Reddick Family Web

Nobility, Humility, Loyalty

Retirement health links

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Shifting into retirement mode means having to learn different resources for maintaining health, fitness, and personal finance, and other needs. Each provider has online resources that may include such things as directories of specialists, drugs covered, medical procedures covered, diet and exercise tips, and more. All of our retirement benefits are arranged through the State of Texas Employee Retirement System (ERS).

Each of our major coverage areas (general medical, prescription drugs, vision, and dental) provides us with ink-on-paper handbooks or catalogs, but here’s some annotated links to the online presences of some of these support resources:

  1. United Health Care administers our Medicare Advantage Plan (Medicare Part C). This is done through the Texas Employee Retirement System (ERS), and the name of the plan is “Health Select.” The UHC Health Select website affords a personal dashboard after you login that contains some tracking of your recent medical history, a database of specialists that includes patient ratings, and other useful information. When you first log in, you are asked to decide whether you want to go to the drug side of things (Medicare D) or the doctor side of things (Medicare B and C). Among services available are messaging options, access to FREE over-the-counter products, a professional care decision tree, and the ability to talk to a doctor online, any time.
  2. Silver Sneakers membership is provided with our Medicare Advantage Plan. This affords us free membership in any gym that is affiliated with Silver Sneakers. The website lists gyms in your area that are part of the plan, has articles about fitness and diet as well as specific exercise plans. They also sport online classes, including Zumba and Line Dancing classes that are live streamed.
  3. Vision benefits are provided by Superior Vision under the brand of “State of Texas Vision.” When you are logged in to the website you can find in-network providers, view benefits and eligibility, print an ID card, print forms, and access plan documents. Note: If we need to submit a claim, we can do it through the website once you are logged in. We have a single, shared ID card.
  4. Delta Dental is our provider for routine dental hygiene. The Delta Dental website contains a searchable database of in-network dentists and details on those things covered within the plan. NOTE that implants and certain kinds of oral surgery not covered under the plan may be covered under the UHC advantage plan. We have a single, shared ID card.
  5. Planet Fitness, our Silver Sneaker gym, has a number of informational articles and promotions in its website.
  6. AARP is an activist organization dedicated to the interests of senior citizens. Their website contains articles monitoring legislation, health and fitness research, medicine, diet and other matters of interest for senior citizens. Members have access to premium content in the website and to discounts at a number of venues throughout the country. To get premium access you login using your AARP credentials.
  7. CostPlus Drug Company is Mark Cuban’s consumer-direct prescription company for generics. Should be instructive to compare the prices we are paying to those in Cuban’s site.

Price comparison on drugs

Drug NameUMC PriceCuban Price
Dutasteride 0.5mg 90 ct$30.00NA
Carvedilol 3.125mg 180ct$11.64$11.40
Tamsulosin 0.4mg 180ct$30.00$15.00
Metoprolol ER
Olmesartan/HCTZ 40/25 90ct$30.00$31.80
Ramipril 1.25 Mg 90 ct$26.44$11.10
Erythromycin ointmt 5mg/g, 3.5g$10.00$13.64
Pravastatin 20mg 90ct$15.32$8.40
Finasteride
Rx Price Comparisons

Clear water – freely given

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(ATHENS, OH) We were poring over Daly family memorabilia when cousin Julia served us water from recycled jugs. She bragged about the water quality and promised she would take us to the Appalachian spring where she – and some of her neighbors – harvest their fill at their leisure.

Free Spring Water
Appalachian spring

So Wednesday afternoon we made the short drive up the highway from Athens, past The Plains and Chauncey to Nelsonville and then out to the spring where other other folks were likewise filling jugs. Local citizens have inserted three, three-inch pipes into the hillside spring, built a basin, and created three drive-up slots, labeled “Cars” and “Pick-up trucks” as the only restrictions upon gathering this freely offered resource. The water is wonderful.

Coming as we had from West Texas, we had to be impressed by how green the countryside is – another thing we had let subside into the recesses of old memories from our two years in Ohio.

Before supper, we drove around Athens and shot pictures of the house we lived in 30 years ago, the schools attended by our four youngest children, and other sites in town. The university has added some new buildings and refurbished others. Many downtown buildings have been refurbished since a big fire a few years ago, and some of the houses have had new exterior siding installed. Otherwise, much is the same.

The memorabilia Julia Jane Nehls was turning over to us included a number of photos going back to her parents’ wedding in 1912, some newspaper clippings, a couple of family poems, and a little box that my great-grandmother Elizabeth Fovargue Daly had used to contain sewing notions. There are pictures from a 1984 family reunion in Newark. There’s also a book from Ed and Goldie’s 50th wedding anniversary, some World War I pictures, and a photo of the 1932 Ford coupe that my mother, Julia and Ruth rode in the rumble seat from Ohio to California to Illinois and back to Ohio.

The poems are delightful and reminiscent of the things Nancy’s sister Dianne writes.

All ears for the day

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Getting all three boys to smile at once, to look at the camera at once, and sit still long enough for a picture is something of an accomplishment. The occasion for which the boys were preparing was the annual Easter egg hunt at Clapp Park. That’s the one where scores of volunteers spend weeks stuffing hundreds of plastic eggs with individually wrapped candies so that swarms of children on a given signal can scoop them up in 45 seconds or less.

It’s made a little more interesting because some of the eggs have coupons in them redeemable for REAL prizes. We saw one little girl walk away proud and as excited as possible with a doll beauty parlor set.

So Jude, Cole, and Finn stood in one line (5 and under) with their parents while Connor went to the older kids’ line with his dad, his aunt Heather, and Grandma. Somehow, they all met up in the middle of the park.

Fall is fair time

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Ani ascertained somehow that if we got out to the fairgrounds before 10 a.m. Saturday, admission at least would be free. So there we were – three boys, the baby, Jake, Ani, Ben, Heather, Grandma and Grandpa and one service dog in-training entering the Panhandle South Plains Fairgrounds before all the vendors were functioning, before all the animals were in place, before some of the exhibits were open, and before any of the shows were scheduled.

There was plenty to see and do. And the reduced crowds made the venture more tolerable. We watched some livestock being unloaded, and that was a little too much for the dog. So while Heather tended to an over-agitated trainee, the rest of us wandered first through the poultry exhibits and then over to the children’s barnyard. Not all the boys were thrilled with the animals.

But they did like the rocks that were part of the landscaping and the enjoyed the cuisine over at the midway and generally had a grand time.

About Eldorado

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An explanation of the “Eldorado” category on this site …

As with some other terms in literature and scripture the term “Eldorado” as used in the Reddick Family Web has many layers of meaning.

“Eldorado” may refer to a king, a kingdom, a legendary city of gold that inspired the quests of explorers who mapped out portions of the New World. It may refer to any number of real cities formed in Texas or other states. It may refer to an automobile designed by Cadillac in the 1950s to be an expression of the ultimate luxury car. It may refer to the quest itself for the legendary city. In that company, it may be emblematic of a great quest or of an impossible dream. To us, it is all these things.

As Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? All right, then I contradict myself!”

This category of postings in the Reddick Family Web is Grandpa R’s exclusive place for posting meditations on the verities of life. It is a collection of truths about happiness garnered from more than seven decades of tilting at windmills, seeking Eldorado, collecting sunrises, setting the perfect sail, and chasing the Big Wave.