Last month, I shared the story of The Red Shed in our back yard. I mentioned, at the end, that a new shed was being built.
It’s finally finished, paint and all.
As a reminder, here is The Red Shed:
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The Red Shed now exists only in photographs, and in memory. It’s remains lay, for those of you who wish to go visit, in The City Landfill.
The new shed, The Sort-Of-Olive-Greenish-Grey Shed stands like a beacon to hoarders everywhere:
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This Memorial Day, I’d like to share a post I wrote for Memorial Day 2010. I’m grateful, and thankful, to all the men and women who have served our country. And, I am especially proud and thankful to all those in my family who have served.
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Though I was not an “Army Brat,” moving from base to base, state to state, country to country, I am a child of the Army. Much of my life has been shaped by the military, and by the people who’ve served our country. It would be thoughtless of me to let this Memorial Day go by without mentioning (and thanking) those special people.
My mom joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) on her 21st birthday. The year was 1944, and, at that time, for her to join, she had to be 21. She enlisted for “the duration of the war, plus 6-months.” At the time, no one knew how long the war was going to last. During the war, my mom worked on the bombing range, working with the surveyors, working to make the bombs more accurate in striking their targets. The war lasted less than a year after she enlisted. Perhaps, if she hadn’t met my father, she might have done more Active Duty time. Instead, she did 20 years as a Reserve Officer. Because my dad was the one who was Active Duty, my mom had to go from base to base, and, thus, her time in the Reserves was varied, taking whatever duty she could at the local post.
My father joined the Navy during WWII, though he eventually switched to the Army. You could say that my dad gave his life for his country, though not in the typical “on the field of battle” way. My dad was a medic, and was on one of the medial frigates during the testing of the Atomic Bomb, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. At the time, it was assumed they were a safe distance from the site of the explosion, but, in later years, as more and more was learned about radiation and it’s effects, they were indeed in harm’s way. On my dad’s ship, they all stood on deck and watched the explosion, in just their uniforms; no special equipment protected them. As the years went by, more and more of the men on those ships died of cancer and other diseases which, it was later determined, were all caused by the exposure to the radiation. My dad died of brain cancer, in 1980, at the age of 55.
Both of my parents were done with their military service by the time I came around (my mom was 42, dad 41, when I was born) so I missed out on the life of a military child. Which, perhaps, might be a good thing. I was painfully shy as a kid, and had a tough enough time making friends living in the same place all my life. Moving around every few years might have been even worse, though, maybe it might have helped my shyness. I guess I’ll never know.
The military was an important part of both my parent’s families. My father was one of 5 boys, and my mom (who was an only child), grew up with her 4 cousins, and they all felt like they were brothers and sisters. Out of the 10 then, 9 were in the military. All 4 of my dad’s brothers served: two in the navy and two in the army (and my dad, who was in both branches.) On my mom’s side, of the 3 who served, they were all army. I’m quite proud of all of them.
There’s quite a history among them all. My mom was among the early number of women who were allowed to serve, helping to pave the way for women to serve in the capacities they do today. My dad, as I said, was at the Atomic Bomb testing. I have an uncle who was among those who landed on the beaches of Normandy, another landed at Iwo Jima. I have an uncle who served under General George Patton. I have an uncle who won two purple hearts. Two of my uncles were in the Infantry.
Of course, growing up with a military family, one becomes friends with other military families. My mom’s two best friends were military wives, one’s husband was in the 10th Mountain Division during WWII, and the other served two tours of duty in Vietnam. A non-family member (though he’s quite dear to me) was wounded on the landing at Iwo Jima. And, then there are the children and their children, and I know veterans of Korea, Vietnam, Desert Shield, Desert Storm.
My parents were never pushing for me to join the military. Of course, I was 14 when my father died, so I don’t think I was ever old enough for him to encourage to join. My mom, while never pressuring me, did like to mention that it was a good place to learn new skills, and find out who you are. There was a time when I had thought about it, though, being gay makes you think even more seriously about it (especially back in the 80s, before being gay was fashionable.) Then, of couse, there is my bad eye, with it’s blind spot and 20/200 vision which may have kept me out (or at least away from a gun) and, then, when I was 22 I found out that I was HIV+, and, in the early days of AIDS, we weren’t accepted most places. So, any thought I had about the military pretty much ended. I would like to have joined, to continue a family tradition, and to make my parents proud. She’s never actually said so, but, I think, mom’s a bit disappointed that I didn’t join (though, in her own way, she understands about my being gay and the HIV thing keeping me out.)
It was probably for the best that I didn’t join. I’m not sure I’m military material. I am, however, very proud, and very thankful to be surrounded by so many who have been in the military. I am humbled and honored to know so many people who have served in our country’s military. For those in my family, for those friends, and for those soldiers I don’t even know, on this Memorial Day, I offer my sincerest thanks for all that you do.
I just ran across this journal entry dated September 13, 2005, and thought I’d share:
Night before last.
I’m in the kitchen. Mom suddenly hollers from the living room.
What she said: “There’s a dike leaking.”
What I heard: “There’s a dyke leaking.”
I found this rather disturbing, and wasn’t sure I wanted to know why my mom was informing me of this. Then realized CNN was on, she was watching Hurricane Katrina coverage from New Orleans. Dyke became dike, and the image was much better, though still disturbing (in an entirely different way.)
I’ve always hated the red shed. No. That’s not right. The shed can go to its grave proudly knowing that it performed its job admirably: it provided safety and security to a good many belongings for more than two decades. The red shed can go to rest knowing that it withstood several record-breaking blizzards, plenty of record-breaking winds, many heavy hail storms, and more than one deluge of monsoon rains. Even in its last days, the door with its rotting and falling off trim kept everything inside safe. Even as the red shed is being torn down tomorrow, it can leave this world knowing that even as the walls are rotting away, it has stood tall and strong, and nothing inside ever got wet, moldy or mildewy. If the red shed were a member of our brave military forces, it would deserve a medals for strength, endurance and courage as it prevailed against everything that Mother Nature threw at it. If the red shed had been a soldier, standing tall and proud against the War of Time, it would deserve to have Taps played as its remains are carted off to the city landfill. No. I do not hate the physical part of the shed. My animosity is directed at most of the things that have resided in the red shed over its long life.
In its earliest years, the red shed provided shelter to bags full of plastic bags — grocery bags, bread wrappers, bags used to bring produce home from the grocery store. There were bags and bags of bags, because my mother believed that we could always use the bags for something. There were black trash bags full of plastic containers and lids: old Tupperware, margarine containers, cottage cheese containers, ice cream tubs, because my mother believed that we could always use them to store things in. There were boxes of old bits of electrical appliances: a toaster with a missing cord, the innards of lamps that had broken, broken strings of holiday lights, anything that had a broken cord, because mom believed that she’d get them fixed one day, because they couldn’t be thrown out as she “paid good money” for them. Better to keep them than throw them out. She’d say “Someone might want them. We can’t throw out something that someone else might get use from.”
One of the major accomplishments of my early 30s was finally getting mom to part with the bags of bags, and the bags of plastic containers. The broken electrical parts remained, though, if I’m honest, I’ll admit to throwing out a box or two over the years.
Like any space in her house, my mother does not care for emptiness. If my mother had a personal motto, it would be “If there is an empty place, something must be purchased to fill the emptiness.” After cleaning out the detrius from the shed, there was Emptiness in need of Stuff. Many of the things that accumulated in the garage were moved into the shed. The emptiness in the garage was filled with things from the house.
Over the years, my mom has reluctantly let go of a few things. Yet, the red shed has always remained more of a storage locker than a place for the things to keep up the yard and garden. Finally, though, over the weekend, we cleaned out the shed. Many things went into the trash with mom’s blessing. There were old bird cages, old suitcases, a couple of boxes of old plastic cactuses and silk flowers that my mom bought back in the 1980s when she was redecorating the house in the Southwestern style that was all the rage at the time. The cactuses were all dried out and brittle, the silk flowers, even though they’d been boxed were no longer vibrant. There was a large plastic tub, that we filled with all the old anti-freeze and other old household chemicals, which are now in the garage awaiting the next Household Chemical Roundup. There were old lawn chairs, some old curtains with edges that had been eaten away by mice. Perhaps it would be easier to say what we kept: mom’s mobility scooter (bought a decade ago, and never used, because she’s not that immobile, and, besides, she has me to push her around in the transport chair when we go places); a maple end table with a glass top; a small, patchwork quilt that, remarkably, had not been chewed on by moths or mice, and I had to keep because it was the quilt we used for the puppy I got when I was 5; a small, green, glass planter; two hammers; a wooden gun I made in 6th grade Shop class; a few small containers filled with nuts, bolts, nails. Everything else mom said to get rid of.
We cleaned out the red shed over the weekend. Mom sat in her transport chair, in a shady spot just in front of the doors of the shed, so she could review each thing as it was brought out. As I looked at her, sitting there, an 88-year old woman, reviewing her belongings and pronouncing judgment on them, I was overcome with a strange sense of melancholy. She was willingly, even happily, getting rid of many objects. The fanciful voice in my head saw it in terms of her letting her belongings dwindle down, as her own life is dwindling. She may still be going strong for an 88-year old woman with high-blood pressure, diabetes, fibrillation, a new heart valve, chronic kidney disease, arthritis, gout, and all the aches and pains of the elderly, but, at 88, the time before her is much less than the time that she’s already lived through. So, perhaps, she’s reviewing the past, and letting it go, with the acceptance that everything has its allotted time.
Or, then again, my fanciful voice is being silly.
The Red Shed gets torn down tomorrow.
The new, bigger shed starts being
built the day after. She’s already planning all the things that are going to be moved in when the building is complete.
We’re still trying to decide on a color.
When mom is around, one cannot watch tv or read or think of anything, because she likes to talk. If she can’t think of anything to say, she’ll tell you the same things over again. Or she’ll read parts of articles to you–only a sentence or two. Just enough to interrupt, never enough to inform. It’s always just enough to make you miss part of whatever it is that’s on tv.
Watching the news the other night, mom was in Full Chat Mode. The story on the news had something to do with the risks of some drug or other, and I was able to catch maybe every 10th word. Interspersed with the news report was mom’s voice.
This is how it all sounded:
Reporter: Let me ask…..
Mom: Remember when I took that one pill and it almost killed me?
Man: No….
Reporter:…ok then tell me…..
Mom: It’s a good thing I insisted on going to the hospital.
Man: Yes…..
Reporter:…heart attack.
Mom: My legs were swollen like big fat watermelons.
Man:…money….
Reporter: So then why….
Man: …money….
Mom: It’s a good think Obama hadn’t got his hands on healthcare then, or they’d have let me die.
Reporter: …..millions….
Man: …..you’re welcome.
Very strange, and highly uninformative.
In honor of Holy Thursday and Good Friday, I thought I’d repost a brief tale from Holy Thursday and Good Friday 2005:
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Speaking of my mom.
Apparently she’s doing something at Church tomorrow, called Veneration of the Blessed Sacrament.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“They open up the Gold Thing on the Altar, and display the Blessed Sacrament.”
“You just walk up and look at it?”
“It’s on display. You come in, they have Benedictions, and you see the Host.”
“The little wafers?”
“Yes, The Blessed Sacrament.”
I’m still not real sure about this Catholic ritual. Mom insists I must have done this back in the day. I think I would remember this. As far as I can tell, this is a special trip to church, to go look at the little crackers in a gold goblet and say a prayer. I’m sure I would remember having Made The Wafer Pilgrimage to the Church.
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So, I ask my mom “How’d the thing at church go?”
“Oh god! My back about killed me.”
“Did you have to stand the whole time?”
“No, I had to sit, but the pew was especially uncomfortable.”
“So what did you do there.”
“Just sat there.”
“Why?”
“Because the Host was on display.”
“Well, yeah, I got that part. But, why were you there? Did you have to help people out or tell them things?”
“No. While the Host is on display, someone always has to be there. It can’t be alone.”
Apparently the little, flat, white wafers have an abandonment complex or some such thing.
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I’ve since learned that this ritual is called Eucharistic Adoration.
My mother was 42 when I was born. My memories of her for the first few years of my life are rather vague and nebulous. It’s probably safe to say that I am unable to comment, with any firsthand knowledge, of the first 45 years of my mother’s life. But, for the 40-some odd years of mom memories that I do remeber, I can confidently claim that my mom is not a girly-girl. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing her. Just stating fact.
I can remember quite clearly how excited she was when the school district she taught for decided that it was alright for their female teachers to wear pants, rather than a dress every day. Ever since then, the only time mom wears a dress is for weddings, funerals, and certain special occasions.
Liberated she might have been, wearing those pantsuits, yet, she never got too liberated: she never burned a bra.
Now that she’s 88, she can’t do the things she once did, but, back in the day, my mom built and finished the cabinets in one of the bathrooms here in Chez Xanadu, she sanded and finished most of the built-ins in the house, she pounded nails, turned screws and sawed wood while the cabins in the mountains were being built, and she knows a few tricks about electrical wiring. She never wore her fingernails long, or painted them, as the paint would just chip, and the nails break during hard work. She wore a chipped nail, or a bandaged finger, as if it were a medal of honor.
And, let’s not forget this:
How many people can claim to have a photo, taken in the 1950s, of their mom on the rifle range, where she became a qualified marksman?
My mom’s never been into makeup — she had one tube of lipstick, and a couple of samples of other lipstick colors that she’d gotten at some Avon party, and that was all she owned for years. The tube of lipstick may have held the record for World’s Longest Living Lipstick — it resided in her top dresser drawer for my entire childhood, and was there when I moved out. She called me one day, I think I was in my early 20s, and told me she’d thrown out all her lipstick because she’d read an article that bacteria grew on the lipstick, and shouldn’t be used after a certain period of time. If it hadn’t been for that article, I have no doubt the tube of lipstick would still be there — only very special occasions warranted lipstick; being worn only once a year, a tube of lipstick can last a lifetime. Other than the lipstick, my mom has never worn any other makeup. I remember one time, she went to some makeup party, and came home with a new look. She showed us, we all made suitable noises of approval, then she went to the bathroom and washed it all off. “I’ve never had the patience to stand in front of
“I should have just told them not to replace the heart-valve, and to just let me die, then you wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced about anything.” This from my mom, who’s always lived by the rule “If you can’t be melodramatic, then why bother?”
Here’s some relevant information, to bring you up to speed:
In December 2009, about a month after her heart valve-replacement surgery, we had an appointment with her Nephrologist (translation: kidney doctor.) Mom’s been seeing him for almost a decade, as she has Chronic Kidney Disease. During this visit, her blood-work revealed that her Phosphorous levels were high, and the doctor gave her a list of foods to be careful of, to not eat too much of. On subsequent visits, I followed-up with the doctor about her Phosphorus level, and he would tell us that whatever she was doing was working — her levels were good. (In all honesty, we hadn’t changed much, since the doctor figured it had to do with the effects and aftereffects of her surgery).
Another piece of relevant information:
Over the past few months her blood pressure has been quite high, resulting in a 4-day stay in the hospital last month, various medication changes, one of which caused her to swell like a water balloon; the end result being a pill to help her get rid of all the fluid she was retaining (about 15 lbs, it turns out). The pill works by making you pee a lot, and, along the way, it depletes your potassium. During the most recent visit to the kidney doctor, he put her on a potassium supplement, because her potassium level was low. He felt it was temporary, due to the water pill, which she had stopped the day before, because the fluid had all been peed out. He suggested some foods that would help raise her potassium levels, requested a blood test in a month, and told her not to worry, it probably wasn’t a long-term issue, just an imbalance because of the water pill.
Yet another piece of relevant information:
Last month, while mom was in the hospital trying to get her blood-pressure under control, they discovered that she had atrial fibrillation. She’d had a-fib after her valve-replacement surgery, but, her heart beat regulated after a few months. It seems that it’s back, and, probably was there still after the surgery, just not as intense as it was after the surgery. A-fib is one of those conditions that, depending on the severity, and on the individual can be noticed by the patient when it happens, or the patient will never feel the fibrillations, so it can be hard to detect. Being hooked up to a heart monitor while she was in the hospital brought the condition to light. As a result, she’s on Coumadin, a blood-thinner, that will keep her blood from forming clots in the chambers of her heart. Blood pools a bit during an episode of a-fib, and, it can form clots, which can then be pumped out of the heart, and the clot can end up in the brain causing a stroke. The Coumadin responds to Vitamin K, which is present in green vegetables, and certain other fruits. So, you have to regulate your intake of these foods, because they can make your blood too thick or thin.
Final bit of relevant info:
My mom likes to be the center of attention. So, yes, it’s fair to say that we all have our moments where we desire to be in the spotlight, but, with mom, it’s more than our own basic need for recognition. My mom cannot bear to have a conversation that doesn’t somehow include her for very long. If people are talking about things she doesn’t know, she’ll change the subject back to her. If there’s a story being told, my mom will always have a better story about herself to share. She’s always been this way, but, as she’s gotten older, this tendency becomes more and more apparent. I suspect that part of it comes from having outlived most all of her friends and her generation of family, leaving her with few people to talk to regularly, so, now, when she gets the chance to talk, she can place herself firmly in the center. This has the unfortunate side-effect of impairing her listening abilities. She’s so focused on her part in the story, that she hears only selective parts of what anyone else is saying.
Yes, yes, I know… not the most exciting information in the world, but, it will add to the story, and, let’s be honest, when you’re writing, certain backstory information is always going to be mind-numbingly dull. Thank me for getting it out of the way at the beginning.
Now, onward to the story:
Vindication, when it comes to us, brings with it a superfluous sense of self-righteousness which then manifests itself in a satisfyingly smug “I told you so” smirk. When vindication does not favor you, but results in someone else directing that satisfyingly smug smirk at you, it seems as if said smug is in the worst possible taste.
Case in point:
My mom is a diabetic, has been since the 1980s. It’s only been in the last decade that she’s been on insulin, rather than pills. The insulin gave her much better control over her blood sugar levels. She was very serious, very diligent about testing her blood and taking her insulin until she had her aortic-valve replacement surgery two years ago. Since then, she’s been fairly lax: testing her blood only once a day, only taking once a day the insulin that she’s supposed to take with every meal. We’ve gone round and round about it, and things finally came to a head last week.
She called me at 3:46 a.m.
I had not yet gone to bed. I gave up sleep one year for Lent, and have yet to return to the regularity of a 7-8 hour a night rest. The phone ringing was not as startling as it is when one is asleep. Though, it should be said, that anytime an 88-year old parent calls in the middle of the night, it’s upsetting: there’s usually something wrong. On this particular night the news is that her blood-sugar level is low, and she needs juice.
If you’re unfamiliar with diabetes, the only thing you need to know at this point is that a low blood-sugar level is not good, and, if not rectified quickly, can result in serious consequences, and could even lead to death. I’m happy that my mom is aware of her lows; there are many diabetics who have no idea when their blood-sugar level is low, and this can make things much more complicated.
I made my way into the kitchen, poured her a half-a-cup of juice, adding half-a-packet of Equal sweetener to the juice, since fruit juice is never sweet enough for her, and brought the doctored-up juice to her room.
She was half-sitting up. Not only did she look like someone who was abruptly awoken from a sound sleep, but, she also had The Look. The Look is rather tough to describe in a few words. The Look is what she gets when her blood-sugar goes below a certain level; it is a look of Differentness: her skin, while not pale, is not quite as colorful as usual; her eyes seem to just be slightly unable to focus, so she squints ever-so-slightly; her speech, while not slurred or jumbled, is just different — to someone who wasn’t familiar with her speech, they’d probably not notice, but, to me, who is so familiar with her voice, there is this slightly strange difference to its tone and cadence. The Look seems almost as if she’s faded slightly. When I see her with The Look, I know that her blood-sugar is going to be really low.
As she is drinking the juice, I get out her blood-testing kit, place a testing strip into the machine, give her a damp washcloth to wipe away any possible sugars on her finger, as these could add sugar to her blood and give a false reading. I hand her the needle to stick her finger, which she places it against her left ring finger, and then presses the release. The needle shoots out, pricking a small hole in her finger, and a second later, a rich, red blood droplet appears on the tip of her finger. I put the test strip up to the blood drop, the meter beeps, indicating it has enough blood to sample, and within a few seconds we have the result: 45. A good blood-sugar level is 70-100, while less than 70 is considered low (the lower the number, the more serious the low).
I hate when the number is in the 40s, as that’s when bad things have happened. She gets quite belligerent when her blood-glucose level is that low, resisting and arguing every step of the way (for many diabetics, this is a common side-effect of low sugar). When she gets belligerent, she likes to insult me and call me names — during these episodes, she’s called me queer, homely, stupid, fat, whore, and, more than once, she’s called me a fag. One example: she was being very belligerent with me, and was refusing to drink any juice. An argument ensued, with her telling me “I’m 85 years old, dammit, and I don’t need my fag son telling me what to do. I got to be this age without any help from you!” I, in turn, told her that if she didn’t take the juice, I was going to call the ambulance, and that all of the neighbors would see her being carried out on a stretcher. Even though mom loves to be the center of any and all attention, the thought of being carried out of the house, on a stretcher, in her night clothes proved to be too much. She drank the juice. After, she had no recollection of the argument (this also seems to be common to many diabetics when they are having lows, this forgetfulness of what has happened. According to her doctor, I’m not supposed to take these words seriously, though, I cannot help but wonder if she is giving voice to thoughts she keeps buried, or if they truly are meaningless thoughts brought on by her condition). Another time, when her blood-sugar dropped to 40, she couldn’t keep the juice down, and she had moved her emergency glucose needle (a syringe full of glucose, to be injected in just such an instance) and it was not in the place where it is usually kept. The ambulance had to come that time. Another time (though, this time her low was caused by her accidentally taking 20 units of the fast-acting, daytime insulin, instead of the 20 units of the slow-acting night insulin) we were up most of the night,feeding her toast, juice, and several other things, and testing her blood every 30 minutes, until….I’m not sure what the “until” was. I just know that it was daylight by the time she was stable and we were able to sleep. The Rest Of The Story Is This Way
I knew mom’s recovery from her eyelid surgery was going well when she asked to go for a krautburger ,something she likes doing 2 or three times a week.
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A krautburger (a.k.a. runza, bierock) is a yeast dough pocket stuffed with beef, onions & cabbage
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While we were eating and chatting, I was looking at mom’s eyes, trying to remember the medical term for her (formerly) droopy eyelids. Ptosis, she said. That’s it. That was the word. Once it was introduced into conversation it seemed like a natural progression to talk of spelling.
Mom, former school teacher that she is, was reminded of a time when one of her students asked her how to spell something. Mom replied with the Standard Teacher Answer, “Look it up in the dictionary.” The girl returned to her seat. When mom glanced at her a few minutes later, she saw that the girl’s eyes were filled with tears. At that moment mom realized that the Standard Teacher Answer is flawed — if one doesn’t know how to spell a word to begin with, the chances of finding said word are questionable. Sure, certain words you can certain words you can find easily — is occasion spelled with one c or two? or is it two c’s and two s’s (I have to look this up all the time). But ptosis? If you were unaware of the silent p you would never be able to find it in the pages of your Webster.
The conversation played in my mind as we were driving home, and I recalled that I had a pair of silent p stories.
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Silent P, Story One: “A Brief Interlude.”
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Mrs Campbell: intelligent, classy, wildly liberal, wickedly funny. She was the 70-year old grandmother of my first lover, Will. I met and fell in love with Will when I was 18. The fact that he was twelve years older than me isn’t really relevant to the story other than to provide a glimpse into my 18 year old psyche — I was looking for someone to take care of me, maybe a surrogate father figure, and I was looking for a way to get away from home. Will was just what I was looking for: a man with a job. The fact that the probable reason I got involved with him was that we spent all of our free time having the most intensely amazing sex isn’t really relevant either as I suspect that when you are 18, any sex at all seems intensely amazing. I mention him only because the story is about his grandmother
Mrs Campbell was the most fabulous 70-year old woman I have ever known. She enthralled me instantly, and I knew that I would do anything to be a part of her circle; there was a sort of “Pick me! Pick me!” feeling that she created within people, leaving behind broken hearts among those not lucky enough to be picked. I’ve never been entirely sure if she didn’t pick me, or if Will just kept us apart because he was jealous — he was jealous of most anyone I came in contact with; he was even more jealous of all the imaginary people I was supposed to have come in contact with. (As I write this, a thought I had not had before popped into my mind. What does it say about a relationship when you mourn the loss of a lover’s grandmother more than you mourned the loss of the lover?)
One afternoon we were having lunch at Mrs Campbell’s house, when the phone rang (this was pre-callerID and pre-cellphone). She answered the phone, and, from the sound of it, the call was some sort of business call. Toward the end of the conversation, she said the following: “Yes, that’s right. Campbell. No. Campbell with a p. The p is silent, as in swimming.” I very nearly became intimately acquainted with the silent p, as I was laughing so hard. I heard her utter this witticism a few more times during the three-and-a-half years we were together — Will and I, not Mrs Campbell and I. Though I think that had it been Mrs C. and I, we’d still be together. Of course, she’d be in her 90s by now. I always laughed when I heard her talk about the silent p in swimming — and, I laughed hysterically at the people who had no idea what she meant.
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Silent P, Story Two: “Longer Than An Interlude.”
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Flashback: Seventh Grade English Class. We’d been instructed to write an essay of some sort, one of those “What I did this summer” types of assignments. I do not recall what the actual assignment was, though there is a vague memory that I was writing something to do with my father. What I remember is that I wanted to use the word pneumonia, but I had no idea of how to spell it. This particular teacher was big on the Standard Teacher Answer, “Look it up in the dictionary.” So I, being a diligent student (at least at that point in time), got up from my desk, made my way to the teacher’s desk, and grabbed the big Webster’s dictionary that she kept enshrined on the corner of her desk like some sort of religious reliquary.
Returning to my desk with the Holy Grail, I began my search for ‘pneumonia.” I spent at least ten minutes searching for the word. I tried new-monia, nu-monia, and na-monia first. No luck. So I tried looking under no-monia. Nope. Then I thought for a minute. Knew-monia seemed far fetched but worth a try. Yep. Far fetched. I reviewed my thoughts and wondered if it was the monia part where I was wrong. So I tried new-moania and new-moan-ya. That wasn’t it either.I tried the various monia spellings with all of the various new spellings I could think of, even going so far as to try moan-ja, and feeling rather pleased with my cleverness (even though it didn’t provide the correct spelling). Then, suddenly, the thought struck me! I flipped the pages of the dictionary, feeling sure that I had the correct spelling this time: gnu-moania! Not it. I was crushed and at a loss.
Frustrated, I brought the dictionary back to the teacher’s desk and asked, “How do you spell pneumonia?” Instead of offering up the spelling, or even a hint, as she had watched me take the dictionary, she said simply, “Look it up in the dictionary.” I’m fairly certain my eyebrows went up, and the tone of my voice went right up with the eyebrows. “I’ve been trying, that’s why I took the dictionary, but I can’t find the word.” It’s been thirty years, but I can still recall the look of distaste she gave me, as if I had just farted in her face, the tone of her voice matching the look on her face,”Then I suggest you stick to writing about things you can spell.” That was definitly not the proper response. I walked back to my desk, shoved my things into my backpack, and slung it over my shoulder. I grabbed the essay, walked back to her desk, and with a flouish threw my unfinished essay at her, saying in a very loud voice “You can take this essay and shove it so far up your tight ass that it’ll take an a big fucking enema to wash it out!” As I turned to walk out, she stood up and grabbed my arm, which, quite frankly, is not something you should ever do to a person who is angrily walking away. My hand involuntarily became a fist, and my arm came around in a swing as I spun around to face her, somehow finding control in the last few moments, a control that kept me from doing something I’d never done to anyone before. “Get your fucking hand off my arm.” She looked at me, stunned, although her grip tightened on my arm. I knew I was trembling, and the control I’d found a moment earlier was starting to slip. I’ve never wanted to hit someone so badly, as I did in that moment. “Take your fucking hand off of my arm.” We glared at each other in silence for a few long seconds. I had an awareness that every eye in the room was glued to the melodrama being played out before their eyes. I’m sure there wasn’t a sound in the room until, finally, I said in a small, deadly voice, “Take your fucking hand off of me you stupid bitch!” (Was that a gasp I heard from somewhere in the back of the room?)
She let go.
I stormed out of the classroom.
I remember having this even more irrational moment of anger when I realized that the doors had such hinge-control that I couldn’t slam the damn thing on my way out!
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Interestingly, incidents like this have a way of reaching your parents before you can get home. My mother was none to happy with me. Memory says that I was grounded for two weeks. Only when I was older did my mom discover that being grounded was not something I thought of as punishment. Being grounded was supposed to mean that I couldn’t go anywhere, except with my family, which, considering I had no friends that I did anything with, was not an inconvenience for me. Being grounded meant I could watch no television, and, I had to stay in my room — this was the best part of being grounded! I’d go to my room when I got home from school, where I’d usually finish my homework before dinner. After dinner and chores, I was to go to my room. I spent the rest of the “being grounded” evening reading. As someone who has loved books since he learned how to read, being confined to my room with nothing to do but read…well, I am unable to think of anything that is less of a punishment than this. There was, however, a punishment handed out that I did indeed consider punishment: I had to apologize to my teacher. The apology was given, though, even now, it’s still not really meant. Yes, I will admit to a quite dramatic overreaction, but, with as condescending as she was, I’m not sorry I called her a stupid bitch. I am sorry for embarrassing my parents, for disappointing them, and for adding some unneeded stress to what was already a stressful time for us all.
My father was dying.
Lest you think I’m just a raging, violent man, an understanding of my life at this time is in order. This incident took place during a time in my life that can only be called A Very Bad Point. In the six months prior to my dramatic departure from English class, my father had gone from being the solid, dependable man he’d always been to being a man who was dying.
It began, as so many stories do, with a phone call in the middle of the night. The voice on the phone told my mom that dad was in the ER. My dad had left his day job, driven to his night job, parked the car in the employee parking lot that was a couple of blocks from the building he worked in. While walking to the building, he developed serious chest pains and shortness of breath. Thankfully, the building he worked in was a hospital building. He didn’t have a heart attack, but the walk on a bitterly cold December night brought his heart problems to light. A treadmill test later in the day confirmed it all, and within a few hours he was in surgery, a quadruple bypass. This was in December 1978, back in a time when surgeries were bigger, and recovery times were longer.
By April of 1979, his recovery from the heart surgery was going better than expected. His scar healed faster than expected, and his energy returned quickly. He was the picture of a very healthy man.
Until that April morning when he had a seizure.
We knew there was going to be snow overnight, and, when the alarm clock woke us, my little brother came into my room, crawled into the bed with me, and we listened to my radio, and let out a whoop of delight when we heard that school had been cancelled. Keep in mind, this is Denver, and we’re used to snow, so there needs to be a good deal of snow on the ground for schools to close. We also heard that mom’s school was going to be closed. We laid there for awhile, trying to decide if we wanted to sleep or get up, when all of a sudden mom literally threw the door to my bedroom open. “Get up. Get out and shovel the walks. Now.”
This was a surprise.
Yes, we knew we’d need to shovel, but, we’d never been made to go out so early.
“But mom,” I began, protesting.
“Go. Now.” She left.
David and I looked at each other. Mom had said her few words in such a tone that there was no doubt that we needed to shovel. Now.
We shoveled down the walk, from the door to the street, and, just as we were starting on the sidewalk that ran parallel to the street, a fire truck and two ambulances pulled up to the house. I stood there, stunned, and watched as all these men got out of the vehicles, some with bags of gear, two others hauled out a stretcher, and headed up the walk to the house. I thought for a moment there was a mistake, until I noticed that mom was standing at the door, holding it open for the men to enter our home. I remember standing there, watching all the men go in the house, and watching the door close. I remember looking at David. We both stood there, not sure of what to do. The moment passed, and we both dropped shovels and ran into the house.
“What’s going on?” I demanded of mom, who was standing in the doorway to their bedroom. Behind her I could see the men all bent over my father, though I couldn’t see what exactly they were doing.
“Dad had a seizure. That’s all I know.” She turned back to watch what they were doing to dad.
In a matter of minutes he was on a stretcher and being wheeled out of the house, and into the ambulance. Mom told me to watch David, and she got into the ambulance. David and I stood there and watched everyone get back into the emergency vehicles and drive off.
We didn’t know what to do, so we did the only thing we could think of: finish shoveling the sidewalks.
In the days to come, we learned that dad had a brain tumor; we sat for hours in a waiting room while they operated to remove the tumor;m and we learned the worst: it was cancer; it was serious; it meant he had five to eleven months to live (he was to make it to the tenth month).
My outburst in English class happened about a month after this, perhaps just before school was to let out for the summer, the summer that was probably to be the last summer I’d spend with my father.
I see you nodding, and hear you saying “Uh huh, anger displacement. The trivial event in class was really a reaction to a much larger problem.”
I see you nodding, and I hear you. I’ll give you full credit, even though it’s an easy answer.
I’ll give you a hint too: if you need to look up displacement in the dictionary, you don’t need to worry about the p in swimming.
