ARSENIC AND OLD INSTRUMENTS - UNLIKE LIPITOR, THESE ORIGINALS HAVEN'T LOST THEIR PATENT FOR REINVENTION

The New Horizons Band at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas may never threaten Hot Chelle Rae for space on most iPods, but the member-musicians aren’t all that concerned.  For over fourteen years the music department there has encouraged seniors to learn to play a musical instrument or re-learn long dormant musical skills. 

As odd as it may seem to see a room full of graying and white haired men and women coaxing dissonant squawks and screeches from assorted clarinets, flutes and other instruments, the pupils in the beginners band are determined to accomplish their goals.  The advanced band’s efforts actually can produce identifiable tunes.  One of those members, 63 year old Carl Backes, is reaching back through the decades to recapture the joys of music.

Carl learned to play the clarinet in fourth grade at McDonough 39 in New Orleans, LA.  As he moved into Junior High, he expanded his skills to include the bass clarinet.  Adding tenor sax while at Ben Franklin and John McDonough High Schools, he became one of the original members of the then-nascent Louisiana State University at New Orleans’ band, earning invitations to play in several All-City and All-State bands as well as the Pelican Boys State Band.

Finally, at age 17, Carl’s years of academic toil finally began to benefit him financially.  He got a job in a band on Bourbon Street, in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter, laboring in obscurity to provide musical accompaniment for…strippers.  He even played in back-up bands for recording sessions and performances as well as the Navy band at NAS Memphis before losing interest in the 1970’s.

Life took up more of his time, adding the roles of husband and father, which necessitated more than the undependable monies that music provided.  And so it went as Carl worked first in the banking and finance sector, followed by the insurance industry.  Finally, in 2005, he retired with Peggy, his wife of 41 years.  Together they had planned to spend several years touring the United States and took possession of a brand new RV.  Then they ran into a little storm named Katrina.

Their home in New Orleans was destroyed, so their RV became their home, parked in a friend’s driveway for months, while they volunteered hundreds of hours cleaning up Ben Franklin High School before selling the gutted remnants of their house.  Carl and Peggy finally were able to embark on their journey across the USA, spending nearly three years discovering the West before deciding to build their new home in Denton, Texas.  They still spend part of the year traveling in their RV, making sure to always include JazzFest in New Orleans.

Like many older Americans, Carl does have a bucket list.  He takes occasional courses, belongs to clubs, and attends theater and concerts with his wife.  Several of his photographs from his travels have been published, and one was even purchased by National Geographic.  The musical score of his life has been full for Carl and tomorrow he will play in public – with the New Horizons Band – for the first time in 30 years.  Let the music begin.  Through The Lens: New Horizons Band « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

My Own Private Penn State Was... Everywhere

The Penn State scandal is everywhere.  Turn on television, radio, open a browser, pick up a newspaper or magazine and there will be some mention of the sensational allegations of child abuse.  Most of us believe there is real substance behind the heart-rending accounts, but I use the word "allegations" as even Sandusky is entitled to his day in court. Hopefully it won't end with the injustice of the Casey Anthony trial.  Personally, I think we may never know the real number of boys whose lives were irrevocably damaged.

Sexual abuse is a silent killer that alters a child's sense of trust and self-worth.  It lays waste to the very principles that parents labor to instill in the minds and hearts of their children.  All of us still struggle to find a balance between teaching respect for authority and when to ring the alarm bell.

I find it hard to listen to reports and testimonies from anyone who has been victimized, and wonder if there is any adult out there who has been fortunate enough to have never been subject to some form of actual or attempted abuse.  We've seen the shocking number of priests whose crimes were swept under the rug as the church shuffled them from parish to parish.  It seems every month or so there is another account of a coach or teacher accused of some form of predatory activity.

My book, "Ednor Scardens", didn't start out that way, but eventually became a vehicle for purging some of my own experiences as a young girl.  And yet the anecdotes recorded there hardly scratched the surface.  Some will likely go to the grave with me, but I still find it hard to believe that these all happened during the 1950's and early 60's, a time that most people naively think of as a more innocent time.

Unlike some kids, my own exposures began soon after puberty:  Between the ages of 11-14, there was a flasher at the library, a guy with a hooded sweatshirt who appeared at the kitchen door, a bus driver at the end of his route (my aunt lived at the next stop....the first on the new route), two different men sitting in parked cars on the way to school, and the father of two of my neighborhood friends.  I know those girls must have wondered why I stopped coming to play at their house, but it came so closely on the heels of an assault by a man who worked at the ice skating rink near my home that I didn't go anywhere for weeks.  The other incidents will remain buried as the men responsible are deceased.  They are beyond reach and distressing their family members serves no purpose.

My parents never discussed improper touching, but most kids know instinctively when someone has crossed that line.  What they don't realize is that it isn't their fault and that they need to tell a parent or other trusted adult. I never told because I was afraid of losing the small amount of freedom I'd earned by virtue of my preteen and teen threshold.  And by the time I reached fourteen, I was no longer a quiet, trusting child.  I was athletic and finally capable of defending myself, or at least out-running someone.

So to those who lament the wounds inflicted on the mighty Penn State dynasty, your tears are wasted on me.  And if you are a parent, and haven't discussed this issue with your children, don't wait.  It is one that must begin early and be repeated periodically in age-appropriate ways.  We live in a sadly dangerous and confusing world, but it's always been that way.  We just didn't know it. 

THAT ORANGE RUBBER BAG.....The Real American Horror Story

Ever since "Twilight" hit the book stores, we've been assaulted by a tsunami of books, movies and television shows that feature vampires, werewolves, zombies and assorted supernatural elements.  Some are better than others and I'm too ashamed to tell you how many times I've read the entire "Twilight" series.  I once watched the movie every day for thirty days in a row...but that's my problem (one of them, at least).  Some thngs are scarier than others, depending on your childhood experiences:  visits to the dentist, prostate exams for men, and the fear of what kind of comments health professionals make to relieve the tedium when we're out cold on the surgical table.

If you're wondering where I'm going with this.....well, I just got finished filling out a shaft of paperwork for a, um, oh christ, I'll just say it...a colonoscopy.  There, are you happy?  Can you sit there reading this and lie to me electronically that you don't have a little snarking smile on your face?  I don't want to go.  I hate it.  But I have a family history that is scarier than the prospect of undergoing the procedure.  And the 24-48 hours before the procedure are more frightening than the colonoscopy itself.  You can either drink a gallon of a foul-tasting powdered mix or endure a 32 to 40 pill regimen.  The recommendation is to prepare yourself to spend 1-2 days on a toilet.  Some wise-ass recommended stocking the bathroom with your favorite magazines or a book you've been meaning to read.  Avoid tear-jerkers as you'll be losing enough fluid already to cancel out all the anti-pollution efforts of the last two years for the Chesapeake Bay.  At least during the colonoscopy, you'll be sedated while the surgeon plays "Where's Waldo" in your plumbing.

Quite by coincidence, an email popped up in my inbox today from a popular company that specializes in customer reviews of local service providers such as contractors, repair men, etc.  Today's topic was, "Does colon hydrotherapy provide a healthy flush?"  Now I don't know about you, but I'm not all that keen on getting this advice alongside roofing repairs and lawn maintenance.  Apparently this practice is called a 'colonic' and people actually pay to have it done to rid their body of 'toxins'.

*SPOILER ALERT*

This is where my basic childhood fears come into play.  My mother wouldn't have known a 'colonic' from a hole (sorry) in the ground, but she was a big fan of monitoring her kids' bowel habits.  If you didn't poop for two days, she'd loom large in the hall with the.....drum roll, please....enema bag.  I hated that orange bag with the hose and hook and would go to any length to stay beyond the reach of that nozzle.  She didn't give a fig about toxins.  We knew what she was really after....and I'm not shi**ing you.

So, be kind to me for the next few weeks as I face down the gastroenterologic boogieman, the professional spelunker.  At least mom never had a camera and it was over quickly once she could grab hold of you and plant a knee in the middle of your back.  Just don't call me on the phone until its over because I'll be holding on desperately to my Kindle...and my voice might sound a little strained.  

THE HIDDEN WORLD OF MASTICATING

Living single tends to bring certain urges to the forefront.  Initially you go a little crazy at the freedom, but it's a scary world out there, fraught with danger and disease.  So you look for safer alternatives, weighing online reviews comparing power, options, noise level and price.  Some wax euphoric over the versatility of their purchase while others emphasize size and speed.  I agonized for weeks, wavering over whether to choose the less expensive utilitarian device, the Ferrari level beast or somewhere in between.  One thing it had to have was an extended warranty because if it performed as promised, I'd be using it frequently.  And it had to be quiet.  I've never forgotten the time I was settling into my seat on a flight to Boston and something started buzzing in my bag that I'd shoved under the seat in front of me.  Two twenty-something guys across the aisle started snickering as I dug frantically through the bag until I emerged victorious with an electric toothbrush.  I made a show of turning it off as my face flushed furiously.

I know what you're thinking...why in the world is she talking about something this private in a public forum?

Because I bought it.  It has been delivered to my doorstep by an unsuspecting UPS driver.  And I'm so crazy about it that I use it every day.  It's shiny, black and heavy, powered by a single auger drive.  This 6-in-1 model is the awesome Samson Masticating Juicer.  That would be a nasty name if it were actually what I know you were thinking it was.

Once I'd lived alone long enough for my cooking enthusiasm to wane, I realized that I wasn't getting enough vegetables and decided to do something about it that didn't involve regular stints at the stove.  On a visit to my daughter's she introduced me to something I'd previously dismissed when I saw 90 year-old Jack LaLanne exhorting audiences in his jumpsuit.

My 7 year old granddaughter happened to be at my home the weekend the machine arrived and we lined up carrots, apples and greens to shove into the thing.  I couldn't get it to start until she threw a long-suffering glance my way and said, "Nana, it won't start because you keep pressing the 'off' button."  Once that technical issue was dispensed with, we eagerly pushed veggies through the auger and watched as juice trickled into one container and brightly colored fiber poop dropped into another.  My initial concoction was a beautiful light green as we each took a sip before recoiling in horror.

She waved her hand at her mouth, pleading for water which I quickly supplied for both of us.  I later found out that mustard greens lend a very peppery result in juice.  The carrot, apple and pear nectar combo was much more pleasing to the palate.  I don't look twenty years younger yet, but I'm comforted by the fact that I'm finally putting some beneficial elements down my gullet.  Now I look forward to more adventurous combinations and concoctions.  Just no more mustard greens.

EDNOR SCARDENS - From Semi-eulogy to Four Book Fiction Series

A cardboard box landed on my front doorstep yesterday.  As the UPS truck drove off, I felt a bit like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings...springing out the door, grabbing the box and withdrawing back into my house cave.  Opened the box and carressing "my precious", I sighed happily that the day I held my printed book in my hands had finally arrived.

The journey from first putting pen to paper - alright, hand to laptop keyboard - had been a long one, and I wondered how many writers had traveled the same road I had.  I was sure that none had started the same way.  Most begin with the intention of writing a short story, novella or novel.  They jot down ideas or carry a germinating story seed in their head for varying lengths of time until, like a baby, it just has to come out.  My own process didn't even faintly resemble that.  My creation was born of fear. 

Allow me to backtrack a bit in explanation.  Years ago, my parents began the sad journey from independent living to assisted living, to nursing facility, and I was afraid that I'd be called upon to put together a eulogy for one or both of them.  I'd been fairly self-centered as a teen, and when I married a military pilot and moved away from home, I missed alot of the everyday things that my parents did.  Long distance phone calls were expensive, and we didn't have the luxury of extended discussions.  The end result was that I missed the opportunities to delve into my parents' past lives, to understand how things really were for them growing up.  My mom had a penchant for spinning yarns about her life whenever she wanted to make a point or issue an obligatory parental warning "from experience".  My sister-in-law and I used to call it "The World According to Irene".  As an example, when she first entered an Assisted Living community, each new resident was welcomed in the facility's newsletter with a brief spotlight based on their answers to general questions.  Mom listed her favorite hobby as ice skating.  She was in a wheelchair, so you get the idea.  Even if I had gotten the time to delve into her past, I'm not sure the answers would have been dependable.

With each family member's passing, my original core of relatives grew smaller, and I had a recurring dream that when my turn came, there would be no one at the service other than my own children and grandchildren.  And they wouldn't know squat about my life before I became their mom.  The dream always continued with one of them standing at the lecturn, fidgeting, and then realizing that they knew very little about me.  It sounds selfish, but who can control their dreams?

So to save them this embarrassment and assuage my fear of an ignominious send-off into the great unknown, I sat down one evening in 2009, intent on typing out a half-assed autobiographic page or two that I could email them for safekeeping until the eventual time came.  What I hadn't counted on was how much I would remember.  As I wrote down little vignettes to keep the account from reading like a timeline diagram, I became possessed.  When I finally looked away from the computer screen, dawn was breaking through the window.  Without realizing what I was actually doing, I sat there, night after night, for three weeks straight, until more than 350 pages had been disgorged.  Surely, my kids never wanted to know that much.

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards contest caught my eye, so I edited like mad, changed the names of people and schools in the story and entered it.  Although I didn't make it to the final round, I wasn't willing to just let the manuscript sit, so I passed it around to family and friends, unaware that they were actually serving as beta readers. More changes came, adding and deleting to better suit a story that some would actually want to read.  It wasn't strictly autobiographical anymore, but the emotions of the main character still glowed in my brain.  I knew I couldn't let the story and the characters end there.  So I kept writing about them through  books 2, 3 and 4.  By the end of the Charm City Chronicles as I've dubbed them, the characters have matured into adulthood, some married, some living through tragedies and some succumbing to them.

I sent out query letters to literary agents and was encouraged by the number of requests I got for fifty page samples, but without magic, vampires and the like, I didn't find one willing to take a chance.  Then one day I got an email from the head of a nascent group...Fantasy Island Book Publishing, and the result is what you see in the photograph.  One journey has been completed, yet the most difficult one lies ahead:  marketing, media, social networking, and sales. 

And although they'll need to clarify which parts of the book are fiction vs. nonfiction, I don't think my kids will have as much trouble delivering a eulogy.  Just don't let let the opening line be, "The World According to Kathleen".         

STRADDLING DISNEY

A couple of weeks ago I took my seven-year-old granddaughter to Disney World for her birthday.  Yes, it was a ridiculously expensive present, but this past year has been all about the birth and cuteness of her new baby brother, so I decided that several days dedicated totally to her would be better than another box of clothes or the latest doll to hit the shelves.

She excitedly counted down the days before we stepped on the plane together, and she plugged herself contentedly into her iPod after the thrill of the rush down the runway.  As we sped through the clouds, I heard her singing to herself, “Baby, baby, baby……oh….” and knew that Justin Bieber was capturing her attention once again as he often does during our car rides together.  Her ability to memorize lyrics has vastly improved in the past year, and the result is often disconcerting as I hear her recite the rap streams that she and her friends practice while riding the bus to school.  She mimics Ludacris with, “She woke me up daily, don’t need no Starbucks.” 

Part of this is my own fault, as I often have music on when she’s in my house or car, and at times the lyrics are not always G-rated.  Some songs that sound so bouncy and fun turn into something rather different when the words come out of a teen-in-training’s mouth.  She LOVES Katy Perry, but I drew the line when she piped, “There’s a stranger in my bed, there’s a pounding in my head…I smell like a mini-bar….“  from the hit “Last Friday Night.”  Even I have sung along happily to songs like Foster The People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” without realizing it was about a kid taking a gun to school to shoot other students.

She has one foot in childhood, running full speed to the Mad Teacups ride and pining for an visit to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, while the other is planted in an adult society where she’s bombarded with suggestive television ads and songs with questionable lyrics.  She paints her nails and frets over whether she’s too fat to wear a bikini.  The child in her wants to hug the performers dressed in Disney character costume, but she declines when I ask her to stand with Minnie Mouse for a photograph.

At the end of one exhausting day at the Magic Kingdom, we wound down for sleep by watching one of the funny video shows with clips of babies and animals doing silly things.  A commercial came on with a scene promoting an upcoming movie.  A couple kissed and then the young man pulled off his shirt before proceeding to do the same for his girlfriend.  I managed to hit the channel selector before hers came off, and my granddaughter looked at me and asked, “Nana, do people always take their shirts off before they kiss?“  I quickly assured her that they do not.  Without skipping a beat, she added, “Did YOU ever take your shirt off when you kissed a boy?“

I’m all for giving truthful answers to kids’ questions IF it is appropriate, but I paused for a moment.  I knew that like most kids, she’d walked in on her mom and dad more than once in various stages of undress, so I flat out lied and told her I might have done it a few times but only with her grandfather after we were  married.  A cop-out, for sure.

As I watch her move in quantum leaps toward the awkward preteen years, I hope she keeps asking those questions.  As embarrassing as they can be, I want her to hear other voices….caring adult voices…to counter the too-much-too-soon culture we live in.  And I need to change the play lists on my iPod.     

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PANCREAS? THE CANCER SHELL GAME

Every year during the month of October, we are bombarded by pink ribbon efforts to raise money for breast cancer research. As 1 in 6 women will be diagnosed with some stage of this disease in their lifetime, this is a much-needed effort to eradicate a disease that has touched so many families.
 
Updates from research teach us that by not smoking, exercising regularly, eating a healthy diet and maintaining a schedule of regular checkups, we stand the best chance of surviving if we are one of the unfortunate people to develop breast cancer.

But have you ever wondered how different types of cancer compare in their funding? Lung cancer, which is the most common form of cancer, receives less than half the amount that goes to breast cancer. When I checked a chart with survival rates, the 20 year survival stats for breast cancer stand at 65%. That same rate for lung cancer is 6.5%.

Pancreatic cancer, one of the most devastating types of cancer, isn’t even in the top ten for funding as it affects fewer people....1 in 76. But the survival rate for these patients for even 5 years after diagnosis is a stark 4%. It is a virtual death sentence, because it is such a silent disease. By the time symptoms appear, the disease is so far advanced that most treatment has little or no effect on its progress.

Cancer is also the most common cause of death by disease in children. One in 300 children will develop some form of cancer before their 20th birthday.

So should cancer funding be focused on the most common or most deadly forms of this disease? And what makes fundraising efforts so successful in the case of breast cancer vs. other cancers?

The recent passing of Apple CEO Steve Jobs serves as a ugly reminder of how relentless this disease is. The lack of affordable methods to both screen for this disease and treat it effectively suggest that we should be asking Congress to pass the Pancreatic Cancer Research & Education Act for the funding necessary to make progress against this disease.

As a 16-year, stage 3 breast cancer survivor, I’m grateful for the research that contributed to saving my life. Let’s push for the same sort of support to fight forms of cancer that even the brilliant Apple innovator’s millions couldn’t save him from.