Mel Walsh

The One Thing in the World You Can Control: You

I know. You need some good news. So do I. Here’s a little early present for both of us:

It’s known that much stress comes from feeling we have little or no control of what happens around us. The year 2008 certainly fills that bill. So would you like something you can control for the better, something that will help you now and in the future and something that will save our poor-relation government billions of dollars? Me, too.

Which gets me to a subject that sounds dull, but is really central to the health and well-being of many and that’s knowing what pre-diabetes is and what simple little steps you can take to control it and prevent it from turning into a big problem with the big D…Diabetes.

The Big D can result in kidney failure, blindness, increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and poor circulation, nerve damage, foot problems and skin disorders---a rotten menu. And just as bad is the fact that the rate of Type-2 diabetes is rising rapidly----from 4.5 cases per 1000 people in 1995-1997 to 9.1 cases per 1,000 people by 2007, the apparent cause being rising rates of obesity.

That’s more than doubling the cases of adult onset diabetes in 10-12 years. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention calls it an epidemic. Health care experts say if we just could cut the number of new cases in half, we could save Uncle Sam (and our tax-paying selves) billions.

So here’s how to stay out of the negative statistics:

First, How Do You Know If You’re Pre-Diabetic?

If your doctor has said you have high blood sugar, borderline diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose, you may be in the land of pre-diabetes. According to the CDC, 25 % of us are pre-diabetic, but only 4 percent of us have been diagnosed. So one first step is to talk to your doc about getting your blood sugar levels tested to see where you are.

Even without testing, much is known about who is at risk: people who are overweight and who don’t exercise. But and however, just a few small changes in eating habits and a few doable steps towards being more active will lower your risk of diabetes. That is the good news. It doesn’t take all that much to stay safe.

The National Diabetes Education Program puts out an excellent brochure on how to prevent Type-2 diabetes. Their message is hopeful: “Diabetes prevention is proven, possible and powerful”. And doable in a real world. As the brochure says, you don’t have to knock yourself out to prevent diabetes.

 Just get 30 minutes of brisk walking or other moderate intensity physical activity 5 days a week. Grab a chatty friend and go for a gab walk. Go by yourself and talk to Mother Nature. Dance around in front of the TV set. (Yes, that’s me dancing around in front of Turner Movie Classics and I am certainly glad Spencer Tracy can’t see me.)

As for weight loss, it’s been proven that just losing 5 to 7 percent of your weight, if you are overweight, can make a positive difference that will prevent or delay the onset of the disease. For a 200-pound person, that means just 10 to 14 pounds off.

All of us have our favorite way to peel off the pounds. Readers of the medical columnist, Dr. Peter Gott, swear by his No Flour, No Sugar Diet. Others concentrate on cutting out saturated fats and avoiding buttery desserts and the fatty meats and fatty skins of poultry. Still others just shave their portions down a fourth. Some cut out the alcohol or switch from a donut breakfast to oatmeal and fruit. Many take doggie bags home after a large restaurant meal rather than over-stuffing themselves at a single sitting All the above are good, but starving yourself is not. Fill up on the good stuff and you won’t have room for the bad.

More Help

            For many more ideas on how to stay out of trouble, get the publication, Small Steps, Big Rewards, from the National Diabetes Education Program. Call 1-800-438-5383 or go to www.ndep.nih.gov and click on the Small Steps logo.

            Last, though the brochure doesn’t suggest it, I count running around to various stores in full holiday shopping mode as moderate physical exercise, especially on the day after Thanksgiving. So go for the goods and be well.            

Old Dogs Break Old Rules

Is it too late for you? Are you an old dog who can’t learn a new trick? Are   you rusted out? Too far gone to pursue a new career or engrossing pastime?

            Never. Never. Never. I don’t care how old you are. Only dead is too late. Alive is not.

As author Barbatra Sher says, it’s only too late if you don’t start now. So if you have submerged dreams or a yen to play the piano, write a book, start a home business or splash in watercolors, go for it now.

Sher contends there is some way to pursue what interests you no matter what your age or experience. OK, at 65, you can’t become the world’s best downhill skier, but you could probably have fun doing cross-country skiing. If you want to make movies, you may not win an Oscar, but could have a good time making videos.

And you don’t have to be good at what you do. Now’s the time to forget the old burden of competition. You can be so-so as a painter, photographer or whatever you choose. No matter your skill level, the idea is to have fun and to avoid being the victim of the myth about old dogs. We ancient canines can learn to sit up, shake hands and even catch Frisbees.

Don’t believe me? Let me ply you with examples and, at the risk of being thought an egomaniac, I’ll start with myself because it’s the example I know best.

Was It Too Late For Me?

In my mid-sixties, I didn’t know what I wanted to do next, but I did know retirement wasn’t for me. Seemed like a sentence to 30 years of hard boredom. And I knew the possibilities of later life did interest me. So I went back to school and got an MA in gerontology, the study of older people. At USC, It took two years and the investment of a $20,000 dollar legacy, which now looks like a better investment than sticking that inheritance into stocks.

And, back in 2000 when I started on this path, I wrote myself a seemingly impossible list of what I wanted to accomplish as a geezer:  get a good grounding in gerontology at USC, write a column for older people, write a book and host a radio show for the same audience. Eight years later, I host a radio show, Second Wind, on KVMR. I write this column, had my book, Hot Granny, published by Chronicle Books and am working on another book now. It was only too late if I didn’t start then.

Other Late Bloomers

Locally, I know of a superb woodworker, ‘”retired” Bill Kinney, who started less than two years ago and is turning out museum-quality wood pieces. And then there are “retired” Mike and Margaret Bloebaum, whose new production company, MB2 Communications, just finished a video that is part of Chanticleer’s new holiday DVD set, Mission Road. (Chanticleer is a world-famous singing group from San Francisco whose performances sell out when Music in the Mountains presents them here.)

If finding a second career intrigues you, check out www.encore.org. Their theme? Finding work that matters in the second half of life. They offer tools to decipher your strengths and turn them into a new career. And you can read the real life stories of others who did the same.

More Help

Barbara Sher is a master at getting people off their duffs and into their dreams. Her book, Wishcraft, gave me inspiration and practical tools to do what I wanted, but any of her books, PBS tapes or live seminars will help. Her website is www.barbarasher.com. Other Sher books: It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now and I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was.

So never give up on yourself or your own possibilities. Inside that old dog is a puppy wagging its tail to get out.

What Will You Do With the Rest of Your Life?

             

I want to live long enough to get frequent flier miles from Social Security.

Yes, longevity is the gift we get from life in the 21^st century. Our ancestors kicked the bucket before they lived long enough to worry about bad knees or hot flashes. But now, medical advances can keep us going into the 80’s and 90’s.

This gift of time means different things to different people. To some it means no more 9 to 5. To others, it’s a chance to gloat over the obituaries of those who once did you wrong. That’s a guilty pleasure of ageing---surviving longer than the school bully or the ex-mate.

Further meditating on the benefits of survival, some of us older women have even decided it’s darned lucky we didn’t turn out to be Princess Grace or Princess Diana. Look what happened to them.

            However, isn’t there more to longevity? Besides leaving a stressful workplace and being grateful that we have lasted longer than some others, what are the extra years for? In the words of Robert Butler, why survive?

Encouraging the Young and Clueless

            Well, a long life can take many shapes, but to me it’s a chance to mentor the young people in the family, the grandchildren. That sounds obvious today---older people encouraging the young---but early mortality worked its wormy way in my family and I really knew only one grandparent out of four “real” grandparents and two step-grandparents. One out of six.  

Grandma Lucy, it was good to know ye, but I sure as shooting wish I knew the other five. Think of the examples and inspiration I missed up close and personal, to say nothing of the cupcakes left unmade and uneaten.

Helping The Kids

            If mentoring is your bag, begin by showing visible appreciation for the chance to know and enjoy your descendants. And that doesn’t mean just giving presents or showing up for cameo appearances on holidays. It means getting to know each child as a person who is not like any other small human and then encouraging that child to develop his/her innate skills.

The world tends to shove people into molds, to file down the square pegs to fit round holes, so one thing a grandparent can do is encourage the peg to find its own shape. Which is why I’ve posted this saying on my fridge for the family to see:

“Be who you is, because if you is who you ain’t, you ain’t who you is.”

That’s attributed to pitcher Satchel Page, but no matter who said the words, they highlight one of the main roads to happiness in life---having the courage to be who you really are. And though I seem full of quotes today, I can’t resist repeating an idea from Anne Morrow Lindbergh: that the most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.

And that is what happens---exhaustion---when a peg lives in the wrong hole. So do what you can to detect the innate talents of your grandchildren and to help them along the road of expressed personal ability.

How to show them various possibilities? You can take them to your former workplace or to witness any business or profession at work. My step-dad took me to a courtroom to encourage me to be an attorney. (It didn’t take.) Or try handing them just the right video, or give an appropriate book. Or you could help pay tuition so they can take a class in computers, film-making, art, music or anything else.

Fostering The Inner Retailer

Taking my grandchildren to garage sales introduced them to the profitable sideline of auctioning their sidewalk purchases on eBay and also selling them at their lemonade stand. Drinks & Antiques! They learned to deal with the public, market fairly and sell effectively.

            I confess it can be a challenge to find the inner abilities of all twelve of our grandkids, but sometimes they surprise us and say right out where they want to place their peg. We have a thirteen-year-old granddaughter who wants to be a banker---but that was before the meltdown, so I am checking back. Meanwhile, I’m hoping she won’t ask for a bailout.

Veggiephilia: Why We Should Love Edible Plants

Talking one way, walking another---that’s hypocrisy---and it always belongs to somebody else. But I began to suspect I was not doing everything I could to walk my talk when I discovered the person eating too much junk food was me.

Boy, that’s not the way to become a healthy old geezer----which is, after all, one of the main points of this column. I want all of us, including moi---to live long enough to get to that low three figure birthday—100.

            Where I most fell down was on a banana peel: I didn’t eat enough fruit and also, I ate too few veggies, even when these garden gifts have tested out to be protective against so many health glitches that I could use the rest of the column telling how edible plants provide antioxidants, help hearts, arteries, blood pressure, eyesight, etc.           

             So, writing what I needed to learn myself, last week’s column targeted the glories of fruits and veggies (F & V), foods you’ve been hearing about for years, but maybe haven’t done much about. The usual recommended range is 5-9 servings a day. That sounds impossible, until you realize that a serving is just a half-cup----4 ounces---and that if you wanted to hit a target of 8 servings a day, you’d just have to visualize 4 cups of goodies going down your hatch over a 24-hour period.

Daily Organizing for F & V

            Here’s how I’m trying to reach the fruit and vegetable goal in my house:

Breakfast---3 servings: whole grain cereal with two kinds of fruit, maybe ½ cup of bananas and ½ cup berries from the freezer, plus one small glass of fruit juice.

Lunch--2 servings: Soup ‘n salad---the soup having lots of veggies. Lazy, I often use low-salt canned soup or one of the delicious new soups that come in cartons and then I may add shredded carrots, green onions or veggies left over from dinner. Salad: two handfuls of greens.

Afternoon---1 serving: One apple sliced and sitting at the side of my computer for the 3 PM munchies.

Night---2-3 servings: At least 2 side-dish veggies. Sometimes the count can go up to 3 if the main course is chili, or a baked potato stuffed with mushrooms, or whole wheat pasta served with tons of tomato sauce. Another way to add veggies to pasta: throw broccoli florets into the boiling pasta water for the last three minutes.

The refrigerator is stocked with juices---all kinds---including orange, tomato and carrot juices, with grape and apple juices also at the ready. They are better than soda, though I cut the fruit juices with water to keep the sugar count down.

So, yes, it’s possible to go up to eight or nine servings without changing your eating habits that much. The clue is to plan it out everyday and to have goodies in the pantry or freezer for when the fresh stuff runs out. Canned tomatoes and canned fruit in water are better than nothing when the refrigerator looks bare. My freezer also helps. Chopped spinach and frozen blueberries are the stars there.

Then, too, since I am the Queen of Wilted Refrigerator Lettuce, I’ve planted lettuce in a container under the eaves out on the deck, plants which should last as salad fixings until the first frost. I may get more ambitious next spring, plant more veggies, fertilize our fruit trees and become a farmer’s market groupie. And that will be me lurking in the produce section of the market, petting the chard when nobody is looking.

What To Do About Hamburger Man?

I’m cutting back on meat, which could make Cranky Pants (aka Hamburger Man) even crankier if I insisted he do the same. So I don’t, and he has his frozen burgers at hand if he feels carnivorous. And he does like main course dishes of chili, pasta or brown rice, so we have some agreement on menus.

Last, there’s a side benefit of trying to eat like a monkey in a garden.  I weigh less than an elephant. In one week of eating my way towards a one hundredth birthday, I lost 3 pounds.

Same to ya. 

Not The Pig Farm of Eden

I should have figured it out by now---what things to eat. I should have noted what our mammal relatives eat in a state of nature: plants. And then, I should have noticed where God put Adam and Eve when they were starting out. It wasn’t the Corral of Eden or the Pig Farm of Eden, it was the Garden of Eden. That ancient story is a massive PR boost for those who think we should eat mostly plants, not pork butt.

            And lately, knowing I am in the part of life where my expiration date may come up at any time, I’ve been reading a lot. That’s what I do when I get nervous. Other people drink, take drugs, run half-marathons or watch re-runs of MASH. I read. Maybe I think books will protect me from mortality. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, my library card will protect me.

            And I’ve been reading about longevity, about groups of people the world over who live long, vital lives, about folks who are still bopping around in their 90’s, with little or no heart disease or high blood pressure. These folks live in Okinawa, Greece, Italy, rural China and in the mountains of Pakistan.

 Note they do not live in the USA, which ranks a poor 45^th, behind Bosnia, when it comes to longevity---which means we have a lot to learn, especially when we spend more than any other country on heath care. As a clue to a better way, here’s what these long-lived groups have in common when it comes to eating.

Kitchen Secrets of The Really Old

These recommendations for what to eat are a semi-consensus about diet from doctors and nutritionists looking at the effect of food on health and longevity. But some nutrition experts say no oils or fats at all (Dean Ornish), while those in favor of the Mediterranean Diet think olive oil is good. Then still others say no animal food at all. As usual, make up your own mind while keeping to the main findings, the ones experts mostly agree on. Here’s their basic advice to Americans:

Enjoy many more veggies, fruits, salads and whole grains. Cut back on cows and other animals.

Here are the specifics of a longevity diet, gathered and condensed by nutritionist Sally Beare:

* Five to 10 servings of plant-based food a day, mostly vegetables and some fruit. (Just for laughs, how many plants did you eat today?)

* Three to five servings of whole grains---brown rice, whole wheat, oats, etc. (This part is easy---oats for brekkie, a sandwich for lunch and brown rice or whole wheat pasta for dinner.)

* Protein: three to five servings a day. Vegetarians can eat tofu, lentils or legumes. Also recommended: small servings of live yogurt, 3 or 4 organic eggs a week, lean meats in small to moderate amounts (one small serving 3 to 4 times weekly), fish (two or three times weekly.) Note no burgers or trips for a bucket of fried chicken.

* Essential fats: a handful of nuts or seeds, or 1 TBSP cold-pressed nut and seed oils, or fish oil supplements (daily), or oily fish (twice weekly).

* Drinks: Eight glasses of water daily, plus 1 to 5 cups green tea.

* Eat only until you are 8 parts full. Stop before stuffing.

Also, if you wonder what a serving is, imagine a half-cup of sliced strawberries. That’s just four big strawberries equaling a serving of fruit, so the plant-eating goal is not as hard as it sounds.

The other heavy hint from the various longevity studies is to move, move, move. These survivors work outside, garden, walk a lot, and go up and down the steep steps of their village. The village is the gym.

Here are more readings for the curious:

The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health, T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell.

50 Secrets of the World’s Longest Living People, Sally Beare.

Next column: how to actually get more plants into your system without undue suffering, self-righteousness or your burger buddy leaving home for the stockyards of Kansas in order to find someone who understands him. 

Iphone: The Swiss Army Knife of Phones

So I’m almost alone---Cranky Pants is away on family business. But---true confession---I’m cuddled up with something that is not my missing geezer guy. It’s an iPhone, a cottontop’s best new tech buddy. And though it is not target marketed to the 50+ crowd, I think it is the best pocket computer/phone an older person could wish for.

Why? First, it’s senior friendly---easier to use than any cell phone I have yet run into. The touch buttons on the screen are large enough for arthritic fingers, the onscreen messages easier to see and the volume goes high enough so the hearing-challenged can probably hear what’s going on. The rings can be amped up so that they are hard to miss, even when the phone is buried in a garbage-dump handbag like mine.

Way More Than a Cell Phone

But to call this device a cell phone is like saying Paul Newman was just a great pair of blue eyes. The iPhone is a pocket computer that will deliver your email and your newspaper, surf the web, check your stocks and go just about anywhere your desktop can take you. What this means is that if you still have the bucks to do a little traveling, you can stay in touch without lugging a laptop through security or stuffing it under a hotel mattress to keep it from being stolen.

Now I once thought I would never read a newspaper on a computer---wrong. And then I said I would never read a newspaper on a cell phone screen. Wrong again. Just by putting your thumbs on the screen and pulling them apart, you can make the newsprint larger.

So, if the driveway gets icy this winter and I don’t want to go out to pick up the paper, I can read the paper on my iPhone, snug in bed without risking a fall. Yes, I prefer the whole delicious paper object in my hand, but sometimes it’s smart to stay off the ice and in bed.

Traveling Light

On trips, I used to take a travel alarm, a music player, a little radio, a camera and a laptop. Now I just slip the iPhone in my pocket and the charger in my handbag. The alarm is very easy to set, the music player a real boon to air and car travel and a way to get oneself to sleep during a bout of travel insomnia on a strange mattress. The earphones are the first comfortable pair I’ve owned. And if you get lost traveling, there’s a map function.

Streaming radio is yours with several downloadable applications. The favorite du jour seems to be Flycast. And then there is a simple still camera with easy instructions for emailing the photo or deleting if you’ve goofed. Videos, books and podcasts can also be accessed, but I haven’t gotten around to those yet.

There’s more. I’ve turned on the iPhone to see the night table in the dark---a substitute flashlight. I’ve used a function called Notes to write down ideas for these columns. There’s also a calculator---big numbers---a calendar and weather reports. (Call us crazy, but many of us older people not only check our own weather forecasts, we check our kids’ weather to see if the world is raining on them.)

A meaningful endorsement came in last night from tech-wary Cranky Pants, he who got an iPhone to use only as a phone. He called me yesterday to say three of our grade school grandkids taught him how to use the other functions and he is having a ball.

Particulars: The new iPhones cost either $199 or $299 and must be used with the AT&T network. The lowest cost subscription plan is 60 bucks a month, but that includes unlimited use of the Internet. To check out various plans and retail choices, go to www.apple.com/iphone/buy.

I could never have gotten up to speed without the help of David Pogue’s book, iPhone, The Missing Manual. Get the second edition covering the new 3G phone.

Last, I have no financial connection with Apple, but am deeply prejudiced in favor of older adults using new technology to improve their lives, to stay in touch with their families and with the world. Also, if you are low enough to try and curry favor with your grandkids---and I am---just pull out your iPhone next time you see the little darlings.

You will be the bomb, their version of saying you are one cool dude.

Undriving the Driver

What do an eighty-five year old man and a sixteen-year-old boy have in common?

            Two things: Both want the car keys permanently in their possession and both have the highest accident rates of any age groups. But the difference is that the teen’s driving will improve with maturity while older people will continue to experience deterioration in reaction time, in eyesight, hearing, distance perception, night vision and perhaps, if they take certain meds, clarity of consciousness.

When A Driver Loses His Edge

Now there are older people who are excellent drivers---I’d ride with them to hell and back---but there are others who are losing it and refusing to acknowledge the loss. Worse, there are others who have lost it. They get tickets, drive into trees, dent the car, forget their destination and generally worry their family members.

Then comes The Discussion: Isn’t it time for Mom or Dad to give up the car keys? Sometimes, a wise older person can see what’s happening without the family getting into it at all. These smart people just stop driving or restrict driving to the daytime or just to the corner store. Some of them enroll in an AARP course on safe driving, a course specifically directed to improving the skills of older drivers. Others begin to leave the driving to a mate with better eyesight. (One good rule: Whoever can see a person dressed in black, riding a bike without lights at night, should be the driver of choice after the sun goes down.)

But other older people are in complete denial and that’s when family members either step in and have a discussion about driving or if appropriate, confiscate the car keys, thereby insuring they will be left out of the will and not spoken to for months.

Here’s one solution that worked for Cranky Pants and his dad. Dad realized that his driving deteriorated. CP realized Dad wanted to control the car keys. An agreement was made: Dad had the car keys at all times except when he asked a home health aide or a family member to drive him somewhere. Other than the driving time, Dad had the keys. It worked.

Understanding Older People

 But why, you may ask yourself, do older people cling so stubbornly to their driving rights?

For the same reason the teen does: A love of independence. An appreciation of one of our basic freedoms---the freedom to go out.  And an older person has other concerns: who will get the groceries, go to the drugstore or travel to the doctor’s? And what kind of a dive does a social life take if you can’t drive? And how do you get to see your grandchilden’s soccer games without a car?

These and other transportation benefits that younger people take for granted are rightly treasured by older people, who, unless they live in cities, have poor choices when it comes to public transport or the possibility of walking to carry out errands.  So what to do? Here’s a second idea:

A Cost Analysis

How much money does it take to operate a car? For most people, it’s the second highest household expenditure after the mortgage. In some households, the money spent on cars almost equals the money spent on food and medical care combined. 

 So to do a cost analysis, consider the cost of the car, its financing and maintenance, the insurance, the gas, the registration and the costs of parking. Then there’s the fact that a car is a depreciating asset---evaporating money. Add in the parking tickets and the dent removal and that’s a chunk of change spent on transportation.

The calculators at AAA estimate that it now costs .71 cents a mile to own a financed car. If you drive 20,000 miles a year, that $14,200 dollars. Check out the figures for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/3pf2yn.

Fourteen thousand dollars could buy a lot of taxi rides when we can’t drive anymore---to say nothing of lower blood pressure. But few seem to think of the taxi option for older adults, as if it were an extravagance. But as we have seen, it is probably a bargain when compared to owning a car. Yet conventional thinking about this issue seems to end with taking the car away or using an inconveniently scheduled van service.

Me, when I’m 90, I’m calling a cab.

Find more information about dealing with older parents and their cars at http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/01/18/taking.keys.away.

Depression Geezers Speak Up

 

My Inner Swami is AWOL I don’t know what will happen economically and neither do the experts. Recession? Depression? Nothing?

What I still have, though, is that character within: Ms. Worst Case. Yes, I am a worst case planner. I imagine a worst case scenario, figure out how to handle it and then, relax, feeling I am prepared for the worst.

Now, older people can be helpful in these economic times because many remember the worst-case economic scenario, The Great Depression, either as young adults, teens or tots. And we are here as witnesses that a country can live through bad times.

Yes, work was very hard to get and food was sometimes scarce. We could not have second helpings of potatoes. Fresh fruit was an unknown. I practically fainted over a fresh tangerine in a Christmas stocking when I was five years old.  And we were educationally starved. Nobody had money for books and I did not see a book until I went to kindergarten.

So those were some of the downers, but, believe it or not, the Depression had some good things going for it. Even the worst case had silver linings:

Better Family Life: Today, critics see the nuclear family as an isolated unit, living below the poverty line when it comes to family relationships. In the Depression, though, generations often lived together to save on rent. In one small duplex, our grandparents hosted two sons in an unheated attic, a widowed son and his two daughters in one bedroom, my husband-deserted mom on the couch and my brother and me in the grandparents’ room. Ten buddies against the storm. It was a lively home, offering the comfort of relatives, the sharing of tasks and believe it or not, a lot of laughs.

And when generations live together, the youngest learn from the oldest. I hope I learned generosity from my grandmother Lucy. Though we hardly had enough food, when hobos came to the back door looking for dinner, my grammy fed them. And there were lots of hobos who wandered up from the railroad tracks. I think our house had the hobo hieroglyphic that said: Good Stew Here.

Community Togetherness: Again, critics say America has lost its sense of community and is separating into groups that have no common identity. This trend is sometimes called Bowling Alone. Well, in the Depression, almost all the people were in the same economic boat. There wasn’t the huge disparity between the classes that exists now, or if there was one, we didn’t know about it. There was no TV to bring in the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

My mom told me everybody she knew brushed their teeth back then with charcoal because no one could afford toothpaste. Didn’t that bother you? I asked. She said no---not that nor any of the other economies because all were practicing the same ones. Those were the days of party lines---several families sharing one phone line---and the excitement of getting hand-me-down clothes. (To this day I prefer gently used clothes to new ones. Someone else suffers through the starch.)

Better environment: We didn’t produce carbon dioxide when we drove because we didn’t drive. We didn’t have a car. We used public transport or walked. As for other energy use, there was no AC. Heating was minimal. My gram once chopped up a dresser to use as firewood on a freezing night. Saved by the furniture—what a story.

Excellent playtimes for kids. We got lots of outdoor exercise. Kick the can, tag, hopscotch, hide and seek, sliding down the sandbank…these kept us active. And there were no toys except sticks and stones and an old tin can but we had lots of fun. Really. Never did I feel deprived, at least not until I got to kindergarten and realized that books existed. Then I learned how to get to the “lie-berry”.

So those are just a few of the great things about the Great Depression and though we may never have another, it’s nice to know that living on a lower level economically does not mean living on a lower level emotionally.

So you who are young and frightened should look at us old cottontops and see that we have survived pretty well. And so shall you if it ever comes to it. But I am hoarding toothpaste just in case.

Going Down in History

 

A Surprise Request for Family History           

Go memoir yourself---that’s the current advice given to older people and it is a good idea. Those who come after us may want to know where they came from, genetically and geographically. But, in 50 years, unless you write it down, your past will be lost to the future.

Then nobody will know how you ate dirt during the Depression and how you saved aluminum gum wrappers as a way to insure victory during World War II.  Nobody will know the colorful sayings of your grandparents, or how they told you tales about “the old country”, tales that made you happy you lived in the new one.

            So, unless you are a president or a dignitary---not necessarily one and the same---first-person accounts are really the only way to preserve your past. Write about yourself, your parents and your grandparents and go as far back as memory and patience will take you. There are many books, courses and people to help get these memories and thoughts out and down on paper or tape.

But really, just start: I was born in so and so. My earliest memories were such and such. I went to school wherever and I had a big crush on so and so. This you can do.

A Surprise Request for Family History

Now, though we oldsters have been urged to write about ourselves, nobody tells us to write about our children and those are the people grandchildren may be most interested in. At least my grands are and why not? They are closer to their parents than they are to their grandparents and their curiosity about a more immediate past is natural.

Case in point: Last summer, at a three-generation get-together---a time when family stories will out---what the grandchildren wanted to hear were the stories of their parents---what were they like as kids, as teenagers and as young adults. They wanted to know who their parents dated before they ended up with each other and what kind of trouble or glory their parents got into before they assumed the role of middle-aged parents.

The time was ripe for blackmail, but I tried to keep to the truth without telling anything that would send the parents to the law books to see when the statute of limitations had run out on minor crimes of the immature.

That get-together got me thinking about doing a new kind of memoir, not about me, but about my kids---sort of a baby book continued. (Most of us kept those books, with the birth data and first picture, what weight was gained in the first three months. The little baby shoes kept too, or bronzed as if they were the infant feet of gods.)

Well, at least we kept those baby books until the second child came along and buried our good intentions under dirty diapers. After that, the biography of my kids just consisted of the class pictures, year by year, with the bad haircuts and goofy smiles. And after that, their history got even more brief----school yearbooks with short-cut designations of character: most likely to succeed, most likely to make trouble and so forth.

Making Up for Their Lost Years

So how to fill out the lost years of our kids for their kids? Maybe think now about a holiday present. Maybe buy a small blank book and start filling it in with short descriptions and available photos. Nothing fancy, but plenty meaningful to those who care.

My mom, a child singing star, had a scrapbook made by her mom---photos, reviews of performances and clippings from newspapers. If my house burns down, I will grab Cranky Pants, my laptop and that scrapbook, which goes to show that kids do treasure the memories of their parents and maybe that’s where some of our memoir energy might go—not unto ourselves, but unto our kids for their kids.

Now, you who are skilled at scrapbooking can really make something of this project. We who are not so skilled can still do something. A blank book, a pen, some photos, a little glue---a very nice holiday present for the grandkids.

If you can’t get started, just imagine your grandchild 50 years from now rescuing your scrapbook from a burning house. The house will likely never burn, but the desire to know about our parents always, always will.