A Story About My Dad

 Last Sunday was Father's Day and I thought I would try to remember some warm stories about my dad.  But I had none. 

He wasn't an abusive parent.  He was a man who could barely cope with his own life, much less finding himself a single father of two small children.  

Born in 1910, he was immediately abandoned by his mother.  An elderly couple took him in for a few years but he mostly grew up on his own.  At a very young age he was hired as a caddy at a prestigious golf course in French Lick, Indiana.  French Lick is still a posh resort area. 

It's where this photo was taken.  He looks like a cute, well-to-do child but, in truth, he was destitute and alone in the world.  I have no idea what kind of education, if any, he had.  He was mysterious.  He was a loner.  

He married my mother and, shortly after having two children, first me, then my brother Paul, it was discovered that my mother had tuberculosis.  She spent seven years in sanatorium prior to her death. I never really knew her. 

My dad worked as a laundry/dry cleaner person.  We had no car so he left early and came home late.  Paul and I were latch-key kids before than term had been invented.  

All of the above information is help you understand how counterintuitive the story below is:

During World War II, my dad ran the laundry at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis. While it's not well known,  nearly 425,000 prisoners of war were sent to detention camps in the U.S.  Fort Harrison served as one of those camps.  It housed German and Italian prisoners of war.  

One of the German prisoners was assigned to my dad at the laundry.  For whatever reasons, they became fast friends and remained so even after "Oscar" was reassigned. 

There came a time when Fort Harrison became a site for an Army Disciplinary Barracks, a prison compound for American servicemen convicted of offenses by the military court system.  Army regulations did not allow POW camps in the same military installation that housed Army prisoners, so the POW camp was closed and the German prisoners, including Oscar,  moved to Fort Knox. 

However, Oscar and my dad stayed in touch and when the war was over, my dad petitioned to allow Oscar to begin the process of allowing him to remain in this country and work toward citizenship.  

And, after several years, it happened.  I remembered the day they were reunited.  Prior to that, I don't remember my dad ever being as happy as he was to see Oscar walk up to our front porch. 

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The Shootest 1976

 

Who would image that I'd come across a movie that emphasizes two of my favorite topics. 

- End of life issues 

- Living like a true Christian when the going gets tough.   

Last week I saw an interview with Ron Howard.  He was asked about his encounter with John Wayne when they were filming "The Shootist" in 1976.

Yesterday I watched it again.  And I loved it.  Again.

The time and place:  It's set in 1906 in Carson City, Nevada.  This is not the dusty, one street town we're used to seeing in westerns,  This Carson City has electricity, running water, telephones, lovely homes and a trolley.  Think of a western version of "Meet Me in St. Louis." 

The Premise:  A former sheriff and famous gunslinger discovers he's riddled with cancer and dying.  He chooses to do it in Carson City. 

John Wayne:  This was Wayne's last movie.  He died from cancer three years after it was finished.  A life long heavy smoker, Wayne had already had a lung removed in 1964.  Knowing this was his last certainly made the movie much more poignant.  Playing a man like J. B. Books is the way we'd expect Wayne to go, with guns blazing.

 

However, there is very little violence in this film.  It's a controlled and intelligent performance. 

Lauren Bacall:  She plays, Bond Rogers, a widow who rents rooms in her lovely home.  She rents a room to Books.  Throughout the movie she treats Books with kindness and respect.  Unlike her other renters who move because they can't be seen living in the same house with a famous gunslinger, thereby making it difficult for her to to keep afloat.  She continues to treat him with loving kindness. She's a Christian woman, but she's not pious.  She's a servant, like we should be when we're around suffering people.  She doesn't judge him.  

(And they'll know we are Christian by our love, by our love.  Yeah, they'll know we are Christian by our love.) 

The time she helps Books out of the bathtub is an example.  Believe me, when you've been strong and in charge your entire life, it's hard when we must make ourselves this vulnerable and accept this help.  

Ron Howard:  He plays Bond's teenaged son, Gillum.  He's a drinking, swearing (but good) kid.  At the end of the movie we have to accept that Opie (Oops, I mean Gillum) will most likely be a gunslinger like Books.  Or maybe not. 

Jimmy Stewart:  He has a small role as a doctor.  In the beginning Books travels to Carson City to have the doctor, an old friend, confirm the diagnosis he'd previously been given.  The doctor tells Books just how excruciating the next few weeks will be.  

This is a western, but with much deeper themes.  Books is vulnerable.  It's a controlled and intelligent performance.  A fitting tribute to John Wayne.  And I'm impressed  he would choose this as his final film. 

I saw it on YouTube for free.  

***  

I Love Florida

 I truly do love Florida.  However, every single day there is so much crazy to write about.  Years ago, I occasionally wrote "Florida Man" stories.  When the newspaper headlines began with "Florida man....",  I knew it was gonna be a doozy.  And then, eventually, the term was used often and many times much better than me, illustrating our wacky behavior from time to time. 

Besides our own Scott Maxwell, the writer who did this best has been, in my book, Fred Grimm.  Fred has been a Fort Lauderdale resident and columnist for the Sun Sentinel for many decades.  But, today, in our own Orlando Sentinel, he announced he was hanging it up.  

Below is the first paragraph of his column.  I hope you enjoy it and will find the article and read all of it.  You will be impressed. 

So long. 

Not that it hasn't been fun chronicling Florida's descent into a waterlogged, python-infested, uninsurable, hurricane-pummeled, book-banning, gay-bashing authoritarian dystopia, but I'm outta here. 

As you know, I wrote a book a while back titled Florida, A Love Story.  The story starts in 1884 and lets us know immediately how hard it was to live in Florida.  Maybe that's partially why we're so zany to this very day.  

For the dedication, on page 3, I chose to write this:

To all of you who love Florida, 

    - from the panhandle which we lovingly call the Redneck Riviera, to Key West, where we can enter an Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest or celebrate Fantasy Fest where anything goes

    - for those who love our flora and fauna our swamp lands and woods, our indigenous wildlife, and work to keep them flourishing

    -for those who love our warm winters, including our visitors from all over the world who make our lives richer in various ways

    - for those who love our hot summers, especially those of us who love to swim in our beautiful pools and enjoy our 825 miles of breathtakingly beautiful beaches

    - for my family and friends who are there for me, winter and summer, in good times and bad,

I dedicate this book, Florida, A Love Story. 

    ***

Why Not Go Gentle?

 

Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer.  Born in Uplands, United Kingdom in 1914, he's currently experiencing new fame by being referenced in Taylor Swift's current tour, "The Tortured Poets Department."  

His most famous poem was: 

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.  

Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

I think it's sad that many old, sick people feel this way and it's even sadder that young Thomas felt this way.   Old age can be joyful if we let it.  No raging needed. 

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words have forked no lightening they Do no go gentle into that good night. 

Thomas uses light as a symbol for life, but not death.  Even though he knows the unstoppable nature of death, he still suggests that we fight to the end.  

My husband, Ken, kind of did this.  Even though he was a strong believer in the afterlife, he raged and suffered more than necessary.  In his last years, when he had some dementia, he often used the phrase from his high school and college football career, "Put me in the game, Coach," whenever his doctors wanted to try one more thing. 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright,  Their frail deeds might have drank in a green bay,  Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

I'm 85 and, even though I have health issues, I don't rage - don't care to rage.  My life is full.  Why would I make myself and everyone around me miserable by raging?  It makes no sense. I want to be gentle. 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,  Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Thomas references good men, wild men, and grave men.  I think he's talking about people in various stages of life.  Thomas was grieving the death of his father.  But Thomas would live only another two years and die at age 39, apparently from alcoholism.  He did not feel good about the life he'd led. 

I've led a hard life but, now that I am old, the fruits of that life are flowing all around me.  No need to rage.  

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight  Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,  Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

I have had the honor of being with several people who were in the final stages of life.  I don't remember one of them raging.  In fact, it seems to me that most of them were content.  And that includes my husband, Ken at the end.  As you know, I follow Hospice Nurse Julie (who has a book coming out in June.)  She has chronicled many, many deaths.  The vast majority have been beautiful. 

And you, my father, there on the sad height,  Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.  Do not go gentle into that good night.  Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Thomas suggests we rage because we live empty lives.  If that be true, many of us still have time to turn that around if we really want to.  And this is what I believe:  The real "light," according to Hospice Nurse Julie and the vast majority of other people I know, is on the other side.

*** 

 

       

 

On the Beach

A few days ago I shared the first of my summer disaster movies, Contagion 2011.  That's eight years before COVID hit us.  So, in addition to being entertaining, the film, for me, took on new revalance. 

Next up is On the Beach.  Made in 1959,  it is one of my all time favorites.  And it has taken on new

relevance due to the recent blockbuster Oppenheimer.

No, On the Beach is not about college kids in Fort Lauderdale.  It's about how atomic war wipes out humanity.  First, in the Northern Hemisphere.

And it's a terrific love story with a great cast, despite the fact that every single person in the world dies.

Trust me. 

Gregory Peck plays his  Atticus Finch part, only as a submarine captain in Australia, whose wife and children have died in the U.S.  We knew this because, and I remind you, when the movie opens every person in the Northern Hemisphere is dead. Peck struggles with his emotions and falls in love, but continues to follow his moral code to the end.

Ava Gardner plays an Australian who's a bit of a floozy (as she did in many rolls) but is truly in love with Peck. 

Anthony Perkins does his Anthony Perkins thing.  He's very sad, especially when he has to convince his wife, along with their baby, to take her suicide  pills.  

Fred Astaire is in a surprise roll.  In real life he was 60 years old when he made the film. He looks older.  No dancing.  He plays a cynical scientist who knows the score about what's happened in the Northern Hemisphere and what will soon happen in the Southern Hemisphere.  I loved him in this part.

If you watch On the Beach, don't be put off by the song Waltzing Matilda.  Just go with it....because it's played in the background throughout the entire film.  Honestly, it's a feel good movie.

Trust me. 

I saw On the Beach on YouTube for free.

***

  
 

Contagion 2011

   

Imagine yourself in a world wide pandemic.  No, wait....you've just been in one! 

 For this summer, I've decided to watch a few older disaster films.  I chose Contagion 2011 to watch yesterday. This film is loaded with stars like Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Lawerence Fishbourne, Marion Cotillard and Bryan Cranston.

One of the reviewers of Contagion 2011 wrote, If something like this did ever happen, I shutter to contemplate the societal ramifications.

My reaction to the movie was far different from the first time I saw it.  Who would have guessed that a mire 8 years later, 2019, we would experience COVID, a virus that began in China and eventually killed a million people in the United States alone. 

Contagion 2011 was a tale about an untreatable super virus rapidly spreading across the world.  

Another reviewer wrote after watching the film, I found myself wanting to bathe in a gallon of hand sanitizer.  In real life, I felt like I was drowning myself in a bucket of hand sanitizer.  Every day.

It's doubtful anyone took the movie seriously.  After all, Gwyneth Paltrow coughed in Hong Kong, headed home to Minneapolis, but with a five hour layover in Chicago to meet an old boyfriend.  And a few weeks later people were dropping like flies.  That's just silly, right?

Lawrence Fishbourne plays the Dr. Fauci role, only nine years before Dr Fauci played it in real life.

There are many heroes in this film and a few troublemakers.  Fewer than we had in real life.  And there were no deniers.  What was happening was too real to be denied.  

I saw this film on YouTube for free. 

*** 

Are You Crazy? The Fall Will Probably Kill Ya

 

Remember the quote above from the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?  

The Kid was afraid to jump off a cliff because he couldn't swim.  But, even though he jumped and the fall didn't kill him, statistically, Butch was correct.

According to the CDC:

Falls are the leading cause of fatal injuries among older adults.

About twelve years ago, I was diagnosed with Meniere's Disease. It's a miserable illness and all I wanted to do was lie on the couch.  But, I knew that wasn't the answer.  I tried several balancing classes recommended by my medical team, but they didn't work for me.  

Then Betsy, the parish nurse at my church, recommended a class led by a woman named Claudia.  It was different.  She had the same philosophy I did.  It sounds counterintuitive but, for most of us oldies, it's truly a "use it or lose it" situation.

Falls are the leading cause of fatal injuries among older adults.

For most of us, sitting on the couch is not the answer. Claudia was all about staying strong and exercising, no matter how bad we felt.  She had great tips, like reminding us that it's more dangerous to walk downstairs than upstairs because we tend to fall forward.  

There was an old lady in a wheelchair the class.  Her daughter would wheel her in and return later to pick her up.  After a couple of sessions, Claudia had this woman standing for most of our activities. 

On the third day she was sitting in a regular folding chair when her daughter arrived.  The daughter was obviously upset to see her mom not in her wheelchair and was trying to pick her up.

From across the room, Claudia called to the daughter, "Leave her alone.  She can transfer to the wheelchair by herself."

And she did. 

Falls are the leading cause of fatal injuries among older adults. 

Falls happen everywhere, including hospitals.  Especially hospitals!

The best remedy is not to stay in bed.  It's to, as best we can, move!  Of course we need to be careful, but we need to move.  Every day.  If you're afraid and don't feel well and your loved ones want you to sit or lie down 24-7, just remember this:

The Barcalounger will probably kill ya!

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