#233 Happy New Year

 MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL

In this post I attempt to cover two topics, the first related to my struggles with Parkinson’s Disease and the second an assignment I gave myself in the last post of the blog.

A Fall in the Fall

First is a story that happened a couple of weeks ago—-it’s about a fall which appropriately happened in the fall and is being written about while it’s still autumn [Notice how I deftly avoided another use of “fall.”] Also appropriately I was leaving a Parkinson’s support group meeting at the Canby Adult Center when I suddenly found myself on the ground of the parking lot. My head was bleeding, glasses askew, small gashes on my hand and one knee. How I got there I’m not sure. I could have tripped over a rough spot in the parking lot asphalt or I could have stumbled on the toe of a dragging foot. Whatever happened, I luckily didn’t hit the ground very hard. 

Taken by Anne at my request. Me on the ground surrounded by help while waiting for the professional (EMT) help.

Better yet I had numerous people around me ready to help—Anne (who goes to the meeting as a caregiver), a couple of other PD patients and caregivers, two staff from the Adult Center. Also, it was good that I knew what to do. I stayed down and waited for the EMTs who were called soon after I fell and who specialize in picking up and caring for the fallen.

The Canby Fire Dept. rescue truck arrived in five or six minutes, thankfully with no siren blaring. The two EMTs checked me over and after confirming that I had no major injuries picked me up off the ground and got me on my feet. They helped me walk to the rescue ambulance where they checked me out more thoroughly.  Since I had hit my head on the ground, bending my glasses but not breaking the frame, they said I should consider a visit to the hospital in case I was concussed [I’ve always wanted to use that word, “concussed,” if it is a word.], We decided that with neighbors on both sides being nurses, we’d have help close by if I felt worse later. 

The result of the fall was a sore wrist and knee, some facial scabs, a little embarrassment, and a reality check. There is good logic to Parkinson’s warning that each of us struggling with the condition are only one bad fall away from a really bad day. My day wasn’t this one.  

My Photo Assignment

Celebrating Thanksgiving with a dinner out at Arrowhead GC in Mollala.

We did manage to get in a round of golf in good weather.

 

I managed to take a couple of almost good photos at the course.

The second part of this post is my response to an assignment I gave myself: "put together a photo essay of a small town between Thanksgiving and Christmas." My intent was to produce a coherent narrative of events and scenes in and around the holidays as celebrated in Canby. Within the photos I’d come up with I would hopefully find a couple (maybe more) of significant artistic value. What I ended up with was a bunch of trite snapshots not worthy of a passing grade on the assignment.

We went to our rented storage unit to pick up the last of the 17 boxes of Christmas decorations.

Why such a poor result when I had had such lofty hopes? This may sound like I’m looking for an excuse for my performance, but really I’m just recounting how I conspired against myself and got no help from outside sources.

Some of the decorations in our home for the holidays. Anne does a great job of organizing and displaying our treasures.

I had envisioned going to local town events and taking pictures of holiday cheer and happiness, but when I had opportunities I blew my chances. For instance, when at Anne’s birthday meal out with friends I didn’t even think about taking my camera until we were already at the restaurant. I did the same for a big band Christmas concert at the Hope Village Community Center. 

At the concert I did borrow Anne's iPhone to get picture. It's the only shot I took and you can tell I'm not used to using the iPhone as a camera.

I had planned to visit a couple of local parks (for nature photos and pictures of lighting displays). I did neither, I simply dropped the ball on those ideas. I have to say my Parkinson’s didn’t cooperate at all. Early in the month I fell [see previous story] and recovery was slow with several visits to doctors and therapists in the way of anything planned. I could have pivoted on my plans and come up with something else, but winter blues or Parkinson’s apathy put an end to that. The pictures I did come up with lack any value beyond the typical scapebook snapshots which could have been taken with 1953 Kodak Brownie. 

The city of Canby is nicely decorated by local snowman contest (as well as a light in the park display. I made very poor use of bothers opportunities. There's much more that I could have done.

I did learn that if I’m going to continue to produce anything worth your time to view I have to find ways to overcome physical and mental blocks that I faced on this assignment. If  I do that, the month will not have been a total washout.

Lots of local flooding and wind damage was done by the three Atmospheric Rivers (used to be called The Pineapple Express) hit us in a two week period.

NEXT: Something worth your time to read and see.

#232 Happy Thanksgiving

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING 

It’s time for a special seasonal post. This blog post contains two messages—one about Parkinson’s Surprises and one Seasonal message, all surrounded with fall photos taken near to home. 

Turn, Turn, Turn

One thing about Parkinson’s Disease is that it is a condition full of surprises. Who knew that I’d need dopamine to remember how to dress myself—how to pull my pants on or put on or take off an overshirt. Who knew that a middle toe could turn under so much that I’d walk on its top side.  Or that I’d have to figure out how to deal with Rhinorea (excessive and consistent runny nose). And one that really surprised me is that I didn’t know that I’d seemingly forget how to roll over in bed. The condition has a name as well—it’s called Nocturnal akinesia, difficulty moving your body in bed.  It seems like all at once I went from being able to gleefully or sleepily roll myself over to where I could hop out of bed. All of a sudden something so natural and easy was almost impossible. No, really, I went from easily getting out of bed or rolling over from my stomach to my side, to feeling like I was a raw potato wrapped in velcro trying to roll over on a bed of velcro. Let that picture sink in—it’s like one evening I slid into bed on satin sheets and woke up in the morning tied to the bed like Jonathan Swift’s Gullliver was tied to the ground. Surprise!

I now am seeking to learn tricks for turning over or getting out of bed without falling. The best thing I’ve found so far is a partial hospital-style guard rail that attaches to the bed and covers about a third of the side. It’s strong enough that I can use it to brace and pull against to try to slide myself to the edge under some control and then pull myself up. [Available at Amazon as Bed Railing for Seniors for under $50) I also discovered that I’m better at handling surprises than I once thought I was. Surprise! 

I also know I can’t get too cocky. We stayed over at Anne’s sister’s house in Salem a week ago to visit with a niece from Phoenix who had come for a pre-holiday visit. When I crawled into the hide-a-bed’s spongy mattress and splashed down into the springs, it took a Herculean effort on both our parts to get me out of the bed. I found a nice La-Z-Boy recliner in the living room and wrapped in my blanket had a good night’s sleep. Surprise!

What am I most thankful for this Thanksgiving?

While the new house at Hope Village is a godsend with no stairs and a lovely community of neighbors, what I am most thankful for is much closer at home. Anne, my loving wife of 57 years is also a wizard of a caregiver. She is helpful when I need help and super helpful when I need help and don’t know it. There are too many ways she takes care me to mention, but mostly she tolerates my mood swings and deals with my new symptoms with calming serenity. She’s always been companion to my adventures—dogsled racing, backpacking, car racing, golf, foreign travels—and now nurse to my neurological needs. Anne, I love you more than I can tell you and need you more than I even know.

NEXT: An assignment for me to put together a photo essay of a small town between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  

#231 Book Selling Story and Photos Trying to Make It

 

The Authoring Business

Our first book on Scottish golf, Scotland’s Hidden Gems: Golf Courses and Pubs, took five years to research and write. That meant we took eight trips to Scotland (averaging four or more weeks each trip), playing as many as 28 straight days of golf on one of the trips, collecting B&Bs, restaurants, and tourist attractions with a commitment to writing about only what we had experienced. A fellow English teacher at Canby High had agreed to the unenviable job of editing my over use of commas. The completed book was taken to a local printer where a few photos and the front and back covers were added and a run of four hundred copies was printed, paid for, and picked up. The 10 or so boxes were stored in our basement where they lived while I figured out what to do with them—how to promote them, approach book shops, get a deal established with Amazon, etc. What was learned so far is that I loved researching and writing the book, but I didn’t enjoy the promoting part. We did sell books—a few though bookstores, a few more from personal contact (out of the car boot they would say in Scotland), and even more on Amazon. The Amazon deal was interesting. I sent two books to Amazon who would tell me when I got an order, then I would send them the number ordered, and they would send the book to the customer—always keeping in stock the original two. When we were traveling we had to have Anne’s sister Charleen supplied with books and mailing material to fulfill Amazon orders while we were away.

Selling our books this way—for about $2 a book over cost—wasn’t making much dent into our original investment. It wasn’t until we started working on our second Scotland book (Scotland and Wales) and a book on Ireland golf that we started seeing some fruits to our labors. When researching for the new books we would write ahead and say to a course, “Look at our website to get info about our books, and can you accommodate us on your course so we can write about it in our next book?” We were hardly ever refused that request. The trade of a book for a round of golf on a course we had already played or the promise of a write up on a new to us course was a good deal—it cost a course next to nothing to put us out and saved us sometimes as much as $200 each for a round on a special course (or at least $30 each on a local course). On one trip I added up more than $6000 worth of golf we didn’t pay. Some courses liked the business we brought them so much that golf there was always free and on others we got significant "friends of the course" discount as much as we wanted to play. 

Then came 2010 when our third book, Scotland and Wales, was ready to sell we decided we could update our first book in a new system called Print on Demand. We would produce the book in a special format and Amazon (Create Space) would send the book to the customer—we would have no part of the distribution process, not time nor money. Royalties would depend on the market of sale and the price of the book. We get as high $4 and as low as $.87 for a $13 book depending upon what country the order is from and what deal Amazon has with that buyer. [We also sell our books as Kindle edition for about $8.50 with about $2 net per book for us.] Since 2012, with the revision of our first book, all of our books and revisions have been Print on Demand. 

Today we check our sales daily with Amazon. During the Holiday season we will sell as many as 80 books in a month and as few as 10 on the slow months. Our Ireland golf book,

Golf Ireland: A Comprehensive Guide, is our best seller with the 3rd revision of the first Scotland golf book second best. The Scotland and Wales book and our travel stories book sell some, and even the picture book, Scotland in Black and White, sells one occasionally. We can’t live off our second career, Authoring, but we couldn’t have played as many great rounds of golf as we have, without a second career. So, it’s a writer’s life for me!   

AND NOW THE PHOTOS: Last post I showed my best sellers, but this time I’ll highlight  photos which may not have even been put up for sale which I think deserve more wall time than they’ve gotten. I’ll present them in categories and you tell me which you like best by category or for the whole group.

Flora and Fauna

Cactus, Sonoran Desert Park, AZ

Cholla Cactus, Red Rocks Park, Las Vegas, NV

Hie'lan Coos, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Abstracts

Shop Wall, Santa Fe, NM

Back of San Fransisco Mission, Rancho se Taos, NM

Reflection in a lochan, Highlands, Scotland

Landscapes

Blluebells in Forest, Perthshire, Scotland

Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Buachaille Etive Mor, Glencoe, Scotland

Loch Leathar and the Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye

Architecture 

Barn that's Seen Better Days, Lake Tahoe

Doune Castle, Stirlingshire

Leadhills, the 2nd Highest Village in Scotland

Melrose Abbey, the Borders, Scotland

The Roman Bridge, Glen Lyon

Stairs

Stairs, Ft Stevens, OR

Stairs, the Glasgow Apartment 

Next: I'll see what I can come up with.

PS. I'm just trying out the automatic Google links--got any comments about them?