Australian adventure #2

March 4th, Tuesday

March 3 was spent in the air and was totally lost to us. We gain back the day coming back as we’ll fly for 35 hours but take off on the 24th and get home on the 24th. I hope March 24th is a good day since we’ll live it twice.

Our friend, Penny Coates, was ready for us when we landed. We had called her before leaving LAX to tell her of the luggage problem but she still laughed when she picked us up with “all” of our luggage.

We arrived at her lovely home in Caulfield, a south-eastern suburb of Melbourne, to be greeted by Pippa, her 13-year old Maltese mix and a family of three magpies. We were introduced to them by their conversation outside the kitchen door. Penny talks back atthem but she also delivers nuggets of hamburger which she tosses at them. They snap the meat out of the air and chortle their thanks before abruptly leaving, we assume for the next gullible neighbour. (There goes that spell-checker again!)

As planned, I picked up a new digital camera at the Duty Free at Tullamarine, the Melbourne airport. Later, I picked up an extra battery and memory card—1GB—at Dick Smith’s, a good electronics shop and was shocked to get both for A$49!!

The American dollar’s weakness is profound here. Last trip, three years ago, the Australian dollar cost no more than US$.72. Now it costs US$.92—a significant difference. Prices, however, are not low. The standard dinner out costs about A$35-40 and wines, though plentiful and good, are not cheap either.

The secret to surviving a trip like the one we just concluded is to stay awake as long as possible on your first day. Yes, it’s painful, but with a good night’s sleep you should be fine for the rest of your vacation. We stayed up as long as we could and made it to about 2100 (9PM) and slept acceptably before rising at 0730 the next morning to the sounds of the hungry maggies. By the way, most Australian times are listed, as they are in Europe, in 24-hour format so you might get used to it before coming here!

Wednesday, March 5
We had breakfast to the sounds of the neighborhood: the maggies, plus the dog next door who is taunted by two dogs from up the street owned by a somewhat ancient Elvis impersonator, and the aging Volvo of the lady down the block. She has very shaky brakes that scream when she touches the pedal and she is a VERY cautious driver, touching the brakes all the way down the street and through the roundabout. Then there is the Mt. Scopus school bus that loads up early. Nothing irritating, except the thud of the Melbourne Age against the front window where we are sleeping. The paper is in a tight roll wrapped in Saran wrap so it can fly a long distance with a great deal of force behind it. Makes a lovely crunching sound against the window.

The forecast for the next five days is for “Fine” with highs near and over 80. Sounds perfect, but water capacity in the area dams is at 35.2% of capacity vs. 34% at this time last year! NOT a good situation. Penny has a “green smart house.” She collects solar energy on her roof and stores gray water there as well, which is used for toilets and gardening. Her windows are double-glazed and she has electronically controlled shades that cover the windows on the west side of the house that allow sunlight to warm the place during the day.

Still, Jen mourns for the lovely gardens, both formal and individual, that she remembers as they are all short of water and everything is very crisp at the end of the Australian summer. Some commentators are blaming the government for encouraging farmers to stick with it, even though the climate changes here have made small farms unviable for many. The commentators say that the farmers would be better off to admit defeat and get out of the business entirely.

Next entry: getting around Melbourne by Tram.

Australian adventure

Mike Cuthbert Australian Blog #1

These entries were made episodically from March 2nd to March 24th and originated in and around Melbourne, Australia. Our holiday began on Labor Day weekend, the end of the end of Aussie summer. (By the way, if you want to sound authentic, it is not “awssy” but “ozzie” and the Aussies often refer to their country as “Oz.”) We were visiting family and friends but, as you will find when you go to Australia, making new friends is an activity you can plan on.

DAY ONE- March 2nd

Forty minutes late, we pull away from the Delta gate and my wife, Jen, sees our luggage sitting on a cart while we head to JFK for our Qantas connection. Pleas to get our bags back on the plane go unheeded. “You’ll get them at your destination,” we are told by a hapless flight attendant. “Do you have a clue as to what our destination is?” Blank stare. When told we are going to Australia and would like our luggage to accompany us, we are told our luggage “..will be in New York before you.” Since the next flight to JFK would get there at 6:09 and we were leaving on Qantas at 6:40, we expressed our scepticism. We were right and it was not until our second day in Australia that our bags arrived.

We always have a very flexible pool on when we will first hear an Aussie accent. 4:40 PM and it’s a girl from Brisbane with a growing infection from a New York-installed stud in her cheek. We did not visit with her.
Our first good omen: we got the exit row for the flight to LAX!! A wonderful flight with tons of movies Bad omen: I discover my digital camera screen won’t light up and the camera is more or less useless though I suspect it may be taking pictures without the screen working. I can’t afford to hope so plan on getting a new camera at duty-free along the way.

Watched “Romulus, My Father,” a prize-winning Aussie movie about an eastern European immigrant family. Eric Bana stars and it’s a sad, slow-paced movie. Listened to some Beethoven sonatas played by Australian Stephen Kovacevich. Excellent performances and a delightful break between movies. An extra treat was three unseen (by us) episodes of “Kath and Kim,” an outrageously Australian TV comedy that we fell in love with on our last visit three years ago. Laughed out loud but didn’t disturb my seat-mate, Harrison or “Harry.” He’s three and I’m worried. I shouldn’t be. Harry is a gem and alternately sleeps and watches TV, mostly “The Wiggles” the whole trip. Lovely little guy! His mother swears by “Gravel,” an anti-airsickness drug that also works to help kids sleep. It worked on Harry while I watched “The Assassination of Jesse James etc.,””The Heartbreak Kid,” “an awful teen movie with Seth Rogen as a cop and a start on “Two Days in Paris” with Julie Depuy. Fell asleep during that one so I can save it for the return trip as it looked kind of cute.

I have a good book to read, “The Commonwealth of Thieves,” by Thomas Keneally, an account of the founding of Australia under Arthur Phillip, but couldn’t focus. I think reading on planes, even over such long distances as we are covering, is very difficult and hard on aging eyes. There is lots of material to read about Australia before coming here and I always recommend at least one major book before you come here, just to get in the mood. NOT “The Thorn Birds!” I have others and will no doubt buy some Australian fiction when I get there. Book prices are outrageous in Australia, with paperbacks often going for A$30 or more, but many of them never make it to the States at all.

Book shops are in every neighbourhood—some are specialty stores for the fine arts, or Australiana or travel, but there are more book shops than tanning parlours, a welcome change from the States. (My spelling, by the way, of such words as “labour” and “parlour” is marked as an error by spell-checkers if written “labor” and “parlor.” Just so you don’t think I’m going native.

Next episode, landing in Melbourne, settling in and the calendar of events available for a tourist at this time of the year.

A Journey Worth Taking

Some times in radio you get the privilege of a good hard nudge. You think you've written something that you are sure can never be better and then your editor rejects what you know is your masterpiece.

This happened to me recently, before I did the Prime Time Focus' weekender piece entitled Eva And Me, the story of the nurse who saved my life when I was a baby. Instead of the five minute version with Eva's voice that now is on the air, I at first happily turned in a shorter piece expressing my gratitude and called it a day. "You can do a better. This is an important story. " was the prodding reply. "Go see her, interview her, and then tell the story."

I only suspected then that I was afraid to drive to Erie where Eva lives a second time. My first visit several years ago with her - the first time I met her as an adult - was so loaded with mystery, so magical in its intensity for both of us, going back seemed scary somehow. Some how I knew our visit this second time would be more real and ordinary - two strangers caught together in one unbelievable act: one person saved the other's life. Now what?

But that second trip has meant everything to me. Without facing the fact that we really don't know each other and yet we are close, I wouldn't have started writing Eva weekly letters, something I wish I had done years ago. In some small way I am finally giving back to her now. Who would have thought a returned script could have accomplished so much.

My thanks to AARP's radio manager Janelle Haskell whose little nudge accomplished so much. I hope you like the resulting story and hearing Eva Nungesser's voice. The full interview I did will be mine forever. A new treasure along with Eva's letters which come to me when she is well enough to write.

Listen to the piece at Prime Time Focus

Richard Cohen and "citzens of disability"

A recent guest of ours on Prime Time Radio put the world in a different perspective for me. At various times I am reminded of the truth of what Richard Cohen said to me in talking about his book Strong at the Broken Places. The truth is that people in our society who struggle with disabilities are seldom, if ever, regarded as persons in a whole sense.

He reminded me, in his portrayal of five different people, all with fatal or debilitating conditions, of how easy it is to dismiss them. As one of his subjects asks: “Why should anyone make a friend of me when there are so many normal people out there?”

One of Cohen’s subjects has ALS—Lou Gehrig’s Disease—another man non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a young woman Crohn’s disease of the intestines, another, the youngest, is a college student with a rare and virulent form of muscular dystrophy while the last has bipolar illness so severe that it can induce suicide.

All of these people are coping, in one way or another, with what is for some of them a death sentence and for others a life-sentence. Cohen copes with the latter being a victim not only of two bouts with colon cancer in the late 1990s, but an even longer life under the limitations of advancing multiple sclerosis.

I spoke with Richard Cohen four years ago in our AARP studios, He walked with a cane then. Now he relies on the cane, his vision is fading and his voice is notably weaker and shakier. Yet he copes, admittedly with the help of anger that stimulates his struggle against limits on what he can achieve physically.

What he has achieved in his latest book is a reminder that we cannot afford to overlook the myriad aspects of human character, behavior and thought that go into the making of a person.

Listening to Cohen and reading what he learned from his fellow “citizens of disability” forces thoughtful members of his audience to recognize the possibility that disability—in one form or another—is to be faced by almost all of us at some stage in our lives. It also allows us to see that disability can enrich rather than destroy a person and that focusing on the enriching factors is far more valuable, both to the disabled and to us, than pity or turning our backs on them and their diseases.

Talking with Richard Cohen, whose wit and erudition have not been stilled by his diseases, is more rewarding than talking with many, if not most, non-disabled persons. To focus only on his cane, and his vision would be to ignore him as a person—and what a waste of his time and yours that would be.

Aging

It’s not surprising that we have many guests on Prime Time Radio whose expertise is the process of aging. Two diverse guests resonated with me recently and caused me to think more about aging than I usually do.

Aging is something I find it easy to not think about since there is not too much I can do about it. But Anne Kreamer’s Going Gray reminded me that many of us believe that, by changing our external appearance, we can appear not to be aging. This is sheer delusion, of course, but as Kreamer realized, she had spent over $65,000 in the past twenty years coloring her hair to avoid going gray.

(Listen to my conversation with Anne Kreamer with Real Audio.)

Yet she was not a day younger after all that investment. She is clear: that the perception is that women with gray hair are regarded as more antique than their tinted sisters and she may be right. Except that she found many successful women, youthful in mind and action, who had gone gray long ago.

Then there was Lillian Rubin, author of 60 on Up: The Truth About Aging in America. She is in her eighties and recently began a new career as an artist. She sold her first painting at the age of eighty-two. Her book is a sometimes-brutal look at aging.

She points out, for instance, that we spend millions of dollars on keeping men and women alive but a fraction of that, if anything, on ways to make their old age more comfortable or even tolerable. Life, it seems, is more important than how that life is spent.

She points out: “We say we want to die with dignity and mean it, but we’re so frightened of death that we submit to often painful and undignified medical procedures in the often vain hope of putting off our meeting with it just a little longer.” Perhaps that is a human failing, like the desire to believe that tinting our hair to cover the gray does something significant for the way we age.

(Listen to my conversation with Lillian Rubin with Real Audio.)

Both books made me assess how well I’m handling aging. At times, the best times, with equanimity and rational acceptance of what is. At other times, the worst, a frustration at the lack of control it is possible to achieve over the last decades of life.

I do not enjoy counting pills every morning and every night; pills that lower my blood pressure, control my cholesterol, shrink my prostate and take away inflammation from my knee. I do not enjoy looking at menus and seeing things that I know I can’t have if I want to control my blood sugar. But it is all part of aging that I must accept because there is little alternative.

My hair is gray, my knees man-made; my back is never what it used to be and I am shrinking. I hope I can approach the rest of aging with the dignity that Rubin talks about. I plan on it. But another part of aging that we cannot escape is that things change. What I fear most about aging is the loss of the ability to adapt. So far, so good.

I wonder what you fear most about aging and how you’re coping. Share it with us by clicking "comments" below. We post your comments soon after you send them.

Why I love my job...

I’m sure there are many reasons why people feel really good about a job they love. For me one of the biggest draws in radio has been the distinct advantage it gives you – the almost unbelievable access - to ask people questions and learn about their lives.

It’s not the nosiness factor that interests me; it's whatever makes many people feel passionate – in joy or sorrow. The striving for something more that really lights them up.

Years ago I interviewed a spelunker who spoke about the excitement he felt in an uncharted cave - not knowing what would happen around the next corner. It sounds trite when you write about it, but when you hear the expression in his voice, you just know why he’s taken huge chances. Radio is such an intimate medium.

Since I started hosting and producing Prime Time Focus a few months ago, I’ve had the renewed privilege of getting to interview people. I’ve talked with pianist Emil Pandolphi, whose love of a lyrical tune and how he can re-score it brings deep joy to his life. He delights in being on stage to share it with others. Interviewing him made me want to play the piano again, to listen to music with a finer-tuned ear, to think more about what composers and arrangers ponder. It’s a gift Emil left with me long after I finished the piece. Listen!

On the flip side, some interviews are so gut wrenching you can’t hear more. Years ago I edited a documentary on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I can still hear a Vietnam vet describing someone being tortured – it’s a memory I wish I could get rid of. I cannot.

Similarly the pain that Mr. Brewer feels in the piece I did for Prime Time Focus on the serious problems people have experienced with some pre-need funeral policies was very hard to hear. He trusted those people and with an income of just $600 a month, had few options when his wife suddenly died. Such stories make you want to be the very best reporter you can be and to tell a story with compassion. How could you violate such trust? (coming in December - we'll post a link here to the story)

I think people who work in radio will tell you that if you play a piece of audio they gathered a long time ago they’ll still remember who spoke the words, and the larger story they told. Alone with headphones on, the ears tune in to something beyond the words.

I feel so very fortunate to have found something I love to do so much. I hope you enjoy my work and it’s a pleasure to share my thoughts about it.

Do you love your work? Please let me know right here by leaving a comment. Click the word "comments" just below...

We approve your comments quickly, and then post them...

Alyne Ellis

Lessons for Those Facing a Total Knee Replacement - Part Two

10. There are various names for it, but learn to use and value the strap or belt that you use as a leg-mover. I call mine “Isadora” after Isadora Duncan and her scarf since I wear my leg-mover around my neck and use it for everything, even snaring the most valuable “Get Well” gift I received: an omnibus volume of NY Times Crossword Puzzles. Great for that hour from 2 to 3 in the morning when you can’t sleep anyway.

11. If you always wanted to get a laptop, get it before the operation and learn how to use it. It, like the crossword puzzles, turned out to be invaluable during those long, empty morning hours. Mah-Jong solitaire is particularly habit-forming.

12. Don’t worry too much about pulled muscles in your back, sides, wrists, etc. They come from walking differently and using crutches and canes. They’ll heal before your knee does anyway.

13. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll be able to sense when you’ve increased flexing by a degree or two and the same for extension. As you get closer to the end of rehab and establishing full Range of Motion, each degree becomes more and more precious. Celebrate every one of them!

14. They say it’s possible but if you have your left knee done, it’s impossible to sleep on your right side for very long and vice versa. Pillows between the knees? Under the knee? Doesn’t work for me. Good luck.

15. Be VERY NICE to your Significant Other. They will have to take on extra duties that make you impatient to even ask for but that you simply cannot do yourself for a while. At the same time, try to do more and more for yourself each day to remind yourself that this rehab stuff is temporary and has the goal of returning you to a normal, independent life, assuming you had one before the operation!

16. Get out to dinner, a movie or something fun as soon as you can stand sitting in one place for more than an hour. (That may take a few weeks.) You’ll have earned it and your Significant Other will want the fun as well.

17. Set goals for performance: pick a date for the resumption of your golfing hobby; set a goal for walking up and down the stairs foot-over-foot again; set a date for walking to the corner and back, around the block, etc.; make a date with your physical therapist for dinner so you can tell them you didn’t mean all those nasty things you called them when they were stretching you.

18. Don’t worry if the next thing that goes is a hip. They say the rehab is nowhere near as bad as for a knee!!!