Remembering Aunt Bertha

Bertha Emma Freudenstein Carter (1889-1993) was my great aunt. She was also the moral center of our family the entire time I was growing up. Born the eldest of six children, she only made it through the fourth grade. Her handwriting always looked like that of a fourth grader, but it never stopped her from sending letters and cards to her family and loved ones on every occasion. While I was in the army in Vietnam, she sent me packages of cookies, with a note and a few Oral Roberts religious pamphlets. She was an avid Oral Roberts fan and watched him every week on her 14-inch black-and-white television.

She and her husband Alonzo "Curt" Carter married in 1907 and homesteaded a dairy farm near Mount Rainier; they ran it almost until Curt died in 1951. Aunt Bertha never had children of her own but was surrogate mother to dozens of us, especially the children of her brothers and sisters. After Curt died, she sold the farm and, even though she was then in her 60s, she opened what today we would call a board-and-care home for the elderly. She operated it until she was well into her 70s, cooking three meals a day for as many as 10 people, doing massive amounts of laundry, and cleaning -- always cleaning. Until 1965, she drove the 1940 Ford V-8 that Curt had bought brand new while they were living on the farm. But by the mid-1960s, she had decided she needed a new car with automatic transmission. So she traded the Ford in on an American Motors Rambler, four-door with push-button radio and electric windshield wipers. (If only I had been smart enough to buy that Ford from her back then. It only had 60,000 miles on it in 25 years of driving, and the original grey-green paint and felt upholstery were still in good condition. Sigh.)

Aunt Bertha would pull up to our house, usually on a Saturday morning, just to see how we were doing. She'd usually bring us something she'd baked or picked out of her garden. Her baked goods weren't the most elegant, but they were always tasty. My mother, however, wouldn't let us eat her pies because she used lard in the crusts. Mother also tossed out a lot of the apples Aunt Bertha brought because they were too bruised from falling off the tree. Bertha never wasted anything.

She was very religious, but in a way that I wish more people would be today. She attended two different churches, one in the city and one out in the country where she used to live on her farm. She never preached or proselytzed. Instead, she showed what she believed by what she did. She cared about people and didn't judge them. She laughed with us when we were happy, grieved with us when we were sad. When my dad died at the age of 47, she was a rock of strength for my mother, sister, brother and me. She had a big painting of Jesus on her wall everywhere she lived -- the Euro-centric kind that showed him with light brown hair and blue eyes. But she never spent any of her precious time trying to convert others. You just knew what she believed. This is the kind of faith I have tried to have. I hope I measure up to her example.

She never stopped doing or caring. Very late in life, when she was too frail to be helpful to others any longer, she grew increasingly impatient with God. She really wanted to leave this life and get on with the next. It took longer than she wanted it to, but she endured the wait and called it the price she had to pay. She died in 1993 at the age of 104.

Two of my most treasured possessions today once belonged to Aunt Bertha. When she was well into her 90s, she began giving away her possessions to those she loved. When I paid her a visit one afternoon, she told me what she wanted me to have. She walked over to her old curio cabinet and took out a tarnished silver cup and saucer. Her father brought it back for her when she was 10 years old from his time as a failed prospector during the Yukon gold rush of 1898. She had kept it all those years, and decided I should have it now because I was interested in history.

My other prized possession from Aunt Bertha is a Packard-Bell table radio in a red bakelite case. For years, it sat on her kitchen counter. She would listen to music and the news while she cooked. When I got it, it had been stored by my mother for years and no longer worked. Fortunately, I found a man while we were living in Dallas who repaired old tube-style radios. Today, Aunt Bertha's radio plays just fine. While I cook or wash dishes, I listen to it. It's usually tuned to KIXI-AM in Seattle, which plays music of the 40s, 50s and 60s. And when I hear a tune by Tommy Dorsey, Jo Stafford, Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald, I smile.

Biting The Hand That Used To Feed Me

I worked for five different shareholder-owned, private corporations for nearly 40 years before I retired last year. I was fortunate enough to work in close proximity to top management most of that time, and I saw the internal workings close up. I made a good living and managed to save a decent nest egg for retirement, although my definition of "decent" has changed dramatically since the economy melted down in September 2008. So what I have to say now probably won't sit well with some of my former colleagues.

I think American capitalism has gone terribly wrong in the past couple decades. Companies have grown "too big to fail," to use the term that became popular a year ago to justify government bailouts. In my opinion, however, "too big to fail" is simply a convenient cover to hide the self-preservation instinct that seizes corporate managements when the economy heads south. "Too big to fail" has given too many companies an easy means to protect senior management and almost nobody else.

I'll give you an example. I am investor in a company (I'll be polite and not name it) that sold "auction-rate notes" secured by municipal bonds. Easy redemptions were supposed to be readily available at any time to small investors like me because the company simply went to the credit markets every week for short-term borrowing to fund them. "Nobody expected all credit markets to seize at the same time," was the explanation I got when suddenly none of the company's investors were able to redeem any notes. Now, almost 18 months later, "market conditions" still aren't good enough for investors to get most of our money out. But when I read the fine print in the company's regulatory filings, I found another reason for the problem: During the boom years, the company had borrowed massive amounts of money under its bank credit lines to fund an ambitious growth strategy. So much borrowing, in fact, that the banks have refused to extend any further loans, leaving the company at the mercy of the "credit markets," which is code for billionaires, foreign banks, hedge funds and other shadowy fat cats. And these "credit markets" will only invest if they're comfortable that a company has the wherewithal to survive. Smart of them. I wish I had that option right now.

I add all this up and here's what I get: This company's knows there are ways other than the mysterious "credit markets" in which it could raise capital and take care of its investors. But its managers also know that those other ways -- acquisition, merger, sale of assets, etc. -- would jeopardize their own jobs, bonuses and future employability. So management's solution has been to stall the small investors with reassuring gobbledygook while it finds "other solutions" that will "facilitate investor confidence." Um....right, sure. But let me suggest that if any lower-level worker in any American company tried to stall this long to cover a problem, she or he would pounding the pavement right now and their kids might be using food stamps to eat.

This is just a small example of what's wrong with American capitalism these days. We have allowed an entitled class of executives to take control. These folks refuse to accept responsibility for what has failed us. In Japan and elsewhere, managers usually resign when things go badly -- even if they are not directly to blame. But not here. Our entitled executive class holds on with with a clueless ferocity that would make Marie Antoinette proud. The delusional explanations take my breath away: the scope of the crisis was "unanticipated," "market conditions beyond our control" created the situation, "external factors" affected results. They ought to add that the dog ate their homework. What do shareholders pay executives for if not to anticipate crises, plan for changing market conditions and stay ahead of external factors?

Wouldn't it be refreshing if a company "too big to fail" owned up to the fact that its management borrowed too much, took too many risks and blinded itself to the dangers ahead in order to boost executive perks and rewards? Refreshing indeed, but it'll never happen. Just consider the lawsuits that would be filed! The personal liability that might be incurred! You'd have to be crazy to say that! The lawyers would never let us do that!

To be sure, American capitalism has always been about who could clobber the competition and grow bigger, faster. It has also always been about greed -- which Gordon Gecko memorably told us is "good." Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan were hardly warm and fuzzy guys. But I can also remember some better angels of corporate nature in my own career. When I started with Times-Mirror Company in the early 1970s, the Chandler family of Los Angeles considered the company a reflection of themselves. It was their patrimony for generations. When you went to work there, you knew the company would take care of "its people." Of course the Chandlers grew fabulously wealthy because of "its" company, but there was always a feeling that they cared about us. Most importantly, bonuses at Times-Mirror Company were based on performance. Nobody ever got several times their annual salary, which became almost a norm in some Wall Street firms.

That's what missing today. Few shareholder-owned corporations have institutional memory any more. New management comes in, cuts costs, boosts revenue, gooses the stock, makes huge salaries and bonuses -- and then cashes its chips and leaves the poker table. Then the next management arrives and the cycle starts all over again.

No heart, no soul.

Turning 65, Part Two

I will turn 65 this Sunday at 5:24 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, according to my birth certificate which is also stamped "legitimate." (They cared about such things in 1944; how old-fashioned.) But, for Medicare purposes, I have been 65 since November 1, 2009 at 12 a.m. That's how it is, now that I am a ward of the dreaded thing we've been hearing so much about: a government-run single payer health plan. Yipes! Does this make me a socialist?

But let's begin at the beginning. In preparation for the Big 6-5 (and also to free myself from the $1,104 per month I had been paying for COBRA coverage since I retired), I studied the Medicare web site -- which is really good, considering it's put together by socialists. To assure that Medicare coverage begins on your 65th birthday, which is the earliest it can begin unless you're disabled, you need to start the official process 90 days before. But even before that you need to know what you want, and you have to have a passing knowledge of the lingo: Part A, Part B, Part D, MAGI (modified adjusted gross income), MedAdvantage (with or without Rx). You get the idea.

Medicare used to be pretty simple after it was passed in 1965. You turned 65 and you automatically got Part A (hospitalization coverage) free of charge, courtesy of the taxpayers of the United States. Fortunately, Part A hasn't been fiddled with too much, and it's still free for everybody. Part B (doctor visits, labs, outpatient procedures, etc.) was added a bit later and required you to pay a premium, but everybody paid the same amount. About a decade ago, Congress decided to means-test the Part B premium ("means-test" is code for "pay more). As a result, the IRS sends your MAGI to the SSA (Social Security Administration), which sends you a letter saying you made too much money two years ago and therefore must pay more than the Part B premium you thought you'd be paying when first started thinking about Medicare. Because I was a corporate fat cat two years ago (as opposed to the senior citizen on a fixed income I am now), I will pay the maximum until my lower MAGI on my tax return catches up in a couple years.

Part B only covers some things, therefore leaving you in jeopardy of getting gigantic bills you didn't expect. So, to alleviate that stress on us oldsters, the government permitted private insurance companies to offer Medicare supplement policies to cover things Part B doesn't cover. So-called MedAdvantage policies go a step further by relieving the government of the burden of paying my Part B bills by covering everything HMO-style. The government then rewards MedAdvantage carriers by paying them a stipend for taking my bookkeeping off its hands -- a situation that has come under considerable, and in my mind justifiable, scrutiny and criticism in the current health reform debate.

Part D (prescription coverage) was added in 2005; I have no idea why they skipped the letter "C" in adding a new Part -- another of those Don't Ask, Don't Tell government things, I suppose. Since Part D is handled entirely by private insurance companies (thus eliminating the socialists from the process), you have to spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out which carrier to use for prescriptions, which to use for Part B supplements or which to trust with both Part B and Part D. It's enough to give to you rheumatism or at least stigmatism.

Here's what I learned in the process: you have to be observant as an owl and opportunistic as an eagle to make the system work for you. The Medicare web site lets you compare Part B and Part D private plans in your area. It's a good system, but it doesn't protect you from the downside risks. Part B and Part D plans only guarantee your premium rate for one year. But what's particularly worrisome is that they may eliminate services they cover at any time, provided they send you a notice well in advance. Prescription drug plans use a formulary to decide which drugs they will pay for and how much your co-pay will be. They are free to raise the co-pay of any drug or to drop it altogether from their formularies at any time, once they give you advance warning.

Of course, you are free to change plans once a year during open enrollment. But what this means for most seniors is that they must engage in a guessing game each year: How sick do I expect to be? (If not very, go with the plan with the lowest premium.) How many prescription drugs -- especially the expensive brand-name types -- do I think I'll need? (If more than a few, it pays to check the formularies in advance of enrollment and pay a higher premium to get a lower co-pay.) And, after the first year on a plan, you're likely to get a hefty premium increase from just about any private carrier. No matter how much research you do in advance, registering for Medicare is a crap shoot.

I must say that the socialists have made the basic registration process pretty easy. I called a toll-free number; waited on hold for about three minutes; got transferred to a Social Security agent in Chicago; and completed the initial registration by phone in about 20 minutes. (The socialists have done an interesting thing: calls from the toll-free line are routed to any available Social Security agent anywhere in the country. I was so very, very happy not to be talking with a person at a call center in India. And I was pleased that no American jobs were sent overseas to achieve efficiency in Medicare.) At the end of the registration process, I was told I'd receive my official confirmation my mail and that my benefit would begin the first day of the month in which I turn 65 (November 1, 2009). And I was told I should sign up for a Part B supplement and a Part D prescription plan as soon as possible to make sure they are in effect when my basic Medicare benefit begins.

So, here I am today. Turning 65. A Medicare and supplemental plan beneficiary, and also a survivor of the registration process. To protect our free-enterprise system and prevent encroachment of socialism we have made the process more complicated than it needs to be. It's full of tricks and traps. I wonder how my dear mother, of fond memory, would have dealt with this process in her frail mental state. My guess is she wouldn't have. Just ignore it until you're broke.

Turning 65, Part One

I am not a Baby Boomer. I cannot be blamed for the failures of what I hope will be our only two Boomer Presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Nor for the Boomers' greed, selfishness, materialism and excesses of the flesh. OK, so maybe I dabbled around the edges of those things, but I was born too soon to indulge in all the hedonistic pleasures. I didn't result from my parents' long wartime separation and lack of sex, followed by an immediate post-war pregnancy. I am a War Baby, born five months after D-Day, two weeks after Franklin D. Roosevelt won a fourth term, and five months before the Germans surrendered. With my birth, my father was hoping to avoid the draft. He didn't. He left for basic training a couple months after I was born and didn't get back from occupied Japan until September 1946.

And next month I will turn 65, well ahead of the Boomers. What's left of my hair is turning gray. My joints hurt and I complain about it. I just can't seem to sleep beyond 7 a.m. or stay awake past 10 p.m. (OK, maybe more like 9 p.m.) Most new movies, music and TV shows don't interest me much. I listen to oldies on AM radio that I once bought on 45 rpm records. I have started clipping grocery store coupons. I eat raisin bran with skim milk. I mix Metamucil into my orange juice. I get junk mail from people trying to sell me raised toilet seats "contoured for comfort" and Total Body Cleanse "to eliminate unnecessary toxic build-up." (See above). Sigh. I have become my grandfather.

Of course I know that, considering the alternative, turning 65 ain't so bad. Problem is, I wasn't expecting to get this old. I went to Vietnam and didn't think I'd come back. I watched a lot of friends die of AIDS. My college roommate was murdered at age 34 for no reason by a crazy guy with a handgun. But I'm still around, now approaching the traditional boundary of Old Age. I do wonder, sometimes, why I made it and so many others didn't.

Being on the cusp of the Boomer generation, I know I have been infected by the Peter Pan syndrome so common to the 1946-64 group. "I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up!" But, then, why get old when you can have Botox, a nip or tuck, and knee-replacement surgery, and feel great? Why wear glasses when you can have laser surgery and "look years younger"? Why get fat when you can staple your stomach and pretend you're back at your "fighting weight"?

There are any number of indignities associated with reaching 65. Younger people call me "sir." I hate that. The well-behaved ones even open the door for me. That's not so bad. I enter cars butt-first now because it's easier to drag my legs in behind me. It also takes me longer; I no longer "hop" into a car. Two glasses of wine put me to sleep; double bacon cheeseburgers give me gas. Peeing takes longer during the day but happens too much in the middle of the night. My feet get cold if I don't wear warm socks. My doctor, my preacher and my broker are all younger than I am.

My Aunt Bertha, who lived to be 104, once told me that "old age is bunk." She hated the loss of vigor, the death of her friends and siblings, and the gradual narrowing of her world. However, she managed to drive until she was 90, live independently until she was 98 and enjoy a glass of sherry "for medicinal purposes" until she was 102. I intend to follow her example, God willing.

It is true that, just when you start getting good at this thing called life, your machinery wears out. But, if I follow the manufacturer's maintenance schedule diligently, rotate the tires and occasionally buy a new battery, maybe crossing the Old Age boundary won't be so bad.

Part Two: The joys of registering for Medicare

Lions and Nazis and Bears, Oh My!

Maybe it's because I was born in the waning days of World War II, but I am thorougly disgusted by all those in the current health care reform debate who so easily throw the Nazi label at those seeking a a fairer system than the wasteful, costly version we have now. They ought to be ashamed, but of course they are too enamored of their own rhetoric to blush or to see how filthy they have made themselves.

Adolf Hitler was an insane monster, full of deep hatred for Jews, Gypsies, gays, the disabled or anybody who didn't fit his crazy idea of Aryan perfection. He was surrounded by fanatics and sycophants who saw an opportunity to enhance their own power by bolstering and fulfilling Hitler's nightmarish delusions. These fanatics and sycophants actually believed in the Final Solution and the 1,000-year Reich, or at least they gave a good imitation of it. They put away their consciences and buried their souls.

I won't say that the today's rabid Nazi comparers are in the same league as Himmler, Goering, Goebbels, Eichmann and the like. But they are too dangerously close for comfort. Here's why I say that:

Modern propaganda was invited by Joseph Goebbels, and it was based on the Big Lie theory. Push the same point of view often enough and eliminate competing ideas that might create doubt, and gradually you breed fanaticism. Germans listened only to Nazi radio, watched only Nazi films and read only Nazi newspapers and magazines. It's easy to see why most German came to agree that Jews were to blame for almost everything.

Fortunately, we live in a society where a free exchange of ideas is still possible. I can read the Wall Street Journal editorial page but I can also read the New York Times editorial page. I can listen to Bill O'Reilly (did I really just write that?) but I can also listen to Keith Olbermann.

The problem, however, is that technology now permits us to voluntarily eliminate any points of view with which we disagree. The technology that was supposed to bring us closer together has instead given us the ability to cocoon ourselves and hear only what we want. I believe that today's Nazi comparers have done that to great extent. They listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck but shut out any other ideas that might disagree with those right-wing commentators. This situation is very different from 1930s Germany. But the result is the same: fanaticism....unlimited hatred....unbridled, unreasoned use of disgusting and violent language.

I pray that those who show up at town halls toting assault rifles and those who proclaim that Obama should die a painful death will be forced to read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." The only problem is that fanaticism, once bred, is harder to tame than lions and tigers and bears....oh my!

Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

Charlotte and Addie

Charlotte, our Basset hound, turns one year old today. She was born out in the country, near the town of Greenland, in northwest Arkansas. Her mother was named Ruslana and her father was named Mishka Baryshnikov. (Her human mother was a Russian lady, which explains the names.)

Charlotte arrived at our house on Christmas Eve, 2008. We weren't sure we wanted another dog. We were happy and very comfortable with the Basset we had -- Addie, a perfect pet who rarely barked, loved every human she ever met, took slow walks and slept a lot. But both Terry and I finally agreed that Addie need a playmate, a younger sister to keep her active and, um, help her lose a little weight. (Addie is sensitive about her full figure, so we try not to bring it up in front of her.)

Terry found Charlotte on the Internet, the 21st Century pure-bred puppy marketplace. We had found Addie on the Internet four years earlier, born on a farm outside St. Louis. Addie flew from St. Louis to Dallas and changed planes to come to Los Angeles, where Terry picked her up while we were living in Santa Barbara. Addie was a jet setter before she was four months old.

Charlotte's breeders had posted irresistible photos of Charlotte, and they had also received good online reviews from others who had purchased puppies from them. Charlotte had her papers and puppy shots. We decided we had to have her.

The problem was, she was in northwest Arkansas and we were in Dallas, almost 400 miles away. We decided it would be too expensive to fly her to Texas during the Christmas holiday. So we struck a deal with the breeders: we would meet them in the WalMart parking lot in Checotah, Oklahoma, about half way between us, and exchange cash for puppy on Christmas Eve. It almost sounded a drug deal, but it turned out to be a wonderful holiday adventure. Off we went, stopping for breakfast at the Texas-Oklahoma border. At the appointed hour, we pulled into the WalMart parking lot. We drove around until we found the car with the breeders, Olha and her husband Doyle. They got out and so did we. Olha held little Charlotte in her hands. She was sleepy and a little confused. We offered the cash and they gave us the puppy. The deal was done.

From the moment we held her, we loved her. She cuddled in Terry's lap, her little nose cold as ice. As we drove away from the WalMart parking lot in Checotah, she went back to sleep. We thought maybe she wasn't feeling well. But then we crossed the border back into Texas and she sprang to life. We pulled over at the rest stop near Sherman, and Charlotte quickly relieved herself and grabbed a drink of water. Nothing at all wrong with this girl!

When we got home, Addie wasn't sure what to make of this tiny creature who had invaded her space. She ignored her as much as Charlotte would let her. Following the advice of all the puppy manuals, Terry built a small crate for Charlotte to sleep in. Puppies are supposed to like enclosed, warm spaces until they grow older. Of course, we had conveniently forgotten that as a puppy, Addie had tipped over her crate the very first night and refused to sleep in it ever again. Since then, she's been sleeping on the bed with us. (Please stop with the lectures. We know. People are nuts to let their dogs sleep with them. Bad habit to get into. We should know better. Too late now.)

The first night, Charlotte howled and cried incessantly. She kept climbing up the wire on the side of the crate until she finally jumped over and escaped. End result? Two dogs have slept comfortably in our bed ever since, sometimes crowding their human bedmates for space.

From the moment she arrived, Charlotte has been a blizzard of activity. Unlike Addie, she needs to be in the middle of everything. She loves to find rocks outside and chew them. She likes to tear labels off the back sides of area rugs. (Who did this? Bad dog!) My socks are a particularly favorite chew toy. (No! Leave my socks alone!) She barks a lot and, like most hounds, has an operatic voice that projects somewhere near the baritone range. She especially hates it when, as she watches through the French doors, the neighbor dog relieves himself on our property. If allowed, she will return the compliment on his property as soon as possible.

We have purchased innumerable chew toys for Charlotte, but most are quickly destroyed. Only a set of large vinyl keys, now well scuffed with teeth marks, has survived more than a few days. Since we've moved to our little farm on Whidbey Island, she loves to be outside, roaming to find evidence of deer or other wild critters on the property. Our challenge has been to keep her from rolling in the evidence. Not an easy task, and not always successful.

At this moment, Charlotte and Addie are sleeping soundly, listening to the radio station I favor because it plays music from the 1940s and 50s. But I expect they will awake in awhile, demanding attention that must be paid.

Happy birthday, baby dog!

Crabapples

We have an elderly crabapple tree next to our house on Whidbey Island. It was likely planted right after the house was built in the early 1960s. In the spring, it is covered with beautiful pink and white blossoms that last just a couple of weeks. Then, in a month or so, it is covered with hundreds of little red crabapples, most no more than an inch or two in diameter.

When I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, I remember being warned not to eat raw crabapples. Very sour and nasty, and they caused what was politely called the Crabapple Two-Step. But my grandmother would occasionally bring out her crabapple jelly for us and spread some on a biscuit or scone. It had an intense flavor like no other. I haven't tasted anything like it since then. She also made pickled crabapples that were served as a side dish at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those of us who sat at the kids' card table wouldn't touch them.

So, here I am 60 years later, with a crabapple tree of my own. At the same moment, we're all are living through the hangover of an era of waste, greed and excess that has made us less wealthy and more sober. I'm more aware than ever that nothing should go to waste, that the abundance of our planet should be treasured and used wisely. If you read the book of Genesis, it says that God gave us dominion over the earth and everything on it, which means we were given control but not ownership. It's ours to love and care for, not pillage and destroy. Big difference.

That's why it just seemed to make sense for us to make crabapple jelly this week. We picked about five quarts from our tree, cut them up, cooked them into a fragrant mush, drained the juice overnight, added sugar, boiled it all until it became jelly and poured it into sterilized jars. My grandmother, I know, was smiling and chuckling. It's ready now for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We can't wait.

I also learned from Wikipedia that, among Anglo-Saxons, crabapples were used as part of cure for almost anything. They were known as wergulu in Old English and were among the nine herbs that made up the Nine-Herb Charm. Essentially, you made a paste of the herbs, applied it where the ailing person hurt and then chanted this poem:

A snake came crawling, it bit a man.
Then Woden took nine glory-twigs,
Smote the serpent so that it flew into nine parts.
There apple brought this pass against poison,
That she nevermore would enter her house.

Well, since sub-prime mortgages, high-flying stocks and lots of shopping didn't make us feel better, why not give this a try?