No Country for Old Men, continued

By Fred Owens

A quick survey of my pals around the country -- from email contacts, phone calls and Facebook posts -- showed variations of Old, Weak, Tired and Scared, not to mention Poor and Lonely.

I am making this sound much worse than it is, but here goes:

Al K. in South Texas fell and broke his hip. He's stuck in the Rehabilitation Center for now. His wife said he got a four-hour furlough to come home on Christmas Day in a wheel chair. That was five days ago, he might be better now.

Stuart in LaConner seems to be recovering nicely from back surgery. He is out walking and playing golf and he sounded cheerful on the phone.

Marc Zappa has COPD. We have no new report here, but he struggles to walk the dog and climb the stairs. I told him we need to discuss the Grateful Dead in our next phone call. Zappa is a major Dead Head. He has every tape ever imagined of any possible Dead Show.

Bruce does nine hours every week at the kidney dialysis center in Santa Barbara. He says if you have two kidneys and you are under the age of forty, might he borrow one. Bruce continues to be in good spirits.

Jim, also in Santa Barbara, will find out if his prostate cancer has spread. He said it might be terminal.

Amy, back in LaConner, has a tumor in the back of her eye. Her husband told me it is too dangerous to perform  a biopsy in that location so they don't know what will happen. Hopefully nothing.

Mark in the Hollywood Hills has multiple myeloma. I have to look that up and learn what that is, otherwise his wife, who is a retired nurse, can fill me in.

So I heard from all these people and I wasn't even looking for bad news. You're supposed to not let it get you down. You're supposed to not feel Old, Weak, Tired, Poor, Scared or Lonely. But you do sometimes.

Enough of That. This is part of a series temporarily called No Country for Old Men, a title borrowed from Cormac McCarthy without his permission. The topic is Medical Education. The method  is to be lucid and matter-of-fact. These things just happen. I got the idea years ago from Roger Geffen, a retired Episcopalian priest who lived in Newton, Massachusetts, and raised twenty species of bamboo that could grow in the harsh climate of New England. Roger's left arm just hung there from a stroke. He pointed to it with his good right hand and he said. "My left arm doesn't work anymore." He spoke the truth. Truth is good. Truth is beauty. So in reporting on this topic I will lay it out as plainly as possible. I will write the truth as I am able.

Health Care Issues. Will millions of aging Baby Boomers use up every available health care asset in the country? That is a good question because the tidal wave is coming soon. I am on the cusp of the Baby Boom, born in 1946, so I have seen this crowd following me through life, and we are now facing the infirmities of old age. One partial solution to this problem is for us to make a lot of effort to take care of each other, and to depend less on the younger folks to look after us.

There aren't enough Filipino nurses to go around. The young Latino immigrants who would take nursing aide positions are being blocked at the border. Oh, we will get through this all right, and we'll do that by helping each other. If you have one good arm like Roger Geffen you can use that one good arm to wipe the fevered brow of a man with no good arms.

Gee, that's kind of serious stuff. I think we will go watch a movie tonight -- something funny and entertaining, like the Green Book with Vigo -- how do you spell his name? and the other actor -- how do you spell his name? Why don't they have Clark Gable and Henry Fonda anymore? They were good actors and it was easy to spell their names.

Twenty Years. Frog Hospital is celebrating 20 years of publication in 2019. Over 700 issues and some of them were pretty good. Our Credo has always been tell the truth and don't waste people's time -- meaning keep it interesting. We have done that. And we plan to keep going. Our motto is Onward!

Happy New Year,

Fred

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

By Fred Owens

The lyrics were written by Charley Wesley, the melody was composed by Felix Mendelssohn. It is one of my favorite Christmas carols, mainly because you get to say Hark!  ..... Hark! is a word rarely used in conversation or written prose. Like Hark! the postman cometh. Or Hark! the dishes are done so we can sit on the couch and watch TV. Now we only get to sing Hark! once a year.

Christmas at our House

I suggested to Laurie  for Christmas this year let's not go any place or spend any money. She agreed to that plan. We, mainly her, made cookies last week, one batch of walnut puffs and one batch of rosemary shortbread. The rosemary shortbread cookies take finely chopped rosemary from the bush right out the back door and the rosemary just adds a hint of flavor. Quite delicious. We, jointly, went to Home Depot and spent 49 dollars on a five-foot noble fir, chosen for its shape -- not being too wide, to fit in the central place between the kitchen, dining room and living room. It is a prominent position for the tree, but also a high-traffic area. We decorated the tree with ornaments stored in the garage, many ornaments having a story from Laurie's folks. Laurie spread out figurines and Christmas knick-knacks around the house, with garlands and lights. Once again we could not fix the light on the angel that goes on top of the tree, but up the angel flies and she is beautiful.

This Friday we are going to Ann's house for an evening party. She is from Switzerland and she is famous for her chocolate mousse. Her cookies are outrageous and enormously complicated and made just so, she being Swiss. I keep a low-level of enthusiasm for her treats however and especially avoid comparisons about these things. Just saying "oh, how tasty!"

Laurie's two daughters will be home. Mariah lives in a cabin in the backyard, Shannon just moved back from a year in Hawaii. Shannon is going to nursing school in Santa Cruz in January. I am convinced she will make an excellent nurse. Shannon and Mariah are both tall. Laurie is tall. Laurie's four brothers are tall. It runs in the family. They are all good-looking, smart and kind.

I saw my son Eugene this Friday. We ate lunch at a cafe in his east Los Angeles neighborhood. We had a warm conversation and I will see him again in the off-week again between Christmas and New Years. Eva, my daughter, has a lovely home with her wife Lara in Seattle, which is a fine place to live but too far away. Their child is Finnegan, a boy 18 months old now and about to be joined by a new child, a new grand child for Laurie and me, expected to arrive in mid-August. This is very joyful news.

For Christmas music I play the piano. I can play O Come Little Children, which was my mother's favorite and has only three chords. Otherwise we play Ann Murray on Pandora. Sometimes we play Dean Martin or Perry Como. Sometimes Brenda Lee, Connie Francis or Elvis. Sometimes Mahalia Jackson.

Decisions. Jerry Barajas was my barber. He worked at the Mesa Barber Shop until he left last month to a new shop that is not so conveniently located. I called him and told him I would get my next haircut at his new place. But not today, today I have a 10:30 appointment at the Mesa Barber Shop with some guy I don't know. The Mesa Barber Shop is so handy. The used book shop is right next door. And after  I cruise the used book shop, then I walk across the street to the Mesa Cafe for the noon meeting of the Kiwanis Club. And Jerry was my barber. It was all perfect. A man needs a good barber to feel right. And I'm superstitious --- I don't let people touch my hair unless I trust them. I trust Jerry, but now what do I do? Stay with the shop -- and the barbers there are all pretty good  -- or go with Jerry?

Silence. Laurie and I were having morning coffee and reading the newspaper. I said to her I'm not going to say anything until I say something that you haven't heard me say before. She said fine. Long silence while I tried to think of something to tell her that's new. Okay, I got one, I told her. I don't think they should shut down the government. We have the government because we need it, you know, libraries and cops and things. Laurie agreed. Another long silence. OK, here's another one I haven't said before. I'm going to buy new boxer trunks at Macy's and get them after New years when things are quiet......You're not going to Sears? she said. Everything is marked down at Sears.....Yeah, because they're going out of business. It's too chaotic. What if I want to return the boxer trunks and the store is closed. I'm going to Macy's.

Another long silence, but a pleasant, almost happy silence. You know, thinking of new things to say is good.

Merry Christmas to all of you,

Fred

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

No Country for Old Men

By Fred Owens

Three Stories about Health Care

Everybody calls him Zappa because that's who he looks like, but his name is Marc Daniel. He lives in Mount Vernon in the Skagit Valley. I have known him more than 35 years since we used to work in the flower fields picking daffodils for the Lefeber Bulb Company. We weren't really friends at that time because of his cocaine and Wild Turkey habit and he talked way too loud and too fast. But he overcame the drugs and we became friends although he still talks too loud and too fast.

I called him last week and he told me about the severe pain in his neck, which he got from a car accident more than a year ago. "Sometimes it hurts so bad that I forget about the COPD. But I get winded very easily these days like climbing stairs." Does he still smoke? I don't ask questions like that. He went on to complain about the doctor who treats him for Hep C, or hepatitis C. "I had to wait one hour for his appointment. Every time I go there I have to wait one hour. My primary care doctor told me don't bother getting mad because that doctor is always late for everybody. Anyway, I only need to go back in 12 weeks for a followup. So the Hep C is under control, for now."


I have only known Bruce Byers a few years, from the Santa Barbara Kiwanis Club. He was a naval chaplain, twenty years in the Reserves and several years on active duty. Bruce gave me a full record of his naval service, onboard ship during Desert Storm and two years at a naval base in Japan. The thing about being a chaplain is that you don't get to preach your own brand of religion, but you need to serve everyone who walks in the door who wants to talk, or who wants to listen, or who wants to jump overboard -- the chaplain probably has a mandate to resist that last request..... These are important details -- I need to take notes.

Today is Saturday. For Bruce that means he goes to the kidney dialysis center for a three-hour session in the chair. Every Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday he goes for three hours. He brings his smart phone, his laptop and maybe a book. You can call him. You can be sure he's going to be there. I can be selfish about this. Everybody I know gets busy and they might not have time to talk with me. Not Bruce. I know where he is, three times a week. I call he answers. That's a comfort for me. I have been to the dialysis center twice and sat with him for a few minutes. He is hooked up to this very expensive looking gizmo that cleans his blood.

It's a good thing if you have two working kidneys because they are on the job 24/7. Bruce is a on two kidney transplant waiting lists. The local list has him waiting 8 years. But his naval service puts him on another list, only 2 years. Either way you do not get a new kidney, but a used one, and the donor needs to be under 40 years of age, meaning the kidney is 40 years old and good for decades more service. Bruce is a good fellow to talk to. He gave me a detailed description of the surgical procedure on his knee that led to an infection that even powerful antibiotics could not stop. The infection ultimately trashed his kidneys and that got him to the chair.

Jim Langley is a New York Life Insurance agent. He is mainly retired now. I also know Jim from the Santa Barbara Kiwanis Club. Last week he drove down to the UCLA medical center for a biopsy on his prostate. The prostate is a mystery to me. They cause so much trouble. I don't even know why we have them. Women get along fine without them. I could read some article on Web MD and study up on it. Jim is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. He says the doctors in Santa Barbara are pretty good, but the doctors in UCLA have the latest technology, so he makes the two-hour drive to get that top-quality service. When I interviewed him for this story, well this is California, so I asked him about traffic on the 101. He said he flew down there like he had angel wings and got there in one hour and 45 minutes, early for the appointment, got it done, and then flew down the freeway back to Santa Barbara. You're a happy man in California if you can beat the traffic on the 101 thanks to those angel wings.

Laurie, my darling girlfriend and home companion, just know handed me her iPad with the Web MD prostate primer open for me to read. Time to study up. The prostate does have a purpose, but there are several design flaws in my opinion.

I will continue to monitor and interview these three men and keep you posted. They are all three good talkers supplying rich details without running off at the mouth about other things. Not taking notes helps to establish rapport and makes the conversation flow informally. But ultimately I will need to take notes for greater accuracy and find the level of detail without leading to pedantry. The idea is to present their situation in a matter of fact way without drama or depression. This is just what happened.

Books. I have just started the second volume of the Raj Quartet by Paul Scott --- titled the Day of the Scorpion. I am encouraged by the testimony of my college classmate Virginia Smith. She lives in Toronto and she told me she has read the Raj Quartet with great pleasure and more than once.

Movies. Movies we would like to see this Christmas season are -- Roma, the Green Book, the Bohemian Rhapsody and Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Politics. It was with thanks to heaven that we enjoyed the Trump-free days of George Bush's funeral. It took a phalanx of former presidents at the National Cathedral to shut him up, but there was Trump and he was silent. This gave me hope.

Happy Holidays,

Fred


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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

Patti Detzer was in my dream last night

By Fred Owens

Patti Detzer was in my dream last night. We were at a party and she was wearing a chicken costume and she was dancing and laughing and her hair was wild...... I rented a room for two years at Patti's farmhouse on Fir Island. It was such an austere almost monastic atmosphere with the silence and the wind. Patti and I rarely talked or ever ate meals together, but we did go on one date -- to see Leonard Cohen in Seattle. We rode down to this concert with Marc Zappa and Kathy Woelke. It was pretty fine music. Other than that for two years while I lived there she sat on the floor in the living room eating popcorn and watching TV in the evening. I sat in my room and read books and drank wine.

My son bought me the Leonard Cohen tickets as a surprise gift, two tickets. I needed a date. Who to ask? Anybody special in my life at that time? Nobody. Except Patti, who was my landlady, and there are boundaries for that relationship, but I knew she loved Leonard Cohen, and I knew she would accept my offer. So we had a pretty good time.

But it was a cold winter in that farmhouse with wood heat and my bedroom was in the corner away from the warm areas. It was Dec. of 2007 when I moved in. I was working full time as a nursing aide on the evening shift at Skagit Valley Hospital and usually came home about 11:30. Had a glass of wine, went to sleep. Got up in the morning -- it was cold, cold, took a shower and dashed off in the car to the Rexville Store to have coffee and talk with my pals.

Patti charged me $350 for the room. A good price, except I had to split and stack the firewood and carry it into the house and pay for it as well....... Anyway, the view from my bedroom window was glorious -- muddy fields and thousands of snow geese. Eagles in the cottonwoods. It was worth being cold, but after two winters I had enough and moved back into town.

Patti was good people.

Johnny Carson. We came upon some DVD tapes of the Johnny Carson Show from the 1980s -- guests were Dyan Cannon, Rodney Dangerfield and the animal man with a pet alligator. Johnny was always there, from 1962 to 1992. Thirty years, five nights a week. He was always there. We loved watching it last night. It wasn't nostalgic. It's like we were just there in the present.  Dyan Cannon was wild and free. Rodney Dangerfield was funny but he got tiresome. Tonight we will watch the DVD with Robin Williams as the main guest  -- it could be good.

Johnny Carson, not to elevate him too much, meant that America was whole and one country. Everybody liked him. Well, not everybody, but everybody was used to him being live on the TV five nights a week. He was American -- like mowing the lawn.

I mention lawn mowing because lawns are almost gone from drought-stricken California. We had to cut back on lawns because of the drought but I am beginning to miss them. Going bare foot, green and wet under the sprinklers on hot days in July in suburban Chicago when I was a kid. Neighbor to neighbor. They still have all-green lawns in the Midwest  -- I don't want California to be too different.

George Bush Dies. Like millions of Americans I compared him to the guy we have now, and Bush comes out decent. Not to endorse Bush's accomplishments, but the point is that if a man is decent you might be able to influence his process.

Not too late to wish you Happy Thanksgiving one more time. And Happy Hanukkah.

Fred

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital