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IN THIS ISSUE

• Carol Dilworth concludes her reports from Uganda
• Bill McNair and Bill Murphy discuss old-time comedians
• Geoff Goodship is learning new tricks
• Mike Yeager muses on weather as a topic of conversation
• The editor discusses the readability of websites
• Sites are suggested by Pat Moore and Zvonko Springer

In February, Carol Dilworth accompanied Norma and Ben Fear to Uganda. This was the Fears´ eleventh trip to Uganda. Early in this decade, the Fears, along with their family and friends, began helping some students in eastern Uganda to pay their school fees. At one point the project, "Norben", was helping over 40 students. Some of the students have now graduated from university; some have completed college diplomas and certificates; and a few are still completing secondary school. Carol accompanied the Fears in 2008 and again this year. During this visit, she was asked to meet with community leaders.

If you wish to help with the school fees and expenses, kindly write a cheque payable to Harcourt Memorial Church, clearly marked "Uganda project", and mail it to the church at 87 Dean Avenue, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1L3. All of the amounts raised are used for student fees and expenses. Tax receipts are issued for donations.

Carol concludes her reports from her last trip to

UGANDA

February 16: Today is election day in Mbale for a national representative. The predecessor, who was a member of the president´s party, resigned because apparently he said that he could not support a corrupt government. There are over 20 candidates. President Museveni came to Mbale for a day but unfortunately, I didn´t run into him. There´s a group of men here who are glued to their cell phones. I don´t want to know....

Mbale by-election advertising

Ugandans have very soft voices. I know this because the laundry begins at 7:00 a.m. outside my window (we get clean sheets and pillowcases every day - given the amount of perspiration in them, and possibly something to do with mosquitoes overnight, this is needed). And any baking for the next day´s breakfast is done after midnight, outside my window. The first group talks and the second group sings. I can often sleep through both.

The past two days have been the highlight of both my trips to Uganda. Today I found out that all the staff here knows everything that goes on. I went to buy water and the fellow who runs the bar looked up and said, "You were lost yesterday!" Of course I explained why I was away from 8:15 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Yesterday was the second of two days that I spent working with a local organization, Foundation for Integrated Community Development Programme (FICODEP), that helps community groups to become self- sufficient. The government donated vegetable seeds and tree cuttings and the organizers found 12 groups of about 20 women each who wanted to try the system. There are also men´s groups and youth groups. The women´s groups include widows, orphans, and the disabled.

Each group meets weekly and the members contribute whatever savings they´ve been able to amass during the past week. An average contribution would be about 50 cents. When they have accumulated about $10, they listen to a group member´s presentation for a loan - what she will use the money for, and how she expects to repay it. From the cash books that I saw, it seems that the money is lent out very quickly - they don´t let it sit idling in the cash box. There have been some repayments and the interest rate is quite high (10% per month), so hopefully the cash will roll over really fast.

In 2008 I spent my last day in Uganda with Joseph W. I know his sponsor (I visited Joseph on his behalf) and we both kept in touch with Joseph. In 2009, Joseph graduated with first class Honours from university. He founded this organizing group in his home area, in the countryside around Mbale, although he has to live in Kampala to pick up contract work for some income. Last fall, Joseph contacted me to see if I would speak to some people just to give them words of encouragement. (Joseph has applied for six jobs and is being turned down because he is more qualified than the bosses.)

On Saturday, Joseph and I met for a couple of hours, when I received the constitution and a copy of the baseline study. On Sunday I travelled to the committee offices, where all the community members had been summoned to a meeting. I asked for this soon after I got here because I had heard that some of the communities were resentful of some of the others, and I wanted them to be in the same place for a while. It was windy and rainy (paradise for me) and that kept some away. We met in front of the office under a tarp. Many walked for over two hours to attend. In the end, 10 of the 12 groups were represented, totalling 160 people.

One of my suggestions struck home - the need for at least one person in each community to train herself in some medical knowledge so that she could attempt a diagnosis before people travelled long distances to see a doctor, or stayed home and ended up suffering. I told them that if they gave me a list of the knowledge they needed, I would try to find a book to give to each community. They wanted to know when they could expect to receive the books.... I also talked about specialization and improvement, rather than sustainability.

Joseph asked me to speak to all the attendees first and then to meet with the community leaders. I assumed that the second meeting would be with 12 people, so had I prepared a couple of diagrams. It turned out that each community has seven leaders, so 76 people stayed for the second meeting. We divided them into small groups and I sat for five minutes with each group in order of the distance they walked so that they could get leave first.

The rain is causing power failures and I lost the continuation of this message so I´m going to send it now and resume some time....

February 18: I am back in Kampala to try to find some medical books. Success! Hopefully, one of the students here will be able to come to the store with me tomorrow to finalize the purchase and take the books to Mbale.

President Museveni´s party ran two candidates in the Mbale by- election, they split the vote and the favourite opponent won. Museveni came to Mbale two days before to convince either one of his candidates to step down, and both refused. Today´s headline is, "I Will Never Forgive You" - Museveni to Mbale voters. The general election is next February so the new fellow will have to do this all over. The two presidential candidates had enough votes between them to take the riding. There was cheering all Tuesday and Wednesday evening, also some violence. One person was killed and several injured.

Third community meeting on Monday

So back to Monday. Joseph and I spent the day and evening visiting all 12 women´s groups - 10 had gathered on Sunday. Fortunately, they gathered in groups of two to four; I think we had four sessions in all. We looked at the planting and fish ponds at the first stop but had to cut out this part of the visit at the other sites because of time constraints.

At each gathering there were words of welcome and a song plus dancing for us. Then Joseph spoke, then Henry, the program director, and then me. We found out their specific concerns. At one of the sessions the participants were very discouraged. They´ve made great progress but someone is running them down and unfortunately they believe it. I sat down on the grass with them and asked what was wrong. They looked better after our chat.

I am making a list of the women´s medical knowledge

The big surprise for me was a hot dinner at each location. I guess that being invited into the community is the equivalent of going to a home and there is always food. Our driver and I tried to remember how many meals we had eaten, and drew a blank. It was a long, sunny, hot, exhilarating day.

The 24-hour trip home begins tomorrow at midnight. I have mixed feelings about leaving - all the requests for help are draining, but after a second visit, there are special people whom I will miss, rather than the general love of the culture that I felt when I returned to Canada the last time.

February 23: Arrived home on Saturday afternoon. Twenty minutes before landing there was a bomb scare on the plane. Someone found a duty-free bag from Qatar and no one claimed it. We landed without incident and everyone had to show their boarding pass before entering the terminal. We were greeted by a row of police officers.

I realized afterwards that my life did not flash before my face - I just sat there waiting for the explosion.

ED. NOTE: For Carol´s pictures, go to http://members.shaw.ca/ vjjsansum/ or

http://nw-seniors.org/stories.html

CORRESPONDENCE

Bill McNair waxes nostalgic about long-ago comedians: Were Amos and Andy mentioned? For many decades, these two guys brought charm and stories, usually about themselves or their friends. For years, 99% of us thought they were gentlemen of colour. Later on, after their untimely demise, we learned that the two of them were gentlemen of European ancestry. So many comics mentioned here that brings nostalgia to us all.

Remember the other funny guy called Red Skelton? Here are a few more from old radio classics:Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Fanny Brice, Sid Caesar, Eddie Cantor, W. C. Fields, Buster Keaton, Mae West, Henny Youngman, Edger Bergan.... Of course, there were those of the movie screen also.

Bill Murphy writes: I too remember the Happy Gang and Kay Stokes, who was a superb organist. I have a large collection of old-time radio shows and at least one of them is a half-hour show done by Bob and Ray. The interesting thing about these old shows is they are still good listening today.

ED. NOTE: Have we missed anyone?

Geoff Goodship, still suffering from the results of his accident, believes that we are

NEVER TOO OLD

"You can´t teach an old dog new tricks" and "never too old to learn." These old truisms conflict with each other, so let´s examine the evidence.

It appears to me that a great deal of learning and adaptation are necessary in our senior years. We´re not talking just academic learning here. Jean´s recent editorials on everything from pantyhose to operating an electric cart are fine examples. Most of us learn new things as the need arises. A hip or knee replacement teaches us to dress differently. Arthritis and other medical conditions related to aging have a similar effect. It´s often said that getting older isn´t for sissies, but that doesn´t mean that we can´t learn. I´ll contribute a recent example of my own in the hopes of encouraging others to do the same.

An accidental fall some months ago has left me with an impaired right hand. Typing is difficult. The left hand knows what to do, but the right hand makes many mistakes. It´s discouraging, so I decided to try a new approach.

Have you heard of Dragon Naturally Speaking? It´s an intriguing program that changes your voice into text in any document. Of course, you need a microphone and a reasonably current computer, as well as the voice recognition software. I´m in the process of learning Dragon Naturally Speaking as I write this document. It´s a bit tricky as I have to learn its voice commands.

The the biggest problem is learning how to dictate. I find I have to think my way through a sentence before I begin, rather than type it and/or edit it on the fly. For most of us, our speaking speed exceeds our typing speed. At present, my dictation speed is approximately equal to what I can achieve with my left hand alone. This is only my second session, so I have hopes of improvement. In a few weeks I hope my dictation speed will match my former two-handed approach. Have any other readers tried this system?

Who among you ties your shoelaces as you did when you were 20? We all have to adapt to the changes our senior years bring. Some of these may be funny; some may be a little frightening. Whether it´s dressing, driving, drinking, or doing our income tax, we all have the need to learn and adapt. I encourage all Tale Spinner readers to contribute an example from their own experience. It should be fun and somewhat enlightening to hear from many of Jean´s readers. Please take a few minutes to share your story of "Never too old to learn."

Mike Yeager from Arizona wrote this article, which originally appeared in Wendy Fisher´s newsletter for retirees http://www.retirement-online.com

IT´S ALL ABOUT THE WEATHER

Everyone talks about the weather. It doesn´t matter where you live. And it always goes something like this: "I´ll be glad when the hot, cold, rainy, snowy, windy weather is over. But at least we don´t live up north, out west, back east, down south where they have floods, humidity, hurricanes, three feet of snow, freezing temperatures, 100 degree temperatures...." My wife Katie is from Hawaii. Weather-wise I don´t think it can get much better than there, but still people talk and complain about the weather.

When people retire and try to decide where to go, weather always seems to be a major factor. They want to get away from "bad weather" and move somewhere with "better weather". We´re usually trying to get away from some part of the weather we don´t like. In our case, it was the excessive amount of cloudy days and rain in Washington. Also, people move to places where they feel their aches and pains and other ailments will get better because of the dry atmosphere, cooler air, warmer air, higher altitude, lower altitude, more sun, less intense sun, etc.

As a counsellor, I´ve read a lot about what factors are important for a happy, fulfilled life, and weather is never mentioned. Factors that are mentioned are close supportive relationships, meaningful productive activities, a basic feeling of self-worth, ability to adapt to change, and religious faith or being grounded in a basic philosophy of life.

There is, however, the diagnosis of Seasonal Affective Disorder, (SAD) which seems to have some validity. Some people who live in places where it is cloudy and dark much of the year tend to get depressed as a direct result. There is also evidence of higher rates of suicide and alcoholism in low-light areas. Light therapy is prescribed as an antidote.

Weather is something we all experience and this gives us a readily available topic of conversation, even with people we don´t know. It serves as sort of an ice breaker. I would often talk to clients about the weather as we walked to my office. It seemed rude and uncomfortable not to talk at all, and I made the mistake more than once of saying, "How´s it going?" which opened the flood gates before we could get safely behind my office door. The topic of weather seems to be safe territory.

Arizona in general has dry sunny weather. When I told people in the Northwest we were moving here, invariably one of them would say, "I couldn´t stand it, it gets too hot down there." Conversely, when I tell people here in Arizona that I´m from the Northwest, I often get the reply, "I couldn´t live up there; it´s too cloudy and rainy."

Arizona is a big state and has many different weather patterns. For example, Flagstaff is cold in the winter and can get quite a lot of snow. What is unique about the Southwest is the dry climate. There are big differences between the daytime and nighttime temperatures. The heat dissipates rather quickly after the sun goes down and conversely, if it is cold at night, the sun warms it up during the day. And even though the temperature is hot, with the low humidity it doesn´t feel as hot. However, 100+ degrees is hot no matter how you look at it. Turn on your oven to 100+ and stick a body part in there and you´ll get the idea.

We live in Green Valley, a rather lush area in the Sonoran desert of southern Arizona. We have two rainy seasons, one in the winter and the main monsoon season in July and August. The average rainfall is about 15 inches a year. Ironically, this is about the same yearly average as Sequim, Washington, where we moved from. But here the rain really pours for a while and then the clouds go away. In Washington the rain drizzles and the clouds stay for a long time.

We have yet to spend our first summer here. We visited last July and the daily temperature was over 100 degrees. We were surprised to realize that we could still go hiking. We hiked in areas at higher altitudes where it was cooler. Mt. Lemon outside of Tucson was 72 degrees and Ramsey Canyon, near Sierra Vista, which is a mile high to begin with, was in the high 70s which was very comfortable for hiking. The rest of the time we either went to the pool or stayed in the air conditioning during the hot part of the day. How I rationalize this to those who are skeptical about living in a hot climate is, "Several months of the year we deal with the heat. How many months of the year do you deal with cold, rain or snow?"

Like I said before, good weather does not guarantee happiness, but at least I can get on my motorcycle and ride around and try to find it.

ED. NOTE: Check out Mike´s blog at http://www.aretiredboomer.blogspot.com

FROM THE EDITOR´S DESK

Jay and I have been having a discussion about the appearance of his website, which prints the Tale Spinner. He thinks it needs jazzing up, and I think it is great as it is.

As a long-time printer, I appreciate a clean page with readable type and no distractions. As an avid reader of websites, news and discussion groups and opinion pieces, Jay thinks the page is hopelessly outdated and flat as dishwater. If he had his way, it would have a black background!

He sent me samples of some of his suggestions, including one with tarantulas crawling down both sides. I objected to more creepy crawlies, and asked if he must have borders, couldn´t they be sedate colour strips? More samples arrived. More options. More objections.

Finally, we agreed to let readers make the decision. He will put up his usual easily-read but "boring" page and another with different options for several weeks. Readers are invited to express their preferences. There will be two links - one to my favourite and the other to one of his suggestions. (Alternate link: http:// members.shaw.ca/vjjsansum/Apr24-10AV.html) He will do this for several weeks - or until he runs out of options - and then we will tabulate the replies.

Please check out both links and let me know your reaction. At the same time, why not tell us about the new things you have learned as you got older, either through desire or necessity, as Geoff requested.

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

For anyone wondering about the safety of nuclear plants, these pictures of Chernobyl from a site sent by Pat Moore are illuminating:

Pat also sends this site, which tests your knowledge of Canada:

Zvonko Springer sends the URL for stunning pictures of the volcanic eruption in Iceland:

Here is something for all you brand freaks out there: the Logorama short film. It´s not for kids, it´s nasty, it´s cruel - but it is incredibly well made.

The film was directed by the French animation collective H5, François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy plus Ludovic Houplain. It was presented at the Cannes Film Festival 2009. It opened the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and won a 2010 academy award under the category of animated short.