4 - Green Mountain Outlook
June 8, 2011
www.gmoutlook.com
Opinion
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From the Editor
Time machines among us T
spiration is rapidly disappearing—the Greatest Generation, a term coined by broadcaster Tom Brokaw. This, our oldest surviving generation, me. tempered by economic depr ession, steeled The grandfather character of Bradbury’s by war , shocked by the atom bomb, deprotagonist, 12-year -old Douglas Spaulding, is referred to reverently by the kids on serves better. As many baby boomers like me str uggle the block as a “living time machine”. When the old man spun his colorful memory sto- with mortgage payments, college-bound ries while r ocking on the family’s fr ont kids, a nd t he e arly w arning s igns o f o ur mortality—why aren’t we getting to know porch, the boy traveled back in time with this generation better in or der to seek its the old man, too. counsel? Those of us of the Baby Boom GenI personally know two living time machines that have been a part of my life since eration, born between 1946 and 1964, ar e birth. (I am sure you know one or two time the first generation to be less appr eciative of those who came before us. Shame on us. machines just like them.) Last week, I had the privilege to tour a My 95-year -old mother and 97-year -old wonderful senior citizen art exhibit curfather are an amazing time-travelling courently on display in the lobby of the Lodge ple. Approaching the century mark, they live, at Otter Cr eek adult living center in Midindependently, in the 1956 suburban Penn- dlebury (see the story in this week's Eagle). This art exhibit is pr oof positive that sylvania house where I grew up. In a sense, you’re only as old as you think. their household is a living time machine, All the art on display at the Lodge is sentoo, even though I now know the days there sitive, playful, accomplished, inspir ed— are dwindling down to a precious few. While my father sleeps more and has suf- and the creators are all in their 80s and 90s. fered a physical setback in the past year , There’s so much more we can learn (as well as about the art and science of living) from he’s still sharp as a tack; he r eads several this Greatest Generation—so much wisdom books a month and passes them on to me. Interestingly, he was pictur ed on the fr ont yet to be harvested. Maybe you know an elderly neighbor , a page of the local newspaper—mowing the grass with his old-fashioned reel-lawn- widow at chur ch, a neglected father , a World War II or Korean War veteran down mower during an August heatwave a few the street? There’s still time for you to disyears ago. Well, that’s my old man—tough and old fashioned; "conservative" in all the cover—and experience for yourself—their world, as they lived it. Put aside your issues meaningful, valued ways of the definition. because this is not about you. For when that My father, born during the month and year the Great War exploded in Europe, has generation is gone, their memories will fade away like the “old soldier” of Gen. strong me mories g oing b ack t o t he e arly MacArthur ’s 1951 farewell address to Con1920s—from having met U.S. Army veterans of both the U.S. Civil W ar and W orld gress. And just like my parents’ own stories of War I to having seen Babe Ruth play basethe Depression and World War II, someday ball and shaking the hand of a man who your Baby Boom-era memories, college shook the hand of President Abraham Lintales, an d ‘ 60s v agabonding e xperiences, coln. When I talk with my father and mother , will inspir e, even motivate someone the world of the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s comes younger. So, don’t wait for your child or niece or alive. My mother is a one-woman workfor ce, nephew to ask you about your past—tell still trimming the backyard hedges, and all them about yourself, warts and all. Sit them down and gently have them listen. They the while sewing beautifully , handcrafted clothes. She alos still recounts stories of her may grumble, they may groan, but your life stories, like seeds cast upon fertile soil, will lean youth during the Gr eat Depr ession, one day spr out and bloom as richly scentfeeding railr oad “hobos” at the family's ed flowers to be passed on. back door, and helping collect neighborNow r un—look in the mirr or. Meet the hood scrap metal for the war effort. newest living time machine. The point of this editorial is to point out Lou Varricchio that one of America’s greatest sources of inhere’s a passage in Ray Bradbury’s 1957 fantasy novel, “Dandelion Wine”, that has always haunted
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EdwardCoats Mark Brady LouVarricchio Jennifer Delmain DentonPublications Production Team EDITORIAL WRITERS Martin Harris John McClaughry LouVarricchio
MARKETING CONSULTANTS Tom Bahre • Roxanna Emilo • Heidi Littlefield Mary Moeykens • Joe Monkofsky • Regina Styles CONTRIBUTORS Angela DeBlasio • Rusty DeWees • Alice Dubenetsky Joe Milliken • Catherine Oliverio • Fred Pockette Beth Schaeffer • Dan Wolfe
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How sweet it is
I
t isn’t often that a local Fourth Estate enterprise scoops one of the national pros, but that happened last week when the Addison Eagle was—after a gap of several weeks—followed by the Wall Street Journal on the subject of health care plans designed to reward healthy consumer behaviors. Both op-ed writers were amateurs with non-FourthEstate day jobs (one is your humble scribe, writing several weeks back on the Safeway Health Care Plan and its applicability to Vermont), and the other is one David Gratzer, M.D. (who was accorded more than 24-column inches on the op-ed page of the WSJ’s May 21-22 edition to discuss Vermont’s embrace of the public option or single-payer health care strategy. Towards the end, Dr. Gratzer argues, as had your humble scribe earlier, that Vermont would have been a particularly fertile field for a plan with a wellness-reward component, and that it’s a pity that Vermont chose not to. Clearly, Dr. Gratzer ’s correct, even if he didn’t first get his argument from the pages of the Eagle (then again, Dr. Gratzer may well have been inspired by your humble scribe’s recent column). Nevertheless, as 1950s television icon Jackie Gleason often said on such salutary occasions—“How sweet it is!”
The Land of Enchantment Part 1
I
park on level two of Burlington International Airport’s too small garage, because my return flights usually de-plane on the second floor of the terminal and I like to walk a straight shot from the plane directly across the skywalk to my car. Traveling without even a carry-on assures I can navigate the route from plane to turning my truck’s ignition within an elapsed time of about three minutes. It cost $82 for six days parking, in case you wondered. Burlington’s airport is clean, the ticket folks are attentive, and it’s small. Not so small that it doesn’t have all the bland modern day apparatus larger airports have, it just has less of it all. It’s often better to have less things—food, people, magazines, trinkets. Not urinals. It’s good to have too many urinals. Relaxed in extra leg-room seat 5-C, a short taxi of I’d say 20 yards stops with a chime from the cockpit and our pilot’s shockingly un- intelligible voice, (apparently it takes very little verve to fly a plane), informing us that Washington’s Dulles Airport is stacked up and that we’ve been ordered to wait 30 minutes till take-off. 30 minutes stretched to and ended at 60, and we were off to Washington. I rarely travel on a tight schedule and I had a two-hour wait to connect once I got to Dulles, so the 60-minute hold-up didn’t raise the tiniest hair on my neck. Flying and waiting time all gets filed under—time to read. And read I did. My Christmas 2010 under-the-tree book haul totaled 5, and I’m well past done reading those, plus one, “Unbroken,” given me by a fellow from the gym. So for the trip to my sister’s in Albuquerque, N. M., I spent part of a 100 dollar gift certificate my ma got me on two books. Steve Martin’s “An Object of Beauty,” a novel about a young women mixed up in the New York City art world. I was personal assistant to the late William J. Doyle, founder of
Dr. Gratzer recites all the usual reasons why Vermonters, in the state which scores number 1 in the nation, health-wise, according to the United Health Foundation, using various wellness measures, “…Could receive incentives to prevent diseases caused by obesity, tobacco, and other life-style choices…,” but then, recognizing Vermont’s political disposition, closes with “…but don’t expect Vermont…to test it any time soon. Not while the public-option itch is still out there waiting to be scratched.” Exactly. Unlike your humble scribe, Dr. Gratzer addressed zero column-inches to why is Vermont number 1. The answer is in some readily available statistical rankings. Warning: some viewers will find these statistics displeasing to the point of requiring censorship. We start with the recognized positive correlation between citizen health and citizen I.Q. This subject has been broached, cautiously, in a number of domestic generalreadership publications, but knowing that they would be dismissed by a majority of Addison Eagle readers as identifiably infected with a conservative bias, your humble scribe hose to cite a pair of academic publications instead. One is a collaborative effort between the Universities of Delaware and Edinburgh, in which authors Gottfedson and Deary document the epidemiological fact that See HARRIS page 10
Doyle New York, (as seen on “Antiques Roadshow”), for six years, so I thought I’d relate to Martin’s latest. The second purchase, “How to Be Alone”, is a book of essays by Jonathan Franzen. I had read, “Freedom”, his latest novel, and loved it, and having finished his book of essays I’m happy to report I loved them too. How fantastic and rare it is to find someone you love to read. I trust you’re at least tolerant of this column? Upon arriving at Dulles Airport, my first glance at the departures/arrivals board noted my connecting flight was running 30 minutes late. Cake, not a problem. I was into Martin’s book in good shape and was happy to spend the added gate wait forging deeper. After a potty break, the ever changing departure board noted my connecting flight was to fly 90 minutes past it’s schedule, leaving me with more than 2 1/2 hours to fill. I don’t eat when I travel. I hardly hydrate. I have no one to call for leisure chat. 3 hours isn’t time enough to taxi to town and see the president. So I read a bit more, then figured a way to make my time 100 percent meaningful. I walked the terminal. At a stout pace I walk a mile in 15 minutes. So I tittered from terminal A-C,3, to the very end of B, and back, twice, for a total of an hour’s time, and four miles traveled. Here’s what I saw along the way. To be continued. Rusty DeWees tours Vermont and Northern New York with his act “The Logger.” His column appears weekly. He can be reached at rustyd@pshift.com. Listen for The Logger, Rusty DeWees, Thursdays at 7:40 on the Big Station, 98.9 WOKO or visit his website at www.thelogger.com