Since writing that column about Public television and radio, I have thought of so many other things that I have learned from them. I was a devotee of Wayne Dyer when he wrote his first book, Your Erroneous Zones in the 70's. He has touched so many lives with his works and always reminds me of who I am, and what I know for sure. I would love to hear comments from other readers about your experiences in this regard.

NPR & PBS -Couldn't Live Without Them

When she learned that I was a tour guide in a former life, my new friend immediately had to know what was the most amazing sight I had ever seen in my travels. What a great question! I had an impossible time narrowing it down, so I chose a few. My first two words were Crater Lake. It is a national Park in South Central Oregon containing a lake that is a collapsed volcano. Rather than try to describe it, I pulled out a quote that I have kept with me since my trip there. It is by author Jack London – best known for his Alaskan tales and book, “Call of the Wild.” Here’s the quote: ”I thought that I had gazed upon everything beautiful in nature as I have spent many years traveling thousands of miles to view the beauty spots of the earth, but I have reached the climax. Never again can I gaze upon the beauty spots of the earth and enjoy them as being the finest thing I have ever seen. Crater Lake is far above them all.

How can you read that and not decide that you have to see it? That’s what happened to me a while back while watching Ken Burns PBS series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.” Of all his wonderful American stories, this is my favorite, because there is so much more happiness than sadness in this history.

There is no way to describe the shades of blue in Crater Lake or the feeling of absolute awe and bliss upon seeing it for the first time. I expected it to be beautiful, but it belied all of my preconceived notions. It is truly a wonder to behold and creates an aura of serenity I have only felt once before. That being standing on a glacier in Alaska with not a single sound to be heard and turquoise ice all around me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Ken Burns PBS series I’ve enjoyed: “the Civil War”, “Baseball”, “The Second World War”, “Prohibition”….. largely because I have such a fear that funding for public television and radio will be eliminated if the Republicans win this election.

I try in this space not to be partisan, but today, I can’t help myself. My greatest salvation for driving 45 minutes (and 33 traffic lights) each way to and from work is listening to NPR ( National Public Radio). I have come to know the commentators as though they were my friends. Unlike television news shows where panelists talk over each other trying to be witty, the NPR commentators ask the questions I want answered. And they make the show about the topic and the guest, and not about themselves.

On my way home from work is a program from the BBC called “World Have Your Say.” People from all over the globe call in with their experience and insights about a particular world event. Since listening to this for a few months, I now feel as much like a citizen of the world as I do an American. It is a daily crash course on world events as told by the people who are living them.

One of my mother’s greatest joys as she grew old was watching programs on PBS. I think Masterpiece Theater and Antiques Roadshow were her favorites, as they are now mine. She had so little discretionary income, and yet she gave as much as she could possibly afford to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Many people and foundations are generous, but it won’t be enough to keep this special kind of programming on the air if the government ops out.

One of my most memorable movies is called “The Magdalene Sisters.” Just a small independent movie no one heard much about, but is as gripping as any I have ever seen. I think about it often. The other morning while I was getting ready for work, I dropped my eyeliner when they began an interview with one of the women who worked in and survived the Irish slave laundry. It was wrenching to hear her story, but made the movie and the events so real to me. A citizen of the world.

•By the Way: By Wednesday morning, more than 1,000 participants had responded on Facebook, saying they would attend a march on the National Mall in Washington three days before the election. The so-called Million Puppet March being planned online is scheduled for Nov. 3. It comes after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's remarks during a presidential debate calling for the elimination of funding for PBS, which airs the popular children's show "Sesame Street."

•Over the course of a year, 91% of all US television households, tune into their PBS member station.

•Federal funding accounts for about 15% of the money necessary to make public broadcasting possible. This is approximately 1/100ty of 1% of the federal budget.

Eating Confessions

This is a time for confession and ….. your non-judgment. The purpose of this column is to bring out of the closet, the episodes in our lives when we have eaten ourselves into oblivion on something, in a way, that is – to most people – totally disgusting.

Baby boomers, those older, and the economically challenged will understand this. If you aren’t one of these, please read on and tell me if you can identify. My parents were the most cost-conscious, economically conservative – that is to say cheapest people I have ever met. It’s how they fed, housed and clothed us I now realize, but when you’re watching all the good food available on television and it’s not in your house, well, you wish it was.

My first big foray happened when I was about 9 or 10. My parents were having a card party and my dad was sent off to the grocery store to get provisions. Without my mother’s knowledge, I added some things to her list, and then cheerfully offered to unpack the groceries upon my dad’s return. Mother was busy cleaning the house for the party, and my dad had had a few beers, so I was golden. The extra large bag of Fritos, 2 glass bottles of Pepsi and a dozen glazed donuts found their way under my bed.

Once the party was in full swing, I grabbed a glass of ice and broke into the Fritos like a starving desert island shipwreck survivor. The only breaks I took were to grab a donut now and then. It was heaven! I loved Fritos and donuts and could never – until that night- get enough of either. Fast forward to 4AM. I am so sick and miserable trying to keep all of this down that I am softly groaning. I know that if I get up to vomit, my parents will hear me and be onto my theft. Somehow I kept it all down, but didn’t sleep a wink that night. The next day was Sunday, and I feigned a strange stomach ache that required staying in bed for most of the day. To this day, just the thought of the orange and red of the Fritos bag turns my stomach. If I smell them on someone’s breath, it’s all over.

So, there’s confession #1. My next endeavor was at an unsupervised slumber party which had unlimited junk food of every kind. It was nirvana. Luckily, nobody paid much attention to my focus on all the food, and this time I ate myself sick on cream stick donuts. Can’t look one in the eye to this day.

I’ve polled my usual group of baby boomer consultants about similar indulgences and haven’t been really successful. My former co-worker Debbie M. once came home from school and devoured 2 lemon meringue pies in one sitting without so much as a glass of milk to wash it down. She’s not proud of it, but it has become family folklore since she is so slim.

My friend Phyllis K. recalls that there weren’t treats in her house much as she was growing up, but on Saturday mornings they had a dessert called Swedish flop (I am not making this up) for breakfast. Then, on Saturday night, they each were allowed a bowl of ice cream from the quart that was emptied that night. Her husband Wayne has fond memories of the Three Musketeers and Butterfinger candy bars he would buy with the nickels he got for his allowance.

Did your parents by any chance have friends without children who you would visit occasionally? Well, mine did, and they always had beautiful ornate dishes filled to the top with candy. My mother was onto me. “Do not ask Marion if you can have any of her candy,” she would admonish me. This was torture. I would sneak just enough to insure that the level didn’t decrease significantly.

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Oh, to be on American Bandstand!

The grey linoleum floor in front of our little black and white TV was my dance floor every afternoon after school from the time I was 6 years old. I loved to dance and sing and longed to be a teenager so that some day I could be on American Bandstand.

The first national TV show aimed strictly at teenagers, they worshiped it as did all of us who aspired to be like them. Rock and roll was heard around our house on my older brother’s 45’s, and his girlfriend looked just like the dancers on Bandstand. She wore her cardigan sweater backwards with pearls, had a charm bracelet and a bucket bag and lots of crinoline petticoats under her very full skirts. Oh, yes, and t-strap flats. Wow, I couldn’t wait to be among those ranks. Some day I would go to Philadelphia.

I learned all the dances, begged for the clothes the older girls on the school bus wore and idolized the regular dancers on Bandstand. If you’re still with me, you’re remembering Bob and Justine, Kenny and Arlene, the Jimenez sisters – Ivette and Carmen (who had the white streaks in their hair), and my favorite – tight-skirt wearing blonde Frani Giordano who won a convertible in the pony contest. Man, could I do the pony! And the Chalapyso, the stroll, and anything else that popped up on my TV. At Pajama parties we rehearsed and practiced for the days when we would actually be able to go to dances and maybe even have boys as partners.

But the regulars….they were just normal high school kids (some in their school uniforms), and they became national celebrities who received gifts and 45,000 letters a week from the adoring kids across America who wanted to know them. I can even remember buying some of the teen magazines which featured them on the cover along with the likes of Annette, Bobby Darin and Duane Eddy.

Bandstand was a daily inspiration for my generation and the one just above us. In one of his books, Dick Clark explained it this way: “I helped give rock’n’ roll a credibility it didn’t get by being played on the radio. If a large corporation like ABC Television could devote two-and-a-half hours of its afternoon schedule to this music, then parents could reason that it must be worthwhile. These tactics helped keep rock ‘n’ roll alive.”

And speaking of the radio. How about when transistor radios came out? Man, we could carry our music with us and listen to it outside and on our bicycles – it was a little miracle. The DJ’s of the time were our heros and of course Dick Clark was at the top of the pack. He was so clean cut and made his dancers so non-threatening in their dresses and sports coats that parents had a hard time convincing us it was “devil music.”

I am so jealous of my friend Carol. She lives here now, but is from Philadelphia and went to Bandstand and danced on 5 occasions. I have interrogated her for any small detail. She tells of being allowed in for 15 minutes at a time often so that more kids could have the experience. The line was always very, very long to get in she says, but nobody really minded, because you were surrounded by teenagers who liked to dance and were just like you. She did tell me that she spoke with Dick Clark on a few occasions and that he never showed any favoritism to the regulars, but was kind and friendly to everybody. Didn’t you just know that?

If I have a favorite memory of the show, it was the time that the Four Seasons were guests and sang “Sherry.” The kids went so crazy when it was over that Dick had them sing it a second time while I sat spellbound.

I watched Bandstand into the 80’s when it went off the air. I loved the disco era and had a partner and all the slinky dresses. It was an interesting time with the Bee Gees in the background. I never got into the hard rock or heavy metal. When I lived in blue collar Michigan I felt that I would remain youthful as long as I knew what the kids (now in California) were wearing, how they were dancing and how they wore their hair.

I can’t think of any television program that made a bigger, longer impact on my life and gosh I miss it. My moment in the sun was in the 80’s when Dick Clark was the host of the $100,000 Pyramid. I was a contestant and got to meet him. What a gentleman! I was surprised though that the bigger than life guy was shorter than my 5’5”.

By the way:

•When Dick took over the show in 1957, he added black dancers.

•In 1957, 45’s cost sixty-nine cents in Philadelphia, and in many places, if you bought six, you got one free.

•Dick Clark named the song “At The Hop”  from “Do The Bop” and it became an overnight number one hit.

•On the show kids couldn’t say they were “going steady.” The code words used were “going together.”

•My 3 favorite songs from this era are “Dream Lover” by Bobby Darin; “Step By Step” by the Crests and “Special Angel” by Bobby Bare

Starved for Conversation

Did you ever notice that no matter how you pronounce the word Caribbean that there’s someone nearby who will correct you? Same deal with the designer Ralph Lauren. This has bugged me for a long time – not the pronunciation, the need some humans have to demonstrate superiority to others.

I will grossly illustrate this with a tale my friend Jerry told me recently in response to my complaint that my significant other often feels the need to have a tad more information on a topic than I.

As Jerry tells it, his friend Wayne (a college Political Science professor) was the world’s worst offender in this regard. If you said it was a nice day, Wayne would inform you that the forecast was foreboding and in fact, some clouds were just then forming on the horizon.

One day on a road trip from Milwaukee to Madison, Jerry decided he had had enough. Wayne was driving, and Jerry had his reporter’s note pad in hand. Jerry began a discussion about what a great mayor Milwaukee had. Every example he cited, Wayne refuted. So, Jerry gave it about a half hour and a few more topics, then casually mentioned that he was quite disillusioned with the mayor. Wayne immediately began a discourse on what a fine leader he was indeed.

Enter the notebook. Unbeknownst to Wayne, Jerry had recorded his previous comments word for word and then read them back to Wayne verbatim. The good professor was astonished. He questioned why someone of Jerry’s caliber would waste his time with such a jejune exercise in proving himself right. Precisely.

The story does have a somewhat happy ending. Jerry seized the opportunity to enlighten Wayne on some possible explanations for his (Wayne’s) dismal love life. Apparently there was an endless stream of coeds who were attracted to the professor, but each lasted about as long as the rinse cycle. While they liked his commanding presence in the classroom, it didn’t translate well to the living quarters. Everybody needs to be right sometimes Wayne.

I run into Waynes everywhere. Why do some people think that playing devil’s advocate is an entertaining form of conversation? Do most of us have enough Church Lady in us that we are itching to do the superior dance?

Which brings me to another conundrum. How is it that those abrasive baby boomers, James Carville and Mary Matalin are still married? All they ever do is contradict each other. Imagine trying to enjoy your Rice Krispies while watching yourselves argue on “Face the Nation.”

I’m remembering a quote I read in The Utne Reader 13 years ago: “Our culture is saturated with information and starved for conversation.” I believe this is even truer today. Remember the verb forms “neighboring” and “visiting?” They used to be valid pastimes.

What if you called up a friend and said, “Why don’t you come over Tuesday for conversation?” Can you imagine the pregnant pause on the other end of the line? It might be followed by, “Well, are we going to have lunch?”

See what’s happened to us. We’re so productivity-focused that even talking to each other has to involve multitasking.

One notable exception might be a book discussion group. No, wait, I guess it isn’t because to have read a book and be knowledgeable about its content is rather task oriented isn’t it?

Which reminds me of a story that you will find hard to believe, but is absolutely factual. I am poised to lead a novel discussion group at Barnes & Noble. Sitting in a circle with me are about 15 women. It soon becomes obvious that I am in a discussion by myself – no one is contributing. A little probing on my part reveals that NO ONE in the circle but me has actually read the book! Turns out they were hungering for in-person intellectual discourse, and simply wanted to be somewhere where people were conversing.

This was not an isolated incident. In talking with my counterparts around the state I discovered that this happens all the time. I would tell the Utne Reader that we are more than starved for conversation. We are desperate to be heard. My mother always maintained that there were only about 5 good listeners on the planet. A good listener is the rarest conversationalist of all. If you doubt this, tune in Monday to “The View,” or to the popular ESPN show “Pardon The Interruption,” and I will rest my case.


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Jane Story

I've read that if you have a friend that you've known your whole life it is a great blessing. It's an interesting thought...all the places we move and how we change, can a friendship endure for a lifetime? We boomers have all lived long enough to know by now if that’s true. I have 3 friends from way back in my Michigan childhood who still keep in touch and care about my life, so I know that I am very fortunate.

Today, when I think about being fortunate, it is because of a friend I met in 1991 when I first moved to Cape Coral. Her name is Jane Story and she sold us our dream house and became our close friend in the process. We lived just 7 doors away, and she and I would take power walks in the morning and talk about everything from real estate to the men in our lives to deep secrets. It was a glorious and sacred time for me. Getting to know someone who was so successful at what she did, yet made the people in her life her highest priority.

Jane was consistently the most successful realtor in the area with way more listings than any human should be able to handle. Yet she made every owner and prospective buyer feel special in a way that only she could. She always gave her undivided attention. If she didn't think the house was right for you, she would say so. Her great joy was in putting people in the houses where they belonged and would live out their dreams. That is why she loved what she did and worked 7 days a week to the chagrin of those of us who wanted more time with her.

Although she had a huge family with 8 brothers and sisters, many of us were made honorary family and were included in the fold of their special celebrations and gatherings. We were warmly enfolded and fed fabulous Italian food and lively conversation. Love and hospitality reign in her big extended family.

My significant other and I didn't have family near, and realizing this, Jane and her husband Jim would visit us on Christmas eve every year with special treats and - most importantly - a big chunk of their evening. We knew that we were special to them and it made our distance from family much easier to bear.

It was clear to see that Jane had begun her college career as an art major. Hand-made cards with pictures she had taken throughout the year are treasured mementos to many. Somewhere along the line she switched to marketing and began buying and selling real estate - coming to Cape Coral when interest rates were 18%, and the market was almost impenetrable. Undaunted, she told me once that somehow she just always had confidence that she would succeed.

Watching how she lived her life and ran her business taught me many lessons that I carry with me today. No matter how difficult the client, she never lost her temper and always took the high road, even in the most untenable situations. I would marvel at her patience and always sound judgment. If I ever found myself in a bind I knew that if I called Jane she would have a solution in mind. Most importantly, I knew that she cared.

Through the years that we were friends, I made some serious life errors, yet Jane never judged me. She would sympathize while offering sound advice – but only if I asked for it.

When Jane told me a bit over a year ago that she had cancer, I asked her about fear of death. In true Jane fashion, she threw up her hands and said, “Elaine, that’s the last thing I’m worried about. So many clients and people are dependent on me right now that I just hope to have the strength to get everything done.”

As I type this on the eve of Jane’s funeral, I take comfort in knowing that she didn’t have fear, and that family, friends and co-workers rallied like crazy to insure that indeed everything did get done.

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Love those '57 Chevys

To this day there is nothing that will stop me in my tracks like the sight of a 1957 Chevy. No question, it is my favorite car of all time, and my recent research tells me that this is a common phenomenon among us baby boomers. One article I read said “It reminds us of when the auto industry was entering its golden age, when styling was of high importance, and America still had a lot of its core values and ideals intact.”

As a 6-year-old, I would stand up in the bench seat between my mother and dad in their Ford, and point out every single ’57 Chevy Bel Air that we encountered. I was in love with them –maybe because my older brothers were. Al, 12 and Bill, 18 were car fanatics, and to them there was nothing ever manufactured that could hold a piston to the new Chevy Bel Air.

If the whole family was in the car, we would ooh and ahh over the color combinations and which ones we liked the best. My mother loved the yellow and white one, for me it was turquoise, my brothers and dad were very divided, but the black and red combination wowed all of us – make no mistake.

I decided this week that I had to talk to some owners of my dream car and learn their stories. A little research led me to the home of Ted Deily, proud owner of a spotless red and white hardtop. Ted  who is a bit older than boomer status, says that something came over him in 2001 when he spotted the car in a trader magazine. After one look at it he was a man obsessed. After the owner accepted his offer of $25,000, he had to figure out where the money would come from. He did, and has never regretted it. He drives it every week and enjoys the rallies and cruises and solid friendships he’s forged with others who love the cars of our youth.

One fast friendship is just 2 doors away on Ted’s Cape Coral street. Milt Jones always wanted a 4-door hardtop ’57. Then one day in 2006 while driving down Country Club, he spotted the car of his dreams…..with a ‘for sale” sign. So now a beautiful tropical turquoise high performance hardtop sits 2 driveways away from Ted’s. Milt spent more than a year teaching himself how to rewire everything, and says his baby now runs like a top. Although it came along 50 years later than he planned, he says he doesn’t think he could possibly enjoy it any more than he does.

The men lived and worked for the same power company in the North and were in the Navy the same years, but never met until they spotted each other’s cars. Now the two who actually look like brothers have a strong bond of friendship. They and their wives enjoy the camaraderie with other owners and relish the thumbs up they receive constantly when they’re just out for a ride.

Wanting more insight about the iconic status of the ’57, I called Rick Treworgy, owner of the Muscle Car City Museum in Punta Gorda. Rick who has assembled 260 of the hottest cars of our youth in his museum, calls the ’57 Bel Air the “classic of all classics.” There are 6 in his collection including 2 very rare convertibles. It was the V8 motor, positive traction, fuel injection, and the “look at me” fins and chrome that captivated the teens and young adults as he sees it. He remembers the law being more tolerant with street racing and roaring performance engines.

Rick also pointed out that when baby boomers got their first car, it was usually a few years old, and there was no cooler older car than a ’57 Chevy.

I remember a road trip I took through the South with my parents in 1968, and I was awed by how many beautiful ’57 Chevys there were that weren’t victims of Michigan winters and rust. I begged my dad to buy me one, and I remember him actually looking at a few. Look was all he did.

According to autoshopper blogger Sherry Christiansen, “There were only 47,566 1957 Bel Airs manufactured. It was described in advertisements as “sweet, smooth and sassy.” This Chevy was part of The American Dream; it was viewed in homes around the world as it appeared in quite a few different TV programs. Today the ’57 Bel Air is called ‘the most popular car in history’; it even outsold the Ford Thunderbird during the first year it was launched. The 57 Chevy Bel Air was not the number one selling automobile in its time, but if you ask any car enthusiast who remembers, it was the automobile that won the hearts of the masses, and continues to do so even today.”