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Off You Go…My Friend

Off You Go…My Friend

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Would You Like A Lime With That Week Ten

Ecclesiastes 7

A good name is better than fine perfume,
and the day of death better than the day of birth.
2 It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
the living should take this to heart.
3 Frustration is better than laughter,
because a sad face is good for the heart.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

 

 

On Monday about an hour before my weekly zoom staff meeting, I received a call from the daughter of a friend of mine telling me that my friend had passed away.

My friend was a victim of the virus.

We always have a devotional at the beginning of our meetings. For this meeting one of my co-workers chose a reading from Ecclesiastes 7.  It seemed to fit with my morning phone call I thought as she was reading.

 

As this new normal continues we are getting more used to forgoing our traditional rituals or at least creatively modifying them.  For Mother’s Day the kids set up a table in the driveway and surprised Kim with a “to go” lunch from a local restaurant.  We social distanced. It was the first time we had seen the kids in about eight weeks. Cameron even put on a tie.  Of course we had to settle for the live feed over the cell phone for the Florida kids.  But in the end, Kim said it was one of her best Mother’s Days.

Sadly however, forgoing our rituals applies to celebrating life in death as well.

 

My friend was older than me, really just four years younger than my father.

He also shared something else in common with my dad and that was that he too had Parkinson’s Disease.

 

I always thought it a bit ironic that my friend who I very much thought of in a paternal way, would also have Parkinson’s.  I used to think, what a coincidence, both my “dads” have Parkinson’s.  And the same patience I learned to exercise with my father became more important as my friend’s disease progressed.

 

I first met Frank while I was a student at Northern Virginia Community College’s Respiratory Therapy program.  I believe he was the medical director of the program at the time, but he also was one of the two pulmonary physicians who taught our disease case study class.  I remember hearing before the first class, all the rumors, and the warnings, and advice from those who had previously taken this class was that you definitely didn’t want to get Dr. Fusco as your case study instructor.  He would tear you up.  But then meeting him for the first time in class and sizing up his personality I realized he was just another Italian guy from North Jersey.  What is wrong with that?  Having recently relocated from New Jersey, it made me feel at home.

 

After graduating, the next time I saw Frank, I was as his patient.

 

An enlarged lymph node was found on a routine chest x-ray in my mediastinum.  The unilateral enlarged node presented itself more like a cancer finding and less like something benign.  After a CT scan was ordered I was referred to a chest surgeon for the biopsy. On the day before I was to be admitted to Fairfax Hospital for the procedure, I was sitting in Frank’s waiting room when he came out from the back and sat down beside me, put his arm around me and he said,

“Let’s just hope it’s benign.”

Up to that time he hadn’t given me any real reason to be worried, but once he came out to the waiting room and did the whole arm around me “let’s hope it’s benign” thing I proceeded to panic.

The biopsy confirmed it was benign.  It turned out to be histoplasmosis, a fungal infection you get from bird poop.

But I would always remember that moment of compassion and concern for my health.  And it greatly impacted our friendship.

 

Time went on and I went to work in the ICU at Fairfax Hospital (now Inova Fairfax).  Frank was one of the more senior pulmonary physicians practicing at Fairfax and he was also the medical director of the Respiratory Therapy Department.

 

When I left the hospital to work in respiratory homecare and the company I worked for needed a medical director, I asked Frank.   Once again we were working together.

 

I remember a time waiting in line in a hotel lobby in New Orleans where we were both attending the National Association of Respiratory Care’s annual meeting when I said something to him that he thought was too much in his personal business.  Once we were both checked in he took me aside and set me straight on just how far I was crossing the line.  It was awesome.  Just like getting yelled at by my dad.

 

Having been in the Air Force, Frank loved to fly and in fact owned his own plane with another physician.  One evening we sponsored a company function at the Barns of Wolf Trap for our referral sources and he was telling me about the vintage Navy trainer he was going to rent the next morning from the airfield at Quantico and he invited me to fly with him. I think he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol at that airfield.

“Hell no,” I said continuing with something like, “you are not going to get me up in one of those little planes, let alone an old, little plane.”

But by the end of the evening and after a couple beers I had signed on as co-pilot.  The drive from my home in Reston to Quantico that next morning was one of the most prayer filled hours of my life.  We took off, flew over the Chesapeake Bay, up the Little Choptank River and at a low altitude I literally waved to my parents who were out in their yard on the river confused over the plane that was buzzing them.  But still they waved back.  On the return trip to Quantico he let me take the stick and fly the vintage plane myself.

It was an experience I will never forget.

 

After he retired and moved to Florida I didn’t see him too much.  I would send him our Christmas letters and keep in touch by email.  Sometimes I would email him blog posts.  If he was up in Northern Virginia we would meet for dinner and maybe have a couple of beers, occasionally with Kim and his wife Barbara, but most of the time just the two of us.
As his Parkinson’s progressed, dinner and beers became more lunch and ice teas.  He liked to talk about the old days at Fairfax Hospital, the crew we worked with, and our days of experimenting with high frequency jet ventilation which I think brought us all closer together.  He liked talking about his kids, his grandkids, his great grandkids, and his wife Barbara who passed away a couple of years ago.

 

He always asked about my dad and how he was doing.  I didn’t always tell him the truth since my dad was a little ahead of him on the disease curve in my opinion.

 

The last time I saw him he told me that he thought I had a gift with structuring a story and to make sure I did something with it.  His approval meant a lot to me.

 

He would often say after discussing the days long past during our lunch meetings, “we had some fun.”

 

I thought of him as my mentor, teacher, attending physician, medical director, co-worker, surrogate dad, and my friend.

 

And now my friend, the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.  Whereas death is the destiny of everyone, you have reached yours.  And if the day of death is better than the day of birth, I’m sure you are already in paradise.  As for me, if a sad face is good for the heart, then my heart is strong.

 

Rest in peace.

 

And yeah, we did have some fun.

 

Post Script:

The photo above is actually a Navy trainer my Uncle Ted serviced during the Korean War.  The plane Frank and I flew that day was very similar.

 

And remember to keep in your prayers:

Healthcare workers and their families. Remember “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:8);

All those sick or compromised from the virus and all other health issues;

Those non healthcare caregivers working to take care of a loved one while isolated at home;

Families who have lost loved ones;

Those who have lost jobs and businesses.

And keep reaching out to those who may need some attention.

Cameron wearing his tie as we celebrate Mother’s Day 2020 in the driveway

The Birds and the Bees, Finally

The Birds and the Bees, Finally

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Would You Like A Lime With That Week Eight

 

Another week.

I got the sense this week that people are starting to get tired of this new lifestyle.

Normally on this upcoming weekend, the first Saturday in May, I would have the homemade meatballs cooking, the Derby decorations up, and the TV’s all on for the Kentucky Derby festivities.  This year that will be the first Saturday in September.  At least I hope.

I was busy since my last post.

I successfully “painted the roots” and made my wife even more beautiful.

On Sunday afternoon the remaining large potted plants that made the trip to “Plant Camp” back in October returned home again for the summer.

But I also must admit, since that last post, I broke the rules and made a quick twenty four hour visit to see my parents.

The last couple of weeks I had been more concerned that I hadn’t seen them and the phone calls were getting a little more weird and stressful each time.

 

My parents live in a small town called Woolford on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, west of Cambridge.  Their house is on the water, on a tributary of the Little Choptank River that empties into the Chesapeake Bay in the area of Taylor’s Island.

At the time I wrote this Dorchester County Maryland had the fourth lowest number of Coronavirus cases in Maryland with 51.  In fact with the exception of Wicomico County with the city of Salisbury, the Eastern Shore counties are all at the lower end of the list.

Never the less, without any traffic on the roads, I made good time and didn’t stop until I got in their driveway.

The last time I had been out there was the weekend of the 9th Annual Crawfish Boil and Muskrat Stew Festival on March 1st, so it had been about eight weeks.  That’s a long time when you are used to making that trip every two or three weeks.

 

The sun porch where we tend to spend most of our time faces the river, their pier and bulkhead.  In the yard there are a couple of trees, a flag pole, and two large purple martin houses high up on poles.  Purple martins like open areas which makes the waterfront yard perfectly accommodating.  By this time of the year, the purple martin houses were full of activity with birds swooping back and forth from their perches on their houses to the yard, and back again.

At one point, my mother and I were sitting at the table looking out the window and there were two birds rolling around in the grass.

So I said to my mother, “look at those two birds out there… they are really fighting!”

If you know my New Jersey mother you know she is awesome.  You also know she has never been shy about saying whatever is on her mind whenever she feels like it. She has no filter.  You always know where you stand with my mother.

In this case, her rather loud response was:

“THEY’RE HAVING SEX!”

“THEY’RE NOT FIGHTING!”

“THEY’RE HAVING SEX!

“Oh” I said rather sheepishly.  “I thought they were fighting.”

“THEY’RE HAVING SEX!”

“THEY’RE NOT FIGHTING!”

 

 

“Gee,” I thought to myself.

For the first time in my now almost sixty four years, I think my mother just had the “SEX” conversation with me.

In her own way, we just had “the talk.”

For me I wanted it to be like “C’mon Ma, yuck, is that what they are doing?  No, please tell me they’re fighting…!”

But no, they weren’t fighting.

THEY WERE HAVING SEX!

This is awkward…

But how was I to know?

I am naive about these sorts of things.

 

While I was there I was able to check and clean the gutters, a chore that included my dad insisting that he climb the ladder to check my check of the gutters.  Thankfully the quality control part of the gutter cleaning process included only one gutter section.

I also changed a couple of light bulbs, replaced a shower head, and fixed a smoke alarm.

We talked about memories of their growing up in our hometown of Oceanport and memories of me and my siblings growing up there too.

We stayed up late.

In the morning, we assembled and raised on a pole, a third purple martin house in the yard.  It was a birthday present from my mother to my father.

Probably a good thing because with all that sex going on, the purple martins were sure to need another boarding house pretty soon.

My father and mother then brought down the American flag, now frayed from the winter winds and needing to be replaced.

After all that was done, I packed up the truck, and headed back home.

I felt good about the time I spent and what I was able to accomplish.  My parents were grateful for the visit.  I was a lot less worried.

And best of all, I now understood:

“THEY’RE NOT FIGHTING!”

“THEY ARE HAVING SEX!”

 

Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my wife what I had learned!

 

Post Script:

As of today in Virginia, medical and dental offices are starting to open up, and elective surgeries will begin again.  A good sign.

Don’t forget to continue to keep those healthcare workers and their families in your prayers. Remember “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:8)

As well as all those sick or compromised from the virus and all other health issues.

Also those non healthcare caregivers working to take care of a loved one while isolated at home.

And those families who have lost loved ones.

And those who have lost jobs and businesses.

And keep reaching out to those who may need some attention.

 

Coming home from Plant Camp
Week Eight

 

Mr. Nobody -Would You Like a Lime with That Week Two

Mr. Nobody -Would You Like a Lime with That Week Two

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“I get the news I need on the weather report,
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report”

I can’t help it, it just happens.

I woke up this morning singing “The Only Living Boy in New York.”  I have been belting it out all day.

Don’t we all just want to get all the news we need on the weather report these days?

We are now in week two of the official escalation of Coronavirus pandemic.

Life has changed for all of us.

For those lucky enough to be still working it’s not business as usual by any means.   Working from home is the case for many, or shortened hours; reduced staff; “take out” only.

Shopping continues to be challenge, especially for certain items.

Hopefully you don’t have colonoscopy scheduled any time soon.

But even if you did those elective medical procedures are probably canceled anyway.

Sporting events are going on with no one in the stands or not at all.

My “first Saturday in May” event, the Kentucky Derby, will this year be the “first Saturday in September,”Labor Day weekend.

And my daughter Alexa has officially proclaimed the Maryland Terrapins 2020 NCAA Champs daring anyone to prove her wrong.

And of course, if you are a church, you are preaching to the camera on Sundays with no one in the pews while on Friday afternoon your lone staff person is belting out “The Only Living Boy in New York.”

 

Then there are those who are not working at all.  Their lives have really changed.


“Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile,
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da and here I am”

Many with nothing to do today, but hopefully still smiling.

 

I spoke with my mother on the phone earlier today.

One of the highlights of my dad’s day is his “coffee break” which for him is kind of a mid to late morning time for some food and coffee and rest that goes back to his days as a crabber and a waterman.  It could be out at the table by the river or on the deck or in the house depending on the weather.  Or if they happen to be up in Cambridge, the closest and biggest town near them like they happened to be this morning, it could be at a restaurant, or McDonalds, or Royal Farms.  My dad no longer drives so this morning he asked my mother to stop for coffee break and of course she couldn’t and had to explain to him that everything is take out.

My mom said my dad is having trouble understanding that.

I get it, it’s hard to change your routine.  I understand, but it’s hard.  Especially for old guys, ninety-year-old guys who don’t have a lot of options for fun activities even without a pandemic.

He wants his “coffee break.”

 

One of the highlights of my week again came from a post on the Oceanport Centennial Facebook page belonging to my New Jersey hometown.

Someone posted a photo of my dad sitting on a little desk on the job at the Wolf Hill School.

My dad was the head custodian at the Wolf Hill School which had grades K through 4 or K through 5 depending on the year.  He started in that position the year my younger brother started Kindergarten so maybe 1966 and retired about 28 years ago so maybe 1992?  So, for about 25 years or so he worked at that school.

It got a lot of comments:

“Great guy to work with”

“So great with the kids!”

“Love him”

“He would sweep…with Mrs. Jeffrey’s class pet hamster in his shirt pocket”

“He would sing to me my own special song”

“great guy’

“The best”

“A true hero”

“Wonderful sense of humor”

“True work ethic”

“Amazing guy”

“Such a nice man”

“What a terrific man”

“Loved us kids and we loved him”

“What a wonderful man”

“One of my fondest memories”

“Deserves nothing but the best!”

 

Gee whiz Pop, I hope when I am your age someone will even just remember me.  Probably be more like “yeah, I remember that guy, he gave me a cold once…”

 

And then there was this comment:

“Remember the notes on the black boards from Mr. Nobody?”

 

Mr. Nobody?

From one aging nobody to another, I had never heard that story.

So, I asked the nice lady who posted that comment to tell me more.  Here was her response:

I believe he only did it with the lower grades because I only remember it happening in 1st grade with Mrs. Bennett. When we were out of the room someone would mysteriously leave little notes on the black board and signed them Mr. Nobody. They were short messages like have a nice day or be good children, I’m watching, etc. We would be so surprised and excited when we got a note. I didn’t know until probably 4th or 5th grade who it was.  (Tara)

Hey Pop!

Hey Mr. Nobody!

Reading all these comments, it doesn’t sound like you are nobody to me.

Sounds to me like the kids thought you were pretty special.

 

In three weeks, Mr. Nobody will celebrate his 91st birthday.

I am hoping this pandemic doesn’t keep me away from visiting him for too long.

I would like to thank all you nice folks for all the nice comments about my dad.

I can’t wait to get out there to share them with him.

 “Hey, let your honesty shine, shine, shine
Like it shines on me
The only living boy in New York”

 

Yeah Pop, like it shines on me…

Happy early birthday Pop!

 

Oh, and let me not forget to thank all you healthcare workers who, like our soldiers in war, are reporting for duty every day, then going home and taking care of your own families. We are grateful and praying for your safety!

Week Two

 

(The Only Living Boy in New York, written by Paul Simon, performed by Simon and Garfunkel)

A Sentimental Racetrack Journey

A Sentimental Racetrack Journey

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Since the time I mucked my first stall fifty years ago on the “back side” (stable area) of Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport, New Jersey I have had many racetrack related experiences.   Most good, some not so. Some of those I shared in a post called A New National Obsession in February of 2017.

But as a result,  this is one of my favorite times of the year, the first Saturday in May, the Kentucky Derby, the first of the Triple Crown races.

The sport of horse racing has had a rough winter with the deaths of 23 horses at Santa Anita Park in Southern California since December.   Efforts are being made to try to determine why that unfortunate situation occurred there.  Some blame the unusual amount of rain and unusually cold weather changing the racing surface.  I remember a similar situation at Monmouth Park in the 70’s when the entire racing surface was peeled off and replaced resolving the problem. But beyond correcting the racing surface, efforts are also being made industry wide to make changes to the sport that will make it safer for horses and riders nationally.

The following is a story I mentioned in  A New National Obsession, that I wrote in 2014, one of my favorite racing stories:

 2014 Horse of the Year

(Written May 23, 2014 and edited for this essay May 1, 2019)

 

Sir Sidney is the 5 year old son of Ghostzapper.

Ghostzapper was the Horse of the Year in 2004.

Sir Sidney, at five years old had only raced three times in his life and had never won a race. In fact it had been almost two years since Sir Sidney had even been entered in a race.

Sadly, Sir Sidney was five years old and still a “maiden”…horse racing’s term for a horse who has yet to cross the finish line first.

The third Saturday in May, famous for the second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown, The Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Racecourse in Baltimore, was to be Sir Sidney’s coming out party after a two year break.   He was entered in the 13th race, the last race of the day, the race after the big attraction. The race after the Preakness. It was the race that no came expecting to watch, the one that would be run while everyone was leaving the infield, the grandstands, the parking lot and sitting in traffic as they made  up “horse stories” to tell their friends about what could have been, what should have been… if only I had done this or bet that.

The thirteenth race, just the sound of it made you want to skip it, like not having a 13th floor in a high rise, or staying in bed on Friday the 13th.  But there was Sir Sidney, the only five year old in the company of nine three year olds reaching the starting gate for the first time in a long while.

The twelfth race, The Preakness, had proven to be just what everyone had expected or hoped for. California Chrome who had won the Kentucky Derby so convincingly didn’t disappoint in the Preakness. He won the race as the overall favorite, the crowd letting him go off at odds that would only return 50 cents on every dollar bet. Now, the only question that would remain, could California Chrome win the Belmont Stakes and be the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978?

While everyone was pondering that and heading home, the 13th race went off at 7:10 PM, Sir Sidney broke well from the gate and took the lead on the backstretch. However, going into the turn, three horses passed him and he fell back to fourth. Coming out of the turn and into the stretch Sir Sidney dug in deep as a hole opened up in the leaders and he charged into it. Now three horses head to head charging down the stretch! As they approached the finish line Sir Sidney pulled away and won by a length! The unlikely runner, the old guy in the race, never having won before, finally was a winner.

Thrilling stuff right?

C’mon I am getting goose bumps writing about it!

So right now you are wondering “okay Curt, where are you going with this? Why should I care?”

Well maybe you shouldn’t.

 

But let’s just say hypothetically you are me and a passionate fan of the sport, and an occasional recreational bettor. And let’s also imagine that you/me, like a lot of other people thought California Chrome was the best bet of the day, maybe the best bet of the year. And let’s just say you/me thought real long and hard about making that recreational wager on California Chrome to win, number 3 in the twelfth race, the 2014 Preakness Stakes.

But let’s go a step further in our hypothetical situation. Let’s just say that wager that you/me thought long and hard about, the one that you/me so carefully and confidently placed on number 3, California Chrome in the 12th race , and cheered loudly for as California Chrome crossed the finish line in spectacular fashion only to find out………

That your/my horse didn’t win, because, by mistake, the horse that you/I  bet was actually number 3 in the 13th race!

 

I think you/me are probably feeling pretty silly right now huh?

 

Silly that is…until about 7:12 pm.

 

I don’t know about you, but Sir Sidney, number 3 in the 13th race, would be my vote for 2014 Horse of the Year.

 

The End

 

That betting mistake, instead of returning $3.00 on my $2.00 California Chrome bet, returned $26.20 on the win by Sir Sidney.

The following year Kim and I would stand under an infield tent at Pimlico and watch American Pharoah win the Preakness in a downpour. Unlike California Chrome,  he would go on to win the Belmont and be the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.   Coincidentally, my horse of the year for 2014, Sir Sidney was on the card that day.  For sentimental reasons I felt inclined to place a bet on him.

And as a result of those sentimental reasons, I lost that bet.

Horse racing is a sentimental sport.  The beauty of the animal, the lure of a name, the story of the journey, the memory of a past encounter.  That is part of what draws me to it.

Sir Sidney is now ten years old and he is still racing. As a gelding there would be no cushy stud future for him.  In fact he ran this past Sunday at Philadelphia Park and finished fourth going a mile in a claiming race.  Going off at odds of 20 to 1, he earned his owner $1,400 and could at least say he beat the favorite, who finished last, earning him some track cred the next time he sees that guy out on the track exercising in the morning.

It’s hard to not get sentimental about Sir Sidney.

I feel reacquainted, he is part of my journey.

The old guy, in spite of the aches and pains of growing older, he is still out there working.  Having to prove himself to the young guys, doing something he still enjoys, having fun.

I get it.

I hope you take some time this Saturday and watch the Kentucky Derby. I hope you pay attention to the stories, enjoy the majestic beauty of these animals, get caught up in the drama.

I hope you find something sentimental in the experience that makes you want to return.

I hope you find your Sir Sidney.

 

 

 

 

The Thanksgiving Day Massacre

The Thanksgiving Day Massacre

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Her body was green and she had two vicious jaws
She polished her mate as she kissed him with her claws
She bit off his head so he would not feel the pain
She wanted his body so much she ate his brain

From Don Dixon’s “Praying Mantis” 1985

 

“Curt come here quick, what is this?” my wife yelled from down the hall.

One of our bedrooms has, over time, been converted into a year round plant room, though this time of year it was also filled with plants that had been recently moved from the deck to winter inside.

It was Thanksgiving morning, we were about to leave for Pennsylvania, Kim decided to check on her plants before hitting the road.

On one of the plants was a tan and orange cocoon like thing that Kim called me to look at.

As I was focusing on the nest- like structure, Kim blurted,

“Look! There are ants all over the leaves!”

I shifted my focus now to one of the long leaves and the “ants.”

Finding the leaves covered with insects I responded,

“Those aren’t ants… those are praying mantises!”

 

As a kid growing up in New Jersey I was always told it was illegal to kill a praying mantis.

And I grew old, never having any reason to challenge that.

Therefore, now standing in my spare bedroom, surrounded by plants, in the presence of my wife, and facing hundreds of praying mantises, in my mind I was looking at ten years to life…but I had to make a decision.

I lifted the plant and carefully carried it down the stairs and out on to the deck.

It was a cold morning.

In a short while, I looked again, they were all dead.

Mantis bodies littered my deck.

 

We threw our suitcases in the car and like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde we headed for the Pennsylvania border.

We were on the lam.

With me driving the get-away car Kim got on her iPad and did some research.

It turns out, a praying mantis is pretty scary.  They are carnivores, and there are some larger species that will hunt small birds, lizards, and mammals! They have triangular heads that they can turn 180 degrees, two compound eyes with a few extra regular eyes in the middle just because.  Their legs are equipped with spikes for pinning their prey.  But mostly in the US, they just eat other bugs.

Sort of.

They are also cannibals and will eat their siblings!

And the real kicker, the female will eat the male after mating!

Okay that’s enough…this is what Dixon was singing about.

“What about the protection…are they protected?” I asked as we left Virginia and entered Maryland.

She read from the internet site Snopes/Fact Check:

The belief that it is illegal to kill a praying mantis (a crime carrying a $50 fine as a punishment) has been floating around since the 1950s, and we have no idea where this bit of insectoid legal apocrypha came from:

“When I was growing up in New Jersey, I used to find praying mantises in our driveway and back yard every once in a while. It was illegal in NJ to kill a praying mantis, as I remember.”

There is not (and never has been) any federal or state law proscribing the killing of praying mantises.

No.

We were in the clear.

No Jail time.

No $50 times a couple hundred dead bugs fine.

Okay, okay so I am sure there is something your momma told you that you still believe too.

And besides, like that guy in the Snopes internet post, I’m from Jersey too where we have the Jersey Devil, Bigfoot, and Jimmy Hoffa.

What’s the moral of the story?

Love and trust your mother… but verify.

And check your plants before you carry them in the house, spring comes early indoors.

Veterans Day Musings

Veterans Day Musings

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My dad with his brother Ted during the Korean conflict

He blesses the boys
As they stand in line
The smell of gun grease
And the bayonets they shine
He’s there to help them
All that he can
To make them feel wanted
He’s a good holy man

Sky Pilot
Sky Pilot
How high can you fly?
You never, never, never
Reach the sky

Sky Pilot.

A song from 1968 by Eric Burdon and the Animals.

Though the term dates back to the late 1800’s, Sky Pilot is a slang term for a military Chaplain.

Lately, in my quest to reduce some unnecessary stress, I have been avoiding listening to or watching the news as much as I can. On my XM radio I have discovered Little Steven’s (Steve Van Zandt) Underground Garage.  If you have any appreciation for rock music and its origins, this is the station for you.

Last week on a trip out to visit my parents I heard this song.

 

It was the early 1940’s and the World War II was raging on.  Rumor had it, the British were taking fourteen year olds as sailors on their Merchant Navy ships. At fourteen years old, there was no other option to get into the war.  So a couple of kids from Jersey made the trip up to New York City, eager to get involved anyway that they could and serve their country in any way they could.

Sailors in the British Merchant Navy were classified as civilians. Germany had declared that every vessel of the British mercantile marine was to be regarded as a warship, meaning that the sailors of the Merchant Navy faced tremendous risks. An estimated 30,248 merchant seamen lost their lives during World War II, a death rate proportionally higher than in any of the armed forces.

Unfortunately or fortunately, for these two young teenagers, the rumor was not true, and they were turned away.  Disappointed, the two boys returned to their home town in New Jersey.  They would be left out of this war.

It’s Veterans Day.

I spent some time while I was with my parents last weekend asking questions as I typically do.

My grandfather, my father’s father was born in Norway.  He entered the United States illegally in the early 1900’s.  He was a sailor who jumped ship in New York and headed for Norwegian communities in the mid-western US.  In spite of how he entered the country, he served in the United States Army during World War I in France as a motorcycle messenger.  Though my father thinks he may have been discharged early, but honorably, due to his inability to speak English well enough.  I remember as kid seeing his discharge papers hanging on the wall.

When World War II broke out, living on the New Jersey coast, my grandfather was trained to identify enemy aircraft silhouettes and manned the coastal spotting towers along the beaches.  Some of those towers still remain today.

My mother’s oldest brother Bill served in the Seabees in the south Pacific in World War II.

My mother’s other brother, my uncle Bob, was a sergeant on a mortar crew in the Korean conflict.

My father’s younger brother Ted served in the Navy during the Korean conflict.

My dad, after returning from that ill-fated attempt to join the British Merchant Navy with one of his Oceanport buddies in World War II, found another way to serve his country at home.

It was estimated that by the end of the war more than 6 million men had left farm work to go off to war.  The USDA’s Farm Corps was a solution to that problem.  It employed 2.5 million patriotic teenagers who wanted to serve in some way.

USDA official Meredith C. Wilson wrote at the time that “manpower for agriculture is of equal importance with manpower to produce combat weapons for our fighting men.”

And farm worker recruitment materials from the Office of War Information insisted that “bread is ammunition as vital as bullets.”

It may not have been as exciting as crossing the Atlantic dodging torpedoes from German U-Boats, but at least it was something.

During the Korean conflict, my dad served in the US Army and his unit was assigned to coastal protection and he was stationed at posts in Brooklyn, Long Island, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

My parents were married while my dad was in the Army and they looked for places to live in Brooklyn so my mom could be closer to my father stationed in New York.  But after being turned down as tenants, she returned home and lived in an apartment in my father’s parent’s house in the Hillcrest neighborhood of Oceanport. My mother didn’t think people wanted to rent to young GI’s at the time.

 

 

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany during my grandfather’s war, World War I.

In 1926, Congress passed a resolution that the “recurring anniversary (of this day) should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”

I like that.

Thanksgiving…I am kind of thankful the British Merchant Navy didn’t take fourteen year olds.

Prayers for peace, good will, and mutual understanding between nations.

And maybe those same sentiments amongst ourselves as well so I can take my head out of the sand and go back to watching TV news again.

Happy Veterans Day.

Thanks to all those who have served!

You’re soldiers of God, you must understand
The fate of your country is in your young hands
May God give you strength
Do your job real well

(from Sky Pilot, by Eric Burdon and the Animals)

My dad in the Army with his mom and dad
Everybody in Hollywood Farts

Everybody in Hollywood Farts

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Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory has detected explosions on the planet Mars!

A large meteor has crashed in to a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey!

“Something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake…it’s indescribable, I can hardly force myself to look at it, it’s so awful!  The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent.  The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate!

It’s Halloween this week.

On this day in 1938 occurred maybe the best example of fake news in this nation’s history.  More than a million people were convinced that Martians were invading the earth, by a young 23 year old radio announcer named Orson Welles as he presented his version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds on national radio. Panic broke out, terrified people jammed highways. It is said a woman ran into an Indianapolis church during evening services and yelled “New York has been destroyed!  It’s the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!”

 

I learned recently while writing something for work that Halloween is commercially second only to Christmas in the amount of revenue it generates.

We experienced this while in Florida with three trips to pumpkin patches, hayrides, pumpkin painting, carving tools, decorations for the windows from Michaels, and costumes from Party City.

I’ve had the pleasure these last few weekends of being able to spend some quality time with all three of my grandsons.  We don’t get to see them enough, especially the Florida kids.

Having grown up in New Jersey and spent the rest of my years in Northern Virginia Octobers are typically cool.  In fact while we were in Florida, Virginia experienced a frost.  However in south Florida it was in the 90’s.  Great for me, because I love the heat; not so great for the two large pumpkins we carved, one with a traditional jack-o-lantern face and the other with a ghost carved in it, because by the end of the first 24 hours the mold had grown in the cut outs and by the end of the second 24 hours they were sinking from rot.  Next year just painted pumpkins.

 

This past weekend once again we experienced the bad in our world.  Another shooting in a house of worship, this time in Pittsburgh, at a Jewish synagogue during Saturday morning services.  There were eleven dead worshippers.  Six were injured including four police officers who, it has been reported, ran into the gunfire.

And the week before that we had make shift bombs being sent to prominent past and current political figures by another no doubt disturbed individual.

 

And that weekend I was in Florida I read Amy Schumer said that any football player who doesn’t kneel with Colin Kaepernick is complicit.  I take that to mean anyone who is not in favor of this kneeling protest in Amy’s world is complicit.  I take a little offense to that, but the world is her stage and she is in a position of influence.  And there are countless messages of influence and hate on the internet, network TV, movies, print, and still in fact, on the radio.

“Everybody in Hollywood farts.”

This profound statement was uttered by my grandson Christian while in the drive through of McDonalds, after he presented us with his gift of flatulence in the car, while waiting for his Chicken McNugget Happy Meal.  He, of course, was referring to Hollywood, Florida where he lives.   I of course, thought it was brilliant.

I think it’s great that Amy Schumer has her celebrity and her Hollywood (CA) status and I suppose that gives her the privilege to promote her opinions and spread her ideology on social media.

Yeah, but you know what?   Everybody farts in Hollywood.

And everybody farts in Herndon, Virginia too, and everywhere else for that matter.

And we all put our pants on one leg at a time.

We are all human.

 

But sadly we are not all the same.

At least if it’s just me with saliva dripping from my rimless lips as they quiver and pulsate from reading my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds, and watching my TV,  who is exposed to all this I can just say phooey!

Some folks don’t know how to say phooey.  They don’t know how to process information in the proper context or ignore it for what it is.  They take it seriously.  It may fuel their hate or trigger something in a mind that may not be stable as yours, mine, or Amy Schumer’s.

Some of that flatulence is able to permeate further and deeper and stimulate sometimes unthinkable actions.

Some folks believe what they hear and read as the truth and they panic, maybe jamming the highways,

Maybe rushing into houses of worship and yelling…

Or maybe worse.

 

So to the twenty or so people in my social media universe who might read this, I promise I will turn down any offers to do Super Bowl commercials this year.  And I know it must sound like a privilege ass sacrifice but it’s all I got!

 

And I suppose I have to confess I am guilty too so,

“Oops, excuse me, I guess I just farted!”

My bad!

 

Prayers go out to all those victim’s families, those victims themselves that are still fighting for healing physically and will be long term emotionally; their friends, the Jewish community in Pittsburgh and everywhere, houses of worship everywhere, the leadership and first responders in Pittsburgh and everywhere, and all of the rest of us who are responsible for working to help build a better world that my grandkids and your grandkids will be able to live civilly, safely, happily, and harmoniously.

It’s Not the Fourth of July Until You Have Had a Carrot Hot Dog?

It’s Not the Fourth of July Until You Have Had a Carrot Hot Dog?

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If you are familiar with Max’s hot dogs on the Long Branch, New Jersey boardwalk, or the Windmill in Long Branch’s West End, or my sister’s Fourth of July parties for the last gazillion years, you know Jersey hot dogs.

Man those are hot dogs…

This year I had a carrot hot dog on the Fourth of July.  It was awesome.

 

The first part of the summer is always a bittersweet time of the year for us.

It starts on Mother’s Day; then Memorial Day; Hayley’s birthday; includes Father’s Day; then my birthday; Kim’s birthday; our wedding anniversary;  the Fourth of July; then July 19th, the day of Donny’s accident; and ends with Savannah’s birthday on July 20th; then we breathe again.

And I always find myself reliving that summer.

We had some good times in the early part of the summer of 2002.

I have shared this photo before, its one of my favorites, and these are the three girls who were rightly so, my competition.

On June 20, 2002, Donny and I headed off to Wolf Trap to see Jo Dee Messina and Brad Paisley after Kim couldn’t go.  It was his first and only concert.  I had seats in the first row, but the three girls he knew sitting in the lawn turned out to be tough competition for the old man, but Donny didn’t leave me hanging too long and finished out the show sitting next to me in the front row.

That Fourth of July 2002 we spent in Jersey at my sister’s and got down to the beach.  He used to mess with me and quote the line from the Adam Sandler movie Happy Gilmore, “You want a piece of me old man?” whenever we were doing anything sports-related like throwing the football at the beach or mixing it up with the soccer ball on my sister’s lawn.

I didn’t want a piece of him but I surely wanted badly to have something I could show him.

Donny was a natural-born athlete.

I am a natural-born non-athlete.

He beat me in everything.

One vacation at the outer banks, I knew he had never played golf, so I took him and his friend Chris golfing. Finally, I thought, there was something I could teach him, some sport I could role model.

Something I could maybe even beat him at.

By the end of the day though, I guess I had passed on as many good golf tips as I possibly could and it must have paid off because he beat me again.

 

The funny thing was, I never made the Adam Sandler connection until after Donny’s accident.

I never used to like Adam Sandler movies.

Now I can watch them all day long.

 

When we ride bikes now on the bike trail Kim always says “c’mon old man.”

I like that.

 

I don’t know what I will do on this Thursday the 19th but maybe I will ride my bike.  And maybe my wife will say “c’mon old man.”

And it will be okay.

Because winning doesn’t matter anymore, it never really did, it was having some meaning in that young man’s life that was really important to me.

And maybe, I realize now, in this old man’s life…

So I guess maybe in some way I have won.

At least I can tell you, Donny, that I still have your Mom’s back and she has mine.

Heck, I am even eating carrot hot dogs on the Fourth of July.

That has got to be love.

 

Happy Gilmore: “You like THAT old man? You want a piece of ME?”


Bob Barker character: “I don’t want a PIECE of you, I want the whole THING!”

 

I want the whole thing too…

But I would settle for just a piece of you right now.

 

Forgive Me For Sharing

Forgive Me For Sharing

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I am not feeling well.

I don’t typically like when people share their ailments over the internet or social media.

I don’t need the visual that you have diarrhea or that you are throwing up something that looks like something or other.

I want to gag too.

Just tell me you are taking a sick day and leave it at that.

Now here I am telling you I am not feeling well.

It’s been a while since I have felt like this.

But I realized today when reviewing my published work for the week, I had to have been off.

Because I made mistakes.  Some I was able to salvage and some I just had to apologize for.  I even tried to make a cup of tea in the microwave without any water.

But still, in spite of my fuzziness, once I got home, there was something kind of fun and relaxing about being able to sit in bed and have your wife feel sorry you (well at least I expect she will when she gets home), because in my case I know it’s nothing serious.  And when you grow up in the respiratory medical world getting a chest cold is kind of a professional challenge.

I break out my stethoscope.

I begin to analyze every cough and noise that I make.

Hey that one was loose and productive.

Wait that one was dry and non- productive.

Is that a bronchospasm I hear or a mucus plug?

What’s my temperature?  Low grade or high?

Do I have any chest pain?

And then there is the spitting.  When you work in a hospital or homecare keeping the airways open is your job.  Helping people breath is why you went to school.  You need to be alert and aware of all you hear and see.  Sure I have dodged a loogie or two in my day.  I had a couple I wasn’t fast enough for too.  My respiratory and pulmonary friends will relate.  There is nothing wrong with that, it’s part of the job, it’s what we did or do, helping people to breath, often saving lives.

I miss that.

So like it or not, when I am sick, I go into action.

And because today I am the one who is coughing and spitting, and delirious from fever, though I know that what I am experiencing is not serious, when I am sick, in my house, it is serious.

I remember when I was a kid, all the cool kids could spit really good.  Most them were athletic too, many played baseball like John Bedell, Bob Woolley, and Kevin Higgins; friends from my hometown of Oceanport, NJ.  They played hardball and Little League and Babe Ruth.  If you didn’t spit, you weren’t tough.

I wasn’t allowed to do much spitting on the Cub Scout Softball Team.

But those guys could sure spit.

They would wind up and when they let go it sounded like a poison dart coming out of a blowgun.  It was a perfect projectile and man it could travel. (Tttthhhhwwwwuuuut!)

I always envied those guys.

When I was a kid and I spit it was more like trying to eject a raw egg out of my mouth.  And it didn’t travel very far at all it just went about the direction I was leaning and usually required some assistance from my fingers to clear the obstruction.

So as a result I knew never to try and impress the girls by hocking a loogie in gym class.

Maybe I am just delirious.

Maybe I should stop writing before I say something stupid.

Maybe I have already said something stupid.

Maybe it’s a good thing I am not working with patients anymore, because forgiveness for mistakes in that world can be difficult.

Thankfully in the world I work in today, forgiveness is encouraged.

 

My wife is home now.

I am thinking about having her order a chest x-ray stat.

Or maybe a pizza would be easier.

Joe

Joe

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Dear Joe,

Today we will all come together and celebrate your life, remember your friendship, honor your memory.

I hope we are able do that in the way you expected us to.

You know, right after we all found out you had left us, the February weather got warm, temperatures rose into the 70’s and even 80’s.  It was wonderful.  It was like you were telling us it was time to plant the tomatoes.

Then you called us all home to Jersey to share some time to remember you in a Nor’easter!

Yesterday Matt flew in from Florida to Atlantic City in 70 mile an hour winds, “roughest ride ever,” is how he described it.

Then you had me driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 60 mile an hour winds since 95 north was closed because two tractor trailers had literally blown over on the Tydings Bridge north of Baltimore.

It was kind of reminiscent of Ricky whipping us around the Shrewsbury in his little Boston Whaler… scary.

But then I hit the Delaware Memorial Bridge and it was covered with slush and I came down into New Jersey and there were cars spun out in ditches on both sides of the highway, and I said to myself “you son of a B?#@*, there is no way you are going to get me to have an accident just to come hang out with you tonight, I hope you are having fun with this, I will see you in good time.”

We did have a lot of fun though.

The time we had to have our sisters bring new clothes to school for us in the eighth grade, in order to participate in graduation because the principal didn’t like our bell bottoms and rope braided belts.

Going to church at Precious Blood and instead of going inside and taking Communion we stayed outside and took something else.

The time we hitch hiked to Asbury Park to see Grand Funk Railroad at the Convention Hall, my first concert, and the wild ride home we had.

The stretch of Steel Mill shows including the infamous Highlands Clearwater Swim Club show; the Sunshine In Black Sabbath/Cactus show that we had early show tickets to, that turned into a Steel Mill marathon when Black Sabbath kept blowing the power. I think my mother almost reported me missing that night and my sister picked us up when we finally spilled out on the street at about 2 AM.  And the final Upstage shows.

The time your sister Diane drove us into the Asbury Park riots where we were stopped by the National Guardsman in full combat gear who asked us “where the hell do you guys think you are going?” then told us to turn around and get out of out of there.

Walking barefoot to North Long Branch and walking back home from North Long Branch. Then walking to North Long Branch again, and walking back home from North Long Branch.  Over and over and over again.

Getting up at 4 AM after getting home at 3 AM to drive to Berkley Heights in your father’s pick-up truck to work at “the shop,” your family’s church furniture woodworking business.  And the time we went to install church pews at a church   in West Orange and Uncle Rudy parked the truck on the hill and the load shifted, when we opened the rear door of the box truck the pews came crashing out on to the street.  Glad that wasn’t our fault.

I could go on and on.

But I have to admit to something.  After losing Donny in 2002, I thought I was immune to all of this.  I thought that never again would I ever feel that death was something that would take me by surprise, something that would rattle me.  I thought that analytically and spiritually I had it under control, because I lived with grief every day and it would never affect me the same again.

And for almost 16 years it didn’t.

Then, I learned I was wrong.

Because, in the last two weeks I felt it again.

And I got scared.

And I started thinking I didn’t even want to come up here and go through this again.

But I knew I had to, and I wanted to, and I knew why as well.

Because I realized, though I had experienced loss, it had been almost 16 years since I lost someone I loved, a member of my “family.”

And the hurt came back.

Your sister told me you had talked about this day and how it should be.  Not religious, just a day for your friends.

So I promise not to get religious, and I think you can be pretty sure that your friends are here.

Through nor’easters or whatever; we may not be barefoot anymore, or need to hitch hike…but thanks for sharing today with us and all the other days before that we will remember.

We had some fun.