Vernon's Law

I love diners--Much better than trendy coffee shops. I don't even drink coffee. But every so often, I'll go to a Starbucks and order a soda just to make the barrista furrow her brow and deny me. "What? You don't serve Coca Cola? What the hell kind of American company is this?" "Oh OK..I'll have one of those boysenberry, blackberry, Chuck Berry spritzers...and a bear claw"

If you sit at Starbucks long enough, you're bound to overhear the coffee bean intellectuals, still pissed that George Bush was ever President and that Fox News is allowed to broadcast, quoting some heady philosopher like Kierkegaard. I, for one, have never read Soren Kierkegaard and I suspect that those who quote him probably haven't either. It makes my ass crochet when people quote authors without having read the work.

I even caught myself doing it with Thomas Wolfe the other day....or was it Virginia Woolf?....I get my woolves confused.

"You can never go home!" Or was it "You can never go home, AGAIN?"

The point is...I seriously doubt anyone who hasn't read the book You Can't Go Home Again...truly understands the context of the quote. I don't either, but I do know an aging Annette Funicello said it to an equally aging Frankie Avalon in the forgettable 1987 movie Back to the Beach. Anything a Mouseketeer finds worthy of quoting is just fine with me. Can't get more bubble gum than that.

Or how about...chewing tobacco?

I came across an amazing quote by Vern Law. WHO?

Only a hard core sporto would likely recognize the name. Vernon Law, star pitcher and winner of the Cy Young for the 1960, World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates.



Who knew Vernon Law? Who knew Vernon Law was such a philosopher?

Here's his quote that keeps ringing in my ears today?

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first and the lesson afterwards.

WOW...deep stuff worthy of posting on my redneck refrigerator in the basement....the one with the hole cut in the door so I can tap a beer keg through it to watch Da Pisburgh Stillers play. That's how they talk there!




The lacerated leg is on the mend and I'm off to get tested on the golf course with my very cantankerous Dad. That lesson will be equal to anything I'd get at Harvard.

I Hurried!

Yep..I hurried and blood was spilled! My own blood.

How is it that I so actively consume morsels of wisdom only to cough them all up like a giant feline hairball?

Today my task was to go over to the house and mow the lawn. Keep in mind, that house seems to be a brick and mortar crucible for explosive fights with my father.

I do understand it. It was his house for 40 plus years and I moved him out into a condo when it was clear he could no longer maintain it safely and adequately. He is fine with the condo, but he also is drawn back to that house like a moth to a flame.

I understand that. I totally understand that he feels it is HIS house, and it is.

But it is MY job now to try to get this place ready for sale or rent and it is a huge undertaking. Dad does not always, er..SELDOM, agrees with the things I believe need to be accomplished to make the house economically productive. As it is now, it is a wasting asset.

This morning, he insisted upon going with me over there and retrieving a circular table saw he had in the basement. I've learned to pick my battles. Even though I know he will have ZERO use for a table saw in the condo, I agreed to let him take it and store it in the outside tool shed. If it makes him more at ease to have his power tools nearby, so be it.

However, I told him there was one condition about going over to the house: "You have to call me to carry the saw upstairs when you have it ready to transport." He apparently had some unbolting and other prep work to do before it could be moved. I went outside to cut the front lawn. As I was cutting, he came out and started talking to me with the mower running. It forced me to kill the motor and I was somewhat peeved. That motor is very difficult to get started, so having to stop it down did not sit well. Of course, Dad was ready for the saw. I told him to hang on until I finished the front yard. Immediately he started up and I could sense a tantrum: "I'll just get the Goddamned thing myself." Once again, I let him push my buttons and have his way. I stopped everything I was doing, HURRIED downstairs to get the saw and was out of control. A person in their right mind would have made sure all doors were open and pathways clear before carrying outside a heavy saw. I did not. I got to the closed storm door, tried to open it with one hand while steadying the saw with the other. The saw gave way and the blade sliced my leg open.

I hurried and THIS was my lesson:



When will I ever learn? And yes, it hurts. Yes, I do think it needs stitches. And no, I'm not going to get them. I'll bleed to death just to prove a point.

Be Quick But Don't Hurry

Well we lost the great John Wooden overnight. He was just four months shy of his 100th birthday. What a long and wonderful life he had, and what an example of how to live and behave. They say he was sharp as a tack until the very end, an encouraging reminder that advancing age need not always result in mental decline.



I keep using the word "ironic" to describe the timing of events this week and, as I'll explain later, perhaps "irony" is not what's at work here. But there is no escaping the incredible timing: As I wrote in this blog, Sunday and Monday were particularly trying for my patience in dealing with my father's dementia. I hated the way I was responding to the challenge and I desperately needed some wisdom. Sunday night, as I was out driving around taking pictures of quirky neon signs, the concept of "hurrying" kept popping in my mind. I ALWAYS feel hurried. In fact, I usually feel like a contestant on Beat the Clock, assigned some difficult task on a seemingly impossible time table before the buzzer sounds to end the game, or in my case provoke my father's agitation...an agitation that will surely make the rest of his my day or night miserable, as well as mine.

I couldn't sleep Sunday night; I was too anxious, so I went to my bookcases and the one book that jumped out from ALL others was "Be Quick, But Don't Hurry," by Coach John Wooden and Andy Hill, one of Coach's former UCLA players.

I first bought and read the book seven years ago and I admit I had forgotten most of the "Wooden Maxims" it relies upon to instruct and inspire. I had also forgotten that Andy Hill went on to become head of programming at CBS and brought us the series "Touched By an Angel," among others.

The chief maxim is, of course, "Be quick, but don't hurry." It makes sense if you think about it. You have to act fast, but always stay in control. Easy to say, but hard to do. Yet, that's how championships are won.

I'm just amazed that I picked up this book the very night Coach Wooden's body finally started to give out, though nobody knew it until later in the week when reports from the hospital said he was in "grave condition." Early this morning, when I learned he died, I felt compelled to send Andy Hill an e-mail. I thanked him for the book and told him how ironic it was that I picked it up to re-read when I did. Here's his response:

Don:

Thanks for the kind words. You say it is “ironic” that you picked up my book when you did. I guess I’d say it was more of a coincidence…and coincidence is just God’s way of staying anonymous.

May your Dad find peace like Coach.

Andy
Andy Hill

http://www.AndyHillSpeaks.com

Pretty good stuff right from the CBS Godfather of "Touched By An Angel."

God's way of staying anonymous.

Oh yeah...I should also admit that my own refrigerator has long had just one piece of wisdom that has stayed amidst the flotsam and jetsam of appointment reminders, store receipts, lottery tickets and newspaper clippings.



It is at the bottom, a black and white card that is a small facsimilie of Coach Wooden's "Pyramid of Success."

He sent it to me years ago (at my request), along with a larger signed copy that I've framed and have hanging in my office.

I scanned the larger version because it is easier to read.



Rest in Peace, Coach John Wooden. 1910-2010.

Lesson from the links

Thankfully, an uneventful day. No flare ups. I held my tongue and kept my sanity. Perhaps I'll get some sleep tonight.

We had our golf lesson today at Ruth Park in University City. Once again, I didn't think ahead. The lesson was at 1:00 in the afternoon. Fine for me, but the high midday sun was a bit much on Dad. He started to get pretty shaky towards the end. I think he thought we'd actually PLAY golf, even though I've repeatedly told him these are lessons.

He's been playing golf for decades, although not recently. I, however, have never really enjoyed the game enough to want to learn. Several years ago, Dad gave me a full set of clubs for my birthday (hint, hint.) I was living in Santa Fe at the time and I did, in fact, take lessons at a beautiful course on Cochiti Pueblo. The setting was spectacular but the desire to practice wasn't there. This time is different though. It's not that I like golf any more than I did ten years ago. But, now I see these lessons and frequent trips to the driving range as SOMETHING to do to kill time and occupy my father. He seems to enjoy swinging a club, so maybe golf will be my savior. And maybe, just maybe I'll find something to like about the game. I've just always found it too boring and too time consuming. Right now, however, consumption of time is precisely my goal.

One thing I did learn today:

I was having a hard time getting good contact with the ball. Oh I was hitting it but it just seemed to flub off the tee and not go very far. The instructor noticed I was trying too hard to hit it. He was right. I was swinging the club like a mallet and the ball was a rodent. This was not golf. It was a game of Whack a Mole at the state fair.


"Let's try this," he said. "Get yourself lined up and close your eyes. THEN swing the club." I laughed. Yeah right. Close my eyes? "Just try it!" So I did and I'll be damned if I didn't hit that ball perfectly. Not once, but at least a half-dozen times. I was amazed.

I was trying so hard to hit my mark, I was missing it. Actually, I was half-hitting it. I was crushing it straight into the ground so it couldn't go anywhere.

When I stopped trying so hard and had faith that everything was lined up right, I clobbered that ball with my eyes closed.

Good lesson for life there. I think the golf lessons have already paid off, even if I do have to play 18 holes looking like a panelist on What's My Line!

At the top of my lungs and the end of my nerves!

On TV it was funny. You knew it was a sitcom, so the fights, the racism, the ignorance, the irascibility...they were all just part of the Archie Bunker All in the Family act.

In real life, it is not funny at all. Not when you have to live it day in, day out.

In the book Archie & Edith, Mike & Gloria: The Tumultuous History of All in the Family, author Donna McCrohan describes producer Norman Lear's upbringing in the Depression. The family lived, according to Lear, "at the top of its lungs and the end of its nerves." I cannot think of a better description of the past few days with my father. Usually I can count on a flare-up of some sort every day, but not like these.

I'm actually rather frightened of myself right now; the ugly things coming out of my mouth, spewing like poisonous venom. I'm not going to lie. I want them to hurt. I want them to sting. I want them to snap him out of this cycle of bitching and complaining about EVERYTHING. As I just told him a few minutes ago, "the only thing standing between you and a nursing home is me, so you'd better be careful. The bitching has to STOP."

I hate being so ugly. This is not me. Well, not usually me. I have my moments. But these moments are scary moments and I don't know where to turn. Thank God I have a quiet home in which I take refuge.

As I said, the other day the incindiary incident was a large tree branch. Yesterday it was a table saw. He insisted on going back over to the house to get this circular table saw from the basement. Mind you, we both live in condos. There is no room, nor a call to use a table saw. It was not hurting anything in the basement at the house and, as I told my father, "the chances of a burglar stealing that huge table saw are slim." "The hell they are!"

Fine, fine, fine. Take the damned saw. I went outside to wash off the car. I wasn't out there five minutes before the bitching started. He couldn't find a proper screwdriver and shopping bag for the saw bolts...and he blamed me for not keeping the house adequately stocked. He was pissed because he'd have to wait to get his saw. I snapped back, "THE HOUSE IS VACANT. NOBODY LIVES HERE. WHY DO WE NEED SHOPPING BAGS?" And so, the war of the words began. With any fight, the line of verbal assault is never linear. It is always circular, like an auger digging deeper and deeper, trying to strike a nerve. Well, we both hit our target.

I was so shaken up I took him home and got back in my truck and just drove. One thing I've started doing to relax myself is to take my digital camera out with me and snap quirky pictures of landmarks, architectural oddities and novelties in and around St. Louis. It just relaxes me. Everything I photograph is an object. Objects are never objectionable. They neither talk, nor bitch.

Last night I ended up in Florissant, taking pictures of a neon sign depicting an evergreen tree.

I've even set up a Flickr page under the name HighwayFarty. You can judge my mental health by the number of strange photos I keep adding.

Last night I slept fitfully, even after the evening drive, and today I woke up spent. I had tickets to the Cardinals game this afternoon and I always look forward to spending those three hours of comparative peace and quiet with 40,000 screaming fans. Even with the rain delay, I enjoyed the time away. I enjoyed it so much I didn't want to go home. I walked around the city for several hours taking pictures. It's as if my mind and body had united in a pact to tell me.."No. No. Don't do this to us. Don't go back there."

But go back, I did. Sure enough he started in on me. The TV listings I bring over to him were incorrect and it was my fault. The TV listings are a constant thorn in the paw. He can no longer figure out what's on TV. The newspaper insert in the Post Dispatch confuses him. So each night, I go online to the STLToday website and I tailor a custom grid just for him. I take out all the extraneous channels so that each daypart comes on one page. He gets a morning grid printed out, an afternoon grid and a night grid. The hours midnight until 6AM, he is on his own. But occasionally the TV listings do not correspond to what is actually on. As hard as this is to believe, tonight's blow-up started because Rockford Files was on Channel 13 instead of I Spy, as the grid indicated.



Those grids are hot buttons for me. He has pushed that button in the past and provoked the same hostile reaction from me. Yeah, yeah I know it's wrong. I should just let it go. But my point is this: If you cannot navigate the most simple TV listings. If you can't operate a microwave oven to prepare hot food. If you can't properly run the clothes washer and dryer. If you can't figure out how the bathtub drain and shower mechanism works; well then, you really need to go into assisted living. It is as clear cut as a Simplicity dress pattern. Clear cut to everybody but him.

Just the mere MENTION of assisted living sets him off and you can count on things getting VERY ugly because my ego gets on its hind legs and says "This is the thanks I get!"

It used to be that I'd keep all this "nursing home" talk hush-hush. But now, no. I throw it right in his face like hot bacon grease from a skillet. Not to hurt him, but to dramatically make him see the problem here: What will happen if I have to leave town? Who will print out those listings and change the channels? Who will put food in the microwave? Who will start the clothes washer? Who will drain the tub?

THAT is where I feel the pressure...to think I can't even go away for a few hours!

So, I have no wisdom to share today. Maybe Norman Lear found a source of humor in HIS difficult, bigoted father...but I'm just not there. Not yet. Not tonight anyway.

Tomorrow we have a golf lesson. I hate golf, but I'm taking lessons. More on that tomorrow. My refrigerator is bare tonight, bereft of wisdom AND food.

Gilded Cage Wisdom

Every couple of years I make it a point to read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

I shouldn't say read. I should say dissect. Of all the books in my library, there are really just three worthy of tearing them apart to see how they work: Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, William Styron's Sophie's Choice and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. I'm sure a shrink would have a field day with that list. All three, of course, have a thread. and in Nabokov's case a Maginot Line of deviant sex running through them. But what really draws me to them is the way the author's use the English language as a tool to accomplish their task. It is so easy to be lazy with language, but read any of these three books and you'll come away exhausted. Exhausted for the author because I can't fathom how much time and energy went into stocking that reservoir of life experience they call from to illustrate a point with words. To write like Nabokov, Styron or Angelou, you really do have to acquire a certain patina weathered and tarnished by life. In a few years I should be ready to write because I'm certainly tarnishing a bit more each day.

In fact, I'm still pissed off today because I had a knock-down-drag-out fight with my father YESTERDAY over a.....tree branch. Well it was more than a branch, but less than a tree. It is just easier to call it a tree branch. A tree branch at the vacant house where he once lived. A tree branch that had been knocked down in a storm. A tree branch that he insisted on dragging up to the patio and sawing into pieces. He insisted on doing-so last night after I'd been running around all day trying to get MY errands done. Whenever I have errands to do, I have to wait for the St. Louis Cardinals to come on TV before I can set out for three uninterrupted hours. Yesterday my big task on this Memorial Day weekend was dropping off my car at Firestone for a wheel alignment. Of course, that took all afternoon. I had to drive the car to the Firestone in Creve Coeur and take a bus home. With Volvos and St. Louis mass transit, nothing is ever done quickly or without travail.

The LAST thing I felt like doing at 7:00 on a Saturday night was to go over to the house and dispose of an enormous tree branch. The ONLY thing my father wanted to do at 7:00 on a Saturday night was to go over to the house and dispose of an enormous tree branch. I gave in because it was easier to give in than to put up with his tantrums. I swear, if he pounds those fists into the padded arms of that Barcalounger one more time, I'm going to lose it. You'll be seeing me on the news shielding my face, hands-cuffed, being led into the courthouse for my araignment in Clayton.

Of course, the mere fact I let myself give in only made my anger inside percolate. I was more mad at myself than I was at him. He can't help it. His only interests are Cardinal baseball and doing physical labor around the house. In this case, a house in which he doesn't even live! And so the nimbus clouds had gathered to erupt in a perfect storm of vitriol coming from deep inside: "Dad..we BOTH have condos for a reason. I HATE doing house projects. Do I look like Bob Fucking Vila?"



Later I would laugh at the reference because first of all, it just sounds funny to insert the word "fucking" as someone's middle name when you are in full fury. Secondly, even without dementia I seriously doubt my father would know Bob Vila if, as dad used to say, he came up and bit him in the ass. And, of course I used to add...yeah but I'd sure make it a point to find out about ANYONE who bit me in the ass! Lastly, the reference is dated. I don't think Bob Vila has been on TV in two decades. You'd probably be hard-pressed to find too many people who WOULD know him, regardless of any ass mastication.

So we got the tree branch dismembered in fairly short order. I had so much anger, I used my bare hands to bust up most of it. Think Joan Crawford's rosebush melt-down on steroids. This was a pretty big branch and I'm feeling it today. My hands are raw. My legs are cut. My body sore and I'm just mentally spent from my outburst. Was it REALLY worth all that? Ram Dass..where are you in the heat of the moment? I can internalize a higher plane of thinking on the calm tarmac of my own home, but let me get airborne into the real world and all that wisdom seems to get overpowered by turbulence...be it wisdom from Ram Dass or Rahm Emmanuel.

Never let a good crisis go to waste! I definitely have more work to do.

So I will soon head over and tune in the Cardinal game for Dad. I have more errands to run today and those three hours are, to plaigarize Rod Blagojevich..GOLDEN, just fucking GOLDEN. But before I go, I did come across something equally golden in my annual dissection of Maya Angelou's masterful writing. It comes early in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and it is a prayer her grandmother used to say upon rising every morning at four o'clock:

Our Father, thank you for letting me see this new day.
Thank you that you didn't allow the bed I lay on last night to be my cooling board, nor my blanket my winding sheet.
Guide my feet this day along the straight and narrow, and help me put a bridle on my tongue.
Bless this house, and everybody in it.
Thank you, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

HELP ME PUT A BRIDLE ON MY TONGUE!

Put that one up on the refrigerator door...or, if we are being chronologically correct, given the source of this wisdom....the ice box.

Fierce Grace

The whole concept of synchronicity never ceases to amaze me. I start down one path looking for answers to a particular question and, all of the sudden, a whole new road presents itself. When I choose to take the risk and take the road, I'm usually rewarded. It happened to me quite often as a working journalist. Some of my best stories came as a result of synchronicity when I just seemed to stumble on things.

Such is the case with "Fierce Grace," a PBS documentary on the life of Ram Dass.



On Tuesday of this week, I attended my regular group meeting to study A Course in Miracles. It is a new group that meets atop a beautiful mid-century high rise apartment building that borders Forest Park. The view of St. Louis from up there is amazing. Quite a setting for some deep soul searching. As I walked in that building Tuesday night, I was captivated by the striking 1950's lines of the architecture.


I made a mental note to bring a camera next time to photograph this building and research the architect...perhaps write about it on my other blog "Highway Farty," a look at some the hidden gems right here in St. Louis.

This morning, I opened the paper and stumbled on this obituary:
Herbert R. Wahlmann died Tuesday May 25, 2010 of Alzheimer's disease. Mr. Wahlmann was 85 and lived in Kirkwood. He was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright and designed Northwest Plaza, which was then the largest shopping center in the U.S., the Le Chateau Village shopping center in Frontenac AND the luxury apartment building at 801Skinker Boulevard overlooking Forest Park!

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! How bizarre is that?

Now back to A Course in Miracles...No it is not a cult! Oprah even studies it.

I actually attend two ACIM groups. The first meets on Monday nights at Eliot Unitarian Church in Kirkwood. It is highly experiential and we participants often bring details of our own lives into the discussion and together we apply principles from A Course in Miracles to the problem. It is quite useful and practical.

The second group meets on Skinker Blvd. and is much more intellectual. We are working with a previously lost, but now found, unedited version of A Course in Miracles, known as the "Hugh Lynn Cayce version" because that's who last had the manuscript. It takes some deep thinking and focus. As such, we do significantly less sharing of everyday life's slings and arrows and instead stick to what "The Course" is teaching.

I rather like the duality of the two groups. Their differing characteristics lend themselves well to a full Course experience.

As much as I enjoy these gatherings of like-minded people, I usually don't linger too long after either group. My father gets restless if it gets close to 10:00 at night and I haven't yet brought over the TV listings for the next day. But Tuesday I lingered and shared some of the daily challenges I face dealing with my father's dementia.

John, our group leader, asked if I'd seen Fierce Grace?

When I said I hadn't...he said "You need to!"

"OK..I'll rent it from Netflix."

"No...you need to see it now. You can't wait." He lent me his copy.

He was right!

For whatever reason, I stayed late Tuesday night and this movie fell into my lap. It details the story and philosophy of Ram Dass, a spiritual teacher/guru from the 1960's. Hell...George Harrison even wrote a song about him, but it was way before my time. Ram Dass meant nothing to me. I knew who he was, but only because I'd once embarrassed myself interviewing him. In 1996, I was hired to be the field producer at the last display of the entire AIDS Memorial Quilt in Washington. It was a HUGE display that covered the entire capital mall. I was just gathering as much sound as I could and I noticed an older guy walking near the Quilt. He had a certain presence about him that made me think he would be a good interview. After a few quick questions, I concluded...."And sir, could I get you to say and spell your name on tape?"

"Yes...it is Ram Dass... R-A-M, D-A-S-S."

Later that day, as we were reviewing tape back at the hotel, the executive producer, who came of age in the 1960's, nearly soiled himself...

"HOLY SHIT, YOU GOT RAM DASS!"

"Who's Ram Dass?"

"YOU DON'T KNOW RAM DASS?...DR.RICHARD ALPERT, TIMOTHY LEARY'S PARTNER AT HARVARD!"

"Ohhhhhhh. Yeah I do know who he is, sort of."

"OH SHIT...YOU DIDN'T JUST GET RAM DASS TO SAY AND SPELL HIS NAME ON TAPE?"

"Yeah..but he was cool about it"

With that, I was given up as a lost cause, a flat tire motorist on the shoulder of the higher path.

But now, 14 years later, this movie Fierce Grace has put me back on the road to Ram Dass..even though most everybody else was there 40 years ago.

The movie vividly depicts the wisdom Ram Dass gained after a debilitating stroke that changed his life forever. At the time of the stroke, he had all these plans for a radio show and other projects. Then..BAM! Life as he knew it came to a screeching halt. Now he gets driven everywhere, lives life in a wheelchair and often has problems finding words to communicate.

He admits the stroke "upset all my plans." But he adds, "The stroke is a whole new incarnation because there are qualities in me that would never have come out...Peace comes from settling into the moment..NOW."

NOW!..Wow! Why can't I be so enlightened?

I too feel all my plans were upended by my father's needs. I often find myself resenting my inability to travel or pursue projects for work. I get pissed off having to stay close to home and cut my plans short because my father gets impatient and irascible.

Then I see this movie and Ram Dass, who also cared for HIS elderly father, brings to the screen this amazing philosophy.

Could it be that this situation is God's way of making me cultivate qualities that would never have come out otherwise?

Might I end up being richer for this experience when all is said and done?

I know for sure I will order my own copy of Fierce Grace and do further study on a guy I once met but was too ignorant to realize a giant of philosophy was standing right before me.

14 years later, his wisdom is going up on the Hotpoint with a heavy-duty magnet.