JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Yesterday KUOW’s All Things Considered had a feature called You Can’t See It But You’ll Be A Different Person In 10 Years.  http://www.kuow.org/post/you-cant-see-it-youll-be-different-person-10-years . I’m sure other listeners had the same reaction I did. Can that be true? Can I marshal any evidence to refute the claim? The theory underlying the study is that most of us believe that we, as adults, are pretty much established as personalities and that it is unlikely that we will change much in the future.  I certainly believe that, and so did the Harvard researchers who conducted the study, but the evidence they gathered showed that people continue to change in unanticipated ways and that although we think we are the same as we were in the past we are not the same people we were 10 years ago and we are unlikely to be the same as we are now 10 years in the future.

I can generalize about some changes in my life; I don’t have a paid position now, so I have more time to pursue outside interests; I’m not as fast or strong as I used to be, I have less hair on my head and more in my nose and ears, and I’ve shifted my aerobic focus from running to biking and swimming. I also have 4 grandchildren and 6 step-grandchildren, all but 2 of whom are new in the last 10 years. So, now I have grandparent days. That’s a big change for me.

Yesterday Marilynn and I had a grandparent day. We were called to duty when Heidi, who works at home, had a deadline and needed parenting relief for a few hours. One of the good things about not punching a clock or going to an office is that we can respond to a call like that. And – we adore these two kids – Lucie (5) and Ben (almost 3). It’s not a burden to spend time with these guys. Here’s Lucie:

See what I mean?

I wasn’t close to my grandparents. I hardly knew them. They lived 1000 miles away. That’s true for most of my own grandchildren, but Ben and Lucie are right here and I love figuring out how to amuse and spoil them.

Yesterday we started out at Starbucks – it’s important to get a little hot chocolate and sugary scone in them for fuel. They both love S’Buck’s Petite Vanilla Scones, so we pumped them up with a couple each and fortified ourselves with double lattes to start the day.

Check out Benny too. Benny loves his Opa and MeMe – and it’s mutual.

I wasn’t a traditional parent. As a Pan Am pilot and then a restaurateur I was away from home as much as I was there, but I always thought the advantages we provided – living in Germany for 6 years, world travel, growing up in a ski town in rural Idaho with creative and athletic friends – made up for some of the disadvantages. It may not have been an ideal family situation, but I still think it was a good one. I do remember my daughter, Diana, at one point saying “Couldn’t we just be a normal family?” I never knew what she meant, because I grew up in a normal family and hated it. I never wanted to be normal. I wanted all the adventure I could get. So, adventure in all of its forms is what I hope to give to my grandchildren – art, sport, outdoors, culture, and food. Let them choose their favorites but expose them to everything.

Yesterday, after the Starbucks adventure, we took them to the Seattle Art Museum where the featured exhibit is the work of women artists. I wrote about the exhibit in an earlier blog post, Seasonal Changes and the Art Walk.  The person at the membership desk reminded me that the show contained “mature content,” but the occasional nude is not disturbing and other more explicit content is easily avoided. I did reflect on the fact that most of the graphic pornographic and S & M content in modern art is generated by men and this was a show about women artists.

We wandered the floors of SAM for an hour or so and ended up in the playroom on the 3^rd floor where we hung out and built some things with blocks before folding up and heading for lunch at the Volunteer Park Café.  VPC is owned by Ericka Burke, a friend of ours, and it’s a chaotic lunch scene with a big communal table in the center of the room. We found seats and ordered lunch, and while we waited Benny and Lucie wandered around looking at the food cases and other diners. They are well mannered as well as beautiful, and their wandering didn’t bother anyone. When the food came they sat down and picked at it but didn’t go ballistic because it wasn’t chicken nuggets or whatever else they might have wanted. These two are well trained and have eaten at the table with adults since they could actually sit there. God bless.

After lunch we went back to our place where we ALL took a nap. There is symmetry here – both young and old like to take naps. It’s a very good thing.

In the late afternoon we dropped them off at home and headed downtown to hear two young soloists perform Rachmaninoff’s 1^st and 2^nd piano concertos. The perfect end to a perfect grandparent day. I don’t know who I will be in 10 years, but I hope that Ben and Lucie are still in my life and we can have another perfect grandparent day with MeMe.

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I love this picture, but not because I’m a surfer; I like the wave as a metaphor for the rush of excitement that comes as the New Year approaches. It’s about riding the wave of good food, just released movies, new books, special events, NFL playoffs, coming attractions, and all the good things that happen this time of year. It’s about friends and family and it’s a roller coaster ride as we try to fit in all the opportunities and obligations.

In October I begin to anticipate the year-end movies that squeeze in under the wire for Oscar consideration. It’s an exciting challenge, when they finally arrive, to see all the good ones and find the surprises. In the last month I’ve managed to see Anna Karenina, Lincoln, Life of Pi, Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Hyde Park on Hudson and A Late Quartet. Of all of them A Late Quartet and Argo stand out more than the BIG pictures. But, I still haven’t seen Promised Land, Zero Dark Thirty, Rust and Bone, and Amour so there’s a lot to look forward to. I’m not very interested in the over-hyped Les Miserables or Django Unchained, but I could be persuaded when things slow down in January. For me, musicals are magic on the stage but usually flawed when they hit the big screen, and I’ve never understood the attraction of Tarantino’s violence besotted movies. But, Tarantino aside, I do love the adrenaline rush of the year-end films.

Then there are books – usually Christmas presents – but also impulse purchases that come with shopping for other people’s presents. I have a huge pile of them beside my chair in the living room. My daughter gave me a book called Those Who Have Borne The Battle, by James Wright, about how America has let down its veterans after every war from WWI to the present. I didn’t know about the book but after working with vets in Vietnam for the last three years it’s a problem I’ve seen and heard evidence of first hand. It was a thoughtful gift and one that I will read with interest. In the same pile is the catalog from the George Bellows exhibit which Marilynn and I saw in New York last week. Also on the pile is Best American Short Stories of 2012 edited by Tom Perrotta, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham, Red Sorghum, a novel by Nobel Laureate Mo Yan, and others. Too many books, too little time.

And then there is the food problem… Parties. Family gatherings. Harry and David. Salted caramels. Egg Nog. Chips and dip. Champagne… and leftovers. 5lbs minimum even if you keep working out. It can’t be helped and it’s great while it’s going on, so give in now and recover in January.

I’m not a big football fan, but this time of year as the winners are separated from the losers I begin to get interested – especially if the Seahawks are in the race. And, they are… Yesterday I gave up reading and movies and watched a nail biter between the Seahawks and Rams with some good friends. The game was great (the Seahawks won a squeaker) but sharing the day with friends was the better part. I have to remind myself to slow down and enjoy the important things.

It’s impossible to do everything, but one of the most refreshing things that happens as the wave begins to curl and the year comes to an end is connecting to old friends. I was never a big Christmas card sender, but email and e-cards let me send a simple message to friends that I don’t see much from year to year. Our card is a simple one page PDF with a few pictures of us in some of the locales that we have visited in the past year. I can’t abide the “Christmas newsletter” but I do like to see pictures of old and new friends doing what they like to do. Keep it simple but keep in touch. My favorite new song of 2012 is James McMurtry’s Walk Between the Raindrops. Here is the chorus:

Stay alive inside,
don’t be a stranger
Keep a line open to
the folks back home
Don’t run and hide
when everything changes
Walk between the raindrops
dry as a bone

Go Seahawks! Happy New Year everyone!

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On Monday I celebrated my 75^th birthday in NYC, so maybe this column should simply be called Surviving instead of Surviving Seattle. After all, my own father was dead when he was my age. I have to accept that, if everything goes perfectly, my life is about 75% complete.

Every day I am grateful for who I am, where I am, and how I got here. I didn’t choose to be born white, or healthy, or an American. But those three things put me in a tiny, tiny group that had a good chance at a good life on this planet at that time. When I get all puffed up about how cool I am and what a good life I’ve made for myself I try to remember that I had nothing to do with the most important factors that have given me a good life.

I’m grateful for so many things – my health, my smart, supportive and loving wife, my three successful children and their families, my wife’s children and especially for Lucie and Ben, my heartbreakingly beautiful step-grandchildren.

Along with the gifts and serendipity of birth, we do have to make decisions that direct our lives.  Some will be good ones, some bad ones, and sometimes, without making a decision at all, things happen that have cosmic consequences for our lives – births, deaths, wars, illnesses, accidents, lost jobs, and natural disasters. Who could ever have foreseen the murder of 20 small children and 6 of their teachers in Newtown, Connecticut? 26 young lives cut short by a crazed, mentally unstable killer. 26 young people will never see another birthday, wedding, or childbirth. So I remind myself, as I do about all the other good fortune in my life that I am really, really, lucky to be me.

Having said all that, the qualifier as I move into life’s next phase is that it is not really about survival as much as it is quality. What can I do to give myself a high quality experience for as long as possible? Here are my guidelines:

Love the people that matter – new friends, old friends, and family. Help them, comfort them, celebrate them and enjoy their company. Don’t waste time on people (including family) who treat you badly, even if they matter. It’s not your problem; it’s theirs. They will come around when their hearts open. Live your life with integrity and focus on the positive.

Don’t go to reunions. They are for old people who cluster together because the best parts of their lives are over. Don’t look back, look forward.

Go to happy hour at upscale bars. That’s where the young professionals with lots of juice hang out. It rubs off – and the conversations are interesting.

Hit the gym. Ride your bike. Walk to the store. Eat fresh, Stay fit. Get a massage. Everything feels better when you do.

Stay current. Keep abreast of fashion and pop culture trends as well as current events. Resist the temptation to dress like an old person – no high pockets or alpaca cardigans – but don’t dress like a dead teenager.

Treat each day as a work day. Get up. Get dressed (no jammies and bunny slippers). Drink a latte. Read the paper. Watch the morning news. Then – sit down and go to work – some kind of meaningful activity.

Check out the Weekend section of the local paper. Find a couple of events, films, plays, readings, or parties that sound interesting and get them on the calendar – even if you don’t know much about them. Surprise yourself. Be impulsive and creative. Many of them are free and will stretch your tiny mind.

Travel to interesting places. Fly Business Class if you can, but don’t let it deter you if you can’t. Exposure to other cultures will expand your vision and tolerance.

Work on a new (or old) skill you want to develop. I will never be a Hemingway, Clapton or Federer, but writing, tennis and playing the guitar give me enormous satisfaction and I will continue my relentless pursuit of improvement with all three.

Read, read, read – books are the gateway to freedom and wisdom.

Embrace the NOW. It’s all we have – especially considering a US Congress that ignores the national good in favor of its own bloviating self promotion.

This is about personal survival and the quality of life. In the meantime I have to Survive Seattle.

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In order to “survive Seattle” I started thinking about a trip to New York last June. It has been five years since Marilynn and I visited NY and we were excited to see what’s new in the museums – renovations at MOMA and the Guggenheim, newer art at the Met, and the always edgy shows at the Whitney. And then there was Broadway; who and what was playing that we couldn’t get in Seattle?

New York is always aiming for a cutting edge experience. Who’s new? Who’s hot? What tickets can’t you get? What restaurants are booked weeks in advance? The answers were surprising this year. There was nothing we couldn’t get tickets for and because we have no tolerance for $500 dinners where waiters treat customers like the peasants in Les Miserables we de-tuned the restaurant expectations. All in all we managed to visit six museums and attend five performances in seven days, and the two that stood out were the George Bellows exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum and the Lincoln Center revival of Clifford Odet’s play Golden Boy. The surprise here is that both Bellows and Odets are artists of the early to mid-twentieth century and both are still searingly contemporary in 2012.

The competition was stiff – Book of Mormon by the writers of South Park and the new David Mamet play, The Anarchist, starring Patty Lupone and Debra Winger on stage and Matisse, Picasso, and Andy Warhol at the Met, Guggenheim, and MOMA respectively. These guys are not lightweights, but it was no contest when it came to impact. Book of Mormon was catchy, irreverent, and funny. The Anarchist was serious, current, and well acted, but the first was not a patch on Angels in America and the latter was like an argument in an Ivy League faculty lounge.

The George Bellows show is astonishing. I knew almost nothing about him except the boxing pictures, but he was a prolific painter of urban life, war scenes reminiscent of Goya, family portraits, crucifixions, and landscapes. All of them pulsate with energy and dynamism. The war scenes, painted during WWI, are horrific. This is not to say that Matisse, Picasso, and Warhol are not memorable, but George Bellows, who died at age 42, was more memorable at the Met because he surprised us so much.

Clifford Odets’ play, coincidentally, had a similar impact. Like the Bellows paintings Odets uses boxing as a device to talk about other things. I was expecting a period piece with nostalgic appeal, but Golden Boy’s themes of violence, family, boxing, art, money, and love resonate with astonishing currency. Bart Sher, the former artistic director at Intiman Theater in Seattle, directed the play and the staging, acting and set design were masterful. On Saturday night we were at the Metropolitan Opera for a performance of Don Giovanni, which in spite of the incredible music and enormous production costs was leaden, boring, and visually disappointing. It was a good lesson in tempering expectations.

All in all this has been a wonderful trip. Seattle will never be able to compete with the New York museum and gallery scene, but we have seen four plays this year that stack up against anything we saw in New York. Golden Boy was outstanding, but Superior Donuts, the Tracy Letts play we saw at the Green Lake Bathhouse Theater was every bit as good and we were in and out for $25 each. Happy Holidays.

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