The last blog probably deserves an explanation.  It is all the result of being a floundering newbie to the Xanga thing.  I wanted to send a comment to LMF’s latest creative blog, but this time I wanted to explore new vistas and add a smiley .  I fired up the xTools editor, wrote my wit, and clicked submit.  Eventually I realized that I had succeeded only in posting a new, out of context, meaningless blog on my site.  In a flurry of computereze panic I flipped back and forth between sites, scrolled up and down, and finally invoked the edit function….so, now what?   I deleted my LMF comment and was left with a blank edit screen.  The image that popped into my head was the OZ “wizard” behind the curtain flailing away at his controls, spinning wheels, pulling levers; all in a pitiful, futile attempt to maintain his illusion of being “great and powerful” (that would be me).  Thus, you glimpsed an example of the flashing imagery that constantly takes control of my countenance at the most inopportune times, usually resulting in a silly grin that others can only wonder at the origins.

Uh....Hello....Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!  I am the great and powerful Wizard of Odd!

The following poem is one that I wrote a couple days after my dad died, the day before the funeral.  It wasn’t planned and I don’t think I had written a poem since high school.  I needed an outlet, my mother’s house was full of people, so I went into the spare bedroom where the computer was located, shut the door, and started typing.

 

To understand the poem, one must know a little about my dad.  He grew up on a farm in a poor area of southern Ohio.  He had five brothers and two sisters.  Hard work is how you got by.  He was a young teenager during the depression years.  Coming out of the depression years he was one of the Fabulous Five Waterloo Wonders, a high school basketball team that won the state championship two years in a row (this is another story).  He went on to college, took time out for the war, finished college, and married.  Dad’s primary career was teaching Industrial Arts at the Junior High level.  He took educating young “boys” very seriously.  He held that it was important for boys to learn to use their hands and to learn how things are made.  In the latter part of his career, when the gender gap was being closed in all aspects of our culture, he embraced the notion that girls needed to learn these things too.  His love of sports mixed well with his dedication to young people in his work as a coach.  He devoted many hours to coaching football, basketball, and track.  The value he saw in sports had many facets.  He viewed sports as a teaching tool for young people, lessons that it is difficult to learn by other means.

 

His family was the center of his life.  His three boys and his extended family were everything to him.  Regular visits back to the farm for large family gatherings were the highlights of life.  Nothing made dad happier than being amongst his family.

 

Another significant aspect of dad’s life was his craftsmanship and his ability to labor through long hours and days.  To support his family in the manner that he thought necessary, he would take on carpentry, painting, and construction jobs.  He built several homes in our home town and worked as part of a crew on many others.  By the time he retired from teaching he had gained the reputation in our town as the go-to guy if you wanted a difficult job done right.

 

To put my dad in perspective, I will tell one final short story:  At the end of his life, he had suffered from colon cancer which was fixed with a colostomy, lung cancer which was fixed with removal of half of a lung, and arthritis.  Yet, invariably when I would stop by to see my parents, he would be standing in the garden with a shovel in his hand or standing over a pile of rubble that he had just busted up with the sledge hammer; “never liked where they put that walk”.  Ten days before he died I had been telling him that I was having trouble with our spring water cistern and thought that I might have a leak that was letting mud get into the system.  The next day, when I came home from work and pulled up the driveway something out-of-the-norm caught my eye.  There was a large pile of dirt next to the cistern cap and a head sticking out of the ground.  I walked up to the hole and peered in.  My dad was standing in a pit that he had dug so that we could get to the piping.  The pit was 6-8 feet long, 3 feet wide, and all that was sticking out was his head.  It is the grin that I still remember.  That was my dad.

  

Dad

Go with peace dad

The foundation is laid

And it is sound

The beam is set

And it is true

 

Go with peace dad

The seed is planted

And the ground is well tilled

The trees will stand firm

Against the wind

 

Go with peace dad

Students prosper

Their foundations sound

Players thrive

Lessons holding true

 

Go with peace dad

Your children are safe

The way is clear

Love grows from the labors

Strength binds us together

 

Go with peace dad

Your work is finished

Your home will stand

Against wind and time

Well done, dad, well done

Fence sitting;

it’s not just the splinters that hurt.

 

I often refer to myself as a fence sitter, usually in a negative context.  By fence sitting I mean that I can’t make up my mind about what I believe is the truth or what is the correct conclusions to draw concerning various subjects.  These subjects range from the benign petty stuff like, is how I dress important, to the more life significant stuff like, is there a God.  This affliction gets in my way constantly as I try to come to conclusions about what position to take on a myriad of subjects that one must deal with on a daily basis.  It becomes obvious to one who is challenged in this way that functioning every day requires a constant stream of acting on decisions that one has made as to what are the facts.

 

While acutely aware of my own struggle with this necessity of being functional, I am also very aware that many, if not most, people do not struggle with this, at least outwardly.  Most people that I observe are very comfortable with dealing with life’s decisions based on very concrete visions of what is true, what is right and what is wrong.  To them, the “plain truth” is only “common sense”.  The only challenge they face is learning to espouse concise, irrefutable rationale to support their position.  Often this line of logic is not proclaimed to anyone but themselves so, therefore, must only pass their own weak scrutiny: Life via truisms.  While the shortcomings of this approach are obvious, at least to me, it does have a positive side; these are the people that get things done.  Right or wrong, for better or for worse, they are the ones that will act and make change.  While I’m sitting up on the fence studying the landscape, trying to decide which way the drainage ditch ought to run, these folk are out digging.  They may dig their hearts out only to eventually realize that they are trying to make the water flow up-hill, but they will invariably turn around and keep digging in a different direction.  Eventually they’ll hit the creek.  All the while I’m still sitting, thinking, weighing, and watching the pasture turn into a swamp.

 

Why bother to find proof there is a God if believing on faith makes life simpler?

 

I am slowly reaching an understanding of where my own vacillation finds its roots.  At the risk of sounding like I’m patting myself on the back (which is exactly opposite of my self-deprecating nature) I will say that the root of the problem lies in the drive to get to the absolute truth of a matter.  The goal should not be to win the argument, but to find the truth (I was born on Earth, just like you)  The problem with this foundation is that there are very few absolutes in nature.  Like the man said, “death and taxes”.  Most other issues are shades of gray.  And, in trying to determine the grayness level we are often left with supposition and intangible, ethereal concepts with which to work.  The strength of arguments is often influenced in large part by the skill of the purveyor.  For one who is waiting to make final disposition until the irrefutable facts are uncovered, the process can become an endless tug-of-war.  Many facts turn out to be only maybe’s.  My entire life has been spent working with technology.  This has only exacerbated my troubles.  The common perception is that engineers are the epitome of those whose world is black and white.  My reaction to this life’s work has been just the opposite.  I have had too many, countless, incidences where the facts all pointed to, “Go ahead, crank the pressure up a little higher. She can take ‘er”.  Only to spend the next several hours cleaning up the mess and the next several days determining the new set of facts.  This has resulted in a level of skepticism that should earn me favorite son status in Missouri.  The down side to this is, as I portrayed earlier, impotence.  The up side (no pun intended, although I am sitting here with a smirk), however, is not causing a net loss.  Continuing the earlier analogy; while I am not getting the water out of the field, I am also not helping the forge-ahead group that is about to dig a hole into the neighbor’s gas line.

 

These introspective delvings are usually only interesting to the delver so I’ll stop while I’m behind on this one.

 

So, I’m left with the question, “is being a fence sitter a good thing or a bad thing”. I’m not sure.  I think the truth may be somewhere in the middle.

My almost-20-year old daughter was feeling a little blue last evening.  She was sitting in the old recliner, wrapped up in a blanket 'cause its a little drafty in that corner.  She had Carmel firmly clamped in her arms.  His ears were pinned back mostly because it wasn't his idea to be held at the moment, but, hey, even cats have to earn their keep from time to time.  I couldn't tell what was weighing on Beth, but I could tell that this was probably not the time to ask, "So, Beth, what's eatin' you?".  Ever had the experience of throwing a cup of kerosene on a camp fire?

It was time for Dad to take decisive action!  I rifled through the DVD's until I found just the right one...nope...nope...nah...YES!  The Blues Brothers!  I turned off her favorite down time tv, Law and Order reruns (risky), and in a flurry of button pushing that I'm not sure that I could repeat, ever, I had the new DVD player talking to the TV.  I popped in the silver disk, found the right frame, and turned up the volume.  Aretha!  I can't sit still when Aretha is singing Think so, I'm pounding the arm of the chair, feet are keeping time, and I'm howlin' right along with the queen.  It didn't matter what brought it on; the pure energy of Aretha Franklin, the women on-screen telling the men how-it-is, or dad being stupid again, but about half way through the number, a quick glance over daughter's way revealed a big grin, a few less clouds, and even the cat looked a little less pissed.

 Guess my next to last post was a little mis-leading when I mentioned that I might try to write a short story.  When I was sitting, staring at the blank screen, I started thinking about the feelings and experiences that I had when I went through finding out I had cancer and the treatments.  I had never taken the time before to talk about or write about some of these experiences.

Finding Inspiration

I walked down the wide hospital hallway with a sense of curiosity.  The hallway was well lit, yet not institutional.  The burnt orange carpet must have been an attempt to add warmth.  But it was definitely a hospital hallway with unmistakable smells, bumper rails for the rolling beds and the occasional white uniform.  Some of the uniforms would smile at you; some would hurry on by in deep concentration.  What is it like to work in a hospital, surrounded day after day by people and their families who are struggling with life; each in their own way?

 

The walk from the exam room wing to the chemo ward was short, maybe fifty yards.  We passed a room labeled “Pharmacy”.  Of course they would have a pharmacy within a hospital, but for some reason this surprised me.  Pharmacies are either little brick buildings on the corner with a soda fountain and birthday cards or one of the new chain operations in the strip mall.  This ever present state of readjustment seems to have been the underlying theme of my experience with learning the ins-and-outs of the medical industry; a constant state of surprise and confusion about how the system works.  The world of modern medicine is unique.  It is an island in the otherwise pervasive sea of sameness culture.  It has its own language, social rules (ok to ask someone if the rectal bleeding has subsided), and time. 

 

The whole journey started when my GP (general practitioner for those of you who are unlearned) said, “That mass in your abdomen (belly) could be serious. You need to see a surgeon”.  The silence that followed might have been interpreted as shocked reaction on my part as I struggled with the notion that I had a “mass” and it was “serious”.  That was not the source of befuddlement, however.  I already new something was wrong a couple of days before when I asked my wife to feel this hard place in my belly and, upon probing a couple times, her eyes grew to the size of eggs…grade A.  No, I was not in shock or terror, knowing that this could only mean the big C.  I was waiting for the GP to go on and tell me who to call and how to go about “seeing” a surgeon.  Just any surgeon, a special surgeon, a local surgeon, someone-you-know surgeon?  Why a surgeon, what is he going to do?  “He will decide how to proceed, maybe with a biopsy.”  Biopsy, what’s that?  “They’ll use that to determine if you need to see an oncologist.”  Oncologist, what’s that? Now, I know that I am professing a surprising degree of naivety on this matter, but I can’t believe that the average person walks in off of the street and can speak this language.  The next few weeks flurried by with “consults”, EKGs, stress Muggas, gallium scans, CTs, labs, lymphocytes, WBCs, and so on.  Jargon was thrown about with full expectation that you either keep up or get left behind.  Kinda like being in France, either learn how to order in French or starve.

 

At one point the oncologist said that he wanted me to get a cardio-pulmonary consult.  Hmmmm.  I had become savy enough to know cardio (heart) and pulmonary (lung); now what is “consult”?  Obviously, “consultation”.  Ha! I’m catching on.  So I go to the central desk and the clerk hands me a paper saying, “Here’s your CONSULT”.  Confusion.  Is consult a verb or a noun?   I go back to the onc’s (that’s what we in the business call oncologists) nurse, hand her the paper that has CONSULT stamped at the top in big red letters, and say, “here is my consult”.  “That’s impossible”, she says in the kindest demeanor possible under the circumstances (that’s one of the side benefits of having cancer, even the institutional people feel compelled to treat you nice).  “You’ve only been gone for 10 minutes”.  I could feel the ears turning crimson to clash with the mint green wall paper.  It was a combination of embarrassment, frustration, and a little being pissed.  In the silence she went on to explain that I was to take the paper to building M, which is just down the street, and make an appointment to see Dr. Dracula, heart specialist.  "He will be DOING THE CONSULT."

 

Sigh

 

We’re back in the hallway with the burnt orange carpet.  I’ve reconciled the existence of the pharmacy in halls of the hospital.  The double swinging doors are approaching.  The sign over the doors read, “Chemotherapy”.  Until this moment I had wandered through the entire ordeal in a very strange state of mind.  I didn’t panic.  I didn’t struggle through the unanswerable, “why me”, lament.  It was very clear to me that the question is really, “why not me?”  My wife had been a consistent, solid rock upon which I leaned.  I had put my faith in this strange land of medicine and had confidence that things would work out.  But now…it was time to pay the piper.  In a few moments I would be attached to a tube and a benign looking clear liquid would drip into my vein.  I had learned that “chemotherapy” does not describe a single drug or even a single group of drugs.  Rather, it titles a cook book of recipes that the oncologist puts on the menu depending on the type of cancer, stage, and so on.  Therefore, even the limited data that I had to go on as to the effects of chemo on the patient was useless.  Shattered immune system, weakened veins, stressed heart, pasty skin, bald head; these were on the table of possibilities, but nothing was certain.  For the first time, my knees felt a little weak.

 

I pushed through the doors to find a wall; a wall with a big leafed plant sitting next to a single chair.  The moment of confusion didn’t last very long as my awareness picked up on activity to my left.  Ah, yes, the clerk’s desk.  The chair was the obligatory waiting room.  Not much use for a real waiting room.  Chemo is an outpatient process.  Any loved ones that tag along sit in the treatment room and hold your hand.  We stood at the counter while the busy clerk wheeled about in her office chair; punch the key board, wheel over to the printer, slide to the phone, SLAM!, emboss the ID card.  “Can I help you”?  Doesn’t she know why I’m here?  Doesn’t the whole world know why I’m here? To my astonishment, my voiced cracked as I answered, “I’m here for chemo, my name is….”  All of a sudden, in a rush, I started feeling urgently sorry for myself…”why me?”.  Who’s going to run my business, how can Kate deal with the debt, how will she handle the unfinished house, the kids need a dad…”  “Follow me Mr. Wiseman” shattered my spiraling thought.

 

As I negotiated the edge of the counter trying to keep the nurse in sight as she whipped down the hallway, an image in one of the rooms caught my attention.  She was sitting, back straight, head slightly bent, reading.  The tube emerged from the tape on her forearm and snaked its way up and around her chair to where it was held by the metering machine.  Her serenity was palpable.  She was beautiful.  Her gray hair was finely brushed in a elegant natural style.  Her sturdiness belied the wrinkled skin.  There were no tears, no anguished look.  She was in total control.  Kings and presidents would pause to her this lady speak. This was something she was doing for herself.  When this task was done, she would be on to the next. 

 

“This way Mr. Wiseman…:”  I caught up with the nurse and took my seat in the comfortable chair.

My Xanga mentor has nudged me to further writing.  The well is pretty dry right now.  Dust balls are starting to accumulate in the corners.  Let’s take a look inside, maybe just as far as the foyer:

 

I am just sort of going through the motions lately.  At home, I have probably two dozen projects of various sizes and stages of completion.  I jump from one to the other as the urgency shifts – can’t seem to complete any of them.  At work, the daily routine has turned to tedium with an underlying tension derived from the possibility of job loss due to business issues. There is the ever present personnel tension with a couple of people.  These things along with health issues, teenage children issues, elder parent issues, college tuition issues, etc. cause me to approach each day with an unfortunate dry, shriveled up resolve.  Most people, at least in their public persona, would be aghast at such a perspective of daily life.  I’m not so sure that this mode is not prevalent over those who awake every morning with exuberance, self imposed or, especially, genuine.

 

I truly look forward to finishing the day with a couple hours of mind numbing TV.  I haven’t succumbed to the reality shows ( I surprise myself in actually finding this genre degrading and humiliating, reaching new heights in lows for humanity) but would be the first to admit that the shows that do consume my time are of only slightly more value.   I am reading a good book now, Theodore Rex, an account of Teddy’ presidency, however, the reading sessions come in short spurts as I find the energy to keep my eyes open.

 

So, how does one squeeze more out of life?  I’m not going to follow up this question with a blurt of wisdom that espouses the answer.  I am 50 years old and have just begun realizing that I probably want to figure the answer to this one.  Is the concept that there is more to life than maintaining life an illusion created by our modern anglo-culture, which lives a relatively trouble free life compared to the lives of most of previous humanity?  “Trouble” in this case referring to things like how do I kill the bear for food before it does the same to me? If the answer is yes, does one have to look inward to find the greater, hidden true value of life?  Being a product of the -60s and 70s, I am well aware of the concept of going to the mountain to find one’s inner self.  I was always skeptical of any real value here because I saw that most people’s journey to the mountain involved very little walking steep, rocky paths and a great deal of smoking large quantities of pot.  I am pretty sure that all of the great religions espouse the value of looking inward when looking for the meaning or value of life; finding the value in interacting with and relieving the sufferings of the rest of humanity.  Is this the only true path to fulfillment?  Can one maintain enthusiasm and sense of purpose through pride of accomplishment or material wealth?  I know the pat answer to these questions.  If polled, the vast majority of those browsing through BestBuy or the BMW show room would be able to proclaim the shallowness of material wealth. Yet, here we are. Until recently the true significance of finding a higher purpose rang pretty hollow, not able to push its way through the cynicism that has been cultivated over the years like the ivy engulfs an old brick home.  My basic nature allowed me to believe the truth in helping one’s neighbor but, was the act of doing so, so directly connected to me looking forward to waking in the morning more than shutting down at night?

 

Well, these are some of the thoughts that jumble my brain and, as I said, you’ve only entered the foyer and peeked down the hallway.  When I have a moment of clarity, I will try to write something a little lighter… maybe a short, short story.

I went to see LOTR III last night for the second time.  Mind you, its not that I am a fanatic or anything like that.  I mean, no swords in the closet or wizard robes hidden under the bed.  My wife hadn’t seen it yet and I, err, uh, didn’t feel right about her going alone.

 

I usually don’t think much during a movie such as LOTR.  I just get completely engrossed in the cinematography, sounds, emotions, etc.  I come away with an overall-impression of whether I enjoyed myself or not.  This time there was a moment, however, towards the end of the movie when a connection between the art and the real popped into my brain.  A poignant difference between the story telling of not only this epic but of so many of the stories of times long ago and the way the world actually works.  Aragorn had convinced the remains of the army of men to engage in a hopeless battle against the orc army which was regrouping at the foot of Mount Doom.  The purpose of the battle was to act as a diversion to draw the enemy’s attention away from Frodo.  It was a brave and honorable commitment of these men’s lives.  The stakes were high.  If Frodo was not successful, surely the age of man was in its final days.  Without even the certainty that Frodo was still alive, Aragorn was willing to send his men into battle with death being the only possible outcome.

 

With his small army surrounded and out numbered by hosts of orc and worse, Aragorn, stood in the lead.  He placed himself between his army and the enemy and with the simple statement of purpose, “For Frodo”, he turned and charged, never even looking back to be sure that the others would follow.  This is courage of conviction.  There is no doubt here that the words spoken by the King so emotionally were not hollow, but were filled with purpose and truth.

 

The thought that struck me so clearly as I sat in the theater was, would we be in Iraq today if George W. had to lead the charge into battle?  Would it be such a clear necessity to oust Saddam if George had to be the platoon lead man who has to kick open the door, not knowing if he would be met with a hail of bullets or a screaming baby.

 

At first glance, this seems like a reasonable question.  The logic here is pretty bullet proof.  It is, unfortunately, too simplistic.  It is the stuff of epic stories where the complexities of governing and leading a nation are condensed down into a single either chivalrous or evil leader.  The leaders in these battles are never killed until it is the right time in the story, which may be never.  The reality of battle is that, after all of the careful planning is set into motion, it becomes a rather random process.  Placing the leader of nation in such a crap shoot, would be the epitome of irresponsibility.  Real life requires us to be much smarter and trusting than the soldier who throws his lot in to follow his king into battle.  We must select a leader from a host of wannabees and trust that his/her convictions, integrity, and intelligence will lead us in the right direction.  Which takes more courage, leading your army into battle or sending your army into battle when you know there is no other choice (not saying this quandary applies to Bush and Iraq)?   I am not sure.

 

Having said all that, I don’t know that my rational self will be able to suppress this persistent day-dream of  Bush and Hussein locked in a 10’x10’ cage, each with a sharp knife…winner takes all

Ever have one of these days?  "Just let that freekin dog try to sniff my butt one more time...Slash...Ribbons!"