Grapevine Issue 4, 2015

ISSUE 4 2015

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THE HOPE FACTOR (courageously coping with cancer)

plus• How to be polite• Boys to Men: creating your own rites of passage• Tim Wilson: TV presenter, husband & doting dad• Paris: a moveable feast!

hedgehoghow to hug a

(connecting with teens)

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. GRAPEVINE MAGAZINE HAS been around for 34 years, giving New Zealand families

a lift … promoting stable, loving caring, relationships … tackling family hurts and headaches in a positive helpful way … injecting fun, hope

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Cancer. The ‘Big C’. The dreaded condition that will touch the lives of a third of us. Just today, for example, some 60 Kiwis will hear the words, “You have cancer!” Yet it’s a condition we’re often uneasy talking about, even mentioning. The ‘elephant in the room’, if ever there was!

Is there a hedgehog in your house? Do you have someone at home who tends to be nocturnal? … who emerges occasionally and reluctantly from a darkened habitat? … and whose prickles make him sometimes unapproachable? In short, do you have a teenager?

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12 HOW TO HUG A HEDGEHOG connecting with teens

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Pick of the Bunch ...................................6Editorial ............................................ 10Sherman’s Lagoon ................................. 11You Ain’t Gonna Believe This .................... 22Grapepuzzles ...................................... 23Home-Sweet-Home ................................ 36Cartoonz ........................................... 37Stillpoint ........................................... 48Spot the Difference .............................. 52Shortcut ............................................ 57Families Unlimited ................................. 62Back Chat .......................................... 67

Publisher:John CooneyEditor:Mike CooneyAssociate Editor:Paul FreedmanContributing Writers:Julia BlooreRob Harley Tracy CarterDistribution Manager:Brent CurtisDesign:Craig Haythornthwaite Ampersand Creative LtdPrint: PMP PrintDelivery: PMP DistributionWebsite:www.grapevine.org.nz

Published by Grapevine Communications Society Ltd. All correspondence to Private Bag 92124, Victoria Street West, Auckland 1142, New Zealand. Phone: 09 813 4956 Freephone: 0800 GRAPEVINE Email: [email protected] mission:To promote stable, loving relationships ... to tackle family hurts and headaches in a positive, helpful way ... to inject fun, hope and wholeness into homes all over the country.Copyright:The entire contents of this issue are copyright © November 2015. Permission to reprint must be obtained in advance.ISSN 1170-392X (Print) ISSN 2230-4126 (Online)

Published four times a year to give New Zealand families a lift – 100% independent, community-based, not-for-profit.

PLUS!

26 BOYS TO MEN: creating your own rites of passage

The smile said it all. After months of planning and dreaming, finally he’d done it. The fallow buck lay still. We spent a few moments crouched over the deer – acknowledging its life and death, and thankful to its creator for his provision. It’s a routine my boys have seen many times …

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Or so they say. But the rain in France (take it from me) falls mainly in Paris. At least it did the afternoon we arrived …

58 PARIS: A MOVEABLE FEAST!

GRILLED GREEK PORK CHOPS WITH ROASTED POTATOES

Page 32

There’s nothing an old geezer hates more than being unable to handle new technology. Speaking for myself, I have given up buying anything more complex than a $39.95 fan-heater …

24 THAT INTERWEBBY THINGEE

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BRITISH MILITARY … CAVALRY DIVISION?An Army Officer assigned to the Mili-tary Academy in Sandhurst narrowly escaped serious injury recently when he attempted horseback riding with no prior experience. He mounted his horse unassisted, and the horse immediately began moving. As it galloped along at a steady and rhythmic pace, the officer, Lieutenant Tommy Thomas, began to slip sideways from the saddle.

He attempted to grab for the horse’s mane, but Thomas could not get a firm grip. He then threw his arms around the horse’s neck, but continued to slide down the side of the horse. The horse galloped along, seemingly oblivious to its

HAIR SCARE:A 53-year-old Dallas woman cleared security without incident at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in September. However, airport security chased after her, running down an escalator to call her back.

Forget something? Oh, just want to inspect your supersized afro, ma’am.

The security agents pulled the Dallas hairstylist aside and searched her hair. “They said, ‘We have to check your hair for explosives’ … and I thought they were kidding me!” Isis Brantley told an Atlanta news station. “I just thought it was a joke. I was shocked. Everyone was shocked!”

And just how big was her hair? Well, she said she hadn’t cut it in 41 years …

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER:A businessman boarded a plane to find, sitting next to him, an elegant woman wearing the largest, most stunning diamond ring he had ever seen.

When he commented on its beauty, the woman turned to him and said, “This is the Masterson Diamond. It’s beautiful, but there’s a terrible curse that goes with it.”

“What’s the curse?” the man asked. “Mr Masterson …”

P I C K O F T H E B U N C HM A Y K I N G - M A R Y

P I C K O F T H E B U N C HM A Y K I N G - M A R Y

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AFRO-TERRORISTS & LEXOPHILES

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slipping rider. Finally, losing his grip, the Lieutenant tried leaping away from the horse and throwing himself to safety. His foot, however, became entangled in the stirrup, leaving him at the mercy of the horse’s pounding hooves as his head and upper body repeatedly struck the ground.

Fortunately for him, just moments away from unconsciousness and probable death, he was seen by Commodore Steve Cleary who happened to be passing by … and quickly unplugged the horse.

THE FATHERHOOD CYCLE:4 years: “My daddy can do anything.”7 years: “My dad knows a lot, a whole lot.”12 years: “Oh, well - naturally - Father doesn’t know that either.”14 years: “Father? Hopelessly old-fashioned.”21 years: “Oh, that man is so out-of-date. What did you expect?”25 years: “He knows a little bit about it - but not much.”30 years: “Maybe we ought to find out what Dad thinks.”35 years: “Let’s ask Dad what he would do before we make a decision.”40 years: “I wonder what Dad would’ve thought about that? He was pretty smart.”50 years: “My dad knew absolutely everything.”60 years: “I’d give anything if Dad were here so I could talk this over with him. I really miss the old man.”

SCOTSMAN, IRISHMAN AND ENGLISHMAN …A Scotsman, an Irishman and an Englishman are each sentenced to a year in solitary confinement. Before being locked away, each is to be granted a year’s supply of whatever he wants to help him get through the long spell alone.

The Scotsman asks for a year’s supply of whisky. It’s given to him and he’s locked away. The Irishman asks for a year’s supply of Guinness, so he’s locked up with several hundred bottles. And finally, the Englishman asks for a year’s supply of cigarettes. He’s given a pile of cartons, and the cell door is shut on him.

One year later, their doors are all unlocked.

The Scotsman staggers out and shouts, “I’m free!” and then keels with alcohol poisoning. The Irishman is dragged out into the light, whereupon he promptly collapses with liver failure. When the door to the Englishman’s cell is opened, every-body watches eagerly to see what sort of a wreck the man has made of himself.

To their surprise, he walks right out the door, sidles up to the first person he sees, and asks, “I say … you wouldn’t happen to have a match, would you?”

TEACHER ARRESTED AT JFK:A high-school teacher was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport

A blonde goes to the vet with the pet goldfish. “I think it’s got epilepsy,” she tells the vet. The vet takes a look and says,

“It seems calm enough to me.” The blonde replies, “Wait, I haven’t taken it out of the bowl yet.”

AIRHEAD #1:

A man is in the bathroom and his wife shouts: “Did you find the shampoo?” He answers, “Yes, but I’m not sure what to do …

it’s for dry hair, and I’ve just wet mine.”

AIRHEAD #2:


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7. Eat until you’re about to burst and then ride the Screamin’ Hurler roller coaster.

6. Put cream on his face and let the cat shave him with its tongue.

5. Walk behind him through his school yelling, “You da man!”

4. Send him to the local supermarket to buy Mum’s ‘personal things.’

3. Give him Grandma’s lime green Corolla with personalised license plates that say, “TUFFGUY.”

2. Send the ladies shopping, then get out your secret Old Yeller video and have a good cry together.

1. Shotput catching.

CLASSIFIED CLANGERS!The following classifieds really were published!• ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT

CANNOT READ? If so, we can help.• FOR SALE: Antique desk suitable for

lady with thick legs and large drawers. $475.

• USED TOILET PAPER – FOR SALE: I have a wide selection of brands and designs. Call for details and prices.

• FOR SALE: SOCCER BALL – signed by either Pele, the former Brazilian soccer player widely renowned by experts and fans to be the finest player that has ever existed, or by some guy named ‘Peter’. $75.

• FOR SALE: OUTDOOR NATIVITY SCENE – No Mary, Joseph or Jesus. $100.

this morning as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass and a calculator. At a press conference just before noon today, Attorney General, Eric Holder, said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. Although he did not release a name, he confirmed the man has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

“Al-Gebra is a problem for us,” the Attorney General said. “They derive solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values. They use secret code names like ‘X’ and ‘Y’ and refer to themselves as ‘unknowns’. However, we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval, with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philosopher, Isos-celes, used to say, ‘There are three sides to every triangle.’”

Holder went on to say, “Teaching our children sentient thought processes and equipping them to solve problems is dangerous and puts our government at risk.”

TOP 10 WRONG WAYS TO INITIATE YOUR SON INTO MANHOOD10. Teach him the secret male ritual of

leaving the toilet seat up and the toilet paper roll empty.

9. Have a ceremony where you give him his own remote control.

8. Lead him through an afternoon of rigorous physical training in the back yard while you sit in a lawn chair with a two-litre tub of ice cream.

A friend told Johnny, “Christmas is on a Friday this year.” Johnny replied, “Let’s hope it’s not the 13th.”

AIRHEAD #3:


A man shouts frantically into the phone, “My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart!”

“Is this her first child?” asks the doctor. “No,” he shouts, “this is her husband!”

AIRHEAD #4:

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POLICE CHAT:POLICE: Knock knock …ME: Who is it?POLICE: It’s the policeME: What do you want?POLICE: We just wanna talkME: How many of you are there?POLICE: TwoME: Then talk to each other.

EXERCISE … QUOTE THIS!• “I like long walks, especially when they

are taken by people who annoy me.”• “My grandpa started walking five

miles a day when he was 60. Now he’s 97 years old, and we have no idea where the heck he is.”

• “The only reason I would take up walking is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.”

• “Every time I accidentally use the dirty word ‘exercise’, I wash my mouth out with chocolate.”

• “I do have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.”

• “If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country …”

HEAR ABOUT …… two trucks loaded with thousands of copies of Roget’s Thesaurus that collided as they left a Wellington publishing house last Thursday? Witnesses were stunned, startled, aghast, taken aback, stupefied ...

LEXOPHILIA:‘Lexophile’ is a word used to describe those that have a love for words, such as ‘you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish’. A competition is held every year to see who can come up with the best word plays. Here are a few samples, including the overall winner …• When fish are in schools, they some-

times take debate.• A thief who stole a calendar got 12

months.• With her marriage, she got a new name

and a dress.• Police were summoned to a day-care

centre where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

• When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

• When she saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she’d dye.

And the winner …• Those who get too big for their pants

will be totally exposed in the end!

CHUCK NORRIS …… can pick oranges from an apple tree and make the best lemonade you’ve ever tasted.

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OH. MY. GOODNESS. WHAT CAN I say? Actually, there’s a lot I could say … but it’s easily summed up

with two words:We won!I’m sitting here at my desk on this

beautiful Sunday morning. Beautiful for two reasons: 1) There’s hardly a cloud in the sky, and 2) I’m looking at this beau-tiful Sunday morning through winner’s tinted glasses – and everything looks better when you’re a winner!

Now, I’m not sure where you were at 5am this morning, but if you were like me (and millions of other Kiwis), you were glued to the TV screen, singing along to the National Anthem and watching with pride the All Blacks perform their awesome haka. It was even better watching it with a room full of friends and family – at least that way the nerves were shared.

Proud To Be A Kiwi!

I realise that by the time you read this, a couple of weeks will have passed since this glorious event. But trust me, as I’m writing this, the excitement and sense of relief are still palpable – and you’re prob-ably feeling the same way. I haven’t felt like this for four years – and it annoys the heck out of me that a simple game of rugby can have such an emotional and physical impact on me. I mean, it’s just a game, right?

Yep, it is just a game – but it’s a game that has a strange, psychological effect on us. I guess for most Kiwis, it’s part of our identity. And, it’s probably the thing we’re most recognised for around the world. I’ll never forget a Bedouin coming up to me in the middle of the Egyptian desert a few years ago, saying “You a Kiwi?” “Yep.” “Ahh … the All Blacks!” at which he promptly broke out into a spontaneous haka. I must’ve reminded him of Dan Carter …

Anyway, I don’t really have anything else to say, except enjoy the mag. Because like the All Blacks, it’s a winner.

IF YOU’RE PART OF THE 0.0018% OF THE NEW ZEALAND POPULATION THAT HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. IT WAS THE RUGBY WORLD CUP – AND WE WON. AND I THINK THAT’S GREAT.

Is that Dan Carter?


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by Tracy Carter

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(connecting with teens)

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Is there a hedgehog in your house? Do you have someone at home who tends to be nocturnal? … who emerges occasionally and reluctantly from a darkened habitat? … and whose prickles make him sometimes unapproachable? In short,

do you have a teenager? If so, you may need help navigating past his

defenses, coaxing him into the light, and tenderly approaching his (or her!) sensitive side. In How to Hug a Hedgehog – 12 Keys for Connecting with Teens, co-author Brad Wilcox offers some great advice for making contact with that loveable-yet-mysterious creature in your home. We had a chat with Brad to get some tips first-hand on how to best approach the challenge of creating and nurturing a relationship with your resident teenager.

GRAPEVINE: Let’s begin at the beginning: how would you advise parents to start making connections with their kids when that effort sometimes feels one-sided … and prickly!?BRAD: Well, firstly, my advice would be: don’t take everything at face value. Look beyond the prickly comments and the attitude.

BEHIND THE FRONTTeenagers often put up ‘walls’ or

‘fronts’. Sometimes that front is

distance – they’ll pull away from

you – and sometimes that front is

arrogance. Either way, you have to

be able to step back and figure

out the message that he’s really

communicating.

I compare it to a baby crying. When a baby cries, we don’t always know what the

baby needs. So we try something. Then we try something else. And the important thing is that we keep trying, because the cry lets us know that there’s a need that’s not being met. GV: So, when kids get really arrogant or boastful or distant – when they start pushing you away – that’s when you have to try hearing those attitudes as a cry?BRAD: Exactly! That cry is telling you there’s a need that’s not being met. Under-neath that arrogant exterior is usually a lot of insecurity that the kid’s trying to make up for. And because he’s feeling insecure, overlooked, or underappre-ciated – or because he doubts his own ability – he tries to put on this front that says, “I’m cool! I’m great! You don’t have to tell me anything, because I already know!” That’s his way of masking those insecuri-ties. So, instead of reacting, parents need to try asking themselves, “What’s the need

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that’s not being met here? What’s behind this cry?”GV: Okay. But when you see those walls, how do you break them down? When your teen only responds with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or a grunt, how do you open up the lines of communication? BRAD: Well, one thing that’s always worked for me is to ‘find the loose brick’. That wall might seem completely solid. But, if you feel around carefully, you’ll always find a loose brick or two. By that I mean the one thing the teen likes enough to actually talk to me about it. It’s the one interest, the one talent, the one ability that’s high on that kid’s list. Paying atten-tion to that can make all the difference.

One mum told me, “My kid doesn’t have any loose bricks. He has a few loose screws, but no loose bricks!” I said, “Sure he does! What does he do with his money? What does he do with his time? And what does he do when he doesn’t have anything else to do?”

In one family I know, the daughter wouldn’t talk to her mother. But the mum knew that her daughter wanted to learn to drive – so she offered to take her out driving. Pretty soon, as they drove, the daughter started talking.

I think if adults are willing to talk about the things that really interest their kids, then eventually those lines of commu-nication will open up. A lot of times, we parents want a conversation that goes a different way: we want to discuss our rela-tionship, or how they need to change their behaviour, or why it’s time they cleaned their rooms – but we can’t start there. We have to drop our own agenda in order to connect. We have to start with the loose brick. When we show a little interest in

the kid’s big interest, then we can break through that wall.GV: It’s encouraging to learn that those walls don’t have to remain a permanent feature. But let’s take it a step further. In this modern world of texting, tweeting and Facebook, how do parents encourage face-to-face interaction? It seems that most teens’ communication and entertainment is conducted ‘virtually’ these days! BRAD: Yeah, it really can be daunting!

VIRTUAL REALITYSo many young people not only

communicate virtually by texting

and messaging – they also live

vicariously through their devices.

I go to youth dances occasionally,

and the boys don’t even go up and

ask a girl to dance – they text her

from across the room!

A college student I know went out with a girl and the whole time he was trying to talk to her, she was texting. Every time her phone would buzz, she’d look at it and sometimes she’d even text someone back. He got really frustrated, and when they were driving home neither of them was saying much. He dropped her off at her house, and she went in and immediately texted him to say, “What’s wrong? I can tell that something’s wrong …” GV: Communicating solely by text does seem to be the ‘new normal’. Is this just an extreme example, or do you think it’s a growing problem for young people today?BRAD: Kids seem to feel there’s safety in the distance provided by these elec-tronic forms of communicating. But that distance can also lead to an inability to


form real relationships – which has some scary consequences down the road when it comes to marriage, when it comes to family-life, even when it comes to work interactions. So I think that, even if elec-tronics is a kid’s big interest (and you can open the door by paying attention to that interest), you’ll want to try and steer them away from being so completely dependent on their devices.GV: What about creating healthy communication-habits within our own family? Like establishing a family meal-time – is it really that important?BRAD: I think it’s vital. It’s this one time of day where we can say, “Electronics are off, TV is off, and we’re going to eat together.” We have to eat anyway! And if dinnertime doesn’t work for your family, try lunch, breakfast, or even a bedtime snack. But find a time when the family can get together and eat. The eating is a

bonding experience – it’s a comforting experience – and it’s one of the best ways to encourage our kids to have face-to-face communication.

When kids aren’t in that habit, they might fight it at first – but deep down, they need and want to connect. Teenagers might say, “I don’t want to have family time together! I don’t want to eat with my family! I don’t want to go on a family vacation!” – but, secretly, they do. When they’re older, they always look back and remember that time spent together. They remember when, as a family, they’d play together, read together, do puzzles together, share meals … and eating together just opens the door for that kind of interaction.GV: When teens are resistant to being at the table together, how do you suggest getting conversation going?BRAD: Well, if there are no electronics at


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the table (so they can’t be texting some-body else at the same time) then that automatically opens up the conversation. And then we might just start with some good, open-ended questions – questions that don’t have just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. We need to leave it more open in the hope that kids might have something to say that goes beyond a one-word answer.

QUESTIONS TO GET EVERYONE CHATTING:

• What was your favourite part of school today?

• Was anyone absent from your class?

• If you could go on a trip anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

• What was the best gift you ever received?

• What’s your earliest memory of something fun or exciting

happening?

Kids usually like finding out about relatives, so stories about the family – funny memories about Grandma or amusing stories about your own childhood – are a good way of making a connection. Even just starting with, “I’ve used your great-aunt’s recipe for this casserole we’re having tonight. We used to get together at her house and …” Kids usually have a high interest in those stories because it’s family – it’s their roots. You can even check out a genealogy site, like Ancestry.com, and it’ll tell you if you’re related to any famous people, which would be another great conversation-starter!GV: Another area where we meet resist-ance is chores! How on earth do we get

our teenager to help out and pitch in around the house?BRAD: The key is keeping the chores short – and fair. Everyone has a job, and we rotate those jobs so it’s not the same kid who always has to clean the bathroom or take out the garbage. But family chores are a wonderful way to instil in kids that sense of responsibility and obligation. They need to understand that they can serve as well as being served – and this is a great way for them all to make a prac-tical contribution to the household. You need to explain, of course, that it’s not just them – everyone has a chore to do.

In our own home, it’s also been helpful when we do chores at the same time. Instead of always griping at our kids, “You need to clean your room!” or “You need to mow the lawn!” we say, “Okay, we’re going to set this timer for 20 minutes. Here are the jobs, here’s what everyone’s going to do – and I’m going to be working at the same time you’re working.” Keep it short, and keep it an activity you do together. GV: We want our teens’ help, for sure. But we also want their love and their trust. What’s the best way to create and main-tain a trusting relationship with our kids?BRAD: Trust can be built through compliments and respect. We’re going to be in a much better position to give them suggestions for improvement if we’ve got a good track record for noticing the positive and complimenting them. We’re going to be in a better position for our teen to take our feedback, too, because we’re in a trusting relationship with him – he knows that we like him, value him, and notice the good things that he’s doing.

Studies have shown that the number


of negative comments kids receive far outnumber the positive, but, ideally, it should be the opposite. As parents, we usually go straight to the thing that needs improving – but we’ve got to retrain ourselves to look first at the posi-tive. The world can be brutal – teens are bombarded by negative feedback from peers and from others out there in the world – and we need to make sure that we’ve given them the positive to offset the negative.GV: Sometimes it can feel a bit awkward saying the nice things – like “Oh, thanks for washing the dishes!” or “I appreciated you coming home on time!”… BRAD: Yeah, sometimes parents think it sounds a bit silly. But, really, kids need it! Positive comments and compliments are food for the spirit.

SPIRIT-FOODYou know how much food their

growing bodies need – well, their

growing spirits need just as much

food, and that food comes from

positive reinforcement. You never

have to apologise or feel awkward

for giving your kids uplifting

feedback and encouragement.

GV: How about showing respect to our kids? As parents, we might’ve grown up with the idea of showing respect to elders, but respecting teens isn’t neces-sarily something we’ve been taught. How does it work?BRAD: We can start by extending some common courtesies to kids – like saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ And we have to remember that, when a kid finally does


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talk, it’s time to focus on the kid. If you’re folding laundry and only half-listening, or you’re busy correcting their grammar, they’re not going to feel any respect from you.

If you were in a job interview or talking with your boss, you’d give them your undivided attention – you wouldn’t expect them to just talk while you’re texting or cooking dinner – and you wouldn’t point out their verbal mistakes. If we can show our kids respect, it helps build that relationship of trust – and makes it more likely that they, in turn, will respect our input.GV: Speaking of giving input, how can we offer our teens advice without putting them on the defensive so that those brick walls go back up?BRAD: Actually, we parents aren’t always the best people to give kids the feedback they need! Sometimes we’re better to work with others to help our kids grow and learn.

After one of my daughter’s primary school choir performances I said to her, “Honey, you need to smile more. All the other kids were smiling, but you weren’t …” She was so mad at me, and so offended! I realised then that I wasn’t the best person to give her that kind of feedback – it was more important for me to just be her cheerleader. All I really needed to do was mention to the director of the group what I’d noticed and ask him to encourage her to smile.

The point is, we’re allowed to reach out to others (teachers, friends, coaches, etc) and get them to help us carry that burden of correction. It’s helpful when our stand-ards or suggestions can be reinforced by people outside our family.

Another thing we can do as we talk one-on-one with our kids is to ask them questions – rather than just making comments. Instead of telling her that she should do this or that, you can ask your teen, “What’s happening here?” If she’s just had a big fight with her sister, don’t say, “You two are always fighting!” – instead, ask questions that might help her work through the conflict. Asking questions (rather than launching into another lecture) helps your teen find solutions for herself.

When your teenage son comes home late you could sit down and ask, “Hey, what’s going on here? You know you have a curfew – why do you keep breaking it?” Asking questions and listening is always better than telling and demanding and lecturing.

QUESTIONS TO HELP TEENS FIND SOLUTIONS:

• What’s going on here?

• Is this helping you?

• Is this getting you closer to your goals?

• Is this making you happy?

• Is this helping our family?’

• What can we do about it?

• How can we solve this?

• What are you going to do

about it?

GV: Another issue: How can we help our teens learn to be responsible for their own actions instead of expecting us to ‘fix’ everything for them?BRAD: We shouldn’t be too quick to shield kids from natural consequences. If they didn’t take the garbage out, and


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the garbage starts smelling, then that’s a natural consequence. If we shield them from that natural consequence then they don’t feel the need to do anything differently.

If my teen gets a speeding ticket and then I pay it for him, I’m taking away the sting of the consequence that could be a real lesson. And same thing if the teacher says, “This is the due date,” but I go and ask for another week – then I’m enabling the bad behaviour.

If kids get themselves into a situation that’s awkward, then they need to be able to feel that. And they need to be able to get themselves out of it, rather than us rescuing them. Don’t be too quick to rescue them, to solve the problem, or to

enable them. Just let them struggle a bit by themselves.GV: Okay, we should ease up on control-ling everything so our teens are encour-aged to become more responsible – but how do we avoid relinquishing our parental role entirely while our teens are becoming a little more independent? BRAD: Probably the best way to accom-plish this is by just staying informed with what’s happening. Knowing who your child’s with, knowing where she is – I don’t think that’s being unrealistic or inappropriate. One boy told me his mum checks his history on the Internet to see what sites he’s looked at, and he said, “Some people call that snooping, but my mum says it’s just good old-fashioned parenting!”

Too often parents just hand over the controls, and the kids go wherever they want and do whatever they want. In between that extreme and the opposite extreme of being too controlling is the happy medium of just being informed. You say, “Okay, you can go out with your friends, but I need to know who you’re with, where you’re going, and when you’ll be back.” That way you’re letting your teen know that you need to be informed of the situation. By staying informed, parents can then create those boundaries and give kids some fences within which there’s plenty of room to run.GV: How about alcohol and drugs? How can parents encourage their kids to make healthy choices and avoid the pain of addiction?BRAD: The role modelling that parents give is the biggest influence as to whether kids are going to get involved in activi-ties like drinking or smoking – or avoid


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them. One of the best things we can do as parents is to look at ourselves. We need to ask, “Are there some bad habits in my life that I need to correct?” The parent whose own choices aren’t perfect but who’s trying to do better is in a much stronger position to encourage his kids to avoid those behaviours, than the parent who just says, “Oh, well, you gotta die of something!”GV: We sometimes hear about parents allowing kids to drink at home “so they don’t rebel against stricter boundaries” – but it sounds like you mightn’t agree?BRAD: That would be right! To give that kind of go-ahead to kids is not teaching them to be responsible. It’s giving them something that’s potentially very dangerous.

DANGER – KEEP CLEAR!I’m not going to let my 12-year-

old drive so that he can learn to be

responsible behind the wheel. And

I’m not going to give a four-year-

old a loaded gun to teach him gun-

safety. We need to set some very

clear expectations when it comes to

things that can cause serious harm.

Parents who buy beer or cigarettes for their kids, thinking that somehow that’s getting in good with them (like “I’m being a friend”) are wrong, in my opinion. That’s like giving the kid a bomb to play with.

There’s got to be a time when you say, “I’m a parent and not a friend. I need to be able to point out when kids are doing something that’s potentially dangerous or unhealthy, and draw some lines there.” GV: Something else modern parents

often struggle with is the increasing pres-sure for kids to seize every opportunity presented to them – with some kids taking on too much and burning out. What’s the best way to ensure that our teens maintain a healthy balance? BRAD: If it’s a matter of doing too many activities, parents simply need to limit them. They need to enforce limits on extracurricular activities and even time with friends – just as they need to enforce limits on screen-time.

The pressure in today’s world is huge. Previous generations have dealt with peer pressure – but in a small circle. Kids today are dealing with pressure in a global circle: they are bombarded with it from all sides. Websites like Facebook and Pinterest make it seem like everyone else’s life is perfect – and there’s this extreme pressure on teens to be equally perfect. If we’re not careful, it can lead to kids just shutting down. They get to a point where they feel they can’t be what they’re supposed to be, so they’re not even going to try. They retreat into escapes – those escapes can be alcohol, porn, video games, sex, eating – anything they can escape into to make themselves feel better.

We need to limit the time our kids can spend checking out everyone else’s ‘perfect life’. And we need to remind them that they don’t have to do it alone – they’ve got the help of parents, teachers, friends, God …GV: Really? God? Wouldn’t many teens baulk at the idea of God as a member of their support team?BRAD: Well, there’s a spiritual side to each person – even teens! And it needs to be nurtured. That’s part of the solution, too. Religion or spirituality can help us


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‘HOW TO HUG A HEDGEHOG’ BY BRAD WILCOX AND JERRICK ROBBINS IS AVAILABLE FROM EXISLE PUBLISHING - WWW.EXISLEPUBLISHING.CO.NZ

gain perspective – it’s a way to find the balance in our lives between what’s really important and what’s not important.

A VALUABLE TOOLFamilies who are part of a healthy

religious community and parents

who nurture a sense of spirituality

in their children do seem to manage

better – it’s one more valuable

tool that we have in our parenting

toolbox, and it can really be a help.

GV: So, to sum up, your recipe for happier, less-prickly teens is nurture their connections with us, others and God … plus maintain safe boundaries for them, even if our kids chafe a bit at those limits?BRAD: We all have to learn to work within some limits. In our own lives as adults we deal with limits all the time – taxes, car insurance, restrictions on time and money – and it’s good for us.

When we lived in New Zealand for six months, my son wanted to go bungee-jumping. He was old enough, and he gave me a very compelling argument: “Dad, it was invented here!” So when we went to Queenstown, I finally let him go bungee-jumping. And as I watched him

leap (which scared me to death, by-the-way!) I realised that it’s the bungee-cord that allows him to fly. The one who takes off the harness or the bungee-cord is the one who’s going to fall.

With kids, we need to put some limits on them – we need to make sure they have a bungee-cord! Those limits are not their enemy – they actually give them the freedom to fly. Too many parents out there neglect to impose limits on their

kids because they want to give their kids their freedom – but they’re then only free to fall.

As parents, when we impose reason-able limits we’re really putting our teen in a position to fly.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOUR SAY!GO TO GRAPEVINE’S FACEBOOK PAGE. SHARE YOUR POINT-OF-VIEW AND READ WHAT OTHERS RECKON.



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• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.

• A snail can sleep non-stop for three years.

• According to Jack Reacher, there are towns in the USA with names like Why, Why Not, Accident, Peculiar,

Santa Claus, No Name, Boring, Cheesequake, Monkeys Eyebrow, Okay, Ordinary, Pie Town, Toad Suck and

Sweet Lips.

• The Moon moves about five centimetres away from the Earth each year.

• Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

• The number of possible chess games is greater than the number of atoms in the universe.

• Some 63 million Americans are constipated (ouch!) – and five million laxative prescriptions are written every year.

• There are more chickens than people in the world.

• The world Rubix Cube record holder solved the puzzle in 23.68 seconds – blindfolded!

• A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

• One language dies every 14 days. By next century nearly half the 7000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear.

• Four percent of the people who read this list will decide from now on to keep their rubber bands in the fridge.

Sudoku Medium (solutions page 66)

Word Search – Summer Sports (solutions page 66)

7 3 9 1

8 6 9

6 3 5

3 1 2 9

6 2 3

5 3 8

5 1 7

8 4 3

4 7 9 5

How To Play: Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9.

Grapevine 4/2015 – Grapepuzzles

WORDSEARCH – SUMMER SPORTS (SOLUTION PAGE 66)

M J G N I F R U S G N I L C Y C W T W G N I L I A S Z Y R Y E M O B E A C H V O L L E Y B A L L S T U K T Y A L G P Q G P T Z U U I Q A C E R M E E U G P H G J K B N U X I R E A R E J P L N M L I A N B X R P H A X B D E I O Y J T W E B S C O C K O S T W E X G E B S T U K R L R A H I O W S N P K R O B J P C O A W C R Z N S I B T G G N I M M I W S U F S U R F L I F E S A V I N G P W

SOLUTION


CRICKETTOUCH RUGBYARCHERYBEACH VOLLEYBALL

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puzzles

FRISBEE GOLFTENNISSWIMMINGROWING

ATHLETICSSURFINGSAILINGWATER POLO

CYCLINGSURF LIFE SAVINGPETANQUEWAKA AMA


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two 14-year-olds I’d brought with me, to put Dad in touch with the rest of the world, got him a Gmail account and a Facebook profile.

I could see the old-boy’s eyes slowly glazing over, and it was clear, that from very early on in the proceedings, that he was affording us a ritual politeness which was masking total confusion.

Dad rang me the next day, saying that he was really sorry, but he didn’t think he would be following through on the process … and muttering something about being too busy with his wood-lathe.

THAT INTERWEBBY THINGEE

THERE’S NOTHING AN OLD geezer hates more than being unable to handle new technology. Speaking

for myself, I have given up buying anything more complex than a $39.95 fan-heater. That’s because the handbook/manual that goes with most other new appliances assumes a level of technological skill which an old fool like me will never master.

And if I find it hard going, imagine the assault of Internet-everything on the brain of the truly elderly!

I recently tried to persuade my 89-year-old father to get set up on the Internet. The


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Nostalgia, someone has observed, has its origins in the search for a word that means the ache of memory.

For an elderly soul living alone, having lost the dear spouse who used to take care of every transaction and all the paperwork, that ache becomes more acute with each passing day. That which liberates the young (i.e. the Internet) can marginalise those dear people who “used to love dealing with that nice lady at the Post Shop.”

This reticence is not a matter of dogged refusal to change. It just feels like we woke up one day and everything was different

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For an elderly soul living alone, having lost the dear spouse who used to take care of every transaction and all the

paperwork, that ache becomes more acute with each passing day. That which liberates the young (i.e. the Internet) can marginalise those dear people who “used to love

dealing with that nice lady at the Post Shop.”

mental circuits as quickly and thoroughly as possible, you would probably end up designing something that looks and works a lot like the Internet.” He goes on … “The online world so taxes the parts of the brain that deal with fleeting and temporary stuff, that deep thinking becomes increasingly impossible.”

Among the young people Nicholas Carr calls ‘digital natives’, he says he’s repeatedly seen a lack of human contact skills – like maintaining eye contact, or noticing non-verbal cues in a conversation.

Thought-provoking huh?

– so much so that the social order of things seems askew.

I’ve been reading a fascinating book called The Shallows by a guy called Nicolas Carr. Carr takes a swipe at

the way many of us use the Internet. He says the web’s “cacophony of

stimuli” and “crazy quilt” of informa-tion have given rise to “cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning.” This is in contrast to the era of the printed word, when intelligent humans were encouraged to be contemplative and imaginative.

He admits: “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.”

Carr writes, “If you were to set out to invent a medium that would rewire our

I realise I’m becoming a pretty similar geezer to my Dad. Seems to me there’s a new ‘unspoken etiquette’ that has crept into our lives. The rule now seems to be that we don’t reach out and make a phone-call, unless it is absolutely neces-sary. There are processes such as Face-book messaging, txts and emails which are ‘preferable’ unless the phone-call or even having the person over for a cuppa are absolutely vital.

Because we all lead busy lives, don’t we?No wonder the Old Man prefers to stick

with his lathe and a long phone chat.


boys to men

“Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of a man. The masculine heart needs a place where nothing is prefabricated, modular, non-fat, zip-lock, franchised, on-line, microwavable. Where there are no deadlines, cell phones, or committee meetings. Where there is room for the soul. Where, finally, the geography around us corresponds to the geography of our heart …”

– John Eldredge, Wild at Heart

creating your own rites of passage

The smile said it all. After months of planning and dreaming, finally he’d done it. The fallow buck lay

still. We spent a few moments crouched over the deer – acknowledging its life and death, and thankful to its creator for his provision. It’s a routine my boys have seen many times while we’ve hunted together … a lesson in respect.

It had been the perfect stalk. Only an hour earlier, we’d rowed the little dinghy across the river and started hunting the bush edge, wind in our faces, stopping frequently to peer into the trees with our binoculars. My youngest boy spied them first – a group of three bucks, mooching around the safety of the treeline. Within a few minutes, my oldest had quietly closed the gap and got himself into shooting position. I was amazed how calm he was – no hint of buck-fever. Picking out the fattest animal, he squeezed off the shot. And as the deer dropped, my son took one more step towards manhood.

by Mike CooneyO

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R. So, here’s the thing. Apparently, men

throughout the developed world are in trouble – some even call-

ing it a crisis of manhood. And, accord-ing to people who know these things, the evidence is overwhelmingly clear – we’re seeing more suicides, relationship break-downs, violence, behaviour problems in schools, crime … Its root cause? Boys in the modern world are “horrendously under-fathered.” In other words, accord-ing to psychologist, Steve Biddulph, “they weren’t given enough affection, teaching and example from either their dad or other male figures to help them grow into mature men.”

One of the big issues is the extension of adolescence – a boyhood which is stretching on for a longer and longer time. Quite simply, men aren’t growing up! When you look at the psychology of boys, you’ll understand what I mean. Generally speaking, boys tend to be self-centred, brash and concerned with immediate gratification. In fact, their own catch-phrase, if they had one, would be “It’s all about me!” While this is normal for young boys – those same attitudes ain’t so flash for grown men. Anyone know some adolescent 30-year-olds?

In case you haven’t realised it already, these are complex issues, which have big words to describe them. While a whole book could be written on this, I’ve only got about 1600 words – but I love a chal-lenge. So if you’ll bear with me for a while, let’s get into some nitty-gritty …

For a boy to become a man, some-thing has to happen to move him out of his self-centredness. Most

communities in human history recog-nised this, and handled it purposefully

with their own unique ‘rites of passage’ or initiation. Initiation was about moving boys to men by showing them that there were things more important than their own pleasure – turning them into men who could care for and protect others, shoulder responsibility and live for some-thing greater than themselves.

They were deliberate, focussed processes with specific teaching. The common thread with most initiation rituals required boys to face signifi-cant emotional and physical challenges: hunting and killing a wild animal, making long and difficult journeys, and even the ritual cutting or scarring of your body (not recommended!).

Steve Biddulph, describes it like this: “In initiation, the wildness, creativity and intensity of the young men were enlarged, not hammered down. They were brought into a web of shared purpose, so that the women, children, and the natural world on which they depended would be enhanced and protected by the young men’s presence. We wanted them to be brave, but for a reason; energetic, but with a purpose; fierce, but in protectiveness.”

This was the pattern for thousands of years. But due to reasons beyond my 1600 words, these initiations into manhood became lost over the last couple of centuries. What we’re left with, at best, are shadows of their former glory – like getting your first car or graduating high-school. Or at its worst, celebrating getting wasted on your 18th.

T hankfully, the art of initiation doesn’t have to remain forever lost in the confines of history books …

or Google. Many present-day communities, families and individuals have taken up


the challenge to provide a rite of passage for our boys’ journey into manhood. And here’s something interesting: if you’re already physically a man, yet you struggle with your sense of manhood … “have I got what it takes, to be a man?” … then I’ve got good news. There is a process for getting there, and it’s available to anyone.

So, what can this process look like? Well, firstly, let me clear something up real quick. This isn’t about some macho, chest-pounding BS. You don’t have to be a die-hard hunter or bearded lumberjack – and it doesn’t matter if you’re a skinny accountant in Auckland or a moustached mechanic in Motueka. Got it?

For me and my boys, I’ve got a rough plan around how I want their initiation

into manhood to go. It’s fluid, and subject to change, but there are a few absolutes. I realise that I have to be purposeful in my planning. If I leave it to chance or have an attitude of ‘someday I’ll get around to doing something’, then I’ll miss my opportunity. So here are some of the fundamentals:

OTHER GOOD MEN:It goes without saying that it takes a community to raise a child – and for a boy’s journey into manhood, this is particularly true. I’ve actively encouraged a number of my good mates and family to be involved with my boys. I want them to build a relationship with them, to have a say in their lives and to model good, manly


behaviour … and I’m not talking about rugby, racing and beer! I’m talking about qualities such as honour, respect, strength, Kiwi-ingenuity, compassion, generosity, love for adventure and (eventually) for their wives …

It also goes without saying that I recog-nise that some of my mates are wiser than I am, have different skills from mine, and can say things to my boys that I can’t.

So, let me sum it up: make sure they’re good men. And you should probably stay clear of guys who think that becoming a man is about getting on the beersies or engaging in sexual escapades.

INTO THE WILD:Okay, I know some people are going to roll their eyes at this, thinking “Here goes Mike again, going all bush and hunting and wilderness blah blah blah …” But hear me out! The quote at the beginning

(by John Eldredge) sums this up nicely. Why the wild? Because you can’t control it. Because in the wild, you find chal-lenges, risk, hardship, beauty, solitude …

I’m absolutely convinced that the most effective environment to help a boy become a man is the outdoors. And here in New Zealand, we’ve got no excuse.

SOLITUDE:Isolation features in most rites of passage – and there’s a good reason: it’s about personal growth. It’s about battling and overcoming emotions, fear, discomfort. This is so much easier to do when you’re with your mates. Imagine hiking into the back-country for a three-day wilder-ness trip with friends – setting up camp, cooking food, telling stories around a fire at night, listening to the forest noises … Now imagine doing the same thing by yourself!


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It goes to another level when you only take the bare necessities – a fly, a couple of muesli bars, water and your sleeping gear. Now that there’s nothing to distract you, see where your mind goes. Especially after a couple of days.

CHALLENGE:If it was easy, we’d all be doing it! There has to be some mental and physical chal-lenge. There has to be the potential to fail if you don’t give it your total commit-ment. If the question that haunts most men – “Have I got what it takes, when it counts?” – is ever going to be answered with an emphatic “YES!” then you need to overcome significant challenges.

It’s much better to have these chal-lenges carefully managed, than to let life initiate you with an unexpected curve-ball. That’s a much rougher ride.

SOCIAL RECOGNITION:This is an important final stage of a boy’s initiation into manhood. Having the community – whether it’s simply your immediate family, or your wider circle of friends – recognise the process you or your son has gone through, is an

important step. I guess it’s a little like a graduation. And whether you have a formal ceremony, or keep it more low-key, that’s up to you. But there are some great ideas to be found on the web.

For part of the process in our family, my 13-year-old boy (as I mentioned earlier) has just

hunted and shot his first deer. It wasn’t just an uplanned one-off – there’s been a definite progression in all this. He had to pass a few preliminary rounds first – learning skills, gun safety, ethics, patience, right attitude …

But now that he’s achieved this stage, he’s been recognised as someone who can be trusted to hunt safely and ethically. He’s won the respect of others – the respect of some of my peers.

There are other challenges ahead for him – more difficult wilderness expedi-tions, multi-day solo missions, service projects … but they’re not going to just happen. I have to be intentional in creating these processes.

In the meantime, my 10 year-old is chomping at the bit for his first deer. He’s got his old-man’s hairy arms, so he thinks he’s already a man.


by Angelo Georgalli

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GRILLED GREEK PORK CHOPS WITH ROASTED POTATOES Preparation Time: 15 minutes // Cooking Time: 25-35 minutes // Serves 4Moist, sweet, mustardy and smoky … and the potatoes! This dish has got a punch and a pop and is just delicious.

4-6 pork chops, each about 2cm thick

MARINADE: 4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp dried oregano leaves

1 Tbsp wholegrain mustard

2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt and pepper

GREEK POTATOES:6 potatoes, cut into wedges

Extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Salt and pepper

TO SERVE:Drizzle of honey

METHOD:Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Make the marinade first. In a bowl combine the olive oil, oregano, mustard, vinegar, lemon juice and a pinch of salt and pepper. Add the pork chops to the bowl and stir to coat. Set aside to marinate.

THE

GAME CHEFSuccessful restaurateur Angelo Georgalli has created a selection of his favourite recipes that are nutritious, delicious and naturally sourced. With a Greek, Italian and English background, Angelo Georgalli invites confidence in his ability to mix different culinary styles while his enthusiasm for fresh New Zealand produce and game is infectious.

GRILLED GREEK PORK CHOPS WITH ROASTED POTATOES

SMOKED BROWN TROUT WITH WATERCRESS SALAD


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Place the potatoes in a roasting dish with a drizzle of olive oil, the lemon juice, garlic, and salt and pepper. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

While the potatoes are baking, grill both sides of the chops on the barbecue, basting with the remaining marinade, until golden brown and crisp. Transfer the chops to an oven-proof dish and put them into the oven with the potatoes for the last couple of minutes of baking.

Drizzle the pork chops with a little honey and serve with the potatoes.

SMOKED BROWN TROUT WITH WATERCRESS SALADPreparation Time: 20 minutes // Cooking Time: 20 minutes // Serves 2

Smoky, crunchy, fresh and zesty. The pistachios really work with the sweet-ness of the honey in the trout and salad to create a stunning dish.

INGREDIENTS: 200g brown trout fillet, deboned, skin on

1 Tbsp brown sugar

Salt and pepper

2 sprigs of fresh thyme

Zest of 1 lemon

25g butter, cut into small chunks

Olive oil

SALAD:80–100g watercress leaves

½ a green apple, thinly sliced (preferably shaved on a mandoline)

½ a cucumber, shaved (see above)

Zest and juice of ½ a lemon

1 Tbsp manuka honey cider vinegar

2 Tbsp olive oil

½ Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp crushed roasted pistachios

½ Tbsp Cardrona honey or other honey

½ tsp kelp seasoning

TO GARNISH:Zest of ½ a lemon

Sprigs of fresh thyme

Crushed roasted pistachios

Salt and pepper


COOKBOOK DRAW! Like us on Facebook before Sunday

6 December, mention you’re entering the draw, and we’ll put your name

down for one of two FREE cookbooks!(previous winners not eligible)

This beautifully presented

cookbook takes a back-to-

basics approach, with organic

produce and seasonal cooking

at its best. Real. Good. Food.

TAKEN FROM THE GAME CHEF BY ANGELO GEORGALLI, BEATNIK PUBLISHING, RRP $49.99. WWW.BEATNIKSHOP.COM

SELECTED FROM THE GAME CHEF

EQUIPMENT:Aluminium foil

Smoker

1 cup manuka chips

Season the trout with the brown sugar, salt and pepper, thyme, lemon zest and the chunks of butter over the top.

Pierce holes in a sheet of aluminium foil to allow the smoke to flavour the fish. Drizzle a little olive oil onto the foil and transfer the trout onto the sheet.

Cover the surface of the smoker evenly with the mānuka chips and place it over a hot barbecue grill. Place the trout on its sheet of foil in the smoker and smoke for

10–15 minutes. Once the trout is ready, transfer it to a chopping board. Remove the thyme sprigs and peel off the skin. Chop the fillet into 2.5cm slices.

In a bowl combine all the ingredients for the salad and toss well.

Serve the trout on a bed of watercress salad and garnish with lemon zest, thyme, pistachios and salt and pepper.



how to be polite

BEING POLITE IS SIMPLY A combination of saying please, thank you and letting other

people do things before you do them. If at any time you slip up and acciden-tally do something you want to do, or do it before someone else wants to do it, you must make up for this by send-ing a thank-you card immediately.

Passing tasty food items to others before you help yourself is a very good way of showing how polite you are, and also of rapidly losing weight.

Giving up your seat to a woman is frowned upon in these days of sexual equality, so if you really want to be polite to a woman why not give up your job instead?

Holding doors open is also another minefield. Obviously, if it’s a swing door or revolving door, any attempt to hold it open is going to make you look like a complete tool. If you’ve held a door open for one person and the entire population of the UK seems to be following them through, eventually

by Guy Browning

you’ll have to let it go. This will inevitably coincide with the arrival of the pregnant lady vicar on crutches.

The underlying principle of politeness is putting the desires and wishes of others before your own. Where this goes terribly wrong is in the bedroom …

Politeness used to revolve round the placing of doilies under everything. The verbal equivalent of a doily is to preface everything you say with ‘I wonder’ and to include the concept of ‘not minding’ in the sentence. Doing this means it’s almost impossible to be rude. For example, “I wonder if you wouldn’t mind not being such an arse,” sounds positively friendly.

In life-threatening emergencies, polite-ness can be a mixed blessing. When you’re trying to get out of a burning aircraft, holding the door open for others to escape is a good way of finishing yourself off. On the other hand, if you’re on death row, giving your seat up to someone else has the opposite effect.

When two polite people meet, nothing happens, and you’re just left with a pool of antimatter: no doors can be passed, chairs sat in, food eaten or initiatives taken – there is just a quivering of latent energy ready to be turned into thank-you cards.

Really, really polite people may seem to be dull, but they all have a little secret. Once you have the reputation for being polite you can get away with saying things like, “My word, what an interesting story,” to people who could bore a new English Channel tunnel.

© GUY BROWNING IS AUTHOR OF ‘NEVER PUSH WHEN IT SAYS PULL’ AND CREATOR OF ‘TORTOISE IN LOVE’ (DVD) – USED BY PERMISSION.

CARTOONZ


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by Paul Freedman

(courageously coping with cancer)

the hope factor

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A C O N V E R S A T I O N W I T H K A R E N M C M I L L A N


KAREN: Funny isn’t it. I never intended to write about cancer – it’s a pretty heavy subject, as you say. Both my parents died relatively young of cancer. That threw me into contact with my local hospice, and I ended up working there as a volunteer. I saw it as a way of giving something back – because they were so wonderful when I was caring for my mum and dad. (I still act as a hospice volunteer.)

My job was to write articles that promoted the hospice’s work. Usually, I interviewed the terminally ill – or someone who’d just lost a loved one. However, on one occasion they sent me to interview the famous American author, Mitch Albom (he’s best known as the author of Tuesdays with Morrie). He got really interested in my connec-tion with hospice – I was quite young to

Cancer. The ‘Big C’. The dreaded condition that will touch the lives of a third of us. Just today, for example, some 60 Kiwis will hear the words, “You have cancer!” Yet it’s a condition we’re often uneasy talking about, even mentioning.

The ‘elephant in the room’, if ever there was!However, there’s one Kiwi who’s more than willing

to talk about cancer. She’s noted New Zealand author Karen McMillan, herself a survivor of breast cancer, and she believes passionately that cancer is worth discussing. Why? Because by sharing our stories, our insights – even our prayers – we can do a lot to reduce the fear-factor, and improve the lives of those living with cancer, along with their loved-ones. Karen has recently republished her book, Unbreakable Spirit – interviews with people who have (or have had) cancer, plus medical professionals at the cancer coal-face. And the title says it all.“Did you say RE-published?” we hear you ask.That’s right. Karen first wrote the book a decade ago, and it’s been an inspiring steady-seller ever since. But now Karen’s revisited the subject, to see how the original 25 interviewees got on, and she’s added five more. These are poignant stories of ordinary people – at times reaching extraordinary heights of courage and wisdom.We visited Karen recently, and asked what made her author a book on the unmentionable ‘Big C’ …

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be volunteering for this. And I told him a bit about my parents. He turned to me and said (thick American drawl), “Girrrl – you gotta book therrrre!”

So, this famous guy telling me I “had a book there” obviously planted a seed. I thought about it – did a bit of research. I found plenty of medical books on cancer, lots of diet books (which I don’t think are particularly helpful) and some celebrity books. But nothing that helped ordinary people facing cancer or told how others coped – what it’s like, what you should expect, the emotional and spiritual rami-fications. That’s what decided me.

The original book, which I published

not. In fact, cancer rates have gone down.GV: Not everybody you included in the original book was cured or had a happy-ever-after ending, did they?KAREN: That was really important. It’d be very unrealistic to write about people’s battles with cancer and have everyone survive. That’s just not the reality. I tried to be honest and real. So the interviewees are, as much as possible, a random cross-section of society. Between all their different experiences you’ve got as many outcomes, treatments and reactions as possible. I spoke to a lot of people who were terminally ill and those who’d lost loved ones to cancer. That’s the reality

I found plenty of medical books on cancer, lots of diet books, and some celebrity books. But nothing that helped ordinary people facing cancer or told how others coped – what it’s like, what you should expect, the emotional and

spiritual ramifications. That’s what decided me …

12 years ago, was 25 stories. And now – revisited – it’s 30.GRAPEVINE: Cancer used be a topic like death – one we never talk about. Is that changing?KAREN: Definitely. I’ve noticed it even in the years since I first wrote the book. When my dad first had cancer, people really didn’t talk about it. But when Mum was ill it was a bit more open. Today, they’re much more open. Someone with cancer is more likely these days to tell friends that they’re going through a cancer battle. They’ll talk about it in social media, where once they might’ve tried to keep it all quiet.

However, because people are talking about it more now, it’s easy to think there’s more cancer around. But actually there’s

– it’s what happens. Not everyone is as lucky as I was.GV: So who did you select? And what did you want to achieve?KAREN: I was trying to help any family that’s facing cancer. As a reader, I believe knowledge is power. I think if you can read about people’s real, gritty experi-ences, you’ll catch stories that’ll resonate. Readers will hopefully say, “Oh, that strongly reminds me of my family and what we’re going through. I like the way they’re dealing with it. I like the strategies they’re putting in place. I might try that myself.”

And, in fact, when I had my own cancer battle, one of these stories really resonated with me … Ainslie’s. She’d had breast cancer, like me, in her 40s. And,


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again like me, she had a really positive, loving husband supporting her. I liked the way she included her family and friends. I liked the sense of humour she brought to everything – even her strug-gles. I liked her positivity … the way she approached and handled everything. I wanted to handle the same issues the same way, myself.GV: So Ainslie was an inspiration for how you could live with what happened?KAREN: Yes. For me. For other people, it might be somebody else’s story that reso-nates. We’re all very different. And that’s the thing with cancer – it’s not an A, B, C experience – it’s unique. Everyone deals with it their own way.GV: What do you mean by that exactly? Isn’t it simply an illness, and you either

get better after a lot of intervention (some of which is really horrible) – or you die? What makes different people’s experi-ences ‘different’?KAREN: Well, it’s interesting. I had breast cancer – and I was having my chemo-therapy one day with all these other women. Now, we all had breast cancer. But when we compared notes, we discov-ered we’re all different: we’re different ages; we’ve all got different life experi-ences; we’ve all got different diagnoses (even though it’s all ‘breast cancer’); we’re all on different drugs. So, individually, what we’re going through is all completely different.

Beyond the mere words of the diag-nosis, there’s so much more to consider: there’s you and your lifestyle; you and


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your family; you and the particular reactions you have to your therapies; you and your attitude towards cancer.

Some people get really, really knocked by cancer, really down. (Which is perfectly normal.) But others are natu-rally positive. I’m very lucky because I’ve had that natural positivity throughout the journey … although we might be better to call it a ‘forced march’!GV: ‘Forced march’? You make it sound like you’ve joined a Roman Legion!KAREN: (chuckles) Well, it is like a forced march. Once you’re into your treatment cycle, you just have to go with it. A ‘journey’ implies fun – a ‘journey’

KAREN: Yes, I did. You just don’t want a young person to have cancer. For some reason, when an older person goes through cancer it doesn’t seem quite as tragic – even though it is just as difficult!GV: I guess we all feel, “But they’ve got their whole life ahead of them …” And that seems so unfair.KAREN: Yes, that’s true. But these days, with child cancer the prognosis is much, much better. Ninety percent of the time now they can actually cure children. They’re concentrating more on the effects of the drugs and therapy on kids’ long-term health.

But … death still lurks there as a

People are more likely these days to tell friends that they’re battling cancer where once they might’ve tried to keep it all quiet. However, because people are talking more now,

it’s easy to think there’s more cancer around. But, actually, cancer rates have gone down.

is travelling overseas and having a great time. But that’s not what happens with cancer. Even with a good final outcome, like mine, it’s really hard going through it all.

Surgery is brutal. I found chemo-therapy really hard, too. Radiotherapy was okay. And I’m now on hormone therapy. But all these things knock you around. And cancer doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You’ve got your job, your plans, your interests. Often you just have to drop everything for a year or two – or longer. That can be distressing.

That’s what I mean by, “There’s no one, single experience of cancer.” Everyone’s experience is different.GV: Did you find writing the stories of children with cancer harder to tackle?

possibility. Take Jasmine’s story. She didn’t make it – and she was such a vibrant 14-year-old. She had a very rare cancer, and died at 18. It was heart-wrenching to catch up with her mum and dad and find out that, despite the four wonderful years she’d had after I’d interviewed her, this bright, young flame had flickered out. That was really sad.GV: You mention that many people, years ago, including your own dad, shied away from going to the hospice. They saw it just as “a place where people go to die”. I guess as a hospice volunteer you’d have a different view?KAREN: I think my parents’ experiences tell the hospice story really well. Dad was very much in that camp – didn’t want anything whatsoever to do with hospice.


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He only went in the night before he died. (So he did actually go to die.) But because he never went earlier, never hooked in to any of the help available, they just weren’t allowed to help him.

My mother was the complete oppo-site. When she found she was terminally ill she immediately signed up to their programme. She was in real trouble with a huge tumour in her spine and lots of pain. We thought we were going to lose her quite quickly. (Pain’s an illness in itself and can be really debilitating.) But the hospice managed to help her get on top of the pain.

Within a few weeks, radiotherapy had shrunk the tumour, and they’d got her on medication that was controlling the symptoms. She actually had another nine

months of being pretty well. She was at home. We were able to do things together ... gardening, shopping, gentle things. But it was a rich time. So the hospice actually gave her quality-of-life for nine precious months.

You can’t put a price on that.GV: My sister-in-law died recently and that was my first ‘intimate’ experience of a hospice. I was struck with how, well … how nice it felt being in there. Music playing, attractive pictures on the wall, friendly and compassionate staff. No clat-tering trollies and miles of corridors or waiting rooms.KAREN: Yes, you’re right. It’s like being in someone’s home. It’s not like hospital at all. They’re staffed with really caring people who are highly skilled in palliative care. And, of course, their philosophy is different. They’re not trying to ‘fix’ you. They accept that you’re dying. So they try to make life as comfortable and valuable as possible for each day that you’re still around.GV: Lots of people with a terminal illness, when they get to the stage where ‘normal’ medicine can’t do any more for them (in the sense of offering a cure), will seek ‘miracle cures’ that can involve great expense and foreign travel. Did any of the people you interviewed do that? And did it make any difference?KAREN: There’s one woman in the book who went to one of the clinics in Mexico that offered experimental treatments. She didn’t survive. She argued that it gave her a better quality of life in her last days. Now, maybe that’s a placebo effect? Or maybe it’s just the hope factor?

I have great concerns about some of these alternative things at the end of life, where people are offered so-called

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‘miracle cures’. I always think, “Where are the studies that prove their value? Where’s the scientific evidence?”

Mind you, I do believe in miracles! There’s a story in the book where it seems God cured a man diagnosed with terminal cancer. But I’m suspicious of those who charge vulnerable people a lot of money – especially when it takes them away over-seas. I wonder if they’d be better spending that time with friends and family, rather than racing around the world, doing something that’s often uncomfortable, and might make you worse anyway!

But HOPE is really important … and I guess we mustn’t dump on it.GV: So tell me about hope. KAREN: I had a really interesting discus-sion with my surgeon about this. It surprised me, because he’s the guy who cuts out the cancer – who’s factual and down-to-earth. But he told me that, again and again, he sees people who are positive and hope-filled who do better. They get better results than everyone’s expecting … they resist infection better … all their treatments tend to go well.

On the other hand, he sees people who are really depressed and negative – and they often have a worse outcome. They’ll often get secondary infections; the treat-ments don’t go as well. But, as I said to him, that’s really difficult because you’re either naturally positive or you’re not. It’s not something you can press a button and change.

If you can surround yourself with good people – positive people – that’ll help. And prayer, obviously, can help. Mainly, just try and be with people who’re going to build you up.GV: If you’re not naturally positive, if you

have no idea how to get on top of your stress or depression, might counselling help? With your attitude, if not the cancer itself? KAREN: I’m sure there are people who are open to counselling … and that would surely prove helpful. But I believe if you’re open with your good friends and family, they’re going to really help you best of all.

For me, when I was diagnosed with cancer, I felt overwhelmed with all the love and support I got from people I know well. That really helps lift your spirits.GV: What kind of support is available today for those with cancer?KAREN: There’s lots of help out there now. The best first-step is to make sure you’ve got a really good GP, because he or she will hook you into everything that’s


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– makes you feel attractive again – it’s got to be worth doing. So that’s one thing on offer.GV: Anything equivalent for men?KAREN: I don’t really know, because I’m not a man (chuckle)! But there will be lots of stuff out there. Again, it’s a case of having a good talk with your GP. He’ll know what’s available, and he’ll probably make a good guess at what you need and what’ll help you. Remember – everyone’s cancer is different.GV: Are men more likely to deny they need help? You know – the way men are supposedly reluctant to ask for directions when they’re lost?KAREN: It’s that old conundrum, isn’t it … that men are reluctant to go to the doctor in the first place, even for basic

check-ups, and won’t go till their symp-toms can no longer be ignored.GV: Your book is a ‘two-hit’ thing. You talked to your first 25 interviewees a dozen years ago – and now, you bring their stories up-to-date and add five new ones. Did discovering how the original people fared give you any surprises?KAREN: Well, it was really lovely to catch up with people 12 years on. Lots of them are doing really well. Ainsley’s a good case-in-point. I phoned her, and first thing she told me was, “I can’t talk too long – I’m just off to London. I’ve got this high-powered job! The cancer expe-rience is very much behind me now.”

Hope is so important. My surgeon told me that, again and again, he sees people who are positive and

hope-filled who do better. They get better results than everyone’s expecting … they resist infection better …

their treatments tend to go well.

available. The Cancer Society is amazing. They’ve got lots of different programmes – everything from ‘make-up’ days that give you a boost, to …GV: Hang on – what’s a ‘make-up’ day?KAREN: Well, there’s a Look-Good – Feel-Better Foundation. They offer workshop seminars at the Cancer Society. If you’re a woman with cancer, you can go along for a couple of hours, and have skilled people make you up – plus you get a bag of cosmetics at the end. It’s very comforting when you’re feeling pretty grotty; your skin’s awful; your hair’s falling out; you’re not feeling at all feminine. It’s nice to look better

And she’s done some amazing things in the last few years.

Having gone through the same expe-riences myself, I thought, “This is wonderful! Life carries on and can still be terrific. You don’t need to feel limited by the experience of sickness you’ve had.”GV: Several of those you interviewed expressed a belief in God, or an afterlife, or they belong to a supportive Church community … bringing some sort of spiritual dimension into the struggle. Without looking at whether there is a God or whether their spiritual values are valid, those people seemed to do better. Did you think that?KAREN: Definitely. People who have faith in God get so much strength to face the battle. And the counterpoint is that


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people who don’t believe in anything tend to get depressed more easily. Perhaps it’s because they don’t believe there’s some-thing to look forward to after they die. They feel, “If I don’t survive this, I’m stuffed!”GV: So believers are calmer?KAREN: Yes. And certainly, talking to hospice doctors, they’ll tell you that people facing death, if they do have spir-itual values, often have a much better journey. That’s very common. GV: Your emphasis is, understand-ably, on the person with the cancer. But for every cancer-attack there are many others affected, aren’t there … friends, family, care-givers. How do we draw help

There’s huge value in end-of-life living. Every minute is precious. People are often really honest. They totally focus on the things that matter most – usually friends

and family. It’s a chance to make amends; to heal broken relationships if that’s needed; to set things right.

and support for those caring for cancer sufferers?KAREN: Very often the initiative lies with the person who has cancer. It can seem strange, but they have to ‘allow’ those around them to help them. And I think most people today facing a cancer diagnosis are becoming more open to the fact that, “Yes, this is going to be hard. I will need help. Help from immediate friends and family … but maybe acquaintances, too. Maybe I’ll spread the net a bit wider and let those more outlying people help me.”

Usually the heaviest load is with the person closest to the cancer patient. In my case, it was my husband. We really battled my cancer together. He attended all my appointments with me, so he got

sessions and take her through it all later. Is that sort of thing common?KAREN: That’s absolutely normal, yes. You really do need somebody with you at those appointments. You don’t take it all in. You’re often in a state of shock. Sometimes the terminology that’s used is very technical and can be just too much for you. Your brain isn’t functioning properly. To have someone there with you, so that afterwards you can compare notes, is very desirable.

There’s been a study on this that my GP told me about. If the doctor and the patient have the same education level, then studies suggest that the optimal amount of information the patient goes away with is about 30% of what the doctor told them.

all the information I did. It’s vital for your key support-person to do that. And also it’s important that he gets support for himself (or herself) too.

It’s really hard for a spouse (or a mum and dad) to have to watch someone fight cancer. It’s stressful seeing someone you love going through the treatment. So it’s hard on them.GV: When my sister-in-law was going through all this, she had lots of trouble ‘tuning in’ to what all the experts and therapists were telling her ... the diagnosis ... the prognosis ... what treatments she would have ... what pills she needed to take … how many and when. My wife really needed to accompany her to these


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But if you’re NOT on the same educa-tional level – or if you’re really unwell, or English is your second language (or the doctor’s second language) – you might be lucky to take in even 10% of what they tell you.

However, things are changing for the better. Back in the days when my dad had cancer, they really gave you hardly any information. Now, it’s almost too much the other way. There’s all sorts of information, diagrams, pictures, leaflets. So, even if you didn’t take it all in when the doctor first spoke with you, you have lots of stuff to read over and think about later – and to share with loved ones who’re also wanting to know, “What did the doctor say?” GV: Well, you’ve been on this big journey (or forced march!) and you’ve talked to inspirational people – some of them twice. What have you learned?KAREN: I’ve learned that there’s a lot of hope. What medical science is doing now is astonishing. In the papers, on TV and in magazines we’re hearing about amazing new breakthroughs all the time. It’s not going to knock all cancers for six, of course. It’ll still probably be a bit of a ‘forced march’ for lots of cancer patients for a good while yet. But even in the worst-case scenarios, where you’re not going to recover, there’s terrific palliative care and support available now.GV: You believe those extra days, weeks or months are worth having, worth living?KAREN: Definitely. There’s huge value in end-of-life living. People are really honest

WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOUR SAY!GO TO GRAPEVINE’S FACEBOOK PAGE. SHARE YOUR POINT-OF-VIEW AND READ WHAT OTHERS RECKON.

KAREN MCMILLAN’S BOOK, ‘UNBREAKABLE SPIRIT’ IS AVAILABLE FROM ALL GOOD BOOKSELLERS. CHECK OUT HER WEBSITE: WWW.KARENM.CO.NZ

at this stage of life. They totally focus on the things that matter most to them (usually friends and family.) Or there might be some big thing they want to do – like writing their life story for their family, or finishing off some creative project.

And sometimes, it’s quite a lot of extra life – in my mum’s case it was an extra nine months. That’s a long time, espe-cially when every minute is precious.

And it’s a chance for people to make amends; to heal broken relationships if that’s needed; to set things right.

When my mum was dying it was a bittersweet time. But now, all these years later, I mainly only remember the sweetness … the terrific conversations we had ... and the strength that I got (which really surprised me). It can

be an extraordinary time. Most people are understandably really

worried about cancer – because poten-tially it’s a killer, and we all know that. And, even if it doesn’t kill you, the treatments can really knock you around. But what I’ve learned most from this ‘journey’ is that lots of people can be cured. And the number who do go on to live happy, normal and fulfilling lives is rising all the time.

That, for me, is the hope factor.


THE MAGIC BANK ACCOUNT

IMAGINE YOU’VE JUST WON first prize in a fabulous contest. Imagine that, each morning from

now on, the sum of $86,400 will be deposited in a bank account for your personal use. Imagine how excited you would be!

But wait: this prize has rules …1. The money you receive each day must

be spent during that day.2. Every dollar you fail to spend by the

end of that day will be taken away.3. You can’t simply transfer money into

another account – you can only spend it.4. Each morning, before you wake up,

another $86,400 will have appeared in your account.

5. This arrangement can end at any time – “Game Over!” – without warning.

Your bank account will be closed, and you won’t receive a new one. Try to imagine. What would you do?You could buy anything and everything

you wanted – right? Not only for your-self, but for all the people you love and care for. Even for people you don’t know. Because you couldn’t possibly spend it all on yourself. True?

You’d have to try, somehow, to spend every dollar every day … to use it all up … because anything left unspent would be lost … with the full amount to be replenished in the morning.ACTUALLY (BRACE YOURSELF): THIS GAME IS REAL …

You’re shocked – yes? But it’s true!Each of us has already won this PRIZE.

We just can’t seem to see it.

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The prize is TIME:1. Each morning we wake to receive

86,400 seconds as a gift of life – ours to spend as we choose.

2. When that day comes to an end, any remaining time can’t be stored-up as a credit – what we’ve failed to use is lost – yesterday is gone forever.

3. Each morning, amazingly, we get a fresh gift – another 86,400 seconds!

4. But our account can be closed at any time … and without warning.

So, what are you doing with your 86,400 seconds?

They’re worth so much more than money in the bank. And they need to be enjoyed … because time races by quicker than you think.

Take care! Be happy! Love deeply! Live fully!

ON STAGE:Life’s not a rehearsal. Do it right the first time.

DEAFENING!Let’sstopSH·SH·SH·INGeachother. We’re meant to be living OUT LOUD!

THE BIG PICTUREI never feel as truly freeas when I’m looking down on the earthfrom the window seat of a plane.The way it affects meis nothing short of magical.One moment I’m a hurried pedestrian,caught up in the hurricane whirlof last-minute details.Anxious. Distracted.Then the transformation beginsI step aboard the gleaming aircraftand sink into my seatby the oblong window.We taxi into position andawait the tower’s okay.Then, slowly at first,the landscape begins to blurand I am tugged back into the cushionsas we hurtle down the runway.Engines complainingin a supersonic whine,we arrow into the sky with a bumpand a roar.As the earth drops away, people,

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ORIGINAL:Be your wild, courageous,

brilliant self every single day. No matter what.


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houses and cars shrink.Cities dwindleand the land spreads out,laced with shimmering riversand the brown patchwork of farmland.Velvet green forests blanket the hillsand scattered lakes mirror the sky.Blue-grey haze gathers on the horizonand we climb higherand still higher.Whisps of cloud play over the wings,momentarily whiting out my view.But soon we’re above the cloudsand my transformation is complete.All the things that were so pressingonly minutes beforeare now insignificant.My concerns, like the world below,have shrunk away. They are mere specks onthe distant horizonbehind me.I am airborne …Free …

STEVE LAWHEAD

IN THE RING Taking the bull by the horns is often a sound course of action … so long as you and the bull

agree on when to let go!

NOTE TO SELF:None of us are getting out of here alive, so stop treating yourself like an after-thought.

Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in

your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else!

NANEA HOFFMAN – ‘SWEATPANTS & COFFEE’

BOOTS & ALL!I began to realise how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you’re inter-ested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed. Embrace it with both arms. Hug it. Love it. And, above all, become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good.

ROALD DAHL

STOP! SIT! STAY!The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.


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TWINKLE-TWINKLE If there was never any

darkness we would never see the stars.

GOLDEN YEARSStop complaining about

growing old. Some people don’t get that privilege.

AFRAID TO LOVE?One of the greatest Christian writers of last century was C S Lewis – your kids or grandkids have probably watched his ‘Lion, Witch & Wardrobe’ story on TV.

When Lewis was nine years old, his mum died. He was devastated, and he determined he would never risk getting hurt like that again. He became a brilliant writer and thinker, but lived a careful life – until the strangest thing happened: in his late 50s he fell in love with this woman – and, overcome by the wonder of it all, he got married.

What neither of them knew, however, was that she had terminal cancer. And all-too-soon, after a brief period of remis-sion, she died.

In the middle of his personal tragedy, this brilliant, careful man wrote these words: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will possibly be broken. If you want to keep it intact,

you must give your heart to no-one. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the coffin of your selfishness. But in the coffin, safe, dark, airless, it will change. Your heart will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

Have you been hurt? Are you scared of being hurt again? That’s understand-able. But don’t close off your heart … don’t refuse to love … don’t be afraid to dream … and don’t run away from risk and friendship and intimacy. That’s the way of death, it truly is.

The time must come when you choose LIFE again … when you open up your heart … when you get back in the game.

GRAPEVINE

FOCUS The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

GALILEO GALILEI


spot the difference

Fun Runby Tim Tripp

TRY TO SPOT THESE 20 DIFFERENCES ... Find Grapevine on Facebook to see if you got them all!

TAKE

Tim WilsonJulia Bloore chats with TV presenter,

radio host, author, husband and doting dad …


Tim WilsonJulia Bloore chats with TV presenter,

radio host, author, husband and doting dad …

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1You turn 50 this year... five highlights of life so far?TIM: 1) The lunches I used to

have with my grandmothers when I was at university. Sunday lunch, without fail: one week at Nana’s – the next at Gran’s.

2) My first novel, Their Faces Were Shining, being published at 45.

3) That first Vigil mass in August 2010, St Cecilia’s Spanish Harlem, and the beginning of our Lord’s gentle work on my heart.

4) Hearing the love of my life, Rachel, say “I do” at St Mary’s-St Joseph’s, Nelson, March 15 2014.

5) Discovering that our not-medi-cally-confirmed-but-strongly-suspected daughter was a son. Maybe he’ll be a slow developer like his dad.

2I read that you used to pride yourself on being a cynic. What do you mean by ‘used

to’? Is the cynicism still there?TIM: It’s still there, but less so. God’s grace on a daily basis persuades me not to assume the motives of others are purely selfish. It’s like I’ve been shown a different world: one in which fallibility, history,

personal weaknesses, prayer and grace dance. I read a great quote recently, by Opus Dei founder St Josemaría Escrivá, “The Christian vocation consists of making heroic poetry out of the prose of the everyday.” Cynicism hates poetry.

3Are your parents proud of the man you became? TIM: My parents were always

proud of me, I think, but they worried about me. There’s less worry now that I’m married and no longer their responsi-bility … and more in common, given that we can now say, “I’ll pray for you.”

Tim Wilson. How do we know him? Well … where do we start? He was the US correspondent for ONE News for 10 years, and is now back home in New Zealand, producing stories for both Breakfast and Seven Sharp. You may also have heard his voice on a Friday or Sunday evening as he co-hosts The Two with Tim Roxborogh on Newstalk ZB. Oh and he’s also authored books … novels and short story collections. Aside from all of this, his personal life has taken some interesting turns in the last few years – he converted to Catholicism, met his wife, and became a father. So Grapevine thought he’d be a pretty interesting guy to chat to!

Tim and Rachel


4What does a typical day look like for you?TIM: Every day is different, but

similar. I’m looking for patterns in news, current events, and (sometimes) sport. The patterns suggest the gags, sometimes. Alternately, I’m walking up to total strangers and asking them to take me home.

5Tell us about your most embarrassing moment...TIM: There are too many to recall.

I have a poorly developed sense of shame, so … oh, probably that time I pretended to streak on camera while wearing Rachel’s leather shorts. Or the time I ran into a door. Or that time … oh, forget it.

6You’re a new dad ... what are some of your own traits that you’d like to avoid

passing on to your son?TIM: A few things … vanity, self-interest, suspicion and over-valuation of intelligence.

7Tell us about the traits you carry that you’d be proud to pass on.

TIM: Curiosity, empathy, a sense of humour … but mostly faith.

8Looking back on the 25-year-old version of Tim, what kind of advice would

you like to give him?TIM: Get your butt to Mass! Start praying! Read more. Stop smoking. Get a haircut. Stand up straight! Drink less. Enough of the dak, you’ll get bored with it. Can you please buy some new clothes? Also, those thoughts you think you’re thinking: they’re feelings!

You know, stuff which would probably enrage 25-year-old me.

9Where in the world would you most like to travel to and why?

TIM: I’d love to take Rachel, Roman, and our child-in-waiting, Truffle, back to St Cecilia’s. But New York and kids don’t mix … at least not right now.

If there was to be a movie made about your life (it could happen)

who would you like to play you? Who would play Rachel? TIM: I have no idea for me, and can’t imagine anyone but Rachel playing Rachel … but the movie would definitely be a rom-com.

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YOU FORGOT THE EYEBROWS!

L ATE ONE NIGHT, A FEW years ago, I was sitting in my lounge making notes for an

upcoming interview. I was getting plenty of work done, when the peace and quiet was suddenly interrupted. My four-year-old son had wandered in for a visit.

Feeling like a cuddle, I thought I’d let him hang out for a bit. But there were rules: he had to sit quietly and he had to sit still. Two difficult things for four-year-olds!

He managed to do what I asked – at least for a few seconds. But it didn’t take long for the talking to start. In fact, it was almost like someone had pressed a hidden ‘play’ button on him – he began chatting non-stop and wriggling around like he had worms (which my wife assures me was not the case …)

Finally, I settled him down by offering to draw a smiley face on his hand. Not just any face mind you, but a face that enjoyed peace and quiet …

Anyway, he got the message, and sat with me quietly while I carried on working … and all was well … until he started farting. To be honest, I had no idea such a cute kid could make such a big stink! He, of course, thought it was a great joke – but it was nearly midnight, and time to put old stinky-pants back to bed.

The peace and quiet didn’t last, though. Because moments later he returned, telling me I’d forgotten something.

I presumed that, after all the farty noises, he now needed to go to the toilet. But no, I was wrong. As it turned out, I’d forgotten to draw eyebrows on the smiley face …


parisa moveable feast

Somebody (probably a Frenchman) once called Paris “le deuxième pays de tout le monde” – everybody’s second country. And somebody else (Ernest Hemmingway) once wrote: “If you’re lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” We didn’t need a second country, but we were in the mood for a moveable feast. And, seeing our French adventure had to start somewhere, we thought: why not start here?

T HE RAIN IN SPAIN FALLS mainly on the plain. Or so they say. But the rain in France (take

it from me) falls mainly in Paris. At least it did the afternoon we arrived. Europe’s glorious City of Lights was downright dripping wet. But somehow it didn’t mat-ter. The fashion capital of the world was still able to work its magic on us, with its wide boulevards and big-name boutiques … its crowded cafés and spectacular land-marks … its passion for eating, drinking and dressing well …

The first thing we saw from our hotel was the glittering Eiffel Tower, illumi-nated on the skyline like a golden chande-lier. And as soon as we’d bounced on the bed and freshened up, it was back down the road for a closer look.

Paris-by-night is truly something else.

In yet a third direction, we spotted the Arc de Triomphe. This monumental archway built to celebrate the victories of Napoleon’s Grand Armée can be reached by sprinting across the busiest rounda-bout in France. “But death is certain!” promised an onlooker – so we chickened out, took the underground passage, and lived a little longer.

By day, Paris seems even more overrun by maniac drivers and hurtling cars. But you don’t go

half way round the world to hide inside. So, armed with a just-in-case umbrella plus the few French phrases I could remember from school, my lady and I took to the streets.

The Eiffel Tower (it didn’t seem quite so gorgeous in morning light – more like a giant grey Meccano thingy) was erected

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We wandered the Place de La Concorde – a city square to beat all city squares. The Louvre, once the home of French kings and now the finest art museum anywhere, glowed darkly in one direction (boasting 30,000 works, if you’ve got all year … or just the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo if you’ve only got five minutes). And way off in another direction, we watched the trendy set (and cuddled-up couples) strolling along the Champs-Elysees, Paris’s legendary oh-so-romantic promenade.

over 100 years ago for no particular reason by Gustave Eiffel (which is prob-ably how it got its name). I wanted to take the lift to the first-floor landing, with its promise of city-views and souvenir shops. But my wife was starving. And, in a restaurant called La Cremaillere, our lunch was getting cold. (We would ‘do’ the Eiffel later …)

Montmartre, highest of Paris’s seven hills, (you can count ‘em if you’ve got nothing better to do) is the home of the quaint Place de Tetre where the city’s


The Louvre

Notre Dame

Arc de Triomphe

WOULD YOU LIKE TO EXPLORE PARIS (& ELSEWHERE IN FRANCE) YOURSELF? YOU’RE INVITED TO JOIN JOHN & ROBYN COONEY ON THEIR SEPT 2016 TOUR. PHONE 0800 277 477 FOR DETAILS – OR VISIT WWW.JOHNCOONEY.CO.NZ.

pavement artists do their best to charm tourists out of a few Euros. Once we’d eaten ourselves silly, we mingled with the carefree crowd, pretending to know what the locals were talking about, and pretending to know a lot more about art than we really did.

Then we wandered up the steps of the famous white-domed, bell-towered Sacre-Coeur Basilica. The first martyrs of Paris met their deaths here, but we settled for something less breath-taking (although only slightly less): a fabulous panoramic view of the city.

Paris straddles the River Seine. And Notre Dame Cathedral, on the banks of the Seine, was first

on our agenda following breakfast next morning. If you’re into cathedrals, this is rated one of the world’s best – and if you’re looking for flying buttresses, Notre Dame has lots. Quasimodo, the ugly ‘Hunch-back of Notre Dame’, met Esmeralda, the beautiful dancing gypsy, right here on this spot.

Cheeky gargoyles (immortalised in Victor Hugo’s novel) pulled faces at us from high up on the looming stone archi-tecture, and an equally cheeky Frenchman tried to sell us cheap postcards.

We spent some small change in Gallery Lafayette (Paris’s answer to Harrods). But failed to spend some at a coin-operated street-side toilet – where, no matter how carefully I tried translating the instruc-tions and pushing the right buttons, I couldn’t get the stupid door to open.

Desperate now, we snuck back into Lafayette. And, after venturing by mistake into the ladies’ loo (slow learner: failed School C French), I managed to find what I was looking for.

Phew!



IT’S WIDELY KNOWN THAT the first two or three years of a baby’s life are critically impor-

tant. These are the years, ideally, when babies get the chance to learn about life and love and faith and trust. But what’s actually happening inside a growing baby’s head? We talked with noted brain development expert and Kiwi paediatrician, Dr Simon Rowley …Grapevine: How does a baby know what dancing’s all about? “This is music!” “This is rhythm!” Where do concepts like that come from?Simon: Fascinating, isn’t it? Music’s

one of those things (as parents discover) that come in a window of learning opportunity. If adults try and learn a musical instrument they’ll find it much harder than young chil-dren who’ve been brought up in a musical environ-ment. It’s like learning a language. Learning these musical ideas is the same as learning to talk.

This isn’t just a ‘gene’ thing – it’s also nurture. It’s very much influenced by baby being exposed to music from Day Zero – from ‘Day Minus’ actu-ally, because a child in the womb can clearly hear music, and picks up on

things like beat.So, if you come from a family where

there’s lots of music, and everyone’s listening to it, playing it and dancing to it, then from the moment of birth you’re already being programmed to respond.

If you look at the brain-scans of professional musicians, you find that they have areas of their brain that are much more heavily developed than the same area in somebody who’s not a musician. In particular, the cere-bellum and other parts of the brain involved in co-ordination – in this case

your developing child:

BRAINY!

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WANT TO READ MORE?VISIT WWW.GRAPEVINE.ORG.NZ … GO TO ‘LIBRARY’ (BROWSE BY YEAR) … CHOOSE YEAR 2010, ISSUE 1 … & FIND ‘BRAINY!’

co-ordination of movement for, say, a violinist, who must get the fingers on the fret in just the right place.

But the same parts of the brain also control the co-ordination of thought! And studies have been done on this …

If a child learns a musical instru-ment for a year, not only do her musical skills improve (both her listening skills and her playing of the thing) – but so, too, do her maths skills and reading skills at the same time.


Do you know that awesome feeling when you get into bed, fall straight to asleep, stay asleep all night, and wake up feeling refreshing and ready to take on the day? Yeah, me neither!

SMILE … #1

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seriously now:SHOPPING TRIP

T HIS MAN GOES INTO A supermarket with his son. They’ve got the list, and they

get the cart. Then the father whispers to the child, “You know, if we really mess this up, we’ll never have to do it again.”

GV: So these things are all inter-related?Simon: Right. Learning a musical instrument is very good for brain development, and I’d recommend that every child should be given that chance.

As one slowly deteriorates, it’s very comforting to have a friend who is falling apart at the same speed.

SMILE … #2


WANT TO READ MORE?VISIT WWW.GRAPEVINE.ORG.NZ … GO TO ‘LIBRARY’ (BROWSE BY YEAR) … CHOOSE YEAR 2011, ISSUE 3 … & FIND ‘FEUDING FAMILIES’

family feuds:DAD & THE GOLD-DIGGER!

FEUDING FAMILIES! CHANCES are, you know one or two! Chances are, your family is one!

Sometimes it’s just a minor niggle, an irritant. But other times it’s a full-on toxic disaster, splitting families right down the middle.

We asked family-therapist Diane Levy to comment on several common feuds. Like this one …

Scenario: Geoff and his sister are horrified that their widowed father, Harry, is seeing a woman they believe is nothing but a gold-digger. Harry really loves his new lady and wishes his kids could see that she’s not waiting to grab his savings. But he’s getting nowhere. Relationships have soured and he now sees little of his grown-up children …Diane: This is always difficult. Firstly, the children believe they must be loyal to their deceased parent. It’s like, “I’ll be her spokesman on earth!” And then there are the stereotypes, that paint the father as well-meaning but a bit naïve … and the stepmother as a wicked, conniving manipulator.

GV: “Mirror, Mirror on the wall …” and all that?Diane: Exactly! There’s something about the loss of a mother that is very hard for her children to get over. And it’s going to be awfully hard for any woman who steps into her shoes … or (God forbid!) sleeps in her bed!GV: So how do we deal with that?Diane: Well, the children have already let Dad know their fears. And, if they’re seriously concerned, they now need to present the evidence: “Here’s why we think she’s after your money!”

This requires the children to be very grown up. And Dad needs to be grown up, too. He needs to say, “Okay – I’ve heard you. I’ll take your worries onboard.”

Having done that, the children should avoid screaming or accusing. If the new woman really is gold-digging, there’s a good chance Dad will begin to see it – once their worries have been pointed out.

If, on the other hand, Dad is right, and his new lady-love is a kind and caring person, then his kids will hope-fully see that for themselves over time – and Dad will be reassured that they did what they did out of loyalty and love for him.

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WANT TO READ MORE?VISIT WWW.GRAPEVINE.ORG.NZ … GO TO ‘LIBRARY’ (BROWSE BY YEAR) … CHOOSE YEAR 2010, ISSUE 2 … & FIND ‘SCARED OF DYING?’

tuesdays with morrie:SCARED OF DYING?

‘T UESDAYS WITH MORRIE’ is an inspiring, much-loved memoir. It tells of a dying

professor who faces his mortality with great courage and wisdom – and his former pupil, a young journalist whose life has drifted off-the-rails. We asked author, Mitch Albom, about the impact Morrie had on his life:Mitch: Morrie taught me to pretend there’s a little bird on my shoulder. And every morning you ask the bird one question, “Is today the day I die?”

Of course, most mornings the bird’s going to say, “No, not today.” But what happens when one morning the bird replies, “Yes, today’s the day!”? How will you feel? If you’ve been leading the life you intended to lead, you might say, “Well, that’s sad news, because I don’t want to leave. But I guess I’m ready …”

Most of us know, deep down inside, that we’re not prepared – “No, wait! Give me another week!” Which is why we avoid talking about death. We just don’t want to hear the bird say, “Today’s the day!”Grapevine: That sounds a bit morbid – inviting that bird onto your shoulder. Wouldn’t it make you preoccupied with death? Mitch: I don’t think so. The truth is, the more you think about death, the less morbid it becomes. Something Morrie told me struck very deep: “You learn how to die first … then you learn how to live.”

No, you’re not to be fixated on it. But if you lead your life believing things will go on forever, then suddenly get hit with a crippling disease, and all you can say is, “I didn’t do this …” “I should’ve done that …” “If only I’d done the other …” – well, you tell me which is the more morbid?

That’s terribly depressing. I never want to have to utter those sentences about my life. And one way to avoid that is by recognising: our time is finite! Even the luckiest, healthiest guy on earth gets only 100 years – which isn’t that long! So what are you going to do with the years you’ve got?

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GRAPEPUZZLE SOLUTIONS (See puzzles on Page 23)


WORDSEARCH – SUMMER SPORTS (SOLUTION PAGE 66)


SOLUTION


WORD SEARCH – SUMMER SPORTS SOLUTION

7 3 9 1 8 6 9 6 3 5 3 1 2 9 6 2 3 5 3 8 5 1 7 8 4 3 4 7 9 5

4 7 3 6 9 2 8 1 5 8 2 5 1 4 7 3 6 9 1 6 9 8 3 5 4 7 2 3 5 8 7 6 1 2 9 4 6 9 2 3 8 4 7 5 1 7 1 4 5 2 9 6 3 8 9 3 6 2 5 8 1 4 7 5 8 1 4 7 3 9 2 6 2 4 7 9 1 6 5 8 3


SUDOKU – MEDIUM (SOLUTION PAGE 66)

SUDOKU MEDIUM

AN OLDER COUPLE WERE celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in a quiet, romantic

little restaurant when, suddenly, a tiny fairy appeared on their table. She said, “For being such an exemplary couple and loving each other through all these years, I will grant you each a wish.”

The wife answered, “Oh, I want to travel around the world with my darling husband!”

The fairy waved her magic wand and – poof! – two cruise-tickets for the Queen Mary II appeared in her hands.

The husband thought for a moment: “Well, I don’t want to spoil the evening, but an opportunity like this will never come again. I’m sorry my love, but my wish is to have a wife 30 years younger than me.”

The wife, and the fairy, were deeply disappointed, but a wish is a wish!

So the fairy waved her magic wand, and – poof! – the husband became 94 years old.

seriously now:WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR …

Pho

to: D

reamstim

e.com

Never ask Google for medical advice. I’ve just gone from mild headache to clinically dead in three clicks!

SMILE … #3

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Back Chat

JOHN (GRAPEVINE’S FOUNDER) ACKNOWLEDGES THE COUNTLESS OTHER WRITERS WHO HAVE TAKEN SIMILAR NOSTALGIA TRIPS AND TRIGGERED LONG-FORGOTTEN MEMORIES IN THE REST OF US.

BY JOHN COONEY

WE SEEM, THESE DAYS, TO have an over-supply of rule-makers, risk-avoiders,

party-poopers and wet-blankets. No, there’s nothing wrong with ‘sensible precautions’ – but some of these safety-freaks don’t know where to stop. If even HALF of what they say is true, those of us who were kids back in the 50s and 60s are extremely lucky to be alive …

I mean, as children we played in dirt, drank water from taps, swam in unfenced pools, had a bath once a week, let dogs lick our faces – and stayed healthy. We cycled four-abreast to school, never thought of wearing helmets, doubled each other down steep hills – and were hardly ever run-over.

Instead of watching other people take risks on TV, we went and took risks of our own – with friends who were waiting for us outside. We shared each other’s gob-stoppers, slurped each other’s ice-creams, sucked from each other’s fizz-bottles, swapped spit and germs – and none of us actually died.

We built huts in the long grass, made shanghais out of old rubber tubes, played marbles on busy roadsides, and burnt holes in paper with a magnifying glass. We skinned our knees, fell out of trees, broke bones and got cuts – and, because it was usually our fault, we learned not to do it again.

And if we didn’t come home till dark, nobody seemed to mind that much.

We gave each other Chinese burns, shot each other with home-made arrows, threw fire-crackers at each other on Guy Fawkes night, and played king-o-seeny till we could run no more. And when we went home bruised, burnt or in tears, our mothers just said: “Serves you right!”

And if we got growled at by the neighbours, told-off by the cops, strapped or caned or kept-in-after-school – our fathers just said: “Good job!”

We imagined stuff. We tried things. We took risks. We made mistakes. And when our schemes came unstuck (as they frequently did) we were expected to sort it out (as best we could).

We had a childhood, a good one, and it seemed to last forever. Let’s hope today’s kids will be able to say the same …

Lucky to be alive!

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Documents

Grapevine Issue 4, 2015