The Friday Flyer • February 12, 2016

CANYON LAKE’S NEWSPAPER • FEBRUARY 12, 2016
City contracts with CAA pros for Building Department Pg. A3
Elaine Sanderson gets an unusual birthday present Pg. A7
KIds enjoy colorful, new playground at Holiday Harbor Pg. A11
Canyon Lakers find the heart to live
Love takes many forms. It’s true that February 14, Valentine’s Day, has become a major consumer holiday for romance and roses, cute little Valentines exchanged at school, oversized cards with silly sentiments, and the most popular day of the year for chocolates and mar- riage proposals.
But at its heart, Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about love. That pink or red symbol represents a physi- cal heart from which, mysteriously, love springs. The origin of Valentine’s Day is said to date back to Saint Valentine, a priest in 3rd century Rome who defied the
Brenda Adams
emperor by secretly performing forbidden marriages for young Roman soldiers. (That’s one theory, anyway.)
With the heart as the symbol of Valentine’s Day, it made sense for the American Heart Association to bor- row the symbolism to bring awareness to heart health; hence, American Heart Month. Two stories in this week’s issue focus on two special ladies who have sur- vived heart attacks but also are well acquainted with the subject of love – not romantic love, necessarily – but the type of love that has given them the will to survive.
Brenda Adams suffered her first heart attack in May
1995 at the age of 53. Brenda’s love for people, ducks and geese are what keep her going today after almost losing her life to pneumonia and congestive heart fail- ure last year.
Elaine Sanderson suffered a heart attack last month, just before her 96th birthday. With the prayers of her loving daughter, and the will to be around for the birth- day she shares with a great-grandchild, Elaine under- went a life-prolonging surgery.
Medical surgeries kept these women’s hearts alive. Love gave them the heart to live.
BY SHARON RICE
EDITOR, THE FRIDAY FLYER
Feeding geese gives pleasure; it’s people who feed the soul. Brenda Ad- ams likes to spend her Saturdays tood- ling around Canyon Lake in her golf cart, checking out garage sales, meet- ing new people, and stopping by parks to feed ducks and geese the top-quality duck food she stores in sealed contain- ers in her garage.
The fowl food actually cost her a new upholstery job recently when she forgot to take the temporary food buckets out of her golf cart. Even though the buck- ets were empty, mice gnawed a hole
through the drywall in her garage, then through the newly-covered seat in her golf cart, and then through the buckets to get to the crumbs of food.
She shrugs it off. A little ol’ hole isn’t something to get worked up about. Not after all she’s been through. She has sur- vived two heart attacks, pneumonia, a botched medical prescription and more – and it all started just over 20 years ago.
There was a history of heart problems in her family; nevertheless, Brenda was caught by surprise when she suffered a heart attack at the age of 53 in May 1995. She considered herself healthy and athletic, playing golf three to four
times a week at the Canyon Lake Golf Course. But one day she was painting the fence at her Blue Bird Dr. home and the next she was on her way to open- heart surgery.
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The geese flock to Brenda Adams as soon as she arrives at Sunset Beach.
lives life to the fullest
PHOTO BY DONNA KUPKE