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Traveling Through Time

6/10/2015

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PictureMy mom, dad, and sister. Brother yet to come. I'm the small one.
There are all kinds of travel. Lately, I’ve been time-traveling. At least it feels that way. … As I write, my early life and that of my sister are being encoded on my Mac for preservation on nearly indestructible (or so I’m told) DVD’s. Actually, it’s not our whole lives, only those rare snippets that occurred when our father had the time and inclination to get out the movie camera (one of those prehistoric, wind-before-using creations)  and start filming.

If his work is any indication, the mid-century world was full of children lacking even a modicum of imagination. They (or in all honesty, I suppose I should say “we”) could think of nothing more entertaining than waving at the unseen cameraman. Even this was done with a decided lack of joie de vivre, though occasionally we would erupt into some strange joyous jumping, up and down, up and down. I wondered aloud to my (much) older sister about this singular lack of purposeful activity. She recalls that my father was a stickler for action (no standing around in his productions!) and since the movie making was conducted on his timetable, not ours, sometimes action was hard to come by. Oh, there was the occasional bike riding or sledding or ice skating scene, but much of the shooting was done in the evening when my sister and I and whatever friends could be dragged in off the street were ready to hang it up for the day and our creativity was at low ebb.

The movie making was especially trying because these interior shoots involved the interminable setting up of floodlights which hooked onto various chairs placed around the room. The result blinded the performers and created a sauna-like atmosphere not conducive to light-hearted cavorting, which was, I think, what my father was going for.

There are also, of course, the obligatory birthday scenes, in which each cake, no matter the year, appears to have been made by the same six-year-old (my sister), who is seen in an early film “assisting” our long-suffering mother. It’s possible, of course, that my mother actually made some of those cakes herself, but she must have been in a terrible hurry, judging by the results.

Despite the less than flattering view of our early family life, I sent those 8 millimeter films off to a lab that converted them to VHS, which now, of course, is as extinct as tyrannosaurus rex. Luckily, I had the foresight to order also a set of those same movies on mini DV tapes which, with the aid of my Sony videocam (not yet extinct, but close, I suspect), I’m still able to load onto my computer for conversion to DVDs.  It sounds simple, but turned out to be more complex than I expected, due to Apple’s machinations in which they updated iMovie, eliminated iDVD from the updated suite, and thereby made research necessary. There’s always, as they say, a work-around if you’re diligent enough to find it.

But to return to the content of aforesaid movies … eventually a brother came along (the result, according to my sister’s calculations, of some hanky-panky on a long family trip to the Rockies one fine summer) so the later films focus largely on this novel addition. Hence, we have our mother holding the baby, my sister pushing him in a carriage, me pushing him in a carriage, our mother pushing him in a carriage … You get the picture. At least it’s action of a sort. And eventually he did advance to a stage where he could catch a football, provided you carefully aimed it into his outstretched arms. Now that’s real action—at least by our standards.  

Ahhh, the memories!



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Dear Flyaway Airlines

5/24/2015

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Don’t you sometimes wish you could take on a different persona and say the things you think, but don’t want to admit to in public? … Me, too! From time to time, you’ll find postings here from a guest writer with the nom de plume Gabby McStick. Take whatever she says with a grain of salt, but remember: there’s truth in there somewhere. Here’s her first submission: a couple of letters she’d like to send to some of those in the travel industry and an announcement of her nomination for an airline Oscar.

BY GABBY McSTICK

Dear Fly-Away Airline:

I recently was on a flight from LA to Minneapolis. The flight took four hours, but seemed longer, possibly because I had six inches of leg room, a small bladder and two corpulent, drowsy strangers between me and the aisleway to the bathroom. From Minneapolis, I took yet another flight to Columbus, Ohio. This flight took a little over an hour and was half full. I was spared the inconvenience of seatmates and had approximately two feet of space in which to taxi to the aisle to begin my flight to the facilities. Is there a reason for such blatant misappropriation of your flying machines? 

Your friend,
Gabby McStick

Dear Incognito Airport:

Is your airport a joke? Have you ever heard the term signage? I'm told it's a serious business, the intent of which is to assist those unfamiliar with a place to find their way around. I can only assume that, although your clientele consists of folks from such far flung reaches as Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, you somehow assume that having deplaned into the balmy paradise of Southern California, they're miraculously gifted with a sixth sense that guides them on their quest to change planes or pick up checked luggage or meet their eager hosts. Good luck with that!

Your friend,
Gabby McStick

Dear airlines of America:

Sorry! The Oscar for the most fetching safety video goes to New  Zealand Air for the delivery of their pre-flight message via inhabitants of Middle Earth ... And for their in-air entertainment system that actually works and can be operated by those lacking advanced degrees in touch screen technology ... And for their nod to service even to those in the back of the bus (so to speak) with on-screen ordering of food and drink delivered to your seat whenever you hunger or thirst during the long dark night. Take note, all the rest of you.

Your friend,
Gabby McStick

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