So you think you can

I've had with all these shows that begin with the words 'So you think you can." So, I've developed a list of "So you think you can " postulates.

So you think you can get a job- really, where? doing what and for how long?

So you think you have freedom of speech? You're free to say what the system has programed you to say.

So you think you can stand on a street corner and rant and rave about the insanity of this world? Scream loud enough and you'll be put into a mental hospital.

So you think that you're not crazy? That's the first symptom. They've got you now.

So you think you have a chance? Do you really think you have a chance? Fat chance- Oops. politically incorrect. Slim chance- wait- how can those two have the same meaning? I'll have to think about it.

So you think you can't deal with this crazy world without a drug, a crutch , an escape?

So you think that if you start using drugs you'll be able to cope better?

So you think that you can get away with it?

So you think that you can't get arrested and sent to jail, but you do.

So you think that you are innocent until proven guilty?

Then why do you get arrested and go directly to jail before your trial?

So you think you can get a fair trial by a jury of your peers?

How many drug using jurors will there be to judge you?

So you think you can be rehabilitated, get out of jail and get a job? See the first entry.

So you think you can get an education, graduate and earn a degree.

So you think you can think.

Reading

This blog will be all about me... as if the others weren't and will concern reading.  I don't remember not being able to read so I can't say when I learned or whether I taught myself.  I don't think I did.. Currently I am reading 3 books: The Four Agreements, The Lost Wife and White Noise.  No three books could be more different.  The Four Agreements is about Toltec wisdom and spirituality.  The Lost Wife about concentration camps and families sent to Terezin ( a show camp) and Aushwitz. It is a tragedy and a love story of epic proposrtions.  At times I can only read a page or two, the events being so devastating, the inhumanity so immense.  Finally White Noise.. a black comedy  which I've read before (several times).  Often I read a s many as half a dozen books simultaneouly. Not bad for a guy who read 1-2 books in high school  My reading and self-edacation began the day of my collge graduation  (which I wa unable to attend for financial reasons). On that day I began Moby Dick  So what's the big deal.. many people read and read several books at the same time.  Yes, true but I discovered over the years that I have 2 very unique abilities.  The first one is that I can begin a book, read perhaps half of it, then put it down for an extended period of time and then pick it up and begin reading as though I had never stopped reading.  The second skill is one I must have developed when I taught.  In order to keep students attentive and enjoy what is called 'shared reading' I often, most often read  books aloud to my students.  I'd often practice, voices, accents, cadences and other elements to make my reading more fluid and hence more interesting to students.  Some books I have read as many as two dozen or more times. Some books I can quote passages from memory or if asked about a particular episode, I can site chapter and page.  Nothing amazing about that.. but here comes the freaky part.  One day while reading Of Mice and Men of Huck Finn aloud, I realized that I was thinking about other things, making plans, planning.  In short, while I was reading one book aloud, my brain could think of other things.  Perhaps it's just that I had memorized the text and my mouth was working independently, perhaps.  But it was freaky.. how can that be I asked myself.  I shrugged my shoulders and used that unique skill to my advantage.  I could make plans for my next class (say I was teaching Macbeth next) while reading of Mice and Men.

So it is that a guy who read less than a handful of books in high school and not too many more in college has now read thousands and that doesn't include the books I've read numerous times.  Some may wonder how a teacher (like myself) could read the same books aloud year after year and not get bored?  The secret is that every time I read a book I was a different person and came to the page a different person.  Of course there was also the fact that between readings I had learned something new that made the book that made it  even more impressive.  For example in The Lord of the Flies.. the twins (Sam n Eric) have a inside joke about their teacher whom they refer to as old 'waxy'. I often wondered why old waxy which I learned later was because in previous times, people used wax on their faces to cover the pox marks.. hence the saying crack a smile.. So it came to me that old 'waxy' had waxed his face and was a very stern task-master.  Little gems such as that were added to my discussions and information sharing.  Another book that I really loved reading aloud and which was inaccessible to most of my junior classes is The Scarlet Letter.  There are passages so profoundly beautiful that I reveled in reading them and such phrasing as the women of the town use to refer to Hester Prynne as  "the naughty baggage" always got a chuckle.

Often when reading a great book ( and The Lost Wife) is in that category.. I will put it down , the book that is.  I find that the experience is so overwhleming and wonderful that I don't want to finish the book.  Day by day the books and plays I've read and studied gain more depth.  Tom Stoppard's End Game befuddled me until I saw a piece on the History Channel that explained that end game is a method of playing chess by starting in the middle of a game rather than at the beginning.  One year I taped myself reading Animal Farm so that I could play the tape and grade papers simultaneously. One day while the tape was playing,  I saw a shadow outside the door to my room (it was an open school so there was no door but I saw a shadow shifting this way and that). When I went to see who was there, it was my supervisor..who dressed me down for my creativity.  She said she thought I was actually reading the book instead of attending to other things.  I responded that books on tape were a very popular thing.. this happened probably 15-20 years ago.  From my viewpoint I was using my time wisely and had given of my free time to tape the novel.  It was a damn good rendition.. I wish I had it so I could  hear myself reading it.  I added music between chapters to signal myself and students that it was time to move on to a discussion or a written assignment.  This is how creative teachers are often treated.
In the Fall of 1992  I took the giant leap and brought Jurassic Park into my tenth grade classes The assigned book for tneth graders is and was Great Expectations.. and when my daughter read Jurassic Park and asked why her class couldn't read interesting books like Jurassic Park.. I answered the challenge.  First, where would I get the money to buy 30 copies of the paper back?  The principal had no money, the supervisor had no money.  So I solicited funds from local business people, the orthodontist and a pediatrician.  This was a definite no-no.  Why?  It has come to me lately that what I was doing was demonstrating how unnecessary supervisors are in education and how defensive they become when a teacher comes up with an original and enticing idea!  You see supervisors are supposed to know it all.  Since that time our county curriculum expressly states that no book can be taught except those approved by the school board!  Mea culpa.  But those kids loved Jurassic Park.. and even began reading all of Michael Crichton's books, as I had been doing.  It gets better... on the last day of school that year, my classes and I went to see Jurassic Park at a local theater, a day before it opened in the theaters.  But that's not all.. on October 28, 1992 my classes interviewed Michael Crichton via teleconference.  Quite a year for those kids. By the way it was his 50th birthday. He is gone now and I miss his writing!  I wrote it all up and submitted the unit to the MIldred Dodge Curriculum Contest and received a reply that I had not won the prize but was mentioned as an honorable mention in that prestigious contest.  I'd gotten my students involved in something and they loved it.  I'd pissed off the big wigs. Which reminds me Watership Down was another of those novels I introduced into the country curriculum.. I taught what I loved and I loved what I taught.  I would force myself to love a required piece.. I had never read or seen Hamlet but one weekend a snow storm was expected, so I got a copy of the play, a tape of the play and a case of beer and sat down and listened to it.  I then watched several different versions of the play.

That's all folks.

I've got cancer

There's a title post meant to catch the reader's eye.  Most of my readers ( the three or four) already know that I have cancer and have had it for over a year and have been receive treatmetns and procedures that will number 15 after tomorrow.  Yes thomorrow is my 15 different visit for this cancer.  It will be the third operation-procedure.. Add to that 12 bcg-interfuron and 3 cystoscopic procedures and the reader may deduce it's been a tough year.  But that's not all. In my spare time I've had 24 dental appointments at the U of MD Dental School. Some of the appointments were not so bad - others rather awful  I've had bone grafts, extractions, implants and finally the worst of them all a grinding of the bone graft and upper jaw bone into a smooth service.  When the pain killers wore off that pain was comparable to most anything I've known.. from a gall bladder that nearly burst, to several kidney stones and for a time cluster migraines. So I know my way around pain and procedure.  Lord have mercy!  But for some reason this next procedure set for 1 p.m. tomorrow afternoon has wrought havoc on my nerves. I've not been this upset or frightened because I have been working on being more healthy, more active and less destructive to my own bladder. IN short I've tried to clean up my act and give up thins that weren't necessarily the cause but certainly weren't helping.. and it has been tough. First I've not been able to treat my pain with anything but tylenol which after 2 years of monthly prescriptions for serious pain medication.. vicoden, hydrocodone and so on with regular use of Ultram.. the last week has been a diffcult weaning.  Ultram dear readers is an addictive drug.. take from me.  That;s the bad news.. the good news in ibuprophen is as effective and not addictive, but alas I have not been allowed to take it either.  I am anxious to distraction.. I have to having nothing after 7 a.m. and my procedure is set for 1.. that's a long time for a person with bladder problems to be without water. I always prefer the early morning procedures.. but I am resolute.. I will arise a 5, have coffee and scraml bled eggs and go back to bed until 11 or 12.
There's isn't much more to say but good night, Wish me well.

Industrial Strength Superstition

I am the son of the son of first generation immigrants. I grew up poor but with a tremendous store of industrial strength superstition. We were Greek Orthodox but so was everyone else we knew. Diversity- didn't exist. If you have Greek ancestry and hold to it, you find an enclave of Greeks and a church, then move in. Mostly that first generation in PA came from the same island. It was the same everywhere Greeks moved from Chicago to Boston to Baltimore to Pittsburgh there is a Greek Town built with a church at its epicenter. The center of life in all of America's Greek Towns was the church with its candles, its incense, its 3 hour Sunday morning liturgy and its industrial strength superstition... and like most of my friends I was an altar boy even though I was actually only half Greek... my other half didn't have much to do with my emotional or intellectual growth though I treasured it.

Some things are required and universal for those of Greek ancestry- First and foremost was the language... It was impossible not to speak or understand Greek. It was an ocean in which one was immersed - it was every where and on every one's tongue. Admittedly my Greek is not very good because my mother was not Greek though she did learn to speak a bastardized and entirely auditory dialect.. Hillbilly Greek some called it. And since my mother was a Southerner I got a double dose of hillbillism.. My mother's family being Floridians who traced their roots to the late 18th century. My mother's father was descended from the Oglethorpe Colony in Georgia. My Greek grandparents were also considered hillbillies and their dialect distinctive.

Some may have thought less of me because of my mixed heritage. Certainly my father's siblings and their children always projected a superior attitude because of their unfettered heritage. I thought it a great benefit to be both American and Greek... The clannishness of the Greeks seemed foreign to me... and summer vacations to Florida were the most welcomed time of the year. In my Greek world, Christmas as it has been practiced in America did not exist. Perhaps it was the abject poverty in which I was raised. More likely it was fundamental focus on Easter as the single most important holiday of the year.. holy-day, if you like.

I was born in Florida and then moved to a small town near Pittsburgh PA. I remember the flight from Jacksonville to Pittsburgh when I was three... and the harsh winters of that area. One memory of the nature of the cold involves my papou (Greek grandfather) feeding coal into the huge furnace in the basement of the family home. Trying to reconstruct the event plagued me for years until I remembered how brashly, vociferously I complained about the cold linoleum floor, the deep snows, the vicious winds and I guess my Papou decided to add warmth to the house. I recall his taking me by the hand and walking me down from the second floor to the basement. He opened the furnace door and the flames, the firey red glow both impressed and frightened me. Why and when we moved I cannot say because my mother was never very explicit about events and movements in those years.

For Greeks the home, the family and the church were the three most important aspects of life. These punctuate much of Greek life... Even making the sign of the cross is performed three times.. always three, three times around the altar and church in a Greek wedding. Three expectorations at christenings to stave off the Devil. And of course the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost though my memories of religious zeal always involved the Holy Mother- the Panayea as she is called.

I liked much about the closeness of family. Aunts, uncles, cousins by the dozens provided a security that many never know. But alas that early life in the transplanted Greek village was to change. When I was ten we moved to Greek Town in Baltimore, which ironically was more Greek than the little town where my Greek grandparents and their extended families had emigrated. In PA everyone was related. Baltimore was much the same except that the Greek community was larger and there were less relatives. Still there was the distinct flavor of a transplanted ethnic community. Most of the people in that small section of Baltimore were Greek... the difference being that in PA the first generation had come from Asia Minor and the island of Rhodes. In Baltimore Greeks from all corners of the Greek world came together... Rhodians Athenians, Cretans, and on and on. Dialects varied and my hillbilly Greek was often the butt of jokes.

Like all children of Greek heritage I was sent to Greek school. The elders attempted to keep the culture they knew alive, the language, the dances, the rituals. But I never liked Greek school because of its harsh authoritarian nature. Physical punishment was often inflicted and after several years of Greek school I decided at the tender age of 8 to drop out. Later while living in Baltimore I was sent to Greek school again... and again I made the decision not to stay the course my friends were following. After all I was only half Greek.. and I was living in America.

But that was the confusing part.. we were Greeks but unshakably patriotic.. all my uncles served in the military with both valor and praise be to God without being injured or killed.

Well that's not entirely true... my father had been irreparably damaged by his years in the Pacific.. he went to the Pacific theater with a sheltered and sweet nature and returned a frightened, angry and schizophrenic victim. So I was tagged with three terrible disadvantages (there would be more).

First I was a half-breed and few full bloods ever allowed me to forget it. Second my father was schizophrenic and third we were among the poorest of the poor in both communities because my father was never able to hold down a job. Add to that I was an only child until I was in the second grade...

My next major calamity cut short my manhood before it began. At sixteen I smashed an automobile into a wall and knocked out six of my front teeth. So I became a marginal man without a smile. My good looks, a damn curse, taken from me in an instant. I've spent the rest of my life suffering and ashamed. The misfortunes in my life continued when at age 19 I was left alone with my schizophrenic father during the high times of the 1960's. My mother took my brothers and left. Alone without guidance I drifted into the late 60's without advice or income. At age 20, almost 21 I followed suit and left my father's house, broke, broken and alone.

Economic

Recently it occurred to me that a statement such as 'support your local black market' carries with it both cynicism and racism. Wow and yikes, where do we go in consdering this rather facious double-entendre! I'd say just about nowhere and just about everywhere! So what's the big deal, money and progress or the loosening of the moral fiber of this nations long-held traditions and mores. A mouthful of slobby insinutation carries with it both humor and anger. So, far I am merely skinning the onion,. At that I lay down my pen and allow my eyes some respite. Eyes do get tired, look dim, filmy, orby, white, splotched, devil's blood red.

SItting on the dock of the bay wasting my time.

You gotta do what you gotta do but don't over-do it!

Ok, so this blog starts off with one of those tired sayings that are as true as they are worn out!  I had to add my own but of spice to it! I am allowed to do that.. It's called poetic freedom. Today on the third day of my new life, I did more than I ought to have. I suppose I'm in denial of a sort.. two surgeries and 12 treatments can drive a person to distraction.  When I first got the prognosis of bladder cancer and an all too optimistic prognosis I didn't take it to heart.  But cancer is a bitch.. a real nasty bitch, not to be overlooked or considered lightly. True bladder cancer is seldom fatal.. But am I in the seldom category or the survivor and am I in any way able to decide.  YES says I on the first day of summer, on the first day of a new life.. a birthday for the sun and for the sinner as I dub it.  eecummings said it better than I ever could. The trouble with cummings is that he is so inventive and unpredictable that his poems are almost impossible to memorize.  Memorize! Ooops.. now there's a word that's gone out of style.. or maybe it's coming back.  Memorizing poetry went out with high top shoes but you know high top shoes never truly went out of style.  As a former teacher.. (which is a bit like saying a former Marine) I expect that some brilliant minds ( probably on the West Coast or at the Ivy League ) will propose that schools should go back to requiring memorization. It's never really gone out of style.. I remember as a kid in second or third grade memorizing the 5 tables.. loved it so much I memorized , 6,7,8 and 9 tables just for the heck of it.  I worked my way up to the 12 tables just for the sheer joy of it. Then as a young Greek-American of sorts.. we were required to memorize a poem and recite it before the class.  Now there is some rock solid great instructional demands.  Imagine standing before a class of peers and reciting a poem (in a foreign language at that).  Fenga rikey mou lambro, Fenga mou na perpato, Tha peino sto schoolio, tha matheno grammata, grammata ti pragmata, tou Theo ta pragmata.  Any Greek-American kid who went to Greek school knows that one, literally a credo to go to school and learn math and language.  A poem with a lasting meaning in mixed trochaic meter!
Yikes and wow.. hope I haven't lost too many readers with that one.. I learned it over fifty years ago.. I remember hoping not to be the first to have to recite so that I might listen and learn as others recited!  Which I did and it worked.  Then there was the memorization of the Greek National Anthem.. which we all did and sang.  It may seem un-American but it really wasn't.  But I'll bet at the time J. Edgar Hover had his eyes and ears on the Hellenistic community.  The Greeks were suspected of being socialists at the time which they no doubt were, but aren't we all now?
Bill Mahrer was on tv the other night and though I seldom watch him I have to agree with what he said about Socialism.  Everybody fears and yet everybody wants it.  And now we've got it right here in America thanks to FDR and Ms. Perkins.  Hey, if you don't know who Ms. Perkins was, google her up!  Great, great lady. God bless her soul! As to FDR.. Hoover even had a file on him and the Mrs.  Now there was a blooming socialist, feminist.  Thank God they were here when we needed them.  For those who don't know anything about American during Hoover.. well, it was a different world.  Presidents came and went but Hoover ran the show.  Here's a nugget for you, I've read that J. Edgar knew about Pearl Harbor before it happened!  Find that hard to believe.. well who wouldn't.  But you moderns have no idea what this country was like before 1972.. actually I like to put the critical year of change as 1962.  American after 1962 became a much different and better place for many people.
That's all I've got for you folks. Tomorrow is another day in the fight against cancer for so many of us.  Be well my friends.You may call me the second most interesting man in the world.  Kali nicta sous!  Good night all.

Lem

Futility and then fun.

Nothing from Websters on this ,just a joke at my own expense.  I took apart my CharBroil Grill today and cleaned it. Several hours in the hot sun disassembling and cleaning for a nice grilled burger.  The darn thing looked good too.. too darn good.  Late in the day, after the sunburn and the aching muscles, I discovered.. it was all just futility.. there was no propane in the tank.  The one thing I always do, I didn't do.. that is turn the darn thing off last summer. So it sat, under a cover, strapped to the deck so it would not blow away and it slowly fizzled.  Yes, I said strapped to the deck.  One year the wind blew so fiercely from the West that the grill actually rolled from one end of the deck to the other with (at that time) a full tank of propane.  I have adopted a new outlook on life.. instead of being ticked, a shrugged it off. I'll fill it on Monday and we'll barbecue chicken.  Shucks no big deal. But I did work my butt off for two hours, a very good thing because I've promised myself to stop napping and start cracking.  I took a break and a shower.. it was a blazing hot sun and an hour later I walked a mile. Yesterday it took 25 minutes.. today, even after all the work, it took 22!  I made sure to drink lots and lots of fluids.  My urologist ordered me to drink 6 glasses of anything I want every day, coffee, cola, water, beer.  I'm sticking to as much water as possible.

Then we watched The Other Boleyn Sister. A very pretty movie about a very nasty bit of business.  I can't say I liked it but I did learn a great deal. Which brings me back to my keyboard for another round in the diminishingly interesting blogs called Lem's Gems.
Bet the gentle reader ( or 2) doesn't sense a significant change in my mood and manner. But it has happened!  Hallelujah etc. etc. . I was reunited with my Lord God on the day before the Summer Solstice and am at peace with many things in my life.  I say in my life beause it's the only one I have and I've too often allowed things and people to stand before my own well-being and family.  Lord be praised.. what I sought 44 years ago was stabillity and a family.. I have them both now!  All thanks to God and my wife.. a Titan of a woman.  She is my foundation and rock on this Earth, brought to me in my darkest hours by the Will of God.  There is no better person, no better woman than my wife.  She is not a saint but she is and was a my comfort and salvation all the days we have been together.  Who else would have endured such a wretch and bore.. a liar, thief, druggie, alcoholic and general jack-ass jerk?  Rhetorical of course.  To be so loved is an honor and a miracle.  Few men have known a woman of her bearing and been loved by such a woman.  Futillity, then fun.. my life in a phrase but not as an ending.

For tonight June 22, 2013 it is enough to say, good night!

Da fountin of yoot

Years ago I thought I'd try to write a novel in dialect.. a hefty undertaking for any writer especially one who wasn't literate enough to write anything.  Yeah so the Henry Higgins thing  in G.B. Shaw's Pygmalion was quite an inspiration. I tried like bloody hell to merely imitate her dialect and thought I'd gotten it down very well.  The trouble is that my own odd mixture of dialects kept bumping into each other on their way to the page.  Even worse was my education. When I was in high school the academic track kids were not allowed to take keyboarding or auto shop.. we were locked into art and music.  OK so you sacrifice a little here and there and deal with it.  I got to take calculus and chemistry which have had their own positive benefits in my life but I'd sure like to be able to type without hunting and pecking and so dear reader (if there be one) mistakes in my writing are not necessarily caused by ignorance by lack of manual dexterity on the keyboard.  I compensate and spend as much time correcting my errors as I do writing which is a darn waste,
Years later when my children were in high school my wife and I not only encouraged them but nearly demanded they take keyboarding.  When I see my children at the computer, their fingers fairly well dance on the keys.. Academics do have their limitations.  We had a few practical courses, Home Ec for example!  But my clasmates drove the poor lady into a mental breakdown... I kid you not.  She did recover and returned to teaching after our class (or classlessness) graduated. So why do I bring this up now forty-nine years later?  Just to make the point Huckleberry Finn made about a person not getting raised up right not being able to do right later (which Huck does by not informing on Jim),  You see that's the gist of the book.. So I'm being an officious scholarly butt.
Back then we never thought about death.. we studeied no poems about death and not a single member of my high school graduating class was killed in Viet Nam, probably because so many were in college when we were called up by the draft.  Pay back and good fortune.. we were on the academic track to free sex and marijuana which as it turns out wasn't as I said a fountin of yoot.  Here I sit on the eve on my 50th anniversary of high school graduation wondering how and where the time went.  Who doesn't think these things.  Today I decided (which is subject to change an any instant) that I shall not attend a fiftieth reunion.. what's the purpose?  Things were much different back then.  Our high school actually had a rifle team and out here in the sticks boys would bring their hunting rifles to school and leave them in the office or on the racks of their pick ups.  What a schmuck I was.. thinking these damn yokels didn't have a thing, a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out as we used to say.  But those damn farm boys came from stock that was handy and tough.  The Germans and the Japanese never really understood how tough Americans are.  Are we that tough today.. I'd say no but we have technology that makes hand to hand and ground war a thing of the past though we continue to press forward with it.
We weren't the greatest generation.. we were the luckiest.  I know nothing about war and am glad but I have found da fountin of yoot!  It's in our children and their children which as it turns out I have both.  Yes, I' ve known hard times and in many ways my yoot was a tough one.  Why?  Because I was so darned hard-headed and had a short measure of ADD.. which I now say is Adult didn't discipline.  Yes I said it.. my generation was so loved, so beloved that it went its way and disregarded much of the advice our parents and teachers offered.  Lucky are the kids who had strict parents, who went to church, who grew up in good homes with parents who worked and tried to make their lives (that is their kids lives as well as their own) better.  They did it all.  They lived through the depression, a World War and even through parenthood.  But they are falling by the day, each day the world is a little less wonderful as the greatest generation goes off to its reward.  We hope.. no we know they (most of them) will be in eternity waiting for us and many of us with a maudlin bent of mind pray earnestly and ferverntly that what we learned in Sunday School is all true!
Until the older generation began passing in numbers, we children of heroes and saints lived in a fairy land, a Disney World, or as one poet called it A Coney Island of the Mind.  Now as the afflictions that struck down our parents begin to claim us, we ( and I mean me) begin to see things as they are rather than as they ought to be or as we want them to be!  I think one spends the first part of life not thinking about death and the last part thinking about nothing else.  Which concludes today's little shadow dance of inspiration and insipid platitudes. This is what I really started out to say.. the thing about dialects was a warm up. Now that the restraints are off I might just say anything or something but I doubt it.  Go your way, tender reader I won't waste any more of our time.. You know we were always warned about wasting time, but we didn't listen.  Now time grows short, the eyes grow dim, the hair gray, the back stooped and the laughter muffled.
Be of good cheer and don't waste your time.  Gotcha!  The theme of Pygmalion is just this.. you can turn a gutter rat into a society lady but scratch her and she's still a gutter snipe.  Good night.. and as CSN once said.. Everybody I love you. Peace and out!

Whoopa Muthafuckas

The Greeks are back.. whoopa!  So what's the deal why the cussin and fussin because the Greeks are back.. Of course Bob Costas is always everywhere there is a sport being played, commenting in his commerically generated voice.. smooth Bob... How the Hell did he get the greatets sports gigs in all of television?  Yes, he's good looking (hey most Greek men are, take it from me), yes his voice is soooo sooothing and his diction flawless.  He seems like an eternal Greek God sent from Mt. Olympus or from the first Olympics as a representative of the Olympian Gods.  Costas may even be the son of an immortal.  Well, that is if the Greeks had  a broadcast news God.  Another fixture George Stamos is every middle American house wife's dreamy cup of yogurt,, Truth is Greek yogurt sucks, actually sick ass sucks. It's bitter but bit does marvels for the digestive tract. I suggest Jamie lee Curtis try some of the real stuff with a shot of ouzo to wash it down. She'll be spurtin in no time.  Legend has it that in olden days Greeks lived to be 200 years old by simply living on grapes and yogurt.. with some ouzo and retsina to liven up gatherings.  But tonight, yes tonight on CNN at 11 o'clock George Strombolopoulos made his debut with an interview with Bill Marher (sp?). I'm skipping George Stephanopoulos, sorry George.. there's a new George on TV. Back to the new guy.. again we had to important talent. Don't we produce anything anymore?
Nice start for an upstart Canadian Helene but the Greeks are back.  Troy has been conquered and the Greeks are back.  Yikes and wow and whoopa.  I'm betting the two words of Greek that all Americans know are ouzo and feta, a few may add kalamata.
The Greeks as most ethnic groups go underground and resurface every decade or so.. from Jimmie the Greek. who wasn't a Greek to Helen Pappas and the one and only Spiro Agnew, Greeks have been rising like the phoenix every so often.  Oh yeah amd whoopa... the Greek dance/battle cry. Most Americans have heard the word.. but what does it mean to them.  Well to me it signifies an ancient cry of joy and celebration.  Meet a Greek, he'll tell you he's a Greek, Meet a Greek woman, she'll offer to cook you stuffed grape leaves, then try to convert you to Greek Orthodoxy.. the one, the true, the only perpetural Christian sect.
 And what a day to announce that the Greeks are back but the first day of summer, the longest day of the year!  Look out we may actually have a Greek president some day.. you know we almost did. I'm not alking about Michael Dukakis in 1990 and his infamous tank shot where his head was lost in his helmet.  The Greek who might have been president was Spiro Agnew.. Remember him, former Maryland governor and vice president to Richard Nixon. He (Agnew) whose head had to fall before Nixon could be ousted. Alas my fellow compatriots.. our best shot was Paul Tsongas who to our mutual loss, died of cancer.  We've been close but the Africans got there first.. that's ok.. The Africans also got to the islands and intermingled with the islanders (not always with mutual consent but such is war and conquest).  Yes, fans and fannies.. the Greeks were a fair haired, blued eyed race with varying shades of blonde, and even red hair. Today's Greeks may be dark or fair, tall or short.  But always they will tell you they are Greeks and every so often the Greeks come out from behind the counters of the restaurants and announce their presence.  Of course, the Greek restaurant monopoly (  Greek word combo) has suffered at the hands of the franchise fastfood mania.  But this I'll guarantee you.. go to any major or even minor city on the East Coast of the US and you'll find a Greek dinner.  Shucks, I've found them in Sassaktoon, Saskechewan and Wiinepeg in Canada.  Greek philosophy, find a way to make a living, work like hell, send you kids to college to be doctors, sell the restaurant and the property you left in the Old Country and settle in for a nice relaxing retirement in your gaudily appointed house.  No ethnic group, not even the Phillipinoes have more crucifixes in their homes.  Find a Greek and you'll hear the words the Old Coountry, spoken in hushed and reverent tones as if the Old Country weren't just a pile of rocks with soil that has been farmed to uselessness.
Before I close.. who of my readers ( those 2-3 faithful) has not seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding?  Kanenas!  Oops, that's Greek for no one of us.  We're here, we pay taxes, our kids do well in school, we fight for our adopted country.. we dance and drink and try against all odds to keep the Greek traditions and language alive.  Whoopa.. and good night to my wonderful cousin who has asked me to come out of hiding and start my writing again.  I'm back and thank goodness for my English to Greek Ap on my IPad..
Oops.. I forgot to give credit to the title.. it was coined by Jeffrey Eugenides in his novel Middlesex.. I sorta shifted a few vowels to make it more Baltimorese.  Thanks Jeffrey!
To conclude I leave you with the advice of Zorba.. the Greek, of course.  His advice was to live every day as if it were your last while living everyday as though you were never going to die?  Whooopa.. or in English, just whoop it up mother-fucker.  Enough for tonight.
kali knicta sas

I'm back.

Readers and others, I'm back.  Myt last post was probably a year ago and what a year.  In the last year, I've had 2 surgeries for bladder cancer and 12 follow-up treatments.  I also had as many as 14 dental appointments usually once a month. Some of the dental treatments were not painful, some very much so.  Unaware that there was a problem I took a job as a softball coach. I had passed blood in my urine and the day before the first practice I had my first bladder surgery.  Shoot there's much more to this than I've said.  Well here it comes.
On the date of my first bladder surgery I woke with a migraine!  Yeah just what I'd hoped for more pain.  I did not use my migraine medicine. Rather I called the hospital and asked if it would be ok to take Imitrex before a surgery.  I was told not to the Imitrex, that I'd be given something before the surgery and boy was I.  While being prepped for the surgery, a dose of dilaudid was added to the fluids that were being pumped into my body,  Whew.. when the diludid hit I went into a spin.  I've never experienced anything like that. But here I add that the dilaudid didn't affect the headache except make it hurt less.  Then off I went to surgery.  I think they gave me propinal.. I hope that's right... the drug that killed Michael Jackson.  What an experience. When I woke from the surgery a nurse handed me a hydrocodone.. Whatever propinal is it gave me the best most satisfying sleep I've ever had.  I woke from the surgery rested and hopeful that the cancer had been excised.  What followed was 6 consecutive weekly visits with bcg treatments.  BCG is a form of  tubeculosis which is supposed to stimulate the immune system to kill the cancer on its own. Unfortunately after 6 weeks another growth was discovered so a second surgery was required.  This time I had no headache and no dilaudid.. no problem.. I didn't really want the mix of three drugs to greet me when I woke.  The second surgery completed I had to undergo another 6 weeks of immune system therapy.  In the second series of treatments interfuron was added.  The interfuron had the unpleasant affect of making me tired all the time.  Then of course another cystoscopy was done and after the second 6 weeks of treatment.  I had another cystoscopy about two months ago and sorry to say there are a few splotches of cells that the urologist wants to excise.. this will happen on June 25, yes my friends a third bladder surgery.  I was relating this story to several fellows yesterday and they asked how the urologist gets into the bladder to remove growths or find new ones.  Bladder cancer is classified as a 'nuisance' cancer, seldom fatal unless the bladder wall has shrunk and the cancer can find its way to other places.  So far lucky on that count.. my bladder wall is relatively healthy. Something to cheer about.
Meanwhile back at the ranch I missed 80-90% of the regular season.  Slowly, gradually my bladder began to heal and I felt better.  All of this had initially caused me to lose weight and was I ever.  I think I bottomed out a 172.. and for a man 6-1 that is thin.  I was losing weight, had no energy and peeing blood, what a trio.  Once the first surgery was completed and before the bcg-interfuron I did attend one weekend of softball on March 2 and 3.  It was 38 degrees and snowing.  I sat next to a kerosene heater in the dugout and tried to keep the book.  But I hadn't brought my glasses so the book ended up being a mess, add to that, our opponenets were used the DP.. or designated player. In this area I had no experinece. Well not exactly.  The DP hits for another player but may also enter the game.  So, keeping the book that weekend didn't work.  My head coach must have wondered why he ever hired me!  But being a gracious man, he said that I was just like a player who was on the injury list I was still part of the team and that my priority was my health. Advice I followed closely.. as I healed a bit I began to put weigh on.. I went from 172 to 197 in three months but all my muscle tissue began to grow flabby.  Now, finally after 2 surgeries and 12 treatments I am gaining weight.  I'm still tired and tire easily.
During all of this I was also undergoing a massive reconstruction of my mouth with dental implants, bone grafts, extractions blah, blah, blah.  Some of the dental treatments were excruciating.. especially the bone graft surgery a year after the bone graft.  The dental surgeon opened the upper molar gum where the implant was placed.  Then, the return of the Inqusition.  The dentist had to smooth out the mandible and noe graft by grinding down some fo the graft and jaw bone.  When the pain block word off, I experienced the worst burst of pain I've ever had and this from a man who has passed kidney stones and suffered from migraines. I don't think that the mandible (jaw bone) was ever meant to be shaved and ground.  During all this I was prescribed vicoden, hydrocodone, Tylenol 3's by the dental school and the urologist.. so I was on a heavy diet of pain reliever drugs, eating like a horse and gaining weight.  So it was a week or two on a narcotic and a week or two off.  As a result as anyone who has ever taken hard drugs knows, constipation followed.  I was as I often said,
suffering from occasional regularity.  From an old friend I learned that one should take milk of magnesia when taking heavy narcotics.  I passed this onto my dentist who thanked me.. as I suggested that my dentist clue future patients to the binding effects of narcotics.  Well I helped the dental school by being a guinea pig of sorts.  I called myself the walking cadaver, pin cushion, professional patient and several other choice nicknames.  But here's a jolt for you. When I first started on the procedures my dentist did not do a good job of putting needles in the gums.  In the last few appointments I've noticed that she has gotten much better at inserting a needle.  Well, I did something to advance medicine or dentistry and now have a Hollywood smile.  OK, reader had enough? I have.  See you tomorrow.

He's back!!

I'm back!  Male Menopause.. is there such a thing?  Darn tooten there is or at least I'm experiencing it or maybe it's something else but I go from cold to hot in two seconds.  I'm sure everyone reading this is absolutely fascinated by or  perhaps not.  It matters not.  It seems that I've not blogged in almost 2 years.. just about as long as I have been involved with massive dental work at the University of Maryland Dental School, the first in the world and currently the best in the nation.  And was I lucky.. I happened to get the best periodontist at the dental school.  Th director of the school, a Dr. Driscoll, once said that Dr. Alexander was the best at rhe school and he added perhaps the best they've ever had at the school and I believe it. Dr, Gillian Alexander how lucky can I be.  She's a perfectionist who is in a class by herself.  Her husband is a periodontist majoring in mandibular transplants and she majored in maxillary transplants which in lay terms in lower jaw (mandible) and maxillary (upper jaw).  Her mother is a periodontist, her father is a perioddontist, her brother and husband are also perioddontisrs.  From the time she was literally a teenager, Gillian worked for her mother assisting her in her implant work.  So
Gillian is not only talented, competent perfectionist but also a very lovely happy lady. For two years I spent nearly every Tuesday with her from 1-5.. you heard that right but rather poorly stated.. Every Tuesday for 2 years I had a four hour dental appointment.. a few longer.. one that was acutally 8 hours long while Guillian crafted me a lower temporary plate. About half way through my dental work, I was diagnosed with cancer of the bladder. So for the last year or so I've had 2 operations and no less than 12 appointments!  Usually my weeks during that time were Tuesday, dentist in Baltimore.. 152 miles round trip; Wednesdays at home.. Thursday urologist's office for 8 o'clock or earlier appointments. I first noticed that my urine was beet red in early 2012 but passed it off as perhaps a kidney stone passing which didn't wake me because I was often on a pain killers for my dental work,  But the doctor said.. that would not be so.. a kidney stone will wake the dead.. When I passed my first stone I was 25 or so.. and at that time I thought I was dying.. pain is dimensions one never knew existed. So my wife and a few friends took me to a hospital on 33rd Street in Baltimore.  The doctors were not very sympathetic.. I guess lots of people with drug problems try to sneak a shot under the guise of passing a stone.  Well, I asked one of the smart ass doctors,  if I couldn't get something for the pain. His comment was they didn't want to mask the sympotoms which is what I wanted and needed. Anyone who has had or knows someone who has passed a kidney stone that first you feel you are going to die, then you fear you won't die and the pain returns for another shot of pain like there is no other. I've known pain and am one ,but I thought the kidney stone was the worst pain I'd ever had until September 9, 2001 when my gall bladder nearly burst and I had to have emergency surgery.  I reported to my principal the next day that I'd be out for a short time because I was having my gall bladder removed.  He (brand knew and trying to prove himself) asked if I couldn't postpone the surgery until the Spring or over Christmas.. I looked at him like he was an insect.. and replied.. the surgery had been scheduled and the doctors agreed the gall bladder had to come out. So I spent Septemer 10, 11, 12 on heavy-duty narcotics.  First I had to go to work on Monday, Septmeber 10 and write lesson plans for ar least a week.  I was at school on 9-11 making lesson plans and even teaching claasses, all in a stupor.  I saw the Twin Towers being hit on a desk top computer in counseling.. I shrugged my shoulders not realizing what I was seiing or what was happening.  Top all this off with the fact that our new superintendent decided to make 45 minute classes into 90 minute one.  A move I soundly criticized to fellow teachers and letters to the editor.  From then on I was a marked man.  I was given classes which were seemingly put together with some of the most difficult students.  As I used to say to my first principal at the school, a principal gave break a teacher's spirit, destroy his or her confidence just be putting all the rotten eggs in one basket. My first principal disagreed and anybody who disagreed with him was obviously mistaken.  I'd had some tough classes but the ones I had the 03-04 school year topped it all.  I retired on November 6, 2003... each year after 2001 I was getting more and more difficult students and I really got myself into trouble when I said that I no longer wanted to teach 12th grade Advanced Placement on TV because of the time and more probabaly because placement of classes made my job impossible.  My tv class was schedueled for last period of the day during the Fall semester.  It hit me almost immediately that 4 period day with an A-B alternately daily schedule was a nightmare.  Last period classes for advanced or honors classes should never be offered. Why?  Well, the truth is the best students are in those AP and Honor classes and that the kids in those classes were also kids who were in sports which meant that one day the cross country team was gone, next day volleyball, the next soccer.  So I never had my whole class together for the tv AP class  on either A or B Day You see  one AP class that ran on the B Day ( and was in my classroom) .  It was insanity and when aligned for the lack of administrative backing didn't come through I got so ticked, I retired.  The principal told me I couldn't do that but he being so new, he didn't know that as an elected member of the union I had been reponsible for allowing a teacher to break her contract to go back home and take a job.. she wasn't really good and was also unhappy.  The shool system thought it could.. what could it do.. make a person teach when the situaion and the teacher were totally not working.  So I opened that door and knew I could.
Well, we had a student teacher finishing up his time at the school and he took my job as his first job. He didn't do himself any good because he told the principal as I did that the classes were very troublesome and difficult and almost impossible to teach.  He was not hired on full time. At the same time I gave up my coaching of fast pitch girls softball.  My replacement had problems I never had.. one of his pitchers was caught with cocaine on the school bus on the way to a game. The girl was dropped from the team.. the replacment coach also left the system.  All of this because of a heavy-handed administrator and an incompetent principal.  Three good teachers lost because incompetent peopel often rise to the top ineducation! The next year the principal was moved to the most difficut school in the county where he spent what muct have been a terrible 7 yeara.  Then he was promoted to secondary school supervison at $120 K a year. We have gangs at that high school and I had friend who worked there who told me they had frequent lockdown and police presence for problems.  So, we had and have big city problems in a small town.
Who'd a thought.  To conclude for the night.. While my wife in I were in London in April, 2012 I began to first see actual spots of blood in the toilet, I had no energy and I was losing weight like crazy. At one point I dropped to 172 pounds on a 6-1 frame.. very thin , too thin. Well when we got hom I had my first real scare because there was so much blood in the toilet I called the urological center and was told I couldn't get an appointment until two months later. I whined that I was peeing blood and go in to see the nurse practitioner the next day.
She was wonderfull and immediately set in motion all the necessary details for a bladder surgery.. from the EKG to whatever else I had to have done prior to surgery.  Several days after the operation I was out coaching softball and hitting infield.  I tried to pitch some but just didn't have thre strength.  After that I was able to return for winter training, 6 a.m. every morning until Feb 1 when we began practicing outside.
Absolutelu nuts.. our first tournament was March 2-3... 4 games in two days.. about 16-20 hours outside in 38 degree cold with a icy wind blowing snow into the dugout. After that tournament I conceded that I needed to take care of myself and never really ever came back.
What I am going to do about next year - resign.  There I said.. I've been avoiding the reality that though my spirit is willing, the body is unable.  I really should have resigned when I found out I had cancer but after the surgery I felt so good, my appetite picked up and I gained over 20 pounds.
Now what do I do? Well dear reader, thanks for coming along on my personal narrative of how life has been hammering me lately. But 2012 is gone and 2013 is already much better with so many wonderful things beginning to show themselves.  One more surgery to go.. Seems I have 3 spots on the left side of my bladder the urologist wants to cut out or cauterize so that all the cancer cells in the bladder will be killed.  Still I have to have a cystoscopy every six months for 5 years and then once a year for 5 more. I was explaining how a cystoscopy is performed to a childhood buddy of my sons's. He (the kid) thought the doctor might go in throught he belly butteon or open the bladder by cutting open an aread below the belly button. When I explained the direct route, the guy winced, clapped he's knees together and shook his head saying that he didn't know if he could go through all that.. you'll do it to live and really I've learned to deal with tubes being placed in my penis and down the urethra. The tubes or whateve have a camera on them and a light.  But once the tube is in the bladder it doesn't hurt. I've just gotten used to it.. all except the mess after a cystocopy..
So friends, readers, fans I am schdeduled for the third surgical procedure on June 25th with the hope that this time we'll get all the cancer cells. Again prayers are asked for an answered, thanks to those who have prayed.. just keep it up.  Hey about those phone calls I didn't get, the get well cards I never received or visits that never happened.. well I forgive all and am not angry or upset. Be careful my friends!
Good night and thanks for reading..

Steve aka Lem