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By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
It’s a seven-letter word and the category is “Thing.”
The wheel spins and a woman guesses an “O” to kick off the game. Laurie Blake, a community service representative from one of the local in-home senior care companies, fills in the sixth letter of the word with an “O” and spins the wheel for the next contestant.
This is just one of the many monthly activities of the Walpole Council on Aging’s Mind Over Matter Olympics. Rather than playing on teams as the Walpole COA normally does while playing Wheel of Fortune, they are playing individually. “Each individual has to exercise their own mind. You exercise your body, you exercise your spirit. You have to exercise your mind, too,” says 93-year-old Ora McGuire, who has organized the Mind Over Matter Olympics.
As the wheel continues to spin and the participants suggest a few more letters to fill in the word, their guesses fall short and the single “O” stands unaccompanied. Every month, Laurie comes to Walpole’s senior center to play Wheel of Fortune, and she usually gets a crowd of eager seniors.
Ora and Laurie have collaborated on the event to deliver the classic game that everyone enjoys with the challenge to think critically.
Laurie spins the wheel again and claps, keeping the seniors engaged as she hoots, “Big money! Big money!” One woman guesses a “U” and after almost a dozen fruitless guesses, her letter makes it on to the board in the second space.
The seniors continue to guess letters on their turns, but of all of the guesses, only a “B” makes it onto the board as the fifth letter, next to the “O.” By now, some of the sharp-minded seniors have solved the puzzle, but must wait until their turn before they may say the answer.
The (mental) Olympics include a variety of brain-stimulating games, like crossword puzzles, word searches, riddles, dot-to-dot, and rebus. Ora aims to model the Mind Over Matter Olympics after the real games themselves, keeping track of participants’ scores to award gold, silver, and bronze medals.
As the seniors who know the answer patiently wait for their turns, they are struck with the “bankrupt” slot on the wheel, rendering them unable to make their guess.
Finally, though, the puzzle is solved as one woman calls out “jukebox” on her turn.
With several more months of the Mind Over Matter, Ora challenges her peers to nurture their brains with a mind and memory workout. The last game will be held on December 27, with the closing ceremony and awarding of medals in January.
“It’s the first time we’ve done this,” says Ora, “so I want to make it as positive as it can be.”
