Tales of the Tarantula

by Frank Terranella

  Well that was then. Fast forward 50 years and now I’m the one asking, “What’s the name of that movie with Groucho Marx and Marilyn Monroe?” And I can see them both in my mind’s eye as they play a scene together. But I can’t get back to the title screen. I have become my grandfather.

  The difference between me and people my age 50 years ago is that I have in the palm of my hand a 21st century machine that supplies answers to everything anyone would ever want to know. It has apps like Wikipedia and IMDB that are like having my own grandson at my beck and call. My smartphone remembers all the things that I don’t.

  Just a few years ago, before I had a smartphone, my wife and I would struggle to recall names and titles. I remember many a Sunday afternoon at my mother’s house where all the adults around the table would agonize to recall one important name or another and my son, who was the only one at the time who had a smartphone, would simply look it up and take us out of our misery. Now many of us over 50 have smartphones and they are fabulous for quickly finding those names that are on the tip of our tongue.

  So today, we grandparents don’t have to rely on grandchildren to provide the answers to life’s persistent questions. We can look it up online. But just as using a calculator robbed us of the ability to perform simple mathematics, and having phone numbers programmed into phones made us forget our phone number, I fear that knowing that we can use Siri as a virtual grandchild will make us even more dependent on technology than we are already.

  Years ago we were forced to rack our brains to remember things and usually the brain came through – eventually. I can remember many a morning waking up with a name or title that had eluded me the night before. But if we never challenge the aging brain to retrieve information, won’t we eventually lose that ability as well?

  So I guess that like everything else, we need to rely on our smartphones in moderation. Leave the less important questions like movie trivia to stew in our brains – overnight if necessary. “Use it or lose it” applies to brains as much as anything else. And it’s a good feeling to come up with a name or title on your own. Anyway, the day may come when a smartphone (or the internet) is not available. And maybe when that day comes we will be able to come up with the answer on our own. Or maybe not. Just to be safe, I plan to have my grandchildren around as a backup. You can’t have too many lifelines in life.

  My un-bucket list

  October 2014

  One of the realities we over-50s face is the reality of time. We all sooner or later come to view time as a precious commodity. It’s something that we are going to run out of sooner or later. So it’s time to make some hard choices. For example, of all the places we can travel to in the world, which do we need to make happen, and which are a lower priority? The number of future vacations is limited; it’s time to focus on the important ones. Which activities do we need to try and which are not important? This is why we have bucket lists.

  Drawing up a bucket list requires making some choices. Some things go on the list and some don’t. So for every bucket list, there’s an un-bucket list – a list of things we have not done that we’ve decided to pass on (at least until after we complete our bucket list). In that spirit, I have compiled my own un-bucket list. It’s just mine and I don’t expect that anyone will agree with all of it. But I think it’s a useful exercise to list some things that I have never done that I absolutely don’t have to do before I die:

  1. Hike the Appalachian Trail – I have visited every state in which the Appalachian Trail travels and I don’t need to hike it.

  2. Golf my age – I’ve played golf and I like it, but I don’t need to shoot a score to match my age. Anyway, I don’t think that human beings live that long.

  3. Scuba Diving – This is something I might have done when I was younger, but the boat has sailed, so to speak, on this one.

  4. Sky Diving – I don’t care how old George Bush was when he did it. It’s not natural to jump out of an airplane. But then again, it’s not natural to fly. Of course, it is natural to fall, but falling several thousand feet does not strike me as fun.

  5. Water skiing – I used to drive a motor boat for others to water ski, but never wanted to do it myself. I still don’t.

  6. Surfing – I love to watch, but this is definitely a young person’s sport. My balance and reflexes are not what they used to be.

  7. Rock climbing – I swear these people have a death wish.

  8. Visit Asia – I’ve visited Turkey and so I’ve technically been to Asia but I have too many other places I want to see in the world before Asia (including Australia, South America and Africa), so if I have to miss a continent, this is the one.

  9. Run a marathon – I don’t even want to drive 26 miles any more if I don’t have to.

  10. Go to the moon – When I was a kid, a trip to the moon in my lifetime was a given. People spoke of honeymooning on the moon some day. Now, this is one dream that I have come to accept will never be realized, and I’m OK with it. But I’d still like to orbit the earth!

  Penny candy and PEZ bring me back to childhood

  October 2014

  Among the fondest memories of we over-50s is penny candy. It amazes my children when I tell them that when I was a kid you could actually buy something with a penny. In fact, you could often get two of something for a penny – like Bazooka bubble gum. In this age of packaged candy that costs a dollar or more, it is truly remarkable that there was a time when we could cash in an empty bottle and use the two-cent deposit to buy candy!

  And just when my children are telling me that the only use for a penny today is to pay sales tax, I blow their minds when I tell them that back when I was a kid, there was no sales tax. People just paid the listed price. Those pennies were just for candy.

  Well recently I was travelling on I-95 in Connecticut and I passed a sign that advertised a museum of PEZ. Now PEZ is one of those special baby boomer-era treats like penny candy. For the uninitiated, PEZ is a small brick-shaped candy that comes in several flavors. It started out in Austria in 1927 as a mint for people who wanted to quit smoking. In fact, the word PEZ comes from the German word “pfefferminz” meaning “peppermint.” The famous PEZ dispenser was designed to look like a cigarette lighter.

  However, PEZ did not come to America until the 1950s. So we were the first generation of children to experience it and the novelty of the now-iconic plastic dispenser. I think that it was certainly the dispenser that made PEZ special. They made hundreds of different dispensers with many famous characters on them. Collecting PEZ dispensers is still widespread enough that collectors gather annually for conventions.

  At the PEZ museum in Orange, Connecticut they have displays of the many ingenious dispensers that the company has made over the years. My favorites are the dispensers with the heads of presidents of the United States. But there are few licensed characters in the world from Mickey Mouse to Elvis Presley who have not had their heads on a PEZ dispenser. In addition to the traditional cigarette shaped dispenser, PEZ also marketed guns as dispensers. This allowed kids to shoot candy into the mouths of their friends.

  The PEZ museum is actually located at the plant where PEZ candy is made (the dispensers come from China). So if you go on a weekday, you can watch them make thousands of little PEZ bricks in scores of flavors. And of course, you can buy PEZ. Here, the self-guided tour does not just exit through the gift shop, it is integrated into the gift shop. But where else can you find a Thomas the Tank Engine or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles PEZ dispenser?

  PEZ and penny candy are among the great treats of a baby boomer childhood. Sadly, only PEZ is still with us. The types of candy that a penny used to buy, if you can still find them, are now a specialty nostalgia item. But even at the current inflated price, a licorice pipe is a treat that I will want to share with my grandson. And I can amaze him with tales of the wondrous things a penny used to buy for a kid.

  BFF relationships –

  A rarity to be nurtured<
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  October 2014

  There are a group of over-50 actors on Broadway right now in a play called Love Letters by A.R. Gurney. It documents the almost-lifelong correspondence between a man and a woman who come to realize that they are soulmates. But like the couple in another play, Same Time, Next Year, they always seem to be out of sync.

  The play is performed entirely by actors of a certain age like Brian Dennehy, Mia Farrow, Alan Alda, Carol Burnett, Martin Sheen, Candice Bergen and others. These stars alternate in pairs over the four-month run of the show.

  The format of the show is quite simple. On a stark stage with only a table and two chairs, the actors read a lifetime’s worth of letters. Slowly the relationship of the couple becomes clear and we watch it mature as the years fly by. It’s a premise that is best appreciated by people who have lived more than half a century. Like the actors who bring the correspondents to life, we over-50s know long-term relationships for the long and winding roads they are.

  The idea of a best friend forever is more idealistic than realistic for most of us. BFFs are precious because they are the exception to the rule. For most of us, relationships with childhood friends, elementary school friends, high school friends and even college friends are limited to reunions every few years, if we are lucky. Most BFF relationships do not survive past the half-century mark.

  Distance is most often the cause of losing touch. But changed circumstances can also contribute. For example, becoming a parent is often so demanding of our time that we lose touch with our single friends. It’s tough to get together for a drink after work when you’re rushing home to pick up a child from daycare. And even if you can get away, conversation becomes a problem when your focus is on children and not seeing the latest movies, plays or museum exhibits.

  But in rare cases, you can be so in sync with someone that the relationship stays alive. Oh sure the relationship has its peaks and valleys, but with a little effort you stay in touch. It’s actually a lot easier to do that today, what with Facebook, email and instant messaging, although actual contact is still necessary.

  Lifelong friends are a precious commodity needing to be nurtured. These days many young people may feel that since they have hundreds of Facebook friends, many of these will be BFFs. But being “friended” on Facebook doesn’t mean you have a friend. A friendship requires that you put yourself out to have human contact on a regular basis. These days that can be as simple as a regular Skype call. If Siri is the only friend you talk to on a regular basis, it’s time to use the phone part of your smartphone and have a real conversation with someone you used to know.

  Recently, I re-connected with an old college friend of mine. We had been in touch sporadically over the years. He lives in Maine and so distance is a factor. He also hates cities and so getting him to come to New York is always challenging. Most recently, we were in touch through Facebook. But I had not seen him in 10 years. So I decided that this was a relationship worth nurturing, and if Skip wouldn’t come to New York, I would go to him.

  Now truth be told, going to Maine is hardly a punishment. It’s a beautiful place. But it is a LONG car ride since Skip lives near Augusta, which is still a few hours ride after you reach the Maine border. But my wife and I chose what we thought might be a good weekend for foliage viewing and we decided to get in the car and go. It turned out to be a great weekend and Skip and I got a chance to re-connect in a way that you just can’t do electronically.

  When I talk to my stepfather about what it’s like to be 91, he tells me that the hardest thing is that all your friends are gone. You see, the forever part of BFF is not really “for ever” but only “for as long as we both shall live.” It’s tough to lose friends to the grim reaper. But losing friends due to laziness is criminal negligence. Like plants, your friendships need attention, or they wither and die.

  As we travel down the road of life after 50, it’s especially important to maintain contact with our old friends. They’ve traveled the road with us and they can bring out the best in us. At the very least, they remind us of our young selves. They remind us of a time when the road ahead seemed long and full of promise. They remind us that life can still be like that, even after 50.

  Remembering the day I tied the knot

  November 2014

  I have always been puzzled and a little offended by the common stereotype of the middle-aged married man who can’t remember his wedding anniversary. I don’t know how anyone can forget one of the most important dates in his life. I have never had a problem remembering it.

  It was November 24, 1978 and I was 25 years old. It was a typically overcast November day in Barrington, New Jersey. The wedding was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on a Friday night, the day after Thanksgiving. My fiancée had wanted an evening wedding, and the idea was to have it on a day when most people would have off not only the day of the wedding but also the day after. Friday night also worked well with our plan to take a honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean because cruises typically leave on Saturdays.

  I was marrying my college sweetheart who I had known for almost four years. We had been engaged for more than a year and that time had been spent living 100 miles apart at opposite ends of New Jersey. We both were looking forward to moving into our newly-purchased condominium unit in Bardonia, New York, just north of Nanuet in Rockland County.

  I was working as an editor on the daily newspaper in Rockland County, the Journal News. But I had just taken the LSATs and done well on them and in a year I would begin law school in New York City. My fiancée was working as a proofreader for Price Waterhouse in Philadelphia and she would soon find a similar job at a big New York law firm.

  Living a couple of hours apart meant that we saw each other only on weekends. And my job sometimes made even that impossible. There was no email or instant messaging then, so our only communication was by telephone and letters. Long distance telephone calls were still expensive back then so letters were the predominant means of communication. Looking back, I think that was actually a blessing because while modern communications are ephemeral, letters are forever. We can still unpack the boxes where the letter stash resides and remember a time before children.

  Living apart also meant that my fiancée did almost all of the wedding planning. It was a different time when men were expected to simply show up with the rings. Everything else was planned by the bride’s family. Even the wedding announcements in the newspapers in those days showed pictures only of the bride. Thank goodness men have made some gains in this area. My son was intimately involved in planning his wedding.

  There were a couple of annoying things that emerged from a lack of my input in the wedding plans. For one, the family had arranged that we would go from the church not to the reception hall, but to a photographer’s studio where a studio portrait could be taken by an octogenarian photographer. This probably took an hour and so we missed the cocktail hour. And then when we finally got to the reception, there was a different, more annoying photographer who didn’t know the meaning of the word “candid.” He wanted to pose everything. And our wedding pictures reflect that lack of spontaneity.

  But I’m not complaining. Marrying my wife was the best decision I have ever made and it’s been an almost perfect 36 years. We have two fantastic children and now a beautiful grandson. I’m a very lucky man. And I celebrate the day it all began.

  Well I’ve never been to Spain

  November 2014

  When I think of all the places I would like to see before I can no longer travel (or remember traveling), high on the list is Spain. You see, as the song says, I’ve never been to Spain, but I’ve been to Oklahoma. Yet I’ve always wanted to go to Spain. I studied Spanish history in college and have always been fascinated by the Arab influence there. The architecture and the art, not to mention the food and the climate, all beckon to me.

  In fact, the only reason I didn’t get there when I did my college summer trek through Europe is that Spain was not covered by th
e StudentRail pass that allowed me to get on any train in any other European country. Maybe it was because dictator Francisco Franco was still ruling Spain at the time. I don’t know. But whatever the reason, the StudentRail pass didn’t work there, and so I didn’t get to Spain in 1972. And in the years since, I have not had an opportunity (either business or pleasure) to travel to Spain, even though my job causes me to communicate with people in Spain every day.

  This is why it is particularly hard for me to take that my 9-month-old grandson Bryce has now been to Spain. His parents got a passport for him and took him along on their recent vacation to Barcelona. My wife and I had volunteered to babysit while my son and his wife traveled, but they decided that they wanted to experience travel with a baby. By all reports, the travel went well. My grandson did not terrorize other passengers on the overnight trip over by screaming or otherwise behaving like the baby he is. Instead, he seemed to take the airplane ride in stride.

  Of course, unlike adults, babies take most things in stride. That shouldn’t surprise us because if you think about it, babies experience new things every day – new sights, new smells, new tastes, new sounds. So something new like an airliner is all in a baby’s normal day. At least he didn’t have to wear a costume like he had to do for his first Halloween a week earlier. And a new country where people speak a language other than English is no sweat to someone who doesn’t speak any language yet.

  Actually, my wife and I also took a baby on vacation in 1986. The 11-month-old was Bryce’s father and the trip was to Orlando and Disney World. David did just fine back then and so it did not really surprise us that Bryce also did well. But like his father, Bryce will have no memory of his first plane ride. He will have no memory of Spain. And that’s OK. He has a lifetime to go back.