I thought knitting was a quiet hobby, pursued by little old ladies in solitude. A visit to the RSVP center in Hollywood showed me that I was only partly right.
The women seated around the table at the Thursday morning knitting club were senior citizens all right -- from 63-year-old Agavanoush Shakhverdian to Ida Capriole, three weeks shy of 92. But they were hardly quiet.
The community room at the center along Yucca Street was buzzing with laughter and the babble of accents was so thick I had to strain to make my questions understood.
But there was no misunderstanding this group's purpose. For these women -- retired secretaries, teachers, clerks, nurses -- knitting was not just a way to pass the time, but a way to connect, give back and step outside their comfort zones.
"It's an outlet for them, and it's a benefit for us," Jackie Raycraft told me on Thursday. Raycraft is the director of the Hollywood center of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, or RSVP, which connects people older than 55 with volunteer opportunities in their communities.
The center provides the yarn and the room. The women provide the working hands. Up to a dozen women meet for three hours each week, knitting and crocheting scarves, hats, sweaters and baby clothing that is sold at the Farmers Market in Hollywood. Proceeds help pay for the center's annual volunteer banquet and other senior programs that have suffered budget cuts.
Anne Sermons, 90, is the group's matriarch. She's been coming for 22 years from her home several miles away in Hollywood. Now the trip requires two buses, but she rarely misses a session.
Like the city itself, the knitting group has become more international during her tenure. "Now we have ladies from so many different countries," she said. Some of the newcomers don't speak much English. "So sometimes we try talking with our hands," she said.
And sometimes they speak slowly, and very loudly.
As I go around taking names and ages, I get a silent stare from Chong Sun Shin.
"She doesn't speak English," 70-year-old Adele Little interjects. Little rolls over in her wheelchair to translate for me and I wonder: "Does this black woman from Ohio speak Korean?"
She doesn't.
"HOW . . . OLD . . . ARE . . . YOU?," Little says loudly to Shin, with the precise diction of the schoolteacher she once was. "Your age," prompts Nancy Kojima, 80, seated next to her. "Tell her your age."
