Adventures in Aging

Boris and his favorite toy, Shawn the Sheep.

Our bare floors (wood, linoleum) throughout the house are covered with throw rugs -- for the convenience of the dogs. These rugs occasionally wrinkle. Thus the name throw.

I am in the kitchen cleaning, preparing room to make dinner. I look to my left towards the entryway and notice that Boris has lost his balance and is sitting in the water bowl. He has yet to bark for assistance, so this has apparently just happened. The bowl is tilting towards Boris, but the contents have not yet spilled onto the floor. Boris looks surprised -- like he's about to take a shit in the bowl.

I turn to rescue my dog because I am a good dad. And because I don't want shit water all over the kitchen floor.

I get my foot caught in one of the wrinkles that has come up on one of the throw rugs.

And thus I begin my slow and torturous descent across the span of the kitchen and into the entryway, pitching slowly and painfully towards the dog in the bowl.

My body twists to the left. My body is no longer built to twist in such a manner. I am still falling ... twisting and falling.

And stumbling.

Twisting and falling and stumbling.

We know this won't end well.

I land firmly and decisively on my left knee, twisting more parts that shouldn't be twisted, and my head narrowly avoids the cabinet by the bowl. I reach out my left arm to avoid falling on my dog, futilely grabbing at the wall. My left hand slides down the paneling, nails digging into the wood, and I end up in the water bowl. Boris, still stuck in the bowl, is catapulted out, and the water rains upwards into the air.

My dog is traumatized. I have missed landing on him, but the experience of seeing me free-fall towards him has now actually scared the shit out of him.

Enter Dax and Stridor -- to rescue me? No, to stare. Then, thinking I am on the floor to play, they begin licking me.

Boris is still sitting on his shit. I am sitting in a puddle of water.

I take inventory ... the dog has not been crushed. I have apparently damaged no working parts. Now I will have to figure out how to get up.

I manage, without slipping in the spilled water, to right myself and rescue my dog.

The poop he has left me is just a token. Nothing offensive. Just two tiny turds.
 
I pick up the dog, scoop the poop, hobble out to the yard, and pitch it onto the lawn.

I then put towels on the floor and clean up the spilt water -- cleaning the floor in the bargain.


Hours later, my knee has a rug burn (?) and is swollen, but nothing has been broken. I am lucky.

I await the morning and the new pains I will discover.

The dog survived. So did I.

Breathing Lessons

As I was standing on the deck tonight, enjoying the waning moon and watching my breath, I thought of my father. The chilly air reminded me of our winter walks, coming back from the garages in the late evening just before the 11 o’clock news and Johnny Carson.

The Staff House in the early years. Garages were to the left.

We lived on the grounds of the Gowanda State Hospital, and the way the grounds were laid out, our house was some distance from the garages. The line of them, all connected in one long, brick building, was just past the Staff House and near the Director’s house, maybe a quarter mile from our own place. If we were expecting a big snow, Dad and I would drive the cars (he’d drive the Caddy and I’d drive the Impala), and park them for the night in the garages. Dad parked in garage number 7, the last single garage. The rest were in sections of 3, maybe 4 – like a ward -- so I had to be careful parking the Impala and opening the door as there was occasionally a car next to it. I have no idea who the other spots were allocated to, or why Dad didn’t get a higher number. The Director had number 1, and it seemed to be haphazard from there.

It was fun getting to park the cars and walk home together. We’d shut the garage doors (never had to lock them) and meet for the walk home. I especially remember the nights when the snow would squeak under our boots. Those nights were usually crystal clear and dreadfully cold, and the hair in my nose would freeze long before we got home. 

The balconies where patients took in fresh air year-round. Now neglected and in disrepair.

Besides the bitter cold, the squeaking snow, and the dicey patches where people had driven over the same spot until it turned to ice, were the breathing exercises. Dad had had TB when he was in the Army decades before, and had been hospitalized for over a year at JN Adam in Perrysburg when it was a TB hospital. As part of his treatment he learned breathing exercises to increase his lungs’ vital capacity. It was also there where he, along with rows of other TB patients, were set out in beds in the winter cold. The area was like a long covered balcony. Of course they were bundled up, complete with fur-lined parka hoods. He’d tell me of often waking in the morning with his blankets covered in snow. That was also where he developed his habit of throwing his bedroom windows wide open on the coldest of nights. 

He taught me the breathing exercises one night as we walked home: in slowly and deeply through the nose, as deep as your lungs would let you, then suck an even deeper breath until your lungs burned; then slowly let the air out through your mouth. We would do these every winter’s night, all the way home. To this day, when the cold air hits my face, I instinctively start sucking in the chill, breathing deeply, drawing the deliciously cold air through my nose and slowly watching it escape through my mouth. I was doing that tonight as I stood out on the deck, thinking of my father and moments like those nights that we shared. I remember enjoying them then, but I think I enjoy them even more now.

Often times I’d load my German Shepherd Sturmie up in the Impala and he’d walk back with us. Sturm loved the snow and would roll and roll and roll, cleaning all the dirt and dust from his coat. I think in his entire lifetime that dog may have had one bath. Between the snow in the winter and swimming in the lake all summer, he was never dirty.

The stars are as clear here tonight in Tennessee as they were on those nights when Dad and I would walk home from the garages. I don’t remember what we talked about. The absolute stillness of the winter landscape buried in snow, the squeaking of our boots, and the sounds of our breathing together were enough. Those memories are as fresh now as if it were yesterday. I miss those times, but replay them often on crisp nights like tonight, when the moon is out and the sky is clear, and every star is as sharp and bright as cut glass.

I close my eyes and I can see him, his tan fleece-lined jacket, his scarf (always a scarf) tucked around his throat, and his green velvet hat with the feathers in the brim. That hat, all the way from Germany. I still have that hat. And the scarf. 

And the memories.

I miss him on nights like this. I miss him.

~~

As I grow older, and as friends share their memories of their parents with me, I become more and more deeply aware of how lucky I was, and how extraordinary my parents were. We didn’t always agree – on some of the big things we would never agree – but I seldom hear stories like this from friends. When I do, they are few and far between. It’s then that I appreciate even more how much my parents loved me. Even as I repeatedly disappointed them, their love never wavered.

Every child should know that kind of love. Every adult should have those simple, joyful memories.

Memories

I am sure some of you, like me, enjoy the show The Big Bang Theory. What I especially like about the show, what really makes it authentic for me, is that the four main male characters are all avid sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book fans and memorabilia collectors. I can relate to these guys, not because I'm a comic book fan (I used to be in my youth, but I'm not a rabid collector), but because some years ago I worked at a comic book/memorabilia store in the DFW area called Remember When, and a good number of our customers were much like Sheldon and Leonard and Howard and Rajesh. Yes, people like these guys really do exist. None of our customers were physicists, although I think we had a few engineers, but many were as geeky as the boys on Big Bang, and their passion for comics and super heroes brings back fond memories of the years I worked stocking shelves, hanging posters, sealing comics in dust-tight bags, and surviving "comic book day."

A few of you reading this will remember the stores -- there were two. Started by a great man, Larry Herndon (ca.1945–1982), and later continued by his widow, Sharon, I worked at the newer of the two with my then girlfriend and dear friend still, Sandy. I came across this essay, written on the occasion of the original store's closing. (The Richardson store had already closed.) By then I had moved to Tennessee and could not be a part of the final chapter of these two great stores, so I wrote this essay to share my feelings with those who were there to shutter the doors for the last time.

This is an essay of memories within memories. The names have not been changed because they really don't need to be. Everyone who ever visited the store was quite authentic, although I will admit we had our share of peculiar and quirky customers -- much like the boys of The Big Bang Theory.

I hope you enjoy.

Remembering Store Two – Richardson’s Remember When

When I remember Remember When, what first comes to mind are the masses of memorabilia that blanketed the walls, buckled the shelves, swung from the ceiling, and poked perilously out into the aisles, challenging anyone even remotely claustrophobic to navigate the store without suffering apoplexy. Six foot posters of Monroe, Dean and Jackson shrouded the windows and blacked out the sun, giving the store that kind of Speak Easy — Opium Den feel. Comic books of the ages, sealed painstakingly in plastic bags and housed in boxes designed to withstand the Apocalypse, were arranged in a cryptic order understood only by the staff and elect customers who had been initiated into the inner circle when Larry first set up the system. Remember When Virgins, those poor souls who had never before set foot in the store, whose eyes took too long to acclimate to the dim light, were often dumbstruck by the sheer enormity of it all as their senses returned.

On Comic Book Day, before the store would open its doors, Ritalin-deprived children and incoherently fanatic collectors would press their noses tightly to the few inches of exposed glass, frothing at the mouth for the latest X-Men or Graphic Novel, hoping for a glimpse of the newly arrived, pristine comics. Doors open, they’d swarm in and descend on their favorite titles, holding each copy towards the dim light to inspect it for flaws. One to read. Another to collect. Perhaps two to collect should one meet an unexpected demise. Everything enshrined in polyethylene bags. Double taped for extra freshness.

Then there were the Poster People. They came in a variety of ages and genders. Some lusted for Michael, others swooned for Marilyn. A few were merely looking for something large enough to cover a stain on a wall. But most were either genuine collectors, who would roam the stacks for hours in search of that one perfect poster, or hapless parents, who had been deployed on a mission to find something awesome, and would spend their time clutching the front desk (presumably from fear of being sucked into the bowels of the store) while a staffer was dispatched to search for the something awesome thing.

Seldom was anyone disappointed. Avid collector or casual customer, regular or drop-in, native or alien, at Remember When there was enough stuff crammed into both stores to satisfy just about anyone. If you went away from Remember When empty handed, there had to be something wrong with you.

But what I remember most fondly about Remember When was the time spent with friends. On the surface, Larry collected things — comics mostly, then posters, photos, toys, games. As he and Sharon together grew the business, the goodies multiplied and the space dwindled. But what Larry really collected was friends. And, by extension, those who worked with him also collected friends.

Remember When Two, the Richardson Store, was especially a people magnet. I have never amassed so many friends, and so many stories, as I did when I worked there. These delightful people would often come into the store and stay for hours, even the whole day, crowding around the front desk, sharing their lunches and their life stories.

The first who comes to mind has to be Ricky. Ricky had a delightfully annoying habit of telling terrible jokes and stories. He often tickled himself so much in their retelling that other customers looked disdainfully in his direction as he laughed uproariously at his own good humor. But Ricky was impervious to even our own pleas to stop with the stories. Something would catch his attention on TV or the radio, and like it or not we’d get a play-by-play. Ricky was always good with the details. Lots and lots of details. A story that played for two minutes on the radio could often go on for an hour in our store. I often wonder what happened to Rick. I hope he’s had lots of children by now. Children need fathers who tell good stories — whether they want to hear the extended version or not. Rick was a good friend and I hope he is still laughing uproariously.

Then there was Carol with her hand-made Tribbles. The Tribbles with the authentic smell. Every so often Carol would drop by in her dog-food laden car. The Tribbles Carol painstakingly made by hand were personally delivered and came in a variety of colorful faux-furs and were a favorite of Star Trek fans. But each Tribble was always accompanied by that same wet-dog smell. We all remember it. Children were especially sensitive to the smell, often picking up a Tribble to admire and cuddle it, only to fling it brutally across the store with a cry of “P U! It stinks!” much to the embarrassment of the staff. And always, shortly after Carol’s departure, the Tribbles would be herded into the back room for a serious showering in Lysol. Quadrotriticale may have killed them. But Lysol made them well again.

Then there were the ladies who lunch – usually Teri and Marianne. Their favorite past time — a long lunch and conversation at Remember When. Soon it became a ritual for people to drop by, stay for lunch and chat. Sort comics, file photos, hang posters, discuss movies, idle over lunch. What good times we had.

Then there were the drafted volunteers. John would always be there, to help run for and sort comics. He and Ricky, always willing to help, would take turns doing a comic run when the store was too busy and I couldn’t go. (In all honesty, I think Sandy was afraid I would never find my way back. My sense of direction ends at the tip of my nose.) Others were enlisted as well. Memory fails me for names, but I still see their faces. Enthusiastic friends of Remember When.

Then there was Jim. Jim would swing by in his beige Camero, looking for some one-of-a-kind-something, having just sold, traded, bartered, haggled, hawked or swapped some other one-of-a-kind-something. Often the one-of-a-kind-something he wanted was something Sandy had already purchased. Enthusiastic discussions would then ensue: "I’ll give you two of these for one of those" or "You really don’t need five of that DO YOU?" Casual listeners might certainly have thought these conversations bizarre. Spock himself would have proclaimed them illogical.

From time to time Skye and Marshall would come in, usually to talk about movies. For some reason, I have a dim memory of Marshall in a bee costume. What the occasion was I haven’t a clue, but when I called Sandy to ask about The Bee Guy she immediately knew who I was talking about. So either it was real or some false memory was implanted into both of us by aliens. Working at Remember When Two, either story is plausible. If anyone ever sees Marshall, ask him about the bee costume for me.

There was Steven, our young collector from England. When he returned home to England he became our direct source for all things Doctor Who, especially Jelly Babies. And who could forget The Gallifrey Connection, the Doctor Who club that grew from a few friends watching bootleg videos while wearing 15 foot multi-colored scarves in the heat of a Dallas summer to over 100 members strong, manning the phones during PBS pledge drives and annoying the hell out of the Corporate Suits they sat with. How many closeted Who fans did we convert during those pledges? We will never know.

On occasion Janice would stop by, with Kevin hot on her heals. I honestly can’t remember what Janice was looking for because I was assigned to keep an eye on Kevin. Kevin and David (our nuisance from the pet store next door) were always into some mischief, generally prowling through the comics with candy-plastered fingers, which sent chills down Sandy’s back. David had to be one of the most annoying, obnoxious children I have ever met. Ricky was the only one who could tame him. I don’t remember any actual conversations, but I do remember there being veiled threats of covert and creative ways to deal with annoying little boys. After these discussions, David would skulk back to the pet store, only to be diabolically sent back again within minutes to annoy us anew. Weekly we tried banishing Hell Boy from the premises but it always failed. We were tied inextricably to the pet store by our collection of creatures – exotic aquatic African frogs, uncounted generations of gerbils, and Sara Jane, the fish who wouldn’t die.

Now, one of the unique aspects of Remember When Two was our agglomeration of wildlife. Besides David. The aquatic frogs were always a favorite with customers. In all honesty, they were a favorite of customers’ spouses, left to languish at the counter for hours while their significant others rooted through comics or photos or posters. We had stools reserved just for these abandoned souls and they would regularly take up residence, watching the aquatic frogs do their aquatic frog things. Sandy and I had several of these interesting creatures in an aquarium on the counter, the aquarium which also housed Sara Jane, the immortal fish. However, much to our chagrin, aquatic frogs had a tendency on occasion to pitch themselves out of the aquarium and onto the floor. Generally they were discovered before anything unfortunate happened to them. However, there was one occasion in which a frog, suitably named The Doctor, completely disappeared from the tank. At first we though that perhaps one of the children who frequented the store had made off with him. Or perhaps this was an actual regeneration and he had morphed into something new. However, there was also the strong possibility that Sara Jane, who habitually ate anything new introduced into the tank, had eaten him. She was looking unusually robust, so we finally concluded that Sara Jane had in fact consumed The Doctor. (Not long before then she had eaten The Doctor’s nemesis, another aquatic frog named The Master. So this wasn’t merely groundless speculation.)

Time marched on and, while we remembered The Doctor with fondness, soon his demise was no longer a topic of speculation. Then one day, months later, much to our horror, a customer, pulling back a comic book box from underneath a table, discovered the tiny remains of our beloved friend. There, flat, lifeless, and fossilized, lay The Doctor. Croaked. Rather than a stunning regeneration he had instead succumbed to premature degeneration. Even Superman couldn’t save him. And so our exotic aquatic African frog adventures ended.

Undaunted, we next went into raising gerbils. Nit and Kelly, and Boo and Scout (the unfortunate one with only three legs) entertained staff and customers alike with their antics and were particularly fond of toilet paper tubes. And as is wont with small caged animals, our gerbils’ behaviors often turned lewd. After all, despite the fact that they lived in a glass house, there was little to do after the tubes had been gnawed. And, a gerbil can spin his wheel only so long before he grows bored. So Nit and Kelly, and Boo and Scout often found other ways to entertain themselves. This never happened without benefit of an audience — usually small children who would ask their appalled parents if the tiny creatures were killing one another. After all, to the untrained eye, the tiny rodents’ love-making did look a bit savage. Blushing parents would hurriedly assure their transfixed children that the creatures were, in fact, "just playing," and quickly usher them towards the comics. It was truly surprising to discover how much "playing" a three legged gerbil could engage in. Needless to say, the pet store next door was never lacking in new gerbils. And buried somewhere, Sandy has a chart of the complete lineage of those four libidinous rodents.

There are so many more memories I could share with you — but Sandy has only so much voice in her so let me close with one more story, one that is a favorite of us both.

It may surprise some of you to learn that I am not a born Southerner. Neither is Sandy. While we are now naturalized citizens of The South, having lived a good deal of our lives here, we were both Yankee born. I hail from a Blue State, I’m very proud to say, and learned to drive in the midst of winter. Real winter. With real snow and real ice and really really cold temperatures. The kind that instantly freezes the hairs in your nose. Sandy too knows from cold — a few years in Alaska will do that — and can navigate a snow storm with the best. And so it was that one day, during a snow and ice storm in Dallas, we faithfully headed to work, on Central Expressway, in my little 1979 Honda Civic — the car whose engineering was inspired by a TARDIS — bigger inside than out.

The drive up Central was a lonely one that day. All the schools were closed. Corporate offices were closed. Stores were closed. The city had shut down and most of the natives stayed home, fearful of the tiny flakes falling gently around them. Those Texans who ventured out could easily be identified by the clanking chains they’d affixed to their tires. Now any Yankee will tell you that steel and ice make for great hockey but no one in his right mind puts chains on his car to travel on ice. No one but Texans, that is. And on this day only chained Texans and Damned Yankees dared travel beyond the safety of their driveways. Yet, here we were, inching our way up Central. Naturally, we thought, Remember When would open. After all, Sharon never called to tell us otherwise. So we braved the pygmy snowflakes and the black ice and made it, opening on time. The toilet hadn’t frozen and we had hot water so we were happy. And, despite the fact that Braums, our favorite source of sustenance, had locked its doors and darkened its windows against the storm, we were safe. I reasoned, certainly one day without a banana split wouldn’t kill me.

We didn’t think much more of it until we called the Carrollton store. No one answered. Could Sharon have slipped on the ice? Should we call 911? Had her car stalled in the weather or had the battery frozen? Maybe the store door had iced over and she was chiseling her way in.

Sadly, it was some time before the light came on and it dawned on us that perhaps, just perhaps, Sharon had not braved the weather after all. But how could that be? She barely lived but a few minutes away from the Carrollton store. We lived almost 30 miles from Richardson. Certainly if we could make it in a tiny Honda, Sharon could make it in her van. And so we waited.

By then, as I recall, Ricky had stopped by on his way to work. He giggled on his way out the door. He knew.

And so too had Marianne come by. She couldn’t believe we were dumb enough to make the trip, but, as was like Marianne, she never mentioned our stupidity.

We had no other visitors that day. We had a few phone calls that morning — mostly wondering if we were open and if the new comics had come in. Yes, we were here. No, the comics were not. Yes, they were probably still on a loading dock somewhere. Somewhere in Dallas, Wolverine’s whiskers had iced over and more than Superman’s tights were turning blue. And no, I was not going out to get them. They were super heroes and could fend for themselves.

As it turned out, Sharon never made it to the store that day. Unlike the Damned Yankees, she had had the good sense to stay home where she and Meeskite, her cat, stayed warm and toasty. Meanwhile, Sandy and I remained at the store until the phones stopped ringing, and finally packed it in for the long ride home. Aside from Christmas, I have never seen Central Expressway so deserted. It was eerie, like driving in a B-rated post-Apocalyptic movie. I can imagine Joel and the Bots sitting below the screen, criticizing our aimless dialogue and the lousy special effects as we drove into the gathering gloom. A TARDIS, disguised as a Honda Civic, making its way across the universe. Traveling home from the land of make believe.

As I said pages ago, Larry collected many things, but above all he collected friends. How fitting that he called his stores Remember When. We all do — remember when, that is. And when we think of the stores and Larry, and take time to thank Sharon for continuing his dream — and as you now all look around and see the many faces and generations of Remember When, the things we will all most likely take home with us are the memories of wonderful stories and lasting friendships. You couldn’t leave Remember When without making a friend. It was that kind of place. And that, above all else, is what I will miss. Because if you left Remember When empty- hearted, there had to be something wrong with you.

Remember when? Yes, we do ....

Out With The Old

(for Barbara, Darrell, and Dina)

There's a new syndrome listed in the DSM IV -- you might not have heard about it, but it affects many Baby Boomers and impacts younger family members significantly. It's called the Neglected Pantry Syndrome. It works something like this:

Many baby boomers store stuff. It is in their nature to store stuff. All sorts of stuff. Some stuff is books, some stuff is tools, some is clothing, some is food. Lots and lots of stuff. This storing (not to be confused with hoarding, another disease altogether) causes the next generation in the family to become apoplectic with anxiety that, should the aforementioned Baby Boomers unceremoniously depart the Earth without due notice, the younger generation will be consigned to rummage through this collection of stuff themselves. OMG! Imagine having to dispose of someone else's stuff. All those books, all those tools, all those clothes, all that crap in the pantry! MOTHER!

NPS (Neglected Pantry Syndrome) CAN be fatal if precautions are not taken.

Witness these two poor souls. First, because of their advanced age, they have no recourse but to turn to technology (the magnifying glass) so that they might see the date printed in the smallest of letters on cans and packages they have hived away. To their shock and horror, they discover that most of the contents of their pantry has expired. Imagine – Girl Scout Cookies from the same year as NASA’s MER Mars landings, and cans of tuna from before the invasion of Iraq (Mission Accomplished -- yeah, tell me another one).

THEY MIGHT HAVE DIED! Had these two old farts not taken precautions to ferret out the deadly pantry contents, why, they might have succumbed to TPP (Toxic Pantry Poisoning). Then the next generation would not only have had to dispose of their lifeless bodies, but they would also have then had to rifle through all the other stuff the old farts left behind. You know, the tools and papers and books and clothes and nicknacks and falderal and other flotsam and jetsam squirreled away.

So, Baby Boomers, do your offspring a favor. Before you buy the farm, kick the bucket, flatline, baste the formaldehyde turkey, become the Smorgasbord of decay, and hit the Stairway to Heaven, do the right thing. Toss those 8 year old cans of mushroom soup – you know – the ones with the buckling tops. Trash the 12 year old coffee. (Your kids don’t care if it’s hermetically sealed.) Deep-six freeze-dried anything, and throw out the hot dog relish that was canned before the Earth cooled.

Your children will thank you for it.

(Sadly, Boris approaches the empty pantry and thinks "We're gonna starve! They threw everything out.")

Ancient Annie

Little Annie (her original name is unknown to us) wandered out of the tall grass following one of my other dogs on an incredibly hot and humid spring afternoon. Who knows how long she’d been out in the sweltering heat – days, maybe weeks? But she managed to find us – people who would love and care for her. The minute I saw that little dog I fell in love with her.

My neighbor and I loaded her into the van, and my wife drove as we rushed her to the vet – isn’t it always the case that things like this happen after hours?

Well, now she was ours.

To me she looked like the tiniest German Shepherd I had ever seen. Same markings. Same body type. Just a light-weight at less than 30 pounds, standing about three hands tall. Her coat was soft and beautiful, her ears were just a little too big for her head, her tail, though it never wagged, was long (I often told her how much I admired it, even if she never heard me), and her little gray face – well, just look at it.

A subsequent visit to the vet a week later disclosed that she had kidney failure, was totally deaf, was almost completely blind, had some kind of tumor on her eyelid, and had cancer. Unspecified cancer. The blood work just showed cancer. A physical revealed it was in her gut. Our vet said it could take her quickly or slowly. His advice – make her comfortable and take it one day at a time. And so we did.

Annie was an ancient soul. She had probably wandered away from her home or was dumped by the road. Either way, no one came looking for her. Or maybe she belonged to some old person who simply couldn’t look for her. Who knows what her history was, but it was apparent that she was quite old. Maybe 15 or 16. We had no idea what kind of life she’d had, but we were sure her remaining days would be as peaceful as possible.

In the subsequent weeks, I learned she was an All-American girl. She loved hamburger and hot dogs, didn’t care much at all for dog food, and could take or leave chicken. Because she was nearly blind, she had some interesting run-ins with her water bowl, and she may well have had a little brain damage as well, as she had to learn to eat all over again, every meal time. But even then we managed to get the eating down to a routine. She liked her straw and blanket beds, so well in fact that she frequently tinkled on them just to watch me clean it up. And she loved to bathe in the sun.

Annie found us May 11th and stayed with us until August 4th. She took a turn for the worse that night, so at 1 AM on Thursday, I loaded us into the van and through a terrible thunder storm found our way to our vet’s house. Her little body already limp, he gently put her to rest there in the rain. It took mere seconds and her suffering ended.

I don’t know more of her story than that. I simply know it took only a moment to fall in love with her and I miss her as if she had spent her whole life with us.

This is the third dog I’ve lost to cancer. Something has to change.

Thank you for reading her story.

Bough Down

Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum, Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

We lost another beautiful big fir tree Wednesday. Well, it's not exactly lost. The thing is still there, just in a few massive pieces hanging over the lawn. But the tree's almost certainly a gonner. It was probably planted when the house was built in the mid-70s. Years and years and years of growth -- ended. Part of the tree still stands high above the house; the rest is in huge splinters across the grass, the sidewalk, and the empty dog kennel – having spontaneously and for no apparent reason torn itself almost in two, just missing the house. Its landing, surprisingly gentle all things considered, doesn't seem to have done too much damage except to the tree itself, and to my heart that breaks to see such a beautiful thing destroyed.

The afternoon was clear. We'd just had a brief sprinkle but nothing spectacular. No gusting winds, no torrential downpours. I was in the kitchen when I suddenly heard a snapping, cracking sound. At first I couldn't even tell what the sound was, much less where it had come from, it was so alien a noise. One doesn't expect a tree to just give it up and split in pieces on a sunny, still day. Then there was another sound – probably a tree-aftershock – that seemed to come from the back of the house. We have three huge pines there as well, one that's already lost a large limb.

I was on my way to see what had happened when I glanced out the living room window. Where there once was just grass was now a huge bough of fir. It wasn't something dead that had finally cracked and fallen – this was alive and green and massive. It was beautiful, but in the wrong place. It made the yard look alien.

I love our white pines, our Pinus strobus. We have five that are huge, well over 30 feet tall. And almost every year since we moved here we have bought a live white pine for our Christmas tree. They're usually about four feet when we buy them and cart them home in the truck, struggle them into the house, and festoon them with ornaments and lights. They brighten up the holiday, but their real gift is after they're planted and they grow into lush living things. They grow fast here – and big.

I especially love brushing by them when I mow the lawn – their long, soft needles are quite unlike any other, and to be honest, I often stop and talk to the trees, telling them how beautiful they are. The dogs enjoy their shade and I enjoy the comforting sounds they make when a breeze passes through them. And they smell wonderful!

We're not white pine snobs – we also have one Fraser fir that was given to my wife as a gift of condolence from her co-workers when her mother died. I thought it was a wonderful thing to do, to give something that will live on, and it has grown slowly over the passing years. It too smells delicious but its needles are like … well – needles. So, I give it a wide berth when I mow around it because I swear it stretches out to snag me, gouging sticky holes in my flesh.

And we have our single Eastern Red cedar we lovingly brought from our home in Texas when we moved, a tiny stick that has grown to stand over 20 feet in 11 years. But while it too smells delicious, it's not a particularly friendly tree and is prickly to the touch.

This past spring our town gave out free trees – we got several Dogwood trees, a handful of Hybrid Chestnut trees and 6 tiny white pines. Some of the Dogwoods and Chestnuts are struggling, but the white pines have flourished and will eventually grow immense like their majestic brethren. I'll be long dead before they're as big as the tree that split, but it's comforting to know someone else will enjoy them.

So this weekend I have to go out and start cutting my tree limb from limb. I don't look forward to doing it – not just because it's going to be a long, arduous process, but because when I'm done there will be a gaping space where a friend once stood.

Du kannst mir sehr gefallen.

The Letter "E"

The grade of E – "Marginally Failing"

A good friend and fellow academician recently sent me a brief email about the grade of E. Because we are both equally sick to death of the I just wanna get by, and the you owe me attitudes of the students that skulk around college campuses these days, she thought I might find this grade amusing, on some perverted level. She was right.

The title of this blog, "The Letter E," makes me immediately think of Sesame Street and some of the shtick they have used over the decades to teach little kids the alphabet, numbers, colors, etc. I'm of the Captain Kangaroo generation, and while I'm sure The Captain, Mr. Greenjeans, Bunny Rabbit, and Mr. Moose had some pretty lame ways of teaching things to my generation, I honestly don't remember them talking down to us the likes of Sesame Street and its distant cousin, that damnable, saccharine-besotted, wretched purple dinosaur, what's-his-name. Oh yeah, Barney. How could I forget Barney? Barney from Texas. Where else?

Anyway, it seems that the Sesame Street and Barney generations have been dumbed down ever further, if that's possible. Now, some universities are awarding their undergraduates' feeble non-efforts with the grade of E. The E is defined, by at least one university (which will remain nameless but you can find them here) as "Marginally Failing." Marginally failing? That sounds as improbable as being just a wee bit pregnant. What does it actually mean to be a marginal failure? Think about it – how does one marginally fail? I don't think one can marginally fail in the physics of this Universe. One word negates the other, nullifying both, making the term meaningless. Perhaps that's the point.

But wait. It gets worse. Take a look at the grade inflation from this same school, which it proudly and publically displays on its website for all to marvel at:

Grade	Grade Point	Per Cent Range	Description
A+	9	90-100	Exceptional
A	8	80-89	Excellent
B+	7	75-79	Very Good
B	6	70-74	Good
C+	5	65-69	Competent
C	4	60-64	Fairly Competent
D+	3	55-59	Passing
D	2	50-54	Marginally Passing
E	1	(marginally below 50%)	Marginally Failing
F	0	(below 50%)	Failing

Apparently, this isn't a fluke. This is turning into the norm. Even though I am not currently teaching, this trend still disturbs me. It should disturb everyone. Granted, the inclination to inflate (or deflate) grades is not new. God forbid instructors should fracture some little darling's ego with the truth: you suck at (insert subject here). But this grade of E – while it's not new, it's news to me.

So that we might get some perspective, we're now going to travel in the WABAC (pronounced wayback) Machine to "when I was in college," so bear with me and pay attention. This is important.

Back in the dark ages when the earth was still cooling (I first went to college in the early 70s), an A really meant something. It meant your performance was exceptional and you were well on your way to mastering a subject. An A was extremely rare, hard-earned, a thing of beauty, and a joy forever. An A was definitely a combined effort of student and professor, each working in collaboration -- the student there to learn and the professor able and willing to help make that happen. An A's numerical equivalent (be it A-, A, or A+) was somewhere between 90 and 100. Everyone concerned instinctively understood these numbers and letters and they made sense.†

B never found its way into the 90s. B lived strictly in the realm of the 80s. Neither did a B equate to something somewhere between a 70 and a 75. That was reserved for C. A B was right there next to an A, and one worked bloody hard to get it too. Not quite as rare as an A, it was still something to be proud of and still involved significant hard work, dedication, and discipline – both on the part of the student and the professor.

C never meant "fairly competent." That's another one of those nonsense phrases. A C hovered around 75, its plus and minus siblings nearby. It used to mean unremarkably average. Simply put, you wouldn't want your doctor, your lawyer, your veterinarian, your CPA, or your President to have a C average. Not if you were given a choice.

A D -- well, that was a Disgrace, something you hid from parents and friends alike because it was a shameful admittance of some inadequacy on your part. A D used to mean you're barely getting this stuff, you're definitely not college material, and we're not afraid to tell you, because our reputation as an institution of higher learning is far more important than your drop-in-the-bucket tuition or the sweet deal we just cooked up with (insert a brand name or military contract of your choice here). Getting a D was scandalous and solicited outrage from tuition-paying parents towards their kids, not towards the professors. A D used to mean, you should consider ditch digging or table waiting as a career move. In today's world, one might instead suggest running for political office or working for the TSA.

If you accumulated just a couple of D's you were invited not to return to college. Sure, there was academic probation but there was a strict limit on the number of crappy grades you could accumulate before you were ushered off campus. For good. Period. End of story. There was no revolving door greased by more tuition money thrown at the scam of remediation. (Don't know a noun from a hole in the ground? Wouldn't know a cosine from a 'for rent' sign? That's what high school is for. Go back. Tell them you want a do-over. Make them do their jobs! And please quit coming to college expecting to get a high school education.)

Back in the day, not really that long ago, the first two years of college classes were designed to beat you senseless with enough material to make your head swell and your eyes bleed. Classes were rigorously designed with the singular aim of identifying and weeding out the unintelligent, unintelligible people, the slackers, the dim-wits, and the droolers from those with brains and more than a little potential. Students weren't remediated, they weren't indulged, and they weren't entitled to anything. Shitty performances resulted in shitty grades that were easily understood (D = you're dumb; F = you're really really dumb; get a napkin and wipe your chin), and neither was tolerated for long. No one ever got an E, because no one could have even imagined such tripe as "Marginally Failing." The alphabet of college grades skipped a letter and dropped you from the D of you really can't cut it to the F of go live the rest of your uninspiring life in your parents' basement. Even in the lingo of the post-modern, which has the deliberate if dubious intentionality to be obscurely unintelligible, purposely incomprehensible, and affectingly effusive, the mashing of the words marginal and failure stretches the limits of the pomo dislexicon.

Seriously, consider this: if synonyms for competent include knowledgeable, proficient and skilled, and fairly means reasonably, one has a hard time believing a C, which truthfully corresponds to unexceptionally average, is now instead equivalent to reasonably knowledgeable, proficient, and skilled. A D, which has morphed into meaning "marginally passing," (the parasitic twin of "marginally failing") used to mean either try a lot harder or get out of the way and make room for someone who not only has the capacity to learn but wants to learn.

This E grade. I'm still working it out. But in its current incarnation it seems to be an amalgamation of student ineptitude, administration acquiescence, professor apathy, and our culture's aversion to acknowledge the truth.

It's no exaggeration to state that most students today come to college woefully unprepared and uninspired. Their eyes and voices are as hollow as their minds. What the system has done to them, what their parents have done to them, what their teachers have done to them, and what they have done to themselves -- to be this vacant-- is for another blog. But void, vacant, and hollow they are. To them, I am sure, an E makes perfect sense. Whatever.

Then we have the administrators. They're so busy trying to cut big money deals with corporations so they can keep their institutions' doors open they haven't time to worry about what goes on in the trenches, so some made-up grade like an E isn't even on their radar. Most college administrators are some version of education majors anyway, so they're used to making shit up. It's part of the degree. So the E goes unnoticed as one more meaningless marker on a transcript. Grades are all arbitrary anyway, aren’t they?

And professors are either so sick of the whining coming from students and parents alike that they have resorted to make-believe grades as an inside joke, a grade as devoid of meaning as their students' efforts; or they themselves are part of that Barney generation where handing out phony grades that make students feel better is easier than making the Herculean effort to pry something out of their lifeless charges. It's hard, thankless work, struggling to inspire students to disengage themselves from their i-gadgets and reengage with something besides themselves. Some professors have cynically concluded, and rightfully so, that it's simply no longer worth the effort.

I've decided that this new grade of E most likely stands for equivocation and evasion. It's truly an inspired misrepresentation, forged from the pits of pop-psychology, designed to non-tell the receiver he's simply dumb as dirt but academia hasn't the stomach to tell him.

Super Dee Duper!

Whatever.


† In his 1993 article Mark W. Durm indicates that Mount Holyoke, in 1897, developed the first letter grading system. Check it out. They'd be rolling on the floor over the give-away grades used today, but look at that E!

— A: excellent, equivalent to 95 to 100 percent
— B: good, 85 to 94 percent
— C: fair, 76 to 84 percent
— D: barely passed, 75 percent
— E: failed, below 75 percent

“The percentage equivalents were tougher than most systems today. The next year, Mount Holyoke tightened them further, making a B from 90 to 94 percent, a C 85 to 89 percent, a D 80 to 84 percent, an E 75 to 79 percent, and adding a sixth grade, the soon-to-be-famous F, which was anything below 75.”

Leave it to women to expect excellence. Yeah for Mount Holyoke. You go, girls! For those who followed the link to the un-named university above, shame on you, York University in Canada. It's only a matter of time before your wretched E trickles down to the States.

Blame Canada!