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The Citizen, 2000-01-19, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2000. PAGE 5. Eternal youth: a little jab’ll do ya ... The British artist Francis Bacon once observed: “Age will not be defied”. Francis Bacon was seriously out to lunch about that. I wish he were around. I’d take him out to lunch and I’d say, “Look around Frank - what do you see?” What he would see, of course, are millions of humans furiously defying age every which way but up. We defy age with corsets. Mascara. Grecian Formula. Rouge. Anti­ wrinkle cream. Bad toupees. We do it with hip transplants. Heart bypasses. Knee replacements. Shiny, new white choppers top and bottom. And what are face lifts, tummy tucks, breast implants and liposuction but last ditch surgical attempts to fool others into thinking we’re younger than we are? Even as noble an institution as the Royal Bank of Canada is doing its bit to help turn back the biological hands of time. Some perceptive observer at the Royal noticed that we aging Baby Boomers are having trouble with our bills, sales slips and credit card forms. Years ago, we used to just take a look at them, calculate the tip (if any) and pay them off. But now we squint at the scraps of paper, hold them out at arm’s length, even turn them upside down. That’s because we can’t read the damn things. Almost everybody’s eyesight deteriorates in middle age. It’s call presbyopia - or in eye doctor slang - old eyes. A pair of reading glasses would take care of International Scene Antidotes to jet lag Have you ever travelled the Atlantic and arrived in the early morning hours in Europe without having had adequate sleep on the plane? Since most planes leave Canada either late afternoon or early evening, it is hard to avoid this sort of arrival and having to get your luggage and line up for passport control does not help any. If you have friends and/or relatives to greet you, they are wide awake but you are just looking for a place to rest your weary head. The airlines, to be honest, do not help any. When the plane takes off, the cabin personnel wait until it has reached its cruising altitude before it serves you a drink. This is followed by a dinner of varying quality (some would say ‘dubious’) and, when that is over, there is generally a movie. Only when the movie is finished are the lights dimmed or turned off to permit you to doze. After too short a time doing that, on go the lights and there is rushing about as people go to the washrooms. A small breakfast is served and the dishes are cleared away often just as the aircraft begins its descent into the airport. You are keyed up by the thought of arrival but that feeling is of short duration as fatigue starts to set in. My job, when I get there, is to fight off this fatigue as long as possible as I have to pick up a car and then drive it for one and a quarter the problem, but aging boomers often resist. They think reading glasses make them look ... well, old. Which is where the Royal Bank’s latest marketing gizmo -Visa Gold Lenscard - comes in. It’s just like a normal credit card except for one thing: a built-in magnifying glass. This lets customers discreetly check the bill or sales slip without resorting to reading glasses or bifocals. “We’re always looking for ways to add value for our customers,” purred a Royal Bank spokesman. The Visa Gold Lenscard allows a customer to make purchases more quickly, saving valuable time which could be spent... making more purchases on the Lenscard. But I’m sure the folks at the Royal never even thought of that. Oh, we get plenty of outside assistance in the ongoing battle against the inevitable. Legions of plastic surgeons are getting rich on us. Not to mention the purveyors of herbs and elixirs, balms and unguents ‘guaranteed’ to take years off our withering mugs. The question is, how far will we go? The explorer, Ponce de Leon, nearly went mad, searching for the fabled fountain of youth. Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is about a young man who virtually sold his soul to stay young. How far would anybody go to look young forever today? Pretty far, if Hollywood is any indication. The latest Eternal Youth fad in tinseltown is quick, cheap and as near as your friendly neighbourhood private health clinic. Just walk in, plunk your $99 U.S. on the table and a By Raymond Canon hours from Frankfurt to Mayen where I stay while I do my business in Germany. After a short chat with the hotel owner, whom I know, off I go to bed. What, you will ask, can you do to make the resulting jet lag as short and disruptive as possible? Well, one thing is to do as I do the first day. Do not sleep too long; just a few hours and then get up and take a brisk walk. You will, admittedly, not feel yet like your normal self but it is important to get your body to accept the new reality and to get it ready to go to bed at the same time as the locals and to get up the next morning in good shape. But even before you leave on your trip, you can take a few steps. One is to try to have a nap on the day you leave. I know this is asking a lot but make sure your packing is done the day before and take it as easy as you can on your departure day. On the flight don’t drink any more alcohol than necessary, concentrate on such things as water instead and do try to sleep during the short period allowed after the movie. Before and after this nap, don’t forget to get up and walk about a bit; giving your legs some exercise is important. If you are not a movie buff, perhaps you can get a pair of eye shades and wear them to permit you to doze off. After all, you can’t hear the movie if you don’t have your head-set on. I know that Air France, for one, has such eye shades and I suspect that the other airlines do too. However, the greatest aid to combat jet lag may come in the form of some naturopathic friendly nurse will jab a needle in your forehead. It’s called the Botox treatment. The injection freezes the muscles of the upper face, eliminating crow’s feet and laugh lines. Frown lines? Don’t worry about that. The Botox treatment freezes the muscles so completely it is literally impossible to frown. There is some er, fine print you might want to check out before you offer up your forehead. Number one, the treatment’s only temporary. You’ll need another ‘booster’ in anywhere from one to six months. Number Two: you should know that Botox is acronymic medicalese for Botulism Toxin. That’s right. The stuff they will be pumping into your forehead is a kissing cousin to botulism, one of the most virulent poisons on the planet. As a matter of fact, clients are warned to stay upright at all costs, for at least four hours after the treatment. If you lie down, see, the Botox could get into your bloodstream. Nobody’s exactly sure what would happen after that, but it wouldn’t be pretty. I’d like to be able to tell you that the Botox treatment has been laughed out of town, but the fact is, business is booming. “Every actress over the age of 35 has had the (Botox) treatment,” says one movie publicist. It’s sad, but it’s human nature, I guess. The wisest thing I ever read on the subject of getting old came from the lips of Satchel Paige, the legendary (and ageless) pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. Someone asked Paige how old he was. Paige smiled and replied: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?” medicine which has currently become available. You can buy a little package of “No Jet Lag” and take one tablet before take-off, one every two hours of flight then one after landing. This medicine, which is made in New Zealand, is available in Canada and has its best results if taken separately from meals. In case you can’t find that brand, I have checked with our naturopathic doctor and he has something with similar ingredients. Just in case you were wondering, it works just as efficiently in a westward direction as it does going toward the sun. Incidentally, I have proof positive that it does work and, if it helps most people who travel through a number of time zones, it may be the greatest invention since ice cream or Birchermuesli (ask your friendly Swiss neighbour about that one). I can only say how much I could have used “No Jet-Lag” when years ago I had to fly the Atlantic (it took 11 hours with the propeller- driven planes) knowing that I had to go to work when I got there, thanks to a boss who must have taken his business management courses in a slave-labour camp. Of course if you are really affluent, you can take the Concorde out of New York. It flies more than twice the speed of sound and does the trip in three and a half hours. On the westward flight, you can have dinner in London or Paris, fly the Atlantic and arrive in New York in time for dinner there. If you really want to know what this costs, the last time I looked, it was 30 per cent above a regular first-class ticket. Not the messenger Don’t shoot the messenger. This comment was made by Grey Twp. Reeve Robin Dunbar at the recent Avon Maitland District School board’s public meeting in Walton. The topic was the potential closure of Walton and/or Seaforth Public Schools and/or Seaforth District High School. The issue is unquestionably a passionate one. It is about impacting education, our children, our future. If there is anything to inspire a people to fight it is to protect their children. And that is the primary frustration for parents affected by this proposal. Separating young people from community and school, rousting them away from friends and into new surroundings are suggestions that bring out the mother tiger. Little ones as puppets in a struggle of dollars and cents, bricks and mortar raise the question of who pulls the strings. As someone with little bias in this particular case, other than I am a parent and I know the axe will continue to chop away at the educational facilities which currently exist leaving none immune, I am sympathetic to the sentiments, the frustration and anger. However, I also have some sympathies for the other side. Eleven years ago I started covering board of education meetings. In the beginning it was meat and potatoes. But before moving on some time later, I saw the struggle as administration and trustees thanklessly tried to deliver with less and less. Lean budgets soon became skeletal and no end was in sight. Today, they are forced to make decisions that cannot conceivably be comfortable. And since these plans were first discussed they have been under attack. Unfortunately, they have been a shield for Queen’s Park bureaucracy. If parents have had something to fight for, the battle should have been, and should be against the government that has tied the board’s hands from increasing funds through taxes, limiting the funding they provide and adding new costs. Yet, rather than send this government a message that we disagree with what is happening with education in rural Ontario, the ratepayers of Huron helped put them back in power for a second term. We are getting what we asked for. It is a sad situation, but one that need not be tragic. Children know what we tell them. If they are hearing a move to a new school will be devastating they will believe it. As parents continue to fight, and they should by making their voices heard in Toronto, they must also try to be optimistic about the possibilities — increased programs, larger schools with more facilities, enhanced curriculum, new friends, new experiences. Some parents suggested they will pull their kids out of the public school system. But be careful; don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Supporting the board and trying to make the best of a bad situation will hopefully strengthen the remaining schools. Certainly there are no guarantees. Except that without concrete solutions our schools will close. It’s a guarantee that the province has sent by messenger.