his head, was also quick to give advice to his opponents and help them line up their next shots.

“The more they play, the better they’ll get,” he said.

“And we can learn from you guys,” Christina Molina, 13, said.

For teacher Mike Fuoroli’s seventh-grade class, trips to Northridge Gardens provide a chance to learn beyond the textbook. For the seniors, it helps them to feel young again, Null said.

The children also are planting impatiens and marigolds in the courtyard to brighten it up a little.

Fuoroli said he hopes soon to equip the retirement home with a computer and have students teach their elders about the Internet. In June, the seniors are planning to visit Holmes Middle School to learn a little more about the children’s world.