It never gets boring

Culture Shock, this one's for you, as promised.

So yes, I have a famous relative and I'm very proud of him. Of course anyone would be proud of a relative whose picture is displayed in the Inventors Hall of Fame next to Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur and Walt Disney. His name is Irving Millman, and he invented the vaccine for Hepatitis B. The nobel prize was awarded to his boss who was running the lab, but it's my relative's hard work that concluded with the invention of the vaccine. He has the framed TELEX from 1976 inviting him to attend the award ceremony.

Irving is 82 years old now and is at an Assisted Living facility with his wife. It's difficult for me to write about him because I love him dearly and watching him grow old is very painful. This is the most wonderful, endearing person you'd ever meet in person. He is so humble that hardly anyone at this assisted living know that they're eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in the company of a Hall of Famer. He flirts with the nurses and any young lady that comes by, but lately he's been having difficulty remembering his own name.

On Thursday I went to visit them and sat to talk with his wife for over an hour. She told me he had gone downstairs to watch an Opera show in the "Activities Room." She knew what time it started and she knew it ended at 3pm. Well, 3pm comes and goes. 3:30pm. 3:40pm and he shows up, pacing slowly with his walker. He had a bit of a difficulty remembering my name, but from the way his face lit up I knew he recognized me. He then urged us to come downstairs with him and listen to the fantastic music that was playing downstairs. For five minutes he was raving about the outstanding opera music and got angry at us when we weren't fast enough to get up and follow him. We kept trying to explain to him that the show was over at 3pm and there's nothing down there. But he insisted that it's still going on and we must come and see it.

We decided to avoid any further anger and walk with him downstairs. His wife and her walker, following the husband with the walker. Both walking the same speed, but the wife kept urging the husband, "go in front of me, you walk faster." So we finally got to the "Activities Room" and there are two women fast asleep in their chairs, and one staring into space not really focusing on the TV screen. Irving then sat down and invited me to sit next to him. I sat down and looked at the screen.

The DVD is done playing - since 3pm most likely. It's on the menu screen with the words "Play" ..."Scenes"..."Menu" written at the bottom, while the trailer is continuously showing Placido Domingo and a couple of other famous opera singers. It shows them for ten second and cuts to the next scene. The overall trailer goes back to the beginning after a full minute. But to Irving and his senile friends, it's all new every minute they look at it... Never gets boring.

I wanted to push the Play button on the remote so bad. I think I'm going to add a line into my Living Will: If I'm staring at a TV screen and the DVD trailer has gone for longer than five minutes - just shoot me!