From A Bird's Eye View

Posted in travel

Best Place to Live – A Day in the Life

March 2, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:15 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

A couple of recent ‘Best Place to Live’ surveys reminded me of my business travel days when I crisscrossed the country and would often be asked where I was from. When I responded, “Southern California, Orange County”, I would hear things like, “Oh, a surfer dude”, (I’ve never surfed), or “Oh, is that why you wear those cool shades?” (I wear sunglasses BECAUSE IT’S SUNNY THERE!), or, “Aren’t you afraid that an earthquake is going to cast California into the Pacific Ocean?” (No). If the conversation continues, people feel compelled to remind me that, 1) there are too many people in southern California, 2) the traffic is unbearable, and 3) the air is unbreathable. Then, feeling the need to ‘throw me a bone’, they’d say, “But the weather’s nice” and then they’d remind me of the earthquakes again.

Last week in a California survey done by Movato Real Estate, I discovered that my city of residence for the last 38 years, Orange, was selected as California’s best city to live in. In fact, Orange County had seven of the top ten cities. If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the cities, here’s the link to the survey:

http://www.movoto.com/ca/best-places-in-california/

I hope everyone feels that they live in the ‘Best Place to Live’, but I wanted to confirm and perhaps help justify this elevated status for Orange County, so last Friday, February 27, I set out to help prove that it is, in fact, one of the very best places to live, in part due to its proximity to such a diversity of environments. Thus my journey began . . .

The Desert

pre-dawn at Desert Willow Golf Resort

Sunrise for a perfect day of golf

I woke up at 3:45 a.m. (The things I do for you readers!) and with an assortment of wardrobes in tow, I’m out the door at 4:05. It takes me 95 minutes to drive the 103 miles from Orange to the beautiful Desert Willows Golf Resort in Palm Desert – golf’s winter mecca. It feels like I’m in a whole different world, because I am. It’s 50 degree at 6:18 when the first sliver of sunlight appears over the Little San Bernardino Mountain range and softly lightens the Coachella Valley below. It will get to 77 degrees here today. I’m envious of the golfers that are teeing off at first light in perfect weather, but I have a full day ahead of me, so I order breakfast, read the paper, write some of this blog and then head to my next destination.

The Mountains

Photo taken from the sun deck

I cover the next 85 miles to Big Bear Mountain in 115 minutes and arrive at Snow Valley Ski Resort where the cloudless sky is deep azure blue. I’ve gone from an elevation of around 200 feet to around 7,000 feet in less than two hours. It will get down to 21 degrees here this evening. Bear Big Mountain provides great local skiing and snowboarding in the winter and great hiking trails in the summer. There was a storm last week and another one coming in this weekend, but I am fortunate to find a window where chains are not required to negotiate the assent on this winding mountain road. Once at Snow Valley, I step out of my car and take a deep breath and feel immediately exhilarated by a blast of fresh mountain air – this is air that no one has breathed before! I enjoy a cup of coffee as I hang out on the upper sun deck of the lodge watching the skiers on the mountain and wishing I were amongst them. I make a snowball, because I haven’t done that in years, and throw it at a nearby tree . . . and miss. While I’m in the neighborhood, I decide to head over to picturesque Lake Arrowhead – another 25 minutes and 14 miles. Back in ‘the day’, Lake Arrowhead was the mountain retreat for many Hollywood stars including, Shirley Temple, Tom Selleck, Patrick Swayze and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys (photo at right is one I took of Wilson’s former lake house) to name a few. Today Arrowhead Village it’s fairly quiet; it’s off season – no boats on the lake, no stars in sight! Time to head down off the mountain.

The Beach

Huntington Beach sunset

Huntington Beach pier

I drop from 7,000 feet to . . . zero – sea level, as I drive 87 miles in just under two hours from Lake Arrowhead to Huntington Beach. I could have gone to any number of great beaches in Orange County from Seal Beach to San Clemente, including tony Newport Beach or artsy Laguna Beach, but I wanted to visit my favorite beach restaurant, Dukes at Huntington Beach – ‘Surf City’. I find a place at the bar and watch surfers and street entertainers as the sun disappears slowly and beautifully into the Pacific Ocean. My day is complete – sunrise to sunset.

I do understand that proximity to the desert, mountains and beach is not everything, but it just adds to all the other factors that make Orange County a ‘best place to live’.

I make the 23-mile trek back home exhausted, but feeling great about completing the ‘trifecta’ – desert, mountains and ocean all in one day. Next time I’m thinking it should be the ‘Trifecta Triathlon’ – same venues only I play golf, ski and swim. Maybe not.

PS: For those wondering – 312 miles

Posted in Blog Info / Up-dates

DEDUCING DEDUCTIONS

February 23, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:4 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

The dreaded 1040

Well, it’s that time of year again where I get out my green eyeshades and sharpen my pencil in order to calculate our taxes. I’m actually one of the few people I know who like to prepare taxes – it’s the paying of them I’m not so crazy about. A few years ago a friend told me about a head-to-head competition he ran between his CPA and TurboTax. Turns out that TurboTax actually found more deductions. That was enough for a geek like me; I began using it the following year. It’s very simple – I input our income, figure out some of the major deduction categories, insert them when prompted and they magically calculate what we owe. Unfortunately this year, it was a LOT more fun inserting the numbers than it was to read what we owed. Yikes! We’re not personally trying to settle the national debt, although the wizards at the IRS and TurboTax evidently think we are. So there was only one solution – find more deductions.

Dash, the Dependent

I began by reviewing our charitable contributions. I thought about all the times I carelessly tossed spare change into whatever charity container sits at the checkout counter at the grocery store. Certainly I must have thrown at least $1000 in there over the course of a year Or maybe not. I perused the list of clothing that we give to the local animal shelter thrift store. If I actually added in my time to the hand-knit sweaters I donated I’m sure the value of them would skyrocket. Of course, I’m not sure that the IRS values my time in quite the same way I do. On closer review of our annual expenses, it became apparent that we spend an awful lot of money on Dash, The Wonder Dog. So I began to look more closely at the questions that TurboTax was asking me. “Do you have children or other people you financially support?” Well, Dash may not technically qualify as people, per se, but those of you who own a pet will certainly testify (perhaps at my IRS hearing) that our pets are just like people. Better, in some cases. “Do you pay child or dependent care?” Dash cannot be left alone for hours on end, which leaves us no choice but to take him to the dog sitter. And although he may not be a child, there is no question but that he is very dependent on us. “Do you have any higher education costs?” YES! Last year we paid to have Dash go through the Canine Good Citizen program which cost us a pretty penny, I assure you. And I’m willing to bet that he got more out of that than those kids who are drinking their way through Chico State.

A Dog with a JOB

Finally I decided that I should consult the IRS guidelines on the issue. Turns out, that in some cases you CAN deduct expenses for your dog. First, if you’re blind or otherwise handicapped, you can deduct all of the costs associated with a service dog. There is a lot of paperwork involved to certify that the dog is actually medically necessary. The IRS does not take the same slap-dash attitude toward this as the airlines, who seem pretty gullible by comparison with all the passengers claiming their dog is necessary for “emotional support” when all they’re really trying to do is avoid the $75 pet fee. Going blind so that I can claim Dash as a service dog seemed like it was taking things a bit too far. I moved on. The other way you can deduct your dog is if he has a job. Aha! I can definitely make a case that Dash has a job – he keeps quite busy every day following me around scooping up any food I happen to drop. But of course it’s always the fine print that gets you and as I read further, apparently the dog actually has to have regular work hours at a place of business. Like those snarling dogs at the local lumber yard. And a sign must be posted “Beware – Guard Dog on Duty”. Hmmmmm, we are so far from that. We have a front door mat that says “Beware – Our Dog Can’t Hold Its Licker”.

Finally, I gave up on the “Dash deduction” and resigned myself to paying the taxes owed. Our dad used to say that he never minded paying taxes because it was a privilege to live in this country. I admire his spirit but I’m not sure if he were alive today he would say the same thing, given budget excesses for $100,000 hammers and million dollar boondoggles by – of all people – IRS employees. I’m going to send a suggestion in with my tax forms stating how I’d like my tax payment to be appropriated. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Posted in Family

A Taste of the High Life at Desert Highlands

February 16, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:10 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

Suzanne & Bob at Desert Highlands

Suzanne and Alan had their turn in the barrel last weekend – it was their turn to host Alan’s golf group. It was also a good excuse to celebrate our father’s 101^st birthday (although he’s been gone for 14 years) as well as Valentine’s Day. As it happened Linda and I were looking to go to Arizona to see her sister and mine. It was a chance for us to get out of this blustery winter in Southern California (the temperature had dropped below 70 for two straight days!) After a short visit with Linda’s sister, Starlet and husband, Donnie in Apache Junction (I’m sure the visit didn’t seem short to them, they fed us dinner, gave up their bed for the evening and fixed us breakfast the next morning), we headed off to see Suzanne and Al in Desert Highlands. Thank you Donnie and Starlet!

Desert Highlands is a very exclusive gate-guarded golf community in northern Scottsdale, where they’ve lived for the past 15 years. We’ve been there a number of times before and it’s always been great to get together with them, but this time it seemed particularly up-scale.

My view from the ‘transition’

The party on Saturday was exquisite – Suzanne and Al have a beautiful home on the 5^th hole of the golf course with an expansive view of the surrounding mountains. They had enough food to feed an army and enough booze to sink a navy. But the highlight, as it should be with any party, was the attendees. If I was expecting a bunch of snooty multi-millionaires, who had little time for interloping relatives (which of course I wasn’t . . . OK, maybe a little), I couldn’t have been more wrong. Really, what should I have expected from classy people like Suzanne and Al? To the person, every one of the guests was genuinely friendly, interesting and engaging. I almost felt like I belonged there, which I had learned the day before that I didn’t.

The day before was one of those very memorable days – one that you’d love to live over and over. We arrived at Desert Highlands golf clubhouse and were met by the golf attendants. They took our clubs and then they took our car! Before I could run after them yelling “Hey, my car’s being stolen”, Al let me know that the club offers a free valet service and that my car would be returned upon completion of the round of golf . . . and no tipping! I knew that!

The manicured golf course, nestled around Pinnacle Peak, is a visual spectacle; even the rough was like fairway, which is a good thing as I spent plenty of time there. I also spent a good deal of time in what they call the ‘transition’ area and quickly discovered that getting through the transition area was a kin to crawling with the French Foreign Legion through the Sahara Desert. Suffice it say that my game allowed me to see the entire golf course and way too much of the ‘transition’ area. It was nonetheless a beautiful golf course, the weather was perfect and I was with good company – I kept telling myself that the score really didn’t matter.

I did managed to play the 19^th hole well – the Desert Highlands clubhouse, which was very posh to begin with, had recently been remodeled and was now nothing short of spectacular, with new boulder-framed sitting areas and fire pits around a new, outside ‘Sunset Bar’ over-looking the pool and the city of Scottsdale beyond. Add a cold beer and it doesn’t get much better than this. But it did!

The Gett’s backyard

Friday evening after golf, we were invited to dinner at the home of a very fun couple, Bob & Liz Gett (pronounced jet), friends of Suzanne and Al. The Gett’s home should be called the Grand Desert Highlands Resort – comparing it to a luxurious Ritz-Carlton would be selling their home short! The 8,500 square foot, elegantly decorated home actually is only out done their beautifully appointed outside living area, with landscape lighting, pool, spa, multiple fire places, giant TV screen, covered barbecue area and . . .and . . . and . . .

Bob & Bob having a Cuban cigar

After a delicious dinner and engaging conversation about the Patriots’ recent Super Bowl victory (Bob & Liz are from the Boston open and they attended the game), we sat outside with after-dinner drinks and watched the city lights of Scottsdale come alive following one of those spectacular Arizona sunsets. Just when I thought the evening couldn’t get any better, Bob asked, “Would you like a Cuban cigar?” Heaven.

Thank you Suzanne and Al for a weekend that our father would have really enjoyed, even at 101!

Posted in opinion

WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND WINE WAS CHEAP

February 9, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:8 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

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

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!”

Next, 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.

Posted in travel

Those Damn National Geographic Expeditions

February 2, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:6 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

It’s that damn National Geographic Expeditions issue! It arrives at the end of the year with pages of colorful photos that only National Geographic can take, and details of exotic expeditions to places only National Geographic would go and only the very wealthy can afford. I read through it with recognition of some places that I’ve been, but mostly with frustration for the many places I haven’t been and will never get to. So many destinations, so little time. Note to kids: start traveling early!

Expeditions is arranged geographically: North America, South America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Oceania, Australia and Polar Regions. Polar Regions? Only National Geographic would plan a trek to Santa’s workshop. I start to peruse the North America section, and an idea comes to me; rather than sit at home and get frustrated while reading about all the places I’m not going, I decide to take this issue to the local Yard House, a pub known for it’s multiple foreign beers, belly up to the bar and travel to these exotic destinations . . . in beer. Not wanting to ‘drink, dream and drive’, I call Uber, which drops me off at my local Yard House – so many beers, so little time. Note to kids: Don’t live close to a Yard House.

As I survey the plethora of beers proffered by the Yard House, it occurs to me that were I to follow the National Geographic Expeditions page-by-page and beer-by-beer, I’d need a liver transplant by the time I got to the end of my driveway, so I take a measured approach and commit to drink only sample-sized beers that I’ve never had before, hoping to both quench my thirst and my travel lust simultaneously.

Expeditions’ first destination in the North America section is Costa Rica; now I haven’t had any beer yet, but I’m already confused. All this time I thought Costa Rica was in Central America, but who am I to argue with National Geographic? I break the rule about only tasting beers that I’ve never tasted before as I see an Imperial, Costa Rica’s most popular beer. The flavor takes me back a few years to when I was in Costa Rica golfing and zip lining through the rainforest; not at the same time, although my golf score might indicate otherwise. It’s a good start as I turn the page and find myself in Cuba. I ask for a Bucanero, Cuba’s most popular beer, but while the US-Cuba trade agreements are starting to relax, there is still no importing of Cuban products to the US. I say, “What about an Hatuey” (“Gesundheit!”). Hatuey was once the pride of Havana, but is now brewed in Baltimore, which is at least still on the North American continent, I think. They don’t have that either. They have a Puerto Rico beer, Old Harbor; I try it – close but no cigar.

I turn the page and find myself in Cabo San Lucas – the site of my ill-fated fishing trip in 2012. Click on this link to revisit if you’d like – I can’t! https://fromabirdseyeview.com/?p=712. My favorite Mexican beer is Modelo, I decide that the rule about only drinking sample-sized beers is a bad rule and down a Modelo to help erase the memory of the fishing trip. I quickly turn the page and find myself in Alaska asking about a beer called the Double Bastard Ale. It’s quite good and remember that the rule about only drinking sample-sized beers is no longer in force so I order a pint of the Bouble Dastard. I’m starting to feel a little jet-lagged or something, and ask Ron, the tar bender, to tell me what other erotic beers he’s got. He says “Einstock, a beer from Iceland”. I ask if that’s on the North American condiment; he tells me that I left North America several hours ago. Wow, that was quick, this traveling by beer could really catch on.

I decide that I’m having only one more beer today (OK, maybe Ron decided), but I’m not making it a rule, as I don’t do too well with those, and ask Ron to make the incision about what beer that should be. He says, “Let’s end at the beginning,” which at this point sounds completely logical to me, so he pours me a Weihenstephan, and says, “This beer is from a little town in Bavaria, considered to be the oldest existing brewery in the world.” He continues, “ 1040 is when they started brewing beer there.” I look at my watch and see that it is now 2:40 and am confused, but I guess travel will do that to you. It seems I’ve had enough ‘beer travel’ for one day and call Uber.

Note to kids: Do NOT book your travel through Yard House.

Posted in opinion

THE RESCUE OF SANTO TOMAS

January 26, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:13 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

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

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

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

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.

Posted in travel

The Fate of B-17 ‘Break A Leg’ – December 13, 1943

January 21, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:4 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

The sky was full of Messerschmitts and he’d been hit – multiple times. Billows of smoke were pouring out of both cowlings on the right wing; the steady hum from the four, 1,200 horsepower engines had turned to sputters and chokes. He struggled to level the plane, which was losing altitude. It was pure chaos in the rear of ‘Break A Leg’, his B-17 Flying Fortress, named for the good luck term that actors use before going on stage to perform – he needed some good luck now! The waist gunner had been hit and was slumped over his .50 caliber machine gun; the ball turret gunner laid in a pool of his own blood at the bottom of the turret. He struggled to steady the plane as best he could given the severe damage done to his right leg, which had been hit by shrapnel. He turned and yelled for the remaining crew members to take off their flack jackets, put on their chutes and get the hell out of the airplane – “Now!” He literally had to hank his co-pilot out of his seat and ordered him to organize the evacuation of the surviving crew members.

He grimaced in pain as he tried to head the aircraft south towards friendly territory. The co-pilot asked about the condition of the pilot’s blood-soaked right leg as he looked at his shredded flight suit pant leg. The pilot said, “Get moving – that’s an order”. The co-pilot hesitated, took a last look at him, said, “Yes sir” and ducked through the hatch out of the cockpit. The rear of plane was in flames as the tail gunner crawled out from his battle position, dazed and bleeding. The chin turret hatch swung opened and the gunner pulled himself onto the main deck, dirty and sweaty, but unharmed. Yelling above the cacophony of the deafening noise engulfing the plane, the co-pilot orchestrated the evacuation of the crew.

The cockpit was filling with smoke as visibility diminished, but an eerie calm came over the pilot, in spite of his dire situation. His mind flashed back over the last few days. Earlier that morning he had taken off from his base outside of London on a mission to bomb industrial sites in southern Germany. It was to be his last bombing mission before he was scheduled to rotate back to the States for Christmas. He had spoken on the phone to his wife and twin girls just two days earlier and could not wait to get home to see them.

He was disoriented and weak from loss of blood, but struggled to turn the plane southward towards Switzerland. As he tried to clear his head and orient himself in hopes of finding an open landing area, his plane crashed into a snow-covered hillside and exploded into a ball of fire.

That story came from my eerie experience during a visit last month to the March Field Air Museum in Riverside, CA, as I sat in the pilot’s seat of a B-17 and simultaneously felt a chill and that déjà vu feeling, like I’d been there . . . many times before. That’s when the above story played like a movie in my mind. I’ve never been a big fan of reincarnation, but that experience gave me pause. I was born on Dec. 14, 1943 . . . with a broken right leg.

I’m back!

Posted in opinion

THE MEMORY JAR

January 12, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:10 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Watch out! They’re everywhere this month.

So, here we are at the beginning of another year. You might expect me to write about my new year’s resolutions or, like last year, what I won’t do this year. Apparently there are a lot of people who have made resolutions because just last week on the way to work I saw THREE joggers on a street that has been devoid of all human movement for a year. And my husband reported that our gym has been packed all week. I’m taking his word for it and steering clear. After all, it’s flu season and who knows what I could pick up in a gym. Sitting on the sofa eating Doritos seems a whole lot healthier when you really think about it. So while the rest of the world is working diligently on their new year’s tasks, I’ve decided that I’m done with resolutions. I’ve finally come to accept that I’m not going to keep any of them so I’m saving myself the trouble this year by skipping the whole process. Sure, I could resolve to drink wine and eat chocolate but that seems like cheating the whole system. Still, it seemed strange to start a new year without any thought to how I might mark it. And then I stumbled on the “Memory Jar”.

Frankly, I don’t remember where I read about the “Memory Jar” because, well, it was last week and I’m at an age where I can’t remember if I ate dinner last night. The concept of it is to remember all of the important, and not so important, events of a year. Then, on December 31, when you say “Gee, what in the heck happened to 2015?”, you can go to the jar and remind yourself. In other words, instead of actually jogging this year, you will be figuring out a way to jog your memory instead. So for those of you who share my memory challenges, here’s how you can create your own Memory Jar 2015.

First, let’s be clear that this is NOT a device to remember that you got married, had grandchildren or any other major life event. If you’re beyond remembering those highlights perhaps rather than reading the rest of this blog your time might be better spent investigating “homes”. We’re just going to assume that you’ll remember the BIG stuff. The Memory Jar is for all of the little things that happen that tend to be forgotten as the weeks and months go by. Although, frankly, it’s YOUR jar so far be it from me to tell you what to put in it.

A colorful Memory Jar

You’ll want to find a fairly big jar – a year can be a long time and you don’t want to run out of room. An empty container from Costco might be just the ticket. You can decorate it or not, but you at least should label it “Memory Jar” so that no one uses it for a urine sample before you can fill it up. Then the fun begins. Write down the things that make you laugh or bring tears of joy, basically any moment that you don’t want to forget, then put the slip of paper in your Memory Jar. You can make note of things people said or did that seem memorable. For example, grandkids are always coming up with some funny phrase. Ours once said (after asking my husband’s age) “Gee, you’re really tall“. Of course he meant “old”. We still laugh about it and now I wish I could remember how old he was when he said it. If I’d had a memory jar I’d have my answer. A memory jar is also a great place to put theater or movie tickets, perhaps with a notation of where you went to dinner that night or who you were with. Or maybe the cork from a bottle of wine you shared with good friends. You can put their names, the place and the date on the cork and just slip it in the jar. The “jar” is also a good place for a photo or newspaper clipping that you want to remember. You get the idea – put anything in there that brings you joy in the moment.

Then next December 31 open up your jar, either alone or with family and friends, and read or view each piece of paper. Hopefully it will provide some good memories, laughs and maybe a tear. In any event, you won’t have to wonder where the year went – you’ll know!

As far as New Year’s traditions go, I’m thinking that a Memory Jar sounds a whole lot better than jogging.

Posted in Holiday observations

2015 Reviews, Previews & Predictions

January 5, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:13 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

The Eagles backstage – me, NOT!

– For me 2014 started here with the discovery, or rather the re-discovery, of ‘The Tape’ – a mysterious offering from dearly departed, best friend, Don of Saudi Arabia, which has turned into an allegorical journey in search of . . . ? More discoveries are coming in 2015.

– Last year’s backstage cocktail party with the Eagles turned out to be more of a nose-bleed seat and a hot dog in the balcony, but their music was still magical.

– I watched a car salesman, beaten and bloody, slink into his manager’s office with his tail between his legs as Linda drove away in her new 2015 Chevy Yukon

– In 2014 I learned that Samoans, by any other name (even one as misleading as Caramel deLites) are still my favorite Girl Scout cookie, although I understand I’ll be paying more for them in 2015 – what a surprise!

Missing woman turns into a homicide

– The case of missing Carley Scott, to which I was introduced by a hitch-hiker I picked up on the ‘Road to Hana’, turned into a homicide when Carley’s jawbone and burned clothes were found by police. Ex-boyfriend, Steven Capobianco has gone from a ‘person of interest’ to being charged with murder. Trial is set for sometime in 2015.

– An economic forecast: I predict that 2015 will find Reverse Mortgages moving Forward.

– Independence Day (not the 4^th of July!) revealed our founding fathers to be just as quirky as some of today’s politicians, which is no easy task!

Trekking the Himalayas

– If my adventure to South Africa in 2013 was the ‘Trip of a Lifetime’, then my adventure in Nepal and the Himalayas last year was the ‘Trek of a Lifetime’ – it was a spectacular journey! I’m glad many of you could join me vicariously through my daily posts. I am now frequently asked, “Hey, where are ‘we’ going next?” Stay tuned.

– It wasn’t as foreign, but just as beautiful – that’s the trekking through Glacier Nat’l Park, Yellowstone, and Alberta, Canada and our visit to neighbors the Nelsons at their second home on Flathead Lake, Montana this past summer. You’re all probably wondering if after our encounter in Jackson Hole, WY, if Sandra Bullock will ever leave me alone . . . more on that later.

Is she still stalking me?

– Earlier this year, while making a fool of myself at some of our ‘local’ tourist spots like Venice Beach, the Western White House and the Queen Mary, I missed my induction into the University of Utah Athletic Hall of Fame – it’s just as well, it turned out that they had plenty of ‘red shirts’ to clear the dishes and sweep up after.

– Twenty fourteen concluded with a tribute to, and a debate with, my favorite sister, my favorite writing companion and simply one of my favorite people on this planet. If you’re a regular you know she writes so well from the heart, while I tend to write from somewhere around the elbow, but whatever your preference, I predict much more of the same coming from us in 2015.

– A big thank you to our regular readers in 2014 for enjoying our writing enough to encourage us to keep on doing it. Truth is, we’d probably do it anyway, but you need to know that your comments, your ‘sharing’ and your subscriptions make it a labor of love for us. Thank you so much!

Bob & Suzanne wishing you an adventurous 2015!

If you’re not already a subscriber, we encourage you to become a ‘bird watcher’ in 2015 and follow and ‘share’ our adventures and observations. That’s at least a resolution you can keep!

Hope you make 2015 matter.

Posted in opinion

RINGING IN THE YEAR WITH…HOGMANAY?

December 29, 2014By Sparrow/WatsonComments:5 Comments

I was reading about how Americans celebrate the holidays the other day, expecting to have my cockles warmed. Instead, I ended up with just the slightest amount of indigestion. All I can say is, people are very strange. We’ve moved a long way from Grandma baking cookies and Dad reading “The Night Before Christmas”. I learned about pickle Christmas trees, binge-watching COPS one night of Hanukkah, and farting contests on Christmas Eve. Really. It got so weird that when I read about one family that left cookies and rum for Santa I thought of them as the most reasonable people in the article. So I skipped over the American customs (or as I came to call them, “White Trash Traditions“) and commenced reading about holiday celebrations around the world. In comparison to the U.S., they were pretty tame – not a farting contest among them. But then I stumbled on a tradition I’d never heard of – Hogmanay. It is the Scottish word for “last day of the year”. How could I not have heard of this? My father-in-law was born and raised in Glasgow. I checked with my husband. Nope, he’d never heard of it either. So I thought it was completely bogus until I did some further research. I’ll say one thing after boning up on Hogmanay- those Scots know how to celebrate. So in case you need a bit of inspiration for your New Year’s Eve, here is everything you need to know about hosting your own Hogmanay celebration.

First (and it may already be too late for some of you) Christmas is marked by a very sedate family get-together and is a time for reflection and prayer. Then December 31 rolls around all hell breaks loose. Hogmanay is marked by a loud, joyous occasion celebrating the birth of a new year. An important element of Hogmanay celebrations is to welcome friends and strangers to your home, with warm hospitality and, of course, a kiss to wish everyone a ‘Guid New Year’. ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is sung to celebrate the start of the New Year at the stroke of midnight. The underlying belief is to clear out the vestiges of the old year, have a clean break and welcome in a young New Year on a happy note. So far, I’m really liking this Hogmanay thing.

A “lucky” First Footer

One of the most important traditions of Hogmanay is called First-Footing. Once midnight strikes and the calendar flips to January 1st, all eyes await the arrival of the year’s first visitor. The person who crosses the home’s threshold first is said to be a predictor of good fortune in the year ahead. To ensure good luck, a first footer should be a dark-haired male (think George Clooney). Fair-haired first footers were not particularly welcome after the Viking invasions of ancient times (just ask Tiger Woods about Elin Nordegren). To “first foot” a household empty-handed is considered grossly discourteous, and VERY unlucky. Traditional gifts include a lump of coal to lovingly place on the host’s fire, along with shortbread, a black bun and whisky to toast to a Happy New Year. Other than the whiskey it all seems a bit dodgy and frankly, like something was grabbed at the last-minute. But who is to judge? We’ve all had to raid the pantry for a last-minute hostess gift and I guess a black bun is as good as anything provided that the “black” isn’t due to mold. I must say however, that this list of gifts does nothing to improve the Scots’ reputation for being cheap.

In the event that you just aren’t up for hosting a Hogmanay celebration, or you only hang out with blonde women, I will share with you a Sparrow family tradition that has held us in good stead for many years: Pop’s Ice Cream Fizz. I wrote about this delicious concoction previously when describing our Christmas morning traditions. Believe me, it has put a roseate hue on what might otherwise have been some testy moments. Occasionally Pop would also fix it on New Year’s morning as a special treat. So as a public service to our subscribers, here is the recipe:

Pop, near 80 years old, still making magic

POP’S ICE CREAM FIZZ

Fill a blender 1/4 full with ice cubes

Add 6 jiggers of gin

Add 4 scoops of French Vanilla ice cream

Add 1 small bottle of soda water (the size you get in a 6-pack)

My brother Bob adds an egg so the white adds some froth, brother Jack doesn’t add an egg. Personally, I’d add it just because you can then claim it’s a protein drink.

Just blend for a couple of minutes, and voila!, you have a nectar from the gods. And for those of you who don’t like gin, please don’t turn up your nose. Believe me, the ice cream masks the flavor. You will want to bathe in this stuff.

So as the year ends, whether you celebrate with Hogmanay or Pop’s Ice Cream Fizz, my brother Bob and I wish you and your family a very happy and healthy New Year.