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Club MED
September 2023
Getting the Band Back Together Songs of the ’70s, Toga Party, and Lots of Good Memories
When a hot jazz tune came on the radio or TV when we were kids, my parents would sometimes jump up and jitterbug on the kitchen linoleum. We cheered. My brothers and I loved seeing our mom and dad twisting and turning to the music. It was fabulously un- parent‑like. My parents grew up poor, so they wanted us to have opportunities. Part of that was signing us up for music lessons. I picked the saxophone, Tom chose the guitar, and Paul was the drummer. When high school came, I joined the South High marching band and attended my first marching practice in the summer of 1976 in the “Hole”— the name for the bowl-shaped practice field at South High. The band instructor at South was Mr. “Red” Travis. I never knew his real first name. When I first met Mr. Travis, I understood why they called him “Red.” Even with the gray, his beard and hair still flamed. It also stunned me that he was the spitting image of Doc Severinsen from “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson. They had the same goatee, mustache, and beard. Both were trumpet players. It was uncanny. Joining band was like joining a family. I was in the concert band, the orchestra with the clarinet and oboe, jazz band, and music theory. I majored in music if you could major in anything in high school. I won the first chair for the state of Nebraska during my senior year. Going through high school, I went to lots of concerts and dances. Mr. Travis had his own band called TRAVIS that performed around Omaha and sometimes played at high school dances. I was mesmerized by the performances. TRAVIS wasn’t like most rock bands. They weren’t “twangers and bangers,” as Mr. Travis used to call them — guitar players and drummers. TRAVIS had trumpets, saxophones, and trombones.
Chicago, Earth Wind & Fire, Eagles, Styx, Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, Tower of Power, Blood Sweat & Tears, and the latest top ten songs. Those were the ’70s. The other day I was looking for something to do. I generally work seven days a week, but it was time to go out with my wife. I had heard about a place before the pandemic that had just opened — The Jewell . The Jewell is a venue for live jazz. It took its name from an old dance hall in North Omaha during the ‘40s and ‘50s. When I looked it up, it was still alive even after the pandemic. I started thumbing through the list of coming performances. That night TRAVIS was playing. I thought it must be a coincidence. Mr. Travis had died over a decade ago, and his kids were older than me. The description of the band and the kind of music they played, however, sounded right. But it wasn’t possible; it was the same band. I needed a night out with my trophy wife, Bev, so I booked some tickets. The band was TRAVIS. The guys I had gone to high school with were on the stage that night. I thought of “The Blues Brothers” movie from when Jake and Elwood said, “We’re getting the band back together.” The night was amazing TRAVIS pounded out the same Chicago tunes we had danced to in the ‘70s. It was a surreal moment. I crossed 40 years in a matter of a couple of tunes. During one of the breaks, Dan Curran came over and said hi. In high school, Dan was a long-haired, blond, Jesus-looking character the girls swooned for whenever he came into a room. He played the “cool” instrument then — the electric bass. That night, Dan strummed out the great bass line from Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4” song, but his golden locks were gone. I think Dan was even balder than me. Hard to tell because he was donning a black fedora.
The band consisted of South High graduates Mr. Travis had taught. They played music from
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Medicare Insurance Made Easy
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AI SCAMS: VOICE CLONING COULD DRAIN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT! With AI capabilities growing daily, you need to be even more vigilant against potential scammers. We’ve already heard about AI’s power to create written content and, more recently, use musicians’ voices to sing different songs. So, how does this relate to scammers? Well, TikTok users and other online users have shared a new scam that utilizes AI to drain the bank accounts of their family members called voice cloning. Scammers looking to steal thousands of dollars will use AI to replicate the voices of people who’ve posted their voices online via videos like TikTok. They’ll clone a person’s voice and then use it to call their relatives and pretend to be their children or grandchildren who need money as soon as possible. The person on the phone is a scammer, not your family member, even though they sound just like them. Never send money without first verifying whether it is or isn’t your relative. Some online users advise creating secret code words to exchange over the phone to confirm their family member is requesting the money. Always contact your relative and ask if they actually made the call. Remember, anyone who has posted a short clip of their voice can find it cloned with AI and used to scam their families. Stay safe!
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situated next to my youngest brother, Paul’s, bedroom window. We let the dogs in and out of the pen through his window. We hid the keg in the doghouse and ran the tap in through the window in case my parents came downstairs. Eventually, Paul got the dogs and took them upstairs with the family. After a few minutes, my dad shouted for me to come up. I stood before my father and asked, “What’s up?” He was smoking his Lucky Strikes in the kitchen. He took a puff, “Do you see the dogs?” he pointed with his cigarette. “What’s wrong with this picture?” The dogs looked happy. Their tails were moving fast. I asked, “Did I forget to feed them?” Then my dad called Ralph over. Ralph got up, stumbled, and fell. He called Beaver, too. Beaver flailed on the kitchen linoleum and couldn’t even stand. I said that I had heard a lot of dogs were getting cerebral palsy nowadays. I could tell my father was not pleased with my diagnosis. He said, “Ok, wise guy.” He took a long drag on the cigarette. “Here’s what’s going to happen.” He pointed at me with his
cigarette finger. “Get rid of the beer. Send your friends home and clean up the mess. Then we’ll talk.” He blew a cloud of smoke in my face. I knew what “we’ll talk” meant. I wasn’t looking forward to it. It turns out there was a leak in the spigot on the keg. My dogs, Ralph and Beaver, sucked down a lot of foam and beer. Betrayed by man’s best friend. We stashed the keg in a snowbank behind the garage in the neighbor’s yard for another toga party the following weekend. I stalled as long as possible but eventually sent everyone home and faced the music. Bev didn’t seem impressed with the story, but I thought it was funny that the toga party was the first thing the Curran boys brought up when we met after 40 years. I hope Red is resting in peace. Mr. Travis and his band were the occasion for a lot of fun times.
Seeing someone after 40 years is quite a unique experience. Before I knew it, Ken, his brother, came out of nowhere. Ken was in the audience. He used to play the trumpet in the South band. The Currans totaled a gang of four handsome Irish boys. All were in the South High band. While I caught up with Dan, Ken told Bev about a series of toga parties I had organized. I thought I had shared everything with Bev about my earlier life. I missed a few episodes, I guess. Ken reminded me of some things I had even forgotten. You may remember the movie “Animal House.” It came out in the summer of my junior year — 1978. I thought togas were artistic, so I put together a couple parties with togas as the dress code. Ken remembered one party at my home that didn’t end well. We snuck a beer keg into the basement of my parents’ house. To hide the keg, we put it in the doghouse. We had a walkout basement, and our dog pen was next to the house. The pen was perfectly
–Christopher J. Grimmond
2 • OmahaInsuranceSolutions.com
TESTIMONIAL “Chris made deciding about Medicare very easy. He returned calls promptly. I appreciate his being readily available.” –Cathy B.
RECERTIFICATION USED TO BE A NIGHTMARE DO OR DIE
The Annual Election Period (AEP) is coming up in October. AEP is when you may change your Medicare prescription drug plan or Medicare Advantage plan. It is also when the plan changes come out. As part of that, all insurance agents who sell Medicare plans must go through a recertification process to be able to offer Medicare plans. The recertification process combines reviewing how Medicare plans work, the rules and regulations around Medicare plans, the compliant ways Medicare plans must be sold, and learning the new rules and product changes. I always hated certification. My first certification was in October of 2012. Certification was much different then. The AHIP (American Health Insurance Plans) test you were required to pass was far more complicated than today. You only had three attempts to pass. If you didn’t pass by the third attempt, you could not sell Medicare plans that year! You were out of the Medicare business for a year and lost your book of business. Hundreds of clients and years of work could evaporate in one instance. The pressure was enormous. All the insurance companies require you to pass the AHIP to sell their products. Further, the insurance companies then had their own program of training and tests for each of their products. The same rules apply to each company. You only have three tries to pass their Medicare plan test. Failure meant you couldn’t sell their products that year. In my first year after I passed the AHIP. I worked through different insurance company trainings. With one company, I had failed the first two attempts. I was in my car on the third and final attempt, killing time between appointments. I thought I had figured out what I had done wrong, so I started my last attempt. It was do or die. My laptop had a “hot spot” connection. Eleven years ago, a hot spot connection was not the most reliable. I was hemming
and hawing over some final questions. I had to leave my car for the next appointment, so I pushed the submit button for the test. My hot spot failed. I had no idea if my test was submitted, whether I lost my last attempt, and/or if I had failed. I went to my appointment. The appointment seemed to last forever. I ran home as fast as possible to check my score online. No luck. I called the insurance company to see if I’d passed, but I was on hold for 15 minutes. Then the call dropped. Remember cellphones 11 years ago? Eventually, the insurance company’s website started working again. When I pulled up my test score, I had passed by the bare minimum on my last attempt. I collapsed on the laptop. Now, certification is nothing in comparison. Insurance companies and Medicare need more and more agents to service the large Medicare population, so they have made certification much more straightforward. But I still suffer from PTSD (post- traumatic stress disorder) from the earlier certification process. I still over-study for the tests. The material is incredibly boring, so recertification is absolute torture reading through all the dull curricula. I generally pass all the tests on the first try with 100%, but I still sweat bullets every time I push the submit button. This year, after the AHIP, there are six insurance companies with over 50 products I will need to test for. Medicare Supplements only require an insurance license to sell. Easy peasy. Sometimes, people will ask why some insurance agents don’t offer Medicare Advantage and Medicare prescription drug plans. The reason is that some agents couldn’t pass the test or didn’t want to risk losing clients because they couldn’t pass the tests. The helpful part is all of the compliance training keeps us on our toes, and I use the changes as topics for my newsletters and website articles. The changes to Medicare and insurance products are not drastic each year, but there are some. Keeping you informed is my mission. I don’t want you to suffer because of some rule or change. I also want to stay out of Medicare jail.
SPICED PECAN PIE BARS Inspired by SouthernLiving.com
Ingredients
Crust • 3 cups all-purpose flour • 1 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed • 3/4 cup powdered sugar • 1 tsp salt Filling • 4 eggs • 1 cup corn syrup • 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar • 1/2 cup honey • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup melted butter • 1 tsp ground cinnamon • 1/2 tsp salt • 1/2 tsp ground ginger • 3 cups chopped pecans Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Use baking spray to grease a 13x9-inch pan before lining with parchment paper. 2. In a food processor, blend crust ingredients until a crumble forms. Press mixture into pan. Bake until light golden brown, about 20 minutes (crust will have cracks). 3. In a bowl, whisk all filling ingredients (except pecans) together until smooth. Stir in pecans and pour over crust. Bake until set, around 30 minutes, then let cool completely in pan.
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INSIDE This Issue
1
Still Facing the Music After 40 Years
2
AI Scams: Voice Cloning Could Drain Your Bank Account!
3
AHIP Tests Gave Me PTSD
3
Testimonial
3
Spiced Pecan Pie Bars
4
Money-Saving Hacks for Your Fall Garden
Step 1: Lay down cardboard. After setting up your raised garden bed, add a layer of cardboard (any type of cardboard will do) to the bottom of it. This layer will prevent weeds lurking in the dirt underneath the cardboard from sprouting and growing in the soil you will add later. Step 2: Add sticks and small logs. Similar to cardboard, adding sticks and logs will prevent weeds and other invasive plants from growing in your garden. And these limbs and twigs will provide much-needed bulk, minimizing the amount of soil needed to fill your containers. Step 3: Sprinkle grass clippings and shredded leaves. Nitrogen and carbon are essential to any garden because plants need nutrients to grow. While you can purchase nitrogen fertilizer at the store, recycling grass clippings and shredded leaves is a cheaper and environmentally friendly alternative. You can also toss food scraps on this layer for additional nutrients! Step 4: Top with soil and compost. Finally, you can begin adding your soil. Because the bed is filled with other materials, you won’t need as much! After applying a good amount of soil, you can add compost to the mix if desired.
Grow a Thriving Garden While Saving Money Be Sure to Follow These Steps!
While it may be the fall season now, the temperature is still warm enough to encourage root growth for a garden! During the fall, you can plant blueberries, broccoli, garlic, radishes, spinach, lettuce, and several flowers such as asters, calendulas, and cosmos. However, planting can become expensive, especially if you have large metal raised beds for your garden. It may take several bags of soil to fill your garden bed, which can quickly put a dent in your wallet. Is there anything you can do to save money?
Yes! Follow these four steps and watch your garden — and greenbacks — flourish.
Once everything is to your liking and your beds are full of soil and nutrients, you’re ready to plant. Happy harvesting, everyone!
4 • OmahaInsuranceSolutions.com
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