Category Archives: opinion

Posted in opinion

Shakespeare By Any Other Name . . .

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by Bob Sparrow

S birthday

The Birthday Boy . . . or is he?

While I was busy either hiking or trying to track down my friends in Nepal and Suzanne was selecting the menu for her ‘Last Supper’, we missed an important date last month on April 23, the birthday of William Shakespeare – he turned 451.  Don’t worry if you didn’t get him anything or even send a card, he’s used to being ignored. To wit:

Only four of the nation’s 52 highest-ranked universities require that an English major take at least one, yes one, Shakespeare class – those schools: Harvard, Cal, Wellesley College (Massachusetts) and the U.S. Navel Academy. Go Navy!

Dr. Chapman

Dr. Viola Chapman

Fortunately, my curriculum at Westminster College in Utah did include the study of several Shakespeare plays and sonnets.  I remember my first day walking into class and sizing up the professor, Dr. Chapman.  She was a elderly, diminutive woman with a stern continence, of course elderly to a college student in those days was anyone over 40.  She wore her hair in a bun and I thought she could have played the part of Norman Bate’s mother in Psycho.  I was petrified.  I was afraid not to pay attention, but once she opened her mouth, she had me. She was brilliant and quirky – she’d sit on her desk, swinging her feet to and fro, reciting, by heart and with an Elizabethan accent, long passages from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.  By the end of the first week, I was all in.  She brought the literature to life, she made me want to know more.  There is no question in my mind that my interest in and ultimate love of Shakespeare was a result of one person, Dr. Viola Chapman.  By the time I had graduated, I’d taken every class she taught and ended up with a minor in English.  She not only instilled in me a love of Shakespeare, but influenced my decision to become a teacher and ultimately try to turn high school students on to the ‘The Bard’.   She taught at Westminster from 1948 until 1972 and was the first professor to be honored as ‘Faculty Emeriti’ by the college.  She is without question, my favorite teacher of all time.

C Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe

If you haven’t really thought much about Shakespeare since you flunked that Merchant of Venice test in high school (like I did), then you may not be aware of the fact that there has been a long-standing debate as to whether William Shakespeare actually wrote all or any of the plays and sonnets attributed to him. Such luminaries as Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud and even Helen Keller have opined that Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare.  So who was?  Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Derby and several others have been debated ‘to be or not to be’ the ‘real’ Shakespeare.  The debate will not be settled anytime soon, and it probably doesn’t matter because if Shakespeare didn’t write those plays and sonnets, the real author or authors are also about 450 years old and probably dead.

A line from Captain ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce, of the old TV series M.A.S.H., even references the debate when he complained about a bad tasting breakfast, saying,  “This bacon tastes as old as the Bacon that wrote Shakespeare’s plays.” 

Whoever he was, Shakespeare continues to influence our lives today.

West Side Story

West Side Story

Some plays/movies that you may be familiar with . . .

     West Side Story – based on Romeo & Juliet

     Kiss Me Kate – based on Taming of the Shrew

     The Lion King – based on Hamlet

You’ve also probably quoted Shakespeare, maybe without even knowing it, as he coined too many phases to be listed here, but a few of the more familiar ones are:

     Love is blind

     Neither a borrower or lender be

     The world’s mine oyster

     He will give the devil his due

     This above all to thine own self be true

And a favorite of mine . . .

     The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers

So a belated happy birthday to whoever wrote all that wonderful literature and a tip of the cap to Dr. Viola Chapman for bringing it into my life.

There’s probably a Shakespeare play being performed somewhere close to you this summer – I say go see it; at 451 years old, he may not be around much longer and you just might enjoy it.

Class dismissed!

Posted in opinion

MY LAST MEAL

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

My typical daydream

My typical daydream

While my brother spends his time fantasizing about travel and hiking, I can generally be found thinking about my next meal.  He has a lot more “get up and go” than I do.  In fact over the years several people have wished that he’d get up and go – but I think that was mainly in his college days.  I’m more of a sit-down and snuggle-in person and consequently, I have way too much time to think about things – like food.  My preoccupation with eating was pointed out to me the other day (at lunch, naturally) when I mentioned something in passing about my “Last Meal” wishes.  My table mates assumed, given my near-Senior Citizen status, that I was referring to what gourmet delights the nursing home might bring my way before I pass on to my great reward.  Unfortunately, I’m not that sane.  Nope – for about the past 30 years or so I’ve thought about what my last meal might consist of should I ever be strapped in to the electric chair.

Cause for intense psychoanalysis?  Perhaps.  But I chalk it up to growing up so close to San Quentin, where every detail of a prisoner’s last requests were publicized in great detail.  Of course, that included what the person wanted as his last meal.  I was always intrigued by the food choices – and never understood it when someone requested a Big Mac.  Since then, I’ve given more thought than it deserves to what my final requests might be.  I think my obsession thought process stems from constant dieting.  How liberating to think that one could eat an entire meal without one shred of guilt about calories or a subsequent need to hit the gym!  I’m hoping that the odds are slim that I’ll actually be arrested, convicted and jailed for a major felony, so here (for entertainment purposes only)  are my requests.  Requests, by the way, that have basically stayed the same over the past 30 years.  The only change has been changing from white to red wine – for health purposes, of course.

no-knead-sourdough-2-800x560

Warm…it has to be warm.

First, I’d start with a big bowl of clam chowder from Fisherman’s Grotto in San Francisco.  I used to go there a lot as a kid and it is still considered one of the best places in The City to get chowder.  I would accompany that with a whole round of their best Sourdough bread, warm and slathered in real butter.  I know that you can get the clam chowder served in the sourdough round, but I’d rather just break off some huge hunks and dip them in the soup myself.  After all, at this point I don’t think I’d be concerned with table manners.  I’d clear my palate with a bit of fresh cracked crab.  We used to buy some almost every Saturday in season when I grew up in Novato, a luxury I didn’t appreciate until I moved to Arizona where scorpions are the closest thing we have to crabs.  Next, I’d get a crisp Caesar salad, replete with anchovies and TONS of dressing.  Next up, a filet mignon, charred on the outside and medium rare of the inside, served with a loaded baked potato.  No vegetables.  I’m not a big fan in the first place and heck, if I’m going to “the chair”, why would I bother at that point?

I could bathe in this.

I could bathe in this.

To complete this wonderful repast (and assuming I hadn’t keeled over in a food coma), I would complete my meal with an entire “All American Chocolate Cake” from Costco.  If you aren’t familiar with this delicacy I’d suggest that you hightail it down to your local Costco immediately.  It is always baked in-store, so it is fresh and moist every time.  It weighs an astounding SEVEN pounds and is about 8 inches tall.  It consists of four layers, each surrounded by the creamiest chocolate frosting and then whole thing is covered in chocolate shavings.  At one time the cake was so popular that it had its own Facebook page and followers.  Let’s just put it this way – it’s more than a dessert, it’s a conversation piece.

 

So, that’s it. I got to thinking the other day that since the probability of me going to jail is so slim, why don’t I just have my “Last Meal” and enjoy myself?  I’m considering it.  Perhaps I’ll take the plunge next time we visit San Francisco.  But since I don’t know when that will be, I’ll just start with the cake.  After which I’ll check myself into the local “diet farm” which, when you think about it, actually is like going to jail.  I could start my own reality show, “Chocolate is the New Black”.

 

Posted in opinion • travel

Hiking Lost Palm Oasis and Ladder Canyon with the Odd Couple

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by Bob Sparrow

3 hikersNow that the rainy season in Southern California (2 days in January, maybe just one this year due to the draught) is over, it’s time to hit the hiking trails. Spring’s first trek takes us back to Joshua Tree National Park and to Mecca Hills Painted Canyon and Ladder Canyon for the first time.

(For new subscribers or for a re-visit, here are the two links to our Joshua trip two years ago: https://fromabirdseyeview.com/?p=1506     https://fromabirdseyeview.com/?p=1534)

The Cast

Patrick ‘Trail Boss’ Michael, my Nepal trekking buddy along with hiking novice, Marc ‘Swizzle Stick’ Webb, who stirs up all the neighborhood parties with his wit and enthusiasm make up our hiking trio. Patrick, the engineer and Marc, the salesman, invariably look at almost everything from two completely different perspectives. I felt like I was watching an episode of the ‘Odd Couple’ all weekend. The banter between them was constant and hilarious on virtually every subject.

Pat Marc

Pat & Marc disagreeing about something

We leave Orange County, Friday morning in Patrick’s Avalanche truck, which is pulling a 25’ camper – so we’re not really roughing it this time by sleeping out under the stars. As Marc’s wife, Lisa says, “You guys are going glam-ping”. We arrive at Cottonwood Springs campsite inside Joshua Tree National Park around noon and set up camp, which entails winding out the awning on our camper, unfolding our chairs and cracking open a beer.

2015-04-25 10.23.49

Lost Palms Oasis

Lost Palms Oasis

This hike was about an 8 mile round trip trek over a series of ridges and valleys and after reading the brochure’s description of this hike, below, we were very excited about the hike and having lunch at the oasis.

Large boulders, pools of water, intermittent streams, willow thickets and sandy beaches make this a delightful spot to pause.

That description of the oasis turns out to be a verbal mirage, as there were no pools of water, no streams, not even intermittently.  There was sand, lots of sand, but no beaches – I think water is a requirement for a beach. We did find some moist ground in places, so perhaps it once was as the brochure described, but thanks to the California draught we ate our lunch in a dry riverbed. But the hike was not without its redeeming features.

French toast

Banana, bacon French toast

Those who think of deserts as just brown mountains and sand would have a hard time imagining all the beautiful flowers, robust plant and animal life and beautifully colored rocks that are abundant here. When we realize how the flora and fauna in the desert gets by with so little, we almost feel ashamed wolfing down our banana, bacon French toast and New York steaks, but not ashamed enough to eat lizards and cactus instead.

Back at our campsite, dinner cooked under a billion stars and wine enjoyed around the campfire was all the stage that ‘Felix’ and ‘Oscar’ needed to continue their discussion of things like Patrick’s list of ‘trailer cleanliness tips, campfire protocol and bathroom ‘Dos & Don’ts’ – no matter the rule, Marc managed to ignore them all.

Ladder Canyon

This was the more interesting hike of the two – much more interesting! However, while researching this new hiking destination, we found the following . . .

“The geological formations of Mecca Hills are among the most unusual of their kind in the world and were formed by the convergence of the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate along the San Andreas Fault, which is overdue for a large quake.”

Which is what?!! ‘Overdue for a large quake’! Well isn’t that special.

We also should have read this other not-so-subtle admonition about the hike . . .

“Wear proper clothing, have proper equipment and follow these hiking tips or you may pay with your life.”

‘Pay with my life?!! Wow, I guess we should have read those hiking tips!

So, if you’re reading this and it ends suddenly in mid-sentence, you’ll know that the hiking tips were more important than we thought or ‘the big one’ hit.

We set out with the hope that the tectonic plates in Ladder Canyon were feeling very comfortable just where they are. The canyon is so named because the walls of the canyon are so steep in places that ladders are needed to get up and down the trail.

 

Trail to nowhere

The Trail to Nowhere

The hike is incredible; the canyon walls get to 50+ feet in height and as narrow in places as shoulder-width – not for the claustrophobic. Once through the canyon, we were supposed to continue the loop around through Painted Canyon, but we took the ‘Trail to Nowhere’ and had a view of Painted Canyon, but not a way to get down into it, so we ended up having to double back through Ladders Canyon to get home.

The day ends with another beautiful evening around the fire and another episode of the ‘Odd Couple’ discussing their opposing views on campfire flatulent etiquette.

Posted in opinion

A SENIOR CITIZEN IN TECHLAND

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

rotary-phoneThis year I will hit a milestone birthday.  I have frequent reminders that I’m getting older, mostly from my knees and memory.  But these days the true test of whether one is on the “back nine” of life is dealing with technology.  I have long prided myself in my interest in computers and anything the least bit geeky.  I owe this to my long-time technology guru at work, Doug Clayton, who always assured me that pressing the “F10” button on the keyboard was NOT going to blow up Hong Kong.  He encouraged me to experiment and right-click my way through most problems.  I wish that I still lived near him – a man of endless patience who never once rolled his eyes at me or called me an ignorant slut.  Although he certainly would have been justified on many occasions.

vcr hook up

These days, I browse Best Buy like it’s a candy store.  Honestly, I’d rather spend two hours there than at Nordstrom (unless it’s the Nordstrom Cafe with their delightful chocolate cake).  I think for someone who started out with a black, rotary phone and a phone number that started with a noun (Twinbrook 23537), I’ve come pretty far.  I have lived long enough to marvel through push-button phones, cordless phones, answering machines, cell phones the size of a shoe box and now the Apple watch.  As for computers, much like the old TV sets, my first one at work had a 10 inch screen with bright green letters on a black background.  I remember when, with more enthusiasm than talent, I hooked up our first DVR back in 1986 and it was a simple matter of connecting two coax cables.  Now…well, there is a computer in everything, from my fitness band to the washing machine.  And everything connects wirelessly.  Even the TV is now called a “smart TV”.  I don’t know exactly what that means but I know one thing, it’s a heck of a lot smarter than me.

Computer wireLast week the intersection of technology and my ineptness crossed when, after 17 years with the same phone and internet company, I decided I’d had enough of their slow speeds and faulty phone lines.  So on Friday a nice young man from the new company showed up at our doorstep ready to install everything I’d need to wisk me through the digital age.  He said it would take about an hour.  That was at 10 a.m.  Apparently our home, which is only 15 years old, is the Parthenon of technology wiring.  At 4 p.m. he finally finished, having had to cancel every other service call scheduled for that day. I peered over his shoulder (which I’m sure he just loved) to watch how he hooked everything up.  When it was all up and running he left.  Big mistake.  I should have kidnapped him.

I spent the next two days uttering language that would make a sailor blush.  Somewhere over those 17 years I lost count of how many devices I’d hooked up wirelessly until, one by one over the weekend, they stopped working – the printer, the wi-fi extender, both iPads and the cell phones.  Don’t even get me started on that “smart TV”.  If it’s so damn smart why can’t it hook itself up?  Honestly, would it be that hard for it to detect that there is a new wireless router and think “Gee, the old router is no longer online and there is a new router.  I think I’ll connect to that one.”  I don’t think that’s asking too much of something that purports to call itself “smart”.

In any event, here I am a week later, and everything seems to be working.  Of course, we all know that I’ve lulled myself into a false sense of security.  I’m guessing that within the next week something will go down and I will have to call Tech Support in India where “Dave” will walk me through all the things I’ve already tried before transferring me to someone in Poughkeepsie.  Some days that old black rotary phone looks pretty darn appealing.

P.S.  For those of you who kindly commented, and related your own stories, on my blog about “Un-Fun Money”, we can now add “new garbage disposal” to the list.  It never ends.

Posted in opinion

Why L.A. Will NEVER Get an NFL Team

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by Bob Sparrow

rodeo clown

Just helping you forget about taxes

With Suzanne’s well-written admonitions still echoing in our heads from last week, I thought the weighty topic of Los Angeles and professional football would be an appropriate blog subject as a break from our tax-dulled senses.  Metaphorically speaking, if taxes and dying in San Francisco were a rodeo, this blog is the clown that jumps out of the barrel to distract the bull, maybe in this case to sling the bull.

   Like many of you, I couldn’t care less whether LA ever gets a professional football team; I am a 49ers fan for life who wouldn’t drive to LA to see a game if I had a seat next to Kate Upton . . . OK, maybe then, but I wouldn’t be watching the game!  I do, however, miss that 49ers-Rams ‘north-south’ rivalry and so have paid some attention to all the talk lately around various billionaires building space-age stadiums (paid for with our tax dollars – Oops, I was trying not to mention taxes) in various parts of the city to attract an NFL team.  So why am I convinced that the country’s second largest media market, which once had two NFL teams, will not be getting another one anytime soon?

stadium

New L.A. stadium . . . in their dreams!

First, after USC’s Reggie Bush took a pay cut to go to the NFL a few years back, some would suggest that LA already has a professional football team, but that would be a cheap shot.

The main reason for no team in LA is the make up of the LA fan.  I have observed three types; the first have luxury boxes and are notorious for ‘making an entrance’ sociably late to the game, wearing the latest fashions and then, after being seen, leaving early to avoid the congestion getting out of the parking lot.  The limited time they are at the game is used for consuming their Beef Wellington hot dogs, truffle fries and Bombay Safire martinis.  These are the fans that would root for their team to ‘kick a touchdown’.

bearsThe second type of fan are those that are not originally from Los Angeles, which is about 80% of the southern California population.  The only time they go to a game is when their hometown team comes into town to play.  Those from Chicago, for example, even though they left the ‘Windy City’ 20 years ago, would not give up rooting for ‘da Bears’ in favor of rooting for the ‘L.A. La De Dahs’.  I personally was part of this group when Rams games were being played in Orange County; when the 49ers came to town, I’d go to the games and there would be a sea, make that a bay, of San Francisco red and gold covering the entire stadium.  The NFL is concerned that these are the fans that would get beat up, by the third type of fan, in the parking lot after the game for wearing the visiting team’s colors.

Raider fans

Part of the ‘Raider Nation’ Gang

The third type of fan are the ones left over from the Oakland Raiders 12-year, forgot-to-pay-the-rent visit to Los Angeles.  This group, who dressed like every game was Halloween, are not so much crowd members as they are ‘gang members’.  With this group the NFL would be concerned that if an LA team lost a game or the refs made a bad call that these guys would riot in the streets and then go home and burn their own houses down.  Game food for this gang is Beer Chicken, hold the chicken.

miley

Miley’s ‘V’ for Victory

The other NFL franchise owners are another reason why LA will never have a team.  They must approve any move to a new city by any other current team, so each team’s owner, always looking to get stadium up-grades (from city taxes – dang, there I go again!), threatens to move to LA – eventually their city acquiesces and the owners breathe a big sigh of relief that they don’t have to move their team, and themselves, to ‘the land of fruits and nuts’.

The NFL might also be concerned that a ‘Tinsel Town’ team might employ people like Miley Cyrus, the Kardashian sisters and Bruce Jenner as their cheerleaders.

oj_simpson_the_chase

L.A.’s new mascot?

In the true spirit of Los Angeles football, one potential owner already indicated his choice for a mascot when he said, “ The team mascot should be The White Broncos, to commemorate O.J. Simpson’s infamous police chase through the city.”

Don’t worry, it ain’t gonna happen!

 

 

Posted in opinion

DEATH AND TAXES

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Wouldn't this taste good about now?

Wouldn’t this taste good about now?

Well, here we are again.  The week between Easter and taxes.  I trust that you all enjoyed your holiday, whether it was Easter or Passover.  As our dad used to say, “I hope the Easter bunny leaves all his eggs in a Ramos gin fizz.”  I’m on a diet this week so I’m hoarding all my chocolate bunnies until I lose these last three pounds.  Then I will dive into them like a six-year-old on crack, regain the three pounds, and the cycle will begin again.  Those three pounds are as inevitable as next week’s “holiday” – Tax Day.

I’d feel a whole lot better about writing that check if I felt that my money was being managed by people who understood their fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers.  A couple of years ago a book was published about tax waste which did nothing to bolster my confidence that public servants are shepherding our monies in any sort of rational way.  Here’s just a few examples:

$30 million to help Pakistani Mango farmers: This was part of a four-year, $90 million effort to boost hiring and sales among Pakistani businesses.  During a time, by the way, in which millions of American businesses were going under due to the recession.

$765,828 for pancakes: Generally, I’m all for ANYTHING to do with pancakes but in this instance federal funding went to the Anacostia Economic Development Corp to build an International House of Pancake franchise (and train its workers) in an “underserved community.” The underserved community, however, turned out to the a toney area of Washington D.C. – Columbia Heights, which is termed “one of Washington’s more desirable neighborhoods.”

wasteful-spending

$10 million for Pakistani “Sesame Street”: Again, giving money to Pakistan, where we have trouble distinguishing the good guys from the bad and a country that somehow missed the fact that Osama bin Laden was living within spitting distance of a Pakistani military base for years. Because, after funding the Pakistani Mango farmers, the government felt it needed to spend $10 million of our money remaking big bird and the other Sesame Street characters into a show called “SimSim Humara” for the Pakistani market.

 

So, you can see why I might be a bit wary about turning my money over to people who make drunken sailors look like pillars of the community.  This confluence of bureaucratic incompetence and taxes came to the forefront for me this week.  As you faithful readers will recall, my best friend from childhood, Leslie Sherman, died last November.  Unfortunately, she died in San Francisco, which, as it turns out, is the worst place in America to die.  Her family has been waiting more than FOUR months for the results of the autopsy.  If you think that seems an excessively long time, you’re right.  The average time it takes to complete an autopsy and secure a final Death Certificate in major U.S. cities is 60 days.  Ellen Huet of Forbes did an expose on the Medical Examiners office in S.F. which uncovered the fact that they were operating under “provisional accreditation”.  In other words, they’re totally inept.  As a result, the city has hired a new ME who hopefully can provide answers to the untold number of families awaiting autopsy results.

Picture-of-Last-Will-and-TestamentTo compound matters, Leslie died without a will or other important documents in place.   When we were kids she never cracked a book or crammed for an exam and still got straight “A’s”, graduating from high school and college with honors.  Unfortunately, however, financial planning was not her strong suit.  So her family is struggling to sell her two homes, close out bank accounts, and take care of all other financial issues without either a will or a completed Death Certificate.

So, why am I bringing this up today, on this bright Spring morning?  Because there are some lessons to be learned from all this and really, as a public service, I’m going to point them out for you.

1.  Do NOT, under any circumstances, die in San Francisco.

2.  Get your financial house in order.  Write your will or trust.  I know, it’s hard to think about a world without you in it, but believe me, it’s the best gift you can give your heirs.  Do whatever your personal situation dictates, especially if you’re single, whether it’s ensuring your bank accounts have a Payable on Death provision to your beneficiaries or that you complete Transfer on Death  documents for your investments.

If you don’t do these things the government is more than willing to step in and claim your hard-earned cash.  In which case, don’t blame me if your money ends up going to Pakistani mango farmers rather than your kids.

Posted in opinion

UN-FUN MONEY

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

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Tahiti – where I hoped to write this blog

I think it’s fairly safe to assume we all like to spend money.  Come on, admit it, when you think about things to buy you rarely think about  a new vacuum cleaner or getting that pesky crown replaced on your back molar.  Nope, in general we all fantasize about how we can spend money on “fun” stuff.  Last fall on our long car trip home from our summer travels my husband and I dreamed about some of the fun things we’d like to purchase over the winter.  My husband mentioned some ridiculous items – among them a Shelby Cobra.  I’ve heard him ask for that car so often that I’m now like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon –  his lips move but all I hear is “wonk,wonk, wonk”.  I, on the other hand, came up with some practical items – new furniture, season tickets to the theater, perhaps even a trip to Tahiti where I could ensconce myself in one of those swim-up bars and spend weeks writing a travel blog through the lens of too many Pina Coladas.  Then reality set in and the spending of “un-fun” money began.

money with wings

First up was a new washer and dryer.  We had noticed over the summer that our clothes came out a lot less wrinkled when we were using someone else’s appliances.  I hate it when my off-hand attitude toward domesticity rears up.  How could I not have noticed that our washer and dryer were so obviously sub-par?  Clearly there is some “housework gene” that I am missing.  But since I’ve never liked being on the working end of an iron, I was all for buying a new “laundry suite”.  That’s a term I learned at the appliance store, where  I was faced with an overwhelming array of choices.  It is astounding to learn the tasks these hunks of metal can perform – remove spots, steam clean, sanitize!  I kept looking for a dryer that would fold and put the clothes away but I guess that’s a bit down the road.  In any event, a couple thousand dollars later we were the proud parents of a new washer and dryer.  Sad to say…I’m not sure that our clothes are any less wrinkled but I’m pretending that they are so I don’t feel like we wasted our money.

The next month my husband was doing a walk-around of the house and determined that we really couldn’t go one more winter without painting it.  So we got a couple of estimates from painters. Clearly they assumed we wanted to paint the whole neighborhood.  Wow – I know they have to caulk and power wash before they slap some paint on, but really, you could feed a small nation for what they charge.  Four days and several thousand dollars later, more “un-fun” money had been spent.  Unfortunately, once the house looked so snappy it became evident that much of our landscaping had given up the ghost during the blazing hot summer so more “un-fun” money was forked over to the landscapers.

In January one of my front tires mysteriously had a rather large piece of rubber torn out (I’m taking the Fifth).  A trip down to those friendly people at Discount Tire resulted in an inspection that necessitated purchasing FOUR new tires.  Tires, or generally anything having to do with car maintenance, is the height of “un-fun” money.

dishwasherFinally, this week our dishwasher decided that nine years was long enough to do dishes.  Jeez – I was “the dishwasher” growing up and I lasted 18 years.  (Isn’t it funny how our parents “suddenly” decided to get dishwashers when we moved out?).  Anyway, we found ourselves on another trip down to the appliance store – I’m thinking we may have to put their address in the “Frequently Visited” category on our nav system.  I asked the salesman if that super-duper washing machine he sold us four months ago might also be put into service doing dishes.  He was not amused.  Thirty minutes later we were separated from more of our hard-earned “un-fun” money.

So, to summarize, we have a new washer, dryer, paint job, landscaping, tires and a dishwasher.  Not a pina colada in sight.  Oh well, my brother is better at writing about tropical bars anyway.  I’ll just sit home and wait for the next thing to break down.  Hopefully it won’t be me.

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THE EDUCATION OF AN “ICE BUCKET” SKEPTIC

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Brother Bob - In full Ice Bucket Challenge Regalia

Brother Bob – In full Ice Bucket Challenge Regalia

Last August the world was taken captive by seemingly reasonable people everywhere dumping buckets of ice over their heads.  The cause, of course, was the “Ice Bucket Challenge”, a fund-raising effort for ALS, sometimes referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”.   The “challenge” was that people either dumped a bucket of ice over their heads or donate $100 to the ALS Association.  Once the bucket was overturned the participant then challenged three friends to the task.  It was impossible to go on any social media account or turn on the TV without seeing someone dumping ice – from former Presidents to Oprah.  You know it’s serious when Oprah does something.  Not to mention that my brother and co-blogger, Bob, participated in the challenge and coerced his kids to take part as well. I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical of the whole endeavor.  My feeling is that when something becomes “the thing to do” it generally loses all serious intent.  Plus, we’ve all read about charity fund-raisers that don’t result in many funds actually going to the charity.  I figured that it was AUGUST, for Heaven’s sake, so people in most parts of the country were more than happy to bathe themselves in ice.  I was not one of them.

And then something happened that hit very close to home – the husband of a dear friend was diagnosed with ALS in January.  It has been devastating to them and to all of us that care about them.  They are coming to grips with the effects of the disease and learning all they can about it. As it turns out, the ALS Association is a wonderful resource, providing not only guidance and support, but actually supplying wheelchairs and any other equipment that a family needs to accommodate the manifestations of the disease.  So my friend was telling me the other day that the ALS Association volunteer mentioned that they had been able to purchase a lot of equipment to lend out because of money they got from the “Ice Bucket Challenge”.  Suddenly, I felt a bit embarrassed that I had not dumped ice on my head.  So being the nerd that I am, I set off to research whether the Phoenix Chapter of the ALS Association was unusual or whether “the Challenge” had done as much in other areas of the country as well.

ALS_Ice_Bucket_Challenge-display

As it turns out, those intrepid people at CNBC were thinking the same thing.  Last month one of their reporters, Meg Tirrell, investigated whether the “Ice Bucket Challenge” had been a social media phenomenon or an effective fund-raiser.  Turns out, it was both.  The “Ice Bucket Challenge” actually raised $115 million for the ALS Association, compared to their annual budget of $60 million.  How did they raise that much when so many people chose to dump ice? Because people both dumped and donated.  Which should help to restore your faith in human kindness this Monday morning.  And to cheer you up even further, it turns out that Phoenix was not the only area to benefit – it helped ALS Associations all over the country buy equipment, provide respite care programs, and maybe most importantly, it funded four research projects aimed at better understanding , and thus finding a cure,  for what causes ALS.  All four projects had been stopped due to a lack of research money.

There is no word yet as to whether the “Ice Bucket Challenge” is going to be an annual event or whether it was just a one-time phenomenon.  Hopefully it will take place again in August and I can assure you, I will be dumping ice and donating with the best of them.  And I’m also taking part in the “Defeat ALS” walk in October.  Family and friends be warned – I’m going to hit you up for some of your hard-earned money when I strap on my walking shoes.   And just to add a degree of difficulty to the walk, I’ll dump a bucket of frozen Margaritas over my head as I pass the finish line.  I think that could catch on.

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WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND WINE WAS CHEAP

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

The Time Capsule

The Time Capsule

I pride myself in being someone who doesn’t hang on to “things”.  My philosophy is that if I don’t use something in a year or so, OUT it goes!  So it was with some embarrassment that as I was cleaning closets the other day I found a box full of “things”.  From the 60’s.  Not my age – the decade.  It was like opening a window to the past, a rather ridiculous past, but past none the less.  Most of the “treasures” were found in scrapbooks from high school.  It was a virtual time capsule from those years, so what should have taken 10 minutes morphed into three hours.  Mostly, I wondered why I had kept some of these things to begin with.  After all, raffle tickets to unnamed events, Greyhound bus passes and newspaper clippings from an Easter hat competition really shouldn’t have been that noteworthy.  Clearly, my “throw everything out” philosophy came long after high school.

The Junior MIss trophy

The Junior MIss trophy

I decided that I would only keep the most sentimental items so I started discarding the low hanging fruit – photos of people whom I no longer remember.  Heck, these days I might not recognize people I met just last month so people from high school are clearly beyond my recall abilities.  Next, I went through some of my sports memorabilia.  There wasn’t much of note.  I got rid of ski lift passes (although it was amazing to see that at one time you could buy a full day pass as Squaw Valley for $6)  and the one  blue ribbon I won on the swim team.  That pretty much took care of the sports section.  Next I threw out all the dance cards, cheerleading campaign buttons and programs from my choir and piano concerts.  Nothing makes me cringe faster that to think of all the poor people who suffered through me pounding on the piano, desperately searching for the right key.  Which brings me to the next thing I found in the box – my Junior Miss trophy from 1968.  For the “talent” portion of the program I played Clair de Lune.  I thought I did a fairly decent job until a boy came up to me at school the following Monday and told me that his dad (a musician) had said I played it like a fourth year piano student, at which point I crowed, “Great!  I only took two years of lessons!”

20150205_150226Next, it was on to all of the miscellaneous items I’d thrown in the box.  These were mostly mementos from places I had visited.  A coaster from the old Hippo restaurant in San Francisco, an autograph from Matty Alou of the SF Giants and a menu from the high school graduation trip I took to Hawaii on Pan American airlines.  Yep – that’s right – they used to give you a full color brochure of your dining choices – in coach.  Better yet, drinks were fifty cents, beer and cigarettes just a quarter.  No wonder so many people got drunk on planes!  Most of my fun came in looking at a couple of old menus I had from two classic dining houses – Sabella’s of Marin and #9 Fisherman’s Grotto in San Francisco.  The menu I had from Sabella’s is actually the wine menu (God only knows how I got my hands on that!).  It’s fun to see that in the heart of what is now known as “wine country” there were only three California wineries listed and the wines were Sauterne, Chablis, Rhine, Burgundy, Chianti and Rose. Not a Merlot, Chardonnay or Cabernet to be found.  And the prices averaged $3.00 per bottle.  The dinner menu from Fisherman’s Grotto was equally depressing – entrees ran from $2.50 for fresh Monterey Abalone to the outrageous charge of $4.00 for Lobster Tail.  Best of all, ice cream was only 30 cents.

It was three hours well spent.  Not only did I get to go down my own personal Memory Lane, but I got to go back in time for a while.  When things were simpler, a bit more elegant, and wine was cheap.

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THE RESCUE OF SANTO TOMAS

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

My husband and his mother, 1941

My husband and his mother, 1941

Seventy years ago next week, on February 3, 1945, members of the First Cavalry burst through the gates of the prison camp of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philipines to rescue over 3700 Allied civilians held captive by the Japanese.  I am very familiar with this story, as my husband and his family were among those rescued.  My mother-in-law, Kathleen, kept a diary during their years of imprisonment that became the basis for my book, “In The Enemy’s Camp”.  Most of the internees were British and American businessmen and their families who were caught up in the war, unable to repatriate back to their home countries before Manila was bombed on December 8, 1941.  But this blog is not about them, it is about the brave soldiers who risked their lives, racing 100 miles to Manila to liberate the camp.  But first, a bit of background.

 

Men in Santo Tomas, 1945

Men in Santo Tomas, 1945

The First Cavalry had already taken part in the liberation of Cabanatuan, the prison camp containing the survivors of the Bataan Death March.  Once the military POW’s were safely in American protection, General Douglas MacArthur ordered his troops to do whatever was necessary to get to Manila quickly and save the civilian prisoners.  The Japanese had made their intentions clear in August 1944 that all prisoners, military and civilian, were to be eradicated before the territory was overtaken by the Allies.  On Peleliu Island, Allied POW’s had been herded into an underground bunker and burned to death.  So no time was to be wasted in getting to Santo Tomas.  The prisoners were already dying at alarming rates from malnutrition and tropical diseases.  Each internee was allocated just 900 calories a day of rotting and insect-infested food.  Their fortitude was at a breaking point.  When the First Cavalry broke through the gates of the camp on the night of February 3, many of them fainted purely from mental and physical exhaustion.

Bob Holland - 2003

Bob Holland – 2003

There are many great source materials from and about the internees’ experience.  Several people wrote books after the war and my in-laws owned most of them.  When I set about writing my book I was interested in learning about the rescue from the perspective of the men who did the rescuing.  So I placed an ad in “The Saber”, the newsletter of the First Cavalry Division, seeking anyone who had either participated in the rescue or knew something about it.  I was lucky enough to find five men who took part in the mission – Chelly Mendoza, Claude Walker, John Yunker, Walter Pike and Bob Holland.   In a twist of fate, Bob Holland was also in the process of writing a book about the rescue and lived just 10 miles from me.  We were able to meet often and had the privilege of introducing him to my mother-in-law in 2003, their first meeting since he had crashed through the gates 58 years prior!

 

1st Cav tanks inside Santo Tomas

1st Cav tanks inside Santo Tomas

To a man they were typical of the WWII generation – none of them had spoken about the rescue since it occurred, not even to their families.  But in their letters to me it was evident that they were very proud of their mission and the happy end result.   Most said that the rescue was the first time the war had made sense for them since they had begun serving in the Pacific Theater.  They had rescued Allied prisoners who, without their efforts, would surely have succumbed to either disease, starvation or worse.  In the movie, “The Great Raid”, Lt. Col. Henry Mucci, told his men that the pride they would feel if it was successful would not be just for that day, but something they would carry inside them for the rest of their lives.  I don’t know whether he really said that or it was the result of a screenwriter’s imagination.  But I do know that the sentiment was certainly evident in the five men I interviewed.  Regardless of what happened the rest of their lives, they all said that rescuing the prisoners at Santo Tomas was one of the proudest moments of their lives.

So next Tuesday, please raise a glass to the wonderful men, most now departed, who were the saviors of so many people.  I can say from first-hand experience that they were heroes in every sense of the word.