Going to Califoria - part 1

This is not exactly your run-of-the-mill update on a week's events. Well, not for me, anyway.

I am writing from a room in Fresno, CA. I've been in California for almost a week now, and it appears I'll be here almost another week before heading home.

A while back Taylor, my youngest son, called with an incredible offer. He has been in California since May working, and the jobs he has been involved with here are winding down. He said he would be driving home to North Carolina around the end of October and wanted to fly me out to California to spend some time with him there. He wanted to show me his new favorite part of the country for a few days, then have me ride home with him across the US.
Hard thing to say no to, eh?

Some of the details of the trip have been changed along the way. By the time I arrived it appeared he would have to stay a bit longer for his job, and I would be flying back on my own. This would have been fine also. It led to us making some plans to do things out here we would not have had time to do before. Then things changed again, and now we will be driving home together. However we've already made reservations in Vegas, so I'm going to be even longer getting home than I thought. The original plan was 10 - 12 days but now it will be at least a full 2 weeks. Regardless, the fact is I'm here now, seeing the west coast for the first time, and having an experience that will always rank high on the list of all-time great moments.

This is indeed the first time I've ever been to California. It's actually the only time I've been west of the Mississippi River, except for the Alaskan cruise Cathy and I went on a few years ago. And that certainly did not involve seeing the west coast per se. Alaska is it's own unique environment, and when we flew in for the cruise we literally got off the plane in Seattle, boarded a shuttle bus, and went straight to the port dock a few miles away. Never set foot in the city.

So every single thing I see, everything we do, I am seeing and doing for the first time. This has become what life is mostly about for me. Experiences. There is no amount of things or stuff one can have or own that can replace experiences. Life is a journey, and stuff simply weighs you down. I'll trade every bit of stuff I have for a new and exciting experience. And this trip certainly qualifies as that.

I flew out here on Wednesday the 28th of October. If one needs an omen that this will be a wonderful experience, it came right away. I had a 1 1/2 hour layover at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC. Instead of spending it bored to tears I wandered into a bar where I met a young man who immediately took an interest in my story and I in his. We talked until I had to leave. Then I had the great fortune to end up on the 6-hour cross-country flight seated next to a woman who was absolutely fascinating. Instead of spending the whole trip trying to stay in our little space and avoid contact, we ended up chatting for hours.

Taylor picked me up at the airport in San Francisco. He had been working in the Fresno area, but knew I wanted to see San Francisco so he figured we would start our adventure there, then work our way south. Thursday morning we headed into town. We went out to Alcatraz Island first. This seems a bit touristy, something I always try to avoid, but it was actually a great time. This trip was even recommended by "Zenslinger", one my Joy of Sox friends who lives in San Francisco. The views from the island of the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the city itself are hard to beat. The island is only a mile and a quarter from the shore so you can see the city clearly, and get some great potos, especially with the zoom. We did the self-guided audio tour of the cell block area, which worked out quite well. Taylor and I both are somewhat resistant to structured vacations, and this allowed us to stop the audio and wander off course when we wanted to. It was very informative and very entertaining as well, with stories of the breakout atempts and riots, complete with sound effects and all.
Upon arrival back at the docks we headed up the line of piers to Pier 41, a trendy shopping, dining, drinking spot. It turned out to be more or less a glorified mall on a dock, but was still fun. It naturally had quite a few places our malls wouldn't have, and had a huge variety of really nice dining establishments to choose from. We opted for a simple cabana style bar and some appetizer goodies and a few really big beers.
After a short time to recupe at the hotel, we hit the streets. Literally. We spent the better part of the rest of that day and all day Friday walking The San Francisco streets. Into Chinatown. Through the downown district. Around North Beach. Up and then down the famous Lombard Street hill. This is the one you see in movies and TV shows all the time that claims to be the curviest street in America. If you drive it you only go about two car lengths between the 180 degree switchbacks. That in itself was more exercise than I've had in months. Of course, practically every street in San Francisco goes up or down, and does so steeply, so I was getting the aerobic workout of my life the whole time.
At one point we wandered by a nondescript building and I just happened to notice a sign on the window about Allen Ginsberg that caught my eye. I stepped back and looked up and lo and behold, it was City Lights Bookstore! A virtual monument in beat generation/hippie culture. I just had to go in and soak it in a little. And, unlike a lot of such places, it seemed to still have it's aura of sincerity and honesty and almost reverance. I was so entranced that we actually returned there the next day. I decided that, even though I could probably get any book there at Borders, by ordering if nothing else, it just wasn't the same as having a book or two from the place itself. And I broke down and "bought the T-shirt" as well.
We had a beer at a bar in the heart of Chinatown, a fairly unique experience, and one which it appears was not real common for us non-orientals. That made it even better.
But most of our time was spent out on the sidewalks, just walking up and down, and up and down, and soaking in the feel of the city. That night we wandered around even more, hitting a couple of the local bars, and found a rowdy place to eat.
After spending most of the day Friday walking around again we finally got in Taylor's truck and took a drive. We went to The Haight, or Haight Ashbury as it was known in my day. I say that having never been anywhere near there, but it was considered almost sacred ground by the people from my generation, especially those just a bit older than me. The birthplace of the hippie movement, the hangout of Jerry and the Grateful Dead, Grace Slick, etc. etc. Whether it was actually the very beginning of all that is really irrelevant, it is and always will be associated with it. The walls of the buildings are covered in tye-dye motif paintings and colorful 60's style murals. Every other shop is a smoke shop, a pipe shop, or a 60's apparel and memorabilia shop. Oddly enough, the remainder of the shops were very high end botiques. I guess the marketing moguls will cash in on tourism wherever they find it. We had a couple beers at a great "punch-bowl bar", then went in the famous Amoeba Record Store. If we had not been on a been on a bit of a schedule, I could have spent hours in there. Rack after rack of vinyl, and thousands upon thousands of used CDs. Heaven on earth! I did wander around for a good 30 - 45 minutes and picked up a couple of Lou Reed albums which I would never find in Winston-Salem, and a couple of used CDs for good measure.
Once we reached the end of the shopping strip we found ourselves at the Golden Gate Park, which has come to be known by those of us who don't live here as Haight-Ashbury park. We went into the park for a while and even participated a bit in the age old traditions of the area ;>).
Enough about that.
Next we found our way back into the city to meet someone that I've spoken to a many a time on-line. Jeff, aka Zenslinger, is a regular participant on the Joy of Sox game threads and I had e-mailed him when I made arrangements to make the trip. He had given me the address of his favorite after work hangout, a place called Ace's, in the heart of town. We made it back around happy hour and he immediately spotted me and introduced himself. I guess I stand out on the west coast. We had a couple of beers, a couple of laughs, commiserated over the Sox' early exit from the playoffs, and took a couple of pictures. Then we had to hit the road.
We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. We had hoped to get there before sunset so we could cross in the daylight and watch the sun go down from the far side. But the trip from the midtown bar was a little longer than we expected and it was already dark when we went over. Still, the view back across the bay at the lights of the city and the bridge all lit up was fabulous.

We spent that night in Vallejo, then headed for wine country Saturday morning. A friendly gal we met at the Voodoo Lounge, a bar near our hotel in San Francisco, had reccommended that we skip Napa and go to the Russian River region. She said Napa had become too trendy, the tastings were all expensive, and the people were snobs. She claimed that a lot of places in the Russian River area still didn't charge for tastings, and there were more small family vineyards. I don't know if all that is true about Napa, but it sounded plausible so we took her advice.
Taylor is not a wine drinker, so this day was for me. He did, however, take a liking to some of the varieties as the day wore on and he got to experience the differences in wine that even a small geographic change can make. There were some very good shiraz's, which he seemed to enjoy the most. I got to taste some great zinfandels, a variety I have never had a lot of respect for. Here I got to taste what a really good zin is like and found myself quite impressed. Of course, those good zins were the most expensive varieties they had, which is probably why I've never acquired much of a taste for it. I very rarely spend that kind of money for a bottle, and if I do, I'm not likely to experiment with a type I'm not familiar with. Now I know!
We did have to pay at most of the stops, but only a couple of them charged the 10 dollars that is apparently standard in Napa. A couple others were just 5, and a couple were indeed free. One of the places that did not charge was my favorite stop, and not just because it was free. This was a small family outfit called Unti, where we met the man who owned the vineyards, as well as the winery. He was very friendly, informative, and genuine. His wine was very limited edition, so also expensive, and I couldn't justify spending the money out of the trip budget. Yet he didn't seem to mind at all giving us the samples and explaining his process and philosophy. So I took a card and have every intention of purchasing from him.
As the sun went down and the wineries started closing up we headed back to the southeast toward Yosemite Park.

As the sun went down and the v

My Little Red-headed Girl

September 2, 2009.
Thirty-three years ago today a young couple stood in a small den on Hondo Drive in Winston-Salem. He was 18 and she was still just 17. He was wearing a white leisure suit and she had on the same white dress she had worn to the the prom just a few months before. He looked ridiculous in the leisure suit and a basketball-sized afro. She was stunning with her red hair falling halfway down her back.
Her mother stood by and watched as her father gave her away. His best man was his old running buddy Frank. Her maid-of-honor was Tina, her oldest friend there in Winston. There were only a few others in the room. Her sister, his brother, the younger of his 2 sisters, Tina's husband Jeff.
Her friend and father-figure Ted did the honors. He was an ordained minister who worked in pastoral care at the hospital.
The vows were short and sweet, the basic repetition lines that have been used by couples for ages. There was giggling and wise cracks, threats of following them to the hotel for a party. It was not a particularly serious event.
Yet the vows, although not spoken very somberly, were taken very seriously. There were countless times in the next 32 years that the two of them could have easily decided that it had gone on long enough , that they had made it longer than they were supposed to anyway, and the spark just wasn't there any more.
But it always was. Sometimes it was hard to find, but it was always there.


I have been to this blogsite countless times in the past 8 1/2 months. I have come here prepared to write a new post each time. There have been numerous events and happenings and experiences that have occurred during that time that I felt I should write about. I have finally seen a game in Fenway Park - with many of my friends from Joy of Sox, no less. My Tar Heels, one of the 2 primary reasons for this blog's existence, won a national championship. The National Championship, even! There have been great musical shows I've seen and a few new friends that I've shared some great times with. And of course, there have been countless bittersweet moments that remind me of my beloved Cathy, and that are testaments to the life she led. Many times I have said to myself - "this is a huge moment, an important milestone. I should really write about this."
But each time I would see that post at the top of the page and would be stopped in my tracks. Some times I would be drawn into reading the whole story again, and would not be finished until I was falling asleep and couldn't even think any more about writing. Some times the subject I was getting ready to write about would suddenly not be very important at all, certainly not important enough to take the place of that story at the top. Somehow the idea of moving that story "down the line" just seemed inappropriate and even a little disrespectful.

Maybe now.

Today is the anniversary of our marriage. Well, it is after midnight, so technically it was yesterday. I had been saying to the few people I talk about this with that it ..would have been... our 33rd anniversary. But today I realized that was wrong. It IS the 33rd anniversary of our marriage. This will always be our anniversary, regardless of what the future may hold for me.

I suffered through an agonizingly ordinary day. Even worse, I was working on a particularly tough job. One that really called for undivided attention, and one I could not just leave because I was simply not into working that day. I would have liked for this to be one of those days when I could just catch up on some paperwork, talk with my kids and my friends, run a couple of errands, pick at my guitar, and just not really do much of anything all day. I would have liked to have been able to listen to WFDD all day, so I could hear the tribute I gave when I signed up as a Day Sponsor back in the spring. I never did hear it until that evening late, while in the shower. It seemed all day as though I should be telling everyone I spoke to - "today is my anniversary". But I didn't tell anyone. And everyone treated me as though it were any other day. Why wouldn't they?
A few people did hear the announcement, however, and called to tell me so. Our dear friend Mary, ever the thoughtful and positive one, asked me what I remember about that day. I started talking and might not have stopped if not for an appointment she had to keep. I'm sure my customer was wondering just how long I was going to be on the phone by the time she had to go. But that conversation had already worked it's magic. I spent the rest of the day in reflection, even as I worked. Even as I went to choir practice at the Temple in preparation for the upcoming High Holy Days services. And I knew what I should do.

It is time to start writing again. Cathy encouraged me to write, even more than I ever did. She understood how much I enjoyed it, and wanted me to do more of it. She also knew it was cathartic to me and undoubtedly knew it would be healthy for me when the time came. As I have noted before here, she was always looking out for me.
I'm sure that I will find myself dwelling on stories involving her from now on. But I will write about other things as well. She would insist on it.

Memories are not bad, they just are. The traditional Jewish prayer says "May their memory be for a blessing". A blessing indeed. Although the memories may evoke a wistful longing, or even a tear once in a while, in the end they make me smile. And I hope they make others smile as well. She would insist on that also.

Tina and Jeff did show up at our hotel room that night. That would be at the Holiday Inn about 2 miles away from the den on Hondo Drive where we said our vows. Honeymoons at age 18, when one set of parents has little money, and the other set objects to the marriage, are very cost-conscious. The knock came at the door around 9pm, and I opened the door expecting to see the hotel manager, who just happened to be someone we knew. He had given us a bottle of champagne upon our arrival, and gave us the "honeymoon suite" at regular room price. I had no idea what he might be sending us now, but who else could it be? There was Jeff with a six-pack in his hand, grinning a very wicked grin, saying "hey man, ready to party?". Tina followed him in saying "I told him no, but he insisted." We all had a beer, well all except Cathy, she can't stand the stuff. After one, Jeff asked if I wanted another and I said that another beer was not exactly what I had on my mind, although not in so many words. Tina smacked at him and said "I told you, now let's go!" He replied "hell, we gave 'em 2 hours, how much time does someone need?", then laughed as he winked at me and headed for the door. He even left me the rest of the beer.

I know that no one expected us to last 32 years together. For a long time Cathy would call Emma Bowman every year on Sept 2nd. Emma is the mother of one of her closest friends, Jody. Jody had told Cathy that Emma had made a bet we wouldn't last a year. So Cathy would call and say "guess what? Another year. Hope you're still paying on that bet!" No, no one could have thought we would stay together. Certainly not "until death do you part". We were just kids after all. Who in their right mind would have thought that two people that young had already found the right person to spend the rest of their life with.

I did. I knew it as I looked in those gleaming eyes that evening in that small den.

"I could never love again, the way that I loved you. Where you end, where I begin, it's like a river flowing through" (dave matthews)

Happy anniversary, baby.


PS
I miss you.

January 12, 2009

This will be an evolving post. It will take shape as it comes to me, and as I am ready to write it. It may be edited and changes made as I am able to confirm my memories of the sequence of events with the others who were there. It is actually Jan. 14 right now, and the traditional 7 days of mourning begins tonight, so I start now. It may get removed eventually, or maybe just moved to another blog, since it's not really what this blog is about, but right now it is what I am about, so here it is.
It's a beautiful story.
It may not seem so early on, but trust me.

It's a beautiful story.

This Also Had To Happen

Saturday, January 10, 2009.
Approximately 10:45 am

I'm numb.
I still can't believe what she's saying to me. She was doing so well the night before. But somehow it feels like I already knew.

When I left her last night she was actually sitting up in bed. For the first time in over 24 hours. The doctor had said that she had improved significantly since that morning and was not in the imminent jeopardy that had provoked the move down to the ICU unit. If she was no worse in the morning they would probably send her back up to a regular room.
Thank God for that. I hated being forced to leave her. Until the day before, when we were moved to that ICU, I had been in the room with her since the day we checked her in. Monday, I guess it had been. We were used to the routine there, having spent practically the whole month of August in that same room. How ironic that we were back in room 9138 again. Sometimes a nurse would walk in and say "weren't you in this same room a while back? For quite a while too, I believe." Our friends would react the same way. "Isn't this the same room you were in last time?"
I knew that room like the back of my hand. I could turn the chair into a bed in 2 minutes flat. Then, in the morning when the nurse came in and said the doctors were coming, I could fold the linens and return it to it's chair persona in the same amount of time. I could walk around that room in the dark.
I had only left her for brief spells, always during the day. Go to the bank. Maybe catch a short service call. Go show my face at a jobsite or a customer's house to explain the reason for my delay, and maybe do some prep and planning for when I was going to get back there. It wouldn't be long I would say, believing it myself.
But I could and did sleep there in the room with her every night so I would be there when the doctors came by in the morning. I could hear them, and watch them. I could judge for myself if they were really optimistic, or just offering optimism. She, of course, would know right away, but would often not tell me if it was bad. That was why I wanted to be there so badly. I also could find out if, or when, she was going down for a test or procedure, and so be able to plan what time, if any, it would be okay to be gone a while.
That didn't happen in the ICU. Visiting hours.......visiting hours. What the hell is that about? Visiting hours? I'm her husband, dammit! I don't want to visit. Friends visit. The rest of the family visits. I go with her, and I stay with her. I have for 32 years, I'm not about to stop now. Least of all now.
Don't get me wrong. The folks in the ICU were wonderful, for the most part. And they did stretch the rules for me. By a spread of several hours that first night, but less afterwards.
Thursday night I guess that was. It's all a bit of a blur.
Thursday night her breathing had gotten worse. Of course, worse is comparative. It had been a struggle since the episode in August. A real struggle. The pleural effusion that had prompted that stay had never completely cleared up. She could function, but it was taking less and less to make her short of breath. It was unbelievably frustrating for her. She likes to do things. Work in the garden. Take the grandkids someplace. She would still do those things too, but she paid a steep price in terms of difficult breathing and joint pain. It got bad enough to warrant her admission to the hospital Monday. But even on Monday we were oblivious to the impending outcome. At least I was. I took her to the doctor's ofice expecting to get some tests done, get a prescription for something to help the swelling around the lungs, and probably be given a day and time to return for another procedure. Instead we were admitted right away. Then on Thursday night it got ugly.
We had already received what seemed to be the ultimate bad news the day before. Little did I know. The cancer had apparently found it's way into her lungs. This is what we have been dreading all along, but still we were simply preparing ourselves to do battle once again. We knew now, however, that the odds were much more in favor of the disease this time. The fight would be harder. As much as we had hoped the spot that had shown up in a PET scan was just an infection from all the fluid build-up around the lungs, it just wasn't so. Oh, there was still an outside shot, but we knew better, especially her. The cancer had been slowly building up steam over the past year, and then there had been the long hospital stay in August with the pleural effusion, and after all, we were over 4 years into what had been called a "3-5 year expectancy". The procedure to remove the fluid from around her lungs had pulled off a lot, but it had not helped the breathing. And there was no sign of infection in that fluid. So that was undoubtedly a tumor in her right lung and it was largely responsible for her breathing difficulties.
But certainly we still had some time. This wasn't the end or anything, right? We would begin this new chemo regiment. It would be tough, we knew. She talked about the possibility of foregoing the treatment, whether it would be worth the awful side effects. This chemo was much more toxic than the ones we had already been through. We had been through a number of them, too.
And we knew this one had only a 20 - 50% positive response rate.
Still, not terrible odds. Battle on. We started the IV chemo drip Thursday afternoon and began concerning ourselves with getting her breathing back to normal so we could go home. That night, however, as I watched helplessly, her breathing got so bad they called up the ICU Nurse-practitioner to consult and help. There was a call for an emergency X-ray, the hook-ups to the monitor, the sudden appearance of numerous white coats and nurses in unfamiliar uniforms. It took a couple of minutes to grasp the significance of what I overheard at one point. "If we don't get the respiration up, and soon, she'll give out."
Whoa. Not tonight, though. You can't mean that.
Suddenly I was scared. What the hell did they mean? Not now. We're not done yet. Sure, it's coming and I know it, but not now. It took a while, but finally my positive side, aka blessed denial, kicked in. It would be okay. We've been here before. We would get through this crisis and get ready for the next one.
And so we did.
Seemingly anyway.
But it had taken the move to the ICU unit to make it happen. Where they had all of the hard-core, extraordinary life-saving measures available if they needed them. They also had the Bi-Pac unit, which was saving her life now by aiding her breathing. And once they got the breathing back to normal then we could go back to our little room and continue the chemo. Good.

I just wish she had not found out while there in the ICU. Because I wasn't there when they told her. I couldn't be. Because, in addition to all that technology, they have.........regulations.
5:30-6:00am. 10:30am-5:30pm. 8:30-10:30pm.
To hell with visiting hours.
Oh, sure they let me stay that first night until almost 3:00. Me and Taylor both. I had called Tay when they said she was going to the ICU, and my sister also. Even though it was close to midnight, and she had to get our sister-in-law to come stay with the girls. Jeanine is a nurse herself, and also Cathy's Health Care Power of Attorney. That damn Cathy always tried to protect me. She didn't want me to ever have to make the decision that ended her life. Looking back, I suppose Jeanine called Jenny, my other sister, to come with her because she knew more than I did how precarious the situation was.
Even though the ICU unit was locked down they let us back with her. The Bi-Pac unit had stabilized her and the girls left around 2:00 or so. Taylor and I left, with a gentle prod, a while later. By the time I grabbed a half-hearted meal in the employee cafeteria it was almost 3:30. No need to drive to Clemmons just to be back at 5:30, so I tried to snooze in a chair in a waiting room until then. It didn't work.
In the mornng they let me stay until 6:30 or so, despite "regulations". Sweet, but she wasn't doing so great. She could barely respond to me. It killed me to go, and not be there knowing what was going on every moment.
When I returned at 10:30 she was much better. By now there was a crowd in the waiting room. A large crowd. They were very nice about fudging the 2-at-a-time rule, and we tried not to abuse it by too much. As the day progressed so did she. Slowly but surely she became more able to respond to people and by mid-day was able to be changed from the Bi-Pac to a more traditional mask so she could talk to her parade of well-wishers. They ran us out right at 5:30 since there were so many of us, but it was OK. She was improving and I was feeling better about things.
When they reopened the doors at 8:30 I was elated. I was ecstatic. She was sitting up with just a nostril tube and we talked at length. It was hard to pay attention to the conversation I was so excited to see her so alert. I had begun to worry. Things were going to be alright now. There were a number of others there with me, but they were all kind enough to clear out a little before 10:30 so I stood a chance of staying a little later. I was able to stay until almost 11:00, but then was asked to leave before the shift change.
Damn ICU. I wasn't there.
It was now Friday night, almost Saturday morning, and I had slept about 2 hours since waking up Thursday morning. That's if you could call what I did sleeping. It really wasn't. There were no decent chairs to sleep in in that particular waiting room and they never turned the lights all off. I had stretched out across two of the chairs and pulled a newspaper over my eyes. Passed out for a few minutes at a time was really a better description than sleep. So now, with her condition so improved, I went home, for the first time since Wednesday morning. I went to sleep in our bed, for the first time since the previous Sunday night, when we were both there. As I write this now, I haven't been back in it yet.
I crashed.
When the alarm went off at 4:45 so I could get up and go back for the 5:30 visitation time slot, I just couldn't move. God I wish I had.
I tell myself that I probably would have had to leave at 6, or at least by 6:30, and the doctors probably would not have come by then, so I wouldn't have been there anyway. I just hope that I can eventually convince myself of that.
She was there by herself when they told her.
I don't know what time that was, but now it's just after 10:40. She had called just a couple minutes after 10:30 when I didn't walk straight in. I was in the break area typing a quick note to some of my on-line friends and just finishing up when she called. She had been great when I left, no rush this morning, right? But I knew when I heard her voice something was different. I went back to the room with an apprehension I didn't like at all.
So now I'm standing here, listening in disbelief while she tells me that her lungs are just too weak. They can't continue the chemo. It would kill her the next time they gave it to her.
"So how long do we have without the chemo?" I'm asking, voice trembling, dreading the answer, thinking "it could be just weeks, or even days".
I'm not quite ready when she says "I might not make it through the weekend".

Believe it or not, it is right at this moment that this becomes a beautiful story. That was 4 days ago now, and we laid her body to rest this afternoon. It has been a long day today, after several other very long days, and I must rest. I want to write, but I can't right now.
But I shall continue.


It's actually Friday night now. The 7-day candle is burning on the mantle. I just got in from the Temple. My first service as a mourner. I'm glad Taylor decided to join me. I held his hand as they said his mother's name prior to the Mourner's Kaddish. Last night was the first night I've slept here since last Friday, when I made that ill-fated decision to come home for a night. Ive been staying at April's house. She's been a Godsend. Taylor was concerned, he always is, and he stayed here with me this first night alone here. He went to work with me also. Odd, the hardest thing I've done yet is leave the house this morning. Tay left a little before me, and I was ready to go pretty much right after he left, but I just couldn't drag myself away. Forty-five minutes later I was still there. Tom called. He and Alex were already at the job and I hadn't left the house yet. I'm glad my brother is an electrician also, and can help me with this job, which just couldn't wait till next week. Tom volunteered to do the whole thing without me even being there, but I felt maybe it was time to try to get back to some sort of routine. I found, however, I just couldn't make myself head out that door. I went to get stuff out of the car that I had stuck in the trunk while I was spending all my time at the hospital. I would take something into the house, walk around in circles , move some stuff around, decide I should straighten the countertop since people would be stopping by, check the garbage, go out to the truck, decide to take something else in, go look for something I forgot, check the thermostat, etc. It finally dawned on me that I was supposed to go back to the bedroom, kiss her goodbye, preferably without waking her, then rub the dog's belly before I left. I always did. Same routine every day. Right before I left. She said she loved the fact that even if we were upset with each other, or even barely speaking, I always did that. That's what was different. The last few days I've been at April's. I haven't worked, and I've woke up when I wanted, been coddled when I needed it, and just hung out with her and Haley. So I had not missed that routine. Now to head out that door, get in my van, go get some coffee, and drive out to a jobsite, without kissing her goodbye, well it seems too much like closing the door on a whole chapter. As if I'm starting over now. I guess I am.

So where was I?

Sunday, January 11, 2009
Approximately 1:00 am

I am leading the procession up to the 9th floor. It's a bad sign when you've spent so much time at the hospital in recent years that when the ICU nurse asked her assistant if she knew how to get to the room we were going to, and the PCA frowned a moment, I was the one who said "I do".
Still, I am so happy that we are going back to the 9th floor. The girls there have been absolute angels to us. Sure, the ICU staff was great, mostly, but I imagine they are used to dealing more with trauma type cases. Almost all of the girls on the "cancer floor" are so genuinely concerned and thoughtful. Cathy worked on the Oncology floor herself when she was a nurse, and I can see now why that was such a perfect place for her. I'm sure that she was the same kind of nurse that we have been so appreciative of in these past few years.
The greatest thing about moving from the ICU, however, is the fact that we can now be in a peaceful environment with the ones we love and not be concerned with visiting hours and limitations. Our son Timmy shared what may turn out to be his last moments with her in that big, intimidating room with all those tubes and wires and the monitors beeping and flashing, and a nurse always on the other side of the window in the corner. So did some of her closest friends.
Unfortunately, so did Gage.
Gage and Haley are the two grandchildren we have the closest connection to. That is not to diminish the importance of nor the love we have for the others, but circumstances are different with the others. These are the two that have been a major part of our lives during their entire lives, and likewise we've always been part of theirs. Haley is April's daughter. Gage is Timmy's son.
April.........There are no words to describe how wonderful it is that she is here.
Just as there are no words that can relate how important it was that Timmy got to see his mother and be with her today.
But I wish Gage had not come to that room. He could have seen her after we moved back up to a normal room. Of course, we couldn't say that for certain earlier this evening. His mother brought him down, around 9 or 10 I think it was. The whole day has been a blur. Calling loved ones and telling them that they may only have a day or two to see Cathy has been a strain.
She wanted to see Gage. She needed to see Gage.
They had already gotten the go-ahead to move her back to the 9th floor, but there was not a room available, and it appeared it would be tomorrow before there was one open. I had kind of encouraged her to wait until then to have him come, but she was afraid she would not be aware by that time and that would not do at all. It would probably have been OK, had not his mom brought him. It's not that I didn't want her to see Cathy, it's just that she was uncontrollably upset and she cried the whole time, loudly. The sight of his "Dee" with that mask on her face, the tubes, the wires, the giant swiveling arms on either side of her holding all the equipment that made it look as though she was being held by a robot, all of the lights and beeps and alerts, combined with his mother's sobbing made him terrified. He tried to talk to her but couldn't bring himself to do much more than hug his mom's neck, steal glances at Cathy, and mumble replies to her. He did tell her several times that he loved her, and would hold her hand for a bit, but he wouldn't sit on the bed with her. I guess the most important thing was that she got to keep a promise. Gage has had more than one woman disappear unexpectedly from his life, a hard thing for one only five years old to understand. He still inquires regularly about the most recent one. So Cathy had made it a point to tell him that she was going to have to go away herself some day, but she would never leave without telling him goodbye. That was important for her and I'm thankful she was able to do it, but I do wish it had been in a different setting. At least I'm sure that he will remember her, and I will explain the events of that night to him myself one day when he's a little older. He is undoubtably an Old Soul, and I'm sure he will get it.
But right now Sue and I are squeezing into an elevator with two nurses and the big ICU bed, which they are transporting her in so they only have to pick her up and move her once. Sue is yet another of the "best friends". There are so many. And the fact that there are so many does not lessen the value of any single one of those friendships. That's just the way she is. When she connects with someone there is a bond that lasts through the years, even if there are long periods with no actual contact. The ties remain. And today so many of those ties and bonds have been confirmed as people appeared all day long to say their farewells. I am well aware that doing that is not an easy thing for most people. It would seem uncomfortable, even unnatural with a lot of other people. But Cathy has been preparing her closest friends for this as long as she's been preparing me, and the idea of not coming is unthinkable to them. So is the idea of it being a morbid experience. They all know she has fought long and hard and is just tired, and ready herself. Sure, there are tears, but they are tears of acceptance, not anguish.
Sue and Patsy have been here all day. I have a feeling they will be here until the very end, just as I'm sure Taylor and April will be.
Patsy has known Cathy longer than I have. She is responsible for "us". She introduced us when I was a senior in high school and Cathy was a junior. I can never repay that debt. Cathy was one of her running buddies, and so was I, so it was inevitable our paths would cross. And I did have a thing for red-heads. We dated the first time when we were both "rebounding", and insisted to each other for the longest time that there were no strings attached.
Right.
Just 33 years worth of strings, that's all.
She loves to tell the story of that first string. She called to see what time I was coming to get her. I stammered and vaguely said I had made plans with someone else. She asked where we would be at, and said she could get another ride. I finally had to spell it out. "Oh..." she said. So she called Patsy and they showed up at the game room. A bar would certainly make a better story, but I was only 17 and she was 16. She promptly announced that I really needed to take that other girl home.... now. I didn't question the matter for a second, although it did make for a rather awkward drive to the other girl's house. I haven't been with another since.
Sue is a more recent acquisition in the vault of friends, but has become the one she spends the most time with lately. The craft thing, you know. Trips to AC Moore and bead shows and shops. Cathy has become quite proficient with the beads. She has made some beautiful jewelry, some watches, and other works. The beading is something she can do even when the chemo has her energy levels way down. She paints, and still wants to continue painting, but it takes so much more to get out the paints and set up a stand, and then there's the clean-up after. She can pick up a tray of beads and be busy for hours even if she's not up to getting out of bed. And when she does get exhausted, she can just set it down.
It used to be both Sue and Chris, almost constantly. The three amigas. Painting classes, painting get-togethers, then scrap-booking for a while, then the beading thing. All three of them usually, until Chris's work took her to Gastonia, near Charlotte. She still comes up as often as she can and hangs out, spends the night, whatever, but you know how it is. It's never as often as you wish. And now Chris is stuck at work. She works weekends at the hospital there. Ironically, she's been an ICU nurse most of the time I've known her. When you only work on weekends, they frown mightily on you not being there. She has called numerous times since I got in touch with her, usually crying and heartbroken that she's not already here.
But she's here in spirit, as are several others who cannot be here physically. And she will get here in time, I'm certain. Well, I'm hopeful.
I'm so very, very relieved that there is not that chance of missing her for Timmy and April. Taylor has been here on and off all week. He is the "mommy's boy" of our brood, always has been, and so this is extremely hard for him. But at least he is here, and has been here, and he takes comfort in that. Not so with Timmy.
Timmy has been the wayward son. He had his demons in his youth, he and his sister both. There were the drugs, the run-ins with the law. Nothing really that I never did in my youth, he just got caught. More than once. Yet he was such a "good kid" that he always got a lenient judgement. He had pretty much cleaned up his act in recent years, especially since the split with Gage's mom. He has primary custody of Gage, and was well on his way to being a very responsible parent. But he had reverted to old habits after a personal loss last winter, which is no excuse, as he will tell you himself. When he got caught with the drugs, again, the lawyer told him point blank. No way out, no probation, no house arrest, you're gonna do time this time. The idea of being seperated from Gage seems to have done what nothing else has been able to do. He has taken full ownership of and responsibility for his problem. He has taken his struggle for recovery 100% seriously. He attended meetings every night for the 3 or 4 months while awaiting trial. He has apparently been the model prisoner, if there is such a thing. He went through a treatment facility first, and did well enough there to be "rewarded" with an assignment to the minimum security facility right here in town. Here we can bring Gage to visit him and eat lunch on Sundays at the picnic grounds.
But all that means nothing when you learn your mother is dying and you can't be there with her. When he called on Friday I of course did not know the news I would be recieving the next morning. Apparently, however, he suspected. Or maybe his mother did and had shared that. For whatever reason, he had talked to the supervisor about a visit. He was told that if he played this card, and visited now, that would probably be it. There would not likely be another time, even if there was a funeral. Given the choice, he wanted to see her and talk to her, not see a casket. He got to spend about an hour and a half with her today. It was wonderful. Sad, because it couldn't last longer, but still wonderful. She was still completely awake and aware, and they took off the bi-pac mask and put on a shield type inhaler so she could talk to him.
And kiss him.
I had to tell him after he arrived here that this would almost certainly be the last time he would ever see her. That was hard. It's a shame that he and his dear son both saw her for the last time in that room. But so very much better than not seeing her at all.
While he was here we pretty much cleared the room out and sent everyone to the waiting room. Even the other kids and I let them be alone most of the time. I thought it spoke well of him that when he asked the guard who was with him about going to the restroom down the hall, she didn't bat an eye. She just said "well go on, then. You're gonna come back aren't ya?" Patsy told me later that she thanked that guard for making the visit happen, and the guard replied that it was Timmy who made it happen by being the kind of guy he was. She insisted that not everyone who makes these requests gets an OK, it has to be earned, and that "if she had a camp full of inmates like him, she wouldn't even have a job". She let us stretch the hour visit into an hour and a half, and even allowed him a few minutes in the hallway and waiting area with the rest of the family as they were leaving.
Thank God it's just 6 more weeks. Cathy had tried so hard to hang on until he got out. She has been the primary care-giver for Gage for quite a while, and she wanted there to be a smooth "transition" for Gage from her to his dad. I believe she got close enough to qualfy for having suceeded.
By the time he arrived this afternoon, April was already here.
Oh, how wonderful that happened also. I was afraid maybe it wouldn't.
Where do I begin about April?
There are too many levels to that story for anyone to be able to fully grasp.
Cathy may not have given birth to April but she may as well have. They are as alike as the proverbial peas in the pod. We have always given her the same love and treated her the same as the two boys. She and Cathy share the same childhood, the same relationship, or lack thereof, with their biological mother, the same abusive men in their early years, the same mistrust of those who were supposed to be looking out for them.
And the same absolutely immovable stubbornness as well.
Cathy has always been able to develop deep, long-lasting bonds with people who are open to those ties, but she has also been slightly wary of those closest to her, because those are the ones that can hurt you the deepest. She and April have hurt each other many times over the years, and the hurt has indeed been even worse because of how strong the love is, but there has always been the eventual healing of those wounds, and an even stronger bond afterward for having gotten through the pain together.
This morning I was afraid that they might not get the opportunity.
They had not spoken, except through some snipy letters, for quite some time. Once again, they were both claiming they were "over it", and ready to move on without the other one.
I knew better. Not a day went by that Cathy didn't talk about April. She may have been insisting she didn't need her anymore, but she was still talking about her. Over it, eh?
Right.
I was afraid though that the timing of this hurt would make it impossible to repair, especially now.
I have always stayed out of their arguments. As mch as possible, anyway. They are both vital to my life. Daughter or wife. That's not a choice, that's hell. I would usually just be mad at both of them for disrupting my life and would anxiously await the repair of the relationship. This most recent time, however, I had been forced to choose. As much as I loved April, my wife of 32 years, my high school sweetheart, was in pain. Serious pain. And she was nearing the end. We knew it. No one else really did, but we did. We never suspected, or should I say, I never suspected just how near we were, we knew we were getting closer. It was obvious. Her body was wearing out, and the decline was picking up speed. I had to be there for her. I would get my chance someday to reconcile with April, but I didn't have much time with my wife.
I had written April letting her know Cathy was in the hospital, but when I wrote the letter I did not know just how short our time remaining was. Taylor told me last night, after they moved her to the ICU, that April had replied. I didn't have time for that now, and I told him so. I told him to have her call me, and if I was satisfied with that conversation, she could come. I was not about to allow any chance of adding stress to Cathy's situation.
But then came Saturday morning. The numbness.
A day, maybe two, she said.
I read the letter April had written in reply and called her.
She was on her way to work, she told me later. She went right past where she works and drove straight to the hospital. I'm not sure she even called in.
She was respectful of my wishes and talked to me first. I knew as soon as she spoke it was good. All good.
I cleared out the room except for Taylor and myself, and even we gave them some time. I can't say exactly what was said, but I knew it was a lifetime's worth of apologies, and whys, and why nots, and that it went both ways. Lord knows Cathy contributed to their differences herself, and was well aware of it. And this morning, just as later with Timmy, Cathy was still completely awake and aware and they talked and cried and hugged and loved for the rest of the morning until Timmy showed up, then did more of the same with him.
She has not left the hospital since. She has been in the room almost the whole time, occasionally giving up her spot so that someone else can get in. Her husband, Tim, has come and gone with Haley, but she has not left. She is not in this elevator right now only because she and Tay took off to get some food, but they will be right back.
She and Taylor were there when the respiratory therapist talked to me. Talked to us, actually.
He talked about the lack of strength remaining in her lungs. The downright tiredness. Because we were now in a "do not resuscitate" mode, the drastic measures equipment there in the ICU would not be needed. And he could see that Cathy was not going to be left alone, so the constant watchful eye of the nurse there was also not needed. Therefore he was recommending the move back to the oncology unit.
It will be so much better in the room.
Family and friends came all day to the ICU, but they had to share the time left, had to parcel it out. They made sure the kids and I got as much time as we wanted, and they alternated between standing in the room and sitting in the waiting room, along with standing in the hall when the waiting room got full.
My Mom, my Dad. My two wonderful sisters, Jenny and Jeanine, and my "baby" brother Tom, who towers over me. His wife Kay, and Jenny's husband Roger.
Cathy's sister Kelly, and their dad.
All here, for the duration.
Cathy's Aunt Wynn is catching a plane from Indianapolis, probably even as we are moving down the hall. She and her daughter Marty, Cat's cousin, are due in around noon.
Then there's that whole, vast, extended family.
Sue and Patsy were here all day, and Patsy's sister Kim has been in and out. Talk about family, Cathy actually lived with them and "Mama Foster" for a while during one of those numerous rough spots with her own mom.
Mary and Starr, wih whom we have shared some special New Years Eves in recent years. Just the 4 of us last year at the new farm. The wonderful farm in the country where we feel as if we're right at home, and we act like it too.
Marian and Wayne, whose son Neal has been like a brother to Taylor since 2nd grade. Another almost other-worldly connection. Mare and Cathy can go without seeing each other for a year or so and then, when they do get together, it's just like they've been together every day.
Tommy, who along with his wife Tori, were our dearest friends for so long. Tori is out of town on business, but is returning early. After all, we're family. Well, same as. Every weekend we were playing spades at one or the other of our homes. Into the wee hours of the mornings. Our kids would take baths together, like the siblings they practically were, then go to bed together and feign sleep while we drank and laughed. They have always just treated it as though they all had 4 parents.
And then there's Chris, the other Chris, the male Chris, and his wife Alice. Chris, like Patsy, has known her longer than I have. Cathy and Chris have competed for decades over whose relationship with their mother was the most dysfunctional. They have loved each other like brother and sister forever it seems. The first time I met Chris, he was actually living with Cathy and her parents during one of his own rough spots. Platonically I might add. Cathy had mentioned that there was a guy, an older guy, who stayed there at the house. I just assumed she meant, you know, older. When I met him and realized he wasn't that much older, certainly no older than someone she might date, I must admit to being a bit threatened. But it only took watching a little interaction between them to be reassured that this was much more of a sibling type relationship. Chris has been there for us more than anyone else, in so many ways.
When we found out that Cat's diagnosis was Stage 4, we vowed to do some of the things we've always wanted to, even if it meant breaking the bank. But some things were just out of our reach. For Cathy's birthday a couple of years ago Chris and Alice sent us on a 7 day Alaskan cruise. They're not wealthy or anything, this was a sacrifice for them. But they wanted to do it, and I knew there was no point in arguing. I simply vowed to do my part and saved like crazy to do some of the off-ship excursions I knew Cathy would want to do, and to have enough spending money to relax and treat her to a week of whatever she wanted.
What an experience!
We chased whales. I shot a bear - with my camera of course. We ate freshly caught salmon in a lodge on an uninhabited island. We flew in a helicopter over the wilderness to a remote glacier where we felt as though we were on a different planet. It was one of the most memorable experiences of our lives together, and Chris made sure it happened.
All through our lives together Chris has been there for us, in more ways than one. And I know, and appreciate, that when Cathy and I did have our own rough spots, he was there for her. I know he is hurting almost as badly as I am right now.
There are also several people who are here in spirit, if not in body.
Her best friend from 7th grade on, Carol, who is dealing with a crisis of her own, involving children and grandchildren and exes in Rock Hill. In August, when things had been a little calmer at home, Carol had come up and spent two nights at the hospital with Cathy so I could have a weekend of semi-normalcy with Gage. What a blessing that was. Carol has this almost psychic, no, not almost, just psychic connection with Cathy. I cannot even begin to relate how many times over the years I would hear the words "I've been thinking, I need to call Carol", only to hear the phone ring a few momnts later and there was Carol. And this might happen after they hadn't spoken in a year or more.
Our dear friends Jan and Pat, who are in Florida at this very moment, tending to Pat's father who suffered a stroke on Thursday night. They were going to come up to the hospital on Friday night with a bottle of wine, just as they had done back in August. Let's make the best of a bad situation, they said. And so we did. But when I called on Friday afternoon to tell them of the move to the ICU, which would put a damper on those plans for a repeat, I found them in a state of near-panic, halfway to Tampa Bay. I hope things are going a little better for them than they are here.
Rabbis Mark and Josh have been here on and off all day. Last night Rabbi Mark brought his guitar into the ICU and sang some prayers. Right there in the damn ICU. At the time I believe it was just Taylor, Patsy, Sue, and myself. He sang several of the traditional shabbat prayers, including the birchot havdallah that begins with a beautiful lilting melody and no words.
Lai lai lai-lai-lai-lai lai lai, lai lai lai-lai-lai-lai-lai lai, lai-lai-lai lai lai lai, lai-lai-lai lai lai-lai-lai......
I've always had a hard time keeping the lump out of my throat when he plays that one. Now it won't even be possible. I'll just blubber like a baby every time.
As he was leaving I believe it was Sue who told him that, even though she didn't know a word of the Hebrew he had sung the prayers in, she still seemed to know what was being said, and it meant every bit as much as anything that could have been said in English.

At least now we are going to a place where I, and the kids, can spend the night there by her side. Given the prognosis they had let us stay in the ICU room later than they were supposed to, but I was sure they were going to send us packing any minute. We were thrilled when, around midnight, they instead told us that a room had come open and they would be taking her up as soon as it was prepped. I could not have beared the thought of leaving her again tonight and not knowing what was going on in that room while I was not there with her.
I'm leading us now down the hall to 9144, just a few doors down from our old haunt. They had to take her off of the Bi-pac unit for transport. They have a standard face mask hooked to an oxygen tank on the bed, but her breathing is getting very hard. Agonizingly hard. The nurses are stressing, which makes me stress. I don't like their tone and mannerisms. They are not reassuring.
But we get to the room and a couple of the floor nurses help shift her onto the bed. The respiratory guy does his thing and she drifts back to a good place. Pulse ox comes back up to upper 90s, heart rate goes down.
Within an hour I'm asleep in the recliner chair, stretched out right beside her bed. April is sacked out in the pull-out chair at my feet, and Taylor and Dana are huddled on a cot the nurse brought in. It probably wouldn't pass muster with the fire deptartment, but we are cozy together and as close as possible to the one we love.


It's Tuesday night now, a little over a week has passed. It's been so hard to find the time to spill these thoughts. My family and friends have made absolutely certain that I have had constant distractions. Dinner with my sister Jeanine and her two precious adopted little girls tonight. Spending the night with Jan and Pat and several, yes several, bottles of wine last night. And on and on. I had Gage here for the first time Saturday night. There were some tough moments, but it ended up well. It helped that his Uncle Taylor and Aunt April were here and April brought Haley, the love of his life. After his Dee, of course.
Today was the toughest day yet. I hope it's not a trend. I nearly lost it several times and felt all day like I was just hanging by a thread. Thank the stars above for all the support I have. I'm sure not everyone is so fortunate.

Sunday, January 11, 2009
Approximately 9:00 pm

I'm feeling numb again. There is an acceptance growing within me that I felt I might never be able to attain, but at the same time it feels as though it's been there for a long time. There are only a few of us in here right now, and the room has quieted down a lot so I'm having a reflective moment. Saturday morning at 10:45 seems like an eternity ago right now, but at the same time it feels like I just found out. There just hasn't been enough time. There is so much more to do. It is obvious now that we are on the final leg of her journey.
It is a blessing that there has been enough time to allow almost everyone who meant the most in her life to come and see her and talk to her, and to do so while she was able to acknowledge their presence and sometimes even converse back, although that ability has slowly lessened over the course of the day.
Since early afternoon she has rarely been able to do more than smile slightly and nod, and maybe whisper a word or two. But the smile and the nod say mountains. It is enough to know that she understands what is being said and is thankful that you are there and saying it. I have sat at her side most of the day. Occasionally I have gotten up and moved so someone else could sit in the best seat, the recliner right at her head. Especially if someone new arrives.
And arrive they have.
Wynn and Marty got in this afternoon around noon and have been here ever since. Wynn is the favorite aunt, and Marty is her daughter. OK, Wynn is the only aunt, but she would be the favorite regardless. Wynn and Cathy are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, as well as the religious, and most of the social spectrum. Yet they share bonds and memories from Cathy's childhood that surpass all of that. Marty relates in the room how Cathy and she used to sneak out to smoke. Cathy's very best memories from childhood are of the times in Highlands with her own "Dee", that was her grandmother, and her Aunt Wynn. She relished every opportunity to return there and wished nothing more than to share that beautiful place with everyone she cared about. Often she would pack a bag, grab a friend, and say goodbye for a day or two just to go do that. That was a sure sign she really cared about you.
She had talked for a long time of wanting to be able to take Gage there when he was old enough to remember. Just a few weeks ago, after Thanksgiving, we made the trip up. It was cold, but beautiful. I think maybe she knew she had better not chance waiting until spring. When I poo-pooed that thought she said, "well, we can certainly go again in the spring if I'm able". We got pictures of Gage and her behind the Looking Glass Waterfall, and drove by the old K-12 school she attended and the old Mobley house where she stayed with her own Dee for so long. Wynn mentioned earlier this afternoon that even though she was certainly weak then, it just didn't seem possible that she was only a few weeks from being at this point.
Maggie and David came for a while earlier. Oh, the weekends when we just wanted to get away, and there were a lot of them. Cathy would call Maggie and pretty much just announce that we needed a day or two of escape and reflection at the lake and we would be there on Friday, or Saturday afternoon if it was Little League season and I had a game. That is the nature of our friendships. Part of the family. Don't really ask, just say. You're always welcome, and you know it. The escape would be aided by the secluded locale, the late night card games, and a healthy dose of alcohol. Sure, there would be the occasional time when there were prior commitments that got in the way, but they were the exception.
Tommy returned with Tori as soon as she got back into town. Ashley, their daughter who has to endure all the embarrassing "naked" pictures we have of her and our kids as children, came in from Raleigh. You would have thought it was her own mom in that bed to see her. She and our boys always did consider their parents to be kind of interchangeable.
Our next door neighbor came to say his goodbyes. The two of them had butted heads the first few years after he moved in, but eventually he found himself taking her with him to Bingo on Thursdays. Things started to change between them after she came over and just hugged him upon the death of his brother a few years back. The last few years he had always come up when she was in the hospital and brought in the latest beading magazines from the newstand he manages. This evening he walked in, sat down by her, then just hung his head for several minutes and got up and walked out, his eyes wet.
My bud Bob was here. He is a fixture at our home, and was there the night before she was admitted to the hospital, eating a pot roast that she had fixed for us that night to enjoy while we watched a Carolina basketball game. You know Bob is just part of the family by the way she simply says "night guys" and heads back to the bedroom while he's here watching a game with me, never giving it a second thought.
Both of our rabbis were once more in and out all day. Rabbi Mark, whom she has come to lean on so much since he arrived here about 7 years ago, and Rabbi Josh, the new kid, the young man who just recently joined our community and was officially "installed" as our second rabbi just last night, while we were down in the ICU. Last night when Rabbi Mark came to play and sing for Cathy he had been doing so at the peril of being late for the dinner honoring Rabbi Josh. He knew that Josh would approve.
All of the family, and most of the friends, who were here yesterday returned as well, thankful for the softer, more peaceful environment of the 9th floor room.
There were so many, I know I cannot recall them all. I would occasionally have to explain to one long-time friend just who another long-time friend was if their paths had just not happened to have crossed before. And then were the young folks as well. Aunt Wynn asked me a little earlier who one particular young man was, and I replied " Oh, that's just another of the many kids who call her Mom."
And they do. So many of them. All ages, colors, and sizes. It is unbelievable how many kids around this town call her Mom.
She is a firm believer in social justice and supports many groups that advocate for those ideals. But she has never belonged to a whole lot of organizations. A few, yes, but usually not for very long. She has always done her charity work one on one. She will speak out in a minute, or less usually, on behalf of a group, but she takes on the work one child, or person, at a time. Our home always had, and still has, a well-known reputation as a place where one could go when you felt like there was nowhere you belonged.

Right now Chris, the female Chris, is sitting by her side, sobbing and talking ever so softly in her ear. She had been so distraught yesterday that she could not come. She had gotten off work as early as she could this evening and came straight here, still in her nurse's scrubs.
She and Cathy met at the Little League field, where her son and Taylor played together. She was my scorekeeper, and she and Cat would sit at the scorekeeper's table, critique the umpiring and my coaching, and get closer to each other every game.
Chris looks up and asks if they will bury her in her shawl. I hadn't thought about it but assure her they will.
The shawl. The talit.
What a beautiful thing. Chris is a very devout Christian. She and Cathy have sparred through the years over religion. Yet it was always done with the utmost respect for each other's beliefs. Then one year Chris showed up, at Hanukah I think it was, with the shawl. She, the devout Christian, had researched the exact specifications of the talit and had hand-knitted one for Cathy. It was done according to all the commandments, right down to the tassle strings with the knots and single blue thread interwoven in them. It was one of the most meaningful gifts Cathy ever recieved.
Of course she will be buried with it, I say. It and the crystal healing wand that April had made for her some time ago. Cathy had packed that in her bag every time she went to the hospital since it was given to her. She was clutching it now, as she had been almost constantly since April's arrival.
I said she would be buried with those items even though I have no idea what all the restrictions and requirements are for a Jewish burial. I'm still becoming a Jew. I've never even been to a Jewish funeral, much less been directly involved in one. I've been to several shiva minyons, but never to the actual burial. But the rabbis have made it clear that even though there are centuries-old traditions, they will honor the wishes of Cathy and the family. This is a reform congregation after all.
I'm glad we got to have the conversation we did yesterday. I want nothing more than to honor my wife and her wishes. She deserves it. The rabbi had said that there was no "wrong". If we did not get to talk to her, whatever we felt was the right thing would indeed be the right thing. But I felt differently. I cursed the fact that my feeble mind could not say for certain where she had finally settled down on the question of burial. I'm sure she had made it clear, but I was undoubtedly pushing the conversation out of my mind at the time because I didn't want to acknowledge it's implications.
Ah, denial.
I knew she had talked about wanting to be cremated for most of her life. Then, recently, she started to question her own desire. She had really embraced Judaism and was concerned about the fact that cremation is not an accepted practice in the Jewish faith. She had read about, and was moved by the beautiful, loving rituals performed by the members of the Sisterhood before burial. She had also voiced a concern that I and the children might be comforted by having a place to go and be with her, a site to engage in whatever routine act of remembrance we may come to embrace and take comfort in. It was a hard conversation, but Taylor, April, Rabbi Mark, and myself gathered around her and ran everyone else out. I talked, since I was the one who hadn't listened as closely as I should have before. I told her that I knew she was having second thoughts and feeling some indecision and asked if she felt confident now about what she really wanted. She asked if her ashes could be buried in the Jewish cemetary. Only in the non-traditional section of the cemetary was the reply. She nodded and then asked the kids if they wanted somewhere to come visit or if they were OK with just knowing she was out there somewhere. They hesitated. That was all it took. She smiled and said she would like a true Jewish burial.
Done.
I asked the rabbi later what kind of financial considerations I need to be arranging for that. I've never thought about a burial plot, much less the price of one. Heck, I'm not supposed to be thinking about these kinds of things for a few more decades yet. He was his typical self, assuring me that the cost was the last thing I needed to concern myself with. He knew that I would do everything I could, and would make sure that that would be enough. Cathy's desire would be made reality.

She is still responding, but not so obviously. I have to look for the response most of the time now, worried that maybe she's not hearing me. And I have so much more to say. All the regrets. All the things I didn't get done. All the things I didn't say. But then I sit back and think, and decide that there was more that was right than there was wrong. I think she knew that she was the center of my life. And that would be the most important thing to me. That she knew that.
I have sat by her side most of the day, occasionally leaning over to kiss her forehead and whisper in her ear. "It's OK, hon. I'm here. We're here. We're going to be all right." I know her. Like I know myself. Maybe better. She is not afraid of dying. She is worrying about us. Are we going to be all right? Will we grieve too much? Who will stay on me and remind me of all the crap that I procastinate so badly about? Who the hell will make sure I eat something besides the frozen, packaged microwave crap I always fix for myself when she's not up to cooking or eating. Who will make sure I remember the appointments, and the birthdays, that I forget on my own?
If I leave the room for a bit, whoever is there jumps up as soon as I enter to give me the chair. They all know how I adore her. I hold her hand and stroke her forehead. April keeps wetting the washcloth and cooling her head and neck. She has a bit of a fever.
The conversations ebb and flow. Someone heads down to the waiting room for a while to make some room for someone else. The room gets quiet with the new arrival for a while. Then the conversation turns to memories, which inevitably leads to an amusing story and laughter and an increase in the volume. Occasionally this seems to upset April. Understandably so. She and Taylor are losing their mother. There is certainly nothing to laugh about. But I remind her that her mom would want us to share fond memories of her and would be happy that those memories evoked laughter.
Earlier today Cathy looked around at the sea of loving friends and family and said "I'm so lucky. Look at all the people I have who care enough to come and see me off." A little later she raised her head, lifted her hands, and said once again "I'm so lucky!" At this point it is the last thing she said out loud.
Right now, though, there are just a few of us here. Wynn and Marty have gone back to their hotel. All of the friends except Patsy, Sue, and Chris have departed. Taylor and April have taken a short walk. Cathy's breathing has slowed considerably and her responses are becoming weaker. I am feeling numb again, and yet, content as well.
She would approve.

It is Saturday night now. Gage is asleep in his room. He's spending the whole weekend here, just as he would have done if she were still here. He is getting more accepting of the idea all the time. He and Haley both spent the night here last night, and April stayed with them while I went to Temple. My second Friday as a mourner. I also went to service this morning. It's such a smaller, more intimate group that it was even more moving. I have the Mourner's Kaddish just about memorized now.
The seven-day candle burned out yesterday. April was here at the time, doing some cleaning. I told her I could do it myself, but she wanted to. For some reason, I'm glad she was here. It didn't seem right that it would go out while there was no one around, while it was alone. She certainly didn't. I had hoped to finish this within the seven day period, but I have been unable to condense it. It seems to cry out to be told in it's entirety.
So it shall.





It's been almost a month now. I've been unable to make the time to sit and write the final segments. Partly because my time hs been intentionally kept filled by friends and family who are doing everything they can to keep me from being alone. By the time I can sit and write at night I can't keep my eyes open any longer. And partly, I'm sure, because this may be the hardest part to write.

And yet it shouldn't be hard at all. I have described it numerous times as being the most beautiful end to a journey one could possibly imagine.

I hope I can do it justice.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Approximately 2:30 pm

The numbness is starting to fade. There is no doubt now that we are very near the end of our journey, the end of our life together, at least on this plane.

Taylor, April, Patsy, and myself are gathered around her, holding hands over her tired body. Tim is standing behind April, and Dana sits by Taylor. My brother and sister have also just happened to stop by at this time and they are sitting on the cot which has doubled as a couch to increase sitting room the last couple of days.

I am fairly certain that we actually lost her around 2 or 3 am this morning. That was when I leaned over and kissed her forehead and did not see any sign of a response at all. There has not been any since.

At the time Patsy and Sue had gone on home for a few hours sleep. Chris had stayed for the night and was asleep on the chair that April had occupied the night before. I'm not sure, but I think Taylor was on the cot and April and Dana were snoozing in the waiting room. I said her name several times and never saw even the slight crinkle of the forehead that had been the least response I had seen previously. In the morning I tell the kids that I think she is gone, she is no longer there. We are simply keeping vigil.

Now her respiration has slowed to not much more than a breath per minute. The respiratory therapist told me this would happen. I'm glad that not everything he prepared me for has happened.

He told me the signs to watch for that would signal we were nearing the end. He told me that I would probably stop seeing any signs of response. He also described several possible reactions her body might go through that did not sound at all pleasant. Fortunately none of that has happened so far.

He told me this as he described his desire to remove the Bi-Pac unit and switch to a regular mask. He is very gentle and caring. He says the Bi-Pac unit is not keeping her alive, that she is breathing herself. But the unit is "slowing down the natural process" and that she could go on in that state for days. He is very explicit in saying that if there is the least sign of any distress or pain when the unit is removed it would be put back on, immediately. There is a genuine sense that the sole focus is assuring that she is comfortable and peaceful. I have already conceded that she is no longer using that body and am agreeable to the idea. Even as I am agreeing, though, I feel the numbness. "This is it," I realize. We are in essence "pulling the plug."

Jeanine is in the room while he explains all of this, and after he and whoever else was in the room leave, I find myself finally ready to have a good sob. I look up and ask her if I can "have a minute". Jeanine understandably thinks that I mean with herself, and starts over to sit by me. So I say "actually, I mean......with her", nodding at Cathy. She gets the classic "oh, yeah...." kind of embarrassed look and rushes out, leaving me to grieve in private, just Cathy and me. Apparently she runs interference in the hall for a while, because even after I've had my time no one comes in until I finally go out and show my face.

A little earlier Aunt Wynn and Marty had to leave to head back to Indianapolis. They had come back early this morning and stayed at the hospital until about 1:00, leaving just in time to catch their flight. Wynn said that she doubted they would be able to turn around and come back immediately for the funeral as it was getting apparent that there would be one very soon. We all agreed it was much better that they had come when they did and been able to actually visit with Cathy while she was still able to visit. Chris had also had to leave to go back to Gastonia. She would have liked to have stayed and been there with us, but again, it was so much more important that she had been able to say her farewells.

As the morning progressed her breathing has indeed slowed down steadily. Very slowly, but steadily, until it hit a pace of about 4 or 5 breaths per minute. Every so often our nurse, whom I absolutely love, has popped in and asked if we need anything. She asks if we want to her take the scheduled vital signs. We decided not to after about 11:00. She reminds us to not hesitate to use the morphine drip to insure that Cathy is comfortable. The drip mechanism is set to only allow a "push" every ten minutes. And indeed, whenever the cycle nears the 10 minute mark, her breathing seems to get just a little more strained. But a quick push on the button seems to settle her back down almost immediately.

The respiratory therapist had returned about noon and asked about switching to a nostril tube. He didn't come out and say it but I know what he was asking.

Are we ready?

He said just about the same thing he said earlier about switching to the face mask. I hear all of his words but it's as if they are being spoken somewhere else, and echoing through some distant chamber into my ears. The nostril tube would be even more comfortable for her. It would allow her lungs to operate at their own capacity, which to me also implies to not operate if they are not capable. We would keep hitting the joy button on the morphine drip and if there was any sign of pain or distress he would reconnect the face mask. I told him that I think that would be the right thing to do, and that she would want that. My words coming out of my mouth sound much like his did, a caricature of themselves. Taylor agreed but at the moment April had gone downstairs and I did not want to act without her being a part of the decision. When she returned she agreed as well, and I could see the acceptance in their eyes.

Patsy returned about that time, so now the four of us are circled around her, literally holding hands over her body. For the last hour or so there has hardly been a single word spoken. Tom and Jeanine, my brother and sister just happened to stop by a while ago. I'm sure they had not planned to find the events going on that they found. They have been sitting quietly, almost reverently, on the cot for almost an hour.

As her children and I look on, Cathy's breathing slows to one breath at a time, with long lapses in between. Several times I am certain she has taken her last breath, only to have her suddenly inhale once more. Cascading breathing, the therapist had called it. Very long inhales, then a long pause, and a sudden quick exhale. But it is not at all violent or distressed. It is as peaceful and natural as it possibly could be. She has a peaceful expression on her face, and I know that she is not feeling any of this. The tuth is, at this point the peaceful passing is more important to the kids and I than it is to her. She has already left the building.

At one point she inhales very quickly and her eyes fly open. April gasps. I gently rub her forehead and close them back. I lean forward and kiss her and stroke her forehead, mindful to keep a slight pressure down so the eyes don't shock the kids again.

Finally there comes a time when the next breath just does not come. There is no jerking. No movement. There are no monitors hooked up to flash or beep or do that flatline sound you always hear on TV. I am so glad of that. She simply exhales and then does not inhale again. We squeeze each other's hands. Hard. Harder. We wait a minute. Still nothing.

"I think that's it," I hear myself saying. I stand up and hug Patsy, who is beside me. Then I go around the bed and hug my children. For a long time.

I wish Timmy was here.

I hear myself sob a little. I lean over and kiss her forehead, and the kids follow suit. Tom and Jeanine have joined us now and everybody hugs each other for a minute or two. I finally head toward the door and everyone follows. I go to the nurse's station and tell the nurse she's gone. As I head back down the hall I start to call the people I feel I need to call first. My mom and dad. Then the rabbi. Rabbi Mark is away, but Rabbi Josh takes the call and is at the hospital in minutes.

When he arrives we gather in the waiting room down the hall so the nurses can do whatever it is they have to do. There are ten or twelve of us by now, and Rabbi Josh leads us in a couple of prayers, including the prayer with no words. Poor Josh is getting quite an initiation. He has been our rabbi officially for less than three days, and here he sits with exactly two Jews, one semi-Jew, and a roomful of Christians explaining Jewish burial traditions and customs and answering a host of questions he is usually not being asked.

After all is done and my beloved wife's body has been taken to await it's final resting place, I leave and go to my parent's house. I need a good hug from my momma. Both she and Dad have been ill which is why they did not come up to the hospital. It is a very nice hospital but it is not very friendly to elderly visitors, especially not elderly visitors who are in poor health. It is a very long walk to anywhere in the place. After that I go to April's house, where I will spend the rest of the week.

As strange as it may sound, her passing was absolutely beautiful. If she could have scripted it herself, there was only one thing she certainly would have changed. It would have happened six weeks later so that Timmy could have been with us. Other than that it happened as perfectly as it could possibly have happened. Of course, I would be much happier if it had not happened at all, but since that was not an option for us, I'm so grateful that it happened as it did. She did not spend weeks on end lying immobile or unresponsive in bed. That was the one thing she always insisted she would not do. She did not suffer, or lie in pain, or experience any traumatic final moments. She was able to say goodbye to almost everyone she wanted to say goodbye to. And they got to say goodbye to her. Then she simply closed her eyes one last time, and left this world while surrounded by those she loved. And those she loved were in turn surrounded by each other, to comfort each other and sustain that love.

I'm sure she approved.

It Had To Happen

Well, it was bound to happen.
I have said for weeks that all these people bringing up the U-word (undefeated) should shut their fat traps. There is no way in today's world that a team will go undefeated in college basketball.
I just wish the Heels' first loss had not come at home in their ACC opener.
Now we start out behind the proverbial 8-ball. Duke and Wake Forest are both playing great basketball in their own respective rights, and both were already looking like potential roadblocks on our path to an ACC crown. Now we've gone and spotted them a game to start the season out.
I don't think they really needed that helping hand.
Boston College is a great team themselves. They are probably deserving of a Top 25 ranking despite their 2 losses, and will probably recieve that accolade with this win. Tyrese Rice himself should earn a team a Top 25 spot even if he had no help from his teammates at all. After torching the Heels for a simply SICK 46 points last year, he scored a mere game-high 25 in this year's contest. On this night however, unlike last year, when Carolina prevailed in the end, he got plenty of help.
Enough to add up to an 85 - 78 win for the Eagles, and an 0 - 1 start to league play for the Tarheels..
Rakim Sanders scored 22 points from the other guard spot. The X-factor, though, was Reggie Jackson. Jackson came off the bench to play 26 minutes and add 17 points, which exactly equaled the production of the entire, vaunted Carolina reserves. For a team that supposedly goes 12 deep, this is not a statistic you expect to see. One BC bench player matching our whole bench. Not good.
Also not good was Ty Lawson's 4 turnovers set against only 4 assists. He has averaged 5 assists to every one turnover so far this season, that average helped by a ridiculous 5-game stretch when he had 38 assists to only 3 TO's. In the last 5 games, that ratio has "slipped" to 4 to 1. Tonight's 1 to 1 ratio will not get the job done in ACC play.
On the positive side, the Beast, Tyler Hansbrough, had his usual 20 point night, 21 to be exact. And Wayne Ellington seems to have finally found his mark. After being a virtual no-show the previous 8 or 10 games, he has scored well in the last two, including a nice 16 point outing against BC tonight. He hit 5 of 9 2-point attempts, but only 2 of 7 from behind the arc. Danny Green was just 2 of 6 from 3-point land himself. We sure could have used a couple more of those treys.
We also could have used about 8 of the 12 damn free throws we missed. Only 15 of 27 free throws were made, with Deon Thompson making just 1 out of 6. Even Tyler missed 3 tonight. That had better improve before next week's big showdown with Wake Forest.
Also in need of improvement is that bench play. Will Graves, our boy from Greensboro, did contribute 7 points and 7 rebounds, but that was about it. Lawson may have had 4 turnovers, but Larry Drew, his back-up, added 3 more of his own and he only played 9 minutes. Bobby Frasor didn't help much, either, with just 1 lone 3-pointer and 1 assist.
For the first time this year, Roy has some serious points to address in practice this week. The real test of this season is how well the guys respond to this setback, and if they actually use it as a learning tool.
So, the Heels get a midweek game against College of Charleston before coming here to Winston-Salem to face Wake Forest. It will be Wake's ACC opener and, as hard as it is to believe, almost a must-win for Carolina. A loss would make us 2 behind the Demon Deacons in the loss column to start the season. Wake is too good to give them that kind of head start. Not to mention the fact that Duke is already 1 full game up and should be 2-0 by the time we play Wake, as they play Florida State next Saturday. The only consolation is the fact that, as tonight's game proves, anybody is susceptible to a loss at any time in the ACC.
Here's hoping that the other contenders get their share of those surprises, and that it happens soon, so I can relax a little.

History is Made

This will be short - it's late.
I've just watched history unfold. Barack Obama has been elected president of these United States.
Now I'm actually something of an Independent, not really married to one party or the other, although I've voted for the Democratic presidential candidate ever since I was old enough to realize that my parent's view of the world was not the only view that existed. I'm ashamed to admit that I bought into the venom spewed about Jimmy Carter being responsible for all of America's problems in 1980 and I voted for Reagan. Not since, however. Yet I have occasionally voted for a local Republican I admired or respected, and have occasionally voted Republican in some of the state elections. I almost never vote a straight party ticket.
I also don't buy into the "Obama-will-make-world-all-better" bullcrap. Obama is after all a politician and I haven't run into one of those yet that I would trust with my own family's well-being. He has been bought and paid for just as McCain has been and Bush was before. But I distinctly remember watching him give that speech in '04 I think it was and thinking "wow, this guy gets it". I can only hope that some of the beautiful, inclusive, uniting words he spoke came from somewhere below the politician in him and will be there underneath what he actually does in office.
The 2 parties will still control the shots, and for those who think we are now doomed because a black man, or a democrat, or a man with a Muslim sounding name, is our leader, take heart. Things are not really going to change that much. The Democrats have not done much differently than the Republicans have in recent years. You couldn't hardly tell the difference between the last 2 candidates we had to choose from, Bush and Kerry. The cycles have gone on the same whether we have Red or Blue in the White House. The Bush administration pushed us to the brink of economic ruin with their deregulation, but it was Clinton who initially opened that door for the Republicans to bulldoze their way through. Everyone associates the Republicans with stricter immigration laws, but Bush's policies were more liberal than Clinton's in that aspect.
Here is what I think is great.
Maybe, just MAYBE, we are starting to see the degradation of our our old fears and prejudices.
Maybe, just MAYBE, we are starting to see past the old seperating factors.
Maybe, just MAYBE, we'll look at what someone has to offer without loading them up with the baggage of their ancestry.
And we can finally say - ANYBODY can grow up to be ANYTHING in this country and not be lying through our teeth when we say it.
It has to start somewhere, maybe this is it. The time is surely many generations away when we will be completely past all this, but maybe we have finally started on a path to truly accepting all of our fellow men, regardless of ethnicity and ancestry.
Now if we can just elect a gay oriental next time :)

Shana Tova - Part 1: Behind in the Count

We're gonna party like it's 5775!
OK, it's actually a week past New Year, but.......
Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, was last week and tonight we observed the arrival of Yom Kippur. Now I'm not about to delve into the deep significance of Yom Kippur, especially since I'm not actually Jewish, but I did see this as a catylist for kicking myself back into existence on my blog.
My poor, neglected blog has been a real trooper, waiting patiently for me to acknowledge it's existence, and not complaining about or showing resentment towards the "other blogs" in my life, even though I spend copious amounts of time at those blogs while my own sits at home being ignored. I am a cad, aren't I?
I am far behind right now in the game of life in general, not just in blogging. There are so many aspects of my life that I am behind in that blogging has had to take a back seat to some of them which are much more critical to our family's well-being. Today being a holiday, however, and a holiday that is dedicated to reflection in particular, I will try to renew my relationship with my own blog, and possibly catch some people who stop by occasionally up on the reasons they have not seen anything new on my blog since August.
Ah, August. The month my behindedness :) really escalated. I tend to stay behind in most aspects of my life anyway. So much so that I feel I could never make a decent pitcher. Besides the fact that I'm over the hill, out of shape, and never could pitch worth a damn anyway, there's the fact that a pitcher should always get ahead of the batter. A pitcher who works "behind in the count" consistently will never get too far. That's me, behind in the count. But in August, things took a nasty turn which was of course made worse by the fact that I was already in my usual "behind" state.
So there are legitimate reasons for my absence at my blogsite. Among them would be following:

Working kind of backwards -

8 - It IS High Holy Days season. This is first on the list because it's the LEAST of the reasons I am so far behind. I did miss a day of work last week, and will not work tomorrow as I will be at Temple all day, but this simply added to an already severe tardiness. It did not cause it. And of course, you could say "well you're not REALLY Jewish, so why hurt yourself to participate?" Well, that's another story. Suffice to say I consider myself a part of the Jewish community and will continue to honor their traditiions and principals, and may even join that community "officially" one day.

7 - The baseball season is in full playoff mode - so there are games almost every night, and I watch the games while chatting with my friends at Joy of Sox, the "other blog". Fortunately, the Sox won the ALDS Monday night, so I will not be missing a game tonight while at service.
Yeah!

6 - Cathy's car is on the blink and if she needs to get anywhere, it's pretty much up to me to take her. She calls on her friends a lot during the day, but in the evening it is, and should be, on me. I in no way, shape, or form have enough money to get her a new one right now, although I'm working feverishly toward that goal. She has actually taken matters into her own hands and has started on on-line fund-raising effort, which I will get into shortly.

5 - Fall Ball is also in full swing, meaning practices or games 2 or 3 nights of every week, field prep work and games on Saturdays, and stat keeping some evenings.

4 - My son, the idiot, has gotten himself in trouble with the law and is "doing time". He has had problems in the past with substance abuse. He had gotten himself straight after his son was born and seemed to be getting more and more on the right path after his wife left him AND the baby, making him the primary parent. But he fell off the wagon a while back, got caught, (which was probably the best thing that could have happened), and because of prior offenses is now the guest of our state for 6 - 8 months. This means I'm working by myself instead of having a helper, and it means a lot of extra time caring for the grandson as well. The "working by myself" part has turned out to be a good thing from a financial standpoint. I had already started leaving him at home on days when I didn't absolutely need him. However it does mean each job takes longer, and since the jobs are really picking up, I am getting behind on the jobs as well as everywhere else.

3 - I have gotten incredibly behind on paperwork for my business, both billing, which you kind of have to do if you want people to pay you, and taxes for last year, which have to get done soon to avoid penalties and also so Cathy can reapply for her Medicare benefits. After the fall LL season got going, there were nights when I would come home at 8:30 or 9 and sit at the computer until after midnight with 4 or 5 screens open, not an easy thing on my antique, overworked hard drive. I was doing bills or taxes, watching the Sox on Gameday, checking out comments on JoS and occasionally jumping in with one of my own, and listening to music on I-tunes, not to mention checking and replying to e-mails.

2 - The pile-up of paperwork is also related to a sudden upswing in business. More billing to do, less time to do it in. After sitting and watching the paint dry an awful lot of the summer, when there were fewer other things going on, the phone is now ringing off the hook. Which is a good thing, but......sheez! It doesn't help to have all this business if people get pissed about waiting too long and call someone else. Fortunately I have some VERY loyal customers, and the ones I've added recently came to me because of very strong recommendations from my loyal regulars and they seem to be willing to wait. But for how long......

1 - To kick off this whole mess, the biggest contributor to my "state of behindedness" was the loss of just about the entire month of August, business wise, baseball wise, and paperwork wise, to an extended stay at the hospital with Cat. We'll start there.

Around the 1st of August, Cat started having a lot of trouble breathing. She went in for an X-ray and they found an effusion (hope I'm spelling that right), a build up of fluid around the lung. They performed a procedure on a Friday to drain it off, an out-patient process that wasn't bad at all. But by Monday she was just as bad as before so she went in for a follow-up X-ray. She went to the Imaging Center first, then was to take the X-ray over to her doctor's office. As luck would have it, she came out of the Imaging Center and had a flat tire. I, of course, was about 40 minutes away on a job. Sounds like a TV sit-com episode, doesn't it? I told her I would head that direction but she said to wait and let her try to find someone closer. When she called back 30 minutes later she had WALKED to the Dr's office. It was only a half a mile or so, but seriously - she's already having trouble breathing, she couldn't walk across the yard without gasping for breath, and on top of that it's freaking August!
The next call, about 30 minutes later, was to tell me it had indeed gotten worse, not better, and she was being admitted. So now I did pack up and leave the job and head straight to the hospital. The next morning more X-rays showed the effusion was getting progressively worse. They said they would put in a drain tube, leave it in a few days, then perform a procedure which involved blowing talcum powder through the same tube into the cavity to irritate the lining around the lung. This was supposed to cause the lining to swell, essentially closing the cavity so there would be no place for fluid to congregate. We'd be home in a week at most.

Nice plan. Easy, right?
Yeah right.

First they didn't put the tube in until Thursday. She was sent down to have it put in on Tuesday, but the radiologist disagreed with Cat's oncologist (cancer doctor) and the pulmonologist (lung doctor) and sent her back without doing it, saying there was not enough fluid to warrant the procedure. Would he have said that if we had insurance? Who knows, but I have to wonder. By the next afternoon the fluid build-up was so bad her pulse-ox (never mind) was getting low so they ordered the tube in again. This time radiology went ahead and did it.

Then it took several days longer than they anticipated for the fluid to drain enough to do the talc powder process. Thoracentesis, I think it was called. I think a lot of the problems that followed were because the fluid never did drain enough to do it properly, but they did it anyway. I'm not 100% sure about the days, but I think it was Wednesday (over a week in) when they tried the talc powder.
It never had a chance.

By thursday night she was in excruciating pain, so they pumped her full of the serious stuff, morphine, etc., and put the tube back in to start the whole process over again. By now the drugs were beginning to seriously affect her. She was getting very anxious, and couldn't sleep at all. I stayed there practically every night, and hardly left during the day either. She would drift off to sleep, never very soundly, and would wake up after only a short time in a state of near-panic. I hated to think of her waking up alone in that state of mind, so I rarely left unless someone else was there to fill in for me. This meant sleeping on the old fold-out chair in the room, not exactly a deep, restful sleep, especially with a nurse popping in every so often. I would get people to come up during the day, at least some days, so I could go try to get a little bit of work done and generate a little income. But even on those days, what with going home to let the poor dog out a while, change into work clothes and get the van, I got very few hours of actual charged out time on a job.

The first weekend she was in an old friend from her high school days came up from Rock Hill, SC and stayed overnight Friday and Saturday. That allowed me to get in a whole day of work on Saturday and also to get the grandson for the night and sleep in my own bed for the first time in a week. There is a great story about how she and Cat reunited that I recounted in brief on JoS because it actually involved that site. But this is already a lengthy post so I'll come back to that another time.

The second weekend I got relief again, this time from another old friend who, strangely enough, we had literally just reacquaited with the day before she went in the hospital. Ran into her at a mutual friend's cookout, not even knowing it was a mutual friend. Hadn't seen her or talked to her in years. Talk about devine providence! But Sunday night things got a little ugly. She was feeling better physically but awoke from a nap with a room full of people there and had no clue what she was doing there or how long she had been there. She was completely panicked and it took a while for me to realize this was not just a case of waking up groggy and getting yourself oriented in a few minutes. After we tried to fill in all the details, she still didn't remember, and was very upset that I was leaving to go somewhere with a friend, not aware that she herself had insisted that I do so just to get a break while her friend was there to stay with her. Eventually I got her somewhat comforted and got her to think back. She remembered going to the doctor's office and learning she was going to be admitted, but she never did remember anything after her arrival at the hospital. With prodding she finally did remember that her friend from SC had been there, but had no recall of when, how long, what they did, or that she had stayed overnight. Since then small parts of those 2 weeks have come back, but not much.

After over 2 1/2 weeks they tried the ..thoracentesis?... again, on a Thursday I believe. This time it worked better although they still kept her a few more days to watch her progress, given the problems with the first attempt. We finally got to return home on the next Tuesday. A day more than 3 full weeks! We had spent practically the entire month of August in that hospital. I was SO glad to get home! The problem is that we are now having to adjust to a new set of parameters. The procedure helped, but it did not get rid of all the fluid, nor did the damage done repair itself. They may have resolved that particular crisis, but the effusion is still there, and will remain there. Cat cannot do nearly as much activity as she could before without getting very short of breath, practically gasping for air. And she was already fairly limited in what she could do before.

She has had to resume chemo treatments, since the assumption is that the effusion is related to an increase in tumor activity, and the marker numbers they use to track these things bear that out. We are hopeful that the chemo will reduce the effect the tumor growth is having and will help her breathing capacity. We can only wait and see. In the meantime she is more frustrated than ever with her limitations. She wants nothing more than to spend time with our grandson, raising him in his father's absence, and to pursue her love of all things crafts, particularly her beading. And she does those things, but has to do them in short doses. That's not so bad with the beads, but as anyone who has raised kids knows, there is no such thing as short doses with a 5-year-old! That's a full time job.

So now I'm going back and changing the title to "part 1", because this is all I can do for this night, not to mention it is already excessively long. I have wanted to get this story down ever since we got home, but you can check out the aforementioned list to see why I haven't. The hospital stay itself compounded all the other things that normally get in the way of my blogging. There is also the undeniable fact that the whole experience was completely overwhelming, and very scary. We've known she has stage 4 cancer now for almost 4 years. But there's always been the defense mechanism of "well, at least we know we've still got several years together to go". This was the first time I had a sense of foreboding, a worry that perhaps my wife of over 30 years now would not be with me much longer. That's a very uncomfortable thought and I guess maybe it took me quite a while to decide I could talk about it. Then, when I did, all those other things on that list kicked in, and it got put off for way too long.

I am now, however, back in the wonderful land of denial. My Fall Little League team has finally won a couple of games, after getting trounced our first 4 times out, and the Red Sox are on their way to the AL Championship Series against Tampa Bay, hopefully just a stop on the way to another World Series! The Tarheel football team is 4-1, something that they haven't been able to say in quite a few years. For the first time in a long time I'm not singing the familiar "wait until basketball season" song. The year 5769 has begun, and tonight I sang in the Temple Choir for the evening Yom Kippur service. I will be back there again tomorrow morning, missing another day of work and getting even further behind, but it's worth it. I said earlier that I'm not actually a Jew. I should have said I'm not technically a Jew, because actually, I believe I am a Jew. I will address all of this and more, soon, very soon, as soon as I'm just a liitle bit less behind, in parts 2 - ?.

Until then - Happy New Year, and Go Red Sox Go!!

Health and Jesus, er um God, er um Whoever, er um Whatever

OK, this is going to be a long one. But mainly because it's 2, yes 2, 2 posts in one. Wait, that was a mint gum thing wasn't it?
I ventured onto Cathy's blog tonight, something I have only done once before. I don't know why, it just seems kind of private, and I don't want her holding back because she's afraid I'll read something she doesn't want me to.
Tonight however I'm writing in the hospital room where we have lived now for the past 2 weeks. We have been on a roller coaster ride since we got here, with several instances of uncertainty and fear about what might be happening and it seemed okay to see if she had been writing anything lately. I'll get back to our adventures in Hospital Land soon, but that's not what got me writing tonight
It turns out that the last time she had written was over a month ago, and she was relating some thoughts she had experienced with regard to me and the rest of the family and how we would still be here and would get by after she is gone. Not the kind of thing you want to dwell on constantly, but certainly a normal line of thought given her prognosis. There was 1 comment to her post, from an anonymous writer. This person thought Cathy was thinking too much, and about the wrong things. That Cathy should find Jesus and her life would be better.
I posted the following comment -

Interesting, the idea that changing the way you refer to God can somehow make your illness go away. If God decides to invoke a miracle, which is incredibly unlikely, he will do it regardless of what name you call him by. I'm absolutely positive that if you look at the instances of "miraculous recoveries" you would find equal numbers of beneficiaries from all walks of faith, and probably some from people with no faith. Although I really question how many people truly have NO faith. I think most that claim that just don't have a name for their belief, so they don't acknowledge that it exists. And I did say most, not all.
God has made a lot of lives better through Jesus. He's also made a lot of lives better through other avenues. I tend to give him credit for making possible all the good things that go on in our world. It seems unlikely to me that if good things happen to someone who hasn't "found" Jesus, someone besides God must be responsible. I certainly don't consider the undisputed fact that sometimes bad things happen to Christians to be proof that God doesn't like Christianity.
And as for thinking about the right things - I do think one can dwell on the negative aspects of life too much. But the truth is we all have thought at one time or another about life after we have gone, and how the people and the world we know will react to our departure. At least I have, and I think it creeps in there a little more often as we age. So if one knows that one's life is, in all likelihood, not going to be as long as one would hope, it seems only natural that you would think these thoughts even more often. And the best way to get past them is to voice them so you can move on to better thoughts, instead of suppressing them and have them stay under the surface, always there.
Then again, what do I know?
Maybe I think too much as well.

OK, so that's a long comment. But I really wanted to say so much more. I condensed almost every aspect of what I was saying as I wrote that. I didn't mention that if one gives God credit for all the good stuff, you kind of have to give him credit for the bad as well. Oh, I know, there's the old Satan thing you can lay that off on, but seriously now. Are you going to tell me you believe there's another God out there as powerful as "your" God, which he would have to be if he can make things happen that God doesn't want to happen. No, I kind of think that God created all these wondrous possibilities, and that he created a perfectly balanced universe, meaning that the wondrous possibilities automatically necessitate some not so wondrous possibilities.
And another thing. I used the old "he" term for God. It's just easier and flows better if you use either he or she instead of placing the word God, or G*d, or Adonai, or whatever, in a single sentence 3 or 4 times. Maybe I should have used "she" to make a point, I often do, but it seemed a little combative, which I was not trying to be. The thing is, I don't visualize God as a "he" or a "she" or even as a carbon based life form at all. I don't buy the whole "made us in his image" thing. To give God physical characteristics seems actually a little condescending to me.
And that is also why I can't buy the Christian philosophy of "believe that Jesus is my Son or you will rot in Hell". Forget the argument about whether he is or isn't. That's another post entirely.
But if he is, I still wouldn't assign the VERY human trait of vanity to God. And that's what that philosophy sounds like me. "Do it my way or suffer eternally". Doesn't even sound "Christian." Sounds "Bushian", maybe, but that's another post as well. Sounds angry, hateful, arrogant, and vengeful. All of which seem like very human characteristics. None of which sound like the God I commune with. Of course I have a rather eccentric view of God, one that I will not delve into right now. Suffice to say that it encompasses a lot of beliefs and science as well. I do consider myself to be part of the Jewish community, but one reason I do so is that Judaism allows me space to have my own beliefs without ostracizing me or condemning me for thinking for myself and developing my own unique relationship with God.
Then again, maybe I just think too much

The Title of This Post Is : A Title!

WE DID IT!
After, let's see, about 18 years of involvement in Little League Baseball, and 15 years as a manager, a team I coach has brought home a district title.
District Champions. It has such a nice ring.
On Sunday afternoon my Big League team, that's the 16 - 18 year olds, went to Walkertown and beat them 8-6 to end our season at 14-2. The game had been started the week before and called due to rain in the top of the second inning with us down 2 - 0 and 2 outs in our half of the inning. I will not repeat the details of our season, the build-up to this game, or the reason we were playing a district title game after the end of the Big League World Series. If you haven't done so, you should read the post just before this one. Suffice to say that if Walkertown had won this game, we would have been tied for the season and would have played a "playoff" game immediately afterward.
Mmmmm, 1-game playoff. Familiar and not very comforting territory for Red Sox fans.
The completion did not start at all well. In the original start, we had a man at the plate with no one on base, 2 outs, and a 2-2 count when a huge bolt of lightening hit nearby and the umps cleared the field. It never cleared up and we were sent home after an hour wait.
When we resumed last Sunday, the player at bat was not at this game. So I had to send a poor kid up with 2 outs and 2 strikes who wasn't even in the game the previous time. The home team, Walkertown, took the field, went through all their warm-ups, and then ran right back into their dugout after my batter looked at a called strike 3 on the first pitch of the day. Not a very common occurance I'm sure.
In the bottom of the 2nd inning Walkertown scored 2 more and we were down 4 - 0. We pushed 1 across in the top of the 3rd, but they got it back with a solo home run in the bottom of the 4th. At the beginning of the 5th inning, down 5 - 1, I found myself in a good spot with my lead-off hitter up first. I called my first 5 batters out in front of the dugout and told them I did not want to have to play a second game, that I needed them to get serious right now. I told them not to give in to the ego thing and try to match the guy's home run with one of their own. Just get me some baserunners I said, quit chasing the high shit he was throwing, take the walk if he wouldn't bring it down, and hit line drives if he did. The first man walked, the next 4 got singles. During the 5th man's at-bat, with men on 2nd and 3rd, he asked for time as the pitcher, who had gone to a wind-up, was starting his motion. The umpire apparently thought it was too late to do so and said nothing. But their pitcher stopped mid-motion and stepped back - Balk! 1-run game! My man then ripped a single to tie it, and the next man added a 5th straight hit just for good measure.
Now tied with 2 on, their guy hit our next batter to load 'em up, and that was it for him. We proceeded to score 3 more off of his relief on an error, a walk and an RBI groundout.
They scored 1 more in the bottom of that 5th inning, and I started warming up my closer. But my starter made it through the 6th with no more damage and I was able to bring in my closer in the end to face their 2, 3, and 4 hitters. He struck out the 1st, got the next one to ground out right back to himself, and struck out the last one for an emphatic victory. Playoff game my ass!
I said at the beginning that "a team I coached" had won a championship, not that I had. That's really how I feel. I do keep referring to it as "my" first title, but these guys did this themselves. All I did was make sure that they were having fun, at least as much as possible. And it's interesting how many parents have mentioned to me that this was the 1st time their son had fun playing for a team in several years, since they started high school in most cases. I guess these high school coaches are so absorbed in their image and their win-loss record that they push the kids past the point of it being any fun at all. They say they are trying to give the kid a chance to "make it" but seriously, almost none, if any at all, of these kids will even play college ball, forget pro ball. It's a game. They love the game already or they wouldn't be there. Don't take that love away from them. If they have the tools, they'll get their shot. Baseball has the most all-encompassing system of finding talent that exists. I can't tell you how many scouts I've met myself at various USSSA or showcase events, just checking out some kid they heard something about and looking over everyone else while they're there. So we just made sure they were having a good time, instead of making them feel like they were at boot camp or something. Don't get me wrong, we expected 100% effort, and let them know when we felt like we weren't getting it. And we worked them at practice, hard. But then we let them be loose and we trusted them to do their sprints and such themselves, instead of standing there counting them out ourselves. I think they really responded well to that trust and to our recognition of the fact that they were here to play a game, not to further a career.
I am extremely proud of them, and also proud of whatever small part I was able to play in bringing them together as a team.
On Monday, following the big game, my wife was admitted to the hospital once again. That will be covered in my next post. I've been here with her ever since, and have not felt particularily celebratory, so that's why I'm just now getting this posted. However, on Thursday I was able to leave her long enough to go to our field and bask in our success for a while. We gathered the team and had a Home-Run Derby, which was won by one of the weaker hitters on our team, a kid we often DH'ed for. That was a wonderful surprise. Then we unfurled our championship banner, handed out our pins, took some pictures and marched over to the flag poles in the commons area. There we took down the '03 banner, which was the last time any team from our league had won a district title, and raised up our new trophy flag. It was incredibly satisfying.
I am obligated to point out that winning a Big League title is easier than winning a district title at the younger ages, simply because there is less competition. Only 4 other leagues in our district fielded a team this year, compared to the 21 teams that were entered in the 12 year-old tournament this year. I have coached a runner-up team twice in that age group and finished third once.
However, even though those runner-up efforts may have been more difficult achievements in the strictest sense, they do not compare with seeing that flag flying as I turn into the complex. Finally, the job was finished instead of just getting close.
Fourteen wins, three of them against arch-rival Kernersville, only two losses, and a district championship. This was indeed a special season and I will not forget it, nor will I forget this special group of young men who made it happen.

Big League Baseball

As everyone who knows me at all knows, much too well, I coach Little League baseball. Right now I'm coaching our Big League Team, 16-18 yr-olds. We are at the end of a remarkable season, my best ever as a coach. We are 13 - 2 and in first place in our district. Last Sunday we swept a double-header against East Surry in what was supposed to be the final day of the season. We should be hoisting a District Championship Banner as we speak, the first for a team I've coached in my 16 years or so as a head coach.

We have beaten our arch-nemesis, Kernersville, 3 out of 4 games. And to make it sweeter, one of those wins was after K-ville pulled one of their typical stunts and brought in a bunch of ringers from the local American Legion team after their season had ended. They added 3 All-Conference players, 2 of whom were also All-State, and 1 of whom is a damn All-American signed to play at LSU, no less. You will probably see Tyler Hanover on someone's draft list in a few years, and you read it here first. When they showed up at our field with those 3, and several other newer, stronger, faces as well, my guys were taken aback, but just for a minute or two. Much to my liking, they then said, in effect, "Bring it on, suckers. If you're so scared you have to trade in your whole team, we'll take that as a compliment, and still kick your ass." Kernersville won that game, but it was close, 7 - 4. My pitchers kept Hanover to a 1 for 4 day, and we had them on the ropes before we made a couple of late game errors, then my pitcher reached his limit under the LL pitch count rule. My reliever promptly walked in their last 2 runs. A few days later we went to their place and beat them 7 - 5, even with their beefed up squad.

Here's where it gets tricky. We are 13-2. Walkertown has lost 4 games now, including 2 they lost to us. They did beat us once. We also started a 4th game in the last week of the season at their place that was rained out after 1 inning, with them leading already 2 - 0. We tried to reschedule that game but have had a hard time due to guys being gone after the season was supposed to end, and several guys who have started football practice for their schools. I had assumed that it was no big deal because we had 1st place locked up regardless. Now I've found out different.

It turns out, when Walkertown played Kernersville they aked for rosters and pitching affadavits before the game. We are required to fill out affadavits after each game to insure we follow the LL requirements concerning pitch limits, days of rest, and their pesky rule about consecutive games. I fill them out, but I have never asked to see one, nor have I been asked. When Kernersville could not produce said documents, Walkertown played the game under protest.

That protest has been upheld, so they are now 12-3, and can tie us with a win in the rained out game. If we are going to hoist my first ever District Championship flag at our complex, we have to win one more game. If they do beat us in the completion, we'll have to find a way to play a play-off game. Stay tuned.

Now, In the "Small World" dept. -

Literally as I'm writing this story about our Big League team, I'm sitting here watching a replay of today's Big League World Series Championship game in South Carolina. The team from SC is playing Puerto Rico. South Carolina always has a strong Big League program and has won several national championships. They always play the finals at this complex near Greenville, just as they always play the 12 year-old division finals at Williamsport, PA.

Now get this -
Our district is the only district in North Carolina with a Big League program. In Big League play, each league in the district fields a team. At the end of the season, well at least seasons past, the coach of the winning team gets to manage the District All-Star team in the State tournament. He selects his squad from all of the teams, and of course takes a majority from his own team. With no other district in the state involved, if we win our district, we automatically win the State and go to Florida for the Regionals. Unfortunately, our district bowed out of the Regionals this year. Here's why. Last year the team couldn't raise the money to get to Florida. It was an embarrassment to the state people to be on the schedule and then not show. In addition, what with school conflicts and graduations we just can't seem to start the games until after school is out and "beach week" is behind us. The season has to end in time to meet the national schedule. Our district representative would have to be selected and in Fla. by July 15 or so. Rather than end the season after just 10 or 12 games and then not have anyone go to the next level anyway, they opted to extend our season till this past weekend, playing 16 games, and skip participation in the Regional tournament. Now I'm sitting watching the Big League World Series on ESPN and thinking "what if".
My team was undefeated after 12 games and I would have gone to Florida as the manager of a state champion team. How cool! With mostly guys from my own team, of course.

THEN - I see that the South Carolina team that is in the final against Puerto Rico is mostly made up of guys from Riverside High, just a short drive from where they are playing this championship. My best friend from LL, who was my assistant coach for 7 years, moved to Greenville, SC just so his kid could go to Riverside. They have a super-strong baseball program. The older son has graduated but the younger one is still there. I'm not saying his kid is on this team, he's probably not. But I bet my friend is there. And I'm not saying that we would have advanced past the Regionals to get to this championship game. We probably wouldn't have. These guys in this game are STRONG! But we could have. Stranger things have happened, and we are certainly not bad.
What a small world it can be.

And now, even as I write these words, the South Carolina team has come from a 4-0 deficit in the last inning and scored 5 runs to win the Big League World Series.
Strange things do happen.
Good for them.
Wish it was me.

Manny Being a Dodger

Well, it finally happened. The Boston front office and the media sharks succeeded in making it an absolute necessity to deal away the best hitter in baseball.
It was obvious the last few days that the suit didn't fit anymore. Manny would be gone after the season if not before. I kept holding on to a shred of hope that this, like all those other MBM moments, would just go away, that he would get back to being the most feared hitter in the game, and that by the end of the season he would be talking about finishing his career in the Red Sox uniform. But as Wednesday wore on the talk got worse, and then Manny himself started to show signs that he was ready to move on. Even then I held on to the fact that he had acted like he wanted out before, but had always come around to a "I like it here and want to stay" stance after the spat.
But this time the vitriol was just too sour. And as much as I would have loved for Manny to Be Manny in Boston for the remainder of his career, I'm also glad that this whole affair is behind us now. I still blame the FO and the media MUCH more than I blame Manny, (although he certainly made his contribution to the fuel supply on the fire), and I think the idea that it was "necessary" to move him was created and sold to the public by those entities.
Did he sit out a couple of games recently complaining of a sore knee? Yes, but Manny actually had played in more games than any other player this year. Go back through the game logs. Practically every person on the team, and every other team too, has sat out here and there just because they were sore and needed to recupe a bit.
Did he occasionally not hustle out a ground ball? Sure, but watch the games. The same can be said for almost every other player in the game. And yes, it drives me mad when they do that, especially as I try to teach my younger Little League players how important it is to ALWAYS beat it down the line. But as I said, they ALL do it. At least all of the veterans.
Did he occasionally make a gaff in the field? Sure he did, but there are quite a few outfielders in the game , not to mention some first basemen and even third basemen, who are not there because of their defense. And Manny would sometimes make a spectacular play. It was obvious he was not the most accomplished defensive player when he arrived in Boston. But to his credit, he took his position there very seriously and worked very hard at making himself better there. He took countless reps in the outfield, often long before his teammates had even showed up at the stadium. He learned something every time a ball came off of that wall, and in the last few years it has paid off in an almost uncanny ability to be at the right spot when it happens. It will take Mr. Bay a while to replicate that experience.
Did he occasionally come out with some completely knee-jerk comment or action? Sure, but this is what I'll miss more than anything. Jason Bay will probably come close enough to Manny's numbers to keep us in contention for a repeat title. Who knows? He may even end up with better numbers by the end of the season. And if not this season, maybe next year he'll just break things wide open. I certainly hope so. But I doubt he'll ever be the character that Manny is. And I just LOVE a good character. Give me Bill Veek and his midget, Wade Boggs and his chicken, Ozzie Smith and his gymnastics. I love a colorful character, and that's what we've lost. The most colorful character in the game today, AND one who could produce like no one else as well. That's a rare combination. Not to mention he was the MVP of the team's first victorious World Series appearance in 86 years for God's sake.
Having said all that, the trade itself was not as bad a deal as it could have been. I wouldn't rank it as a fire sale or anything. Bay's an accomplished major league hitter with quite a few good years in front of him, probably more than Manny. I think this was better than just letting Manny go after the year, although being in the thick of a pennant chase kind of trumps that normally. But this wasn't normal, was it? Losing Hansen was certainly no big deal, given the way he's been pitching lately. I do kind of regret not having Moss around to use as trade fodder for some bullpen help, but we certainly don't need another outfielder at the moment.
In all of this, I also hope that Jason Bay makes out all right. I can't help but think that he'll end up being compared to Manny in every move and every stat possible. Manny's stats will be hard to replace. I hope that those who felt like I did, and wanted to keep Manny, will not be too hard on Bay if he doesn't match those lofty numbers.
Best of luck to Manny in LA. I've never disliked the Dodgers, which is something I can't say about many teams. I always liked Lasorda, and Gibson's gimpy homer in, what, '88 wasn't it, is still one of my all time favorite moments. A "colorful" moment I guess. I'll probably follow them a little closer now that Manny is there. May he tear up the NL, and only suffer letdowns if and when he plays against the Red Sox. And may the fans at Fenway always cheer him when he comes back there. As a matter of fact, if it was a meaningless game, it wouldn't bother me a bit to see him single-handedly rip us apart one game. Kind of a F-You to the management.
If Jason Bay ends up a flop, we will certainly hear someone say "well it's better than having that misfit out there".
I kinda like misfits. Let the conformists pull for the Yankees
Adios Manny, buena suerte

Manny Post Coming

Thanks to Shorey for visiting and requesting a Manny post. I've been thinking a lot about a post the last couple of days, and was all set to write all my objections to any trade when it happened. I've been gathering thoughts since, but have got to get my butt to work this morning. I plan to write some this evening. No Little League or anything else, for a change, unless we go to temple, which is doubtful. (More medical issues - I'll cover that too.)

And my Little League team has a dilemma. The season should have ended last Sunday with our sweep in the double-header and we should be District Champions as we speak, but Walkertown is pulling a stunt and it appears we are not going to be hoisting that banner without finishing our game with them that was rained out after 1 inning.
Boo!

More to come tonight

Sox End Road Woes - by Leaving the Road

The Sox ended up their road trip with a dismal 3 - 7 record after dropping the last 2 games against the Evil Empire.
I really felt they would take 3 of those 4 even though they have been a much weaker team it seems every time they leave Fenway Park. So much for my prognostic abilities.
Paps blew the last game at the Toilet Bowl, allowing a damn rookie to get a hit and drive in the winning run in the 10th inning. This after a pretty good showing by Wakefield, who once again got absolutely no run support to speak of. On JoS the joke (although it's not really funny) is that Wake always gets the weak line-up. It's time to rest somebody key every time he pitches, and this time it was Manny. Tito did bring Manny in as a pinch-hitter in the 9th inning, but Manny has never been particularily effective as a PH and this time he sat and watched 3 straight strikes go by. Three straight strikes, and never moved his bat. That's effective! Even worse was Francona's move right before that one. He brought in Varitek to pinch-hit for Lugo with the go-ahead run at 2nd base. Now I love Tek to death, I have a real soft spot for veteran catchers, actually for catchers in general, but Tek has been crapping the bed lately, badly. To put him in that spot if there was ANYONE else sitting over there to try was absolutely nuts. We'd have been better off with Lugo himself.
At least we did win last night on our first night back home. A 1 - 0 victory over the Twins. Once again I missed the game because of Little League. I keep getting home right after the last out is made, and pull up Joy of Sox just in time to catch the end-game comments. Wouldn't you know the only game I get to watch in the last 2 or 3 weeks is the one they lose to the Damn Yankees, of all teams.
Oh well, time for mini hot streak before the All-Star break, and then a smoking second half to catch those pesky DEVIL Rays.

Blue Again

On Sunday, June 23, Kevin Youkilis hit a 2-run walk-off home run in the 13th inning to give the Red Sox an interleague win over the Cardinals. The game had a little of everything. Seven and a third strong innings from Jon Lester, he who had spent the year before battling cancer. A rare blown save by the Papelbot. A game-saving throw from the outfield by JD Drew to nail a would-be Cardinal scorer at the plate. An absolutely wonderful game.

The news was not as good in Omaha, Nebraska. The Diamond Heels walked way too many batters earlier in the day and it cost them a 3rd straight trip to the Championship series in the College World Series. That's twice on the Big Stage this year for Carolina, and twice heading home empty-handed. Damn!

The loss came after 2 very dramatic back-against-the-wall wins. First a 7 - 3 win over LSU that came with a grand slam by Tim Federowicz in the top of the ninth to snap a 3 - 3 tie. Next came a 2-run home run by Chad Flack in the eighth against Fresno State when the Heels were down by 1 that forced the deciding final game. In the final game, though, the pitching staff started showing the signs of 3 straight hard-fought games and Fresno St. took the game 6 - 1 and will face Georgia in the championship series.

But hey, 3 straight years being in Omaha is pretty damn good, especially given the everchanging nature of the college game. Hard to believe that 2 years ago my Little Leaguers were facing the Ackley kid, and now he's one of the premier hitters, if not THE premier hitter, in college ball. He was one of the few bright spots against Fresno State, going 3 - 5, and finished the season with a .417 average. That was best on the team and the 3rd best in school history, and this is a team that was ranked #1 in the country for a while, and in the top 5 all year. No wonder we could never get him out. It's kinda cool, although it would be even better if any of my kids could say "I struck out Dustin Ackley way back when". We've checked the old scorebooks - none of them did :( He did hit 7 home runs off of us, in ONE day, in a doubleheader up in the boondocks known as Walnut Cove on a Sunday afternoon, though. A rather dubious statistic for sure! One of my pitchers in that game was Michael Brown, a young man who is now ironically enough at Georgia, the other team in the finals this year. His dad and I are long-time LL buddies and coached together even after neither of us had sons playing any more. Michael threw a pitch to Ackley that he still talks about to this day. It was supposed to be outside, but drifted back into the zone and Ackley unloaded. That ball needed a passport when it landed. Brown didn't even turn and watch it. He hung his head down as the ball came off the bat and shook it a couple of times before singnaling to the umpire for another ball. The umpire hadn't even given the home run sign yet, as he was watching the ball still climbing as it sailed over the tall pine trees in right field. The only pitcher that day who kept Ackley "in the park" was a 15 year-old who technically was too young to be playing, but we were short-handed and he was filling in. Ackley "only" pounded a double off the left-field fence against him. That's opposite field power.

It's the stuff of legends, and I'm sure, like most legends, it will only grow over time. It might be up to 20 home runs by the time those guys reach my age, but for now we're going with 7.

And I have the scorebook to show it!

Finally - 500

So Manny hit #500 on Saturday night at Camden Yards. It came against Chad Bradford in the 7th inning of a game the Red Sox won 6 - 3. He took Bradford's 1st pitch over the right-centerfield wall, right into an area I've actually sat in before. I wasn't there, I wasn't watching, not even on GDGD, my acronym for the MLB.com Gameday program that allows you to follow the games on computer. When I first started participating in the Joy of Sox gamethreads, almost everyone else on line was watching the game on NESN or some local affiliate. I was waiting on the Gameday program to catch up and usually by the time I saw a play and responded to it on-line, everyone else was talking about the next pitch. I would simply say G**damn Gameday, and it happened so often I started shortening it and everyone still knew what I meant. It's a common term around JoS now, and I hope one day to have it entered in the site glossary - a very big honor on JoS.
Manny has sealed his spot in the Hall already, and I hope now that the big one is in his hindsights he'll settle down and start ripping the cover off the ball. It's amazing that I had May 13th (I think) picked in the contest at RSFPST, another of my favorite Sox blogs, to guess the date the homer would come on. On that date, almost 3 weeks ago, I had a shot at it. He had hit #498 the night before and 2 homers in 1 night are certainly not out of his reach. But there it stayed, at 498, for over 2 weeks. He finally hit #499 on May 28, then on Saturday night, May 31st, in Baltimore, the Big Being hit the Big One.
The Red Sox are in very good shape in the standings, but for a truly successful season they'll need to get a little more consistant pop out of the #3 and #4 spots, Manny and Papi, than they have lately. Papi is sitting on a .252, not so hot for him. Manny had a good enough early part of the season that he is still at .294, even after a slow couple of weeks, but we need those guys to be in the mid-300s.
Here's hoping the sweep in Baltimore and the end of the distraction about #500 will get things rolling.

Second Opinions

Hard to believe it's been 3 weeks, almost 4, since I last wrote. Work has actually picked up finally and I'm way behind, which is really a good thing since the first few months of this year were so slow we almost went belly-up. And of course Little League has been consuming almost every non-working moment. What little time that leaves I have tried to devote to Cathy, "the baseball widow", as she refers to herself. When I do sit down at the computer to write, I've been trying to catch up my Little League team's website. It's a very cool thing, which I love doing for the kids, but it is time consuming. There's a link here somewhere, on the right side I think.
Cathy spent the last 2 days in Durham (NC, not Conn) at Duke University seeing the doctor who was her oncologist when she was first diagnosed as having cancer. Our friend Chris took her down there and they stayed with a couple who are his "other" best friends. Chris is our closest friend. He lost his father this past January, after losing his mother a few months earlier. I wrote about his father in a January post entitled "Getting Old". Chris stays with this couple who live near Durham quite a bit, though not as much now that he's retired and not travelling all over the state all week. Seems backwards, doesn't it? We know them ourselves, through Chris, and have been to their place a few times in the past, but this is the first time either of us have been to their new home. It's on a lake, and very nice, I understand. When the doctor asked Cathy to stay another day for some more tests, Chris just said "hey, I get to go fishing another day". He's the best.
The real story is that Cathy is seeking answers to her questions about her treatment. The doctor she sees now uses a test that tracks "cancer markers" in the cells. I'm not medically literate, but essentially it measures a particular chemical level in the body which will tend to rise when cancerous cells are present. Apparently it gives you very early warning about these cells, but some believe it gives TOO early of a warning. Doctors such as the woman Cathy saw at Duke believe these markers only show the possibility of cancer, not necessarily the presence. Therefore, in their opinion, one could be getting treatment for a non-existent condition, treatment that is extremely destructive to one's quality of life. She believes in treatment only when a biopsy shows a definite cancer presence.
The other side is that we deeply respect the doctor she is seeing now at Forsyth Memorial's Cancer Center. He is a long-time Little League acquaintance. That alone, of course, is not reason enough to trust him with one's life, but we've known him long enough to know that he's a straight shooter, he's completely honest with us, and he's very in tune with the cutting edge of cancer treatment. He believes the markers he tracks are very reliable indicators of tumor growth, or at least of impending tumor growth, and by treating when those numbers go up he is running interference on the spread of the disease. Stopping it before it gets started.
That is a wonderful thought, never let the damn thing get going and you can live indefinitely, right? But the truth is chemo is hard. Cathy has no energy while she's on it, and until the staff infection forced them to remove her portacath, she was getting chemo almost constantly. After several straight months of treatment the numbers would get down to a level that our Dr. was OK with. She would get a break just for a few weeks, then the numbers would start to rise and she was right back at it. It's been weeks now since she's had treatment, and she's feeling better than she has in a very long time. The garden is looking better than it has in several years. I'm doing most of the heavy work there, but she's out there directing me, showing what to plant where, telling me what's a weed and what I'd better not touch, pulling weeds herself, spreading mulch, stuff she hasn't done in a very long time.
So it seems to all come back to the "quality of life" question. But now there's indication from her former doctor, whom she trusts very much and really, really likes, that maybe the treatments aren't even necessary at this point. Maybe we're not gaining any time together by constantly going through the hardship of chemo. Maybe we can go on as normal until we see a definitive tumor presence in a biopsy and then treat it and still have just as much time. Two doctors, two different views. Who can know? How does a simple lay-person decide?
Of course, Cathy is no simple lay-person. She is an RN, and was in oncology when she worked at the hospital. She also spent a few years working with Hospice, which gave her even more experience with cancer, from a different perspective. So she is on-line a lot, looking up reports, reading up on new medicines and treatments, and checking out the medicines they are giving her already. This has proved very valuable a few times as she has caught symptons she was having and tied them to one of her meds.
Eventually she will make her own decision and I will support it regardless of what she decides. I do feel like we are going through this together, but the truth is there is no way I can feel what she is feeling, physically or mentally, and while I certainly can help her talk it out if she wants, I think this is one decision that she has the only vote on.
Kinda like our president, I guess. :)

Behind (Not A Sex Story)

I finally got to bring Cathy home this past Wednesday. Since I'm not camped out at the hospital any more I really thought I would be able to catch up on some serious writing and stuff. I've been catching up all right, but not here. The paperwork for my business is still way behind, and I'm trying to get my LL website up to date for the kids. All of this while trying to catch up on jobs, undo 3 weeks of neglect in my yard, help Cathy in her garden some, and then having games or practices 3 nights a week and spending most of the day Saturday at the park. I thought I would get some time Sunday as I was through at the field by noon, but the kids threw a late birthday get-together for me since I was at the hospital last week when it would have been.
I'm not complaining about that, though, it was great. My older son helped out getting the house and yard ready. My youngest brought Buffalo wings from Ronni's, a local legend. My baby sister brought a great homemade banana pudding and her 2 absolutely precious daughters. They are both Chinese, she adopted them on her own, and if you're at all familiar with that process you know what she went through and how determined she had to be to make that happen. My daughter brought my #1 granddaughter, Haley, which is all she needed to bring to make my day. Unfortunately, Gage, the 5-year-old grandson, pretty much confiscated her from the moment she arrived, as he usually does. He worships the ground she walks on, and that's OK. Haley is my softball player now, since her older sister seems to have gone more "girl". She's the #1 shortstop on her team and the #3 hitter. Not bad, eh?
My folks were there, and my younger brother with his daughter, who has become quite the young artist. Actually she's always been quite the artist, but she's getting more and more refined. My brother's wife had the coldest card - a picture of a scale on the front labeled "Age-O-Meter" with the captions "dirt" on one pan and "you" on the other. Inside it just said "Too close to call". Hilaaaaaaaarious (in my most smart-aleck voice). I LMAO, in today's terms.
Along with 3 of my closest friends, who are pretty much family anyway, it was a very nice time. Very relaxed, not as stressful as a lot of family events seem to be. We actually drank some in front of my parents! That doesn't happen very often, Dad is a teetotaller and we all respect that. He was raised in alcoholic environment and it makes him uncormfortable, but we all were very circumspect in our intake levels and no one got sloshed. I don't think anyone even got a good buzz actually, but it was great kid and Dad friendly fun.
I had invited 2 other friends, a gay couple who we are very close to. Lesbians, actually - doesn't it seem like "gay" always implies male, and why is that? Anyway, I really wish they had made it. I worry that they may have been relunctant because they've heard me talk about how conservative most of my family is. They said it was because they had been celebrating their 23rd anniversary for 2 solid days and were practically immobilized, and I know this was that weekend for them. So I hope that was all it was, because I would never want them to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.
All right, there's one update out of the way.
Soon I'll get to the LL team.
Oh and..... TYLER"S STAYING!!!!
Later

Update - Health

The wife's battle against the infection that popped up last week will continue for a while, it looks like. The official diagnosis is mersa - staff infection.
She is definitely recovering, the temps spike at a little lower level every day, but they still spike, and she will not get to come home until all signs of fever and infection are gone completely.
This most likely means another full week in the hospital. So posting on this blog, my Little League website, and my favorite game-time Red Sox site (Joy of Sox) will be very sparse.
I could really spend an entire day doing nothing but catching up my LL website and writing here about the recent events in our lives. But work calls, so just a quick overview -
My LL team has won 2 in a row after starting out 0 - 3. I'm very proud. Maybe I had nothing to do with it, you never know. Maybe it was just their time, but I felt very good about the talk and insights I gave them after that 3rd loss, and the way we approached practice that night. Whether it made the difference or not, they responded with an entirely different attitude and performance the next game and I'll just go ahead and pat myself on the back :)
Oh and today is a birthday for me. Not sure which one. I know it's 40-something, it has to be, but I just can't remember which 40-number comes after 49, so I'm calling it 49B.

Cancer Rears It's Ugly Head

Just a quick post today.
Mrs. SoSock is back in the hospital.
Her portacatheter ( the implanted device that they use to run the chemotherapy drugs) has become infected and she was running fevers of 102 - 104 and delirious Friday night. They've been running IV antibiotics since then.
The infection seems to have subsided, at least enough for them to feel safe opening her up and removing the port. She is still feverish, but not nearly as severely as before.
All in all she seems to be out of the danger zone, although she'll most likely be in several more days.
I'm running like a chicken with my head cut off right now, but I'll post a more complete story later.
Oh, very quickly - on a more positive note. The Rockies finally got their first win of the season yesterday. That would be the WSNLL Jr. Division Rockies. My Little League team. Finally!
I'll fill in details later. It was much needed!

Red Sox take 2 out of 3 from Yanks! - updated

I don't have time to write a damn thing this morning, but I just had to write THAT!
I will elaborate later.
Update - 4/19
Beckett whipped the Yanks last night, going 8! First time all season a Sox pitcher has made it past 6. Manny hit TWO dongs!
We are up 3 - 2 on the season and in 1st place, like that really matters at this point. Beating them at their place DOES matter though.
Taxes, Little League, Granddaughter's Softball, Work, and Joy of Sox Game-threading.
All conspiring to keep me away from my blog.
Next week things should loosen up a little and I'll get back to writing.
(As if anyone cares) :)

A Blue Week

The mourning period continues.
Carolina's loss in the national semifinals was absolutely devestating, and I'm still trying to get over it. Not just because they lost, but because of the way they lost. Fortunately, baseball is in full swing and I have been so distracted by all that entails that I have very little time to think about it.
When I do, it's very disheartening. It's like I wrote a while back about the Patriots' loss in the Super Bowl - the worst part is that this team had an incredible season and their performance in that game is all that will be remembered. They fought through the loss of Frasier, the #2 point guard, for the season. Then they fought through losing the #1 point guard for a big chunk of the conference schedule. They beat Duke at Cameron. They swept through the ACC tournament. They manufactured several of their trademark comebacks during the year, including one for the ages against Clemson. They even made one of the biggest comebacks in tournament history against the Jayhawks last weekend, but couldn't sustain it. They just never quit, which I believe is a testament to Roy Williams and the character of the teams he puts together.
I never have figured out what went wrong that night. Roy puts all of the blame on himself, of course. Says he didn't have the team prepared and focused. They definitely were not prepared and focused, but I doubt that Roy Williams left anything undone that would have prevented this. The team apparently was just a little too pressured. It seemed as though they were so intent on winning it all that the thought of not doing so scared them, and that fear forced them out of their game. They were playing not-to-lose, instead of playing to win.
As a fan, it really hurts because these seasons don't come very often. We've been fortunate enough to have gotten very close several times lately, and did win it all in 05. The fact is, however, it takes a few breaks and a ton of talent to even be in contention for a national title, and when you get so close you always have that thought there - "How long before we get this shot again?" Some people say "well at least you're not like UCLA, 3 Final Fours in a row, and not even an appearance in the title game, much less a title". Maybe they're right. I tend to say that I'm just thrilled when we get to the Final Four, and an appearance there is a victory in itself, and UCLA should be damn proud of getting there 3 straight times. But 3 straight losses in the semi-final would be very discouraging. That really must feel like a wasted opportunity, even more so than the Heels' futility this year. So I will say it once more - it's something I spent entire decades saying as a Red Sox fan - Next Year!!
I just hope Tyler comes back.
And Now For Something Completely Different -
I mentioned last post that there was health news. It wasn't that much. Just that the wife's chemo was postponed till Monday and this was after her usual week off that comes every 4th week. This all added up to about 11 days with no chemo and she was feeling very well for a change. We bought flowers Sunday. Whether they will get planted before they die is another question, but I'm glad she was postive enough to get them and believe she would be able to get them in the ground. I really should plant them myself, for her, and will if I can ever get a break from all of the pre-season crap around the Little League complex that didn't get done pre-season because of the weather. Now I'm having to deal with it all around the games being played and it really slows the whole process down.
We also went out to dinner with a couple that I do some work for. They are very interesting people, both doctors, very intelligent, and just good company. This may not seem like a subject to bother writing about, but when you're going through chemo, any day she feels well enough to get out and DO something is an event.
We had been planning this dinner for the past 3 Wednesdays but every week that would turn out to be a day that Cathy just wasn't up to it physically. I also imagine the posponements were influenced a little by her not feeling real sure about this meeting. She didn't know them as well as I do, and she doesn't seem to enjoy meeting new people as much as before the cancer. I'm sure the fact that they are both doctors and neither of us even went to college was a little intimidating as well. The long break from chemo, however, seemed to allow her to get to a point where she felt like she could be good company, so we went for it this week. She really enjoyed herself, as I was sure she would, and connected very well with them. The woman has a very rare muscle-related condition and is dealing with a lot of pain issues herself, so she empathizes with Cathy's situation more so than most. Her husband has retired specifically for the purpose of researching and trying to cure his wife's illness. I look forward to spending more time with them in the future. We have a fair amount in common, despite the differences in educational background and financial status. I find that the older we get, the less difference that makes, at least when you're dealing with "real" people.
Off to work now, I'll get to my 1st Little League game (maybe games by then) later.

Sunday - and Not a Pretty One Either

Well, this pretty much defines Black Sunday
The Tarheels' season came crashing down in flames last night as they played what might have beeen the worst 15 minutes of basketball that I've seen them play - ever. If not ever - close.
They were down by 28 before they started to play like they actually belonged on the floor there, and made the game very respectable for a while, closing to within 4 points with about 10 minutes to go. The incredible comeback seemed to take everything out of them however, and in the end they just couldn't sustain the energy level and lost by 18 or so. I never though I would see them get out-hustled, out-scrapped, and out-willed the way they did those first 15 minutes. They just didn't look anything like the team I've been watching all season.
At least I can finally get my hair cut.
On top of that bad news - it's been raining for like 40 days here. I think the next door neighbor is working on an ark in his driveway. We are supposedly still way "behind" on rainfall around here, but if I hear, "well, we need the rain" one more time I'm going postal on somebody. It's baseball season, dammit! My team opens up in 2 days and we haven't practiced in 10 days. The only time we were able to do anything at all was last Tuesday, and the infield was unusable then. We just hit in the cage a little and worked my pitchers. At least the team we open against is another from our league, so I know they're in the same boat, er, ark?
Besides not practicing the rain is also going to make things rough today. We are supposed to have a ton of volunteers at the complex for a big clean-up/prep day, including the varsity team from the school I used to coach at. (OK, I just coached the Middle School kids).
I have a list a mile long of things I have needed to get done around the complex before the season starts, but the weather has hampered my efforts. It is not supposed to rain today, in fact the sun is supposed to come out, but the complex is soaked, with standing water everywhere and the clean-up will be much more difficult. In fact, I made several trips down there yesterday doing the old flood watch thing. Our complex has been under 3 - 5 feet of water many times in the past. (If I ever get around to figuring out the image thing I'll post some pictures) We sure as HELL don't need that to start the season. The creek was swelled up close to it's banks, but at my last check, about 5pm, it was still about 3 feet from spilling onto the fields. Of course I've seen it go from that to 3 feet deep in the outfield in a matter of 2 or 3 hours before, but I believe we were past the crest at that point. At least I'm hoping so! We probably won't even be able to get on the infields, but at laest there wasn't much that needed to be done there.
Speaking of that, I am out of here to get coffeed up at the Bagel Shop before heading on over to the complex. No one else will be there till 12 or 1, but I will get there around 10 to unlock everything and start setting up equipment for the various jobs so I can get the most out of these folks when they arrive.
There is news on the health front so I will edit this post a little later tonight to cover that. It will be after a late dinner because my wife is feeling good enough to have invited some friends from Temple over. Good news. And if the fields DO dry up a little during the day, I'm calling my team in for a impromptu emergency practice after the work session. (Is that redundant?)
In the meantime - Go Red Sox!!

Oops

Well, if there are any Memphis fans out there lurking you can go ahead and smirk now.
I made the mistake of thinking UCLA should beat Memphis in the 1st game of the Final Four, but the Tigers are now about 1 minute from punching their ticket to Monday night's final and they're up by 11 or so.
So, IF my Heels can beat Kansas in the upcoming game, they will face a very big, very quick Memphis team who has outmanned UCLA in almost every aspect of the game.
I said previously that I think Carolina matches up better with Memphis than with UCLA, and I still believe that. Even though this score (78 - 63, now final) would indicate Memphis is better, therefore we would be better off playing UCLA, I don't buy it.
I think UCLA's style of play would give us a harder time than the Tigers' will. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they aren't perfectly capable of beating us, they are. They are very big, and they run the floor very well for such a big team. I do think, however, that their preferred style is also our preferred style, and I think we are faster, so advantage us.
Too much thinking ahead, though. First things first. MUST beat Kansas, or it's a moot point.
I believe I will comment every so often during the game. Not that anyone is watching, just to record the moments for posterity, or maybe hilarity :)

Go Heels!

Well, I haven't written all week about 'dem Heels.
Maybe it's because I'm still upset that the women lost to LSU. I guess it's a little greedy to want both teams in the Final Four, but that's reality. I really wanted to see the guys and gals both in the BIG Show in the same year.
Maybe I had been assuming all along the men would be there and am afraid to be "satisfied" with making it to this point.
Regardless, it was with an almost smug satisfaction that I watched the final seconds tick off the clock in last Sunday's victory over Louisville. Doubters be damned, the Heels had silenced the critics. I know it's easy to say "what doubters and critics?" when they've been ranked #1 for a while now and came in as the top overall seed in the tournament, but if you live where I do, everyone that is not a Tarheel fan is a Tarheel hater. And I have to admit, the same is true of Duke. You either worship Coach K, or you were glad to see them exit the field prematurely. I shrugged and made a conscious effort not to smile.
I overheard a regular at the Bagel Shop talking on his phone, and apparently the subject of the Heels came up. His end of the conversation went like this - "yeah, well, wait till Saturday. We'll see how far they can go then"
Excuse me? We'll see how far they can go then? Haven't they already gone damn near as far as you CAN go? I believe it's only possible to go one game farther than where they are at. I believe they've already gone farther than over 380 teams in the country, and farther than all but 3 of the "best 64" teams in the country. So THERE!
But the truth is, we will all be terribly disappointed if they don't bring home the trophy. The NCAA is better than most organizations at recognizing teams for the great achievement of actually GETTING there. But the general public will still consider it "falling short" if the Heels don't win it all. And there is some validity behind this, given the lofty ranking and sheer talent the team has. But UCLA is every bit as talented and has what I fear is a big advantage in their previous Final Four experience. They have lost in the National Semi-final the last 2 years, and I think they are hungry to stop that streak and rid that taste from their mouths, just as Carolina was not about to lose in the Regional Final after losing to Georgetown last year in that round.
Of course, the Heels have to get past Kansas first, which will not be an easy task, but it is one I think they will be up to. The Kansas players will be motivated to beat the coach who "abandoned" them to come to Chapel Hill, but I think Roy will be ready for them and I think we are the better team. If I'm right, and UCLA does indeed beat Memphis, I am not taking the position that the Bruins will beat us. I just think that that game will be a dogfight of the largest magnitude. I think the Heels can win that game, but they will have to play a flawless game and somehow equal the sheer determination that UCLA will bring to the table, not to mention their exceedingly high talent quotient. While watchng them play last weekend, I could only say -"Oh my God! They're TOUGH!" But then I think about some of the games Carolina has played this year, and have to believe there are Bruins fans out there right now saying exactly the same thing about us.
That feels pretty good :)

Building Better Men

Tonight I had the distinct honor of listening to and then meeting a man of tremendous principle.
Joe Ehrmann was a professional football player for 13 years, mostly with the Baltimore Colts. After he lost his younger brother, to whom he had been more of a father than brother, to cancer at the tender age of 19, Joe reevualated his life and began a new journey. He is responsible for a number of community and society building initiatives that have had a positive impact on countless lives. Among them are The Door, a community center in inner Baltimore dedicated to addressing poverty and racism, and Building Men for Others, a program aimed at creating a better civilization by teaching boys how to be better men. Oddly enough, coming from a former NFL star, this is done by trying to exorcise all the myths and stereotypes that are typically held up as manly - physical prowess, sexual conquest, and material wealth, and instead raising successful relationships up to the level of being one's greatest accomplishment. He also coaches a high school football team in the Baltimore area, teaching the young men that success is measured more in the strength of their relationships than in the win-loss column. In addition he stresses serving the community, and placing the improvement of the human state above the improvement of one's own lot in life. It is his belief that you must have a cause bigger than yourself. Ehrmann so strongly believes in his mission that, when his kids were young, he moved his family to an inner city neighborhood just blocks from The Door, so his kids would grow up experiencing an empathy for those living in poverty that can only come from being close to it.
A little over a year ago I was burned severely in an on-the-job accident. I suffered 2nd degree burns over almost my entire face. The 1st Saturday after I came home, almost all of the tournament baseball team I had been working with showed up at my house and spent over an hour just hanging out, cracking jokes, ragging on each other, and showing their concern. This touched me deeper than you can imagine. I was NOT a pretty sight and I know it made some of them terribly uncomfortable. Yet this group of about a dozen 13-14 year old boys with much better things to do on a Saturday afternoon just hung out with the old fart who coaches them. They also brought me a book which they all signed. It was "Season Of Life", the story of Joe Ehrmann.
The book was written by Jeffrey Marx, and works in the story of his own relationship to his father, but the real story here is Ehrmann. The writer follows Ehrmann and his Gilman High team through a season. The players are taught that masculinity is being able to look each other in the eye and say I love you, without being afraid. It's really hard to imagine a squad of high school boys who hear this at the end of their pre-game pep talk -
"What is our job as your coaches?"
Boys - "To love us!"
"What is YOUR job"
Boys - "To love each other!"
I wish I had what it would take to force a bunch of young men to say that every day.
Ehrmann spoke tonight of the definition of masculinity, what it means to be a man, then about the definition of feminine and what it means to be a woman. Naturally many people immediately thought - "here comes the double standard, the old difference". But he quelled that thought quickly by saying the definitions are the same. That being a man and being a woman are both about being human, and having meaningful relationships without seeing them as shameful or a sign of weakness. That we lift all of humanity when we find a cause bigger than ourselves and place our contribution to the advancement of that cause ahead of our own physical comfort. He talked about the lies that all young people are subjected to at a very young age. The lies stressing first physical strength, then sexual conquest, and lastly material possessions as the keys to a man's success, and those stressing first appearance, then the aquicision of a man, and lastly deferment to men as keys to a woman's success. And he called all them "flat out lies"
I stated earlier that I wish I could make myself put these issues out on the table with my team. That would take as much courage as it would for the 13 year old to tell his teammate he loves him. It's a goal I will now strive toward. At least I can give myself some credit for steps in the right direction even before reading "Season Of Life".
I have always, well, for over 15 years anyway, ended my practices with a "thought for the day." I always try to choose a quote or saying that can be tied to something on the field, but also has a deeper meaning off the field. When I am coaching guys a little older, as I am this year and have been for the last 3 or 4 years, I try to make it a little deeper. After listening to Joe Ehrmann tonight, I will not be as shy as I have in the past about really getting philosophical with them. These boys are old enough to get it, and they need to be getting it. As Ehrmann points out, they have been bombarded with the message that they have to be bigger, stronger, and better in competition or they are failures. I have always tried to teach that the competition is more about improving themselves than defeating the opponent, and the wins will take care of themselves if they make sure no one gives more effort than they do. Through sheer repetition, though, I wonder if my "thoughts of the day" have become stale, and if I'm sending the message I want to. Sometimes I "mail it in" at the end of practice, simply quoting a line and throwing in a simple sentence or two of explanation and ignoring any looks of confusion I see. I have resolved to re-address my choices for daily messages, and to be better at stimulating serious thought. Joe Ehrmann has inspired me to be better at building men.
After his speech, I approached Joe and told him how much I had enjoyed the book and how important I thought his message was. I showed him the copy that my team had brought to me with all their boyish signatures on the inner sleeve and mentioned the visit they had paid while I was weak and down. He said something that meant a lot to me. He said that no gang of teenage boys would make that visit if I had not had some influence in their lives, and signed my book - "To Coach B, To a Builder Of Men For Others".
It will get a little more prominence on the bookshelf now :)

Tuesday? - on Sunday?

OK, the Tuesday thing just hasn't worked out.
It's Sunday now, and for 4 days I've been saying "I really need to write my Tuesday post".
OK, we're going to make a change. Tuesday Talk will now be Sunday Stuff. (so I'm a sucker for alliteration)
Sundays should be better, although not by much. Today I've already been to the Bagel Shop to solve the world's problems, to the LL field to do a little work, watched the Carolina Girls (I know, they're WOMEN!) kick Bucknell's ass all over the basketball court, swept the porch and patio, filled the bird and critter feeders, finished a bill for a customer, watched the Tarheel Men (OK, boys - now we're even) kick Arkansas' ass all over the basketball court, checked out my favorite blogs and chatted a bit, and wrote a piece about the upcoming Red Sox season, for which I can't wait.
At least this year my family left me alone about Easter. They may have finally gotten the message that I actually have accepted the Jewish tradition as my own, even if I still have some qualms about religion as a whole. It's ironic that they probably think I'll burn in hell for being Jewish, and may never know that Judaism brought me back to religion after Christianity pushed me away.
My wife continues to be very tired, all of the time. Fighting cancer takes a huge toll on the body, then you add the medicines which also take their own toll, and she just has no energy whatsoever. She mentions the idea of discontinuing treatment sometimes, and I understand the premise that it's better to have "good" time, even if there's less of it, but I also worry that without the chemo the cancer itself would keep her just as ill and she wouldn't really gain any "quality" time. This is her week to skip treatment, so hopefully she'll have a better week next week and maybe her spirits will pick up a little. I can't help but believe that better spirits alone would improve her general condition, but that's probably an overly optimistic hope. Regardless, how can one have any positivity about them if they have the knowledge that this disease has them and it can't be stopped. I don't really feel inadequate because I can't do anything about the disease, I know that's out of my control. I often think, however, that I should be able to do more to help her mood. And I question whether I would be able to keep her more upbeat if I had done better in the economic world and we were able to do all those things we wanted to get around to but never have. I guess I just have to keep plugging away at "the list"
Speaking of which - I'm not sure I want to see that movie. Apparently the characters in it have their list to pursue, but they also have all the financial resources to achieve it. Not quite like real life for most of us. I also hate hearing that country song where the guy does the same thing. All sappy and heart-warming supposedly. Go bull-riding, sky-diving, cross-country riding. And just where is the money coming from to do all this? He hopes everyone gets to "live like they were dying." Trust me, it's NOT the best time of your life.
Having said all that - I must add
We have managed to see Alaska, although it took the help of some VERY dear friends to make it happen. We saw it from a boat, a cruise ship to be exact, which was absolutely wonderful, but I would love to return sometime to see more of the inland parts. We stood atop a primitive glacier together, which might just be one of the most memorable moments of my life. It was like being on another planet. We saw killer whales fairly close up from a smaller ship in the bay, and I was one of only a few that managed to get pictures of a brown bear feeding on the salmon on one of the islands we stopped at.
We also managed to take our whole family, all 13 or so of us, to Disney World for a week. That may not sound like much to many of you, but we've never been able to do anything close to that before, and we took all the kids and grandkids, pretty much on us. None of the grandkids had ever been there before, our daughter had never been, and our 2 sons had not been since their grandparents took them a very long time ago. We spent 3 whole days in Disney, 1 in rehab, and 1 at Sea World. The sale of my wife's soap business made that possible.
We've since been on another cruise, this time to the Carribean, and again with some help from our friends. This one, though, really put us behind and I don't know how long it may be before we're able to cross something else off the list. I often feel a little guilty about doing some of these things when the bills aren't caught up, and there's almost no money in reserve. But I get over that quickly when I think that I'll have time to deal with the finances later. I don't know how much time we have to do things on "the list".
So I guess I'd better finish that damn bathroom and get ready to go to Europe, eh?
If that's not optimism, then there's no such thing!

T Minus 33 Hours and Counting

The Sox open up Tuesday morning against the A's in Japan. I plan on gettingup early, and tuning in my computer. I'm assuming I'll be able to follow the Gametracker thing. I hope so.
I'll also be pulling up Joy of Sox and chatting with my on-line friends there during the game.
I'm betting on big things for the Sox again this year. Papi and Manny were both slightly hampered last year and I think they'll both improve this year. I also think JD Drew will have a much better year.
Even if Jacoby Ellsbury (LBJ) doesn't take over the CF job full time, he will play there regularly and should add some offense from that spot. I also think we'll get just a little more from the catcher's spot, because Cash should be a better PH for Tek than Dougie was. I'm betting that Youk and Lugo will stay at about the same pace they've been on.
Pedroia and Lowell are the question marks, but I really think Peds will at least match last year. Many are expecting Lowell to drop off, and they certainly could be right. But I bet it won't be that much of a drop, and he might just surprise them. Let's hope so!
With the extra numbers from Ellsbury and Drew, and even a little improvement from the 3-4 spots, I expect the Red Sox to surpass even last years big numbers.
Dice K opens the season in Japan - fitting. Although there's no doubt that it would have been Beckett if he wasn't hurt. Jon Lester has been throwing very well the last couple of weeks. He'll probably be the 3 man when Beckett returns, which should not be long based on reports from camp. Wakefield will just continue to be Wake, and Buchholz is apparently going to be the 4th man at least until Beckett returns. Wake will probably not get as many wins as he did last year, but I'm still thinking pitching will be about the same, with a little more consistency from Dice making up the wins that we won't get from Schilling and Lester/Buchholz? doing a little better than the revolving door they're replacing.
The one question mark is the bullpen. Of course we have Papelbon to close, and Okajima to set him up. It doesn't get much better than that. But I've not seen enough of the numbers from spring training to get a real feel for what we've got before them. I think Timlim is bound to hit the wall sooner or later, and fear this might be the year. After all, he was very inconsistent last year. Hopefully our starters can consistently get us close enough to the 7th inning that we won't need a huge contribution from the rest of the pen.
If we get the increase in offense I expect, an iffy inning or 2 from the pen shouldn't kill us too often. Down to 32 hours now, so here's to huge numbers, and a repeat in '08!

Do You Think He Will Dream?

One of my heroes has left us.
Of course, I kind of think he left most of us behind a long time ago.
Sir Arthur C. Clark was one of the most intelligent writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading. I have devoured almost everything he's ever put out, although there are a few small holes in my list. I will correct that soon enough.
Naturally my favorites are the Space Odyssey series, although there is one earlier one I like every bit as much. I personally enjoyed reading 2010 a little more than 2001, although there is no doubt which was more significant. Although there were those in the scientific community who preceded him, Clark was one of the first to challenge people's ideas about our place in the universe in the "mainstream" media world. At least he was among the first in my experience, perhaps that is why I was so attracted to his work at a very early age.
By the time 2001 was released, I had already read "The Sands of Mars" and "Childhood's End".
The latter still remains one of my favorite books of all time. If you have not read it, you would do well to pick it up. It holds up well for a science fiction book written in the early '50s.
When 2001 came out in the theaters I was only 10 and my Mom did not let me go see it. I got the book , though, and saw the movie at a late show when I was around 14 or 15. He and Kubrick made a hell of a pair! It was one of the very few movies I ever bought. I have not yet updated it to DVD, but I will.
I bought 3001 when it was released in '97. Yes, I got it right away even though that meant forking out the bucks for the hardback. In it there is a forward featuring an extensive interview with Clark in which he recounts the creation of 2001. It was actually Stanley Kubrick who pushed him into the project. The book and the movie were done simultaneously, so he and Kubrick would constantly be calling each other and saying things like"hey, you've got to rewrite / reshoot this part because I added this and that won't make sense now." Or " hey, I really want to use this effect, can you work that into the story somewhere?" I can almost hear it.
More recently he collaborated with Stephen Baxter on a great little series consisting of "Time's Eye, "Sunstorm", and "Firstborn". The first two were very good, although "Time's Eye" was definitely better. I haven't read "Firstborn" yet, it's in that pile of books waiting to get read on my office shelf. I just keep picking them up, and I'm collecting about 2 now for every 1 that I get around to reading. Mmmm, the downside of blogging, maybe?
I truly regret that Clark will no longer be around to excite me every so often with his amazing prescience. But he leaves a huge library of work, with a number of offerings I haven't gotten to yet, many that are worth the time to re-read, and a new one that is due to be published this year. So I will continue to enjoy his genius for years to come I'm sure!

Woo, Woo!

HOW 'BOUT THEM HEELS !!!!
ACC Tournament champions again!
Tyler had a typical monster game and Wayne Ellington is starting to really heat up as the Tarheels prepare to enter the NCAA Tournament this week.
Ellington led the way with 24 points, continuing his terrorizing of the Tigers. He scored his career high of 36 against them in their first meeting this season, including the last-second three-pointer that won the game, and followed that with 28 in the rematch in Chapel Hill. Tyler scored 18 and battled like a maniac all day against 2 of the few big men who have really bothered him this year, Clemson's Trevor Booker and James Mays.
The Heels also got nice contributions from Ty Lawson, who played his best game since returning from his injury, and from Danny Green, who just has a knack for hitting big shots at the most unexpected times. Of course, he will also occasionally force up a bad shot, but he always seems to redeem himself shortly when that happens.
The only blemishes on the game were an unacceptable 20 turnovers, though they were better in the 2nd half, and an abysmal 14 of 24 at the free throw line. Tyler was his usual self at the line, going 4 for 5. But the rest of the team was only 10 of 19 - Not Good! If they had hit even half of the free throws they missed in the last 3 minutes, Clemson would not have had a chance. As it was, the tigers kept the game exciting till the end. Down by 7 with under a minute to go, they nailed a trey and then forced a turnover, giving them a chance to cut the lead to 2. But Carolina's defense held and, despite the shaky foul shooting, the Tarheels claimed their second straight title and a league-record 17th overall.
The victory gives them the #1 seed in the East Regional of the NCAA tournament, and the #1 seed overall as well. This means their first game is against the winner of the weird "play-in" game that the NCAA added a few years ago. It also means they hardly have to leave their neighborhood for the early rounds. Rounds 1 and 2 (yes, I'm assuming they'll beat Mt. St. Mary's or Coppin St.)are in Raleigh, just a few miles down the road. And the Regional Semi's and Finals are right back in Charlotte, where they just cut down the nets today. A good omen indeed!

Slack, eh?

Wow, I've been very slack. At least about blogging.
Last week was a whirl, with the 1st full week of Little League practices, and a big job going on at the same time. I never had the time to sit down and write.
I'll make up for it now. A week full of Sports!
My grandson Gage had his 1st Tee-ball practice last Saturday. I have been asked to help out with the team by the manager, an energetic man named Comacho. I like it! He's probably not a whole lot over half my age, and he's obviously much more accustomed to working with 5 and 6 yr-olds than I am. However, having Gage live with us has kept me better prepared than I might be otherwise. It was fun just watching the interactions and the oh-so-different personalities and levels of development. While Coach Comacho talked with the parents, I took the kids off to one side and had them just roll whiffle balls back and forth to each other. Then I started having them try to use both hands and "alligator crunch" the ball. What a blast!
I missed today's tee-ball practice because my own team, the Junior Rockies, had a morning practice. Had to schedule it early so I could get home to watch the Heels in the ACC Semis. I'll get back to that!
My Rockies will probably struggle a bit this season, but then, I think all 3 teams in our league will struggle, so hopefully we'll at least be competitive within the league. We interleague with 3 other area leagues, though, and we'll have our hands full with those teams. Last year we dominated against the teams from the other 3 leagues, but I don't see that happening this year. The biggest problem is sheer numbers. We only have 10 players rostered right now, and one of them has a broken wrist and won't be able to throw a ball until halfway through the season. There are also new pitching restrictions this year which will have a huge impact on us. Of course, all of the teams have these restrictions, but we may be the shallowest team from a pitching standpoint, so it will affect us more. Having said that, I also have full confidence in my own ability to teach almost any kid to pitch, at least adequately. To that end I have shocked my team by announcing that every one of them is going to learn to pitch! I have already had every one on the mound, at least for a short session. This is a vast turnaround from the usual process. Usually I have kids begging to get their chance to try pitching, and can't hardly find time to work with all of them, leaving some of them feeling disappointed. This year I've actually had to convince a couple of them to give it a shot. That's never happened before! Interestingly enough, one of the kids who has not pitched since he was 10, and who said he had no real interest in doing so, is looking like he might be my number 3 man. Love those kinds of surprises!
The Red Sox are moving towards opening day. I can't wait! Wife-K (of Dice-K) had a baby boy yesterday, which means Dice will probably make the trip to Japan and can pitch on opening day. Of course, Josh Beckett is the team "ace" and as such is supposed to make the Opening Day Start, but he is still recupping from back spasms and won't be going with the team to Japan.
Now to My Heels -
HOLY COW!
After avenging their earlier loss to Duke by storming back last Sunday and beating them on their own court - for the 3rd time in as many years - the Heels are in the ACC Championship Game on this Sunday by virtue of a great comeback victory over Va. Tech today. They managed to go from about halfway through the first half until the 3 or 4 minute mark of the 2nd half without leading once. That's 3 or 4 minutes LEFT. At one point late in the 2nd half they were still down by 6. But Wayne Ellington hit 2 big 3-pointers and the team suddenly sucked it up defensively and next thing you know - score tied with under a minute to go. The Heels made a good defensive stop, got the ball back with about 25 to go and Roy called a timeout. Tie game, #1 ranking and a virtual lock on a #1 seed in the NCAAs on the line? No problem. 5 seconds to go, still tied? No problem. Ginyard misses a close in running shot with 2 seconds left? No problem. We have Tyler! Hansbrough muscles down the rebound, takes a half step back and buries a short game-winning jumper as the buzzer sounds. Just Tyler being Tyler!
Once again, I had to go change into "game-gear" in the second half. Once again I had to get out the magic Tarheel fight song bottle-opener and start setting it off every time we scored in our run to get back in the game. I had done the same thing during the come-back against Clemson a couple of weeks ago. Once again, it worked and we pulled off the huge win. And once again, the oblivious TV announcers failed to mention even once that "this amazing run started when Tim got the bottle-opener out of the kitchen, Mike. What a clutch player HE is!" Oh well, I battle on in obscurity.
The Heels will play Clemson, who shocked the world (but not me) by beating Duke in the other semi-final. This will be a tough game. Both of our games against Clemson this year have been overtime games, one of them a double OT! They match up well with us and it's hard to beat a good team three times in a season. But I'm confident that, although it won't be easy, the Heels will take the tournament trophy home again this year.
GO HEELS, GO SOX, and GO ROCKIES !!

Liberalism is Hard

I spent the morning at the Bagel Shop, as I usually do on weekends. I stop in some weekday mornings as well, but not very often anymore. This is because when I do I'm there longer than I should be and get an even later start on my workday than I normally do.


It's a great little place and there's a group of "regulars" who sit around, chat, laugh, and solve all the world's problems. It's a very eclectic little group, with all types represented. A lawyer, a couple of financial people, a doctor, a drug co. sales rep, a farrior, (that's right-a horse shoer), and right down the line to yours truly, the token struggling guy in construction.


This being small town Southern America, the vast majority of the crowd is conservative. OK, they're all conservative, except the lawyer, and he's gotten to where he hardly ever comes in anymore. I think I know why he doesn't. The closer we get to election time, the more rabid the conservative rhetoric is getting there. I really like most of these people and think they are really decent, honest, friendly folks. But sometimes it's very hard to listen to the hateful way they refer to anyone opposing their political views.


Most of them know that I'm a left-leaning kind of guy, and they used to use phrases like "in my opinion", or "but don't you think". Lately though the talk has gotten downright visceral, and many of them have either forgotten or don't care that there is at least 1 person among them who is on the recieving end of the epithats they are spewing. It's almost as though they think "well, yeah, you may be a democrat, but you wouldn't vote for HIM, would you?" There is also kind of a pack mentality that sets in, and the slurring and demeaning just feeds off itself, and they assume that everyone in the place, even those they don't know from Adam, must agree with them, because to not agree would be "un-American". After all, his name is Hussein, and she tried to send the country into communism with that damn health care plan of hers, right?


The thing is, I may disagree - strongly - with their political views, and I may think they are motivated by a complete self-centered-ness, or a paranoid fear, or both. Yet I also know that they will do anything to help a friend, are very active in charities, and are often the nicest bunch you would ever want to meet. So I try not to demonize them for their political leanings.


Now if only I could get the same consideration.


You see, this is a constant theme with conservatism these days that really annoys me. It is also, in my humble, non-higher educated opinion, why conservatives have been kicking liberals' asses for a while now. Liberals, as part of their make-up and belief system, do not judge others who don't follow their own specific set of ethics and rules. They are tolerant, by definitiion. They take pains to allow others their space, and respect their beliefs. So it is naturally harder for them to relegate an entire group of humans to a lessor standing because of the name they choose to call themselves, or the company they keep. Conservatives, on the other hand, led by the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world, have no qualms assigning the word liberal to all Democrats, and then proceeding to declare all liberals anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Moral, anti-Work, and all manners of other anti's. In other words, they demonize them. If you think it was a mistake to go into Iraq, you're a terrorist lover and you don't care about our troops. If you believe we should provide health care for everyone in the country, you're a communist, or you just want to raise taxes, or you want the government to control everyone's life. It's no wonder, given the images stirred up by the right-wing fear-machine, that conservatives can get their members to rally around their causes so much better than liberals can. Our tolerance is our trademark, but also our undoing.


I think one reason that the crew at the Bagel Shop tends to carry on about liberals as though I'm not there is that they have been conditioned to believe that all good, God-fearing, decent, working guys have to be conservative. I'm just like one of them, so it's easy to assume I must think the same as them. I often try to respond in ways to let them know that there are other sides to every issue. I very rarely get "into it" with them when the whole group is there because there are a couple of them for whom that would just be a waste of time and result in raised voices and probably a scene, which I have no desire to create. But when I'm sitting with just one or two of them, especially with some of the group who enjoy real conversation, I will make a stand for what I believe, thereby letting them know that there are actually non-conservatives out here who work, struggle, love their kids, coach baseball, believe in God (sorta), and don't really hate their country. I can only hope that they will come away with a sense that maybe all liberals aren't the crazy, demonic radicals they've been led to believe in. Maybe some liberals have actually thought about the issues and came to a rational decision that this is a better way.



It actually irritates the hell out of me that liberals are condemned for wanting to "control people's lives" and conservatives sell themselves as the "keep the government out of my life" bloc. This after conservative leaders have actually tried to pass an amendment to our hallowed constitution that would deny the rights of a relatively small group of people just because they have a different sexual preference. Just how intrusive is THAT? Apparently it's socialism if the government tries to get involved in your health care, but just "right" if the government wants to choose your sexual preference. I started to write more on this, but it begs it's own post, so I'll get back to it

I know a lot of very decent people who are die-hard Republicans, including the vast majority of my own family. I think there are those in that party who represent some of the worst problems with our society, but I don't judge everyone who calls themself a Republican by those members. I only ask that conservatives do the same, and not buy into the hate-mongering and fear tactics that so many of their spokespeople engage in.

Peace

Tuesday Talk

Sheez, has it really been 2 weeks since I wrote last?
Little League is getting ready to crank up so I know it will be further between posts. I believe the thing to do is to start a weekly catch-all post so I'm not so concerned about covering any given thing in depth, although I will be finishing up a couple of pieces in the next week or so that I've been piddling with for a while. One is about Ernie Shore, a historic figure in Red Sox history and in Winston-Salem history. The other is about my First Red Sox game.
For now, let's start with this past week.
The Red Sox are in full swing in Fort Myers. Manny is looking buff and Papelbot is already talking trash, so it's going to be a great season. Seriously, Manny is working out like a banshee and the results are obvious. He's definitely looking to up his value for that free agent off-season coming up. The team traveled to DC to meet the president this week. Manny didn't make the trip, way to "be Manny"!
First exhibition game is tomorrow. Can't wait to see highlights when I get home!
Down in Blue Heaven, the Heels are looking as good as they have all year right now, and they're still doing it without Lawson. If Ty comes back to full strength, which may be harder to do than say, he'll be coming back to a better team than it was when he went out. They should be damn near unstoppable!
The time Q (Quentin Thomas) has put in as the only true point guard left has been incredibly beneficial. He's playing like a true senior leader. Ty had to carry all the weight when we lost Frazor for the season because every time Q came in, things seemed to disintegrate. That apparently was just the result of not enough time out there, and maybe too much self-inflicted pressure trying to "be" Ty. With 6 full games under his belt now, Q is doing better than anyone could have hoped, and will be a bonafide 2nd option at PG, capable of spelling Lawson for plenty of minutes, which will probably be necessary as Lawson workd his way back into game condition.
Hansborough is STILL the hardest worker in basketball, and it is becoming almost routine for him to have games that would qualify as "once in a lifetime" for most people. Wake Forest threw MacFarland at him, State threw Grant and McCauley at him, no matter. He just keeps "being Tyler". (sorry Manny)
As I mentioned, Little League is just around the corner. We have enough kids for a 3rd team in the Jr's division (13 - 14) this year, so we're scrambling to find another manager. We actually are only 6 or 7 late sign-ups away from having enough for 4 teams and needing 2 more coaches. I and one other guy have been the only two for a couple of years now, and it's been several years since we've had a player's father as a head coach at that level. That's been kind of nice, but to my knowledge we don't have any other options. Maybe the coaches committee has someone tucked away I'm not aware of. If so, they'd better speak up fast, Bo (the other returning manager) and I hope to split up the teams and get started practicing in the next 4 or 5 days.
On the Home Front - had to run Sockette to the hospital yesterday. Seems she got dizzy and fell while heading to the bathroom. Probably nothing to get anxious about, but when you know all this shit is going on inside you, you just have to worry about what might be happening. They did a quick heart test and sent her home. Why would they look for anything more when she doesn't have insurance? I know, they might have done the same to anyone else, but I kind of doubt it. People don't just fall down for no reason, or maybe they do, but it would be nice to confirm that it was for no reason. There are plenty of perfectly good reasons for someone to fall down unexpectedly, most of which are not actually good.
She gets the week off from chemo this week, so maybe by next weekend she'll be up for riding down to Charlotte for the "Intergalactic Bead Show" that's coming! Yippeee! Actually, I fuss about it and am usually bored within minutes, but it sure is nice see her enjoy something for a while, and every time there are actually a few pretty damn cool things to see. It's a shame it's not this weekend, though. The Diamond Heels (UNC's baseball team) are in Rock Hill just south of town for a weekend tournament. We could do Beads and Balls.
All of these subjects include issues that are well worth delving into deeper - Family health and Health Care ; Little League and youth sports in general ; My Red Sox and the beautiful history of baseball ; those fabulous Heels, their female counterparts, and the Diamond Heels too - and I will....soon.
For now, Gotta go!

Heart Attack City!

THEY DID IT!
OK, I've written about my Heels in 3 of my last 4 posts now, so this will be brief.........
but.........
OH MY GOD!!!!
After playing horribly for 37 minutes and looking for all the world like they were going to lose to Clemson....at home.... for the First Time.......EVER......as in after 52 tries.......
THEY DID IT!
Wayne Ellington started to look like the cool as a cucumber sharp-shooter he is. Danny Green started to look like the pressure buster we know him to be. Tyler was (forgive me Manny) being Tyler. Of course, he alone was himself in the Duke game. Quinton Thomas played even better in his 2nd full game filling in for Ty Lawson. Unfortunately for my poor aging heart, none of this happened until there were only 3 or 4 minutes left in regulation and they were down by 11.
The score was tied at 0 - 0, and never again until the Heels scored the last basket of regulation to send it to the 1st overtime. Clemson dominated every aspect until Ellington and Green finally started to get some shots to fall. That meant Tyler was able to get some better looks inside, and next thing you know they're in OT, then in a 2nd OT. Foul trouble and the inevitable pressure of history finally got to the Tigers and the Heels were able to pull out a 10 point win in double overtime.
It's been over for more than 45 minutes now, and my heart is still racing.
God, I love this team!

Cancer Sucks

On the non-sports, but very combative, side -

My wife's battle with cancer is really hard right now.

She doesn't seem to be able to get any decent rest and never has any energy. She is in constant pain. The meds keep it bearable, but it's still always there, and it just wears on you and keeps you down.

She had a decent week last week since she got to skip treatment the previous Friday. By Tuesday she was raring to go and spent the whole day out and about, then came home and cooked a big meal. It was nice to see a smile for a change. We actually went out a couple of times that week and did some shopping, errands, etc.

After Friday's treatment this week, though, she was already feeling bad that night.

I knew she was feeling the effects, because she wanted to talk about the business of dying. It's not a pretty business. She's worried about the bills that will be left behind, and whether I'll lose the house. The hospital doesn't seem to be forcing the issue now, but she has apparently heard somewhere that they will do so with me after she's gone. I just tell her that she's going to outlive me, so SHE has to deal with it, which she will be able to do given the size of my life insurance policy :)
She doesn't seem to buy it.
It's Sunday and we went to have brunch with an old friend today in Greensboro, about 30 minutes away. Afterward we had planned to go to the giant monthly flea market there. We haven't been in about a year and she often finds old jewelry and stuff she can use in her beading work. After brunch, though, she was already feeling tired and didn't want to spend the entrance fee knowing we would probably not be able to stay very long at all.
I know she has cancer, and would have it regardless of the shape of our health care system in this country. But it's a shame that humans, members of the human race, children of the same god, get access to the best care available only if they can afford it

Oh well, we just keep plugging along and deal with it as it comes up, whatever it may be.

Peace

How 'Bout Them Heels - ?

Well, it happened. The Heels lost to Duke in Round 1 of the greatest rivalry in college sports - version 2008.
This means I had to go buy a new sweatshirt before Sunday's game. The old one is now toast.
It also means I have to listen to everyone, even Wake and State fans, rag on me until we play THEIR team. I feel fairly confident the ragging will stop after that. Hell, we've already walked all over State once this year, but I still got an earful Monday morning from our resident Wolfpack alumni at the Bagel Shop.
They lost without Ty Lawson, and the effect of that missing presence cannot be overstated. Ty runs this team, makes it go. Quinton Thomas did a great job of covering his absence, as well as anyone could be expected to. He played what might have been the best game I've ever seen from him, but nobody can replace Ty Lawson's speed and the chaos that he creates on the other team's defense. Q had 6 turnovers. Not too bad given Duke's defense, but Ty had only ONE turnover in the TWO games prior to the injury.
Would the Heels have won with Lawson there? Who knows? But it would have been a different game.
They lost while getting a COMBINED 11 points from Wayne Ellington and Danny Green, who normally average over 28 points between them.
Ellington had one of his worst games of the season, finishing with 8 points. He didn't make a single 3-pointer in 6 attempts. Towards the end, trailing by only 7, and with some momentum going the Heels' way, he launched one that would have brought the house down. It spun around the rim, went over half way down, then flipped out. It was just that kind of night for him.
Meanwhile Danny Green, who is critical to the success of this team with Frasor gone for the year, only scored 3 points. He got them on 1 lone 3-pointer out of 5 attempts, and went 1 for 10 total with no free throw attempts.
So, was this due to Duke's incredible defense, the missing playmaker for the Heels, their inability to handle the pressure as well as the Dookies, or just a bad night at the office?
Probably a little of all four.
I anticipate a different outcome in early March at Cameron Indoor Stadium. :)
In the meantime, I can't wait till tomorrow to get this nasty taste out of my mouth!
Clemson, prepare to go 0 and 53 in Chapel Hill, although I'm ALWAYS nervous about this game. I mean, the sheer odds alone say that sooner or later they HAVE to win one here. I just hope it's not this year!