Be Very Careful How You Grab A Granny

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”




I think the moral of this blog post is, if you have to grab a granny at all then be very careful how you do it; and if you do do it hang on as tightly as you can no matter how much she struggles.


It rather strange advice I know, but there is a reason for giving it.


First of all, here’s granny Lucerne.

As you can see she is in good spirits. I don’t know whether she had a bucket list, but one of the things that this 80 year old granny wanted to do and had been planning for a decade was to skydive.


As for myself, it has never been an ambition of mine to jump out of an airplane that wasn’t in trouble. Although I would much rather that they would stick a parachute under my seat on an airplane instead of a bit of glorified polystyrene, I mean on a flight from L.A. to New York for example how much ocean is there to be worried about?


But back to 80 year old granny Lucerne. For a while everything went well. She was very happy and excited by the prospect of her first skydive parachute jump.

The trouble started when she got to the door of the small plane and peered outside at planet earth below.

As her skydiving buddy, to whom she was attached, also tried to push through the open door ready for the jump, granny’s reluctance turned to panic.

She was heard shouting “No”, but by that time it was too late, the whole process had gained its own momentum.

And out they tumbled.

And tumbled, and tumbled, plummeting earthwards at an accelerating rate

By now granny must have been in a blind panic because instead of relaxing and going with her skydiving buddy, she flailed about and started to slip out of the harness that was holding them together. Remember just the buddy had the chute.

The next few shots show just how far out the harness her struggling had caused her to slip. By the way, the hand in the bottom left of the photo belongs to the photographer who had realized what was happening and guided himself over to them to try to help.

Another photo also showing just how far out of the harness granny had managed to wriggle.

Eventually her skydiving buddy gets the chute opened. (He has got a complete right leg in case you’re wondering, it’s just the angle of the photo!)

And with granny held in what had to be a vice like grip they both made it to the ground, a little worse for wear but thankfully, alive.

Here's the video.


Enjoy!

On The Oul Timers’ Ward

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”




“I’ll never forget what’s his name,” is something I have a habit of saying. I’ve always had a good memory and recall for most things, particularly numbers, but sometimes I’m terrible with names. I can be trying to hold a sensible conversation with someone, usually someone who I haven’t seen for a long time, and while I know their face perfectly, can I remember the name! It makes for awkward times and sometimes amusing ones as well.


I hope it doesn’t get any worse as I get older! I’d hate to end my days with “oul timers” as we call it in our family, my aunt having been so afflicted for a few years before her passing.


But like all adversities there are the funny sides. 


Here’s a report from an old issue of the Southland Times in New Zealand that I thought was amusing.



The police were called to the Whangarei ward at the Aged Care Centre in Kaikohe, New Zealand, because a fight had broken out.


When they arrived, they could see that the two elderly protagonists had been involved in a mighty punch-up. Both were covered in blood, their clothes were torn, one had a broken nose and half his hair ripped out, and the other had a broken arm and a hypodermic needle stuck in his penis.


Furniture and equipment had been smashed flat, beds had been overturned, and the other patients on the ward were terrified.


When the matter came to court, Police Sergeant Maurice Loveridge reported as follows:


"…. the fight took place in a ward full of elderly Alzheimer's patients, and it has gradually become clear that nobody can remember what happened, or who was responsible.


One patient keeps repeating the phrase 'we ought to have more manure', but frankly this gives us no clue.
The two accused men do not recognise each other, nor do the other patients, and the ones who initially reported the incident to us had forgotten that there even was a fight by the time we tried to question them.


Therefore, because nobody can now recall the incident, the Police Prosecution Department has reluctantly decided to withdraw the case against both men."





These aren’t the same old boys as in the New Zealand fracas, but they’re the best I could come up with. They made me laugh.

Enjoy!

Sometimes Dogs Know More Than We Give Them Credit For!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

It’s Friday 13^th today apparently. Superstitious people would tell you that that’s bad luck. Well your getting yet another blog post from me so I suppose there might be something in it. Not that I’m superstitious in the least – I think being superstitious is bad luck.

On a similar subject to Wednesday’s post about Oscar the Grim Reaper cat, but staying with dogs again, here’s another short story about our German Shepherd dog.

As I think I’ve said already this dog had become a member of the family. He was a great companion and he liked me a lot because I fed him and took him for walks and played in the yard with him and all that good stuff that you do. But nevertheless he was always fonder of my mother than anyone else.

He loved all the family too, of course, and was ultra protective. As you know from yesterday, he did not like strangers at all and was particularly vicious in his distaste for the postman who rolled in every morning about 10 or 10.30 am.

A routine had developed in the house. When the doorbell would sound there was a scramble to get to the front door first. Lots of running and skidding and if truth be told, sometime the breaking of wind could be heard too. And the dog was almost as bad!

He was tail up, barking, growling and pawing at the glass in the door busting to get at whoever it was. I made valiant attempts, but I seldom if ever got there first, although I would capture him at the door and then attend to the visitors.

If the person there was authorized to come inside he allowed it, but reluctantly and always made sure he was between my mother and the stranger. Never left her side in fact. He never touched anyone, but it did make for some short visits by some of her cronies, not that I was particularly annoyed about that.

At night he would always take up guard duty on the landing outside her bedroom door and that’s where he slept every night.

That routine went on for several years and then unfortunately my mother became ill. As she got worse we moved her downstairs to a study, which was more convenient for everyone and she did not have to cope with the stairs. The dog duly took up sentry position outside that door every night. Eventually one morning she passed away.

Now if you have ever experienced that, one thing that happens is that a lot of people call at the house. And I mean a LOT. It goes on all day. It starts almost immediately when the Doctor calls. Then there are relatives who start to appear. Then the undertaker arrives. Then more people, neighbors, friends, more relatives and so forth. I must say people are incredibly kind at times like that, bringing food, helping to cater for the rest etc.

On a normal day this activity would have caused me a lot of bother running after the dog every time the doorbell sounded and making sure everyone got ushered into the house and then back out again without interference.

However, that morning was completely different. The dog walked away from the bedroom door and went into the dining room and lay down on the floor.

The Doctor arrived. The dog didn’t move, or bark, or even get up. Same with the undertaker and everyone else who arrived. Even when the postman drove in the dog only glanced in the direction of the door but didn’t make a move towards it or the postman.

And that went on the whole day. The only time he got up was when I took him outside for a while for a walk round the yard. Dogs are remarkable animals, especially the intelligent ones. They don’t say much but they are ultra sensitive to people’s moods and what’s happening around them.

In fact sometimes they know a lot more than we give them credit for and frequently they know a lot more than their owners!

Grim Reaper, Part 2, Meet Oscar

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

I’ve said before that I’m a doggie person. But we have a cat and a dog that thinks it’s a cat, so I don’t mind having a cat around the place either – except when it decides to attack the birds in the garden. Then there is a heated dispute.

Having said that, however I’m not so sure that I would like a cat like Oscar around. Certainly the people I was talking about yesterday in the post about Harry Meadows and the Home for the Elderly might get a little nervous!  

You see, Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in twenty-five cases, has led the staff at the Home to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University. "Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one," said Dosa.

Oscar was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The facility treats people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other illnesses.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

Dosa said Oscar seems to take his work seriously and is generally aloof. "This is not a cat that's friendly to people," he said.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill

She was convinced of Oscar's talent when he made his 13th correct call. While observing one patient, Teno said she noticed the woman wasn't eating, was breathing with difficulty and that her legs had a bluish tinge, signs that often mean death is near.

Oscar wouldn't stay inside the room though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor's prediction was roughly ten hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient's final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.

Doctors say most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably don't know he's there, so patients aren't aware he's a harbinger of death. Most families are grateful for the advanced warning, although one wanted Oscar out of the room while a family member died. When Oscar is put outside, he paces and meows his displeasure.

No one's certain if Oscar's behavior is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behavior of the nurses who raised him.

So is Oscar really is a furry grim reaper? No one is saying for sure but he did recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his "compassionate hospice care."

The Late, Great Mr. Harry Meadows

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

This week seems to be turning into a bit of a tribute week. Yesterday I paid tribute to Stephen Pile who was the worst founder of a club ever! Today I would like to take a little time to pay my tribute to Mr Harry Meadows.

I’ll come back to Harry in a moment. First a general comment. Old folk are peculiar at times. As I get older myself I understand more and more why. But despite my tolerance level for idiots heading inexorably towards zero, I’d like to think that even in my later years, if I am spared, I would retain my sense of humor. I would hate to just become another miserable old ‘git’.

Speaking of which, when one of my aunts died a lot of years ago, I was helping to make the funeral arrangements, part of which involved organizing the undertaker. When he arrived at the Nursing Home she had been staying in to do his thing I noticed that he was in a van and not a hearse.

Always curious, I asked him why this was the case. “Oh dear,” he said. “You have no idea. We were forced to buy the van for coming to places like this. If we arrived here in the hearse it caused so much distress and panic amongst the residents who all thought their time had come and we were there for them that the Home owners all demanded that we get a different form of transport or lose the business.” So now you know.

Back to Harry Meadows.

I have no doubt that most, if not all, of you will never have heard of Harry. He wasn’t a famous man, didn’t invent anything special, wasn’t a public personality, in fact he was just an ordinary person like the rest of us.

Except one thing he did have in common with me at any rate was a sense of humor, and one that was right on the edge.

Harry was a resident at an old peoples’ home in the 1960s. It was called the Haslemere Home for the Elderly and it was located in Great Yarmouth in Britain. Haslemere, at that time anyway, had the largest elderly population in the country.

The Home had first hit the headlines in September 1960, when another of the residents, 81 years young Gladys Elton, decided it would be good fun and would break the monotony of the place if she performed a striptease, which she duly did.

Unfortunately Gladys must have been hot stuff, too hot in fact, because the excitement she generated with her performance was too much for one of the male residents who as a result died of cardiac arrest. Five more of the inmates of the Home also had to be treated for shock.

Old Gladys must have been quite a ‘goer’!

So what about Harry Meadows?

Well Harry didn’t take part in the striptease, but the following year, in 1961, Harry who at the time was 87 years old, thought it would be funny if he dressed up as the Grim Reaper. He duly did so and then from outside the Home, peered through the windows complete with a scythe in hand.

Unfortunately Harry had an even bigger effect on the inmates than Gladys. This time three of them died of shock at seeing the Grim Reaper outside their window!

The Home was subsequently closed. I don’t know what happened to Harry.

Is this tragic or funny? To me it’s funny that it happened and tragic that there are not more people in the world like Gladys and Harry.