Keeping In Touch

We are rolling into Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. The days are slowly growing longer and warmer and daylight savings time has kicked in in New Zealand. I plan a couple of big trips to the UK in November and back home over the holidays and January. This blog entry reports on some recent NZ revisits, as well as reflections on how we stay in touch from so far away and other bits and bobs.

Clock Tower Complex behind the Water of Leith, U of Otago central campus, Dunedin, NZ

We have taken the 2.5 hour drive south from Timaru to Dunedin many times, and the end of August we went to take in a NZ vs. Australia rugby union match (a BIG deal here: more on that in a bit). If possible, I try to explore some places I haven't seen before, and although I have seen parts of the University of Otago, for some reason I never walked through the heart of the campus. Established in 1869, the U. of O. is the oldest uni in NZ and third oldest in Oceania, and has over 20,000 students. Among them are the medical students that come up to Timaru Public Hospital for short rotations. The architecture of the oldest structures are very much in keeping with others of the late 1800's-early 1900's around the country, a local spin on styles from the UK and Europe.
Like most modern universities, expansion with newer buildings encroaches on prior open spaces, but there are still many small open quads with outdoor artworks. The surrounding streets have rows of old houses packed with student renters, and is the scene of many of the tales of hi-jinks and drunken debauchery that for better or worse are an Otago tradition.

Campus sculptures

As I said, the prime reason for the trip was to catch the All Blacks (NZ) take on the Wallabies (Australia), competing for the Bledisloe Cup  and also as part of the Rugby Championship (along with South Africa and Argentina) simultaneously. People from elsewhere cannot fully appreciate what the All Blacks mean to the Kiwis. They are the New York Yankees + Boston Celtics of the rugby world, that is to say the best ever. Even if you weren't raised with the game, it is not hard to appreciate the skill, teamwork, and dominance they display. The most important team to beat is the Wallabies, who represent their over-bearing older brothers.It turned out to be a thrilling match, one that saw the home team fall behind in the first 17 seconds thanks to the rugby equivalent of a "pick six", struggle back from a deep hole to take the lead, to lose it again late, to score again in the
last minutes to win 35-29 and secure the Bledisloe Cup for the 15th straight year. It was a true classic, and if you use the link in the caption below you can enjoy a 4 minute recap.

Watch highlights of the thrilling match here.

(Warning: Sports Digression Follows!)

I reluctantly admit that my traditional sports passions are waning. Part of that is due to the distance and time shift being in New Zealand, and part of it has to do with the recent poor performances (excepting Golden State) of my teams. The Giants and A's, and 49ers have been almost unwatchable, the lame-duck Raiders play out the string before bolting in 2018 for a honeymoon in Vegas (Las Vegas???? Really!?!), and the Golden Bears have not played in a Rose Bowl for 59 years or won one for 80 years.
Some of it is also probably "aging curmudgeon syndrome" AKA "You kids get off my lawn!". Not too long ago, I could easily name the managers and head coaches of all the professional teams, but now I'm not sure I could come up with 50%. It is harder to ignore the seamy side of the NFL as an institution, or the number of injured players carted off the field each week. So far this year, I have not paid the NFL $200 for the privilege of watching all the games from overseas although don't be ridiculous, I do get several major US sports games via my cable Sky Sports/ESPN package. I suspect my interest in US sports will rise again when I am back home, but we shall see.

And now, back to New Zealand adventures....

New Plymouth collage

Every district in New Zealand has its own holiday, scattered across the calendar. The fourth Monday of September is South Canterbury Day. I have not discovered if there is something special for South Cantabrians to commemorate, but it means a three-day weekend. Our friend Kate from the local art gallery took a new position at Puke Ariki, the main museum of New Plymouth on the west coast of the North Island, so we flew up for the weekend. You may remember Kate from the last blog entry, as we met up with her and sister Anna in Boston, adding her to the growing list of friends met in NZ with whom we rendezvous around the globe (see: O'Connell, Dr. Florry). She bright and fun and funny, and "down with the kids".

We had passed through New Plymouth very briefly in 2011, so we had an general superficial overview of the city. It is the centre of the Taranaki region, named for the Mount Taranaki (aka: Mount Egmont), a magnificent volcanic cone 2,518 metres (8,261 ft) high. We visited the mountain in 2011, but this time were lucky to find it peeking out behind cloud cover on Saturday.

 For the purposes of your local pub quiz, if you are asked to recognize a picture of a city and notice an odd giant slender swaying lighted reed of outdoor art, your answer should be New Plymouth.

Len Lye's Wind Wand

The Wind Wand was designed by Kiwi-born artist Len Lye, a pioneer in both experimental film and kinetic sculpture. Not well-known to the general public, his works have been very influential in the art world and have been displayed in major galleries and museums throughout the world. Born in Christchurch and later becoming a US citizen, he never lived in New Plymouth but took a fancy to the city after an exhibition of his works there and on his death in 1980 bequeathed much of his collection to the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, which now houses the Len Lye Centre

Exterior of Govett-Brewster/Len Lye Centre

Interior

Looking at the picture of the Wind Wand above, you will note it is in the middle of a green space. It is part of the New Plymouth Coastal Walkway, a 12.7-kilometre (7.9 mi) long path east and west on the water's edge. You walk pass outdoor art ..

Nga hau e wha, or The Four Winds

Karanga, or welcoming woman & Wind Wand

 ...and other oddities...

Deactivated (I hope) old naval mine

Local mine-lover (perhaps mistaking it for a mime)

...and a windy shoreline popular with surfers, wind and otherwise.

The scene at East End Reserve

Kate introduced us to Brooklands Park and Zoo, as lovely a city park as you will see. Brooklands Bowl is a natural amphitheater, the site of many events, none bigger than the annual WOMAD music and arts festival.

The small but entertaining zoo is adjacent, home to this vigilant meerkat.

I wish I had noticed the warning BEFORE I welcomed the parrot onto my body.

Two friends and me.

Walks, new sights, very good food, a few movies, and especially good friends: all-in-all a great time in the North. Thanks Kate!

Reconstructed clock tower in Robe Street Park, New Plymouth

To change gears, I wanted to reflect on how we try to stay close to friends and family far away. When I was a child and the family moved from Kentucky to California, we still mostly communicated long distance by letter, snail-mail if you prefer. Long-distance phone calls were legendarily expensive, and I was lucky to exchange hi and bye with grandparents twice a year. When I first traveled to Europe in 1971, you had to go to a local post office and reserve a time to make a budget-busting call overseas, which I did twice in four months.
Boy, is it different now, and those changes have enabled me to work so far away and yet not feel I am missing out on everything back home. Between Skype/FaceTime, Instant Messages, Face Book, email, etc., it is easier and cheaper to keep in touch across oceans than it was across town. We literally communicate more with our daughter now than when we lived in the same house!
We can feel like we are there to share milestones big and small such as:
A day at the beach in Marin County,

the granddaughter's first day of school and picture day,

or a trip to the Grand Canyon or Santa Fe.

Niece Laura Fayne emailed us from the Canadian Rockies to prove she was enjoying the camping chair she got for her birthday.

My workmate here Camille H. shared here passion for animal rescue while on a trip to Oz.

Mama & Baby joey...

...and orphaned wombat!

Six months ago I sent out letters to doctors like me from Northern California, asking them to consider working in New Zealand. I got a response recently from someone working at Kaiser San Francisco. It turns out we had a mutual friend who sadly passed away earlier this year, Dr. Jeff Beane, and he shared with me this tribute to Jeff that hangs in the hallway there. What a touching tribute, and to learn of it electronically from miles away was astounding.

One of my alma maters, Dixon High School held a reunion of the class of 1967, their 50th. It was my sister Angela's class, one year ahead of me, but as time goes on those small distinctions fade. Below is an annotated group photo, something that should be mandatory for these events.

A member of the class, and my Best Man, David N. was asked to take photos. This is one of my favorites of him, a selfie no less.

So all of these amazing advances have made it possible to stay connected in ways I could never imagine in days gone by. I was even able to help participate in my father's recent brief (thankfully) hospitalization in San Diego via text messaging and a phone call or two.
I know Angela would have loved to have attended the reunion, but she has been gone four years now. She has been on my mind as her birthday just passed, as Face Book reminded me.

As much as I have benefited from all the modern technology, I am ambivalent, especially about Face Book. On the one hand, reconnecting with old acquaintances or organizing a reunion used to be very difficult if not impossible. But there is a spooky virtual immortality that the net enables. I have been invited more than once to wish Happy Birthday or befriend people I know are no longer with us. I would like to unsubscribe from Linked In as I have no need to "network", but I can't figure out how. And while Face Book seems nearly indispensable at times, the constant barrage of ads, games, chit chat, political opining (even if I agree with it) is overstimulating and exhausting.
I recently became aware of a concept called Dunbar's Number, which to quote Wikipedia is "a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person." Robin Dubar is a British anthropologist who speculated in the 1990's that, based on human brain size and extrapolating from primate studies, there is a finite number of close social relationships we can maintain. He did not identify a precise limit but generally it is discussed as being between 100-250 people.
This concept provides a framework for some of my thoughts. To use a term from the 60's, people arrange their karass (thanks to Kurt Vonnegut Cat's Cradle) in concentric circles, holding only a few in the innermost shell, expanding outwards by degrees. Some of us have more capacity to truly care for more people than others but we all have a limit. Face Book and the internet in general creates the illusion that we can stretch beyond that, theoretically to an infinity of Face Book friends, living and dead, real or virtual (see any episode of MTV's Catfish). You can get distracted from the people right in front of you who need your concern and involvement and you can feel inadequate to care deeply and sincerely enough. It is challenging, but I hope we can stay empathetic and keep it all in the right balance.

And a few Timaru P.S.'s

We love our wee Kiwi cottage, but we have gradually tried to do some needed upgrades. The last one (hopefully) was to replace the windows, which were not particularly effective at keeping out wind or rain, and not always able to be opened. The new aluminum (or aluminium if you prefer) double-glazed inserts should cure that problem.

And a meat plant south of town is looking to hire. Are you a boner or want to be a trainee boner with freezer hands? They may have a spot for you.

That's all folks, for now.