Inflation

I admit to being a pack-rat. People scorn my fear of throwing anything away. But, Gosh, I might need my 1949 Income Tax Return sometime. The same with the pictured ticket stub from the 1946 Army Navy Football Game. But look at all we can learn from that stub. That is a 50 yard line seat. Ergo, I had pull. (My uncle was a full professor at West Point.) Some things never change. The way to get good tickets to a good game is, and was, to know someone.

And the price!!! A 10th row seat on the fifty yard line for $4.80! Some things do change. $4.80 would not buy you a hotdog at a major game today. Not that the Army-Navy game is what it was 63 years ago.

I remember very little about the game, except that President Truman was there. And I remember less about the President than his Secret Service men who stood up all game and most faced back to the game looking at the crowd.

Scott

Happy Birthday, Scott. Hope all is well. Dad

84

It is morning and I am a year older. Imagine if you can – Eighty-four! It seem more when you spell it out. Actually, I know that this feeling will not last. By tomorrow I will be back feeling that inside I am only slightly out of my teens. I still get nervous when I talk to a girl or an audience of more than three. I still don’t like to get up in the morning or go to bed at night.

Of course, I realize that I have an appointment with the podiatrist in an hour and that suggests I have passed beyond the youthful state, but I also read the comics first when the Sunday paper arrives. Moreover, I am skipping my hyperbarics treatment this afternoon and I hope that indicates a spark of independence still moves me.

Thanks for all the greetings. I must leave now. I have not the independence to go out without a shave and a shower.

Ps. Isn’t technology wonderful?! I notice that Blogger automatically changed my age in my profile this morning.

Update on Me and S-

I haven't been very good about keeping up with status reports, so this is a guilt laden attempt to update. Back around May 1st or maybe a week or so earlier, the site where I lost the last toe decided to spontaneously split open. In the best medical terminology, the circulation in that right leg and foot was, and is, "lousy". The surgeon decided that drastic measures (hyperbarics) were called for. You may have heard about this in an earlier blog. Since walking and standing are difficult, it takes me the better part of the morning to get shaved and showered. At noon it is time for a hurried lunch, and departure for the hospital. Then it is four or four thirty when I get out of the chamber. For reasons described in the next paragraph it is a hustle to get to dinner. It is about a forty minute drive from the hospital. After dinner, both S- and I are near collapse.

Meanwhile , Hyatt is undertaking a huge renovation of the dining rooms, lobby. beauty parlor, etc., etc. They have converted the auditorium into a pleasant , but crowded, temporary dining area. If you miss your assigned sitting time -- too bad. You have to wait until someone else breaks a leg or otherwise misses their time.

Add to all this and it started pouring rain on May 18th and hasn't stopped since. This has prevented our taking my electric scooter to the hospital and generally made life complicated.

This is a short lists of the events that have kept me from the computer. I'll try hard to catch up soon.

Prior to these busy days, we had a joyous visit from the kids and grandkids from New Zealand. They brought their 8 week old baby and we practiced our baby talk. Its been a while.

A Fish Story

Two Christmases ago, S- gave me an aquarium. I may have mentioned before that the deal was that she would give it to me, but I had to take care of it. It didn’t turn out that way, but that is another story.

Last year we had built the fish colony up to an interesting mix – only to suffer a monumental fish kill in the fall.We cleaned the tank, put in new water, treated the water and bought kits to check for noxious materials. We left the aquarium fish-less for several months with the filter going full force. Finally, nervously we bought just two little red wag tailed platys. They were pretty, but inexpensive and ideal for “testing the waters”.

The fish thrived and we were about to add more “When what to our wondering eyes did appear…” tiny, wee, bitty, micro things with two eyes bigger than the rest of their bodies. Now, just a few months later, we have a tank full of at least twenty red wag tailed platys!


I suspect we have reached the peak of the population curve. There is no place left for the fry to hide.

Anyone want a dozen or more fish?

Big Falling Out

Today is a sad day. I finally broke off my passion for "Meet the Press". I feel sorry of David Gregory. He just doesn't get it. He continues to act like his interviews must be tough gotcha games. His programs sound like bitter arguments. Tim Russert knew how to challenge a person with a smile. He and George Stephanopoulos could and can make their "...but you said this three years ago...?" come across as a friendly request for clarification. I'm just an old fashioned guy who thinks civility has a place in debate. (Except in the "frat" house where you can say anything you want just to get your opponents goat.)

Life in a Torpedo Tube AKA Hyperbaric Chamber

This was my seventh afternoon in a clear plastic tube. It could go on for as long as three months. I think I have already gone through the “getting used to it” stage and am getting bored with it. They roll you into this tube exactly the way they do in submarine movies when the bridge gives the order “Load tubes One and Two”. For hours the first “dive” I worried that someone would say “Fire One, Fire Two”!

Actually, the nurses do use dive jargon. For instance, they refer to a treatment session as a dive. The pressure you are subjected to is expressed in the equivalent number of feet under water. For example, I am under the pressure you would feel at 33 feet below water. When you are snuggly locked in the tube and can’t hear anything outside, they signal that they are starting to raise the pressure by signaling with the hands that you are going down. When, at the end of a dive, they signal with an upward motion, it means the pressure is starting down toward normal.

These times of changing pressure are the only times when there is a physical reaction to the dive. You are busy popping your ears by swallowing or taking a sip of water and swallowing or whatever works for you. If you have flown, you know about pressure changes. In my case, it takes about fifteen minutes for the pressure to get up to the treatment level and about the same time to reverse the process. I am taken to a pressure equivalent to 33 feet under water and held there for 110 minutes. Other folks go deeper for longer times. Doctor’s choice.

I guess everyone’s concern is claustrophobia. The concern intensifies when you ask, “Can I get out any time I want to?” The answer is, “Sure, but remember it takes fifteen minutes to return the pressure to normal and we can’t open the hatch until then.” But don’t worry. Everything to alleviate you concern has been thought of. The transparent tube is a big help. They promise that someone is always in the room with you. Then there are very large curved mirrors that allow you to see the whole room and everyone in it. If you rap on the tube, a nurse will pick up a phone and you can chat with her. She will reassure you all is well. Also large, school room clocks are visible so you know how long you have to go. A separate TV with DVD and tape player is clearly visible for each chamber with sound piped in to you.

There is no way to make a fashion statement in a hyperbaric session. On arrival you must be free of any antiperspirant, lotions, after shave, any jewelry, false teeth, and most important for women – no perfume nor make-up of any type.. As the nurses insist, you must be as God made you. You must change clothes, wearing nothing of your own, but just special hospital scrubs. No books, newspapers, watches, iPods, no cellphones, no nothing can go in with you

During your time in a chamber (tube) everyday air is replaced by 100% oxygen. This presents a very real fire danger and explains the restrictions on what can be on your skin or what can go in the chamber with you (nothing). To emphasize the point, a chamber blew up at a clinic recently with loss of life. Don’t cheat!

So what have I been doing for two and a half hours everyday? Well, I watch DVDs and television, I sleep a little, and I think a lot. You know in normal life we seldom have the freedom to think. Previously, cross-country trains were my favorite think places.

All this for a little bitty wound that does not want to heal.

Good Gracious Sakes Alive!

We went to the mall this noon for lunch. There is a door right next to the restaurant we enjoy, so we parked near by and ducked in without really glimpsing the mall proper. After lunch (we commented that it was unusually lacking in people eating) we made our plan for attacking the mall, my wife to the department stores and I to the Apple store and the like.

Now by way of background, The Mall at Wellington Green is quite classy, in keeping with its name. First class merchants all have stores there. The second thing to remember is that I have not been out of home, nursing home, or hospital for several months.

Well, I got on my little electric go-cart and headed off to see the sights. I wasn’t gone a minute when it struck me – My God! Where are the stores? I have been hearing lots about the recession on TV, but this was the first I had seen it up front and personal. My first impression was that every other store was empty. It wasn’t quite that bad, but pretty desolate. The only store that showed any bustle was the Apple store. I went in Dillards Department store to buy three pair of socks and there I saw the other side of the phenomenon . In the Men’s Dept. it was 40% off on everything and 70% off a wonderful array of racks of long sleeve sports shirts. The few men that were in the store were hovering over the racks looking for more shirts than the ones they had clutched in their arms. In retrospect, I should have bought six pairs of socks.

I had a question for someone in the Verizon telephone store. I am used to standing in line there. Today there were four idle clerks and me. They all wanted to “help me” and they didn’t even back off when I said I just had a question.

I was too young during the Great Depression to realize things were different than normal then. This time I was shockingly aware that change may be coming that could be irreversible.

Wow!

AWOL

I forgot to record on this blog that I would be absent for a month or so. Sorry bout that. I probably have mentioned that my years of heavy smoking (even though I had quit 35 years ago) have been catching up with me. This hospital trip was for the removal of another toe which was infected in rhe bone. It hurt like the dickens and it is a relief to have it gone. Poor circulation, don't you know. Had to go to Rehab for two weeks to get my balance under control.

When I was in the army, our Supply Sergeant didn't want to go to the Far East after we got back from Europe. He took a forty-five and carefully shot off his big toe with a bit of "collateral damage". It was an effective way to get out of our company, but not the army. I never saw or heard from him again. I cringe when I think of him trying to put on an army boot and walk after he healed up. That must have hurt!

Small Notes

While attacking the mess in my office recently, I came across one of the notebooks my wife had provided me to make notes while in the hospital. I had added a bunch of ideas from the past (and some the present) which might make blog subjects. That ended my efforts at cleaning up. I sat down to read.

My first thought came not from anything I wrote, but from what I didn’t write. Why the blankity blank can’t I date things? I write notes like, “Dr. Garcia, Friday, 1:45PM” No month! I have gazillion menus with no dates. I don’t know why I care, but it would help me figure out how many times I had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in any given week.

I remembered that my Dad could not hear high frequency sounds. He wired a light into the phone so he didn’t have to yell “Is THAT the phone?” His hobby was building HiFi phonos, He had meters to see if something that he built really worked. Nothing got him down.

Dad never told me (or anyone I knew) that he couldn’t tell me what he was working on at work. He simply didn’t tell. Once I twitted him about that and he told that on that day he and coworkers took a radar up on to the roof of the building he worked in. They shot at pigeons with a radar gun and killed several. Since I had no idea at that time what a radar gun was, I didn’t know if I was being teased or not.

Wish I had dated the note that read: “Today, I had the nurse from Hell. Bad Breathe, Chewing gum, and Body Odor.”

This and That

I was perhaps too optimistic. The doctor sent me back to the hospital last week. They pumped me full of blood again and when the tank was full I came home. Hospitals allow for a lot of thinking, but these largely consist of random, scattered thoughts. For instance:

Boy! Am I out of step with most of the political talk I see on TV and read in the papers! I watch congress people, Senators and Representatives, tell the CEOs of three giant American corporations that they have mismanaged their companies for years. I watch these congress people and I have my doubts that the majority of them could profitably and honestly run a simple, local automobile agency. These are experts in corporate management??

I like a large car. I have a large car. Why shouldn’t the companies have made it, and continue to make cars that I prefer? Note that the sales of foreign made cars tanked at the same time that domestic manufacturer took a dive. Don’t you think that the failure of the financial institutions (regulated by the government) may have sparked the collapse of the auto market.

Perhaps I am crazy, but I swear there are fewer out of state license plates to be seen on the streets and in the parking lots of Palm Beach County. It’s winter. The snow birds should be here. My bet is that they flew down and rented Florida cars.

Our faithful old (17 years) TV was beginning to hiccup at all the wrong times. This made us nervous, particularly since the date of the switch-over to all digital is fast approaching. Even with cable, our old friend was going to need its own special box to convert. A quick glimpse in any electronics store (or doctor’s waiting room) was all it took to show we weren’t getting the best picture. So in a clever bit of scheduling, I managed to be in the hospital when our choice of flat screens was delivered and installed. Dear wife did a wonderful job and I arrived home to an all-set-up beautiful new TV. Science and my wife are amazing.

I have a lot of little yellow stickies floating around the desk that contain more brilliance which I will delve into as time passes. Just one more thought before I go to bed—

When will some courageous gas company accept another 1/10th a cent for gas and stop the silly pricing that ends in 9/10 of a cent? Eliminating all the extra fuss and arithmetic involved could save the economy, maybe?

Good night!

Long Ago - But Memorable

December, 1945, and the war had been officially over since September: Christmas was a-coming. Company A was still sending patrols out to try to convince the Japanese hiding in the mountains behind Manila that the war was over. These forays could get dangerous when they weren’t believed that Japan had surrendered. But as Supply Sergeant, I happily didn’t have to go.

When it was announced that Episcopal services for the holidays would be held at another regiment several miles away, I decided to go to the Christmas Eve celebration. I used my job to get a spiffy new uniform and I found a native woman from the near-by village to iron the proper creases into it. I shined my shoes as they hadn’t been shined before. I even found some Vitalis in Manila to use on my wavy locks that evening. (Don’t laugh. That was pre-shiny scalp.) Oh, I was going to be the sharpest guy in the chapel.

We awoke on the day of Christmas Eve to pouring rain and it continued all day. But this did not deter my plan to be “Dapper Dan” of the 342nd. The transport truck backed up to each tent where someone had signed up to go. A quick dash and each of us was aboard. However, this extra maneuvering took time and we arrived late. The service had already started. The chapel was actually a large tent with open sides. The truck backed up to the tent where vanity was soon to take its revenge. As I jumped from our transportation, my heel caught on the tailgate and I went plop! – into a very deep mud puddle. My reflex reaction was to utter words spoken in infantry talk at the top of my lungs. Quite inappropriate for the time and place.

After the service, the priest laughed mightily as he looked at this mud encrusted GI. He forgave my language with a brief reprimand . (He, too, had been in the infantry for several rough years.)

Happy Holidays!

Hillary Clinton

Someone on TV just said that there is a lot of support for Hillary Clinton as Sec. of State on the internet. I would like to go on record as being on the internet and NOT supporting Hillary. I feel that appointing her will give Bill credibility that he does not deserve. We do not need Wild Bill traipsing around the world preaching the word according to Bill .

A Sunday Morning Thought

I love eggs. But for the biggest part of my life they were a forbidden food. Now -- They are practically a health food. The rehab I've been in served eggs in a different form almost every day. On Monday - poached, Tuesday we had scrambled , and so on.

I spoke to the nutritionist and she said that eggs are now considered a good protein source. Fine, but do I have enough years left to make up for all those decades of egg deprivation?