Author: dailywoodring

Bother Joe lives here with Grace, his wife. Marcia flew in from New Jersey and I from California to visit with him because in less than a year, the poor darling has lost a lot of ground with regard to his physical and mental health. Grace is his caretaker and as things have become worse; she is getting very tired. I was hoping to give her some respite, but I am not certain that we are not more of a pain for her. I hope not, but…

Last December I came for Joe’s birthday, and the difference in less than a year is very disheartening. But there are photos. The one below with the birthday cake is December 2016.

This year poor dear is more unstable and when going any distance needs a wheel chair. For a great speaker and presenter for many cruises, he researched and wrote on topics from the Asian Economy to wildlife on Sardinia, he now has to search for words for normal conversation. Once when just the two of us were in the living room he said “How do I feel? I feel utterly useless.” That statement pained me as it must have pained him even more to admit that.

One of the adventures we took was to go to the Fort Worth Modern Museum, a lovely building with a good collection in downtown Fort Worth. It had a temporary show of a local artist who specialized in what looked like something scary for Halloween. Empty and abandoned mental hospitals, rusting factories, rotting buildings were featured along with interiors of residential facilities long empty and inundated with water, creatures and dirt. Not what I would call uplifting.

But it was a change of scene and Joe remarked that the restaurant there was one of his favorites places for brunch. Marcia, Grace and I took turns driving the wheelchair. Marcia and I were so happy that we made the trip, and Grace was incredibly generous and kind. Joe napped a lot, but seemed happy we came to see him.

“Be Your Own Geriatrician” that was the title of the Community Meeting at the Buck Institute on Aging in Novato, California. There were about 300 folks there invited because we gave some money to the Institute at some point. The two speakers were from UCSF Medical School, both were Geriatricians, John Newman and Victoria Wang, also both were MDs with advanced graduate degrees, research doctors.

Their basic message was – Geriatricians are scarce, older adults are many and growing in number. Elders therefore need to be their own geriatrician – not really news since all of us need to be mindful of our health throughout our lives. But this mindfulness has not always been the case and we are still learning how to be our own best health care specialist.

The talk included a list of the most common problems of older adults, known as Geriatric Syndromes.

• Bladder Control
• Sleep Problems
• Delirium
• Dementia
• Falls
• Osteoporosis
• Weight Loss

As they went through the list I recognized that we have a family member with all the problems. A handout gave the list of each problem with a corresponding list of suggestions labeled “what should you do?” In each case we have already taken the steps suggested… all to no avail in our case, sadly.

Although most of the problems were familiar, for me the term delirium was a new one in the context of the elderly. It turns out that many elderly suffer with delirium, especially after surgery while in the hospital. The more problematic and sometimes intermittent is the delirium of elderly with dementia. And those with dementia complicated by lewy bodies tend to be troubled by dementia more than others with cognitive loss. And that is the type of dementia our family member has.

But what about the rest of us? As John Newman looked around the 200+ people in the comfortable theater he said, “If I asked who in this room would be included in the geriatric group? I am guessing you would think ‘Not me’, but nodding to your left or right you would think “But probably this guy’”. My guess in 99% of the people in that room met the geriatric definition – anyone 65 or older is considered geriatric. In Marin County the 2010 census put the median age in Marin County at 44.5 years, highest in the Bay Area and nine years older than the state average of 35.2. Of the total population of 252,409 of the County, 42,152 persons or 16.7% were 65 years old or more. I am guessing that today the ratio is even greater than in 2010.

I knew personally someone who was her own geriatrician, my mother Mary Daley. She had a busy, active life. She married my Dad, had 3 children and during World War II Dad was in the During that time Mother worked in a garment factory making Navy pea jackets. She became a union organizer for the ILGWU, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and remained working after the war. While we were growing up she was only working woman on our block. She was loving and always great fun. From the 1950s onward she did the Canadian Royal Mounted Police workout every morning, saying that after she turned 90 she shortened the routine. After she retired at 65 she worked as a volunteer, often cooking at her Community Center for “older people”. Each year after Dad died in 1978 she would spend three months with us in San Rafael from mid-December to mid-March to escape the cold and to be part of our family. She would tell people she always had a “two crocus spring”, she would see the crocuses come up in January in San Rafael and in mid-March she had them in her garden in New Jersey.

The photo above shows Mother at 20 while living in Manhattan along with thousands of other refugees from the countryside trying to find work. At 18 she moved from Saint Clair, Pennsylvainia and found work at the Horn & Hardart where she met my father who was a manager there.

She died at 97 in 2008 after a short illness.

Living near the waters of the Bay crisscrossing via the Golden Gate Bridge for decades can sometimes cause a sort of blindness.

Yesterday I was early for lunch at Green’s Restaurant located at Fort Mason. I once had an office at Fort Mason and was familiar with all the roads, buildings and landscape of this national treasure. And I often pass Fort Mason coming or going downtown or to the Opera and Symphony. But is has been years since I stopped to look at the transformation.

Once known during World War II as San Francisco Port of Embarkation, US Army, it was the center of shipping operations for all materials and troops for Asia. The port is closest to the Golden Gate Bridge and the open seas of the Pacific Ocean. The massive buildings are being renovated for use as part of the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, a home for myriad of non-profit arts organizations – San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery, Blue Bear School of Music, City College of San Francisco Art Campus, The Interval, Greens Restaurant, Readers Bookstore, Magic Theatre, the Mexican Museum, Embark Gallery, Off the Grid, BATS Improv,  San Francisco Children’s Art Center, Museo ItaloAmericano,  Flax art & design, California Lawyers for the Arts and other organizations connected to arts and culture.^[16] The newest space is Gallery 308, whose inaugural exhibition was Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet (November 14, 2015 – January 18, 2016), followed by Sophie Calle’s Missing (June 22, 2017 – August 20, 2017). In the fall of 2017, the San Francisco Art Institute will open a graduate program campus, housed in FMCAC’s historic Herbst Pavilion.

But it is the magical location at the water’s edge that I had forgotten. The substantial, industrial buildings framing views to the bay and to hills north, the water now filled with sail boats. And this day the bay is serene and placid.

Fort Mason, as part of the National Park Service, has allowed space to remember. San Francisco is a young city, and the bay was once an important part of the transportation of development. To that end the rear end of a packet boat from the 1850’s is retained under a protective wooden porch at the end of the parking areas. Oddly perched on its makeshift piers, surrounded by a small picket fence, the Galilea is propped into place to tell a small tale of change in the bay. The rest of the boat has been retained in pieces in other museums. This is way young cultures preserve their findings.

And then there are remarkable sights, like the preserved double masted sloop, cutter, ketch, yawl, schooner, or cat or whatever the designation, I have no idea. But I do know that it can still sail because it is out there in the water, a true representation of the past.

My cousin Patrick is passionate about Manhattans, although when visiting him and his wife Ruth I might join them in a Manhattan, it was not ,my favorite. It was way too sweet for me, my preference in the cocktail world being – way dry, (martini), way tart (homemade margarita lots of fresh lime juice).

When I met Paul in San Francisco and we decided to stop for a drink at the Pied Piper at the Palace Hotel, we looked at the menu with many classic cocktails. They had a Classic Manhattan and a Perfect Manhattan on the menu. I almost just ordered the same drink I usually have there, a Martini made with Plymouth Gin and Dolin Dry Vermouth very cold, straight up with two olives. But I was curious about the two different Manhattans.

The bartender was happy to explain what the difference is. The classic is indeed sweeter. The classic drink uses all sweet vermouth in a ratio of 2 ounces of rye to 1 ounce of sweet vermouth and a splash of bitters. Often a maraschino cherry is added as a garnish, making the drink sweeter still. The Perfect Manhattan uses 2 ounces rye whiskey to 1/2 ounce of sweet vermouth and 1/2 of dry vermouth, often a lemon twist is used as garnish.

As we chatted the bartender knew what my preferences were and suggested that I might want to taste something he had named An Even More Perfect Manhattan. He made one for Paul and me to taste, no commitment. It was really great – 2 ounces of Woodford Reserve Bourbon, 1/4 ounce Dolin Dry Vermouth, 1/4 ounce Carpano Antica Formula Sweet Vermouth with 2 splashes of bitters. The garnish in this drink was a this strip of orange peel.

WOW, we ordered one for each of us.

We are utterly spoiled by great weather in northern California, but every once in a while in summer it gets hot! No air conditioning means that 103 – 104 degrees feels insufferable. What to do?

What I do is go to the movies. This always includes AC in late afternoon so I see whatever is playing close by.  I get out of the theater at sundown with a short walk to a restaurant (more AC) and a cool supper. Two days of HEAT, 2 movies, very different and neither on my “must see” list, each simply started at the appropriate time. Given this section process, the films were better than anticipated.

Friday (104 degrees at 4PM) I saw DUNKIRK at the Northgate Multiplex. Nothing about this movie attracted my attention, except that it started at 3:50 PM. It is a war movie. It shows thousands of folks killed by various means, being blown up, shot, drowning, and being left behind to die of starvation and dehydration.

There is scarce dialog but lots of noise, and almost no time devoted to character development. Hundreds of young men shooting at each other, thousands grouped together in long lines on a broad beach all in winter uniforms waiting for rescue boats. It was difficult to tell one fully clothed, over-loaded individual from another under their clunky helmets. O yes, fighter planes, and U-boats, too.

So what did I find fascinating about the film? It made me realize how terrible the time was and how helpless each individual was as the war enveloped them. My husband Robert Bell was a very young lieutenant in the Army shipping out from the port of Weymouth, England just after the first waves at Normandy. His ship was torpedoed and he was one of very few survivors because it was his turn at watch. He told that that story only twice that I know of, once after we met and we shared stories of our lives. The next time was during a conversation when of his Army buddies caught up with him when  we were living in Tiburon, California. The stories varied, but the focus on terror and death laid under both tales. The movie was filled with human terror and death, with a tiny reprieve at the end of a swarm of private fishing and pleasure boats from England coming to rescue soldiers still waiting.

Saturday (103 degrees at 4:00 PM) I saw RUMBLE at the San Rafael Film Center. This is a documentary film that probably does not have wide distribution, but it is really good. The film is a celebration of the the American Indian culture  jazz and rock. At one time  in the USA it was safer, better, easier to be black rather than Indian, so folks of mixed blood all became black. One of best known musicians who eventually wanted to be understood to be Indian was Jimi Hendricks whose grandmother was Cherokee.

Names like Link Wray were not known to me. But this is a guy who is given the credit for inventing Rock and Roll. The film name RUMBLE is the name of the instrumental written and played by Link in the 1950s that was so strong that stations banned it because it was thought to be able to incite people to riot!  No wonder I don’t know it until I heard it in the film. But the musicians did know the sound and do credit Link Wray, a full-blooded Shawnee with the invention of Rock and Roll. Lots of famous folk show up to say a few words, make a nod to gift of music from native Americans.

Link Wray (May 2, 1929 – November 5, 2005) died at his home in Copenhagen.

 I don’t remember being born and I won’t remember dying, but between these events I have made and will make memories. Ten years ago I moved from the large house our family had lived in for 35 years and there were thousands of photographs that I could not toss without examining. Now 10 years later the photos remain sequestered in cardboard boxes. This blog will consist of some photos and the memories each generates.

Uncle Mickey – Amsterdam Avenue

We lived for a time on Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. This badly damaged photo was only one of several that were rescued from an album caught in a flood in San Rafael, California in 1982

We three are on the roof of our building, my Uncle Mickey, Mother’s brother, Joe, my brother and me in the front. This would be in the 1930s.

Uncle Mickey came to New Your City to find work, as did thousands of other during the Great Depression. When we moved to 108th Street, he lived with us, but I am not certain whether he lived with us at this time. My guess is that did. He like many before and after, moved in with relatives as they looked for a job and got their footing in the big city. I remember him as kind.

Memory makes us. If we couldn’t recall the who, what, where, and when of our everyday lives, we wouldn’t be able to function. We mull over ideas in the present with our short-term (or working) memory, while we store past events and learned meanings in our long-term (episodic or semantic) memory. What’s more, memory is malleable–and it tends to decay with age. So stay sharp by learning about the science of recollection.  Psychology Today

I don’t remember being born and I won’t remember dying, but between these events I have made, and will make memories. As part of moving from Magnolia House where we lived for 35 years, boxes of photos were moved several times and now some are are at the Barn, but the majority are at Casa Luz my house at Stinson Beach. I “work” on them, but usually for no more than 2 hours at a time. There are still thousands in boxes unopened.

Lots of the photos are just thrown away. But every once in a while a picture moves me, reminds me of a time I had forgotten, of a person who disappeared as life moves along, of a place and time I only know because I recognize the people.