You have to begin somewhere…

and I've chosen Italy.

In our dotage, Anna and I have researched every activity there is to do between waking up and going to sleep (eventually, permanently). We have traveled, I have done a little bit of part-time work, Anna fills a lot of time on the phone with family and friends. I also read and she paints (and not badly, either). I’m on the computer a lot, but our health has restricted some of our options (such as walking, playing sports, etc.).

Therefore, we have decided to start a newsletter, which is reportedly the next best thing to writing letters to everyone and their mother. We hope it will be of interest to folks, both in our family and others we either know, or would like to. We welcome your feedback, with your own anecdotes about what you have read here and elsewhere and, if your subject is germane to our jottings, we’ll pass your remarks along.

This newsletter may not go on for too long a time, as I’m 87 and Anna has recently faced a quadruple by-pass and her struggle to regain her former self is a bit arduous. But what we have in the way of storytelling will be sent along as the thoughts come to us. Most of the stories with a bit of humor will be of Anna’s fifty years of nursing, all through her training days at St Mary’s Hospital in Montreal, through her working years in Toronto, Geneva, Switzerland, and Phoenix, Arizona. She has worked in almost every department in and out of a hospital, from general floor duties to pediatrics (with the Sally Ann in Toronto), CVICU (she was recruited to Phoenix based on her ICU experience), Employee Heath, Risk Management, and in industry as an employee health nurse with General Electric, Exide Batteries, and Air Canada (I was along for that ride). An exemplary career and a great example of the wonderful life nursing can offer.

My own work history is much less stellar, probably due to my obstinacy (my mother would have called it pigheadedness). I would blame it on a lack of higher education, which I believe instills a sense of temper, purpose and direction that I had to search for, in that school known for knocks. Nonetheless, I am very happy to have lived the life I have and to have shared a good part of it with Anna. (At a later time, I’ll discuss my first family, with Thelma, and the brood that brought forth.)

But, to illustrate the type of fortunate and hilarious life we have been able to lead, let me tell you of the time Anna and I went to live in the small village in Italy where she was born.

It was 1978 and we had been living in Geneva for three years, where I ran a multi-national company in the-then magnetic tape manufacturing business (cassettes, reel-to-reel; for people my age who can remember such things). Anna had just had a baby, a tiny girl that died 25 days after birth. The American company I worked for wanted me to move to L.A. and take over the presidency but, after the somewhat-difficult years I had been with them, I decided that was not the path I wanted to take. Instead, I left the company and Anna and I headed to Petacciato for a much-needed rest for her and for me. Unfortunately, it was wintertime.

As you probably know, most small, ancient towns in Italy were built on a hill. In this case, the town overlooked the Adriatic Sea from a hilltop 230 meters above sea level. Her grandfather owned a cliff-side, tiny, one-room ancient house that had been abandoned for many years, but we decided this would be a grand place for us to feel the history of the village (and get free lodging). We arrived mid-afternoon in the middle of January and decided to set up the place to bed down for the night. 

The back-story to this abode is that the cliff on which it was perched had been eroding for years but in its past had featured a stable downstairs and the living quarters upstairs. The cattle could exit the stable and roam the fields, while the living quarters could be entered from the hilltop. The heat from the animals would keep the house cozy in the winter but, when we arrived there were no animals, just the lingering odor of the past.

Nonetheless, we unpacked the bedding and blankets we had brought with us and settled in, only to face an uncomfortable, cold, night of tossing and turning that no amount of exuberance could overcome.

The next morning, I was determined to solve the problem and avoid another cold night in our new home. We headed out to Termoli, the next village about 15 kms to the south (along the beach) and wound up buying an electric blanket which would solve all our problems. 

Loaded up with food and the answer to a warm night, we headed back to Petacciato to a lovely dinner and just as the day was ending, I thought I would pre-warm the straw mattress, so I plugged the blanket in to the only outlet in the house, planning to settle down to read for a little while and give the blanket a chance to do its thing. That’s when the proverbial ‘shit-hit-the-fan’. Actually, there was no fan, just a very jarring flash of electricity and everything went black.

It seems the blanket required more amperage than the whole place was wired for, and I had just blown the only circuit in the house. In the darkness and the confusion, we tried to figure out what had happened, and it occurred to us we had no idea where the fuse box was, or even if there was one. Stumbling around, we realized we had no flashlight, or candle, and that it would be impossible to locate the source of the problem and we weren’t looking forward to another night of freezing in an uncomfortable bed.

Packing up the essentials, we jumped in the car and drove down the coast to hotel/motel row in Termoli and stopped at what looked like a decent place to rest. We went in to an attractive, but desolate, lobby, found the one attendant and got a room. He explained that, because it was winter, the hotel had no guests but remained open. Undaunted, we trudged up the stairs and entered a spacious and well-appointed room, but very chilly. I couldn’t find a thermostat anywhere so called down to the front desk, only to learn that during the winter, with no tourists, they didn’t bother to heat the place.

And we hadn’t brought our electric blanket with us.

What a Life!