Growing older

People my age are so much older than me.

When I think of old age, I to think of my maternal grandfather. When I was a kid, I considered this white-haired, 65-year-old man as old. I can still vividly remember his vegetable gardens at 101 Bickford Avenue, Buffalo and how he taught me how to trap yellow jackets.

He sold Watkins products and aprons to women around his own age. I recall going on sales calls with him in his dark blue 1948 dodge. This was a treat for me because I got to ride in the front seat of the “Blue Bird” as he called it and every client he had invited me in for milk and cookies. Instant grandmothers!

Now that I’m in my early 70’s, my concept of old age is substantially different than it used to be and I suspect I’m not alone. I am positive that everyone else is growing older and that person that I see in my mirror each morning is somehow aging at a slower pace. I frequently ask my wife how come everybody we know is getting older and we’re not, ala Dorian Grey.

If you’ve been pushing yourself for many years by working, raising a family or both, it feels strange to have time to yourself once you have retired and the kids have all flown the coop. One good thing about getting older is that you’ve been there, done that. Now you can take the time to impart what you’ve learned over the years. I try to do this by writing.

Baby boomers seem to be having a hard time admitting to the inevitability of growing older. Granted, we are all mortal, but I never imagined this referred to me. Sure, I am in my seventies and have been married for fifty years. Yeah, my children are in their forties and have grandchildren in their twenties. Indeed, I have been retired for four years and have been fighting cancer for ten. But those are only numbers to me, not an indicator of how old I feel.

When I take sum of my life, everything I’ve created, experienced and collected, I can count more positives than negatives. More than anything else I learn with each and every passing day the importance of appreciating what I have and choosing to be happy. Taking time to laugh with my family and friends becomes more important. Of all the good things about getting old, the best by far, according to older adults, is being able to spend more time with family members.

My 8 year old grandsons will yell “Papa run over here.” I have to explain, Papa doesn’t do run anymore. There’s a lot that Papa doesn’t do anymore. Papa doesn’t drink anymore. Papa doesn’t go to the basement or attic anymore. Sure I move a bit slower, but that’s just my body that’s acting it’s age, my mind and my spirit are still in their twenties. The great irony, in this, say the experts on aging, is that this could be a healthy thing. Believing you are younger can actually make you feel younger.

“People, particularly older people, usually say they feel younger than they are,” said William Chopik, assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State. “People who report feeling younger actually tend to live longer and healthier lives and they don’t tend to have as much of a pattern of decline.” says Chopik. In most circumstances, people state that they feel around 20 percent younger than they actually are. This is according to a Michigan State study of over than 500,000 people.

They say when you are older, you heal slower but my innate ability to recover from injuries is well known among my friends and family. Recently I hurt my ankle but I thought I could just walk it off. After 8 days of walking on it, I discovered I had broken it. I was in a boot for six weeks after that and still wear a splint. The orthopedic surgeon I went to said “The x-ray revealed that your bones are, and I going to use a medical term here, crap.” (I love a doctor with a good sense of humor). He said he wasn’t sure just how long it would take me to heal but he suggested it would take months. I surprised him by how quickly I healed. I have had cancer three times, and managed to spit in death’s eye each time.

So, at my age, I’m on a low salt diet, do Physical Therapy, quit smoking, and have to take an assortment of meds to control my blood pressure, cholesterol, edema and pain. I wear bifocals and hearing aids and But I still don’t look into the mirror and see an old man looking back and I definitely do not see a septuagenarian gazing at me. I see someone that is much younger and more vibrant than that. Then again, I never put my glasses on before I look in the mirror. You remember the age old adage “You are only as old as you feel.”? I believe this to be true. In my mind I am still only 25.

It’s kind of funny how being old doesn’t seem so old now that I am old.

Norb is an independent journalist from Lockport.

Facial Recognition

I am for the implementation of the Facial and Object Recognition System (FORS) in the Lockport schools. There I said it. I know this might be an unpopular stance but it is the way I feel. I believe an integral part of journalism is to present both sides of an issue and to write how I feel not to just agree with the prevailing opinion. I expect very little support and a lot of blow back due to my opinion but with all the articles condemning FORS I thought it was time to hear from the other side.

Perhaps the most persuasive reason to have FORS in schools is that it could make our children safer. FORS allows the software to look at it’s photographic database to identify a person and see if he or she is supposed to be on school property. It can also identify a person who is prohibited to be near a school like sexual predators, fired employees and gang members. It can then alert an armed, trained school resource officer, a Lockport city policeman or a Lockport policeman moonlighting as a school security guard to approach the unknown person to evaluate their intent.

Initial security should be to lock all the doors while school is in session so no one from the outside can get in. The doors in Lockport are being locked right now. I know this isn’t a perfect solution because a person could wait near a door till someone opens the door so they can gain access. This also wouldn’t stop a person who is supposed to be there from committing a crime and we can’t lock all the doors from the inside due to fire and other safety concerns but FORS would add an additional layer of protection.

Facial Recognition is the highest speed biometric technology available. This has only one function and that is to recognize human faces. Forget the eye scanners and thumbprint readers, FORS currently analyzes the unique characteristics of a person’s facial images that are taken by a digital video camera. It’s the least invasive way and provides no delays and makes people completely oblivious to the process.

Whether you know it or not, FR software is out there and is currently being used right now. Facial recognition has been around in one form or another since the 1960s but recent technological developments have led to a wide proliferation of this technology.

Face recognition has been used to find missing children and victims of human trafficking. If missing individuals are in a database, law enforcement can be alerted when they are recognized by face recognition in an airport, retail store or other public space. Three thousand missing children were discovered in just four days using face recognition according to the website facefirst.com.

The best in facial recognition technology is currently available. The Apple’s iPhone X represents the beginning of a new era by using Facial Recognition Technology to unlock a smartphone. This is made possible by the cautiously running infrared and 3D sensors that work with a forward facing camera. The system’s unlock would is practically instantaneous and does not need the user to press any buttons.

But this is hardly the only example. There is the infamous Facebook facial recognition software whose power and accuracy is better than the FBI’s systems! Each time you post a photo or tag your friends on Facebook, you provide massive help for thier facial recognition algorithm.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection began testing facial recognition technology at around a dozen U.S. airports. The New York Times reported on the use of FR for security purposes in the private sector, notably in Madison Square Garden and at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Despite broad experimentation, there is no federal law governing the use of FR, although Illinois and Texas have laws that mandate informed consent. Whether used by governments or in private enterprise, the technology appears to be developing faster than the law.

Instead of utilizing manual recognition, which would be done by a security guard or the approved representatives not on the premises, the facial recognition technology automates the identification process and ensures its flawlessness every time without any pause.

Anyone that has a problem getting photographed by “Big Brother” might be advised to look around. There are cameras everywhere like Walmart, Home Depot and Walgreens to name a few. With the low price of digital, video surveillance systems, even my neighbors have them.

Facial recognition software can be used to quickly detect perpetrators of identity fraud. The New York Department of Motor Vehicles’ Facial Recognition Technology Program has been doing just that, with 21,000 possible identity fraud cases identified since 2010.

Aside from public usage by airports and railway stations, stadiums. There is even an adaptation of facial recognition for use in medical applications by diagnosing diseases that cause detectable changes in appearance.

Some citizens may resent the idea that the government obtains, holds, and uses their biometric data without their consent. Anyone who holds a passport or has sought a visa should not be surprised that the government at least has this information, even if the individual has not expressly consented to allow the government to retain it.

Like I said, I am for anything that has the potential to protect our children.

Norb is a freelance journalist from Lockport. His children and grandchildren have been/are Lockport students.

Love Poems

old couple walking while holding hands — Photo by Noelle Otto on Pexels.com

I recently received a picture of a painting from a local Buffalo artist of two older people hand in hand walking away due to something I had published in the newspaper. It reminded me of my wife and me, always walking hand in hand wherever we go.

I remember meeting her at a birthday party I crashed with a friend of mine. It was the wild sixties. I picked her up and carried her off into a corner loudly proclaiming “This one’s mine”. I had dated quite a few girls but had never met anyone like her. Eventually, I fell in love and I remember trying to find a way to ask her how to marry me.

She worked at Saint Mary’s Home for Children with children who had birth defects and knowing how much she loved children, I devised what I thought was the ideal line. One that I thought she could not say no to.

One night at Ellicott Creek Park, as we were looking out across the water and I said I had something to talk to her about. I then asked her to marry me and have my children. She hesitated a bit and I thought I had blown it. I realize now when I said I had something to talk to her about, this wasn’t quite what she was expecting, but she manage to say “Yes.”

It also reminded me of a few short poems I wrote to her several years ago that she has framed on her dresser.

The first poem reads.
Thru good times. Thru Bad.
Thru happy. Thru sad.
Thru high. Thru low.
Thru you, I’m whole.

The good times were all the years we have been together, going to dinner, laughing and loving each other. The bad times were when I was being treated for cancer and I would lay in bed sleeping, only waking to eat chocolate covered mini doughnuts. The Oncologists and I didn’t think I would see another Christmas. She would lay beside me comforting me thru it all. I firmly believe she are the reason I made it.

The happy is when she said “Yes” at Ellicott Creek Park and when she said “I do” in Saint Patrick’s church in 1969. It also relates to the children and grandchildren she has given me. She has given me an amazing, loving family. The sad is the loss of family members we have both suffered.

The High is the soaring feeling I get seeing her, hearing her voice and snuggling with her on the weekends. The low is the times we had to spend apart while I was in the service. She will never know just how I missed her then.

With you, I’m whole means that without her, I would be a ship drifting on the sea of loneliness. Completely lost. I never thought I would deserve such a loving, kind person in my life. One who accepted me for who I am.

The second one’s a three-word poem that goes. Together, Forever, Whatever. This reflects in three words how I feel about us. Sometimes simple is best. Both of these poems reflect what she means to me.

In all the years we have been together, I don’t ever remember having a major argument. We’ve had disagreements sure, but we always resolved them quickly.
She is my soulmate, the Yin to my Yang, the ping to my pong, the day to my night. We’ve been together for 50 years and I want another 50. She will always be my “Bride”.

Christmas traditions

Image result for free christmas tree on top of car

I have written about family traditions before, this time I would like to share a few Christmas traditions from my past and a few that my children, grandchildren and I practice today.

My memories of Christmas as a young boy took place at 496 Berkshire Avenue, Buffalo. About a week before Christmas, we would go shopping for a tree. It had to be a long needle fir tree and it had to be symmetrical without any bare spots, nothing else would do. We would sometimes have to go to several Christmas tree lots that popped up on every vacant piece of land in the city. We would then tie it on the roof of our car and take it home like some kind of hunting trophy and I guess it was. It would spend a few days trussed up like a bird being prepared for cooking by on our front porch awaiting it’s role in our house.

The dining room table was disassembled and put in my sister’s room to make room for the Christmas tree. Once the Christmas tree lights were untangled, which sometimes took quite a bit of time, they had to be tested. My father was the only person allowed to put these on the tree. My mother would supervise and my father would have to swap bulbs until no two adjacent bulbs were the same color. We would then decorate the tree with all kinds of ornaments, both store bought and homemade. The final decoration would be “icicles” made of thin ribbons of lead.

On Christmas Eve my brother and I would retire to our bedroom on the second floor where we would have a hard time falling asleep in anticipation of Santa Claus paying us a visit. For some reason or other Santa would wrap our presents in the Sunday comic pages. I always thought he had run out of wrapping paper and was surprised that he got the Buffalo Courier Express. I think my favorite toy that Santa ever brought me was a battery operated, walking robot with flashing lights and “sound effects” that I received one year.

Many years later, after I got married, Donna and I moved to Massachusetts while I was in the Navy. We had a small tree but we couldn’t afford many ornaments. We made do with what we had and what people gave us. One thing I did was affix a starfish to the top of our tree that a buddy Ed and I collected from a local beach and had dried in the basement of my apartment.

That was fifty years ago. We still have that starfish adorning our tree. This has developed into a family tradition. All of my children have a starfish of their own now that sit atop their tree. A few years ago I gave all of our grandchildren a starfish so when they are on their own they will remember us with this tradition.

According to an old German legend, if you find a bird’s nest in your Christmas tree you and your family will experience health, wealth and happiness in the coming year. Who can’t use some good luck like this? We always have a bird’s nest in our tree and my daughter Liz has one in her tree also.

Other Christmas traditions our family has involve food. Every grandchildren gets to select, as part of their present a “Christmas” food from Nana and Papa. They have picked things like Ramen noodles, potato chips and whipped cream as some of their choices.

My son, Erik and his wife, Heidi also host a Christmas Eve dinner that starts with snacks during the afternoon, Olives and Pickles, Chips and dip, Buffalo chicken wing dip etc. Actually you could graze your way thru the afternoon and not need anything more. But then they have a full blown meal in the evening. We can choose from a cold cut platter and rolls, Beef on weck, Beans, macaroni and pasta salads, regular salad and many other dishes. They also set out Christmas cookies and various other sweets. One year they offered us homemade marshmallows.

Just in case you didn’t have enough to eat, the following morning my oldest daughter, Liz had a Christmas day brunch at her house. We have Stuffed French toast, Breakfast sausage links, Potatoes, Muffins, Eggs, and many more things to eat. With all this food, I was ready for a nap.

After Brunch we would all settle into the living room with me in a recliner in front of her roaring fireplace to open presents. I love watching the eyes of Ian and Kaelen, the younger grandchildren, light up as they rip open the colorful wrapping paper and see what gifts they have received. What starts as a controlled afternoon quickly turns into chaos. It is wonderful having all our children and grandchildren under one roof on this day.

This year unfortunately, her house has been sold and she is temporarily staying with us. My youngest daughter, Dawn has offered up her house for Christmas brunch as long as in her words “I don’t have to cook”. Dawn serves a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner so I don’t blame her not wanting to also do Christmas, so I guess Liz will be spending time at her house cooking our meal.

It really doesn’t matter where we hold our holiday celebrations though, they could be held in my garage or a storage shed on Transit Road. It’s the people and the food, the conversation and the laughter that make this season important to me.

Norb is a writer from Lockport that has also lived in Buffalo and Massachusetts.

“As close to home as your VCR”: Remote Control (Movie) (1988).

grayscale photo of remote control near eyeglasses — Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com

As I sit here typing I look over at my end table and see four remotes. I also have a cordless phone there. It is not unusual for me to grab the wrong remote to try to change the station or even to grab a remote when the phone is ringing and try to answer it. I have on occasion pushed the buttons on the phone when I wanted to change channels, wondering why the damn thing isn’t working. This happens occasionally when I’m “resting my eyes” after lunch or dinner. Donna, my wife would frequently ask to go out to dinner right after I woke up. She knew I would agree to anything then and not remember it later.

There are two remotes for the television. One for me and one for Donna. (Don’t ask). There is one remote for my Roku device. Roku allows me to access thousands of sites including television programs, movie, music and social media sites. The fourth remote on my end table is for my Amazon Fire Stick. Again this device allows me to access thousands of television programs, movie and music sites. But these aren’t the only remotes in the living room.

I have one remote for my VCR so I can play all our children’s wedding videos and several old movies we have. There is one last remote that controls our DVD player. I don’t remember just why we got this because our VCR is a combination VCR- DVD player. They sit in the cabinet under the TV.

My children and grandchildren would make a game of trying to take a remote from my end table when I was in my recliner “resting my eyes” after lunch or, as my grandson calls it, my “napatizer” after dinner. That’s the nap I take before going to bed. They would wait until I was snoring like a lumberjack and then try to pick up the remote without waking me. This never worked out for them. They would inevitably be caught red handed before they even got it off the table. Just the action of their touching it was met with a stern “I’m watching that”.

If it is summer we also have a remote for the air conditioner in the dining room that I have never figured out how to use yet. It has only been five years so give me some time. I just press buttons until it seems to be doing what I want it to do.

Next we go into the recently built, first floor master bedroom suite. There we have another TV and another Roku. Both of these remotes work differently than the ones in the living room.

If you go to our second floor, there is a television and a third Roku device in our old master bedroom. In the summer there is also an air conditioner with a remote in this room. This is one of the three guest bedrooms we now have. On the third floor, the man cave, the walk up attic, there is an older analog TV and a digital to analog converter both controlled by their own remotes.

None of these remotes are alike except for the fact that they are black and have buttons. They don’t even work alike with some of them having the volume controls on the left and the channel selector on the right and some are the other way around. This isn’t very helpful late at night when you are tired and the lights are off.

I know there are “universal” remotes but believe me I have used a few of these and they aren’t universal. They have hundreds maybe thousands of codes you can punch in to try to program them for your device but if you find a code that does work, at best, you will be able to turn your set on and off, change the channel and adjust the volume.

Remotes worked better when I was a child. My father would say, “Norb turn the channel” or “adjust the volume” or “turn the antenna.” This worked 100% of the time and the batteries never died. That’s what kids were for.

This is the other thing. Every one of these remotes has two batteries in them. My best count is we have over 20 batteries running these remotes. Most of them are either AA or AAA. We go thru them so fast that we buy them in the large economy, family size packages. I believe the battery manufacturers and the television makers are in cahoots. I think the TV people get a royalty for every battery of these sizes that are sold.

Not to worry though. I see there is a smart phone APP you can use to control your electronic gadgets. That way when your phone dies, you have to get up and figure out how to use the buttons on your devices. According to WebMD Instead of using the remote, you have to get walking to the television to change the channel might give you some exercise and even help you lose weight.

We now have remote starters for cars, remote wall switches, remote thermostats even remote control bugs, (https://www.insidescience.org/news/brief-worlds-smallest-remote-controlled-cyborg-bug.)

The Gambler

ace achievement banknote blackjack — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

My name is Norb and I’m a gambler. (Muted response, Hi Norb.) I don’t bet on the ponies or play poker. I don’t play the over/under on sports games but I gamble every day.

When my alarm goes off and, at seventy, when I swing my legs over the edge of my bed, I gamble on the fact that when I stand up, my legs won’t collapse. I’ve been to the hospital a few times when I “melted” as I call it. I don’t fall, just slowly collapse to the ground because my legs can’t support me.

Once I am up, I shuffle to me kitchen where I lay bets on a number of things. I make myself a breakfast sandwich and I gamble several times. I make myself a ham, egg, cheese and kimchee breakfast sandwich in the microwave. According to Consumer Reports, “More than 10,000 people were hurt using microwaves.” I gamble the egg I use won’t give me salmonella or the ham I use won’t give me food poisoning. I’ve had food poisoning, also called foodborne illness, once in my life and it wasn’t fun. As I cut my English muffin I am reminded that lacerations caused by kitchen knives affected more than 900,800 people in 2012, according to the www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. I gamble I don’t cut myself.

After I eat my sandwich, risking choking, I then go down my back steps gambling on the chance they aren’t wet or icy causing me to slip, go ass over tea kettle and doing a face plant on the concrete sidewalk at the bottom. My wife has put non slip strips resembling black sandpaper on the steps to help prevent this.

I then take my biggest gamble of the day. I get into my car, turn on the ignition and ease myself on to the road. According to driverknowledge.com, the average number of car accidents in the U.S. every year is 6 million. I wager on fact that every other driver isn’t DWI or Texting or Chatting on their cell phone and are paying attention to their driving. When you think about it, half the vehicle to vehicle car accidents on the road are caused by the other guy. I may be the best driver in the world but that might not help me if someone is acting unsafe on the roadway.

I also gamble, if it is winter, the road crews have plowed and salted the roadways properly before I drive on them. I have traveled on unplowed roads before and I slid into the ditch.

Other gambles I have taken were asking my wife of 50 years to marry me. This was probably the most important chance I have ever taken. I would have been devastated if she would have said no. I tried to “stack the deck” to favor me when I asked. Knowing how much she loved children I asked her to have mine.

Two children later, I also took a chance when I got out of the navy. The movers were supposed to be at my apartment at 8:00 AM and pack us up for the trip back to Western New York. Donna and I got up early that day and made sandwiches, filled bottles for our two daughters and prepare for our road trip to Western New York. We figured it might take the movers 3 hours or less to load up our merger possessions so we could head home. We packed up our Volkswagen Beetle with what we thought we would need for a few days, filled a cooler and waited for the movers to arrive.

They only missed this appointment by 12 hours showing up at 8 PM. By 11 PM we were sitting in our empty apartment and had a decision to make. Should we start an 8 hour long drive, in the middle of the night, in the ice and snow of January, after being up for 18 hours? Our other choice was to stay in a motel overnight and leave for home in the morning when we had some sleep and were fresh.

Donna, my wife was as anxious as I was to get home so we gambled on option one. She said she would stay awake and keep me awake during the trip. So I went all in. We loaded the kids and the last of our possessions in our car and I started to drive

The first 25 miles went well, Donna and I chatting about how glad we were to be going home, but as soon as we got outside of Providence, Rhode Island, Donna fell asleep. I gambled again and decided to drive straight through. This almost proved fatal. I tried to deploy a few ways to try and stay awake. I turned the radio real loud and opened my window allowing the freezing air in.

I had fallen asleep a few times during that long trip but I would manage to wake up when my tires would hit the shoulder. The last time I fell asleep however I woke up in the median to snow flying over my car as I was plowing it. I jerked my steering wheel to the right and popped back on the roadway like a Jack-in-the-Box. Thank god no one was hurt.

We all are unaware we are gamblers and unknowingly gamble several times a day. Follow Norb at https://whywny.home.blog/

Do children deserve/need an allowance?

money pink coins pig — Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

As a young child, I got an allowance and spent it unwisely buying my “friends” penny candy and comic books. I found out my “friends” were gone as soon as my money was. Lesson learned.

Allowances are powerful things. Children should be allowed to make unwise purchases, because we all learn from our mistakes. Allowances are most children’s first exposure to the power of personal choice that financial means can bring. It is for this very reason that parents may approach it with fear. Children need to understand the value of money, and will only learn this when they have their own money. Receiving an allowance can teach children the basics of how to be responsible and self-reliant.

Children need the opportunity to spend and save their own money. As I got older and stopped receiving an allowance I went to work. I worked at a stable and then on a chicken farm. I learned that I needed to work for my money and not to be dependent on my parents for everything. I remember buying my first car at 16. I didn’t need any help paying for it. I also had to pay for all my car expenses myself like gas and insurance. I learned true money management this way. Children will learn how to make a budget and spend accordingly. As parents we may be responsible for the basics, but kids who earn money should become responsible for the frills.

Let me tell you how we used to do it. My kids grew up in the era where your popularity depended partially on whose name was embroidered on the seat of your jeans. I believed we, as parents, were responsible to buy them jeans but I balked at paying for a designer name. My girls were working at the time so I proposed the following. I would give them the price of a reasonably priced pair of generic jeans. If they wanted designer jeans, they paid the difference. They quickly decided the designer jeans just weren’t worth the extra money and got the jeans I gave them the money for. I did something else with my children to measure how they were learning fiscal responsibility. I gave them all ten dollars with the stipulation they had to spend it on something totally impractical. At the end of a week they had to give it back if they didn’t spend it. My oldest daughter had to return the money because she just couldn’t spent it foolishly. I was so proud.

You are not going to kill your kids by teaching them how to be responsible with money. Our job as parents is to prepare our kids for adulthood. You won’t rob them of their childhood and you’ll teach them lifetime lessons that our school system does not. By giving them an allowance you will teach the concept of budgeting, how to avoid unnecessary purchases, how to save towards a bigger goal, teach them responsibility and give them independence. An allowance can be a great way to teach kids money management skills and help them learn how to make decisions, deal with limited funds, and understand the benefit of saving. There’s no single correct way to handle giving an allowance. Deciding when to start, how much to give, and whether you want to link the allowance to chores are choices that should fit your family.

No set age is best for every kid, but consider starting an allowance by the time a child is by 10 years old at the latest. By then, most kids have had experience making thoughtful spending decisions but still look to parents for guidance. Regardless of how much you choose, give the allowance regularly and increase the amount as your child gets older. Should an allowance be tied to chores? Again, it’s a personal choice. Some experts think that it’s important to make this connection so that kids learn the relationship between work and pay. Others say that kids should have a responsibility to help with housework, above and beyond any financial incentive. In the end, you must decide what works best for you.

Whatever you decide, be sure that all parties understand the arrangement. If some of the allowance is to go to savings, consider setting up an account at a local bank. This way, your child can keep track of the money. Many banks offer special bank accounts for kids, and yours may enjoy the experience of getting mail and seeing their money grow.

Your kids are watching:

boy child childhood class — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

You are in a store and pay for a five dollar purchase with a ten dollar bill. The cashier gives you fifteen dollars in change. You jam the money in your pocket and hustle your family out the door before the mistake is discovered. But, your kids are watching. You just taught them that it is OK to take advantage of someone if they make a mistake. What you didn’t teach them is that this mistake will result in a shortage in the register drawer that could cause the cashier to get fired or make them to have to pay for this shortage out of their pocket. What you taught them is that it is ok to steal. What you didn’t teach them is honesty.

You are driving down the street doing 45 MPH in a 30 MPH zone because you are in a hurry. But, your kids are watching. You just taught them it is OK to ignore the speed limit. You just taught them that your time is worth more than the life of the child that might dart out into the street chasing a ball. What you didn’t teach them is that the speed limits are designed to protect the public safety.

You do drugs, light up a blunt, a dubie, a joint, snort some coke or inject heroin. But, your kids are watching. You just taught them not to worry about the drug laws. What you didn’t teach them was violating these could cause them to go to jail and give them a record that could affect them the rest of their lives. What you didn’t teach them was that they could die from doing drugs.

You cheat on your spouse. But, your kids are watching. You just taught them not to worry about the vows they took, about the promises you make. What you didn’t teach them was about being committed to another person, about being faithful, about being true to your word and keeping a promise.

You have a few drinks and get behind the wheel of your car to drive home. But, your kids are watching. You just taught them not to worry about driving drunk because it’s a silly law and you can drive just fine anyway. What you didn’t teach them was the effect driving drunk will have if they are in an accident. How they could permanently disable themselves or someone else. How they could even die or kill another innocent person.

You see someone drop some money and you wait till they are gone to pick it up. But, your kids are watching. You just taught them “Finders keepers, losers weepers.” What you didn’t teach them was the proper thing to do was let that person know they dropped it. They could have needed that money to buy groceries or medicine.

You are running late for a dance recital and come up to a signal as it turns yellow. You “step on it” so you can get thru the intersection before it turns red. But, your kids are watching. You just taught them it’s OK to take chances if you are in a hurry. What you didn’t teach them was how to drive defensibly to avoid an accident

You are in a parking lot and you see a man beating on a woman and you do nothing. But, your kids are watching. You just taught them it is OK to abuse another person. You just taught them it is OK to be violent towards someone else. What you didn’t teach them was that abuse is never right.

You hear someone screaming for help and you ignore it (this is rumored to have happened in New York City in the 70’s). But, your kids are watching. You just taught them it is OK to ignore it when someone needs assistance, after all isn’t what the police are for? What you didn’t teach them was that someday they or even you could require help. That we all should help each other.

You are driving and someone cuts you off. You blow your horn loudly, you give them “the finger”, speed up, pass them and cut them off. But, your kids are watching. You just taught them that “Road rage” is OK. What you didn’t teach them was that this is an inappropriate way to react, to put yourself, your passengers and other people on the roads at risk. You didn’t teach them to just let it go.

It all boils down to showing your children how to live because you can tell them all you want, but your kids are watching what you do and if you don’t follow your own advice, they will ignore what you tell them. It’s a classic case of do what I say, not what I do.

Halloween

selective focus photo of ghost ornament — Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

One of my favorite times growing up in Buffalo during the 60’s occurred in late October every year. It was the Halloween season. I always enjoyed the cooler days and nights around this time of the year. Fall represented to me a warm cup of fresh pressed apple cider with a cinnamon stick, homemade pumpkin pie, carving jack o lanterns, caramel apples and the smell of burning leaves.

But best of all was the night we would go trick or treating. Growing up in Buffalo, we went trick-or-treating on October 30th, what we called Beggar’s Night. There was a very good reason they called it “Beggar’s Night.” I would go out knocking on doors and ringing doorbells collecting sweets along the way.

I would hastily eat my dinner that evening and get into my costume that I would have laid out on my bed in anticipation of the night to come. We didn’t have the readily available costumes or a fancy dancy Halloween store in those days so I had to improvise. I had a total of two different costumes back then. The first costume was a ghost. All this outfit took was an old bed sheet that I would cut eye holes in with a pair of scissors.

My other costume was a hobo. This took a bit more effort. I would get one of my father’s old work shirts and roll up the sleeves. I would also wear my worst, worn out pair of jeans. Ones that were frayed on the bottom and had a few holes in them. Sometimes they would have to be rescued from the rag bag. I would bunch up a ball of newspaper, tie it in a bandana and would carry this on a stick thrown over one shoulder. To complete the look, I would char a cork and draw a three day shadow on my chin and face. I thought I looked good.

While my parents were busy partying with their friends, I would go out on my night time candy raids. My treasure collection bag consisted of either an old pillow case or a paper shopping bag with handles that my mother had gotten when she shopped at an upscale store. I didn’t have one of those ornate, preprinted bags designed just for trick or treat or the plastic “T shirt” bags that we all know, the ones you see blowing around on a windy day.

I would return to my house several times during the night when my “loot” bag was getting heavy, pour it out on a newspaper on the dining room floor and head out in a different direction to gather even more swag. It was not uncommon to go five blocks in any direction and collect at least one large shopping bag full of candy and goodies that night.

One night two teenagers (gods to a pre-teen) approached me and said they were participating in a scavenger hunt and asked if I knew where they could find some of the items on their list. The one thing that sticks out in my mind was a burned out light bulb. They came to the right person because I had just acquired one I was going to experiment with.

They followed me to my home on Berkshire Avenue where I helped them fill their list as much as I could. They thanked me, gave me their address and told me to tell the lady who answered the door that I had helped them out and that she should “take care” of me.

It was getting late when I got there as it was about 4 blocks away. I think she gave me all the candy she had left because she turned off her porch light as I was leaving. She was probably happy to get rid of all the extra candy she had.

When I was done collecting my yearly booty, I would start the job of sorting out my loot. My parents would have me throw out all unwrapped candy, the small bags of homemade popcorn and the apples I had collected lest they were tampered with by the insertion of pins, needles or razor blades. Why someone would do this to a kid is beyond me. I was only permitted to keep the factory sealed items.

I would then start trading things with my brother and sister, swapping what I didn’t want for something I wanted from them.

Ah, those were the good old days, a period of better times. A time that I believe was better, simpler and more wholesome than the current period. But then I think my memory of them is a bit rosier than it actually was.

Times have changed, gone are the days you could let your children run around the neighborhood, unsupervised, late at night. Gone are the days that we used to have a hundred or more children visiting our front door. We now have maybe thirty five or forty kids that come on our porch, dressed in store bought costumes carrying store bought bags gathering their annual spoils. But I still enjoy watching the kids come on my porch and hearing the gleeful sounds of “Trick or Treat”.

Norb is a writer and blogger from Lockport, New York. You can write him at nrug@juno.com or follow his blog at whywny.home.blog

Empty Nest

nature animal cute sitting — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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,