LIVING WITH A DISABILITY

MY TAP-DANCING DAYS

The Hollywood Theatre once stood proudly on the corner of Logan and Chatsworth Roads in Greenslopes. Every Saturday morning in 1938 I would take my sixpence (five cents) to attend the tap-dancing class that was held at the back of the stage. I was ten.

If I am engrossed in reading something (perhaps The Bulletin?) he will let me know he is there. Oh yes! He is impatient for me to notice him, for he wants to be fed. Not later, but now. This instant.

I know he is not popular with bird lovers. They say he frightens off the small native birds like Blue Wrens (which I love) and others. But this Mickey seems harmless to me, with his jaunty, cheerful manner.

What a difference a few decades make! When I was a growing girl in the city, our doctor lived a few streets away. He practiced from home, and would make a lot of house calls; needs must, because in those days just prior to WWII, there would be only one car to a household, if that, and the bread-winner would probably need it daily. A big, sick child could not be lumped in the mother’s arms to a doctor’s surgery streets away.

Snippet for Andrew at The Scenic News

One thing always leads to another.
One of the many interviews that I have done has lead to a learned fellow coming up to do a podcast about ageing, with me, the nonagenarian, doing the talking! He thought it was very good, and a week or so later I received a request from him...would I consider being interviewed by a well-known woman in New York who was putting a book together on aged women achievers.

TONSILLECTOMY

My little grand-daughter had a tonsillectomy last week. She has recovered well. It reminded me of my own experience when I was five.
After contracting the dreaded diphtheria when I was three (read about it in my book ‘ Gardening in Your Nineties’), I suffered from frequent bouts of tonsillitis. Our nearest doctor at Beenleigh advised my parents that I should have my enlarged tonsils removed.
Times were tough in 1933, and my father asked what the cost would be.

TO END...OR NOT TO END...

I cannot quite understand it. Here is this woman, 86 years old, very capable, well educated and articulate, good company and in good health, but who is flying to Switzerland next week to have herself euthanised. No, I don ‘t quite get it.

Now, I know she says she has been quite worn down by her bully of a husband, and that talk of a divorce brought on this decision. He is going to drive her to the airport next week. It has been suggested that he is so glad to be rid of her that he is making sure she catches the plane.

A CHILD OF THE DEPRESSION

When I say that I am ‘a child of the Depression’, most folk know what I mean. It tells them that I do not waste anything if I can help it; I buy hardly anything if I can do without it; and I get great satisfaction out of tastefully using left-overs that are in my refrigerator.

My freezer is full of bits and pieces...surplus food that I have frozen and which comes in handy when I need a snack. Or when I do not have the energy to cook a meal. They are always a nice surprise, even though I label each container, showing contents and date.

My book GARDENING IN YOUR NINETIES, the sequel to SEX IN YOUR SEVENTIES

A review from Canberra: I love your book, I really do. It’s very informative; you are adventurous and you have filled your life with experiences and enthusiasm. That North Queensland trip makes me smile. The Aussie can find a way when things fall apart. The overseas experiences are a lovely insight into your travels and determination to fill your life with all that it can offer. Also, I love your recipes and tips on gardening. A really terrific read.

VALE BETTY WHITE January 2022

So Betty White has died. She was almost a hundred years of age.
I remember, as a child, first seeing a photo of Betty on a cigarette card. Among a couple of others, I had one of Janet Gaynor, and these young women were so attractive to a ten year old, an impressionable country kid who was so ignorant of the rest of the world, knowing only the dairy farm of the early thirties and the surrounding district on the Logan River.