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.