As I wrote previously, I am not a big fan of this time of year. That is not to say that I do not have good memories. In fact, I have plenty, really the only reason I do not give up on the holidays completely, the hopes that someday, I can find a way to embrace them as I did long ago.
Many years ago, I recall making a comment, that my maternal grandmother, was the “glue” that kept us all gathering together on the holidays. That when she was gone, so too would be the traditions of Christmas Eve service, presents the next morning, and the best Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas feast featuring homemade stuffing (we did not call it dressing). My grandmother’s final Christmas with us, we had two tables completely filled. At the time, we were unware that would be her final Christmas.
1997 was her last Christmas, and as anticipated, the last time all of us had gathered together completely. There would be miniature gatherings throughout the two days of Christmas in the years that followed, but none as we had done in the past. Today, those Christmas’s are just a memory.
Any hopes I may have had of turning my attitude around about the season, came with the arrivals of my daughters. There had been both renewed traditions and new ones created, all to the glee of my daughters. As in my past, health issues and at least one tragedy would once again have a permanent impact on my anticipation of future holiday seasons. But of the years that were free of the difficulties, there are so many memories.
Unfortunately, divorce would have a major impact on the Christmas holidays between my daughters and I. I would not necessarily call it a bad impact, just different. With sharing time between their mother and I, I volunteered to let them spend the actual holiday with their mother, while I would see them the day after. This arrangement allowed me to separate the negative that I carry with me about the holidays, by not actually celebrating on the actual date, while recognizing the special time that I get to spend with my daughters each holiday. Over the last nine years, we have all of those memories.
So there is a new chapter of holiday seasons coming next year. With both daughters attending college, one has a unique schedule, which means that the Christmas holiday may just be the only time I get to see them both at the same time while they are in college. But we will continue to make memories.
I do not necessarily believe in horoscopes, but the one pictured above was sent to me. I read it in amusement, I cannot say that I anticipate anything new to happen with me or my friends, but January will begin a year of change. One that will finally bring me relief of stress, struggle, and conflict. I will hope, it is a lot to ask, to have a second consecutive year without a health challenge. This past year was wonderful not to be under a knife or poked. I cannot remember the last time that consecutive years of decent health happened.
Finally, as we enter this season, my heart is with all my friends and family, who are celebrating Christmas, some their first, without a particular loved one, whether it be a spouse, sibling, or tragically, a child. No matter who is missing from the celebration, the pains may be different, but they are still real for the person impacted. I know that I still grieve for both my grandmother and my father, which I guess is a way of still keeping them in my heart this time of year.
I am not sure if I will get another post off before the end of the year. As I mentioned, I have some fun planned for my daughters when they come to visit after the holiday. So, in case I do not get to write anymore this year, I wish you all a happy holiday (there are too many for me to list each one, the only reason I don’t – don’t read into it with political correctness), and I hope your New Year is healthy and prosperous.
Every December, I am faced with the same situation as my birthday falls this month, renewing any or all of my driving information. My license is good for a number of years, as is my handicap placard, but my registration gets renewed every year, even though I have the option of multiple years. I choose not to do multiple years, because if something were to happen to my car, and I would need another, that would be a second registration I would have to pay. This scenario played out a few years ago, when my car was T-boned. The DMV, Department of Motor Vehicles does not give you a pro-rated refund for the time you no longer have the car, nor do they give you credit for the time left towards a replacement car.
There are very few places that you will wait longer in a line for service than the DMV; lines for rides at Disney, the post office in Naples during Christmas season, and a customer service line for any airline following the cancellation of a flight. But with a fully charged cell phone, I felt I could keep myself entertained for a potentially long afternoon, waiting to renew all three of my driving needs. Before I dove into my phone, I just looked at all of my paperwork to make sure everything was in order. For some reason, I immediately honed in on the “expiration dates”, or how long each would stay valid. This is when my mind started to take me down a path I try not to think about. Will I still be around when these things need to be renewed again?
As a long term survivor of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, dealing with a plethora or multitude of late developing side effects, I live my life holding a “Pandora’s Box” underneath a “Sword Of Damocles.” I know most if not all of the health issues my body deals with in regard to the late side effects from my treatments. The only thing I do not know, is when each will become a problem to be dealt with immediately. One problem gets dealt with, another problem needs attention. And really, as bad as all this is, as long as I have skilled doctors who listen to their patient, me, and the knowledge I have about what I have gone through, I have managed to get through everything.
But there is a darker side to my survivorship, and shared by many other survivors, a stronger recognition of our mortality. Because long term survivorship is still a relatively unknown field in medicine, though medicine is beginning to catch up, unfortunately, not fast enough for us. With the internet and social media, fellow long term survivors can share their experiences with others, allowing us, in a way, to teach or train doctors how to handle patients with our needs by learning from survivors. In the circles I associate with, there are well over a thousand members on one of our social media groups alone, located all over the world.
Many of us survivors develop close bonds to others, even meeting other survivors in person. I can tell you there is no other feeling, that seeing someone in person, who is experiencing similar to what you are going through and the understanding that is shared and felt.
I mentioned mortality earlier. Most of the other survivors I know, we all know, that regardless how long we have survived our Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, while a great number of survivors may be fortunate to never have to deal with any late developing side effects from their treatments like I have, there are many who have. And then there are those who are completely unaware as to the mysterious things that are happening, unable to put two and two together, to connect the dots between declining health and late side effects. Because they just do not know, and were never told it could happen.
In any case, if we are lucky, we have a doctor that has knowledge and understanding of our unusual health history. We are even luckier if the health issue de jour that we are dealing with, can be dealt with and healed. And then there are times, that our luck turns south, and the prognosis is not good for a recovery. And then, there is the everyday dangers that even healthy people face if we overcome our health issues, crossing the street, driving a car, slipping in the bathtub, also known as a sudden accident. The dangers for us long term survivors is that our bodies have been through so much trauma, we are already at a disadvantage for a doctor trying to save our lives, with our deteriorated body conditions. The most glaring of the facts of our mortality, while the survival number of years is in the decades, that does not mean well into our years of life. In fact, as one fellow survivor once wrote, many do not reach past the age of 60. Combine that with the longevity of my paternal side of the family with an average age of 55 years old, and I am more than aware of the odds against me.
I have laid the groundwork. I am at the DMV. I am aware of my unique mortality. I am approaching another year older, another year older as a cancer survivor. While I wait for my number to be called, for the DMV that is, not the mortality, my mind begins to wander. I can visualize someone, looks like my late father. Acknowledging a conversation that we had with each other when he was alive, he reminded me in this thought, that I was a survivor, there is no such thing as giving up.
My father was absent most of my childhood, yet he was able to remind me just how “good” my life turned out to be. No, it was not a “Norman Rockwell painting,” but I did okay with what I had and who was not in my life.
And then we began talking about my early adult years, in particular, the years that I fought Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. We talked about my later years, with all the health struggles I had faced, but he would remind me, all the lives I had touched, including his as he faced his own battle with lung cancer. The fact was he reminded me, I had done so much in my life, not just for me, but for so many others.
And then the image faded away. In fact, not just my dad, but all the things we had talked about, were all gone. While I did not have a “grim reaper” in this moment of wandering, it was clear where my mind was. I am between two age medians, my paternal average of 55 years of age, and the seeming equivalent to climbing K2, reaching age 60 as a cancer survivor of over thirty years.
Tomorrow is my birthday, turning 57 years old. The awareness of my mortality is both a blessing and a course. So far, having the doctors that know how to deal with the issues from my late side effects, has kept me alive. Constant surveillance keeps my health from getting to the life and death moment as happened in 2008. As they say, what is happening to me cannot be reversed, but it can be slowed down, and managed (to a degree).
But I have a knowledge of so many other survivors who have passed, and while many have passed as a direct link to their late effects, there are also others who passed away due to an otherwise common event.
Finally, there will come a time, that all the things that doctors have done to save my life over the decades, will need to be done again. My history and treatment of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, made every one of these original surgeries high risk for complications and death. Having to do any of them again, the risk is even greater of a complication.
No, I do not need that ghost of future standing in front of me. And if I had the chance, I would give him the push into the grave, because in my heart, I am far from ready to have this thing called life, end. One time unthinkable when this all began, getting to watch my daughters grow, I have seen them come to the end of high school, and begin college. And there are more milestones that I want to see that involve them. And at this point, the way I feel physically, I believe I will get to see those days.
But then there is a point when I say, no more birthdays, the I will not get older. No more new years so that I will not pass another year of survivorship. Just let me ride this thing out to watch my daughters do what I have dreamt their whole lives to do.
It is important that anyone reading this understands, I do not go through my life, worried or thinking I am going to die every day. Far from it. Each morning, I wake with the intention of seeing another day. I have so much I want to do. It is the reality of the knowledge I have, that just reminds me, I am not the one in control. To quote the lyrics from the Bon Jovi song “Live Before You Die,”
“I made mistakes I caught some breaks. But I got not regrets. There’s some things I don’t remember, but one thing I don’t forget. When you’re young you always think the sun is going to shine. One day you’re going to have to say hello to goodbye. Shout it out let someone somewhere know that you’re alive. Take these words wear them well, live before you die. You learn to love to live. You fight and you forgive. You face the darkest night. Just live before you die.”
I can no longer use risk exposure to Covid19 as a reason for avoiding super spreader concerts. Unless the concert is broadcast on a premium channel or streamed, there is no way I would be able to afford in person any more. It should not have taken Taylor Swift to become the poster child for a ticket sales monopoly and legalized scalping to bring this problem to light.
Growing up in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, we basically had two local venues to see concerts before making the farther drive to Philadelphia. We had the Allentown Fairgrounds and Lehigh University’s Stabler Arena. Both provided great seats and a great concert (depending on who the band was). The poster pictured above, was a few years before I started going to concerts. Needless to say, I am sure this was a great concert. Two things stand out on this poster. The first, there are two prices for tickets, $6.50 if you bought them in advance, $7.50 if you bought them at the gate, or as the poster warns, “if available.”
The second, “Ticketron, in a font demonstrative of computer language, was the ticketing agency for this concert. Ticketron was a computerized ticket purchasing company started in 1960 until 1990, when it was taken over by… wait for it, Ticketmaster. However, you did not have to buy the tickets through Ticketron. There were several ticket windows outside of the Fairgrounds that you could walk up to, and slap a $10 bill on the counter for a ticket, and avoid all the other fees.
A few years later, I would purchase my first concert tickets. I saw Def Leppard at the Allentown Fairgrounds, and Chicago at Stabler Arena. Being a teenager, I did not have a credit card, so using Ticketron was not an option for me. I had to buy my tickets at the box offices for each venue. If memory serves me correctly, I paid less than $15 for each ticket. Also worthy of note, I only paid the price of the ticket and the state sales tax.
In 1984, a new standard had been set for concerts, courtesy of Bruce Springsteen, one of the first artists to institute a “ticket purchase limit,” due to the popular release of Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” album. Fans would line up overnight for chances to purchase the limit, if I remember, six tickets, or call Ticketron. While purchasing the tickets over the phone had its conveniences, there was also a major inconvenience. You had no way of knowing the quality of the seats your were purchasing unless you were familiar with the venue. But if you purchased your tickets from the ticket window, you had a map layout of the entire venue, to see what you had to choose from. Today, you get offered whatever tickets Ticketmaster presents to you. Don’t like those tickets, back out, and try again, and again, and again. Eventually you might get good tickets, or maybe none at all. Sold out, and then onto…
The limit on purchasing tickets did not have as much to do with limiting anyone from buying tickets, but rather to prevent ticket “scalping.” Scalping is the act of re-selling the tickets at an increased value above the face value. There are no federal laws to prevent making a profit off of re-selling tickets. Left up to the states, some states, like New York, New Jersey, even Florida have laws against making one penny above the face value of the ticket. Some states, like Texas and Ohio, have no laws preventing scalping. And Alabama? Well, they have a scalping law, but it includes having to prove that the person scalping, had a history or reputation of being a scalper.
In the 1990’s, Ticketmaster gobbled up Ticketron, which combined had 90% of the computerized ticketing business. And from there, Ticketmaster cleaned up any other smaller ticketing agencies, until it had its monopoly. Government regulations allowed this to happen. We allowed this to happen. And that is one reason ticket prices have skyrocketed, no competition. But there is another reason.
Remember scalping? In the old days, as you arrived at the concert, you would have two types of people outside, those looking to buy a ticket (unable to before hand), and those willing to conveniently “sell” their tickets, at a higher “lack of convenience for you” price. Scalping. Today, it has been modernized, and seemingly, still legal, even in the states with laws prohibiting it. Just Google the word “scalping,” and the first three sites listed are not for “what is scalping,” but rather, three “re-selling” agencies, including the most popular of them, Stub Hub.
For the most part, no one has really paid attention to the prices on Stub Hub whether for a concert or professional sports. But now thanks to the Swift fiasco, Stub Hub is front and center with Swift concert tickets selling well into the thousands of dollars. Scalping. But as I said, scalping is another reason for ticket prices increasing. Because now the artists see the profits being made from scalping off of their performance, and feel, why shouldn’t they get to benefit from it, leading to increased ticket costs. No one can blame the artist. But I have no problem saying either, no one is worth thousands to see perform. And I do wonder, of these people shelling out these prices, are they also the ones complaining about the economy and inflation? Because this is the shit that contributes to it.
I don’t recall how much I paid for my last concert tickets, though I know it was under $100. And that was in the 2000’s. But back in 1994, the band the Eagles reunited after they swore Hell would have to freeze over before they would perform together again, and just like that, Hell dropped to 32 degrees, and the dawn of $100 tickets was born. A 3-day ticket to the original Woodstock was $18 in 1969. In 1994, tickets to the 2-day Woodstock festival went for $120.
I have seen my share of concerts in my life. As a parent, I was prepared to have to attend concerts with my daughters and bands that I really could not stand such as One Direction, Justin Bieber, and BTS, and yes, Taylor Swift. But my daughters, having been exposed to all genres of music, are drawn more to the older acts, at this point, appearing to be nothing more than tribute bands, barely holding on to any remaining original members, most now in their 70’s. Don’t get me wrong, bands like Foreigner, Styx, and Journey still put on a great show. I would just say not worth all the fees that Ticketmaster adds onto the price of a ticket.
I am happy for those that have been fortunate enough to find the goose with the golden eggs. Have a good time. But for me, I must relegate to concert DVD’s, streaming, and rockumentaries. And I am okay with that.
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