Alan Fox

As promised, today’s blog is about my trip to the North Pole.

Unlike the South Pole, which is located on the continent of Antarctica, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Artic Ocean which has no land and is completely covered by ice.  If you want to go there, you have two basic options. You can take a ride on the Russian Ice Breaker that occasionally visits during the summer months, or charter two small airplanes and fly.

Why two airplanes?  One for refueling and backup, silly.  You don’t want to be stuck in a small airplane, with a tiny lunch, standing on an ice pack that may crack under your feet, more than a thousand miles from anywhere.

When we arrived at the base camp, a Canadian weather station with the northernmost landing strip accessible by a gravel runway, we spent four days sitting around with scientists from a polar expedition – all of us waiting for the weather to clear so we could complete our respective journeys.  Each day Daveen and I took a five-minute walk around the building, and boy, was it cold.

My dad, at age 93, would have been the oldest person to ever visit the North Pole.  We had even lined up an appearance for him on a national morning talk show.  But when we reached the weather station Dad began complaining of a slight pain in his chest.  My son and daughter-in-law, both doctors, “borrowed” a glycerin tablet from the station’s medical supply cabinet.

After Dad took the pill, he immediately felt better.  According to the doctors, however, that indicated he might have a serious heart problem, so we chartered the only jet air ambulance in the neighborhood to immediately fly him, together with my daughter-in-law doctor, directly to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota for evaluation.

Though he turned out to be fine and lived to enjoy many more adventures, Dad never kept his appointment to appear on the Today Show.

Our flight from the North Pole back to the weather station was very exciting, which is a euphemism for dangerous.

More about that next week.

Alan

We make many decisions throughout our lives, but very few have life or death consequences.  Ernest Shackleton, the famed explorer who led the Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914-1916, was faced with several critical decisions that did impact the survival of his entire crew.

Shackleton’s ship, The Endurance with 27 men on board, couldn’t endure the extreme conditions navigating through ice in the South Atlantic Sea.  After getting trapped in an ice floe, it sank.  With little hope of rescue, Shackleton and five crew members spent 16 days in a small lifeboat crossing 800 miles of ocean to reach South Georgia Island.  At that point several of them had to trek across the island and over a mountain pass to reach a whaling station for help.

Their only supplies were rope, wood planks, and a small amount of food.  As they began their descent from the mountain top Shackleton suggested that they tie the planks together to make an improvised sled to carry them down the mountain.

One member of his crew objected, fearing they would fall off a cliff.

Shackleton explained that they would all freeze to death before making it to the whaling station. If they wanted to survive, their only hope was to take their chances on the sled.

The sled ride was a success.  They did not fall off a cliff, and a few hours later they arrived at the whaling station. They were greeted by a man Shackleton knew, although he and his men were so emaciated he wasn’t recognizable.

Despite the odds, Shackleton’s entire crew was rescued and survived. That is one of the more memorable successes of world exploration and it is a tribute to his decisive leadership (although I don’t know how he explained his loss of the ship to his financial backers).

I’m not an explorer, and I’ve lived my entire life in a city.  Thank goodness my decisions do not usually have life or death implications.  Years ago, I did fly on a chartered plane that landed nine-tenths of a mile from the actual North Pole.  After we enjoyed a leisurely walk on the ice, the pilot noticed a crack that was expanding in the direction of the airplane.  My decision was to sprint back onto the plane — faster than I have ever moved before or since.

We then had an adventure of our own on the flight back to the weather station in Northern Canada, but that story will have to wait for my next blog.

Happy travels!

Alan

For the past several years, I’ve made it a point to walk 4,000 steps every day.  That’s about two miles.  I walk so that, as I continue to age, I can continue to walk.  Somehow that feels like a snake consuming its own tail.  But enough philosophy.

This morning I was walking along Ventura Boulevard, a main street in the San Fernando Valley.  I passed five other pedestrians walking in the opposite direction.  I smiled at each and tried to make eye contact.

Most avoided me.  I did catch the eye of one woman, and we smiled at one another for a moment as we passed.  One walk, one (brief) connection.  Four nonconnections.

The U. S. Surgeon General announced last week that more than half the people in the United States suffer from loneliness, at least some of the time.  Several months ago, I read a report that single older men in Japan often live alone.  They don’t go out, and no one visits them.  That is a serious problem.  But it can be solved.

My father died several years ago at the age of 104.  When he was 80 years old, he complained to me that his grandchildren never called him.

“Dad,” I said, “telephones work both ways.  You can call them.”

To my surprise, he did.  As a result, they began to visit him more often, and he started going to watch his grandson’s ice-skating lessons.  Connections work both ways.

As in many marriages, the social scheduling had been handled by my mother, so after she died, I applaud Dad for successfully taking over that role for himself.  Despite his age, Dad remained connected to many people.

He loved to attend plays.  Once, when he was 100, and feeling under the weather, he told me that he wanted to go to the performance anyway.  “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in the living room,” he said, as we pushed his wheelchair into the theater.

I hope others are reaching out to you, or you are reaching out to them, and I hope you are enjoying a fulfilling sense of connection in your life.

Connecting with others isn’t just for fun, it’s what makes our lives meaningful. I encourage you to focus on it.

Alan