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IN THIS ISSUE

• Carol Shoemaker describes her fascinating volunteer job
• Mike Yeager waxes nostalgic for the singers and songwriters we knew
• Verda Cook forwards a suggestion that character is important
• The editor describes a recent visit to an emergency ward
• Sites are suggested by Betty Fehlhaber, Bruce Galway, and Pat Moore

Carol Shoemaker describes her unusual

VOLUNTEER JOB

Click on each picture for a larger image.

How often in life do you get to say, Thar she blows!? I do, quite often. I am a volunteer naturalist on whale-watching boats.

I have volunteered for various things off and on since I was a teenager. Little did I know that when I retired I would find the most exciting volunteer job that I can think of - whale watching.

I live in Southern California. Off our coast are the Channel Islands, eight of them. The northern five make up the Channel Islands National Park, and the water six miles out around the islands is the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. The job is made exciting by the large number of marine species we see here in the Channel. The highlights are, of course, the whales.

We see the gray whales on their migration down from Alaska to the Baja lagoons, where they mate and have their young, and again on their way back to Alaska with their calves, to start their summer feeding. Ten to twelve thousand miles of travel, during which time they have given birth to 1500-pound calves, feeding them up to 50 gallons of milk a day, and all of this without eating. Their feeding is done in Alaska in the summer where they dredge the bottom for amphipods and little crustaceans.

The humpbacks come to the channel from Central America to feed for the summer and amaze and delight the visitors and, of course, the naturalists, with their wonderful acrobatics. The humpbacks often put on a wonderful show of breaching, pec slapping, fluking, spyhopping, lobtailing, and coming over to the boats to inspect the passengers, or scratching their backs on the bottom of the boat. If you are very lucky, you get a wonderful whiff of whale breath. It is a smell you are not likely to forget. All this makes for very happy and amazed tourists.

Blue whale and whale-watching boat

Then there is the largest animal that ever lived on earth, the magnificent blue whale, which ingests four tons of krill a day during its summer feeding. It is amazing to see an 80-foot whale (two large school buses) from a 65-foot boat. This is one of the best places in the world to see blue whales. A few facts about the blue whale to give you some idea of how large it really is: its tongue weighs as much as an African elephant; its blowhole is the size of a manhole cover; and a child could swim through its arteries.There are about 200 that summer here and I have seen as many as 20 in the vicinity of the boat just cruising along and feeding.

I have also seen orcas, and the second-largest of the whales, the fin whales, and the relatively small minke whales.

One of the constant delights is the dolphin population. They show up sometimes by the thousands and it seems as if one of them says, A boat! A boat! and they come rushing over to ride the wake. Several species of dolphins - commons, white-sided, Rissos, Dalls porpoise, and bottlenose - grace our channel.

Common dolphins

The occasional sea otter shows up, not knowing that by law they are not allowed below Point Conception. If only they could read! We also have California sea lions, harbour seals, elephant seals, and northern fur seals that hang out here as well. We see the occasional shark and mola molas, and many different species of seabirds, a birder´s delight. Marine life ranges from microscopic plankton to the endangered blue whale. There are also Chumash middens, with artifacts going back over 10,000 years. The skeletons of pygmy mammoths have also been found. Over a hundred shipwrecks are located in the channel as well. So there is something for everyone.

My job is to provide interpretation on the whale-watching boats for those who have never seen a whale, or for that matter, an ocean. It is such fun to introduce people from all over the world to the whales and other sea creatures and to watch their excitement and awe when the wildlife shows up.

In addition to all the fun, I do have a scientific part of the job.

I take photos of the humpback, blue, and gray whales, which are then sent on to Cascadia Research in Oregon. The photos of humpback tails and blue whale dorsal saddle are compared to photos taken in previous years or in other locations. The purpose of this is primarily to conduct research needed to manage and protect threatened marine mammals. The whales can then be tracked to see what their migration patterns are.

The islands are open to the public and have campgrounds, but no hotels, restaurants, or gift shops. What they do have are 2000 species of plants and animals, 145 of which are found nowhere else in the world. For you birders, the island scrub jay is found in only one other place in the world - Santa Cruz Island. The island fox is the most well-known island animal, and each island that has foxes has a separate species. They are about the size of a house cat and very cute, and fairly easy to see as they wander freely about the islands.

Island fox, about the size of a house cat

Some days I have the pleasure of manning the Santa Cruz Island visitor centre. I cant think of a lovelier way to spend a day. I also do outreach for the sanctuary and park at schools and local events.

Other days I go out with schoolkids on a marine floating lab. We take the kids out in the harbour and dredge the bottom and bring up various sea creatures for them to see. We have stations set up where they can handle the sea creatures, look at plankton through a microscope, and check out sea and weather conditions. Many of the kids in our area have never been to the beach. It´s a great way to introduce children to the ocean and make them aware of the impact that they can have on it.

My other volunteer hat is for the Ventura County Maritime Museum. It is a small museum with world-class maritime art, ship models, and ocean breezes. I am currently entering the book collection into the computer and at least temporarily managing the gift shop.

Both jobs have given me the opportunity to learn, to meet interesting people and make new friends, and to feel useful.

My nine grandchildren are the other important part of my life. I am lucky to live near all of them and to see them often and do fun things with them. This summer Grandma camp is kayaking/sailing for four of them.

Links to websites that you might find interesting:

Maritime Museum: http://vcmm.org/

Channel Islands National Park: http://www.nps.gov/chis/index.htm

Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary: http://channelislands.noaa.gov/

Link to eagle cam on Santa Cruz island, they are making a comeback:

http://media1.vcoe.org/eaglecam1

Mike Yeager recently posted this nostalgic piece in his blog:

THE POETS OF A GENERATION

There must be a huge number of us baby boomers who have guitars stashed somewhere in our homes. Some of these guitars get taken out more than others. How many of us dreamed of hitting the road with our guitars slung over our backs, telling the stories of our lives through song.

Singer-songwriters were very rare before the 1960s. You had Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Hank Williams, but for the majority of performers there were the singers and then there were the songwriters.

The singer-songwriter tradition goes back a long way in Europe, but in America it didnt take off until the ´60s. The popular music of the ´30s and ´40s was big band music, which borrowed its rhythms and inflections from the earlier "race music". In the ´50s the focus shifted, the singers became more prominent and the bands faded into an accompaniment role, thanks in large part to the first singing super-star Frank Sinatra. Songwriters cranked out songs for a multitude of popular singers like Patti Page, Rosemary Clooney, Perry Como, Doris Day. and Nat King Cole.

When the boomers came on the scene, we rejected this nice sweet music and found our collective soul in black rhythm and blues. That fused with country music and gave us the earliest true rock ´n´ roll of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Buddy Holly.

When the music died in 1959, with the exception of Motown, it was replaced by a bunch of white singers like Fabian, Connie Francis, Frankie Avalon, numerous Bobbys (Rydell, Vinton, Vee), Jimmy Clanton, Leslie Gore, and Johnny Tillotson. We had again returned to the sweet unimaginative music of the early ´50s, except now it had a back beat. The Everly Brothers and Ricky Nelson were among the few who stayed true to the earlier rockabilly tradition.

Folk music was also popular in the ´50s, especially on college campuses. There were a ton of folk groups: The Four Freshman, The Brothers Four, the Limelighters, The Hi-Los, the Four Preps, The New Christy Minstrels, and the most popular of all, The Kingston Trio. These groups influenced the harmonies of later rock ´n´ roll groups, especially the Beach Boys. Some of these folk groups sang songs written by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, The Weavers, and others out of the civil rights/pro-worker movements. The most prominent was Joan Baez, the queen of activist folk singers. She bridged the gap between the earlier folkies and the ´60s folk movement. Then along came Bob Dylan in the early ´60s and the rest is history.

Most of the folk music was still in the tradition of early English folk songs. Dylan drew on the depression era songs, black blues singers, and the poetry of the Beatniks. Few of us boomers listened to Dylans music directly in those early years, but we became familiar with his music through others like the Byrds, Judy Collins, and Peter, Paul and Mary. There were other folk singers, some predating and some contemporaries of Dylan like Phil Ochs, Eric Anderson, Tom Paxton, Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, and Paul Simon, who were also part of this change. These singer-songwriters filled a gap, replacing traditional folk songs with honest, authentic music drawn from their own lives. They were not your squeaky-clean folksingers of the Down by The Dairy O, Tom Dooley tradition. They wrote their own material and didnt wear matching shirts. The folk tradition took off in the mid-´60s, fusing with rocknfoll and country.

The singersongwriters of our generation were our poets and our voice. Artists like Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, James Taylor, Crosby Stills and Nash, Leonard Cohen, Jackson Browne, Carol King, and many more expressed the culture and the times through their songs. So lets dust off those guitars and keep the movement alive. Peace.

ED. NOTE: To read more of Mike´s musings, go to http://www.aretiredboomer.blogspot.com/

Verda Cook forwards this reminder, which is appropriate at this time when Dick Monaghan is leaving us. He lived a life that mattered to many people.

WHAT DOES IT MATTER...?

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no days, no hours or minutes.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten,
will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will all expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won´t matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived.
It won´t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Your gender, skin colour, ethnicity will be irrelevant.

So what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built;
not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage and sacrifice
that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you´re gone.
What will matter is not your memories, but the memories of those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn´t happen by accident.
It´s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.

ED. NOTE: The article was written by Michael Josephson, who is devoting his life to promoting the development of good character. Here is a link to his daily commentary:

http://charactercounts.org/michael/

FROM THE EDITOR´S DESK

Last month I ended up in the emergency ward because my eyes would not focus on the newspaper I was trying to read.

The suspicion was that I had had a minor stroke, and over the hours that I was there (and unable to read!) they did every test they could think of, including a brain scan, an ECG, a blood test, and even a chest x-ray. Why that one slipped in there is beyond me.

Shortly after I went in, an older doctor approached me and asked me to raise both arms, then drop them. He grunted when I did that without a wobble, then said, "Repeat after me: You can´t teach an old dog new tricks." Not believing he would select such a quotation for a very senior citizen, I said, "You´re kidding!" Without a glimmer of a smile he repeated his request, so I dutifully made a statement which I did not believe for a moment. Then he walked away and that was the last time I saw him.

Finally, after all the tests were done but my eyes were still not focussing, a much younger doctor told me they could find no evidence of anything. "If you´ve had a stroke," he said, "it was the smallest on record." Then he gave me the name of an opthamologist to see in case there was something wrong with my eyes, and discharged me.

To make a long story short, the eye exam showed nothing wrong, but my doctor got a note suggesting I must have had a small stroke, in spite of the lack of evidence. So I´m slated for an ultrasound of the veins in my neck sometime in the future.

Just a reminder to anyone suffering some of the symptoms of a stroke:

When the blood supply to the brain is cut off, brain cells die. Thats called a stroke, and it can cause permanent disability or death within minutes.

When signs of a stroke appear, every second counts. Symptoms include sudden numbness of the face or limbs, confusion, difficulty with speech or cognition, visual disturbances, trouble walking, loss of balance, and severe headache. Although the majority of strokes occur in people aged 65 or older, they can and do occur at any age.

If you suspect someone is showing signs of a stroke, act FAST:

* F = FACE Ask the person to smile. Does one side of the face droop?
* A = ARM Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward?
* S = SPEECH Ask the person to repeat a simple phrase. Does the speech sound slurred or strange?
* T = TIME If you observe any of these signs, its time to call 9-1-1.

* Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. and a leading cause of long-term disability.

* The risk of stroke is higher in women than in men; higher in African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian/Pacific Islander than in whites; in people over age 55; if there is a family history of stroke; if there is a history of migraines; in people with high blood pressure; and for people with disabilities.

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Betty Fehlhaber sends a link to an excerpt from PBS-NATURE featuring pictures that a wildlife cinematographer took of the secret life of hummingbirds. The photographer uses a high speed computer-controlled camera called the Phantom scope, plus a "boroscope" that can put the camera´s lens right into a flower to watch the little guys feeding:

Bruce Galway forwards the URL for a video on climate change:

Pat Moore suggests this site for an open dictionary with definitions of recently-coined words and phrases:

This video is hard to watch, but I believe it is knowledge we should have. Philip Zimbardo knows how easy it is for nice people to turn bad. In this talk, he shares insights and graphic unseen photos from the Abu Ghraib trials. Then he talks about the flip side: how easy it is to be a hero, and how we can rise to the challenge.

For the 2009 version of the best of shift happens, go to

Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life´s setbacks - including death itself - at Stanford University´s 114th Commencement: