The City of Californicating, Oregon

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

by Bob Sparrow

    I love Oregon, but as a Californian I always go there in disguise; not the glasses, big nose and mustache kind, but rather with an affected Canadian accent, which ends up sounding more like a drunk Norwegian with a lisp.  Why the disguise?  I’ve found that it’s never a good idea to tell people in Oregon that you’re from California.  The reason dates back to the real estate boom of the ‘70s when California home prices were very affordable and were attracting people from all over the country . . . the world.  Californians, wanting to get away from this sudden in migration, decided that the ‘promised land’ had moved across the border to Oregon, so they started moving north . . . in droves.

     Oregonians, fearing that these new California immigrants would turn Oregon into another California, were not the least bit pleased with the influx of ‘flakes from the land of fruits and nuts’.  While there was some question as to whether signs ever really existed at the California-Oregon border that read, ‘Welcome to Oregon. Now go home!’, Oregon governor at the time, Tom McCall, did set the tone with this quote to a CBS news reporter, “Come visit us again and again.  This is a State of excitement. But for heaven’s sake, don’t come here to live”.  But Californians still came, and to this day most things that smack of progress in Oregon are blamed on those who have ‘Californicated’ the state.

     So it was with mixed emotions that I went to Sunriver, Oregon on a recent business trip – anxious to see this beautiful part of the country for the first time, but concerned that there may still be a bounty on California natives loitering in these pristine environs; especially if I was going to enjoy a cigar while I was there. I thought rules for smoking in California were stringent, if you want to smoke in Oregon, you have to go to the Southeast corner of the state and step into Nevada.  If you’re going to continue to smoke, Oregonians would prefer that you just stay there.  I left the cigars at home.

     Prior to my trip I decided to look up a little history of Sunriver.  The short version is that it was built by the Army as a training camp during WWII and then developed as a resort in 1968; I guess that’s the long version as well.  The developer picked the name, so the brochure says, “to reflect the most characteristic features of the area”.  Perhaps I came at a different time of year than the developers, but it was only on the last day of my visit that the sun came out and I caught a glimpse of the river.  Had it been up to me to name the place, I probably would have called it something like Overcastandcold – of the four days I was there in mid-April, it rained once and snowed twice!

     I discovered that Oregonians have never shown much imagination when it comes to naming their cities, to wit: Drain, Sinks, Cake, Bakeoven, Wagontire, Lookingglass and Noon.  There is also the self-deprecating town of Nimrod and one left over from their hippy days, Zig Zag.  When they ran out of domestic objects as names they started just copying other US city – Cleveland, Denver, Kansas City, Detroit, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Nashville are all cities in Oregon.  To add an international flavor, they have cities named Glasgow, Lebanon, Little Switzerland, Paris, Rome and Damascus to name a few.

     I will say that the one sunny day I did have in Sunriver was spectacular, Mt. Bachelor shown as a snow-capped peak set against a deep blue sky, was awe-inspiring (see picture).  ‘The Three Sisters’ peaks of the Cascades couldn’t have been more beautiful; the closest town: Sisters.  I know that I breathed air in Sunriver that no one has ever breathed before.  Oregonians are excellent stewards of the nature around them and I love that.  It was ultimately a joy to fully understand and appreciate how Sunriver got its name.

Aloha, not a Hawaiian salutation, just another Oregon city.

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THE ICE AGE

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

I love history – both generally and specifically as it relates to our family.  Last year when I was studying some of the Sparrow history I was fascinated to learn that our grandparents were married the same week that the RMS Titanic sunk.  In other words, that ill-fated ship and the Sparrows are commemorating a 100th anniversary this week. Of course, our grandparents have been dead for decades.  But our family celebrates everything without much provocation.

All the hoopla around the Titanic anniversary, including the re-release of the movie by the same name, has made me wonder what our grandparents thought about the disaster, or if it in any way affected their honeymoon. I suspect that I’m not alone in wishing that I had asked my parents and grandparents more questions before they died. Typical things mostly – what attracted them to one another, what their first job was, what mom was thinking when she chose that wedding dress, or, in this case, how did a major catastrophe affect their lives.

I suspect that in my grandparent’s case, it affected them very little. Theirs was something of a scandalous marriage at the time so they had their own personal ice floes to navigate (and, yes, I’ll write about that in a future blog). Something that happened thousands of miles away to strangers would have been interesting, but not necessarily all-consuming.  I suspect that they read about the Titanic in the newspaper over breakfast and then said something like, “Please pass the Devonshire cream”.

Contrast that to what might happen if the Titanic sank today. One can only imagine the news coverage: helicopters flying over the site, news anchors broadcasting from both Southampton and New York, and inevitably Geraldo Rivera would be clinging to an ice berg, wind whistling through his hair, looking for lost treasures. We would be inundated with “expert” analysis and live interviews with people who had a third cousin once removed who went to grammar school with the porter on the third deck.  I don’t even want to think about Twitter and Facebook.  The Food Network would be our only place of refuge.

And all this leads me to wonder: are our lives improved by constant, overwhelming news reports?

I realize that in a broad sense we are all part of the “human family” and sometimes news coverage gives us a better understanding of an issue or a situation. And certainly there is a human interest aspect to every major story.  But so much excessive coverage also leads to stress. We can hardly breathe for all of the information that comes our way. The news channels seem less interested in providing us with the salient facts than in out pacing their competitors in the minutia race.  The result is a LOT of “noise” and the inevitable annoying person at the office who has to be the resident expert on every breaking news story.

Sometimes I think the generations before us had it better in this respect.  They got the pertinent news, usually once a day, and unless it affected a friend or relative, they then went on about their business.  Somewhere between 1912 and 2012 we’ve misplaced the happy medium.

Oh, one other coincidence between the Titanic and the Sparrows:  there has been many a “morning after” when someone in our family has suggested that they were hit by bad ice.

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Don’t Call It ‘An Old Folks Home’ (Continued)

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

(Continued from April 3rd post)

by Bob Sparrow

    The show begins.  The entertainment was a husband-wife team in their 50s who had a Captain and Tennille sort of vibe, except he played the keyboard more like a deckhand than a captain and she, pardon the mixed metaphor, couldn’t carry Toni Tennille’s jock strap in a wet paper bag.  I have no idea what that means.  Their repertoire included mostly Snoop Dog and Lady Gaga stuff.  Oops, sorry, that was the music I had running through my iPod during their performance.  Just kidding, I don’t have any Snoop Dog.  Actually they weren’t bad, as they succeeded in keeping the audience awake, no small task, and on numerous occasions even had them ‘gumming’ the words to some old familiar songs.

      Several times during the course of their performance, mom would turn to ‘New Jack’ and start talking about various subjects, not in hush tones, but as if she had learned to whisper in a saw mill.  A woman sitting directly behind us, wanted of all things, to listen to the entertainment and not mom’s ‘whisperings’ of sweet nothings into New Jack’s hearing aid. After several room-filling, head-turning ‘shhhhes’, the woman realized that mom was either ignoring her or hard of hearing, or both, so tapped me on the shoulder and nodded over to mom, using the now-familiar, non-verbal, face-contorting, silent language of seniors, that screamed, “Can’t you shut that old stove up?”  I shrugged and tried to give a non-verbal look that said, ‘Welcome to my world.’

      The entertainment was really just the opening act for the main event – the crowning of the Merrill Gardens Valentines King and Queen.  The room quieted as the hostess from ‘god’s waiting room’ came before the group to announce this year’s king and queen.   In a very officious way she explained that the king and queen were voted on by the residents and that the results had been sealed since yesterday noon, probably in a prunes jar.  She paused dramatically and explained that this year’s voting had a little twist – she would explain later.  She announced the names of the king and queen.  The new queen hurried to the front to be crowned and explained that the king was in the restroom at the moment and would be out when he was good and ready.  The hostess then explained that the voting was so close this year that they decided to crown a runner-up king and queen, which was unprecedented.  She then called out, “Jack and Barbara” – New Jack and mom!  I leaned over and congratulated mom and whispered to her that as runner-up queen, should the 1st queen, for whatever reason, be unable to perform her queenly duties, that she would become queen!

      I must admit that soon after I heard my mom’s named announced I had to restrain myself from jumping up and running around the room shrieking, “I’m a Prince, I’m a Prince”. Or would I be a duke?  Whatever, I was inwardly thrilled with this brush with royalty.  My enthusiasm dimmed however as I realized that while my sister would become a royal princess, my older brother would be the first in line of succession and as the middle child, I’d be squeezed out again.  After this realization, to be completely honest, I became secretly happy that my mom was only runner-up and muttered under my breath, “Long live the queen.”

      After the show, mom, New Jack and I retired to mom’s room.  I knew my brother and sister were going to be asking a lot of questions about New Jack, so I needed to get some information out of this guy.  With the help of some light water-boarding and a flood light, the grilling began.  I learned that he was originally from West Virginia, but he seemed to have all his teeth and as far as I could tell did not play the banjo.  He was a dentist for 30 years before moving to San Diego and getting into real estate where he apparently found that he could make more money with his hands in people’s pocket than he could with his hands in their mouths.  He came to Sonoma because his only child, a daughter, lives there.  The daughter has three grown children, the most interesting of which is a son who lives in Taiwan and works for the US government.  New Jack thinks he’s a CIA spy of some kind; I think he’s a ping-pong table salesman.  All and all, at the end of the interrogation, he seemed worthy of my mom’s attention.

      This budding romance is the talk of Merrill Gardens, but will it last?  We don’t know whether to expect a call from ‘New Jack’ asking for our mother’s arthritic hand in marriage or a call from mom saying that the ‘Chicken Lady’ is now saving his seat.  Time will tell.

 Post Script: I have poked some fun at the elderly here, but I poke fun at everyone and I just didn’t want to discriminate.  Merrill Gardens does an excellent job of caring for their residents.

 

 

 

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Don’t Call It An Old Folks Home

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

by Bob Sparrow

    Recently our mother moved into what was previously called an ‘old folks home’, but we have come to understand that that term is derogatory, insensitive and . . . well yes, politically incorrect.   So we have created an ever-growing number of euphemisms to cover this concept, but for simplicity reasons we’ll just call it a ‘senior facility’ – sometimes the word ‘living’ is put between ‘senior’ and ‘facility’ I suppose to differentiate it from those ‘non-living senior facilities’.  Our mom’s new facility is called Merrill Gardens and it’s located in the bucolic city of Sonoma – wine country, which often times comes in handy for those visiting our mother.

      It was her 93rd birthday and it was up to either one of my siblings or me to make the trip from Central California, Southern California or Scottsdale, Arizona to Sonoma to celebrate the occasion with her.  My brother had just had a hip replaced, I’m assuming with another hip, so he couldn’t make the trip; my sister’s pancreas was not doing whatever pancreases are supposed to do, so she was out, and thus the familial obligation fell upon me.  Road trip!  The visit would not only provide me an opportunity to see how mom got nearly 55 years of crap from the last house she lived in, into a one-bedroom apartment, but more importantly it would be an chance to meet the new male ‘friend’ in her life that she had been telling us all about for the last several months.  It was my job to ‘grill’ this guy and report back to my siblings regarding his intentions with our mother.  Yes, apparently love has no age limit; love does however have a good sense of irony – mom’s ‘boyfriend’, as she calls him, is named Jack, which, coincidently, was what our father and her husband for 63+ years was named.

      ‘New Jack’, as we have affectionately dubbed him, is 87, which I suppose makes my mother a ‘cougar’ of sorts, but to her credit I’ve not heard her refer to him once as ‘boy toy’.  We’re happy that mom has found someone; our father has been gone for over ten years now and mom was long-overdue as a hen in need of someone to peck.  Those who have a parent in a ‘senior facility’ know that men are at a premium there, so she feels very lucky – I’m not saying she’s getting lucky, I’m just saying she’s feeling lucky – to have latched on to one.

      I met ‘New Jack’ in the lobby of Merrill Gardens as preparations were being made for their big, annual Valentine’s Day concert which included the ceremonial coronation of the ‘Merrill Garden’s Valentines King and Queen’.  We arrived at the showroom (actually just some folding chairs set up in the lobby) early; as mom said it would get fairly crowded rather quickly.  It did indeed become ‘walker room only’ thirty minutes before show time.  Mom and I found three seats in the second to last row; we sat down and mom put her purse on the seat next to her, thus ‘saving’ the seat for ‘New Jack’ who had to go to the restroom . . . again. I suppose in some circumstances we still ‘save seats’, but I thought we stopped that practice after junior high, with the possible exception of calling ‘shotgun’ in high school, thus saving for oneself the most dangerous seat in the car.  After that we just seemed to accept whatever seat we had and whoever sat next to us.  But I’m here to tell you that we return to ‘seat saving’ in our golden years.  The seat next to ‘New Jack’s’ saved seat was also vacant and being saved by the person in the adjacent seat.  As the place was filling up, an elderly woman with a rather grumpy face, that we were to subsequently learn would match her personality, ambled down our row and tried to sit in ‘New Jack’s’ seat.  My mother looked at her purse on the seat and then back to the elderly woman as if to say, “Are you blind, can’t you see my purse on the seat means it’s saved?”  The fact that the elderly woman was indeed vision-impaired seemed not to matter, but watching this interaction, I learned something about getting older, and that is as we tend to rely more on communicating with a look rather than verbally, I assume this has something to do with the loss of hearing that typically accompanies old age.  I digress; the elderly woman looked at mom as if she was a leper and started to sit down in the next seat over, when the woman next to that seat told her it was also being saved.  The elderly ‘seat seeker’ then yelled for all to hear, “That’s ridiculous, they should outlaw seat saving!” and shuffled off in disgust.  Seat savers, don’t be alarmed; while our representatives in Congress have passed sillier legislation, I don’t think the seat saving initiative is getting much traction.

      As we sat waiting for the show to begin, my mother gave me a running commentary on several of the passers-by.  There was ‘Dog Lady’, thus labeled by my mother, not so much because she owned a dog, but because she looked like her dog, probably just in my mother’s eyes, as ‘Dog Lady’ had her eye on New Jack before “the new floozy (that’s mom) moved in’.  Then there’s the ‘Chicken Lady’; no, not because she has or looks like a chicken, but because the wing in which she lives overlooks a chicken farm.  Nothing too unusual there, except ‘Chicken Lady’ also had her eye on Jack (remember, I said men were a hot commodity in these facilities) and had a geographical advantage in that Jack lived in the same ‘chicken wing’.  And trust me on this, proximity to target becomes more and more critical the less ambulatory one gets.

     Finally the show begins . . .

Continued next post

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DO NOT GO GENTLY … Part Two

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

Please excuse me if this is brief; it’s really hard to type when you’re in traction.

Just kidding. Some of you thought that was a real possibility, though, didn’t you? But I am home, safe and sound. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from skiing after 23 years away from it. But just like me, some things were the same and some were radically different. Here are a few of my observations:

Observation #1: The Weather Channel is never to be trusted.

Last week they said it was going to be bright and sunny for our trip. Just what I wanted – spring skiing! So imagine my surprise when on the first morning we woke up to snow. I went to the Weather Channel app and drilled down to their 15 minute forecasts. They said the snow would stop by 10:15. It didn’t.

Observation #2: Ticket pricing makes no sense.

I was surprised to learn that the age for a “senior” ticket is 65. This struck me as strange. Last week I went to the movies and was able to buy a “senior” ticket and the sum total of my physical exertion was to amble down a concourse, balancing a Pepsi and popcorn, and sit in a cushioned seat for two hours. Here, they strap two fiberglass boards to my feet, haul me up to 9,000 feet, expect me to slide down on snow and ice, and somehow I’m just an “adult”. This whole “senior” ticket thing is going to require some investigation.

Observation #3: Technology is a beautiful thing.

And specifically, I’m talking about the improvement in fabric and equipment. I have lots of memories of skiing while freezing. I used to dress in so many layers that I looked like a shoplifter. And I still froze. No more. I wore a thin ski t-shirt under my parka and I was toasty, even in snow and 20 mph winds.

Skis are better too. They used to be the height of my arm raised over my head. Now, the skis barely come up to my chin. I like anything that gives me more control and these new skis are like my own little minion, awaiting my command. Even the tickets are digital. They look like a hotel room key, and when placed in your pocket, allow you to ski right through the lift portals. The portals look something like the security scanners you go through at the airport only without the annoying TSA agents frisking you and stealing your stuff.

The only thing that hasn’t changed is ski boots. Although they were comfortable and warm, they gave me all the grace and agility of Frankenstein. It was not lost on me that I could survive the skiing, only to break my arm doing a face plant coming down the steps from the bathroom.

Observation #4: The 60’s are alive and well in skiing.

One of the major changes to skiing in these 20 plus years is the advent of the snow boarder. Most of these kids (and they are almost ALL kids) look like real slackers. I sized a few of them up on our first day. They probably thought I was staring at their great outfits. I wasn’t. I was assessing each one of them as potential human missiles that would later be careening down the hill aimed right at me. But on some of our gondola rides we met a few of them and almost all were college graduates, just “chilling” for a while before they got a real job. For those of us who came of age in the ‘60’s this sounded awfully familiar.

The other similarity to the ‘60’s was the spirit of fraternity and honesty among skiers. When we stopped to get lunch on the first day I suggested that we rent a locker to store our skis while we ate. My husband looked at me like I had lost my mind (this happens off the ski slopes as well). We simply leaned them against the railing and left them there, for the entire world to see – and steal. We also left our parkas, gloves and goggles on a table while we went to another room to get lunch. And when we came back, they were still there. Maybe I’ve lived in major cities for too long, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there is still a place where people don’t take things that don’t belong to them. That said, I’m not sure I’d leave my iPad unattended.

Observation #5: It pays to set reasonable expectations.

I used to be a pretty good skier. But after such a long absence I set new expectations. Very LOW expectations. The last run I skied all those years ago was at Mammoth, and it is called Stump Alley. I’ve always assumed its name refers to the trees, not the appendages of humans who have fallen. It’s a fairly steep intermediate run and I pretty much knew that my days of skiing “Stump” were over. I was perfectly content to start – and stay – on the bunny slopes. You know, the ones with six year olds whizzing past and people bent over like they are in a perpetual state of looking for their car keys.

But here’s the thing: just as everyone assured me, skiing is like riding a bike. By the second run of the day I had my “legs”. That familiar pole plant-weight shift feeling came back. It was awesome. The rest of the trip was one joyous run after another.

There’s also a big mental benefit to skiing; it requires your complete attention. Usually I’m a prodigious day dreamer. I contemplate a million things on the golf course – the fabric for the family room chairs, what to fix for dinner, why that person said she had a 5 when I know she had a 6. But a lapse in focus while skiing can have disastrous results. So for the entire time I was skiing I didn’t think, or worry, about anything except keeping my knees bent and my weight on the downhill ski. As my husband said “Skiing is good for the soul.”

Observation #6: There’s a missed opportunity here.

Okay, it wasn’t all perfect. I did fall once. I put my weight too far back when I came to a stop and fell backwards on my butt. Nothing spectacular, in fact it was one of those stupid things you do and then look around in the fervent hope that no one saw you. But that wasn’t the worst part. I could not get up. After several humiliating tries I finally had to take my skis off. The only way I could stand up was to roll over and claw my way to an erect position, looking like a polar bear digging for roots. So here’s my idea: Life Alert for the ski slopes. One little squeeze of a button and some cute ski patrol guy would come along and help you up. I think I’m on to something.

So, that was my trip. I’ve spent some moments being mad at myself for having missed all this fun for so many years. I don’t know why we tend to be afraid of active sports as we get older. I suspect it is the fear of getting hurt. But living life being afraid just isn’t a very satisfying way to live. So from now on I will apply my re-conquest of skiing to other things in my life that I have been afraid to try. Except hang gliding. I’m not completely stupid.

Oh yeah – guess which run I skied on the second day? Stump Alley! Here’s a picture of me at the bottom of it. At 61 I skied the same run that I did at 38. Next time I’m not waiting 23 years between runs.

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Do Not Go Gently…Part 1

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

by Suzanne Sparrow Watson

A year ago, when my husband turned 70, he decided that he wanted to take up skiing again. Our last family ski trip was in 1989 and while he has occasionally waxed sentimental about skiing, I never took him seriously. Golf, arthritis and unadulterated fear has kept me from any illusions about skiing again. But like a lot of Baby Boomers, my husband was reflective on his birthday and decided that he had no desire to just slide into old age. He said he wanted to experience the excitement of skiing and if he got hurt, well, so be it. Of course, all I could imagine was him with his casted foot propped up and me fetching things for him every time he rang a damn bell.

But I secretly admired his gumption so I humored him through the “Ski” magazine subscription, then the purchase of ski clothing, and finally, his first ski trip. I could not go with him as I was in physcial therapy for my back but I casually mentioned that I’d go with him this year (note to self: don’t let your mouth write checks that your body has to cash). But I figured that one trip from Scottsdale into the cold climes of the Sierra would convince him his dream was folly. No such luck. He has become a ski nut.

The early part of this winter brought no snow to the Sierras. I was not disappointed. But now precipitation reigns and my casual comment has come back to haunt me; I’ve agreed to go skiing. I look at it this way – I’m in decent shape, I still have some spirit of adventure, and, let’s face it, I’m not ready to admit that I can’t do something anymore. My husband was so excited at the prospect of our trip that for his birthday he took me to Ski Pro to buy me a parka. And since then his every trip there has netted me some little “gift”: gloves, ski shirts, goggles, a ski mask, three pairs of socks, and after-ski boots. I did have to go with him when he insisted on buying me ski pants. I want to say at this point that trying on ski pants is the winter equivalent of testing out bathing suits. It completely goes against common sense for a middle-aged woman to try on clothes that make her look fatter. I’m not sure that even my Spanx are going to help me avoid the Michelin Man look.

My friends think I am completely nuts. They have brought out every story about every friend who has ever gotten hurt on a ski run. I’m getting such supportive comments as, “Is there a good hospital in Mammoth?”, and “Do you want to take my Hunger Games trilogy to read in the hospital?” My neighbor, Pat, who is very athletic, went skiing last week after a seven year hiatus. I knew she would offer me some positive perspective and encouragement. So the day after her return I anxiously asked her how it had gone. She looked at me with that middle-distance stare usually reserved for mental patients. “It was horrible”, she said. “I was frightened the whole time. I skied scared every day.” Her hands were still shaking. Great. This was not the reinforcement I was seeking. Maybe I AM nuts.

Today the car is loaded and we are ready to go. I did an extra 10 minutes on the elliptical machine this morning which I’m sure is going to make all the difference when I’m at 9,000 feet. Or not. I’ll let you know.

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Getting Ready For The Road

Posted on March 24, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

by Bob Sparrow

First, thanks to son, Jeff for the new Header – a great graphic designer if you ever need one!

Next, even though we have a new name, we’re keeping our same ‘Morning News in Verse’ domain, as we didn’t want to ask all you loyal subscribers to re-subscribe to a new blog site. Hope you enjoy our observations.

“You, who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by” Teach Your Children Well, Crosby, Still, Nash & Young

So many of us in the sixties listened to the lyrics above and all we heard were the great harmonies. Why was that? I could put it this way, no one remembers much about the sixties because if they did, they weren’t there, but I don’t want to drag out that old hackneyed phrase . . . oops, sorry. Perhaps the real reason was that most lyrics at the time generally contained the same message: grow your hair, make love not war, feed your head and smoke dried banana peels. Today as I sit in my cannabis-free home with hair disappearing and dropping pills for cholesterol and gout, I’ve started to listen to the words of songs. The lyrics above got me wondering about that opening line and its reference to the ‘code’ by which those on the road must live.

I developed a particular interest in finding this code, if in fact there was one, because as a recent retiree, I had some time on my hands and was looking to ‘hit the road’ to chronicle ‘life’s little observations’. Contemplating these lyrics, I wondered, “What’s this code thing all about?” Would I be out on the road and commit a major road faux pas and be told to get off the road until I had a better grasp of the ‘code’? The lyric kept running through my head, “. . . must have a code . . .” I felt like I couldn’t back out of my driveway until I found and deciphered the ‘code’. I needed to figure this all out fairly soon or risk becoming an agoraphobic.

Thus I began my search for the code. I was hoping that it wasn’t some mythical or unwritten code – those are the toughest to find and virtually impossible to crack – so I searched under the assumption that there was indeed something, somewhere used by ‘you who are on the road’ when traveling to guide you along your way. Search as I may, I found nothing; even Google was uncharacteristically quiet on the subject and offered no response to a ‘code of the road to live by’. I wondered, for the first time, if Google really did know everything.

I decided I needed to look into the origin of the lyrics.

The song first appeared in the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album Déjà Vu, released in 1970. Stephen Stills wrote the music and Graham Nash wrote the lyrics that apparently dealt with the relationship with his father, who had spent time in prison. Prison? It was beginning to sound like something the country-western folks would have loved to get their hands on. In my research I found an interesting sidebar; Jerry Garcia agreed to play the steel pedal guitar on this song in exchange for harmony lessons for his band, The Grateful Dead. Based on the Dead’s subsequent album I’m guessing that C,S,N&Y never fulfilled their part of the exchange. My search, while interesting, gave me no clue as to the code. However, given the cast of characters, I concluded that hallucinogenic substances were probably involved and that the ‘code’ was most probably a figment of some very fertile imaginations. Clueless and codeless I hit the road.

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Welcome to ‘A Bird’s Eye View’

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

     Yes, you’re in the right place; you don’t have a virus; well, maybe you do, but that’s a whole different subject.  This is Morning News in Verse and you are either receiving this in your email (thank you subscribers, we love you) or are getting it through Facebook (we love you too, but it’s more like a puppy love).  Due to an increasingly diminishing number of requests, we’ve made a decision to change our format from mostly verse and some prose to mostly prose and some verse.  Our number of ‘hits’ tell us that it’s what you would prefer as well.

     We’ll still make fun of the Headlines, Money, Sports and Life, but only occasionally; rather, we’ll proffer samples of ‘A Bird’s Eye View’ of life-observations.  Sometimes our observations will be from the road, usually the one less traveled, and sometimes they will be from just around the corner.  Sometimes we’ll write about insignificant, Andy Rooney-kinds of things and other times we’ll offer observations on this process of growing older, but not necessarily up.

So let’s start with our new name, ‘A Bird’s Eye View’; it is, of course, a play on words of the name Sparrow, but it also has some family history to it.  In 1940 our parents moved to Novato, a small, northern California town, where our father, Jack (yes, Jack Sparrow, but no relation to Johnny Depp) bought the Novato Advance, a local, weekly newspaper, and at 26 became the youngest newspaper publisher in California.  It was truly a ‘Mom and Pop’ business – our dad hand-set the type and operated the printing presses while our mom, who could also operate a pretty mean linotype machine, attended the town meetings to gather the local gossip, or news as she called it.  She also spiced up the paper by chronicling the comings and goings of Novato’s social elite, such as they were.  Those familiar with small town newspapers know what we’re talking about.  Jim and Mabel Cranston were visited on Sunday by Mabel’s sister, Iris from Ukiah; she brought an apple pie – Jim had seconds.  Our mother originally called her column, A Little Bird Told Me and later changed it to A Bird’s Eye View.  When we recently asked her about why she changed the name, she first said, “Who are you two?”  At 93, we forgave her for not remembering the details of a newspaper column from nearly 70 years ago.  Our theory is this: etymologically speaking, ‘A Little Bird Told Me’ sounds like second-hand information, like we’re not sure if this is true, but we heard from someone that yadda, yadda, yadda. ‘A Bird’s Eye View’, on the other hand, seems to suggest more of a first-hand, optimum perspective of things.  Our mother could neither confirm nor deny our theory.

However the name came about, we’ve decided that it’s ours and we’re bringing it out of retirement.  We hope you enjoy our new direction.

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SLIME, AND SLIME AGAIN

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

Headlines:  We’re going to need a bigger jar of Purell.

They’ve discovered that the meat in our schools has “pink slime”,

And slimy ex-governor “Blago” is finally in jail for his crimes.

But the biggest “yuck” of all goes to Afghan prez Karzai,

“Untrustworthy slime ball” is too good for this guy.

Money:  March:  the lowest productivity month of the year.

The market is going up; mortgage rates are on the rise,

But all we care about is our office pool size.

Everyone is studying brackets, sizing up who’s #1,

It’s finally March Madness, which mean no work is being done.

Sports:  And to continue the theme…

Sure, Peyton is making all the stops, looking for a team,

And Tiger’s nursing his Achilles to keep alive his Master’s dream.

But it’s Kentucky who has to worry and hope that things don’t go awry,

For now they have to overcome the dreaded “jinx” from S.I.

Life:  It’s All Over Except the Shouting

That juggernaut, “American Idol”, has begun its 11th season,

And maybe we’re just cranky but it’s a bit “off” for some reason.

Some contestants are okay, a couple sing like they’re from Heaven,

But why do most decide to turn one note into seven?

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STILL DIGGING FOR THE GOOD NEWS

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Sparrow/Watson

Headlines: Time to Stick Our Heads in the Sand

Rogue solder in Afghanistan, the Taliban’s enraged;

Massacres In Syria – this whole world’s an ugly stage.

But on this Tuesday morning, let’s not the bad news chase;

Let’s focus on the things that put a smile upon our face.

Money: Just What We Needed – Longer Days

We’ve made it through that weekend where we had to change our clocks,

And now we are just days away from the Vernal Equinox.

When Spring begins in earnest and the sun is beaming stronger,

When our nights are getting warmer and our days are lighter longer.

Sports: Tiger’s Having Another Hissy Fit

College basketball’s ‘Big Dance’ gets started off this week,

While Peyton’s on a US tour, a new football team to seek.

And Tiger keeps on swearing and after bad shots bangs his club;

It seems that the ‘new Tiger’ is more like a tiger cub.

Life: Whatever You Eat . . . It’s Bad For You.

In looking for some good news about things to drink and eat,

We didn’t find much solace for those who eat red meat.

But veggies contain pesticides and mercury’s in our fish,

So this evening try some raw nuts and a gourmet tofu dish

 Bon Appetite!

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