The Oppenheimer Report 9/25/17

Shauna and I have animated conversations at the dinner table about music. Last week, she asked me why the rock group Nickelback had such a lousy reputation. It’s a running gag that this apparently popular Canadian rock band is much-despised by music lovers throughout the world. Apparently, Nickelback is to rock n roll what Kenny G is to jazz. I laughed the other day when I heard on the news that someone was summarily escorted out of a Trump rally for carrying a sign that read “Trump Likes Nickelback!” I did not have an answer to Shauna’s question, although I suspected that it had something to do with the band’s inauthentic, derivative, soul-sucking lack of originality. Shauna did a Google search, and as she typed “Why Don’t”, Google immediately finished her sentence with several options. The third thing that popped up was “People Like Nickelback”. Clearly other people have been asking the same question. There were, by the way, a number of reasons why Nickelback is so despised by many, and some of my suspicions were confirmed.

As I’ve mentioned more than once, I broadcast a show on Thursday nights on Hunters Bay Radio in Huntsville, which focuses on songwriting. I play songs that I think are well written and then talk about some the people who wrote them. Lots of radio shows have themes, or present styles of music, but my show is all over the musical map. You might hear Zydeco, Polka, Blues, Country Rock, Jazz, Broadway Musical hits, Punk, Folk, Alternative Rock, etc. and the only criteria I use is that the song must move or entertain me on some level. To improve my own songwriting, I have begun to deconstruct songs. Does the song move me because the lyrics are strong, or is it the arrangement that hooks me, or does the artist do a particularly good job of interpreting a cover? The more I research the music I like, the more good songs I uncover. I haven’t listened to all that many Nickelback songs, but to date I have yet to be impressed by any of them. There will always be Nickelbacks in the world that make it big. Most of my favorite artists are struggling to make a decent living. One thing I’ve learned about good art is that it often goes unrecognized.

Shauna wants me to release another CD of songs, and I’ve probably recorded enough songs to fill two more CDs. I’m not sure I will, because in a field where so many talented artists are trying to be heard, I don't want to (or can't) compete. It has been my great pleasure to have recorded some of my songs with some very talented local musicians and singers, and it seemed logical to employ their skills to better represent my work. I am proud to be recognized locally as one of the local artists, and some of my songs even get local airplay. But I can’t compete in a world of Trumps and Nickelbacks. Creating music, improving my skills as a songwriter, mentoring other songwriters, and collaborating with good musicians, have become my unexpected rewards. I never thought the day would come when that was enough, but I think it finally is. As Nickelback plays to arena audiences and Donald Trump is busy trying to fire the NFL, I’ll be alone in my music room with a pen and paper trying to make sense of it all. My twelve loyal readers demand it!

  - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 9/18/17

What an explosion of color we are beginning to see outside our front window! The leaves are turning, and the maples trees out front are just starting to show the bright yellows, reds, and oranges which should be more prominent later this week. After a summer of fall-like weather, we finally got a beautiful week of sunny weather up here in Katrine, and I’ve been doing a lot of carpe diem-ing. I did some long delayed tree pruning, then ended the day drifting on Little Doe Lake, bathed in the peach pink sunset on the glass calm water, with E.T.’s Martini Music show playing softly in the background.

Indeed, the past year has flown by, and I cannot believe we’re already in the fourth quarter of 2017. They say life is what happens to us when we are making other plans. In my constant state of cluelessness, I walked into a dollar store in Huntsville the other day and was overwhelmed by sea of orange and black Halloween paraphernalia. I’m so out of touch that I keep track of my seasons by what holiday debris they’re selling at the dollar store. My sorry decoration, which adorns our front porch, is a scarecrow-like thing I fashioned out of some of my old clothing, stuffed with dead leaves, and featuring an orange plastic jack-o-lantern as the head (you guessed it, from the dollar store). Go ahead, hang up your variegated corn on the front door, or your fine mesh, hand-sewn ghosts and goblins, or your ghouls, witches, and skeletons. You can go to whatever creative lengths you choose to advertise your Halloween enthusiasm, but for me, nothing is as creepy and disturbing as a grotesquely deformed scarecrow, topped with an orange, plastic, dollar store jack-o-lantern. 

Very early last Thursday morning, as I drove and Shauna slept, we headed home from her most recent MRI in Toronto, and I turned on 640 AM to listen to some talk radio. I was rewarded with an episode of George Noory’s Coast to Coast show. Coast To Coast  used to be hosted by the inimitable Art Bell (and I understand still is, on occasion). Bell has a great radio voice, and he used to broadcast this very popular radio show out of his home in Pahrump, Nevada (not far from Area 57). Shauna and I used to listen to hours of Art Bell in the car, on our way out to or back from Banff, and we found his shows entertaining. There’s nothing like a good radio show to make a long drive go by faster. Much of the subject matter on Coast To Coast involves conspiracy theories, UFO sitings, or so-called authorities on the paranormal, so you know there are going to be a few crackpots involved. Last Thursday morning, Noory had on a guy named Paul Guercio, who is a self-proclaimed forecaster of the future. Guercio has developed a computer software called “Merlin” which in some way facilitates predictions of future events. A lot of these guys are End of Days prophets of doom, and Guercio was certainly vociferous about the political changes taking place in the world. As I drove through the moonless darkness of Orillia at 2AM,  I wondered if every generation has had its Chicken Little prophets. Admittedly, things  look bad right now. Trump and Kim Jung make-me-ill are vying for the “infantile bully of the sandbox” award, and we live in the age of too-much-information, constantly reminded that we will all be S.O.L. when the planet heats up a few more degrees. Still, has not every generation since the dawn of man had its tribulations? I’ll wager things looked even more dismal to the victims suffering under Hitler’s insanity.  

My friend and fellow songwriter Doug McLean had a CD release concert last weekend in Huntsville, joined by many other local musicians, and I was able to persuade Shauna to attend. It was a struggle for Shauna, but she was happy to have been out in public for the first time in a long time. We still have no answers about her ill health, but life goes on. As I said: Carpe Diem.     

 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 9/11/17

Somehow, this date always seems to sneak up on me. With all the hurricane reporting that dominated the news today, it did not even cross my mind today marks an ominous anniversary. I remember that Shauna and I were in our apartment in Toronto when the first jet crashed into the World Trade Center, and I remember our shock as we gradually realized that this was a planned attack. Then, I remember the eerie emptiness in the usually crowded Toronto skies as all planes were grounded, and the strange feeling of vulnerability as we watched the news unfold from our high-rise apartment. Sixteen years has passed, and while I always thought that it would be man that eliminates mankind, it looks like Mother Nature is a much larger threat.

It’s Sunday, and as I start this report, Hurricane Irma is creeping up the west coast of Florida, having already hammered the keys and Naples. Over twice the size of Hurricane Andrew, about which I spoke last week, Irma is wide enough to impact both coasts, and CNN reporters are all over the state covering the storm live. It looks right now as if Florida will be spared the high winds that tore through the Caribbean, but it’s still too early to assess the damage from storm surges. We anxiously followed the journey of one of our friends, James Solecki, as he struggled to get out of Turks and Caicos shortly before Irma walloped that island. It was fascinating to read about his harrowing experience unfolding in real time. I spoke to my buddy Gil Walker last Wednesday, a former high school class mate and one of my twelve loyal readers. Gil lives in Vero Beach, and when we spoke, Irma was predicted to hit the east coast of Florida with Cat Four or Cat Five force winds. Gil was going to ride it out at home as he and many other Floridians have done so many times before, but how is one to know if the next one is The One? Two “Cat Four” hurricanes have now made landfall in the U.S. in less than two weeks, and I believe this is a record.

I’m a bit of a storm junkie, so of course I had CNN on all weekend. There were interviews with people holed up in their upper floor condos in Key West, which took a direct hit when Irma was close to or at Cat 5 force. There was remarkable storm footage from Miami and the southern west coast, showing the results of storm surges. As always, there are stories of people who showed bad judgment, and the one story that stood out as the ultimate stupid move involved the people who decided to ride the storm out by motoring out to sea in their relatively small sloop. They of course had to be rescued, or they would have surely perished. I doubt they even considered that they’d be endangering the first responders who saved their lives. What were they thinking, sailing into a Cat 4 hurricane, when cruise ships were changing course to avoid it?!

I wonder about our disaster preparedness here in Katrine. I think we have addressed the increased volume of water, and our new sump pump seems to be keeping the basement dry, but what about a winter storm? Our plow guy is in his mid to late seventies and I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to be working. I’ve half considered buying some heavy duty snow removal equipment. My 27” snow blower is not going to cut it for a 500 meter driveway on a regular basis. Wildfires in the west, hurricanes to the south, the weather was definitely strange up here in the near north this summer, and to top it off Donald Trump is the President of the United States of America. I think it’s the end of days. To all the lost souls in last week’s hurricanes and to the victims of 9-11, my thoughts are with you today.

      

     - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 9/4/17

If you're a boomer like me, you have probably had one or two problems with advanced technology. It's one of my pet peeves, and my feeling is "don't fix it if it ain't broke." For 25 years I have been ranting about the thousands of ways advancements in technology have complicated my life. I remember the Stone Ages., when VCRs were  big clunky machines and programming them to record was a complicated series of steps involving tiny  buttons that were hard to find. When I bought my 2016 Honda Pilot, it did not come with an owner’s manual booklet; it came with a CD. I popped it into my computer, I was astonished to find it was 500 pages long. There is a whole section devoted to the many ways one can program the doors to unlock. The feature which continues to give me the most aggravation is the radio. I am baffled by the mentality behind a touch screen radio. First of all, it must be “refreshed” every time the car is turned on. This is a two-step process, which cannot be done with the controls on the steering wheel. One must physically go through two screens to get to the default settings. Anything involving a touch screen is difficult to operate while driving a car. In the good old days, my car radio turned on when the car turned on. Changing stations was the simple push of a preset button or the twist of a knob. Touch screens are a horrible distraction in a moving car. Why is it illegal to operate a cell phone in one’s car, but there is no specific law against staring at my touch screen radio for 10 seconds, trying to figure out why it is not responding to my touch?

Where does the time go? One minute I'm snow blowing the driveway, dreaming of warmer weather, and in the blink of an eye, summer's almost over. Certainly, this summer will go down in the record books as a bit of a wash. As I sit down to write this report on Monday morning the remnants of Hurricane Harvey, which deluged Houston Texas last week and left hundreds of thousands homeless, is soaking our neck of the woods. While our summer weather here in the Northeast was unusually rainy and cold, we did not experience the devastating wildfires that raged in the west. I communicated with my cousin in Corvallis, Oregon yesterday and he told me that his state is on fire, “from the south coast to the Cascades”, and the air quality where he resides is horrible. All summer we heard about the hundreds of out-of-control wildfires in BC, Alberta, and now Manitoba. With the latest devastation in Houston, Texas and the surrounding area, the news is all about climate change. Once again, I humbly suggest you can’t fight Mother Nature. No doubt about it, the planet is heating up. Unlike our saber-rattling Commander-Of-Tweets, I don’t deny the existence of climate change, or even that mankind has likely accelerated the cycle. I simply think that this is not something we will or can control.

Weather patterns are cyclical, and if one traced the history of weather on earth over the past 100,000 years (weather records go back maybe 100-150 years), one will likely find cyclical patterns that are not appreciably controllable by human beings. What I find remarkable is that with all the talk about greenhouse gases, and cleaner alternative forms of energy, are we taking proper steps to adapt to these inevitable changes? Are we doing anything to curtail unsustainable population growth? Have we effectively addressed the control of shoreline development and development in general? Are we constructing roofs and pavement made out of reflective white materials to deflect the sunlight? Do we have effective flood and disaster plans in place to protect us against the kind of hurricane that just flooded Houston? The list goes on, and the answer is a resounding no, we simply react. I’ve always wondered why we don’t divert rain water from rain-soaked areas to arid regions. We don’t seem to have problems building trans-continental pipelines to transport oil (other than ignoring the protests of the indigenous peoples whose lands are affected). 

Hey, what do I know, I’m just some ranting schmuck who has the carbon footprint of Sasquatch. I know I’m a part of the problem.  This week’s entry was inspired by one of my earliest “reports”, written August 31, 1992. Cat 5 Hurricane Andrew had just wiped southern Florida clean off the map, and I’d never seen another storm of that magnitude in my life. That was 25 years ago. We didn't look before we leaped and and now the horse is barking up the wrong tree with both oars out of the water. Whether or not we figure out this adjusting-to-nature thing, she’ll just continue to steam roll over us until we adjust or perish. Mother Nature doesn’t give a flying Walenda if we drive a Prius or a Hummer. Neither of them floats, by the way. Happy Labour Day to my twelve loyal readers. Gotta go now. The leaves are turning and I think I'll go fire up the snowblower ... you know, just to make sure it works.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 8/28/17

The Tuesday night before Shauna was released, I stopped on Queen Street to catch a short set of Jon Brooks performing at the Cameron House. It was one of those odd early gigs that just happened to occur shortly before my nightly visit to the hospital, and I decided it was time to do something for myself; a little therapy for the war weary. All caregivers out there know that it is important to take some time out for ourselves. 

When I got to the Cameron House, Jon was standing out front talking to some patrons, and I jokingly chided him to get back to work.Hey, I didn’t just pay five bucks for parking to watch him gab with his fans. We had a nice albeit brief chat, and then he went back inside to play. It was a bare bones set, just Jon on the acoustic guitar with a bassist, but Jon’s songs are magical. The first song he played was “Mercy”, which is one of Shauna’s favorites. As he started to he play the song, I began to cry. All the pent up emotion of the past ten days came pouring out and I wept. Normally, I might be embarrassed by my public and involuntary show of emotion, but this was cathartic, and for some reason I just didn’t care. There was a man named Ward (I think) sitting next to me at the bar, who seemed to have some kind of nervous disorder. He made unusual jerking movements, but when Jon began to play, he got up and danced. He was very interesting to watch. It was remarkable to see the man transform when he danced. He had an unusual rhythm, and his dances were extremely fluid and interpretive, following the ebb and flow of Jon's songs. Jon obviously knew him, and carried on a light-hearted conversation with him throughout the set. There was a lot of love in the room, and for about thirty minutes, as I listened to one of my favorite Canadian songwriters in this small bohemian bar, with this unusual man dancing alone to the music, I was not in traffic, or waiting for something.

Wednesday, after Shauna was released from the hospital, we headed back to the Kensingnton Eye Clinic for a follow up appointment with the ophthalmologist who had sent us to the hospital in the first place. She said that Shauna’s eye was a little better, but that we weren’t out of the woods yet. After four hours there, undergoing another myriad of tests, we picked up Jasper and headed back up to Katrine. We’d left our house up north, thinking we’d be gone a day or two, and it turned into two weeks. We still do not know what has caused this latest autoimmune dysfunction in Shauna’s body. The testing done at Sunnybrook, and Toronto Western Hospitals ruled out many diseases, but we still have no answers. Now, and for the foreseeable future, Shauna is taking even more medications than she used to. The steroids are particularly troublesome for her, and she says she feels flu like but at the same time “amped”, making sleep difficult.

We got home from Toronto at around 2:30 AM, and it was lovely to sleep in our own bed. Last Saturday afternoon, I attended day 2 of the Hunters Bay Radio Radiothon fundraiser, and joined the dozen or so other local musicians who performed some songs live on air. We raised a good deal more money than we did the year before, and every year the station grows. Nice to be a part of this little oasis of love in an increasingly complicated world. Music continues to be my go-to therapy, and I have met so many like-minded people through the radio station. To all of my friends, all the people at the station, and all of the musicians I have come to know and who have offered their love and support, we thank you all. We’re going to be fine, and it is a warm feeling to know that so many of you care.      
                           
 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 8/21/17

Miscellaneous ramblings at 2:45 A.M. … I love to write; I don’t think there is a better reason to do it. Writing is therapy for me, but, sometimes these blog entries are woefully self-indulgent. Of course, the more personal my entries become, the more uninteresting they likely are to my twelve loyal readers. This one may be one of those times, sorry about that. I write these blogs, and I create the songs I write because the process is a sort of exorcism for me. Once the words are purged, I am better. To follow are some random observations about the past week.  

Last night, early this morning actually, before I left the hospital, I posted a photo on Facebook of my commute to or from the hospital, I can’t remember which. The photo was taken while I was stuck in traffic in Chinatown. I spend a lot of time in the once familiar congestion of this big city. It has now been over a week that my routine has involved going to and from the hospital. Most nights I stay with Shauna from around 8PM until 2AM, then I drive back across town up to North York. I get back to E.T.’s house, walk Jasper, and then I crash. Anyone who goes through one of these marathon hospital visits knows that it can chip away at you. Thankfully, the neurology ward is much more peaceful and quiet than the stroke ward was a few years back at Sunnybrook. It is a kind of water torture emotional drip, and the silent cacophony of illness hangs in the air. Especially at night. In the background, on television sets, with the sound muted, there is the omnipresent reportage of the latest terrorist attacks. Spain, Charlottesville, Alt Right boneheads; bad news makes good news. I am reminded of that scene in the movie “As Good As It Gets” when Jack Nicholson’s character is at his therapist’s office (I believe) and he asks the existential question which is the title of the movie. Still, I haven’t lost faith in humanity.

I have written a lot in the last week about being thankful, and I genuinely am. There is nothing like an extended hospital wake-up call to re-adjust one’s priorities. No matter what Shauna’s prognosis – and the uncertainty is very hard – I know our lives have been blessed so far and I think (hope) we’ve still got a lot more good times to come. This is simply the exhaustion talking. This past weekend was strange, because I spent a lot of time driving around downtown Toronto, in neighborhoods where some of my musician friends would likely be performing. The drive home is especially surreal. As I roll slowly through Friday and Saturday night crowds of (mostly young) people, recently kicked out of bars after last call, stumbling around in the streets, smoking cigarettes, smoking weed, drunk, loud, carrying on, I feel so detached from their celebration. Hotshots race around in $300,000 Italian sports cars, a drunken girl is rocking back and forth on her heels, texting someone (who is probably ten yards away from her), visibly disheveled from her night of excess. Little scenarios that remind me of me. I was one of those careless young barflies, a long time ago. It seems like a very long time ago. In some weird way, I cherish these existential moments of sobriety. I’m not finished celebrating, I just do it differently these days. There is a profound and indescribable clarity to my fatigue. As I weave in and out of the erratic (and probably inebriated) drivers, I am in my own world. The Tragically Hip plays the soundtrack to my trip home, and in the traffic and the red lights reflecting off the glistening blacktop, I feel an odd peace. I have accepted my lack of control. Shauna is going to be OK; that is what I tell myself.

Of late, I’ve been in a dry spell with my songwriting, but I always keep a voice recorder in my car. This past week, the muse has visited me more than a few times. I think of all the beautiful songs I’ve heard recently, songs like “Red Lights In The Rain” by Stephen Fearing. Apprehension about loss is one of my many inspirations to write songs. As I said, writing is my therapy.

  - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 8/14/17

Today is Shauna's 59th birthday...

This has been a strange and trying week. I have lived with Shauna now for over 24 years, and together we have lived with a constellation of medical issues. These recent ailments are the most baffling and troubling to date. For those of you who might have seen my Facebook posts, some of the following may be redundant, but I will recount what has happened regardless. I am not so self-absorbed to think that our travails are any worse than those of many of my readers; nevertheless, I have had a simple and often ignored lesson drummed into my head this week: there but for the grace of --- go I. I recount our recent experiences to remind myself and my readers of our commonality.

To pick up where I left off last week, after a one and one-half hour drive to Barrie, we were given about 7 minutes of time with the rushed, albeit well-qualified, on-call ophthalmologist in Emergency at Royal Victoria Hospital. He told Shauna that she had an inflamed optic nerve, which is serious, and that the root cause must be further investigated by another ophthalmologist. He made an appointment for us with a doctor in Gravenhurst, but we elected to use Shauna’s trusted ophthalmologist at Sunnybrook in Toronto. We’d already scheduled an appointment with him for the following Wednesday, but got nervous when her condition so rapidly deteriorated. We were of course apprehensive that with each day that passed, the eye might get worse. When there are medical issues, the hardest part is the waiting. We’ve done a lot of waiting this past week.

Jump ahead to Wednesday, and we finally saw her ophthalmologist at Sunnybrook. He immediately ordered a battery of tests and, remarkably, managed to book Shauna an MRI, for 4AM last Friday morning. He also referred her to another ophthalmologist who specializes in neurological ophthalmology, and we were to see her around noon on that same day (on the other side of town). You can see that this was a tight schedule, not particularly conducive to sleep or eating. The MRI was traumatic for Shauna. She was prescribed a sedative, as she has been for all other MRI’s, but they only gave her half as much as she needed for the sedative to be effective. To compound the problems, they couldn’t find a vein and really hurt her hand. By now her chronic pain condition was flaring, her anxiety level was through the roof, and she was unable to remain still. As I paced around nervously in the empty halls of the Sunnybrook basement, she was enduring pain and the claustrophobia of an MRI for more than 2 hours. Apparently, they finally got the pictures they needed of her eyeball and brain.

Over a period of five days, we had spent 16 hours altogether, waiting in two emergency rooms, and seen three different doctors from Huntsville to Toronto. We had driven to Barrie and back to Katrine, and then down in Toronto (where we are now). Shauna had been suffering with the ever-deteriorating eye condition since July 5^th, and now she was getting terribly worried that she would never regain the sight in her left eye. As we sat for three hours in the Kensington Eye Clinic on College St. in Toronto, waiting (again) for the myriad of assistants to poke and test her eyeballs, she was understandably exhausted. We both were. Finally, the two specialists who examined her at the clinic - the specialists referred by her trusted eye doctor - recommended that she be admitted to Toronto Western Hospital for a full neurological workup. No answers yet. Now we were freaking out. It was late Friday afternoon, and we were to go to yet another emergency room to wait, hungry, overtired, and afraid, just before the weekend. Meanwhile, our dog Jasper was with ET, Shauna’s 92 year-old mom, on the other side of town. E.T. was recently injured, is recovering from a fall, has a caregiver only during the day, and was not physically able to handle Jasper alone. Not the ideal situation for anyone involved, but these are the rules of triage. Treat the most pressing issue at hand.

I believe there is a synchronicity to the chaos we sometimes experience in our lives. At present, Shauna is finally in a room at Toronto Western, but Friday night was a horror show. Emergency was packed with the victims of drug overdoses, gunshot wounds, car accidents, mental illness, and those generally in pain and discomfort. Surrounding us was a cacophony of distress as we waited the 7-8 hours for a bed. I remember the similar experience, when we were in the stroke ward at Sunnybrook for months attending to Shauna’s dying father.

I don’t recount this experience simply to complain. I do it to remind myself (and my readers) of the one thing I take for granted: my good health. You can’t take it with you, and all the riches of Croesus don’t amount to a pile of dung if you’re staring at the ceiling tiles in a hospital bed waiting for the next bad news. We all take our health for granted at some point in our lives, and then when it is wrested from us, sometimes as the result of our own negligence, we wonder how we could have ever ignored it. I’ve had a little dose of perspective in the past two weeks. I know I will once again take my good health and good fortune for granted, but this past few days, I’ve had about one hundred little reminders of the old adage “There but for the grace of … go I” . I’ve talked with a Stage Four brain cancer victim, at 5am Friday morning, in the catacombs of Sunnybrook, who was having an MRI to see how many more months or weeks he had left. As we waited for a bed at Toronto Western emergency, Shauna and I managed to distract a double lung transplant patient, suffering from rejection complications, long enough to be seen by a doctor. He was frustrated, ranting, scared, and ready to bail. There was no question that this man needed to see a doctor. I came upon an ovarian cancer survivor, working at McDonalds, who was thankful to be alive. I’ve listened to and observed a dozen stories about tragedy and ill health. I’ve heard a dozen anecdotes about redemption. There is nothing like a health crisis to open one’s eyes, and I believe I was being given a cosmic kick in the ass. Wake up Jamie; there is a universe of suffering out there that eclipses yours, and the more you realize this, and perhaps successfully connect with others in similar circumstances, the more likely we are to diffuse the hatred spreading throughout our society like wildfire. I try not to dwell on misfortune. Far from it, I am ten times more positive now than I ever used to be. Whether we heed the call or not, there are epiphanies that strike us like lightening, and we can learn from them or we can bury our heads in the sand. If you think it can’t get worse, let me assure you it can. Ignore the idiocy that passes for leadership in the world. Ignore the media and the constant message that we all hate each other. That is simply not true. Hatred begets hatred, and it can be propagated by rumor, and hearsay, and misinformation in general. But there is also love, in the emergency rooms, shown by the doctors, and paramedics, and firemen (and yes, even policemen) who choose as their livelihood to protect and save lives. There are families that are bound together by tragedy, there are tens of millions of random acts of kindness.

Shauna and I are on a roller coaster right now. We are afraid, exhausted, confused, but also reminded of our place in humanity. Our life will settle down. Regardless of the outcome of Shauna’s latest tribulations, this week has been a lesson I find harder and harder to ignore. It’s one thing to know in your heart that there is someone worse off than you. It’s quite another thing to have it front and center in your conscience. We’ve met some beautiful nurses, doctors, and just plain perfect strangers in the past week. I am thankful to have been reminded that we all breathe the same air, feel the same fears and joys, and share more than we know. I apologize if this post is a bit over the top; I am not that guy as a rule, but the older I get, and the more the more thankful I become.     

     - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 8/7/17

A brief update on Shauna’s latest medical woes. Since about July 5^th she has been experiencing eye problems which were later diagnosed as iritis, or an inflammation of the iris. We were told this could likely be a result of her Crohn’s Disease, and we were given a treatment regimen of three different eye medications. After two weeks, it seemed to be improving, and the optometrist thought we could lower the frequency of the drops. During her most recent eye appointment, the optometrist suggested we needed to once again increase the drops and that we should see an ophthalmologist to get a better read on the situation. That was last Wednesday, and things went downhill from there. We were scheduled to see Shauna’s ophthalmologist this week, but as of late Friday, the vision in her left eye began to deteriorate rapidly, just as everybody was leaving for the start of a long weekend. Shauna described it as if grey spray paint was closing off her peripheral vision, gradually creeping in towards the center of her vision. We ended up in emergency in Huntsville hospital where we remained until around 3 a.m., after which we were scheduled for an appointment with the on-call ophthalmologist in Barrie for 4 p.m. of that same day (Sunday). We drove the hour and a half down to Barrie to be given about 7 minutes of time with an obviously overworked (but competent Shauna thought) ophthalmologist. After his examination, he determined that Shauna has an inflamed optic nerve, cause unknown. This is potentially very serious, difficult-to-treat condition, and can lead to permanent blindness. Presently she is legally blind in her left eye, is taking drops on the hour again, and we are in limbo and uncertain about the future until we she her ophthalmologist in Toronto on Wednesday. All in all, not a wonderful weekend.

I take my vision for granted, as I do most of my other faculties. I started to think about what would change in my life if I lost my sight. I am a caregiver for my wife, living in a somewhat remote location, with no kids and no one else to rely upon. I have become reliant on my ability to drive. They say life is what happens to us when we are making other plans. 

Life is happening right now. The Oppenheimer Report may be going into reruns for a few weeks, but after 25 years, the show will likely go on.

     - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/31/17

For the last several weeks on my radio show Lyrical Workers, I’ve played a number of requests, and I was amazed by the number of songs I'd never heard. The premise of the show is that I am trying to learn more about songs that are well written, and I enthusiastically encourage other people’s selections to expand my knowledge. I don’t always love their choices, but I always learn something. I put a request out on Facebook a few weeks ago, asking for songs that remind the listener of a special moment in time, or an era in their lives. A lot of people replied. One man requested a song that reminded him of his break up with his first love. A fellow singer songwriter came up with a several great artists that were new to me, and one of my songwriting colleagues requested “Juke Box Heroes” by Foreigner, joking  that the song was the story of his life. There are literally hundreds of songs that conjure up happy or sad memories for me. Whenever I hear “Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones it triggers the happy memory of driving across the Peace Bridge with my mom in her ’69 Buick convertible, top down and rockin’. When I hear the song “Daniel” by Elton John, I remember a girl friend who died when we were teens. She used to come and visit me while I was working summers at a local hot dog stand, and that song was often playing on the radio. Like the songs I write, every tune is a memory; a whistle stop on the crooked journey of my life.

“Encumbered by my own stiff fines/ Noted in calendars of wasted time/ I check the mirrors for the dangers signs/ As destiny, walks its crooked line..”

Perspective. I could use a little of that today. Some days it just seems as if I can’t get out of my own way, and a little perspective would go a long way to evening out my wildly undulating mood swings. Shauna is still very sick, and after three visits to the eye doctors and three weeks of medication, the eye condition has improved but is not cured. Yesterday was a particularly challenging day. Shauna had a fever, and it was one of a handful of beautiful days this summer. We had plans to spend it together outdoors. For anyone who suffers from an autoimmune disorder, as Shauna has for over 25 years, you will understand that this can be dispiriting. We decline so many social engagements, because she’ll have a blindside Crohn’s attack, or be racked with pain and unable to get ready. Then, there are life’s sucker punches. Last Thursday night, while I was doing my show at the station, I got a message from Shauna; her mom was once again at the hospital in Toronto. She was kept overnight and released, but we were understandably concerned. At the time, we had no idea how serious her injury was. E.T had gone next door, just before her caregiver was to leave, to see the neighbor’s very young Golden Retriever. Excited to see her, the large dog jumped up on her and knocked her off her feet. A 92 year-old woman, recently recovered from a broken neck, Ethel was immediately rushed to the hospital in an ambulance to see if anything was broken. She was sore, and at the time could not stand without assistance, but thankfully, tests revealed that nothing was broken. It will be weeks before we know for sure if she is all right.

That’s life, right? Whether it’s kids, or elders, or just some ill-timed dumb luck house-related catastrophe, we all deal with illness, disability, and stress. Lately, my capacity to deal with simple day-to-day problems has been compromised, and I am ashamed of my inability to cope with what. My anxiousness is amplified when I watch the seemingly endless erosion of America’s international reputation, thanks to our Twit-tweeter-In-Chief, and the increasingly irresponsible media, bent on spinning his shenanigans to the left and right of the truth. Though I am thankful for my good fortune, and cognizant of my obligation to pay it forward, I sometimes become discouraged by my impotence to make things better. I have recently revisited and re-worked a song I wrote almost 30 years ago, entitled “Everyman’s Blues”. The chorus reminds me that this is not a new feeling for me.

“The rock gets harder to push uphill, 
And I’ve just about had my fill,

I’ve got the Everyman’s Blues.”

     - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/24/17

I don’t think I remember a summer like this since 1992, the year I first met Shauna. That summer the weather in the northeast was atrocious, probably due in part to the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. My friend Bob created a mnemonic phrase to remember that summer:  “ ‘92, the summer that blew”. Whatever the cause, that entire summer was characterized by cool fall weather, and very little sun. I’m not sure what’s going on this summer, but it certainly has been characterized by significant rainfall. I gauge the rainfall by the number of times thus far this summer that I’ve had to rescue my little Porta-Bote from sinking at the dock. My bailing bucket is a full-sized pail, and it seems that at least once a week, I am emptying five to seven pails full of water out of the boat. Indeed, today is another one of those days, and as I look down to the dock, the top of the transom of that little boat is gradually sinking to the waterline. Rain that comes this hard and fast washes out our driveway, drowns my garden, and it causes problems I never expected.

When we built this house, we thought we were over-compensating with our drainage plan. In fact, ours was one of the first construction projects on this lake which required a full site plan, and we had to jump through hoops of fire to satisfy the town that our drainage was sufficient. We have two retention ponds on our property and even put in an extra tile bed off one side of the house (which was not required) to catch rain off the roof. Still, we have had flooding on our property and eventually installed a sump pump at the lowest point in our basement to divert water down to the lake. We have not had any flooding since we installed that pump, so I think (hope) we have adjusted to the increasingly frequent deluges.  

While we complain about the significant rainfall here in Ontario, a lack of water is the problem elsewhere, and wildfires rage out in the West. British Columbia seems to have been particularly hard hit, and the arid weather and high winds are making it hard to control the over 200 fires now burning. Last night, I heard on the news that Banff, Alberta, our home away from home, has now been affected by fires. After that horrible wildfire in Slave Lake and later Ft. McMurray Alberta, it seems clear that the same conditions that are making it wetter here are making it drier in the West. I remember driving out West years ago and encountering a wildfire on the Trans Canada Highway. It was frightening to see it up close. Once, out in Banff, we saw a controlled burn near the town center go out of control, lighting up the side of a nearby mountain. Banff, which sits in the Bow Valley, filled up with acrid smoke for a day or two, making it hard to breath. Again, it was scary to be that close to the flames. Many years ago, as we were heading out to a hike in Kootenay Park, near the Alberta - B.C. border, we could see the smoke from a raging wildfire rising over the mountains to our west. It’s a fact of life out west.  

Clearly, the planet is warming up, and we are reminded of this fact every time we see the image of a polar bear stranded on a block of floating ice, or a giant block of ice the size of a city breaking off one of the poles, or a devastating storm that wipes out an entire community. We see evidence of warming trends at both poles, and Al Gore in all his hubris implores us to change our ozone-depleting ways. I am no denier of climate change, but I question the economic feasibility of some of Gore’s directives. I am reminded of a book my nephew, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, had me read. Entitled “Cool It”, and written by economist Bjorn Lomborg, the main theme seems to be that we cannot significantly change the trends of Mother Nature. The horse has left the barn and he didn’t look before he leapt. While it would be wise to switch to renewable sources of energy, especially solar, now that the prices are coming down, the hundreds of billions we spend to control cyclical weather trends will I think be better spent adapting to that which we cannot control.

But that will never happen. Shoreline development will continue unabated, populations will continue to explode, more and more vacant land will be paved, developing nations will continue to disregard the directives of the Paris Agreement, and the world will continue to warm up, whether we choose to drive a Prius or a Hummer. Maybe we buy ourselves a few more decades of survival by throwing hundreds of billions at the problem, but I’m beginning to understand that I can’t change Mother Nature. I am reminded of this every day that I live in the country. I can’t stop the rain, but I can try to adapt to it. I can pump down our water table so that my property doesn’t flood. I am a little concerned about the next freak snowstorm. 

     - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/17/17

Back To Basics

Shauna has been blindsided by a new affliction to add to her constellation of health problems. Possibly a complication from her Crohn’s Disease, she has come down with a painful condition of the eye known as acute iritis. An inflammation of the iris, acute iritis can lead to stabbing pain in the eyes, and it causes extreme sensitivity to light. After seeing the optometrist last week, she is now on a strict regimen of eye medications, including one anti-inflammatory drop which is to be administered once every waking hour. She seems to be on the mend, but of course we’re concerned. Shauna’s sight has been severely compromised by this latest assault. After almost a week of administering three different eye medications, her eyesight has not improved all that much. I never before understood that Crohn’s Disease is an autoimmune illness and, while it often presents as a gastrointestinal problem, it can afflict other parts of the body with similar tissue makeup. This includes the eyes. Just another little sucker punch.

I’ve made some good friends over the years. I’ve lost touch with some of them, and I sometimes wonder where they are. With the emergence of Facebook, I have re-connected with some people I never thought I’d hear from again. I wrote a song recently about an old friend who had lost his way, and ended up in jail for a while. We’ve remained friends and thankfully he has straightened out his life. In the chorus of the song there’s a line that reads: “Old friends are the hardest to deny/ They know the buried secrets we try to hide.” Not all of my friends were well adjusted. Nobody’s perfect, least of all me, but I feel a particularly strong bond with my old neighborhood friends from Buffalo. They knew me back when, and friends  who have known me for that long are like family. They know my history, they’ve watched me go through my many changes; they've shared my joys and my sorrows. Shauna knows me that well, but not all that many of my friends do.

Last weekend, sleep deprived and a little down about Shauna’s latest medical problems, I was watching TV when I heard the message alert go off on my cell phone. It was my best friend Bob, texting me. Earlier in the day I’d been on the phone with him, joking about buying a pontoon boat and  surrendering to the next stage of my geriatric decline. While it was a tongue in cheek conversation, the subtext is that time is passing too quickly, and I for one am anxious about the future. The text was a photo of an old outboard motor, which very much resembled one I owned when I was a kid. Ironically, in the larger outboard in the background of the photo was very similar to my reliable old Yamaha, about which I spoke in last week's report.There were three or four texts back and forth, wherein we discussed the differences and similarities of the photographed motor to the one I’d owned. Bob has been my friend since the days when I was that kid putting around in an aluminium dinghy powered by that motor. It’s hard to explain why, but his connection to that past was comforting to me.

I’ve lived my mostly charmed life with little regard for the passage of time, and yet, pass it has. While it’s not over yet, hopefully far from it, my life is decidedly in the second semester, and much more complicated than it used to be. As the hour hand spins wildly out of control, and I feel powerless to slow it all down, it is sometimes comforting to get a message from an old friend. Sometimes a little perspective can go a long way to relieving the anxiousness. It doesn’t take all that much, just a simple communication with someone who shares a mutual history; the comforting delusion that there is some order in the chaotic journey from there to here. While indulging in a moment of shameful self-pity last weekend, I got a text message from my friend Bob; a photograph of an early 60’s Johnson 5 ½ HP outboard motor. The message read: “Back to basics”, and it made me smile. 

             

       - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/10/17

1995

For years, I’ve heard there were several eagles living nearby, but I had never seen one in the wild. A few years ago, Marlene, my friend who works at the dump, pointed out a nest in the trees behind the big garbage heap, but I never actually saw an eagle. I’ve also seen the odd black bear at the dump, so oddly it’s a good place to go if one wants to see wildlife. Bring a clothes pin for your nose. The other day, during a short break from the seemingly incessant rain, I was out in my boat with our neighbor, and we traveled through the three lakes to the south end of Big Doe Lake. There, my neighbor pointed out a huge nest where we clearly saw three eagles. One flew right over us, perhaps because we were perceived as a threat (I once had a seagull dive bomb my dinghy several times because I came too close to her chicks) and they really are majestic creatures to behold in flight. Having never seen one up close in the wild, I was in awe. This has been the rainiest summer that I can remember in my 23 years up here, but every time I cuss about the severe weather, I remind myself that Mother Nature has her many pros as well.

I have now owned the same fishing boat for about 27 years. While I don’t fish, I prefer boats that are open and seaworthy. Where we used to own a cottage on Lake Erie, the water got pretty choppy, so I’ve always owned boats that can handle rough water. My boat is a 20’ Hydrasport DC (double cockpit), originally powered by a Yamaha 225HP. I bought the rig new in Buffalo with boat, motor, and trailer, for about what a new replacement outboard costs today. That Yamaha outboard motor was the best outboard I have ever owned, and it was trouble free for well over 20 years. About five years ago, I decided to upgrade because, while it was still running well, the Yamaha was beginning to show signs of wear. It was also difficult to start in colder weather. I traded the motor in at our local marina for a new fuel-injected Evinrude ETEC 200HP, assuming I was upgrading to a more reliable, fuel efficient motor. What a mistake!

As they say, don’t fix it if it ain’t broke. I was sold on the vast improvements in 2 stroke technology over the past two decades, but like everything else to do with new, more sophisticated technology, there is a downside. I’ve had some troubling and persistent electrical problems with this new ETEC. After about two summers of light use, the paint on the lower unit began to bubble and come off. The marina suggested this may be an electrolysis problem, and their solution, after inspecting the anode on the lower unit, was to sand and repaint the bottom of the motor. They told me this was not a defect in the motor, and that perhaps the submerged water pump for our house, which is 50-75 feet from the dock, was the culprit. That made no sense. Then, about the same time as the electrolysis issue, I had an ignition switch failure. Intermittently, the motor would not turn off when the key was switched off. Even when the kill switch was removed, the motor would run, eventually turning off, 1 to10 minutes later. The marina has not been able to find or fix this annoying problem in the three years since it began happening, although they claimed to have spent countless hours trying. They said they’ve replaced the key switch, they’re swapped out computers in the motor; they even had a technician from BRP, the parent company of Evinrude, examine it, and he didn’t fix it. While I assumed the marina documented all these issues in their computer files, now that the 5-year extended warranty is up, I’m now concerned they did not. I now find out they are no longer an authorized Evinrude dealer, so I am even more concerned. Two months out of warranty, the motor is not fixed. When I picked up the boat this summer, the paint had again bubbled on the lower unit, and they had once again sanded and painted it; a band aid fix at best. They assured me the ignition switch problem was solved. It was not, and this weekend, it took 17 minutes for the motor to shut off. To rub salt into the wound, upon picking up the boat, I received an invoice for a defective tilt relay that worked when I brought the boat in last fall (still under extended warranty). Here are three apparently unrelated electrical issues in 100 hours of use; not a great track record for a new motor. Was this a problem with the rigging, is the motor a lemon? Hard to say, especially when the problems are intermittent. My marina, which is the only game in town, has had plenty of time to fix this and has not been able to do so. Now I am faced with trailing this boat to another, authorized dealer who may or may not be helpful. I have documented my issues with BRP as best I can reconstruct them, and will reluctantly investigate a lawsuit as a very last recourse. Regardless of the outcome, this new motor, which cost about as much as the new boat, motor, and trailer cost in 1990, has been nothing but aggravation. I guess they don’t make ‘em like they used to. That said, I still have my health, my ever-deteriorating capacity to reason, a wife and dog who love me, and the odd eagle that flies over my property from time to time. Grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can. Life is good, the new Evinrude, not so much.

      

     - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/3/17

I had a shitty week, and I mean that literally ...

About a week ago, the guy who routinely inspects our septic system equipment knocked on our door to inform me that the pump to our upper septic bed was running slowly, and may be failing. As well, we had somehow neglected to pump out the holding tanks on time, so they were both full. Before replacing the pump, I called our plumber to have him inspect it. After some discussion, we figured we should get the holding tanks pumped out first to see if this solved the problem. What followed was my education in the odiferous results of what can go wrong with a septic system.

The guy who came to pump out the tanks showed up about three hours after he was scheduled to be there. I wanted to observe the process to be more familiar with our septic system, and in case there were future problems. Weather radar indicated a serious storm blowing in, and I was hoping he’d be done by the time the storm rolled in. No such luck; shortly after he arrived and began to pump, the heavens let loose and there was a deluge. In keeping with the norm for this “summer”, the rain came down so hard and fast that water was pouring into the pump chamber as fast as the guy could pump it out. I was holding and umbrella and wearing a raincoat and I still got soaked. When he finally got the tanks pumped out, the pump was on but still not pumping properly, and the septic alarm would not turn off. On to Plan B.

The plumber was not able to make it back to our house for a day, and in the meantime, the pump tank overflowed, due to the heavy rains and the fact that the pump was not pumping. Thankfully, the overflow was minor. When the plumber did show up, he pulled out the old pump to find that there was nothing wrong with it. This meant there was a blockage or break in the 200’ pipe to the upper septic bed. This was not what I wanted to hear. I assumed this meant excavation, but Plan C involved running a small semi- rigid hose up the line from the pump tank, forcing water into the line. After almost three hours of reaming, we found four or five locations where the line was blocked. As disgusting as the procedure was, I got used to the smell, and found myself overjoyed with each flood of unblocked poop and toilet paper that came flowing back into the pump tank. We ran the hose up the line 100’ or so and cleared three or four blockages, then found another blockage near the top. I was thankful this didn’t happen in the middle of winter.

I remember years ago attending a party at someone’s summer cottage, and the sign above the toilet read, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.” This is my first primary residence with a septic system. The new septic systems work fine if they are properly maintained, and if enough water is flushed through them. Fibrous baby wipes and feminine napkins are disastrous for septic systems. This wasn’t our problem, but we do have energy saving toilets that use less water. These toilets are fine for use with a municipal sewer system, but they are problematic for septic systems. In the past several years I’ve had to do some routine maintenance and flush out our pump tank. I now know more than I ever wanted to about our septic system. You do not want to have to pump sewage uphill, and the longer the run, the more likely it is there will be complications. This past week was an interesting and informative lesson in septic maintenance. Note to self, pump out holding tanks every five years. Now, when we replace our burned out septic alarm we will be back in business, at least for the near future. Living the dream in the Great White North.    

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 6/26/17

Last Thursday night, Hunters Bay Radio held its annual fundraiser concert at the Algonquin Theatre in Huntsville. It’s something HBR has been doing for a while, but this year, the theme was The Last Waltz. Local singer/songwriter Sean Cotton organized and produced this reprise of the 1977 concert in which The Band performed their farewell show along with many famous musical guests. The last concert that The Band would ever play, the original The Last Waltz, was legendary. Some of you have likely seen the very well-known documentary film about it, produced and directed by Martin Scorcese.    

When Sean Cotton asked me to be a part of the show, many months ago, I didn’t think much of it. Sure, of course I’d sing a song and do my part. I was flattered to be asked to perform with a band on the stage of the Algonquin Theatre. What I did not see coming was the enthusiasm with which the other local musicians embraced the show. Over the past several months, there were hundreds of emails and Facebook messages fired back and forth to finalize the plans for the big night. There was a palpable energy in the air, and I was quite frankly surprised to see everyone so excited about performing. One marathon rehearsal session was scheduled at Kandis and Troy Sinister’s house (brave souls!) in Huntsville, two days before the show . While I only heard some of the artists rehearse (there were fifteen or twenty different artists who rehearsed), I knew then and there that this was going to be a great show.

Last Thursday night marked the very first time I have ever rehearsed a song with a full band and sung in front of a paying audience. I don’t play live very often, and of course I was apprehensive. I’ll perform if I’m asked, usually solo, but I don’t love the stage the way some musicians do. Since I’ve moved up north, I’ve had some opportunities to play with full bands, and most of the musicians up here are generous and accommodating. I remember my musical colleague Juan Barbosa once telling me that he prefers to play with a band, although his solo performances are exceptional. I better understand this now that I have had occasion to perform with a band. When everything clicks, and the musicians are firing on all cylinders, as they were last week, it’s a huge rush. “The Band”, Sean Cotton, Michael Phillips, Sean Roper, and Alison Boyer all did a wonderful job, and as a neophyte to the world of musical entertainment, this was heady stuff for me. To perform in a proper theatre such as The Algonquin, with a good band backing me, well it doesn’t get much better than that! I was up second on the roster, and before I had a chance to get nervous, I was on and off. For just one moment, right after I sang, I was ready to hop on the tour bus and hit the road with the band.    

Hunters Bay Radio, or The Bay 88.7 FM as they’re calling themselves these days, is the main focus of my efforts now that I am retired. Because of the forward-thinking vision and determination of Managing Director Jeff Carter, this station is poised to grow exponentially over the next few years. In under three years they have more than doubled their advertising revenue and our on air and internet audiences have grown substantially.  While the station is still not on firm ground financially, with every penny earned pumped back into operations, equipment, and charitable contributions, new satellites in Gravenhurst and  soon Bracebridge will help to grow our audience quickly. My small part is to contribute to the music end, and to try and  to help draw in the best local and regional music we can attract. Word is out that we are musician -friendly. Commercial radio is, in my opinion, on injured reserve. The playlists are lame and redundant, and the support for the local residents is virtually non-existent. The Last Waltz concert last Thursday night was a reminder of what a small community radio station can mean to the locals. As anyone who was there will attest, that show was the meaning of community, a community of which I am proud to be a part.   

 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 6/19/17

My grandfather Harry Lehman and me, shortly before he passed on

Yesterday was Father’s Day, and I offer a belated Happy Father’s Day to all who deserve it. As I’ve said many times in this blog, I am not a father, but have ever-increasing respect for all the good parents out there. I had a conversation with my cousin from Oregon, Harry Lehman III, or “The Third” as he signs his correspondences, and we talked a bit about our respective fathers. His dad, my mother’s brother, was a wild man when he was a boy, and Uncle Harry got into all sorts of trouble. If I recall correctly, he once stole the family limo for a joyride when he was far too young to drive. Harry III was amused by my story about stealing a box of crayons when I was little. He told me a similar story involving him and his dad. When he was young, he stole some candy bars from a store while shopping with his dad, and when his dad asked where he got the candy bars, he lied and said the store owner had given them to him. Harry Jr. said something like “What a generous thing that man did; we should go in and thank him.” Busted, and lesson learned. The unruly boy had grown into a pretty good father.

Both my mother and her brother had an excellent role model in Harry Lehman Sr., founder and CEO of The Wildroot Company, the successful hair tonic business in Buffalo. By most accounts, Harry Sr. was a very successful, kind, generous, funny, philanthropist who had an “open door” policy for his all employees. Harry Jr. may have been a handful, but he grew into a kind and generous man as well, who was loved by everyone who knew him.

I never knew my paternal grandfather; he died before I was born. Diminutive in stature, fastidious in both personal appearance and habits, and far more introverted than my maternal grandfather, Walter was quite a different man than Harry. The family history on my dad’s side is a little murky. Dad did tell me that Walter Oppenheimer was a strict man. My dad is a bit of a mystery to me, I suppose I didn’t show much interest in his past. He was in his mid-forties when I (his only biological child) was born, and he was not a particularly demonstrative man. Still, he was always there to catch me when I fell, and in retrospect, he was a fantastic dad. Because of our age difference, we locked horns when I was a teenager. I regret giving him such a hard time. In the end, we grew to know and respect each other as colleagues in business, and the greatest lessons he taught me were by example. I wish I’d asked him more questions about his family history. I loved my dad a lot.

It takes a village, right? I look around today at the young people in distress who cross my path, and I want to help them. Some are orphans, some did not have great parents, some are the by-products of bitter divorce, some just lost their way despite having good parents. It is hubris to assume I can change another human being for the better, and I don’t presume to have those skills or answers. I was shown unconditional love, without judgment, and my goal is to pay that valuable lesson forward. The heroes in the world are the good parents, the teachers; the positive role models who touch our lives, not the spoiled celebrities and entitled athletes whose bad behavior attracts an inordinately large amount of public attention. I read that Father’s Day had its origins in the commemoration of a single father who successfully and selflessly raised his five children. Perhaps we’d do well to focus on these good people and leave the spoiled and unworthy to the annals of historical anonymity.     

Thursday night, pending no healthcare crises, I’ll be singing a song by The Band at the Hunters Bay Radio Last Waltz fundraiser concert, at the Algonquin Theatre in Huntsville, along with 24 or more of my fellow local musicians. To Shauna’s mom, the resilient, remarkable, and ever-entertaining E.T., I wish you a speedy recovery from your recent health issues. To the rest of my readers, if your parents are still around, give em a hug for me. It's a tough and often thankless job,  and I suspect most of them are doing the best they can.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 6/12/17

My best friend Bob piloting the Porta-Bote on Lake Erie

Yesterday, I melted my sandals. Yes, I melted my sandals. I didn’t mean to, and I was very upset to have done so. Those sandals and I have traveled the country over the years. It was just one of those days.

Did you ever have one of those days, when you could swear some little gremlin was behind the curtain screwing with you? Yesterday was like that for me. I’d set something down, and when I looked away, it simply disappeared. I’d drop something and it would fall into the one place where it was unrecoverable. There were at least ten or fifteen annoying little things that happened in a short time which suggested to me that I was out of sync with the universe. Upon reflection, it’s funny, but I wasn’t laughing at the time.

Yesterday, the weather was fantastic, and after doing all the bungled projects I needed to do, each which took twice as long as it should have, I decided to reward myself with the first lap of the season around the lake in my Porta-Bote (my little folding dinghy). Yes, I’d spent most of the day breaking things, looking for things that went missing under my nose, cleaning up things I’d spilled, etc., but now it was time for some good old-fashioned fun in the sun. There are few things I enjoy more than putting around in a boat, any boat.

I pulled the little outboard out of storage, mounted it on the boat, and put the gas can in the boat. I had to go up to the house for a minute, and when I came back, I stepped into the boat before I realized that there was liquid in the bilge. I thought it strange that water had suddenly leaked into the boat. As it washed over my feet, I realized that it wasn’t water but gasoline, about a half a gallon of it. Somehow, the gas can that I had placed in the boat, which had held gas without leaking for the last three weeks, emptied into the bilge making a big mess. I decanted most of the spilled fuel into another gas can, and mopped up the bilge with a rag, grudgingly accepting that this was just one of those Murphy’s Law kind of days. What did not occur to me was that the rubber (or plastic) soles of my sandals might decompose in gasoline. As I got back on the dock and looked down on the dinghy, I could see multiple black footprints on the floor of the boat, made out of melted plastic from the bottom of my beloved sandals. For some inexplicable reason, that became the tipping point. I wish someone had been there to film me losing it on that dock, jumping up and down screaming FUCK! FUCK!! FUCK!!! FUCK!!!! FUUUUUUCK! That would have been Facebook gold for sure.

Sometimes karma’s a bitch, and every so often, life throws me a little curve ball to remind me of my place in the cosmic food chain. Maybe it was that raccoon I hit with my car in 2003, or the time I tried to steal that box of crayons when I was five, or the morbid fascination I have with the natural disasters that befall other people, or the fact that I stopped giving to certain charities, or that I sometimes over-stuff garbage bags that I take to the dump. Hell, I don’t know, maybe it was the accumulation of thousands of other little crimes against humanity of which I am guilty. Sometimes life throws a day like yesterday at me to remind me not to take my good fortune for granted. I lose my perspective from time to time. Lesson learned; thank you. There, I have purged my dysfunction (for a few days).

Shauna never liked those sandals anyway.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 6-5-17

Kareen on left and James in the middle 

It’s been a strange week. I’m fighting that old beast depression, and this past week it grabbed me by the neck like a pit bull. There’s a lady who passed away last week in Huntsville, and although I did not know her well, we’d spent a little time together while James Carroll was undergoing his chemo treatments. Kareen Burns hosted a show at Hunters Bay Radio called K On The Bay and, I believe, she was the longest running show host on HBR. Her interviews were always insightful and interesting. I spent a little time with her on the several occasions when she’d come to visit James at the hospital, and I know she was a good friend and a great comfort to him. A two-time cancer survivor herself, Kareen helped James cope with his anxiety and fear. I can’t say I bonded with her, because most of our contact was when she came to see James. Having faced death more than once, she was well-equipped to help James on his journey.  I felt her strength and determination.

Last Friday afternoon, HBR aired a pre-recorded MyTunes show featuring Kareen. This is a show wherein the featured guest plays and hour of his or her favorite tunes. Kareen pre-recorded this show three weeks ago, and she called her show Kareen’s Death Music. In the show, wherein host Jacob Kriger interviewed her between songs, Kareen discussed, with baffling philosophical detachment, her mortality, and her ongoing 15+ year battle with cancer. At the time of the recording she had not officially learned that her cancer had returned, but I think she knew. The songs she picked were beautiful, and I was moved by her hopeful outlook on life. It was about the time of that MyTunes recording that I learned she was not well. Within three weeks she was gone. Hearing her guest host that show was haunting. One of my many regrets is not getting to know her better.

When James passed away, his death really hit me hard. I’d never experienced grief like that, and it was a sucker punch. I was with him when he received the diagnosis, and I was around him for much of the last months of his life, and although I did not know him for long, we were close at the end. I felt profoundly sad when he died. James was a month younger than I, he was a creative; he was a drinker, and a smoker. I suppose that I was subconsciously thinking, there but for a roll of the dice go I. Were it not for some alignment of the stars, some cosmic arm that pulled the switch and diverted me to a safer track, I suspect things could have gone very differently for me.  

Saturday, I spent some of the day building flower boxes for our garden shed. Flowers are everywhere on our property, because they remind me of my mom. As I put together these boxes, sitting on the front porch, feeding the mosquitoes and feeling strangely ashamed and ungrateful for the blessings I have known, I couldn’t stop thinking about these two relative strangers. I thought of all the others who have touched my life and are now gone. As James ran out of time, there was a chaotic effort on his part to bring order to the end of his life. I got caught in that chaos, and in the no man’s land of another soul’s confrontation with his or her imminent death. Hearing Kareen on the radio last Friday, brought that all back. I look around at my beautiful, disorganized life, which surrounds me like the cloud of dust that surrounds Pigpen in the Charlie Brown comic, and I start asking questions that have no answers. I did not know Kareen well, nor did I know James all that well for that matter, but we became close near his end. The one thing I sensed from all I’ve heard about Kareen, was that she gave more than she received, and that she was driven to help others. I hope I’m worthy of being remembered that way when I go. I’ve learned a great deal from the heroes and strangers who have touched my life. What to make of their loss is something with which I will struggle as long as I live.

 -Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED