A blessedly busy retirement

Amy R. Spurgeon

Finding a life after retirement at the Oasis Senior Citizens Center

wasn’t a challenge for 80-year-old Nathalie Goldstein -- it was a

calling.

The Corona del Mar resident hustles around the sprawling facility on

Marguerite Avenue each day, racking up 1,440 unpaid hours per year. She

runs the gift shop, keeps track of the growing membership roster and

helps in the kitchen.

“If you ask my husband, I am here more than I am at home,” Goldstein

said.

She wears her brownish-gray hair cut short and close to her face, along

with a pair of dangling, Mah Jongg earrings patterned after the popular

Chinese tile game she teaches at the center.

A member at the center for 16 years, Goldstein has earned a reputation as

the one to go to for help.

“She’s fantastic,” said Gwen Collins, first vice president of Friends of

Oasis, the center’s fund-raising branch. “She is one of those people who

will always help you and do it with a minimum of fuss.”

Without the volunteers, the city-funded center would need to hire more

staff.

“But when you volunteer, you get so much more back,” Collins added.

From computer to fitness classes, arts to entertainment, the center

serves more than 6,000 people year-round.

For Goldstein, keeping things together at the center is second nature.

She managed various business offices for more than 40 years.

Today, she and her husband of 58 years enjoy retirement with a round of

golf, an afternoon of gardening or a quiet morning of knitting.

“What could be better than retirement,” Goldstein said. “We lead a very

active life.”

Her pet project is the center’s gift store, which is open to the public

on weekdays. The small boutique is filled with perishable and

nonperishable last-minute items. And the lack of crowds make it easy for

most seniors to shop, she said.

But her one wish would be that more “intergenerationals” would visit the

center.

“We need outside people to come in and keep us young,” she said.

But she has no plans to slow down any time soon.

“It is a good feeling to help other people and make them happy,”

Goldstein said. “I am helping other people now so that when I need help,

there will be someone to help me.”The Oasis senior center is at 800

Marguerite Ave. and is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Classes and

activities also take place at night and on weekends. For more

information, call (949) 644-3244.