Just Another Day At The Beach?

It was a beautiful day today. Almost a perfect day to go to the beach. So thought hundreds of others.

As I age, that which is appropriate seems to be changing. Perhaps we are becoming more like those European beaches. As I age, I also have become more attentive to sunburn prevention. So prior to today's trip to the beach, I purchased a beach umbrella. Good purchase in my estimation. Although it took me awhile to master how to use it on a windy day. At first, I had it full up and the wind caught it and turned it inside out. I finally used only the top half tilted towards the wind utilizing with it loosely inserted in a beach umbrella anchor allowing it to adjust to the wind without any undue strain. It was pretty low to the ground though.

So, here I am sitting in the shade of the beach umbrella in my Speedo and coming toward me is a young female wearing only a floppy hat. I avert my eyes knowing that staring is not appropriate. Just as she passes with the umbrella between her and me, her hat is blown off her head and lands at my feet. Politely I pick up the hat and hold it above my head and above the horizon of the umbrella where it could be retrieved. The hat is taken and I receive a "Thank you" in return. Just another day at the beach.

I affirm that all the facts laid out above are true and I do have witnesses to back up my story.

Are We There Yet?

I remember asking this as a kid and answering it as a parent. Although kids seem to ask it more often, even we as adults want to know how much longer it will be until we reach our destination.

Not that long ago, an atlas of the country (8 x 14 with 50+ pages) was needed for long trips. That or a number of individual state maps that could be obtained ahead of time from state tourism offices, on the road from state information kiosks on major routes or purchased from gas stations. If you were fortunate enough to belong to AAA (American Automobile Association) you could get an individualized travel booklet with the sections of the roads you would be taking highlighted. That was then.

These days the GPS (Global Positioning System) (approximately 3 x 5) has the entire United States road system in it and will personalize your road trip based upon your desire for fastest, shortest, avoid tolls etc requirements. In addition, it can tell you nearby points of interest like eating establishments, gas stations, shopping and a number of other helpful locations.

In the days of maps us good drivers could answer the question "Are we there yet?" by giving you an approximate distance we still had to go and approximately how long it might take to get there. With the GPS, the answer to "Are we there yet?" is a little more precise giving you an exact time in minutes and distance in 10ths of a mile of which you have left to go. It is constantly updating these values as you travel.

One must be careful though and use some human intellect rather than accepting the automated response all the time. I think that it's always good practice to first review where it's taking you before you head off following it's voice guided directions.

Recently I pulled off of a main highway on to a dirt side road, about a cars length, to program in my destination. It politely asked if I wished to avoid dirt roads. I responded yes, to which it replied that I couldn't get there from where I was at...I was on a dirt road and in order to go anywhere, I had to be willing to take a dirt road.

Are we there yet? Well, we've certainly come a long way, but I wager that we will be making further advancements in this area. Maybe by the time my grandchildren are answering the age old question their children pose, we will have autopilot for our vehicles which will verbally respond.

Photo Flashback - Who is this young man?

I'm looking through old slides from the late 70s and come across this photo. I looked like this at one time? We've got some serious hair going here. The mustache is a constant over the years although the shape and color have changed over the years. This happened to be one of my experimental photos using an orange juice container with both ends cut out and then the inside lined with aluminum foil to provide that fuzzy circle effect. This also was when I was going by Harry. Times sure change a person.

From Death to Life

It's Friday morning. I'm standing in a farmhouse bedroom where my unresponsive aunt Lil is using all the energy she has on each breath she takes. My father, just back from Florida the day before, sits by her bed talking to her of recent conversations they have had about the tribulations they have faced in life and about who would 'go home' first. Her daughter lovingly strokes her head telling her that it's okay to go home.

Six days earlier in her living room we talked with a 93 year old aunt Lil who looked neither 93 nor looked savaged by the aggressive leukemia that momentarily took a back seat to the two units of blood she had received a day earlier. In fact she had just finished up interviewing a client of hers. She wasn't about to sit on the sidelines of her tax business and let the others shoulder the load.

The mood in the bedroom is now somber. We notice her eyelids have now opened slightly, but that is the only change. Sensing the end is near my father gives up his seat so her granddaughter can be with her in these last moments. Soon she is no longer struggling to breathe, the room falls silent. Her time had come.

Eighteen hours later my daughter calls. The arrival of our new grandchild is anticipated soon. Barb attempts to get some sleep before the final call comes telling us that she is on the way to the hospital. Sixty minutes doesn't provide much time to rest. The call comes. They are on their way. We begin to prepare for the coming hours. We shower, pick out clothes we'll be comfortable in, send e-mails to the family letting them know that by morning we hope to have a new grandchild. The phone rings. It's our son-in-law. He puts our daughter on the line. A crying baby can be heard in the background. It doesn't quite click. But then the words make it clear. We have a new grandson. Even if we would have left the minute we received the call, it wouldn't have been soon enough to get there before Jesten made his entrance into this world. There was only 12 minutes difference from the time they arrived at the hospital until their new son was delivered.

In just over 18 hours I had seen life take it's last breath and saw life taking some of it's first breaths.

Photos and timeline of Jesten's arrival.

NOmonic Device

A mnemonic device is something that will help you remember something else. For me it's been things like putting my keys in a different pocket. When I realize they're in a different pocket I remember why I put them there. That's the way it's supossed to work.

Here I am 200 miles from home attending a funeral. A light rain is falling. Being the gentleman I am, I open up the umbrella and walk Barb from the car to the church. As I place the umbrella in a corner not far from the entrance, I realize that it may not be raining when we leave and something needs to be done to remind me that I have an umbrella to retrieve before leaving. I switch the pockets my keys are in.

An hour an a half later we leave the church. The rain has stopped. We walk to our car conversing with one of Barb's relatives. Upon arriving at the car I realize my keys are in a different pocket. Ahh. Turn my cell phone back on! Then as we slowly get into the car it hits me. I took an umbrella in there. Fortunately it didn't take as long to remember this as the last time I used this method in "Now What's That String for?"

Now what's that string for?

Most of us older individuals and maybe even some of you younger ones know what the string on the finger is. It's a method of remembering something. You look at the string on your finger which you know is not normal and you associate it with something that you wanted to remember like "buy eggs". There are variations on the string on a finger. I tried using a variation this morning. As I was getting ready to come to work, I remembered something that I wanted to do when I got to work so I decided I would put my id card, which is used to swipe in and open the door to my office area, in my left pocket instead of my right pocket. That way when I went to swipe in, my card wouldn't be where it was supossed to be and I would remember what it was I wanted to remember.

As I approached the building this morning, I remembered that I put my id card in my left pocket and that I had put it there to remind me of something, but I couldn't remember what it was. Oh well, maybe I should have wrote a note, called and left a message at work, sent myself an e-mail or used Jott.

As things normally go, I will be nowhere near my office when I remember what it was.

We don't have a button for that

"We don't have a button for that." That's the response Barb and I received at a local Subway when we attempted to redeem a coupon for a 10% discount for seniors. The Subway was located inside a gas station. I should have know better than to expect three young people to be able to run a gas station, make a sandwich and give me the advertised discount. It seems the only way these three young adults could give me my 10% discount was to do it through pushing a button on the cash register that would calculate the 10% discount and subtract it from the total. All they would have needed to know was a little math from grade school to do this. They would need to know how to multiply the sandwich value by .1 which is basically moving the decimal point one position to the left. Then they would need to know how to subtract.

Let's experiment. $3.97 * .1 = .39 (Okay, so it's actually .397 but I would allow them to truncate the fractions of cents) Now, $3.97 - $0.39 = $3.58. The didn't need a button, just a pencil and paper at the most. If they rounded the .397 up to .40 they should have been able to do it in their heads. But no, they needed the button that the proprietor had apparently disabled. Now, why would the proprietor disable the discount button and then advertise the discount?

Times sure have changed. Back in the early 70s I worked at McDonald's. I had many jobs during my tenure there at the "Golden Arches" on North Main St. in Elkhart IN. One of them was working the counter and taking orders. Back then we had a pad of paper and pencil to take the order and add up the cost. We then entered the total into the cash register, took the money and made change. The cash register did not tell us what the change should be, it only kept track of how much was added to the drawer. Times sure have changed.


If I were a mean sort of fellow, I'd go back to the Subway order the sandwich and then when they told me "We don't have a button for that." when I hand them the coupon, I'd tell them to keep the sandwich then.

$15 Blanket

Back in 1997 we took what was our "last family vacation". This was before Emily and Andrea graduated college or became married. We spent a few days at Disney World. One of those days we spent at Epcot Center. At the end of that day we were waiting around for the final laser light show. Despite being Florida, it was getting cold. I slipped into the Mexican pavilion and purchased a $15 blanket which then all four of us huddled inside as we watched the laser light show.

During the last three weeks, this blanket has been my companion much of the time. I'm sure I looked the stereotype of a senior citizen sitting in my recliner with a blanket covering me.

Thursday we bought a $200 blanket. The thing about this blanket though is that it will only last ten days and then it's gone. Why would anyone buy a blanket that's only going to last 10 days and at the price I paid? I was told to. My pulmonologist prescribed an antibiotic that was basically a blanket to cover a multitude of possibilities.

I'm not sure anyone will really know if this $200 blanket will have done any good considering that it's probably a viral pneumonia that has plagued me. But I do know that my $15 Mexican blanket has provided me with warmth and comfort and will continue to do so long after my $200 blanket is gone.

Slow Motion

I remember as a young boy occasionally play fighting and we would go into slow motion while we continued the scene. It must have been an influence from tv. I don't imagine little girls had any such comparable experience.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been living life in slow motion. In fact much of the time as been spent in no motion. I have developed pneumonia of which the worst part is getting winded easily. The simplest of daily activities leaves me huffing and puffing to catch my breath.

I read where pneumonia can last 2-4 weeks and after two weeks I have not seen any improvement in getting winded. I continue to live life in slow motion. I'm hoping for a dramatic change one of these days. The sooner, the better.

During this time I have learned that many of those around me have also at some time struggled with pneumonia and can empathize with my plight. I in turn can now empathize with them.

Perhaps for me, this is the beginning of realizing that I am indeed getting old.

Auto Entertainment Rewind

The other night on my way home from work I followed a van that was playing a dvd for the kids in the back seat.

Rewind 3 years. Harold buys his first car that has a CD player.

Rewind 4 years. Harold buys a portable CD player that will connect to his cassette player in his mini-van.

Fast rewind. Harold buys a car that has a cassette player.

Rewind. Harry buys a car that has AM/FM Stereo.

Rewind to 1968 Harry buys a car that has an AM radio.

Rewind a couple years. Harry is trying to figure out how he can play his LPs in the car without the needle skipping every few seconds due to bumps in the road. He never figured it out. But his thinking was forward thinking.

Fast forward to present. I no longer play cassettes in the mini-van...but I do connect my mp3 player to the car stereo via a cable from it to the cassette player.

Got to be good

Oh where oh were could my baby be
The lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven so I've got to be good
So I can see my baby when I'll leave this world

We were out on a date in my daddy's car
We hadn't driven very far
There in the road
Straight ahead
A car was stalled the engine was dead
I couldn't stop
So I swerved to the right
I'll never forget the sound that night
The screamin tires
The busting glass
The Painfull scream that I heard last.

Oh where oh were could my baby be
The lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven so I've got to be good
So I can see my baby when I'll leave this world

Do you recognize those lyrics? Ah, but from what artist?
Pearl Jam
Cavaliers
Ozzy Osbourne

If you answered Cavaliers, then you're probably a baby boomer.
If you answered Pearl Jam then you're much younger than a boomer.
If you answered Ozzy Osbourne, then it's time to expand you need to see a therapist.

I heard this song "Last Kiss" on the way to work this morning listening to the Oldies station. Of course, at this time in life you tend to evaluate the lyrics more than when you were in your teens.

We were out on a date in my daddy's car
Obviously not current day. Who drives their "daddy's" car these days. It's probably a mini-van anyway. And "daddy"? Who today would refer to their father as their "daddy" when talking to anyone other than perhaps the closest of family?

The screamin tires
The busting glass
I can sympathize with the fact that there was a stalled car in the road, but I'm going to guess he may have been going faster than he should have been. the stalled car was straight ahead. It's not like it was on "deadman's curve". He's a teenager right? He has a girl in the front seat. Back then the front seat on daddy's cars went all the way across the front. They called them bench seats. My guess is that his "baby" was sitting right next to him and I doubt that she, or he, was wearing a seat belt. I even question if they were available back then (1964). I'm wondering if some of the responsibility lies with him for the accident.

I'm a little hesitant to agree with him that "The Lord took her away" but I'm going to have to downright disagree that "She's gone to heaven so I got to be good so I can see my baby when I leave this world." I have no basis of knowing whether heaven was her final destination, but he is mistaken that for him to also get there he has to "be good". I'm probably being too hard on him. My position is that it's faith not works that yields the end result. I should be glad that he concedes that there is an after life and it does involve heaven and another not named possibility. That's better than trying to imagine an existence where heaven and hell do not exist.

With all that said, I probably prefer the lyrics of yesteryear.

Born To Be Wild

You're never too old to begin a new hobby.

Now I Remem.......ber

I'm noticing that my memory isn't functioning the way it used to. It's not that I forget things. It's just that they take longer to ...... remember sometimes.

Sunday, my friend ..... Dr. Bradley Smith (I like to throw names around) suggested we do lunch later in the week. There was an eating establishment, I'll remember the name later, that he wanted to check out in downtown Mishawaka. We agreed on Tuesday. At that time I thought to myself about an errand that I should do while downtown with Bradley. Tuesday arrived. I remembered that there was something that I wanted to do while downtown, but ..... I couldn't remember what it was. I thought and I thought. Traffic must have been re-routed in my brain or there must have been a huge traffic jam. We finished our lunch, which took exceptionally long considering the small number of diners at Carol's Downtown, and I still had not recalled what it was that I wanted to do.

Well, finally Wednesday morning, in the bathroom (I must do some of my best thinking in the bathroom as I'm waking up) the traffic in my brain flowed freely and I remembered that I wanted to pick up some vacuum bags at Advanced Cleaning. Oh well, I'll have to make a special trip now. I wonder when I'll remember to make that special trip?