From A Bird's Eye View

Posted in opinion

OBEDIENCE SCHOOL FOR PEOPLE

January 13, 2014By Sparrow/WatsonComments:6 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Recently we have been putting Dash the Wonder Dog through his paces at obedience school. This past weekend he graduated from the Intermediate level and next week begins a six-week journey to become a Canine Good Citizen. Actually, the training is more for me. I am learning that consistency and discipline are not exactly my strong suits. More on that later.

Today I want to write about the brilliant idea I had during Dash’s training – Obedience School for People! Don’t laugh – think about how much less annoying life would be if everybody had to attain their Good Citizen certificate. One of the major complaints we hear, either in person or on TV, is how rude and inconsiderate people are these days. “Honkers” in traffic, people with full carts in the Express Check-out line, someone in front of you at Starbucks ordering Cappacinos for their entire office. But imagine a world where people were actually trained as well as our dogs! To prove my point, here are some examples:

1. Fetch – with canines the dogs are taught to go get something that you’ve thrown and bring it right back to you. Oh, if only this had applied to some of my friends over the years. I have loaned – and not gotten back – clothing, utensils, garden equipment and various other household items. As an example, a friend “borrowed” my book on figure skating written by the great sportswriter Christine Brennan. That was in 1997. For the first year I hinted to her that I wanted to refresh my memory about some skaters and would sure like to re-read the book. Nothing. Several other hints were also met with inaction. Finally, when we were moving out of state and I was pretty sure that I would never see her again I came right out and reminded her that the book was about two years overdue at my personal lending library. Still…to this day the book resides on her bookshelf, permanently “borrowed” from me. But – and here’s where the brilliance of my plan comes in – if my friend had been through training I could have said “fetch” and my book would have been promptly returned.

2. Wait – dogs are not generally long on patience or attention spans. Sort of like husbands. So the “wait” command teaches them to pause before entering or exiting a room or to stop doing whatever they’re doing (like bugging you to throw the ball for the 1,000th time). I was thinking about the “wait” training trick when I was standing outside Costco the other morning. I was there about five minutes before they opened and joined a crowd of about 20 people. It was not particularly cold – it’s Scottsdale for Heaven’s sake – nor was it the morning before a holiday. In other words, there should have been no overriding sense of urgency. But at 9:03 when the big steel door still had not opened, not one but two (!) people called the store demanding that they open up. And in rather harsh terms, I might add. Now I have to admit, I love Costco. I own stock in the company, I think they treat their employees well, and best of all, if you time it just right you can get a free meal by swerving through the aisles picking up all the free samples. So when people are so impatient and rude that they are yelling at the nice Costco people for being THREE MINUTES late, I think that is a call to action. If ever there was a need for people to heed the “wait” command, it is apparently at the Scottsdale Costco.

3. Heel – this is actually a technical term for when the dog is facing forward with its shoulder at your calf. It is called their “positional space”. Boy oh boy, based solely on my observations, “heel” is a concept where we humans fall woefully short. We’ve all experienced the personal space invasion – the drunk at the cocktail party who stands so close that you could critique their dental work, the oaf at the movies who hogs the armrest, or the dunderhead at the Little League game who has to sit thisclose to you on the bleachers when three rows stand empty in front of you. The worst violators seem to be on airplanes. There are the Droolers, the Seat Tilters who leave you no leg room, and of course, the Sleepers. I once had the misfortune to be in the window seat next to a rather large man who not only spread out all over the empty middle seat, but apparently suffered from narcolepsy. Despite several attempts to wake him, he slumbered on. My gyrations to crawl over him to get to the restroom would make a call girl blush. If everyone was required by the rules set down in my Good Citizen requirements we could confidently enter the public square and – this is critical – airplanes, knowing that everyone would stay in their own darn “positional space”.

I’m sure there are other examples of how we might “train” people I’d love to hear your ideas. In the mean time, I’m sticking with the dogs. I think my success rate will be better.

Posted in opinion • travel

‘The Tape’

January 6, 2014By Sparrow/WatsonComments:15 Comments

(Author’s note: I have many interesting places to go this year and I thought I would add the following ‘search’ to my adventures. I’d be interested in your feedback of this episodic allegory – good, bad or indifferent. If you don’t like it, Suzanne will be back next week with something more normal I’m sure.)

by Bob Sparrow

‘The Tape’

I turned The Tape over in my hands several times; examining it like it was a rare gem – which, in fact, it might be. The title written on the plastic cassette case was ‘In Search of Xoon’. Xoon was my dog in Japan in 1968. Titles, I must tell you, were always non-sequiturs of sorts, never really pertaining to anything on the tapes – ‘Music to Slit Your Wrists Over’, ‘Zsa Zsa Sing Bob Dylan’ and ‘Garbage Soup’ to name a few.

I exchanged a number of cassette tapes with Don while he was living in the Middle East in the late 80s and throughout the 90s. We’d affect our DJ voices and ‘do a show’ for each other; I’d send him the latest hits from the US, he’d send me off-the-wall songs from his vast collection of eclectic music – we’d separate the music with talk about the news of the day as well as the personal issues going on in our lives – 90 minutes, commercial-free. It kept us close at a time when the Internet was not available to the common man, or even two uncommon men like ourselves. I think there were 39 tapes in all, plus the one I was holding, the one he sent toward the end of his stay there; the one in a strange language, a very strange language. When I first listened to it I thought it was going to confirm that ‘Paul was dead’. It was just gibberish, backwards or forward. I fast-forwarded it to see if the gibberish stopped and he started talking in English, it didn’t and he didn’t. B-side was the same, ninety minutes of gibberish, but it was commercial-free . . . I think. I concluded that he had spent too much time wandering in the desert sun or had been captured by a herd of Bedouin camels and was forced to confess something. I think it was he talking on the cassette, although it sounded a bit altered or perhaps addled. No, I’m sure it was his voice – now that I think about it, it was unmistakable – I could hear the humor in his voice even though I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. But after 50 years of companionship with this eccentric genius, I was used to not understanding a good deal of what he was saying.

He lived 13 years in Ta’if, which is in the Sarawat Mountains of Saudi Arabia, so he spoke some Arabic, but The Tape was not in any form of Arabic, it had a much more euphonious, even a melodic lilt to it. He had lived in Sicily in the shadow of Mt. Etna at Sigonella Navel Air Station and spoke Italian. He spent several years in Caracas, Venezuela at the foot of the Maritime Andes, so he knew several dialects of Spanish and Portuguese. The language on The Tape was none of these. It didn’t sound like he was reading from something, it sounded very improvisational. What the hell was he saying and why had he sent this to me? In subsequent tapes and years later in face-to-face conversations with him when he came back to the states, I’d ask him about The Tape.

I said, “OK, are you going to tell me what was on that crazy tape?”

“Did you destroy it?”

“No”

“So do you mean what is on the tape?”

“Yes! Were you drinking when you made it?”

“Don’t you have to be drinking to spend 13 years in Saudi Arabia?”

I got so frustrated with his answering a question with a question that I stopped asking him about it altogether – I’d show him! Who cares about this stupid, nonsensical tape anyway? I forgot all about it.

Cassette carrying case

Every few years, particularly on a long, solitary drive, I’d put my cassette carrying case in my car and pop in tape after tape – it was always great to hear his voice. I did just that when I drove up to his funeral service following his death in February 2012. While driving up Interstate 5 and fumbling through the cassettes, I inevitably pulled out The Tape, laughed to myself, shook my head and put it back in the case. But this time, perhaps because he was now gone, I stopped before I put in another tape and starting thinking about The Tape, what it could possible say, what it could mean and why did he send it to me. So I ask him to help me solve the mysteries of The Tape.

He said, “Yes, but you do understand about my ‘condition’ don’t you?

“Your condition?”

“Yes, do you think I’m as sharp as I used to be now that I’ve been dead for several weeks?

For the next 90 minutes I listened to The Tape in its entirety. I asked him, “What language is that, I don’t understand any of it”

“Do you understand the song Nessun Dorma?” he said.

“No”

“Do you know it? Do you like it?

“Yes, I think it’s maybe the most beautiful song ever as Pavarotti sings it.”

“But you don’t understand it?”

I popped it in the car’s cassette player and spent the next 90 minutes listening to The Tape, more carefully this time, and I did hear it a bit differently; I heard more of the rhythm of the tape and . . . perhaps I picked up what might be some small clues as to where to begin my search for the translation and thus the meaning of The Tape.

Posted in Holiday observations • opinion

WHAT I WON’T DO IN 2014

December 30, 2013By Sparrow/WatsonComments:8 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

I operate under the illusion that I am a fully functioning, rational adult. That could be the root of my problem. Here I sit, two days before the new year, convinced that 2014 is going to be a GREAT year. I’ve polled a few of my friends and their sentiment is exactly the same – they all are looking forward to 2014 with great optimism and hope. We will NOT have any of the problems we experienced in that nasty old 2013, no sir. 2014 will be perfect.

What is it about human nature that we completely suspend reality at the beginning of each year? We forget that life’s road is bumpy and that each year brings with it some amount of problems and worries. Heck, at our age, every doctor’s appointment holds the possibility of being a life-altering event. And we forget that the world around us (especially in a year with mid-term elections) can be a very hard place to find comfort and joy. So this year, in an effort to be more grounded, I am not making any resolutions that are high-minded or completely unrealistic. I’ve decided to make some resolutions of what I won’t do in the new year. Here’s a sampling:

1. I will NOT exercise every day. Every year I say I will and every year I fail. One year I made it all the way through April. That year was 1966. Ever since then I can’t even get through the month of January without sitting on my butt for hours eating Doritos and watching TV. So this year I am setting myself up for success – I vow to exercise when I feel like it. Hopefully that will be something more than once a week but I’m not making any rash promises.

2. I will NOT eat healthy every day. Although I do consume more than my fair share of kale salad and green smoothies, I hate that I feel guilty when I eat something wonderfully sugary or packed with carbs. So…in 2014 I pledge to do my best, keeping in mind that there were probably several women on the Titanic who in their last moments thought, “Damn! I should have had that chocolate cake!”

3. I will NOT get organized. This year I bought one of those P-Touch label makers. I set up a color-coded filing system and labeled every folder. Then I made labels for a bank of switches so I finally could distinguish between mood lighting, overhead beams and the window shades. Perfect. But then I took it too far – I labeled the hair dryer, the spice rack and the toaster. My husband never stayed around me long for fear he would end up with a label. So in 2014 I will not attempt to organize. Instead, I will seek professional counseling for what is obviously my OCD problem.

4. I will NOT watch Duck Dynasty, Honey Boo-Boo or Miley Cyrus. This one is pretty easy because I don’t follow those people now but since they are constantly on the news I shall vow to avert my eyes when they appear. Also, in 2014 I will not be Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Except the whole “Bruce Jenner wants to be a woman” thing. I met him once in 1977 at a cocktail party and he was the very essence of manhood and virility. So watching him get his Adam’s Apple shaved and wear women’s undergarments could hold a certain fascination that will prove irresistible.

I think these resolutions are sufficiently low. In fact, I’m feeling confident that this year I will accomplish all of my goals. Optimism runs rampant today because, like many of you, I look at January 1st as a fresh beginning. My slate wiped clean of any problems, with only great possibilities spread out before me in the coming 12 months. Today I believe that all things are possible. Today I believe that the new year will bring contentment, good times and I will finally be able to discard my “fat clothes”.

Here’s to a wonderful 2014 to us all. May your year be filled with good health, good friends and good times. And may all of your resolutions be fulfilled – no matter how low you set the bar! Happy New Year!!!!

Posted in Family

AMAZING FAMILY!

December 23, 2013By Sparrow/WatsonComments:5 Comments

Suzanne & Linda

by Bob Sparrow

Who has a better sister and wife than I do? NoooooooooBody!! At the risk of beating a dead horse, or at least an old horse, for our readers, I must revisit my 70th birthday celebration and thank a number of people who made it such an AMAZING event. My first thank you goes to my lovely wife Linda, who orchestrated a weekend of surprise after surprise. Granted when you have a husband who is totally clueless, it’s easy to pull off surprises, but nonetheless she did a masterful job – a week after the event, I still don’t suspect anything!

With the ‘Big One’ approaching, Linda asked me how I wanted to celebrate the conclusion of my 70th trip around the sun. I said I didn’t want a big party, just something with the FAMILY. That was the end of my participation. Several days later she told me that she’d booked four villas in Palm Desert at the Marriott Desert Springs, where we love spending a week every April at our timeshare. Perfect, just the kids, grandkids and us.

Cocktails at Jackalope in the desert

Late Thursday afternoon, while grubbing around in the yard, the doorbells rings, Linda asks me to get it. I come to the door in tattered jeans and dirty t-shirt; it’s my brother, Jack and wife Sharon, I greet them with the warm welcome of, “What the hell are you guys doing here?!” They responded with a Happy Birthday and that they are going to Palm Desert with us. I’m thrilled. Later that evening (I did sneak in a shower and change of clothes) the doorbell rings again and, still clueless, I go to the door and there are four couples of our good friends, Mark & Kathy, Jack & JJ, Bob & Marge and John and Judy – they’re standing at our front door singing Christmas carols that turn into Happy Birthday. When we’re all seated at the bar in our family room, Linda brings out a small box and asks me to open it. It is a brochure for a 12-day trip for two to Kathmandu, Nepal, which includes a 5-day trek through the foothills of the Himalaya! My jaw drops!!! She says, there is no way she’s going, that the trip is for my brother and me. All I can say is “AMAZING!”

Jack, Suzanne & me

By mid-day Friday we’re checking in at the Villas in Palm Desert. When we got there, there is only one villa that has been cleaned and available, so we walked over to the hotel and had some lunch at poolside in perfect weather. Upon our return I walked into the one villa we had and I see a man, with his back to us, sitting out on the deck, and assume I went into the wrong villa. Then one of my favorite people and one of the funniest I know, turns around and wishes me a Happy Birthday – it’s Matt Sparrow, my nephew – Jack’s son. Fast forward to mid-day Saturday and I get my annual birthday phone call from my sister, who always calls me and sings Happy Birthday the way Marilyn Monroe sang it to Jack Kennedy. As I’m standing there listening to her, she walks in the door – she had just flown in from Scottsdale – AMAZING! Later that afternoon close friends and ‘practically family members’, Mark, Kathy and daughter, Kristin (best friend of our daughter, Dana) arrived to celebrate the occasion.

Joe & Dana

One last surprise remained. I was told to stay in my villa as preparations for ‘the party’ Saturday evening were taking place in Joe & Dana’s villa. When I was asked to ‘come to the party’ I was blown away. Dana and Joe had decorated the villa with pictures at ‘food stations’ they’d created representing a number of the places we’ve visited, Italy (Meatballs marinara, Fried cheese, beef Carpaccio with lemon arugula), Africa (Moroccan lamb kabobs with Tzatziki sauce, veggie couscous, roasted plantains), Japan (Ahi and Yellowtail crudo, crying tiger beef skewers, garlic and chili edamame) and Hawaii (Kalua pork sliders on Hawaiian rolls, grilled pineapple, Ahi poke). All the food was AMAZING! There we also ‘drink stations’ from Ireland (beer and Irish whiskey), my Dad’s famous martinis at ‘Poppin’s Grotto’ and ‘Klappers’ (cheap rum and diet cola) named after my dearly departed best friend, Don Klapperich. The birthday cake, in a ‘travel and music’ theme had a quote from me about traveling and seeing things a little differently than most. Dana then gave me a box decorated in the ‘travel and music’ theme that she had put together, containing 70 individual birthday wishes from friends and family (you saw my sister’s in last week’s blog) – they were AMAZING! A huge thank you to those who took the time to write something nice and send it back (for some I’m certain it took quite some time to find something nice to say). Seriously, I am was touched and am blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Stephanie, Jeff & Dana

Thank you to an AMAZING FAMILY, especially those who made this an unforgettable (even for a forgetful 70 year old) experience – Stephanie, Jason, Dylan & Emma; Dana & Joe, Jeff, Jack & Sharon, Suzanne, Matt, (Mark, Kathy & Kristin) and especially to Linda whose dedication to FAMILY is unsurpassed. To quote Lou Gehrig, “I am the luckiest man on the face of the earth”.

OK, enough with the birthday stuff, I’ve got some really interesting places to take you next year – hope you’ll enjoy them vicariously ‘from a bird’s eye view’.

HOPE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND AN ADVENTUROUS NEW YEAR!

Posted in Blog Info / Up-dates • Family

A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE TO MY BROTHER

December 16, 2013By Sparrow/WatsonComments:4 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Bob, his wife Linda,their son, daughters, their husbands and two VERY cute grandchildren

It is an unfortunate fact that oftentimes in life we don’t let people know how we feel about them until we’re delivering their eulogy. We assume, we presume, we procrastinate. And then we end up saying something to the effect of, “Gee, I never told him how I really feel about him.”

Fortunately this will not be the case for my brother Bob. Our entire family gathered this past weekend to celebrate his 70th birthday and as all our family gatherings tend to be, it was filled with laughter, good story-telling (mostly true but not always), and some sentimental tears. One of Bob’s daughters arranged for 70 different people to write a tribute to him. As he reads them hopefully he will realize that from the time he was a small boy until today, he has been a much-admired person. We should all be so lucky to have an experience such as this. So with your indulgence, my blog today is an edited version of my tribute to Bob…a truly great brother.

Dear Bob,

I can’t believe you are 70 years old today! Boy, you are OLD. But, make no mistake, in very good shape. For your age…and considering that your hips and knees are shot. And we don’t even want to think about your liver. But today we mark this important milestone and let you know how very special you are. I’m sure you will get lots of notes and cards from family and friends to mark this significant birthday. But only one person can tell you what a great big brother you have been – and that’s me.

Our relationship started out a bit rocky. After all, I was the interloper who caused you, at age 7, to go from the baby of the family to the middle child. So you did what all big brothers do with pesky younger sisters – you figured out ways to torment me.

As adults, however, we found a lot of common ground. We both have a reverence for books and, of course, enjoy writing. But first and foremost is our shared sense of humor. We both think we’re pretty funny, which is good because sometimes other people don’t. Pop was a big influence on us, of course, but you always added a wry spin to a story or took pleasure in the outrageous. I still laugh when I think about the messages you used to leave at my office. Like the one you left when I was well into middle age: “Please tell Suz that her A.A. meeting tonight has been cancelled.” I explained to my secretary, “That’s just my brother – he has a very funny sense of humor.” I’m not sure she ever saw me in quite the same way again.

As I thought about my lifetime of memories with you, there are two stories from our childhood that kept coming back to me. I think that’s because these two stories, of you as a boy, portend the wonderful man you would become.

Jack, Suz and Bob …around 1955.

The first story is actually my first memory in life, in 1954 or 55. The three of us were in the backseat of Dad’s station wagon, on our way to Playland at the Beach in San Francisco. As Playland came into sight, you suddenly shot up out of your seat and shouted, “Look! There it is!! We’re here!” I was so surprised by your sudden movement and unbridled enthusiasm that even today the memory of it is fresh. Once there you soaked it all in – Laughing Sal, the Fun House, the carnival rides and the shooting galleries. You even gave me one of your prizes. On the way home you were completely satisfied – you had been someplace exciting and done something fun. Today, you are still that boy, enthused about travel, excited to go someplace new, and still generous in spirit.

My second memory is of an event a few years later. I had committed some infraction and was sent up to my room without dinner. I was scared to be alone, but I trudged up the stairs and heaved myself onto my bed, sobbing. A short while later you came to my room, carrying a bowl of soup. I cried on your shoulder, scared to be alone while you were all downstairs eating. Then you noticed that an ant had crawled onto my hand. You watched as it crawled around my fingers and you assured me it would stay with me and be my friend. But you were wrong. My friend in the room that day was you. All throughout your life you have been a good friend to many people, but no one has been more appreciative of your friendship than me. Today, you continue to be thoughtful and caring, especially with children, whether it is through your work at Ronald McDonald House, your CASA companion, or your own grandchildren, Dylan and Emma.

Jack, Suz and Bob – 2013 and we still love each other!

All of my life you have been a constant source of support, whether in times of joy or times of trouble, to offer perspective and humor, kindness and help. We are all so lucky – we three – to have each other not only as siblings but as friends. To want to spend time together and savor each moment. And in part that is due to you, the middle child, the glue that keeps the three parts together.

As much as I love to write, I will never be able to find the words to adequately express how very much you mean to me. Just know that I love you with all of my heart and that you have been a very positive influence in my life. I am so very lucky to have you as a big brother.

Happy 70^th Birthday, Bob!

Posted in opinion

The Mutation of Thanksgiving

December 9, 2013By Sparrow/WatsonComments:3 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

The first Thanksgiving took place in 1621, a feast shared between the Pilgrims and the Indians. They ate duck and venison and played games together. The cause of the celebration was the Pilgrims first harvest in their new land (the Indian’s old land), but unlike those who followed, rather than kill, capture or constrain the Indians, they invited them to dinner. The invitation was probably a bit vague regarding dress, as the Pilgrims wore their formal black garments, white collars and funny hats while the Indians dressed a bit more casually; fortunately the ‘No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service’ admonition hadn’t been created yet. Thanksgiving remained pretty much the same for several hundred years except for the fact that Indians came to be regarded as second-class citizen and relegated to reservations . . . not for dinner.

Thanksgivings for our generation meant getting together with family and having turkey, which had thankfully replaced the duck and venison. In the early 1950s another American tradition was added to this day of feasting and thanking – football. Actually, football was added back in 1934 when the first game between the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears was played on Thanksgiving Day, but that traditional game didn’t come into our living rooms until the early 1950s when television sets became a fixture in most homes. From then on until recently, most Thanksgivings were about Family, Food and Football.

Then another ‘F’ word started pushing itself into our Thanksgiving holiday psyche . . . Finance. Today, news at Thanksgiving hardly ever includes stories about how people celebrated or what we are thankful for, but rather how this year’s ‘Black Friday’ revenue will stack up against previous year’s – consumer spending-wise. Before I give you the actual numbers for this year, you have to understand that ‘Black Friday’ statistics actually include retail sales from the Friday after Thanksgiving through the following Sunday. No, wait a minute, recently that’s been amended to include Thanksgiving Day as well, as many retailers are telling their employees not to be so thankful and spend time with family, but rather to get into work – we’re open!

This year shoppers spent an estimated $57.4 billion during the four-day ‘knock-your-neighbor-down-to-get-to-that-last-iPad’ event. Sounds like a lot of money, but it was actually down 2.9% from last year. Worse yet, God forbid, there was a 4% drop in that all important ‘spending-per-shopper’ category.

In more ‘F’ news, Cyber Monday (another commercially aggrandized day to hype sales via the Internet) sales amounted to $2.29 billion – just for the day; that’s up 108% from last year. And between 18-20% of that were purchases over a mobile device – Christmas shopping from your phone! So while we still eat turkey and watch football, the media bombards us with Black Friday and Cyber Monday predictions and encourages us to spend, spend, spend.

OK, this is turning into a rant; sorry, but these numbers tell me that we are getting further and further away from person-to-person contact. I get it that this is probably just ‘old people talk’, but sometimes with age, come wisdom. OK, I’m still waiting, but that’s another story. I just listened to the lyrics of that classic Christmas carol, ‘Silver Bells’:

Children laughing, People passing, Meeting smile after smile

and

As the shoppers rush home with their treasures

As numbers for Cyber Monday continue to grow, as I’m certain they will, it puts us on a slippery slope that ultimately leads to no longer hearing ‘children laughing’ – how could you with your phone in your ear constantly. No longer will there be ‘people passing’ – unless it’s gas as they sit on their computers shopping all day. And you’ll no longer be ‘meeting smile after smile’ – there will be no one to smile for, unless you are taking a ‘Selfie’ picture to pass along to your friends on Facebook who couldn’t care less. And as far as ‘shoppers rushing home with their treasures’ go, Amazon will take care of that, it’s got plans in the works to drop-ship your gift via drone, so they can eliminate the deliveryman altogether.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my cell phone; wouldn’t leave home without it, but I love family, food and football more; so before this new cyber world completely takes over, maybe we need to declare this year’s next family gathering a ‘Cell Free Zone’ – we won’t have many opportunities left, as I’m sure the next generation of mobile devices will be imbedded in our bodies somewhere. I think I have a suggestion as to exactly where they should put it.

But I could be wrong.

Posted in Holiday observations • opinion

POP’S CHRISTMAS ICE CREAM FIZZ

December 2, 2013By Sparrow/WatsonComments:1 Comment

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Pop, near 80 years old, still making magic

There are many annoying things about Facebook but every once in a while it has a redeeming feature: reconnecting with old friends and long-lost family members. Such was the case with us this year. We were fortunate enough to find three cousins with whom we’d lost touch. Or maybe they’ve been avoiding us. In any event, we’ve had fun exchanging old family photos and sharing stories. Our cousin, Tracy Nutting Sanborn, reminded me that one of her favorite holiday traditions was our dad’s Christmas morning ice cream fizzes. Or as he called them, “The Good Fairy Fizzes”. In any event, in the spirit of the season, I am sharing a bit about the fizz and Pop’s famous recipe.

First, it’s important to understand that Christmas Eve at our parent’s house was always a rollicking affair. Mom put out a buffet spread mid-afternoon and people began to arrive in droves. Tons of their friends plus dad’s cousin and his family were there every year. As we kids got older our friends would escape their sedate family gatherings to party at the Sparrow house. There was always lots of laughter, joking, singing, and a virtual river of alcohol. Somewhere in there we always opened our gifts. Because we needed to get to some religious service at midnight, you ask? Au contraire. It was because the next morning our paternal grandmother, along with Tracy, her parents and her siblings would arrive for Christmas breakfast.

Now that I am older I look back on that tradition and think our parents were out of their minds. The last of the Christmas Eve guests generally didn’t leave until the wee hours of the morning. And then promptly at 10 o’clock, our relatives would arrive for breakfast. And this was no Chinet paper plate or Red Solo Cup affair. For some reason our mother was a bit intimidated by our grandmother. Even after 30 years of marriage and, I might add, producing three spectacular grandchildren. So we had to haul out the Wedgwood china and the good silver every Christmas morning.

Your authors, Christmas Eve 1971

Just imagine for a moment our mom, probably with a bit of a headache and definitely with too little sleep, up at the crack of dawn to make a three course breakfast. Our dad, always the peacemaker in the family, tried his best to help but honestly, anything even remotely near the kitchen was not his strong suit. So one year, after tasting an ice cream fizz at a friend’s house, he decided the drink was just the ticket to liven things up on Christmas morning. He said he put his own “spin” on the recipe, which I think means that he added just a pinch more gin. Whatever he did to it, the result was magic! Suddenly, after just one glass of Pop’s Ice Cream Fizz, the world (and in particular, our mother) was in a happier place. So as a public service, just in case you find yourself in need of some Christmas cheer, here is Pop’s recipe:

POP’S CHRISTMAS 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 it well and – voila – you have a concoction sure to put a rosy hue on everyone and every thing!

Our mom served them in a wine glass with a dash of nutmeg. As we got older we would conspire with Pop and ditch the wine glass for a chilled beer mug from the freezer. Saved having to go back for seconds…or thirds.

We hope you and yours have a very happy holiday season and if you find yourself getting just a bit Scroogy, try Pop’s Ice Cream Fizz. It’s a Christmas miracle.

Posted in Tributes

The Incredible ‘Earnie’ Earnhardt

November 25, 2013By Sparrow/WatsonComments:10 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

‘Earnie’ Earnhardt

The window on being able to sit down with World War II veterans and hear, first hand, about their combat experiences is closing very rapidly (They are passing on at a rate of about 600 per DAY!). The window on sitting down with WWII vets who are as sharp as ever and remember everything is significantly smaller. I had that rare opportunity last week when friends Jack and Chuck and I traveled to the small, California high desert town of Llano (pronounced, Yon-oh), outside of Palmdale, where I was introduced to the incredible, unassuming Adam ‘Earnie’ Earnhardt. Earnie is 88 years old and is in amazing shape, both physically and mentally. He plays golf four days a week and has 8 Hole in Ones to his credit . . . so far! He makes award-winning jams (He just won 7 blue ribbons out of 8 entries at the recent Antelope County Fair) and gives them away – the three of us walked out of there with over a dozen jars of ‘blue ribbon jam’! He makes lots of other stuff too; he greeted us with some delicious homemade zucchini bread. When he’s not putzing around in his kitchen, he is an avid reader – he just finished reading Killing Lincoln and is now reading Killing Kennedy. He loves working on jigsaw puzzles (difficult ones), and he proudly displays his large collection of Playboy Magazines (He used to have every edition ever printed, but some were mistakenly thrown out when he moved). He laments, “The one with Marilyn Monroe in it was in the group that got thrown out. Damn, it’s worth about $5,000 today, not that I would have ever sold it!”. His younger years were spent growing up first in North Carolina and then in Pennsylvania; he is related to the famous Earnhardt car racing family. He explains his leaving the south this way: “I had to move out of North Carolina to keep from marrying someone I was related to.”

B-24

He was drafted right after high school in 1943 and was asked what service he preferred. “I told them I wanted to go into the Army Air Corp, so they stamped my papers and said, ‘You’re in the Navy’!” He lights up when you ask him about his military experiences. He fetched a couple of old scrapbooks for us to look through and talked about his time as a belly gunner in a Navy B-24 bomber. While he did on occasion fire the two 50 caliber machine guns from his bubble turret on the belly of the aircraft, mostly he was on unescorted reconnaissance missions taking photographs of enemy territory. His base pay was $21 a month. Flying out of Wake, Okinawa and Kwajalein, he flew missions over China, Korea and mostly Japan and in fact was in the air and personally witnessed the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. He attributes his inability to have children on the radiation he was exposed to that day. But in salty language, befitting a sailor, he says he never sought compensation for any disability and has little time for today’s whiners or those concerned with political correctness.

WWII ‘Honor Flight’ attendees

After the war he became a carpenter, but when it was discovered that he was an expert at reading blueprints, he was recruited to help build hydroelectric dams all over the world, which he did for the remainder of his working life. He was married for over 50 years; his wife died 17 days short of their 51st wedding anniversary, and although he lives alone, he has a constant stream of friends calling or stopping by his home that overlooks the vast Antelope Valley. He says back in the days of the Space Shuttle, he used to sit on his back patio and watch them land at nearby Edwards Air Force Base.

‘Blue Ribbon’ Jam

When asked about the secret to his long, active life, he says, “My wife said that grocery bills were cheaper than doctor bills, so we always had 3 good meals a day”. Of course I used to drink a lot of scotch and I smoked for 45 years, so I guess I’m just lucky.” It was noted that while the three of us sat for about a hour and half asking questions and listening to his stories, he was always moving, getting something for us to see – he never sat down! How remarkable to be active, relevant and so engaged in life at 88. Last summer he was flown back to Washington DC as part of the ‘Honor Flight’ that recognized and thanked the surviving heroes of WWII. Aside from being a hero, he’s just an all around good guy – a Great Ambassador for the ‘Greatest Generation’. Thank you Earnie for your service to this country, for your example as a great American and for some damn good jam.

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Posted in blog updates • Holiday observations • opinion

A THANKSGIVING MASH-UP

November 18, 2013By Sparrow/WatsonComments:1 Comment

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson Last summer, in the bright sunlight of August, our 10-year-old grandson looked me squarely in the eye and said, “Mimi, at Thanksgiving don’t forget the cranberry sauce and the mashed potatoes. Especially the mashed potatoes.” I have no idea why he thought I might forget these staples of our Thanksgiving feast, but for him to mention it months ahead of time means it’s pretty important to him So that makes it pretty important to me. The thing is, I think mashed potatoes are the hardest part of preparing Thanksgiving dinner. I’m usually in the throes of making the gravy and getting all the side dishes in the oven and then in the middle of this frenzy I have to mash the darn potatoes. I’ve been stressing about this over the past few weeks and combing the internet for mashed potato recipes that I can make ahead of time. But I worried that the potatoes would get mealy or dried out if not prepared at the last minute. It finally dawned on me that I was giving this far more thought than it deserves – if mashed potatoes are my biggest worry, I’m a pretty lucky person. So I turned my attention to my Thanksgiving “grateful statement”. Like a lot of other families, before we dive into the bottomless pit of calories that is Thanksgiving dinner, we each have to say what we are grateful for during the past year. I have one rule: you can’t say you’re grateful for your family, your friends or your health. Those are things that should be appreciated every day. So I began to think about what I might cite as being grateful for this year. Of course, Dash the Wonder Dog is the best thing that happened to us, but since I think of him as family that eliminated him from contention.

As if on cue, the next week two of my former teammates at Bank of America posted pictures and stories on Facebook of their latest volunteer trips and I knew I’d found my “grateful statement”. While the rest of us loll on sandy beaches or go skiing at beautiful resorts, Evan Boido and Mike Clement spend their “vacation” time in parts of the world that are most in need of their kindness and expertise. I don’t know about you, but I’m very grateful that there are such people in the world, so in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m going to tell you a bit about them.

Evan Boido was accepted as a member of Global Volunteers (http://www.globalvolunteers.org/organization/default.asp) several years ago. Their mission is to engage short-term volunteers on long-term projects to create, nurture and sustain the wellbeing of the world’s children so they can realize the full promise of their human potential. They send volunteers to the poorest areas of the U.S. and around the world. Evan accepted an assignment in Romania, caring mostly for orphaned infants and toddlers with physical or mental disabilities at the Barlad Children’s Hospital. As you can imagine, this could be heart-rending work but Evan dives into each mission with enthusiasm and a sense of purpose. Over the past few years she has made a huge difference in the lives of countless children. The staff of the hospital try their hardest to care for the children but they are over-whelmed. Without the efforts of Global Volunteers such as Evan, many of these children would languish in their cribs with little individual attention. This past trip Evan brought along her niece, Shannon (pictured right with one of the children) to make it truly a family affair. Evan has gotten to know and love many of the children over the years – she is overjoyed when one is adopted and crestfallen when one succumbs to their medical problems. As much as the hospital gains from the Global Volunteers, I know that Evan gains even more from the time spent with “her babies”.

Mike Clement just returned from the Congo, where he serves on the board of the Christian Medical Institute of the Kasai ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christian-Medical-Institute-of-the-Kasai-IMCK). Their mission is to provide quality health care and health care education in that part of the Congo, the most impoverished nation on earth. The most frequent health issues include kettle burns, oil burns, accidents requiring amputations, child malnutrition, and fistula care. The hospital is proud of the fact that they have made strides in health for newborn children and their mothers through education and access. But the hospital is consistently short of medicine and is in arrears with its finances since most of the indigent poor cannot pay for their medical services. Mike, who is a communications consultant, goes once a year to the hospital to help develop strategies for fund-raising and to advise on how to keep their staffing levels within their budget. As you can see from the picture (left), he also spends lots of time with the children. This photo of a little boy, with his hand holding on to Mike’s shirt, says it all. Despite their differences in culture and living circumstances, a unique bond is created when a good-hearted person reaches out to help a small child . I have looked at countless pictures of Mike’s trips to the Congo and they all depict the locals with joyful and grateful faces, but also an unimaginable level of poverty and squalid living conditions. And yet Mike describes these trips as “soul healing”.

So this Thanksgiving I will worry less about my lumpy mashed potatoes and spend more time being grateful that the world has people in it like Evan and Mike and the organizations for which they volunteer. I hope that you have such people in your life as well and I wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in travel

The Sparrow Returns to Capistrano

November 11, 2013By Sparrow/WatsonComments:

by Bob Sparrow

I lived in San Clemente for several years and made more than a few trips into neighboring San Juan Capistrano or SJC as it’s colloquially known, so this week I thought I would return to Capistrano to see the returning of the swallows. Unfortunately I was about 8 months late or 4 months early, depending on your perspective; either way I missed their annual spring landing date by a good margin. They leave Capistrano in October, so I managed to miss them completely. My unceremonious arrival in SJC was in stark juxtaposition to the celebration the swallows get when they arrive every year exactly on March 19^th– St. Joseph’s Day, the city’s biggest celebration of the year. Actually there are a few ‘scout swallows’ that arrive a few days early, probably to dust off furniture, turn on the utilities and things like that. The cliff swallows must arrive exhausted as they’ve come from Goya, Argentina, where they’ve spent the winter. The round trip the swallows make every year is an astonishing 12,000 miles! I tried to find out how long it takes them, to no avail – I guess it depends of whether their connecting flight goes through Dallas or Mexico City.

Once the birds arrive, then they just mostly crap on everything, so they lose quite a bit of their charm, however the Mission at San Juan Capistrano does not. It is the oldest building in California with construction starting in 1776, however a major earthquake leveled most of it in 1812. The grounds are beautiful and its history is fascinating, for which you can be thankful I won’t go into great detail here. But I will give you the short version: The Spanish claimed the land from the Acjachemen Indians, descendants from Asians who came over from Russia and first called dibs on California about 15,000 years ago – I’m guessing the traffic and smog wasn’t that big a problem back then. The Spanish moved them out and colonized California, in part with ‘Missions’ which held the paradoxical position of being both religious centers and military outposts. In all there were 21 missions dotting the coast of California from San Diego to Sonoma, built to be ‘a day’s walk apart’.

Ultimately Spain was too far away to control the territory; so when neighboring Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821 they moved in while Spain wasn’t looking. America won the ‘pink slip’ to California after the Mexican-American War concluded in 1848 and subsequently the white folks rushed to California looking for gold – statehood followed in 1850. The mission is filled with details of these stories and many more, along with a good many artifacts. It was a great learning experience, and while I think California History is a require subject in all California elementary schools, what I mostly learned was that I was NOT smarter than a 5^th grader.

While in SJC I wanted to return to an old haunt, the ‘El Adobe’, a famous Mexican restaurant just down the street from the mission. This is the restaurant frequented numerous times and made famous by President Richard Nixon, when he was working at the ‘Western White House’ in San Clemente. There is a picture of Nixon and the chef hanging in the foyer of the restaurant where I imaged the conversation between them went like this:

Chef: “Mr. President, would you like to come back to the kitchen and create your own tamales?”

Nixon: (jowls flapping) “I’m not a cook”

I had one more stop before I left town, ‘The Vintage’, a bar and restaurant, created from real train cars, just across the street from the mission. It used to be called ‘The Depot’, as it’s where Amtrak makes its SJC stop. I went into the bar and had a beer and toasted to the time Linda, my best friend, Don and I sang on stage there in 1981, which seems like 12,000 miles ago.

It was a memorable return to Capistrano.