After Reading Heilbrun

I just finished reading “The Last Gift of Time: Life beyond Sixty” by Carolyn G. Heilbrun. Here are quotes from that work:

I was shocked, almost from the moment I left Columbia, by how little I missed it, how relieved I was not to have to plunge, ever again, into that poisonous atmosphere.

I entered into a period of freedom, and only past sixty learned in what freedom consists: to live without a constant, unnoticed stream of anger and resentment, without the daily contemplation of power always in the hands of the least worthy, the least imaginative, the least generous.

[To find meaning in later life,] ...the undertaking ... requires strong effort and the evidence of growing proficiency.

The only cure for sadness, [T. H.] White said, was to learn something.

...one sometimes feels compelled ... to complain ... but does not do so because all the people one sees are sick of it and will visit even less often if complaints or criticisms are forced upon them....

[May Sarton wrote] “We have to make myths of our lives,” she wrote. “It is the only way to live without despair. ...It is only past the meridian of fifty that one can believe that the universal sentence of death applies to oneself.”

Whatever the satisfying and as yet culturally endorsed adventure after sixty may be, its necessary element is the sense of something essential and vital having been achieved or discovered or learned. [Heilbrun argues that romance and sex are the only culturally sanctioned adventures for women, and that’s awkward after 60.]

The secret, however, of successful--and therefore continuing--association with the young lies in knowing that they are more valuable as suppliers of intelligence than receivers of it.

...leave the future to those who will inhabit it.

Here are some thoughts I had after reading her book:

By 60 or 70 we have developed a personal wisdom -- the sum of our experiences, knowledge, and unique view of the world -- and the frustrating issue is that we cannot use it to help our adult children, who want to learn their own lessons and develop their own wisdom. Our value to them is to be present, to observe, to approve, to support, to listen, to appreciate, to love. (Oh, and maybe most important, to finance.)

I like to think another contribution we older folks can make to the lives of the young is to provide a possible model for how to deal with life, since we obviously cannot give them advice on how to do it. If we can make ourselves happy and if we can handle what life deals us, then maybe that can give the young some ideas of how to do that for themselves, when their time comes.

As Heilbrun noted, many old people ask “What’s the point?” and become despairing. Humans are meaning-making creatures, which explains the power of narrative, and our job is to create the point. Make something up!

The adventure I have found for myself after sixty is painting. It meets Heilbrun’s requirements for effort and evidence of increased proficiency. It banishes sadness, because I am always learning something. I can express my personal wisdom with it. It is fun! And it is culturally acceptable, though Heilbrun seemed to think there were no culturally sanctioned adventures for old women. I consider the freedom Heilbrun discussed, the freedom of not caring any more about what people think of me or about what is socially acceptable, to be another adventure for old women. Seize the day!

Don and Eva

We live in a community property state, and in the middle of the night I was wondering whether my married children understand how the community property laws work. It seems simple: If they inherit something from me, they can consider it theirs and leave it to others as they see fit ONLY if they keep it in a separate account and never mingle any of it with their spouse’s money. Otherwise it becomes community property. And then I remembered a story from my childhood.

Don and Eva were long time friends of my parents, and I believe that my father and Don were boyhood friends before either of them married. I think they were in the army together during World War II. They owned a gas station together before the war, and they had a couple of businesses together afterwards, too.

My little sister and I thought Don and Eva were a funny couple. Don was skinny and quiet, while Eva was plump and lively. Don did not smoke cigarettes, and Eva was a chain smoker. She had that deep, raspy voice of heavy smokers that some people used to think was sexy, and when she laughed she usually ended up coughing a lot. When we were dragged along as children to see Don and Eva, I knew I was going to have a hard time breathing, and I tried to avoid her big hugs that always included clouds of smoke. We went to see her when she was in the hospital with emphysema, and I remember her lying in her hospital bed wheezing and hacking and smoking away. It is hard to recall, in the present day, how pervasive and socially acceptable smoking once was.

Don and Eva never had any children, and they were fond of my sister and me. They always said that they intended to leave everything to us, but they had only one will -- Don’s. It was fairly standard in that it left everything to Eva, and if she predeceased Don, everything went to us. Since Eva was dying of emphysema, they saw no need for any other type of will. They weren’t very old and Don was healthy, so it seemed a safe bet that Eva would predecease Don. 

However, as she lay dying with Don by her side, he suddenly had a heart attack and died. A couple of hours later, Eva died, too. We reacted to this news with a complex set of emotions -- shock, sadness, and a secret thought that it was somewhat romantic that they couldn’t live without each other. Only much later did it become clear that this unexpected order of death had economic consequences. Since Don died first by a couple of hours, Eva inherited everything. Since she had no will, everything went through probate to her closest relatives, her brothers and sisters. We got nothing.

At the time, we were young and thoughtless, and the fact that we inherited nothing did not bother us. Besides, Don was only middle aged, and if he had lived on, he may well have remarried or spent all his money. Only later, as an adult, I began to think that it was rather sad that their expressed wishes had come to naught. Eva did not even like her brothers and sisters, all of whom lived out of state and did not visit her while she was alive. They were quite rude to us, locked us out of Don and Eva’s house, and did not let us take even a little thing to remember them by. They disinvited us to the joint funeral, but that’s another story. At any rate, this sadness for how Don and Eva did not get what they wanted in the end motivated me to learn about estate planning.

What Is Love?

I love my grandchildren.

I love them with full heart.

I adore them.

I think of them frequently.

I could look at their faces all day

And often do.

If one of them needed a kidney,

I would say “Take mine”

Without hesitation

Without even thinking is there an alternative

With gratitude that I could help.

Is this the one true pure love?

Uncomplicated by the cares of parenthood

Uncomplicated by sexual attraction

Uncomplicated by doubt.

They love me too

Just as I am

With gray hair and wrinkles

Even without presents.

2012 Election Advice from Grandma Ju Ju

2012 Election Advice from Grandma Ju Ju

In the past, my kids have asked for guidance on how to vote on the various propositions that get put on the ballot in California. This year, no one has asked. But that has never stopped me! If you know how you are going to vote, or if you just don’t want advice, then please stop reading now. And if you think I’m really wrong about something, let me know!

First of all, government by initiative is a terrible way to govern, especially in our state, where rich people or corporations can put together a piece of self-interested legislation and get it on the ballot for just a few hundred thousand dollars and then spend millions on deceptive advertising to get it passed. Likewise, they can spend millions to defeat “good” propositions.

Second, it’s almost impossible to get reliable facts about the propositions. One side says one thing and the other says the opposite. I have a Ph.D., so I am supposedly of above average intelligence, but I have read and re-read some of these propositions and still cannot understand what they mean. 

So how to decide how to vote? One thing I do is look at who supports which side, and another is to “follow the money” -- see how’s paying for it. For example, with the new “open primary” system, I have a “choice” between two Republicans for assemblyman. Neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party have given an endorsement. I find out which candidate the most right wing group supports and then vote for the other one.

Proposition 30 -- I most strongly recommend a Yes vote. Governor Jerry Brown, whom I like and sort of trust, is stymied in trying to work with the legislature to solve the state government’s financial problems. This is largely because the voters a few years back passed a proposition by 51% that changed the law to require a 66%  majority vote to pass any tax increases. Given how divided the country is, it is nearly impossible to get a 66% majority agreement on anything. Frustrated, Jerry decided to ask the voters directly to increase taxes temporarily in order to fund education and public safety. It raises sales tax by one quarter of one percent for four years and slightly raises taxes on people earning over $250,000. Not much to keep our schools open! The people opposed are the usual anti-government, anti-tax groups.

Proposition 31 -- No. Would establish a two year budget cycle (thus delaying the aggravation every other year) and give more power to the governor to cut stuff out. Supporters are the usual anti-tax, anti-waste groups, and the people against are respectable.

Proposition 32 -- Strongly recommend a No vote. This one is really evil and deceptive. It looks like it would reduce the role of special interests in our elections, but in fact it would increase the role, because the only groups really being restrained from donating to political causes are unions. Major funding for this one comes from the Munger family, who also put on a couple other propositions on the ballot. Charlie Munger is VP of Berkshire Hathaway, the 8th largest multinational corporation in the world (it used to be run by Warren Buffet). I don’t know about you, but I have never felt that huge multinational corporations are interested in looking out for my interests or the public’s interests. 

Prop 33 -- No. This one seems to deregulate auto insurance a bit. It was written and funded by the insurance companies, another group of giant corporations who do not seem interested in my well being or that of the public.

Prop 34 -- Strongly recommend a Yes vote. Abolishes the death penalty. Since there is absolutely no evidence that the death penalty deters crime, and since there is evidence that innocent people have been put to death, this one seems a no brainer. Oh, this proposition would also save the state a ton of money!

Prop 35 -- Yes. Increases penalties for human trafficking. And who is FOR human trafficking???? The only groups who wrote against this proposition are sex workers unions and pornographers. Hmmmmmm.

Prop 36 -- Strongly recommend a Yes vote. Revises the three strikes law and reduces draconian sentences for minor crimes on a third count. Would also save the state a ton of money.

Prop 37 -- Yes. Would require labeling of some genetically modified foods. Major opponents are Monsanto and Du Pont, giant multinational chemical corporations. Read the small print on all those TV ads denouncing Proposition 37 as unscientific and confusing and burdensome. There you see Monsanto, who developed crop seeds that would not reproduce, so farmers would have to buy new seed from Monsanto every year. Third world subsistence farmers were really hurt if they bought this seed. Furthermore, they have developed crops that are resistant to Roundup, their best selling herbicide. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I want to eat vegetables that can ward off Roundup. Many countries in Europe BAN genetically modified food, and most require labeling. The main thing, of course, is that we have no idea what eating genetically modified food will eventually do to the human body. Do we want to be guinea pigs? I’d just like to know and have the choice. This proposition is not a perfect law, but it’s a beginning. We should join the rest of the First World and require labeling of genetically modified food.

Proposition 38 -- Strongly recommend a No vote. Why? This one sounds so good -- temporarily increase taxes to fund education and early childhood programs. BUT, and it’s a big BUT, this one is also funded by a Munger. Why would an owner of Berkshire Hathaway care about this issue? Aha! This is actually an end run about Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30. In the small print it explains that if two propositions conflict (and 30 and 38 do), then the one with the most Yes votes will take effect. 38 increases taxes on incomes over $10,000! It does not increase taxes on incomes over $250,000 as much as Prop 30 does. Of course a fabulously rich person hopes this one gets more yes votes.

Prop 39 -- Yes. Supposedly makes multi-state businesses pay California taxes on business done in the state, which in the past they were able to avoid doing by getting to choose which tax model to use and naturally they’d choose the one that made them pay the least taxes. The usual business and anti-tax groups oppose this one.

Prop 40 -- Yes, though a vote on this is moot, since the court already approved the new re-districting plan, which this proposition asks us to do.

Haiku on Grandson's Owie

This photo of my grandson with a bandaid on his cut head inspired both a painting (which you can see here) and a haiku.

Life’s Hard Lessons

Grandson has cut head

Two-year-old eyes brim, betrayed,

We adults, helpless

A Memorial for the Planet

When I was young and we worried about nuclear annihilation while habitat destruction was a good thing and global warming was unheard of, I used to joke that only things that begin with the letter C would survive in the future: cockroaches, crows, coyotes, and crabgrass. To my deep sorrow, I have lived to see my prediction beginning to come true, though not because of nuclear war. 

Artist Maya Lin, creator of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Civil Rights Memorial, is now working on a memorial for the planet. It is a memorial that exists in many forms and many places, but the one I have experienced is on the web at www.whatismissing.net. As with any memorial, her project commemorates those who have died, in this case, entire species of plants and animals. When I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, my heart was filled with grief, and the What Is Missing Memorial has the same effect.

We are in the midst of the largest number of extinctions since the loss of the dinosaurs. One in five mammals, one in three amphibians, one in eight birds, and one in three freshwater fish are currently facing extinction. Human alteration of the planet is the major cause. For example, one and a half acres of rainforest are being destroyed every SECOND by human beings for timber, farm land, and other resources, often by the transnational corporations. They could be completely consumed by 2050. These facts are horrifying and a cause for great sorrow, even despair.

As part of the What Is Missing project, individuals are invited to submit their memories of the losses they have seen. I started to think about what I could submit, and it turned into a very long list. This issue requires an essay.

Born in 1944, I grew up in postwar Los Angeles, in tracts of postwar housing in Rosemead and Whittier. There was still plenty of undeveloped land, and in our back yards we could easily find frogs large and small, horned lizards (“horny toads” we called them), swallow tailed butterflies, monarch butterflies, white and yellow and silver butterflies of all types, crickets, Jerusalem crickets, green caterpillars and black caterpillars, grasshoppers and katydid nymphs, stink bugs, red and black beetles, lady bugs, black widows and many other kinds of spiders, pill bugs, and many kinds of birds. I know about these creatures because at one time or another I captured them and studied them. However, as a child, I did not pay attention to plants or moths or very small creatures, but I am assuming they have gone missing, too. And as a child, I did not know the species of birds,  but I do remember flocks of Cedar Waxwings in those days. There were no starlings or pigeons. 

More than sixty years later, most of these creatures are no longer found in back yards. I occasionally see one of them while hiking in “natural” areas, but even there they are quite rare. They are mostly missing. The population of the Los Angeles area has more than tripled in those years, and housing and development have covered most of the land. Clearly, human-caused habitat loss is the main reason for the disappearance of the animals I remember.

About five years ago, I went to stay in Idyllwild for a painting workshop. The people there said that the prior winter and the current summer had been incredibly dry. The lush Idyllwild with multitudes of birds and bugs that I remember from 30 years ago was brown and dusty and eerily quiet. Because of the drought, there were virtually no insects -- no creaking crickets or buzzing flies or bees, not even any ants. No insects meant no birds. The dead silence at night was disturbing.

In the last 15 years in Seal Beach, I have seen a rather sudden loss of animals and biodiversity. When I first moved here, where we are just a couple of blocks from a National Wildlife Refuge, there were many hawks, turkey vultures, skunks, and coyotes in the neighborhood. There was an occasional opossum and raccoon. On the drive east on Westminster Boulevard through the Naval Weapons Station, we often saw four to ten hawks sitting on the telephone posts. We drove by fairly quickly, but I think they were almost all Red Tailed Hawks. We had a pair of baby skunks in our backyard for a few days and another time one got trapped in our garage. Our neighbor ran out of her house one day, screaming about a huge rat, because a young possum had gotten into her kitchen. A raccoon ate all the goldfish in our pond one night. The awful smell of a run-over skunk was not infrequent.

There were lots of butterflies and many Mourning Cloaks. One time there were literally hundreds of Mourning Cloak caterpillars climbing out of the neighbor’s tree and crawling up walls and bushes to form cocoons. A large flock of starlings had a feast and ate the majority, but still some butterflies did emerge later. However, I haven’t seen a Mourning Cloak anywhere in Seal Beach since. 

There were spiders, especially these unusual red and green spiders that showed up every fall and made long webs everywhere each night. There were many crickets, some of which got into the house and kept us awake. There were frogs, especially on “The Hill,” where you could hear all their croaking and chirping and peeping on a summer evening. 

About seven or eight years ago, the numbers of all of these creatures suddenly took a nosedive. They were just gone. I asked the manager of the wildlife refuge what happened to all of the hawks, and he said they had just migrated and would be back. They never came back. As a result, we are currently experiencing a population explosion of ground squirrels. There’s still evidence of an occasional coyote, but obviously not enough to stem the ground squirrels.

What happened? Despite official denials, I suspect there was some poisoning going on in the naval weapons station. I think it is likely that there were efforts to eliminate the skunks and other nuisance animals and that hawks ate the poisoned animals. However, also about that time, the Hellman property was developed.  Over 50 mansions were built on Seal Beach Boulevard, across the street from the entrance to the Naval Weapons Station, effectively cutting off the Los Cerritos Wetlands (a very degraded wetland) from the wildlife refuge. It could be a coincidence that the numbers of animals fell suddenly about the same time as this development, but it could also be that this disruption of the habitat was the “tipping point” that led to the collapse of wildlife numbers.

In just a few short years, the vast majority of wildlife in our Seal Beach neighborhood has gone missing. I find this very depressing. When I read articles on the environment, I begin to despair. Maya Lin hopes that her What Is Missing project will increase people’s awareness of the issue and show them ways that will slow the habitat destruction and species extinctions. In the summer 2012 issue of Living Bird, Maya Lin is quoted as saying, “We need to stay really optimistic. Because the alternative is, what, we give up? I’m not going to tell my kids that I didn’t try really hard. Because the woods that I grew up with were so magical. And I want to try to get some of that back.” 

A great many animals have disappeared in my lifetime on this planet, and I have witnessed this loss in my own neighborhoods. But there is still plenty of crabgrass and cockroaches. Crow numbers are currently high, although the crows almost went missing during the West Nile epidemic. Coyotes also seem to be plentiful in some parts of the country. My joke has come back to haunt me.

My Boyfriend (?) Dennis

When I was 17 at Arcadia High School, I had a crush on a tall, skinny boy named Dennis Lojeski, who was a year older than I was. We both worked for the Arcadia Department of Recreation at the same park after school and during the summer. In addition, Dennis played the bass and sang; he was in a band; and he was an extra in a couple of Elvis movies. That made him cool, despite his thick glasses.

Dennis used to tease me a lot, and I just couldn’t tell whether he liked me. We had to put on a big party for all the city departments. I was in charge of making hamburger patties out of a huge mound of red, slimy, slightly smelly ground beef. There was 50 pounds there, and I had to shape it into 200 patties. When I finally finished, I swore I would become a vegetarian. So I was somewhat irritable when Dennis later teased me some more at the party, enough that I actually threw my glass of soda in his face. Not nice, I know.

We were both counselors at the week long summer camp the Rec Department had in Idyllwild. He brought his guitar and he brought an old one that he let me use, and he taught me to play it. We were told to stay in the cabin at night while our little charges slept, but apparently I was the only one clueless enough to actually do that, so I missed all the late night parties among the counselors.

Dennis never actually asked me out on a date. I got invited along to events that included him. I was friends with the girl singer in his band and went along when the band played at dances, and once we went as a group to the Hollywood Bowl to see Peter, Paul, and Mary, who were the opening act for Sammy Davis, Jr. I asked him to my Senior Prom. He did ask me to his parents house for dinner once, along with other kids. Again, I was too clueless to realize I was being interrogated by his parents and grandparents. He continued to tease me and kid around, so he was fun to be with, but it just felt friendly. He never said he liked me, he never asked me to go steady, and he never even tried to kiss me. In fact, I dated other boys during this time. Since he was class president and very sociable, it did not occur to me that he was shy. However I looked at it, my relationship with Dennis did not seem to be a romance, according to all I’d been led to believe.

Imagine my surprise when one evening he proposed!!! He had completed a year at LA State with plans to become a dentist. I was all set to leave to attend UCLA, where I would finally be FREE, a very exciting prospect indeed. We must have actually had a date, because we came back to my parents’ apartment quite late. He said he had something to ask me, pulled out a ring box, and asked if I would marry him. He started to describe how we would go through college together as fiances, then I’d get a job while he went to dental school, and such. I was utterly shocked!!!

I certainly did not want to get engaged and tied down just when I was about to escape my parents and have adventures at UCLA. (It was the 60s and I did have lots of adventures.) I was too young anyway! I had to interrupt Dennis and tell him that I was too young and did not want to make such a big commitment just as I was starting college. It took him a while to realize he was being turned down, and then he started to cry and suddenly left. 

After he slammed the door, my mother rushed out of a back room, saying, “How could you turn him down like that?” She had been listening in, and I was shocked again to realize that she had been in favor of it! No, I intended to go to UCLA unencumbered. A wise decision, actually. Now that it’s too late to ask Mom, I wonder if Dennis had contacted my parents in advance to “ask for my hand.” I wonder if Dad had also been in favor of it, too. Did they honestly think I was mature enough to make a decision like that?

Anyway, Dennis soon recovered from his broken heart and began dating Janet, who became his wife in a couple of years. Dennis did indeed become a dentist, and he continued to live in Arcadia. He was a city councilman and became mayor of Arcadia for some years. My mother constantly cut out articles about him from the local newspaper and sent them to me. When I saw later photos of Dennis, I was astounded to see that he had gotten fat. He had been so skinny, it was hard to believe he could change that much.

This story has a sad ending. I saw Dennis at a high school reunion that included that classes of 1960 to 1965, and a few weeks later, at the very young age of 53, he died of a brain aneurism while driving his son home from a baseball game. I am sorry for the loss to his family and community, and I am sorry that I never got to know him.

The Pope Visits LA

It was September 1987, and the pope was coming to Los Angeles! Apparently, this visit was some sort of first, and there were all sorts of plans for it, reported repeatedly on the news for days. Pope John Paul II was going to ride around and be in a parade in his so-called “Popemobile.” 

My daughter Emily was born on the same day that this pope had been shot six years earlier, May 13, 1981. I remember laying in utter exhaustion in my private hospital room and watching endless news reports about the attempted assassination of the pope with all the speculation as to why. I couldn’t understand it.

Anyway, my two daughters and I were having a lazy morning around the house, when a news report broke into whatever mindless TV show that was on to announce that the pope had landed at LAX and would be heading out in the Popemobile. On a whim, I asked the girls if they’d like to go see the pope. I figured that by the time we got the the airport, the pope would have passed us heading the other way. The girls seemed puzzled as to why I should suggest this, but they said, “Why not?” We hopped in the car, went down the coast highway to the 10 freeway and south on the 405 towards the airport. 

After about three miles, the traffic came to a stand still. They must have closed the freeway for security reasons, or else other people had the same idea I did. We all turned off our engines, got out of our cars, and stood around staring at the amazing, almost apocalyptic sight of absolutely NO traffic on the northbound 405. After a while some motorcycle policemen roared by, then more officers in formation, then dark secret service cars, more cops, and finally a big white limousine with the pope in it! You could actually see him sitting in there in a white outfit and a white cap. Then more dark cars, more cops in formation, and single motorcyclists followed. It was the best parade ever!

I think the only thing that impressed the girls was us getting out of our car in the middle of a freeway.

Our Pet Mockingbirds

In the mid 1950s, my sister and I found two baby mockingbirds in our back yard. We were distressed that they had “fallen out of their nest,” and we immediately set about taking good care of them. We carried them everywhere, let them sit on our shoulders, put them in a warm box all lined with rags, and caught insects for them.We loved them and hugged them, and they got quite tame. We had them for three or four days, and then they learned to fly and left. We cried, but whenever I saw a mockingbird in the back yard, I was sure my old pet remembered me and was visiting. I am very fond of mockingbirds to this day.

I’m sure this experience contributed to my love of nature and my current hobby of birdwatching. Now that I have studied birds, I know that the young mockingbirds had NOT fallen out of their nest, but had fledged. Many newly fledged birds spend a day or two on the ground fluttering around, before they get the hang of flying. Their parents are there to protect and feed them. I did not notice, but most likely the parents of our pet mockingbirds were quite frantic when my sister and I began playing with their fledglings. They probably fed them and took care of them when we were not around. At any rate, they survived and flew off.

A more recent experience with a fledgling was with a crow. About a year ago, I was at my daughter’s house when she noticed that a crow was trapped in the bamboo plants around her patio. I went out and caught it and slowly untangled it. Its parents were in the tree over our heads, squawking furiously and wiping their beaks on the tree branches, a sign of aggression in some birds. I released the fledgling, and it immediately fluttered off to get trapped in the bamboo again. So I caught and untangled it again, but I decided to try to hold it a while to get it and its parents to calm down. It suddenly went stiff in my hands! It looked like a dead crow in full rigor mortis. I very much doubted that I could have hurt it at all, although my daughter was vigorously accusing me of killing it. I set it down, all stiff, on the patio bench, far from the bamboo, and went in the house to keep an eye out for any neighborhood cats coming into the patio. 

After about 10 minutes, the young crow “came to,” hopped down off the bench,  followed its parents across the street (far away from US) and hid in some bushes there. It sure looked like they were giving the youngster a real scolding for consorting with humans.

Joey

When I was young, I had an aqua-blue parakeet named Joey for about 7 years. He was a great pet! He became a very tame and cheerful bird, and we let him fly all around the house. He would sit on my shoulder while I did homework or the dishes, chirping and singing the whole time. He learned to “talk” and while chirping and singing would intersperse phrases that he had heard me repeat and repeat, such as “Pretty bird, pretty boy, pretty pretty bird,” “Hello, Joey” and “But I’m not interested, Joey.” He had a total of 35 words, I once counted.

He was a playful bird, liking to talk to his mirror image, to hop on and off his swinging perch, to knock and ring his bells, and to pick up and toss around various small objects and bird toys. He liked to sit on the edge of a glass or cup and drink whatever we were having. Once he fell in headlong into a tall narrow glass, and I had to pull him out by his tail.

As I did with training of the pet grasshoppers (see earlier Wilbur story), I observed Joey’s natural behavior and tried to figure out how to make them into tricks. All captive parrots will reflexively step onto a stick or finger that is pressed gently into its chest. I noticed that Joey would put just one leg on my finger if I put it only partially in front of him. Thus I “taught” him to “shake hands.” 

For some reason, Joey really liked to sit on my finger with his head very close to my mouth while I talked and made various noises to him. He would do this for quite a long time. Once when I stopped talking or making noises, he gently nipped me in frustration. Thus I “taught” him to “kiss me.” Eventually he would peck several times until I started talking again. Apparently, the sounds I made were rewarding and reinforced the pecking behavior. Then it occurred to me that I could use this for a really amazing trick. I would say, “Joey, how much is two plus two?” and fall silent. When he had pecked four times, I would say, “That’s right, Joey. Smart boy, good boy, good bird, etc.” It really wowed my friends! I would tell them to ask me any math problem where the answer was less than ten, and I would pose it to Joey and stop talking and then start talking when he reached the right answer. No one seemed to figure out how this was done.

I made little hats and outfits for this poor bird, and I made a little harness and leash so I could take him outside. He would object, but put up with it. When I entered him in a school pet show, he won the ribbon for Trickiest Pet. 

Since we had never clipped Joey’s wings and he was a very fast flyer, he did manage to escape from the house and fly away for several hours, on at least two occasions. I was devastated each time, but he always came back, landed near our house, and chirped till I came and got him, putting him on my shoulder and taking him safely back inside.

I loved that bird and wish I had another one just like him.

Our Pet “Wilburs”

In 1949 my parents bought a little postwar two bedroom house in Rosemead, brand new, so new the yard was just dirt. Before my parents managed to landscape, that yard was a wonderland of insects, frogs, horned toads, and spiders. Then in 1950 they sold that house and bought one in a housing tract in Whittier. This tract was built in what used to be an orange grove, and there were vacant lots and weedy acres of land all around. We lived there for five years, the longest we ever stayed in one place. Just for historical interest, they bought the Rosemead house for $2,500; the Whittier house cost $5,500; they sold it for $12,500.

There were plenty of interesting insects and creatures in and around this house, too. My sister and I loved comic books, especially the Disney ones. In one of them, Goofy had a pet grasshopper named Wilbur. When we discovered tiny grasshoppers on some yellow flowers in our yard, it seemed only natural to catch them and name them Wilbur. In fact, I loved catching insects and drove my poor mother nuts wanting empty glass jars all the time to put them in. At one point I had an insect zoo in the garage. I wanted to charge the neighborhood kids a penny to see it, but none of them would come, so I had to force them to see it for free.

My sister and I were not allowed to have a dog or cat, after our earlier ones came to bad ends. Having a pet Wilbur seemed sort of cool, since Goofy had one. I began to observe the behavior of these cute little bugs and noticed that they would jump forward if poked in the end with a pencil. Otherwise they just climbed around. I thought about how I could use this natural behavior and built a tiny swing set with a ladder and tightrope and I made a little cardboard hoop. I “trained” them to do “tricks.” Set little Wilbur on the table, put the hoop in front of him, poke him in the butt, and he jumped through the hoop! Put him on the little swing, and he clung to it while we made it swing back and forth. Stick him at the bottom of the ladder, and he climbed it and went across the tightrope. Amazing! (Years later I became a psychologist and studied human behavior instead.)

My trained grasshopper was a hit. All the neighborhood kids wanted to see a performance, and I caused quite a stir at show-and-tell at school. My father told the men at his work about his little girl’s trained grasshopper, and apparently they did not believe him. He became indignant and insisted that they come to our house after work. Unfortunately, earlier that day my sister’s (untrained) grasshopper had eaten the legs off mine, and I hadn’t had time to catch and train another one. It took a long time for my father to forgive me for failing to substantiate his story.

In the 5th grade, my teacher, Mrs. Baltzer, took an interest in me and wondered if I wanted to know what kind of insect Wilbur was. She arranged a visit to Cal Tech to see a real scientist! She even drove my mother and me there, since Mom had no car. When I saw Cal Tech and the scientists in their lab coats among their microscopes and other equipment, I knew I wanted to be one, too. The scientist we were to see said he wasn’t sure what Wilbur was, so he took Wilbur from me and dropped some cotton with ether into his glass jar. He plopped his limp little body under a high powered microscope and studied him and let me look, too. Wilbur was even more amazing at 500X! He said that Wilbur was a katydid nymph and gave him back to me. 

On the way home, I sat in the back seat sort of stunned. My beloved pet was dead, for the sake of knowledge! I quietly sobbed away, wondering what on earth I had been thinking to let that scientist kill Wilbur. But then a miracle happened, and Wilbur began to move around. I cried even more when I realized he was alive after all, though with joy. No one had thought to tell me that the ether was temporary.

I will always remember Mrs. Baltzer’s kindness and her encouragement of my interest in science.  Though I haven’t seen a Wilbur in the wild in years, I found a photo of a katydid nymph online, and it was just as cute as I remembered.

My First Visit to Disneyland

Disneyland in Anaheim opened on July 18, 1955, and my family got to go there on July 19. My parents were old friends of Ron and Meta Hoge, and Ron was then an editor at the Orange County Register. He procured tickets for us somehow. I was 11, and my sister was 9, and we were incredibly excited. We had heard about Disneyland for years on Disneyland, the TV show that we watched faithfully on Sunday nights. We had seen the opening of the park on the TV news the night before, and thought we were incredibly lucky to get to go on the second day.

Our Dad drove us in our unair-conditioned Buick through a traffic jam on Harbor Boulevard, smoking his beloved Camels, while my sister and I bounced around in the seatbelt-free back seat. The parking lot was a large asphalt space, and we were able to park close to the entrance, no need of trams then. We had entrance tickets from Ron Hoge, but we needed to buy ride tickets. Great consultations went on about which combination of tickets to buy, since there were different booklets with different numbers of A, B, C, D, and E tickets. The E-ticket was for the best rides, and for quite a while there was a phrase in common parlance where something being an E-ticket meant it was very good.

There were only 20 attractions in four “lands,” Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, and Frontierland. Our very first ride was on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in Fantasyland, and it felt like a wild ride indeed. The fun and delight of that first ride stays in my mind, though in subsequent years, we went on the Toad ride and saw that it was really quite primitive. 

Besides Toad, only a few things stick in my memory. The teacup ride made me throw up, and I never went on it again. My sister and I had fun running all over Tom Sawyer’s Island (now some pirate thing) without the parents, even though it was just a dusty pile of dirt with some fake caves on it. It occurred to me even then that we could have done the same in some of the vacant lots near home.

It was HOT! There weren’t enough drinking fountains or rest rooms. Places to buy food and drink were jam-packed. The whole place was also barren, since all the lovely trees and bushes there now had either not been planted or had not yet grown. There was little shade. Did I say it was hot? At least 100 degrees (101 according to Wikipedia), and the asphalt in the parking lot became squishy. Despite the physical discomforts, this first trip to Disneyland remains one of my favorite life memories.

And now that I think of it, the Disneyland TV show had a big effect on my life. I loved the nature shows even more than the cartoons. “The Living Desert” was my favorite, and I still have the book about that show. There were amazing close-up film clips of insects and animals that led to my lifelong interest in natural science. Years later in the late 1980s, I met the man who developed the camera used to film close-ups of flying bees and things like that. 

Things do come full circle -- see my story of our pet “Wilburs.”

Life and Death

Shall I tell the story of how I almost died in childbirth? I even had a classic near-death experience long before I read anything by Kubler-Ross. It was 1974.

I was a couple of weeks past my due date, when the many Braxton-Hicks contractions I had been having for weeks became a lot stronger. Friends stopped by to see how I was doing and to see the ripple of contractions over my belly. I could write another essay about how a pregnant woman’s belly seems to become public property, with bare acquaintances feeling entitled to pat it. I was cleaning my apartment, a common urge during labor, when my water broke with a loud “Thok!” and splashed all over my clean floor.

A friend drove me to L.A. County Hospital, where I was to deliver my baby because I was participating as a control subject in Toke Hoppenbrouwers’ study of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome there. I was in labor for several hours, throwing up the entire time. It hurt! But I did not scream, as many of the other women were doing. I used to say I would not have given up state secrets from that much pain. After going through transition and becoming utterly exhausted, the doctor gave me a spinal block, a bit late I thought! The monitors on the baby and me showed distress, so the young doctor used forceps to pull her out quickly.

The force tore me open from my left ureter to my left labia, and I hemorrhaged pints of blood. I saw the doctor literally throw my baby at a nurse and start screaming, “Get some help in here!!! I need help in here!!!!” I think I went into shock, as people rushed in all around me. I felt like I could not move, but I felt a strange, deep calm, and wanted to tell the young doctor not to be afraid. I felt like I was floating above my body and I saw a white light in the distance. I think the calm feeling came from not being able to move, and the sensation of floating above my body and seeing a white light was my brain trying to make sense of the state of shock. Anyway, after a while, I sort of “came to” and became aware of the reality around me. An older doctor took my hand, and said reassuringly, “You’re going to make it.” I thought, “You mean there was doubt?” and then I was afraid. I looked around to see where they had put my baby and saw her lying alone in what looked like a clear plastic box, and I started asking if she were OK.

After I was all sewed up and hydrated with IVs, someone handed me my baby, and I began to cry with joy. I remember singing her a little song in a cracked voice, through my tears.

I fell asleep and woke up in a hospital room with three extremely young Hispanic women. They had their plump babies with masses of dark hair, and they had lots of excited visitors. I could see they felt sorry for me, so weak and full of IVs, with no visitors and a pale, bald baby. They would help me get out of bed and lift my baby for me.

I was starving! I had not had anything to eat for over two days. At lunch, the orderlies brought me a huge, juicy hamburger. It smelled so good! I was about to take a bite -- I literally had the hamburger in my mouth -- when a nurse rushed in and grabbed it away from me. She said I had to have an X-ray with dye added to my blood to assess how much internal damage I had, and you are not supposed to eat before that test. I learned why when the dye made me totally nauseous. Although the test showed that they had sewed me up well and my ureter was OK, I was exhausted by the time I got back to my room and could not eat.

The next day we were all sent home. The doctors came in the morning and said “You are going home today” to the Hispanic girls, who did not understand English. So the doctors repeated it more loudly! They actually did this. I translated for the girls, a small favor in return for all their help.

My doctor said the same, and when I said I felt so weak that I thought maybe a blood transfusion would help, he said he did not want to do that because there was something wrong with the blood supply. So they knew something about AIDS even then. He also said hospitals were a very unhealthy place to be, so I had to take my baby and go home. 

My mother came to stay with me, and she took complete care of the baby, because I could do very little. She was still working, so after a week she went home. My sister came and spent the night with me after her work for a couple of days, since I was afraid I would die during the night and the baby would be all alone. My friend Joanie was at the point with her daughter that she did not need her full time nanny anymore, so I hired her. For a couple more weeks, Lora did everything, while I tried to recover my strength.

I was supposed to start my new job six weeks after giving birth, but I was still not very strong and asked to start at ten weeks. After ten weeks with my darling baby, I spent the first two days at work crying in the ladies’ room. After a year, I finally felt fully recovered.

Quit Whining about Taxes!

I am sick of Americans complaining about taxes!! We are the richest country in the world, and we are one of the lowest taxed. (We don’t even make the list of the ten most generous countries in the world.)

I was listening to “liberal talk radio” (should be called just “not radical right wing talk radio”) and even they were complaining about taxes. One caller had “done the math” and divided Brown’s recently proposed state budget by California’s population and come up with $10 per person per day. Everyone clearly thought this was outrageously huge. In fact, it is a bargain.

Here’s what you get for only $10 a day: police protection, a court system, and a prison system; some protection of our natural environment; some care for the mentally ill; monetary, medical, and therapeutic assistance for victims of crimes; child abuse investigations; road building and maintenance; some assurance that most car drivers are licensed and insured; some aid for the poor; licensing and some oversight of doctors, nurses, teachers, hair dressers, therapists, nail painters, etc., to ensure their competence and prevent them from harming us; state parks and beaches; an extensive education system, including what used to be a very affordable college system and the most highly regarded state university system in the world; financial aid for many college students; unemployment and disability insurance and assistance; training for the developmentally disabled; poison control centers; the 9-1-1 system; tsunami warnings; earthquake research; enforcement of contracts between businesses; and much more. 

The people on “not radical right wing talk radio” were complaining about wasteful spending. We ALL waste money occasionally, and in the state budget “wasteful spending” is a drop in the bucket. Besides, one person’s “wasteful spending” is another’s “essential service.” Thus, budget cuts inevitably translate into eliminating jobs for people who need them, since you can’t really cut buildings, supplies, or utilities much. If we make more people unemployed, they will have less money to spend and generate fewer taxes. That will reduce the state’s income and force further budget cuts. The only way to stop this downward spiral is to raise taxes. It would be in everyone’s self interest to vote for Brown’s proposed tax increases.

I can do another essay on the history of our budget problems, if anyone is interested. A big part of the problem can be traced to the 1979 voter passed initiative requiring a 2/3 majority in the legislature in order to raise any taxes (this 2/3 requirement passed with 51% of the vote). Requiring a supermajority virtually ensures no tax increases, so when tax revenues decreased due to dips in the economy, the state had to find other ways of raising money. The government turned increasingly to issuing bonds, which is just another way for the rich to get richer. The interest on these has to be paid, and this expense has grown to take up a big percentage of the state budget. There are other such mandated expenses as well.

I can do yet another essay on how government by initiative is a very bad way to run a state. I never sign initiative petitions anymore for this reason, and also because if an initiative does happen to be a good idea, special interests from outside of our state will pour money into defeating it and will defeat it.