The Oppenheimer Report 6/1/15

To my twelve loyal readers, I must first apologize for not writing a report last week. Even in times of adversity, I usually write this weekly report, and have done so for well over 22 years now. It is the discipline of writing down a page of my thoughts, no matter what the circumstances, that I strive to maintain. Frankly, the week just got away from me. After almost a month down in Toronto, we headed back up north a week ago Sunday and it seemed as if every little thing that could go wrong in our house did. The water purification system malfunctioned, the phone line was out, and even the internet was out. There were weird electrical problems we have never before experienced, and the list goes on. It was as if gremlins had been let loose to sabotage our home while we were away. Little problems; nothing went seriously wrong, these were just little annoyances to add to the adversity of the past month. Anyhow, by the time I realized that I’d missed writing the report, the week was over.

As I have mentioned in this report on more than one occasion, I very much enjoy doing my radio show on Hunters Bay Radio, but this week, my good friend and fellow songwriter Scott Gilson has acted as a guest host for me. As I begin writing this report I am listening to the show and Scott is doing a great job. That Scott is hosting this week is fitting, because I took over the Thursday time slot from him when he found he did not have time to do the show weekly. Scott has a much better radio presence than I, and he’s had a lot more experience. It’s always interesting to hear another songwriter’s take on good writing. Now that I am back, I hope to get together with him soon, as we have begun to co-write a song. Scott has a great voice, we share a tendency towards odd guitar tunings, and he has an interesting percussive guitar style.

Twenty one years ago last Friday, Shauna and I were married at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. Some of you reading this were probably in attendance. Shauna and her parents spent almost a year planning the wedding, and it was a beautiful event. As Friday approached, neither Shauna nor I had made any plans to celebrate. We were so pre-occupied with the events of the previous month that we were just delighted to once again be in our own home, and sleeping in our own bed. We decided to postpone our celebratory dinner and instead settle for a quiet evening at home. More and more we cherish the quiet evenings at home. I have lived with this woman for over twenty one years, we have travelled extensively together, and we have shared our many joys and sorrows. I wanted to write something meaningful for her to commemorate our time together, but I was blocked. Then, Friday evening, as I was taking a shower before dinner, a memory came to me which became the seed for a song I wrote very quickly, entitled simply “21”. The memory dates back to our honeymoon, wherein for a part of it we took a cruise ship up the Alaska coastline. At one stop, in Skagway, we rented a car and drove across the border into Canada, travelling about 100 miles up the scenic Yukon Trail. We were practically alone on the highway, the trip was spectacular, and the memory washed over me like a warm summer breeze. I remember taking video of Shauna at a large lake called Tutshi Lake. Over the years I have written love songs about Shauna and me, and one common theme is the swift passage of time. Anniversaries, birthdays, holidays all blend together in time. For me, they are simply reminders of the relentless march of time. Shauna and I are not, as some people have suggested, the “perfect” couple; I doubt any couple is. Over time, what I have been fortunate enough to realize, what has become more and more important to both of us, is our mutual growth and love for each other. The best friend I married twenty-one years ago was a relative stranger to me when I was filming her at Tutshi Lake. I know her much better now, and I love her 21 times as much as I did back then (which was, by the way, a lot).

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 5/18/15

Tomorrow Shauna’s mom will be discharged from the rehab facility wherein she is staying at present, and that is a mixed blessing for us. We are relieved to be leaving what has been I think a substandard care facility, mired in bureaucracy and more interested in shuffling beds than helping the afflicted, but clearly Mom Taylor is not out of the woods yet. According to a recent assessment by a neurosurgeon in Toronto it may take up to three months for her injury to heal, and certainly her advanced age is a factor. While she has been generally cooperative and feels terrible for having put her kids through this ordeal, the caregiving issues remain complicated. Fiercely independent, she will, I foresee, object to the 24-7 care we and her doctors now feel she requires, and while she may feel she is capable of handling all her own affairs, we have plenty of reminders that this is not the case. She does not want to go into an institution, and frankly neither do we want that, based on our observations of the care at a rehab facility. So now what do we put in place to make her safe? The house is handicapped friendly, something we did when Shauna’s Dad was so ill, and generally Ethel can get around with a walker.

I’ve been through at least five or six of these family disasters so far, and the inclination is to succumb to angst or self-pity. I wrestle with this from time to time; oh woe is me, after a long and harsh winter, here we are in the throes of spring/summer and there is yet another elder crisis with which to deal. But these are our parents, and they have been good parents. They sacrificed exponentially more for us than we are now called upon to sacrifice for them. I wrote my good friend Bob the other day, perhaps partly to rationalize my currently compromised circumstances, and partly to remind myself to practice what I preach. In the note, I referred to a photograph I use as the screen saver on my computer, and it is and action shot of the two of us participating in an offshore boat poker run several years ago. We are in Bob’s vintage 27’ Magnum Sedan Cruiser, a classic twin screw offshore powerboat, cruising along at 40+MPH in the Lake Erie chop. It’s an aerial shot taken from a helicopter, and shows us launching off a wave and in mid-air, with only the outdrives barely touching the water. Bob and I share of love of boats and rough water, and have done a bit of dangerous boating in our long career as friends, usually in small crafts.  That action shot is a reminder of a charmed life. As I strive to adjust my attitude, I pull my little mental Zen rake through the garden of my happy memories, and once again remember to be thankful for all that has so far been given to me. Even these challenges are a gift.

 

During my “shifts” in the rehab center, I took Ethel out for walks around the ward, and when we'd done a sufficient amount of exercise, we rewarded ourselves by sitting out on the back balcony, off the patient lounge on her floor, overlooking the beautiful grounds on the facility. The other day, the trees were erupting in green, and seemingly overnight we saw spring make a break from jail keeper Jack Frost.  Children were running around, playing happily, seemingly unaware of the unhappy circumstances that brought them to this place. As life unfolded beneath us, we had some  good talks. I’ve had my issues with my mother-in-law, and likely she with me, but we have shared over 20 years of our lives together and we have come to know each other pretty well. Maybe this sad accident has a silver lining, and maybe I needed to take a break from whatever it was I thought I was doing, that I deemed so important, to focus on the circle of life. I’ve waited in traffic jams, I’ve waited for elevators, I’ve waited for success, hell, I’ve even waited in line for an hour for a ride on Space Mountain at Disney World. So far, I’ve had many moments of joy with a beautiful wife who loves me, and I’ve had many moments flying through the air with both props out of the water. Finally, what give those moments meaning are the moments when I help another human being.  

              - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 5/11/15

It’s Friday night as I begin this report and I am off duty for the evening. Shauna is at the rehab center with her mom, and I just finished listening to the Top 20 Countdown on Hunters Bay Radio, wherein my producer and colleague Juan Barbosa has reached #1 on the charts for a song off his upcoming album Soulbot 6000. My little break from the challenges of the past week. Indeed it has been a difficult one. As anyone who has ever negotiated the bureaucratic nightmare of the health care “system” knows, patient advocacy is everything. Hospital staff members are often over worked, and it is astounding to me how many mistakes I have personally witnessed in the past year. When Shauna’s Dad had the last big stroke, which ultimately caused his demise, there was a point where a nurse inadvertently switched his IV bag with the patient’s in the next bed. That patient was getting a drug he should not have received and it had an adverse effect on him. He was unable to speak and were it not for a rapid change in his vital signs, no one would have known. It was Shauna who caught this, not the nurse charged with his care. Physician do no harm. The challenge in the coming weeks will be to determine where we go from here. We hope Mom Taylor will be able to resume some semblance of normalcy, but right now we have no idea what to expect.

 

One of the odd results of spending a lot of time in a hospital or rehab facility is that, by default, one becomes familiar with the other inmates, both patients and family. The other day, when Ethel was transferred to this rehab facility she is presently in, it was chaos. The facility had no record of her admission, the place was hot and badly ventilated, she was without her pain medication for over eight hours, and the only saving grace was her bedmate. Annie, in the next bed, had just had serious open heart surgery to repair a rare heart defect. While she was only about a week and a half out of major surgery, she was cheerful and funny and downright lovable. Most of all, she was a subtle reminder to us how lucky we have been, and how all things must be kept in perspective. Yes, I wish Mom Taylor’s accident had not happened, and yes perhaps it was preventable, but she is alive, alert and as sharp as ever, able to ambulate now with some difficulty, and let’s not forget, the woman has thankfully reached the venerable age of ninety years old. Annie is only 78 and still not out of the woods. After bonding with Annie in a very short time, in the early morning, Ethel and her caregiver noticed she was gasping for breath and called for the nurse. She had arrested and was in peril of dying on the spot. It was likely our caregiver Andrea Yolanda saved her life. At present Annie is stable at the Toronto hospital and awaiting the surgical insertion of a defribillator in order to regulate her heart. Hospitals make us care when we don’t necessarily want to, and they abruptly wake us out of our coma of perceived immortality. It’s an in-your-face reality check, and we learn from the experience whether we want to or not.  

 

While doing my shifts in the hospital last week I put together my radio show and sent it up to Huntsville via email. It takes a while to put that show together, but like this report, it gives me a great deal of pleasure. As I said, it was a long week. At one point last weekend, the dog was sick and had to be watched, Shauna was in a pain flare and could not move, and I was at the hospital trying to make sure Mom Taylor was safe. When I got home from the rehab center late Wednesday night, I put together the voice tracks for show number ten. When it rains it pours, and all we can do is the best we can do. It was not the show I’d hoped to do, but I’m proud to have done it nonetheless. Thanks to James Carroll at Hunter’s Bay Radio for taking the files I sent and loading them in time to air Thursday night. I hope to be able to broadcast the show in person some time soon.

 

-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 5/4/15

 

We are back and forth to Toronto and scrambling to figure out what we do next with respect to Shauna’s mom. Presently, she is in a rehabilitation facility and making some progress after a misstep on the stairs in her home led to a bad fall and fractures to her C1 and C2 vertebrae. At present the challenge is to make her understand the severity of the injury and to convince her that she will, for a while at least, require assistance with almost every aspect of her life. We will know more after a follow up consult with the neurosurgeon who originally saw her after the fall, but the uncertainty is all consuming.  

 

Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans. I have been thinking of that concept a lot lately, and it has been particularly meaningful this past two weeks. When I was a young man I had aspirations to be a writer, and perhaps if I was lucky, a recognized songwriter. I had those aspirations 45 years ago. I finished school, and afterwards, having been instilled with a strong sense of responsibility by my parents, I took a job in the family business, got heavily involved in the community, and put those dreams on the back burner. Like so many of the rest of you, I chose pragmatism over pie in the sky, and I have few regrets. I still managed to write songs, even if few heard them, and I have lately enjoyed some of the recognition for which I’d always hoped. I’m not done by any means, but I have learned to be patient. Every experience in my life has made my writing improve. For now, it is likely I will need to pull back and focus on the family I have left.

 

One can live life with regret and bitterness, and no matter what one’s station in life those demons are ever present. Alternatively, one can simply persevere and find happiness and contentment in the absence of sorrow. My life has by most people’s standards been a charmed one. I have known great love and support from friends, and most of all from my parents, and from Shauna’s. We are down to our last parent now, and this journey looks as if it will be a challenging one from now on. The circle of life encompasses us all and no one escapes the pain. It is up to us as individuals to recognize the joy. Herein I recognize every friend and relative who has brought a smile to my face and to let you know I love you all. When you have helped me you have helped me help others, and I will continue to pay forward the good fortune I have so far known. I don’t know about the future, but for now, family trumps all else.  

 

Enough of my philosophical bullshit. I hope to join you again next week, here, and on my radio show, which last week Hunter’s Bay Radio was kind enough to air for me with the benefit of remote file sharing. Life can kick you square in the ass, but if you’re at peace with yourself, and I think I am finally, it cannot knock you down.

 

Whatever doesn’t kill ya, right?

 

-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED