The Final Leap Perhaps Not So Final Now

Today the Golden Gate Bridge Authorities vote of whether or not to fund the suicide barrier. In the larger scheme of things, I understand both the pros and cons. Yet I surely hope they vote to make the decision positive which will not only prevent some of the death attempts but will provide added safety for bridge maintenance employees.
I've actually never known anyone who made the jump, although I had one client in my years as a psychotherapist who planned it, and for her it was certainly the choice death venue, and the only choice; it called out to her like a magnet.  Ive had two other clients who made serious impulsive attempts however, one from drug overdose and one from climbing the north tower of the Bay bridge. Each of these women were precious lives as far as I was concerned.  Last I heard all three are still alive and in their own ways contributing positively to their families and community. I hope I played a positive part in their recovery from depression and hopelessness. Sometimes the urge to jump is situational, a broken heart from a love affair, for instance. Sometimes it is despair, as in a financial crash. Other times it is genetic. Whatever it is, the Golden Gate seems to hold out its finger beckoning, like the worm on a hook. We need to intervene in every way possible, including continued suicide prevention services. About 80 people per year are taken off the bridge who go there with the intent to end their lives.
Of the 1600 confirmed suicides from the Golden Gate since it opened in 1937, the number is probably misleading. Even if an abandoned car is found in the parking lot, a death is not confirmed until the body is recovered, and if you've navigated the "potato patch" on a fishing boat (I turn green and hang over the rails)  you know how treacherous those waves are. Often bodies are carried quickly out to sea never to be found, or to be washed up somewhere down the coast. The saddest to me are the teenagers, bodies and souls not yet fully formed. Lets prevent some of these needless deaths.

Postscript: It passed unanimously! I was shocked this afternoon when I spoke of it at Current Events here which is attended by fifty or so thoughtful, well-read residents. My guess is that ninety percent
of the members disagreed with my position and that of the Golden Gate Bridge Authority. So I'm curious. What is your position?

PASSED!

When I lived in Oakland I sometimes went to the Walnut Creek DMV to renew my driver's license though I felt guilty about it; the lines were shorter, the clerks more respectful, and the floors cleaner. So it was with some trepidation I signed in for my appointment at 2:40 pm in Santa Rosa yesterday. I noticed the lines extended way out to the hot parking lot and the population was probably 80 per cent latino. Most everyone looked tense. I felt immediate compassion. Approaching 84 in three weeks  I was tense as well. Did anyone notice? My lips were sealed softly but firmly, for since my big dental surgery Tuesday I am missing my four front teeth. (Hopefully by next Tuesday I will be able to wear my "flipper" which is a temporary partial that will do me until December when my implants will take over.) After signing in they called me within three minutes. I had just started reading the DMV handbook, although I had studied the test questions provided on line. At the first counter they took a thumb print, instructing me the machine was slow and to hold it down hard for a very long time, changed my address (hmm, I thought AAA had handled this two years ago) took my $33, and instructed me to follow the yellow line to the next counter. The clerk could not have been more articulate or courteous. When I couldn't read the letters on the third line on the eye chart which was posted high in the air, the clerk allowed me to look into a lighted box sitting on the counter. I could read that fine and pronounced the letters quickly and confidently, aware she could not see my knees shaking. I noticed a beautiful patriotic display in the distance and was informed the office manager did it. It might have gone in a fancy bank or winery. The display made the very worn and soiled carpets look even worse.
In the second line I only waited one or two minutes before I was standing in front of the camera and instructed to remove my glasses. "Oh, no," I winced to myself. "Now my slightly black and watery right eye from the dental extraction will glare at me for the next five years." Nevertheless I complied, trying to hold my sealed lips just right. Then she handed me the test and I proceeded to the counter to answer the questions. Only one perplexed me. I guess I have been driving so many years I know everything by heart. People around me looked in various states of anxiety, but all nervous."Anyway, "
I thought, "I am allowed to miss three questions." I advised myself not to analyze them or read things into the questions."
Nine minutes later I was rewarded with a perfect score. I told the clerk I had puzzled over question number seven and she agreed with me that it was worded strangely. The only other senior citizen I could see among the 300 or so people there was much younger that me. She was wringing her hands since she missed five on the exam.

 I was out of there in 22 minutes, and once back in my own car allowed myself a giant toothless grin.
Above, Thursday night's sunset from my front yard, which does not compare with Cathy Lane but is kinda nice none the less.

Art from Junk

Nearby Sebastopol is not only a tourist jumping off place to the Russian River and the ocean, it is a center for all kinds of art, including the quirkiest. There an imaginative artist has transformed old junk like batteries and dented fenders into art objects. One can read about it on Google, of  course. He lives on Florence Ave., a four block stretch along which almost every front yard displays his work. I took a break from appointments this week to play tourist. How fun! In half an hour one can walk both sides of the street. No matter how cranky you feel, you come away smiling.

I hope I remember this next week when on Tuesday I surrender to the new dentist in Santa Rosa who is extracting the broken off roots of my two front teeth and starting the implant process,
The damsel on the right is my favorite. Her tail seems to be made of old tin cans.

Stand on Your Tiptoes

Left, Celia, with friend Abbe, France, 1918

 Exactly seventy years ago today 160,000 Allied troops stormed German-held western Europe from the bloody beaches of Normandy. France. I was thirteen, living in a rooming house in Seattle with my father and big sister, so I vaguely remember the headlines in the Seattle Times and Post Intelligencer. My sister would soon marry a handsome Ensign in the Navy, who would serve in the Pacific theatre on the heavy cruiser St. Louis. My father, too old for active service, was serving in the Coast Guard Reserve, as well as helping the government in various secret ways regarding radar and underwater communications, his professional expertise with the telephone company. Most all of my male ancestors on both sides served in the military, and my father even served in the US Cavalry. Patriotism was in my blood, one might say, and yet it never enveloped me..

It was some thirty plus years later when I would first meet my father's older sister, the most patriotic person I ever met. Veteran's Day was the most important day of the year to her. Aunt Celia was already retired at this time from her later career as a public health nurse. She was living alone in an apartment in Los Angeles, and soon to move into a US Army domicillary.
I would probably never have met her except Lee guilt-tripped me into it. "Your Aunt Celia is all alone" she commented regularly. "You should make an effort to meet her." And so I did.

From the beginning it was an awkward association. She loved me because I was her little brother's child, and because she needed me, but she never understood me, nor I her. I found her high squeaky voice, judgmental attitudes and Republican mentality off-putting. She found my informality and life values beyond tolerance. Lee and I supported her financially and somewhat lovingly until her death at age 96. At times I suffer guilt that I never truly loved her or got past our differences. Perhaps I could have tried harder.

In the  downsizing  before I moved up here I eliminated almost all of what was left of her earthly possessions. Yesterday, the anniversary of D day seemed like an appropriate time to go through the one shoe box left: her war records, diaries, and photographs, not of Normandy but of the first Great War. I hold in awe the stories of her service in France, some of which she told me in the years we knew each other. And so for my creative writing group last night I wrote the following. I have written in first person, in the hopes it would bring me closer to understanding her. I've taken some liberties in creating dialogue.

=

 With beau, (I think) Richard Preston in Paris, 1918

My favorite photo, Public Health NurseTexas,1922, What model car is this?

Stand On Your Tiptoes

Even though I knew none of my family would be there to see me, my pious aunt and uncle who raised me the last few years being too poor to make the trip from Northern Maine, I stood on my tiptoes for the photograph of our graduating class of June, 1918, from the Boston School of Nursing.  I was nineteen, and it was certainly the proudest day of my whole life, or so I thought.

Shortly thereafter  the Great War was declared and I enlisted with the American Red Cross.. With 750 other nurses we were  loaded on a troop ship to France.

The crossing was rough, and so it was with surprise that on the 7^th day the ship’s captain ordered all of us on deck. “A U boat has been sighted,” he announced over the loud speaker. “The president has ordered all nurses to be inducted into the army.” He continued without a pause: ”Raise your right hand”. After the oath was administered we were once again ordered below deck, this time for our mandatory physical.  All four foot eight of me was quaking in my bare feet. When the doctor got to me he frowned. The army required inductees to be five feet minimum. “Stand on your tiptoes” he commanded. I did. “Passed” he said.

What followed was four years in rural France staffing field hospitals, often in the trenches. Without chloroform, which was scarce, I would hold the hand of soldier as his arm or leg was amputated. We were often standing in water, so my tiptoe practice came in handy.

I nursed and fell in love with a Brit. My beau, as I called him. He didn’t make it.

When the armistice was declared we were sent to Paris for mustering out. A giant parade was scheduled and all of us nurses were given an allotment to purchase a new uniform for the parade. Mine, like the rest, was filthy and in tatters.  I was not about to spend money for a new uniform  that would only be worn for a parade. So I took the money and bought a beautiful French chapeau with lavender and pink silk roses. And yes, I got in trouble on the day of the parade, but it was worth it.

Claiming My Space

In the wake of Maya Angelo's death, the Santa Barbara massacre and the corruption at the Veteran's Administration its hard to comment on trivia, but perhaps its just as well to be distracted for a bit.
May and June are house and garden project times here and much is scheduled for this new home-owner on Oakmont Drive. As I write, Paul, my handyman is here repainting the deck boards and railings that withered over the winter. Kelly, my housekeeper, offered an old garden bench for front porch decor, and Paul is painting the sides of it orchid color to match the lavender color scheme in my new front garden. I want every one driving by to know an artist lives here.
Tomorrow an electrician is supposed to come to install the overhead light and fan in my bedroom and a week from today my new front door is supposed to arrive. I'll hardly recognize the place. Its a good feeling to make it my own.

Memorial Day Weekend

While all over America citizens are bumper to bumper on clogged roads, this citizen is once again staying home and enjoying the old car show here on the grounds (see June 7, 2013 blog). This year I hope to coax some of the proud vintage car owners to tell their stories.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning these days I go to Heart Works for cardio rehab. It is a good program, populated mostly by old men, usually with zipper scars down their chests from bypass surgery, and round tummies (I should talk). The thing that distinguishes them the most, however, is their constant telling of war stories. We are not allowed to read while working out, so I guess that gives the veterans among us full permission to recount their personal experiences in war. I get pretty exasperated waiting for a treadmill while two old codgers, feet not moving,  try to outdo one another with their personal horror stories. This week, however, I found myself listening  patiently, even genuinely, to some of their stories, and feeling gratitude for their sacrifices.
My maternal grandfather whom I adored, at sixteen lied about his age and after enlistment was sent from England to Africa. He never talked about it, nor did he talk about being wounded in France, and a victim of mustard gas. I remember sitting on his knee and saying "Grandpa, tell me about the war..." He would always reply, " I fought in three wars: the Boer War, the first World War, and the war with grandma, and the hardest of the three was the war with grandma!"  I would giggle, and beg him to tell me the same story over and over. I just loved it.
Below are pictures from last year's vintage car show here. I note with regret I

never got around to painting any of them. Hope I do better this year.

It Could Be Worse....Or, The New Bay Bridge Is Not The Only One With Problems

About ten  minutes before hosting book club at two at my house yesterday I glanced at the calendar and discovered to my exasperation that I had the wrong date----its two weeks away. What was I to do with my freshly brewed herb iced tea, homemade persimmon cookies, fresh fresh strawberries and young green peas from the farm down the road? Everyone in Oakmont is less than ten minutes away, so I called in three new friends, they complied, and we gabbed about local trivia till five. At seven I hosted our writing group and they convenienced me by eating some of the leftovers. This partly explains why I am eating cookies and drinking iced tea for breakfast.
Its no wonder I am more jumbled than usual. Sunday night, eating dinner, a trauma of major proportions occurred. As I bit down, the bridge spanning my four front teeth crashed. That is to say, the two anchor teeth broke off way below the gumline and out fell my pearlies.
As a kid at camp I fell on a rock, killing the two front teeth. (Fascinating how many kids do this, isn't it.) So I have worn some kind of dental apparatus for about seventy years. The new broken bridge was only 18 months old and I expected it to outlive me. A hurried trip to stay with friends in Hayward followed (yes, it was wonderful to see them) but a visit to the old San Leandro dentist provided little
comfort. In one day she was able to provide me with a temporary partial ($915) and the bad news that I needed to see a specialist in reconstruction in Santa Rosa.
Thursday he confirmed my fears. The surgery to remove the broken roots is tricky, but he can do it, and in about eight months and two implants I will have a restored smile and chewing ability. Oh yes, and my pocket book will be $10-15,000 slimmer. Meanwhile, with the temporary, I have a new little lisp and can sometimes create a cute whistle I never had before. I'm not tackling any spareribs or corn on the cob, thats for sure. I wonder what will happen when I go to harmonica class today at 11? Perhaps if I take out my front teeth I will be able to do a riff?