Thursday, December 20, 2018

A Day In The Life

hikingmist

“Some days are diamonds, some days are stones.”---Dick Feller


So here we are, travelers through time, students of the universe, collectors of knowledge, teachers of the young, sometimes leading, sometimes following, always searching for The Light.  We have arrived at this station via good luck and bad, through struggle and heartbreak and joy and rejuvenation.  We are more careful now because we understand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the slow diminishment of our physical powers, the realization that the slightest flap of a distant butterfly’s wings can ultimately bring the tornado. 

We consider the many things our lives could have been, positive and negative, with a simple twist here, a little tuck there, more curious than regretful.  Does Fate exist in any measure?  If so, we’re off the hook for bad decisions.  Sure, we sold our little grass shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii and bought this bungalow in snowbound Fairbanks, but the Devil made us do it.  What if there is, in fact, a Cosmic Arbiter who occasionally extends his index finger and gently nudges us in a certain direction?  There must have been some reason we sold all that Coca Cola stock in 1966.

More likely, we’re on our own and each day is like opening time at the racetrack.  We secure our Racing Forms, study the history of the horses and place our bets.  We use all of our accumulated savvy, the totality of our life experiences to calculate the odds before proceeding, then take our best shot.  On some days, the diamonds, we turn out to be clever geniuses, the creme-de-la-creme of sentient beings and things fall our way.  On others, the stones, we accidentally set fire to Aunt Annie’s new drapes.  If we can avoid the Grim Reaper, incarceration and bankruptcy, however, each day we get a new chance, another opportunity to get it right, to turn the lights on and start the mariachis playing in the House of Today.  So let’s have at it another time.  May all of you catch the brass ring.


Easterisland

Doubleheader

Tuesday, December 18.

Like the careful fellow I am, each year I traipse off to my general practitioner to get an assessment of my chances at spending another annum on Earth.  I have dutifully reported in to the charming folks at Shands’ Rocky Point Lab a week earlier to have blood pulled, the better to assess my current condition.  I am generally optimistic about these rituals since everything is usually in order, but in the back of every 78-year-old’s mind is the knowledge that sooner or later there will be issues.  According to my physician, the inimitable James B. DeStephens, that time could be now.  Then again, it could be nothing.

For several years now, my TSH numbers have been creeping upwards.  TSH tests measure the amount of Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone in the blood; it’s produced by the pituitary gland, a tiny organ located below the brain and behind the sinus cavities.  TSH stimulates the thyroid to release the hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) into the blood.  The normal range for TSH is 0.4 milliunits per liter to 4.0.  If a person’s TSH is over 4.0 on repeat tests, he probably has hypothyroidism.  In January, my number was 7.068.  Today, it is 9.243.  Nonetheless, I have no symptoms of hypothyroidism and my T3 and T4 numbers are within range, an anomaly.   Somewhat baffled, Dr. DeStephens has ordered a CT brain scan at North Florida Regional Hospital tomorrow.  This news is not as bad as finding out you have yaws but not as good as hearing there’s a big parade on Wednesday.  The worst thing about any radiology procedure is that nobody will tell you anything for a couple of days, so you are left swinging in the breeze.  As a warmup to the scan, I’m visiting my dentist two hours earlier to see if he can rectify problems with a 40-year-old root canal tooth which is, as he describes it, “disintegrating.”  Happy days are here again.  I have two cranial adventures on the same morning.  In baseball parlance, we call this a double-header.  In real life, we call it the alligator pit.


pitutary-gland

A Day In The Life

Wednesday, December 19

When we were kids, the four scariest things we knew about were Dracula, the Wolfman, Sister Mary Albert and the dentist, not necessarily in that order.  Dracula had fangs, the Wolfman claws and Sister Mary Albert wielded the meanest ruler this side of Haverhill, but the dentist, well….he had that needle.  And the evil drill, which made unearthly sounds as it whirred through your mouth, occasionally whacking a nerve and sending you three feet into the air, screaming.  Most of us would just as soon be hit in the head with a fastball as go to the dentist.  At least it was over in a flash.

One day, Wally Hoyt didn’t show up for school.  His friends knew he’d be a little late, he had a dental appointment early in the morning, but Wally was still missing at noon.  We didn’t have many kidsnatchers in those days, but everybody was in a big kerfuffle for several hours until Hoyt was found.  Turns out he did tell one friend, Eddie Delaney, that he was running away to California rather than face death at the hands of the dentist.  Wally only made it to North Reading, but you had to admire his pluck.

I, myself, abstained from dentistry for about ten years after highschool due to a lack of oral issues and extreme poverty.  When I returned in 1970, I chose Dr. Roland Thaler, just starting his practice in Gainesville on University Avenue, a smidge past 34th street.  Dr. Thaler was my faithful Indian companion for over forty years, filling cavities, dredging root canals, building bridges, inserting crowns, even constructing a fitted mouthpiece to cover my teeth at night so I didn’t grind them to death.  When Dr. Thaler finally retired a few years ago, I inherited Dr. Wade Townsend, a sports afficionado with whom I could moan about Florida Gator insufficiencies and get the inside scoop on basketball goings-on.  Seems hoops coaches need dental care, too.

Wade performed his magic in two different areas and I was out of his office in a spiffy hour, thus early to my scan appointment at Invision, just behind North Florida Regional Hospital.  Early or not, I would sit in the lovely waiting room until noon, my scheduled scan time, amidst a collection of odd senior citizens with broken wrists, damaged spines, creaky necks and the like.  Patients were called to the desk by a lady behind a glass window, who was difficult to hear.  One such client was Mrs. Mashpee, who was summoned once, twice, and then loudly, perhaps with a megaphone.  The embarrassed Mrs. Mashpee, about 90-years-old, got up from her chair, smiled and went to the desk to retrieve her CT-scan disk.  When she arrived, she turned to the assembled waiting-room crowd and said in a crisp voice, “Getting old sucks.  I can’t hear a damn thing!”  And she was off, to the delight of the audience, which hadn’t expected such magnificent entertainment.

I sat opposite an entry door to the scan area, just in front of an eightyish African-American woman who was a big fan of Jesus.  She was engaged in a lively cell phone conversation with someone going through hard times and she wanted the poor thing to know that Jesus was the answer to her woes.  Then, backing himself out of the scan rooms in a wheelchair and parking himself next to me, came a gentleman in his mid-eighties, desperate to talk.  Mostly, I just sat there and soaked in the conversations.  They went something like this:

“Howdy, young feller.  My name is Robert Benjamin Kenilworth, but you can call me Rob, or you can call me Bob, or you can call me Ben, or you can call me Ken….”

“And let me tell you, Missy, JEEZUS is the only way!  There are TWO roads, not four, not three.  There is the road with JEEZUS and the barren road.  There is no going in the middle, no third road….”

“Been in the wood business all my life, retired now, still keep my hand in.  Now when you’re talking about your wood, first you’ve got your pine, then you’ve got your cypress, you’ve also got your red oak, then you’ve got your hackberry….”

“When you start out in life, you think you smart, you go you own way, you laugh at JEEZUS, and then you fall on hard times, the world falls in on you and you lose all hope, you don’t know what to do….”

“And we sell this wood to everybody….we sell it to Boise, Idaho and we sell it to Chicago and we sell it little old places like Pooh-kipsie.  They made a tunnel in Boston with our wood.  Went under the damn OCEAN, yessir!”

“And when ever’thing as dark as The Devil’s heart, when ever’thing closing in on you, you standing at the edge of the precipice, you look up and you gives you’self to God, you cry PLEASE, JEEZUS, you open you’self up and HE will come!  You can count on JEEZUS, Lord bless us all!”

I sat there desperate for rescue and finally a young nurse opened the door and called my name.  She guided me into the scan room, where a young man was plumping up the pillows on the cylinder.  “Hi,” he said.  “I’m Jay.”

“But I can call you Ray, right?” I asked, still hypnotized by the waiting room jargon.  “What?” he asked, totally at sea.  “Never mind,” I told him.  “Local joke.”

Jay acquainted me with the giant scanner and gave stern instructions.  “You can’t move your head for three full minutes,” he advised.  “Can I smile?”  “No!”  Geesh.  Give a guy a uniform and he goes all military on you.  I didn’t move a muscle.  Jay said I did good.  “You can smile now,” he told me as I exited the metal maw.  Jay’s idea of a little joke.  My fate was now in the hands of the scan reader hidden behind the glass in the next room.  I hope he knows what he’s doing.


Baseballheaven

A Parting Gift

Thursday, December 20

Don’t say we didn’t give you anything for Christmas.  Here’s a last-minute story from my Best Man, Jack Gordon in Laguna Beach, befitting our station in life:

Two 90-year-old guys, Leo and Frank, had been best friends all their lives.  When it became clear that Leo was dying, Frank visited him every day.  On one occasion, Frank said, "Leo, we’re both lovers of the baseball arts, we both played the game all through highschool and we still watch it today.  Do me one favor: when you get to Heaven, let me know somehow if there’s baseball up there.”

Leo looked up at Frank from his deathbed.  “Frank, you’ve been my best friend for years.  If there’s any way possible, I’ll do this favor for you.”

Shortly after, Leo passed away.  Then, a few nights later, Frank was roused from his sleep by a blinding flash of light and a voice calling him….”Frank!….Frank?….”

“Who is it?” asked Frank, sitting up, startled.

“It’s me, Leo, talking to you from Heaven as you requested.  I have some good news and some bad news.”  “Tell me the good news first,” said Frank.

“The good news,” Leo told him, “is that there’s baseball in heaven.  Better yet, all our old pals who died are here, too, and we’re all young again.  Also, it’s Springtime and it never rains or snows.  We can play baseball all day long and we never get tired.” 

“Wow, that’s fantastic,” said Frank.  “It’s beyond my wildest dreams!  So what could possibly be the bad news?”

“You’re pitching Tuesday.”


That’s all, folks.  Enjoy your Christmas.  May the season be bountiful.

bill.killeen094@gmail.com