Advantages of Growing Old

There are some definite advantages to becoming a “senior citizen.” I’ve started ordering from the senior menu at restaurants and find that the portions which are supposed to be smaller are very adequate and much less expensive. We took our son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter to a water park this summer. Their admission fee was $38 but my wife and I got in for $5 each. What a deal. And at the University of Colorado people over the age of 55 can audit any course for free with the instructor’s permission. I did this when I first started seriously writing. I audited two fiction writing courses over two semesters, wrote a series of short stories and immersed myself in fiction writing. And finally, the best deal of all. At the age of 62 you can purchase a Golden Age Passport for $10 which allows free entrance for the rest of your life of your car full of people into any National Park in the United States.

Vacation

I just returned from a week in Estes Park, Colorado. When on vacation I don’t write or blog and only briefly check email. My wife and I reunited with three other couples from California, Oregon and Georgia (the guys all went to graduate school together and we’ve been friends for forty years). This was a wonderful time to catch up on kids, grandchildren, health (a topic that comes up for people our age but wasn’t an issue forty years ago) and to see beautiful scenery. We spent a good deal of time hiking and driving within Rocky Mountain National Park. Along the way we saw deer, elk, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, moose, marmots, pika and the ever present squirrels and chipmunks. My wife even had part of a sandwich snatched out of her hand by an attack duck. After a long day on the tourist trails, one of our friends raced into the house where we were staying and informed us, “Give me my tea and no one gets hurt.” The punster in the group upon hearing about a section of the mountains that gave eerie and haunting sounds when the wind blew said that it was called Peak-a-boo. We haven’t been together as a group for several years, but picked up right where we left off. Beautiful mountains, good health and great friends. What more can you ask for.

Television Interview

Yesterday I was interviewed for a program on a local television station. Along with fellow Colorado author, Beth Groundwater, we answered a number of questions about our novels and our writing experience. Although I have given numerous talks, this is the first time I’ve been interviewed on television since I was sixteen and beat the seventh ranked tennis player in the country in my age bracket. Yesterday, at first I was nervous, but since it wasn’t a live broadcast, any mistakes would be edited anyway. I talked about geezer-lit mysteries, by octogenarian protagonist Paul Jacobson and the juvenile mystery I’m now writing. I felt it went well but will have to see once I can view it. Ten years ago as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado, I taught a business course that was videotaped. I hadn’t watched myself give a presentation for a number of years and was surprised at the “ums” and “ahs.” It gave me great feedback on improving my presentation skills. It will be useful to watch this interview when it’s aired to see how I can continue to hone my speaking ability.

Juvenile Mystery Novel

Who says families and writing don’t mix? This weekend our son, daughter-in-law and eight-year-old granddaughter visited, and in addition to the water park, swimming pool, movie, hide-and-seek and other great activities, I had a chance to read part of my juvenile mystery novel draft (for middle grade readers eight to twelve years old) to my granddaughter. She was my first listener and gave me terrific feedback. She found two errors that I need to correct and picked right up on one of my clues. Now that they’ve headed home, I’m ready to jump in to begin revisions tomorrow.

Retirement Homes Are Marvelous

Last week I spoke at two retirement homes and had a great time talking with the residents who attended. Before the presentation started, we chatted about where everyone previously had lived, and they shared how they had converged on Colorado from all over the country. This makes sense because, as I’ve mentioned before in this blog, Colorado is ranked as the state with the fifth highest growth in population of people sixty-five and older. At one of the retirement communities after everyone had recounted their various locals of previous residence, we discovered that three people had lived in Waterloo, Iowa. This was intriguing to me since my son lives in Iowa, but of more interest was that the three didn’t know this before. They had a great time comparing notes. One of the most animated people in the audience came up to me afterwards, and in further conversation, I found out she was ninety years old. Another attendee was 102, laughed at my jokes and shared some of her experiences. As you would expect, most of the people attending were women. Also, they tended to buy the large print edition of my book.

Author Loses Forty Years and Two Fingers

If you’re in your sixties like me, how’d you like to lose forty years in exchange for two fingers? I had this opportunity in a simulated way, when I participated in a SWAT team active shooter scenario yesterday. Here’s the setup: a man walks into a hospital emergency room, upset in thinking that his wife (a nurse) is having an affair with a doctor. He goes berserk and starts shooting people. I’m playing the part of a twenty-two year old emergency room technician and get shot, losing the fourth and fifth digits of my right hand. Blood (Halloween special) is all over my hand and I sit there in simulated pain, while the SWAT team bursts into the emergency room with weapons drawn and take down the shooter. Then the hospital staff shifts into gear to triage the wounded and take us off for treatment. This was all an exercise to train the SWAT team on how to handle a hospital active shooter event and to train the hospital staff in dealing with a major crisis.

Several interesting things happened. There was only one shooter, but in the heat of the battle, word accidently was communicated that there were two shooters. Once the shooter was down, the SWAT team then went room to room to try to find the second shooter (who didn’t exist). I was sitting on the floor watching this. They neglected to check a restroom where a victim was locked in. If there had been a shooter in there instead, it would have been a real problem (this was discussed in the debriefing afterwards). The major lesson learned by all parties was the need for better communications. The scenario had the head nurse in the emergency room being shot, and there was confusion after that about who was in control there. Then emergency phones didn’t work within the hospital, and there was miscommunication between the SWAT command post outside the hospital and the hospital staff. During the event an amber alert for the emergency room was issued over the loudspeakers in the hospital, meaning no one was to enter the emergency room. Needless to say, several hospital staff members came moseying in while the shooter was still “alive.” Fortunately, this being a simulated event, these problems now are being addressed. As a “victim,” it took half an hour before my wound was assessed. I was classified yellow while the red victims were carted off to surgery. Since I could walk, I was led to a room in the day surgery area with other yellow-classified victims, where hospital staff came to treat us and determine when we could go to surgery if required. After another half hour I was led to a room but the staff there was confused about what to do with me. (Another opportunity for improved communication). Overall, the SWAT team and the hospital staff operated in a very professional fashion and now know where to work the kinks out of their various communication systems. After the debriefing one of the other victims told me that he had started acting obnoxious, been taken off for a psychiatric evaluation and then given a meal to calm him down. With my “two missing fingers” I never was given anything to eat. Afterwards I scrubbed the fake blood off, my fingers magically reappeared and I was happy to be my age again, thank you.

Author Goes Undercover

Last Friday I had an opportunity to spend most of the day with a detective. I experienced a typical workday that included paperwork and investigative activity. From this episode I can share my perspective on some of the characteristics that make a good detective:
1. A good judge of human nature – Understanding what motivates people, how they operate, how to get information from them and how to follow up with them.
2. Excellent analytical skills – There is a lot of analysis both of computer-based information, interviews and in-person encounters.
3. Intelligence – Knowing how to approach problems, having the mental tools to tackle a difficult situation and the ability to uncover alternative possibilities.
4. Multitasking – A linear person could not survive in this environment. The detective I worked with had 29 cases on his backlog and these have to be worked concurrently with constant switching of tasks as priorities change. These ranged from a cold case murder in 1954 to two escaped fugitives that he had received information on that morning.
5. Sense of humor – You’d go nuts being around murderers, fugitives and the problems in society being dealt with unless you can laugh at yourself and the situation.
6. Good communication skills – The ability to ask the right question, listen to the answer, keep someone engaged and write clearly. He also spoke Spanish which helped in one interview.
7. Ability to turn off the job at home – We talked about this while driving to track down a work release fugitive. He was a dedicated family man and although his family knew what he did and he told them about what he was working on, he had learned to be present when on family time.