SLO LIFE Magazine Apr/May 2018
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| IN BOX<br />
We heard you...<br />
Life-Enriching Independent & Assisted Living<br />
“<br />
Truthfully…<br />
the staff are all delightful.<br />
Oscar, our Activities Director,<br />
is always fun, energetic, and<br />
most genuine. He really feels<br />
close to us residents.<br />
I can always depend on the<br />
staff…they care about me!<br />
Glo Ensberg, resident<br />
Oscar Buenrostro,<br />
Southern California<br />
Activities Professional<br />
of the Year 2017<br />
“<br />
<strong>SLO</strong>m a g a z i n e<br />
LOCAL<br />
TASTE<br />
CENTRA<br />
COAST<br />
REAL<br />
E<br />
slolifemagazine.com<br />
FEB/MAR 2 018<br />
<strong>LIFE</strong><br />
BEHIND THE<br />
SCENES<br />
SEASONAL<br />
BREWING<br />
BRIEFS<br />
HEALTH<br />
TRENDS<br />
NOW<br />
HEAR<br />
THIS<br />
MEET<br />
RUSHDI CADER<br />
ALTRUISM, ADVOCACY<br />
& PROMOTING PEACE<br />
For the past 13 years, I have<br />
been fortunate and honored<br />
to work with one of the great<br />
humanitarians of our time,<br />
Dr. Rushdi Abdul-Cader.<br />
<strong>SLO</strong> Life <strong>Magazine</strong> has had<br />
many interesting cover<br />
subjects since its inception,<br />
but none more worthy.<br />
— RON YUKELSON<br />
Correction:<br />
| LEGACY<br />
NORTH<br />
STAR<br />
This academic school year marks the end of an era at<br />
Cuesta College as GIL STORK, an institution within the<br />
institution, after 51 years, calls it a career.<br />
In the article, North Star, from<br />
the last issue we incorrectly<br />
noted that Gil Stork, the<br />
outgoing president of Cuesta<br />
College, had previously retired<br />
as president. Actually, he was a<br />
vice president when he stepped<br />
down from administration<br />
before returning as president.<br />
BY TOM FRANCISKOVICH<br />
When Gil Stork woke up on the runway<br />
he rubbed his tongue across his teeth to<br />
discover some of them were broken. His<br />
first thought was, “My mom is going to<br />
kill me!” She had always warned him<br />
that he would get his teeth knocked out<br />
playing football. Turned out she was<br />
right, in a way. With his legs and back<br />
throbbing in pain, consciousness slowly returning, he could begin to see<br />
what appeared to be flames flickering through the dense fog. The next thing<br />
he remembers was someone running up, standing over him and shouting,<br />
“There’s another one over here!”<br />
Forever tied to San Luis Obispo’s most tragic event, the Cal Poly Football<br />
team airplane crash of October 29, 1960, it took Stork many years to reconcile<br />
the events of that night, just outside of Toledo, Ohio, which claimed the lives<br />
of 22 of the 48 aboard. Why did they over-pack the plane? Why did they<br />
attempt a takeoff in that soupy fog? What caused the left engine to fail? Why<br />
did I switch seats? Why did I survive? It should have been me.<br />
Guilt, confusion, and anger followed—years of processing. Constantly<br />
replaying the events of that night, bargaining in prayer with a higher power<br />
for a somehow different result. The question, “Why am I here, but he’s not?”<br />
played in an endless loop, over and over again in the mind of the young<br />
offensive lineman.<br />
Rising out of mourning is a gradual process, and sometimes it never<br />
happens. Once in a while a good day comes along, sometimes followed by<br />
another. When a string of them link up into a long chain, it can be said<br />
that someone has finally “turned the corner.” For Stork, the up and down<br />
struggle to return to normal took hold six years later when his first child<br />
was born. Going through that experience—“witnessing the miracle of<br />
life”—shifted his perspective in an instant and changed his thinking from<br />
questioning why the crash had happened to pondering the significance<br />
of it. As he settled in with his wife and their baby, a new question arose: >><br />
44 | <strong>SLO</strong> <strong>LIFE</strong> MAGAZINE | FEB/MAR <strong>2018</strong><br />
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24 | <strong>SLO</strong> <strong>LIFE</strong> MAGAZINE | APR/MAY <strong>2018</strong>