Grandfather and Some Aunts

I hope you are not getting too tired of all these old photos. If you are, cheer up: this should be the last of the really old ones for a while, perhaps several years.

My grandfather, James Milton Henderson, was somewhat of a tyrant. I guess you had to be to make money raising cattle in the wild west of the nineteenth century. Here he is with three of his daughters ... but I don't know which three.

I will make some guesses. I will guess that the one in front is Adela and that the two in back are Enola and Mae. But I could be mistaken about the identities of everybody in the photo. There was absolutely no notation on the photo itself and I'm just going by what I remember of what somebody told me many years ago when I was given the picture.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's anybody left who can correct me if I'm wrong.

Message Board

My Father at War

My father, Herbert Homer Henderson, was born on a cattle ranch in central Washington state. But he didn't like chasing cattle through the brush for weeks at a time, so he ran off and joined the Navy. He was sixteen and he lied about his age. He served his tour of duty on a battleship as an ordinanceman.

World War I started at about the time his enlistment was up, so instead of re-enlisting in the Navy, he joined the Army. He was sent to France to be part of the Coastal Artillery and, according to him, saw absolutely no action whatever.

That I must take with a grain of salt. He always insisted that he was never in any danger during World War II either, except that once an air compressor exploded near him, but I learned from his military records, which I received after his death, that he was in the hospital up on the hillside above Pearl Harbor during the attack on 12/7/1942 and was on the first ship load of those sent to hospitals in Maryland.

---

By the way, very old photos like this one, the one of my grandmother and the one of my Aunt Ella required an exposure of several minutes during which the subject could not move. This is why you rarely see people smiling in those old photos and why they wore high collars (to hide the clamps around their necks from the metal stands holding them in place and keeping them from moving). Hands were placed in stable positions, too, to prevent movement. A typical exposure was about three minutes.

Women wore a lot more clothing a couple of centuries ago than they do now. I read somewhere that the average woman's outfit for going out away from home, with multiple petticoats and everything, weighed about thirty pounds in the time of Queen Victoria. No wonder they always seemed to be fainting.

So when you see an old photo of someone, particularly a woman, dressed from ankle to neck, grimly standing in a simple pose for the camera, it really did cost them a significant effort to do so.

Message Board

Various Aunts and Uncles

My Father's Brethren

Enola Henderson and Elmer Henderson. Aunt Enola lived in Tacoma, Washington, and continued to cook with a wood burning stove until well into the 1950s. She also made elderberry wine, which I was never allowed to sample, but she shared none of the other characteristics of the lead characters of the play "Arsenic and Old Lace".



Carl and Ella (Henderson) Larsen, who settled in Salem, Oregon.



Otto Henderson at about age 88, when they put him in a home. This is a copy of a Xerox of a newspaper photo, which is why the quality is so bad. Otto spent a good part of his life taking pictures on a camera that used 8x10 glass plates for the negatives. Here he is seen examining a modern camera, although he is too far gone to really understand what it is all about.

Message Board

My Grandmother

The note on the back of the photo says only, "Fredricka Henderson from 'The Nurse'". The photo was done by a studio in Seattle but there is no date given.

Message Board

Family Pictures

Oops! I goofed. As Derek pointed out, I made the two photos in the last entry too wide. I figured that most prople would have at least an 800x600 display, so I made the pictures 600 pixels wide. I forgot about the stuff on the left side of the screen. So I'll make these pictures 400 or fewer pixels wide to see if it works out any better.

This is from the collection my cousin Otis sent me. Most of the photos were taped to sheets of paper and the tape was ancient and brittle. But this is what my sister Linda and I looked like when we were very young.

This was probably taken at the avocado orchard / chicken ranch we had in Calavo Gardens, a suburb of La Mesa devoted mostly to the production of the Fuerte variety of avocado.

---

We moved to the Puget Sound area of Washington shortly after the end of World War II, when Linda was about five years old. The note on the back of this photo says it was taken at Bald Point, but I don't remember it as being one of our regular fishing spots. It must have been one of the places we tried earlier, before we settled on several places to return to regularly.

We all liked to fish for salmon, although Mother often got seasick. I was the only one who had any problems eating our catch.

---

Here is another picture of Linda. Once more, I have no idea when the photo was taken because nothing was written on the back of the print. Obviously she is somewhat older than in the first photo.

---

These two school photos were taken at the same time, according to the notation on the back of each, October of 1954. That means we were living in Lemon Grove. Linda should have been attending Lemon Grove Junior High School and I should have been in my first year at Helix High School.

---

Finally, here are the four of us in December of 1959, standing in front of the house I still occupy in Lemon Grove. At least the print was made in December, 1959. Who knows when the picture was actually taken.

You can see the metal vertical blinds in the windows behind us. Those things used to make an uproar with even the slightest breeze, slapping together with a noise like mechanical applause. The foam plastic vertical blinds we have now are nice and quiet.

Message Board

Contrast

We got some photos in the mail from the wedding we attended recently. This is the most recent photo we have of Delia and I, taken on Mission Bay in San Diego. I've already written about the wedding we attended that day. Delia's friend and co-worker, Dominique Tindall, took the picture (and several others) and sent us copies.

The second photo is from my archives and I don't know when it was taken. It was probably taken about the time my parents married, when my father, Herbert Homer Henderson, was about 30 and my mother, Mary Elizabeth (Cooper) Henderson, about 22. The photos were sent to me by my cousin Otis when one of my aunts or uncles died several years ago.

Message Board

Publishing Class

Today's Oasis class was a whirlwind presentation on how to get a book published. I was familiar with a lot of the material from other classes I have taken, but there was new material and lots of detailed data such as links, addresses and telephone numbers of sources.

There were fourteen students present, out of sixteen who signed up for the class. The instructor is a retired teacher who has had seven printings of her book on finding bargains in San Diego published. She told us how the book initially wrote itself, forcing her to learn about the world of publishing, which she was sharing with us.

How does a book write itself? Well, first you start with an idea. She got her idea by finding a couple of books on bargains of free stuff, the first for the Bay Area and the second for Los Angeles. She decided to ask people to share information about bargains in San Diego, which she would collect and publish.

She contacted community colleges to arrange seminars to get people together to share their knowledge. Then she started getting requests for interviews from local radio and television stations, which is also known as free publicity.

The book sold well. There was feedback, new data. The book grew, printing by printing. Now several times its original size, the author is taking out several chapters to sell as specialized ebooks because their subject areas are more volatile than the rest of the book.

But not every book writes itself. A more rational approach is needed, with planning, research and hard work.

Message Board

What Is My Body Doing?

My hunger is back to normal.

After days of almost being unable to eat, my appetite returned yesterday. I ate my normal breakfast. I had a double quarter pound hot dog for lunch. Cathy and I had picked up some leeks at an Oriental supermarket the previous evening, so Delia decided to make sopa de puerros (Scots cock-a-leekie soup, a chicken and leek chowder). A big bowl didn't quite satisfy me, so I had an additional half bowl. A couple of hours later I had an additional half bowl of the soup.

I had picked up an 18 ounce package of blueberries the previous day. Just before bedtime I had a couple of bananas, one finger sized and one regular size, and started nibbling the berries. I intended to eat just a few, knowing it wasn't a good idea to eat a lot of fruit just before going to bed. But I was reading a chapter of "Dune: The Butlerian Jihad" and by the time I finished the chapter I had finished the berries too.

Okay, my morning hamburger had bread on it, my afternoon hot dogs came in a bun, my soup was full of potatoes -- all things I have been avoiding to control both my sugar and my lipids -- and I overdosed on sugary fruits just before going to bed. I expected my fasting blood sugar reading this morning to be highly elevated. It was a lowly 80. For me, that is almost dangerously low because my afternoon blood sugar tends to be lower than my morning blood sugar.

I had an early lunch before going off to class. The last time I went off to class after having an 80 reading, I was in serious condition by the time I got to the class and had to grab a meal before I could continue. I took no chances today.

Tonight I'll have to reduce my dose of insulin solution once more. In a sense, that is satisfying ... but it is confusing. I'm not losing weight (I weighed myself this morning to be sure). I'm not doing any additional exercise. I'm not getting enough rest to avoid feeling tired most of the time. I'm sleeping well when I do sleep. I'm not taking a lot of naps during the day, nor am I falling asleep in front of the TV (despite the pitiful few programs worth watching).

I have reduced my insulin intake almost ten percent during the last week. It probably amounts to more than ten percent because the small adjusting doses have gone down, too, or have been eliminated when my sugar was very low. That's about as much as I reduced my intake over the past year. I think it's good, but I have no idea why it's happening.

It's a blessing and I'm thankful to receive it.

Message Board

Autumn Wedding

Yes, it is still springtime, not autumn. However, the bride was about 70 or 71 and the groom was 66 or 67. Both had suffered the loss of a previous spouse. About half the people present were related to one or the other, mostly to the bride. The bride's granddaughter, apparently in her early twenties, was a real doll.

The wedding had to compete with a marathon for the streets of the city. A wide detour was necessary around the blocked-off streets to get to the Mission Bay resort where the ceremony was to take place. We got accurate information by way of a phone call last night and were able to arrive on time, before they closed the doors. Others chose less fortunate routes and were left outside. They sneaked in during the ceremony anyway, which is normally not permitted.

As we entered and picked up the place cards for the meal, I was issued a white silk skull cap. I noticed that only about 25% of those men who were seated were wearing the caps, so I asked one of the capped gentlemen what the protocol was. He said that they were Reform Jews and that the caps were optional for their members as well as for their non-Jewish guests. Having been told it was a mark of respect, I chose to wear it. This was the first time I had attended a Jewish wedding and I wanted to make the most of the experience.

The Hebrew language, like Arabic, sounds beautiful when sung or chanted. Everything spoken or sung in Hebrew was repeated in English -- although it was a Jewish wedding, the majority of guests appeared not to be familiar with the language or the religion. It was an impressive ceremony, despite its simplicity. The Rabbi made a great point of explaining many of the features of the traditions and beliefs exemplified by the various parts of the ceremony.

Between the marriage and the reception, there was sort of a get-together on the porch overlooking the bay. I found myself talking with a group of Scots, my friend Allan (a Scottish import) and a group from Minnesota who had just returned from a trip to Scotland. We munched meat on a stick, little quiches and lentil empanadas while they discussed the political situation in northern Great Britain.

The reception was pretty much like all receptions anywhere. The food might have been slightly better and the music slightly less loud, but they did all of the usual things. I couldn't talk and I didn't care to dance. I wanted to leave. Eventually I did. Almost everybody else had left by then.

Control of Weight and Sugar

In response to my last entry, Derek (spwebdesign) asked, "Would it help to be on a strict regular schedule for eating?" The basic answer is, "Yes, but that, by itself, isn't enough."

Several years ago, Delia went off to Panama on vacation for over four months. While she was gone I spent a lot of my time writing. I would get up fairly early in the morning, have a small breakfast, then sit at the computer downstairs all day writing. Sometimes I would have a small meal in the evening, sometimes I wouldn't bother. I was never hungry. I gained about forty pounds.

I wasn't eating junk food or trash, but my metabolism had adjusted to my intake and to the long periods without any intake by becoming very conservative and hoarding the energy as fat. My insulin needs shot up as a result.

That taught me a lesson. Now I keep a timer running and I always have three or four meals per day so my body will know I'm not starving. Still, I'm walking a thin line, unable to directly control my metabolism enough to do more than prevent a runaway or emergency situation.

Every once in a while something unexpected will happen. If I suddenly start to feel hungry or to crave sweets, the chances are my blood sugar will shoot up whether I give in to the cravings or not, I will have to increase my insulin dose and, more often than not, I will gain a few pounds. It is much more rare for me to completely lose my appetite, as I did recently, this being a signal for a blood sugar drop, time for me to adjust the insulin carefully downwards. I have dropped it one step already and will drop it another step tonight.

My weight has fluctuated over a range of about fifteen pounds during the past year but it is about the same today as it was a year ago. During that same period I have reduced my insulin dosage by ten percent. Perhaps I'll reach a point where I begin to lose weight again, which will help in many ways.

But I have no control. Eating is difficult sometimes -- sometimes all food seems revolting and the thought of eating makes me feel sick, preparing food being completely out of the question. I have to eat frequent small meals to keep my blood sugar low and to keep from gaining more weight. Exercise has become increasingly difficult because of problems with my feet, knees, back and, now, with my heart rhythm. Trying to avoid stress in my family and in this modern world is almost hopeless but I deal with it the best I can. I do what I can to stay where I am and hope things will get better.

So, Derek, regular eating habits are a necessary minimum condition for my continued good health but are not enough by themselves.

Message Board