Looking in the Rear View Mirror- Things I might change about the Journey
by Jean Montgomery
"Things I wish I’d realized in my youth that I’m now having to deal with in my older age! … or… If I’d known then what I’d have to deal with now, I might have…!"
Some background on me: a long-time career in stage lighting…all aspects really: technician in shop, hanging, wiring, focusing, plotting, setting up alone and with crew and with staff, striking with same casts of characters, and design of many productions in many places.
These are some things you don’t think about when you’re in those youthful years. You say “why should I worry about doing that—no problem here…I’m young and spry with have no thought to what the future might bring vast years down the road. I don’t need to be concerned about doing anything I’m physically able to do... right?” Hmmm…. From that now-achieved, down-the-road perspective, there are three areas that have arisen in my declining years that had I known then what was to become, I might have chosen how I did things just a tad differently.
1) CEMENT FLOORS. Have you noticed that most shop floors in any shop-- be it scenery/props, lighting, and even maybe costumes-- are cement. They certainly were in my undergrad/grad/pro days. Not the stage floor necessarily, but adjacent floors. Floors where we did stuff. And catwalks could be anything, though usually iron grid-esque structures. I can’t count the number of times I would need to kneel on said cement floors or iron grids. 
Did I do that carefully— with (gasp) kneepads? Noooo. I dropped to my knees most of the time on solid cement which I now sincerely regret. Or knelt on the catwalks and edges of same without any protection other than jeans. Now my knees creak and have bumps and say ouch when I kneel or ask them to move after sitting for a while. Do I wear knee pads now some 60 years later – you betcha. Do I put pads down if I have to kneel on hard surfaces – you betcha. Do I wish now I’d thought of that then---oh, yeah!
2) CABLE. Stage cable is a rubber-esque substance. It has Latex. It has Neoprene. Did I wear gloves when dealing with cable? Sometimes when hanging/striking a show, yes. In the shop when wiring cable, changing plugs, not usually. What about all the other wiring when dealing with effects and props, etc. Nope. So what’s what with that now, you ask? I have latex intolerance to touching anything with a rubber/neoprene/latex base. Even have trouble with vinyl gloves (which 
I now wear when working with the above). This even includes the covered steering wheel of the car (which is fake leather)! My hands break out, split, crack, dry out. Lots of creams and Band-Aids now in use. How could I have avoided this one? Wearing gloves when working with cable in my youth would have been very helpful. In all fairness, this condition could have been acerbated by asbestos wiring—though I was careful with that when we changed out equipment wiring. We did wear latex/vinyl gloves. We even wore masks…. But the hands now are a product of then.
3) FOCUS. Back in the day, I focused lights by looking at the equipment lens and aligning lamp and lens up in a particular way. Yes, this was in the era of incandescent lamps but it crept over to tungsten-halogen too. Lots of folks focus by looking at what the light strikes behind them and centering – way better for your eyes, 
if you can get what you want. My eyes now are quite sensitive to light (gee, no surprise there). What they are really sensitive to are LEDs and other CFL-type sources. For me these sources strobe – I can see the rapid fire of the source even when not looking at the source. Bad ballast fluorescents—same thing. And, no, instruments were not up full when I was focusing by looking at them, but still…. T’were I to do this one over, I think I might try with my back to the lens…or wearing shades? Or maybe this one is just a hazard of the profession? But over the years I stared into a whole lot of lights.
4) Want to talk about staring at computer screens…?.
Have YOU got any older age wisdom to share? Share it with us in a future edition!
(editors note: Glad to accept articles and info anytime. Send my way- bjorklun@stolaf.edu -Brian Bjorklund)