All Over Again

I had the fortune or misfortune to sit within range of a luncheon meeting probably arranged by a dating service, in Arlington Center today.

The late 30s something woman was there alone, shortly joined by a late 40s man apologizing for being late.

It was interesting to see how these meetings proceed. What are the formalities? What information is passed first? Professional credentials, it seems are early in the order of business. I learned that she was working on a MS in Nursing, Pediatrics, at MGH. He was working teaching music to children, ostensibly, but claimed that the parents needed the most work. Music therapy, it turned out. He said he hadn’t had a job that paid benefits for two years. He was also getting a Ph. D. from an obscure mail order College in Florida. Only the Thesis left to be accepted.

Next came places they had lived, he on the south shore of Massachusetts, she in New York State. Some where in there she mentioned a sister who was having twins. “Bait”, I thought. He didn’t pick up on it but shifted to currant living arrangements. Turns out he had lived in cooperative housing for a long time. That was when my ears seriously perked up. His first house ruptured after two of the residents decided to get pregnant, with out consulting the others. After the initial feelings of being ignored were processed some of the original members decided they were willing to live with a child and some not. He went with the child accepting group and he and another resident bought a house in Dorchester. The mother-to-be didn’t want to be on the Deed because she was a tax resistor and was afraid the IRS would go after the house. He alluded to ways she manages to hide her money. Actually they have done it again. They are having a second child, again, with out consulting the other residents. He is also a tax resister and was fined $500.00 last year for filing a “frivolous” tax return, even though he had sent a letter with the return explaining his stand.

I had a short image of the IRS bureaucrat opening the return with the letter prominently fixed to the form.

From there he launched into the currant political scene in Massachusetts. He is Green but must re-register as a Democrat so that he can have some impact in the primary. He has “issues” with Duval Patrick and thinks Riley isn’t “too bad”, which surprised me.

I could have been listening to the conversation in the early 70’s. I didn’t know these folks were still around. Oppositional Personality Disorder, I thought. I hope he is independently wealthy. Does he plan to receive Social Security? Medicare?

I paid my bill and left

Last Winter

It is cold as ‘Billy be Dammed’ here today, Eighteen degrees and a good stiff wind. I was checking my front door for leaks and managed to lock myself out. I was in my slippers and there is a glaze on all the snow, everything frozen up tight and very slippery. I had a key hidden in a ceramic elephant in the back yard. The gate was frozen shut so I had to climb over the picket fence, a tricky maneuver. I had my plastic snow shovel and proceeded to try to chip the elephant out of the snow, it turned out to be ice. No luck getting it free to access the key. Luckily it was warmer in the sun in the back yard and I had on my long underwear. I thought of the metal garden tools hanging in a bag by the front door. I climbed back over the picket fence, ouch ouch ouch, and went for a pair of pruners when I spotted a rock I had brought back from Long Island as a memento. I picked up the rock, climbed back over the fence, ouch ouch ouch, and smashed the elephant with the rock. There was the key. My glasses fell off and both lenses fell out on the snow. Luckily I saw them, put the lenses in one pocket and the frames in another. I left the rock with the pieces of the former elephant, took the key. By this time my hands were very cold, climbed over the fence, ouch ouch, I'm getting better at it, went to the front door. I had a hard time getting the key in the lock. My hands weren't working too well and as it opened I was greeted by a blast of warm air. I dropped the spare key in the bag with the garden tools. Enough of this clever hiding places caper. Enough adventures for one day.

Hospitalized

I was relieved to be admitted. I was beginning to doubt my ability to care for myself at home. The downward trajectory of my health had been very gradual. At aged 74 I thought it was “old age”. Morning naps, afternoon naps that evolved to most of the day in bed sleeping.

The chills and fever started after six to eight weeks into my decline. My fever would go up about 11:30 am and break about 4:00 am. Not high fevers, 100.2 rising to 101.4 by the end of the week.

I saw my nurse practitioner on Thursday. She called on Friday asking me to go in for a chest x-ray. Then she left another message asking me to get “Blood Cultures” at Urgent Care. I didn’t get the blood culture message until I returned home. I was too tired and it was too late to return to the Infirmary. I checked with my Doctor son and we thought I could wait until Monday.

By Sunday afternoon I was feeling sick enough to call my son and ask him to take me to the Emergency Room.

When we arrived it became apparent that we were in for a long wait. I told him to go home and I would let him know whether to pick me up or bring my suitcase back.

It was about 2:00 pm.
“ You won’t get to your bed until 11:00 pm.” He said.
“ That’s OK. I don’t have anything else to do.”

I was placed in a cubical and a Nurse started by doing my vital signs. An ER Doctor interviewed me. Blood was drawn and I was told I was being admitted. I was told my lungs were clear but that I had a low platelet count and that they were doing blood cultures.

I was placed in a room with two other women, both in their 90’s. I looked at them, one non-responsive and the other diagnosed with Lung Cancer.

“I don’t want to end up like this.”

I was having blood drawn 4-6 times a day and being wheeled on a gurney to the basement for Ultra-sounds, X-ray, a CAT scan, with contrast.

The hospital is a teaching hospital so I had a team of Doctors, an Intern, an “Attending” then the two specialists, from Hematology and Infectious Diseases.

The Hematologist mentioned drawing a “bone marrow” referring to my history of Breast Cancer, Chemo therapy and radiation. The ID guy wanted to know if I had been any place that had endemic Malaria.

By this time my son Caleb, a doctor at Beth Israel Hospital was consulting with my Doctors and telling me what was going on.

I had an enlarged spleen, very low platelets and the blood smears showed a parasite in my red blood cells. The Infectious Disease Doctor Tully started me on two antibiotics. I began to feel better the next day. My fever was gone. I could get a deep breath. One complaint I had had for more than a month was the feeling that I couldn’t get a “full” breath.
I thought I would be going home soon and asked to be transferred to the infirmary at MIT, my choice for any recovery.

My Intern, Dr. Cox, appeared and said they were transferring me to “Telemetry”. It seems my Atrial Fibrillation was not well controlled and Caleb told me I had some “inverted T waves” and they were afraid I was having a heart attack. They wanted to monitor me and do “six sets of Cardiac Enzymes”. My poor left arm looked like a war zone from all the times I had been “stuck”. My right arm was off limits because of some edema in my right hand, a result of surgery for breast CA.

I was packed up. Put in a wheelchair and taken down to the 4th floor. Dr. Cox said he had tried to get me on the 3d floor but there were no beds. I was wheeled into a room with one empty bed, the other two were occupied by Alzheimer’s patients. One was quiet and docile sitting in her chair. The other was being watched by a woman, hired for the purpose, who had the TV over my bed going full blast and talking to another “Watcher” from across the hall, whose patient was down stairs for tests.

It was as though I had landed in a mad house. The patient across from me kept saying loudly, “Why am I here? What’s wrong with me.” She had pulled her IV out at least twice and so had to be watched.” She didn’t get much attention from her caretaker until her son and husband arrived.

She turned her attention to them. “You just want to get rid of me. You have a girlfriend and just wanted me out of the house. What’s wrong with me? Why am I here?”

I wanted to shout, “You have Alzheimer’s!”

My Doctor son, Caleb came in and Dr. Cox came down to talk with him.

“ Get me out of here. This is a nightmare.” I said.
“ We’ll see what we can do. This is the time people go home.”

Within 10 minutes a nurse appeared and said, “We’re moving you. It is a private room with a view of the Charles River.”

I felt there had been an intercession by God. She had reached down and saved me.

It was decided that I had contracted Babesia a tick born parasite related to Malaria. My Cardiac enzymes were negative. My Cardiologist adjusted my medications and my heart rate slowed down. I had been in the hospital for a week and in the MIT Infirmary for three days.

This was my first experience with my own mortality, very frightening and humbling. I was stunned with how suddenly you can go from feeling competent and strong to thinking about Assisted Living.

I have made my peace with my primary job, taking care of myself. I’m feeling stronger every day. I am in touch with my Gratitude.

War Bride,1955

Last night I remembered a woman I had known during out first year of Graduate School at Indiana University.
We both lived in “married student housing” which consisted of row on row of trailers, placed on one of the old athletic fields on the Campus.
These accommodations had been installed to house army personnel during the Second World War and were still in use in 1955, the year of our arrival.
My husband and I had a “single”, one room with no running water. The only utilities we had were electricity and a kerosene heater. All bathing, toilet and gray water disposal took place at a common expanded trailer centrally located to serve about ten occupied trailers. The community also had a "Peeping Tom". A neighbor told me he had seen him looking in one of our windows at night and advised me to draw our curtains.
It was a hard year and I got very depressed as the year went on. It was our first year of marriage. My husband was preoccupied with his studies and his frustrating struggle with his Major Professor. I was trying to find work in a small community with more people looking, than jobs available.
I don’t remember how we met or why we connected but I became aware of a Japanese woman in an “expanded” trailer near mine. Perhaps we met in the bathroom. I was drawn to her feeling her isolation and sadness, perhaps common to us both.
I started to visit her in her trailer, for tea and conversation. She was a War Bride, meeting her husband during the American Occupation. It was a terrible mismatch, her husband a provincial, prejudiced, hick. When he was at home I was appalled by his treatment and attitude toward his wife. He seemed perpetually angry, dismissive, treating her like a servant. I thought he was ashamed of her.
The couple had two children, a girl about four years old and a large baby boy.
I wish I could remember her name but it is so long ago. Many months later she was still bleeding from the birth of the boy. She implied that he had been too large for her and had damaged her, inside during the birth process.
I began to get her history.
“Why did you marry him?”
“After the war there was no food.
He had access to food supplies. He had a Jeep. My family was hungry. My father said, 'Perhaps you should marry him'”.
Her family was educated. Her father had been a Japanese Diplomat in Spain. She had a good education, spoke three or four languages and played classical piano.
The tragedy of her situation became more and more apparent. It was a terrible situation. His family treated her as an embarrassment. There was no kindness, acceptance or support there. Her husband had given all their furniture to his family in preparation for their entering the University.
“Why don’t you go home?”
“These children would never be accepted in Japan. They would be treated like the children of a prostitute”
“ When I was leaving Japan my father became very apprehensive about the ocean voyage to America. He gave me a long red ribbon to attach to my waist in case the boat sank. He said the sharks would think I was a larger animal and not attack me.”

Hiking the Old Hills

On Tuesday, two days after my arrival in Tucson, I joined my hiking group to walk the Arizona Trail, north from the Madera Canyon Road in the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains in Santa Cruz County.
It was sunny but in the 40’s with a good wind blowing from the east. I was hoping for the best in my ability to keep up with the group. This part of the trail is at about 5000+ feet. I did have to stop on the long upgrades to get my breath.
The country at that altitude is grassland, forest service land leased for cattle grazing to local ranchers. The grass was kneehigh, yellow in its dried winter dress. There are Juniper, Cedar and Live Oak Trees growing on the slopes and in the draws of the rolling land. There has been a three year drought. About 20 percent of the Oak trees have died, shedding their leaves and taking on an oxford grey appearance. The Arizona Trail is plainly marked with small iron gates through the barbed wire fences. Some of the markers are numbered and I memorized one number as we passed. 4072 it said. Under foot the trail was rough with loose small rocks scattered about.
It was soon evident that this trail serves other purposes. It is a highway for illegal migrants from Mexico. My companions remarked on the footprints that preceded us. “Worn tennis shoes, almost smooth.” Both sides of the trail were littered with empty water bottled, tin cans and here and there a discarded back pack. I tried to ascertain if the bottles and cans were fresh. They weren’t. The cans were beginning to rust and the bottles had settled into their places in the grass and had a film of dust on them.
We continued along, winding below the tops of the hillocks, trying to avoid the wind at the summits. There was a lot of discussion about the possible location of a new open pit mine that a Canadian Company is seeking to exploit for the Copper deposit.
“Are those the mine buildings?” Said Elka, pointing off to the northwest.
So far they have been delayed with the need to get forestland access and probably some acreage to use for necessary expansion of the deeded land containing the mineral claim. Arizona never gave mineral rights to individual property owners. So it is possible for a Mine to claim the minerals under your property and go ahead and dig for them. The Forest Service land is a different proposition, necessitating permission from the Department of the Interior to disturb and alter the land. Herein lies the hope of the population of the Sonoita Valley to
“Save the Santa Ritas”.
I felt pretty pessimistic, knowing the history of the Forest Service’s failure to protect public lands from economic exploitation. Also the price of Copper is very high now. I thought ‘It will be decided in Washington. We will want something from Canada and this wee precious corner of the earth will be given up in a trade of interests.’
Up ahead I saw a large rusted tank lying on its side, the open bottom facing the trail. I walked into it. There was a layer of sand and stones on the bottom about four or five inches deep in the center. Tossed in the back was a mixed pile of cloths, a blanket, a piece of blue tarp. The entrance was surrounded by empty water bottles, energy drink bottles. Nearby there was an old water well and some newer poles for an electric line, probably to supply the mine buildings in the distance.
“An immigrant bed and breakfast.” Said Faith.
I was beginning to wonder what we would do if someone said,
“We’ve got company.”
I thought about my cell phone resting in my left pocket, “I’ll dial 911 and give them the number of the nearest Arizona Trail marker, 4072.”
On the return I picked up a discarded red Jansport backpack and we filled it with bottles and cans in about one half mile. Molly said that on her last ride with Della they filled two black trash bags with litter and she carried them back on her mule.
“They were rattling and banging on either side of the saddle and she didn’t mind.”
The horses would have none of it. The only problem she had was when they came across a burro standing near a fence and her mule didn’t want to leave him.
“I went back and forth along that fence. Finally we went on.”

Ghost Story

When I was eight years old my parents and I moved to Greenport, Long Island. My father was involved in the local shipyard as a Naval Architect. They were producing Mine Sweepers for the US Navy to clear German Mines from the shipping channels in the North Atlantic. These boats were one of only two wooden ships produced during WWII. The other wooden boat was the P.T. or "Mosquito Boat". My father was a Wooden boat specialist. Housing was short everywhere in the country and my parents were delighted to procure an antique Farmhouse, the "Cottage" on the Floyd estate. It came complete with furnishings, extensive grounds, a gardener, and a three car garage. The house was in two parts, the oldest part dated from the early 1700s. The kitchen with the old fireplace hearth had a built in "Dutch oven". There was a wood burning stove inserted in the hearth and also an electric stove on another wall. The parlor beyond the kitchen had been turned into a formal dining room with its own fireplace. Upstairs were three tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. Connecting to this oldest part of the house was a new addition, twice the size of the original house. They connected on the ground floor through a den and on the second floor through a door in my bedroom. Each part, new and old had a basement with a separate furnace. In the middle of the first winter, my parents closed off the new half of the house and we moved into the older house, to conserve heat and the expense of oil. When the weather warmed we could open the doors and spread out into the "new" part with its large bedrooms, bathrooms, Living room and sun porch.

I remember our time there as idealic. We quickly added two cats and a large German shepherd, my first pets, to the family. I loved the seasonal thing, the small warm winter bedrooms with one little window each, slanting floors, doors with the old iron latches, Then the spacious summer quarters with many windows, thrown open in the summer to catch the air from the sea, close on both sides of this "North Fork".
Being in the house from aged eight until eleven years, I am a bit hazy about the time sequence, which year, which winter I began to hear the foot steps crossing the floor in my "summer" room, coming to the door now closed for the winter, to my little winter room. I think it must have happened two or three times before I thought it was noteworthy enough to tell my mother about it. What clinched it in my mind was the behavior of my dog. "King" slept on my bed with me, a narrow old iron cot. He curled up in the hollow of my knees and when I wanted to turn over he had to get up and lie down again on the other side. I can still feel the process, his resistance against the blankets, warm from his body, the final reluctant rising with the rattle of his dog tag, and then waiting till I felt the newly cold sheet warm with his body heat against the back of my knees as we both drifted back to sleep.
I remember hearing the footsteps and feeling King rise and stand over me. His lips were drawn back in a snarl, fangs bared, his hackles raised, and he was shaking so that the whole bed vibrated. Even in my nine or ten year old mind, I knew terror when I saw it. There I lay, watching the dog and the door, wondering what would happen next. He didn't bark, just the constant desperate snarl. Then he stopped, lay down in his usual place, still shaking, and we went to sleep.
I told my mother about our experience. I remember one vivid nightmare of being chased through the upstairs to the back stairway down to the kitchen by a skinny white apparition. I also remember joining a waiting wasp under the covers, being stung, crying loudly and meeting my frantic parents at the back stairs clutching my hip. They had looked at each other said, "the Ghost", and rushed up the stairs to meet me at the top.
One night while my mother was sitting on my bed after tucking me in, the footsteps came toward the door. I thought, "Wow! Now she'll believe me." I couldn't believe "whatever" would be so bold or dumb to "do it" with my mother there, ineptitude or my good luck. King stood over me, next to my mother, facing the closed door, snarling and shaking. We were transfixed. My mother said later, "I was afraid that if I had opened the door, the dog would have dropped dead from fright." I wish I could tell you about how the problem was resolved but we went on living in the house. I accepted whatever reassurance my parents offered and continued to play with my friends, my cats, and my dog. I don't remember hearing the footsteps again and I'm sure that when the summer came, we opened the door as usual and King and I moved into our summer quarters, the room of the footsteps.

Saving Glory's Storage Box

This little storage box was made for Granny’s friend Glory Lovelace by her second husband Charles Vermillion. He was a violin maker and made this box for her to store her woolens during the summer.

Granny loved Glory, without reservation. She was the only person I knew of that Granny loved in this way. Glory certainly was a good sweet person. I remember her as always being sunny and smiling. She was in the Lovelace compound on Fontana Ave. in Tucson when my mother and I went there for a new start in 1947. There were four Lovelace siblings there, Olin, Law, Glory and Truman Grace and “the old mother”. The other sister, Willow used to visit from Texas. They were decedents of Daniel Boone who had gone to Texas after the Civil War. The Father who led the migration was a former “Slave Driver” in the south.

They got to the Mississippi and the rest of the wagon train decided to postpone their departure due to information about Indian raids and attacks in Texas. (probably due to the preoccupation of the Federal Army with the Civil War) The Tribes through out the southwest had a reprieve from Army reprisals and were attacking migrants. I heard this at Ft. Bowie and concerning the Butterick Stage route through the Chirichuas and Apache Pass. The Lovelace family decided to continue on to Texas alone. A cattleman asked them to take a herd of cattle with them and they would divide the herd upon delivery of the Cattle in Texas. They delivered the Cattle and were told that they would “settle up” in the morning. In the morning the cattle and the receivers were gone. The Lovelace clan was afraid to pursue the “rustlers”.

The family lived a hard scrabble life. The mother, a daughter of the original settler, was a sort of matriarch in the family, reading and teaching her own interpretation of the bible to the the family. My mother was kind of fascinated with her interpretation. I remember the reference she made to “blood and water” associating the bible reference to childbirth, where there is both blood and water. She was in her 90s when we got to Tucson and bed ridden. Truman and Glory cared for her, turning her every two hours day and night and working full time too.

They were all very good to me. Helen, Law’s wife taught me to iron shirts and to sew, using a pattern. I played with their 3 little girls, Carol, Genowyn, and Dorothy. My mother taught all 3 the piano and said they were excellent pupils.

I have held on to this little box, given me by Truman to help furnish the “Little House on the Prairie”. Glory always said how much she loved Charles. A real sunset years love story. If you have a corner, hang on to it.