It's A Good Age To Be!

   In just a little over three weeks from now, the world will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.


JFK, moments before his assassination and one of many
similar images you will see in the coming weeks.

   The date is November 22 and, coincidentally, it is also a Friday, as it was back in 1963. There have already been ads on T.V. for planned specials to commemorate the event and you can be certain that the media will be inundated with Kennedy images.
   I am one of the older of my peer group and because of this I am one of the few who can actually remember that day, with clarity.
   At the time, I was in Grade Five and was attending Braemar Public School in North Vancouver. We were all sitting at our desks when the intercom came on and the principal informed us the Kennedy had been killed. We were stunned but we were stunned in a ten-year-old kid sort of a way---it was more of a holy cow kind of a moment for us and the true solemnity of the situation was, I think, lost on us. One of the girls in the class broke into tears, however, and was excused. Why this had happened rather perplexed us until our teacher told us that the student was actually an American and that the awful news had much more import to her.
   As the weekend went on and we found ourselves glued to the black and white images on our T.V. screens, the holy cow feeling I'd had in my classroom totally disappeared as the gravity of the times sunk in.
   I am pretty well able to remember every little image from that weekend. Many of them became iconic and I can only imagine that in the lead up to the fiftieth anniversary they will be everywhere you look. I, however, feel privileged to have seen them as they happened.
   This is one of the things I treasure the most about being the age I am. I am able to say that I was witness to much of the history we now have venerated, analyzed, distilled and

Armstrong steps on the moon.

fashioned idols around. Occasionally I was witness to it as it happened---I watched as man first set foot on the moon and I watched as Paul Henderson scored the winning goal against the Russians in '72. If I didn't happen to be watching when the event actually occurred then I was immediately afterwards immersed in its wake and denouement.

Henderson in '72

   As much as history books and T.V. can attempt to recreate an historic moment what they generally cannot accurately recreate is the emotion of the time--the looks that might have been passed back and forth by total strangers, the utter joy or the total dejection. At some point in the next few weeks there will likely be a replay of Walter Cronkite, the famous CBS newscaster, announcing to the world President Kennedy's death. The words he used were straightforward. It was the look on his face that was harder to describe. It was the same look that many people had those days and if you weren't there to experience it then you cannot know it accurately.
   I like being able to say "I was there", even if only as viewer and from far away. As terrible or as joyous as a world event might be, when you are my age you are able to place it within the context of all that has gone on before. When you have lived through as many monumental events as I have, the monumental events of today are somehow greatly lessened and I envy the clear-minded eighty-year-olds who are able to remember back even farther than I am.
   This, then, is my little window--I am at that age where there is much to remember but I am edging closer to the time when there will be much to forget. For now, though, it is a good age to be! 
    

Doodles for Doralyn

   This post is for my wife, Doralyn. This is not to say that the rest of you can't read it but I really wrote it with Doralyn in mind.

   I doodled on a blog post a couple of months ago and Doralyn kind of enjoyed it. So I thought I would doodle a little more.
   These doodles come to you courtesy of Windows Paint so, if you have Windows, you yourself can create art as amazing as this!
   I have doodled for as long as I can remember. Most of it was while I really should have been doing something else--writing an exam, composing a poem, looking for coverage, doing a crossword, talking on the phone, those kinds of things.
   Generally, I had nothing more than a pen or pencil at my command and very little ability to add colour afterwards. This has been what is kind of fun about the little doodles you see here--the colour.

   Also, as I have doodled, I've plugged myself into iTunes and have been listening to much of my favourite music over the years. This is one thing I've really gotten away from, sadly, over the last few years. So it has been a double-barrelled pleasure experience, this late-night doodling and old-time music!
   Doralyn and I just recently had our eight year anniversary of being together. It truly, however, feels as if it's been a much shorter length of time than that. The freshness of it all hits me just about every time I look at her. That and the overwhelming feeling that I have been extremely lucky.
   I tell her this a lot and she replies that it's a very mutual kind of relationship but were you to be at all familiar with us as a couple then there would be no hesitation in declaring me the winner of the "Who Is The Luckier" Sweepstakes!
   In reality, I think that anyone who has Doralyn in their life in any kind of capacity is all the better for it. This not only goes for me but applies as well to friends, relatives and co-workers---pretty well all the people who know her.
   Her sons, of course, are the most fortunate beneficiaries of having had her in their lives. It is not often easy melding families together and, in the crucible that was two marriages dissolving and becoming a new one, Doralyn's love and steady hand was what got them (and all of us, really) through it. They have all become fine young men we are very proud of them.
   Now, I'm not really sure what all this has to do with me doodling away the past few days. Except that Doralyn seemed to like it when I did. I can only imagine that, as long as this continues to be the case, I will endeavour to do so!

      
  
  

Man On Fire: My Face Falls Off

   It was a week ago that I stopped applying the Efudex cream. Oddly, my face started to feel less comfortable after I stopped. It became very dry and tight and sore to the touch.
   Then it began to peel.
   It peeled off in little chunks and large pieces. It was not the same kind of skin you end up peeling off after a sunburn, it almost seemed to have a charred steak look to it (very thin charred steak you must understand) and the skin underneath was still quite red-looking.
   I understand that it might take quite a while for normal-looking skin to re-appear---possibly weeks. This doesn't bother me too much, I put up with the already sun-damaged skin for years and am quite prepared to wait a long time for healthy stuff to emerge.

At the end of treatment...

...and a week later--slightly lighter
and you can see where it's been peeling.

   In the meantime, I am back to running and will soon be back to the gym as well. While the treatment was on, I'd been asked by the dermatologist not to do sweaty stuff and I attempted to heed her as much as possible. Hard as that was.
   My follow-up appointment is early in January. I'm hoping that this will have given my face the time it needs and we will go from there!