About Me

Name: AudiR10TDI
Biography
Loading...

Create Your Own Blog Find Other Townhall Blogs

Comments

Archives

Search

Blog Roll

 

"You're Not The Boss Of Me!" will Be the Death of You

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Monday, April 27, 2009 1:54:18 PM
Toronto (April 27, 2009) -- When I was a whole lot younger, and medicine was more art than science, quarantines were something everybody knew well.  When somebody woke up feverish, bleary-eyed and most especially itchy, the doctor was called and more than likely he pronounced Measles, Chicken Pox, Scarlet Fever, or some other contagious disease had hit the household and then he added, "You can expect the Board of Health around this afternoon."  Sure enough, the man with the big yellow sign with QUARANTINE in black letters was soon hammering on the porch and everybody inside was stuck with one another's company until the doctor gave leave and the sign came down.  We kids thought it was kind of cool to have that sign on our house -- it meant that nobody could come in and our friends and relatives had to talk to Mama through the closed window or even better by semaphore (until we got a phone) and nobody could talk to us at all.  Of course it also meant that all five of us were likely to come down with whatever it was that started the Quarantine, and that Mama was trapped with us for a month until the All Clear was sounded, when we would be fumigated and scrubbed within an inch of our convalescent lives and finally given a certificate to come back to school.

Five years ago our city suffered an outbreak of a virulent and deadly respiratory disease called SARS.  The typical socialist knee-jerk response was denial that anything was happening, refusal to implement anything like a quarantine and pray that it would all go away.  Forty people including nurses and medical personnel had died before quarantines began to be ordered, and it took one communicable man with an attitude whose appearance at work regardless caused his 350 person plant to be closed down for two weeks before the police started enforcing that quarantine and finally the dying stopped.

Two years ago a major mumps outbreak occurred at a university in the Maritimes.  With typical socialist forethought, the school eschewed quarantine and sent the students back home to spread their germs broadcast throughout the country.  Those who came back to the GTA were given instructions that mumps was dangerous and they should quarantine themselves until the infection period was past.  "You're not the boss of me!" they shrieked and immediately went clubbing, sharing their germs boardcast and causiing friends and strangers alike unnecessary suffering, sterility and damage to sight and hearing.

Now it's Swine Flu, which so far is confining itself mainly to Generation Yners and which has already killed more than 100 people and sickened 16,000 more -- of the generation who refuse to believe that disease can kill or cripple them or their friends and neighbours, not to mention the people they jam up against on the subway or shove their way past into the grocery store. Quarantine?  Get real!  "You're not the boss of me!" they will shout as they take their germs to the hockey arena, the night club, the grocery store, the restaurant, and the subway station. "Wash my hands?  Make me!  Carry a handkerchief? In your dreams!  If I want to cough and sneeze all over you, that's my right!  And who are YOU to tell me to wash my hands?  How about the blood of the First Nations you've got up to your elbows? Get outa my [expletive] face, you [expletive]!  IGOTTARIGHT to do and go anywhere I please and YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!"

Having lived through contagious illnesses of every hue and cry, and seen school friends and their families die of or be crippled by same, I have a different view.  I have to admit I am kind of enjoying seeing the IGOTTARGHT generation going without work and losing their houses, cars, boats and cottages when they find out that what goes up always comes down and doesn't care whom it hits.  I wish it wasn't going to take the same kind of two-by-four upside the head to teach them that germs operate just the same way.  You may look a germ in the eye and tell it "You're not the boss of me!" but that germ knows better.  And just like the modern day racing driver who jumps out of his car and starts yelling that the guy he just hit tried to kill him, there are ways these days of tracking the accident or the illness back to you.

So in case any of you are listening, Yners, when somebody tells you that it's time for a quarantine, do as you're told for once and go to your room.  After all, you will still have your binkie, your computer, your webcam and your twitter to keep you company. 

Not to mention your germs. 
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Talk

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 11:47:26 AM
Toronto (April 14, 2009) -- I was talking to Mama last night, and she was telling me about my grand-niece Emilee, who is a strong-willed toddler approaching the age of 18 months.  "She's really starting to talk," said Mama, "and she has stopped screaming and crying so much.  I believe she's been frustrated because she had so much to communicate and no way to do it."  She paused, then added, "Like you were."
 
As I was thinking of this, I read yet another How To Take Control Of Your Kids column and I wondered why something that simple continued to elude parents -- not to mention aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbours, brothers, sisters and friends.  What you have to do to "take control" of your kiddie is start talking to her the day she is born.
 
The error people continue to make, that parents used to know before Electronics replaced Though, is in assuming that a child cannot reason until she can talk.  Babies understand a lot more than you think, from the day they are born.  So if you want some control over the way that child goes, start directing her pathway before you bring her home from the hospital.  Talk to her, read to her, instruct her.  Sit her in her little booster seat on the kitchen table and instead of switching on the teevee and allowing her future to be shaped by Oprah, Montel, and The Young and The Worthless, give her a little direction and something to think about.  Tell her stories, comment on the news of the day, explain to her what you are doing, and give her instructions.  Do not assume she has no idea what you are talking about and therefore it's no use telling her anything.  She may not understand the words just yet, but she does understand that Mommy believes she is worthy of attention, and that Mommy is including her in daily life, and that Mommy does not think she is an inert blob of protoplasm to be moved from here to there and mostly not of any interest except if she's crying or spitting up or filling her diapers.  Hold up a carrot and say, "Watch me peel this carrot," and then open the top of the vegamatic and say, "Now I chop it up and put it in the vegamatic, and make sure to put the top on tight, and push the button, and --- carrot juice!"  Susie hears your voice, sees the carrot and the vegamatic, hears the whirring of the blades, and tastes the carrot juice.  She is learning about her world, and at the same time she is learning that Mommy thinks learning is interesting and that Mommy thinks she can learn.

When you sit down to read the paper, read it aloud to Susie.  Most people can't read aloud worth hearing these days; it will be good practice for you, and Susie is an uncritical audience.  Read her a chapter of "The Cat Who Saw Stars" or of Dr. Sowell's latest tome, or a couple of paragraphs of P.J. O'Rourke.  Read from your 1950s copy of Dr. Doolittle (before it was sanitized for her protection) or "Half Magic" or "Swallows and Amazons" or whatever was your favourite childrens' book when you were ten or twelve years old.  (Provided it was not about vampires, anorexia or divorce.)  For an extra relaxing treat, get a really good recording of Messiah (I recommend Sir Thomas Beacham) and sing the choruses along with it.  Or if you prefer, one of the Gilbert & Sullivan CDs -- HMS Pinafore or The Mikado may be the easiest -- and sing her one of the patter songs. Never mind if you can't carry a tune in a wheelbarrow.  Susie has never heard Beverly Sills; it's all new to her.  

And when Junior comes home from school, encourage him to do the same -- talk to Susie as if she's his own age, show her his new gadget that will run across the table and turn corners when he claps his hands, tell her about what happened in school, give her a taste of his ice cream, a crumb of cheese, or a tiny bit of Orangina.  Everyone should treat the baby as if she is a functioning human being from the day she is born, and expect her to behave like one of the family ... but that means paying attention to her when she tries to communicate, too.  When she makes a face at the Orangina, notice it and say, "Oh, you don't care much for that?"  making a face back at her.  If she smiles and coos at the sound of "A Wandering Minstrel I", comment, "Oh, you like that so much you are singing along!" and sing a few notes so she connects the dots.  Encourage her to express herself: to point to what she wants or look at it before she can point, but say, "Tell me what you want," or "tell me what you see" and give her the words for it, with an encouraging, "Do you want a drink?  Do you want to see the duckie?" or whatever it is she seems to want to communicate.  And above all else, expect her to try. 

It's way too late to teach a child to follow family values and rules when she is two or three years old.  By that time she has already absorbed your opinion of her, your opinion of her brothers and sisters (and of the cat and the dog and her Daddy), and has already figured out that  all she needs to know she has learned from Oprah, Montel, and "Two and a Half Men."

That's my secret in the proverbial nutshell: if you want to have some say in the way your child should grow, you have to start sooner to teach her that she is a child, a person, and a member of the family.

You'll be surprised when she starts to speak plainly how much she has already learned.
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (2) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

It's Your Move, Kimberly

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Thursday, March 26, 2009 9:27:52 AM
Toronto (March 26, 2009) -- My dear young niece:  I have sat  here in this coffee shop booth for over an hour listening to your sad tale of woe, which comes down basically to this:  The world is a howling wilderness and you have decided to howl, too.  For the first time in your life you are hearing the word NO, and you can't figure out what it means.  "What can I doooooo?" you wailed to your old Auntie, clutching your bevy of shopping bags filled with goods unpaid for, bought on credit you no longer have funds to cover.  "Auntie, what HAPPENED to my WORLD?"

Allow your old Auntie to explain.  No, shut up, Kimberly dear.  You had your innings.  Sit still or I'll slap you.

The first thing you Generation Yners need to learn is that this recession is NOT all about you personally. The reason your resume does not get any nibbles is NOT that "They Don't Like Me." The reason you flunked bookkeeping is NOT "the teacher doesn't like me." The reason you got fired from your secretarial job is not "My boss doesn't like me."

The reason is that, whether you like it or not, You Are Not In Charge. Contrary to what your Mommy told you, Someone Else IS the Boss Of You.

You didn't get the job because you sat down, crossed your legs, and started interrogating the interviewer about his "sustainable energy" plans, about "work-life balance", and about how much time off you get and how many perqs; and because you told him "I GOTTA leave at 4:00 to pick up my kids at daycare" even though the clearly advertised quitting time, if any, was 5:30.

The reason you flunked bookkeeping was that you didn't show up for class, your work was incomplete, you failed most of the exams, and you persisted in standing at the teacher's desk and whining that your F grade was "unfair" because you TRIED SO HARD ... when you and the prof both knew that the only thing you tried hard to do was pass the class without doing the work.

Your resume was rejected because half the words were misspelled, and the cover letter used was written in text message gibberish (e.g. the word is PEOPLE, not ppl.) A person who cannot spell, punctuate, paragraph, or recognize poor grammar in a letter of application is a person who cannot be left alone to do the job; and a person who needs a nanny to watch her work is depriving some useful person of a chair, a desk and a job.

And from what you have told me, when you finally did get a job, you were fired because you couldn't do the work, or even worse, you WOULDN'T do the work. When telephoned from the boardroom to bring your pad and pen and take lunch orders, you sniffed, "I'm not a waitress!" When you were called from court at 4:55 and asked to get a boardroom and order coffee and snacks from the kitchen because your boss and the clients were coming back and by the way, stand by to take instructions because the Judge had decided to hear argument on damages tomorrow instead of Monday, you whined, "But I go home at fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!" and you spent the next five minutes frantically trying to find someone else to do your work before you shut off your machinery and shot out the door.

And the next day when you came in, a 59 year old woman had your job ... because she could read, write, spell, punctuate, take lunch orders, run to the mall for nylons when your boss ripped hers right before a meeting, address clients with deference and stay til the work got done.

True, your aunties and uncles, and your Mom, were lucky enough to have parents who taught us these things, and who toiled in the factories and the fields so we would not have to. And it is true that you had four fathers and three mothers before you graduated from university. But your biggest problem is, was, and always has been that you believe that the world was your oyster and everything revolves around you.

Now you know it doesn't.

So you have a choice. Will you continue to sit on the kerb and whine that it's not "fairrrrrrrrrrrrrr" and vote for the next demagogue or puppet who tells you he'll take stuff from others and hand it to you ... or will you save us all a world of trouble and just starve to death now?

Or will you gratefully take that job at Wal-Mart and enroll in night school to learn those basic reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic and speaking skills you should have been taught in Grade Five, and go back to your Mom for a refresher course in "Please", "Thank You," "Yes ma'am," "No, sir," and "Right away, boss" with a big eager smile on your face?

And by the way, when you get to Wal-Mart for work every day, take a good look at that sign out front and remind yourself that you don't give the orders until the day you look up and that sign says "Kimberly Smith."

 The ball is in your court.

Your move.
 
Let's see what you can do.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (4) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

If You Could Talk to A Younger You

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Monday, March 02, 2009 7:18:50 AM
Toronto (March 2, 2009) -- On another website someone posed the question *If you could speak to your 20 year old self, what would you tell her about the future?*  Now I have just turned 61, and I am supposed to be an Old Fogey and a Stick In The Mud, a Cautious Carrie and a Curmudgeon -- but I have to tell you, I was startled by the ennervating, rut-digging, totally boring advice these much younger people would have given themselves.  It has been a lifetime since I was 20 years old (that was in 1968), but I can guarantee you that I would not have paid the slightest attention to a pinch-mouthed Future Me admonishing me to pay my bills, buy property and pay my mortgage, put all my money in savings and essentially put off living (save for marriage, children, and Buying Things) until everything was Paid in Full.  Not that there is anybody like that on either side of my family, fortunately.  We are more the Life Is Uncertain - Eat Dessert First type.
 
What I would tell my 20 year old self (who was focused almost exclusively on Star Trek, actually, and taking 24 units of classs at Bible College, working two part time jobs and living a very modified Vida Loca as she enjoyed her first experience being 800 miles away from her family) is quite different.
 
From my position in the future I would reassure her that she would have a very rich, full life and that she would achieve almost all the goals she had set for herself.  You will, I would tell her, stand on all 7 continents, travel to 40 different countries and 42 states, make friends all over the world, ride motocross, live in California (and Idaho, Tennessee, Georgia, Buffalo and Canada), and go to England so many times that it will become as usual as taking the bus from Atlanta to Alabama.  Life will change radically in the next few years and women will no longer be forced against their will to marry, have children and keep house -- so relax and stop dating impossible men; you will not have to settle for whatever comes along, and you will be much happier without any of these goofs.  It will bcome acceptable and possible for women to enter male-dominated fields but you will have to fight your way in by merit and you will succeed.
 
You will, I would have told her, have to re-make your life four or five times, from the ground up, but you will succeed every time, and you will do so by trusting in God and following His directions.  You will live in luxury and you will live in match boxes.  You will hike down canyons in Australia, and you will walk miles to work.  You will visit the 24 Hours of Le Mans 6 times (or more, the jury is still out on that) and in one year you will visit the Grand Prix of Montreal, the Grand Prix of Silverstone and the 24 Hours of Le Mans -- and then you will discover Petit Le Mans and life will change forever.  You will meet influential people and you will become friends with ambassadors.  But you will never be invited to a single home in Ontario, Canada, so dont waste your time trying to be friends with them.  It is no fault in you.  They are simply indifferent, unfriendly, insular people and there is no doing anything about it.  Keep up your friendships in other countries. 
 
There will be wonderful things and there will be terrible things in your future.  Be sure you write them down.  Help your sisters although they will not help you -- because you will enjoy doing it even if you get no return.  Learn German, Italian, Dutch and French.  You will need them when you are older and its easier to learn them now.  Buy a Ferrari Dino GTS.  They will quadruple in price very soon, and you will meet two men named Gino and Henri that you will otherwise never know.
 
Above all, no matter what fretful, rut-digging people advise you, do not put anything off.  Carpe Diem is your motto; adhere to it!  If you think you can put off travelling until you are 60 and all your bills are paid including your house, be advised that when you are 60 you will be blind in one eye and have heart trouble, and the places you wanted to visit will be dirty, dangerous and inaccessible to someone not in good physical health.  Besides which, your careful investments will have gone into the toilet, the value of your house will have dropped to nil and the neighbourhood will have gone bad so you cannot sell it at any price and you do not dare to leave it for long lest the savages loot it and burn it down.  Trust your instincts -- do not buy property you cannot bear to abandon.  Do not travel with anybody named Melody or Vanessa. 
 
And believe what Daddy advised you: spend your money and your time building memories.  Because when you reach the age of 61 and more of your life is behind you than ahead of you, it will be far better to look back on an exciting, fulfilling life than on a pile of bills stamped PAID, and to look forward to life as an adventure you can survive, not a trudge along a rut that looks the same ahead as it looks behind.
 
You are of sound mind, I would tell my 20 year old self: spend it all -- time, talent and treasure -- while you are alive.  You will be much happier than your trudging friends who obey the pinch-mouthed future selves who never had a minute of fun.
 
And never, ever travel with anybody named Melody or Vanessa.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (2) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Good News at Our House

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Friday, January 30, 2009 3:05:31 PM
Toronto (January 30, 2009) -- I haven't written much of anything lately because frankly, there's been nothing but bad news.  We had two more deaths in our family and a massive blackout that blew up my television, my digital box and the battery to my computer plus the surge protectors (hah) they were attached to; and this looks to be the first January in 170 years that we will not have a January thaw.  My normally cheery sister had to go shovel two feet of Global Warming off the roof of her cottage lest it collapse, and her comments re: Gore were that "if he would lose 100 lb. and get hormone replacement therapy, he'd find out it's not the environment that's heating up."
 
But this week we got some good news at our house, and I thought I'd drop by to share it.
 
First I have another great-nephew; Bryden Christopher Mushynsky was born Tuesday night to my nephew David and neice in law Leanne and big brother Damien (who is 14 months old and not amused, at least so far). Mom and baby doing fine and will come home this weekend.  Dad is finally beginning to breathe again after a rapid dash to the hospital in which he worried all the way he would not beat the baby.  This brings our total to 4 great-nephews and 2 great-neices and counting.  If there is a birth dearth in this country, we plead Not Guilty.
 
The other good news was that Mama phoned last night and said that Reminiscence magazine had printed one of Daddy's war stories.  The one, as mama wryly put it, about "your father the car thief."  It seems that Daddy and his Army buds were sort of innocently wandering around somebody's garage after overruning enemy lines, when they discovered an Opel Ambassador up on blocks with one tire missing.  One of the lads speculated that the jeep tires might fit, and they did.  The boys drove this car back to Weather Central where they made it the official staff car and Daddy became the designated driver.  What makes this story memorable is that Daddy had a photo showing all the lads and their captured darling, and it had not faded at all.  I helped Daddy put that story together and I remember him saying "They can't say I made this up! I have a picture!"  I wonder if the guy whose car that once was will ever know what happened to it? It was so long ago and most animosity has faded, but I really hope he's forgotten all about it by now.
 
In a world where everything seems to be on a luge ride to disaster, we take 'em where we can get 'em.  And I am glad at long last to have some good news I can share.
 
I hope you are as lucky.  Bundle up and think of spring.  It's only 5 months away....
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Heading for 2009

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 9:58:13 AM
December 30, 2008 -- I am glad to see the back of 2008.  It was a year that did not treat me or my family kindly and I bid it farewell without a backward glance.  It started going wrong when Champ Cars "sold out" to the evil Tony George in January, proceeded through my computer hard drive crashing in the fifth hour of the 12 hours of Sebring, and of course it was the year my beloved Daddy went off to heaven to join his Mama and those brothers of his who have already gone before.
 
Christmas was better than we thought it would be, to the secret relief of all, though it would have been a good idea if those with children had not pretended it was just like every other Christmas and scheduled fewer parties ... and that birthday party for the adorable baby who turned 1 year old that included mainly her Arab family members who spoke not a single word to us of Jewish descent the entire evening while we few who actually turned out (we didn't realize they'd outnumber us) tried to carry on as if they, too were not there ... this was not the time for that either.
 
Nevertheless it was a relief to see that Mama is settling into her new place and Senior Living is just what she needs at this time in her life.  The people in her new place are helpful and friendly and she has already joined a Bible study group which I think is a good sign.  Mama has never lived alone; she went straight from her Mama's home to her husband's home 62 years ago.  This is going to take some getting used to for her and will also need some gentle prodding from those who are too young or too liberated to realize the vast gulf between her generation and ours in this regard.  The sisters are suffering their changes-of-life as well; one full time housewife is coping with a newly-retired husband suddenly underfoot all day; one is in a staring contest with her present husband to see who will blink and move out of the house before the other one has to institute any kind of proceedings; one is developing those "ills and pills" that come with old age and making Dylan Thomas' 'rage against the dying of the light' look like the Hallelujah Chorus.  And here am I in a country crumbling like wet cardboard while frantically pretending that it's still 1971 and if they just ignore everything it will all sort itself out or Ottawa Will Do Something and anyway bad things only happen to Americans who incidentally we depend on to protect our quivering heinies as we hide under our beds with our fingers in our ears ...
 
But hey, this miserable year is nearly over and from the look of things, the Eschaton is near and that is certainly something to look forward to although I pray I'll see it all from a secure location as the Obamanation takes the reins and his False Prophet emerges from under the bus to stand at his side ... but in any event, as the rabbi said in "Fiddler on the Roof" although this is a good time for Messiah to return, we may have to wait for Him somewhere else.  I would advise you to keep your lamps filled with oil, your wicks trimmed, and some matches near to hand, as it could be any minute now. Oh, and stay awake.
 
May 2009 be the year of decision in many hearts, as people wake up and smell the burning rubber and don't mistake the signs ... then whatever happens in 2009 the world will be saved.
 
And may 2009 be the year Tony George goes finally, gloriously, bankrupt and takes the IRL with him.
 
So there.
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (2) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Veterans Day 2008

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 7:26:53 AM
TORONTO (November 11, 2008) -- Today we observe the day honouring our Veterans.  We use different names for our observed day: Remembrance Day here in Canada; Armistice Day in Britain; Veterans Day in the USA.  Some of us know why the decent people stop what they are doing on the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month at 11:00 a.m.  We whose parents went to World War II know that this was the date and the time that World War I -- The Great War, the War To End Wars -- came to its official end.  There is one soldier left in Canada who was there; he was 15 years old when he convinced the recruiters he was old enough and went away to the War.  He is 108 today.  (Today the constabulary and most parents consider 15 year olds to be toddlers.  Think about it.) Britain has 3 old soldiers still among them, ranging from 110-112 years of age, who must have done the same.  In those days young men were not only proud but eager to serve their country and they knew why it had to be done.
 
Many of our fathers, or grandfathers, and our uncles, cousins and other relatives went off to World War II.  My sainted Daddy was 22 when he signed up; he told us he weighed only 98 lb. (life on  a Depression-era farm with 11 brothers and sisters and a father who believed that boys existed to be worked until they dropped was like that) but the doctor winked at him and wrote down 105 so he could pass the physical.  Six of the boys signed up: Jerry, Albert, Harold, Jim, Douglas and Lee.  They ranged in age from 25 to 19 and every one of them was eager to serve.  (This week I have observed a horde of brats on the grass at Queens Park, the same age as those brave young men and women, bawling for the gubmint not to make them pay back their college loans because they didnt learn anything that can get them a job even in a good economy.)  Young men, and some young women too, who had their whole lives ahead of them, who had never left the farm and who in most cases had not finished even the grades at the two-room prairie schoolhouses where the big boys went when farm work allowed, signed up and shipped out and laid everything on the line for people they did not know and would never meet, because those people needed them and because many of those soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and the nurses and support teams that went with them knew that if Hitler wasnt stopped where he was, he would be stomping his jackboots across Main Street USA and Krystalnacht would come to the streets of New York.  Daddy and his brothers were Jews. Some of the military who went from the USA were Japanese and Germans who loved their new country (in which many were actually born).  Some were Navajo and Oneida Indians who dropped their grudges and picked up their rifles.  Some were consciencious objectors who picked up stretchers and medical bags and dived under withering fire to save comrades and fellow soldiers and anybody else that needed their aid.  Some of them came home -- Daddy and all his brothers did -- and many more lie in cemeteries in Cambridge, in New Zealand and Australia and France and in Flanders Fields, and too many lie in unknown places, known but to God.  Daddy came home with stories and photographs that he showed us when we turned 12 years old, photos he took and smuggled out, of the concentration camp he went to as a driver for the officers who supervised the awful task of dealing with the inhumanity of man to man.  He told us that the day would come when people would say that such things never happened at all.  *Your Daddy saw these things,* he said. *And now you have seen them too.*   (Many years later my sister and I went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and upon returning we were describing what we saw there.  When we mentioned the pile of childrens shoes, my youngest boy, who was about 6 at the time, interrupted. *Hitler killed CHILDREN?* he said in consternation. *What did the children do wrong?*  Steven is 21 today and I am still answering that question.
 
Later genrations went off to smaller wars -- Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and as UN support troops to Lebanon and Africa.  Some were killed; some returned home different in many ways.  Every one of them went because they loved their country and knew that people are people and deserve defence from horrors that they devoutly hope will never come to their own home towns.  (When they came home, a lot of the rising generation of toddlers spat on them and called them filthy names, under the tutelage of the ignorant and evil.  Some, like my younger sister, came to understand what a monstrous evil this was -- in seeing the killing fields of Laos and Cambodia and realizing what her stupid chanting and marching had really caused, she repented in dust and ashes.  I am sure she was not alone.)
 
Today as we celebrate the end of the first Great War, squads of cadets and old soldiers guard the Cenotaphs in Ontario from those who last year filmed themselves urinating on these memorials to men their own age who never returned to their much-beloved *home and native land* -- and who did so in the belief and knowledge that there was something here worth preserving.  Those who saw the smoking ruins of the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11/01 and who went off to war as their grandfathers had done after Pearl Harbour was attacked, and those who have already forgotten that anything happened on that day, but can remember everyone who competed in the last round of Dancing with the Stars ... our fathers and grandfathers, our uncles and great-uncles, fought for that generation too.  And God bless the members of that generation who listened and who listen to the stories these old soldiers tell and take them to heart for the day when they too will have to stand up and be counted.
 
My Daddy died October 7, 2008, and he had a military funeral because at an age when he had everything to lose, he laid it all on the line for his country.  At the end of the ceremony a young soldier presented Mama with a folded flag *with the thanks of a grateful country.*  Mama said that she prayed Daddy could see that moment.  He would, she said, have burst his buttons with pride.
 
God bless and save all soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines this day and every day.  And God give the indifferent and the hostile and those who believe we can surrender our way to Peace, the wisdom and good sense, and the kick up the backside, they need to raise their understanding of just what we remember on Remembrance Day....
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (1) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Daddy has Gone to Glory

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 7:20:10 AM
October 21, 2008 -- On October 7, 2008, Mama phoned me at work.  It was 10:15 a.m.  Mama said, *Its me, your Mama* as she always did, and I said as always the Hill Street Blues line, *Hi Ma.*  She took a deep breath and said *Your father has passed.*  The nurse at Francis House had checked on him when she started her early morning shift, and when she came back in half an hour, St. Michael had passed through and escorted him to Eternity. (And stopped at the room next door to gather up a young woman named Sheena, aged 32, who was ready to go as well.) 
I am back home from two weeks of exhausting labour and kind of glad to have nobody at home to talk to but the cat, at least for a little while. 
 
I phoned my sister in Florida and they got on the road; I phoned HR and went to coffee with my boss and caught my breath a little bit.  By 4:00 p.m. I was on the bus to Niagara Falls where I met my friend and brother Tom and we went to his house just across the border to spend the night; by 10:30 a.m. the next day we were greeting Mama and my sister at the door.  From then on it was a steady processing of arrivals -- my sister from Atlanta and her daughter, my two boys, Jack and Linda from Florida, my sisters and their children and grandchildren from the neighbourhood, and a whirl of activity that kept most of us from thinking too much about why we were gathered there...Mama fussing about what to wear and me talking to the Chaplain about what to say, and sorting out the pallbearers (one brother in law unexpectedly passed his station over to his daughters fiance, which made a brief wave as thinking was it should have been handed to the husband of a niece (who is an Arab and whom that brother in law does not trust as far as he can throw the Statue of Liberty) and finally, at 9:30 a.m., gathering for visitation at the nice, quiet funeral home and for those who wished, viewing.  Daddys coffin was draped with an American flag, which he would have (and probably did) approved.  We were invited to speak during the service and two of my sisters got up to say a few brief words.  I got up and told the very funny story about how Daddy the Hot Rod taught me to drive and how he Put One Over on the poor man who had to examine a 17 year old girl in a NA$CAR prototype on city streets in New York in the morning.  That is Daddys favourite story and he told it regularly for 45 years.  (I was 25 before I got a license, on an old Studebaker Lark VI, in California.) People came up to tell me how much they enjoyed the story, and I was reassured about telling a funny story at a funeral. But Daddy believed implicitly that he would be going to Glory, and he had been ill for so long that I am sure he was relieved and pleased to see St. Michael relieve him of that great burden.
 
From there we went to the cemetery, Onandaga County Veterans Memorial, for a brief military service including the presentation of the folded flag to Mama *with the thanks of a grateful nation* which would have burst Daddys buttons with pride.  With the playing of Taps we headed for the reception,spent an hour or two greeting people, and went back home.  Linda and Jack, Tom, and the kids all went home on Saturday.  Sunday Mama and I went to church and otherwise we had a day of rest.  Then we had to start packing for her to leave that apartment. (This part had been mishandled by my sisters, whom I had assumed wrongly would have accompanied Mama to the office to see that she did not just tell them she was not renewing her lease but also would have said she was going month to month until she had somewhere to move to.  Alas.)  I also made the phone calls necessary, set up appointments, cancelled services, and saw that Mama ate, slept, and had time to talk if she wanted to. The others came to take things to the storage unit and to the home of the sister where Mama was going to stay until her place was available in December.  A visit was made to Francis House so the youngest sister could meet those who were caring for Daddy in his last two months, and there was a brief spat when the sister where we would be staying after we moved out of the apartment admitted she had invited her children to visit that weekend to attend a baby shower (of all things) and therefore Mama and I would have temporary beds in the basement.  (Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and the children did not stay overnight, so Mama could begin to settle into the guest room where she would be living; she was also allowed to bring her dresser instead of putting her clothes in the entertainment centre in transparent shelves and living out of her suitcase.)  Somehow everything was done; the truck rental was accomplished with minimal disruption -- nobody remembered to do it until Thursday -- and enough men showed up to get it done in 3 hours.  We then retired to watch the Alabama/Ole Miss game and Mama went to bed at 8:00 p.m. and I went soon afterwards and Sunday afternoon I went home. (The one Amtrak train to Toronto broke down in Albany so I leaped onboard a bus instead and ended up getting home cheaper and quicker than on the train anyway.)
 
When I got to work I found that nobody knew I had suffered a loss at all -- only the deaths of family members of lawyers are eulogized in that firm -- so I sent out my own notice, as I needed the consolation of my colleagues and the slack -- and also because it is not my Daddys fault that his daughter is only a peon and he is just as worthy as the father of a lawyer to be recognized.  Many people agreed that this policy is an outrage.  Just when you think you have learned everything about socialism, you get reminded that there is a big divide between the Nomenklatura and the Proletariat after all, and the Apparatchiks make the policy. (Grima Wormtongue anybody?)
 
Now I am left to sort out my feelings and thoughts about my Daddy whom I loved and miss greatly.  That eulogy will follow whn I have gathered my feelings and thoughts together.
 
Enjoy yourself in Heaven, Daddy.  We will see you again one day there.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (11) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Precious Lord, Lead Me Home

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 7:42:03 PM
TORONTO (September 24, 2008) -- Time is growing short for my beloved Daddy.  I spent four days with the folks, kind of -- and things are tense and still, waiting for St. Michael to appear at the foot of the bed and carry him home to Jesus.  I arrived Friday afternoon and my sister Carol and Mama met me at the train station and we went right to Francis House, the hospice where Daddy is being cared for now.  He was in bed, as he has been most of the time this month, but greeted me with a smile and sounded quite like himself.  His pastor had been to visit, as he comes every Friday and when called at other times, and a volunteer had been reading to him about D-Day from a book a granddaughter had brought him.  We stayed a little while, til another sister arrived to sit with him until he went to sleep, and he tired quickly as he tried to keep up his old self for the company.  Donna and I sat up til 3:00 a.m. talking, as we had not seen one another for a long time and there was a lot of catching up to do, about family things and about what we call Subjects.  It was just like old times.
Saturday morning my sister Donna dropped us off at Francis House and went on to fill up the car with gas (and visit a yard sale where she picked up a Scrabble set).  Daddy was tired, but welcomed us and we chatted of this and that, particularly of Patton which I had brought along because he wanted to watch it and nobody had been able to find it for him.  (Daddy and I like manly movies; my sisters and Mama do not.  So perhaps they did not look as hard as thy could.)  Daddy asked if we could go into the Great Room and watch it, and the resident nurse made it happen.  Daddy was transported to a comfortable chair with the wheelchair and oxygen tank nearby but tucked back out of sight, and Donna and I kept him company while Mama went back to his room to watch the NA$CAR race and call my youngest sister to chat.  Daddy dozed off a couple of times for a few minutes, but he was very interested in the movie and after Reel 1 he went back to his room to have a good supper and soon was asleep, so we went on home.  Donna and I played Scrabble and Mama went to her room to read.  We were just getting ready for bed when Mama had an Episode.  Although it was often the case that she had crippling anxiety attacks, she had  few other symptoms that alarmed Donna (who is a nurse) and the upshot of the matter was a 911 call, an ambulance, and another 3:30 a.m. trudge home through the dark as Mama was admitted for the night.  Next morning I phoned the family and gave them the word, and cautioned everyone not to mention it to Daddy but just to tell him she was not feeling well.  We carried Mama her clothes, glasses, reading material, and teeth; and we went on to the birthday party of our youngest great-nephew who was just turning 1.  The house was crowded with guests of every age and we stayed a couple of hours and enjoyed the babies and a good dinner and birthday cake, then went off to Francis House to see Daddy, who was very tired and weak; he slept most of the time we were there as we watched a football game and  NA$CAR race and kept him company when he was awake.  Mama had to stay another night in the hospital and was more worried about not being with Daddy than about whatever might be wrong with her.  Sundays are not good days to try to get hold of your doctor.  We stayed til Daddy was asleep and then went home and ate dinner and went to bed.
 
Monday was my day to go home and Donna had to go to work.  Mama was released from the hospital with an appointmnt for next month to have an angiogram and Carol and her husband took me to the train station and then picked her up to take her to Francis House.
 
Last night I got a call that the hospice people think it will not be long now.  Daddy was sleepy and somnulant all day, until Donnas son and brought the new one-year-old baby to visit and when he sat down on Daddys bed, Mama said, he suddenly came to life and the two buddies had a great little visit.  Babies take you the way they find you; all he knew was that this was his Granddad who loved him and he happily exchanged waves and chattered in his own language just to make everyone smile.
 
I am waiting day by day to see if I can go to Road Atlanta next week; everyone says not to cancel and to wait and see.  We are perched on the cusp now.  Nothing to do but stand watch and wait for St. Michael to arrive and take Daddy home.  It is a hard vigil.  I almost hope I can go to the race because there I will be with my friends and here in Kanukistan I am alone with my thoughts.
 
And meanwhile I am keeping my lamp trimmed and filled with oil.  Waiting..
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (2) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Reviewing the Situation

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Sunday, September 07, 2008 10:26:31 PM
September 7, 2008 -- I have been very, very busy at my second job (motorsport journalism) since Daddy went into Hospice care; we had three race weekends in a row. (You can read about that at www.rfmsports.com )  So I have not updated my blog in awhile.  To add to the fun, it was thought that I had developed serious heart trouble and this week I had an angiogram which is no day at the beach, let me assure you. It is considered a minor procedure by some.  I suspect these are the same people who think they can race a Formula One car that has only three wheels. Anyway, here is an update for those who may be reading along.
It has been a month now and everyone in our family is slowly settling into the routine.  Daddy loathes the Hospice although he admits they treat him as if he were Howard Hughes.  It is not home, and he sulks in his room although he can leave it whenever he wants to; he needs only ring his bell and ask to be conveyed anywhere within that he wishes to go.  Someone visits him every day -- daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, Mama and all.  In fact, Mama had a birthday party there with masses of family and Daddy too.  But it is not home, and he is just confused enough to believe that he has been left there until he dies.  Periodically he rages at people about this.  Then he forgets he has done it.
 
Mama is slowly coming back to her old self, resting up and realizing that she is not going to be abandoned to pick up the cross alone.   It is an instinct with her by now to believe that she has to do it all herself; for so long she has tried to do it all, like me, because there was nobody else.  She still believes that any minute she is about to be flung out into the street, although we tell her every time that none of us will allow this to happen, and indeed we are working to make sure that it does not.  Mama is part of a world in which people did for themselves or did without.  Because when she was young, children were property of their parents and the parents could demand that they turn over everything they earned until they were 21 (or forever if they were girls), she is determined that we will never turn over our money to her, even if we want to.  We quote from the Bible to prove to her that this is our duty as well as our pleasure, and sometimes it reassures her for awhile.
 
Through it all, the Sisters and volunteers at Francis House do everything possible to make life easy and pleasant for the family and for Daddy.  They are saints and angels, and I bless them and all those like them who deal with these situations everywhere, every day.  And although we would like to drop everything and assist them, life has to go on.  We are none of us young anymore, and we have our own medical conditions, our jobs (and younger people waiting eagerly to point out -- when they can spare the time from making phone calls to the nanny or the daycare -- that we are not doing our *fair share*) and when you are covering your third race in three weeks and writing your opinions of behaviour trackside and on the track and trying to get good information about penalties, its hard to see the e-mail pop up about the latest crisis back home and not feel as if you would rather be anybody else.  But you pick up your cross and trudge on because that is what you have to do.
 
Life goes on for us.  We shall perservere.  People do.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (2) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Daddy went to Hospice today

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Tuesday, August 05, 2008 1:08:23 PM
Syracuse NY (August 5, 2008) --Saturday morning while I was up to watch F1 qualifying, Mama called me to tell me that Daddy had had a very bad few days, and that at night he was trying to climb out of bed and falling and then not able to get up or help her and my sister (whichever one was spending the night) get him back into bed again.  Finally they had to call the EMT who sent three burly men and they righted the situation.  Mama wanted my opinion as to whether or not it was time to get Daddy into the hospice where he could be cared for 24/7 by people who knew how to handle these episodes.  During the day he is fine but at night, and my sister confirmed, he seemed to turn into someone else.
A friend of mine who has been adopted as an unofficial brother spent the weekend and phoned me this morning to tell me that he thinks Daddy has panic attacks at night and that helps to exacerbate the loss of oxygen to the brain and causes him to not know what he is doing.  My friend was able to calm him by reading to him and talking to him, but he said it took all his strength even to help him sit up against his pillows.
 
Mama was sure we would think her a terrible person for not being able to cope anymore, but she is nearly 81 and a small woman and is at the point of collapse herself.  Clearly the time had come.
 
The hospice is a wonderful place run by the Franciscan sisters and everyone speaks glowingly of it.  They take only 18 guests maximum and people are admitted on the basis of need and not strictly according to a waiting list.  Being an ardent Catholic, I began a novena to St. Jude Sunday (patron saint of desperate and hopeless situations) begging him to use his influence to get Daddy a bed at Francis House.  Yesterday afternoon my sister phoned and said that Daddy would be transferred there today.  Mama will have the help and support of one sister as she makes him comfortable there, and the other lives 10 minutes from the hospice and has promised to visit him every night.  He will have his own phone and as soon as I have the number I will call him; I've already sent him a card and urged my friends and relations to do the same.
 
Death comes to us all one day.  I am one of the few people my age that I know who still has two living parents, so I have escaped this knowledge for a long time.  Now it is here.
 
Please keep us in your prayers.  It is going to be a tough few months around our homesteads. 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (5) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Mama Mia!

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Friday, August 01, 2008 11:41:20 AM
TORONTO (August 1, 2008) -- Go and see the new movie "Mama Mia" if (1) you are looking for the best laugh you have had in years and (2) if you ever went to a Star Trek convention dressed as Lt. Uhura even if you had legs like bridge pilings, and your children in subsequent years have begged you never to tell a soul.
 
I had a tense and unhappy week that ended with a short-lived but intense panic at work about something we thought had been lost, and since I had Points that entitled me to a free movie, I went up to a theatre that holds about 100 in cushy leather tilt-back loungers with table service for snacks.  The room was full, largely of middle-aged women but with a healthy minority of men and younger women too. It wasn't long until the whole place was rocking with laughter.  The plot, as you probably know, is thin and immaterial: a 20 year old girl who has never known her father finds her mother's old diary (note to self: burn all old diaries) and discovers there are three likely candidates.  She invites all three forthwith to her wedding, signing her mother's name.  Wackiness results, set to every song ABBA ever recorded.  She doesn't discover which one her father is, and she doesn't even get married at the end, but her mother does.
 
What makes this movie work is hard to explain.  In the first place, it had to be ABBA -- no other group is so completely over the top as they were; no outfits as hard to explain to younger generations as those terrifying blue spangled jump suits with elephant bells and the four inch platform shoes, no music as similar and occasionally suffering from what have to be translation glitches as theirs.
 
In the second place, this movie vindicates Boomer Wimmin who are frankly sick and tired of being shoved aside and requested by both the 17 year old Dancing Queens without hips, breasts, calves, buttocks or life experience (and by Boomer men who lust after said Bratz) to have the grace to go away and die because we are embarrassing them.  "Mama Mia!" asserts our right to dress up as anything we want to, be it Lt. Uhura or ABBA girls, and have just as good a time as we had when we were young, whether we are 17 years old anymore or not.  Even if we are a square-built older woman who opens bottle caps with her teeth.  And it shows that not only do we have the right to do this kind of silly thing, we look darned good in the process.
 
Of special note to me was the beach production number to "Does Your Mother Know" in which one of the Dynamos (Meryl Streep's old backup group) has a flirtatious rock-out with a beach full of beachboys in which the boys play they think she's a hottie and she plays they are all just babies and everybody has a good time without anybody having to take it seriously.  Instead of the sad spectre of "mutton dressed as lamb" Mommies whose fevered desire is to have their childrens' friends find them Hot, we have here a woman acting her age, dressed her age, and whooping it up with friends her childrens' age while keeping the generational barrier in place.  (Daughters love it when Mama can whoop it up with their friends; but daughters in the end need mothers, not middle aged hottie competition.)
 
No, Meryl Streep cannot sing like ABBA, and neither can Piers Brosnan.  But they do sing like we'd sing if we viewed life as a song cue. That's what makes us able to enjoy it.
 
And at the end of the show when the credits are rolling and the 'big kids' come out dressed as ABBA and do their production numbers, not only are we awed that they can do dance moves in those shoes, but for a few minutes we can see ourselves, even if we are no longer seventeen, as ABBA, and not only laugh until we fall out of our chairs, but identify.

The only course I ever failed in my life was social dancing.  But I came out of that movie completely in touch with my inner Dancing Queen.  Even if I would never dare try to get into that old Star Trek uniform anymore.
 
Go and see it if you want to laugh, and if you want to be reassured that even if you're not seventeen and you've made plenty of mistakes in your life, it is not too late to find happiness.  No matter what your acutely-embarrassed twenty-something kids may say.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (1) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Looking toward Sunset

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Friday, July 25, 2008 7:31:40 AM
TORONTO (July 24, 2008) -- I am back from another visit to my family over in Syracuse, and as my sisters had reported, Daddy is fading fast.  My Florida sister Linda and her beau Jack came up to spend a few days too, as it became clear that we ought not to put off family visits while Daddy is still able to enjoy our company.  We are in home hospice care now and the hospice people are wonderfully kind, patient and helpful, and Mama is slowly accustoming herself to the parade of people through the house and learning to trust them enough to call someone when needed.  But the fact remains that the dynamic has dramatically changed.
 
Daddy conquered his fiery temper before he stopped racing, back in the day, but he is clearly, quietly furious at the change in his circumstances.  He is able to sit up and preside in his loungeback chair for about 2 hours at a time before being conveyed to his room for a short nap; and he scowls that he hates not being a good host and mutters that he wants to find a bridge and jump off.  Mama has never conquered her temper, and explodes with frustration that upsets the sisters, who misunderstand her feelings and jump on her for *picking on him.*  She says she knows she should not do it, but the strain is clear even when she holds it in.  Respite care helps her to have some time off, but in the night when he cannot sleep, she is up too; and when he does not want lunch, she will not eat either unless somebody sits her down and puts the food in front of her.  The folly of the Traditional Housewife is writ large in Mama at this crucial time; brought up to believe -- and enjoying -- that women did not worry their pretty little heads about the organization of daily life (keep your clothes nice and your house clean, bring up the children and leave the rest to the man), she cannot write a cheque, has no idea what anything costs, and is wracked with fear that she will be flung out into the streets.  Mama has worked hard all her life, but handed the money over to Daddy and asked him for what she wanted.   She clings to us now for reassurance and decisions that we more liberated women have made routinely for good or for ill; and we are reminded, well most of us, that Father Knows Best works only as long as Father is able to cope.
 
But during the visit we had time for the important things.  Daddy and Mama both are reviewing the 62 years they have had together and wondering whether they did enough, did the right things, and whether we grew up without vital stuff that other kids had.  They crave the reassurance and the memories of the good times we had when the money was very short and so was everything else -- except a sense of adventure and the knowledge that we always had each other.  So we spent a lot of time talking about the funny things, the silly things, the triumphs and the glories.  We talked about the Sunday drives to Minnewaska Falls, with a picnic lunch and our hoola hoops or jump ropes or just a beach ball, to enjoy being together.  We recalled the long trips in the Henry J in the days before seat belts, with a big mattress covering the back seat and a pile of library books for company, and usually a baby sister in a car bed, heading for a dirt track somewhere for Daddy to try to make the field, occasionally popping up our heads to glimpse the trailer with the stock car on it sailing along in front.  We shared ancient jokes, giggles and stories and we remembered adventures.  And most of all we reassured them that we would stick together, that at the end of the day whatever our differences they would never overcome that foundation.
 
We are all learning patience in dealing with a situation we cannot change, and drawing lessons from wherever they may come.  Saturday night we watched Titanic and reminded ourselves how long it takes from the time you yell RIGHT FULL RUDDER until the ship turns.  We continue to reassure Mama that we will never allow her to be flung out into the street, that we are ready to step in and handle those things she feels she cannot handle (practically everything can be handled by the bank today, for example, and she has a son in law and a nephew who are CPAs who will oversee the banks handiwork), and that with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren around her she will not be left alone except when she wants to be.  Sisters have bought cemetery plots in the Veterans Cemetery nearby where they play Taps every evening, and the Vet in charge is working with us to get a funeral home where Vets can get a funeral that takes their situation into account.  Sisters take the car to be inspected, gassed up, and maintained; sisters call maintenance and have things done around the house.  Nieces are learning that the old fashioned view of women has serious flaws and are learning the basics of their family finances (and every one of them know how to write a cheque).
 
But most of all we are learning that when the foundation is good, the house does not fall.  We have been blessed with a foundation by parents who are far from perfect but who are not so far from perfect as they fear.  And as Daddy looks toward sunset, we are thankful for everything our family shared, shares, and will continue to share when some of us are in heaven.
 
There is a lot of value in that.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Imagine

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Wednesday, July 09, 2008 9:33:55 PM
TORONTO (July 9, 2008) -- A lot of people sneer at lotto tickets, calling them A Tax On The Stupid.  These people say that if we saved our $3 per week and put it in the stock market, we would get rich more quickly than we ever will by playing the lottery. Just for th record, I know that. I know my chances of winning are 1:48 million, especially since I am middle aged and white.  I also know that putting $3 a week in the bank or $12 per month, and being charged $11.00 a month in *reporting fees* is just another way to waste my money. I prefer to waste my money on Super 7 Tickets.
 
A Super Seven ticket costs 1/4 as much as a movie, unless you buy snacks in which case it is 10% as much as a movie.  A movie lasts two hours; a Super Seven ticket lasts a week. A movie is someone elses ideas written down for me to enjoy; but a Super Seven ticket is MY ideas, planned in that delightfully vague way that daydreams always take. 
 
When I was young and I minded that I had hardly any friends, I used to imagine taking out a full page ad in the New York Times reading IF YOUR NAME IS NOT ON THIS LIST, COME TO MY PARTY AT LINDYS!  (That was when there still was a Lindys).  Then I would list all the Popular Kids and anybody Mama asked me why I could not be more like.  Large, unsmiling bouncers would be at the door to turn these people away.  I would also take great pleasure in informing any of the guys in the neighbourhood that if I was not good enough for them poor, I was way too good for them rich.  And so on.
 
These days, besides looking after my family (something that occupies my mind a lot), I think about travelling to racing venues where people without cars and/or independent incomes cannot go.  Monaco, for example.  To do the Grand Prix of Monaco properly would cost $17,000 for the week, not even counting the air fare or the helicopter to the track.  Today I got a marvelous proposal for a five day trip to the Autosport show in Britain for $5,000 without including air fare.  Then there is the young German driver who had to give up his racing season after 3 races ... I met him a couple of years go and I like him, and I could give him all he would need for the season and have our website (www.rfmsports.com) on his car.  I would also be able to get Shane Lewis one more drive at Le Mans, and maybe talk him out of those stupid Grand Am cars and into a top line ALMS ride. Everybody likes Shane Lewis.  Guy Cosmo, too. Maybe I could finance a drive for the two of them.  I could call the team Whupazz Racing.  That would be fun.
 
Then there are people whose stories I see in the paper.  There was a lady of 75 the other day who is living in a squalid building owned by one of our City Councilmen, who had to abandon her mattress because it was full of mice.  I would move that lady into decent housing because I would pray that someone who had won the Super Seven would do for my Mama if they saw her in need.  I would send kids to camp if they promised to study hard all winter.  I would give my church enough money so they could have the food bank open all week instead of only for one day.  (There are a lot of thoughtless people in my church.)  I would retire to Menorah Park and have people look after me, and take taxicabs everywhere.
 
And I would have time to volunteer.
 
I even daydream about how I would stand in front of the teevee cameras and say that now our lot would all be living on easy street and for the rest of my life I was going to do only what I wanted to do.  These are fine speeches that I make from my shower in the morning!
 
Playing the lottery is not a stupid tax or a waste of time, if you keep on working and just take time out now and then to imagine.
 
Just imagine.
 
And to all those people who remind me that I am not going to win, I say simply, well then you need not wait to be invited to my party.
 
Friday the lotto is $15 million.  This could be my day.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Money is Time

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Sunday, July 06, 2008 5:24:26 PM
Niagara Falls, Ontario (July 7, 2008) -- Those of you who know me are aware that I work two jobs, and what time I have free from one or the other, laughingly called *vacation*, are spent going to and from my parents home in New York.  My nutritionist asked me once if I ever took a vacation just for myself, and I just looked at her blankly.  The last time I took time off to simply enjoy myself was in the 1990s, around the time of Gulf War I, when I spent a week in Switzerland followed by three weeks in New Zealand.  Life used to be a lot less complex.
 
Someone once pointed out that to a businessman, time is money -- to a creative person, money is time.  This month I got a raise, quite a nice one actually, and because circumstances delayed it by two months there was a big fat bonus in my last cheque.  That, and the cancellation of the Champ Car race here in Toronto due to the sellout of the guy we thought was actually interested in Champ Car racing but who was apparently interested only in parking his money until a major lawsuit was settled, made me decide that it was time the girl had some time just to do as she liked.  Consequently, I booked off the two days I had set aside for the Champ Car race, and declined the invitation to spend the four days with my sister at her cottage, celebrating the 3rd birthday of one of the great-nephews, and decided that I would spend four days doing just whatever I liked.  For four days I would be Independently Wealthy and I would saunter.
 
Thursday I got up at 7 (an hour later than usual) and did my web updates, then sauntered up to the library, on foot, with a load of books to return and the vague idea that I might have a picnic later on.  The library is pretty noisy on a Thursday morning; apparently children are no longer taught to be quiet even in the library.  I took out so many books that it took their book checker outer machine 3 sheets of paper to print them all out.  They vary from paperbacks of stories I liked in the Fifties, to a huge biography of Oskar Schindler and an equally massive book on the Six Day War.  (Daddy says it only lasted six days because for the first three days Moishe Dayan had the patch on the wrong eye.  You have to be Jewish....)  A visit to the No Frills grocery store across the street produced absolutely nothing I had wanted for my picnic -- it is a poor cousin of the shop in my old neighbourhood where people shop who were not brought up in Eastern Europe and therefore do not accept the idea that they are lucky to get anything, much less anything they actually want.  I decided that I would go to the movies instead and see Indiana Jones 4.  I sauntered home, had veg and dip for lunch and changed clothes, and went to the movies, taking a book along.  Two blocks from the theatre I heard prolonged batlike shrieking, and as I got closer to the theatre I saw both sides of the streets lined with teenaged girls carrying hand printed signs that said MARRY ME JOE and such in hot pink magic marker.  I asked someone what was going on.  It was the Jonas Brothers, said one of the girls.  No wiser, I hurried through the crush and the screaming and gained the security of the movie with relief.  Lunch and ticket purchased, I settled down for two hours to wait and then joined about 20 people in the theatre.  The movie is definitely not for the Jonas Brothers crowd, who will only understand it in another 40 years.  The story is a Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon and Cate Blanchette makes me long to shout WHERE ARE MOOSE AND SQUIRREL? every time she opens her mouth -- but the underlying story is the same as Star Trek III: just because you brats observe our less than girlish figures and our grey hair and wrinkles, do not assume that we are stupid, helpless and retro.  We are a lot smarter than you are, we know everything you know and a whole lot more, because we were paying attention in school and not text messaging and whining, and although we are your parents, we can too keep up.  We also know that treasure is not necessarily coinage, and that in the end getting married to the mother of your child is worth it -- and keep your hands off our hat because we are still using it, Junior.
 
Friday morning it was off to town (stopping to get a McDonalds breakfast on the way), where I had my hair done and tracked down some Quebec 400th Anniversary stamps for my sister, mailed a letter to a New Zealand friend who collects stamps, covering it with Anne of Green Gables, First Oil Strike in Alberta, and Canadian Actors stamps ... bought some shorts, which was the usual harassment because the clerk was shaped like a perfect Figure One and tossed through four racks of Size Zero and Size Two, tried to get me to take a Size 10 (If I could wear size 10 I would not have needed new shorts at all) and short-shorts (nobody over the age of 60 should wear short shorts, no matter WHAT she may think) before finding four pairs of Size 12 for me to try on.  One pair was white, which I abandoned immediately; the first thing I do with white clothes is spill coffee on them.  Then I throw them away.  One was khaki and made me look like someone in a Britcom. The other two, jeans shorts and a pair of charcoal grey, I bought.  Total time expended about 10 minutes. I hate shopping for clothes.  A quick check to see if there were any Azzurri shirts left (too big and too costly) and I headed home for lunch and a few hours by the pool.  People who lounge by the pool during the week are not burdened with small fry.  They actually chat for a bit.  This was quite nice.  Off to see fireworks downtown, lovely 4th of July display marred by shrieking horde of Jonas Brothers fans across the street. Make a note to suggest that since Lake Ontario is so close, Jonas Brothers be drowned.
 
Saturday was the day for the Casino.  Instead of going on the early bus which I usually do, I went by the grocery store to pick up my weeks supply of boxes and cans (Mayo Clinic Diet) and some stuff to take along; I only planned tospend $20 at the casino and usually that leaves me about four hours to lounge outside with a book and wander around the Falls.  The 9:00 bus was always packed; the Noon bus was pretty full too but I got there first and had time for a nice chat with a German woman as the Chinese lined up behind us.  The Chinese love to gamble.  So do I, and so does the German lady.  When I get on board the bus, I share my seat with an Italian lady.  I can not understand a lot of what she says, because she speaks quietly and has a heavy accent, but we manage a pleasant conversation for a bit and then I get out my Six Day War book and she naps.  At the Casino the bus driver says that everyone should remain seated and NOT rush to the front until the Casino Lady gets on and is ready to hand out our vouchers (you get your fare back in gambling chips).  The Chinese people immediately jump out of their seats and rush to the front, pretending they cannot understand English.  The Italian lady,who gambles 3 times a week, says they always do this.
 
I immediately strike a jackpot when I sit down at a slot machine (one I cannot get back on for the rest of the day -- and it is the only one like it).  I immediately made up my Gambling Plan for the day, which includes a firm plan that when I have doubled this jackpot I will cash out and play my other $10.  I keep this resolve.  The other $10 keeps me amused for three hours, as my luck is pretty good; out into the sunshine at 5:00 I write a post card to the parents, eat my lunch, read a bit, walk around the Falls, and board the bus for home. My seat mate is from Jamaica and we chat about how awful the younger generation are to work with, entertaining each other with horror stories seen over 12 or so years.  As I came up the sidewalk from the subway my cell phone rings and Mama inquires anxiously where I have been; my sister has received a message from my office computer and everyone had forgotten I was taking time off.  I reassure them and they tell me about the NA$CAR race and ask why I was not at Watkins Glen.  I explain about crapwagons, for the thirtieth or fortieth time. They will not remember. 
 
Today is Sunday and I went to church, came home and did my housework, ate my diet food and pined for candy bars.  Tomorrow I will go back to work, my four days of Independence at an end.
 
To a creative person, money is time to saunter, to select and to loaf by the pool.  I could get used to it.  Unfortunately my lotto ticket said that my ship has not yet come in.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive
« Previous1234567Next »