Color me stunned...

When You're Young

2008-08-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

I think this is one of my favorite exchanges between the older folks on our trip, Isabelle, Bill & Ella, also know in our group as "The Wrinklies".

Age is something that has always fascinated me. So to hear them discuss their views on aging, and to hear them speak of them having a generation to look up too, amazes me.

And before I am chided for calling them "The Wrinklies", you have to understand it is said with the greatest amount of affection. I easily spent 2 to 3 hours a day with them, and not out of obligation or duty.

No way, it was to gather all this fantastic material.

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You Have Won

2008-08-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

Isabelle, my mother-in-law, has always been an easy mark for tele-marketers, door-to-door salesmen, and charities asking for money. On our last trip over to Scotland, we found that she had subcribed to the Reader's Digest book of the month club. We discovered her secret when a red "pleather" bound book titled Great Expectations in gold leaf arrived on her doorstep. She was busted.

The conversation went something like this...

Isabelle: I am in a book club.

Stew (my husband, her son): When do you meet?

I: We don't meet. It's not that kind of a book club. They just send me books and I just pay for them.

S: Well Mum, have you read any of them?

I: No, I just thought they would be nice to hand down to the grandchildren someday.

S: Mum, this is crazy, to buy books that you are not going to read...you have to cancel this.

I: Can you call them? I don't want them to be mad at me.

Evidently something has changed in her life. She is a sucker no more.

The line that is especially telling to us..."When I get these now, I tear them up and don't even read them." Now being the operative word.

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When It's Your Family

2008-08-12T02:54:00.000-07:00

you will do anything for them.

Another Isabelle story, told about my husband, age six, and his younger sisters ages 4 and 2. He didn't have a dad growing up, in fact was the only kid in his primary school to have divorced parents. Eventhough his dad left his family, Belle still moved heaven and earth to make sure that his parents, Papa and Nanna, saw their grandchildren...even if that meant travelling hours by bus to a small town.

Here ya go...

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WWII P.O.W.

2008-08-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

On our last trip, I spent a lot of time recording my mother-in-law, Isabelle. She usually has a good story to tell. Oftentimes the stories were told while drinking tea and having a snack...that's where the rattle of plates or clinking of cutlery come in.

Side note - The other folks that participated in the talks were Ella, age 87 and Bill, her husband, age 91. Isabelle will be 78 on her next birthday.

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Blue Nevus

2008-08-09T04:59:00.000-07:00

Well folks...here is my first dip into the musical pond. The lesson being, if August "suggests" that you make something incorporating the soundscape of your recent trip to Europe, using your various recordings made along the way...well you do it.

At least I did.

Please be kind.

(August is also #1 good sport in my book too. Thanks for the encouragement friend.)

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Gun Safety

2008-08-09T04:48:00.000-07:00

Just to preface this audio clip. Sometimes, when Stan and I chat, I record. I never know the interesting things he will bring up, or the stories he will tell. I found this when I was going thru some past recordings.

The back story is that Stan loves to play with airsoft guns (basically glorified BB guns, that shoot plastic BB's). Oftentimes, we take him and his friends up to the mountains to shoot each other (eye protection is always required). It just so happened that one night they were around the neighborhood, and a driver called the police department saying there were boys running around with guns. They sent over Sgt. Jill Otaviano, to give the boys a lecture and give 'em a wee scare. Not only is she a police officer, she is also a board member for the non-profit organization that I work for. That's the thing about Alameda...it's a city of 70,000, but most people seem to cross paths, eventually. At the time, she didn't know she was talking to my son, but I contacted her later, to thank her and to let her know that Stan took what she said to heart. With that being said...here goes nothing...there are things I find so funny about our interaction here...

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