Darn, that hurts!

Everyone has those embarrassing moments that, by now, the rest of the world has forgotten, but live on in your memory and induce a cringe and a minor shudder each time they re-arise in your mind’s eye. Think how many guys watch video clips on TV and see the poor groom keel over just before the “I do’s”, and remember their own wedding with shame? After uncontrollable giggling at a funeral, fainting at the wrong time (among males, any time is the wrong time) ranks high among no-nos.

In my day, in the army, there was one forgivable, but not forgettable cause of fainting. In the fiery heat of the parade ground in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, or any tropical clime, the commands go :
• “Attennnn….Hut”:
• “Poortt..Harms” ;
• “ Inspectionnn… Harms”
• - a variable pause- followed by a repeat of,
• “Poortt …Harms”.

There is a brief nanosecond there after the last “Harms” during which you must remove your thumb from the path of the bolt crashing closed. If you fail, a searing pain shoots up to your shoulder, followed by a throbbing of the thumb, followed by a view directly into a blazing sun as you realize that you are flat on your back and your friends are stepping over you on their way off the field.

Now you have options – none of which solve your problem.
• Lie there until the sun goes down, then crawl back to the barracks.
• Get up and march off to your own music.
• Wait for a laughing medic, that by now you really don’t need.
• Lie there and cry for Mommy.
• Desert the Army and see if there are any openings in the CCC.

What ever you choose, the worst is yet to happen. You have to face the laughing and teasing in the barracks and the sarcasm of the sergeant.
* * * * * *
The only solace was that you knew that if they hadn’t done it themselves yet, they would.
Personal advice -- During the healing period, it is best not to try to use chopsticks.

Old Dogs Do Learn

After all these years of using the expression, "At your beck and call", it dawned on me that I never have heard the word "beck" in any other context. So I did the logical thing and looked it up. It means just what one would think it does, a beckoning gesture. But I am convinced I never heard anyone say, "Give me a beck." I think I took one too many Tylenol last night, because now I am wondering about the relationship between beckons and becks; and beacons and
beacs"? I must have something better to do.

For no reason, that brings to mind Quaker Parakeets. I spent the largest part of today searching for a picture I took several years ago of a Quaker Parakeet on a telegraph wire with a stem of three berries in his beak (that sound again!). I was very proud of that photo but I fear it is gone into a cyber wasteland somewhere. I did run across a very nice picture of this most beautiful of illegal immigrants. I don't know where I found it so I can't credit the photographer.



Quaker Parakeets, also called Monk Parakeets, first came to the US from South America as caged birds. But for all their beauty, they are loud, raucous talkers with unbeautiful voices. Soon, many were re-released into the wild in the states. They survived and colonies have formed in south Florida, the New York area, and even in the chill of the Chicago area. They travel and feed in flocks. They chatter as they fly and if a flock of green birds making a real racket zooms over your head, you can be pretty sure they are Monk Parakeets (named by someone with a sense of irony.)

The Little Moments We Remember

When I was in the kindergarten thru 5th grade I took the school bus to school. On the spot designated as our bus stop near the bottom of our street there grew a large old beech tree (or was it birch?). In my senior year in high school the tree with the pretty white bark was still there. In a romantic mood one day I carved the traditional heart and arrow with my initials and my girl friend’s initials into the bark. The tree and the romantic scar on its bark have been gone for many years now, but I was always kind of proud to have left that sort of Norman Rockwell impression on the environment. By the same token, I have been glad that carvings on the sides of trees didn’t constitute any kind of legal document. That gal went on the marry someone else and had ten children.

Actually, something of a chill settled in between us very shortly after I left for college. We didn’t meet again until years later when I was married. My wife and I were invited to a party on the street where my old girl friend and I had lived. She was there. I introduced the ladies politely. With feline fangs showing, the old flame hissed to my wife, “My gracious, you look just like Mrs. L---.” To which my good wife replied, “I am.” And turned away.

Ps. My mother and my wife didn’t look at all alike

Home

It has been rendered trite but -- There is no place like home! I have slept 38 hours a day since arriving home Wednesday night.
I got checked out by a doctor here and declared to have not opened any of the work sites of the Mayo Clinic doctors. Will now try to get back in the routine.

Hide in Public

More Than Donuts just posted a beautiful piece about New York City. She relates how NY residents see the city differently (or not at all) depending on their state of mind. Thus there are a limitless number of NY’s. Add to those, the NY observed by the commuters at various times of their days, and the sensations that New York generates are infinite.

I think the best memories may arise from little out of place things one sees, knows they are there, and accepts as a part of the city. A fellow named Joe and I used to walk downtown once or twice a week. We went south on Park Ave to about 34th St. Then cross town to Herald Sq. and duck into the Hudson Tubes to Jersey. On the cross-town street, I think it was 34th, there was a large, staid, old bank. Beside the road they had trees planted in very large containers (pots). One evening we noticed a small marijuana plant which had taken root in one of the containers. We amused ourselves by wondering if “pot” planted in a “pot” qualified as a “potted plant” -- and variations. All summer we would walk by that plant and occasionally comment on its growth. Many thousands of New Yorkers walked by that plant every day. Probably a conservative 95% knew what a marijuana plant looked like. I hesitate to understate an estimate of the percentage that used pot. But yet it grew undisturbed. Did it suggest that that the locals believed that rights were attached to “As he sows, so shall he reap?” Some one sowed and it was his right to reap?

Anyway, come fall, one week the plant was gone. In a small town you might ask around and try to determine who did it. In NY, it was gone and that was the end of the story.

Coming Home

It is Wednesday morning and we are going to give it a try.The doctor instructed me to pull over and walk a bit every 45 minutes. S has taken the precaution of checking the AAA book for motels along the way so if the 300 miles seems overly long, we can stop for a night. I am sure that the cats will be pleased to see us. I know that pleasant as this place is, I will happy to be home.

The Good Ship Mayo

Quite a few years ago, we took a cruise that started in New Zealand and ended in Sydney, Australia. We had a ball and enjoyed every minute but only because we are the kind of folks that can see the humor in minor misadventures. We were lined up one morning as we left a port to go on a tour of the ships bridge. The group before ours completed their turn and passed us on their way off the bridge. We stood and waited for what seemed a long time when a junior officer came to us and said the tour was cancelled. No explanation was given . Later that day we were up in the Observation Bar with another couple and one of us said to no one in particular, “Wonder why we have stopped!” We had just started across the Tasmanian Sea. When we started moving again it was somewhat slower that our own boat (the Sally Forth, a twenty-eight footer) could putt-putt up Barnegat Bay. That afternoon we were drinking in another bar and started buying drinks for an older Irish comedian entertainer on the ship’s staff. He gave us the inside story. Coming out of one of the previous ports we had stopped at, we had struck a rock. The rock was clearly marked on the ship’s charts. Thus, the staff captain in charge at the time earned himself an automatic and immediate discharge complete with exile to his cabin until we reached the next port. This had all been of little consequence to the operation of the ship until we had reached the point where the speed was to be increased for the crossing of the Tasmanian Sea. At that point the bent drive shaft made itself known.

It was a slow and rough-rough several days to Hobart, Tasmania where we were told that engineers were being flown in from the US. Each passenger was given $150 credit at the ship’s store plus free bus tours to visit the sights of Hobart. These were exhausted before the drive shaft could be straightened. Every 12 hours our departure was extended another 12 hours . An upscale mutiny was whispered. People had tickets to the Australian Open the date of which was upon us. Lawyers had cases to argue on schedule. Businessmen had deals to close. Meanwhile, S and I were shopping at the kiosks that local merchants had set up on the dock. We took long walks up and down the hills of the delightful city of Hobart. We were having a good time. When the propeller shaft was finally jerry-rigged, the ship headed north to Sydney non-stop, skipping Melbourne completely( For Sale : unused Open tickets).

We stayed a few days in Sydney. We went back down to the dock to see the new passengers as the ship took off for the next cruise. We waved and shouted , “Good Luck!” as they left the harbor.

This morning, we went down to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled. Waiting, we sat in the main Mayo waiting room where new patients check in. As they were told that since they were “on standby”, they should get some lunch and come back at 1:00PM. S said she felt like we were in Sydney waving to the departing cruise passengers. True! They were about to find out something needs fixing and it is going to take longer than they think.

Done

Well, the deed is done and we hope to get back to our routine life as soon as possible. We were startled Wednesday when the surgeon finished his description of what he could do which he thought might help. We asked when he could fit us into his schedule, expecting we would have to come back to Jacksonville. Instead, he said , how about Friday afternoon? We went into the hospital at 11 AM Friday morning and arrived back at the Inn at the Mayo campus about 2 PM on Saturday.

Since it is a 300 mile drive to home, I am not going to attempt to leave for a day or two. Also, I am sure there are lots of humorous aspects of this adventure to blog about, but that will take a few days of mulling over. I am sure you will be happy to know that there will be no pictures.

Thank you for the comments and e-mails.

We Did it Before and We Can Do it Again

Ok, we will be off again for another week of playing test animal for the good folk at the Mayo Clinic. This week we hope to find out what they think they can do for us and when they might do it. While waiting between consultations I am building quite a stock of half formed ideas for future posts.

Have a good week with lots of accomplishments to feel good about.

VOTE

I did, why can't you?

Most states allow early voting and most states have weekend hours.

Cedar Closets

Do they still build houses with cedar closets? In fact, only one of the homes I’ve ever purchased has had one and that was a shore cottage. I think it was older than I was and all the aroma of cedar was long gone. For you of the younger generation, one of the plagues of “olden days” was the wool-eating moth. In Northern climes, wool was the primary fabric for winter clothing. During the warmer parts of the year when woolens were stored, they were vulnerable to moths (or the larvae of said moths). The first lines of defense against the holes caused by these hungry, mini-beasts were mothballs and flakes. Both were typically naphthalene and moth families disliked their odor. They usually found other quarters. This was not an altogether satisfactory solution to the problem because come fall, many folks were required to go to work or church in clothes that smelled strongly of something like cold medication.

The elegant solution was a closet lined with cedar wood planking. Apparently, moths were also put off by the somewhat more pleasant, fragrant (to people) odor of cedar.

Modern science has never proved decisively whether the demise of wool caused the demise of moths. In any event, a famine struck the moth population. Despite its best efforts, science has never succeeded in developing a moth species with an appetite for Orlon.

Career Buster

After my first promotion in Research and Development, I was in charge of a group responsible for formulating laundry detergents. In those days two factors determined the success of a detergent. First, of course, was how well it cleaned dirty clothes and second was how well it sudsed up. This was before automatic washers and back then lots of suds were a virtue. Before long a new machine, the front-loading Bendix, appeared on the scene. Simultaneously, the low sudsing detergent "All" had a market no other popular detergent could touch. Those were fighting words and we had to hustle to develop a competitive product. When we thought we had one, the top brass was invited to watch a demonstration early one morning. My boss’ boss’ boss’ boss was to do the demonstration in the “laundry lab” where we had a big assortment of washing machines. It was a big moment for me because the plan included introducing me to the CEO and the other big- wigs.

Matching loads of laundry were put in our pair of Bendix machines. "All" was added to one machine and our new wonderful formula to the other. Hot water was added to both and the wash cycles started. On schedule, the foam rose to the middle of the widows. Not scheduled, the foam rose to the top of the window of our product’s machine. The suds kept rising and soon were pouring out the little hole on top where the detergent was normally put in. As the suds started to cover the floor around the Bendix, the CEO and his cohorts quietly left the lab and crossed the bridge to their offices.

Such embarrassment does not go down well with the semi-brass who started a big investigation. Our formula easily proved its innocence in more tests where it behaved as we intended. After many days, this was what was discovered. The laundry lab was in a factory building. Down stairs were a variety of filling lines that were staffed by women. Business was good and the lines were running a night shift. Some of the women considered it a perk to bring their family laundry to work with them. During their breaks or before their shift started, they would sneak up to the laboratory and use the machines to do the week’s laundry. Some gal had decided to try out a new Bendix the night before our dog and pony show. She didn’t know that it required a special detergent and grabbed a box of Tide off the shelf. No one thought to clean out the machines in the morning and BINGO! We had a foaming Bendix. I was far enough down the food chain to think it was pretty clever of the production ladies and to laugh about it. But, oh, the inter-departmental wars that broke out. Thus do careers collapse!

Don't Discard Today's Pleasures

I unabashedly stole the following neat parable recounted by Dr. Morris Greenberg in an article which appeared in the “Classic Close Up”, the monthly newsletter of the Classic Residence of Hyatt at Lakeside Village. While I think all seniors will enjoy and nod knowingly, the lesson is really for the younger folk that happen to tune in here. Read it all the way through, then recall the last thoughts you stored away when you went to sleep last night
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The 92 year old, petite, well poised and proud lady who is fully dressed each morning by 8:30 a.m., with her hair fashionably coiffed and makeup perfectly applied even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. Maurine Jones is the most lovely, gracious, dignified woman that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. While I have never aspired to attain her depth of wisdom, I do pray that I will learn from her vast experience.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window.

“I love it”, she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight year old having just been presented with a new puppy.
“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room …just wait”.
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it”, she replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged, it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice. I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away, just for this time in my life.
Old age is like a bank account…you withdraw from what you’ve put in,
”So my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories”.

Atlantic City

Among the really "older generation" most every one had a story about "their trip to Atlantic City". I remember mother told stories of loving what she thought of as gambling. She discovered pinball machines in Atlantic City. If you had a really successful game you were awarded a free game, hence, it was gambling. Atlantic City and the Catskills were the only resorts that middle income folk in the middle Atlantic states could aspire to visit.

We were lucky. One of my first wife's rich uncles gave us a trip to AC as a wedding present. After our honeymoon, we decided to cash in on that present before heading back to college for me, and a job for her. (She had graduated by then.)

Let me set the stage for our visit; it was 1947, well before gambling came to AC, we arrived on a blazing hot day. Atlantic City was on the way down hill. Only the boardwalk, a very few fine hotels, the annual Miss America contest, and the high diving horse on Steel Pier were left of the glory that had been. Whether the casinos have now restored the glory or an expensive form of tackiness can be debated.

We checked into the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall (I'm showing off that I remember the name if not the spelling). There starts the first story. When we pulled into the little alcove under Hadsdon Hall to leave our car with valet parking, I noticed that the rear tire was going flat. I didn't know what to do, so I took the way any spineless kid would do. We ignored it and proceeded into the hotel. To avoid any calls from the valet parking people we immediately went for a walk. We walked too far in the dressy clothes people wore on the boardwalk in those days. (This is the start of the second story. First story concludes later.) Dying of thirst, we went into a pleasant looking lounge and ordered vodka tonics. We knew little about drinking. I knew that in the army if you were thirsty you chugalugged the first beer and felt better. So we did the same with our "sophisticeted drinks". "That tasted good, let's order another!" When we ordered thirds, the fatherly waiter asked if we knew what we were drinking and informed us that the vodka was one hundred and something proof . We didn't really understand all that , but agreed the next would be our last and that we would drink it slowly.

On the way back to the hotel we had this very serious and rational conversation about how we hadn't noticed that the boardwalk was downhill on our walk to the lounge, but it was definately uphill back to the hotel. It dawned on one of us that, of course, the lounge was south and the hotel was north. South is always down and north is always up. There, that solved that.

When it was time to leave several days later, we approached valet parking with trepidation. When we handed in our ticket, the valet smiled and said, by the way, you had a flat tire and we had to tow your car. We had it fixed, but we have to add $1.15 to your bill. (It was 1947). What an anticlimax!

(What I forgot to tell is that I knew my spare was also flat. I had locked the trunk and taken the truck key with me. In those days there were separate keys for ignition and the trunk. 10-30)

In English, please

I may be repeating myself, but HEY! It is just my way of proving that I really am getting old.

When we learned that we were going to be transferred to France for a limited time, one of the first things we did was check with M’s college to see if she could get off from school for a semester without any huge problems. M had taken French in high school and could help us with a language the rest of the family was totally helpless with. She came with us and if not fun for her, I’d guess it was at least interesting. She taught me how to say, in French, “I do not speak French.” That is probably the most useless phrase a non- French speaking person can learn. Natives assume that since you said it in French, you must understand French.

There were a few other phrases that were useful. I was in charge and like any boss any where in the world, I was talked and joked about behind my back - and in my case. right in front of me. One day as we were assembling in the conference room for a meeting, the laughter, sly looks in my direction, and general ruckus reached a high pitch. So as the last person in came through the door, I said casually and in French, “Mrs. Herbert, please close the door”. The stunned silence was one of those priceless moments that commercials are written about. Of course, I got quite good at saying, “Stupid American!”, when stopped by a traffic cop. The phrase, “How much?” also came in handy almost daily. I specially appreciated the gas station attendants who would write the amount on their hand with a ball-point pen.

Now I find myself in southern Florida, where English is fast becoming a forgotten language. It confuses the hell out of the Spanish-speaking folks when I say, I don’t speak French, in French.

More Mayo

In the continuing medical saga that has been our lives the last week, we are home for a brief respite. We go back in a week for more tests and we hope a conclusion as to what to do. The positive thing so far is that we have been told not that there is nothing that can be done, but that there are a number of options which further testing will help in deciding which to try. If the Mayo Clinic had a football team, I would volunteer to be a cheer leader.

Where in the World is Lil' ole Me?

It was not my intention to be mysterious when I signed off a week ago. We are at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. I have been asking if there is any way to get me walking again. It looks like at the minimum I will be here another week, probably longer. I don't hope to run the Boston Marathon although my father did that and it was always in the back of my mind until I got fat and lazy. I don't even want to play golf again. I was never very good at that and why get all frustrated again? All I really want to do is stop feeling that every little Boy Scout thinks he should help me across the street.

Mayo Clinic is a beautiful campus, amazingly computerized, and quite sober. They claim serious respect for the patients' privacy. The patient's guide says that on-campus photograpy is prohibited out of respect for patients' privacy. At the head of the lines defined by velvet ropes, there is a sign saying, To preserve patients' privacy, please wait here until a consultant is free." Where there is a sign-in sheet the instructions are to use only your last name...to preserve patients' privacy. Just when you have absorbed this good thought, you are startled by a voice over loud speakers everywhere shouting out, "HUGO CHAVEZ OF VENEZUELA, PLEASE GO TO WINDOW 8." A nurse will come out from the inner reaches and shout to the assembled patients, " Mr John Doe, Mr George Doe, Ms. Jane Doe, Please follow me." An hour in the waiting room and you can learn the name of everyone there.

Please don't think that everyone spends as much time in waiting rooms as we have (and will). I am here on a stand-by basis. As such, my unbelievably wonderful S has to wheel me over two buildings and up four floors by 6:45 AM tomorrow to start hoping someone has a flat tire on the way here. That is not nice, I will just hope they decide they don't want to get up that early.

This was a day off and I bought a book on blogging to read during the waits, so watch this space. I may start blogging in 3D

Herculean Strength - One Day Only

Recently I wrote about the brook that was doing its babbling on two sides of our house and mentioned that in addition to being toxic to our lawn, it also went amok at one time. The rest of the story -- I was at work one summer day when I got a phone call from my wife who was at our shore house. She said she had just received a call from a neighbor who knew her number, but not mine at work. The neighbor wanted us to know that the creek was rising and water was well up in our back yard and approaching the house. I knew it had been raining all day, but I found out soon how hard a rain it was. I left quickly, but ran into road flooding and had to take a circuitous route to get home. It took a while and by the time I got there the water was getting very close to the house.

This to me is the part of that story of that day that I can’t believe even though I know it is true because I was there. With no one to help, I carried all of the furniture out of the room on the ground floor across a hall and up the four steps to the second level of our split-level house. There was a large sofa, two large easy chairs, two large bookcases full of books (I can’t remember how the books got up), our TV (a big old tube type) and the old phonograph-piece of furniture the TV sat on. Also assorted lighter stuff like end tables, floor lamps, a box of children’s toys, etc.

By then the water was coming into the utility room between the wall and the foundation. All my tools were in danger of a drowning, but I had only gotten most of them up to the top of the workbench when I decided there had to be a better way. I slammed the door to the utility room and the rec room and stuffed towels along the door bottoms. (This latter did no good at all.) Then I open the front door and finally the back door. Quickly, water was flowing straight through the house and back to the creek bed out front. However, at least six inches of dirty water did take up residence in the utility room and the rec room even after the storm abated. I hadn’t thought to try to save the rugs and they were a total loss. The next morning I carried them out to the curb for the trash men. I broomed and squee-geed muddy water out of the ground floor all day. Along the way I figured out that it was safe to turn on the furnace fans (no heat). These stayed on for a couple weeks until things dried out.

The downstairs furniture didn’t all get back where it belonged until my wife and kids came home at the end of the summer and helped. I found it too heavy and awkward to handle alone. Our day will never even be a footnote in the history of storms, but it gave me a mystery I never have resolved.

PS. I will not be able to blog for the next week or more. See you soon, I hope.

Justice Can Smell - A Not Nice Story

I believe it was around 1958. I was involved in the formulation of laundry detergents. Some one had the brilliant idea that what the world needed was a detergent with a special deodorizing ingredient. This brainstorm ignored the fact that the simple act of washing soiled fabrics would usually improve their odor. No, we had to have an ingredient that made this product better than any other. To test the product we needed some really stinky something to wash. So each morning a bunch of employees with young babies had to wake the poor baby, change its diaper and take the soiled diaper to work with them where it became a tool of performance evalution.

So I left for the job at 6:30 in the morning with briefcase in one hand and a securely wrapped diaper in the other. On the commuter train the package went into the overhead rack. When the train got to Hoboken, I was half way through the station when I realized I had left the package on the rack. I hurried back to the train, but there was no sign of the diaper. Asking the conductor yielded nothing. Lost and found had no package turned in that morning.

I continued on to the office wishing I could see the thief's face when he found out what he had swiped.

Travel Insurance

This is another post which, if the index is right, was never posted. I apparently wrote it last November. I hate to waste things, so here it is. If you do remember seeing it before, just skip it.

If you were to look into the deep recesses of my wallet you would find a $100 bill. It is my “mad money” and I have been sitting on the same bill for well over thirty years. It’s antique value may exceed the face value soon.

When I arrived in France to start work, a co-worker showed me a short-cut from our office to my home. It was through the back roads of metro-Paris, but avoided the twice daily traffic jams of the main roads. At one point it crossed a wide open area populated by real European gypsies living in shacks and “covered wagons”. The place teemed with children playing, interspersed with dogs chasing the kids and each other. It sounds romantic, but it wasn’t. Just a scene of poverty and grime. My guide informed me that the gypsies would train the dogs to come quickly when called. With the dog and the caller on opposite sides of the street, they would wait for a car to come along. The caller would attempt to time his call to have car and dog meet – to the detriment of the dog. The collision would bring crying children surrounding your car and wailing about the loss of the old family pet. It would then be suggested that the purchase price of a new “old family pet” would assuage their feelings.

My co-worker suggested always carrying a 100 franc note (about $20 US at the time) to stop the tears of gypsy children before your car was laid waste. And possibly you too.

When I returned to work in New York City, the streets of the city as well as the subways were not comfortable to walk alone. There was an epidemic of muggings. The wishful thinkers byword was that the victim would not be harmed severely if the “crime paid”. Familiar principle. Hence the $100 bill in my wallet.

Actually, I never killed a dog or met a mugger so I don’t know if my prevention measures were valid.