OLLI CONNECTS
Monthly Magazine

Flight

Remembering
Neil Cosentino

1937-2024

White Lights

— Neil Cosentino

Hut Flight

— Neil Cosentino

Neil Cosentino’s gripping accounts of battle experiences during the Vietnam War lent excitement and authenticity to the OLLI Connects blog for the past six years. And after the war his adventurous spirit and insatiable curiosity yielded a variety of tales that never failed to amuse and thoroughly engage our readers. Today’s edition includes two new linked wartime stories as well as a retrospective of his contributions to OLLI Connects.

On View at the
Manatee Viewing Center

Story and Photo Album — Diane White

A Book Review of Little Pieces of Hope
by Todd Doughty

— Sheryl Ann Long

English as the Official Language of the United States

— Don Menzel

Letter to the Editors
I’m proud to be a Canadian

— Marilyn Myerson

For National Poetry Month our April 15th issue will focus primarily on poetry written by our talented members. We look forward to including your submitted poems and would appreciate receiving them by the end of March. Please send them to us at connectsolli25@gmail.com. And since poets work year-round, you can find some exciting ways to enjoy their creativity in the events listed below. — Editors

A Cartoon by Art Henrikson

— Diane Henrikson Russell, Curator

In this cartoon, my dad illustrated the multiple viewpoints of Americans who protested for or against American involvement in the Vietnam War. As the second Trump administration’s executive orders mount, Americans are expressing their strong opinions through peaceful protests again. Many protesters are the same folks who protested in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s – a little older, perhaps, but with the same zest that they had 50 years ago.

Regarding Vietnam, my watershed moment came on May 4, 1970, when four unarmed students were shot dead and nine other unarmed students were wounded by the Ohio State National Guard at a peaceful protest rally on the Kent State campus. I was a high school senior preparing to live on campus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My shock regarding government-induced violence on a college campus and fears regarding my future campus safety were solidified that day.

My father drew not only political cartoons, but also gag cartoons for magazines, religious cartoons, and pet cards. We created a new website to make it easy for you to find out more about his career. Click here.

OLLI Connects can share great articles/stories, because OLLI-USF has great members. You are our bullpen of writers; we rely on you for our content and look forward to hearing your story, enjoying your article, or savoring your poetry. Check our website for submission guidelines or just email OLLI Connects. You can kick off your OLLI Connects writing journey by commenting on most pages of this issue.

Literary Events and Classes

Joyce Carpenter, Kevin Chittim, Cath Mason, Instructors. Two-thirds of the poetry collections sold in the UK in 2008 were by Seamus Heaney. His poems combine aural beauty, carefully crafted textures and muscular language “rich with the tones and smell of earth.” Heaney created poetry from his native background: Modern Northern Ireland, its farms and cities beset with civil strife, its natural culture and language infested by English rule. We’ll discuss the power and popularity of Heaney’s poetry through a selection of his poems, supplied by the instructors. Register here

YellowJacket Press is accepting submissions for the annual YellowJacket Press Chapbook Competition for an unpublished chapbook of poems. Submissions should be no more than 20 pages in length, not including front and back matter (table of contents, title page, etc.). The contest is open to new, emerging, and established writers who are residents of Florida. The winner will receive book publication, a $250 cash award, and twenty-five copies of the book. The reading period is from April 1 – May 15, 2025. For details click here.

Writing Your Story! — Chantelle MacPhee, Instructor. Four weekly meetings (4/1/2025-4/22/2025) 10 am-noon. St. Leo University, Wellness Center. We all have stories inside us, waiting to be shared. But in our lives lie our greatest adventures, and yet we put off the telling because we fear it would be too difficult or we don’t know where to start. In this interactive workshop, Chantelle MacPhee, an English professor at St. Leo University, guides us to the best organization of the moments we wish to share. Bring pen and paper or a laptop computer, and let us write together. Register here.

Write Time for Poets. Welcome to your online poetry-writing community. Once a month, join us in our Zoom room — your creative space. Work on your poems in-progress and/or practice timed writing in response to prompts. We meet for 90 minutes on the 2nd Thursday each month from 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Contact Cath Mason,  cmason6@usf.edu for more information.

Community of Readers and Writers
You’re welcome to join and chat about writing with experienced OLLI writers at our new monthly Zoom every first Thursday of the month from 3pm to 3:45pm. If you have time, stay longer and have fun writing together freely or with writing prompts. Ask for the Zoom link at readersandwriters.too@gmail.com

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