The Old Guy Finally Meets His Maker

***


"Yo! Somm-Beesh! 

"You couldn't do better than this?  Scoliosis, really?  Is that the best you could do?  What?  Did you leave your ruler in your locker that morning?  You couldn't draw a straight line any more from A to B?  Was that it, pal?

"And those allergies?  What's up with that?  That drippy nose? 

"You wanted to push more business toward the Kleenex people?  Is that the only way you could think of?  You made it that way, because...?

"And then...  Yeah.  And then...

"The what?  Brain? 

"Well, yes.  On that part, pretty amazing, really.  Yes!  Good on you there all right, you betcha. 

"Except lately, you know?  People like it for you to call them by name, by their first name, you follow me?  Like you know them, personally, you know? 

"But if you can't remember their names, after twenty or thirty years of seeing them just like every day or something... like they suddenly never had first names.  You know?  That was your precious brain work too, fella!  Ya get me on that one, do ya?

"What?  I mean, What?  Oh...

"What's deserving got to do with it?

"Anyhow and anyways.  What's up with you?"


***

Travel à la mode, OR aux modes (reminiscence)

***

In 1960 when I finished high school in central Texas, intercity and interstate  travel was completed by car, by train, or by bus...  Some could afford to travel by air, but that was expensive and air routes were rather limited.  For a kid on financial aid 1,100 miles from home (undergraduate years) or 1,700 miles (first grad school), air travel back and forth was out of the question.

But in one particular trip home - for a summer break during my master's work - all three other modes of travel came into play.  This must have been in 1965.

1

I'd always been attracted to the idea of traveling by train, and after living a year in Europe, the attraction was stronger than ever.  On the other hand, in the early 1960s American railway companies did not want to run passenger lines.  There were too few regular passengers, traveling to too few cities, to make enough money to keep the cars clean and in good working order or to pay the extra staff that were needed to look after the dwindling number of passengers.  The government - who had provided the rail lines themselves and was providing continuing subsidies - insisted that passenger service be maintained, in order to support full employment.  The rail companies responded by allowing frequent passenger train breakdowns and huge scheduling delays.

So the attractions of rail travel were considerably weakened.

Still, when I got started working in a large Eastern city on the famously "reinvented" New York Central Line, I gave in to my inclination and bought a ticket.  I had to take a taxi from my neighborhood way out to the suburbs to climb aboard - at about 2 a.m., I think - but I'd paid my money and I was taking my chance!

I went to sleep right away, of course, despite there being no sleeping accommodations - a thing of the distant past on U. S. trains.  I don't remember stopping at the station at Buffalo or Cleveland, but we may have done so.  I was concentrating on Chicago, where the "New York Special" ended and where I had to transfer to a southbound train.  Then, at St. Louis I would be transferring from the New York Central Line to the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Line, which used to rip by my family's home two or three times a day just at the end of the block (the station being in downtown Austin by the river).

Shortly after sunrise, though, our train began to slow down.  There didn't seem to be any reason for doing so, but after a gradual slowing process, right there in the middle of an empty field, we came to a dead stop.

It was quiet.  There was no one around to ask what was going on, but after twenty or thirty minutes, the word had circulated among the passengers that our train had evidently been going too fast, and now we had to stop until a big ol' freight train could motor on by us... It was understood that getting freight to its destination on time was more important than getting us to our destinations on time.  I was scheduled for a three-hour layover in Chicago anyway, so I wasn't worried about missing my connection.

Sure enough, after what seemed an awfully long time another train blazed by us, going impossibly fast, headed in the same westward direction, on our right side.  After five or ten minutes, we slowly began to follow...

2

Despite what you may have been expecting, I did make the connection in Chicago.  But our train from New York was late enough for me to scoot right over to Track #9 (or whatever it was) without taking a break even to look out the front door of Union Station.

...Only to discover that our departure had been delayed, so that we could wait for some passengers making connections from the north (Minneapolis?) or the west (Des Moines?)  Oh! I must have thought.  I didn't have to worry.  When you were running late, they held the connecting train for you.  Didn't they?

Only, after about thirty minutes I began to realize I had only an hour scheduled in St. Louis to make my connection to the San Francisco Zephyr heading south.

We pulled out of Union Station Chicago about 40 minutes late, I think it was.  It wasn't dark yet, so I could tell that we hadn't even left the metropolitan area before we stopped again.

3

So I was pretty nervous about ten p.m. when we pulled into the St. Louis station two hours or so after the "Katy" train was supposed to have left.  And, yes, they had waited "a full half hour," the ticket master told me, before departing.  Next train?  Well, you see, there's only the one passenger train headed to Texas every day.  The man helpfully pointed out that St. Louis has lots of good sites to visit...

I told him I'd probably just spend the night there in the waiting room, but he said No, it was cleared and locked at midnight.

4

I took my little grip and wandered to the exit.  I was beginning to remember having passed through St. Louis on a Greyhound bus sometime a few years before.  Right there at the curb was a taxi.  I told the man to take me to the Greyhound station.

He looked at me a moment, and then drove me one and one-half blocks to the Greyhound station.  That was silly, but what happened next marked the turning point on this trip home.  As I came through the outside door, I noted on the sign just below the ceiling that a bus was scheduled to leave for Laredo in about thirty minutes.  I knew that the regular route was Tulsa-Dallas-Austin-San Antonio-Laredo (with some intermediate stops too, of course).

What a stroke of luck!  (What a smart guy I was!)

There was a short line of folks waiting to buy tickets.  I took my place.  After a couple of minutes, a young couple lined up behind me saying they were headed to San Antonio, where the young woman lived.  (So I was indeed in the right place.)

After I had moved only one or two places nearer the ticket window, a man came through the big entrance doors.  He seemed a little out of breath and in a bit of a hurry.  He asked me, in a quiet voice - I clearly seeming to be the authority figure on the scene - if this was the line for the southbound bus.  I acknowledged that it was.

This man - middle-aged, with a mustache, brown check sports jacket and tie over his dress shirt - looked up and around at all of us in line and shouted: "Excuse me!  Excuse me?" he said.  People looked politely his way.

"Would anyone like a ride to Tulsa?"   He gave his name and offered to show his driver's license, and said he lived in Tulsa and just had to be home for an important business meeting by tomorrow morning.  But he was getting sleepy, and he was wondering if one of us might be willing to drive him home while he napped, in return for a free trip that far south.

5

I must have asked him a question or two.  He said it was a clear shot right down Highway 50, no turns at all.  His station wagon, parked at the curb outside, was all gassed up...

Anyway, we were not even all the way out of St. Louis before this fellow was asleep in his back seat, and I was motorvatin' over the hill.

6

And I drove.  And he slept.  And I drove.

The outskirts of Tulsa were just beginning to appear on the horizon as the first glowings of daylight began to light up the wide sky, when Mr. Auto-owner began to stir, right on cue.  As we approached town, he swung his legs around and leaned forward over my right shoulder.  His breath smelled strong, but did not reek of alcohol.  I never thought he had been drinking; he had just been sleepy.

After confirming that I wanted to go to the bus station, he guided me to the proper exit.  I believe he said it was right on his way home.  Once we got remotely close, in fact, the cityscape began to look familiar.  The bus station was on a corner in a residential district.  There was a Greyhound just beginning to load.  It was somewhere around 4 a.m. if I remember correctly.

7

I had agreed to make the to make the trip for nothing, but as he came up to the driver's door and took the keys back, the man gave me $10.  I didn't complain.

And, yes, when I asked the driver checking people's tickets, he said his bus was on the way to Laredo, stopping in Austin - as well as other places - along the way.  He said I could buy my ticket at the next station.

The man was gone, almost home by now.  I had a bus seat to myself and could settle right in to a snooze myself, with a straight, sure shot ahead of me to my chosen destination.

8

Late that afternoon I called my mother from the Austin bus station.  She came to pick me up in a half-hour or so.  When I got my refund on the train ticket from St. Louis on, this turned out to be the least expensive trip home I ever made.  It was not as cheap as hitch-hiking in Europe, but for the U.S., it was a real deal.


***

Class - Is as Does (story)

***

The Right Reverend Stanley Patmore, known as "Pastor Stan," found the story below in the In-Box in the narthex.  In the first months of this congregation (Pastor Stan's third), two or three messages were received each week.  Now that the congregation has grown to 4,500 or so, only one or two messages are left each month. 

1

The Executive Secretary and her boss met them all, took them all to dinner, the best and... well, the rest too.

Sallie was good at the intuitive part, the personality traits, values and attitudes, so while they waited for the waiter, or over their meals or coffee afterward, Sallie would be asking about hobbies, favorite vacations, maybe clothes or foods.  Often the candidates would speak of their spouses or children or pets, of their age or even their health.  The Dean focused on the professional side: why were they interested in moving? what was a typical work day?  current scholarly interests?  favorite class size and why?

And by the way, all of this was in the mode of pursuing the most important objective of the on-campus interview: to recruit the candidate.  It's so much better for the university to be able to be  making the choice, from among three or four good people, all of whom like the university!

Pastor Stan used to wonder why people turned in what they did. Did they think there was a possible sermon idea in there? 

2

So after dinner with Teri Underwood, as usual, both Sallie and Dean D--- were right there on the same page.  "Classy" was a word that each of them leapt to.  Teri was tall with thick hair cut pretty short, like the twenties' "bobbed" style.  Tweeds and plaids, very preppy.  Professional, not formal.  She moved gracefully and spoke well, looked you in the eye.  A nice person to have dinner with, in fact.

The Director of the Speech Therapy program - the redoubtable Sophia - was a little cooler on Teri than I would have expected, given the one or two other candidates we had considered over the two years we'd already been looking.  But she signed Teri up willingly enough.  Sophia was a feet-on-the-ground, no-nonsense kind of a woman, more focused on results than on how she and her team appeared while getting the job done.  D--- thought maybe that was why she was not as enthusiastic as Sallie and Dean D---.  Teri might have been Sallie's cup of tea, but not Sophia's "cuppa joe."

Another picture began to emerge after a couple of semesters, however.

3

D--- had been asking the routine "How's Teri working out?" for six or eight months, with Sophia - in her regular meetings one-on-one with him - giving the obligatory, "Oh, fine."

At one point, though, a little comment began to follow the usual response, like "Well, she likes to do things her way..."  But this wasn't presented as a real problem.  Teri was teaching what she was supposed to teach.  The students liked her.  She was exploring the possibility of adding a certification we'd like to have, and she was continuing a community health project on her own time that she'd begun before coming on board.

No complaints.

And Pastor Stan wondered who had turned in what. He was never sure... and he never based a sermon on the In-Box.

4

In the mean time Sophia had been going through one test after another for a considerable period already, hoping to rule out cancer.  But finally, everyone had to face the fact that she had it.  D--- wasn't sure she took real time off, as her various therapies got started.  She lost her hair, but got a great wig and kept on keeping on, slogging it out most of most days.  She was the bravest person anybody ever saw, and - even more impressive - she was the most determined too.  She just wouldn't give in.

The cancer was apparently in her blood, and she was taking lots of drugs, every day.  She went about 100 miles to some specialist about once a month too. 

And she kept the program rolling along just as it should, everybody pitching in.  Most people at the college didn't even know about Sophia's cancer in the first years.

5

The Speech Therapy program had more bother than most departments do of extra work, keeping up with Health Department regulations and that sort of thing.   In holiday periods and over summers, when faculty in other programs are busy on personal scholarly projects or working or re-working class plans, Speech faculty divided up various sections of self-study reports, gathered data, filled out forms and wrote up reports.  Sophia mentioned early in Teri's second summer that she was hoping she didn't have to nag Teri so much as last year to get her share done.  (It didn't need to be said that Sophia herself would be somewhat less available to step in and take over herself for anyone having trouble getting the job done.)

It was early that summer that Sophia took off her first substantial block of time yet.  She went up to the City for bone marrow transplant therapy, which was then still in the experimental phase; she had been lucky to have Health department colleagues who got her into the trial.  It was going to be a grim experience, Sallie learned from the senior faculty member in the department, but Sophia expected to be running things at the college from her hospital bed, using her laptop and telephone.

And she did.  As usual Sophia planned carefully, monitored closely, and things got done... even though there were always unexpected and unwelcome surprises along the way.

As for colleagues, Sallie co-ordinated an eager group's individual cards, letters, flowers or fruit-baskets, and the like, so that Sophia knew we were thinking about her (and her husband, who had taken the whole time off too, to be at her bedside), thinking of her routinely and not just in the first day or so.  Sallie ran the little plan as efficiently as Sophia might have done herself...

More than anything, Pastor Stan asked himself, every time: "What's the point?"

6

When D--- (and Sallie) next saw Sophia she had lost some weight, and her color was a little odd.  Skin-tone maybe  a little gray, or green?  Or maybe it was just the absence of a little of the usual rosy vigor.  Anyway, you couldn't say Sophia looked her usual self, but she was certainly behaving normally.  Showing up for routine one-on-one's as usual, never presenting a problem without a proposed solution, or sometimes two.  And so on.

She was a brick.  Come to think of it, she was built a little that way too, solid, stocky, muscular.  As her hair began to grow back in a little, the wig was sometimes a little askew but Sophia was still keeping on.

This experimental therapy and drug regimen worked too.  Her blood count improved, as her husband quietly mentioned in the margins of some formal event, and she got back up to speed and her customary robust demeanor.  The possibility of the cancer's return was an anytime thing...

7

The third year of a faculty member's appointment at the college is an important time.  Colleagues, the program director, and the Dean all have to go on record saying whether or not the individual is making satisfactory progress toward tenure.  In positions that are hard to fill, to be honest, one is inclined to give the individual second or third chances that might be denied someone in a more crowded field (like History or English or one of the fine arts).  But Teri didn't seem all that close to the knife edge of a year's notice.  She was not very accessible to her students, who did not seek her support as their academic or professional advisor either.  She was doing the minimal - or less than the minimal - scholarly work, was not much involved in faculty committee work or that kind of college service, and although Sophia did not mention it particularly, when D--- as Dean asked if Teri was pulling her full share of the unusual paperwork load the preprofessional program faculty had to produce, Sophia was noncommittal.

Still, Sophia's recommendation was unenthusiastic, and the Dean's concluded with the line intended to rattle the cage: "If the decision were to be made today, it would not be for tenure."  Teri asked to speak with me privately about my evaluation, but she just listened politely to my re-hash of the written review.  She talked about some professional goals, which - as D--- told her - were perfectly appropriate, but that she would have to make demonstrable progress toward one or more of them in the next two years in order to succeed.

Our personal bond renewed, she left graciously enough, head held high.

Just catching Sallie's eye as Teri let the outer office, D--- knew she was again thinking "classy."  And I was too.  I was relieved there didn't seem to be real ill-will on either side of whatever little division there was between her and Sophia.

Pastor Stan was now moving into fast-scanning mode, always seeking "What's the point?"

8

From the memorial service for her four or five years later, D--- learned that Sophia was not only respected, admired, sometimes feared a little... She was also loved.  Yes.  Even though that term seems totally out of keeping with her personality, looks, and character.  You knew she was someone you did not want to get crossways with, a person whose judgments were not lightly taken or easily challenged, who seemed to operate using reason and practicality more naturally than idealism or emotion.  A classic professional.  Competent.  Efficient.

But many of her colleagues did not know of the students to whom she had given a ride when they couldn't wait for a bus and couldn't afford a taxi, whom she'd treated to a pizza or a burger when it was particularly hard to make ends meet, whose tuition she had silently subsidized with private scholarship deals she'd quietly arranged through the college's Financial Aid staff.  And that kind of thing. 

9

It had seemed entirely out of character, and out of keeping for our their working relationships, one day when Sophia was telling the Dean in June that she didn't know whether she could carry her normal load and fulfill her usual duties the following September. 

She talked stoically enough, as always, and detailed how she would decide, and when, and how.  Her tone of voice was flat, businesslike as usual.  She was sitting bolt upright in the chair across from me, and her wig was just a little askew: all the typical Sophia.

But it astonished D--- to realize inside that when they stood at their meeting's conclusion, he was going to give her a hug.  That was just going to be the right thing to do.  This, you know, was not what one normally did with Sophia.

But D--- stepped toward her with his right arm a little out to the side, and she walked into the hug.  It was just three or four seconds, but it was a real hug.  They smiled a little as they separated; she turned on her heel and opened the inner office door.  She waved as usual at Sallie as she turned down the hallway and plodded out.

10

When Teri's tenure swam into sight, even rather far out there on the horizon, it was real clear she couldn't make it.  The fact is, she hadn't met even one of the standards we had reviewed that last time the two of us had met.  It didn't look as though she had made any attempt to do so.

Sophia had even quit covering for Teri's refusing to do the extras required by the professional standards self-study reports.  Only once, but once, she had admitted that the other faculty in the program were pretty disgusted with the extra effort Teri's laxities required from them.

In short, it looked as though Teri had surveyed the situation and had made the decision that, if we were serious about all we said we expected of her, this wasn't the right place for her.  But she was going to make us be the ones to take the responsibility to say so.  Okay, fine, D--- thought.  I can handle that.

11

As the next academic year drew to a close, Teri called Sallie to ask for an appointment to see the Dean and Sophia together for an exit interview.  That was unusual but not a bad thing in itself, and besides the non-reappointment process the year before had gone smoothly and Teri's terminal year had been problem-free too... So, why not?

Sophia was already with D--- in the inner office, having arrived precisely five minutes early, when Teri herself strode through the hallway door.  Sallie ushered her in, and they all took a seat.

"We want to thank you, Teri," Dean D--- started, "for having completed your contract this year coolly and professionally," adding "That's an anxiety I as the dean have in such situations, and - like most folks, I have to say - you did well."

"Do you have your future plans all laid out?" Sophia asked, keeping up the conversational tone.

Teri did not seem her usual serene, above-the-usual hullabaloo self, despite her normal preppy suit and slacks and just-so hair style.  "I know what I'll be doing," she said, then with a harder edge looking at Sophia: "no thanks to you."

"Well, that's fine then," I tried to get us back in the chit-chat mode.

But Teri wasn't having any part of it.  She had come with a mission, and she was going to get right to it.  "You're a miserable tyrant," she said to Sophia who looked back at her calmly.  And before the Dean could wedge in a cautionary word, she went on.  (Maybe it was a set speech she'd been rehearsing.)

"You know everything.  It's always what you say that matters.  You don't care about others, who have real lives and families and community obligations."

D--- was stirring but Teri just raised her voice so he couldn't intervene.  "You don't even like yourself!  So you're sick?  You deserve it.  You deserve to die.  You - deserve - to - die!"

Dean D--- had stood up.  Teri had, too.  "That's what I have to say, and I've done it," she turned on her heel, pulled open the door to Sallie's office and stomped away out the door.  Sophia was standing now, next to D---, side-by-side,

12

D--- asked Sallie to close the hallway door and come into his office to join him and Sophia.

"Sallie," the Dean said, "I have just witnessed the most despicable human behavior of my lifetime."

Sophia was sitting quietly again, looking impassively at the two of us.

"Oh gosh!" Sallie exclaimed.  "I'm so sorry, Sophia."  Then to D---, in a sort of stage-whisper: "At first, I kind of liked that girl."

D--- couldn't keep from laughing.  Sophia sort of chuckled too.

"At first," Sophia said, "she seemed perfect."

*

Midway through his scan, Pastor Stan had stopped wondering who had been in attendance Sunday morning who might have written this thing.  He didn't know of anyone who worked at the university... 

It didn't matter, though; it was destined for his trash can.  Would it be recyclable?


***

Prime (poem)

                                                                                                                                       ***


Prime

Some of you will remember

The eccentric schoolteacher who

Liked to speak of the prime of life.

The prime, she would say, or

One’s prime or my prime or yours.

And to us and the children, it may have seemed

She herself was passed what

May have been called her prime,

Passed and on the declining side, down

From the apex, the summit, the mountaintop...

But who’s to say she was not right

And that was in fact
Her prime, after one or more

Aborted lift-offs, scrubbed missions,

Abandoned dreams.

Or even that

Any time or every time has

A prime, if we can see it or sense it

Or be it or live it? Who

Could say that, for sure?

Heading what may seem to some

Down, or just starting up

Or upward,

Who’s to say?

From this little hollow, this quaint

Modest valley or dale or depression only,

Looking ahead, up I suppose,

I have entered, let me say, the prime

Of my old age.  Yes, Miss?

                                                                                                                                          ***

A Man and His Work

***

A Man and His Work

 

I saw him

Not Engage
Not hold
His Audience.

He dominated

Intimidated.
I hated him.

Even now

Forty years
Distant, safe

I hate him.

My stomach
Twists
Remembering.

I don’t read

His poems
Others do.

 I hate it.

They are
Very good
Poems.


***

...And I Almost Died Then, Too!

***

1

It was a beautiful summer that year.  I was awfully busy at work, but was spending every minute I could find seated on the back porch soaking up as much of the vitamins D and K that Ol' Sol had to offer, maybe reading a detective novel or a baseball biography or maybe just having it at my side.

A team of VP's and other senior administrators were working hard to put together a dynamite overnight retreat in August, for team-building, group revitalization, and tightening our focus on a slightly new approach to making further progress.  We'd done one five or six years earlier, and it was time again.  That was the extra factor, making it a particularly busy time.

I had a regular, formal meeting on Wednesday mornings with my chief associate.   We checked signals, chatted, crossed paths and the like several times every day, of course, but she was also taking care of some special projects of her own that we needed the set-aside time to discuss in some depth.

Well, one Wednesday morning my associate didn't seem her usual robust and energetic self, so I asked: "Are you okay?"

"Didn't sleep well last night.  I think maybe I've got a touch of the 24-hour flu that's been going around."

"Ick," I said, drawing back just a bit.  "Look, why don't you just take off? We can re-schedule Friday or so...."

"I want to finish up the morning and then go home for the day," she said, with characteristic determination.

So, we got right to it, and we did at least run through her little stack of papers and notes in less than the 90 minutes allocated.  I shooed her out, made a call or two, and took off for lunch.

2

For a few months already back then, at my heart doctor's suggestion, I had been taking a little 20-minute nap each day after my sandwich and apple for lunch.  Nothing seemed unusual either to me or to my wife that particular day as I slipped off to the bedroom and found some white noise on the television sufficiently lulling for the nap thing to take hold.

Only, when I woke up a few minutes later, I didn't feel all that normal anymore.  I told my wife I was going to take another 15-20 minutes but not to call the office.

By that time I was feeling a little chilled.  It was summer, remember, but I put a light blanket over me.  I told my wife I must have picked up the flu from my associate.   She call my secretary, who confirmed that I didn't have any meetings scheduled.  I dozed again.

3

Maybe I dozed again, but I wasn't comfortable.  My temperature was over 100, and my wife was beginning to talk about the doctor.  When my shivers began to shake the whole queen-sized bed, I agreed she should call to see if I could come in for a quick exam.

During my cold-hot-cold-hot travails, I tired to pay attention to her side of the conversation.  It turned out - as apparently everyone in town knew, but us - the doctors all took Wednesday afternoons off in the heart of the summer, presumably to play golf!

My doctor's service didn't have anyone "on call," as they say.  "When you say, Go to Emergency," I heard my wife saying, "Do you mean go in at sit with my shivering, groaning husband in those hard chairs in the waiting room for 4 hours until someone can fit us in?"

Then she said, "Yeah, I thought so!"

4

I made do with a warm bath, an ice pack and an electric heating pad, and she launched into an attack on that list of household chores that we never got around to.  Anything to keep her busy as she muttered about golf-playing doctors while their patients suffered.  She checked on me from time to time, of course.  We both felt the same about Emergency, but weren't happy about having to wait all the way to Thursday morning.

I kept dozing off and waking up to change from heat gear to cold gear.  After a couple of hours, I hauled myself to the toilet.  Afterwards, I propped myself up on the vanity and looked into my eyes...  Only, what I noticed was a total surprise!  My right jaw had suddenly swollen up as if I'd had a tooth extracted without benefit of any drugs.

5

Now this is a surprising development for someone who thought he was suffering from flu.  Flu doesn't make your jaw puff up like that.  My problem instead had to do with my teeth, despite the fact that I'd had no mouth pain, no gum bleeding, nothing like that.  Was it, my wife and I wondered, an abscess?

The possibility of my having a tooth abscess may not sound like good news, but at least there was a chance that - even though it was a nice summer Wednesday afternoon - all the dentists in town might not be out of their offices.

My wife was back on the phone in an instant, as I limped back to bed.  She got through to an oral surgeon we knew.  He was booked up in an office in another town, but his staff got to him and got back to us how best to manage through the night, and he would see me before any other patient in still another little nearby town at 7:30 a.m. Thursday.

Just to have some of the uncertainty removed was a relief.

6

I don't remember how tough it was getting through to seven that next morning, but at that time, my wife had me hunkered down in the passenger seat as we slipped out the driveway and headed west.

We hadn't been to Dr. C-----'s office next to the hospital before, but it wasn't hard to find.  The parking lot was empty, but the door was unlatched, the lights were on, somebody was looking out for us.  I was ushered directly int0 the dental chair in the first office, and Dr. C----- himself was at my side.

Both his nurse and he said, "Oh my," or something of that order in a tone of voice that didn't instill confidence.  I was a little blue, I understand.

Blood pressure: 60 over 40.

That's low.  There was a little exchange of views about the Emergency Room, but that idea wasn't pressed.  Dr. C----- explained that I clearly had a bacterial infection in one of my lower right side tooth cavities, that by now had spread into the rest of my body.  I learned the term "septicemia."  Anti-biotics were in order: an all-purpose one immediately, and tomorrow a more focused one determined on the basis of lab tests.

The doctor explained that he needed to extract from my jaw all the... well, all the pus he could get out, both to relieve the pressure on the spot and to provide the same for the lab tests.  The needle he held up to show me looked about the size of a baseball bat.  There was just a little spurt when he first slipped the point of it into my gum.

They phoned the 24-hour pharmacy and sent us on our way.

7

So that was the scary part.  The recovery part started as soon as I popped the first antibiotic pill, and started getting a lot better when the lab report helped to determine a more specialized antibiotic.  But after than pervasive an infection, I found, it takes a long time to fully recover.

Dealing with the abscessed tooth, the root canal, and all that seemed superficial compared to the effort my whole body seemed to have to make to get fully healthy again.  I slept a lot, stayed in bed when I wasn't sleeping too, and - yes - sat reading or dozing for hours on the back porch soaking up the healthful rays.

And all that extra work?  Somehow, it seemed to be getting done.  I spent lots of time on the phone with my staff.  My associate had not gotten the flu, by the way, and missed only that one Wednesday afternoon at the office.  By Tuesday, I started tottering into the office for half days.  I would typically go home around noon, have lunch, and then lie down for a nap... but the nap wouldn't be for 20 minutes or so.  It might be for a couple of hours.

Fortunately, the group work for those of us planning the big August Retreat was already finished before that fateful Wednesday.  I was scheduled for two important roles myself.   A dozen or so of the participants were to be people who reported to me, so I was a key member of the team we were hoping to "build" (or re-build); it was important for me to be participating in the Retreat activities as much as possible.  Then, I was charged with giving a final wrap-up speech designed to review key points made during the whole event and to help everyone leave charged up and ready to take the next hill.

The event was all set to start two weeks after my little adventure, and although my preparation work was pretty well done already, I was far from feeling the strength and energy I would have expected of myself during the Retreat itself... What could be done?

8

All my colleagues were very patient with me.  As it turned out, I slept at home instead of spending the long evenings socializing with everybody at the Retreat.  I'd show up after breakfast and jump into whatever we were doing... for a couple of hours.  Then, I'd go find a quiet corner, lie down (more than once on the floor), and take a nap, after which I'd find a way to re-insert myself into all the hoop-la and group discussions.  It was still a strain, but I could take it.

And I managed to get through my own wrap-up message still standing, although the razzle-dazzle must have been a little the worse for wear.

Afterward, that back porch was even more inviting!  But on Wednesdays, I still thought resentfully about the doctors strolling around the fairways while their ailing patients talked to their answering services.

***

“Good Boy” (poem)

***

Good job!

She says.
Why not, I wonder,
Good boy!

As you say to a dog,
Having mastered
How to
“SIT”?

 Only this time

At home from surgery
Ms Therapist says it
To me,

Having successfully

Tied
My shoe.

***

FIRST Principles

********************************************

I.

All sentient1 beings need to feel2 order3 and meaning4 in their lives.


This is the first basic principle. It will be analyzed phrase by phrase.

1. Sentient

A stone, presumably, does not have a need to feel that its existence is meaningful, that its surroundings would be different if that stone did not exist in the ways that it does. We could be imagining it, but we seems to think a pet dog or cat does sense such a need, and many of us would find it natural to extend that observation to all animals in their natural state, from wolves and deer to birds and even insects. About plants we may be unsure...

So... the less a person seeks to find order in - or to impose order upon - her or his existence, thereby giving it meaning - the more that person resembles a stone.

We could ask why it seems to be such an elementary impulsion for sentient creatures to expect to find their world meaningful, but whatever the cause of the impulsion, it is truly present.

2. to feel (order and meaning)

Let's not exaggerate. Few individuals are motivated to seek order and meaning in their lives in a conscious or comprehensive manner. Observing how others around us routinely behave is enough for most of us to satisfy our need to sense order in what we are doing, since we can either do likewise or do something different. 

But living with the feeling that one participates in senseless chaos would lead one toward an uncivilized, inhumane, irrational life.

3. Order

Just learning the facts is usually not enough. Something in us seems to require knowing Why things happen.There are two kinds of answer to the question Why? One is historical, and the other is logical, causal or philosophical.

"Why?" one may ask, to which another may reply, "First, X happened, then Y, and finally Z." Putting X in its historical or chronological sequence seems to show that even if X is unexpected, it nonetheless fits into at least one kind of order.

OR one may ask, "Why?," to which another may reply, "The occurrence of X was caused by the interaction of Y and Z." As the outcome of a causal process - the presence of Y and Z being the cause, and X being the effect - X fits into an understandable order.

Finally, the answer to "Why X?" may be "X is an A, and Y is a B; an A and a B together are the same as Z." In other words, through reason alone one can find the order in a set of circumstances.

Reassuring ourselves that we live in what is at least most often an orderly universe is something that apparently all of us seek to do.

4a. Meaning

Without order, phenomena do not have meaning. The pre-biblical version of Job's story dramatizes this situation. Job thinks - as many do - that the order in our world is a moral order. If one is immoral, one suffers. On the other hand, it must also be true - he assumes - that if one behaves entirely in accordance with moral principles, one will not suffer but will prosper. Job behaves morally, and he prospers. QED. All makes sense.

But then suddenly, although Job's moral behavior has not changed, his success and prosperity desert him.

When given the opportunity to speak with the divine creator who is responsible for order and meaning in life, Job asks Why?  But God does not reply. 

That is the whole story as it was remembered for many generations in many cultures. Apparently, it is possible to behave entirely in accordance with moral principles and still to suffer.

Later those who were gathering the most important spiritual literature together, which eventually became the Bible, apparently felt so great a need to find order and meaning in life that they invented an introduction to the story, creating the fiction that the random disasters that one by one befell the good man Job were part of a contest between two spiritual powers. They were not meaningless, as they seemed to Job himself.

Like Job, most of us cannot find meaning in random occurrences.

4b. Order and Meaning
 
And not all order is meaningful. In other words, order is a necessary prerequisite for meaningfulness, but order alone does not confer meaning on events or situations. Doing the same thing every day, in the same order, may be efficient or may simplify decision-making, but routine in itself is not meaningful.  Most of us find that mere routine does provide order, but we remain unfulfilled.  Both order and meaning are what we seem to need to feel in our world.

Religion promulgates the sense that a relatively clear order, giving us meaning, exists externally, independent of any human mind.  Science seeks an order and a somewhat limited kind of meaning that does exist externally.  Art is different, but also is one of the indications that we seek order and meaning.

Art, for both its creator and its perceiver - provides good practice creating order and meaning, but which by definition are separate from that which exists outside itself.

Like artists, each of us must create values, or thoughtfully adopt values created by others, resting on observation and reason from which each of us can derive the principles necessary for civilized human life.

In order to have a sense of order and meaning in our lives, we need to guide our actions by moral principles.   Since such values do not exist in nature, like things, they must be created so that from them, civilization may develop.

II.

The second principle is:
 
Civilized social life1 is based on humane moral principles2 derived from values3 created from facts4 as perceived by5 verifiable observation6 and unbiased reason6.

1a. Civilized social life:

It's not only that living alone is not the same as living as one of a group. It's not only that groups of individuals living together have a natural and inevitable tendency to get organized to some degree and in some ways. It's more than that.

No, a "society" - like a single individual - can be organized but uncivilized. Our basic first principle, though, is that our society will be civilized.

So what does that mean?

Perhaps at its essence, a civilization - or a civilized society - recognizes a principle of fairness or justice. In practice, fairness is not a sophisticated concept that anyone finds hard to understand. A child, for example, seems to develop a sense of fairness quite early in the maturation process. One of the first things you might hear a child say, it seems, is "That's not fair!" when it has seemed to her or him that he has done the same thing his friend or her sibling did but was rewarded when he himself was criticised for the very same action. At an early age, the child knows this is not right and that what is not right about it is that it is unfair. The problem is not the inconsistency; it's the injustice.

The key point, though, is that in civilized social life fairness and justice are defined with reference to everyone - not only to members of one nuclear family, or one extended family, or one clan or one tribe, or one gang or club or any one organization, or one religious sect, or even one nation. Family feuds, tribal or imperialistic wars, crusades are not instruments for exacting justice, establishing fairness, or making things right. Since it is not the purpose of such actions to treat outsiders fairly and since those treated "fairly" or "justly" in such conflicts are exclusively members of a particular group, such conflicts are uncivilized. The ancient Greek tragedies of the Oresteia dramatize the transition from a culture based on revenge (from tribe or clan culture) to a culture whose system of justice is based on impersonal laws.

In civilized social life, in other words, justice is based on principles, not on affiliations or kinship or any other personal feature, but on abstract standards that are applied to behaviors without regard to personal characteristics.

1b. Civilized social life

What is "uncivilized" social life?

Uncivilized social life is characterized by disorder of various kinds. In a society in which an absolute ruler rewards some and punishes others not according to principles more or less consistently applied but according to whim, fancy, or caprice, life is "uncivilized": unpredictable and intolerable.

Also, a social group characterized by individuals competing with each other with the results entirely indeterminable is "uncivilized." The strongest, most ruthless, and luckiest wins in such contests, with significant or possibly terminal results. Success in such societies is generated by chance and neither for just cause nor according to rational principles. That is an uncivilized way to live.

2. Humane moral principles:

The moral principles on which a civilized society is based grow from a respect for humanity: for other human beings, for all groups demonstrating respect for human individuals, for all who avoid inflicting pain on other beings (or on themselves, for that matter).

2. a.

Religious sects that emphasize the unworthiness and powerlessness of human beings, emphasizing instead the power and glory of the divine, sometimes do not positively espouse humane values. On the contrary, this sort of zealot believes that a person has no intrinsic worth and that no human life has any real value. People may be pitied, at best, but not admired or even respected. Is it "humane" to pity weak individuals who cannot help being worthless? Yes, but such a sentiment cannot be the basis of humane moral principles, which embody positive assessments of human value.

2. b.

We need to keep in mind that we are talking here about moral principles rather than metaphysical principles. Morality has to do with behavior. If one is speaking carefully, she or he will not say a person is "immoral" (or "moral"); only behaviors are either moral or immoral. Spiritual principles or concepts - even those emphasizing the might and authority of the divine as opposed to the fallibility and weakness of human beings (not to mention human mortality, contrasting with the deity's immortality) - do not necessarily impose inhumane moral principles on their followers. But such beliefs do not in themselves exclude inhumane morality.

3. Derived from values:

Moral values are the source of moral principles; logically, values come first. Values are concepts, which may be applied by actions; principles attempt to guide actions so that they embody or actualize the values an individual or a group upholds.

For example, if every human being is intrinsically valuable, then it is immoral to kill someone. (Incidentally, since a contradiction is easier to see than a confirmation, negative moral principles telling us what NOT to do are easier to articulate than positive principles telling us what to do.)

It is possible to extrapolate backwards from an action to the principles it exemplifies or the values it does or does NOT embody. If an individual has killed a number of others, for instance, the motivating principle might be "Kill those who... [are like those killed in this case]." And the value from which this principle is derived might be "[Such people] should be removed [for some reason]."

If an individual risks his or her own life to save some stranger in trouble, we might infer that among this person's principles is that all human beings should see the safety and welfare of others as her or his responsibility. This principle would presumably be based on a value system instilling every human being with value.

So, like other moral principles, humane ones are derived from values (humane values in this case).

But where do we find "humane principles"?

[Note: Relevant to the following section are the two parts of my discussion of the question, "Can moral statements be true?" below: http://byronderrick.blogspot.com/2012/04/can-moral-statement-be-true-part-one.html and http://byronderrick.blogspot.com/2012/04/can-moral-statements-be-true-part-two.html,]

4a. [Values] Created from facts:

If we see the sky growing dark late on a winter afternoon, we may say it is a fact that night has come. If we observe a person doing one thing or another, we may say it is a fact that he or she did that. If we feel our foot falling unexpectedly below ground level and pitch forward onto our knees, we may assume there was a hole in the ground that we had not seen. We hadn't seen it, but it was there; that is fact, we may say.

All of these facts exist external to us, or at least we behave as though they do; by definition, a fact is out there. (We may, of course, wrongly identify a phenomenon as a "fact" when it is not, when it is nowhere because it doesn't or didn't exist apart from someone's imagination.)

In this respect, a fact of course is different from an idea or a concept. A fact is different in this way from a value. In other words, values do not exist out there in the world, for us to get to know through our senses. We do not find a value the way we discover a fact. Values cannot be found because they do not exist in themselves.

When we see a person working hard to defeat a competitor even though such a defeat is clearly humiliating to the other person, while it makes no real difference to the individual we are observing, we may infer that the relentless competitor values winning for himself over making someone else feel good; but that does not mean that such a value exists, like the fact that the other competitor is being hurt. It shows only that the observed individual holds such a value.

People behave according to values they hold. Their actions upon analysis might reveal the values they hold. The only truth or "reality" values have is that they are believed by people and that they are sometimes inferred from human actions.

Naturally, just because "He" holds a certain value and behaves according to a certain principle has no necessary connection to "My" actions, my principles, or my values.

So I don't discover "true" values by looking around, and unless I decide to imitate someone else, I will not find my values and extrapolate my moral principles from others. So where will my values and principles come from?

4b. Created from facts:

If values are not real, existing in the world like facts; that is, if values - the source of moral principles - cannot be found... where do they come from?

They come from your imagination.

Values can be learned from others. Common experience and, I understand, many research studies have demonstrated this; values are not inherited like height and eye color, but the values parental figures live by as an infant grows up with them are likely to become his or her own. On the other hand, it is usually believed that a critical developmental experience for a young individual eventually is to consider her or his values independently. And, no matter what else we may say about this issue, we may state clearly that in a civilized society having a conscious sense of one's own values and the moral principles embodying them is encouraged and in fact is considered essential.

So, one cannot be content from simply reproducing the values of one's dominant culture. It is possible to do so. But such blithely accepted values from others are rather easily tossed aside in times of moral or ethical stress, which is when they are most needed.

Rather, in the final analysis, individuals create their own values from their own experience, using their own imaginations, informed to a reasonable degree by experience of others but making choices for one's moral base by oneself alone.

5. Perceived:

Most of us have had the experience of perceiving an event or situation and later discovering conclusively that the event did not in fact happen or the situation was not in fact what we had thought. "I know I left my keys on the dining table," you say as you look around your home preparing to go to work. Then you find them in the pocket of the slacks you wore the day before. OR "Wasn't it outrageous when X did Y," you think, and then you discover later that X had not done what you'd thought at first. It happens to all of us to think the facts are one thing when they were not; in other words what we perceive is not always "factual."

But what we perceive, balanced with what others tell us they perceive, and confirmed (or corrected) by later perceptions... what we perceive is the best we have. In creating our values system, we will be as careful as we can be to be influenced only by what we are reasonably sure are the relevant facts, knowing all along that just as we are creating these values ourselves rather than finding them in the external world, and knowing also that there is a small chance we have perceived the world incorrectly. (Even if values are created, in other words, dogmatism about them is inappropriate.)

We can be more certain of the worthiness of our values than we can of others' values because we cannot be as certain of the nature of their perceptions as we can of our own. It would be like thinking you know what joy is from someone else's description to you of it, rather than knowing what joy is from your own experience of it!

6. [perceived by] Verifiable observation:

It is well known that perceptions that are verifiable by other people, or by oneself more than once or under various circumstances are more likely to be "facts" rather than mere fantasies. Apparent perceptions that are unverifiable because they lack substantive content ("Jesus loves me") are also unsuitable as the basis for the creation of one's moral values.

7. Unbiased reason:

So we invent our values from facts, using reason. Just as we must do what we can to avoid fantasies (such as those based on fear - "The Devil is after me!" - and those based on hope - "If I strive to be good, I will live in bliss forever") as we seek relevant facts, just so we must do our best to avoid bias in reasoning about what is good and what is not good, what we should strive for and what we should avoid. The difficulty here is that bias itself is a value judgment. Most bias results from taking one's values from others, rather than from one's own experience and judgment.

So, if bias can be as much avoided in our reasoning process as illogic, if we can sufficiently separate relevant facts from fantasies, we can construct humane values for civilized living and derive from such values appropriate moral principles. Along with those around us, we will have a chance at building a civilized society.

III

Thus, the first two basic principles are -

All sentient beings need to feel order and meaning in their lives,

and

Civilized social life is based on humane moral principles derived from values created from facts as perceived by verifiable observation and unbiased reason.

*********************************

A Different Sort of Credit Problem

***

1

My wife (L-----) and I lived in Grenoble, France, from October 1970 to June 1971.  I was working in a one-year position; we had just been married on October 3.

My salary was automatically deposited each month for me in a checking account at the Banque de France.  The salary seemed low, even lower than some U. S. internships despite the fact that it was in fact for a fairly high-level, full-time professional position.  But there were generous benefits and government salary supports - such as small a monthly payment to allow us to buy milk and another monthly payment to support my particular profession... And in France at that time, the cost-of-living itself was remarkably low, too.

The result of all this was that at the end of the year, we found we'd actually saved almost half my annual salary.

2

I'd been lucky enough to land a good job in Washington, D. C., starting in fall 1971.  A nice little nest-egg for getting started in our new home - which turned out to be a two-bedroom apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland - was just waiting for us in our Banque de France account.

But there was a little problem.

The exchange rate between the French franc and the US dollar, which had been frozen for a long time, was freed up just as we had been preparing to leave France in summer 1971.  The amount of French money we could take with us in cash out of the country was severely limited, but the folks at the Banque de France had led us to believe that the exchange rate would stabilize in a few days, at which time we could write a check (cheque) on our foreigner's account (comte etranger) for the full balance so that we could set up a new account in America.  By the way, it was clear that the franc was losing against the dollar at that time, so that the Banque de France was losing a little more every day they held onto our money - and we gained a little more - but, never mind, because the rates were in flux, the funds could not be moved.

3

Before we'd left the U. S. in 1970 we'd sold my wife's car, putting the proceeds in a savings account we could use to buy another car when we got back.  That process worked fine, and because we were going from her big gas-guzzler (as they said back then) to a subcompact, we actually had enough cash to buy the new car.  We got a particularly good deal from my wife's Uncle Pat who worked for a Ford dealer in the Midwest.

We also had a few items of furniture each of us had accumulated and stored during our single lives, so we could sort of camp out in our unfurnished apartment... temporarily!  But we'd planned on fitting the place out right away so that we could be more settled and more comfortable... And then, we had this nest-egg that we could spend...

But wait a minute! We couldn't spend it because it was being held in France!

4

It seems like it wasn't until we actually moved our few things into our new apartment that Mr. Fogarty, the building manager, got around to mentioning, well, you know as everyone does, don't you, that there's a code that says 80% of the floor area in any apartment has to be covered by carpetting.

No, we hadn't known that, which meant we were going to have to take on still another expense, without the cash which was still over in France that we'd thought would cover everything we would need to get settled.

Anyway, it seemed only logical to buy the carpeting first, before we got any real furniture that we would just have to put on top of it.  So, we looked at Yellow Pages or something and figured where there was the biggest collection of discount stores where we could get the most for every dollar.  We'd have to just give up on our commitment to pay cash for everything.  No one else did that, after all.  So we would just buy it on credit.

I had a Visa Card deep in my wallet since I hadn't used it in 10 months or so, along with my Texaco card from even longer ago.  Same kind of thing for my wife.

5

We thought this carpet-buying thing would be one hairy big deal.  But we measured every room two or three times and figured out just what we wanted.  And for a while it looked as though negotiating the heavy car traffic to the stores would be the hairiest part of the deal.

We went into this one big place, and a guy came over to wait on us.  L----- said, "We've just moved here, and we discovered that it's a code that our apartment..."

"--Has to have 80% of all the floor space covered by carpets," he said waving an arm around.  "And let me guess," he added.  "The floor is parquet, parquet flooring, right?"

That was right.  He knew his business, our business.  "I've got just what you need," he said.

L---- was telling him the basics we'd been talking about as he led us over to some big rollers along one wall.

6

So after the carpet had been selected and written up for the order, The salesman asked for my credit card.  I gave him the VISA I had dusted off before we set out that morning.  The salesman disappeared into a rabbit's warren of little cubicles at the back of the showroom.  After a moment, he beckoned for us to join him.  We settled into a couple of chairs near his desk, as he stared into some little machine.  He said the card had been discontinued; did I have another?

"Well," I said, "only my Texaco card, which we haven't used for nine or ten months."  By this time we'd explained that we'd been living in France and that if our funds were not temporarily frozen in the Banque de France, we'd be making our current purchases in cash.  He accepted the gasoline card, explaining that all they needed was to show we had a good credit record.

L---- was relieved at that.  "Neither of us has ever missed paying in full our monthly credit card bill," she correctly explained.

7

Of course the Texaco card had been discontinued too, as had L-----'s credit cards.  "Why don't you just verify that we've always paid the monthly bill in cash?" we asked.  No luck.

The salesman was by now fully engaged in trying to make this sale.  He pondered one thing or another.  Then, he had a bright idea:  "Oh yeah!" he exclaimed.  "Do you own a car?"

Yes, we did.  It was right out front. 

"Who financed the deal?" the salesman asked triumphantly.  "CASH?!" he burst out when we told him.  "Nobody buys a car with cash!"

So after a minute, equilibrium recovered, he asked: "How can I verify that?"

8

Uncle Pat was at work that afternoon at Friederich's Ford several states west, and he confirmed that we had indeed paid cash.  Our salesman strode away murmuring to himself, but when he came back from his boss's office, the deal was made.

By the time the carpet had been delivered and was rolled out on our parquet floor, which meant we could look for furniture, we'd found that Texaco and L-----'s gas card company had been more than happy to renew our old credit cards on the telephone. 

We didn't have any more trouble, despite the Banque de France.  But from then on, when out shopping, we always kept Uncle Pat's business card with us, just in case!

***

Wise Sayings 15 of Ron Lucius

***

*

One (1) oodle = One (1) lot, whole

……………………………………………………………………Ron Lucius
 

*

Whether the deed be fair or foul,
The dominant hand is the dirtier.

……………………………………………………………………Ron Lucius
 

*
 

If it looks like a weed, pull it

……………………………………………………………………Ron Lucius
 

*
 

Less is less, more is more, and enough is enough...
Why must we be reminded?

……………………………………………………………………Ron Lucius
 

*

 

What can we learn from this?  "No pig dies from old age."

……………………………………………………………………Ron Lucius

 



***

Don't Panic...Attack (reminiscence)

***

From my youth onwards, I've been known as a cool head.  After something unexpected happened, after emergency measures had been taken, those around me have typically said something like, "Look at this guy Byron.  Didn't bat an eye!  Boy, you can't rattle him!."  So, in times of pressure, I've just about always been looked on as someone who doesn't show alarm, doesn't panic, maintains a calm demeanour and a steady approach to the situation.

After more than fifty years of having been described this way, from time to time, then, it seemed particularly ironic recently when I - me - Mr. Cool - the unflappable - I experienced a series of what had to have been "panic attacks."

*

I was involved in a long-range project: de-cluttering our family house after 25 years and then packing the remaining books, clothes, chotchkies, and other things that we would move with us to a smaller home in another city.

Preparing to leave those familiar environs for new digs involved a certain amount of stress, I suppose, but it was clearly (to me) the good sort of stress, the excitement of looking forward to new adventures.  And, by the way, making such a move was the result of planning and anticipation for over ten years; that added to its "feel-good" quality.  Packing up our treasures to take with us also felt good; after all, they just are nice things.

Selling, giving away, and ditching the other stuff was laced with nostalgia and some reluctance; but it was never a serious problem.  Such a sorting really should have been done years earlier, etc...  AND the work itself, I have to say, was a real pleasure.  Once we located sources of good boxes and packing supplies, wrapping things up and storing them safely away was simply fun.  Hauling the full boxes here and there provided just the right amount of physical work, not too much, and I was enjoying employing all my skills at the packing arts.

*

On the other hand, I did have to acknowledge that all that dust which had collected over the decades in the back corners and on the bottom shelves... and all that other dust which came in with the used boxes we were rounding up, all the dust stirred up my dormant asthma.  My little inhaler twice a day had been quite enough to deal with the irritants in the air during "normal" activity, but it wasn't up to the challenge of all this extra dust.

I monitored the situation prudently, or so I thought, and was not at all concerned that when this little job - oh well okay, this big job - was finished, my lungs and I would bounce right back to normal.  So even if my lungs were congested, I wasn't feeling stressed about it.

*

So for two or three months, I was basically enjoying myself, beavering away on the de-cluttering and packing.  The first puzzle I came across with myself was that my appetite began to wane.  I was doing more consistent physical labor than I had for years.  I may not have been over-doing it, but I was doing it all right.  And at first, as might have been predicted, I needed more calories to replace those I was working off each day.

But after a month or six weeks, I began to notice that after cleaning my plate, I wasn't looking around for a little more.  Then I was finding that even to clean my plate in the first place was a chore rather than a necessity or a pleasure.  I didn't feel hungry later either.  If in times of stress I was Mr. Cool, at meal times I was Mr. Appetite... Only, not so much several weeks into the pre-moving project.  

That was odd... Something that was me, and had been for decades and decades, suddenly didn't seem to apply anymore.  (I didn't particularly want to mention it either: maybe first because I didn't want to acknowledge it, and also because my wife A----- was generally unwell but she did still pride herself - justly - on the innovation, variety, overall tastiness, and healthfulness of her cooking.  She was disgusted at her own tendency to lose her appetite during her own illness.  I didn't want to be adding to her unhappiness...)

*

And then the other thing:

My wife has always been the lighter sleeper.  She always said that as soon as my head hit the pillow, it was off to unconsciousness for me.  This was a blessing too: it was as though "When the going gets tough, the tough - i.e. me - gets to sleep."

Also, because of a long-time heart condition, I was "pushing fluids" all day every day, so for the last ten years or so, I was getting up to go to the bathroom 3-4 times a night, routinely.  A----- became even less attuned to what happened to me during the night than she had been; she didn't want to make it even harder than it could have been for her to stay asleep or get back to sleep herself.

As it turned out, though, that meant that another fundamental change in the person whom I had come to know as myself found himself changing. ...Because as the de-cluttering and packing went on, I became more and more afflicted with the dreaded insomnia.

*

Ever since college, I have especially liked falling asleep while lying on my back, maybe even propped up on my sit-up pillow reading or watching t. v.  That just seems delicious to me, to slip quietly away "sitting" up there comfortably.  As a married man, I gradually learned that if I was going to snore, it was more likely to happen when I was sleeping on my back, so that way to slip into sleep was pretty well out of reach most of the time.  And I didn't have to, since Mr. Fall Asleep could nod off just when the pillow came within sight.

Since I've been waking up several times each night, I developed the habit of waking up on one side and lying back down on the other side when I returned to bed.  I had an FM radio on my bedside table, and it was my inveterate custom to put an ear plug in one ear when lying on the other side as I listened every night to Classical Music Through the Night.  When the morning news came on at 6 a.m. and the news came on the radio, I'd switch on the CD player to extend my music-accompanied snooze until the last minute.

*

The first stage of the new problem during de-clutering and packing did not involve getting to sleep the first time.  That went "normally" enough.  When I returned from my trip to the bathroom, however, I couldn't just put in the music-bearing ear plug, lie down, and sail back off to dreamland.  I didn't feel comfortable somehow.  I'd try lying on the other side.  Still uncomfortable.  I learned that my best chance at getting back to sleep was to replace my sit-up pillow on the bed and lie on my back.

Soon, I'd have to leave a night-light on in the bathroom across our bedroom.  The final stage required me not only to go to the bathroom as usual but to spend a few minutes prowling around a little, looking out the kitchen window into the backyard or checking out the streetlight in the neighbor's front yard.  Sometimes I'd do that several times and lie quietly in the semi-darkness for a while before I would doze off again for another hour or so.

What seemed to be keeping me awake was this awful feeling I was having.  It seemed like it was in my stomach or chest, and it was weighing me down.  I finally had to wake A----- up just to whine about how jumpy and creeped-out I was feeling.  Talking through it was a little therapeutic, and of course so was her sympathy.  And I did ultimately get another hour or two of sleep that night.

I took to describing my icky feeling that kept me awake as a deep kind of fear or, more accurately, dread.  I just couldn't make myself vulnerable by going to sleep because something was scaring me; I was dreading what was going to happen.  I knew it was loony; I knew I wasn't in danger of anything but a sleepless night.  But that description was the best way I could find to capture what I was feeling.

Try as I might to control my groundless fears, I was panicking;  Mr. Cool was being attacked by irrational panic.

*

When I had the chance to try to describe this experience to the various nurses looking after me in the hospital after an apparently unrelated health crisis, they all focused on my diminished lung capacity - which was very apparent to them in my lab reports, in the fact that I had a tube for which the nurses were responsible pumping oxygen into my nose at 4 liters per hour (which must be quite a lot), as well as the fact that I had two or three regular visits from pulmonary therapists every day.

"Well of course you were panicked," they would say.  "When you lay flat down, it seemed like you might not be able to keep getting your breath.  That would scare anybody."

*

I don't know about "anybody", I guess, but it sure scared me.  And once in a great while I can still feel little hints now and then of that kind of deep dread weighing down on my chest.  Just a tiny bit of that again now recalls the whole rotten experience.

I've always felt sorry for those poor folks who commit suicide, but it was always impossible for me to imagine what they must be feeling when they conclude they'd rather be dead.   It gives the word "depression" a whole new meaning for me today when think back about my own "panic attacks."


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