Christmas cards

Sir Henry Cole is said to have sent the first card in 1843, and we've been sending and receiving them ever since. We can not only judge a sender's personality by the cards he sends, but we can also sense the changing moods of society itself by the differences, from decade to decade, in the style, subject matter, and art work of the Christmas cards it creates.

We creep closer to the month of December.  And as we creep, we consider once more the vexing problem of Christmas cards.  Do we send them, or do we not? '

I'm not certain why discussing this issue has become an annual tradition here in the Northwest Corner blog.  It first arose in 2008, the second year that I cheerfully published what had begun as a humorous, passing stab at imitating the obsession of what I then considered a much younger generation. 

Blogging.

I presented a brief history of the custom (see my quote above), and then began questioning my own sanity in continuing the tradition while stranded in the midst of a society that seemed to despise tradition.  But I quickly brushed my qualms aside, as well as my progressive reputation.  Like a cigar-smoking Tory, I boldly declaimed:

Let's face it. Maybe in 2008, with email and Facebook so readily available, no one really does care if I send them a card or not. But I send them for myself, at least in part. Christmas just doesn't feel like Christmas until I carry my stack of envelopes down to the corner and drop them in the mailbox.

And send them I did.

The issue fell dormant for the next eight years.  But in 2016, the issue raised its ugly, if holly-wreathed, head again.  I not only questioned the sending of Christmas cards, but professed myself shocked at the vulgarity of whatever cards actually were available for sending.  What's wrong with society today, I cried, in tones redolent of the Republican National Committee?  Have we lost all appreciation not only for the sanctity of Christmas, but for the simple, all-American values represented by public portrayals of happy families about the tree, and rosy-cheeked kids on sleds, and snow storms, and deer gamboling through the forest?

Maybe -- except in the bosom of our nuclear families -- we should all just sit around a plain pole and exchange ironic witticisms.  Or did Seinfeld beat me to it?   Happy Festivus?

And with that, the floodgates of blogdom were flung open.

I offered my yawning readers similar themes in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.  How original!  How predictable!  No wonder my readership figures began spirally downward!

And yet, through all these many pages of self-questioning angst and lamentations, one fact stood out:  I continued to send Christmas cards, year after year.

Which brings us to 2023.  Let me be brief.  And unapologetic.  I've ordered Christmas cards.  They arrived today.  I will bend over my desk, appending personal greetings to each.  Yes.

Yes.  While the rest of you gather around the Festivus Pole, worshipping the gods of modern, sarcastic, ironic, post-traditional America -- I proudly admit --

In 2023, I once more shall mail Christmas cards! 

Merry Christmas.

Ditching the boot

I'm sure we all lament the narcissistic turn my blog has taken this year.  When, of course, I'm writing anything at all.  Either I'm gloating over my travels, or I'm worrying in print about my disintegrating body.

But after two posts about my Achilles tendon, I can't just leave the subject hanging.  The matter's ready, not yet for closure, but at least for an update.  An encouraging update.

Two weeks ago, I related my submission to "the boot," that orthopedic appliance designed to keep me from using the Achilles tendon and to force me to walk somewhat stiff-legged.  My two weeks of boot purgatory ended on Wednesday -- I had already discarded it for walking inside the house two days earlier.  On Wednesday, I reported for my two-week follow-up medical appointment.  It was a short visit with the podiatrist.

He asked me if I'd experienced pain while wearing the boot?  No.  Had I felt pain walking around the house in normal shoes?  No.  He had me stand on my toes.  Did that hurt?  No, but I lacked strength to get more than half-way up on my affected foot.

Doing fine, he said.  No more boot.  No more icing my leg daily.  Continue five-minute stretches twice a day.  Get out and start walking.  Very short walks at first, but increase by increments.  If it starts hurting while you're walking, cut the length of your walk by half the next day, and continue from that new base point.  See a physical therapist for leg-strengthening exercises.

A walk in the park!  Literally.  I'm up to a mile walk -- in the park -- as of today.  I don't count my steps walking around the house and other short distances.  No pain in my ankle so far.  (But my legs do feel weak and wobbly, after two weeks of ankle immobilization.)

Interestingly enough, after the ankle pain developed in August, I also began having pain in the knee of my other leg.  X-rays showed arthritis, but I'd never before had pain in that area.  Now that I'm walking normally both without a boot and without consciously or unconsciously favoring my ankle, I've noticed the arthritis pain has greatly diminished.  I may not be out of the woods with respect to the arthritis, but it's an interesting development.

I'll continue with the prescribed regimen.  I'm optimistic.  It's so cool  to walk freely, even though I'm far from being back to my normal four to five miles a day.  But I see the progress.  

It's odd to be so happy because I'm able to do, even to a small degree, something I've always enjoyed doing, but have naturally taken for granted.  Walking for pleasure.

Maybe, with continued progress,  I'll be able to return to blogging about the Great Philosophical Issues of our time?  We'll see.

Challis Thanksgiving

Quickly ignoring my unconscionable and increasingly glaring failure to blog with any regularity, I'll mention that I'm looking forward to enjoying Thanksgiving next week near Challis, Idaho, with my sister's family.

I note that I've blogged on the subject of her house and large property on thirteen occasions since 2017 -- most recently this past June when my far-flung family met there for something of a reunion, including, most notably, a rafting run down the Salmon River.  Her property abuts Salmon-Challis National Forest, and abuts it so closely that I can look out my bedroom window at the wire fence a few feet away, marking the boundary.

I've seen the Challis property in sunshine and in snow, when choked with brush fire smoke and when blessed by the dying beams of an eclipsing sun.  There are horses to ride, dogs to run with, cats to pet, and even bunnies -- many of them -- to cuddle.  Not much more that I can say about the property, at least until the next natural phenomenon appears.

More to the point is that I'll be able to enjoy a holiday with my sister and her family.  This time, I'll be the only family member visiting from outside Idaho, but I'll be accompanied on my visit by Suzy -- a long-time family friend whose mental acuity, sharp humor, and physical agility totally belie her ninety years.  Our last get-together with her for Thanksgiving was in Vaison-la-Romaine (Provence), France, in 2009.  

Suzy and I will fly from Seattle to Idaho Falls on Tuesday, where my sister will meet us and drive us the 2½ or 3 hour hour drive to her home.  It will be a short, four-day visit, but one to which I've been looking forward eagerly. 

In Provence, fourteen years ago, we roasted a chicken and called it turkey.   This year, I have dreams of real turkey and dressing, and all the necessary trimmings, in Challis!   

RMS Queen Elizabeth

This week, I reserved a February roomette on Amtrak's "Empire Builder," a two-day trip from Seattle to Chicago.  This completes my West Coast to Chicago "trifecta" -- following similar trips the past two years on the Southwest Chief from Los Angeles and the California Zephyr from San Francisco.

I have no particular objective in going to Chicago -- the reason for the trip being the train travel itself.  I've often compared similar train rides I've taken to cruises for the average guy.  They aren't particularly cheap, but certainly far less than a cruise ship.

The comparison to travel by ship brings to mind my first dreams of travel as a tourist.  First, that is, not as part of family travel with my parents and planned by my parents.  But travel planned -- if only in fantasy -- by myself. and travel to be undertaken alone.

I was 12 or 13.

I was a young kid in the early 1950s, just a few years after World War II, although that war seemed like ancient history to me at the time.  My mother had somehow acquired a travel memoir by an American who had traveled by car up and down Great Britain in those first post-war years.  He visited town after town, discussing each in loving detail.  I was already primed by temperament to be an Anglophile.  Reading his book converted that predisposition into a total love affair.  

I wanted to explore England.  I needed to explore England.  I planned my own itineraries, based on the sights and experiences described by the author.  [Both author and title have been lost in the shifting sands of memory, and my family no longer has the book.]

In another three or four years, I figured, I'd be old enough to rent a car myself in Britain.  The question was how could I get there.

In the early 1950s, airline travel certainly existed, but it was prohibitively expensive for travelers with my resources -- or with my family's resources, for that matter.**  The obvious way to get from America to Britain was by ship.  

Travel by ship in those days differed from passage on cruise liners today.  The ships provided often luxurious accommodations, especially for the two upper classes, but the objective was travel from Point A to Point B.  The same objective as as that of passengers who traveled by rail -- to arrive somewhere as quickly as possible, not (primarily) to gaze at the passing scenery with a cocktail in hand.

Numerous ocean liners sailed down the Hudson River from New York Harbor, heading for Europe.  I think I finally decided on the largest then afloat, Cunard Line's RMS Queen Elizabeth.  The ship was divided into three classes, First, Cabin, and Tourist, and each class occupied its own portion of the ship, with its own dining and other facilities.  Tourist class passage between New York and Southampton was, as I'm certain I recall, $165 each way.  Far beyond my ability to pay, as a 13-year-old.  But maybe by the time I reached 16 or 17?  One could hope.  One could dream.

I also was concerned about the preliminary matter of reaching New York from my small town in Western Washington.  That would be solved by the three-day train ride from Seattle or Portland to New York.  I don't recall the fare at that time, but a year later, when I was 14, I traveled round trip to Chicago by train for $90.  Still pricey, but easier to contemplate.  I'd be traveling in a coach seat the entire way, of course, not in a sleeper.

Today, looking back, I'm fascinated by the style of shipboard accommodations, even for Tourist class.  That didn't interest my junior high school self at all.  I just wanted to get to Britain as cheaply as possible, and an ocean liner was the ticket.  

So did I eventually sail off to Britain on an ocean liner ?  Nope. Just a kid's dream. But eight years later, I did find myself talking at the border to an officer of Her Majesty's Home Office, Immigration Branch.  Not at Southampton, but at New Haven.  Arriving by sea, but on a ferry from Le Havre, not a liner from New York.  I had ended up on the Continent, months before I ever saw England, attending school in Florence.  And I had arrived in Italy not by sea, but on my school's chartered Pan-Am DC-6.  During our three-week semester break, I crossed from France to my childhood dream destination

The ferry was quite nice, but it wasn't the Queen Elizabeth.   But England was England, largely the England I had dreamed of as a 13-year-old lad.  Far more "England" -- still largely its pre-war self (prices still in traditional pounds, shillings, and pence! oh joy!) -- than the modern country millions of tourists visit today.  I'm glad I saw it when I did.

But I'm sorry I didn't arrive on the RMS Queen Elizabeth! 

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Photos

Top -- RMS Queen Elizabeth

2.    -- Tourist class library

3.    -- Tourist class lounge

4.    -- Tourist class Winter Garden restaurant

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**NOTE (11-15-23):  In the 1950s, minimum fares for all airlines were governed by an international body, the IATA.  The IATA had refused to allow air travel that was not first class until July 1952.  The minimum one-way air fare from New York to London was $711 -- in 2023 dollars, $8,255.  But in 1952, Pan Am won the right to offer a "tourist class" level of service for $486 round trip -- $5,642 in today's dollars.  

Still a bit steep, even for the day dreams of a 13-year-old

Giving me the boot

Back in August, just before leaving for Scotland, I posted my lament at having developed tendinitis in my left foot Achilles tendon.  Since my purpose in going to Scotland was to hike eleven miles a day,, my lament was understandable.

The best treatment for Achilles tendon problems is obvious -- give the tendon a rest, let it heal.  And, in fact, I refrained from hiking in Scotland, following my group of friends by bicycle for two or three days, and more usually by hitching rides in our baggage transfer van.

But I didn't really give my ankle a rest.  There were places to go and places to see.  I walked around towns with everyone else, as soon as their day of hiking was over, and I walked around towns just out of curiosity during the days while they hiked.  

Then I went to Lake Como in Italy for two weeks.  Did I spend two weeks resting my ankle?  Are you kidding?  There are so many places to explore.  I even did a rather lengthy and strenuous hike up a hill in Varenna, to explore a castle at the top.  Peer pressure, even when your peers don't mean to be pressuring.

So I get home for two weeks, and then fly to Thailand to join my nephew and his family.  We didn't do anything too strenuous, but we went out for walks around his neighborhood almost daily. 

Finally, my autumn travel completed, I decided to see a podiatrist.  What your ankle needs is rest, if it's going to heal, he advised me.  Unnecessarily.  To encourage me to do so, he insisted that I wear a boot -- a knee-high boot -- all day except when sleeping (or, I assume, showering).  The boot holds the ankle immobile, so that the Achilles tendon isn't being constantly pulled and exercised.  It also makes walking difficult -- not impossible, because I still have to get around the house and go out for groceries and the occasional meal -- but clumsy enough to discourage me from setting out for leisurely walks through the park.

Walks that I greatly miss.  

But the boot will be on for only two weeks, today being my fourth day of confinement.  To back up the discipline of "the boot," the doctor also has prescribed fairly large doses of Prednisone to reduce inflammation.  And demanded that I follow a daily routine of stretching and icing.  

Even after that glorious day when the boot comes off, my tendon will need probably months of special care, exercises, and reduced use.  Hard to predict, the doc says, shaking his head.

So here I am, a blogger who once prided himself on discussing events of general interest, of philosophical import, of humorous daily life -- now confined narcissistically to discussions of his personal health.  

I don't mind growing old, but do I have to be so stereotypical about it?

More later.  Oh yeah, there'll be more.  Bet on it.