Category Archives: Confessional

A (Hopeful) Thumbs-Up for Voltaren

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

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BY BOB SMITH

We’ve had a number of “physical decay” entries in this blog during the past couple of weeks. Not to pile on, but here’s my story:

For the past week, at least three times every day, I’ve taken a couple of grams of a white drug that you lay down in a line on a card. Yeah, you guessed it: I’m doing VOLTAREN.voltaren Although it sounds like the name of a Star Trek villain from the planet Org, it’s innocuous, perfectly legal, and no fun at all. It’s a topical gel whose active ingredient is diclofenac sodium, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug used to treat sore or inflamed joints and muscles. You rub it into the affected area (the tendons that attach my left thumb to my hand), and it’s supposed to seep in there, and relieve the pain.

This sounds suspiciously like ASPERCREME, or BEN GAY, or any of a dozen other old-fashioned liniments and ointments our grandparents used to use. I distinctly recall, years ago, seeing Maria’s grandmother diligently rubbing ASPERCREME into her gnarled, arthritis-ridden fingers, day after day, and thinking it was a total waste of her time and money. Well, the laugh – and the goopy gel of dubious therapeutic value – is now on me.

The weird thing is, I have no idea how I got tendonitis in the first place. My doctor says it’s common among gamers and others, like compulsive smart-phone users, who constantly repeat, for hours every day, sweeping, scrolling, and clicking motions with that thumb. That’s not me. Somehow, I got the pain without the hours of pleasure of putting Angry Birds through their paces or rapid-firing virtual automatic weapons at endless hordes of baddies.

Worse yet, I don’t even think the gel is working. It takes quite a bit of rubbing and massaging to get it to soak in, and when I’m done I imagine for a few brief moments that the pain seems to fade. But wouldn’t I get that effect from six minutes of massage with regular old hand lotion?

Let’s consider my options if this goop doesn’t do it: There’s acupuncture if I want to go the age-old-but-pooh-pooh’ed-by-modern-medicine approach, or the reportedly instant gratification awaiting me if I let them inject cortisone into the joint. They say the only thing that hurts after a cortisone shot is the spot where they poked you with the needle (and your bank account if it’s not covered), but there’s also the rumor that once you go down the cortisone road, there’s no turning back.

Let’s hope the mighty VOLTAREN does the job. Because if that glorified ASPERCREME doesn’t cut it, my choices are a bunch of little needles that might or might not work, or one bigger needle that almost surely will work but may doom me to a life of ever-less-effective injections. Do I want to be a human pincushion, or just another cortisone junkie?

And they say getting old isn’t any fun. Gotta go now – time to do another two-gram line.

My Letter to You, My Grandson, On the Day You Were Born

11 Tuesday Feb 2014

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BY FRANK TERRANELLA

You are just a few hours old as I write this. You surprised us by arriving three weeks early, but that’s just like your father. He came early too. I guess you were anxious to explore the world that you could only hear for months from the dark place where you were.

Well, as you will see, it’s a mixed bag of a world. On the one hand, you have been born into a nation full of guns, drugs and greed. But on the other hand, your nation is full of very good people, who fight every day to solve its problems. Perhaps by the time you reach my age, in 2075, the good people will have succeeded in righting some of the wrongs.Frank Pat Baby

You will grow up in a world very different from the one I grew up in. I was in college before I touched a computer keyboard. You will be using a computer before you can walk. I grew up in a world where television consisted of seven channels. You will grow up in a world with hundreds of television choices, and the ability to watch what you want, when you want. I grew up with news coming primarily from newspapers. Your generation will see news on paper as archaic as papyrus scrolls.

Frank SonBut some things will probably not change. For all of its history, mankind has had an affinity for war. I think it’s inbred in the species. I just hope that your generation can avoid the nuclear war that has been the world’s greatest fear since I was your age. I also fear that prejudice will remain with us. I know that your parents will teach you to treat everyone with respect, no matter what they look like. So I know you will never hate anyone just because they are different from you.

I hope that you live long enough to see grandchildren and great grandchildren. The joy of new life is so invigorating. I hope that just before you turn 87, you remember me as you raise a glass to toast the year 2100. I can’t imagine what the world will be like then, but I’m fairly sure that everything I write now will still exist in some database then. It’s a tiny bit of immortality for all writers like me.Frank Grandson

I hope that we will have solved the global warming problem by then. Perhaps we will have abandoned fossil fuels, and harnessed solar or wind power, and made it practical.

Perhaps you will have computers implanted into your brains. I hope that cancer will be extinct as you enter the 22nd century.

But more than anything else, I hope that you will have had a life you can be proud of. I hope that you will always remember that the greatest joy comes from what you do for others. I hope that you will be a man for others – what our Jewish friends call a “mensch.” I hope that you will not be afraid to love, and to express it freely and often. And most of all, I wish you joy every day of your life. God bless you, Bryce David. Have a great life!

With lots of love (and tears in my eyes),

Your grandfather, Frank

My Birthday: Historically, Not a Fair-Weather Friend

10 Monday Feb 2014

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MARGO SNOW BIRTHDAY

It’s February. It’s my birthday. It’s snowy.

BY MARGO D. BELLER

February 10 was the coldest day of winter in 1957. My mother told me, many years after the fact, that she was glad to be giving birth to me, her first child, in the warmth of a Brooklyn hospital rather than in the new house she and Dad had just moved into.

While she and I were in the hospital, and my father was either visiting or at work, the house was robbed. Not exactly an auspicious start to my existence, although the robbery was an excuse for my father to buy our first dog, who grew up with me.

My mother was from western Canada and had been working in public health in Jamestown, New York. So she wasn’t exactly a stranger to many feet of snow, and intense cold. Brooklyn must have seemed like paradise.

In 1969, my birthday coincided with a nor’easter. I remember coming out of the elementary school, across the street from my home, and being unable to get over the snow piles. I remember the wind and the blinding snow. I don’t remember being as scared as I would be now.

Suddenly, my mother appeared, grabbed me and got us home. She said my sister had seen me from her bedroom window.

I never questioned that story. My mother knew everything, and so if that’s what happened, it happened.

Many years after she died, not much older than I am today, I wondered about that storm and about the day I was born. My husband, whose many hobbies include collecting weather records, confirmed that, indeed, February 10, 1957, was the coldest day of that season.

As for the 1969 storm, his compact disc of New York Times front pages reminded me that was the one people of a certain age will forever link with Mayor John Lindsay. The city was crippled, and it took weeks to plow out Brooklyn and the rest of the boroughs – bringing the city’s wrath upon Lindsay, who had just started a new term.

Another inauspicious moment: On my birthday in 1978, MH, then my boyfriend, and I enjoyed being off from college classes because the over-two-feet of snow that fell two days before was still blocking roads. We were on our own when it came to meals. It was a fun time for us.

Now, decades later, it’s not so much fun. Property owners, we’re out there shoveling our walks, begging our plow guy to clear the driveway (and paying for the privilege), and doing the penguin shuffle trying to walk anywhere outside the house. We’re more concerned about falling on ice, and not being able to get back up. We’re scared of broken bones, and going to the hospital.

We’re dreaming of February. In Bora Bora.

Well, on this birthday, I’ve given myself the gift of taking it easy. I have taken the day off, filled the feeders, and brought the birds to me instead of seeking them out in the cold. It’s a good day.

Revisiting Shirley Temple, and a Collective Innocence

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

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BY JULIE SEYLER

Between the ages of 7 and 9, I was a Shirley Temple fiend. Come Sunday morning, I could count on curling up in front of the 14″ black and white TV to watch Shirley sing, dance and cry on cue. I knew all of her movies by heart. This was no feat, since they basically followed the same formula. Shirley is either an orphan, or becomes an orphan and is rescued from despair due to her adorable precociousness. I outgrew Shirley, and she outgrew acting and became a United States ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia (when that country still existed).

But the other night I returned to my childhood because TCM was broadcasting “Bright Eyes,” made 80 years ago, in 1934. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was again captivated by Shirley’s charm as she belts out “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” for a bunch of pilots that look like they’re about 40 (but are probably only 20), as a plane taxis back and forth on the runway. The plot in “Bright Eyes” follows the predicable trajectory:

When the movie starts, Shirley’s father, a pilot, is already dead. She understands he “cracked up.” Her mother has found work as a maid with a mean, rich family with a bratty little daughter. On Shirley’s birthday, her mother is run over by a car, and Shirley learns that her mother has “cracked up” also. Of course, the mean rich family wants to turn poor Shirley out on the street, and of course that doesn’t happen. If you want to know how it ends, download the movie, because what really hooked me into watching it all the way through were the little details that highlighted the innocence of 1934.

The movie opens with Shirley hitchhiking to the airport. Yes, there she is sticking out her 5-year-old thumb to get a ride. That scene is so out of whack today, not just because hitchhiking is passé, but because she is without any adult supervision. Just think about a time and place when we felt so safe that the motion picture industry could depict a working mother allowing her daughter to hitch a ride without any fear that it would be accused of promoting parental neglect.

When she arrives at the airport, she marches right onto the runway. No one bats an eye as this tot plants herself on the tarmac to watch pilots do loops in the sky. Would any pilot do a loop-de-loop in the sky today?

Later, when she decides to run away from the mean family, she climbs into the cargo hatch of the plane, and hangs out as the plane soars through the worst storm ever. No one was guarding the gate with orders to remove her shoes, and walk through a metal detector or body scanner. Those devices, invented to protect us from plane bombs and hijackings, were non-existent in those long ago days because the biggest fear in flying was a crack-up, not the notion that someone would want to blow up a plane.

But there was one thing in the movie that was familiar.The featured mode of transportation was an American Airlines plane. Somehow or other, with all the craziness in the airline industry American Airlines, unlike Pan Am and TWA, has managed to stay in the business of transporting passengers and freight through the air since 1934.

Memories of Super Bowl XX: We Scored Big

03 Monday Feb 2014

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Frank with baby

David was born on the Monday after Super Bowl XX, 1986.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

There is no more compelling demonstration of the circle of life than the coming of a new baby. If all goes well, my family will add a new member next month. And as my son and daughter-in-law prepare for the miracle that is childbirth, I am inevitably drawn back to January 26, 1986, the day before my son was born.

It was a Sunday, but not just any Sunday. It was Super Bowl Sunday. Super Bowl XX to be precise. Mike Ditka and the Chicago Bears defeated the New England Patriots by the score of 46–10 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Quarterback Jim McMahon and running back Walter Payton led a team that featured a rookie lineman named William “Refrigerator” Perry.

Pat with babyThat morning of Super Bowl Sunday, my wife Pat began to feel labor pains. We were living in Clifton, New Jersey at the time, having just moved there four months before from Bergen County. That is why our obstetrician was in Englewood, nearly 20 miles away. To make matters worse, the forecast was for snow that evening. Pat called her doctor who said to wait a few hours and then come into Englewood Hospital. Rather than just sit home and wait, I proposed that we should both go to my office in Englewood Cliffs, and she could wait there while I tied up some loose ends to ease my being away from the office for a few days. The beauty of that was that if my wife’s labor progressed more rapidly than the doctor thought, we would be only 10 minutes away from the hospital.

Finally, we got to the hospital around game time as light snow began to fall. The hospital staff was ready for us. But we found out that our child was not yet ready to be born. Labor continued through the evening and long after the Super Bowl celebrations were over. Midnight came and went, and Pat proposed that we go home and come back tomorrow. The nurses smiled knowingly, and turned up the IV drip to try to move things along. Three a.m. came and went, and then the sun rose on the two of us – both looking as miserable as we felt. There were now whispers of C-section among the nurses, but the doctor who came in at 7 a.m., looking fresh as a daisy, felt that we should give natural childbirth just a few more hours.

And so the hours dragged on. By 9 a.m., there was still nothing imminent, and Pat had now been in labor for more than 24 hours. At one point that morning, she looked at me with a face that combined pain with frustration. I smiled because it reminded me of an old Bill Cosby routine where the suffering wife sits up during labor and yells at her husband, “You did this to me!!”

The clock passed 10 a.m., and by now it seemed like every other woman in the maternity corridor had already given birth. The doctor came in and upped the drugs again, and as the clock hit noon, there was finally some real action. Pat was rushed to the delivery room, and I donned my scrubs and mask to accompany her. David arrived at 12:32 p.m.. The nurse asked whether I wanted to cut the umbilical cord, and I politely declined.

After an all-night vigil, I was punchy, and feared I would harm the child. So the doctor did the honors, and soon afterward the nurse handed me my son. I was shaking as I held him, and tears flowed freely. Meanwhile, Pat had made a remarkable recovery. She was smiling, and the entire labor experience was just a distant memory. I swear that Mother Nature does this to trick women into having more children.

As I look back at the birth of my son, I can only marvel that my child will soon be at his wife’s side as I was, and my child will soon experience the complete joy of meeting his son for the first time. It’s the circle of life, and isn’t it grand.

Reflections, and the Glory of Skating on Ice

31 Friday Jan 2014

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BY PAT SCHMIEDEL

Last Sunday, I woke up to the thick scrape and grind of metal on ice. The lake behind my house is frozen. It must be really cold out. They’re ice skating! These thoughts tumbled over each other in a rush of childish joy – the kind that makes you bound out of bed, and land at the window without touching the ground. Hapless shrieks of distress, tangled with the ecstatic barking of a terrier too small for such a racket. The timeless beauty of crystalline white, so sharp as to be blinding, filled me with the awe of how sweet cruel winter can be.

I watched the skaters, transfixed. Unsummoned, winter moments long-past beamed across my mind, overtaking the figure 8s below. There was nothing unique about those days. Yet, on this ever-lengthening right side of 50, with a nod to Wilder, the mundaneness makes it all the more special.

I inhale the cold smell of winter radiating off dad’s gray jacket. I see clearly his sparkling green eyes; red cheeks. And I distinctly hear his voice grow muffled as he rummages, down in the utility room, through an admirable collection of skates.

Bundled up like sausage, out into the numbing cold, Mom’s homemade hot chocolate in hand, dad forces our laces into ankle supports, skates backwards so that we can skate forward, exhales life back into frozen fingers, smiles so broadly that all of life exists just to glide free, effortlessly, unfettered by pits in the road, without gravity or impediments to slow you down.

Having cursed plenty of icy days, and secretly rejoicing the year my own kids outgrew leaping out of bed to go ice skating, I can now enjoy from inside the comfort of my bedroom, the wonders of those glorious winter days.

Shingles: A Pain in the Back

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

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BY KENNETH KUNZ

During my annual physical a couple of years back, my primary care provider (once known as family doctor), asked me if I had ever had chicken pox. I confidently responded that I had not. Indeed, for my entire adult life, for fear of contracting the condition, I had stayed away from children with chicken pox, those possibly about to get chicken pox, and any young person just getting over chicken pox. Doc chuckled rather condescendingly, and said that many of his patients insisted that they, too, had never had chicken pox. Yet, upon testing, were almost always proved wrong. He ordered the appropriate blood test for me to convince me I was mistaken as well.

On a follow up visit soon after, he reviewed the test results, and sure enough I was correct! I would have remembered the scars I told him, in a most non-condescending tone. He shook his head, smiled and actually apologized for doubting me. But now we had to get me a chicken pox vaccination posthaste because adults who had had chicken pox in their youth are prone to contracting shingles. He wrote me a script to get vaccinated.

After enduring a few months of dealing with a bit of a rigmarole involving matters such as who covered what, and when a supply could be ordered, I ended up back where I started at my PCP’s office, and he ordered the special serum. In two separate sessions, I was vaccinated, then boostered. I felt great – comforted knowing that now I wouldn’t have to worry about shingles (which I had always heard could be quite painful). I also always thought it was one of the goofier sounding conditions one had to admit going through.

I have had intermittent lower back (lumbar) pain since my twenties due to more things than I can remember. I imagine most of us can make that claim. I have often said that as soon as Homo sapiens finally stood erect, the entire species began having back pain of some sort (another story perhaps). At any rate, shortly after the vaccination episode, I started experiencing a bit more back pain than usual, and went through my normal protocol for relief – extra doses of Advil, some pain relief cream, stretching, et al. Nothing worked.

And then … I started itching and burning. Like sunburn. Then a rash developed. Then the self-diagnosis (with the help of Google, WebMD and a host of other sites), that I had contracted shingles. What? But I thought …

Never mind. Went back to the PCP, and sure enough, within about one second of examination, it was confirmed I had the suckers. Relatively mild case, but more severe pain than I had ever experienced next to kidney stones (still another story). Went through the prescribed treatment, and within two weeks all was fine. By the way, no one could really explain why I got shingles after being vaccinated against chicken pox. I personally feel the stupid vaccination made my body believe I actually had chicken pox, so why not let me fall prey to shingles as the natural follow-up?

A few months ago, my most recent visit to my PCP has him telling me I am now old enough to get the shingles vaccination and he suggests I do so as soon as I can. I venture to the pharmacy, and am informed that since I had yet to turn 60 at the time, I needed a script. Back to the pcp. Now with script in hand, back to the pharmacy. They can surely help, but they have none in stock, and the insurance site is jammed so it is not sure that my policy covers the shot. Is it me? I leave – don’t feel like waiting. About a month later I go back during my lunch break, and within 15 minutes, all is good. I get the vaccination with no co-pay or any other charge.

Phew!

Except now, despite all this great preventative care, every time I get even the slightest itch in my back, guess what I’m thinking?

The Age-Old Question: What’s Next?

24 Friday Jan 2014

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What's up next?

On the precipice.

BY JULIE SEYLER

These days, I find myself peeking warily over the threshold wondering what’s up next? What unexpected change will manifest itself, and where will it happen? It might be something as benign as the plate tectonic-shift in my teeth that leaves particles of food trapped between the cuspids, or as annoying as that occasional dull ache and clicking combo in in the knees. Could it be the sign of eroding cartilage? Is a knee replacement in my future?

There are other slight affronts I notice as I take an inventory on my skin, my hair, even my strength. Nothing seems the way it used to be; the way I thought it was supposed to be. It seems the only thing I can count on is continual body metamorphosis, and probably way more quickly than ever.

Yes, yes I know I can fight it with diet and exercise, good thoughts, Botox, face lifts and serums, but eventually it will happen – I’ll be “old.” In the meantime, I am not prepared for the next onslaught of change, but it doesn’t matter because there is no escaping it. Age is all about change – unexpected, unpredictable, and too frequently, unwanted. Amidst all these “Debbie Downer” musings, I realized the word “age” is embedded in the word “chAnGE.” Obviously, the entire aging process is simply a sophisticated linguistic joke.

I Want to Slide Down Something!

23 Thursday Jan 2014

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Sleds

Poised for action. Butts needed.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

This is the winter of my dreams. I love the cold. I love the snow. But what is bringing me down faster than a good pair of Rossignols on a black diamond is that no one will play in the snow with me. My friends say they’re too old. My kids say they’re too old.

I was an avid skier for most of my life. It’s been five years, or more, since I’ve skied. Because apparently, it is not all downhill from here for most late-50 Boomers, who seem to think we’re too old to do anything but bemoan the snow. After all, it’s a slippery slope just walking out the door for us old-timers. Phooey!

While the huge group of reliable ski buddies from the past has dwindled down to practically zero due to age, illness, physical incapacitation, and even death, I have been know to beg anyone who seems somewhat game:

“We’ll ski easy (with helmets!) for an two hour or two, and then we can apres ski for the rest of the day.”

No bites.

But since I’ve recently moved within walking distance to one of the best sledding hills in New Jersey, and because I can potentially hit the hill while it’s still a virgin, I’ve decided to take the sled by the (plastic) reins and be prepared for the next snowfall.

I bought two steerable Snow Seats (good for anyone over six), and I will head out solo next snowfall if I have to. I’ve accepted that it will be without the shared adrenaline rush, the (“Did you see that!”) double wipeouts;face plants. No getting airborne side-by-side.

And when it’s all over, I guess I’ll have to learn how to drink that hot-and-spiked anything by myself, and rehash, in my mind only, how much fun I had, and the absolute joy that playing in the snow brings.

‘Pippin’ Still Does Magic the Second Time Around

20 Monday Jan 2014

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BY FRANK TERRANELLA

A nice thing about being over 50 is that you can have a second (or third) crack at experiences like great vacation spots, fabulous restaurants and exciting shows. It’s fun to compare the experiences we remember from many years ago with the after-50 experience.

I sometimes find that time has not been good to a particular resort or restaurant or that a revival of an old favorite show does not live up to expectations. Memories always tend to forget the mediocre, and magnify the good or bad. And often, it’s difficult for my over-50 self to have the same pleasurable experience I had 30 or 40 years ago. But every once in a while the restaurant, beach, or show is as good as I remember – or better.

I had that experience recently when my daughter took me to see the Broadway revival of “Pippin.” I was 19 years old back in 1972 when I saw the original production of “Pippin” with Ben Vereen and Jon Rubenstein. I remember I was home on Thanksgiving break from college, and I went into Manhattan alone and bought front mezzanine tickets for $12.

I still get chills remembering the sustained opening note in the orchestra as the curtain opened to a stage full of smoke, and Ben Vereen appeared, dressed in black, leading the cast onstage.

“Join Us” he sang. “We’ve Got Magic to Do.”

And boy, did they! Bob Fosse’s dancers were mesmerizing. Stephen Schwartz’s music was phenomenal. “Pippin” was the show that got me hooked on musicals.

Fast forward 41 years, and I now have a 26-year-old daughter. This daughter happens upon some tickets to “Pippin.” She knows that her father is crazy about the show because she was raised listening to the original cast album. She invites him to join her to see the first Broadway revival of the show.

This Broadway revival, directed by Diane Paulus, re-imagines the show. The cast is full of talented circus performers who juggle fire, tumble, perform balancing acts, and what look to be dangerous feats high above the stage. Back in 1972, Pippin was searching for meaning in his life. In 2014, he has figuratively run away and joined the circus.

Anyway, as I sat in my seat listening to the start of the show, I felt, again, the excitement I felt at 19. Oh sure, there are lots of changes. The role Ben Vereen played is now played brilliantly by a woman, Patina Miller, and the smoke is gone from the opening number. The show now begins with the curtain down. The cast peeks through the curtain at first, and beckons us with their hands to “Join Us.”

And then comes the drop-dead moment, when the curtain flies out, and the circus set is revealed. Suddenly, I had the biggest smile on my face, and tears appeared in my eyes. Here was artistry that touched my over-50 soul just as profoundly as it did when I was a teenager. There was “Magic to Do” again. But this time I was not alone. A young woman, who I had raised to love theater, was enjoying it with me. That increased the enjoyment to another level.

The rest of the show was full of great moments that brought back memories of the original production. Tovah Feldshuh, at 62, was much more animated than Irene Ryan was in 1972. And Rachel Bay Jones was a lot funnier than Jill Clayburgh was in the original cast as Pippin’s love interest. All in all, the new version equaled or topped the original production in almost every way, and that’s saying a lot.

Revisiting great experiences from our youth can be perilous for the over-50 crowd. But every once in a while, we are lucky enough to recreate the magic. And when that happens, the enjoyment seems to increase geometrically. It puts a new spin on the phrase “senior moment.” Sometimes things are better the second time around.