A La Cart

           By Ralph Maltese

I miss walking.  I really do. Now in my sedentary lifestyle I often try to recreate my favorite walks.  My father liked to go deep in the woods and camp by a lake in the Adirondacks.  One such trip was a six hour hike to a lake we liked to fish was that guarded by St. Regis Mountain.  To get there, we needed to climb two mountains.  It was always a sweaty exercise, carrying our Adirondack packs, but, when we struggled to the top of one of those peaks, we knelt down beside a small stream and we could see our breaths as we sipped the icy cold water. We would camp near a wooden lean-to, make a fire, and take a well earned nap in the grass and later watch the loons do their crazy routines. The challenge and the reward made that walk special. When I was with my Dad…everything was special.

Another favorite trek happened many years later as two of my colleagues and I flyfished the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park. As always, Mike and Jim and I separated on the river, and I found myself alone under the big Madonna blue sky. Two banks of desert grass and sage brush guided the pool I was fishing  I looked upstream and was tempted to fish a pool that seemed promising. I fished upstream casting a parachute Adams fly, when I arrived at a small canyon.  The river narrowed and deepened and the water would be over my head.  I stepped out of the Madison, shook some stream debris off my wading boots and began the hike along the river.  A trail parallel to the river took me up to the top of the canyon wall and through a small forest of Aspen and Cottonwood trees.

Cottonwood trees along the Missouri River in fall. Loma, Montana

 I could hear sounds of the rushing water of the Madison mingled with the chirping of the evening grosbeaks reminding me of my trespassing as they flittered from Ponderosa Pine to Ponderosa Pine.  Magpies judged me from their perches in the branches of a Larch.

The canyon was longer than I first thought, but that was okay.  I was enjoying the leisurely stroll. The trail ended in a downward slope, and I walked down to the stream and stood in the middle of the Madison again.  There was no one in my range of vision upstream or downstream.  I was alone, silent, and happy.  I made a few casts and looked forward to my return walk.  Nature can refresh the soul.

The last favorite amble I will share I owe to my teaching colleague and friend Mike Beagle. Mike showed me one of his preferred flyfishing haunts– Loyalsock Creek in Sullivan and Lycoming Counties. We would fish the Catch and Release Only section, gearing up and walking to what became my favorite fishing hole, “the confluence.” Fly rod in hand, expectations racing through my veins, I enjoyed the stroll upstream; birds showing the way, the occasional deer looking up from her grazing to frown at us disturbing her breakfast.  There were areas on the trail that were carpeted with ground lichen which would soften my steps, and on some trips the Canadensis were flowering.  The experience surpassed any Disney nature film.  Sometimes we stopped fishing after dark and found our way back in pitch blackness. Even that was a thrill.  As Iremoved my flyfishing gear and got back in the car, I was always saddened at leaving the
Sock.  Thank you, Mike, for sharing your treasured Loyalsock.

I miss walking.  Parkinson’s is robbing me of that rapture.  So you see, I am not lazy.  I like to wander and my legs are largely responsible for my walking..  But, like everyone else my age, I have to adjust to certain realities.  When Polley and I go shopping, I have to make a choice….to walk or ride in one of those electrically charged carts.  

I usually choose to walk.  Why?  Because if I don’t use my legs they will suffer from disuse.  But there are days when the Parkinson’s wins.  Maybe I am tired, my body already aching from the exercises I force myself to do, or because it is just one of those bad days that Parkinson’s patients have and the store we are in is large, I would have to walk a long distance. So I take the cart. I would have preferred a cart with stereo sound speakers, and a rear view mirror plus a cup holder, but perhaps in the future.

I never thought I would be one of those shoppers who rode in a cart, but, as the saying goes, “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making plans.” 

I unplug the cart if I need to, climb in and press the reverse lever and back up, initiating the Beep! Beep! Beep! sound warning fellow shoppers of my presence.

It is not that easy being an electric shopping cart shopper (ESCS).

For example, it is obvious that my shopping height is a great deal shorter.  And when I get out of the cart to stand up and reach the top shelf for a jar of jalapeno peppers, some shoppers give me that look of negative judgement—“Aha!   He is faking having a halt!!”  Sometimes I stare these critics down and then fake limp back to the cart. 

There is an inferiority complex that sometimes accompanies an ESCS.  I mean, everyone towers over me.  And little children strapped into a normal cart look down on me, sometimes in envy and sometimes in snootiness.  And to read the signs above the aisles which explain what is in that aisle means either I strain my neck, or I back up to get a better perspective.  Beep! Beep! Beep!

I can’t see around corners, so when I drive to the end of an aisle, I have to stop and inch slowly out so I don’t crash into the kneecaps of a walking shopper. 

When store workers are stocking the shelves, the aisles are necessarily narrowed, and I have to back up Beep! Beep! Beep!

and find alternative routes. 

There ARE accidents.  I misjudged a turn at the end of an aisle and bumped into a display showcasing jars of hearts of palm.  No real damage, except for a small…well, medium….okay! large dent in the cardboard box the jars were stacked in.  As my luck would have it, a worker was nearby and saw the incident. He stared at me for what seemed like an eon, and I ended the staring context by picking up a jar of hearts of palm and placing it in my cart.  The jar is somewhere in my basement.

This past June Polley and I were visiting my daughter Meredith in St. Louis and we went grocery shopping in Schnuck’s, a very popular store in the area.  My muscles were particularly feeble at that time, so I chose a cart and followed Polley and Mere around until I went my separate way to study the wine selection aisle.  I was going a little too fast, maybe 3 miles an hour, when I turned a corner and smacked into another ESCS.  We exchanged information and moved on. 

The first time I was an ESCS, I rode it to the cashier’s station, unloaded my items onto the conveyor belt, and everything was okay until I had to get out and walk around the front to pay with my debit card.  The cashier’s eyes followed me, and I got that same “Faker Faker Pants On Fire,” look.

The worst electric shopping cart event I experienced occurred back home in a nearby Walmart.  Walmart is a large store; I needed several plastic containers, and I knew I would have a difficult time finding a relatively rare item, a small bag of rubber bands, so I chose the only available electric cart.  I was glad I did because the bag of rubber bands I wanted was at the very back of the store.  As joyful as Balboa was when he spotted the Pacific Ocean, I put the bag in the cart and started to go back to the checkout where I would meet Polley and pay. 

I lurched once and then stopped.  I sensed earlier that I was moving more slowly, and, sure enough, my electric shopping cart was out of energy.  What was I to do?  I could gather up my items, awkward as they would be to carry, but could I leave the cart in the Stationery Aisle?  Should I shout for help?  Was this an incident that might be settled by using my Smart Watch?  Was this an emergency?  Should I call Triple A? Should I call Tesla?  Should I warn potential Tesla buyers?   I waited for a couple of minutes thinking.  And haughty politicians think they have big decisions to make! 

I pushed the lever forward and I moved about three yards.  That was it!!!  If I rested the battery for a few minutes, somehow, some way it got the energy to go a short distance.  Not only was this a solution; it was a scientific anomaly—energy from nothing. Would a Nobel Prize be in my future?   I waited a few minutes and moved out of the Stationery Aisle.  A worker carrying some cardboard boxes walked past.  Without looking at me, he said, “Stuck, huh.” He shook his head and continued walking.  A couple of centuries passed and I made it to one of the main aisles where I was certain I could flag down a greeter who would help me with the problem.  But this main aisle was narrowed by two women who were studying potential items to purchase, and I calculated they would be doing so until the next millennia, so I had to get off the major highway and take the backroads through other sections of the store.

I waited three minutes and moved another three yards.  This operation was repeated several times. To my great dismay, my progress stopped completely. No juice!  No Beep! Beep! Beep!.  I looked around and found myself in the Women’s Fashion Section…in the subsection which had racks of bras and panties and other garments which I could not identify.  Now what? It would only be a little while until I would be discovered.  In an all too short amount of time, two women, in their thirties, walked into the aisle I was in, unmentionables on both sides of me.  They were engaged in a conversation about buying something for their daughters.  I prayed to Saint Anthony, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes, to strike those women blind or make me invisible.  

I should have attended church more.  They both saw me simultaneously, and their vision of me abruptly stopped their conversing.  I smiled.  “Out of energy” was all that came out of my smiling mouth. The tall lady looked over her glasses and said, “Really?”  We just stared at each other for about twenty light years, their mouths closed tightly, and without saying a word they walked down the aisle farthest from me toward the Household Section.

I guess it was the twenty light years, but I managed yard by yard, minutes by minutes to ride my way to the main aisle.  I got out of the cart and loaded my arms with my still-to-be-purchased items and met Polley at the cash register.

I explained what happened and she laughed.  And again, I realized that my very very best and most favorite walk was the one I performed over a half century ago walking down the aisle with her.

Senior Reality Olympics 2024

   By Ralph Maltese

It seems only yesterday that I reported on the first Senior Reality Olympics https://maltesefalcon.info/?s=senior.

If you are new to these Olympics, click on the link above.  As the Baby Boomer generation booms older, we boomers still want to participate in Olympic events, but we want the competitions to reflect real life situations that the oldest amongst us face almost every day, unlike the younger folks’ Olympics.  I mean…really….when was the last time you threw an iron or brass ball weighting 16 pounds (8 pounds women’s shot put) 73 feet?  That is like throwing a bowling ball the length of 21 supermarket shopping carts lined up end to end.  I did the math (I had to rest my eyes from reading the book Oppenheimer….600 pages, small text, big pages).

Or when was the last time you said to your partner or friend, “Hey, let’s go race some pigeons?”  Pigeon racing was discontinued, but it was an Olympic event.  No.  We stick to real life competitions…the challenges we face almost every day.

The Senior Real Olympics committee decided, in the spirit of inclusion, to include participants from the age of35 since the younger people face some of the same challenges that the elderly brave.  Here is my report on this year’s winners and losers in the International Senior Reality Olympics 2024, now identified by MACCRO. (Middle Aged Chronologically Challenged Reality Olympics).

STREAMING PLATFORMS—Couple.

Couples compete by watching several episodes of serialized British murder mysteries on different  Streaming Platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Britbox.

A week later contestants return and try to locate the correct platform and episode for each of the shows they watched the week before.  Points are awarded for speed and accuracy. 

The winners of the gold medal for Streaming Platforms are Embrina Fatimata and Idrissa Harouna from Burkina Faso.

“You know, they (the judges) will not allow no notes, so we had to memorize platform and episode.  A week is a long time, no?” Embrina explained.  “We be very happy.”

SUCCESSFUL TECH SUPPORT TRANSLATION—Individual.   Contestants are assigned to computers each of which has the same technical problem.  They are each given a phone number for tech support, and each contestant, after twenty minutes on hold, converses with a technician whose English is spotty. The Olympian who is able to resolve the problem in the shortest time wins.  Patience is crucial to be successful in this event. That is why many refer to it as “The Patience Challenge.”

The gold medal went to Akari Akamatsu from Japan, who was able to understand the tech support agent and solve the problem in two hours, twenty-two minutes, a world record.

(Note:  This event took a hard toll on several competitors.  Dorji Bidha from Bhutan was disqualified for blasting his computer screen with a shotgun.

Mathilda Van Buten from Germany lost her hearing after being on hold for three hours, two minutes, listening to the canned version of the Yellow Rose of Texas by the Kazoo Kings.

NEWSPAPER FOLDING EVENT—Individual.  Each competitor is given a Washington Post or New York Times newspaper and told to read an article on the first page and then turn to page 9 to continue reading the article without crinkling the paper.  Time and neatness of folding are scored.  Archibald Twitsome-Eekberry from England won the gold in this event.  Reporters at Heathrow Airport asked (now a Sir) Twitsome-Eekberry about his technique.  “Practice, quite really, is the secret.  My missus, Evelyn Twitsome-Eekberry always complained that she received the paper from my hands in quite a disarray.  Of course, that wouldn’t do.  So naturally I had to develop a strategy to create a neater transference; I set my thought-jousting to it, and the result was the Ipswich Slap…a sharp karate-like chop in the middle of the Guardian that does the trick.  So there it is.”

SUPERMARKET SELF CHECK OUT (couple)  Teams compete to complete a self-check out in a grocery store.  All teams have the same products to check out. Points are awarded for speed of completion and accuracy.  Aiden Corningware and his wife Esther Corningware from Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, were awarded the gold.  In a later interview with Shopper’s Guide magazine, Aiden confided.  “It was brutal out there.  The machine kept on telling me to remove my credit card and then asked me to insert my credit card.  This happened five times….right honey?  But once I realized I had the card upside down it worked, and we were in a groove.  I heard other couples yelling at their machines.  Like the couple next to us kept screaming at the machine, ‘I put the item in the freaking bag!!!’  One couple took the honey dew melon in their shopping cart and smashed it against the monitor yelling ‘The freaking honey dew melon has no bar code!’ I guess we had an advantage because in the states we are more used to Self-Checkouts.  But this trophy goes on our mantle…if we had a mantle.  USA!! USA!! USA!!”

BYPASSING COMMERCIALS EVENT (individual)

 Competitors record a one hour television show and when they replay the program, they fast forward over the commercials to the exact points where the commercial ends and the show continues.  Speed and accuracy are the criteria for success.  Having to go back to the beginning of a segment incurs penalties.   The Gold was awarded to Deng Xiaoping from China who set a world record by having to rewind only once.  A favorite to win gold in this event was Agim Fatmir from Albania, but she lost time when she mistook her cell phone for the tv remote. Mateo and Martina Manuel from Spain were favored win the gold in this event.  They won a gold medal in the last two Olympics and a silver medal in the 2012 Olympics, but in 2024 Martina inadvertently held her tv remote upside down, and lost points for both speed and accuracy.

CLINGING PLASTICS EVENT—(individual)  Competitors visit a grocery store and are assigned fruits and vegetables to be deposited in plastic bags.  They must first separate the two sides of the crinkly bag and then open it up wide enough to deposit the products.  Winning this event for the first time was Julieto Diego from Uruguay.  Reporters greeted Ms. Diego at the Montevideo Airport.  “So happy to see you all.  I practiced so hard, going every day to different grocery stores and grabbing plastic bags and using my thumb and forefinger to slip two sides apart.  Some were more clingy than others so I would spit on my thumb and forefinger and rub the two sides apart.  Best fruits and vegetables were rutabaga and gooseberries to practice, because they were most challenging.  Would you like some gooseberries and rutabaga?  I have plenty from practice.”

Vesna Bojana from Montenegro was hospitalized in Montevideo as surgeons, using the Jaws of Life, attempted to remove the clinging plastic from her face.0

MAGAZINE MARATHON—(individual)  Olympians are assigned to a doctor’s waiting room. Participants must submit to a physical examination by a doctor, and, simultaneously, try to smuggle magazines from the waiting room.  The magazines are weighted with more points awarded for stealing Mademoiselle, Unpopular Mechanics, and fewer points for Scholastic Magazine and Golfer’s Weekly.  First place was awarded to Aapo Aapeli from Finland who scored a record three hundred points for smuggling seven large magazines and a children’s book, Mary Has a Severe Ear Infection. Aapo credited her Finnish overcoat design for her success.

GPS CACHING DEXTERITY (couple)–Couples are given identical cars with the same quantities of petrol and are assigned destinations and a GPS to use as a guidance device. Speed of reaching the destinations with the fewest errors in reading the GPS is a major assessment.  Points are subtracted for each “Recalculating” notification by the GPS.  Chae-Won of Korea won the gold.  Heidi and Thomas Butler, representing Canada, were disqualified for using a paper road map. Sadly Oscar Van Buten and his wife Mathilda, representing Germany, have still not returned from the event, and Rescue and Retrieve parties have been assigned to find the couple.

(last picture seen of Oscar and Mathilda Van Buten)

PLASTIC PACKAGING REMOVAL—(individual)  Each Olympian is given a package of 36 double A  batteries encased in hard plastic.  Participants are asked to remove the batteries as quickly as possible using any one of the tools in a kit given each player: a pair of scissors, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers.

Luka Alexsej from Slovenia won the gold, removing all 36 batteries in 32 minutes, another Olympic record.  The event was interrupted when a participant’s hand was severely cut in trying to open the hard plastic. Once again, paramedics needed the Jaws of Life in order to release Pakistan’s Shikah Thakur’s hand.  He is recuperating at a local hospital. 

FAMILY GOODBYE BIATHALON—couple– Italy is usually the team favorite in this event.  Sicilians and Neopolitans have been fierce competitors in the Italian Premier League in this sport. Families try to say goodbye to their hosts after a visit, but the Olympians keep them from leaving by raising new topics of conversation.  As expected Tommaso Martire and Vittoria Galbetti from Italy were awarded the gold medal for setting an Olympic record of one hour and twelve minutes keeping their guests at the door.   The Senior Italian MACCRO Olympic Committee has managed to include this event in the next Senior Real Olympics but with an addition. Couples will not only be judged by how long they stay the goodbye, but how much food they make the visitors depart with.  Some members of the World Real Olympic Committee are debating whether to make this suggestion another event or part of the Family Goodbye Biathalon.  In any case, it will be an unofficial event and not count toward a nation’s total medal tally

WAITER BAITING EVENT-couple- Couples compete by how quickly they frustrate a young person who is waiting on them in a restaurant. .

0 How quickly they achieve that goal by using tactics such as complaining about the warmth of the food, the time waiting to be served, explanations of the menu, demanding details of the specials, the climate (especially the blast from the air conditioning) of the restaurant, requesting knowledge of the methods of cooking the entrées, and amount of the gratuities, are all factors in scoring. 

The gold medal went to Jules and Chloe Verno from France with a world record time of1 minute, 42 seconds.  In the interview the Verno’s shared their strategy. “Mon ami, it was tres facile.  ‘We asked him a few softening up questions, such as “Do they have tap or water with gas (sparkling water)?’ ‘What quality of olive oil was used to saute the cutlet?’ ‘From what farm in England did they get the dairy products?’ On the menu was listed, “Broiled Young Tom Turkey with mashed potatoes.” I simply asked the young man “How old/young is the turkey?”

He replied, ‘Sir, I do not know the birthday of the turkey.’ And he ran out of the restaurant.  “Tres facile.”

TRIAGE TRIFECTA—individual—Groups of older people meet socially and begin conversations about the weather.  The person who is the last to discuss his/her infirmities wins.  Grace Harper took the gold, the last to discuss her latest physical difficulties and operations at 2 minutes, 14 seconds, just 2 seconds off the world record.

I hope you enjoyed my update of the Senior Reality Olympics(MACCRO)

. If you have suggestions for events you would enjoy viewing, please forward them to me.  If you enjoyed(or have criticisms) of my reporting of the event, please leave a message.

Your input is greatly desired.

                                   Draft Day

By Ralph Maltese

April brings May flowers, hopefully, and April also brings the NFL draft. Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I do not remember the drafting of professional sports players to be that big a deal.  Yes, I played stickball and baseball and football and a whole lot of basketball, but I can’t tell you, offhand, who the New York Giants drafted in the first round in 1962 (linebacker Jerry Hillebrand—ain’t the internet somethin’?)

The NFL draft draws almost as much attention as the SuperBowl.  Weeks before the choosing of players begins, media personnel, who spend lifetimes exploring a potential NFL star, wade through oceans of statistics about each college/high school/high school dropout.  Local bar patrons argue ferociously not on how to deal with climate change, but whether the Eagles should choose a running back or a wide receiver in the first round.  A candidate’s “attributes,” from toenail size to speed running against a forty mile an hour wind in twenty degree weather are studied, and the brain trusts of every NFL team gather for hours in closed rooms with stacks of statistics on every potential draftee.

I find this sort of funny.  Malcom Gladwell wrote an interesting article comparing the drafting of football players to choosing good teachers (his conclusion, I believe, was that it is more difficult to choose and hire good teachers than pick football stars-I agree).  Do you remember Jamarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf, Ki-Jana Carter, Steve Emtman, Kenneth Sims?…….all number 1 draft picks.

There is this tremendous media build-up to the actual two or three day draft, cameras rolling continuously; drafted players step onto the stage and are baptized with the team’s baseball cap and team jersey.  Owners, general managers, coaches, players give the usual cliches.  “We always wanted Mo Blitz.”  “Mo was number one on our board.”  “I always dreamed, since I was a little kid, of playing for Okefenoke Swamp!”  It is all rather boring.

I admit to a real prejudice.  I was once involved in a draft, or actually I was not involved in a draft, and that absence still haunts me.

Polley and I were those kinds of parents who volunteered for stuff especially if no other parents were willing to volunteer.  Our four children played township and scholastic sports, and, when head coaches needed assistant coaches or referees or commissioners, we offered our time and our talents—both of which were not in great supply when we participated.  When Christie, our oldest, wanted to play township soccer, I stepped forward to assume the role of assistant coach.  Never having played soccer or even watched a soccer game, this was going to be an intense learning curve.  Fortunately, Dan, the head coach, patiently accepted my ignorance.  My mother taught me that “If you read you can cook.”  So I purchased the usual instruction books on “How to Teach Soccer,” and eventually learned the rules of the game and I learned to appreciate the sport.  Polley and I enjoy watching the games in Europe and look forward to the World Cup.

As the years passed I became an assistant coach every year to one of my kid’s township teams.  As one grows old, if one has children, the friends you hang out with change.  The parents of kids who played with our children became one of our groups of friends.  After all, we spent many windy, rainy, cold days on muddy fields cheering their kids and ours through seasons of soccer, baseball and basketball. We met many kind and pleasant people. Yes, the rabid parent who wanted their precious “precious” to be the star occasionally appeared on the team, but we tolerated their disjointed perspectives.  There were bonds formed on those windy, rainy cold days.  One of the nicest parents Tom possessed the same values as I did.  Our kids were not spending their weekends playing soccer to win a gold medal at the Olympics, but they were there to get some exercise, learn the game, enjoy some comraderie, and have fun.

At the end of one season, Tom asked me if I would co-coach a soccer team next season.  “I don’t have a great deal of time, and my soccer experience is not the greatest, so I was hoping to co-coach with someone like you.”  I was flattered.  As I always told my students, flattery always works with me.  So Tom and I signed up to coach a boy’s township soccer team, the Penguins.

Our township soccer program worked like this.  All potential players for the new season are evaluated.  Those who have demonstrated elite soccer skills are rated “A.”  Those who are pretty good are rated “B.”  Average players—“C.”  Those who need more skill development, “D.” And those who are totally inexperienced, “E.”  In the summer, head coaches hold a draft.  Each team gets to choose an A player, three B players, etc.  This method was devised to, hopefully, ensure parity.

One day in August Tom called me.  “I won’t be able to attend the draft.  Will you attend and pick the players for our team?”  I replied I could not because my school district assigned me to a program which interfered with the draft day.  So I called the Commissioner of Township Soccer and explained the problem.

“I understand your problem completely.  Unfortunately, we cannot move Draft Day.  I will assign someone to choose for you and make certain you get the right number of A, B, C players for your team.”

Relieved, I hung up and got on with my schoolwork.

On an early September Saturday, the players chosen to become the Penguins Soccer team showed up at the appropriate field, along with their parents.  Tom and I greeted everyone, explained our shortcomings as novice head coaches, and emphasized our end goals—to teach soccer, get their children some exercise, and, most of all, have fun.  In a number of parents’ eyes we saw the gleam of hope, hope not only that their children will have fun, but that they will win games.

We threw out some soccer balls  and asked some boys to dribble down the field.  My son, Jim, did fairly well.  All of his coaches in all of the sports he played said he was very coachable and smart…..all of which was true, but he and I both knew he was not an “A” player.  Only Jim and one or two other boys managed to dribble the ball the length of the soccer field without kicking it out of bounds on the sidelines.  One boy who had enormous difficulty controlling the ball was Harold, an unusually tall, stringy lad, who reminded me of the fictional Icabod Crane.

After all the boys had completed that exercise, we had the kids each take a penalty kick from the twelve yard line.  Harold swiped and missed the ball on the first two tries.  On the third he hit the ball so weakly that it barely made it to the goal line, the few brown grass stalks slowing down its speed.

Tom and I walked to the other end of the field, away from players and parents.

“Tom, look at the roster.  Is our entire team here?” Tom checked the roster on his clipboard.

“Yep.  Everybody that is on the Penguin team is here.”

We looked at each other.  “Who is our “A” player?”

“”A” player.  Who are our “B” players?!”

We put the Penguins through some more exercises and divided them up into two teams.   We gave one team the orange pinnies to put over their shirts and held a scrimmage.  Jim’s team scored mostly because he and a couple of others on his side knew to run to space.  Most of the others simply followed the ball, including Harold.

Tom and I thanked the parents for showing up, distributed the uniforms, and scheduled the next practice.

The next day I called the Commissioner of Township Soccer.

“Bill, Tom and I were trying to figure out who is our “A” player?”

Bill said, “I’ll call the other coaches and see how the draft went and how your players were chosen.”

Bill called back the same day.  “Well, it seems your top player is Harold Blankenstone.”

“Harold Blankenstone?  The tall skinny kid who runs like a penguin on slippery ice and gets blown down by a summer breeze?”

“Uh, huh.”

“Bill, what qualified him to be an “A” player?”

“Well, I asked that question.  The coaches reminded me that Harold is from England, you know.  Just arrived two months ago.”

“England.  So what?”

“Well, soccer, which they call football in the rest of the world, is big in England.   Most all kids play it.  It is the national sport there….well, maybe that’s cricket.  Anyway, that is why your fellow coaches thought he would be an “A” player.”

“I see.”

As Tom and I learned, Harold had never played soccer…or any other sport for that matter. The next practice Tom and I tried to teach spacing and passing with mixed results.  When Harold received a pass, instead of kicking the ball immediately to a teammate or trying to dribble it downfield, he would run behind the ball a few feet and rush up to kick it.  By the time he took two steps, an opposing player would have stolen the ball and passed it or dribbled by Harold.

After an hour or so, Harold came up to me.  “Sir, I truly must tell you that I get awfully winded going up and down the field.  Might you spell me for a moment or two during the game?”

“Sure, Harold.  Take a break now.  Mind if I show you something when you get your wind back?”

“But of course.”  And Harold sat on the September sod. When he got his breath back, I tried to show him how to stop the movement of the ball to him and how to kick it to a teammate quickly.”

At each practice, Tom and I would take turns taking our “A” player aside and teaching him how to dribble and pass and basically remain standing through the game.

We lost every game.

I once read an article by a successful football coach who believed that “a team doesn’t learn by winning every game.”  That may be true.  But I learned that a team doesn’t learn by losing every game.  Then, again, winning, thankfully, was not our end game.

At the end of the season, as we walked off the field from our final loss, Harold came up to Tom and me.  “Thank you, sirs, for a jolly good season.  It was brilliant!”

I looked over at Harold’s parents standing by the sideline.  They sported smiles.

Tom and I looked at the Penguins who were munching on the grapes and oranges the parents brought to every game.  They were laughing and pushing and shoving each other the way boys do after every game, win or lose.

The other thing I learned from this experience is “Never miss draft day.”

At a Loss

By Ralph Maltese

I woke up this morning and my neck ached.  The pain could have been caused by the position of my head which was at a 45 degree angle to the rest of my torso.  Somehow during the night my body, without my conscious consent, contorted itself into that position. A few clicks of my head to the left, a few to the right, and the pain subsided.  As per my morning routine, I performed triage on myself.  All checked out, a few cracklings when I stretched legs, arms, head.  Even though my brain was telling me “All systems are go!,” I thought I might lie in bed a while and think. For me, thinking often involves couching my thinking in metaphors, in literature.  There is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Doctor Heidegger’s Experiment.” https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/dr-heidegger-s-experiment To four childhood friends, (now quite old) Doctor Heidegger administers water –water supposedly drawn from the mythical Fountain of Youth.  Before they drink, he asks them if, returning to their youth, would they commit the same follies and manifest the same foibles that doomed them to become social misfits and failures?

They all claimed that they would not be so foolish as to commit the same mistakes that cost them lives of happiness and respectability. They ask Dr. Heidegger if he was going to partake of the waters. “For my own part, having had much trouble in growing old, I am in no hurry to grow young again.”

That is the line that pops into my gray matter once or twice a day.  For me, the worst part of growing old (post retirement) was the losing.

Over time, the losses start piling up.  Loss of hair, loss of smell (Parkinson’s), loss of eyesight, loss of voice (Parkinson’s affects one’s vocal chords—gone is my Teacher Voice), loss of hearing (there goes three of the five senses), loss of my legs (still working but wobbly, Parkinson’s), loss of balance (also Parkinson’s), loss of memory (“Polley, didn’t we see this movie?”), loss of weight…and mostly loss of relatives and friends.  Yep…it is all the losses that plague and lead to a loss of dignity.

Take last week.  The week before last week I purchased hearing aids, and the week before the week before last week I had glasses made just for reading the faint Philadelphia Inquirer print. And many weeks before all those weeks I had lost twenty-five pounds.  My favorite belt with eight notches was using the eighth notch and still the pants were baggy. So, when jumping over rain puddles, I needed one hand to hold my belt lest I offend bystanders.

Polley and I decided to burrow out of our winter hibernation and go to the local supermarket despite the fact it was one of those bone chilling rainy, dreary, Edgar Allan Poe days.  As Polley drove I became aware of a teary, blurry vision in the upper portion of my eye.  I thought “Damn, now I am losing my sight because of Parkinson’s.”

I turned to Polley.  “Hon, when’s my next appointment with Dr. Eckleberg, our optometrist?”

“Not sure…what’s this guy think…he’s at Daytona?” Polley was observing a four by four pickup going over the double line to pass us.   “I’ll have to check the calendar.”  And then a neuron fired in my brain. I still had my reading glasses on from my post breakfast perusal of the Philadelphia Inquirer.  I shared this with my driver.

“Do you want me to turn around and go home and pick up your regular glasses?” she offered.

My brain factory considered the analytics and produced a negative.  “No, we’re almost at the store.  I’ll just try to look through the lower part of my glasses.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”  Big mistake.

After we found a parking space, the rain gods, realizing that we were getting out of the car, started to make it rain harder.  Not having wipers for my glasses, the blurriness increased twofold.

Drenched, chilled, and blind, I followed Polley into the warm, dry supermarket and immediately my glasses fogged up.  We decided to divide up, Polley scouting the vegetable and fruit section, while I navigate the cart toward the fish and meat area.  I managed to wipe the rain from my glasses, but strolling down the aisle and trying to read the signs explaining what section of the aisle

harbored what product was taxing.

I finally made it to the meat section and looked for a nice roast, but it was difficult unless I lifted up my glasses slightly and held the roast up to my eye to read the weight and price.  Hmmm.  “Twenty-eight dollars” I muttered to myself.  I looked up to see a lady staring at my close inspection of the meat. She looked at me with my face inches from the hunk of red meat and was probably thinking “Is he going to buy it or sniff it?” I felt an explanation was in order. “I wasn’t smelling it…..I was just trying to read the label…”  She just stared.  How could I end this?  I simply bowed and said, “I’m Mr. Magoo.” She didn’t even smile, but just turned away and sauntered down to the Bologna section.

I told Polley I would meet her at the bread and dairy section, but it was more of a challenge than I expected.  My blurriness seemed to deepen, and when I have been walking for a while, the Parkinson’s kicks in even more and my “strut” includes wobbly knees and twisted ankles and feet crossing over each other.  Imagine a person who has imbibed ten martinis staggering on a moving-in-the-opposite-direction conveyor belt.

I manage to meet Polley and we compare notes.  Next we have to choose what cashier aisle to use.  I never use the self-checkout. So we find the shortest line which has about five people.

The other aisles have even more people waiting.  Some people in the other lines are staring at me, possibly because they witnessed my apparently drunken stroll down the aisle.  Just then, simultaneously, two weird things happened.

A sound like a live microphone at a heavy metal concert bouncing off a steel floor boomed through the supermarket and I realized that I had maladjusted my hearing aids and everything was louder….that or some rain water had seeped into my ear.  “Gene, report to customer service.”  But to me it was “GENE REPORT TO CUSTOMER SERVICE AND THEN A LARGE TWANG.”

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((()))))))))))))))))))))))))

At the same time, I realized that my body had tensed because of the ear shattering announcement, and my pants started to fall down.  The customer line moved forward.  One of my hands quickly grabbed my belt..  The other hand fiddled with my hearing aid.  I saw the headline—“Old deaf man arrested for indecent exposure in supermarket.”   I was able to help Polley check out using one hand, thus avoiding mooning all the staff and customers at the supermarket.  We’ll not visit that supermarket for a little while.

So for me, the worst part of growing old is the losing.  But I always tried to teach my children and my students that perspective is a very useful tool. Yes, I have lost a number of parts of my life that I dearly loved. I might be losing any ability I had in writing (my last blog was read by perhaps eight people). And I will lose more, including our democracy if some people have lost their courage, lost their study of history and lost the ability to choose representatives who, in making important decisions, use evidence and facts and reality rather than celebrity worship.

“We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.” Thomas Jefferson

On the other hand, I don’t get excited or stressed about things that plagued my youth.  Once you experience a lifetime of human nature, things people do and say that seemed unbelievable when I was twenty-five do not increase my blood pressure now.  I respect and learn more from just studying the birds feeding in my backyard.

Perspective grows with age, and though I fear future losses, I stay focused on the reality that many many good things, good friendships, good people, good colleagues and especially a wonderful soulmate have graced my life. I see everything around me, from soft bright white snow to squirrels shomping away on peanuts taken from my hand, in a different way.  The things that were important when I was twenty-five are less important now.  I enjoy things more because my expectations are not grandiose. For example, each moment I sit with Polley watching a British crime drama on a Saturday night is a..a delight that I cherish.  I see what was previously unseen to me.  Perspective reminds me of my gains, and that is what I hang on to….greater clarity.

          Soma

By Ralph Maltese

One of the courses I taught in high school was Radio and Television, an elective designed for students to understand what goes into creating shows.  A unit on media literacy, how to read commercials, for example, was a popular project.  We explored tactics advertisers used to sell a variety of wares (celebrity testimonies, join the crowd, statistical analysis, etc.)

When I was teaching Shakespeare and the Renaissance, I showed the class a copy of a painting of Queen Elizabeth I.  And I showed the famous painting of George Washington, standing in a rowboat, crossing the Delaware at night ready to surprise the British.  Both paintings are propaganda,or from another perspective, they are commercials.  Queen Liz did not really look like her painting which was much more flattering without the pox marks.  And, trust me, only those who are one can short of a six pack stand up in a boat while it is rowed.  One of the walkaways I hoped all my students carried with them was the concept that you can catch a glimpse of what a culture valued by examining the products promoted by its Madison Avenue.

I don’t spend a great deal of time studying commercials now, but once in a while I give it some thought.  A week ago we forgot to tape Jeopardy, the quiz show we have been watching since the mid 1960’s. I used to be decent at answering Jeopardy questions (or is it questioning the Jeopardy answers?), but then the world passed me by, and I totally bombed on categories like Mongolian Punk Rock, Tik Tok Fashions, and Popular Bulgarian Soap Operas of the 1990’s. Since we did not tape that episode of Jeopardy we had to watch the commercials, and I saw a pattern emerging….most of the commercials were plugging drugs (in most countries commercials advertising drugs are illegal).

It was not always this way.  The FDA forbade the advertisement of drugs on television until the 1980’s, and this rule was supported by both pharmaceutical companies (Drug companies were worried that a tv ad, unlike an ad in a magazine, could not list all the side effects in the short time most ads consume.).  Medical associations felt the same way.   In 1984, the FDA allowed drug ads as long as the commercial did not mention side effects OR the disease the drug was supposed to address. An example: Voiceover.Everyone in this office seems to be having a good time

Except for one poor soul who is sitting by himself hunched over.

Barry does not feel so good.  He should try Ventrix and in five minutes Barry is back dancing!”  Ventrix.Your choice when you are not feeling so good. Go figure.  What was the affliction?

“I feel so much better!!!
How does one advertise a product without mentioning the product’s name or what it is for?
Finally, the flood gates were opened and we now have an average of 80 drug commercials aired every hour somewhere in the United States.
And sometimes it takes a minute or two to figure out what drug they are advertising and what disease or condition the drug is supposed to cure, especially since the names of the drugs are often hard to pronounce.   I did learn that there are afflictions that I never heard of but apparently make some people’s lives miserable.
Most of these ads really puzzle me.  The images often are not congruent with the condition the drug is supposed to address.
I decided to replicate the tv commercials for drugs.  I did my best to transfer the videos to print.  Voiceovers are in italics.
For example, consider these commercials.

Voiceover: Scientists say that three out of five people have serious hearing problems after they reach the age of fifty.  One of the more serious conditions is ear
wax buildup.  Over time people afflicted with earwaxitis are suddenly caught off balance as the buildup of the wax in their ears causes them embarrassing and sudden tilts of the head.
Voiceover: Earwaxitis can strike at any time, without warning, and that is why medical professionals recommend patients with earwaxitis try waxbegone. Just apply waxbegone liberally with the applicator and Wipe on, wipe off and presto!  No more ear wax build ups. 
“One night Arnold took me to a really fancy restaurant and I was sure he was going to propose to me.

After dessert I could see in his eyes he was about to pop the question when a horrible thing happened.”
“But then a friend told me about Waxbegone.  Six weeks later, Arnold recovered from the incident and asked me out….and then, thanks to Waxbegone…” 

“Thanks, Waxbegone!” Then, of course, there are the usual disclaimers and warnings when a stentorian voice interrupts the gaiety of the people who have overcome their affliction. Voiceover:  Do not use WAXBEGONE if you are allergic to WAXBEGONE. [how would you know that?], use hearing aids, bathe or shower, use headphones, or have ridden In a car in the last week.

Voiceover:  Side effects of WAXBEGONE include vomiting, hair loss, deafness, alternating bouts of constipation and diarrhea, temporary paralysis of the jaw, and inflamed eardrums, bipolarism, and advanced senility.[/caption] I get so scared about the side effects that the affliction does not seem so bad.

Then there are those ads that feature a cure for a condition I never heard of. A woman appears and claims she suffers from high levels of HUY2.

“My doctor told me that I had high levels of HUY2.  Mine were 600 buds. Normal levels are 300 or less.  I tried weight lifting and needle point, as well as whirly dervishing.

And I tried a variety of medicines but still my HUY2 numbers remained high.  Fortunately I accompanied my husband on a business trip to Mongolia, and I discovered that Mongolian doctors had lowered the levels of its HUY2 citizens by administering a compound made from a mixture of the oils from a Mongolian Thistle and Siberian Pea Shrub and the roe from an Amur Pike.

Mongolian physicians have shared this formula with American doctors who have packaged it in capsule form known as Muk HOMZ.

Now my HUY2 levels are where they should be, thanks to HOMZ.  I can travel wherever I wish without fear of my HUY2 levels rising too high.  Be it ever so humble, there is no place like HOMZ.

Voiceover: Consult your doctor before taking HOMZ.  Do not take HOMZ if you have high levels of HUY, or if you have ever traveled overseas.  HOMZ in children has in some cases eliminated bone growth and can result in  lower SAT scores.  Side effects of HOMZ include, but not limited to, low HUY@ levels, intermediate blindness, a desire to climb MT. Everest,, swelling of the nose, indigestion, sudden onset of projectile vomiting, and severe memory loss.  Before taking HOM be certain you are not allergic to the following ingredients:    我喜歡吃香蕉

A tactic which helps lawyers for drug companies to avoid lawsuits includes the advice to “See your doctor before taking……(whatever drug du jour.)”  One positive upshot of all this drug advertising is that more people do visit their physicians.  Statistics tell us that this is especially true of men.  Other stats indicate that doctors took patients more seriously if they, the patients, mentioned a drug. I would like to know what my HUY2 levels are and what they are.

Developing a pill that treats a condition that most people consider just a minor inconvenience reminds me of the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  In order to maintain control of the society, the power brokers provide a drug, Soma, to anyone who becomes sad or upset or questions the leaders’ decisions.  Soma provides immediate happiness.   Death in the family, failed romance, paper cut, all anguish is quickly remedied by popping a Soma pill.

Here’s an ad for a condition that we all deal with on a daily basis.

Voiceover: Everyone has visits by the Sandman at night, and people wake up with their eyelids almost sticking together. Normally this is no big problem for most people, but for some the condition gets worse during the day.  

“It happens when I least expect it.  My eyelids suddenly fill with the stuff that Mr. Sandman delivers at night. I feel embarrassed and lost at work, as if I had suddenly been blindfolded.

  I can’t see and have to visit the rest room to wash it out.. This is how much I washed out of my eyes that workday.”

Voiceover:The medical term for this condition is Sandosis.  Fortunately researchers at the Dephonic institute have found a solution:  Bxyomik, a small pill you can take when you feel the warning signs of Sandosis.   “I am happy to take Bxyomik, and I am free to go anywhere without worry.”

“I clean the bathrooms at the factory here. I almost got fired because my boss thought I was sleeping on the job and dropping things, but I started taking Sandosis and that doesn’t happen any more.  He’s even promoted me to the job of cleaning the bathrooms of the executive offices.”

 Voice over Do not take Sandosis if you are allergic to sand, have a history of intermittent blinking, drink more water than beer, have ever visited the Maldives or have relatives that suffer from Sandosis, or if you have ever slept on your left side.  Side effects include sleepwalking, insomnia, bad chewing habits, permanent blindness, glued eyelids and death, sudden onset of diarrhea.  If any of these conditions occur, consult your doctor immediately.

Many drug ads use the threat of social outcasting to sell their product.

“I attended a conference and sweated throughout the meeting because my stomach growled.  I thought the gods could hear the thunder emanating from my body.”

Voiceover: Joe is not the only person who suffered from Intestinal Thunder.  Millions of people every day are afflicted with a Noisy Tummy and often find it difficult to concentrate on the job at hand.  But now there is Bellyotinen, a small tablet you can take whenever you feel your stomach rumbling like a summer thunderstorm.

IT ( Intestinal Thunder) happens to everyone. 

“I used to get so embarrassed when I would be cutting a good customer’s hair, and suddenly my growling would begin.  First it was low and not so easily heard, but then it would get louder and louder.  There was nothing I could do.

“When I would go to church on Sunday I would find myself the only person in the pew.  Everyone knew about my loud growling stomach.  It was so embarrassing.”

“But now I take Bellyotinen and people like Elvira here sit next to me…Course Elvira is deaf.”

Voiceover: Do not take Bellyotinen if you have bleeding ulcers, athlete’s foot, gall bladder removed or have eaten lettuce within the last year.  Side effects include hypochondria, hallucinations, disorientation, having suicidal thoughts, an inability to identify friends or relatives, and an intense desire to visit the Capuchin Catacombs in Sicily.  If any of these reactions to Bellyotinen occur, consult your doctor immediately.

Many of the drug ads appeal to our need to belong to groups, social animals that we are.  Unless we correct our rare condition that alienates us from the rest of the human race we are lepers, ostrasized and exiled.  Like this ad.

“The few friends that I have want me to go to the beach with them, but I always have an excuse not to go.” Voiceover: Marlene is not the only person that suffers from olfactpodiatism….smelly feet. Doctors do not know why sufferers from abnormally offensive smelly feet develop the condition, but they do know how to treat it successfully.  [/caption]

Many ointments and salves promise relief, but most do not work.  But now we have a solution to this difficult problem….Vgkyz.  Vgkyz is a long-lasting capsule that olfactpodiatism patients take once in the morning to remove the bacteria that causes smelly feet, and it lasts for twenty-four hours!

“Vgkyz is the first pill I take when I wake up in the morning, and I am secure and confident that I won’t be offending anyone’s nostrils all day!”

Voiceover:  Don’t alienate your friends and family by offending their olfactory system.  If you suffer from olfactpodiatism, ask your doctor about Vgkyz.  You’ll be glad you did.

Do not take Vgkyz if you are pregnant, plan to be pregnant, have a boyfriend, or plan to visit Canada in the next year—Side effects include toenail prolongation, hammer toes, slurred speech, and the need to urinate every quarter of an hour.

As bad as these ads are, I still do not mind commercials that much. There are those new ads featuring products only talked about in adolescent boys’ locker rooms—maybe girls’ locker rooms also. Even as I watch and listen, I know that the car the ads are parading up the Matterhorn  I will never buy let alone drive to the top of a mountain.  I will not assault my liver or kidneys by swallowing a pill to treat ear hair.  Commercials give me time to ponder life or think about the show I am watching—and try to understand the plot: why did the uncle burn the will of his grandfather? Oh, he married the ex-wife of the uncle ….whose uncle?  Or how come the villain fired 60 shots at the hero with an AR 15 and missed, but the hero fired one shot from a derringer and felled the villain? The commercials give me time to pause and reflect on humankind’s nature.  As the Stage Manager says in Our Town by Thornton Wilder,   “wherever you come near the human race there’s layers and layers of nonsense!”

In Aldous Huxley’s novel,  Brave New World, no one is allowed to be miserable for even a second.  No matter what the affliction, physical or mental, people are always happy, because when they fell the doldrums begin to shadow their souls, they pop Soma, a pill that makes them instantly happy…but it is.a childlike happiness that eventually leads to a dystopian, bleak future.

At other times I wonder if someone will plug a drug that will allow me to mentally bypass commercials entirely.  Probably not.  Madison Avenue seems to have the jump on all of us.  Thus it always has been….well, maybe not.

Remember the television commercials of yore which pushed this drug?

               Specimens Are Us

                                       By Ralph Maltese

The names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent….and the guilty.

I was diagnosed with high cholesterol since forever.  My family had a history of heart disease. When we settled in Pennsylvania, we found our family physician who cared for us for over forty years. Every six months I would find myself, before my teaching day began, in Dr.Galen’s office, arm outstretched, rubber tube wrapped around my upper arm, waiting for the pinch.  “this will be a small sting.” he would forewarn, Sometimes, depending on the results of the previous metabolic panel, I would give a sample every three months.  When the four vials were filled, Dr. Galen would hand me a small plastic jar and ask me to go to the bathroom across the hall from his office and provide a urine specimen. A few minutes later I would return to his office, I and my specimen, write a check to the good doctor, and I was on my way to teach my first period class, “mythological structures in The Grapes of Wrath.”

A decade or so later Dr. Galen decided it was more efficient if I gave a blood sample and a specimen at a lab closer to Alexander High School.Nearby Alexander Memorial Hospital housed most of my specialists, cardiologists, dermatologists, etc.  As another decade passed, the locations of the ritual of drawing my blood and collecting a specimen changed until finally a lab opened up a mile from my home.  The blood tests required I fast for 12 hours so I would get to Alexander’s lab around 7AM, scarf down a bagel or a banana on the way to Alexander High, after filling some vials and a jar.     

The process in the lab would strolling past the three booths where three nice ladies were in the process of taking information from people about to part with bodily fluids, and up to a volunteer who would write my name on a clipboard thus cementing my place in the first come/first served list.  Then I  would sit down until the nice volunteer would call my name.

There was little conversation amongst the blood givers. I would read until the volunteer shouted my name and told me which booth to go to.  “RALPH, BOOTH 3!!”  At Booth 3 Ms. Penelope would smile and ask for the script from Dr. Galen ordering the tests, my medical cards, driver’s license, etc. all of which she typed into the computer on her desk…you know, the important stuff the insurance companies needed.   Sometimes there would be difficulties because a doctor who ordered the tests would enter the wrong code which would bring the entire health care community to a halt.  But eventually all miscommunications would be resolved and Alexander Memorial Hospital was confident it would get paid.  Ms. Penelope would hand me a form to give to the phlebotomist, and I would return to the quiet waiting room, open my book and wait.  Jerry Seinfeld noticed that everyone knows what to expect in a room called a Waiting Room.  But this lab was pretty fast, and only a few minutes later I would hear my name and follow a phlebotomist pulling on blue latex gloves which matched her dark blue uniform as she led me to the small room with a big dentist-like chair, and hundreds of vials on the shelves.

“How are you today?  Which arm do you want me to use?”

“Fine, thank you.  Right arm.”

Her name tag says “Donna.”  I would sit down in the ocean green lab chair, roll up my sleeve and watched as she prepared the vials and the other tools of the phlebotomist trade. 

Donna made sure she was sticking the right person by asking me to identify myself by name and date of birth.  The latex tube wrapped around my arm, Donna telling me to make a fist, Donna looking for a vein to use, tapping on the vein, and warning me “You’ll feel a pinch.” A few minutes later four vials of my blood are resting next to Donna’s computer.  She puts two inches of gauze on the insertion point, straps the gauze with a Band-Aid, tells me to raise my arm and put pressure on the gauze for about five minutes, and then Donna hands me a small jar. 

“Go the bathroom near the entrance, provide a specimen, and put it in the blue box in the next room.  Have a good day!”  Big smile.

It was not always easy to provide a specimen with one hand pressing down on the gauze but when it was accomplished, it was easy to just take the small jar into the next room and place it in the blue box with all the other jars.  I was grateful for the Alexander Memorial Hospital Lab’s protocol which allowed for a rather discreet provision of a specimen.   I would very discreetly skip from the bathroom to drop my jar in the blue box in the room next door, avoiding everyone’s eyes.

This procedure lasted for at least fifteen years.  I was happy with it.  At the very least it was a routine I was familiar with.

Enter Fillmore Enterprises. Not being a businessman, I do not know whether Fillmore Enterprises merged with Alexander Memorial Hospital.  Fillmore replaced Alexander Memorial Hospital’s lab services with Specimens Are Us.. All I know is that my health care community had changed.  Several of my doctors/specialists retired, including Dr. Galen. Their recommendations for their replacements turned out to be exceptional, and I was very happy with their choices.  I was especially fortunate to have Dr. Galen’s replacement, Dr. Shire.  She wanted the usual metabolic panel workup, so early one morning I went to the lab and saw a line of people in front of the three booths.  I looked past the crowd to find the volunteer so I could sign in.  No volunteer.  People with crutches, people in wheelchairs, the very elderly struggling to stand on wobbly knees; all forming two lines that led to two white and blue kiosks. I got in line and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  A fragile lady in her nineties wearing a checkered black and white houndstooth cap finally found herself in front of the kiosk.  She looked around.  “What do I do?”  Someone pointed to a placard on the wall, but the houndstooth cap lady did not see the placard, until a younger woman sporting a yellow scarf touched her elbow and gently turned her to the placard. 

“Instructions for Entering Information

TAP THE SCREEN AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS”

The ninety-something lady tapped the screen.  “Now what do I do?”

After approximately ten or fifteen minutes, with the help of the yellow scarfed woman, the houndstooth cap lady finished and slowly made her way to the waiting room chairs.

Several light years later, I found myself before the blue and white kiosk, the image of the monolith in the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, flashed in my brain.

I tapped the screen.  Suddenly this title zoomed out in huge red letters!!  WELCOME TO SPECIMENS ARE US

I see two options on the screen:  MYSELF         OTHER PERSON       

I click on MYSELF and this comes up on the screen:

/mīˈself/

pronoun

• used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself as the object of a verb or preposition when he or she is the subject of the clause:”I hurt myself by accident”

I did not need the definition of myself.  Did Fillmore/Alexander become a holistic medicine sort of institution?  I pressed “MYSELF” again and the screen splashed a typical form asking information about me:  name, date of birth, medical history, medications I am taking, allergies, family history, what did my maternal great grandmother die of, you know, the usual which, of course, has been in Fillmore/Alexander’s databank since 1970.  I also had to insert my Medicare card, my supplemental insurance card, and driver’s license, but there were no directions on how to slide each card into the demanding monster. I can hear the moans and groans of the poor people behind me, and I worked as fast as I could. 

When I finished, I was told to go to cubicle #3.  I sat across from Ms. Greenfield who asked for my hospital cards, driver’s license, and script (request by doctor for the blood samples and urine specimen). 

“I believe my doctor faxed over the script.”  Ms. Greenfield rose from her chair and retrieved from a group of baskets the script and returned to type in some of the same information I had just typed into the WELCOME TO SPECIMENS ARE US monolith five minutes ago.  Ms. Greenfield was very efficient and pleasant and said, “Please take a seat in the waiting room and we will call you when it is your turn.  BUT, before you do, provide a specimen.  She handed me a small jar and pointed to a bathroom across the line of people waiting to feed information into the WELCOME TO SPECIMENS ARE US monolith.  I garbled out something like, “Ya mean now?”  Ms. Greenfield nodded emphatically and, using her extended arm and index finger as an exclamation point gestured toward the bathroom. 

I emerged from the bathroom holding my book in one hand and my specimen jar in the other and found a seat amongst the other patients in the waiting room. It was as quiet as a winter night in the forest with snow falling.  I looked at the people around me and noticed what little talk existed was intermittently pierced by a tiny discussion  about the weather. I felt awkward sitting with strangers trying not to look at each other’s specimen jar, and, except for two elderly gentlemen discussing local eateries, there was little talk about food.

I read my book, and, in a short time, I heard a gruff male voice bellow “Ralph!”

I rose and turned to see a phlebotomist with long dark black hair and a blue apron draping her body.  Her lapel label said “Angie.” Book and specimen jar in hand, I strolled to the room Angie designated, sat down in the executioner’s chair, rolled up my shirt sleeve and awaited the draining.  I handed my specimen jar to Angie who barely looked at it and placed it on a shelf.

“Okay, dearie, what’s your date of birth?” she said in a rather husky voice that implied she was a smoker.  Dearie?  When I would go Christmas shopping for Polley, I avoided women’s clothing stores if the saleslady addressed me as “Dearie.”  To me, it is as if I said to Angie, “Hey, Babe, how’s it goin’?”   I think it is a generational thing.

She then wrapped the latex tube around my upper arm and did the blood letting procedure. 

A much younger phlebotomist entered the room, holding three vials of blood. 

“Angie, what do I do with these?”

Angie looked up from her drawing my blood.

“You gotta tag them first.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“Take the strip with the patient’s personal data and wrap it around the vial.”

“Oh, okay.”

The younger phlebotomist left the room and Angie was on the third vial.

The younger phlebotomist returned seconds later.

“Angie, where do I get the patient’s personal data?”

Angie inhaled deeply and exhaled and coughed.  “You download from the database on your computer. “

“Whattcha mean?”

“The computer on your desk.  Open it up, type in your patient’s last name and his file should come up. The data is there. If you didn’t open his file, how did you know how much blood to take?  It’s the same file with the PCL file you downloaded.”

“Oh! I was supposed to do that first?”

Angie shook her head slowly and inhaled again.  Then she bolted upright.  “Yes.  Let me finish with this guy, and I’ll show you.”

“Okay.”  The younger phlebotomist retreated to her room.

Angie looked at me, her eyes asking for pity,  some empathy from me for her endurance of the younger generation. She took the needle out of my arm, applied the gauze and band-aid, and said, “You’re all done.  Have a great day.”  I was glad I had Angie as my phlebotomist.

“You, too.  Thanks.”

I walked out of her room, my left index finger putting pressure on the gauze on my right arm.  The line of people waiting to feed the Specimens Are Us monolith had grown. Fillmore, which I later learned had sold many of its MRI machines because it was in enormous debt, also closed its physical therapy gym to save money.  That was sad because many of us who had heart problems (I had a bypass in 1989 and went to the gym 3 times a week} believed the medical community’s continual advice on the benefit of routine exercise for cardiac issues.  I guess Fillmore no longer believed that.  I guess they also believed that they could not afford a volunteer for the lab.

I stood for a moment at the door of the Specimens Are Us lab. I have no doubt that the modernization of medicine, the technological advancements in diagnosing and treating the human body have extended the longevity of people’s lives.  But with every gain there is a loss, the fading of the family doctor for instance; you know, the doctor who knows you as a person and not as a collection of medical statistics.   There is something about the social climate of a waiting room occupied by people, often nervous people, infirm or on crutches or in wheelchairs, which is somehow impacted by the presence of urine samples.

“Ma’am, I’m sure the lab will know whose is whose.”  What can be more personal, and, surprisingly so impersonal at the same time? 

The Most Wonderfullest Christmas Ever

I have celebrated and enjoyed many Christmases over my three score and ten plus years.  Some of the very best involved watching my children dash down the stairs to see what Santa had placed beneath the tree.  Another favorite occurred a few days before Christmas when Polley flew out from St. Louis to spend time with me and my family before she returned to be with hers for the holiday.  We took the bus to New York City, ate at the Top of the Sixes, a revolving restaurant atop one of Manhattan’s sleek steel buildings, and huddled in the same spot Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr stood in An Affair to Remember on the top of the Empire State Building, our breaths mingling in the chilly December air.  As we walked home from the bus stop, I watched the snowflakes lace her eyelashes and I knew that Christmas had come early; I knew I already had my gift that year, a gift I still treasure every day.

All those Christmases were special but there is one that I am constantly revisiting in my daydreams and in my soul’s recounting.  Let me tell you about it.  But before I do, I must warn you.  You have to believe in magic in order to understand this story.  Not the magic of a Dave Copperfield, or a Houdini or a David Blaine, fine magicians all.  I refer to the magic borne of childhood wonder, the unexplainable occurrences that make a child believe in a world, in a universe, that is excitingly mysterious and which is supported by a fundamental goodness, a world in which faith supercedes cynicism.

My parents were products of the Great Depression, a time of utter uncertainty and a period where harsh realities made hope a struggle.  My mother’s mother died in the Great Spanish Flu epidemic when my mother was five or six, and my father joined the Civilian Conservation Corps to help support his family.  Christmas day for both my folks was just another day in the struggle to survive.  When my father returned from World War II, he married my mother who later gave birth to me, and, four years later, to my brother Jimmy.   We lived in the Bronx until I was about nine or ten and then, my parents seeking a home in an environment where they could open the front door on a Saturday and let their kids disappear into a safe exploration of childhood, moved to a quiet suburb in New Jersey. 

So confident that the world they provided us was secure and free from danger, that even at that young age I was allowed to take the bus by myself up to Union City and West New York.  I would stroll up and down Bergenline Boulevard to see what Christmas gifts I could purchase with the few dollars I made in after school jobs and with the fifty cents allowance I received for completing family chores.

There was a magic that I inhaled with every breath as I stopped at various store windows, comparing prices of gifts to the small stash I harbored in my pocket.  And it was the magic of anticipation, highlighted by the holiday music pouring out of various venues, from Perry Como to Alvin and the Chipmunks that lightened my spirit.  And it was not just the magic of anticipation of what was to be received, but of what was to be given.  The days before Christmas were filled with the delight in expectation of the smiles I would draw on the faces of my mother and my father and my younger brother Jimmy.  Wouldn’t Mom gasp as she unwrapped the faux leather purse I chose?  Wouldn’t Dad’s jaw drop as he opened the package containing the fishing lures, the red and white Daredevils I picked out?  Wouldn’t Jimmy squeal in glee as he tore off the wrapping paper from his cork pop gun? 

Anticipation is ninety percent of the holiday.  Christmas morning Jimmy and I, tossing and turning in our beds, would wait and wait and wait until we heard our parents call to us to come downstairs.  In our pajamas we would race to the tree, a spruce or pine aglow with twinkling lights and ornaments and tinsel, examine the colorful packages and pick the ones tagged with our names.  As we unwrapped, we would smell the rich odor of coffee percolating and bacon and home fries sizzling and hot chocolate brewing.  It was a day of exclamations of surprise, some false, some true, and a day of play and warmth.

But this one Christmas, things were different. Very different.  Later, much later, I realized that my parents, survivors of the depression and the war, distrusted happiness.  You were supposed to make the most out of a bad deal, and the bad deal was a harsh reality that blocked out every other truth.  Not having been loved as they loved Jimmy and me, they found it difficult to be secure in the feelings they had for each other.  So one night a couple of days before Christmas, my father came home late.  Very late.

“You were supposed to take me Christmas shopping!” My mother stood in the kitchen, hands on hips, body vertically braced.

My father took off his navy peacoat.  “I had to visit my mother.”

My grandmother lived in the Bronx, and she would often call on her sons to drive out to her apartment to unclog a sink or translate a bill she did not believe she incurred or fix some household device.  She did not like my mother.  Her culture believed orphans did not make good spouses.

“You took her shopping!!!  What about shopping for your own kids?!”

Boy covering ears with hands while his parents arguing in the background

And the fight was on.  Jimmy and I huddled on the top steps of our stairs and listened to the accusations and recriminations, a litany of offences committed over what seemed like centuries of their mutual past.  They yelled and yelled some more, and each cry a dagger to our psyches.  Jimmy and I shrank with each threat and counter threat.   We crawled off to our separate beds and covered our heads with our blankets.  I heard Jimmy crying.

The next morning we tentatively came downstairs.  My mother sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and sipping coffee.  When she heard us, she got up and filled two bowls with farina.  My father had already gone to work.  We had no school, and that was worse because school would have made the time go faster and help us forget that Christmas was not to be that year.  The radio was taunting us with “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”   We half-heartedly played with our toys that day.  I read my biography of Jim Bowie.

My parents did not speak at all to each other that evening nor the next day, Christmas Eve.  Dinner Christmas Eve was lentil soup which I hated.  Jimmy and I tried to stay clear of both our parents because we knew that intense silence, that ocean of quiet hostility between the two of them, was deafening to us.  Jimmy and I walked into the garage and there, leaning in the corner, was a fraser fir my father brought back from one of his hunting trips.  Jimmy grabbed my hand.

The tree would not stand decorated and lit in our living room this year. Nor would there be gifts under it.  We had long ago discovered our parents’ best hiding places, and those places stood bare.  No Christmas breakfast, no Christmas dinner, and no Christmas laughter. The house felt empty.

At least I had my gift for my brother.  And what to do with the gifts I already bought for my Mom and Dad?

My parents were still not speaking when Jimmy and I trudged up to bed.  The radio was playing “Silent Night,” and we both covered our ears as we crawled under our blankets.  I lay staring at the ceiling and thinking about what I had done so wrong that this non-Christmas came to be.  What should I have done to make my parents happy?  Why wasn’t I a good person?  You know.  Kids blame themselves for the state of the world.

I heard Jimmy sniffling in his bed.  I called to him, “You wanna crawl in next to me?”

He stifled a sob.  Paused a bit.  “Yes.”

Jimmy slid in next to me. I put my arm around his shoulder.  “It’s okay, Jimmy.  It’s okay.”

He buried his head in my shoulder and whimpered. “It’s Christmas.  But it’s not.”   I looked out our window at the dark blue night sky and dreaded Christmas day.  Somehow we both drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

The first thing I remember about that Christmas morning was a bright ray of December sunshine warming my cheek.  My brother still lay next to me. 

A wave of smells teased my nostrils.  There was the earthy smell of coffee, but there were other odors that I recognized but should not have been there considering the circumstances.  I heard “Sleigh Ride” blaring on the radio downstairs.  

“Jimmy!!  Jimmy!!  Get up!”
Jimmy pulled the blanket over his head. “I don’t want to get up.”

“We have to get up sometime. Come on!”

Then, from downstairs, we heard our father’s voice.  It was the first full sentence we had heard from him in days.  “Hey, you two.  Get up and come down here.  It’s Christmas.”

Jimmy and I looked at each other.  Tentatively we walked to the top of the stairs and leaned over.

There, at the bottom of the staircase stood my mother and my father, his arm wrapped around her waist, smiles adorning both faces, both pairs of eyes twinkling.  We could see in the living room the fraser fir upright and festooned with red, green, blue and white blinking lights and ornaments galore and, of course, tinsel.  Somehow during the night my parents had reconciled. It was pure magic. The radio played “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

My brother and I raced down the stairs, Jimmy wrapping his arms around my mother’s thighs.   My father put his hand on my shoulder. 

“Let’s have breakfast.  We have eggs, Italian sausage, hot chocolate and”

My brother interrupted, “With marshmallows?”
“Of course, with marshmallows.”

I sat down at the kitchen table, and, hard as I tried to prevent them, tears formed in the corners of my eyes. 

My dad plopped down a heap of home fries on my plate.  “After breakfast we’ll all play some Scrabble.”  He looked at me.  “And after that, maybe Monopoly.” He knew that was my favorite game. “And a few rounds of NAVY.”  NAVY was fhe forerunnner of the popular game Battleship, only played with paper and pencil.

My mother dropped a few marshmallows on Jimmy’s hot chocolate.  “And your father says that since we didn’t have time to get a ham or turkey for Christmas dinner…”  she shot my dad that dagger glance that most mothers develop and which could stop a charging rhino at five paces…”We are all going to Chinatown for dinner!”  Wow!  On special occasions my father would take us to a Chinese restaurant where he could feed the whole family on good food for ten bucks. 

There were no presents under the tree.  That day, there did not need to be.  The magic sufficed.  As my brother Jimmy formed a brown moustache on his upper lip courtesy of his hot chocolate, he exclaimed, “This is the most wonderfullest Christmas ever!” For me it was and still is.

Happy Holidays

https://blog.ralphmaltese.com/2020/12/16/the-most-wonderf…t-christmas-ever/

Random Acts of Kindness

I was teaching high school language arts in a suburban district which was traumatized by a series of events related only by the depth of their debilitating effects on the community.  One of the mishaps included the death of a student.  Things were not going well in our country either. On a dark, dank, February morning, my fourth period Honors class, a truly smart cohort of nice people(a teacher’s dream), trudged into my classroom, and I could almost hear the mournful musical piece, The Volga Boatmen, playing in the background

We were studying Shakespeare’s contributions to the Renaissance in England, and a quick formative assessment of their faces and silent glares and limp body language told me that this was not going to be an engaging lesson.  My experience warned me that I had to address the affective domains of my students before I could ever help them wrestle with Shakespeare’s themes.  Willy would have to wait.

“Stop.  Please put your pens down, close your notebooks.”  You guys look as if someone told you that you could not bring your cell phones to church…..”

Scattered smiling and an occasional laugh.

“No, really.  I feel the sadness, too.  Let’s talk.”

Silence.  Then “Mr. M., it’s just that being an adult sucks big time.”

“Yeah.  The world’s a pretty sh…y place; I’m sorry Mr.M for using that term….but it’s true.”

 And the flow of words and hurt poured out.

“My parents keep telling me I have to work hard in school so I can prepare for my future.  What future?!!!  We’ll killing the planet so a few greedy people can become even richer,  Violence and crime are up.  Kids are getting stupidly high on drugs and killing each other.”

“Some idiot somewhere in the world can screw up and the next thing you know, countries are firing their nuclear weapons and blowing up the planet.”

“There’s just too much evil going around, Mr. M.  It’s everywhere, like what happened here last month.  I knew that kid.  When I was small, he was my swimming partner in summer camp.”

And so it went.  I let them vent. And that night I decided to push the Bard to the side for just a few days.  The Great Chain of Being, the socioeconomic stratified structure that glued Shakespeare’s world, would have to wait.  My world was more important at that moment.  I spent hours that night thinking about what I could do.

The next day I presented this assignment to my five classes. 

“All right, Gang.  I am dividing you up into groups of five people.  Each group will be assigned a venue.  The school bus, a supermarket, the bus loading platform in the high school, the school library, and the school cafeteria.  For the next three days, each of you assigned to one of those venues is to note any random act of kindness exhibited by your fellow students.  It may be someone helping a person carrying something, opening a door, helping to change a tire, helping a student find a book, etc.  Just list the event, time, location, and date.  Preferably the person being helped is a relative stranger.  The helper might know of the helpee, but the motive for helping is truly random.  Got it?  The more events observed, the better.”

On the third day, groups convened and shared their observations.  They were quite animated and excited.

“Hey, Mr. M., I saw this girl help a kid from Special Ed look at an Atlas in the library!”

“Yeah.  I saw that a few times!”

“So didI!”

“In Shoprite, I saw an old lady help a teenage girl who works there pick up fruit that had fallen on the floor!”

“This little kid who lives on my block, must be around four or five, helped a little girl get back up on her bicycle after she had fallen!”

“I watched a senior help a freshman Special Ed kid open his combination lock in the locker room!

And so it went.  I let them share.   We discussed random acts of kindness, and how we often overlook them when we consider the moral or ethical state of the world.  I do….overlook them, that is. 

A few weeks ago, as I shared with you on Facebook, a huge hole opened up in my soul and I plummeted into the abyss.  I had been hacked, my website destroyed.  It was just a blog, and nobody, I am certain, ever missed it.  But it was important to me for a number of reasons.  I enjoy writing….more so now with the advancement of Parkinson’s.  Aging and contracting Parkinson’s have combined to make loss a constant in my life.  As we get older, we tend to lose…..lose our sight, our hearing, our taste buds, our driving ability, our friends, our loved ones.  Parkinson’s adds the loss of muscle, the loss of walking, the loss of balance, the loss of passions, the loss of dignity.  I can no longer flyfish the way I used to, a passion that bordered on becoming an epiphany, an understanding and love of nature…you know, kind of a zen thing.  I coped with each loss by saying I can still…..still write….also a passion.  But what really saves me are the people I love.  Fortunately for me I have my soul mate Polley, and my wonderful children and grandchildren and amazing friends and relatives to spark up my days.  But the blog was/is important to me.  Like my fourth period students, I reacted to my deprivation of writing as they did to the events around them.

St Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

“So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread”

                                           Richard Cory

And then an amazing thing happened.  Many of you expressed sincere empathy at my misfortune.  It really touched me.  And then another totally amazing thing happened.  Dawn McGee, a former teaching colleague and all-in-all great human being, contacted a former student who is a very very special person.  He then contacted me. (I will respect his desire for anonymity.)   I will refer to this angel of mercy as RV. RV’s superb technical skills are only surpassed by his humanity..  He took days to recover my databases and other elements of my website. He performed what my web host tech team said could not be accomplished.  RV even discovered the exact time I was hacked.

I asked him several times if I could pay him for his efforts and his time.  I knew I could never pay him for his goodness.  He repeatedly refused.  He has a reputation for being what one of my high school teachers called a “Beautiful Souler.” 

As I told my students, you will not find the goodness of the world in the headlines or on the evening news.  What we hear nightly are the bad things.  Serial killings, demolishing storms, bankruptcies, corrupt politicians.  Why the emphasis on evil?  Because bad happenings sell.  Bad news is big business.  Many people thrive on hearing bad news, perhaps, just perhaps, because they survive their own plights by vicariously experiencing some other poor life form’s misfortune.  In any case, don’t expect to hear on national television: “Breaking news:  Tomorrow will be a beautiful day, with mild temperatures and sunshine!”  Or, “A family in Idaho helped a family from Tucson move into their new home.”  OR Senator NiceGuy told the truth at a hearing.” Or “RV resurrected Ralph’s blog website.”

RV attitude and actions recalled the lesson I tried to teach my students.  You won’t find the goodness of the human race in the headlines.  You have to watch the daily life of the people around you to realize that goodness does thrive amongst us.  This does not mean we excuse the problems in our culture.  We still need to cope with climate change, crime, and bloated politicians.  I am simply advocating a reality check.

A deeply felt gratitude to all of you who commiserated with my plight, and a special thanks to Dawn for her kindness.  And to RV;I will never forget your graciousness and your gift of humanity to me. You make this a better planet because of who and what you are.

In the immortal words of Jerry Stiller who plays George Costanza’s father Frank on Seinfeld.

                 “I’M BACK, BABY!!”

Home is Not a Place

Polley and I took stock of all the “must do’s” we have done in recent months and decided it was time to pursue the “want to’s.”  It was her idea to spend a few days in the Adirondack Mountains, my Bronx home away from home, my sanctuary from the unstable vicissitudes of urban elementary school cultures.

My father would drive the family from the congested three room Bronx apartment redolent with automobile exhaust and Mrs. Poderecki’s cabbage soup in Apt. 4D, to the Tupper Lake area where the air was so clean inhaling it felt like drinking ice cold water from a mountain stream. The trip up the New York Thruway and Route 9 took us from scenes of city buses belching black smoke and cough-splattered dirty white opaque windows that masked the riders, to lakes which so clearly mirrored the surrounding mountains and trees that one became disoriented as to which was real and which was the reflection.

Even though Tupper Lake did not have the entertainment gravitas of Saranac Lake or the panache of Lake Placid, we enjoyed shopping in the IGA and having a breakfast of eggs, pancakes, hash browns, and corn beef hash at the Lumberjack restaurant.  The locals were kind and helpful and pleasant in conversation. My brother Jimmy and I would swim in Little Wolf Pond and catch bullheads in the evening.  Most of all, we inhaled the cool, crisp air that convinced me that I could overcome any challenge, any obstacle, any taunt hurled in my direction.  If the air inspired my spirit, the green mountains thick with pine trees and cradling the deep, dark blue lakes and ponds, calmed my soul. The sky always seemed to be an ocean painted a Madonna blue, and puffy ivory white clouds always sailed that water. The big plus over Saranac Lake and Lake Placid was my father’s ability to afford staying in Tupper Lake.He would rent a rustic cabin, usually one that looked like it was built with Lincoln Logs, with a small kitchenette so we could cook our meals.  Our favorite rental was a three room (two bedrooms and a kitchen/living/dining room) white Cape Cod-like cabin with bright red shutters; a cabin nestled in a grove of white birch trees on Little Wolf Pond. Often the centerpieces of these meals were the fish we caught from our usual fishing spots, one of which was located on the Raquette River at the Settin’ Pole Dam. The dam had three huge, whitish gray, concrete pillars that held the gates which controlled the flow of water into the river below.  We climbed over the railing and strolled, fishing rod in hand, down the metal walkway to the middle pillar and cast into the white foaming water that gushed beneath us.

My mother was a good fisherperson and when we drove to the dam, she would be one of the first to jump out of the car, grab her fishing rod and scramble out to the middle concrete pillar of Settin’ Pole Dam.  We would each use a different bait—my father liked to tempt the fish with minnows, Jimmy liked worms, though he liked playing with them more than using them to fish; my mother’s favorite tended toward big nightcrawlers, large tan-red segmented worms that my father and I gathered from our lawn the night before.  I enjoyed slinging spinners.  On one trip we were all getting frustrated since we knew our quarry was there, but there were no takes.  My little brother Jimmy got bored easily, and walked along the river’s edge, picking up rocks and throwing them in the water.  “Maybe I’ll bean one!” 

My mother captured a yellowish green grasshopper and walked back to the middle pillar of Settin’ Pole Dam.

A striking close-up of a green grasshopper perched on a leaf, capturing its intricate details and textures. Generated by AI.

We watched as she baited the hook with the grasshopper and cast into the pool below.  Within seconds she hauled in a nice ten inch smallmouth.  We all shouted and ran into the tall grass grabbing grasshoppers and stuffing them in our shirt pockets.  I carried all that we had collected and brought them out to my mother who was reeling in fish after fish, throwing most back and only keeping several for dinner.  I didn’t even fish. Nor did my father.  We just enjoyed watching my mother smile broadly as she hooked one fish after another, until, abruptly, suddenly, as often happens while fishing, it just stopped.

We let the rest of the grasshoppers go, Jimmy went back to throwing rocks and collecting frogs which he put in the empty bait bucket.  My mother looked at my father.  Her eyes implored him to find a solution.  “Just need two or even just one more fish to have a nice dinner for all of us tonight.” 

He looked down at his worn work shoes.  “Okay.  I’ll drive back into town and buy some minnows.”  We all knew that minnows worked the best at Settin’ Pole Dam, but my father thought it was almost a crime against humanity to pay for bait, and silver minnows were expensive. 

“Jimmy,” my dad called out, “Want to come with us to town to get minnows?” 

Jimmy nodded and ran up and climbed in the back seat. My mother stayed behind.  “I’ll just stay here and relax and watch the water. Don’t forget the bait bucket!”  I grabbed the handle of the bait bucket and climbed into the dark brown Nash.  Twenty minutes later we were in front of Galloway’s Bait Store.  It wasn’t really a store in the conventional sense.  The structure was someone’s home, a large grayish white two story frame.

Home architecture design in Modern Style with Minimalist design constructed by Glass and Steel material. Mid-Century modern design. Generative AI AIG25 .

All the bait was in the backyard, stored in several checkerboard-like square concrete pools, each pool containing a different bait.  Narrow walkways separated the pools.

My father knocked on the front door, and Mrs. Galloway remembered us from previous visits.  She was a tall, fortyish, matronly woman wearing a gray house dress with a yellow tulip pattern and a white sweater draped on her shoulders. She stood atop two banana yellow high heels laced with brown bows. Her reading glasses perched on the top of her dark brown hair. “Hi, fellas, come on in. What can I getcha?” 

My father struggled mightily to get the words out. “Two dozen minnows, please?” 

“What size?”

My father looked down at me, then at Mrs. Galloway.  “Medium.”

“Well good!  I can fix you up.”

“Give me your bait bucket.  Two dozen you say?  Medium?”

I handed her the bait bucket. “Yes, Ma’am.”“Fine. Follow me!”  We followed her through the hallway, past her living room, through her kitchen and out the back.  In one swift motion she opened the screen door and grabbed a small net off a kitchen hook.  In the back yard were several concrete troughs laid out like small, narrow swimming pools.  To access any one pool, Mrs. Galloway would have to walk on a narrow walkway between troughs holding different size minnows

Then she turned to face us.  “What size do you want?” She had forgotten our order from thirty seconds earlier.

“Medium.” My father’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Fine.  How many you want?”

More tightness in his voice.  “Two dozen.”. 

Mrs. Galloway gracefully stepped out of her banana yellow shoes and gingerly stepped into the matrix of concrete pools, negotiating the narrow walkway past the pool with large minnows which was opposite the pool filled with even bigger minnows.  What happened next is duly recorded in my book, Mahogany Jim and the Nightcrawlers and Other Tales, and I will relate it here.

I watched as the lady in the gray house dress negotiated the narrow walkways between pools, net in right hand, bait bucket in left, a tightrope balancing act admired by Mahogany Jim and me.  Even my brother Jimmy was watching her progress, his hands folded behind his back.

The lady turned to face us.  “What size do you want?”  Mahogany Jim looked at me.  “Sometimes bass prefer the smaller size.”

I shrugged my shoulders.  “Big bait, big fish.”

It was not the answer Mahogany Jim wanted.  He turned toward the lady in the gray house dress.  “Medium.”

She nodded, turned around, put the bait bucket down on the narrow concrete pathway, and dipped her net into a concrete trough.  Up came a netful of medium sized shiners.  She stooped over to dump the load into the bucket, opened the lid, and out jumped one of Jimmy’s captive frogs,

arms and legs outstretched leaping toward the face of the lady in the gray house dress.  Scream.  The bucket went into the pool on the right, the netful of shiners went up in the air and into the pool on the left, (and were quickly gobbled in midair by the larger of their species) and the lady in the gray house dress went backwards into the pool behind her.  I think it was the trough with crayfish.

Frozen, it took a while for Mahogany Jim and me to spring into action, walk the narrow concrete pathways and help Mrs. Galloway out of the trough and onto the pathway with her hair hanging like a mop on her shoulders, her wet dress clinging to her body and an angry look on her face that would have stopped a charging rhino at five paces. She had a difficult time stepping out of the pool, despite, or perhaps because of, our help.  She may have slipped back into the pool once or twice.

Jimmy remained by the back porch, hands still folded behind his back, smiling.

Following our “rescue,” Mrs. Galloway brushed past us and into the house.  Mahogany Jim theorized that discretion dictated we not finish our negotiation.   I retrieved the bait bucket.  We slunk back to the Ford and drove back to Settin’ Pole Dam where my mother waited for the minnows.

As we got out of the car, I brought the empty bait bucket with me.  My mother looked at the swinging and obviously empty pail, spread her arms as if to ask, “So?   Where are the minnows?”
My father walked up to the dam.  “The bait store was all out.” 

Polley and I drove past Mrs. Galloway’s house, graying like the color of the overcast sky.  I could see crab grass and dandelions with pale yellow drooping heads growing in the bait troughs. 

There was no traffic as we moved silently and slowly down Main Street,

past the Lumberjack Restaurant, shuttered with pale brown moldy plywood and permanently closed for business.  Its emptiness hurt.  Covid and poor decisions by people who really tried to revive the area created a ghost town fog that shrouded our old haunts.

Just past the Lumberjack we made a right to enter Little Wolf Pond and drove down to where our red and white cabin used to be.  It had been “shabbified.”  The house next to it also felt the malaise that affected the area.

We continued on Route 3 West past the entrance to Little Wolf Lake and made the left onto the dirt road leading to Settin’ Pole Dam.  The County, to keep people safe from falling off the dam, put a chain link fence around the entrance to the pillars from which we had fished. I felt that same fence around my heart.  I stared for a long while at the dam, the river, and the sky.

I have learned in my seventies that Thomas Wolfe was right.  You Can’t Go Home Again.  The dam was just a dam, the fence just a fence, the river just flowing water.  “Home” is not a place.  It is a memory. And my memory is limited to thoughts.  I have reached the age when the ghosts have fled the haunts of my youth. Even the ghosts have to leave the physical place, as fewer live relatives and friends visit those sacred places where life was lived and enjoyed. Without the ghosts the place is just a geographic entry…a latitude and longitude. But in my mind I still see my father, my mother, and my brother enjoying the glory of being together at Settin’ Pole Dam.  I can recall conversations. I can picture movements and facial expressions, smiles and frowns and laughs. I can think the memory.  But visiting the past in space is not sufficient.  Something is missing.  I cannot feel the memory.  I cannot feel in my body and soul the joys of my youth.

And so that is another lesson that can be learned by old people. In fact, it is a revelation that only old people can learn. In the near future, I will be a forgotten ghost to my offspring. I wish them the wisdom to cherish memories of their youth and to value those around them, to understand that, if we are fortunate, life is the effort to create good and meaningful memories.   The best I can do is feel as much of the present as I can.