Tuesday, November 26, 2019

DEMENTIA

                                                          

So, it’s too often just a clique when we say it but what I want to talk about is what it’s like to really lose your mind. We have all kinds of aches and pains and maladies that attack our bodies and in most cases with proper medical care we can overcome them or learn to live a new normal life with them but losing your mind is a whole new thing. Now I’m not talking about an emotional problem or depression or anxiety. Goodness knows that can be bad enough. What I am talking about is dementia. No organ in the human body has the complexities and the ability to make life good or miserable like the brain. To the body it is the center of life. A body without a functioning brain, is very sad indeed.

This summer I lost a good friend to this debilitating disease. He had been diagnosed some fifteen years ago and that’s not even half the time that I knew this man. At first the changes are subtle. When you’re over sixty you don’t get too alarmed at forgetfulness. Who among us doesn’t have those senior moments? But the day comes when the frustrations set in and you began to question, “Is this happening to often? Can it be happening to me?

Most doctors’ offices have a set of questions they ask, when doing a wellness test even if you’re not there for memory issues. But when you are there because of memory issues then the protocol changes. There still is not a cure for most dementia cases so having it diagnosed only confirms your suspicions and although there are some medicines to slow the progression, it’s largely a waiting game. And it can be a long waiting game. No other disease impacts the loved ones like dementia. It’s called the ‘long goodbye’ but to often, ‘goodbye,’ comes a long time before the end. In the case of my friend I am sure he didn’t know me for many years before the disease finally took his life. His wife, who was his caregiver, tirelessly took care of him to the bitter end. Not a task many people would have been up to. In some ways she was as much of a victim as he was. I think about this man a lot. We were the same age; had the same likes and dislikes and he was family. He was my daughter-in-laws father. 
Dementia is no stranger to all of us. This man wasn’t the only friend that I lost to this disease and it won’t be the last. I know of several cases right now in some of my friends and family. It’s become commonplace in society.

So why am I writing about this? Maybe it’s like this. I remember when A.I.D.S was a death sentence. I had uncles and aunts who died of diphtheria when they were kids. I had classmates who died of polio. Our friends lost their little girl to childhood leukemia when she was 11 or 12. Today most of them would have not only lived but they would have been cured. Medical science will find out how to cure dementia someday too but the question is when. There are a lot of foundations out there today and they’re all looking for financial help for research to cure a whole host of diseases. But there is only so much money to go around. Please help the foundations that support research to cure dementia.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

THE CARNIVAL

                                                            

Growing up in a small town like Staples there was little to do for entertainment. Most of the activities had to do with the school and sports activities or concerts. So in the summer time when the school was largely shuttered, it became bleak indeed. But every so often there was something that broke the boredom. It was called the carnival and every so often they came to town.

Now I’m not talking about a church carnival or some entertaining things that are put in place for a civic celebration. No I’m talking about a full-fledged carnival that came to town and set up on the ball fields and the playground by the high school. There was a whole parade of trucks carrying in the rides and attractions and they set up a mini midway full of games of chance, entertaining things to see and thrilling rides.

One of the games I was always attracted to was the little digger cranes where for one thin dime, you got a chance to operate that swinging apparatus, inside its glass case and grab a prize and drop it into the chute that delivered it to you. Not having a lot of money to spend, I would watch others playing the machines hoping to see, just what it was that made it so difficult to snag those best things that were rarely taken. Like that shiny gold wristwatch that was always in the farthest corner from the chute. One of the things I noticed was that most people were in a hurry and either over shot the target or if they did snag something good, they were in hurry to get it out and lost grip on it. But on this one night a man managed to grab that watch but he dropped it in the middle of the pile and dismayed he left. Before they could reposition it-- which they always did-- I got my dime on the counter and guided the claws over to that watch and drug it out of there. I was overjoyed putting the watch on my skinny arm, and I sprinted home to show off my winning. Two days later my arm turned green and itched like crazy. I showed my dad and he took out his knife and scraped off some of the metal off the back. The back was lead, painted gold, and dad made me throw it away. He told me it would make me dumber then I was.

There were also the tents with deformed people and animals to see and a guy out front with a cane and a top hat, calling it the seventh wonder of the world. Somehow I am glad we have gotten beyond that over the years. Exploiting people was never my thing. Then there was what my dad called the hootchie kootchie tent where you had to be older to get in and see the scantily dressed dancers. No one knew at the time, that in a few decades you could see more then they showed, at the mall for free. My friend and I went around to the back and peeked under the canvas but before we could get a look-see, we got caught and had to run for our freedom. My buddy’s pants were all wet as somebody had relieved themselves behind the tent and he laid in it. Then there was a ride shaped like a bullet that spun you around and around and I took a fast trip in it, on a dare. There was room for two people in it and the other person threw-up on me, so my friend and I went home that night smelling like pee and vomit. But at least it was something to do and we could say we went to the Carnival and who knew that sixty-five years later I would write about it 

Thursday, November 14, 2019

THE LAST HUNT

                                          

Several years ago I gave my deer hunting rifle to my grandson and became an on looker. For as long as we have lived here, my family has always hunted across the road. At first it was just my son and I and some friends from time to time. But slowly and surely the two grandsons grew up and took their place in the ranks along with my granddaughters husband. It was also about this time that I started to have lung problems and the cold air and the coughing wasn’t conducive to being quiet in the woods so I decided that after fifty some years of hunting, it was time to quit.

So for a few years I went out and helped put up stands and became the chief cook and bottle washer. It was also about this time that I lost my desire to kill anything, anyhow, but I kept that to myself. The last year I hunted, on the last day of the hunt, a nice doe ran up a ridge and stopped right in front of me. I could see her eyelashes flicking she was that close, as she stared at me, not sure where to go next. My rifle never left me lap as I shouted, “Get out of here” and she did.

Yesterday, the fifteenth of October, Molly and I went for a walk in the woods. I wanted to go out to my old deer stand and I wanted to go early enough that Molly’s scent would be out of the woods by hunting time. Back in the earlier days you drug some lumber out there and built yourself a platform for a stand and I had. Maybe an old piece of carpet to sit on and some steps nailed to the tree to get up there. I doubted any one had used it since I quit hunting and I wasn’t even sure it still existed. But I found the old familiar path that took me down to the edge of the swamp and there it was. The railing had fallen off but the platform was still there and the steps were too. Molly made herself comfortable under the tree and up I went. As I sat looking out over the swamp a flood of memories came back. The time seven does ran out and I didn’t have a doe permit. The time that eight pointer ran out and he smelled me but not in time and I still managed to get him. The time a fawn bedded down right under my stand. Then my thoughts wandered to other memories. The year our friend’s son got his first deer and threw up after we made him gut it. Then there was the first hunt after my wife had died, when I sat in the stand and cried. Even today, the day I left, I thought I had something in my eye but it was for a different reason.

Molly was restless and it was time to go. The woods were spectacular that day with red and yellow leaves everywhere blending into the green spruce and the white birch trunks and I was so glad I had come back out. I stood under the stand for a few minutes just taking it in and then I reached up and board-by-board, I pulled it all down. This was my little corner of the world and selfishly I didn’t want anyone else using it and I knew I would never be back. They say you close a door and another one opens but that day I closed a door that will never be reopened and I knew it. But I was so glad I had come and I hope that my son and grandsons will hunt here for many years to come. I hope they will build the memories that they will grow to cherish out there in the woods. Memories only a deer hunter understands. This year I will be gone when the deer hunters come. I wish them good luck and a safe hunt. 

Thursday, November 7, 2019

VETERANS DAY

                                                           

I have some memories in the back of my meandering mind that have never left me and even as I age they seem to be as vivid as ever. Growing up in Staples, a booming railroad town in those days, I would often go to the depot in the evenings and sit on the baggage carts that stayed stored under a sheltered corner of the building and wait for the trains to come in, There was something so mesmerizing about the power and might of those big steam engines in those days and I never tired of it.

The year was 1952 or 53 and we were in the middle of the Korean War. Several times a week freight trains came through town, loaded down with artillery, jeeps and tanks. But all of that wasn’t on my mind that day. I had only come to see the evening passenger train arriving. When the train shrieked into view with a blast of that whistle, clouds of steam, hissing brakes and those steel wheels sliding to a squealing stop on those steel rails; I jumped down off the cart to watch the passengers disembark. Right in front of me was the mail car and the baggage car. The door suddenly slid open and there stood two U.S. Marines in their red, white and blue uniforms. I froze in place because between them was a flag draped casket. I was only twelve that year but I knew what was happening and I turned and looked around the corner of the building and there was a waiting hearse.

Those Marines were so focused, so stoic, they didn’t even look real but as the funeral director came with the casket carrier they got off and followed their comrade to the vehicle. I was unable to move and I stood and cried. I knew about the war and I knew about what could happen but reading about it and seeing it, was something I wasn’t ready for. This wasn’t G.I. Joe; this was the real thing The Marines paid their final respects, got back on the train and the train immediately left. The engineer had been waiting for them to reboard. The hearse left down Fourth Street and I watched until it turned the corner and was out of sight. I never found out whom that Soldier was even though I looked in the papers. I wished I knew so I could have paid my respects in person. The depot served more destinations then just Staples and he may have lived a long way off. All I knew was that somewhere that night a grieving family had their son back and their lives were forever and immeasurably changed.

My life has been filled with many Veterans; most of then thankfully came back riding in the train and not like that. But every time one of them dies and is honored with a military funeral I think of that day and what it meant to me, as a kid, to see the respect and honor that had been afforded that soldier on his long way back home. Also it brought front and center to me, in a startling way, that the wages of war is often death. I don’t like war movies. It’s not entertaining to me, to see people killed even if we won the war.

So on this Veterans Day I salute all of you. I once bought a home and the loan officer told me they gave out points if you were a Veteran. Somehow I think heaven gives out those same points to Veterans. If not, I think they should.