October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. In honor of this I am posting an interview I did with an abuse victim.

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Norb: I recently posted an article on Facebook about Domestic Abuse/Violence and you contacted me to share your story is that correct?

M: Yes I thought that hearing this from the point of view of a victim was important.

Norb: I thank you for talking with me and want you to know that if at any time you don’t feel comfortable discussing this further, we can stop the interview.

M: Thank you.

Norb: let’s start at the beginning. How long ago did this occur?

M: In looking back, it started on our Honeymoon.  Alex  (not his name) got very angry when I commented on a statement he made. Early in our marriage I once forgot to turn off my headlights.  I had to call him to rescue me, and he was so angry he kept shouting and telling me I was stupid.

Norb: Is this the first time you have felt comfortable talking about it?

M: No, after the divorce I went to a Divorce Recovery Program and after the program I was asked to tell my story to the next group.  It was hard, to write, initially, but by the time I have practiced it a few times it became very easy to talk about it. Actually putting it down on paper was very cathartic, and it made me deal with my emotions.

Norb: If you did discuss this who with?

M: I had told several friends about his behavior, but they always said their husbands acted like that, too.  Later I learned they were appalled at his behavior but never told me.

Norb: Who was your abuser?

M: My Husband

Norb: How long had you known them?

M: We were married 9 months after we met, and were married for 30 years before we separated.

Norb: What was the first instance?

M: My abuse was not physical, but emotional.  He gradually separated me from my friends and family, and slowly became more violent towards me.  I describe it as cooking snails; if you drop snails in a pot of hot water they will crawl out, but if you put them in cold water and gradually heat it up they don’t notice and slowly cook to death.  Two of the most violent instances happened within 3 years of our separation.

I had been about 700 miles away for the weekend, at a music competition.  My group won first place in the competition, and. when I got home I told him. His response was there must have been a lot of lousy groups there. Â I then asked Alex if he had eaten and he said yes, so I started making something for me to eat. He started shouted at me that he was hungry and had been expecting me home earlier so make dinner.  He raged at me about how he had to fend for himself all weekend and I didn’t care.  Later he told me he was just being funny with the comment.

 

Number 2 was when we were on vacation with the children.  We were trying to find a parking lot so we could take a tour.  I saw a lot and pointed it out, he started shouting that he couldn’t get there and I should have seen it sooner.  He then drove onto a highway, going over 100 miles an hour screaming at me, you have the map, where are we. I kept shouting for him to slow down so I could read the road signs, and the kids were in the back seat screaming, you’re going to kill us. After traveling about 10 miles he exited the highway, and pulled into the first parking spot he saw. He got out and said, we can walk from here. Our son convinced Alex to let him drive back and when we got there Alex walked away from us.  The kids and I bought the tickets and took the tour and had a good time.  As we were coming back we saw Alex with another tour group.  The children and I walked around the area and met Alex when he finished his tour.  He took the keys and drove us back to the hotel.  When we got to the hotel he dropped us off and said he was going to park the car.  We did not see him again until the next afternoon.  He had decided to drive to another city 400 miles away to look around.  When he arrived he expected to do the planned activity for that day which was a day tour.  When we told him it was too late she started sulking and said he was just going to say at the hotel.  He would not give us the car keys so we walked to a mall.  I felt really bad when my kids said they would take turns sitting next to Dad on the plane so I wouldn’t have to.

He would get mad for no reason and back me into a corner and shout and spit on my face and give me the 3rd degree after work demanding to know what I said about him to my co-workers.  He would take my keys and disappear for a day or 2 and I would have to call co-workers to get a ride to work.

Norb: Did you feel you deserved being treated like this and why.

M: I knew I didn’t deserve this behavior, but I thought no one would believe me.  My friends knew a lot of this but didn’t support me.

Norb: What do you believe triggered the abuser?

M: I think he was always an abuser, but was able to hide it for years. When he did rage at me, I usually didn’t know what set him off.

Norb: Did you contact law enforcement at this time?

M: No, like I said, I thought no one would believe me.  I didn’t have any physical marks.

Norb: abuse usually starts slow like verbal abuse and progresses thru physical abuse including hitting stabbing, being pushed down the stairs or being burnt. Was this the case with you?

No, I left before it became physical. Although, others have told me even though I didn’t get hit the spitting and backing me into a corner were physical. I often feared for my safety when he was raging. I was also concerned that if I would leave he would hurt the kids.

Norb: Did you at any time feel fearful for your or your child’s safety or life?

M: absolutely. The worst part was I found out they would hide in another room when he acted this way so they could call the police if needed.

Norb: Did the abuse cause you to lose work?

M: No, but when we separated he stalked me at work and I almost lost my job.

Norb: Did you require any medical attention due to the abuse?

M: I went to a therapist. Mentally, I was a train wreck.

Norb: Did you resort to anything to hide the abuse like wearing sunglasses or using concealer?

Norb: What was the straw that broke the camel’s back?

M:  When I found out the kids would hide so they could call the police. They also told me they thought Dad didn’t love me anymore because they saw him with another woman. That was when I found out he had been cheating on me. About a week later I was diagnosed with an STD.

Norb: Finally, what made you stay so long with an abuser?

M:  Again, I didn’t think anyone would believe me. No one in my family ever got a divorce, I couldn’t face that failure. My co-workers would tell me that was normal behavior, so I thought I was just being over sensitive. Also, I was the snail!

My kids convinced me that Dad needed help, and I needed to get away from him before he did severe damage. That’s when I realized that every time Alex came into the house/room, I would have a panic attack.  This anxiety was affecting my relationships, and health.

I want to say, if someone starts confiding in you about abnormal behavior of a spouse or lover, don’t brush it off.  Support them and tell them it isn’t normal and try to help them get help.

Previously published in the Niagara Gazette.

Supreme Court

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Along with many, many other people, I was watching the Senate hearings with Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh on television the other day.  It’s not like I had a choice. This was on all the channels. But it makes no difference what you watch. Every news program, talk show, every sports game and sitcom have become so politicalized that I have a hard time watching any television at all.  I have heard so many conflicting things that I thought I’d never be able to sort them out enough to form an opinion or write anything about it. Yet, here I am, typing away.

On the surface, the hearing was primarily a she said/he said event. I know all about that. I helped raise three children of my own and I’ve heard it all before. The she said/he said arguments are unreliable at best. I have found that the truth in a matter like this doesn’t rest with either account of the facts but somewhere in between. Every person will make a decision about this based on their own bias.  These decisions are based on our own human imperfections and prejudices not on some indefinable “truth.”

Two people, one of them an alleged victim, holding her hands with fingers pressed together like she was praying, expressing fear and trepidation, the other, an accused perpetrator, holding his hands up, tense, fingers spread out like we do to defend ourselves were on stage.  Behind both of them they have a lifetime of accomplishment, a lifetime of achievement and a deep knowledge that there was so very much at stake. This man, described as impartial and seeking only justice, if confirmed, will be impacting the lives of countless others for decades to come.

She said that “something happened” over and over again. After a little while I lost count of the times I heard “something happened.”  Something happened was the vague description she used to mean an incident that might have included an unlimited number of possibilities.  Something happened.

She said the memories of this “something” came out a few years ago in therapy but she chose this time to reveal them. I don’t doubt that something happened but I question her timing. I smell a rat or two.

Brett Kavanaugh said “My ten-year old said we should pray for her,” these were not the words of an astute and caring child but those of a religious adult discussing a troubled woman. Ford and Kavanaugh are not the only ones with so much at stake.

Around these two people were Senators, ingrained in their own personal allegiance to the parties they belong to. I don’t know if anything Ford or Kavanagh said could have changed any of the Senator’s preconceived notions.  The Senators, even if they weren’t running for reelection at this time were there to protect their party’s interests. Both Ford and Kavanaugh could have recited their favorite poems and the end result would have been exactly the same.

They will take a vote, and I know it will be right along party lines. The end result is that we are all losers in this process.

The first loser is all women. The message to them is that it is extremely difficult to be victorious against high-profile politicians. The message to them is it is hard to win over people in power over an incident that may have happened over three decades ago.

The second loser is going to be the judicial system. It will look like both the legislative and executive branches of government are looking after their own interests, not the interests of the people that elected them.  I know that the nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh thinks there has to be a Democratic plot behind all this and I don’t doubt he may be right.

The third is all of us. It makes no difference if you believe Ford or Kavanaugh or neither one but you should be outraged by a system that has become ignorant of the wishes of the people it was elected to serve. And right now, in this venomous environment in which we live, this may be the one thing that we can all agree on.

I think these proceedings have tarnished other countries view of America. I don’t think we are now being perceived as a world superpower but rather as a bunch of children that can’t play well together, that can’t share our toys in the sandbox. This makes me sad.

I’ve had enough. I think I will be taking a hiatus from network television for a while till everybody learns how to get along again, until sitcoms become sitcoms again and not soap boxes for some people to push their own political agenda. I am glad I never ran for office and can now see why the best and brightest among us choose not to run.

To think I spent four years of my life serving this country to have it come to this. Where do I go to get those years back?

All lives matter

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So during a black lives matter protest in the heart of Dallas on Thursday, a sniper opened fire on police officers killing five and injuring seven others. In addition to the police officers, two civilians, a man and a woman were shot and injured. It appeared the shooter planned to injure and kill as many police officers as he could. The area is only a few blocks away from Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

I am reminded of the race riots of the 60’s. I watched these on television and the riots were worse than anything I had ever seen. The five day Watts riot in August, 1965 saw 34 people die and a thousand injured. On the evening of Wednesday, August 11, 1965, 21-year-old Marquette Frye, an African American man was driving his mother’s 1955 Buick, was pulled over for reckless driving by a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer. After administering a field sobriety test, Frye was placed under arrest for drunken driving and the officer radioed for his vehicle to be impounded. Marquette’s brother Ronald, a passenger in the vehicle, walked to their house nearby and brought back their mother, Rena Price, back with him. When Rena Price reached the intersection of Avalon Boulevard and 116th Street that evening, she scolded Frye about drinking and driving.

The situation quickly escalated. Someone shoved Price, Frye was struck, Price jumped an officer, and another officer pulled out a shotgun. Backup police officers attempted to arrest Frye by using physical force to subdue him. After rumors spread that the police had roughed up Frye and kicked a pregnant woman, angry mobs formed. As the situation intensified, growing crowds of local residents watching the exchange began yelling and throwing objects at the police officers. Frye’s mother and brother fought with the officers and were eventually arrested along with Marquette Frye. After the arrests of Price and the Frye brothers, the crowd continued to grow along Avalon Blvd.

Police came to the scene to break up the crowd several times that night, but were attacked by rocks and pieces of broken concrete. A 46-square-mile band of Los Angeles would be transformed into a combat zone during the next six days. A total of 258 private buildings were damaged and/or burned, a total of 192 were looted and a total of 288 were both damaged and/or burned & looted.

The 1966 Detroit riots caused 43 deaths. The event that led to the riot was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a “blind pig. Police clashes with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in the history of the United States. 2,509 stores were looted or burned, 388 families became homeless and 412 buildings burned or were damaged enough that they had to be demolished. Dollar losses from arson and looting ranged from $40 million to $80 million

Following Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, rioting broke out in over 120 cities including Chicago and Washington. Six days of race riots erupted in Washington, D.C., on April 4, 1968. Shortly after the news of Dr. King’s death, the disturbances began. Looting occurred generally in areas with little or no police protection. The local police department could not handle the disturbance and one officer said, “This situation is out of control. We need help, it’s too much for us to handle.” (Washington Daily News, 5 April 1968) The Civil disturbance unit was later activated, by the time order was restored, about 200 stores had their windows broken and 150 had been looted, most of them swept completely empty. Liquor stores were hardest hit. During the riot of 1968 arsonists set buildings ablaze and The District of Columbia fire department reported a total of 1,180 fires.

The property loss caused by the riot was extensive. One thousand, eight hundred and seventy three buildings, including 283 housing units and 1590 commercial establishments, were badly damaged or destroyed. Estimates of losses were fixed at over $25 million. The riots utterly devastated Washington’s inner city economy.

I was always confused as to why the rioters were destroying their own neighborhoods. The riots caused the closing of businesses, destruction of housing and caused thousands of jobs to be lost. I fail to see how this was helping.

There were 990 people killed by police in 2015. Of those, 494 were White, 258 were Black, 172 were Hispanic, 38 were other races and 28 were of unknown race. There were 53 police officers killed in the line of duty in this same time period. So far in 2016, 509 people have been fatally shot. Of these, 283 were White, 123 were Black, 79 were Hispanic, 23 were other races and 46 were of unknown race. There have been 26 police officers killed in the line of duty so far this year.

As we approach another long hot summer, I can only hope that history doesn’t repeat itself. That everybody takes a step back, takes a deep breath and tries to get along. Black lives matter. Brown lives matter. Red lives matter. Yellow lives matter. White lives matter. Blue lives matter. Rainbow lives matter, All lives matter. Violence never solved anything.

The home medical care industry

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The home medical care industry will face a shortage of caregivers as aging baby boomers attempt to stay in their homes. The lack of qualified workers, ever increasing costs and a huge shift in demographics has America facing a major crisis. There aren’t going to be sufficient numbers of geriatric staff to make certain seniors are okay when they can no longer care for themselves.

It’s a problem that not many families anticipated but one that many will have to face. It frequently becomes evident that falls, lapses of memory and a number of maladies has taken a toll on elderly relatives and some may need help. There is also a tidal wave of baby boomers that are being diagnosed now with some form of dementia.

“We are absolutely in a crisis mode. Providers are routinely reporting that they can’t recruit and they can’t retain direct care workers, which makes it impossible to provide the care that consumers need.” said Robert Espinoza, vice president of policy for the New York-based Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, a direct care workforce research organization.

At times professional caregivers complement family caregivers and they are the primary choice for supporting seniors in the daily activities of life, such as eating, dressing and bathing. Over fifty percent of home caregivers only have a high school education or less, according to PHI, and the pay they receive is about equal to wages received by fast-food and retail workers. With the new push to give fast food workers $15.00 an hour the wage gap between the two could widen and cause more care aids to opt for flipping burgers. The working conditions can be very, very trying when they can go a few doors down the street to McDonald’s and make just as much if not more money. Employers now struggle to hire and keep home health care workers, who make a median hourly wage of $10.49 per hour, or about $13,800 per year, according to PHI. Two thirds of caregivers work part time.

However their wages might grow appreciably in the next few years due to the fact that the U.S. population is rapidly aging. About 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day, according to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. Over half of them will need some type of long-term care eventually, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2016.

There are many nursing homes and assisted living facilities, but more and more seniors are looking to remain in their own homes as they grow older. You can’t replace the feeling of living in the home you might have lived in for decades and possibly raised your children in. We just completed a first floor addition for this reason and it will enable us to stay in our house longer.

The demand for personal caregivers is already more than the present supply some experts say. A real good reason for this is that we’re seeing an increased demand for home health care workers is a societal shift from putting seniors in a “home” and having them grow older in their own homes.

For many families, trying to navigate the maze of state regulated home care service agencies to locate the right caregiver won’t be easy, and it will be very expensive. The cost of home health care has increased over 6 percent just last year, according to a report published by Genworth Financial, a Virginia-based firm that sells long-term care insurance. That is 6 times the rate of inflation.

Consumers pay a national average of $22 an hour for home caregiver services, or over $49,000 a year, according to the report, which is based on studies with over 15,000 service providers.

Health insurance and Medicare do not completely cover these costs and while Medicaid does help cover care giver costs for seniors with chronic conditions who meet certain income requirements, most seniors do not qualify.

Home healthcare is one of the fastest growing occupations in the U.S., with the labor force expanding to 1.6 million over the last 10 years and another 600,000 jobs anticipated to be added over the next decade, according to PHI, the direct care research organization.

Low wages, a lack of training and isolation are a part of the cause for a significant turnover among caregivers and the ongoing shortage of workers for the industry. But maybe the hardest aspect of the job for many is not low wages but caring for patients when the relationship invariably comes to an end.

Why I love writing

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I need a new drug, one that won’t make me sick. (Huey Lewis and the News)

What a rush it is writing for the Union Sun and Journal, my hometown newspaper. I discovered my love for writing when I was in my late 60s. I got my first opinion published in The Union Sun on January 29th 2016. Previous to that the only place you could find my rants, raves and writing was on Facebook.

I had a long dry spell after that where I didn’t get published anywhere until I found the Lockport Star. This was a weekly print newspaper and I got my first article with them published on the editorial pages on April 2nd 2016. I continued with the Lockport Star getting published regularly with opinions and also became the food columnist with them. I was still getting an occasional piece in the US&J but by then I had been bitten by the writing bug real bad.

On April 12th, I became a writer for The East Niagara Post, an online, independent news website published by Heather Grimmer. I signed a contract with them as their food columnist and could write whatever I wanted from restaurant reviews to recipes. Unfortunately the ENP shut down just a few short weeks after I signed on. I only managed to get 3 reviews published before they closed.

By July 16th, I had been published 25 times when I got picked up by The Sun, another weekly paper out of North Tonawanda, once again as the food columnist. About a week later, after I got one review published, the Sun was closed down by the parent company.

The Star was owned by the same company as the Sun and at first the Star thought they were going to stay open but they didn’t even stay open long enough for them to publish any more of my work. I was starting to see a pattern here.

I got published 6 more times in the US&J and then I got my first piece published in The Niagara Gazette.  I was now getting published occasionally in 3 places. The US&J, the Gazette and in the Sunday Lifestyles supplement. Nothing steady mind you but it was exciting nonetheless.

In September, I was published on the Opinion page of The Buffalo News. Another first for me. This was the fortieth time I saw my work in print.  I was now appearing in the US&J on a weekly basis. I also had an occasional appearance on the US&J sports pages. I have been published an additional 2 times in the News since then and I picked up a gig as the restaurant reviewer for the “Night and Day” supplement that is in the Union Sun and the Niagara Gazette on Thursdays. I get a review posted there about once a month.

Many of the pieces I write garner comments, many positive and a few negative. I still post in several groups on Facebook and have attracted quite a following, some from as far away as Oregon and Florida. I don’t save these comments, however the hand written letters that are sent to me I keep in a notebook along with all the articles that get published. I feel if someone takes the time to put pen to paper, it deserves to be archived. A piece I wrote on fruitcake last Christmas resulted in 5 of my readers locating some. They all bought the fruitcake they found and gave it to me. I appreciate that immensely. Next time though I will write about not being able to find gold bars.

By the end of 2016 I had been published 67 times. The 100th time I got published was in a blog called “Sweet Buffalo” by a blogger named Kimberly LaRussa.

I have written over 500 opinions, two of these were three word challenges. The first of these was when a friend said “Timing is everything.”  I challenged myself to take these three words and write an opinion, when I was done I had written a 750 word piece that was published in November of 2016. The second one was when an acquaintance challenged me to write an article based on the three words “Attitude is everything”. This resulted in a 755 word piece. I have penned over 90 restaurant reviews and have had my work published over 200 times so far.

I was also asked to write an article advocating the passage of a school budget referendum to get an artificial turf installed in the soccer field at the high school. This piece was published in both the Union Sun and the Gazette, by the way, it passed the referendum.

I am now published in six places three print and three online. I am looking for more regular gigs because I still haven’t run out of things to say. Writing is my new drug.

 

Writer’s Block

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I can’t think of anything to write at this time. I know this is a serious problem for a writer like me and it is hard for me to admit but I seem to have what some people call “writer’s block”. It appears I have hit a wall when it comes to writing.

I have written over 500 articles about such diverse subject matter as patriotism, volunteering in your community and the art of bring up children. I have shared personal narratives about my fight with cancer, living with color blindness and my time serving on a destroyer in the Navy during the Vietnam War. I have even related my point of view on how to do away with cable or satellite television, how to avoid getting shot by the police and how to operate a motor vehicle safely.

I have written about my opinion on whether we should ever do drug testing on animals, if doctors or other health practitioners should help with assisted suicide, the need for community service by teens and if the Electoral College should be eliminated or not.

You may have read commentaries from me on the lack of common sense today, train wreck television like Jerry Springer, Steve Wilcos or any of the currently popular reality shows or court television programs. You may have also seen pieces I wrote on my family’s Thanksgiving or holiday traditions, watching what you post on line on your Facebook or Twitter accounts or recalling emails.

I have also written over fifty reviews of restaurants from Buffalo to Lockport, From North Tonawanda to Medina. I’ve critiqued seafood places, Mexican restaurants, American style restaurants and trendy pubs.

You may think it is easy for me to write but quite the contrary. Sometimes it is difficult for me to find something to write about, something I feel passionate about.

I have said many times that I wish I could just plug a jump drive into the side of my head and make a copy of all my memories, experiences and opinions so I could share them with my children and grandchildren. Writing for the newspapers has helped me share some of the “Pa Pa stories”, as they call them, and there is are notebooks full of my articles that have been published.

Like I said, I have writer’s block. I make an effort to find something, anything, anywhere to write about by reading newspapers, books, magazines and surfing the internet. I have watched television and movies but to no avail. I am finding it extremely difficult to find a subject that tickles my fancy enough for me to write about.

I could write some drivel just to kick out an article but that would not reflect who I am nor how I like to write. I suppose I could also google some obscure academic paper on some obscure subject by some obscure writer and change it around enough to slip under the radar of all the plagiarism checkers out there, but that would be doing a disservice to me, the writer of the article, my editor and my readers.

I guess I will just have to wait till my muse finds me again so I can write something worth your time and mine. Yes, it is hard to for me write when I am so uninspired but I will have to try as hard as I can and see what I can do.

I know I can write but I can’t make it any harder than it has to be by over thinking it. I just have to type a few words and that’s the problem. I can’t find the right words to type. They don’t have to be good words (all first drafts suck). I just have to type them.

It’s kind of like building a house. I need to build a foundation first. After I have that in place, it is easier for me to build the framework of what I want to say. Hopefully once I get started building the story, I will reach a time where I can’t stop. I have had a problem like this before and end up writing 12, 14, or even 1600 words.

I end up writing in run on sentences. But this is a good thing. All I have to do is pare this down to about 700 words removing the extraneous and irrelevant material and correcting the grammar and spelling until I have a good sound article. I can tell this by reading it out loud. That way I can check the way it sounds and change it around till it just flows.

Now that I think about it, perhaps I don’t have writers block after all. Just thinking about writer’s block gave me something to write about.

Adolescence

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My children were born over a span of 5 years so adolescence lasted quite a while in our house. As my oldest child was part way through adolescence, my next child entered into their adolescence followed by my youngest who entered this most difficult phase. Difficult for parents, for children, for everyone.

I can’t believe we made it. There are two things I used to tell my wife. The first of which was that I didn’t think we all were going to survive the teen years and the second was I now knew why some animals ate their young.

In my experience, a child’s adolescence begins around the age of 10-12. That’s when they start showing signs of becoming an adult. They want you to drop them off for school a block away. They start becoming interested in music that doesn’t sound like music to you and they want to go to the movies with their friends, not you. They start experiencing crushes. They may develop an entirely different circle of friends, a different way of dressing and things, get, tough.

My own adolescence was very difficult, especially my teenage years. Actually, there wasn’t anything I hated more. I can remember fondly the day I turned 13, thinking I was practically a grown-up. I was now a teenager, let the wild parties begin! But 13 turned out to be not much different than 12.

Adolescence was terrible for my children too. I watched them suffer mean kids, failed romances and jobs that didn’t quite work out. I sometimes had to protect them from themselves and the people they were dating. This was like walking on a tightrope with a pit full of alligators below. You have to broach these issues very carefully because as we all know, when your children are in their teens, you are the dumbest person on earth. You have to help them without telling them.

As I watched them navigate middle school and high school, and fall down and get up and fall down and get up again, I knew I couldn’t do much to mitigate their pain except for being there for them when they need it and loving them.

When one of my children was 16 or so, things were so hard on me that I wished that I could fast forward through the teenage years to the next chapter of their lives. Because when you’re the parent of adolescents, time moves so slowly. You frequently have to remind yourself that, although your children look like adults, their bodies are simply betraying the fact that they are still children.

You want to protect them from everyone and everything every day, but you also know they must really experience the lessons of adolescence. So you insist they go to school even though they feel like everyone there hates them, even when they failed a big test yesterday, even when they didn’t get the part in the play they wanted, or didn’t get elected to a position they were striving for. And you wait for the time when you can look back together at those hard moments, stronger and happier, and know they paid off. But the waiting is agonizing.

I used to imagine that each of my children, starting at about the age of 12, was a rock at the bottom of a steep hill. I was standing there, pushing the rock up the mountain but because the rock was completely smooth, sometimes it would move up just the tiniest of bits. Sometimes I would misstep. But often times, even as I threw my back against it, trying to get it up the mountain, my hands would slip and the rock would stay put, refusing to budge an inch or even slide backwards.

As the years passed, my children went to college. They found great friends who did not betray them. They fell in love. I knew these things would happen, yet in those dark moments, when my children were 13, 14, 15 and 16, I didn’t really know if they ever would.

The teen years weren’t all bad. There were highs in there too. When I remind myself of them, I get a smile on my face. Those triumphs, like when my children graduated high school, got the hard-won good grades, or got a sports award, now all of those things helped bolster us.

Now when I see my kids, I see intelligent, beautiful adults actively working towards their career goals, with loving friends and opportunities that I could never have imagined for myself. I see people who went up the mountain slowly and they are now on top. I see people that I brought into the world, who I gave everything I could even to the point of abandoning my wants. When they were teenagers it all seemed so impossible.

In a way, I got my wish. Time really did fast forward. I can’t believe I can say that all my kids are now fully grown and living on their own. Everything’s worked out.

Cats are said to have nine lives. I wonder how many I have.

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The first time I can remember that I came close to death was when I was a delivery driver for a fried chicken takeout and delivery place on Main Street in the 60’s, I had popped in to a Carols, a fast food, hamburger joint across the street for a bite to eat. As I was leaving the parking lot, I was making a left hand turn out of the driveway. Some kind person, in the outside lane, stopped to let me pass thru the traffic. I drove thru the gap and was broadsided on the driver’s side, totaling the car.

Speaking of car accidents, there have been a couple of other times I have totaled cars. The next time I was driving south on Niagara Falls Boulevard. I was in the inside lane when a car going the other way crossed the double yellow line and hit me. My car was crumpled on the driver’s side from the front bumper to the back. The windshield and the windows on the left hand side of the car were shattered. My car was pushed into a gas station and came to a stop a few feet from the gas pumps where the attendant was pumping gas. His jaw hit the ground.

One other time I was going to a repair shop due to a gas line leak in my car. I was going down a hill when suddenly, the brake lines blew. I thought this was the way I was going to die but I managed to swing onto a side street to avoid smashing into the guard rail at the bottom. I jumped the curb and crashed into a tree instead. When the car stopped, I was under the dashboard on the passenger side with only a cut on my nose.

Twice, while I was in the service, I think we came close to losing our ship. The first time we got lost at night in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. All of our navigation and radios had suddenly gone out. We didn’t regain them back until the morning and no one ever found out what had happened. Another time, in the North Atlantic, we ended up putting a gash in our hull during a storm at night. The water was gushing in. We plugged it up as well as we could. Every portable pump we had on board was pressed into service putting the ocean back outside where it belonged.

I had a brush with death when I first met Lady Electricity. We had a lamp that needed to have the socket replaced. I laid out my tools and sat on my couch to do this relatively simple project. I had disassembled the light and went to disconnect the wires. Hello! How was I to know you should unplug the light before touching the wires?

Electricity and I have gone around a few more times in my life. I was working at a vinegar plant when I was told to put a few new circuits in the lab because some new equipment was overloading the breakers. “Easy Peasy Piece of Pie,” or so I thought. There was a conduit with wiring running to the lab so all I had to do was pull a few new wires through it. There was plenty of room.

I would be able to separate the conduit at the joints and push the wires I needed into it. I was doing this when I got the shock of my life. All I could do was hang on because all my muscles had tightened up. When the 30 Amp breaker tripped, it dropped me in a pile. I must have blacked out because the next thing I can remember is seeing spinning lights. Eventually as I came to, I thought that I couldn’t be dead because I was hearing sounds from the plant.

But this wasn’t the last time electricity tried to get me. I was working at U. S. Sugar and was trying to rewire a panel. My meter was broken so I borrowed a buddy’s. Call it inexperience with this type of meter but I thought everything was off. I went to hook up some wires when the 440V picked me up and threw me across the room. I spent three weeks in the hospital with 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns.

Are we counting? This is eight times I cheated death. I cheated death three more times by beating cancer. My first dance with this dreaded disease was ten years ago. After my surgery, the surgeon said if I had waited two to four weeks longer, he wouldn’t have been able to save me. The cancer metastasized two more times. I was told the last time it was stage four. Neither my oncologist nor I expected me to survive the last time.

I have also had pulmonary embolisms twice. The last time the doctor stated that it was the worst case he had ever seen in a living person. That the only time he had seen embolisms this bad was at an autopsy.

I think that death now looks at his to do list and if he sees my name, he crosses it off because he is tired of dealing with me.

Tagged with: Death, Cats, Cancer, Electricity, Bermuda Triangle, Niagara Falls,

Empty Nest

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Empty nest syndrome, I never knew when it would hit. That extreme feeling of loneliness when my kids began leaving home to start a life on their own. Everybody had graduated from college, the weddings were over and suddenly we went from “Full House” to “Just the two of us”. Sure my wife and I had each other but gone were the slamming doors, the laughter and the family dinners. I know it was our job to raise our children to be self-sufficient members of society but dammit, why did we have to do such a good job of it?

We no longer had to give our kids rides to school, the mall or a friend’s house. The house just didn’t seem right without a couch full of people watching television and fighting over the remote. Usually, late at night, I would realize I didn’t have to wait up for anybody to get home anymore because home for them was someplace else.

I would sniffle a bit and wipe away a tear knowing what a good job we had done. The house we called home always seemed so small when we were raising a family. I think we could park airplanes in our living room now, it is so empty.

When I walk by their empty bedrooms, I see beds that are no longer being used. There are no piles of clothes on the floor, there are no shoes under the beds, and there are no toys that haven’t been picked up. Gone is the raucous laughter that used to fill our house to the roof top, gone is the pile of boots by the back door that indicated everyone was home, gone is the back yard full of toys and bikes carelessly strewn about.

I knew the bedrooms would be empty, the house would be quieter, their places at the table unoccupied, but other little daily patterns of life, can simply take you by surprise. We didn’t have to rush them out the door anymore so they wouldn’t be late for school. We didn’t have to help them with their homework. Years of my family eating, sleeping and playing under one roof had been brutally altered and I had no idea how to handle it.

It is still hard for my wife to cook for just the two of us and sometimes a meal she cooks lasts us several days. She started shopping less. I have started taking her out for meals and ordering takeout food more often. It just seems silly to dirty pots, pans and dishes for just two people.

And then came the holidays…. Thanksgiving was upon us and the holiday season had started. My wife would go shopping for the largest turkey she could fit in our oven. Overfilling her shopping cart with more food than we could possibly eat in weeks. Suddenly there were a dozen of us eating and laughing, watching the grandchildren entertain us with their dancing moves and our house was alive again.

Empty nest syndrome, is not a medical disorder. It is a mixture of separation anxiety, sadness, and satisfaction. Life can be full of unexpected twists and turns. Going from a home full of people to an empty nest is one that every parent will know eventually. Figuring out how to accept your recently vacated nest is just one part of the trip called parenthood. Having your children leave your home will change you as much as bringing your first child home did.

Children leaving the nest should not be the conclusion of being a parent or the ending of your relationship with your kids. You’ll get to see your children become adults and probably see them become parents themselves. You might even get to see them become grandparents if you are lucky.

It’s common to miss your kids when they move from home. They were most likely the focus of everything you did and you were used to spending time with them almost daily for several years. Sending your child out into the world can stir up many emotions. This is typical in times of transition and these emotions frequently start when the first child leaves home.

Some empty nesters find that once they become accustomed to their new routine, one without soccer practice, lessons and school events that they will have more time and energy for themselves. This is the time to rediscover their interests, recover their long lost friendships and appreciate the world around them. And just when they think empty nest syndrome is what they will have to live with the rest of their lives, the grandchildren will start arriving. If you are as lucky as my wife and I were, Nana and Papa’s house will become their primary child care site.

Norb is a proud parent that knows the roller coaster of feelings that empty nest syndrome can cause. He has been through it all himself. Parents that are suffering from empty nest have his sympathy. Know that you will get thru this.

Tags: Empty nest, Laughter,

Apples on a tree

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I am colorblind. I am often asked what color an apple or a strawberry is. Most of us would say red, and so would I, but how you perceive red may not be how I perceive red. The color I see as red is the color I have always been taught is red. Sometimes I can’t distinguish between ripe apples or cherries on a tree and the leaves unless I get close. Even then, I primarily see them by their shape. I also never saw the beauty in rainbows because all I see is an arc of yellow and blue. Pretty, yes, but not as awe inspiring as it must be to someone who has normal color perception.

When I joined the navy, they gave me The Ishihara Color Test and the only number I could see was the one on the sample plate. My color perception is so bad that when my wife was repainting our bedroom, she asked me what color I wanted it. I said any color but yellow. It was several years after she painted it before she revealed that our bedroom was now yellow.

Another thing I fail to see is the beauty of fall leaves. I am told they are beautiful and in many colors by people with normal color vision but I just have to believe them. These are all relatively minor inconveniences though and I have learned to adapt to them.

They say there is no cure for color blindness, no surgery or no drug you can take to correct this. However, I hear that people with red-green color blindness may be able to use a special set of lenses to help them perceive colors more accurately. I was skeptical.

Due to an article I wrote on colorblindness I was offered the chance to try out some EnChrona glasses these fit right over my prescription glasses. Even my teenage granddaughter said they looked good. But styling doesn’t mean they would work well. I had worn the inside glasses for a few days. I noticed that colors seemed to pop.

The real test came though when my wife and I went out to lunch one day. I was wearing the outdoor glasses and we were on our way home when suddenly there it was, all the proof I needed. I saw an apple tree, a relatively mundane act. The exciting part was I could see the apples on the tree. OMG!

I screamed APPLES and my wife thought I was having a stroke or something. After I assured her I wasn’t I explained that was the first time I actually saw the apples on a tree. I can’t wait to see a rainbow or the fall leaves.

Tagged with: Color blind, Apples, Glasses, Ishihara Color Test