Citizen of the World

Yesterday morning, I woke up thinking about all that my father has experienced in his lifetime and what world events have taken place during the 88 years of his being on earth.  Today is his 88th birthday and here's a short list (quickly off the top of my head) of things that have happened in his lifetime:

Wars:
WWII, Korean War, The Cold War, Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Desert Storm, Afghan & Iraq Wars

Economic Turmoil:
Great Depression, The Marshall Act (Germany/Europe), Reaganomics

Social Topics/Change:
Baby Boomers (he and my mom had 4), McCarthyism, Equal Rights Movement, Hippies, Abortion Rights, Prohibition (born during it and witnessed its end), KKK (membership peaked in 1920!), Gay Rights, Generation X-ers (he and my mom had one - ME!), the 80s

Governmental Forms:
Democracy, Socialism, Communism, Apartheid

Notable Leaders' Times:
15 US Presidents' terms (Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush (1), Clinton, Bush (2), Obama)
UK governmental leaders - Winston Churchil, Margaret Thatcher, he probably watched Queen Elizabeth get crowned
Social Leaders: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Sinn Fein (IRA), Rosa Parks

US Constitutional Amendments:
#19-27 - includes Women's Suffrage, presidential term limit, legal voting age, and removal of the poll tax.

Various Factoids:
- Las Vegas, NV, is only 18 years older than my dad.
- Israel was formed as a modern state in 1948.
- Man landed on the moon in 1969.
- The NYC Twin Towers were built and destroyed during his life.
- The Iron Curtain was erected and torn down in his lifetime.
- My dad is as old as the institution of Social Security.

Notable Inventions/discoveries during my dad's life:
The TV (1923 - 1927), penicillin, FM (frequency modulator) radio, The Mayan Calendar stone (1960), transistors, Teflon, LSD, Barbie, many advancements in photography (including the advent of Polaroid photography and the speedy decline of film cameras), the hydrogen bomb, computers (yes, my dad emails!), the Internet, nuclear energy, robots, the microwave oven (1946), and 1000s more!!

Around my dad and throughout his lifetime, the world has experienced massive change - some good, some bad, and all expressive of the human experience, which I find fascinating. My dad has touched and experienced much of it.  Good on you, Dad!

I know; everyone's been thinking, "Where the hell are Stephen's Copenhagen pictures?? I can't believe it's taken this long!"

Well at long last, here they are. Just so you realize, I chopped out a massive 1023 pictures from my collection of Copenhagen pictures to make this small album of 184. THEN, since we did some touring on foot without the knowledge of a tour guide, I hunted around for explanations of what we saw. That was pretty cool. In this, the information age, it was pretty confounding to notice that everyone has pictures of Copenhagen, but not many folks have good collections of information about the city - in one or two places. Nope, I hunted for days for some information on certain buildings, squares, or statues.

One thing I hadn't expected on the cruise when we departed was passing by the southern coastline of Sweden. I got MANY more pictures of the coastline and the buildings and towns, but you'll notice some pretty cool things we saw gratuitously - just because we had to go that way. Very cool!!

Enjoy the pictures and the stories!

This is pretty cool. My sister called the local newspaper in my Dad's town a couple of weeks ago - after we got back from our cruise - for them to interview him about his trip, in hopes of an article in the newspaper: an 85-yr-old man who got up off his Lazy-Boy and went to Russia.

Check it out!


This is the picture I sent them for the article along with a couple extra ones:

Here's my latest album posting - these are from tours of Stockholm. I took the pictures from about 370 down to about 130 - fewer than half!!

Enjoy!!

Here's the second installment of photos from my cruise. These are photos mostly from the ship and during days at sea when not much was happening. Enjoy!!

I love Germany. Lived there for almost 3 years in total and worked there off and on for another 2 in various projects. On July 28, our cruise stopped in Warnemuende, which is a northern port city on the Baltic Sea. I'd never been there or to Rostock, where my dad and I took an excursion to the town and a local brewery. It was so much fun and interesting. I ended up buying a 6-pack of beer, which I made last me for the next week and a half. Each time I bought a bottle of beer and drank it, I saved the label, too, as a memoir.

After the 3-hour excursion, I wheeled out the wheelchair and took Dad on 3-4 mile trek around Warnemuende (which to this day he still cannot pronounce). It was a sweaty workout to be sure, but it was really good. At one point, I noticed that Dad fell asleep riding over cobblestone!! At one point, we reached a beach area and he trudged off to the ocean to dip his foot in the Baltic Sea. It was a beautiful day and he had lots of fun. When we got back to the ship, I chucked him into the stateroom (not a cabin) and took off on my own to take some pictures of Warnemuende - great, old resort town. Lots of boats, slips, rafts, and ships all around. The canal area was full of waterside shops, cafes, and restaurants, which was great for a beer (or two) and people watching.

When we sailed off from Rostock, I was kicking myself for not bringing my cameras!! I wish I could have recorded some of what we saw and experienced. The memory is astounding in itself. There were about 4-5 city harbor cruise boats around our ship as we pulled away to songs blasted from the port from La Traviatta, Phantom of the Opera, and other operas - including some German beer songs. The day-cruise boats came alongside ours and the people on them were waving tissues, smiling, and cheering us on. The boats and our ship blasted their horns. Thousands of people from the platforms and walkways along the ports and beaches were waving and cheering, hooting and hollering. It was truly an experience - mixed emotions of joy and sadness of the departure from such a sweet area of Germany (with great beer). What a gorgeous and beautifully rich day.

Wish Matt could have been there. Throughout the experience, I kept getting choked up when Dad was choking up or getting thrilled with all the excitement. I was rubbing his back and watching the excitement and joy on his face. That's something I'll never forget.

Just had a cute conversation with my dad about beer. His standard M.O. is when he calls to start off with, "Quick question; you got a minute?" I guess he figures that up here with all these New York minutes, I'm running around from place to place. He also thinks I'm a big partier and heavy drinker for some reason. I have two or three glasses of wine every three or four days, and that constitutes heavy drinking - for a man born in the heart of the depression in the South, who's never had "hard liquor," as he calls it.

I guess my two dirty martinis at dinner last year at the beach on vacation (when my bro-in-law was driving) really made an impression on my dad. Or was it the little travel-sized bottles of whiskey I brought 5 years ago to have with a cigarette at the beach for a nightcap.

He wanted to know which 12 oz bottle of beer was more expensive - Bud Light or Heineken. He's obsessed with the cost of things, which ultimately helps him decide what he's going to use and/or what he's going to bring to a family gathering to share. It's cute for outsiders, but inside the family, we wish hed just enjoy what he's got rather than worry about whether we've tasted something or not.

Truth be told: I love beer. I miss beer and it's now something I drink on special occassions. Like when I have the caloric bandwidth. In fact, I'm making a tag for beer just to discuss the beers I've had and will have - with friends, of course. Thatll be fun.

Dad couldn't figure out where the bottles had come from, but it must've been when I was at his house once a couple of years ago. Dad and I discussed different culinary options for his forlorn bottles of beer. After all, "Good glory!". He doesn't drink beer! He goes, "you're not much of a beer guzzler anymore are ya? How much are you drinking now?"