Foot Ware

"I thought that was a great family snap, you all look so dapper especialy Dad. Then I scanned down to your shoes.............. Oh Baz,what have ya got on yer feet mate? You look like the captain of your family ship, but flip flops???????
Gaz ;-)"

Dear Gaz;

The "flip flops???????" were strenuously objected to by a, my-same-age Senor, in the men's room of McDonald's. On the inside 'flop-holder' of each Flip is the word MEXICO. The color scheme of each 'shoe' is red, white, and green, the color of the Mexican National flag. My antagonist, fortunately for me, was unarmed. I should add here before I get to the real drama, that we lived for nearly five years, retired, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. So, in short, I'm familiar with Mexican rackets, and tired long, long ago of being accosted as a 'Gringo.' The McDonald's old guy, my age, was pissed that I was "Walking" on his country, and, on top of that, with dirty feet!

Since then I keep the flippers clean: the chief benefit of the slippers for me is that I wear them to the pool, whether indoors or outdoors. The concrete surrounding most pools is rough to help one from slipping on one's keyster. I wash them in the men's room shower, along with myself.

As you know, I'm proudly old, and win swimming races in my age group. My God, I better get back to meets and pick up some more medals 'cause by rule I am now eligible to swim in the 75 - 80 age group and just might win in the Medley too, in spite of having virtually no 'Dolphin' AKA in USA as 'Butterfly' stroke.  The rule is that each year your age-group is determined by age beginning with your birthday anytime in that year. I'm 75 in September, so this year I'm in the 75-80 age group.

In age, there isn't quite enough circulation in my legs to satisfy me, so I avoid wearing shoes as much as possible. Nobody objects to my flip flops provided, apparently, nothing is written on them. Language, ya know, is "violence" to quote England's academician Jacqueline Rose. And, remember, my photo was not taken in Hyde Park(which I walked through more than once, shod, and wearing a suit looking for a soapbox to stand on and showoff my fine English shoes) but casual California, in a cemetery. The dead didn't mind.

Barry

Luv ya Sport!

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

The Whole Gang

 

Dunno why this isn't sharper. The camera was on a tripod, and set off by the self-timer.  There was a better frame, taken with all of us standing at another location in the cemetary over the wall from where we live.  But when Vincent set it up the faces were too dark. Only during this being set up in the computer did my son lighten the faces, something he could have done on the better shot. I didn't know it was a computer option. But, he'd finally given the okay for his likeness to appear, so I didn't make him go back and lighten the better frame. There was an empty space on the right (stage left, heh) which Vincent, age 12, cut off at my request. In bright sun it sure is tough seeing what you're shooting with a cheap digital camera. For one thing, you can't trust the eye-piece at all, only the picture on the back of the camera. Not used to that at all. Oh well, it's a 'brave new world,' ain't it?!

Barry

Hoping for your indulgence.

 

 

Mark's Bath Time

Couldn't resist taking Mark's picture since he was having such a good time.  He's so good tempered I've started to wonder if the presence of his older brothers calms him, makes him laugh, and overall be more relaxed. If he were an only child his temperament might be crabby, which presently is hard to even imagine.

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

My Operation NOT at LA's Cedars Sinai

To get operated on I must change my medical insurance back to MEDICARE from where it had lodged, unknown to me, with an insurer I thought was for prescriptions only, but which effectively cancelled my Medicare. My hernia operation was scheduled for last Friday. Got a call from Cedars Sinai hospital (Donna Reed died there; onscreen I loved her, but we never met, groan, ha ha ha; maybe Cedars did NOT care for her right!)  Cedars, private, has oodles of old ladies as volunteers unpaid, old and dizzy. One of them called me jubilant that she could announce to me that my Friday appointment had to be cancelled and that it would take me 30 days to reestablish Medicare. Rats! Now I spend most of my walking around time pushing my guts back into my stomach. Medicare can be reinstated retroactively! How I'm gonna love exploding Cedars' smug volunteer program. The over-eager volunteer shouted at me - she's deaf, not me - that my hernia repair cost "Twenty thousand dollars!" a sum my Screen Actors Guild, Blue Cross medical insurance, would not pay. Three of my children by a previous marriage were delivered via C-section at Cedars Sinai solely because the physician wanted the exrta money, not because my then wife couldn't deliver all on her own; she was healthy as a horse! but loved to be fussed over, so went for it. SAG did pay for that, all three of them. Two years ago I had a lump taken off my left lung via keyhole surgery at Cedars Sinai. Afterwards I was told the removed lump was cancerous; a biopsy done during the operation made the same discovery. Ah, but ten days later I was called in and the surgeon announced that the biopsy was incorrect and that I did not have cancer. Sentiment overcame me and I hugged the surgeon. I believe that what had happened was that on July 3rd of that year the chief of the biopsy lab went on vacation for the July 4th weekend. An underling had made a mistake. I do not know if he too was a volunteer.

All hospitals in America are in trouble. What used to be called King - Drew (That's Martin Luther King Jr) hospital and is now called King Harbor hospital has just been closed down. That is, even the ER (Emergency Room) has closed. Within days, I predict, there will be riots to rival the Watts riots of some years ago when angry mobs burned down over 800 buildings in South Los Angeles. This time I might join them. This time I WILL join them.

I don't want this to sound too much like a joke, but because of her expertise on the subject of Medical care, and its absence, we really do need Hillary as President. Universal, democratic health care is imperative. Medicine for the rich only is anathema.

This is the God's honest truth: if it hadn't been for labor unions in my life I'd have been dead long, long ago.  The Sailors Union of the Pacific kept me alive and afloat on the oceans blue, and the Screen Actors Guild and Medicare kept me alive in age. I wanna go on living, and I do, oh do I want to not have to hold my guts in much longer.

The Bob Hope Medical Center, who sent me to that surgeon, has "Promised" all will be set right this coming week. We'll see. But, I'm still gonna declare war on Cedars Sinai.  (Bob Hope is dependent somewhat on SAG.) 

In short, Cedars Sinai, like nearly all hospitals in America at the present time, needs an overhaul. I'm the guy for the job! Oh oh oh oh the hystrionics I will uncork! I've already begun. I started when I screamed, while driving, at the contrite-sounding, sweet mannered hernia surgeon on the cell phone that he oughta get a life and stop doing penny ante patch up hernia jobs for $20,000 and do something honest by which to make money. He pleaded I didn't know him well enough to make that charge. What? he'd been doing surgery in darkest Africa?! Not bloody likely.

Well, I got that off my chest. Now I have to get a tummy tuck, ha ha ha ha ha ha.....maybe I could do it myself, no?

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

 

 

Roots, and their value

Lovely daughter Diana is back from Australia with heaps of family news, so much it will take me many months to absorb it all.

Most-impact items:

1. A photo of my grandmother, now long dead, taken when she was about 40. I'd seen a photo taken when she was in her 20's, playing games on the grass wearing an ankle length skirt, but her face was indistinct. So, I'm floored by her beauty. When I knew her, beginning at about age 6, she was cranky and sick from severe diabetes for which there must have been none of today's treatments. I do remember with gratitude however her many, many kindnesses to me.

2. A photo of a movie theater in Sydney Australia suburb Collaroy, designed by my father when I was five years old.  Not only is it still screening movies but has been officially dedicated as a monument and cannot be demolished. The poor old guy, my father, he was a drunk, and it's a shame he didn't live to enjoy the honor. I suppose my brothers, and their children, get to enjoy some of the reflected appreciation.  My father ignominiously abandoned us when our mother died. My younger brothers, then 8 and 5, went to an orphanage, and I went back to California. The wounds are still healing. Diana had guts and determination and strength to go 'home' and in a metaphoric sense shore up some of the damage. Women handle such healing chores, I believe, better than do men. In any case, it took a woman to handle this job. Brava Diana!!

3. Diana got to read some of the letters  I wrote from America to my brothers in Australia, and to see photos of Diana as a child kept by my brother's widow Beryl who made Diana's visit not only possible, but plausible. So I owe a heap of thanks to Beryl.

4. Diana has posted 167 Australia photos on a website that I have access to. The brave new world department, ha ha; Does away with having to secure and mail copies. There must now be over 300 Australia photos I have access to. 

At the risk of my phrasing it incorrectly, I'll nevertheless venture a guess that Diana will probably be able to more easily get on with her life now that she has created a way for her to view her greater family.

Thanks for listening.

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

  

 

 

 

 

 

Addendum/Acknowledgments

THE NEXT DAY:

Gaz, Comment #1, hit the nail square - the two following Comments agree, the very clean windscreen, aka windshield in the U.S., truly is amazing given the rest of the vehicle. So, I'm making up that the clean window signifies that the owner of the vehicle very likely is clear-eyed about something important, and more than just safety on the highway. It might be in the domain of not being overly concerned with how we appear to other people, friends or foe.

By an accident extraordinary Elsa this morning just happened to read out loud, as she reclined, random entries from Thomas a Kempis, his Immitation of Christ written in either the 1300's or very early 1400's. I did a rare thing: (for me) I Googled. A whole page of references re Thomas a Kempis, and then some. I've had the book for years but never read it!?? The good cleric, I'm totally positive, would completely understand the vehicle owner's method of travel through life. Ha ha ha ha ha ha....

It's nice to get help. Thanks Gaz!  Thanks Bea! Thanks Ally!

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

Symbol of Independence?

This is the same modified (heh) VW mini van from the other side. Note the garden growing on the left side of the front bumper, and the two-stage exhaust painted yellow. You can see the drooping American flag flown from the roof.

Tomorrow I'll add some kind of cockeyed personal interpretation of the owner's motive in driving such a vehicle. Btw, there is a nearly lifesized angel attached to the front. The coil of rope at the driver's window is for a so far unknown purpose. Rounding up dinner?

Manana.

Barry

THE NEXT DAY:

Gaz, Comment #1, hit the nail square - the two following Comments agree, the very clean windscreen, aka windshield in the U.S., truly is amazing given the rest of the vehicle. So, I'm making up that the clean window signifies that the owner of the vehicle very likely is clear-eyed about something important, and more than just safety on the highway. It might be in the domain of not being overly concerned with how we appear to other people, friends or foe.

By an accident extraordinary Elsa this morning just happened to read out loud, as she reclined, random entries from Thomas a Kempis, his Immitation of Christ written in either the 1300's or very early 1400's. I did a rare thing: (for me) I Googled. A whole page of references re Thomas a Kempis, and then some. I've had the book for years but never read it!?? The good cleric, I'm totally positive, would completely understand the vehicle owner's method of travel through life. Ha ha ha ha ha ha....

It's nice to get help. Thanks Gaz!  Thanks Bea! Thanks Ally!

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/