Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Henry and I returned yesterday from a production trip to San Diego and Los Angeles. (Frank stayed on for a few days to do some camping, soul-searching and to take a little “time for self,” as our colleague Juliet Schor would call it.)

Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder,” and the force behind a national movement to reconnect people—especially children—with the nature, did not disappoint. His skill at giving an interview and making a case for the benefits of a “nature-child reunion” is remarkable. We conducted the interview for Simple Living’s fourth season outdoors at Louv’s lovely San Diego home. The “Leave No Child Inside” slogan that his movement spawned is gaining traction nationally. (Henry kept one ear on the interview, while doing his homework on a nearby hammock and occasionally snapping still shots for our website. Watching my 10 year old there led me to remark that we should start a “Homework on the Hammock” movement! Henry immediately signed onto this idea, especially since he wants me to buy a hammock for our new Simple Living Sunflower home in Mount Airy.)

The following day, we had the privilege of interviewing Ed Begley Jr. and his charismatic wife, Rachelle, and daughter, Hayden, at their Studio City home. Our beloved colleague and long-term ally Carol Holst, the person who introduced us to Ed several years back, was on hand to provide words of wisdom most of the day. She also generously fed the gang a terrific vegan lunch. Carol granted us an insightful on-camera interview about Simple Living America’s new book, “Get Satisfied: How Twenty People Like You Found the Satisfaction of Enough,” just published!

The trip was capped off by my visit with two friends whom I hadn’t seen in decades: Bernie Roscetti, who worked for 30 years at Maine Public Broadcasting before starting his life over at KCET, the largest public television station in Los Angeles, and Susan Christian Goulding, a co-worker of mine back in the early ‘80s at the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Bernie and I caught up on mutual acquaintances from Maine and our old days at MPBN. I was mesmerized by Bernie’s remarkable story of how he started his life over in Los Angeles and how he has come to love California. (Perhaps most amazing of all was how Bernie intuited the changes that were to happen before they did.)

Susan was the editor of the “Q&A” column that ran daily in the Herald while I was assistant editor of the locally produced weekly California Living magazine. Susan and I were young women whose desks were closeby and who had much in common then and find that we still do today.

Susan prepared a delightful French cuisine dinner for Henry and me and her family. Before the meal, the two of us had the chance for a tete-a-tete on her patio over cheese and crackers while her husband Mike and twelve-year-old son, Matt, took Henry to the “dog park” (a new term for my rural son). Over dinner, Susan introduced me to her teen-age daughter Erin, who arrived late for dinner after a tennis match as, “my old friend Wanda Urbanska…” Then she quickly corrected herself—not wanting to imply that I was “old”—and said, “My friend of many years.”

It was wonderful catching up with Susan, meeting a new friend in Mike and finding that we all share the same interests in politics, journalism and the future. I also relished looking at the framed photos on their walls and a political button collection—memorabilia from her days in Washington when her father was press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson. In one remarkable photograph showing her father whispering to LBJ, I noted that Susan’s nose is identical to that of her late father, George Christian.

“Yes,” said. “I have his same squinty eyes, too.”

That’s the kind of exchange that only “old friends” could and would make to each other.

I’d have to agree with the words on a needlepointed pillow given me by another dear friend of almost three decades, Bonni Brodnick. It reads: “Old Friends Are the Best Friends.” When I travel, I try to take time to touch base with old friends. I can say that it’s always a good move, always moves the heart.