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May 2015 MONTANA A Monthly Publication for Folks 50 and Better Renaissance man Tennis coach holds court The last man standing North Side Mission INSIDE Savvy Senior ............................................Page 3 Calendar ...................................................Page 20 Opinion ....................................................Page 4 On the Menu ............................................Page 21 Book .........................................................Page 5 Strange but True .......................................Page 22 Volunteering .............................................Page 19 News Lite Duck ringtone helps rescue ducklings Would-be thieves steal frozen pizzas, SLIDELL, La. (AP) — Quack! Quack! A duck call ringtone then sell them to police helped a Louisiana firefighter rescue six ducklings from a storm ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska State Troopers have drain. recovered 75 of 80 frozen pizzas reported stolen thanks to an Spokesman Chad Duffaut of St. Tammany Fire District #1 says enterprising thief. even with realistic quacking sounds coming from his cellphone, it The Alaska Dispatch News reports that 80 frozen pizzas were took Firefighter Cody Knecht about 90 minutes to catch the first reported stolen from a store in Gambell, a village on St. Law- four baby mallards in the southeast Louisiana community of rence Island in the Bering Sea. Police say they received a strong Slidell. tip when 29-year-old John Koozaata and 21-year-old Lewis Duffaut says Knecht rescued the others after giving them about Oozeva called the police department and tried to sell the pizzas to an hour to calm down. on-duty officers. All six ducklings were reunited with their mother in the canal Police say that the pair broke into the Gambell Native Store behind a home, where residents had reported seeing the ducklings warehouse and took five cases of pizza, valued at $1,100, or go into the drain. about $13.75 a pie. Duffaut says it was fire station’s second duck rescue in a week. Troopers say Koozaata and Oozeva were arrested and taken to On April 19, firefighters rescued a duck that got stuck in a chim- Nome. They are in custody at the Anvil Mountain Correctional ney. Center facing charges of burglary and theft. Live, Love & Age Healthy with New West by your side. AT NEW WEST MEDICARE, WE KNOW YOU AREN’T AGING, YOU’RE LIVING. Our plans always keep Montanans in mind. That is why we offer low monthly premiums for your health care coverage and an exercise and healthy aging program in every plan. After all, we are Montanans, 15-NWM-0103 just like you, and we know you are only as old as you feel. Let us make Medicare simple for you. New West Medicare Senior Pub Ads - May Montana Best of Times New West Health Services is a PPO plan with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in 4.8.15 888.873.8044 · TTY 711 New West Medicare depends on contract renewal. Phone hours of operation 8 a.m. AD: SR newwestmedicare.com to 8 p.m. daily. The benefit information provided is a brief summary, not a complete 7.25x4.95 Find us on description of benefits. For more information contact New West Medicare. Benefits 4-color may change on January 1 of each year. H2701_NW#577_9-2014 Accepted May 2015 — 2 Jim Miller, creator of the syndicated “Savvy Senior” information column, is a longtime advocate of senior issues. He has been featured in Time magazine; is author of “The Savvy Senior: The Ultimate Guide to Health, Family and Finances for Senior Citizens”; and is a regular contributor to the NBC “Today” show. How to Search for Lost Pension Money Dear Savvy Senior, benefit statements that you received during your employment. What tips can you offer for tracking down a lost pension from a previous employer? » Search PBGC — About to Retire If your former employer went out of business or if the compa- ny still is in business but terminated its pension plan, check with Dear About, the PBGC, which guarantees pension payouts to private-sector It’s not unusual for a worker to lose track of a pension benefit. workers if their pension plans fail, up to annual limits. Most peo- Perhaps you left an employer long ago and forgot that you left ple receive the full benefit they earned before the plan was termi- behind a pension. Or maybe you worked for a company that nated. The PBGC offers an online pension-search directory tool changed owners or went belly up many years ago, and you fig- at search.pbgc.gov/mp/mp.aspx. ured the pension went with it. » Get help Today, millions of dollars in benefits are sitting in pension If you need help tracking down your former company because plans across the U.S. or with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Cor- it may have moved, changed owners or merged with another poration (PBGC), a federal government agency, waiting to be firm, contact the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit consumer claimed by their rightful owners. The average unclaimed benefit organization that offers seven free Pension Counseling and Infor- with PBGC is about $6,500. mation Projects around the U.S. that serve 30 states. For more information, visit pensionrights.org or call (888) 420-6550. To help you look for a pension, here are some steps to take and some free resources that can help you search if your previous If you, your company or your pension plan happens to be out- employer has gone out of business, relocated, changed owners or side the 30-state area served by the projects, or if you’re trying to merged with another firm. locate a federal or military pension, » Contact employer use Pension Help America at pen- sionhelp.org. This resource can If you think you have a pension and the company you worked connect you with government for still is in business, your first step is to call the human resourc- agencies and private organiza- es department and ask how to contact the pension plan adminis- tions that provide free trator. Ask the administrator whether you have a pension, how information and assis- much it is worth and how to claim it. Depending on how com- tance to help your plete the administrator’s records are you may need to show proof search. that you once worked for the company and that you are pension eligible. For more pension Your old income tax returns and W-2 forms from the years you searching tips, worked at the company will help you here. If you haven’t saved see the your old tax returns from these years, you can get a copy of your PBGC’s free earnings record from the Social Security Administration, which online publication will show how much you were paid each calendar year by each called “Finding a Lost employer. Pension” at pbgc.gov/ documents/finding-a- Call (800) 772-1213, and ask for Form SSA-7050, “Request lost-pension.pdf. for Social Security Earnings Information,” or you can download it at ssa.gov/online/ssa-7050.pdf. The SSA charges a $136 for this information. Send your senior questions to: Savvy Some other old forms that can help you prove pension eligibili- Senior, P.O. Box 5443, ty are summary plan descriptions that you should have received Norman, OK 73070, from your employer when you worked there, and any individual or visit SavvySenior. org. Image courtesy of www.aperfectworld.org May 2015 — 3 Opinion Drowning in passwords Fifty-eight. That’s the number of passwords my wife and I have for accessing every- thing online from email to bank accounts to energy bills to Netflix, iTunes and everything in between. Fifty-eight. It’s ridiculous, when you think about it, that it should be that way. But if you want to live in the digital age and be halfway, semi safe from hackers, that’s the price you pay. The biggest problem anyone faces with their unmanageable, cackling hen house of passwords is how to keep track of them. Do you keep them all in a “safe” place on your computer or smart- phone? You’re crazy stupid if you do. carries its own risk. You could lose passwords before I do that. There is no safe place on any device them or someone could walk off with Anyway, apart from safekeeping, one that’s connected to the Internet. them. But most of us accept the risk of the biggest pains about passwords is Do you just tell your laptop to and keep them in a sort of hidden place creating one. Most people lazily type in remember the passwords for all the in our homes. It’s better than having a pet’s name followed by the numbers websites you access? All fine and good the passwords on your computer and 1, 2, 3. Well, you know that hackers until you loose your laptop or have it being plugged into the Internet, but not have that one figured out. All they have stolen. You could be a pauper by sun- a whole lot better. to do is type in some choice pet names down, not only with no money in your The techies gotta fix this pretty soon. like Spot or Mr. Snuggles with a few bank account but a stolen identity for There are already, of course, technolo- numbers after and they have access to frosting on the cake. gies like thumb print scans to access half the computers in America. So you do what most of us do: You your electronic device, but what if “Always create a strong password,” record the passwords on a thousand- someone figures out a way past that — the websites say, with lower and upper year-old device: paper. There are just and believe me, there’s a way — and case letters, numbers and symbols.

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