The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Why The Grandchild-Grandparent Relationship Can Be So Valuable

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

It's an End Bits Wednesday and some good ones again today. The battle over orange juice - is it good for you or not? And the one in our headline which may well be my favourite. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. It is a N-Bit special day, and we got lots of stuff. That's coming right up. Okay, so I really nailed the I-N-G this time. Coming right up. I got mail on this issue, having mentioned it the other day.

and some people were in total agreement with the person who wrote in to say that you should get better at saying I-N-G not coming right up coming right up but I'll tell you there were a lot of others who said no no no no no no stay with coming that's a local dialect especially in, where was it, Perth County, the Ottawa Valley. So we have a heated debate on that issue.

I don't want to overstate it, but there were probably a half a dozen letters. So there you go. Before we get to some of the N-bits, they're interesting ones today. A reminder of what the question of the week is. It's not about ING. It's about the World Cup. Do you care? It starts this week.

A couple of games in Canada. The Canadian team playing. It's also going to be played in the U.S. and in Mexico. And it's costing a fortune. Now, in the U.S., that fortune is being paid by private sponsors, such as things go in the States. I won't comment on that anymore. But in Canada, there's a huge amount of public money that is being put to the hosting of the World Cup.

You know, more than a billion dollars is the figure that's being tossed around. So it's an issue, right? Well, we announced the question of the week on Monday. There have been a lot of letters, and I tell you, there's obviously not a lot of World Cup fans who listen to the last. the bridge. There are some, but not a lot unless, of course, they're waiting to the last possible moment to send in their letters. So you've got until 3 p.m. this afternoon, Eastern time, to get your letter in. 3 p.m. Eastern is the cutoff.

75 words or less, include your name and the location you're writing from, and you send your answer to this challenging question about what do you think of the World Cup? Do you care? Do you think it's a waste of money? Are you cheering for Canada? What are you doing? You send it to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

Okay. End bits. And if you've never joined us on Wednesdays, Wednesdays is kind of like a bonus day. My contract calls for me to work four days a week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I just throw this in because I'm a nice guy. And my buddy Mark Bulgich does all the work as he finds these stories.

And he sends them to me and we end up using them on the air. Like this one. From Science Alert, the headline, Beethoven's DNA reveals a surprise 200 years later. Now, DNA, of course, can tell you a lot of things. things. You can also tell you how you died if you get enough DNA. And it usually comes from somebody's hair. Remember all the stories about Napoleon when he was off on that island where he ended up dying?

Did he die because he was poisoned? Was he given arsenic? So they took a hair sample because they buried Napoleon. They got the hair sample. and it did seem to have some kind of arsenic traces in it. So that was enough for those who believe he was poisoned, that he was poisoned. This is different.

So let me read a little bit of this story. On a stormy Monday in March of 1827, almost 200 years ago now, the German composer Ludwig von Beethoven passed away after a protracted illness. Bed-written since the previous Christmas, he was ravaged by jaundice, his limbs and abdomen swollen,

and every breath a struggle. As his associates sorted through personal belongings, they uncovered a document Beethoven had written a quarter of a century earlier, a will beseeching his brother. You notice how I'm nailing all these I and gentlemen. a will beseeching his brothers to make details of his condition known to the public. Today, it is no secret that one of the greatest musicians the world has ever known

was functionally deaf by his mid-40s. You know, functionally deaf? You're one of the greatest musicians the world has ever seen or heard. It was a tragic irony, Beethoven wished the world understood. not just from a personal perspective, but a medical one. The composer would outlive his doctor by nearly two decades. Yet close to two centuries after Beethoven's death, a team of researchers set out to fulfill his testament in ways he would never have dreamed possible

by genetically analyzing the DNA in authenticated samples of his hair. Now in this article, which you can find at science alert.com, there's a video, so you can watch that video. And you'll see how they determined his loss of hearing, which started in his 40s. My loss of hearing started in my, well, pretty well where I am now in my 70s. So I have a hearing aid that I wear when I remember to put it in and it helps considerably

especially if I'm in a room with a conversation going on. So one of the scientists looked at this out to say this our primary goal was to shed light on Beethoven's health problems which famously include progressive hearing loss

beginning in his mid to late 20s and eventually leading to him being functionally deaf by 1818, so with only nine or ten years left in his life. The primary cause of that first hearing loss has never been known, not even to his personal physician, Dr. Johann Adam Smith. What began as tinnitus in his 20s slowly gave way to a reduced tolerance for loud noise and eventually a loss of hearing in the higher pitches, effectively ending his career as a performing artist.

For a musician, nothing could be more ironic. In a letter addressed to his brothers, Beethoven admitted he was hopelessly afflicted to the point of contemplating suicide. It wasn't just hearing loss the composer had to deal with in his adult life. From at least the age of 22, he said to have suffered severe abdominal pains and chronic bouts of diarrhea.

Man, oh man. Six years before his death, the first indications of liver disease appeared, an illness thought to have been, at least in part, responsible for his death, at the relatively young age of 56. There's more to this story, but, you know, the main part of the story is Ludwig von Beethoven, one of the greatest musicians who's ever lived, some would argue the greatest, and he was going deaf in his 20s and 30s and certainly by his 40s. He composed some of the greatest pieces of music.

The world has ever known. Okay. All right. Have you ever been on a cruise ship? You know, the closest I ever came on a cruise ship was going on one in the Arctic. with the program students on ice. And that was, it's got to be 10 or 15 years ago. It was a fantastic trip, you know, through parts of the Northwest Passage.

It was an old cruise ship. I think it had been a Russian cruise ship. This was its last voyage. and it ended up being like an amazing story because within a year it had been abandoned and was floating in the oceans. People couldn't find it.

I don't know where it ended up or whether it sank or what. But anyway, that doesn't take away from the trip I was on, which was a fabulous trip. And Willie was on that too. We both went on it. Anyway, that was the closest I've come to being,

on a cruise ship, but I know there are people, and there are people who listen to this program who are dedicated cruise ship people. You know, they cruise in the Caribbean or they, you know, I've got friends who have done around the world cruise. Well, listen to this. This was in the telegraph. Here's the headline. This cruise ship, nearly a mile long, 80,000 people on.

board. It's more in the cruise ship. It's a floating city. Now, it doesn't exist yet, but it very well may exist in the near future. Bigger than any vessel ever built, the proposed freedom ship will have homes, schools, and a state-of-the-art hospital, all on board. So I'm looking at this artist's conception. Is that Leonardo DiCaprio right at the bow there, his arms outstretched. No, it's not. But let's read a bit because I know you're going,

Peter, tell us more about that. So I will. Monster cruise ships of today face being reduced to mere minnows by plans for a floating city that will carry 80,000 people around the world, a mile long, 800 feet wide,

and 30 decks high. The $12 billion freedom ship would house a research hospital as well, as enough schools, shops, and restaurants to serve a population as big as Chatham in Kent. 80,000. Likely to be powered by nuclear fuel, the 2.3 million gross ton giant will have homes for 50,000 permanent residents and space for another 10,000 cruisers and day visitors, all served by a crew of 20,000 people. Among the extensive facilities will be high-rise hotels,

a 15,000-seat sports stadium, a convention center, a water park, two museums, and a symphony hall. Divers will be able to swim in an enormous aquarium, while partygoers will dance the night away in a spacious club. A two-story food hall will cater to residents who want to change from the wide range of dining venues. Children will be educated from primary to college levels, while four decks will be given over to commercial services, financial branches, banks, and retail. On top will be eight helipads.

I don't know, this all sounds wild. Really? What happens when COVID hits? Yeah, right. Sorry, that's not in the script here. The Leviathan will also move with a plan to circumnavigate the globe every couple of years at a stately seven knots. Too big to dock in any port. The ship will stay in international waters, transferring passengers to and from land by a fleet of ferries.

Even other cruise vessels could moor alongside this cruise vessel. Arriving visitors will be able to ride a tram system to a series of districts on board. Those who prefer to explore by foot can enjoy 15 miles of walkways and three acres of parks. This is not going to happen. Come on. While the freedom ship is yet to sail or even begin construction, the idea behind it has been floating around for three decades. It was first proposed in the 1990s by an American. an engineer who died in 2012.

The blueprints were dusted off publicly the following year, only to be mothballed again. So why is it resurfaced? Roger Gooch, Chief Executive of Freedom Cruise Line International, has taken on a project manager, a designer, and a naval architect among a 12-strong leadership team, and insist the demand is strong, claiming we could almost justify building three of the, these. I don't know. Maybe.

Maybe. Ah, here's the hook. Now, says the brain's behind this at the moment. It's just a small matter of raising the startup money. We're confident, but the capitalization is the key. Yeah, no kidding.

I don't know. I'm not going to read all of this. but we're talking megabucks, right? Just imagine the insurance on this thing. Well, good luck on that. Let's see what happens. And they thought the Titanic was big. But guess what happened to that?

All right, here's another travel-related story, and it fits my, I always have something about an airline, right? Those will listen to me. I always managed to slip in an airline story. Here it is. The headlines in the New York Times. Help. My $7,300 business class seat was broken,

and I got a pittance. Oh, poor person. A woman splurged for a lie flat seat. You know, that's one of those business class seats that flattens right out so you can go to sleep. It's like a little mini bed. A woman splurged for a lie flat seat, but it got jammed in the horizontal position

for most of the 14-hour flight. 14 hours, that's like going to Toronto to Hong Kong. How much should United? That was the airline, compensate her. Okay, let's read a little bit of this. Last October, when my adult daughter and I traveled to China, I treated us to business class seats, something I had experienced only on occasional work trips, spending $7,388 per ticket for United's Polaris class from San Francisco to Beijing.

When the cabin lights were dimmed after dinner about 90 minutes into the flight, I attempted to lie down. But the seat buttons did not work. One flight attendant told me this happens all the time. Another wrenched the seat into lie flat position. But the seat got stuck there with the seat belt inaccessible. There were no empty seats in business class, and I assume, in economy either,

or they would have moved me there. I was forced to lie completely flat with no seatbelt for almost the entire remainder of the 14-hour flight. On several occasions, the pilot advised us to be ready for turbulence and to be sure our seatbelts were fastened. I alerted the crew that mine was inaccessible, but no one seemed to care. Shortly before landing, two flight attendants worked together to wrench my seat back up, freeing my seatbelt in the process.

When I complained to United, I was offered a $150 travel voucher. I countered by asking for $250,000 miles, the equivalent of $3,000 or so, less than half my fare. They offered a $350 travel voucher. It was all a huge disappointment. Have you come across complaints like this from others? Can you help? Kathy from Philadelphia.

I don't know, Kathy. That doesn't sound like much fun. Let's see. The New York Times has got like a four-page answer, so I'm clearly not going to read all of that. It's what they say. Such complaints, in my inbox and on countless online message boards always go the same way.

Business class seat doesn't work. Passengers demands a refund. Airline gives a pittance. You actually got a slightly bigger pittance than most, as I discovered, when you sent along the documentation of your firm but polite efforts to argue your case with the United Customer Service. You talked them up to $650 in vouchers. Since that 350 voucher was in addition to the original 100,000.

and your daughter got 150 voucher as well, though I'm not sure if she should be rewarded for watching her mother suffer rather than offering to switch seats with her. Yeah, that's right. Charlie Hobarty, United Spokesman, told me on the phone that you had received more than was typical with such complaints,

calling the final result fair. It was unfortunate, he said, that we didn't provide the sort of experience this customer was expecting. He said, adding that he hoped you would fly United again. Me too, because otherwise you'll lose that $650 voucher since those one-year vouchers are set to expire in a few months. He added that he would flag your United account

so that on your next trip, the airline would work to ensure that this passenger had a pleasant experience with us. So it goes on and on. This is interesting. The New York Times does make this one observation. If you had been downgraded to an economy seat with a working seat belt, which the airline said should have happened, if such a seat had been available, United would have owed you a cash refund of the difference in the two fares,

which would be considerably more than $650.50. That's a federal regulation, though the airlines, how they determine, that figure is shrouded in mystery. Anyway, you get the point. 14 hours does seem like a long time to be stretched out in a horizontal position. And listen, I shouldn't laugh. I'm very sorry for this person. And hopefully they don't experience this again when they're flying.

Flying. Okay, it's time for a break. and we've got some serious stuff coming up, including a thing about orange juice that I've talked about before, and I'm going to be interested in seeing this, because orange juice is now trying to make a comeback after a lot of the bad things that have been said about it.

We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Wednesday episode. That means an N-Bit special. I'm Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on Sirius XM Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Glad to have you with us.

I think it was about a year ago. I confessed to you, and we had some kind of story on about orange juice, and I confessed to you that my doctor had said, you know, Peter, what do you drink in the morning? And I said, well, I drink orange juice. Nice big glass. It's great.

It's fresh. And my doctor said, no, no, no, no. You've got to stop that. Orange juice is not good for you. that's what he said. And I was shocked. I said, what are you talking about? He said, there's too much, you haven't freshly squeezed orange juice?

And I said, yeah, that's what I try to have. And he said, do you know how many oranges you got to squeeze to get a full glass of freshly squeezed orange juice? I said, no. And he said, well, quite a few. And there is a lot of sugar in there. Some people say a glass of orange juice, he said, it's just like a soft drink, a bottle of pop. There's so much sugar in it.

So you've got to cut back, way back. You can have orange juice, but just have like a quarter of a glass. And I thought, wow, I've never heard that before. I thought orange juice was the thing. But apparently not. So here we go with another story from the Telegraph. The headline is, how healthy is a glass? of orange juice, really?

This is just last week. Forget everything you thought you knew about orange juice. In recent years, the drink has gone from a British breakfast staple to a demonized one. When Professor Tim Specter branded it a little better than a glass of cola, due to its high sugar content, the verdict seemed final. Ditch the OJ. But could we be missing out on some major health benefits? A new study published in the journal of Molecular Nutrition and Food Research.

Have you got a copy of that with you? This study has found that orange juice can suppress gene activity linked to inflammation, potentially improving blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Before you start glugging juice, experts urge caution. One registered dietitian notes that study participants drank 500 minutes, 500 milliliters of juice per day, more than three times the recommended daily serving of 150 milliliters. While she stresses that a small glass can absolutely be nutritious addition to the diet, she strongly advises against drinking half a liter a day due to the impact on dental health

and the spike in overall sugar consumption this would bring. Here's some of the health benefits of orange juice. High in vitamin C. Crucially, it counts as one of your five a day, but the biggest health headline remains its vitamin C content. Just 150 milliliters of freshly squeezed juice delivers your full recommended daily intake. This powerful antioxidant not only supports the immune system,

it also helps unlock nutrients and other foods, pairing it with plant-based iron sources, such as beans and leafy greens, for example, significantly boosts iron absorption. It's a source of antioxidants. That said, fresh orange juice is naturally rich in the flavored hesperidine and other plant compounds that act as powerful antioxidants. It's hydrating.

Orange juice is around 90% water and is an excellent source of potassium, which helps regulate fluid balance. Okay, what are the downsides? I'll give you three. It's high in sugar. We've proven that point. The more you drink, the more sugar you're getting. Low in fiber.

While one medium orange contains one and a half to two gimes of fiber, orange juice contains negligible amounts. Fiber helps slow the absorption of sugar into the blood system, the bloodstream, leading to fewer sugar spikes and helping prevent conditions such as type 2 diabetes. Experts therefore recommend eating the whole fruit over consuming juice. And finally, orange juice can damage teeth. Orange juice is a more concentrated source of natural sugars than a whole orange as the cell walls are broken down and much of the fiber removed. combined with its acidity, this can be tough on tooth enamel.

Okay, there you go. The pros and cons of orange juice. Okay, we just passed D-Day, so we were all up on our Second World War history, at least part of it. If you study the Second World War, the name Coventry probably means something to you. Where is it, you know, the Lofa bombed Coventry. The controversy surrounding the bombing of Coventry is that, the British intelligence service through Ultra had found out the Lefofo was about to bomb Coventry

and Churchill and his senior officials had to decide do we warn the city of Coventry of what's about to happen because as soon as we do it's going to be clear we've broken their code and we're finding out what they're doing before they do it. So we still don't know the full story of what happened,

but clearly they didn't warn anybody. And Coventry was severely damaged, and many people died. So this story is about Coventry. It's not about that, but it is about the bombing of Coventry. And it comes from the BBC. It's an irony in this story.

The headline is, bomb disposal play delayed, a bomb disposal play, delayed by real unexploded bomb. A film about bomb disposal crews working in Coventry during the 1940 Blitz on the city was delayed after the discovery of a real bomb dropped on the city during the World War II raids. It takes a city, was the name of the play, had been due to be screened on Tuesday night, This is just a couple of weeks ago. By the theater group Talking Birds at their base, part of the Daimler Powerhouse Arts Complex.

However, when Workman found an unexploded bomb on part of the site, and you imagine the irony in that, the screening had to be postponed. Derek Nisbet, co-director of Talking Birds, said it was something that could happen because the development that's happening is where the Daimler found. actually was, which was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War. The bomb, likely to be one of the thousands dropped by the Luftwaffe on Coventry in November of

1940, was discovered during work to develop the six-acre, two-and-a-half hectares site into a mixed housing and retail development called Daimler Wharf. Its discovery came on the day Talking Birds was due to screen a film of the play they staged in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 2025. It takes the city tells the story of two bomb disposal crews, one that dealt with a device in Chapel Street in 1940 in the second, called when a similar bomb was found during work near Belgrade Theater in the city center in 2008. There were two crews working day and night in Coventry in 1940 and moving the bombs

to Whitley Common, where they could be safely detonated. Wow. That's quite the story, eh? Bit of irony in that. Okay, here's our last one for today. And I think this is important if you are a grandparent, or if you're a grandchild. Because one of the great opportunities for kids is to learn not just from their parents,

but from their grandparents. But it's always awkward. you know, how is that going to work? How do you get a conversation going? And that's what this story in the New York Times is about. And I think this is useful. I think some of you might find this interesting. Its headline is how to get grandparents and grandkids to connect more often.

Chatting as benefits for both generations. Experts share some ideas right here. in the U.R. Times and now on the bridge. This article was written about 10 days ago. My three children have one living grandparent, my mother, and she lives a plane right away. When the kids were toddlers, I could pop them on FaceTime when I felt like it.

Now the older two are teenagers with their own phones and schedules talking with their grandmother is, for the most part, up to them. Even though they text and call fairly often, their relationships fall into familiar traps. My mother thinks she's bothering the kids if she calls, and my kids are busy and don't make her a priority. When they do talk, both sides get stuck on the same boring topics, mainly my mother's yard.

Sorry, Mom. Experts told me that it's easy to lapse into superficial or guilt-induced communication. Kids can think older adults. aren't relevant, but grandparents also assume every kid would rather scroll on a device than talk to them, said Natalie Galusha, the assistant director for the Harvey A. Freedman Center for Aging at Washington University in St. Louis. Ageism goes both ways, she said. But grandparents and grandkids benefit from each other's perspectives, which is why staying connected is worth the work, and these conversations are an antidote to social isolation on both sides.

If conversations are easy and fulfilling, they are likely to be more frequent. So, sounds good. How are you going to do it? So here's a couple of tips. And these are good. Here's the first one. Let go of long phone calls.

You know, those phone calls seem to drag on and nothing really happens and nothing really gets sick. and there's really, it's not beneficial to either the grandparent or the grandkid. We often assume that a lengthy heart to heart is more meaningful than a text, but that's not always true, said Francesca Falzarano, an assistant professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California, who researches technology for older adults.

Research shows that relationships are built through many small, amounts of connection. The style of communication doesn't cheapen the interaction. Sending a few texts a week or some funny videos might be more significant for both parties than a reluctant 30-minute phone call. This expert added that adults with hearing or memory loss who find it difficult to follow phone conversations may prefer texting. It also eliminates the I don't want to bother them excuse. since teens can respond when they want. Audio messages are a great middle ground, more personal while still asynchronous.

Synchronous, yeah. Grandkids may one day cherish having a grandparents' voice saved. We think of texts as informal communication, but really they're an archive of the relationship, and that's so true, right? Here's one other one. There's a list of them in this article. Once again, it's in the New York Times.

You can find it by, you know, just, you know, popping in the search engine. Grandparents and grandkids, how do they get along better? Here's the other one. Risk being awkward. Getting out of a conversation rut might be as simple as adding one extra question. I really like this. Listen to this. This, according to the program director of,

ages and seekers which pairs teenagers and older adults to form meaningful relationships. Older adults light up when someone asked them about their past, whether it's time in the Air Force or their high school prom. This person said she'd heard plenty of stories from her own grandparents but had never asked how they felt in the moment they were describing. Going one level deeper is how interesting things come out. Teenagers love to complain about school when asked about their day, but they can turn their gripes into questions.

Instead of only saying, I hate algebra, they might ask, did you like math, grandma? Grandparents can press for an extra detail. Ask what class or teacher is their favorite. Experts said that a ready-made framework for conversations can help, like the prompts provided by the company Storyworth, but grandkids and grandparents could do a loose DIY version. Do it yourself.

Take turns asking a weekly or monthly question, like, what characteristics of your parents, excuse me, what characteristics of your parents do you see most clearly in yourself? Tell me about a time you experience, disappointment. You know, you can come up with your own questions like this, but you see what it is, it's going one level deeper.

I like that expression. Going one level deeper, then you can get trapped into those predictable, boring Sunday evening conversations that you have by phone with your grandparents or your grandchildren. and make them interesting by going one level deeper. Right? I think that's a good little piece of knowledge to keep in mind.

And of all our little stories today, I think that one may well be the best. That may be the best end bit going. You want to preserve that relationship? Well, not only preserve it, but gain something for both sides out of it. Go one level deeper. All right.

That is going to do it for this Wednesday's end bit special. I hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow it's your turn. You're going to tell me about soccer, about the World Cup. And I'm telling you right now, most of you do not care about soccer. A lot of you are very concerned about the amount of money, public money that's being spent hosting the World Cup in at least part of it in Canada.

But there got to be some soccer lovers out there. You know that they're going to, a lot of people are going to watch, a lot of people are going to be at the games. And there's a lot of passion involved in the beautiful game. But are you going to be part of it? If so, why? If not, why? Love to hear from you. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening on this day. and we'll talk to you again on your turn and the random ranter. That's coming up tomorrow right here on the bridge.