Monday, November 29, 2021

Side Effects

Harry reached the age at which his blood cholesterol level was no longer manageable through diet alone. He hated taking pills, their expense, remembering to take them, refilling hassles and the feeling that his survival was dependent upon Western medicine and frequent visits with the doctor. But his elevated readings were consistent and trending upward. Well established research shows that taking a statin greatly reduces the chances of death by stroke or heart attack. Was one little pill really that much of an inconvenience? He called the pharmacy.

 

Meeting up with his old friend Pete over lunch generally devolved into conversations about aches and pains.

 

            “Did you hear about Tom?” asked Harry

            “Is it true, he dropped dead playing golf?” said Pete.

            “A heart attack. No family history. His cholesterol was really high. Guess he should have taken a statin. I just started.”

            “Oh man, you have to be careful with those. I wound up in the hospital, so messed up I couldn’t think straight. All of a sudden, I had dementia caused by my statin. I was really tired, had leg cramps, usually at night, that woke me up, digestive problems and…”

            “Wait, back up, leg cramps?”

            “Yeah, I went on a different medication and now I’m ok, but you have to take CoQ10 to prevent the cramping.”

            “I wish my doctor had mentioned that.”

 

On the way home from lunch, Harry stopped at a Walgreens and picked up some CoQ10. His night time leg cramps vanished within a few days. Lunch with a friend had proved more useful than a visit to the doctor.

 

Use of C0Q10 may cause headaches and dizziness, insomnia, fatigue, skin itching or rashes, irritability or agitation.

 

Within a week or so Harry noticed an increase in his energy level, almost to the point of feeling jittery. 



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Monday, September 27, 2021

White Socks


I was pretty much invisible in High School. As a freshman in the turbulent times known as 1968, I saw “greasers” goose-step through passing periods in their “hood boots” down the corridors near my homeroom. Some of them rode the bus route that ended at the trailer park on Talcott Avenue, fully in control of the back seats and terrifying recently graduated 8th graders like me. I was a mere 5 foot 6 with braces and a fragile nervous disposition, which didn’t help my situation. I had heard for several years that incoming freshmen were routinely thrown into the Maine South Pond. On the bus, I was fully visible.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really grow until well after my time in the Maine Township crucible of terror. I kept my head down, stayed out of trouble, and persuaded my mother to call me in absent as often as possible, especially after my father died junior year. I didn’t even attend my own graduation. Instead, I disappeared into my basement with a set of weights and a bench press and reinvented myself.

But this isn’t a story about self-pity. I was aware of what was going on around me, the faculty and administrative personnel, the athletes, and the troublemakers. I just didn’t belong to any group. So when I attended the ten-year reunion in 1982 as a 6 foot one, confident college graduate I may as well have been a different person.

And then I won a very specific award.


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Friday, September 24, 2021

When Crazy Came to Town


Marty pushed a red Toro mower back and forth, fifty feet from one edge of the front yard to the other. He did laps across the yard like a swimmer, but without time saving flip-turns. The entire job took perhaps fifteen minutes weekly. Two trees were his only obstacles, trimmed at their bases with square mulched offsets that required only the slightest deviation from his linear path. A young Linden tree's inverted cone-shaped foliage cast a comforting shade umbrella in the July heat over the narrower strip of lawn between the sidewalk and the street. A majestic Spruce, subtle blue, reached skyward in the spot closer to the house where it was planted decades ago. 

Although the lawn was small, the brief chore was one of Marty’s favorites. He lost himself in the gratifying process of renewal, evenly trimming the ragged green growth underfoot to a precise height, creating horizontal or diagonal patterns depending on the week, like vacuum tracks on plush carpeting. He enjoyed the sweet scent, deep breaths as delicious as the first sip of cold beer on a hot day. It was a summer aroma, and the noise from the machine drew him inward, rendering him mostly oblivious to the sounds of traffic, children and birds.

 

But above the growl of the motor that sounded like a ninety-decibel go-cart, Marty became peripherally aware of an even louder noise, a more powerful engine near the end of the street, unmuffled and headed his way. Spinning with the mower at the north end of the lawn, he glanced upward from overlapping green stripes and looked toward the south end of the street. There, like a kite cut loose from a string, came a white Cadillac El Dorado, weaving from one curb to the other far above the twenty-five mile per hour speed limit. Marty cut power to the mower and stepped away, sheltering nearer to the house.

 

The driver’s name was Ernie Grieber, Crazy Ernie to the neighbors. Since his move into the peaceful address at the northwest corner of the intersection south of Marty’s house, the entire neighborhood suffered from anxiety, the sense that something bad was about to happen, as it often did. None of the long-term residents of Good Street could remember anything remotely similar disrupting their idyllic setting.

 

In the front seat of the approaching car arms flailed between the driver and the passenger, causing the vehicle to veer from the left side of the street to the right, tires and rims burning and etching black rubber and white scratches on the concrete curbing. A dragging tailpipe clanged with each violent course correction, kicking up sparks and threatening to detach from the car’s undercarriage.


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Thursday, September 23, 2021

Jurassic Lark


Dinosaurs! I’ve been a fan since I was a kid, so it was no surprise that my own children would one day be similarly enthralled. By 1992 our little family had grown to four, including an infant and a toddler. As they grew, they watched Barney laughing and frolicking on television, a purple people pleaser beloved by children and tolerated by their parents.

And then came 1993 and with it, Jurassic Park, the best dinosaur movie ever. As much as I loved Journey to the Beginning of Time, this was no Claymation shlock with classic Triceratops/T-Rex battles. No, these beasts looked real, and almost thirty years later, they still do. There was no way our babies were going to watch this movie in its entirety. Certain scenes were disturbing for adults.

 

Television in the early nineties had advanced beyond the handful of channels I watched in the 1960s, but it was far from our endless array of current choices. There was no streaming, no on-demand, and no DVDs. In fact, the first major releases from Warner Home Video arrived in December of 1996, with only four available titles. Netflix began mailing discs in 1997. Prior to that, since 1985 VHS rentals had been the stuff of the now defunct Blockbuster. Parents had a lot of control over viewing material.

 

It was inevitable, as our kids headed off to school, that friends would become the information conduit that led to requests to see Jurassic Park. After all, we were surrounded by lesser parents who made this possible for their children, now institutionalized and suffering lifetime derangement from exposure to graphic content at an early age. They were the same kids who were later gifted BMWs upon turning sixteen. We just lived in that sort of neighborhood.

 

No, my seven-year-olds would not be seeing an extinct monster eat a man, tearing him to pieces while reading a newspaper in a port-o-potty. It was gratuitous gore that added nothing to the story. And there would be plenty of time to learn that “objects are closer than they appear” in a rearview mirror without being educated by a nightmare-inducing, chomping, snarling monster.

 

Stepping back quite a bit, at age twelve I saved lawn mowing money for a Super 8 home movie camera. It was $75, a huge sum when saving fifty cents at a time. I later jumped on board the video camera bandwagon in the 1980s with a shoulder mounted model, tethered to a cumbersome deck that used full size tapes. I was also an early adopter of VCR technology. I purchased my first recorder in 1978. It was large and expensive, a Motorola console that I eventually programmed to record Cheers and Hill Street Blues on blank tapes that cost upwards of $25 each. The only feature film I ever bought was The Graduate, for $80. In those days, you re-used your tapes until they quit functioning, all of their metal oxides ground to dust, or tape wound around a capstan in a tangled, unsalvageable mess.

 

It was these two devices that I later used to make MY version of Jurassic Park.

 

It was no easy synchronization task, at least not a quick one, to start and stop the movie that was playing on Deck 1, while stopping and starting the tape that was recording on Deck 2. This was how I skipped over the horrific sequences in the original. There was no digital copy-guard in those days. I was free to do as I pleased with Spielberg’s fantastic special effects. My editing room floor was littered with all of the most intense chases and kills.

 

So the kids got to see the movie they’d heard so much about. They didn’t notice the little digital waver or question the nonsensical jump cuts of my edits. At least, not yet.

 

Years later when it no longer mattered, as TV matured, choices broadened and sequels became available, the original Jurassic Park appeared one evening during prime time. We all watched Jeff Goldblum cower in the back of a speeding jeep, with T-Rex in hot pursuit after snacking on the hapless port-o-potty man.


 

            “When did THAT happen?” asked the kids. “Is that NEW footage?”

 

It was time to ‘fess up. I was the murderer of childhood film, or the savior of childhood, depending on perspective. Ultimately, I guess my own love of dinosaurs compelled me to create a watchable horror film for my little ones rather than deny them the experience altogether. And with that, I hereby confess to this crime, and to being a loving father or overprotective shield, depending on your viewpoint. But I can say, my kids turned out great, and visiting hours begin shortly. Go see your kid.


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Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Practicing Medicine


I was not feeling well. Actually, I had a sudden screaming pain in my right side under my ribs. Is it a gallbladder attack? My lungs? Liver? Pancreas (e gads), or perhaps a misanthropic appendix taking revenge for all of that Dairy Queen of late? Note: I’ve always wanted to use the word “misanthropic.” I learned it from Charles Dickens and it’s fun to say.

 

            “Hello, I’d like to make an appointment with my doctor,” I began.

 

            “What are your symptoms?”

 

            “I have a severe pain in my right side.”

 

            “Do you have a fever, chills, body aches, sore throat, cough or shortness of breath?”

 

I wanted to say that I almost always have body aches, but this wasn’t the time to be a smart aleck.

 

            “Well, yes, I’ve had a tickling cough for a couple of weeks, and I can’t breathe because of the pain in my side. It’s hard to catch my breath.”

 

            “Have you had a Covid test?”

 

            “Yes. It was negative.”

 

            “Where were you tested?”

 

            “CVS.”

 

            “Oh. You need to have both a rapid and PCR Covid test at our facility due to your symptoms.”

 

            “You mean the shortness of breath?” I asked.

 

            “Yes, that.”

 

            “But that’s because of the pain in my side.”

 

            “I’m scheduling you for the test, and also for a TeleHealth appointment.”

 

            “With my doctor? I can’t see him in person?”

 

            “You need to get the Covid test,” she said.

 

            “Ok, fine.”

            

            “Your TeleHealth appointment is with your doctor’s assistant, an APRN.”

 

What the Hell is an APRN? I look it up. Advanced Practice Registered Nurse. Great.

 

Fast forward. I endured two more Covid tests. The ones where they stick a swab up your nose way further than the way I did it myself at the CVS drive thru. I guess that’s the point. Cool, I must have Covid. At least I’ll know why I can’t breathe and why I’m in such pain.

 

            “Your rapid test is negative. Please log on to the link I sent you,” she says later that day.

 

            “But my appointment isn’t for two hours.”

 

            “Did you get the link I sent?”

 

            “Yeah, hold on, I need to get my laptop.”

 

Sadly, my biggest concern was that I wasn’t dressed for this. I planned to at least comb my hair and put on a t-shirt with sleeves. Instead, I looked like I just woke up and got back from shopping at a Florida Walmart.

 

            “What’s your blood pressure?” she asked.

            

            “I don’t know.”

 

            “Do you have a home blood pressure kit?”

 

            “Yeah, but…”

 

            “I’ll wait,” she said, and did.

 

            “Bzzzzzz, bump, bump, bump,” went the machine.

 

            “It says 145 over 92. That can’t be right. I always have really good blood pressure.”

 

            “145 over 92,” she wrote, “What’s your pulse?”

 

            “Oh, wait, I took off the cuff.” Had she mentioned this earlier I would have made note of the reading.

 

            “Bzzzzzz, bump, bump, bump,” went the machine again.  “It says 78. That can’t be right. My pulse runs around 62.” Both pulse and BP were no doubt elevated due to aggravation.

            

            “78. Please hold, he will be with you shortly. Are you taking the following medications?” (she rattles off a series of drugs, mispronouncing most of them)

 

            “No, I haven’t taken those in years. They were for different things at different times.”

 

            “No meds,” she stated.

 

            “Do you smoke?”

 

            I’m starting to. (I didn’t actually say that.) “No.”

 

The laptop screen comes to life. All I can see are thick eyebrows and a forehead with ceiling tiles in the background. An adjustment is made. Now I can see eyes as well. The APRN appears to be East Indian and quite young. Young people generally know how to use computers.

 

            “So you’re having shortness of breath and a cough,” he said.

            

            “Well, actually a pain in my side, but I do have a slight cough and I can’t breathe because it hurts.”

 

            “You probably have a virus other than Covid. I’m going to send two prescriptions to Walgreens. One will be a six-day steroid pack. The other will be an antibiotic.”

 

            “Should we get a chest X-ray?” I prompted.

 

            “Oh, yes, I was going to suggest that. (yeah, right) I’ll put an order in. You can walk into our imaging center any time.” 


I’m there within a couple of hours.

 

Fast forward. Walgreens closes at 8 pm and doesn’t care if the orders that came in earlier in the day are complete. As a result, I have no medication for the pain in my side, and it is worsening by the hour. By 1:00 am, I cannot sleep. There is no position I can find that isn’t excruciating. I pace the floor, stretch, and attempt to breathe deeply but can’t. Eventually, I take a couple of extra strength Tylenol, then two more an hour later. At this point, I’m not concerned about my liver. I try to sleep sitting up, propping a pillow under my chin so my head won’t fall uncomfortably forward, resulting in an almost certain headache from neck strain. It is a very long night.

 

The next morning I am the first customer at Walgreens. After a short wait, I am handed three prescriptions. I expected two. The third is an Albuterol inhaler with no explanation of why I’ve been given this or how to use it. Whatever. I go home and swallow the first row of steroids in the six-day series of progressively shorter blister-packed rows. Within hours the pain begins to subside. I now understand how Oxycontin can so quickly become a problem, especially after day three, when my much shorter row of pills allows the pain to return. I need more of this.

 

            “Hello, I really need to have an actual visit with my doctor. The pain in my side is now extending from my shoulder to my waist. I had a slight fever last night and still can’t breathe because of the pain.”

 

“You have a fever?”

 

            “No, not anymore. Last night.” (I realized it was a mistake to admit this)

 

            “Are you using the inhaler?”

 

            “First of all, I didn’t know I was getting that, and I wasn’t told how to use it. But more importantly, I can’t use an inhaler when the pain in my side prevents me from inhaling. I feel like you’re not listening to me.”

 

            “I will schedule you with your doctor. But first, you need to get a Covid test.”

 

            “I had two of them a few days ago.”

 

            “That was before you had a fever. We have to make sure.”

 

Fast forward. The doctor refuses to see me in person, but at least he knows how to aim his laptop camera to capture his full face. He says the additional Covid test isn’t necessary. I don’t present like a huffing and puffing COVID-19 patient. Probably because I am sitting still.

 

He proceeds to tell me that I most likely strained my intercostal rib muscles while coughing. He prescribes me two weeks of Meloxicam. It has been five days since my chest x-ray. He mentions that I have fluid in my right lung, the one near the pain that was my original complaint. Whatever fluid was in that lung has now been there for five days, probably having fluid babies and growing a fluid family.

 

He puts my on a short course of Lasix (water-removing pill) and a potassium supplement to counter the electrolyte-depleting action of the Lasix.

 

            “Does that sound like a plan?” he asks.

 

            “Yes, but I should probably mention that I’ve been coughing up a little blood.”

 

            “Well, that’s alarming for sure. But small amounts are not a concern. They may be originating in your nasal passages and traveling down your throat.”


A pattern has emerged. Everything I say travels up the branches of a decision tree to a box that says, "That's nothing."

 

I now repeat the Walgreens experience, but this time I show up in the store before closing. They have had my order in their system all day and are clearly planning to make me wait until morning. I plan to refuse to leave until I get my meds. I envision police action, me carried off in cuffs demanding my rights and ending up a Florida law enforcement casualty on the Lester Holt evening news. Florida Man. They produce the prescriptions. No ruminated police were necessary. I gobble the new pills the minute I get home.

 

This is not the end of the story. I am still advocating for my care, demanding that tests be done properly and completely. You might recall that I ran blood tests in a hospital for eleven years. I know more than enough to be dangerous. Doctors find that to be a bit off-putting, though I am kind when I ask them to raise the bar on terminology and reveal my background. I don’t pretend to be a doctor. But if I were one, I would hopefully listen to my patient and attempt to find underlying causes instead of just treating the symptoms. At that point they are not practicing medicine, they’re practicing insurance.


To read the rest of this story and more than seventy others, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories on Amazon. Click on the image below.


 


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Sunday, September 12, 2021

The First World Problem

Poor or developing nations are spoken of as “Third World.” We are fortunate to live in a wealthy First World country. Our challenges are typically not due to lack of sanitation, potable water, electricity or all of the various other infrastructure elements we take for granted, despite our government’s struggle to fund the much-needed maintenance of these critical items.

We can joke that a delay in our mail, a flat tire, a problem connecting to WiFi, rising gas prices, a backorder on Amazon or an assortment of other inconveniences are “First World problems.” “Oh my gosh, Whole Foods is out of organic cranberries!” But have you ever experienced a power failure that lasted more than a few hours or days? How about a lengthy city-wide boil order for your tap water?” Perhaps a nationwide toilet paper shortage was enlightening. Suddenly your perspective changes, albeit temporarily. Some of us go camping to get back to basics. But have you ever traveled to a Third World destination where this is the norm?

 

We have gone to one such place. A trip to see our son while he was in the Peace Corps, stationed in Guatemala, was an eye opener. He lived for three years in villages where undrinkable water came in periodic “falls” – the opening of a village-wide pipeline on a few specific days during the week or month. From that the villagers filled concrete reservoirs in their homes. These were called “pilas” – dual compartment basins used for washing clothes, dishes, hands, and bucket by bucket, for manually flushing a toilet.

 

There was no cable TV, no sewers, no waste disposal or telephone lines. Interestingly, cell phone technology allowed for an infrastructure leapfrog in the traditional evolution of telecommunications. Everyone carried cell phones. It was much easier to install a few cell phone towers in remote locations than it would have been to string miles of wires along thousands of installed telephone poles.

 

We stayed with our son in his single room, a spartan cinderblock, windowless cube in a building that was similarly unglamorous. We toured the town, walking on mostly unpaved roads, meeting his friends, host families and coworkers. And on market day, he took us shopping at the local Costco, an open-air farmers market where he purchased a few onions, potatoes and rice, whatever he needed for the week.

 

Guatemalan people are generally quite small. They are mostly “Ladinos,” of mixed European (Spanish) and Amerindian descent. The men average about five foot four inches in height. The women are around four foot ten. Our family, at five foot nine to six foot one, was noticeably gigantic. As we strolled through the little marketplace, we routinely ducked under blue tarp tents that shaded the produce sellers.

 

Those who knew our son were aware of our visit. Others quickly noticed the obvious American outsiders and watched us pass by. It was as we passed by one tiny woman, dark brown and wrinkled from age and a difficult life, missing several teeth, but smiling broadly, that I became an object of fascination unlike at any other time in my life. Looking up into my eyes, with her radiant smile and quiet demeanor, she gently reached out and touched my arm. Was it to see if I was real? For good luck? As a gesture of kindness or honor? I’ll never know. Perhaps she spoke of her encounter to family at dinner that evening. I simply returned her smile and continued on through the market. Our culture and languages separated us, but we shared a moment. And then I went back to the comfort I take for granted in the United States and she continued to sell vegetables for the rest of her life.

 

Since then, whenever I go to the grocery store, or any store, not just Costco or Sam’s Club, I am struck by our bounty of choices, the immense quantity of food and other goods from which we can choose. Our trip to the Third World changed me forever. I frequently comment on how lucky we are and how little we struggle. Perhaps that’s our real First World problem.


😎


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Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Evergreen


Wally held up a glass test tube, gazing with pride at its phosphorescent green contents. He turned off the lights in his basement laboratory to better view the effect. A gentle swirl between his thumb and forefinger stirred the fluid to greater brightness. Suspended sparkling motes pulsed with life, combined in twos and threes, grew and thrived.

 

            “Dinner is ready!” urged Alice from the top of the basement stairs.

 

            “I’ll be up shortly dear,” he replied for the second time without looking away, mesmerized by the glow of his creation.

 

If the results of his experiment were as hoped, eating food would never be quite the same. He took a deep breath, looked briefly to the top of the stairs, then back at the test tube. He threw back the contents like a shot of fine whiskey, expecting the swallowed rush and burn of a high proof liquor, but feeling none. The mild essence of chlorophyl, of a summer day rose up the back of his throat and into his nostrils. And then it hit.

 

Wally could not suppress the operatic scream he released as he doubled over from a sensation that was not entirely pain. It was metamorphic, gripping his diaphragm and radiating outward past his ribs and internal organs, down the nerves in his arms and legs, and upward to his skull in an optic light show that caused the room to color and spin, his stomach to clench and sweat to pour down his face. He sensed an upswelling loss of consciousness like a profound sleepiness and allowed his body to rather gracefully collapse upon the cement floor.



To read the rest of this story and more than fifty others, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.


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Monday, September 6, 2021

That Which We Remember

Twenty-one years ago I worked with a consultant to build a new billing and estimating tool for our in-house design team. It was a completely custom project, including a hands-on classroom training experience, detailed reference materials and in-depth exercises. The application touched every element of our business. We had to get it right.

We loaded the necessary software on computers in a training room off site, away from office distractions. It was important that students, our coworkers, focus on the lectures and exercises we had prepared. Three days of training per student was allocated. Coverage for their duties was taken care of and lunch provided. Everyone arrived early for the first day of class. It was September 11th, 2001.

 

I left for work early to meet our consultant, heading up the Tristate Tollway and onto a long exit ramp. It was a sunny day, one of the last of summer in the post-Labor Day period that serves as a transition to cooler autumn temperatures and shorter days. I listened to the news as always. In that short stretch of highway, two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center.

 

As shocking as that was, it soon got worse. I parked my car, walked toward our waiting consultant and asked him if he’d heard the news. Chris Kubica and I became bonded for life in that moment. He looked at me as if I was joking. He hadn’t heard. I am the person who told him about 911.

 

Students arrived and took their seats, some just becoming aware of the tragedy, others unaware. All of our students brought up their web browsers, pretending to be paying attention, but searching for news as Chris nervously attempted to conduct the class. The internet bogged down, barely able to assemble on-screen pages. Twenty years ago, bandwidth at our company was far less robust.

 

Planes had hit tall buildings before, but not commercial jets. Still, the double strike might be a bizarre coincidence. During the first hour of class another plane hit the Pentagon. And then another crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. When would it stop? Was the White House next? When the Pentagon was hit, the story changed. Our mood darkened and the day intensified. The country was under attack. We took a break earlier than had been scheduled. At this point we should have sent everyone home. It was clear that nothing would be learned that day.

 

We all refreshed our screens, made phone calls to loved ones, hoping not to hear reports of other attacks, perhaps nuclear strikes - more horrific main events following the sinister and distracting first wave. Families were separated at jobs and in schools. What chaos might erupt on city streets as everyone suddenly scrambled to get home?

 

We didn’t realize that we were in the middle of “911.” It hadn’t been named yet, or compared with Pearl Harbor. A ground stop emptied the skies of planes, an eerie silence we’d never seen before. Our traveling coworkers were stranded in other countries or locations within the U.S. We had never heard of TSA and couldn’t imagine the protocols that would become a normal part of travel going forward. We all watched in horror for many days as video was displayed on the evening news in a seemingly endless loop. We began the process of “never forgetting” that some of us recalled from November 22, 1963. On that day, our President died. On September 11th, our national innocence perished and we entered a new era, every one of us.

 

On every September 11th for the past twenty-one years, my good friend Chris and I exchange notes in recognition of the link that was forged that morning. Our children have grown, our careers changed, but we commemorate who we were at 7:45am, Central Time on that morning, and who we became one minute later.


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Saturday, August 28, 2021

My Dream Job

I've written previously about recurrent nightmares, anxious little nuggets in the night about work. This is part two.

It happened again. The dream I mean. The news carried a story about returning to work after the pandemic and how different it may be, employers insisting upon sharing desks in open spaces that maintain distance and create a flexible timeshare sort of arrangement between workers who used to value their privacy. News flash: they still do. Workers will hate this setup if forced to return after months of Zooming with no pants, endless supplies of coffee made exactly the way they prefer and no one messing with the supplies or leaving things for the next guy to wash. But Lester Holt says it may just happen. And he wins awards.

So no sooner do I fall asleep than I enter my post-retirement recurring dream job. A nightmare really. I’ve written about it before, but it continues to become more layered, nuanced and more real, and this time my mind is processing the awful possibilities detailed on the evening news. I am so fortunate to have retired before the pandemic.

 

I approach my old desk, first day back early in the morning. Someone is at my desk. In fact, a bold nameplate indicates that it is definitely no longer my desk, at least for the next few hours. A nicely dressed woman has been given my management job. Well, it’s about time. I’m impressed by her youth and intimidated by her sidelong glance. I back away, apologizing for the interruption. Work is now structured like college, complete with long hallways, separate buildings, elevators that go all the wrong places, sneering unfamiliar faces scanning my uncombed hair and outrageous attire. 

 

My attire! I’m wearing bright blue short shorts, unusually white gym shoes and no shirt. I’m looking far too much like a Richard Simmons exercise video to be at work. I press the elevator call button and realize that I don’t know where my next hour of work or my next desk is located. I return to my first wrong desk and collect a small cardboard box of my colorful personal effects. By the way, if you dream in black and white, you were not human in your previous life.

 

My car keys are missing.

 

I exit the elevator, somehow in the corridor of a hospital, an intensive care unit where beeping and swooshing is background for hushed conversations. I look out the window at a brightly lit, snow-covered parking lot. I need to go home and get my clothes. Still no keys.

 

At this point stress is elevating my heart rate, the speed at which I take shallow breaths, and I realize that not only do I not know which building I should be in, I can’t remember what floor I’ve exited. I try to calm myself, duck into the nearest bathroom to wipe the sweat from my forehead and am immediately confronted with a tiled sub-nightmare, as if passing from one level of a role-playing video game to the next, having chosen to apply the wrong token. It is a filthy apocalypse of dark, putrid fluids and unclean sinks. I can’t get out of there fast enough. I look down in my box of effects once more and consider the possibility that I am having another work nightmare. I shake myself; I shake the box. My keys jingle and rise to the surface of my collection of things. Thank goodness, because this is no dream. It is real. I head to my car.

 

Where did I leave my car?

 

Perhaps my CPAP came loose on my face. Or maybe the power went out briefly. I’m gasping for air, heart racing and happy to be awake. It was a dream after all. I never have to go to work again.

 

Welcome to another day of retirement.


😎


If you like fiction and you're in the mood for over 50 short stories, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.


Or if you'd prefer seventy non-fiction stories inspired by a town in Illinois, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories also on Amazon. Click on the image below.


 

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Your Top Priority

Early in my career, I had the privilege of attending a weekend-long men’s retreat in Wisconsin. This was back in the days of the “Wild Man” movement, popularized by Robert Bly’s book Iron John. Its premise was that men had lost touch with their inner mythological “Wildman” and were no longer being taught how to be men by their fathers.

Fortunately, there were no iPhones or handheld video cameras in those days. Yes, we put on war paint and beat drums around spectacular bonfires in the woods. We chanted and sang and shouted. We revealed our innermost feelings or admitted to having lost touch with them. I certainly wouldn’t want any of that archived on YouTube.

But all the fads and gimmickry aside, there were a few moments during that weekend that I have often thought about and related to others. They were transformative, touching, and deeply personal.

We sat in a circle, about twelve of us ranging in age from late twenties to mid-seventies. Our facilitator asked each of us in turn to tell the others about ourselves: our names, what we did for a living, how old we were, and what it felt like to be that age.

It quickly became apparent how powerfully men identify with their jobs. I don’t recall anyone declaring himself to be a father, husband, brother or son. We were all accountants, brokers, engineers, contractors and in one case, retired.

It was the retired gentleman, about age seventy, who departed from the litany of information we’d all been rattling off when it was his turn. He took a deep breath, slowly looked around at everyone and said,

“I retired not long ago from a company where I worked my whole life. I gave everything I had to that place, traveled heavily, and worked long hours. I missed my children growing up, all of those special moments…” and at this point, he began to sob, “…and that company has no use for me anymore. I can never get those times back.”

Looking at us through his tears, he pleaded, “Don’t let this happen to you. At the end of the day it’s just a job, or series of jobs, and it shouldn’t be your top priority.”

Silence followed, and the facilitator was as blown away by this confessional outpouring as the rest of us. He had been handed a gift by this participant, the intended icebreaker having become a natural transition to deeper topics.

I’m sure not everyone was moved in the same way. It’s not easy to abandon deeply held beliefs. In many cases, doing whatever is necessary to support a family. Remember, in 1990 there were fewer two-income couples, and the aging workforce had its roots in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The times, they were a changing.

I was lucky to work for a company that has a vibrant retiree organization, with newsletters, activities, and regular meetings around the country. There is a definite sense of caring, that you still belong even after you’ve left the office.

Now, men and women are both challenged to remain engaged, productive, and valued but still a presence in the home, there for growing children and loving partners. And Covid has upset this already delicate dynamic.

There’s a wonderful quote from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, in which Marley’s ghost laments to Scrooge, “…no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused!”

But we aren’t all shaken to our senses by a sobbing bundle of regret or a wandering disembodied spirit. If you don’t like where you’re heading, change something. Identify the one thing that means the most to you. Chasing two rabbits is a guarantee that you won’t catch either one.


😎


If you like fiction and you're in the mood for over 50 short stories, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.


Or if you'd prefer seventy non-fiction stories inspired by a town in Illinois, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories also on Amazon. Click on the image below.