Seven savor travel recollections

Travel and healthcare reimburse- ment forms were among the topics for the seven at Papa Joe’s restaurant today for the monthly Beacon Journal retirees lunch.

Rosetta Blanton, widow of BJ engraving retiree Watson Blanton (he died in 2009), at 87 still is enjoying Caribbean cruises. So does her cousin, Lennie Thomas, her companion as usual at the lunch.

Retired photographer Don Roese, 77, has been to Europe six or seven times and frequently drives to Alaska and Florida, where there’s a family home in Hollywood for snowbirds to escape Northeast Ohio winters.

Newsroom retiree John Olesky has been to 50 countries, and with Paula has signed up for a March 2013 three-week trip to New Zealand and Australia.

John and Don exchanged questions about their BJ lawsuit settlement forms. They are among Guild retirees who qualify for healthcare reimbursements and enrollment in medical coverage and $2 prescription co-pay that restores their retirement-day coverage.

The only Guild retirees identified by the BJ as eligible for the restoration of the $2 Rx card and medical coverage are Don, John, Dick McBane, Dick McLinden and Harold and Elizabeth Bailey.

There are far more retired printers and their spouses on the BJ’s eligibility list (some for Plan N, some for $5 prescription co-pay card, some for both):

David and Regina White, whose $2,500 check started the lawsuit ball rolling toward U.S. District Court Judge David Dowd’s landmark 2009 ruling against the BJ; Sid Sprague, Hugh and Sharon Downing, Isabel Watson, Janice Hogg, Bob and Linda Abbott, Russel and Marta Bendel, Lloyd and Claudine Bigelow, Joe Catalano, Eunice and Bonnie Collins, John Costello, Dick and Pat Fair, Larnie and Stephanie Greene, Dick Gresock, Marjorie Hanna, Ed Hanzel, Henry and Kathleen Heinbuch, Bob Kendall, Harriett Ledbetter, Norm and Naomi Mattern, Charles O’Neil, Denzil Parker, Fred Pollack, Francis and Rita Reeves, Don Reppart, Ron Sanderlin, Cecil and Josephine Santoferrero, Charles Stadelman, Josephine Thomes, Bob Walker, Ruth and Tom West, Tom and Thelma White, and Ray and Amaryllis Wolfe.

The retirees have till Sept. 21 to get their reimbursement and healthcare upgrade paperwork to the Beacon Journal Settlement Office. Otherwise, they don't get the settlement benefits.

Tracy McClellan, the late retired printer Gene McClellan’s daughter, also attended. She has disposed of her dad’s cars and motorcycle and is trying to sell Gene’s house before Tracy returns to her husband in New Mexico. Gene died in March.

Retired printers Carl Nelson and Al Hunsicker completed today's circle of seven.

The only time there has been more than seven at the monthly lunch since March 2010 was when Gene’s three children and two grandchildren showed up in April 2012 to swell attendance to 10.

The retirees lunch is at 1 p.m. the second Wednesday of every month at Papa Joe’s Restaurant on Akron/Peninsula Road at Portage Trail Extension. It is open to current and former BJ employees and anyone who would like to visit BJ folks.