The Curmudgeon's Corner

Idiotic Facebook Quiz, and My Answers

2011-08-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

I belong to the social networking site, Facebook. Some idiot devised a “quiz” in which people can answer inane questions about other Facebook members. A few people actually had nothing better to do than to respond to this quiz and answer questions about what they think they know about me. I found out that nobody really knows the real me. I haven't addressed all of the questions and answers about yours truly, but here are some of the questions and my answers.

Q: Do you think that Frank should pass on the chocolate cake?

A: Perhaps, but he likes chocolate cake and isn't about to pass on it if it's offered.

Q: Do you think that Frank has a nice body?

A: I truly resent that some of you said “no.” Obviously, you need to have your eyes examined.

Q: Do you think that Frank likes brownies?

A: Yes, indeed. I think brownies are farrrr out, man. I'm not too crazy about the little girls in brown uniforms who call themselves Brownies though.

Q: Do you think that Frank could shoot someone if they had to?

A: All of you answered “No.” I am a veteran who agreed to shoot someone if I had to during wartime. Fortunately, I didn't have to. I would shoot someone who threatened my family, friends, my country or myself.

Q: Is Frank smarter than Oprah?

A: You all answered “yes.” How very astute of you.

Q: Do you think that Frank has ever picked their nose in public?

A: Obviously, whomever wrote this question failed freshman English. Frank has picked his, not “their” nose in public, and would do it again if he thought nobody would catch him.

Q: Do you think that Frank is better looking than Rosie O'Donnell?

A: Some of you actually answered “no” to this question. You have hurt me to the quick.

Q: Do you think that Frank has showered today?

A: Yes, I probably did. If it wasn't a weekend, or a holiday. My question to the idiot who devised this quiz is, why did you ask this question twice? Was it a Freudian slip because you are insecure about your own hygienic habits?

Q: Is Frank a cheap skate?

A: Y'all said “no.” Hey, I could squeeze a nickel 'til it bleeds.

Q: Do you think that Frank has ever lied to avoid a date?

A: I was a bachelor until I was 41! Hell yes I've lied to avoid dates!

Q: Do you think that Frank would help an elderly woman cross the street?

A: But I'd much rather have a young woman help ME – with whatever.

Q: Is Frank crazy like Ron Artest?

A: Who the hell is Ron Artest?

Armageddon?

2011-03-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

I am not a religious person. But, I admit that I'm thinking about Armageddon. The disasters, both natural and man-made, over the past few years have me wondering; is Armageddon nigh? Was the end of the Mayan calendar a prediction of the end of time in 2012?

Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, an unusually cold winter in many parts of the world, global warming. Those are just some of the “natural” phenomena occurring recently. Then, we have the oil spills and the breaching of several nuclear power plants in Japan. Warfare and genocide in the Middle East, Africa and other parts of the world. I've never seen anything this bad in all my years.

I've been reading the “Maximum Ride” series of books written mostly for adolescent readers by James Patterson. The books center around some genetically engineered children who can fly, breath under water and have other super powers. They were created in a laboratory and as the series progresses it is becoming obvious that they were conceived in test tubes to replace we regular humans when we destroy ourselves and planet Earth through greed and our cavalier attitude toward our environment. Portent of the future of mankind, or merely entertaining reading? I don't dismiss writers of fiction out-of-hand. Remember Jules Verne and his futuristic submarine? How about George Orwell's “Big Brother” concept where the government is able to keep constant tabs of where you are and what you're doing? Think security cameras, not only in private retail stores, but on many public streets and other venues. GPS devises in our cell phones and the IPS addresses on our computers.

The United States used to be the most productive, inventive, hopeful and wealthy country in the world. We were the envy of the world. We had a middle class that was able to buy a house, buy a car or two, put the kids through college and retire in comfort when we were of a certain age. Now, the middle class is a vanishing species here. I'm beginning to see the day when you either have, or you have not. We don't actually make much of anything in this country any more. Even cars that are manufactured by American companies like Ford, GM and Chrysler have many of their parts made in Japan or Korea and other parts of the world. Good old all American Levi Strauss blue jeans and Hershey's chocolate bars are made in Mexico nowadays.

The unions that helped create the American middle class are on the verge of extinction. Case in point: the public employee and teacher's unions in Wisconsin. Governor Scott Walker and his cronies are trying to grind them into the ground and make them extinct.

Yes, I will concede that union greed had a major hand in making major companies move their manufacturing operations over seas. Perhaps they encouraged their members to demand too much. But our government is complicit in encouraging these companies to move to China, Taiwan, Vietnam, etc. by giving them tax breaks and other incentives to move their operations with “free trade” legislation, thereby throwing American workers out into the cold.

This country is owned by a few very rich corporations and individuals – not by we the people. Those very rich corporations and individuals are motivated by greed to have more and more and more. They do not care about what they are doing to the environment nor to the economies of the world. Maybe by shaking us up (literally with earthquakes), God, or Yahweh, or Jehovah, or Allah or whatever you call your higher power, is trying so say something to us all. Could it be, “You folks had your chance, and you failed miserably. So kiss your miserable asses goodbye.”

The Business of Medicine

2009-03-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

How to begin. When I married at age 41, I just assumed that my wife would outlive me. That's just the way Nature intended it. Women usually live longer than men. My mother outlived my father and my wife's mother outlived her husband. I was a bit concerned that my wife's weight might lead to heart problems, but she had regular checkups and her heart is strong. The doctor's never seemed to be concerned with her weight.

About two and a half years ago, my wife, Alma, started experiencing severe back pain. She went to a chiropractor several times, but the pain just got worse. She finally went to see a doctor about it. X-rays and CT scans were done and it was discovered that she had a fractured vertebra which had compressed. A procedure called kyphoplasty was performed to lift the compressed bone and fill it with cement. This should have alleviated the pain, but she remained in agony. More tests revealed more fractured and compressed vertebrae and another kyphoplasty was done. And then, another. Finally, the doctors decided to do a battery of tests and they found that she was severely anemic; absolutely no iron in her blood. More tests were ordered, and even with pretty good medical insurance, the hospital and doctor bills began to mount.

Alma was finally diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood. She had almost no bone marrow by the time the cancer was diagnosed. The orthopedic surgeon had to to into her hip bone to find enough marrow for a biopsy.

Only a few years ago, the prognosis for those with multiple myeloma was three to five years. There still is no cure, but real progress has been made in treatment for the disease. But treatment is very expensive and insurance doesn't cover nearly enough for those whose incomes are pretty meager to begin with. Alma was making pretty good money working for a software company in customer support. I had worked for the same company for four years, but got laid off when the company was sold and I was working part-time for a non-profit.

Suddenly, Alma couldn't work any more and the insurance for both of us was about to be canceled. The non-profit for which I work found a way to give me another part-time position which gave me full-time hours and benefits, including insurance. That insurance takes half my paycheck every two weeks to cover Alma. We got her covered without any lapse, so they couldn't deny her because of preexisting condition. However, when she began the procedure to get approval for her treatment, which included chemotherapy and transplants of her own stem cells, the insurer told her she had to wait one year. No exceptions, and too bad if you die while you're waiting. She finally found a sympathetic ear at the insurance company who helped her get an exception to the rule. Reminding her that there are HIPPA rules that might apply in this situation and a very strong and active insurance commission in this state may have expedited the matter.

Alma spent the whole summer of 2007 undergoing treatment at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. We took her there during the Memorial Day weekend and she didn't come home until after Labor Day. The cancer was put into remission, but it will come back. Her immune system is completely compromised and even catching a cold, which for most of us is an inconvenience for a few days, can make her ill for weeks. She's had pneumonia a couple of times. The worst thing was contracting shingles this past winter. She was in agonizing pain for months. The only drug that seemed to help was Lyrica, and the insurance company didn't want to pay for it. They finally relented after her pain specialist wrote them a letter explaining that Lyrica was the only medication that gave her relief and didn't make her even sicker.

I came home a couple of days ago to find that Alma had been crying all afternoon. The local hospital where she has been getting treatment had turned her account over to a collection agency. Now, she has been working with the hospital to make arrangements for getting the fees reduced and to make monthly payments. She thought it was all under control, but it seems the billing department at the hospital doesn't communicate very well within its own walls. To use an old cliché, the right hand doesn't always know what the left hand is doing. Of course the collection agency isn't being very helpful. After all, they get paid a percentage of everything they collect.

Alma will be getting another CT scan Monday morning. The doctors saw something in her chest x-rays after her last bout of pneumonia that made them want to check for lymphoma. It seems that pneumonia in multiple myeloma sufferers can lead to lymphoma.

Sometimes I wonder if we weren't all better off before all these diagnostic test were devised. We got sick and we either go better or we didn't. Something kills us all eventually. About three weeks ago, I was getting out of my car and found myself in a lot of pain. I could barely stand up and my lower back hurt like hell. I went to work the next morning, but by the afternoon, I knew I needed to see a doctor, so I went to an urgent care clinic I'd been to before. The clinic was recently purchased by one of the local hospitals (not the one my wife is in hock to). It used to be that you could get into and out of that clinic in a pretty reasonable time when it was privately owned. I spent nearly three hours in the waiting room and then another hour-and-a-half in a cold examining room waiting to see a doctor. When the doctor finally did come in, he asked me a few questions, poked and prodded a little and had a tech draw some blood and had me pee in a plastic cup. He then prescribed a muscle relaxant and pain killer and sent me on my merry way.

I suffered through the weekend with terrible back pain and decided to go back to the clinic instead of to work Monday morning. There was another long wait in the waiting room and examining room, even though I was the second patient through the door that morning (they don't take appointments now that the hospital has taken over). This time, I saw a registered nurse practitioner who spent a little more time with me and ordered x-rays and gave me a prescription for the anti-inflammatory drug naproxin (which the doctor should have done on my previous visit). He said he saw what might be kidney stones and suggested I schedule a CT scan and make an appointment with a urologist who zapped a large stone a little over three years ago.

I had the scan and a week later, I saw the urologist, who wondered exactly why the clinic had suggested I have a CT scan and see him. He said there was nothing there for him to treat. Well, I guess I could have told him what had just dawned on me. Medicine is big business nowadays. A CT scan, even that isn't necessary, makes money for the hospital. He made money by having me pee in another plastic cup , stick his gloved finger up my rectum and talk to me for about 10 minutes. Every time a doctor orders up another test for my wife, somebody makes money. We have gone through bankruptcy and incalculable stress over how to pay all the co-pays and deductibles and still keep a roof over our heads and food in the pantry. My wife now qualifies for Medicare because she's on disability, but we found out that, because of coverage “donuts” getting her prescriptions through Medicare will be prohibitively expensive. So, I continue giving up half my pay to keep her insured.

I know the conservative element out there hates to hear this, but we need affordable, comprehensive health care coverage in this country. Quite frankly, I don't think I can afford to outlive my wife. But I probably will and that's not the way Nature intended it to be.

Hard to Get Into the Christmas Spirit This Year

2008-12-19T21:57:00.001-08:00

I haven’t written a blog entry in quite some time. Too damned tired and depressed I guess. My wife, Alma, went for her annual checkup at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance the week before Thanksgiving. It seems like every time she goes over there, she comes back in worse shape than when she went. This time she was anemic – no iron whatsoever in her blood. When she got home, she spent most of one day at Kadlec Hospital in Richland getting a transfusion of whole blood. That seems to have done the trick, at least for now. She scheduled a colonoscopy and endoscopy to try and find out where her blood is going.

Alma got chest pains shortly after getting back from Seattle. Of course we were afraid it could be her heart or a clot on her lungs. It turned out to be pneumonia, so the doctors put her on antibiotics. That, of course, meant postponing the colonoscopy and endoscopy, so we still don’t know why she keeps getting anemic.

A few days ago, she started complaining about pain in her ear and neck. A rash developed, so one of her daughters got her in to see a doctor, who decided it was an allergic reaction to the antibiotic she was taking for the pneumonia. By Thursday morning, she was in terrible pain and couldn’t turn her head. The “rash” had turned to blisters. I decided to not go in to work because she obviously couldn’t be left alone. The other daughter, who was trained as a physicians assistant, came by, took a look at the blisters on her throat and scalp and promptly looked up “shingles” on the Internet and I called the nurse at her doctor’s office. The nurse took her own sweet time getting back to me, but we were able to make an appointment with the same doctor who had misdiagnosed her rash as an allergic reaction.

The doc took one look and apologized for his boo-boo and prescribed an anti-viral medication and told her to finish the antibiotics for the pneumonia. He also told her to up her pain medication for a few days until the shingles medication takes effect and the pain subsides.

Alma has an incurable form of cancer called multiple myeloma. It’s a cancer of the bone marrow. It has caused several of her vertebrae to fracture and compress. She has been in excruciating pain for about two and a half years. She’s been through chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. And now, anemia, pneumonia and shingles. She’s got more guts than I’d have.

And a merry fucking Christmas to one and all, and to all a good night.

Another Tale of Woe

2008-02-21T19:51:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder what you've done to piss God off so much? My wife was diagnosed with multiple myeloma over a year ago. She spent all last summer at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance undergoing chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. She's been sick from the chemo since she got home just after Labor Day. Finally this past week and a half she's started feeling better. She's started working on her EBay stuff again, taking herself to doctors' appointments and doing errands. She's even started being able to fix dinner and do a little light housework.

Today, she decided to drive to the post office to mail a package, but discovered that she had forgotten to bring her purse. She turned the car around and headed home to get it. The sun was in her eyes and she didn't see that a traffic light had turned red and that the van in front of her had stopped. Yup, she rear-ended the van. No doubt that it was her fault. So, the car had to be towed to a body shop and she got a ticket. Fortunately nobody was hurt -- and that's a miracle because the myeloma caused her bones to become very brittle and she had three back surgeries before the cancer diagnosis. We're counting our blessings about nobody being hurt.

My wife's cancer caused her to lose a very good job and we had to go through bankruptcy. Now the deductible will be at least $500 on her car and hard to say how much the citation will cost, plus our insurance will undoubtedly go up.

My job doesn't pay all that much and half my paycheck every month goes to pay for medical insurance for my wife. When does it end? I probably deserve all the bad fortune I get, but my wife has always been a good, God-fearing Christian. She doesn't deserve any of this.

OK, I got that off my chest.

Declaring My Candidacy

2008-01-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, I’m ready to start my campaign for the vice presidency. I don’t want to be president, just the veep. I figure it would be a pretty good job, to be vice president of the United States. Pretty good pay and excellent health care benefits. You get your very own jet to fly around in. Chauffeured limo, secret service agents to keep people from kicking sand in my face, very little responsibility or real work to do and as I understand it, a hunting license to shoot people and claim it was a hunting “accident.” Yessireebob, I’m throwing my hat in the ring right now before anybody actually gets nominated to run for the presidency. I figure if I get enough of a head start on this and get a lot of support from you, I should be the logical choice of whomever gets nominated to run for president. It doesn’t really matter which party I’m the running mate on – they’re all a bunch of lying, conniving snakes in the grass anyway.

So, what platform am I running on you may ask. I plan to take the office back to its glory days and be the do nothing vice president! Nobody (especially the prez) wants his veep to do anything that might embarrass him/her, like make an intelligent decision. I should be very good at that, since I’ve made very few smart decisions in my whole life. I’ll even go so far as to promise not to try and spell “potato.” I’ll just spell it “spud.”

Now, I realize most folks with political aspirations begin their careers on a smaller scale, like running for congress. I don’t have time for that – I’m old. And besides, congresspersons have something called “constituents” that they have to pay lip service to every couple of years. I’d rather fly beneath the radar, as it were, and just be the seldom (or never) seen or heard from vice president.

So, you ask, what happens if the president croaks and you all of a sudden have to step into the job? Well, I certainly wouldn’t want that to happen, but I suppose I could muddle through somehow. We’ve had a number of presidents who’ve done just that, i.e. Millard Fillmore, Calvin Coolidge, “Ike”, Dubya, et al. I reckon I couldn’t do a much worse job as The Prez than Dubya.

So, when you go to your local party caucuses, please remember to vote for me, Xradioguyfrank for vice president of these here United States. Thank you.

First Day of a Brand New Year

2008-01-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

First Day of a Brand New Year

I don’t know where 2007 went, but I can’t say I’m going to miss it. In 2007, my wife Alma was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Because she could no longer work and she had run up a pile of credit card debt I didn’t know about, we had to declare bankruptcy.

Alma spent the whole summer in Seattle getting treatment for her cancer at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. That meant renting an apartment at the Pete Gross House, a facility built for just this purpose – housing cancer patients. I mostly stayed home here in the Tri-Cities and worked. Half of my paycheck each payday goes to pay for health insurance for Alma since she also lost her insurance benefits when she lost her job.

The treatment for Alma’s multiple myeloma consisted of several rounds of chemo therapy, a stem cell transplant and so damned many pills I don’t know how she keeps them all straight. The result? Her cancer is in remission, but she feels terrible from all the medications.

Nope, 2007 will not go down as my favorite year. At least I didn’t get a kidney stone. But I did have to have bilateral hernia surgery (that’s both sides and three hernias). Alma and I are both going into 2008 with colds. Having a cold is very serious for Alma because her immune system is still compromised.

The old saying goes something like, “Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, they did.” I don’t pretend to know what 2008 will bring. Could it get any worse? Oh yeah! Could it get better? Sure – I’ve got both Alma and me entered in the Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes, so when we win that….

The year 2008 means it’s been 45 years since I graduated from high school and 40 years since I got drafted and decided to join the navy. It is just not possible that it has been that many years! I remember wishing the time would fly by when I was in the navy (especially in boot camp) so I could get “outta there,” but the days and weeks just seemed to drag on endlessly. Now even a mundane eight hour work day seems to only take about an hour. And, when I worked in radio, especially early in my career, a one-day weekend seemed adequate. Now it seems like I haven’t really had a weekend off at all, even after a three-day holiday weekend.

I’m hoping 2008 will be kinder to Alma and me, but I sure wouldn’t take odds on it. As the old expression goes, “Life’s a bitch, and then you die.”

Nice People in the Workplace

2007-10-27T21:28:00.000-07:00

I’ve mentioned here in the past that I work with a bunch of pretty nice people. I’m just not used to that. In my previous life in the wonderful world of commercial radio, I kind of got used to my employers and many of my fellow employees being ego-driven, self-centered, everybody for himself jerks – including me.

I currently work for a non-profit company called Senior Life Resources Northwest (http://www.seniorliferesources.org). There are three agencies within the company including Meals on Wheels, Home Care Services and Senior Health Services. I applied for work there two years ago as an administrative assistant because, physically, I can no longer do many of the kinds of work I’ve done in the past. And I refuse to do outside, commission sales again.

I’ll digress for a moment. When you’re just shy of 60 years old and suddenly find yourself laid off from the best paying job you’ve ever had, you find that all the laws in this country against age and sex discrimination are nothing but a bunch of words on paper. You will be discriminated against, especially if you are white and male. Reverse sex discrimination was sometimes out-and-out blatant. The prospective employers knew there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

So, I saw an ad for this job I was eminently qualified for with Senior Life Resources Northwest. I drove over to their office and spent about an hour filling out the employment application and releases for background checks. A week or so later, I was called in for an interview and I must say, I felt I did pretty well. God knows I’d had enough practice over the previous year! But I heard nothing back – the usual result. Finally, a couple of months later I guess, I got a letter from SLR thanking me for my interest, blah, blah, blah. Then the very next day, my wife called me and said that SLR had called my former employer, where she still worked, and was getting references. I said something like, “But I just got their rejection letter yesterday.”

But I got the job. Come to find out, I was not their first or even second choice. But the first and second choices, both young women, just hadn’t worked out. So, in desperation, the office manager said, “Let’s call the old guy.” And “the old guy” has been there for nearly two years now. They hadn’t wanted to hire a man because the women in the office were afraid I’d just join the “good ol’ boy” network. Well, hell -- there are only two other men in the office and they’re both in management. I told my new fellow employees to just threat me like “one of the girls.” They do, but to tell the truth, I think they’re more protective of me than they are of each other.

So, I took this week off to have some surgery done. I sent the office a funny email the day after the surgery letting them know everything went well. Thursday I got a call from one of the women in the office asking directions to my house because she and one of the other gals had something they wanted to bring me. They both showed up at my door after they got off work with a card and box of chocolate. No flowers because they knew my wife shouldn’t have flowers or plants in the house with her immune system being compromised from chemotherapy. I am still flabbergasted that these two people (who had not wanted to work with me two years ago) would go way out of their way to bring me a card and box of chocolate candy. My house is in the opposite direction from the office to their homes by a good many miles. To paraphrase Sally Field, “They like me! They really like me!” And I like them too.

Growing Old is Not for Sissies

2007-10-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

My wife, Alma, finally got home from Seattle shortly after Labor Day after over three months of treatment for multiple myeloma at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. She is feeling a little better with each passing day but still tires very easily. I’m not going to dwell on her illness and recovery with this entry. I’ve pretty much covered all of that over the past year – from the uncertainty caused by not knowing what was causing her vertebrae to fracture and compress to the diagnosis of multiple myeloma, to the frustration with the insurance company and then the cancer treatment. She’ll be going back to Seattle for a few days in November for follow-up and maintenance.

So, Alma’s home, her progress is good and she has survived a form of cancer treatment that many others have not (we just learned this from another myeloma survivor recently). Life should be getting back to normal, right? My boss told me I have 40 hours of vacation time coming that I have to use before the end of the year. All right, vacation! I’ve been planning this for months now. I can virtually feel what I’m going to do on this vacation in my gut! I chose the week carefully because I work in a small office and I wanted to keep any disruption to a minimum. I got everybody’s blessing to take the week of October 22nd off. That done, I spent all one morning the previous week making my reservation.

Early on the morning of the 22nd, my wife and I headed out for a destination that is all too familiar to us both for the beginning of my “vacation.” We’re headed for the same day surgery unit of Kadlec Hospital in Richland, Washington. I have bilateral hernias that can no longer be ignored. I was referred to a surgeon by my doctor who smells of garlic, speaks with an accent I cannot quite identify and who has a name that is completely unpronounceable. The surgeon is a nice young man who cannot be more than 16 years old. He explains that he likes to do hernia repairs using laparoscopic surgery where he cuts three small holes in the abdomen and pulls the wayward intestine back where it’s supposed to be from above. That sounds fine to me because I had misgivings about having a teenager wielding a sharp knife so close to my, ahem, family pride. And since there are hernias on both sides, well, let’s just minimize the cutting “down there.”

Since I had pre-registered at the hospital the previous week, I checked in a little before 8:00. Was wheeled into surgery a little after 9:00 and was back home in my own recliner a little after noon.

Those of you who have read my posts about my kidney stone a couple of years ago may well wonder when I’m going to learn that medical procedures involving my plumbing are going to be very painful no matter what kind of fancy name they make up for it. I’m hoping that my next vacation is far, far away from any place that has “hospital” or “clinic” as part of its address. But at our age, maybe that’s just what we can come to expect from now on.

An Update -- Finally

2007-08-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

I've been terribly remiss in keeping this journal updated. When you get to be my age and have to work eight hours a day, then come home and try to find something for dinner that sounds appetizing, and then try to get to bed by 9:00 so you can start the whole process over the next day, you find that you don't have much energy or inclination for writing.

My wife, Alma, is still in Seattle. She's in the University of Washington Medical Center hospital as I write this. She had her final chemotherapy on July 28th and the stem cell transplant on July 30th. Normally, patients having this therapy end up in the hospital after an average of four days. She managed to stay out of the hospital for a number of days beyond that. But, the mucositis caused her throat to become so sore, she couldn't swallow even water, much less nourishment and her oral medications. Also, her white blood cell count went to zero, which is to be expected. She agreed with the doctors that the hospital was the best place for her. She should be there until around the 14th or 15th unless her white cell count comes up significantly before then.

We're still hoping Alma will be able to come home by the end of the month, but we also know that there could be complications that would extend her stay in Seattle. She's been over there since just before Memorial Day and now Labor Day is just around the corner.

Alma requires a caregiver 24/7 at her apartment at the Pete Gross House. We have been so blessed that Alma's daughters, Jessica and Tammie, Alma's sister, Janice and my sister Joan have been willing and able to provide that care all this time. All of them have sacrificed with extended time away from their own families and normal summertime activities and we are eternally grateful. The people where I work have been very supportive too, sometimes having to adjust their schedules over this past year when all of this started and before we knew what was causing Alma's vertebrae to suddenly start fracturing and compressing. Those friends and family who have donated money to Alma's cancer fund are angels. This thing has already driven us to bankruptcy and I don't know how we would have coped without all of the help we've received.
Alma and I will be celebrating our twenty-first wedding anniversary on August 16th. I doubt that I'll be able to get to Seattle to be with her for the special day, but I hope and pray that she'll be home shortly afterward and well enough to do some of the things she wants to do before the weather turns bad.

Y'know, I was a bachelor until I was 41 years old, and I never minded living alone. But I find living in an empty house (save for our fat cat Milo and the front door stray we call Mama) is really depressing. Thank God I have my job to keep me occupied during the week. The weekends are just the same boring things I do every week – mow the lawns on Friday night, grocery shop and do laundry on Saturday. Sundays? Last Sunday, I dusted for several hours and vacuumed. Pretty exciting life, huh?

More About My Wife & Adventures in Seattle

2007-06-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

Things are finally moving right along with my wife's evaluation and treatment for multiple myeloma. She's now staying at the Pete Gross House while a patient at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. I attended some of her appointments at the clinic last week and learned quite a bit. Her stay in Seattle will depend on how many myeloma cells they find. If below the threshold, she'll be able to skip one of the chemo sessions. If above, she'll have to undergo an initial chemo treatment before they stimulate her stem cells so she produces enough to harvest. This could add at least a month to her stay.

I must say that I'm impressed with all the staff I met at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. They seem to really care about their patients and take the time to explain everything in detail and show you where everything is in the clinic. Alma's spirits seem to be good, especially considering all that she faces over the next few months. Her oldest daughter has set up a web site if you're interested in learning more about Alma and/or multiple myeloma. You can click on http://almajenkinscancersupport.bravehost.com/ or copy and paste the URL into your browser.

There are several things I dislike about Seattle, but my biggest gripe is the absolutely insane way people drive there. Say what you will about the traffic and the drivers in Los Angeles, but I've never seen anything like the aggressive behavior behind the wheels of so many vehicles as I've seen over the years driving in and around Seattle. Absolutely CRAZY!!! I got involved in my first accident in over 46 years of driving while in Seattle last week. I have no idea where the other driver came from, or why she was driving up Mercer street so damn fast and thought she had to pass me, but her car cut in too closely and her right rear quarter hit my right front fender. If she had had a Washington drivers license, we could have just exchanged information and been on our way since there were no injuries and both cars were drivable. But, NOOOoooo – she had a Virginia license (hadn't had the time to get a Washington license in the several months she's lived here). We were advised by the police dispatcher to wait for a patrol car. So we waited. And waited. And called the Cop Shop several times. And waited some more until over four hours had passed with nobody resembling a cop, other than a parking enforcement officer, anywhere in sight.

The other driver called her insurance company and admitted liability (probably her Virginia background) and my car is being repaired at a body shop here in Kennewick. I'm driving a rental which is being paid for by her insurance. All things considered, it could have been a lot worse. Nobody was injured, and neither the other driver nor I acted like an a**hole. Actually, she was a very nice young lady and I feel badly that she missed a day of work waiting around for one of Seattle's finest to make an appearance. She promised me that she would get a Washington license before her next accident.

An Update on My Wife and Insurance

2007-05-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

It’s time for an update on my rant about health care insurance. Since my post several weeks ago my wife has found a woman at the insurance company who really seems to care. She has guided my wife through the maze and has gotten her approved for the testing required before she starts treatment. We will be going to Seattle next week. After testing, the results and recommendations of the doctors will be reviewed by the insurance company’s transplant committee. Provided she’s approved, the treatment can begin. She’ll have to stay in Seattle for at least three months and have a caregiver with her. We have been blessed with friends and family who have volunteered to take the caregiver training and be with her throughout this ordeal.

One of my wife’s daughters, Jessica, will be her primary caregiver. She has a family of her own, so she is sacrificing quite a bit. Fortunately, my sister has volunteered for a week, one of my wife’s sisters is a teacher and has volunteered to be a caregiver for several weeks after school lets out. And there will be others coming to relieve the primary caregivers for a day or two at a time.

Why aren’t I going to be her primary caregiver? I have to stay home and go to work every day to pay for the insurance premiums (which take about one-half my paycheck every month).

So, things are proceeding at a pretty rapid pace now. To those who have responded to my post here or privately, thank you for your thoughts, advice and prayers. They are appreciated.

There were a couple of people who took exception to my stance on a national health care program. I expected that. I live in a very politically conservative part of the state. Just a couple of days ago, I saw one of our local state representatives on TV speaking against a state supported health plan. I wish I had counted the number of times he used the used the politically charged phrases “socialized care” and “socialized medicine”. I’m sure the locals here agreed with everything he was saying.

The people who replied to my post citing how inefficient national health care plans are in other countries had very valid points. Whenever you let the government, especially the federal government, get involved in any kind of endeavor it’s going to get bogged down in red tape and bureaucracy. The VA boondoggle is a perfect example. But my contention is that it doesn’t have to be that way. And it’s beginning to look like the states are going to get involved individually in health care. Some already have.

One of the people who replied to my post stated that there is a line of Canadians waiting to get into the U.S. to get health care because their national health care system is so bogged down. Maybe so, but I saw a news report last night where insurance carriers in this country have started approving Americans to go overseas for certain procedures because they can save thousands of dollars over what they’d have to pay out for the same care in this country. In one state, Premera Bluecross will even pay for transportation overseas (coach class of course) as well as paying for the medical treatment and housing while abroad. Patients are finding that instead of having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, they “only” have to pay tens of thousands.

My detractors asked my why I didn’t plan better for such a contingency. Why didn’t we use COBRA to continue my wife’s insurance after her place of employment finally terminated her? We discussed it and debated it and finally took the advice of our bankruptcy attorney not to go with COBRA. I was able to continue our insurance through my place of employment, but it was terribly expensive to add my wife. And how do you plan for something like multiple myeloma? We used to have some money in savings. We have several small retirement IRAs, but we’ve already had to cash one of those in.

One of my favorite saying is, “Don’t whine, or God will make you live longer.” So I’ll stop now. I think I’ll go out and watch for the Publishers Clearinghouse van to pull up.

Thanks for all the prayers and kind words. They are appreciated.

Frank

We Need a National Health Care Plan

2007-04-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

My wife, Alma, celebrates her 60th birthday tomorrow. I use the word “celebrates” loosely. Last fall she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer of the bone marrow. She has been undergoing aggressive treatment since the diagnosis and the disease is now in remission.

There is a treatment involving the extraction, freezing and re-implanting her own stem cells and massive chemotherapy available which could prolong her life for an unknown number of years. The only problem is that it costs nearly a quarter of a million dollars. We’re hoping the new insurance I have through my work place will cover it, but we’re just not sure that it will. She lost her insurance through her former job when her grace period to return to work ran out. She cannot go back to work, probably ever. Fortunately, she does have disability insurance, and we’re trying to get her on Social Security disability so we can get her Medicaid or Medicare benefits.

Since she’s in remission, the doctors want her to go to Seattle ASAP for the transplant/chemo treatment. When she called the new insurance company, she was told, rather coldly, that there is a one-year waiting period – no exceptions. It doesn’t matter if it’s a matter of life or death; no exceptions. And never mind that they might be breaking HIPPA laws, because there was no interruption of coverage between her former insurance coverage and the current coverage. No exceptions!

I know there are those of the conservative bent who vehemently oppose any kind of national health plan, or as they would call it, “socialized medicine.” Most of the other developed countries in the west have national health coverage, but not the good ol’ USA. It might raise taxes a little so we can’t afford the fancy new RV, boat or summer home we’ve just got to have. We can spend billions and billions of dollars fighting an unwinnable war in Iraq, but we can’t afford a national health plan?

I served four years in the U. S. Navy during the Vietnam fiasco. The current state of affairs in this country – the neoconservatism and the “screw you, I’ve got mine, to hell with you” attitude that so many people have adopted here make me wonder why I didn’t run off to Canada back then. At least the Canadians have a national health plan.

2006 Christmas Letter

2006-12-18T19:29:00.000-08:00

The following is the letter I sent out with my Christmas cards.

We hope this Holiday Greeting finds you in good health and spirits.

The year 2006 began well for Alma and Frank. The Seattle Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, they lost. Frank began work for a non-profit company called Senior Life Resources Northwest on January 9th. The job started out as part-time, then became “temporary full-time” (meaning no benefits) for a few months when his supervisor quit to go to work for Benton County. After she discovered that the grass (and money) are not always greener on the other side of the fence, she returned to Senior Life Resources and Frank went back to part-time hours. On November 1st, SLR found enough work for Frank to do to make him a permanent full-time employee (with benefits this time).

Frank’s promotion to full-time employee came after Alma began complaining of a sore back last summer. It was found that she had a compressed fracture of one of her vertebrae and she was scheduled for a procedure called kyphoplasty where a balloon is inserted between the compressed vertebrae and the bone is filled with quick-drying cement. This is an outpatient procedure, and we thought she would be back to work within a few days. But, the pain in her back got worse; another compressed fracture and another kyphoplasty. And then a couple of weeks later we had to call 911 to have her transported to the hospital because she couldn’t stand up. A third kyphoplasty was performed. Along with the sudden onset of osteoporosis which caused the fractures, it was found that she was acutely anemic and had virtually no iron in her blood. This led some of the doctors to begin suspecting that Alma might have a form of blood cancer called multiple myeloma.

The day before Thanksgiving, Alma finally had a marrow biopsy done, and we got the bad news the following Monday. She suffers from myeloma and it has affected not only her vertebrae, but also her left femur, scull and several other bones with lesions (small holes). She has since begun an aggressive treatment involving infusions of Zometa (zoledronic acid) and other drugs and has already begun to feel a little better. Many people, some of whom have never met her, are including Alma in their prayers, and we are very grateful for their support. For more information on multiple myeloma, you can check out the web site http://www.myeloma.org/.

We have faith that the coming year will see Alma in remission and leading a normal and productive life again.

Alma’s daughters Tammie and Jessica have been a true blessing during Alma’s illness, taking her to doctors’ appointments, physical therapy, cleaning house, etc. Her co-workers from InStar have pitched in by bringing dinners that can be quickly heated up when Frank gets home from work and coming to visit her at the hospital and at home. Her sister Janice and brother-in-law Steve from Fruitland, Idaho have made several trips to the Tri-Cities to help out and lend moral support. And, of course, Frank’s employers at Senior Life Resources found a way to help. We are very blessed to have family, friends and employers such as we have.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Frank & Alma

Thanks Jim

2006-11-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

We don't know yet if my wife, Alma, has myeloma. She still has more tests to take when she's physically able. I appreciate your giving me the URL for the Myeloma Foundation and I have put it in my "Favorites" for future reference.

I don't believe the ER doctor referred to my me in the previous post meant to say that myeloma is easily treatable. I think he was trying to assure us that it isn't the end of the world, and that it's much more survivable than many other kinds of cancer.

Alma is feeling better day by day. She saw her orthapedist again today and he took another picture of the latest fractured vertabrae. There has been no change for at least three weeks, and that is very encouraging. He told her he's glad he didn't perform the fourth kyphoplasty that he scheduled and then cancelled. Alma starts hydro physical therapy tomorrow and she'll be starting classes on how to inject herself in the abdomen with some kind of bone-building substance.

More Obscene Medical Terms and Conditions

2006-11-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

My wife has now had three kyphoplasty procedures done over less than a two month period of time. She was scheduled for a fourth because of another fractured vertebrae, but since it isn’t causing much pain, and hasn’t compressed like the other troublesome ones, she and the doctor have agreed to give it a rest – for now.

A biopsy was supposed to have been done during the third kyphoplasty while Alma was already under anesthesia, but there was no marrow in the vertebrae being treated. So, a marrow biopsy is still yet another procedure she will have to undergo. The reason for the biopsy is that the hematologist and the oncologist working on her case believe she has a form of myeloma; a form of blood cancer. At one time they brought up the possibility of multiple myeloma, but now believe it’s a milder form called “smoldering myeloma.”

I recently had to take Alma to the emergency room because she was nauseated and had diarrhea and was emotionally upset because she faced more surgery and testing. Thankfully, we got an ER doctor who took the time with us to assure Alma that she had just contracted “a little virus”. He assured us that if a person must have a form of carcinoma (cancer), then myeloma was the kind to have as it’s highly treatable and people who have it live for years and decades without it seriously affecting their lives. He got her hydrated and gave her some anti-nausea medication.

The ER doctor also prescribed some anti-nausea suppositories because pills tend to be upchucked when one is nauseated. He didn’t take into account what happens to suppositories when one has diarrhea. Now, because of her back problems, Alma wasn’t even capable of twisting around enough to wipe her own butt, much less insert suppositories. Guess who had to stay home from work and do it (over and over)? Also guess who had to give his first enema? I guess I should be getting used to this. I worked as a ward attendant on a geriatrics ward at a state mental hospital one summer while in college. I home-cared my mother for over four years and watched her slowly deteriorate physically and mentally until she finally had to be admitted to a nursing facility. Now, my employer has found enough hours for me to become a full-time employee WITH BENEFITS! That’s wonderful, it really is – but I’d really, really like to have one day to myself, with nothing to do that I don’t want to do.

Alma appears to be getting better physically and mentally. I pray that that will continue until she’s back to being a healthy, independent, productive person again. Not having to have the fourth back surgery has done wonders for her (and my) morale. For the time being, she’s taking Fosamax to strengthen her bones. There are a couple of other treatment options involving injections or infusions. Her hematologist and primary physician haven’t yet agreed on which treatment will be best. There’ll be more tests to determine that.

Alma had had a bone density test a couple of years ago, and everything was normal. Her osteoporosis was sudden-onset. The medicos still don’t know for sure what caused it, but suspect it is a form of myeloma. The kindly ER doctor told us that the majority of his osteoporosis patients are blue-eyed post-menopausal women with blond hair and with fair complexions. Get your bone density tests gals!

Kyphoplasty, Multiple Myeloma and Other Obscene Words

2006-10-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

I believe I’ve learned more medical terms in the past month than I’ll ever want to hear for the rest of my life.

My wife started complaining about a sore back a little over a month ago. She went to a chiropractor a couple of times, but the pain kept getting worse. Finally, she went to see her MD. A CT scan was done, and she had a compression fracture of a couple of vertebrae. A procedure called a kyphoplasty was performed to separate the vertebrae and fill the fracture.

She was sent home to recuperate and we thought she’d be back to work in a few days, but in less than two weeks the pain was back worse than ever. We decided to get her to the hospital emergency room where another CT scan was done. Because of osteoporosis, she had more compression fractures on different vertebrae and a second kyphoplasty was scheduled for that same evening.

I went home because she would be in surgery for a couple of hours and then in the recovery room for another hour. When I went back to the hospital, she told me they had postponed the kyphoplasty because her blood was “too thin.”

The medicos at Kadlec Medical Center started scheduling and running tests. Why did this woman have no iron in her blood? One test “spiked” indicating the possibility of multiple myeloma (a rare form of bone cancer). When we heard that, both Alma and I began fearing the worst.

After a restless and fearful night for both of us, one of the doctors told us that the multiple myeloma had pretty much been ruled out. I went home feeling like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. Shortly after I got home, Alma called me to say that another doctor had just been to her room and told her that multiple myeloma had not been completely ruled out. Talk about yo-yoing emotions!

So, why was she so anemic? A colonoscopy got performed as quickly as they could shoehorn her into the schedule. No cysts, polyps or tumors in her colon – just diverticulosis (little sacs which can collect seeds and kernels which she must avoid for the rest of her life unless she wants to have an emergency surgery to remove part of her colon).

Finally, Thursday afternoon, about 5:10, Alma was wheeled into an operating room for her second kyphoplasty. The procedure was a success again. Friday she was infused with iron and Saturday, she was released to come home where she is once again recuperating.

Oh, yeah – I didn’t mention the MRI they wanted to do to take a closer look at some kind of cyst or growth on her liver. With all the back pain, she just didn’t feel like trying to lie motionless on a narrow little slab with some kind of pad stuck under her butt for 45 minutes. That can wait for another time.

Well, that’s how we’ve been spending our time the past few weeks. This has been a very abbreviated version of all the events and the emotions they caused in our friends and family. If nothing else, this has been a real wakeup call for Alma to start eating right and exercising. It has always been easier to put off the weight loss program until tomorrow. Tomorrow has arrived.

Losing Neverland

2006-07-21T22:43:00.000-07:00

Losing Neverland

I just watched “Finding Neverland” on DVD. It’s the somewhat fictionalized story of James M. Barrie and his inspiration for the story of Peter Pan. It got me to thinking about one of the most precious gifts God gave us as children: our imaginations and how most of us lose that gift as we “mature”. Thankfully, not everyone loses it or we wouldn’t have novels to read, plays and movies to see, art and music to enjoy, nor for that matter, supermarket tabloids.

When I was little, I had an imaginary playmate named “Bobo.” Of course I don’t remember much about Bobo, except what my mother told me about him. She said that she was doing chores in our house one day when she heard me outside talking to someone with a deep voice. When she looked out the window, she saw me carrying on a conversation with myself. I couldn’t have been more than three years old, but she and my sister, who’s 12 years older than me, swear that the voice of Bobo was completely different than my own voice. After some time, Bobo died in a motorcycle accident. I’m told that I tried to bring him back, but the relationship was no longer there and I soon stopped talking with him.

There are those who theorize that imaginary playmates are guardian angels, or as I choose to call them, “spirit guides.” The point is though, I grew a little older and my imagination was affected.

I had a vivid imagination when I was a kid. I wrote stories that were pretty good. I wrote, directed and acted in plays with my neighbor boys and the boys my mom babysat. One time, after watching an episode of “Superman” (not the cartoon) which featured a robot, I imagined that we boys could actually build one. Since this was in the early 1950s, and pre microchips and hard drives, the project was a pretty large stretch of the imagination. As it turned out, I had very little to do with the initial construction of the “robot.” One of the neighbor boys, Jim Bloom, came up with the concept of putting soup cans on my arms and Hi-C juice cans on my legs. My mother, who encouraged such flights of fancy discovered a couple of metal cans at her brothers diner that were just right for the head and torso. The last I heard, Jim Bloom was working in Boeing’s aerospace program in Alabama. He was the architect behind most of our more high tech projects, which included a four-story tree house and a club house with electricity and a trap door that let to an underground passageway which led to a subterranean room where we smoked purloined cigarettes. His twin brother Jack was more into the less imaginative world of sports. The last time I saw him, he was giving driver licensing tests in Wenatchee, Washington.

I think I first realized that I might have lost some of my imagination when I took a creative writing course my sophomore year in college. It seems that no matter what I tried to write, it just wasn’t good enough to get me past a grade of C.

I put what was left of my imagination to use in my radio career and my second gig at a country music station, my boss really encouraged me. Later, at other stations and with different bosses and different audiences, my efforts to let my imagination run rampant were frowned upon. After too many years of that, I decided my imagination wasn’t worth the hassle. I became a “time and temperature” jock. For a while, I was able to resurrect my imagination and use it to write creative radio advertising copy. It certainly paid better than being on the air, but I hated prospecting and cold-calling to make a buck, and I got out of the radio business altogether.

I felt very sad watching “Finding Neverland.” I couldn’t help but wish that I could go back to my own Neverland and play Cowboys and Indians using blackberry juice for war paint, scale the four-story tree house, crawl through the tunnel to the underground smoking room and be the tin can robot.

Goodbye Mike Hammer

2006-07-17T19:06:00.000-07:00

I'm in mourning. Frank Morrison "Mickey" Spillane died today at the age of 88. His were the first adult novels I read -- "I the Jury" and "Kiss Me Deadly" when I was about 15 years old. Rest in peace Mick.

Ennui

2006-07-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

I haven’t written much of anything for a while. I managed to catch a nasty summer cold from my wife a few weeks ago, and I’ve been feeling lousy up until about yesterday when my sinuses finally decided to give up a slimy brownish substance which I’m sure had been giving me a chronic headache for several days. But, I believe I’m on the mend, although I still have zero energy nor give-a-shit in my general attitude.

I did give an emotional response to a young man who telephoned me today with some kind of informal political poll. He wanted to know whom I was supporting in the state’s U. S. senate race; Maria Cantwell or her opponent who’s name I cannot remember (he’s a wimpy guy with a high-pitched voice who promises he won’t get involved in partisan politics if he’s elected. Yeah, right). I told him that I sure as hell was not going to vote for any Republicans, so I reckoned I’d be voting for Ms. Cantwell. Then he wanted to know if I knew anything about the Democratic challenger to Republican “Doc” Hastings’ seat in the house. I allowed as how I’d probably vote for anyone who might be running against ol’ Doc. I gave the caller one of my email addresses so he could send me some political propaganda about the local Democratic candidates. Since I take the writings of political public relations people (What? You thought politicians had ideas of their own?) about as seriously as Saturday morning cartoons on TV, I’ll probably delete most, if not all of it without reading it. Since the geographic area where I reside is predominantly ultraconservative Republican in its political makeup, I had kind of hoped the guy on the other end of the phone conversation was one of “them” and I was going to try and spoil his day by giving him my opinion of “Dubyuh” Bush and his ilk. Turned out he was of a like mind with me. Kind of disappointing.

Damn I’m bored! Maybe tomorrow I’ll get lucky and get some Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormon boys dressed in their black suits with white shirts ringing my doorbell. I could tell them I’ll let them have their say, but only if they let me expound on the Church of the Gooey Death and Discount House of Worship (give me an Amen) and how it relates to Native American spirituality and Extraterrestrial Transcendentalism first.

I believe I hear you saying, “Frank, get a life.”

Mission Accomplished

2006-05-25T20:46:00.000-07:00

I’m feeling pretty “up” this evening. Do you know that feeling you get when you’ve been working on a project and you keep running up against obstacles that frustrate and stifle you to a point where you just want to throw something? And then, provided you’ve kept at your task that is, it finally all comes together just the way you had originally envisioned? That happened to me today.

The non-profit company I work for needed to have its web site updated. Unfortunately, the company that has been hosting their web site doesn’t lend itself to easy updates. My boss had used a WYSIWYG web site builder to construct the site, but she had problems doing updates. So she had the company buy Microsoft Frontpage 2003. Then she quit her job to go to work elsewhere, leaving the web site still needing to be updated. She and her boss found out that I had built several personal web sites, so I was asked to try and update this company’s site.

I installed Frontpage on my computer at work after practicing at home with the older Frontpage 2000 program. I found 2003 much changed, and infinitely less user-friendly. I found myself cursing it vigorously (under my breath because of a “no swearing” edict in the office. I copied and pasted the copy from the old web site onto Frontpage 2003. It went pretty fast – a snap right? Well, firstly, even after installing the Frontpage extensions to the host, and then re-installing them when I couldn’t upload the updated material and still being unable to do the upload try after try after try, I got my first inkling that this was going to be a wee bit more difficult than I had originally thought.

My interim supervisor listened to my tale of woe and encouraged me to change web hosts. I am fairly familiar with Tripod.com, a subsidiary of Lycos, having used their free hosting services to build two personal web sites. My supervisor authorized the switch and the payment for it, so I’m ready to slap that puppy up there for all the world to see in all its updated glory. After numerous false starts, I finally got it uploaded to Tripod and started testing the links on all the pages. Funny thing – when we signed up on Tripod, we weren’t allowed to use either the .org or .com domains. The company already owns those and Tripod said we could use .net. OK, just a minor glitch we could work around. So, the new .net sight is uploaded to Tripod and I’m clicking around from page to page, and I notice that some of the old .org pages are popping up. I definitely did not want this to be happening to my freshly rebuilt and updated web site. After several days of puzzling about this strange phenomenon, it dawned on me that in copying from the old web pages and pasting into the new ones, I was including some old code, which caused the old pages to pop up.

I could only work on the web site during scarce slack time from my regular work routine, but I decided to completely re-write all the copy. While I was at it I added some impressive features that Frontpage offers. These features did not want to be added the way I wanted them to appear, but little by little, I won the battle.

After uploading the newly rewritten pages and having the management of the company review it and make their edits on paper, which I then transferred back to good ol’ Frontpage, I finally uploaded the corrected, updated and revised web site. Looks pretty damn good. Very simple and straight-forward, with minimal graphics because many of our clients are over 60, and use dial-up Internet connections if they have computers at all.

My next task was to be to contact our former host and request instructions on how to have the .org and .com searches forwarded or re-directed to the new .net URL. Just before the workday ended today I played a hunch and visited the inner workings of the former host – and VOILA! I found their page that allowed me to re-direct the cursed .org to the pure and untainted by bad code http://www.seniorliferesources.net/ .

Now, the Executive Director tells me they have two more web sites to build. Ahh – job security.

A Memoir

2006-04-01T21:12:00.000-08:00

I'm facing my 61st birthday in a few days. My short-term memory isn't always what I'd prefer it to be, but I often find myself reminiscing about my past. The following hits some of the highlights (and omits many of the lowlights) of my life up to age 16. It's an autobiography that I find myself adding to periodically and, hopefully, I'll get around to bringing it up to more recent times and events. So, if you'll excuse my self-indulgence, here is an abridged version of my first 16 years.

I guess some people would say I’ve had an interesting life. I grew up in the country, two miles from a little town in Washington called Sedro-Woolley. I had twin neighbor boys, Jack and Jim, who were a year younger than me and my mom babysat two other boys, Rick and Terry, who were a little younger than me, when their mother decided to resume her teaching career. We were able to play in explore the “woods” which were basically alder groves which had sprouted up after the area was logged off around the turn of the 20th century. We built houses out of the small alder logs we cut down with axes and hatchets. We even built a four-story tree house between four alder trees.

There as a creek in the woods and we boys spent hours damming it up, much to the consternation of a witchy old downstream neighbor woman who used the creek to water her herd of dairy cows. She never caught on to the concept that “boys will be boys” and she should just accept that and go milk her damn cows and stop complaining to our parents about our dastardly deeds.

There was also a forbidden lake, which abutted our property. My sister Joan, who is 12 years older than me, used to watch boys from town skinny-dip there from our back yard before I was born. A couple named Everett bought the lake and surrounding property for $10,000 in the early ‘50s and fenced it off. It was a private lake, and the people who owned it would not allow us boys across the fence to try our hands at fishing there, much less swim in their precious pond. Hell, I was in my late thirties when I was finally able to visit someone’s home on that lake and get my first good look at the entire body of water. When I die, I’d like to have my ashes scattered on what I knew as “Bottomless Lake.”

One of the twin neighbor boys would go on to work for Boeing Aerospace. When we were kids, he was the one who engineered the alder houses and the four-story tree house. He also conceived the clubhouse with the secret underground passages and subterranean room where we smoked cigarettes, which had mostly been shoplifted from various merchants in Sedro-Woolley. Hmmm – he converted to the LDS faith when he got married, so I doubt he smokes now. Anyway, the clubhouse itself was built with scrap lumber that the twins’ dad brought home from his job at Diablo Dam. It started out as a tiny little hut. There was a trapdoor in the floor that led to a tunnel that went to an underground room. That was the smoking room. We added on to the little hut and built a larger room above the subterranean smoking room. We strung a heavy-duty extension cord from one of the outbuildings that was maybe a hundred or so feet away to the clubhouse and we had light and a radio. There was also an old mattress that covered the whole floor of the clubhouse. We spent many nights in that cozy little shack playing poker, listening to the radio and reading Famous Monsters of Filmland, Mad, Cracked and assorted other magazines and comic books. Often, another boy, Ken from down the hill from us would come and spend the night too, as would some of our other friends. I must have been 11 or 12 that summer.

I recently uprooted a large, sticky weed which had sprouted in front of our house here in desert-like Kennewick, Washington. The aroma from it brought back instant memories of how the moist woods of western Washington smell in the summertime. It’s funny how aromas can evoke memories of specific times and places.

My parents were hard workers who grew up with next to nothing. My mother was born in Arkansas and her folks moved their family to Colorado when my mom was fairly young. She worked very hard to lose her Arkansas drawl so the other kids would stop teasing her. She had five brothers and three sisters, one of whom died in infancy. My dad was one of four boys and two girls, and I have been told they were extremely poor. They migrated to Washington from Nebraska after my grandfather, after whom I am named, died of diabetes. Neither of my parents received a high school education, because they had to go to work to help support their families.

My parents said on several times that when they were married in the early 1930s, they were so poor that they didn’t even realize the Great Depression was going on. Their first home was in a mill town called Ardenvoir in Chelan County, Washington. Dad worked in the mill and mom ran a boarding house.

I don’t know when my folks acquired the big old house I grew up in. It was constructed with used lumber from a hotel that had once stood at Clear Lake, Washington. Some of the interior doors still had room numbers on them. It was built on a knoll on the west side of State Highway 9, about two miles north of Sedro-Woolley. I believe that the house and property on both sides of the highway were purchased by my grandfather Morgan, and then later purchased from him by my folks. The property was not good farmland, but Grandpa tried to make it so by draining a cranberry bog on the east side of the highway. All he managed to do was create a mosquito-infested swamp. We later turned that part of the property into a chicken farm, and in back of that, a gravel pit.

Before the chicken house, and before the gravel pit, that piece of property was most often the Wild West where we boys ambushed each other as cowboys and Indians (I was usually Roy Rogers or an Indian). We found that ripe blackberries make great “war paint” when rubbed on your face, but it’s hell to wash off. We experimented with boat and raft building, employing the swamp my grandpa had made to test the seaworthiness of our crafts.

On the other side of the highway, there was pasture for the few cattle we kept for milk and beef. There was a small section below our house and to the south. Below that, some cedar, birch and alder trees and skunk cabbage and swampy ground led to the fence that separated our property from the lake. In back of the house to the west was more pasture. It’s hard to describe the lay of the land, but I’ll try. As I said, our house was built on a knoll. The back yard was maybe 25 to 30 yards and then dipped away to a kind of gully. About halfway down, we had a barn. The hayloft was actually on the main floor. The cattle came into the barn from below and you had to walk down some slippery stairs to feed and milk the cows. It was pretty spooky down there in the dark. Below the barn were more cedar, alder and swamp teeming with odiferous skunk cabbage by the lake. Part of the pasture was on a steep hill from the lake up to level ground. That hill provided excellent sledding during the few winters that we had sufficient snow.

Like all kids, I loved snow. One winter in the early or mid-1950s I remember, we got over a foot of the white stuff. Area schools were closed for a week or more. The Bloom and Sapp boys and I spend hours packing down sled runs on that hill, and then many more hours pulling our sleds up the hill for that few seconds of unadulterated joy we experienced sliding down those hard-packed runs. I recall being sick and tired of snow by the time the crocuses began poking up and there were still patches of dirty slush in the shaded parts of our lawn. Of course, by the next winter, I was hoping for “Susie Snowflake” to come tumbling down again. Stan Boreson, a kids’ TV host on KING TV back then used to sing a little ditty about “Here comes Susie Snowflake. Look at her tumbling down….” Funny the little things you remember through the years.

At the top of the hill was an old orchard in which grew old Gravenstein and Transparent apple trees and some Greengage plums. My dad built me a tree house in one of the Gravenstein trees (which came in handy a couple of times when I was being chased by a bull that we kept to make the cows contented).

We had one of the first television sets in the Sedro-Woolley area – an Admiral console with a radio and phonograph also in the cabinet. It was given to my mom in lieu of payment for helping some friends who owned an appliance and repair shop. We got it in either 1949 or ’50. One night I saw a ventriloquist on the tube and asked my folks how he made that little figure talk without moving his lips. They explained as best they could and I immediately dragged out my sister’s old, stuffed panda bear and began to practice. I acquired a number of hand puppets, some of which my mom made, and a Howdy Doody marionette that my sister got me for Christmas one year and put on shows for my cousins at home and classmates at school. Finally, one Christmas in the mid ‘50s, my folks put out about 30 or 35 bucks (a princely figure for them in those days) for a Jerry Mahoney vent figure. I enjoyed doing little ventriloquist skits for my classmates, but it took my sixth grade teacher, Jack Ross, to prod me into performing for several hundred people at the annual Rotary Club talent show. He even wrote a script for me. I won second place in the contest -- 10 or 15 bucks. Either singers or tap dance acts always won first place in all of the talent shows I entered, but I consistently placed second or third. A few years later, my folks presented me with a larger Jerry Mahoney figure with a movable head. I still have both vent figures, the Howdy Doody marionette and several of the hand puppets.

Our house was fairly large, with three bedrooms downstairs and a large, unfinished upstairs area, which we five boys (and sometimes more) used to exercise our imaginations during rainy days. I have always had a deep and abiding love of the theater, so it seemed only natural to me to convert part of that upstairs area into a showplace for the plays I wrote and the other young thespians I recruited (the other boys had little choice – I was older and bigger than them). The father of two of the boys, an old showman himself, scrounged up a large piece of fabric for us to use as a curtain. Some old chairs had been stored up there, so we had seating. We used a large old wooden crate as a box office. The price of admission was a dime, but was negotiable.

When I entered high school, my mother decided to convert the theater into a bedroom for me. We put up all the sheetrock and did the painting ourselves (my dad sold cars six days a week and managed the damn chicken ranch the rest of the time). The finished product was terrific – lots of room and privacy. It was a long way downstairs to the bathroom and even farther to the telephone though.

I mentioned that my dad worked six days a week. He probably would have worked every day if the old “blue laws” hadn’t been in effect in Washington back then. He always had time for me though. A few fishing trips, one an overnighter in the San Juan Islands. He taught me to hunt. Even after a long day at work, he usually had time to play catch and teach me how to pitch a baseball. I got pretty good as a pitcher, but I was a lousy hitter. I was scared of the ball hitting me and consistently “stepped in the bucket.” I blame that in large part on a boy, who was on my Little League team (the Panthers). His name was Gary, and he took an immediate dislike to me. He was throwing batting practice and intentionally tried to bean me. He took every opportunity to embarrass and humiliate me clear through junior high school. We called a truce in high school, but even then, he managed to damn near put one of my eyes out with a walnut he threw at me from the audience of a melodrama in which I was playing the villain. I haven’t seen him since the 20-year high school reunion, where his band was playing.

I nearly died in the spring of, I believe, 1955. It had nothing to do with Gary the Little Leaguer’s pitching. I started limping at school one day. I still remember a couple of little girls saying they thought I was faking the limp. That evening, my mom rubbed my legs down with alcohol and I went to bed. The next morning, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t even stand up. I was running a temperature of around 104 or 105°. I don’t remember how Mom got me into the car for the ride to our doctor 12 miles or so away in Mount Vernon, and then up the stairs to his office. Dr. McAvila took one look at me, asked if I had had the new polio vaccine yet, and when Mom said no, he had me admitted to the hospital.

I still shudder when I remember the spinal tap they did on me. Dr. Mac’s new, young partner, Dr. Worley, held me down and tried to distract me by asking about baseball and God only knows what else. The spinal fluid was evidently free and clear of the polio bug, so they later drew blood to see if I had rheumatic fever. Didn’t have that either. They shot me full of penicillin several times at day. I hadn’t been overly fond of needles up to that point as it was, so I’ll just say that I wasn’t the best little patient that was ever housed at the old Rowley Memorial Hospital. I thoroughly pissed off one old nurse when I adamantly refused to let her give me an enema.

I was home from the hospital and back in school for several weeks before the doctors told my sister that as nearly as they could figure, I had had a pretty good case of spinal meningitis. Needless to say, I got the first of the series of three shots that were required to immunize a person in those days from polio.

I don’t believe, and my mother agreed, that my energy level was ever the same after my bout with “meningitis.” I still have a gut feeling that that might not have been what I had contracted. Meningitis is highly contagious, and I never did hear of anyone else that I had contact with ever getting sick at that time.

Many people, my wife included, say their high school experience was horrible. I can’t say that. Junior high was absolutely the pits – at least the seventh and eighth grades were. I fell hopelessly in love with a girl named Lois in the seventh grade and carried the torch clear through high school. She never knew, until the 30-year reunion when she came to the table I was sitting at with my wife. She introduced herself to my wife, Alma, who promptly said something like, “Oh Lois! I’ve heard all about you.” I responded to Lois’s questioning look by confessing my unrequited ardor for her all those years ago. The look on her face was absolutely priceless. I suspect that many of my classmates thought I was gay. After all, I didn’t do sports, and I was one of those thespians. Also, I rarely dated girls from my own high school, preferring to go out with out-of-towners. The grass is always greener, don’t you know?

High school was where I found my little niche in teen society. I was never much of an athlete – never was very interested in sports. As a sophomore, I tried out for a role in the Senior Play because not enough seniors had tried out, and the director, Robert L. Dunlap, put out an open casting call. I got cast, and then appeared in seven subsequent productions. I tried to make it a perfect nine productions, but by the end of my senior year, I believe my ego had outstripped my usefulness as an actor in high school plays. Mr. Dunlap did not cast me. I learned from that disappointment and gained a little humility, which served me well when I began appearing in college plays and then later in community and dinner theater.

Everybody remembers their first date, their first kiss. After being pretty gregarious as a little boy, I turned shy fairly early on, especially around girls. I do believe that my mother and my sister began to fear that I needed a little push into the social scene just before my sixteenth birthday. My sister was married with a houseful of little urchins who required babysitters from time-to-time. They lived about 10 miles from us in a rural area between Burlington and Bellingham called Bow Hill. Although sparsely populated, Bow Hill was home to an inordinate number of comely lasses near my age. There were the Longnecker girls, De Etta and Louella whom I had met a few times. De Etta was having a sixteenth birthday party, and my sister finagled an invitation for me to attend (without asking me if I even wanted to go). I was a month or two shy of my sixteenth birthday, but I had been learning to drive and had a learner’s permit. To entice me to go to the party, I was told to drive to the party solo. My dad even supplied his brand new Dodge demonstrator from work. My sister’s house was only about a mile from the party along a little traveled country road, so there was little risk of my being pulled over by a cop.

I went to the party, and one of the first people I was introduced to was a dark haired cutie with beautiful, flirtatious blue eyes named Cecilia. We hit if off right away and I actually enjoyed myself, much to my surprise. Somehow, my folks and my sister kept finding excuses to go to community functions in Alger near Bow Hill over the next month or two, and I’ll be damned, there would be Cecilia and her family. Was I too naïve to realize that I was being set up? Hell yes! It was years later that my sister confessed her collusion with the Longneckers to invite both Cecilia and me to that party and make sure we got introduced to each other.

As my sixteenth birthday approached, my folks and my sister decided that I should have a big party at our house and invite my friends and my cousin Pam who is a couple of years younger than I. My cousin Josephine may have been there too, but I don’t remember. I know her brother Jim was there, and I’ll explain his part in this a little later.

I wanted to ask Cecilia to the party, but I was nearly paralyzed by fear. I kept making excuses to not call her. Finally, my mom stepped in. This was one determined woman, my mother. One afternoon, we were on Bow Hill at my sister’s mother and father-in-law’s house and Mom sat me in front of the telephone, told me I was all out of excuses, and ordered me to pick up the receiver, dial Cecilia’s number and ask her to my party. She would leave the house until I had completed my call. I finally took a deep breath, “screwed my courage to the sticking place,” and called. Much to my surprise and delight, Cecilia consented to be my date for the evening of April 6th, 1961. Whew!

I didn’t yet have a driver’s license, and my folks knew that it wouldn’t be cool for one of them to drive me to pick up my first real date, so it was arranged for my older cousin Jim to come to my party to be my “chauffeur”. My sister, the schemer, even lined Jim up with one of her neighbor girls to be his “date”. This was a good thing, because Mary knew how to get to Cecilia’s house, which was literally out in the sticks on Bow Hill. I would have missed my own party if we hadn’t had Mary as a guide.

The living room at our old house was huge, and we literally rolled up the rug to make a dance floor and we played my records and probably some of those belonging to the neighbor boys, Jack and Jim, who had grown into scrapping teens. The first time we danced, Cecilia molded herself right to my body and put her head on my shoulder. I wasn’t expecting that, but I did not object. The party was a rousing success.

Cousin Jim, with Mary at his side, drove Cecilia home, with she and I in the back seat of my mom’s ’58 Plymouth. I hadn’t put my arm around the shoulders of a girl since the first grade when I was enamored of Connie Skiles and slipped my arm around her during a reading class. I finally worked up the nerve after three or four miles, and Cecilia snuggled right up. I had never kissed a girl – I mean REALLY kissed a girl and I thought that this just might be a good time to start, but I didn’t know how to approach the process. After a few more miles of hesitation and procrastination, it finally happened. Thinking about it later, I pretty much decided that Cecilia sensed my trepidation and took the matter into her own hands. It was wonderful! So we did it some more – right up to the time we pulled up in front of Cecilia’s front door.

My sixteenth birthday remains one of my most cherished and enduring memories. The efforts of my folks, especially my mom and sister are still greatly appreciated. Cecilia and I dated occasionally over the years and she remains one of my favorite people. My cousin Jim committed suicide several years ago, a victim of alcoholism. He was a helluva good guy and I wish things could have been different for him.

Modern Medicine

2006-03-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

I’m finally beginning to feel halfway human again after a nasty bout with the flu. Damn – I have never felt this lousy for so long. It started with a pesky cough and the chills and then quickly developed into full-blown creeping crud. My wife gave it to me. She recently had carpal tunnel surgery on both wrists and has been home most of the time. I can’t figure out who might have given it to her. She’s also got a flaming case of pansinusitis (all of her sinuses are infected).

This has not been a great winter health-wise at our house. I had to have a 15 mm kidney stone removed in December. This past Monday afternoon, I finally got an audience with His Eminence the urologist who electronically crushed my kidney boulder. I had to go sit in his waiting room and then in two different treatment rooms for the better part of an hour before he came in with the test results which would tell me what to avoid in my diet so I don’t get any more stones. I am prone to kidney stones and have probably passed around a half-dozen of them since I was in my mid-twenties. So, what does the highly trained specialist tell me? “You’re not at risk for kidney stones. I don’t know what’s causing them.”

You’d think he could have told me that over the phone! But noooooo! My insurance company and I had to pay for another office visit only to be told there doesn’t seem to be any reason for me to be getting kidney stones. Drink a little more water.

Geez – I hope my wife has better luck with the ear, nose and throat specialist (otorhinolaryngologist) she’ll be seeing. At the rate we’re going, it might be just as effective to call in a witch doctor to burn some herbs, shake a rattle and do a scary chant over us. What the hell, it was good enough for some of my old Cherokee ancestors.

Did You Find Everything?

2006-02-11T23:00:00.000-08:00

I believe that I have found a sure-fire way of flummoxing grocery clerks into complete silence during the checkout process. If they ask, as many do, “Did you find everything you were looking for?” just say, “No.” They don’t know how to respond! They’re so used to people saying “yes” that they have no pre-programmed response at the ready. Their managers have probably instructed them to ask the question, but haven’t told them to ask, “What is it that you couldn’t find?”

OK, it’s possible that I look like some kind of eccentric old character who might answer, “I couldn’t find the meaning of life” or “I was looking for a fresh zebra heart for an exotic meal I’m preparing for the Grand Poobah of Zanzibar.” But today I couldn’t find any Breyers cherry vanilla ice cream, which this store normally carries. Also, since I now carry my lunch to work, I had hoped to find some of those microwaveable canned meals for one person so I wouldn’t have to make a boring sandwich every morning. They had a very poor selection, so I didn’t buy any. I also couldn’t find the brand of toothpaste that my dental hygienist recommended.

So, tomorrow I’ll have to go to the local Safeway, which has been particularly guilty of discontinuing many of my favorite foodstuffs (including the aforementioned Breyers cherry vanilla ice cream). I was once asked by the checkout cashier at this particular Safeway store if I had found everything I was looking for, to which I answered, “No.” My response elicited silence that time too. I have developed a real dislike for this so-called “super store” but it’s only a few blocks from my home, so I find myself patronizing it more than I would otherwise.

Among the jobs I have held in my checkered career has been grocery clerk. I understand that they have probably been instructed to ask the customers questions like, “Did you find everything you were looking for?” but perhaps the next logical step might be to inquire further about what it was the customer couldn’t find. I know that by asking that follow-up question, the doors are opened to myriad possible criticisms, suggestions, questions, etc. that will muck up the smooth flow of customer checkout. But if you really don’t want to know, or you don’t care what your customers aren’t finding in your place of business, why the hell ask the question?

New Job, Old Feelings

2006-02-03T18:20:00.000-08:00

I guess I spent too many years in the highly unstable radio business. One of my fellow employees at my brand new, part time-job said something early in the week that made me think my neck was already on the chopping block. She said that she and the other woman in the office were meeting for lunch with the boss, and it was about something I probably wouldn’t like.

My chest tightened, my stomach began to ache and my imagination went rampant with all kinds of scenarios about what I might have done wrong to get myself fired so soon after finally landing a job that I like amongst people I also like. Well, it turns out that our boss announced at lunch that she had accepted a new job with the county and had given her two weeks notice. When I told the gals what my imagination had conjured up during their luncheon meeting, they felt pretty badly about it and assured me that I’m “a keeper.”

Then, the next day I got called into the boss’s office by one of her bosses. The tummy tumbled again and the imaginary rope around my chest cinched tightly as the office door closed behind me. “Shit!” I’m thinking. How much of this kind of thing can an old fart like me take before he just drops dead in his tracks?

As it turns out, they wanted to know if I’d be willing to take on more hours – even go full-time to take on some of the administrative duties that my soon-to-be ex-boss has been handling. Well, yessss I informed them. So, beginning Tuesday, I’ll be a full-time employee – at least temporarily. This is a non-profit company and does have to watch the bottom line with administrative costs, so until the dust has settled and my current boss has been replaced and responsibilities are reevaluated and prioritized, I am to consider my full-time status as temporary. That said – I’m pretty happy with the way things are turning out. Now, if I could just get rid of this nagging feeling of impending doom I’ve been carrying around since my radio days….

My wife is scheduled for her second carpel tunnel surgery Monday morning. Left wrist this time. We’ll both be happy when this ordeal is over. But not as happy as I’ll be if my beloved Seahawks will the Super Bowl on Sunday! I’ve been waiting a looooong time for this game!

To Pee or Not to Pee. That is the Question.

2006-01-24T21:18:00.000-08:00

I’m finally back to work. I’m a part-time Customer Service Support person with Senior Life Resources Northwest. I guess they couldn’t justify ageism being as how all their customers are over 60. I was actually the second choice for the position, but their first choice ended up finding a full-time position elsewhere. It’s only 25 hours a week, but that’s better than no hours a week. It couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. When I got the call, I was pretty much recovered from my kidney stone adventure (detailed in an earlier entry here), and my wife is having to take six weeks off for carpel tunnel surgery on both wrists. Labor and Industry is paying for most of that, but her pay will only be about 75% of regular until she gets back to work.

So, I am very thankful for the opportunity to work at all. So far, the people at the new job have been very supportive, happy to answer questions and patient in teaching me the routine and software programs. Besides that, everybody has been so damn nice to me! I hope it isn’t too good to be true. Call me paranoid, but I spent a large part of my life in the radio biz and paranoia is the name of that game.

I mentioned my kidney stone earlier. I’ve successfully passed around a half-dozen of the damn things over the years. Never found out what was causing them. My urologist finally got the results of this latest one (the Mount Rainier of kidney stones at 15 millimeters). Calcium somethingorother. UPS just delivered a kit to the house from some laboratory that’s going to analyze my urine output over a 24-hour period. I have to pee into this half-gallon plastic jug every time I need to go wee-wee for 24 hours, and note the volume of output each time. After the 24 hours is up, I’m supposed to shake the jug up thoroughly (making sure the cap is screwed on good and tight) and transfer the contents to two smaller plastic cups. Then I’ve got to UPS it back to the lab. The main problem, aside from following the step-by-step instructions, is going to be getting my wife to agree to my keeping the half-gallon jug in our refrigerator. Yep, the instructions say my precious pee has to be refrigerated the whole time I’m collecting it. Puts a whole new slant on pissing off the better half.

The Curmudgeon's Pet Peeves

2006-01-01T18:15:00.000-08:00

I guess most all high schools have student newspapers. When I was young, we had junior high schools. I don’t know if junior high schools still exist. We had a newspaper at Cascade Junior High School, and when I was in ninth grade, I was on the newspaper staff. Thinking back, I remember that whenever a student was interviewed for the paper, there seemed to be a standard set of questions we budding journalists asked such as “what’s your favorite food?” (the standard answer was usually spaghetti), “who’s your favorite singer?” “what’s your favorite class?” and nearly always, “what’s your pet peeve?” Had someone ever interviewed me and asked me what my pet peeve was back then, I probably would have said something like, “Gary Demeyer, Don Calkins and Bud Norris.” Nobody ever asked and I probably escaped being severely killed.

I make a sincere effort nowadays to not have resentments. I have forgiven most all of the people who wronged me in real or imagined ways. However, I still have pet peeves. I am 60 years old, a bit of a curmudgeon, and I’m entitled. Close to the top of my list are stupid, inconsiderate drivers who tailgate me, who are too stupid to know how to use the simple devise called the directional signal lever, or think everybody within a five mile radius should share their pleasure in listening to their under-muffled cars and motorcycles and the incessant bass beat of their car stereos.

My wife and I just finished watching the Steven Spielberg version of “War of the Worlds” on DVD this evening. One of the first things I noticed was the stark, cold color processing used. I’ve noticed this same effect in a number of recent films. Is this the result of the new digital filmmaking process that cinematographers are using now? If it is, then allow me to express my humble opinion of this process – it is probably the worst thing to happen to cinema since sepia tone! It’s absolutely awful! What the hell was wrong with good old Cinemascope? The colors were vibrant and alive, not sterile and flat.

Expressing “my humble opinion” above brings up another of my pet peeves. Why are people who post messages on the Internet or send emails too lazy to spell things out so those of us who value good communication don’t have to refer to some webspeak glossary to translate? “IMHO” – the first time I saw this, I thought the writer was referring to a restaurant that served Swedish pancakes. I am thoroughly sick and tired of seeing LOL, (I originally thought LOL meant lots of luck. Imagine my embarrassment as an Internet novice, after posting to a job seekers’ message board that I wished someone LOL on their job interview. It’s got to be the most overused abbreviation of any kind on or off the web, and I absolutely hate it!). Others include, but are not limited to; ROTHFLMAO, R U 4 it, and I really hate seeing people referred to as “ppl” or “peeps”. A “peep” is the sound made by a baby chicken. I am not a tiny sound; I am a PERSON!

I am more saddened than peeved about the awful grammar and spelling I encounter in emails and all over the web. It is a sad, sad thing to see that the once enviable educational system in this country has failed its students so badly. I believe that taking the easy route of teaching phonics instead of teaching the elements of rudimentary English is to blame. How many times have I encountered something like, “How R U? Your lukin gud in yur picher U send me!!!!”?

I am particularly peeved about anything George “Dubya” Bush does or says. If he’s for something, I’m against it. If he’s against something, I’m for it. This guy has to be the worst president since Millard Fillmore! Actually, I’m being unfair to poor old Millard since it’s my understanding that he didn’t really want to be president.

I’m starting off the year 2006 without my 15 mm kidney stone, and I have finally been hired to work part-time beginning January 9th. Maybe I’ll be less of a curmudgeon during this new year. But then, what would I write in this blog about (LOL)?

Santa Left a Rock in My Stocking

2005-12-19T21:40:00.000-08:00

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house
You could hear Frank curse loudly and grumble and grouse….

OK, I’m not much of a poet. It all started on Tuesday, December 6th. I had just taken my morning shower and dried off. I put my foot up on the toilet lid to rub some anti-itch cream on my leg (dry winter weather makes my legs itch if you must know). All of a sudden, I had the most god-awful pain in my lower back. I could barely straighten up enough to walk to the living room and sit on my recliner. After I sat, I began to wonder if I would be able to stand up again. The pain persisted all day and into the night. The next morning I was almost unable to get out of bed and my wife decided to take a PTO day from work and take me to a nearby clinic.

After filling out the necessary paperwork and sitting for what seemed like an eternity in the clinic waiting room, I saw a nurse practitioner who poked me a few times and ordered x-rays of my back. After that, she prescribed some muscle relaxants, an anti-inflammatory drug and some pain pills and sent me home. By Saturday, I was feeling pretty much back to normal and Sunday I was able to watch my beloved Seattle Seahawks completely demolish the 49ers. I was pretty happy and pain-free.

On Monday the 12th, I was just getting settled into my afternoon nappy-poo when the phone rang. It was someone from the afore-mentioned clinic asking me what I wanted to do about my kidney stone. This was five days after my visit to the clinic! I said something brilliant like, “What kidney stone?” and she said, “Oh, they haven’t called you about it?” Now, I have passed probably a half-dozen kidney stones in my life, and believe me, I would have remembered if someone had told me I had one!

Well, feeling somewhat abashed I imagine because the clinic had screwed up, she told me that if I came up to the clinic and got my x-rays she’d arrange to get me in to see a urologist on an emergency basis that very afternoon. So, I hurriedly dressed myself and hied myself to the clinic, signed my life away for the x-rays, got general directions to the urologist’s office across town and drove there. I filled out more paperwork. And I waited. And I waited.

The staff at the urologist’s office treated me like some kind of celebrity. They kept whispering to each other that I was the “15.” Come to find out, “15” had nothing to do with my undeniable good looks (on a scale of one to 10, he’s a 15). My stone measured 15 millimeters, which by kidney stone standards is considered a boulder. They’d never seen one that big before.

I was finally granted an audience with the urologist, who asked a few questions (most of which I had already answered on the forms I had had to fill out before I was allowed to see His Eminence). He checked my hernias and did the ever so popular finger wave on my prostrate gland. He asked if I’d ever had a hemorrhoidectomy (no, and what the hell does that have to do with a kidney stone the size of Mount Rushmore?). Finally, he told me that it was highly unlikely that anyone could pass a stone larger than a five millimeter, and I had a 15, so I should probably have a procedure called ESWL, which stands for electroshockwave lithotripsy – or something like that. It’s where they use shock waves to blast the stone into smaller fragments so they’ll pass harmlessly through the urinary tract. He also said he wanted to implant a stent somewhere in my plumbing to make the passage of the particles easier. The stent might be somewhat uncomfortable, but he’d remove it after a week or so.

I’m thinking the doc’s going to put a catheter up my male member to put the stent in, and then again to take it out. Having worked in a state mental hospital on a geriatrics ward while a college student, I am familiar with catheters and I really wanted no part of it. He assured me that no catheter would be used, so I calmed down a little.

He could perform the ESWL the following Friday, December 16th. Since I am still unemployed and money is in damn short supply, I told him I’d have to consult with my wife and get back to him (hoping that she’d find a good reason to delay this rather daunting event). We have medical insurance through my wife’s employer, and she convinced me that we’d just have to take money out of our dwindling savings account to make up the difference. Soooo, I called the urologist’s office the next morning and using my very best he-man, John Wayne voice, told the nurse that I would look forward to having the ESWL performed on Friday. She made me come into the office and fill out more paperwork which I was then to take to Kadlec Hospital’s pre-registration office, where I would fill out even more paperwork. Then she called me at home and told me that the doctor had forgotten to tell me I needed to have a CTUT done (that’s a fancy x-ray), and could I be at Kadlec at 3:30 the next day for that?

So, being an orderly person, I plotted out a schedule where I would drive to Richland’s Kadlec Hospital, pre-register for same day (outpatient) surgery and then go get the old CTUT. I allowed ample time (forgetting that the medical industry does not care a wit for patient’s schedules). The pre-admission people were very nice, but in absolutely no hurry to get me processed in time for my 3:30 appointment for the fancy x-ray (which it turns out was in another building two blocks from the hospital).

To make a long story a little shorter, I got pre-registered and was only about two minutes late to fill out more paperwork for the CTUT. Thursday, I did not have to see anyone from the medical industry, nor fill out any paperwork. A day of grace to make peace with my God, I suppose.

I take back what I just wrote. The scheduling lady from the hospital called me late Thursday afternoon to let me know that my procedure was scheduled for noon the next day, and that I should be at the same day surgery unit by 11:00 am. My wife took another day off from work to drive me to the hospital and back. There had been freezing rain the night before, so we left plenty early. The medical industry couldn’t think of any more paperwork for me to fill out for the moment, so we waited a short time before being called into the pre-op area where I was told to take it all off, put on a hospital gown and lay down on a gurney thingamujig while an IV was started.

The day of the procedure was going smoothly I thought. But after waiting on my back for them to wheel me into the operating room for about an hour, the appointed noon-time hour elapsed, and we were finally informed that some inconsiderate person had had to have an emergency procedure and I had been bumped until they could get that little detail taken care of. My wife went to have lunch, and I lay there listening to my stomach growl.

Finally, they got the emergency cleared and the operating room “turned over.” From here on, there were no delays. Scoot your cute little butt over onto the operating table (the center of which has a water-filled pad), breathe into this oxygen mask deeply for a while until the anesthetic is administered, and, well that’s all I remember until they woke me up and hauled me into post-op.

After a short time, they decided to let my wife take me home with a prescription for pain pills and instructions to take it easy for a few days (I told my wife it was a “few weeks”), no alcohol (haven’t had a drink in nearly seven and a half years), and to pee through these paper mesh cones to collect any particles from the stone for analysis.

There are no words to describe the pain a spasming kidney just coming back into usage after what were probably several years of being inactive can cause after being rudely awakened. Only a woman who has been through several days of agonizing labor will be able to empathize. The pain pills (hydrocodone) have helped to keep me from praying for a quick and merciful death, but when that kidney decides to spasm to push more of the now pulverized stone out – well, let’s just say I’m surprised that one or more of our neighbors haven’t called the police to report that someone is torturing a bull elephant in the neighborhood.

Today, December 19, 2005, I have finally decided I might just live through this experience. The spasms have decreased in severity and my urine has gone from the color of cherry Koolade to more of a tan color. And I haven’t had to suddenly run for the bathroom every five or ten minutes. Life is a little less painful today. However, my wife will have to drive me to the urologist’s office, probably after Christmas, where the good doctor will remove the stent without the benefit of general anesthesia; only a sedative according to what he told my wife. Kind of gives me something to look forward to. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a word of advice – drink lots and lots of water.

The Bravest Man I've Every Known

2005-12-08T22:16:00.000-08:00

Lest those of you who have bothered to read my other posts think that I dwell on the negative too much (and you’d probably be right), I thought I’d write about the bravest man I’ve ever know. I’ll call him “Joe”. Not a stretch, since that’s his name. I won’t use his last name though just in case you know him. He’s a very modest guy and I don’t want to embarrass him.

Joe contracted polio when he was about three years old and it left him mostly paralyzed from the waist down and on his left side. There is no noticeable musculature on his legs or on his left arm. Joe and his parents had a choice about how he would get around – crutches and braces or a wheelchair. They opted for the crutches and braces, which meant learning to walk again, which, in turn meant lots of pain and frustration, but a bit more freedom of movement. Besides, with the limited use of his left arm, he might have only been able to go in circles in one of those old-fashioned wheelchairs available in the 1940s and ‘50s.

There was a series of surgeries when Joe was a child in an effort to correct the curvature of his spine. These operations required him to be in a full body cast for months at a time. More pain, and ultimately the operations were not successful.

My first memories of Joe, or “Joey” as he was called as a kid, were of him pushing one of those little mini chairs used in primary schools down the halls of Mary Purcell elementary school. He used a chair to keep him upright instead of his crutches back then, and with the metal glides attached to the bottom of the wooden chair legs he was able to slide the chair over the smooth tile floors. It worked a little like the walker my mother used after she broke her hip. As I recall, if he was in a hurry, he’d sit in the chair and have someone else push him to wherever he was going.

Joe’s parents never coddled him. They wanted him to live as normal a life as possible. He once told me about learning to tie his shoes. Keep in mind that his left arm and hand are nearly useless. He wanted his mom to tie his shoes. She told him he had to do it himself. She wouldn’t help him. This may have been the point where he learned to swear with such color and imagery – but he learned to tie his shoes without help.

Joe and I both played coronets in the junior high and high school bands and we usually sat next to each other. Also, one of my friends was Joe’s cousin. We got to know each other over time and became friends. I became particularly good friends with Joe and his cousin when I got my driver’s license because neither of them drove. Being teens in the ‘60s, we went to a lot of dances. Of course Joe didn’t dance (or did he? More on that later).

The high school we attended, and later Western Washington State College (now Western Washington University) were not handicapped-friendly. Lots of stairs and no elevators, or even ramps for wheelchairs, not that Joe would have considered using a wheelchair. He’d put his right crutch in his left hand, and using the handrail, pull himself up the stairs by swinging one leg up to a step and then drag the other leg up. Sometimes he’d get someone else to carry his crutches up to the top of the stairs. In high school, he could often get another guy, usually his cousin or me, to get him in a bear hug from behind and drag him up the steps.

Joe isn’t afraid to try just about anything. After he graduated from college and got a job teaching at the local junior high school, he bought his first car, a blue Pontiac that he christened “Bucephalus” with a bottle of beer. Factory-installed hand controls wouldn’t work for Joe. He and his parents finally found a company in Vancouver, B. C. that built custom-made automobile hand controls. Joe could finally drive! He found that his crutches made handy enforcement devises when teaching at the junior high level.

Joe is one of the best storytellers I have ever met. It doesn’t matter if he’s relating a true anecdote or telling a tall tale, the man flat knows how to tell a story. I’ve tried to master the art, but I have never approached his level of skill.

I briefly touched on Joe not dancing when he was a teen. Well, DUH! The guy wears leg braces that keep his knees locked. Kind of hard to do The Twist, Frug, Watusi, or Bop (these were all dance crazes in the ‘50s and ‘60s for you younguns). Some time after I moved back to my old stomping grounds near Joe, we both got invited to a party a member of our community theater group was throwing. I zeroed in on a woman that I had been interested in for a while and worked on impressing her with my charm and wit. In those days I drank a lot and was known to smoke an illegal herbal substance when I could get it, so I considered myself extremely witty and charming with the ladies. There was a slow, romantic ballad playing on the stereo and I happened to pause my scintillating monolog to my, enraptured I’m sure, woman friend. I looked at where a few couples were dancing to the belly-rubbing music, and what did my bloodshot eyes finally focus on, but Joe and a woman DANCING! As best as I can recall, he went home with her that night. A few months later he called me and asked if I was sitting down. I answered that I was. He then asked if I would be his best man at the wedding he and Julie were planning – Julie being the woman he danced with.

Call it fate or kismet or destiny, but I believe that God figured that after all that Joe had been through with his handicap, he deserved some happiness. Julie has never considered Joe to be handicapped. He adopted her two young hellion sons and gave them a decent male role model.

Joe retired from teaching several years ago. He told me that what made up his mind to pull the plug was one of the students at the middle school where he taught brought a shotgun to the first day of school. He said the kid was so dumb that he brought the wrong gauge of ammunition, but still, enough was enough.

Joe and Julie are very active in their community. They’ve made trips together to Alaska, Florida and a couple of journeys to Scotland. He’s of Scottish descent and this may explain his liking for a certain imported spirit.

Joe will be 62 years old near the end of December. A few years ago he finally surrendered to the fact that he isn’t a young pup anymore and allowed his wife to get him one of those electric scooters they have for quadriplegics nowadays. He suffers from the mysterious post-polio syndrome, but you’ll never hear him complain. In the 50 or so years I have known him, I have never heard him complain about his plight and he doesn’t like it when people show pity or try to find out why he’s on the crutches. He just wants to be treated like everybody else. No special favors, no singling him out from the crowd because he’s “handicapped.”

Joe and I were roommates at Western and sweated out final exams together. We were best man at each others’ weddings. We’ve laughed at each other’s jokes and commiserated with each other about life’s disappointments. We have overlooked each other’s foibles. He is the most valuable thing you can have – a true friend.

Death & Taxes

2005-12-03T21:58:00.000-08:00

The old saw goes, “The only sure things in life are death and taxes” – or something like that. Did you know that even if you die, you still have to pay income taxes on what you made during the year you croaked? It’s a fact. The IRS has probably ordered St. Peter not to let you through the pearly gates until your account with them has been settled under threat of a thorough audit.

I just finished a course for would-be tax preparers through H & R Block, which was paid for by one of my former employers. This former boss, who advertises himself and his business as “tax accountants”, has been in business for about 50 years. He paid $174 for me to take this course from his biggest competitor, and then the old goat fired me two weeks before I finished the course. I decided, “what the hell,” and finished the class and took the final exam. After knew with absolute certainty after the first week of this course that I did not want to ever be asked to prepare anyone else’s taxes. After 60 class hours, and probably double that in homework, I do not want to ever do my own taxes without the help of software such as Turbo Tax or its ilk.

My sainted mother used to emphasize that she did not want to debate an issue with me (or anybody else) by saying, “No ifs, ands or buts.” This meant there was no room whatsoever for any interpretation of what she said. No argument! That’s Final! Finito! Our federal tax code is thousands and thousands of pages of “ifs, ands or buts”. In the three months I gave up six hours every Saturday and most of my days off taking this tax preparers course, I cannot recall finding a single tax regulation that did not have some kind of “if, and or but” – except, of course, for the one about having to pay your taxes even after you’ve kicked the bucket.

I would like to propose that each and every person seeking election or reelection to the U. S. Congress be REQUIRED to take the same or similar course that I just completed. Make them take a good look at what they and their predecessors have wrought! Notice that I am not blaming the IRS for this indecipherable maze of mumbo jumbo that we refer to as a tax code. The IRS doesn’t write the tax laws, they just enforce them. With vigor.

I have no objection to paying my fair share of taxes. I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty good citizen and that’s what a good citizen does. I just want a tax code that anybody with a rudimentary understanding of written English can understand, that don’t refer me to umpteen different publications which, in turn, refer me to the myriad worksheets and forms that are designed to confuse and bewilder the average person so they have to pay “professional tax preparers” or “tax accountants” like the old fart who fired me recently. Geez, if we could figure out how to do our own taxes what would happen to one of the country’s largest and most profitable businesses (H & R Block), CPAs, and “tax professionals?

Why was I fired you may ask. Damned if I know for certain. I got a hand-written note from the old boy saying, "I have given considerable amount of thought to your work and how it benefits our office. After careful evaluation I believe your temperment does not give the right skills to our situation." Whatever the hell that means!

The guy's wife took over the office management several months ago after firing the whole staff. She hired me, and she did not agree with her husband's decision to let me go. He told me on my first day there back in August that I was the first man that had ever worked for him. I believe that therein lies the problem. I started to write some things here that I know about his treatment of female employees, but have deleted that part of this rant.

So, I'm looking for work again. Isn't it ironic that Congress has started raising the age when we can start drawing Social Security and businesses are lowering the age at which they will hire you?

The Curmudgeon's Corner

2005-11-22T19:23:00.000-08:00

November 22 is a Special Day For Me

My dad was born on November 22, 1908. He would have been 97 today. He was a special guy. He did a little of everything at some time in his life. Farmer, cowboy, miner, sawmill worker, Fuller Brush man, car salesman -- and many other things, all honest, to support his family. Nearly 20 years after his death, I still miss him.

Then there was that fateful November 22, 1963. The times, they were a-changin’ in the ‘60s. We had a young president with new ideas and vitality. He faced down the Russians off the shores of Cuba. He started Peace Corps, pushed a civil rights agenda, kicked the space race into high gear – who knows what he might have accomplished had his life not been cut short at age 46 by an assassin’s bullets. Like everybody of my generation, I remember well where I was on November 22, 1963. It was my dad’s 55th birthday. I had just finished lunch and had walked into the men’s locker room in the gymnasium at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, Washington. A guy named Paul Garrett asked if I had heard that President Kennedy had been shot. I hadn’t, and considered the idea preposterous – out of the question. A few minutes later, the instructor for the basketball class I was suiting up for, Stan Poppe, came into the locker room with the bad news. President Kennedy had died from gunshot wounds. All classes were cancelled until further notice.

I went to the college lounge where just about all of the students had gathered, watching the news come in over a black and white television. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went and got a haircut. For the next week or so, it was like the whole country had come to a standstill. My mom was watching TV when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. I was just getting out of bed, and I heard her yell that someone had just shot Oswald. I suppose the debate about whether Oswald acted alone, or there was some conspiracy involving others (Fidel Castro? J. Edgar Hoover? The CIA? Organized crime? The Easter Bunny?) will rage on for many more years to come.

I Need some Paxil or Zoloft

2005-07-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

Still out of work and beginning to think that a 60-year-old white male, even one with a college education, is just shit out of luck in our youth oriented society. Now, the company I most recently worked for has been sold to one of its biggest competitors. My wife still works there, but there's a lot of uncertainty about how long any of the current employees are going to have jobs. Lots and lots of speculation. My wife says that representatives of the new owners will be in town on July 17th to explain how things are going to work and, hopefully, answer questions. We're living on only my wife's income now because my unemployment insurance ran out several months ago. If she loses her job, not only will we not have any income, but our medical, dental and eye care insurance will go away too.

Now, here's what pisses me off. We're both too young to draw Social Security, but employers feel we're too old to work. All you political conservatives out there are saying something like, "Yeah, so what's the problem? Don't expect us to lift a finger to help you. We've got ours, so fuck you. Just go somewhere and die so we don't have to look at you if you find yourself homeless."

I am not a flaming Liberal. I've always considered myself to be a moderate Democrat. The area of the country where I live is heavily populated by a majority of right-wing, narrow-minded ultra conservatives. If the Letters to the Editor section of the Tri-City Herald is any indication, many of these people won't even call those who disagree with "Dubya" Bush and his cronies Democrats. We're all "Liberals", which in their tiny little minds means -- -- "Socialists" or Communists because we believe in spreading some of our tax dollars helping fellow U. S. citizens with medical expenses and a hand up when needed instead of spending billions on Bush's campaign to own Iraq with all of its oil.

The Democrats aren't blameless. If memory serves, they were in power when the situation in southeast Asia escalated and this country found itself mired in what is now called the Vietnam War. I was serving in the navy when I got to cast my first ballot (voting age was 21 in 1968). I ended up voting for Eldridge Cleaver for president because I couldn't, in good conscience, vote for either Humphrey or Nixon. Then there was the "Great Communicator" Ronnie Raygun who damned near bankrupt this country to end the Cold War. Well, it worked I guess. No more Soviet Union. Now Russia's economy is run by the Russian Mafya and much of the rest of what was once run by the iron-fisted Bolsheviks is in danger of being taken over by wild-eyed Islamic fanatics. We once feared the Soviets would nuke us with IBMs and now we have to be afraid that some Russian civil servant who hasn't received a paycheck in months will sell some of Russia's stockpiled nuclear arsenal to terrorists to make dirty bombs to ignite in our cities. That's progress.

With very few exceptions, I do not trust politicians. I do not believe they have my best interests on their agendas. It's all about saying the right things to the groups (PACs, lobbyists, religious groups, etc.) that will give them the money to get reelected so they can continue to rake in those unrealistic salaries and especially the percs like an unparelleled congressional retirement package, medical care, perdiem, and most importantly to them -- POWER.
So, what can we do? Go to the polls in November? Sheeit! I voted for John Kerry in the last election, even though I knew he was blowing gas. I just felt that his gas didn't smell as bad as Dubya's. I'm even beginning to believe the elections are all rigged anyway. I don't know much about the so-called "Trilateral Commission" that was a popular boogie man of conspiracy alarmists a few years ago. I am pretty sure that a few very rich and powerful people in this country control most of the politicians and the outcome of elections. I am convinced that George W. Bush would not be president of the United States had his initial nomination and subsequent election not been bought and paid for by these people. And they expect payback, which is what they're getting with our takeover of the country of Iraq with all that oil.

Now Bush is going to get his chance to appoint at least two justices to the Supreme Court. The right-wing Christian coalition which opposes abortion rights, but supports capital punishment, is going to be asking Dubya for their payback now. Lord, I'm almost happy to be 60 and not in the greatist of health. Maybe I won't live to witness the end result of all this greed -- greed for power, greed for money. Hmmm. Isn't greed the same thing as avarice? And isn't avarice one of the "deadly sins?" And isn't sin something that all those fine, upstanding, church-goin', always-in-the-right conservatives are against?

2005-07-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

On vacation in the Skagit Valley (northwest Washington state)

Why Terrestrial Radio's in Trouble

2005-06-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

I just saw on the news that another "golden oldies" radio station (WCBS) has dropped their format. Radio programmers are not rocket scientists, nor are they innovators. They tend to be the proverbial sheep who follow whatever prevailing trend is newest. Remember the "Q" format (whatever that was), or the "Zoo" format where they packed as many idiots into a control room as would fit and let them laugh insanely at each others' lame and innane jokes?

The reason for dropping oldies formats all over the country has nothing to do with declining listenership. The format is still very popular with the very large "Boomer" population. But, therein lies the problem. You see, Madison Avenue decreed many years ago that the only demographic that advertisers should pursue is the elusive white male who is between the ages of 18 and 49. Nobody else is worth spending that precious advertising dollar on. No exceptions.
Having sold advertising for some years, I can attest to the fact that advertisers will believe almost anything an advetising salesperson tells them as long as you show them all kinds of statistics and graphs about who will buy their product or service. "Figures don't lie, but liars sure figure" is an expression a former sales manager of mine quoted over and over again.

Now, the fact of the matter is, that the over 50 crowd is rapidly becoming the largest segment of the U. S. population. They have the largest amount of discretional income because they are not paying off student loans, putting kids through school, paying off a large mortgage, or toiling in minimum wage jobs as are their younger counterparts. The over-50s spend more on dining out, travel, luxury cars and RVs, etc., yet Wall Street continues to ignore their importance.

Since Prez Ronnie Raygun deregulated the broadcast industry, large corporations have gobbled up most of the independently owned radio stations in the country. They have homogenized the formats to where its difficult to tell whether you're listening to a pop, country or adult contemporary station. The playlists for all formats have been shortened to a point where if you listen to one station for more than an hour, you'll soon be able to predict what song is going to come up after the one you're currently listening to. Top 40 stations started playing shortened playlists back in the '50s, but the extent it has been taken to is ridiculous.

I have been reading about the "new" X format. The X format is basically an ecclectic mix of different styles of music, with no shortened playlist. Basically, the personalities play whatever they feel like. It's still in the experimental stages with a few radio stations in major markets. I put "new" in parentheses because this is basically what many experimental FM stations were doing in the '60s and early '70s until someone figured out that they might make money with this new FM thingy if they formatted and structured it for specific audiences.

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a young college student about terrestrial versus satellite radio. He has given up on FM radio and listens exclusively to satellite. He's fed up with the short playlists and long commercial blocks on terrestrial radio. That's all well and good for the present time, but he couldn't be made to understand that the same thing will happen with satellite radio once listenership increases. Advertisers will pay to reach the largest number of people.

In the mean time, what with IPods, CD and tape players in most cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, etc., the number of younger people especially, listening to terrestrial radio will continue to shrink just like music playlists. Older people will begin to abandon traditional radio too, until the industry pulls its collective head out of its arse and starts catering to LOCAL radio markets. That means more local news and weather -- not less as is now the trend. When I was in broadcast school back in the '70s, the instructors stressed over and over again, that besides their favorite tunes, the first thing people wanted to hear when they turned on the radio was the time and temperature.

I am, thankfully, out of the radio biz now, but as an old country jock and programmer, I would love to have a shot at re-programming Thunder Country or KORD in the Tri-Cities. I'd hire some real personalities who were willing to go out and interact with the community. I'd take the 10 song playlist they're both using and scrap it. There would be country oldies played along with the current hits. I miss hearing Waylon, Willie, Hank Jr., Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Conway Twitty, Sammi Smith, et al. I probably wouldn't play Hank Sr., Jimmy Rogers, The Carter Family, or much of what was country music before the mid-50s. The sound is just to alien and pure to the ears of most of us still alive today. If I could do that without some corporate dipshit know-it-all interfering because he's crunched the numbers and knows it can't be done, we might have a listenable country format on the radio again. I'm sure it would work with the other music formats too. But the industry is too centralized and computerized now. Figures don't lie....

Some Questions for Stupid Drivers

2005-05-20T20:13:00.000-07:00

I would really like to know why so many drivers refuse to use their directional lights. Are they afraid of wearing them out? Does it take too much energy to extend one little finger of the left hand an inch or so to flick the lever? Do they feel it's nobody else's business where and when they're turning? Is it some kind of game to abruptly change lanes without signalling so other drivers have to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision? Or, is it considered to be "uncool" to obey traffic laws and be a safe and considerate driver?

Of course you couldn't be one of those drivers. After all -- if you were, you would be too stupid to even read this post, much less recognize yourself.

2005-05-06T23:16:00.000-07:00

When I still had a job.

Ageism

2005-05-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

I was RIFed from my job of four years at a software company at the end of September 2004. I wasn't the only one to get the boot, but I was the oldest. I just turned 60 in April. Too young to draw Social Security and, apparently, too old to find a new job.

Because of arthritic hips, I cannot stay on my feet on concrete floors for eight hours a day, so that eliminates a good many jobs such as those high-paying retail and grocery jobs I have done in the past to survive. I am highly adept at clerical and administrative jobs like the one I just lost. I am also, because of my background in radio news, copywriting, commercial production, marketing and public relations, highly qualified to go to work as a Communications Specialist.

Hell, I even have a couple of college degrees (AA and BAEd) which I usually leave off my resume since I have found they give prospective employers one more excuse to brand me as "over qualified."

Age discrimination is against the law, but unlike discrimination because of race, sex, religion, marital status, national origin or all those other EEO labels, you don't stand a chance in a court of law with an age discrimination suit -- especially if you're a white male. I mumble "Bullshit" every time I see one of those EEO disclaimers at the end of some of those Help Wanted ads in the paper and on the web.

I get interviews, but they usually end up with the interviewer saying something like, "Thanks for taking the time to come in and meet with us...." Then, if I'm lucky, I get a form letter thanking me for my interest in (name of company here), but they've filled the position with someone who is more qualified (meaning 30 years younger and female).

Currently, there are threads going on Monster.com regarding this issue and they have decided it's time to do something about it. The Baby Boomers who are seeing ageism for the first time are getting a wakeup call, and in turn giving one. The ignorant employers out there who think they're getting away with something when they turn an applicant down because they have some gray hair are going to be facing a formidable bunch of out-of-work older Americans who have changed the status quo before. Remember the '60s? I don't believe my generation is going to go away quietly just because we're "too old" and imfirm to do an honest day's work.

I'll be ranting and raging about this topic and other things that piss me off or tickle my fancy from time to time.