Archive for August 2023
Busy Day . . .
. . . with scooter and walker checks, yoga,
and billiards lessons
this morning,
and crafts in the afternoon making a relaxing
Thirsty Thursday look even more appealing.
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T’other day,
a tablemate wistfully wished for a lobster tail,
so I said,
“Once upon a time,
there was this pretty little lobster. . .
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Truth and Falsehood
About Legendary
Emelia Earhart
By Tom Morrow, Mature Life Features
Fables have had time to become confused with facts surrounding the life and loss of Amelia Earhart. So many myths surround the career of the famed flyer that the truth has become hidden in historical rewrites of her deeds leading up to her 1937 disappearance.
We know that she was born July 24, 1887, in Atchison, Kansas, where she apparently developed a passion for adventure at a young age and learned to fly.
In 1928, Earhart become the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane. She achieved celebrity status even though she wasn’t the pilot. She kept a log of the 20-hour-and-40-minute flight while a pilot and co-pilot handled the controls. Then, just four years later, Earhart piloted a Lockheed Vega 5B from Newfoundland to Ireland to become the first woman to make a solo non-stop transatlantic flight.
She set several other records, wrote best-selling books about her experiences, and was instrumental in forming The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. It was during an attempt to fly around the world in 1937 in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra that she and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared on July 2 Near Howland Island in the central Pacific Ocean.
In between all this, facts stumble over fiction.
Various theories, many of them flights of fancy, have been offered as to how she and her navigator disappeared without a trace. One of the most controversial stories about Earhart’s disappearance is the so-called survival theory. This version has her surviving World War II in Japanese custody and then somehow being repatriated back to the United States in 1945.
The idea that Earhart and Noonan were captured by the Japanese shortly after crash –landing in Saipan was chronicled in “Daughter of the Sky,” an Earhart biography by Paul Briand Jr. published in 1960. This prompted CBS newsman Fred Goerner to travel to Saipan four times to interview numerous native “eyewitnesses” and write his bestselling “The Search for Amelia Earhart” in 1966.
According to Goerner’s theory, Earhart made a forced landing on or near the Japanese-held Marshall Islands in the central Pacific. There reportedly is considerable evidence indicating the two might have been held as Japanese prisoners on Saipan in the Marianas Islands. In Donald M. Wilson’s “Lost Legend” (1993) as well as “With Our Own Eyes: Eyewitnesses to the Final Days of Amelia Earhart” by Mike Campbell (2002), other eye-witness accounts have been recorded.
However, no hard evidence exists to support any Earhart survival theory. Specifically, no evidence has been found that supports the idea that Earhart ever left Saipan, either documented or anecdotal. Earhart’s so-called “eye-witnessed” presence on Saipan remains a major area of contention. Some claim simply that Earhart and Noonan died at the hands of the Japanese and their bodies were buried secretly.
Still, post-war survival rumors continue. There was a bizarre story about her living in the Japanese Emperor’s Palace in Tokyo as Hirohito’s mistress. This story, combined with the theory of a government conspiracy to “repatriate” Amelia Earhart would have to have been an extremely secret matter.
Other questions survive. How could Amelia never connect with her family, especially her mother with whom she was extremely close? How could she never contact her sister Muriel, with whom she also was very close? Her secretary, Margot de Carie, said Amelia “would swim across the ocean to her home and family if she were alive.”
Contrary to popular belief, Amelia’s marriage to publisher George Putnam was not just a marriage of convenience. While their husband-and-wife business team was unusual for the time, the myth has been discredited in “Whistled Like a Bird,” (1997) by Sally Putnam Chapman (1997), Putnam’s granddaughter. She provides numerous letters and diary entries from Amelia and George that show the couple had a normal and loving marriage.
Have Some Doggone Fun . . .
. . .bring your cuddly canine down to the lobby this afternoon
to romp with therapy dogs and
parade with pooch pals from the local fire department as well.
Check your monthly calendar for the time.
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If The Invisible Man . . .
. . . has a medical problem,
can he find a doctor
who’ll see him.
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An Attorney’s
View
of Lawyers
Submitted by a Resident
As an attorney, I hesitated to forward this as it can be considered to be an indictment against my profession. But I believe there is much truth to the article below. Very thought provoking. Lawyers are adversarial and are trained to try to win at all costs. It may work in litigation but does not work well when governing our nation. Trying to win at any costs creates the polarization and hatred that now fills our country and leaves no room for common sense or legitimate debate.
Every Democrat presidential nominee since 1984 went to law school, although Gore did not graduate. Joe Biden (no surprise) was at the bottom of his class. Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Barack Obama was a lawyer. Michelle Obama was a lawyer. Hillary Clinton was a lawyer. Bill Clinton was a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards was a lawyer. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is a lawyer. Former Senator Harry Reid was a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Trump was a businessman. Presidents Bush 1 and 2 were businessmen. Vice President Cheney was a businessman. President Eisenhower was a 5 star General. The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. Ex-House Minority Leader John Boehner was a plastics manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against actor Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers. This is very interesting. I had never thought about it this way before.
The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Trump, Bush, and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich. The Lawyers Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so, in the eyes of the Lawyers Party, we have seen the procession of official enemies grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, which, in this case should be the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side. Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation.
When politicians, as lawyers, begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws. We are contorted by judicial decisions. We are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
The United States has 5% of the world’s population and 66% of the world’s lawyers! Tort or legal reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association go to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high.
Falling . . .
. . . isn’t the problem.
It’s what happens when you stop.
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The Man Who Flew Into History
By Tom Morrow, Mature Life Features
An argument could be made that the biggest load of World War II landed on shoulders of 30-year-old U.S. Army Air Corps’ Col. Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. He commanded and trained an entire bomb group before personally piloting the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb Aug. 6, 1945, on Japan.
After flying 43 combat missions over Europe, he returned to the United States in February 1943 to help with the problem-ridden development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber. In September 1944, he was named commander of the 509th Composite Group, which a year later would drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tibbets was selected for these duties because he was recognized as the best flier in the Army Air Corps.
The 509th was a self-contained unit comprising 1,700 men and 15 B-29s with a high priority for unlimited military supplies. Tibbets chose Wendover on the Utah-Nevada border for his base because of its remoteness. In January 1945, Tibbets moved his wife and family with him to Wendover because he felt that allowing married men to be accompanied by their families would improve morale.
While he had been briefed briefly on the Manhattan Project, which was designing the bomb that his crews would carry to Japan, not even he knew the full scope of their mission. Hundreds of runs were made over the Mohave Desert and Salton Sea in Southern California dropping replicas of the nuclear bombs credited with ending World War II.
To explain the presence of all the highly-technical civilian engineers who were working on the highly secret project, he had to lie to his wife, telling her they were “sanitary workers.” It worked because Tibbets discovered that his wife had recruited a scientist to unplug a drain in their apartment.
Tibbets named his bomber “Enola Gay” after his mother while it was still on the assembly line at the Martin plant in Bellevue, Nebraska, just south of Omaha. At 2:45 a.m. Monday, Aug 6, 1945, the Enola Gay lifted off from Tinian, the Mariana Island just 1,500 miles from Japan for the six-hour run to Hiroshima. With Tibbets at the controls, the 10,000-pound Little Boy was dropped at 8:15 a.m. After a second atomic bomb was dropped two days later on Nagasaki, Japan surrendered.
Tibbets was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and celebrated as a national hero back home. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1959. “I’m proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did … I sleep clearly every night.” He went on to say, “I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing. We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.”
A Hollywood film, “Above and Beyond” starring Robert Taylor, was made in 1952 about Tibbets leadership in the development of the 509th Bomb Group in Utah and on Tinian.
He died Nov. 1, 2007, in Columbus, Ohio, and his ashes were scattered over the English Channel, which he had flown across so many times on bombing raids over Europe during World War II. He opted for that instead of a military grave or headstone because he was as concerned such a memorial might become ground zero for anti-nuclear weapons protests, anti-war protesters, or any other kind of revisionist historian looking to make a stand against what he saw as the right history.
It’s Been Said . . .
. . . about what I’m about to say
so I won’t bother repeating it.
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On a Mission to Sip and
Savor California Wines
SAN LUIS OBISPO — The “real California,” that land of myth and movies, does exist.
You’ll find it along the section of the California mission trail that connects Mission San Juan Bautista outside Salinas to the mission for which this city is named, mid-way between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
We started along the River Road that parallels the Salinas River and Highway 101 as far south as Mission Soledad. This quiet out-of-the-way mission was the 13th the Franciscan friars established in the chain that forms the spine of the Golden State. It sits on a site that was served by native-built redwood aqueducts from hot springs a few miles away on the flanks of the Coastal Range.
Within a couple of hours’ drive-time north of “Obispo” are several other missions — Carmel, Santa Cruz, San Juan Bautista, San Miguel, and San Antonio. The last is the next one down the road from Soledad. San Antonio, founded third after San Diego and Carmel, is on the Hunter Ligget Military Reservation, the only one on a military base. Besides providing settlement centers, the 21 California missions served as military complexes and were built roughly a day’s horse-ride apart.
Its southern neighbor is San Miguel that was established in 1797. It’s the 16th mission to be strung along El Camino Real (The King’s Highway). Window panes were made of stretched sheepskin as a substitute for hard-to-get glass.
We next ducked into Paso Robles, one of the best-kept secrets on this out-of-the-mainstream tourist trail. It anchors a rolling Tuscany-lookalike landscape that supports some 70 wineries.
Before taking the 30-minute drive to San Luis Obispo, we spent a couple of days in Paso Robles to soak in its restfulness and romance while stopping by several wineries for savory sampling. When we finally rolled up to Mission San Luis Obispo, we were welcomed by chants of Sunday Mass coming from the church as we strolled along the creek walk that proclaims the present and past of this historic town.
I Keep Hearing . . .
. . . that we learn
from the mistakes of others,
but the problem is
I’m always in the “others” category.
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Future of Telemedicine is Now
Getting cured in cyberspace sounds like science fiction but it’s already here. Telemedicine – the practice of getting diagnosis and treatment via your laptop or cell phone – has been gaining traction rapidly as the way to monitor and maintain your health.
Accelerating this drive to remote medical servicing is the unavailability of health care in rural (and some urban) areas because of the diminishing supply of doctors as the over-65 crowd grows at the rate of 10,000 people a day.
As it stands, one out of five residents live in areas that have been identified as being short of health-care professionals. The advantage of being able to contact a doctor remotely was accentuated during the COVID-19 pandemic when people were confined to quarters.
Telemedicine opens the door to specialists as well as second medical opinions without taking up too much consulting time by the health experts contacted. It also reduces the stress on the patient as well as eliminating the need to travel to an appointment, which requires the patient to find a driver in many cases.
Seniors fretting about their lack of computer equipment or skills find a telephone conversation may work as well. Medicare has expanded its coverage to include medical treatment by phone or computer.
While not all health-insurance companies are following suit, several recognize telemedicine helps reduce the cost of health care. For example, it allows primary-care physicians to schedule appointments at any time and not just the traditional “office hours” and reduces unnecessary office and emergency-room visits. It also lowers the cost of patient no-shows.
A barrier in the way of expanding telemedicine is the reimbursement rules that require treatment to be conducted in specific sites, such as the doctor’s office or a health center to qualify. Government licensing laws also get in the way.
Federal law requires telemedicine health-care providers to be fully licensed to practice medicine in the state where the patient is physically located. Providers in health systems that have locations in more than one state may need to apply for and pay to maintain multiple licenses. Current interstate licensing laws vary across states.
Most Folks Believe . . .
. . . it’s a good thing that
we have two parts to our brain,
but on the left side, there’s nothing right, and
on the right side, there’s nothing left.
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Emergencies Call for
Financial Hand-off Plan
You’re enjoying your vacation in your favorite village across the sea when you crash into a truck and you and your spouse are rushed to the nearest hospital with injuries that require weeks of treatment.
Who’s going to handle your financial affairs while you’re both bed-ridden in a foreign land?
Just thinking about all the things you have to do could kill you. You have to deal with local authorities after the crash, have the medical team caring for you contact your doctors back home, decide whether to have surgery where you are or try to get back home to have it done, re-arrange your return-ticket and travel arrangements, and make sure bills are paid back home if your medical treatment requires you to stay abroad longer than anticipated.
This is just one example of an unanticipated emergency that can mangle your life fiscally as well as physically.
To prepare for such events, you might consider having someone – usually a family member — to be ready to step in and take over your finances.
It doesn’t have to be permanent, but you should put together a financial plan that can be handed-off quickly when a disaster dumps on you.
Start by simplifying your finances.
Cut down the number and types of banking and credit-union accounts you have. If you have Social Security, retirement-fund, pension and any other payments being made automatically, have them consolidated into one account. Whoever has to stand in for you financially during an emergency will have no idea how you transfer funds from one account to another.
Eliminate electronic payments. Keep your papers bills and statements coming in by mail. This assures anyone picking up your money management will see all your bills.
This applies especially to credit cards. You might also cut down on the number of cards. Two or three are enough. Make a list of all accounts, credit cards and store cards you have.
List all recurring payments — utilities, internet service provider, rent or mortgage, medical and auto insurance, and so on. Also list any other sources of income,
Make copies of your driver’s license, Medicare and medical supplement cards to attach to that list. This will help your helpers identify themselves as your proxy. Keep this list in a spot handy enough so your agent can get at it quickly.
Don’t dump this job on someone who doesn’t want it. If all your family members don’t want or can’t handle such matters, you might consider hiring an attorney to handle your money matters when the unexpected blind-sides you.
If You Haven’t Heard . . .
. . . Wednesday’s the day for it —
get your hearing and hearing aids checked
at 3 p.m.
in the 2nd-floor multi-purpose room.
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People Don’t Cure Loneliness, You Do
You don’t have to live alone to be lonely.
Senior citizens homes are crammed with lonely people. And there are hordes of people living alone who are not lonely. They enjoy the time they have to themselves and the freedom to do what they want to do whenever they want to do it and for as long as they like.
The starkness of lonely living ambushes many people after a loved one dies.
Walking into an empty house after all the final arrangement have been made can be devastating..
In some ways, residents of a senior-living complex can help because many of them have been through what the grieving person is going through. Instead of torrents of sympathy, the residents offer empathy and, in some cases, sage advice to help the bereaved breathe through the crisis.
There is a difference between missing a loved one and being lonely. Thinking about how great a person he or she was means you miss them. Remembering how and longing for sharing matters and moments with them indicates you’re lonely.
Everyone has or will experience loneliness at some time during their lives. Some folks, research has revealed, are born with loneliness in their genes. Giving in to it can damage your life. It can deepen dementia and depression, bring on physical disabilities, and shorten your life.
Friends, pets, exercise, and travel tours are cited among the curbs against loneliness. Keeping a journal reportedly helps divert loneliness. It allows you to get to know and like yourself and alleviates the stress of fighting off loneliness. Interacting with other people helps – coffee sessions with friends, joining hobby groups and volunteering your time with an organization you support are a few ways.
It turns out caregivers can experience severe loneliness as they’re world shrinks down to the individuals they’re caring for. They’re atop the list of folks who need to find time to devote to something they enjoy to fend off loneliness. If you’re a caregiver, you should do something you like to do, even if you have to do it yourself.
Take a weekend to visit the grandkids, visit your favorite restaurant, buy a bicycle and pedal around the neighborhood and get to know your neighbors, slip in a warm soothing bath, or learn to play the saxophone.
Another Groundbreaking Day . . .
. . . with the first
Twofer Tuesday
in the history of Verena at Gilbert
beginning at 3 p.m.
in the Bistro.
Seeya there ! ! !
The Cost of Living . . .
. . . keeps on increasing,
but it’s still high on everyone’s list.
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Aging Politicians
Ignore Aging Population
While there have been loud voices bemoaning the fact that we’re not paying enough attention to climate change, there isn’t even a whimper about what’s happening to our population change.
It’s paradoxical that the greying heads in government are paying little attention to the graying of their constituents.
The voters’ rolls are adding 10,000 over-65ers every day. You’d think that all those silver-haired politicians would be looking hard at how to accommodate the needs of folks who are growing old just as they are. Even the aging talking heads on television seem ignorant of what’s concerning a growing segment of their viewers.
The apparent reasoning for this blindness to a massive problem is the mantra that 70 is the new 50. And the spreading myth that age is simply a state of mind. Several studies topple this trend in thinking by supporting what we’ve always known – ailing and aching increase as you get older.
No matter how Pollyannaish we may feel, our odds of falling victim to such widespread debilitations as Alzheimer’s disease increase the longer we live.
As the aging population grows, the birth-rate is diminishing as women are having fewer children.
While health-care is high on the list of promises by those seeking votes, the focus usually is on the young who have inadequate coverage rather than the elderly who cannot care for themselves.
Another major concern is the strength and stability of Social Security. Predictors tell us there will be about two workers supporting each recipient by the early 2030s. This was not in any forecasts when there were more than 45 workers for each recipient of benefits when the program was instituted back in the 1930s.
Meanwhile, aging and aged politicians seeking election and re-election to Congress and Senate in Washington, DC, suggest it might be a good idea to push back the age for receiving Social Security benefits that seniors have paid into all their working lives.
A sign of the widening awareness that aging has its problems, not only for the aging but for those around them who care, are recent reports that three-quarters of respondents to a survey indicated doctors should be allowed to help a patient die peacefully and painlessly if there is no possible cure.
Medically assisted deaths are legal in 10 states — Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Calfornia and Hawaii.
Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program adopted in 2016 was aimed at individuals with terminal illness. It was changed in 2021 to include anyone with a serious or chronic condition that isn’t life-threatening.
Mature Life Features 