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IN THIS ISSUE

• Gerrit de Leeuw remembers the ending of World War II
• Jean Sterling comments on items in last week's issue
• Don Henderson sends the obligatory Irish joke
• Catherine Green forwards a woman's account of her heart attack
• Bruce Galway wonders when we can stop worrying about our children
• Jack Peaker's story illustrates why spelling is important
• Burke Dykes answers the question, why do men die first?
• Don Henderson forwards some observations about men
• Jack Peaker suggests an impressive website

Gerrit de Leeuw describes the ending of the war in his

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

The German army being present did not keep us from playing outside in the forest. There was no school and we played in an ideal area. We never trusted the Germans as children; we believed that all Germans were bad and were after us.

It happened one day that Joop, my older brother, and I were playing outside the summer cottage. I do not know how it happened, but somehow we got into the company of two soldiers, both armed, and very drunk. They must have bribed us with candy or something. Somehow I ended up sitting on one soldier's lap as he sat with his back against a tree. He pulled out a large wallet, which I remember contained a lot of paper money. The second soldier was staggering around with a rifle in his hand. I cannot remember ever being so scared in my life than I was at this moment. I was sure that I was finished.

Brother Joop took the initiative to go and warn my dad, who came back with their superior officer, who took them away for sobering up and maybe disciplinary action.

In hindsight, I don't think that I was in any danger and it was just a matter of two fathers who were very homesick for their children. As I grew older and gained more understanding, I often thought about these two soldiers and hoped that they made it back to their families.

This understanding was of great help in later life in overcoming prejudice and feelings of contempt towards German people, so readily acquired during childhood years. It also created an intolerance in me towards racist remarks so frequently heard in my beloved multicultural adopted country, Canada.

Sadly, this prejudice towards German people was a personal issue my dad was never able to overcome and took to his grave at a fairly young age of 60. He passed away of a heart attack after living the last five years of his life in a body which was paralyzed on the left side due to a stroke. I found it easy to forgive this weakness in his character considering the stresses he went through in his life during two world wars initiated by the same manipulative government. Learning and understanding circumstances has taught me tolerance toward people of different conviction, race and/or religion.

In the last three or four months of our absence, dad did some wheeling and dealing. It was always for food. We ate some strange things on which I will not elaborate. Hunger and malnutrition will make a person do and eat anything in order to survive. At one time he got a few sacks of potatoes. Next he got a load of cabbages and a lot of red beets. For a long time I remember getting cabbage one day, cooked red beets the next. The beets must have been easier to keep for a prolonged time because I remember the cabbage being finished and getting red beets every day for some time. No wonder dad disliked cabbage and red beets up to the day he died.

This now brings us to the end of the war. The German army left their camouflaged areas around us and the Canadian Army took their place. No need to say that suddenly I gained a lot of confidence because these were the 'good guys'. We were present when they pulled into Nunspeet. I remember a soldier lifting me up either onto a tank or one of the stubby-nosed trucks (displayed in the war museum in Ottawa), and getting a ride. Never having been in a motorized vehicle in all my nine years, one can imagine how big of a deal this was! I heard a rumour about not gathering in large crowds in case there was a stray air attack, but this was understandably ignored and no harm was done. An ecstatic crowd was beyond heeding a warning.

Dad sent the oldest sisters to the Canadian soldiers to ask (beg?) for cigarettes. Smoking at the time was socially accepted and a macho thing to do. His thinking must have been the same as when he took me along to ask farmers for milk: girls would have more luck with soldiers. They often did come home with some cigarettes for him. I think that it got to be a game with them to see who could get the most.

To be concluded.

CORRESPONDENCE

Jean Sterling comments on last week's issue: Gerrit de Leeuw is obviously very literate and well educated (perhaps through life experience?) I wonder if he will get into how he became educated. His stories show how resilient children can be. As always, I have enjoyed reading about his memories.

Regarding changing electronic devices to Daylight Saving Time: I will have enough trouble resetting my digital watch without worrying about my computer. This watch has EVERYTHING! It tells me the time, the date, and what day it is, plus it has a stop watch and does splits, and it also has an alarm, and has a few other things that I don't know about yet. (ED.: Perhaps it takes pictures?)

I was LOL over the story of the two well-dressed ladies. The punch line caught me completely by surprise.

With a tip of the hat to the Irish, here is a story from Don Henderson about

THE IRISH BLONDE IN THE CASINO

An attractive blonde from Dublin arrived and bet £20,000 on a single roll of the dice.

She said, "I hope you don't mind, but I feel much luckier when I'm completely naked".

With that, she stripped, rolled the dice and yelled, "Come on, baby, Mama needs new clothes!"

As the dice came to a stop, she jumped up and down and squealed... "YES! YES! I WON, I WON!"

She hugged each of the dealers, picked up her winnings and clothes and quickly departed.

The dealers stared at each other, dumbfounded. Finally, one of them asked, "What did she roll?"

The other answered, "I don't know - I thought you were watching."

MORAL OF THE STORY - Not all Irish are stupid and not all blondes are dumb, but all men are men.

Catherine Green forwards this story about one woman's

HEART ATTACK

I've meant to send this to my women friends to warn them that it's true that women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have when experiencing a heart attack ... you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest and dropping to the floor that we see in the movies. I had a completely unexpected heart attack at about 10:30 p.m. with NO prior exertion, and NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on.

I was sitting all snugly and warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking,"A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up." A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you've been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel as if you've swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. This was my initial sensation - the only trouble was that I hadn't taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m.

After that seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (in hindsight, it was probably my aorta spasming), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when adminstering CPR). This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. AHA! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening - we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven't we?

I said aloud to myself and the cat, "Dear God, I think I'm having a heart attack!" I lowered the footrest, dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step, and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, "If this is a heart attack, I shouldn't be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else. But on the other hand, if I don't, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in moment."

I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room, and dialed the paramedics. I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn't feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the paramedics over immediately; asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to unbolt the door, and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in.

I laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don't remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the cardiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like, "Have you taken any medications?") but I couldn't make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed two side-by-side stents to hold open my right coronary artery.

I know it sounds as if all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St. Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my cardiologist was all ready to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents.

Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you to know what I learned first hand.

1. Be aware when something very different is happening in your body ... not the usual men's symptoms, but inexplicable things (until my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn't know they were having one, and commonly mistake it for indigestion, take some anti-heartburn preparation, and go to bed, hoping they'll feel better in the morning when they wake up ... which doesn't happen.

2. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you've not felt before. It is better to have a false alarm visit than to risk your life guessing what it might be. Note that I said, "Call the paramedics." Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER. You are a hazard to others on the road, and so is your panicked husband, who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what's happening with you instead of at the road. Do NOT call your doctor - he doesn't know where you live and if it's at night you won't reach him anyway, and if it's daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the paramedics. He doesn't carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The paramedics do, principally oxygen that you need ASAP. Your doctor will be notified later.

3. Don't assume it couldn't be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has found that an elevated cholesterol reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it's unbelievably high, and/or accompanied by high blood pressure.) MI's are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there.

Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we have to survive.

ED. NOTE: Instead of calling paramedics, we in Canada would call 911, which would alert not only the ambulance service but also the fire department, which is equipped to deal with heart attacks.

Bruce Galway sends this piece about a feeling we all know too well:

WORRY

Is there a magic cutoff period when offspring become accountable for their own actions? Is there a wonderful moment when parents can become detached spectators in the lives of their children and shrug, "It's their life," and feel nothing?

When I was in my twenties, I stood in a hospital corridor waiting for doctors to put a few stitches in my son's head. I asked, "When do you stop worrying?" The nurse said, "When they get out of the accident stage." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

When I was in my thirties, I sat on a little chair in a classroom and heard how one of my children talked incessantly, disrupted the class, and was headed for a career making license plates. As if to read my mind, a teacher said, "Don't worry, they all go through this stage and then you can sit back, relax and enjoy them." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

When I was in my forties, I spent a lifetime waiting for the phone to ring, the cars to come home, the front door to open. A friend said, "They're trying to find themselves. Don't worry, in a few years, you can stop worrying. They'll be adults." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

By the time I was 50, I was sick and tired of being vulnerable. I was still worrying over my children, but there was a new wrinkle. There was nothing I could do about it. My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

I continued to anguish over their failures, be tormented by their frustrations, and absorbed in their disappointments. My friends said that when my kids got married I could stop worrying and lead my own life. I wanted to believe that, but I was haunted by my mother's warm smile and her occasional, "You look pale. Are you all right? Call me the minute you get home. Are you depressed about something?"

Can it be that parents are sentenced to a lifetime of worry? Is concern for one another handed down like a torch to blaze the trail of human frailties and the fears of the unknown? Is concern a curse, or is it a virtue that elevates us to the highest form of life?

One of my children became quite irritable recently, saying to me, "Where were you? I've been calling for three days, and no one answered. I was worried." I smiled a warm smile. The torch has been passed.

Jack Peaker forwards this example of why you should never make a woman angry:

IF YOU HAD TO SPELL TO GET INTO HEAVEN

A woman arrived at the Gates of Heaven. While she was waiting for Saint Peter to greet her, she peeked through the gates. She saw a beautiful banquet table. Sitting all around were her parents and all the other people she had loved and who had died before her. They saw her and began calling greetings to her: "Hello - How are you! We've been waiting for you! Good to see you."

When Saint Peter came by, the woman said to him, "This is such a wonderful place! How do I get in?"

"You have to spell a word," Saint Peter told her.

"Which word?" the woman asked.

"Love."

The woman correctly spelled "Love" and Saint Peter welcomed her into Heaven.

About a year later, Saint Peter came to the woman and asked her to watch the Gates of Heaven for him that day.

While the woman was guarding the Gates of Heaven, her husband arrived. "I'm surprised to see you," the woman said. "How have you been?"

"Oh, I've been doing pretty well since you died," her husband told her. "I married the beautiful young nurse who took care of you while you were ill. And then I won the multi-state lottery. I sold the little house you and I lived in and bought a huge mansion. And my wife and I traveled all around the world. We were on vacation in Cancun and I went water skiing today. I fell and hit my head, and here I am. What a bummer! How do I get in?"

"You have to spell a word," the woman told him.

"Which word?" her husband asked.

"Czechoslovakia."

Burke Dykes forwards these provocative answers to the question:

WHY DO MEN DIE FIRST?

This is a question that has gone unanswered for centuries, but now we know.

If you put a woman on a pedestal and try to protect her from the rat race, you are a male chauvinist; if you stay home and do the housework, you are a patsy.

If you work too hard, there's never any time for her; if you don't work enough, you are a good-for-nothing bum.

If you mention how nice she looks, it is sexual harassment; if you keep quiet, it is male indifference.

If you cry, you are a wimp; if you don't, you are insensitive.

If you ask her to do something she doesn't enjoy, that's domination; if she asks you, it's a favor.

If you appreciate the female form and frilly underwear, you are a pervert; if you don't, you are gay.

If you keep your self in shape, you are vain; if you don't, you are a slob.

If you buy her flowers, you are after something; if you don't, you are unromantic.

If she has a headache, she's tired; if you have a headache, you don't love her anymore.

If you want "some lovin'" too often, you are oversexed; if you don't, there must be someone else.

Men die first because they want to.

ED. NOTE: So why do married men live longer than single men?

To balance the above statements, consider these sent by Don Henderson:

ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL

1. Don't imagine you can change a man - unless he's in nappies.

2. What do you do if your boyfriend walks out? You shut the door.

3. If they put a man on the moon - they should be able to put them all up there.

4. Never let your man's mind wander - it's too little to be out alone.

5. Go for the younger man. You might as well; they never mature anyway.

6. Men are all the same - they just have different faces, so that you can tell them apart.

7. Definition of a bachelor: a man who has missed the opportunity to make some woman miserable.

8. Women don't make fools of men - most of them are the do-it-yourself types.

9. Best way to get a man to do something is to suggest he is too old for it.

10. Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener.

11. If you want a committed man, look in a mental hospital.

12. The children of Israel wandered around the desert for 40 years. Even in Biblical times, men wouldn't ask for directions.

13. If he asks what sort of books you're interested in, tell him cheque books.

14. Remember a sense of humour does not mean that you tell him jokes; it means that you laugh at his.

Jack Peaker recommends an impressive site:

WAS THIS HOW STONEHENGE WAS BUILT?

Wally Wallington has demonstrated that he can lift a Stonehenge-sized pillar weighing 22,000 pounds and moved a barn over 300 ft. What makes this so special is that he does it using only himself, gravity, and his incredible ingenuity.

Click here: http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/moving_big_rocks/

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. - Will Rogers