November 4, 2009
DOING YOUR PART

Winning cures most things in sports. If you feel bad, you feel better with a win. You’re better looking; you even smell better. People look at you and expect you to say something to help them win. And you might help. At least it can’t hurt. Keep it simple, but first you have to win.
Before a dual meet one year a local wrestler asked me when he should use his special move. He had a good fireman’s carry, sneaky, Larry Owings on Dan Gable sneaky. He was going against a seasoned guy. I told him to wear him down, crowd him, jerk him around, then hit it hard in the third and he’ll go.
Instead the kid hits it in the first thirty seconds and collapses. His opponent pushed him back and pinned him. The ref slapped the fall, the winner punched the mat. Then he jumped up to celebrate the miracle of victory like he’d won the biggest match of his life. Maybe it was, but thirty seconds?
Sometimes winning feels like a gift, the sort of gift you share, a gift others really like. The kid with the fireman’s gave a win away, but it happens. That’s the reason you see two wrestlers shaking each other down in the third period. One of them is going to steal a win, rip a win; one of them will celebrate the miracle of victory.
Miracle of victory?
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Filed under sports, wrestling
Tags: amateur wrestling, boomer generation, coaching, competition, culture, Dan Gable, essay, fireman's carry, humor, Larry Owings, miracle, Oregon, people, salto, sports, teaching, victory, winning, wrestling
November 2, 2009
WHERE IT SHOWS, WHERE IT DOESN’T

Football on television always shows the sidelines of the winners and the losers. Look closely and you see players on crutches wearing their game jerseys. Those are the guys who took a hit, turned the wrong way, or fell too hard. They’re injured. You see them and know they get the best care for the quickest return to the field.
It’s not the same for the guy limping down the sidewalk, or the woman with the thick shoe at the bus stop. They don’t have a highly motivated care team keeping them healthy; they’re going somewhere, but they’re not getting back in the game. They see the disparity between the NFL healthcare and theirs. Should they give up?
An older woman pulls her shoulders loose lifting her ill husband and gets surgery. Then she has both wrists worked on. Instead of freeing up her range of motion she learns scar tissue in her shoulders won’t let her raise her arms. Her doctor says she’ll have to live with it. Regular living is painful; exercise makes it more painful. Live with that?
Is that care? That’s what they call it.
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Filed under caregiving
Tags: aging, Alzheimer’s, baby boomer, boomer generation, cancer, caregiver, caregiver tactics, caregiving, dementia, depression, elder care, elderly, emotions, end of life, essay, family caregiver, family caregiving, fear, hospital care, life, medical options, miracle, Oregon, parent care, parents, parkinson's, primary caregiver, Sandwich Generation, stress
October 30, 2009
WHAT YOU SEE AND WHAT YOU DON’T

What You See: In a grocery store juice aisle a middle aged man hands two quarts of V-8 to an elderly woman in a wheelchair, then pushes her toward fresh vegetables. You see it often when the major Safeway and Albertson’s sit between two Over-Fifty Five communities.
What You Don’t: A son and his mom collect ingredients for an evening cocktail party with their neighbors. Next stop, liquor store. He asked her doctor if a drink would interfere with her meds. The good doctor said “moderation; and you too,” leveling his concern with a well aimed forehead.
“Watch for Tom. I think he’s pocketing celery.”
“He looks more like a carrot guy, but okay, Mom. What about William? He left a message.”
“While I was at the pool?”
“Maybe.”
“While I was at the gallery?”
“Probably.”
“What did he want?”
“He wants to hang out; spend some time with you. Seems like a nice enough man.”
“I’m not making time for a man who can’t keep up. He’s too old, son.”
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Filed under caregiving, family caregiver
Tags: aging, Baby Boomers, boomer generation, caregiver, caregiver tactics, caregiving, dementia, elder care, elderly, essay, family caregiver, family caregiving, fear, Greatest Generation, humor, parkinson's, perception, point of view, primary caregiver, Sandwich Generation
October 28, 2009
THE CO-COOKING KITCHEN

Ethnic food where I grew up meant opening a can of spaghetti-Os. The only Chinese restaurant in town sold more hamburgers than hot chicken and rice.
The cook in the family, my Dad, grew up in a logging camp eating logger food. He joined the Marines during the Korean War and came back with a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, and the Marine recipe for SOS, chipped creamed-beef on toast. He said the Marines had better food than loggers. Neither has a kitchen you want to visit on purpose.
If the path to man’s heart runs through his stomach, and an army marches on its stomach, what goes on in there? The stomach is a constant, the food varies. Why? Catch a bad meal at your girlfriend’s place, or miss a day of food, and you feel like you’ve been kicked in the gut. Take care of your stomach and it takes care of you.
On the other hand, you’ll eat most anything if you’re hungry enough, which is a good time to try new food, old food, any food. This is when you’re likely to believe that culture begins in the kitchen. You want to understand. You want to be in that kitchen. Any kitchen. Anywhere.
I was haunted by kitchens, but not anymore.
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Filed under food
Tags: Alice's Kitchen, books, cook book, cooking class, culinary, culture, dinner party, education, essay, ethnic food, learning, Lebanese cooking, Lebanese food, life, nesting, Oregon, people
October 22, 2009
NURTURING HEALTH REFORM

When you need a doctor, you need a doctor. Not a social worker or advocate when the blood flows. You’re not asking for an attendant or case manager. You want a doctor. DOCTOR? It’s not a matter of which side of the aisle you sit on. You’re still sitting in America and you need a doctor.
Right now America needs a doctor andPresident Obama is the treating physician on healthcare reform. He is in the operating room with the sedated patient. Costs rise by the second. He is checking under the hood, rattling around the rib cage, tightening here and loosening there. He feels the heart beating in his hand, and follows what the Hippocratic Oath calls for: first do no harm.
Dr. Obama will change the face of healthcare. It is more accurate to say he will restore the face of health care. Gone is the high priced, high maintanence, pumped up, juiced up face of the present system. Be ready for the school marm/librarian face.
Think of the severe looking farm wife in Grant Wood’s American Gothic face of health care instead of the always beautiful, but troubled, Kirstie Alley.
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Filed under caregiving, family caregiver, health care
Tags: boomer generation, caregiver, caregiving, Democrat, doctors, essay, family caregiver, family caregiving, Grant Wood, health care, health care reform, health insurance, Kirstie Alley, politics, Republican, Sandwich Generation, Washington D.C.
October 19, 2009
AIM FOR THE STARS
You learn more if you pay attention, but still learn if you don’t; touching a hot stove burns; jumping off a roof hurts; doing hard things right never gets any easier.
Is it hard to make a pile of money the right way? Bernie Madoff made it look easy and now expects to cruise through prison unscathed? He hasn’t even spent his first holiday season in the can, or a cycle of memorable events he won’t attend that pile up year after year until he snaps under the weight.
Winning a Super Bowl looks hard, though Tom Brady didn’t seem to notice. The guy racked up titles like he’s walking down the street. Then we see it go away after an off-balance roller snaps his knee and he’s out a year. The experts say he’s still not making it look like a walk, but he skated on Tennessee.
The big secret you forget while struggling with your hardest problems? Everyone else is doing the same thing. Just like you, they are trying to figure things out, trying to ignore distractions, keeping an eye toward the future. It takes a particular skill to do it well.
It Takes Practice.
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Filed under education, sports, wrestling
Tags: amateur wrestling, Bernie Madoff, boomer generation, college wrestling, competition, Dan Gable, essay, high school wrestling, learning, life, Olympics, Oregon wrestling, problem solving, Robin Reed, sports, Super Bowl, teachers, teaching, Tom Brady, wrestling
October 16, 2009
WHERE THE NEED IS GREATEST

The St. Louis Rams are down. How far? So far down that they need a caregiver, someone to give them a boost, a pat on the fanny when things go right, a hug when they don’t.
That’s all Rush Limbaugh wanted to do.
How do you know when you need a caregiver? When someone moves from their regular home or apartment to an assisted living facility, it means they need a little help getting around on their own. Maybe a lot of help. Any mention of the Rams moving back to Los Angeles tells you the sort of shape they are in. They need a caregiver.
Owners moving teams from town to town shouldn’t be a surprise anymore. If they could out-source their labor costs, they would, but it’s football and no one else plays it right. We don’t need to see more confused Russian shot putters on the D line.
Do owners hijack their own teams to other cities, or do cities make them an offer they can’t refuse? Either way, it has turned into Super Bowl Championships:
Kansas City gets the Dallas Texans and the Trophy.
St. Louis gets the Los Angeles Rams and a Lombardi.
Baltimore gets the Cleveland Browns and a ring.
Indianapolis gets the Baltimore Colts and a world championship.
Yet, it doesn’t always work out.
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Filed under caregiving, sports, wrestling
Tags: Al Davis, amateur wrestling, Baltimore Colts, Cael Sanderson, caregiver, caregiving, Cleveland Browns, college wrestling, competition, Eric Rhett, essay, family caregiver, Florida wrestling, high school wrestling, Indianapolis Colts, Iowa wrestling, Just Do It, Kurt Warner, Lombardi Trophy, Los Angeles Rams, NFL, Oakland Raiders, Oklahoma wrestling, people, politics, Ray Lewis, Rush Limbaugh, Sandwich Generation, sports, sports fan, St. Louis Rams, Warren Sapp
October 15, 2009
TEN SECONDS, TEN SECONDS

From the outside looking in, all caregiving stories end the same; someone runs out of time. They’re all about fighting the good fight to a dignified end. The only rule is decency.
All good sports stories end like that, too. The underdog who almost wins is always a better story than the odds-on favorite laying down the expected whupping. Remember ‘it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game?’ It was said after a late comeback that nearly won a game, along with the moral victory trophy.
The best you can hope for in caregiving and ball games is a heightened sense of enthusiasm. If you’re a caregiver, you bring the fun, the song and dance; if you’re watching a game, take it to another level. If you watch a game with your loved one, bark away until the end, even if you have an idea of how things might work out. You know the clock is against you. You know it will run out.
It’s the same story time and again, with one exception.
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Filed under caregiving, wrestling
Tags: aging, amateur wrestling, boomer generation, cancer, care, caregiver, caregiver tactics, caregiving, competition, culture, Dan Gable, depression, education, elder care, elderly, emotions, essay, family caregiver, family caregiving, fear, high school wrestling, life, memoir, miracle, Olympic wrestling, Oregon, people, perception, Sandwich Generation, sports, sports fan, story, stress, time, victory, wrestling