I have been experiencing some very personal revelations regarding exercise for people over 60, and have met some amazing seniors doing great things in creating quality of life. And friends, whether or not exercise adds a single day to your life is almost irrelevant. Its not about longevity, its about quality. And even though I started by mentioning people over 60, 40- and 50-year-olds should pay attention, too.

In the past 12 weeks I have shed another 20 lbs., raising my total to a 45 lb. weight loss. I have not starved myself, and I have not suffered. I feel incredibly younger, stronger and with more mental clarity and work productivity. I have more energy for my family and friends, and I can keep a better pace with the grandkids. My blood sugar and blood pressure have totally normalized. I am sleeping better, and feel happier on a day-to-day basis. These benefits are called NSVs, or Non-Scale Values, which is just another way of saying quality of life.

OK, so thats me. Maybe Im special. But really, I am not. Average individuals are discovering functional capacity that they never thought they would achieve. One 88-year-old friend started doing one simple exercise coming to a standing position from a chair using just her legs. She walks with a walker for stability, but now has the strength to rise up and down from the chair 10 times. When she started, she could barely do one.

There are many ways to improve your health. I have recently met people in an online group in their 40s who have lost more than 100 lbs., even more than 200 lbs. through diet and weight training without bariatric surgery.

There is overwhelming evidence that diet and exercise are the two most powerfully beneficial drugs that you can take. There is also powerful evidence that weight training for seniors is beneficial at every age.

As a senior, you are not just trying to get in shape. You are seeking to change your life habits, to do so enjoyably, to incorporate good nutritional advice in an exercise program thats right for you, and most importantly, to do so without injuring yourself. These things are best accomplished in a supportive environment. I know that I needed that support to get me going. In the beginning, my goal was simple I was well on my way to becoming a Type 2 diabetic, and having watched both my mother and father have their lives very limited by diabetes, I finally reached the point where I said Enough! I am not doing that!

Now I have no concern at all about diabetes, and have discovered a huge list of positive non-scale quality of life values that keep me happy and motivated every day, and I am in a group of more than 100 other people who are all doing the same.

Here are some local resources to help you get started. If you email me, I will send you a list of valuable online sources for education and support.

Central Lincoln County YMCA Damariscotta, 563-3477Boothbay Region YMCA, 633-2855Bath Area Family YMCA, 443-4112Landing YMCA, Brunswick, 844-2801Casco Bay YMCA, Freeport, 865-9600Womans Fitness Center Brunswick, 729-5544Body Symmetry Pilates Studio Brunswick, 729-1122Orange Circuit Fitness Brunswick, 725-2944Ocean Blue Fitness Damariscotta,563-2668

Steve Raymond is director of community outreach at the Lincoln Home in Newcastle, and the producer and host of the television show Spotlight on Seniors. Jill Wallace is the owner and director of Elm Street Assisted Living in Topsham.

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Quality of life increases with diet & exercise - The Coastal Journal

By Marlene Cimons, The Washington Post

Exercise by itself wont help you lose weight.

This is not to say that exercise isnt good for you; it is, in fact, great for you. It conveys an astonishing array of health benefits.

But and we all hate hearing this many experts, while extolling the benefits of exercise, say the primary villain when it comes to excess weight is whats on our menu. To lose weight, we have to cut calories.

Exercise helps keep lost pounds off, but exercise alone cant do the initial job of losing it.

I think the role of exercise in weight loss is highly overrated, says Marc Reitman, chief of the diabetes, endocrinology and obesity branch of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, or NIDDK. I think its really great for being healthy, but Im a strong believer that overeating is what causes obesity. To exercise your way out of overeating is impossible.

Michael Joyner, a Mayo Clinic researcher who studies how people respond to the stress of exercise, agrees. The key for weight loss is to generate and maintain a calorie deficit, he says. Its pretty easy to get people to eat 1,000 calories less per day, but to get them to do 1,000 calories per day of exercise walking 10 miles is daunting at many levels, including time and motivation, he says.

To be sure, some people can work weight off, experts say. These include those who exercise vigorously for long periods, and professional athletes, who typically engage in high-intensity workouts.

But they are the exceptions. Those high-level workouts are not something most people do, says Philip F. Smith, co-director of NIDDKs office of obesity research. Walking for an hour wont do it.

Joyner agrees. Theoretically, people can exercise enough to lose without changing what they eat, but they have to exercise a whole lot, he says.

Moreover, moderate exercise doesnt really burn all that many calories, especially when you think about a single piece of chocolate cake, which has between 200 and 500 calories. Most people burn only about 100 calories for every mile of running or walking, although this can vary depending on the person, according to Joyner. Put another way, to lose one pound, you must run a deficit of about 3,500 calories meaning that if you burn an excess 500 calories a day, it would take a week to drop that pound.

Kevin D. Hall, an NIDDK scientist who studies how metabolism and the brain adapt to diet and exercise, agrees that a modest degree of weight loss would require large amounts of exercise. However, high levels of physical activity seem to be very important for maintenance of lost weight, he adds, defining high as more than an hour of exercise daily.

In a recent study, Hall concluded that exercise typically result[s] in less average weight loss than expected, based on the exercise calories expended, and that individual weight changes are highly variable even when people stick to exercise regimens.

The likely reason is that people tend to compensate for changes in food intake and non-exercise physical activities, Hall wrote. Or, as Joyner puts it: If people replace non-exercise but otherwise active time with sedentary time, sometimes things cancel out.

Strength training or resistance training lifting weights, for example also is important for overall health, but, as with other forms of exercise, it doesnt prompt weight loss. (In fact, it may cause the reading on the scale to inch up a bit, because muscle is denser than fat.) Nevertheless, strength training is good to maintain lean tissue, Joyner says.

And you cant count on exercise to increase your metabolism for several hours afterward.

Exercise, if hard enough and long enough, certainly can do this, Joyner says. But again, it depends on how much, what type and how hard. A two-mile stroll, while a good thing, will not do too much to resting metabolism.

But now the good news: Exercise remains one of the best things you can do for yourself. It enhances health in numerous ways.

It strengthens the heart and lungs. It reduces the risk of Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, a collection of symptoms that include hypertension, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels.

Weight-bearing activities, such as running, strengthen bones and muscles. Having strong bones prevents osteoporosis, helping to avert bone-breaking falls in the elderly. For older people, exercise facilitates the capacity for them to stay engaged in life, Joyner says.

Exercise also reduces the risk of certain cancers, including breast and colon cancer. It elevates mood, and it keeps thinking and judgment skills sharp.

Overall, it helps you live longer. People who work out for about seven hours a week have a 40 percent lower risk of dying early compared with those who exercise less than 30 minutes a week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Exercise in almost any dose does so many good things for people, Joyner says.

Is one exercise more effective than another?

I love to play soccer, Smith says. I would do anything to play soccer, and try to play three times a week until my body cant take it. But people should exercise as much as they can tolerate and enjoy. Thats what they should shoot for.

Reitman agrees. The best exercise is the one you keep doing, he says.

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Exercising is good, but calories are what count for losing weight - The Denver Post

Who doesn't wish they had a body like a celeb, let alone the drop-dead gorgeous figure of 48-year-old actress Jennifer Aniston? Seriously, what does she do to look completely amazing?! Recently, Jennifer sat down with Now To Love and revealed her diet and exercise secrets and because of her confessions, were officially dubbing the super-relaxed star "Zen Jen."

Along with her personal trainer, at-home, sleeping bag-style saunas (yes, really), and using the treadmill, Jen is also all about finding her inner-chill through strength-conditioning classes that are as physically effective as they are mindfully meditative and she has the mind, body, and soul to prove it. Scroll down to see Jen's diet and exercise routine!

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Mixing things up throughout the year, Jen explained that 2017 is about being back in the gym and sweating it out with an interval-loving personal trainer. Im working with my trainer who has me pushing really heavy things, throwing heavy things, whipping around ropes, and crawling across the floor, she said. Hes a fabulous trainer, but its very different to what I usually do.

(Photo Credit: Splash News)

The Horrible Bosses star continued to say, "I love The Class by Taryn Toomey, [which is a yoga-based strength class also described as a cathartic mind-body experience]. Its like a massive moving meditation thats therapeutic and physical it ticks all the boxes. Its 75-minutes long and its a pretty powerful experience," she said.

Aside from her personal training sessions and The Class, Jen has a few at-home workout tips for those among us who are too busy to make it to a group-training class. Ill run on a treadmill and do intervals for 45 minutes just to get a really good sweat and burn going, she continued, adding that along with getting her heart rate up, she finds a calming, rejuvenating solace in infrared saunas. You can buy portable ones online, she said, but I do think they have them in spas now. Its like jumping into an infrared sleeping bag for an hour, which does so much good for your cellular rejuvenation and detoxification.

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Appearing in movie after movie (and, sometimes, bikini after bikini), Jen maintains a regular diet thats loaded with the kind of good-for-you foods that all of us probably have in our very own kitchens and pantries. I was never a breakfast person, so Ive had to make myself become a breakfast person because its such an important meal, she said. Usually a smoothie would be my best go-to in the morning because its simple and easy. In the cooler months, I love oatmeal with cinnamon and bananas.

Her typical lunch involves eating protein with salad or vegies, followed by a snack like an apple and a soup. Dinner is much of the same for Jen, but she wont deny herself a treat afterwards! I treat myself to a frozen yogurt for dessert if I want to have a sweet fix, she said. I do a little frozen yogurt, but Im not a sweet person. My downfall is savory: its chips, its cheese all of the salty and savory stuff. I mean, I can look at a chocolate cake and do nothing with it; it doesnt affect me in any way. Lucky for her!

MORE: Weight Loss Wednesday Marianna Lost 123 Pounds to be a Healthy Example for Her Daughters!

Mindfulness, it truly is a powerful thing (trust us, science says so), which is something Zen Jen can certainly attest to, with this perpetually busy celebrity admitting that understanding why you work out is imperative for achieving the results of the workout you choose to do.

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

Its vital to exercise not just to stay strong, to not become lazy. Its such a game-changer if I have an injury and I cant sweat or move my body, I just start to feel such a difference in my mood, she said, explaining that exercising extends far further than solely focusing on your abs or core. I dont know what it is, but theres something about meditation that gives me such a charge in the morning for me to take on the day things will just roll off me in a much easier way.

This post was written by Ellie McDonald It originally appeared on our sister site, Now to Love.

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Jennifer Aniston Dishes on Her Diet and Exercise Secrets (Grab a Pen and Take Notes, People!) - Closer Weekly

Though there is still debate surrounding the so-called French Paradox, a new study draws a concrete connection between a component of red wine and anti-aging effects.

A recent study from The Journals of Gerontologyrevealed that resveratrol, a compound found in the skin of red grapes and in red wine, shares many of the same benefits as a drug prescribed to fight Type 2 diabetes called metformin.

Specifically, both resveratrol and metformin have many of the same neuroprotective benefits that come from a low-calorie diet and exercise. Additionally, study researchers found that the wine component, resveratrol, also preserves muscle fibers during aging.

We all slow down as we get older, Gregorio Valdez, an assistant professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute who worked on the study, toldKnowridge Science Report.

We work on identifying molecular changes that slow down motor deficits that occur with aging. I believe that we are getting closer to tapping into mechanisms to slow age-induced degeneration of neuronal circuits.

To test the effect of resveratrol, researchers treated older mice with the compound for one year and studied their movements. Just as the optimum diet and exercise can improve muscle preservation and aging effects, Valdez found that resveratrol has similar benefits in the test mice.

Though resveratrol was effective for the study, Valdez says theres no way anybody could drink enough red wine to yield similar results. In fact, right now that much resveratrol in your system might not even be safe.

These studies are in mice and I would caution anyone from blasting their bodies with resveratrol in any form, Valdez said.

In wine, resveratrol is in such small amounts you could not drink enough of it in your life to have the benefits we found in mice given resveratrol.

Well, thats disappointing. Nonetheless, there are still other studies that link red wine to better cholesteroland tofighting obesity, so there are still plenty of reasons to pop that cork.

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Study: A red wine component has similar anti-aging benefits to diet and exercise - PhillyVoice.com

Rookie quarterback DeShone Kizer tossed the game-winning touchdown pass to help lift the Browns over the Saints in last weeks preseason opener.

Defensive end and No. 1 overall NFL Draft pick Myles Garrett had a tackle-for-loss and hurry that forced New Orelans off the field.

Briean Boddy-Calhouns goal line stop on fourth down sent Clevelands sidelines into a frenzy. Former practice squad member Trevon Coleys strip-sack set up a Browns touchdown.

All of these things were what second-year head coach Hue Jackson described as small victories in awide-ranging interview with MMQBs Peter King.

Those little wins, he said, ultimately can add up to something big.I think when we talk about it, its making sure that our players the guys who are our core players lets find a way to let them have personal success, Jackson told King on a podcast following a 20-14 win against New Orleans.We don't know what its going to look like as a team. We know where we want our team to look like and be, but if players can start getting personal wins, then they turn into unit wins and then they turn into team wins.

Thosecomments echo what Browns owner Jimmy Haslamsaid while meeting with the news media earlier this month.

Wins and losses are a part of it theres no doubt about that but I think its how our team performs, how do we come back and do we win close games? he said.

Do we come from behind and win a game? Do we beat a good team? Do we win a game on the road? Are our younger players getting better? Both Hue and (chief strategy officer) Paul (DePodesta) talk about small wins.

After a 1-15 campaign in 2016 that saw one of the leagues youngest rosters struggle, the Browns are poised to improve this fall with a significantly retooled roster.

They re-signed key players like Jamie Collins Sr., Joel Bitonio and Christian Kirksey, fortified their offensive line in free agency and curated a promising NFL Draft class that includes Garrett and two more first-round picks in do-everything safety Jabrill Peppers and tight end David Njoku.

Jackson reflected on his first year with the Browns and why hes optimistic Cleveland is heading down a path that'll help it snap a string of disappointing seasons.

We have to get this done. That's something Dee and Jimmy and our executive team talk about all the time. We have to get this right, Jackson said. There's not a thought that we won't, that we have to for our fans, for the players, for this organization, this once-proud organization that people need to look at and say, 'Hey these guys are doing something great.'

"But at the same time, we understand that it doesn't just happen overnight, that there's a process to this and I know sometimes that's a hard word for (the fans) because I think theyve heard that so much. They want to see results.

Jackson believes last weeks win regardless of the stakes was a good example of what happens when small victories add up to something more.

Its small victories like tonight that says to them, OK, things are turning.' Because a year ago, we probably wouldnt have won that game there at the end and probably couldnt finish it that way and come out with the victory and we did regardless of who was out there playing or whatever it was," he said.

That was significant improvement from last year to this year. So hopefully they can see the small victories that are happening within the organization and theyll see that those small victories are turning into bigger victories and will hopefully one day turn into championships.

Read the rest here:
Why 'small victories' can add up to something big for Browns - ClevelandBrowns.com

As a spokesman for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Mr. Lewis raised vast sums for charity; as a filmmaker of great personal force and technical skill, he made many contributions to the industry, including the invention in 1960 of a device the video assist, which allowed directors to review their work immediately on the set still in common use.

A mercurial personality who could flip from naked neediness to towering rage, Mr. Lewis seemed to contain multitudes, and he explored all of them. His ultimate object of contemplation was his own contradictory self, and he turned his obsession with fragmentation, discontinuity and the limits of language into a spectacle that enchanted children, disturbed adults and fascinated postmodernist critics.

Jerry Lewis was born on March 16, 1926, in Newark. Most sources, including his 1982 autobiography, Jerry Lewis: In Person, give his birth name as Joseph Levitch. But Shawn Levy, author of the exhaustive 1996 biography King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis, unearthed a birth record that gave his first name as Jerome.

CreditPhilippe Halsman/Magnum Photos

His parents, Danny and Rae Levitch, were entertainers his father a song-and-dance man, his mother a pianist who used the name Lewis when they appeared in small-time vaudeville and at Catskills resort hotels. The Levitches were frequently on the road and often left Joey, as he was called, in the care of Raes mother and her sisters. The experience of being passed from home to home left Mr. Lewis with an enduring sense of insecurity and, as he observed, a desperate need for attention and affection.

An often bored student at Union Avenue School in Irvington, N.J., he began organizing amateur shows with and for his classmates, while yearning to join his parents on tour. During the winter of 1938-39, his father landed an extended engagement at the Hotel Arthur in Lakewood, N.J., and Joey was allowed to go along. Working with the daughter of the hotels owners, he created a comedy act in which they lip-synced to popular recordings.

By his 16th birthday, Joey had dropped out of Irvington High and was aggressively looking for work, having adopted the professional name Jerry Lewis to avoid confusion with the nightclub comic Joe E. Lewis. He performed his record act solo between features at movie theaters in northern New Jersey, and soon moved on to burlesque and vaudeville.

In 1944 a 4F classification kept him out of the war he was performing at the Downtown Theater in Detroit when he met Patti Palmer, a 23-year-old singer. Three months later they were married, and on July 31, 1945, while Patti was living with Jerrys parents in Newark and he was performing at a Baltimore nightclub, she gave birth to the first of the couples six sons, Gary, who in the 1960s had a series of hit records with his band Gary Lewis and the Playboys. The couple divorced in 1980.

Between his first date with Ms. Palmer and the birth of his first son, Mr. Lewis had met Dean Martin, a promising young crooner from Steubenville, Ohio. Appearing on the same bill at the Glass Hat nightclub in Manhattan, the skinny kid from New Jersey was dazzled by the sleepy-eyed singer, who seemed to be everything he was not: handsome, self-assured and deeply, unshakably cool.

When they found themselves on the same bill again at another Manhattan nightclub, the Havana-Madrid, in March 1946, they started fooling around in impromptu sessions after the evenings last show. Their antics earned the notice of Billboard magazine, whose reviewer wrote, Martin and Lewis do an afterpiece that has all the makings of a sock act, using showbiz slang for a successful show.

Mr. Lewis must have remembered those words when he was booked that summer at the 500 Club in Atlantic City. When the singer on the program dropped out, he pushed the clubs owner to hire Mr. Martin to fill the spot. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Martin cobbled together a routine based on their after-hours high jinks at the Havana-Madrid, with Mr. Lewis as a bumbling busboy who kept breaking in on Mr. Martin dropping trays, hurling food, cavorting like a monkey without ever ruffling the singers sang-froid.

The act was a success. Before the weeks end, they were drawing crowds and winning mentions from Broadway columnists. That September, they returned to the Havana-Madrid in triumph.

Bookings at bigger and better clubs in New York and Chicago followed, and by the summer of 1948 they had reached the pinnacle, headlining at the Copacabana on the Upper East Side of Manhattan while playing one show a night at the 6,000-seat Roxy Theater in Times Square.

The phenomenal rise of Martin and Lewis was like nothing show business had seen before. Partly this was because of the rise of mass media after the war, when newspapers, radio and the emerging medium of television came together to create a new kind of instant celebrity. And partly it was because four years of war and its difficult aftermath were finally lifting, allowing America to indulge a long-suppressed taste for silliness. But primarily it was the unusual chemical reaction that occurred when Martin and Lewis were side by side.

Mr. Lewiss shorthand definition for their relationship was sex and slapstick. But much more was going on: a dialectic between adult and infant, assurance and anxiety, bitter experience and wide-eyed innocence that generated a powerful image of postwar America, a gangly young country suddenly dominant on the world stage.

Among the audience members at the Copacabana was the producer Hal Wallis, who had a distribution deal through Paramount Pictures. Other studios were interested more so after Martin and Lewis began appearing on live television but it was Mr. Wallis who signed them to a five-year contract.

He started them off slowly, slipping them into a low-budget project already in the pipeline. Based on a popular radio show, My Friend Irma (1949) starred Marie Wilson as a ditsy blonde and Diana Lynn as her levelheaded roommate, with Martin and Lewis providing comic support. The film did well enough to generate a sequel, My Friend Irma Goes West (1950), but it was not until At War With the Army (1951), an independent production filmed outside Mr. Walliss control, that the team took center stage.

This group of films demonstrates the breadth of Lewiss talent as an actor, comedian and director.

At War With the Army codified the relationship that ran through all 13 subsequent Martin and Lewis films, positing the pair as unlikely pals whose friendship might be tested by trouble with money or women (usually generated by Mr. Martins character), but who were there for each other in the end.

The films were phenomenally successful, and their budgets quickly grew. Some were remakes of Paramount properties Bob Hopes 1940 hit The Ghost Breakers, for example, became Scared Stiff (1953) while other projects were more adventurous.

Thats My Boy (1951), The Stooge (1953) and The Caddy (1953) approached psychological drama with their forbidding father figures and suggestions of sibling rivalry; Mr. Lewis had a hand in the writing of each. Artists and Models (1955) and Hollywood or Bust (1956) were broadly satirical looks at American popular culture under the authorial hand of the director Frank Tashlin, who brought a bold graphic style and a flair for wild sight gags to his work. For Mr. Tashlin, Mr. Lewis became a live-action extension of the anarchic characters, like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, he had worked with as a director of Warner Bros. cartoons.

Mr. Tashlin also functioned as a mentor to Mr. Lewis, who was fascinated with the technical side of filmmaking. Mr. Lewis made 16-millimeter sound home movies and by 1949 was enlisting celebrity friends for short comedies with titles like How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border. These were amateur efforts, but Mr. Lewis was soon confident enough to advise veteran directors like George Marshall (Money From Home) and Norman Taurog (Living It Up) on questions of staging. With Mr. Tashlin, he found a director both sympathetic to his style of comedy and technically adept.

But as his artistic aspirations grew and his control over the films in which he appeared increased, Mr. Lewiss relationship with Mr. Martin became strained. As wildly popular as the team remained, Mr. Martin had come to resent Mr. Lewiss dominant role in shaping their work and spoke of reviving his solo career as a singer. Mr. Lewis felt betrayed by the man he still worshiped as a role model, and by the time filming began on Hollywood or Bust they were barely speaking.

After a farewell performance at the Copacabana on July 25, 1956, 10 years to the day after they had first appeared together in Atlantic City, Mr. Martin and Mr. Lewis went their separate ways.

For Mr. Lewis, an unexpected success mitigated the trauma of the breakup. His recording of Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody, belted in a style that suggested Al Jolson, became a Top 10 hit, and the album on which it appeared, Jerry Lewis Just Sings, climbed to No. 3 on the Billboard chart, outselling anything his former partner had released.

Reassured that his public still loved him, Mr. Lewis returned to filmmaking with the low-budget, semidramatic The Delicate Delinquent and then shifted into overdrive for a series of personal appearances, beginning at the Sands in Las Vegas and culminating with a four-week engagement at the Palace in New York. He signed a contract with NBC for a series of specials and renewed his relationship with the Muscular Dystrophy Association a charity that he and Mr. Martin had long supported by hosting a 19-hour telethon.

Mr. Lewis made three uninspired films to complete his obligation to Hal Wallis. He saved his creative energies for the films he produced himself. The first three of those films Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958), The Geisha Boy (1958) and Cinderfella (1960) were directed by Mr. Tashlin. After that, finally ready to assume complete control, Mr. Lewis persuaded Paramount to take a chance on The Bellboy (1960), a virtually plotless hommage to silent-film comedy that he wrote, directed and starred in, playing a hapless employee of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach.

It was the beginning of Mr. Lewiss most creative period. During the next five years, he directed five more films of remarkable stylistic assurance, including The Ladies Man (1961), with its huge multistory set of a womens boardinghouse, and, most notably, The Nutty Professor (1963), a variation on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in which Mr. Lewis appeared as a painfully shy chemistry professor and his dark alter ego, a swaggering nightclub singer.

With their themes of fragmented identity and their experimental approach to sound, color and narrative structure, Mr. Lewiss films began to attract the serious consideration of iconoclastic young critics in France. At a time when American film was still largely dismissed by American critics as purely commercial and devoid of artistic interest, Mr. Lewiss work was held up as a prime example of a personal filmmaker functioning happily within the studio system.

The Nutty Professor, a study in split personality that is as disturbing as it is hilarious, is probably the most honored and analyzed of Mr. Lewiss films. (It was also his personal favorite.) For some critics, the opposition between the helpless, infantile Professor Julius Kelp and the coldly manipulative lounge singer Buddy Love represented a spiteful revision of the old Martin-and-Lewis dynamic. But Buddy seems more pertinently a projection of Mr. Lewiss darkest fears about himself: a version of the distant, unloving father whom Mr. Lewis had never managed to please as a child, and whom he both despised and desperately wanted to be.

The Nutty Professor transcends mere pathology by placing that division within the cultural context of the Kennedy-Hefner-Sinatra era. Buddy Love was what the midcentury American male dreamed of becoming; Julius Kelp was what, deep inside, he suspected he actually was.

The Nutty Professor was a hit. But the studio era was coming to an end, Mr. Lewiss audience was growing old, and by the time he and Paramount parted ways in 1965 his career was in crisis. He tried casting himself in more mature, sophisticated roles for example, as a prosperous commercial artist in Three on a Couch, which he directed for Columbia in 1966. But the public was unconvinced.

He seemed more himself in the multi-role chase comedy The Big Mouth (1967) and the World War II farce Which Way to the Front? (1970). But his blend of physical comedy and pathos was quickly going out of style in a Hollywood defined by the countercultural irony of The Graduate and MASH. After The Day the Clown Cried, his audacious attempt to direct a comedy-drama set in a Nazi concentration amp, collapsed in litigation in 1972, Mr. Lewis was absent from films for eight years. In that dark period, he struggled with an addiction to the pain killer Percodan.

Hardly Working, an independent production that Mr. Lewis directed in Florida, was released in Europe in 1980 and in the United States in 1981. It referred to Mr. Lewiss marginalized position by casting him as an unemployed circus clown who finds fulfillment in a mundane job with the post office. For Roger Ebert, writing in The Chicago Sun-Times, Hardly Working was one of the worst movies ever to achieve commercial release in this country, but the film found moderate success in the United States and Europe and has since earned passionate defenders.

A follow-up in 1983, Smorgasbord (also known as Cracking Up), proved a misfire, and Mr. Lewis never directed another feature film. He did, however, enjoy a revival as an actor, thanks largely to his powerful performance in a dramatic role in Martin Scorseses The King of Comedy (1982) as a talk-show host kidnapped by an aspiring comedian (Robert De Niro) desperate to become a celebrity. He appeared in the television series Wiseguy in 1988 and 1989 as a garment manufacturer threatened by the mob, and was memorable in character roles in Emir Kusturicas Arizona Dream (1993) and Peter Chelsoms Funny Bones (1995). Mr. Lewis played Mr. Applegate (a.k.a. the Devil) in a Broadway revival of the musical Damn Yankees in 1995 and later took the show on an international tour.

Although he retained a preternaturally youthful appearance for many years, Mr. Lewis had a series of serious illnesses in his later life, including prostate cancer, pulmonary fibrosis and two heart attacks. Drug treatments caused his weight to balloon alarmingly, though he recovered enough to continue performing well into the new millennium. He was appearing in one-man shows as recently as 2016.

Through it all, Mr. Lewis continued his charity work, serving as national chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association and, beginning in 1966, hosting the associations annual Labor Day weekend telethon. Although some advocates for the rights of the disabled criticized the associations Jerrys Kids campaign as condescending, the telethon raised about $2 billion during the more than 40 years he was host.

For reasons that remain largely unexplained but were apparently related to a disagreement with the associations president, Gerald C. Weinberg, the 2010 telethon was Mr. Lewiss last he had been scheduled to make an appearance on the 2011 telethon but did not and he had no further involvement with the charity until 2016, when he lent his support via a promotional video. (The telethon was shortened and eventually discontinued.)

During the 1976 telethon, Frank Sinatra staged an on-air reunion between Mr. Lewis and Mr. Martin, to the visible discomfort of both men. A more lasting reconciliation came in 1987, when Mr. Lewis attended the funeral of Mr. Martins oldest son, Dean Paul Martin Jr., a pilot in the California Air National Guard who had been killed in a crash. They continued to speak occasionally until Mr. Martin died in 1995.

In 2005, Mr. Lewis collaborated with James Kaplan on Dean and Me (A Love Story), a fond memoir of his years with Mr. Martin in which he placed most of the blame for their breakup on himself. Among Mr. Lewiss other books was The Total Film-Maker, a compendium of his lectures at the film school of the University of Southern California, where he taught, beginning in 1967.

In 1983, Mr. Lewis married SanDee Pitnick, and in 1992 their daughter, Danielle Sara, was born. Besides his wife and daughter, survivors include his sons Christopher, Scott, Gary and Anthony, and several grandchildren.

Although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences never honored Mr. Lewis for his film work, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his charitable activity in 2009. His many other honors included two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame one for his movie work, the other for television and an induction into the Lgion dHonneur, awarded by the French government in 2006.

In 2015, the Library of Congress announced that it had acquired Mr. Lewiss personal archives. In a statement, he said, Knowing that the Library of Congress was interested in acquiring my lifes work was one of the biggest thrills of my life.

Mr. Lewis was officially recognized as a towering figure in cinema at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. The festivals tribute to him included the screening of a preliminary cut of Max Rose, Mr. Lewiss first movie in almost 20 years, in which he starred as a recently widowed jazz pianist in search of answers about his past. The film did not have its United States premiere until 2016, when it was shown as part of a Lewis tribute at the Museum of Modern Art. Also in 2016, he appeared briefly as the father of Nicolas Cages character in the crime drama The Trust.

In 2012, Mr. Lewis directed a stage musical in Nashville based on The Nutty Professor. The show, with a score by Marvin Hamlisch and book and lyrics by Rupert Holmes, never made it to Broadway, but Mr. Lewis relished the challenge of directing for the stage, a first for him.

Theres something about the risk, the courage that it takes to face the risk, he told The New York Times. Im not going to get greatness unless I have to go at it with fear and uncertainty.

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Jerry Lewis, Mercurial Comedian and Filmmaker, Dies at 91 - New York Times

If theres a lingering criticism to be made of Halt And Catch Fires storytelling going into this fourth and final season, its that the shows underlying schematics arent always gracefully integrated into the drama. Id say its programmatic, if youd allow a computer pun this early in the season. Still, in telling the interconnected stories of four characters who forge their identities through technology, perhaps thats less a bug than a feature. (Last pun, I promise.)

Cameron Howe, explaining why she wont allow the company to include instructions with her newest game, the immersive, enigmatic Pilgrim, exclaims, This isnt a game you play. Its a game you live. Back in California after nearly three years working on the game in Japan, she cant hide her contempt that all the recruited game-testers care about are the then-new blood and guts of Mortal Kombat. You cant even kill anything, whines one, frustrated at Pilgrims open-world exploration. (To be fair, the fact that solving one random puzzle sends you back to the beginning of the game is an example of Cameron pushing her game as life metaphor to the limits of gamers patience.) Cameron loves all kinds of games (Battle mode?, she asks Gordon after waking up to the sounds of him playing Mario Kart after sleeping on his living room floor), but her own games (Space Bike, Pilgrim) are acts of self-expression, and self-exploration.

Donna Emerson (ne Clark, now comfortably sharing custody with ex-husband Gordon while relishing the freedom of being in the drivers seat of an on-demand affair with a handsome lover) has solidified her corporate position, doling out (and cutting off) funding for teams of techies desperate for her largesse. Donna sought to break out of her traditional role as supportive wife and motherand den mother to Cameron and the unruly gang at now-defunct Mutiny. And she has, patterning her career path after successful friend-turned-peer Diane. We see the two women secretly mocking the new (male) hire promoted above them, and Donna, her morning smoothies concocted and served up by her eager and overqualified assistant Tanya (new cast addition Sasha Morfaw), crisply insists that those seeking funding wow her with the next big idea. I was really rooting for you guys, she says offhandedly before walking out of one meeting, leaving the flustered underachievers wondering if theyve just been cut off. (They have.) Donna was shunted into the responsible (or killjoy) role much of the time at Mutiny, but now she has the power to turn the faucet on or off. After theyre defunded, we see the tech team childishly lashing out at each other (Dont touch me!) in the background while Donna sits serenely inside her glass-fronted office. If shes to be the one in charge of bickering would-be computer geniuses, now she can simply dismiss them when they become too much trouble.

Gordon Clark remains the core groups functional fuckup. Having built up the company he, Joe, and Cameron embarked upon at the end of season three into a stable (if not thriving) internet provider concern, he seems at peace with his level of professional and personal success, much as weve seen him at various points in the series. When Gordon fails to recognize the need to risk security for the lighting-strike genius of Joes nascent idea of Google, essentially, Joe accuses Gordon of sleepwalking. Youre trying to convince yourself that its all right to stop, Joe tells him, further entreating, Youre a builder, you need to build. But Gordons gearhead brilliance has always sought to stall out somewhere comfortable, and here, throwing himself an over-lavish company party for his 40th birthday (complete with performance by the Blue Man Group, who messily use the body-condom-ed Gordon as a human paintbrush), he urges Joe to abandon his traditional head-in-the-clouds thinking in favor of helping their company (CalNect) fight off the encroaching tidal wave of free AOL discs that threatens to sweep smaller providers like them right out of town.

As for Joe MacMillan, getting his head back in those clouds means emerging from the CalNect basement, where hes been ensconced for the three years since we last saw everyone. Season four opens with a showily impressive eight-minute sequence revealing how the promise of the Joe-Cameron-Gordon team splintered almost immediately, with the pained Gordon watching helplessly (via tracking shots, sly dissolves, and gradual lighting and scenery changes) as Cameron returns to Japan (and husband Tom), leaving Joe and Gordon to work long-distance attempting to get their visionary browser Lodestar to market first. (They fail, beaten by real-life online pioneer Mosaic.) Confronting the returned Cameron in his Post-It-festooned workspace (Joes been meticulously tracking every new website he can by hand), he blames her distance (in every sense) for the failure, snapping, If we had worked on this, together, it could have been amazing.

And it could have beenGordon admits that Joe and poor Ryan had been right about the coming of the open internet, but pleads that Joe simply enjoy the benefits of having been right. Joe buys in for a while, allowing traces of his old, take-charge demeanor to emerge during a board meetingbefore uncharacteristically deferring to Gordon. But a stray parting thought from Cameron about the need to catalog the exponentially expanding number of websites sends Joes mind, again, spinning out into the realm of the possible. Despite the fact that first Gordon then Cameron describe his concept of mapping every available website in one directory as Like the Yellow Pages?, Joe has the old Joe MacMillan fire rekindle inside the shaggy, somewhat squirrely basement tech geek hes become over the intervening three years. And then, also like the old Joe, his enthusiasm spreads.

If Halt And Catch Fire too-readily allows its characters to define themselves in metaphor, thats because the characters are all, in their individual ways, defining failure and success that way. In the second episode, Signal To Noise, which picks up immediately after Joe learns via telephone that Cameron and Tom have split up, the pair slowly thaw toward each other as Camerons says of her seemingly random back to the beginning puzzle in Pilgrim, Maybe it means everything. Now you can approach the path youve taken in an entirely new way. But, effortful as the metaphor may be, it leads to the lovely, episode-long conceit that Joe and Cameron playfully allow their initially tentative telephone reunion to sprawl through one whole night and following day. (We see Joe swapping out one cordless phone for another when the battery runs low, and the two at one point adorably admit that they have had to pee for a long time.) Lee Pace and Mackenzie Davis make Joe and Camerons connection here deeply touching and funnyeven as we see how events outside their artificial, two-person world continue worrisomely without them.

While Joe and Cameron unplug themselves, both are willfully unaware of looming disaster. Cameron ignores a message from Atari, but a second knock at her hotel room door brings notice that her stubborn purity of vision has sent Pilgrim to an uncertain future in the form of an indefinite postponement. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Joe, CalNect is on the brink of sudden disaster, Gordons dream of mid-level success unraveling in a snarl of busy signals, angry customers, and Gordons realization that phone provider MCI has deliberately scuttled their bandwidth in preparation for an in-house ISP. Theyre a public utility! They cant play winners and losers!, exclaims one CalNect employee, but Gordons face, as it inevitably does at least once a season, registers the fact that, once again, hes watching his plans explode in his face. (The head of Donnas firm warily describes the internet at this time as frontierland, and Gordon realizes that he hasnt prepared himself or his company to survive there.)

The clich (that Ive helped disseminate) is that Halt And Catch Fire only became a good TV show (and then a great one) once it abandoned its Mad Men-cribbed blueprints. Like Joe and Gordon copying that IBM chip in season one, the product they came up with was counting on borrowed prestige to smooth over some clunky design. In So It Goes, when Donna tells one of her teams, You need to be pursuing your own vision, not aping somebody elses right?, it echoes the course correction creators Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers made in their own, under-the-radar AMC workshop. As A.V. Clubber Eric Thurm writes at The Verge, the show had to let go of the single, great misunderstood genius trope so common to the modern creator narrative in order to both present a truer picture of the innovation process, and to become a richer show.

Joe MacMillans genius for inspiration and manipulation are still vital going forward, but its hisand the showsrecognition of the different skills of those around him that make the gathering electric storm of ideas gathering around Joes indexing concept so thrilling in Signal To Noises final minutes. Sadly for these characters, their skills and personalities clash as often as they are complementary. Witness Gordon and Donna, their gentle, affectionate sparring at a very civil exes dinner yet providing the seeds for the coming conflict over competing versions of Joes idea. Or, again, Joe and Camerons restorative phone marathon. Joe, hearing the sleeping Cameron fall silent, quietly tells her through the phone, Ill just keep talking because I think youre still there. Are you there? Im here, and its so exquisitely lovely it raises gooseflesh. But, as Gordoncaught again in the middleintuits, things between these two are anything but simple enough to be fixed with a phone call, of any length. Why do you keep putting yourself through this with her?, Gordon asks Joe during their much more cozy 40th birthday camping trip, similarly warning off Cameron when she crashes in his living room after the Blue Man Group party. Am I cruel?, Cameron asks, and Gordon brushes the idea away. (Its delicately heartwarming how these former antagonists have become buddies.) But, after Gordon realizes that Joe has become fixated on Cameron once more, he visits her at work and is interrupted before returning to the question. Gordon wants everyone to recognize things among this group of friends, lovers, exes, and coworkers need to be kept separate. (He refuses Bozs request for a loan because Diane and Donnas relationship makes everything too complicated.) But the characters of Halt And Catch Fire dont pull apart that easily. The series central tragedy is that these brilliant people will always be at the center of great technological advancesonly to lose out on the big prize in the end. Weve seen them essentially invent online gaming, social networking, the internet, and now Googlebut theyre doomed by their own humanity not to get the credit in the end.

Halt And Catch Fire has developed into a confident, fast-moving enterprise, and theres a lot to take in in these first two episodes. (I havent even mentioned the blessed return of Toby Huss Boz, here still uneasily with Diane, but bluffing his way through meetings with Donna, then Gordon, doing his old shitkickers storyteller schtick to conceal how desperately he needs cash to hide a bad investment from Diane.) But what the show reasserts with such fluidity here is that these people are inextricably bound by a shared belief that there are truths to be found in the unceasing evolution of technologyand the possibilities for self-expression and communication it represents. Donna, berating one tech team for looking backward (using the internet to compile dead data), tells them, Were in the future business here. Cameron sees her games as a place for people like her, who both need and fear human contact, to revel in a shared experience of discovery, and wonder. Speaking to Bos last season, she explained that the fact that theres no way to actually win at Space Bike is part of its beauty, and she tells a colleague that Pilgrim is for people who know that the journey is an end in itself. You have to trust the player, she explains. Joe tries to rope Gordon into his half-formed idea of an online index at least partly by appealing to the shared spark of inspiration that has made the two of them such a good, if combustible, team. Nobody remembers the power company, is Joes response to Gordons plea for him to come up out of that basement.

Its that connection that all these characters share that makes what could feel like a contrived restart feel more like an inevitable, if fraught, reunion. The pieces for this seasons plan to have the gangseparately and togetherrace toward the invention of something brilliant and essential all click into place seamlessly. They spark off of each other. Cameron sparks Joe, Joe works through it out loud to Gordon, Gordon inadvertently lays the groundwork for Donna to recognize the same idea when one of her teams makes a similar, last-ditch pitch. Gordon, saddled with younger daughter Haley after she gets caught skipping school, ruminates both on Joes heap of scribbled URLs and his daughters impressive, self-created personal web page. At its bestand this two-part premiere is very promising for this final season indeedHalt And Catch Fire welds character and inspiration into something exhilarating.

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Halt And Catch Fire returns with an assured, graceful two-part premiere - A.V. Club

I just returned from Romance Writers of America, which is a conference dedicated to all genres of romantic fiction. I love going to these events, because its a great way to connect with authors who are really kicking tires and lighting fires when it comes to book promotion. This group is made up of some of the savviest, most successful authors Ive ever known. And though their book marketing tactics may vary from author to author, there is a core set of beliefs and strategies that all successful authors adhere to regardless of the genre. You may not embrace every single one of these 14 habits right now, but its worth your time to adopt as many of them as you can, as soon as you can.

Being a successful author takes work. It takes patience and persistence and a strong focus on business. With 4,500 books published each day in the US, adopting these habits for success is no longer optional, its crucial to your success. So start digging in and working these areas and I promise youll quickly start to see a change in the trajectory of your book.

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14 Habits of Highly Successful Authors - HuffPost

Aug 20, 2017 at 8:30 am | Print View

Women and men will gather Saturday night, on Womens Equality Day, to add five more women to the ranks of those named Women of the Year.

The women, nominated by friends and co-workers, were chosen because of their commitment to improve the lives of area girls and women. Their names will be added to a list of more than 130 who have been honored by the Womens Equality Coalition of Linn County over the past four decades.

Women recognized in 2017 are:

Eden Wales Freedman

At Mount Mercy University, Dr. Wales Freedman serves as director of diversity studies and assistant professor of English. She is a well-known scholar who often speaks or writes on behalf of human rights issues important to women and minorities. She is a reader and reviewer for the interdisciplinary journal, Girls Studies, and a writing mentor of the Afghan Womens Writing Project, which helps Afghan women write and publish their experiences living under the Taliban.

These also are passions that she carries into her personal life where she is an active participant in movements and events intended to promote women and encourage equality for all people.

In recognition of her unwavering support of women and girls, it is only fitting that Eden Wales Freedman be recognized as Linn County Woman of the Year. Her investment in the eager young minds of her students and her little sister will pay dividends for years to come.

Monica Brown Challenger

An executive director of the Iowa Innovation Learning Center, Brown Challenger also is known for her work as the outreach and education coordinator for the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission and as managing director at Diversity Focus.

Her nomination predominantly focuses on her volunteer efforts on behalf of the Open Minds, Open Doors conference, which encourages middle school girls to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and math. Brown Challenger has been a part of the event since 2000, and also has given her talents to the Black Inventors Camp, Kirkwood Community College Engineering Technology Academy, the 6th Judicial District Department of Corrections, United Way of East Central Iowa, and St. Lukes Womens and Childrens Center Patient and Family Advisory Council.

Monica sees a society that values equal opportunities and participation for women and girls, and works toward that vision daily.

Charrisse Cox

Cox was nominated primarily for her work on behalf of the Cedar Rapids-based Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success. She also is a long-standing educator in the Cedar Rapids Community School District, currently serving as the only teaching member of color at Johnson STEAM Academy. For the past 11 years, Cox has been a lead teacher at the academy.

Every day and in so many ways, Cox goes well beyond her assigned duties by providing added assistance and guidance to students dealing with barriers to education. She founded and leads a weekly after-school program during the school year known as The Expansion, which she works to populate with young people who would most benefit from its cultural focus.

Cox, an active member of Mount Zion Baptist Church, encourages young women and girls to realize their potential through education. She is aware of the economic inequities that continue to affect young women and girls of color and, according to those who work with her, begins nudging them toward success early in their academic lives. For many of these students, Cox has been the only woman in a position of community leadership who looks like them.

This is often demanding and thankless work, but Charrisse is one of too few who never give up on this task. Women, now grown, recognize and remember her influence.

Denise Bridges

Bridges is a staff member at the Area Substance Abuse Council who has worked within the school system to provide evidence-based education in relation to drugs and alcohol. It was perhaps that work that prompted her to help lead a large school supply drive for area families in need.

One young woman who was a part of a small group mentored by Bridges said she never thought higher education would be a part of her future until she began working with Bridges.

Bridges also has worked with the NAACP, Youth Think Tank, African American Preservation Society and a host of other community organizations that work toward equality in Linn County.

Four years ago, Bridges founded the annual Art of ACES event, which is held during child abuse awareness month and allows local youths to showcase artwork that has helped them to overcome trauma or mental illness.

She has formed long-lasting, trusting relationships with the girls and women she works with, serving as a mentor to many. She continuously models, encourages and provides them with strategies, resources and opportunities to promote positive life choices.

Barbara Chadwick

She has served on the Linn County Early Childhood Iowa board, and was president of the Iowa Public Health Association. As part of her current work with Linn County Public Health, Chadwick has advocated for equality through political action, and has especially sought to be a voice for underprivileged women. Co-workers say she leads her staff such that they are empowered to exhibit their strengths and reduce barriers for their clients.

Chadwick, once the local face of Planned Parenthood of East Central Iowa, leads by example, encourages others to access inner strengths and inspires those around her to improve their own or their neighbors life.

Barbara has a compassion and drive that improves the lives of women (and others) who are the most vulnerable in our communities.

Attendees of the equality celebration Saturday evening at Kirkwoods Linn County Regional Center in Hiawatha will have an opportunity to hear directly from the award winners, as well as from the young woman chosen to receive a college scholarship. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. and the program begins at 7 p.m. Local musical group Deep Dish Divas will provide entertainment and tell their own story.

l Comments: @LyndaIowa, (319) 339-3144, lynda.waddington@thegazette.com

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Connecticut DCF finds success in domestic violence program for fathers

NEW BRITAIN >> Wigberto George Ortizs godsend came on his birthday. It arrived at his feet like a shell washed ashore by the tide, he said. He should have seen it coming, but his mind had been too busy with the storm raging in his head.

For weeks he had lived in constant torment. His mind was a prison. It was fueled, he said, by a twisted mixture of depression, aggravation, alcoholism and anxiety over what came next. It was all due to what happened when he and his wife decided their marriage was over. Their union had been troublesome. A few months prior, it had escalated. Ortiz had been charged in a domestic violence incident involving his wife.

Everything you could think of, that was me, Ortiz said. I was lost. I didnt know where I was headed.

There was no going back. But he didnt know that yet.

On his 38th birthday, he saw his wife in town. She was with someone else. At that moment, he said, it became clear what he needed to do. Whatever life he had lived before, it was time to release it. Whatever fantasy he had built in his head dissipated.

I realized at that moment that it was going to be just me and the boys, Ortiz said, referring to his four young children.

But his new focus was further sharpened by a program called Fathers for Change, a unique and relatively new service offered through the state Department of Children and Families to a selected few. Its purpose is to provide men involved in domestic violence situations a chance to rehabilitate through therapy by improving communication between parents and their children, as well as helping to reduce aggression. The program is one of DCFs community-based behavioral health services.

The program itself landed on my lap, Ortiz said. It changed my life. It made me become a man.

A non-traditional approach

Select families participate in the six-month program. Though about one in five DCF cases involve intimate partner violence, DCF spokesman Gary Kleeblatt said about 100 fathers and their families have been served by the program after it was launched in 2015.

DCF has about 16,000 annual cases in the state. The Fathers for Change, program is also available to men who do not have a legal involvement.

Mary Painter, director of Intimate Partner Violence and Substance Use treatment and recovery at DCF, helps supervise the program and said it has received high satisfaction reviews from fathers. Families involved report lower numbers of children being removed from homes, Painter said.

This is non-traditional, Painter said. We only use this program for families when its considered to be safe. The idea behind is we keep the family together. Traditionally, response to intimate partner violence is getting perpetrators out of the home. This takes a different approach.

Kleeblatt said DCF employees dont directly provide services. Instead, theyre provided by private providers, usually therapists and masters-level clinicians.

Painter said the program offers individual therapy with men, with an emphasis on in-home sessions if its safe, to help them regulate their emotional state and learn how to handle feelings of hostility. The service can also be delivered in the traditional outpatient clinic setting. Painter said fathers receive therapy based on their families individual needs. DCF will also try to find other services that could benefit families.

In Ortizs case, the programs ultimate goal was unsuccessful. The family did not stay intact. But calling his case a failure would be inaccurate: Ortiz is a proud father of four boys who now live under his roof. The boys are Vitally, 7, Lorenzo, 6, Marcelo, 4, and Matteo, 1.

During a recent afternoon at his home in New Britain, Ortiz quite literally had his hands full wrangling the energetic quartet. He would speak to one son while trying to hold on to another. This summer, he usually got up around 7 a.m. to get the oldest boys ready for summer programs. The night before, he would lay out their clothing and have them in bed by 8 p.m. The oldest boys are on the autism spectrum and took classes to help develop their speech, physical therapy and social skills.

I pretty much do what I have to do, Ortiz said.

Ortiz said he originally planned to do the program with his wife before they separated. He had enrolled in the program in December, starting his first session at his home in January with James Geisler, from the Child Guidance Clinic for Central CT.

His first session helped formulate his game plan. Each time they spoke, they explored another road Ortiz had traveled to learn how he ended up there. Ortiz said the sessions explored his past, forcing him to face realities he couldnt face by himself. He would recall his childhood and things he witnessed growing up. These were things that led him to act out the way he did against his wife.

Painter said this is the kind psychoeducational approach the sessions take.

They really teach them about the cycle of violence, what it is, what a healthy relationship is, Painter said. Fathers for Change is different in its really looking (at) a man not only as a man who perpetuated domestic violence but as family members and fathers.

Behavior exhibited by domestic violence perpetrators can often be traced back to events they witnessed as children. What we know about it is that there is a pattern thats intergenerational, Painter said, adding that girls exposed to domestic violence have a higher chance of being victimized. Boys, in turn, are more likely to perpetuate domestic violence if exposed to it.

(When) helping a man become better, then the next generation is learning the same thing, Painter said.

Ortiz said he would usually leave the sessions feeling uncomfortable, but to him that meant he had a positive session. Digging into the root causes of his situation gave him clarity.

Everything started to fall into place, Ortiz said. He said he felt like after every session, another part of his life grew more and more stable. Before starting the program, Ortiz said he wasnt skeptical. When he started, he had felt like he was fighting for his marriage. He accepted the changes as the program progressed.

There were other changes. Mornings became different. He would wake up and clean messes he had long ignored.

Those days became beautiful days, Ortiz said. I wanted that change more than anything in my life.

Life as a single father

A divorce was granted in May. Inside a nearly empty courtroom, But Ortiz would then face a judge on May 26 for a different but related reason. With things falling into place, Ortiz had his sights on his next, perhaps most important, goal: Sole custody of his children. It was granted.

Ortiz said the judge told him it was the first time had ever rendered such a ruling for a man.

There was nobody in the room, Ortiz said. He said some very nice things. Theyre personal. I keep those to myself.

He looked at his kids and noted how hard he fought to change. He knew the reason for changing his life wasnt solely about himself.

I feel like this is my gift for the change, Ortiz said.

On that recent day, Ortiz would pause every so often to speak to one of the boys, sometimes turning his head between two or three of them. Sometimes the boys were being too loud, so Ortiz would quietly ask them to hush. Two of them had to be put on time out for them to calm down. He held Matteo in his arms nearly the entire time he spoke to his other children.

I dont think you ever get used to it, Ortiz said. I have to adapt every day. You get up and fall in love with your children.

Reach Esteban L. Hernandez at 203-680-9901

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Connecticut DCF finds success in domestic violence program for fathers - New Haven Register