MY FOLKS AS OLD PEOPLE

The Old Rusty Nail

AN E-JOURNAL FOR OLD PEOPLE

Russell Burton, an Old Person

I never understood my folks’ feelings when they were old. They both experienced old age for many years as my father died when he was 87 and my mother when she was 92.  I guess I never really tried because I did not understand the remarkable change in people when they become old.  I guess that is one reason I write these essays because I want people to understand that being old is a new ballgame.  I guess in a sense it is like being born again but this time as an old person.

I guess one reason I had no empathy for my folks during their old age was because they never once mentioned what it was like.  They just went about their lives as best they could.  They alive together in a small house they owned in a small town in California.  I was busy with my career living in Texas so distance played a role in our relationship.  Still I visited them several times a year when I could during which times I would help them with home repairs, some bookkeeping, driving them about the town, etc.

My father suffered from some moderate form of Dementia and my mother had lost her central vision with Macular Degeneration.  But, together they remained independent until I realized that they could no longer live alone.  One big reason was that they depended on a couple, good friends of mine, who lived 10 miles away in another town.  Even though they willingly helped my folks for many years and never complained to me I knew that they were being taken advantage of so I finally moved them to live with me in Texas.

While still living at his home, one day my with some dementia father motioned for me to come close to him as he wanted to tell me something.  In a low voice, almost a whisper he said, “You know son I am going to live forever.”  That statement caught me by surprise but obviously he was thinking about the inevitable and did not like it.  But that brief statement was the only conversation I had with my folks about what it was like to grow old.  So, in a way I feel cheated as I did not get their knowledge about this part of one’s life.  I was just not prepared for this chapter in my life. 

Now I am not calling my folks cheaters for their disregard informing me about living to be old.  I am sure it just never crossed their minds that they might give me any advice or even thoughts on the subject.  And, I am not sure their experiences on the subject would have been of interest to me anyway for being old does not get much attention until one is old.

I guess I should have thought something about their lives when I was given clues at times usually by my mother.  We talked more than my father and me.  The small town they lived in was without taxi service so they were forced to drive their car much too long with their disabilities.  My father of course always drove but interestingly they compensated for each other’s problems as my father was my mother’s vision and my mother was my dad’s brain.

As my father’s mental condition worsened we visited a neurologist about his dementia.  Of course then there were no treatments for it.  But, when he learned that my father was still driving and had a .22 pistol in a night stand by his bed, he immediately told me to stop his driving and take away the pistol.

Suddenly, I had to take control of my father’s life in a way that was not fair to me nor to him.  He accepted the no driving but when he had discovered that I had taken away his pistol, he went into a rage telling me to go back to Texas for I was not welcome in his home. Of course this hurt me but I and my mother understood his situation.  Like my mother said ‘you are making his life smaller and smaller’.  And, what she said was very true.  Unfortunately, I was the only one in the position to do those things.  

When my folks moved to Texas my mother lived with me and my family, my father I put in an assisted living facility.  He didn’t want to live there and I didn’t blame him but besides his dementia he had an artificial leg which in those days was difficult to manage for an old person.  Many advances have been made in the design of these leg prostheses so today he would have been more mobile. 

The assisted living facility I chose for my father in Texas was a good one and close to my home so my mother and I could visit him.  My mother visited him every day. My father died less than a year after he entered the assisted living facility. 

A few months after my father died my mother’s health suddenly deteriorated. We made several visits to her physician before her condition was diagnosed as loss of blood from hemorrhage from stomach ulcers.  She never regained her strength so needing more care than my wife who had multiple sclerosis and I working many times in foreign countries could provide I moved her to the assisted living facility where my dad had lived.

I visited her regularly so it was a surprise to learn that she wanted to move closer to her daughter who lived in Arizona.  I accepted her decision for she was still capable of making it.  Unfortunately, the assisted living facility there was of very poor quality.  Her TV could not be used, which she loved and they did not have a recreation program.  It was just a storage house for old people.

I was not aware of this until I got a phone call that my sister had suddenly died.  Her death was a shock to me for she was 10 years younger than me – just 55 years old. Obviously, I immediately went there and brought my mother home.  I was shocked to see how she had deteriorated with the poor care she had received.  Perhaps I should have investigated the facility more thoroughly but then my sister had told me it was a good one. 

My mother’s mental capacity was nearly gone from the poor care.  She did recognize me and my family but the brightness in her eyes had gone.  She was soon put into hospice care at the facility where she had previously lived and died a few months later.  I know that if she had remained in San Antonio she would most likely have lived to be a 100 years old.

My sudden awareness that I am now my folks’ age is a bit of a shock.  Unlike my folks I take much better care of myself although I do drink a lot more alcohol than they ever did.  Still I walk 3 miles 3 times a week, do my aerobics on the stationary bike and lift weights at the gym on a regular basis so I am trying to make old age as tolerable as possible.

I suppose there will be problems being old with my son and his children living 14 hours away by car.  I am just trying to keep it as far in the future as possible.  You will read more about this as it unfolds.  Keep reading if you are interested.

12/2014

P. S: This blog was written more than two years ago.  Old age has taken its toll for now I go to the gym only twice a week and my mobility includes a cane.  More on this in later blogs.

THE EVOLUTION OF MY CHRISTMAS TREES

The Old Rusty Nail

AN E-JOURNAL FOR OLD PEOPLE

Russell Burton, an Old Person

A neighbor came over to my house the other evening and we trimmed my Christmas tree.  She like me is not a Believer so I guess I should call it a Holiday tree.  We do this every year as we have a martini.  I guess it could be called a tradition and it is great fun.  I call this Christmas tree a bottle brush tree for it is made of twisted wires all attached to a round metal tube which is fit into a three legged plastic stand.  Except for the stand the tree is covered with green plastic needle-like things.  The tree is shaped to resemble a Spruce evergreen.  It is 3 feet tall so it sits on a small wooden table I have in the living room. Of course the plastic stand is covered with a white cloth to resemble snow.

The tree lights are plugged into an electric strip with a switch which I push to bring the tree to life with its colors.  The tree lights are mostly white but the string on top has colored lights.  When I light the tree each morning it brightens my day.  And, it brings back great memories of when I was young and enjoyed Christmas so very much. 

The history of this tree is interesting for it involves the person I bought my house from several years ago.  She gave it to me because she did not want it anymore probably because it looked cheap and ugly.  So, when she moved to a larger more upscale house she bought a very expensive artificial tree which must be 10 or 12 feet tall.  I never considered this tree to be ugly for it is no doubt an early version of artificial Christmas trees.  Consequently because of its age it can now be regarded a ‘collectable’.

The decorations for this tree consists of four strings of tiny lights, strings of white plastic pearl like beads strung around the tree.  Decorations consist of many small plastic or wooden figures, many decorated balls some made of plastic and a few thin glass colored ones mostly small.  A long thin colored glass decoration adorns the top of this tree.  Now this tree top decoration with the glass balls remind me of Christmas trees when I was just a young boy.  But then these types of thin glass balls were larger hung from the tree branches by a wire hook. Today they are hanging from the tree with plastic hooks.

But, not all of the glass balls were simply round.  I remember some were larger and somewhat elongated with an indentation on the side of a different color.  A particular ball I remember had the indentation colored bright silver. The rest of the ball was a dark red.  Those special balls were handled with great care and when the tree was taken down these fancy balls were wrapped and carefully stored away for next Christmas.  

My first Christmas I remember was when I lived in South Dakota in the late 1930s.  I was about 6 years old I guess.  The tree was a real one which my father found someplace and cut it down.  I remember it to be rather tall but then I was short so it might not have been quite so tall.  It was adorned with a couple strings of various colored lights.  These lights were much larger than the lights used today and since they were wired in series instead of parallel when one light burned out the entire string did not light up.  How frustrating for my father who had to replace each bulb until the lights came back on.

What fun it was to throw the thin silver metal like ice cycles on the tree to make them look like ice cycles.  Of course the large glass colored balls were placed in strategic places on the tree to give it a nice symmetrical look.  Those balls made out of thin glass were very delicate so when one was dropped it usually broke into several pieces.  And, most every Christmas at least one was accidentally dropped to the sorrow of everyone in the room.  We all felt bad especially for the person who had dropped it.  Instead of the plastic stings of beads we strung popcorn on a thread using a needle. 

Making this rather large tree stand upright always required a rather detailed engineered

Stand made out of wood which my father built.  Large nails driven through the stand into the base of the cut tree trunk held the tree to the stand.  The tree would be place upright on the wooden stand and hopefully it would not tip over.  I remember the first metal tree stand in which the tree was simply placed in it and with screws held upright – no fuss, no muss.  But in a way some fun, even a little excitement and a certain amount of skill was lost with that invention. 

Of course this real tree gave off a pine-like smell which I vividly remember and I miss with my plastic tree.  Soon needles would begin to fall off as the tree aged.  Hopefully it would stay fresh long enough to last until New Years.  Obviously, as the tree dried it became a fire hazard. So, when to buy the tree was always a dilemma for if you bought it too soon it would not last the season.  But, to buy it too late meant less selection to find the perfect tree.

One year I could not find the perfect tree so I cut off some of the base to provide me some limbs.  Where the tree needed a branch I drilled a hole in the trunk in which I inserted and glued a limb. Suddenly I had the perfect tree.

I don’t remember each Christmas tree through the years but I do remember it was always a real tree.  And a real tree would be cut down. Of course, in those early years artificial trees did not exist so it had to be a real one.  Still, even when plastic trees became common my folks insisted on a real tree which they cut down as did I for many years when I became a father. 

For several decades the shape of the tree light bulbs remained the same.  A great improvement was the redesign of the tree light string so that when one bulb burned out the string remained lighted. But recently the tiny lights have become the norm.  They give off a bright light and use much less electricity which now days is an important factor.

But as I aged I began to buy real trees already cut down from a local tree stand.  For some reason that never seemed to be the same as when I would venture to a tree farm and cut one down.  Picking out the right tree was always a difficult job for it had to be the perfect tree and there were many trees from which to choose.  The perfect tree meant that it had to be precisely symmetrical with even the smallest limb in place. After finding and buying the perfect tree was the hassle of getting it into the car to take home.  Some how it was managed and the process of putting it into the metal stand and decorating it began with great anticipation and family enjoyment.

But, as artificial trees began to look more realistic and the realization of killing those thousands of spruce trees each year for no other reason than to decorate a home for a few weeks, I bought a very nice artificial tree.  Still, it was just a tree and not one with lights built into it.  That was just going too far.  As times past and the family has gotten smaller so has my Christmas tree which I described at the beginning of this essay.

Oh yes, I still enjoy my little artificial Christmas tree and Christmas holiday but in a way it is quite different.  Now the joy is mostly memories. We tend to forget the bad memories so all of them are full of joy.

12/14