KCA

Kicking Cancer's Ass... I did it..rather we did it.. urologist, his staff and my wife.  I want to write lots more but that feeling is so great I can't explain it.  Now I want to sleep off my soreness from walking too much.  I do tend to over do things. Who'd a guessed?  I leave you with this thought.. when the power of love replaces the love of power, we will all be living in Heaven. It may never happen on Earth but it may happen elsewhere. I hope I hope!  So love more and seek less power over others and their thoughts and lives.  Night All!  Just remember that Serutan... spelled back wards is Nature.. this is for those under 63 or so.. as does Robert Hall, Howard Johnsons and Stuckeys.
Night

What's fecal matter got to do with it?

Yep.. that's the title of today's blog.  It's a long story and I'll do my best to condense it and make it as interesting as possible.  Lately I've become a fan of CSpan 2.. a book review channel.  Today one of my favorite authors was- Mary Roach.  For those who know or have read a book by Mary Roach.. you'll know she is quite a special person and writer.  The first book I read by her was Stiff.. which is all about the business of cadavers and research using cadavers at such places as the University of Tennessee cadaver farm.  At the U of T cadavers are used to study the effects of decaying, the bugs that invade a corpse at various times during the decay.  Other topics had to do with head transplants.. yes, for instance, taking the body of a healthy person who has died of brain inhury and transplanting to the  the head of a paralyzed or physically limited person.  One experiment Ms. Roach discusses in Stiff is the Russian experiments in the 50-60's to put two heads on the body of one dog.. and they did it!  Mary's books are scientific and at times almost too gross to discuss.  My wife and mother could not read Stiff.. it ain't easy if you are queasy.

Well I'd heard Mary Roach was going to be interviewed today starting at noon.  I waited all week anxiously hoping to see what she looked like. She is a very pleasant looking lady with shoulder length straight hair and a sense of humor and forthright manner that makes her something very special.  Her latest book is called Gulp subtitled Adventures in the Alimentary Canal.  Today she began the interview with a story about Elvis Presley's death. Seems that Elvis died while straining to poop.. Much has been said about Elvis's use and misuse of pain killers. I made up my mind to call in and make a comment about the rumor that Elvis had as much as 50 pounds of fecal matter in his bowels and intestines when he died. I think I read that somewhere.  Mary talked about Elvis' doctor Nick Nicolaides.. obviously a Greek.  There is probably litigation going on regarding the good doctor and the King's death so she was careful in her discussion of the doctor and Elvis.

I dialed the number and dialed and dialed.  After a half hour I did get through and was asked if I wanted to speak on the air.. and what the nature of my question would be.  I said I wanted to know if there was any truth to the rumor about the sheer volume of feces on the King's alimentary canal, at the time of this death.  It seemed a natural question to ask since she opened with a discussion of the King and his doctor.  So I asked if there was any truth to the rumor that the king had fifty pounds of poop backed up in him when he died. Mary said she didn't know if that were true but she did add that the fecal matter in the king was as hard as brick.. I lost track of her first few words in our conversation but it had to do with the doctor saying that the poop in Elvis was as hard as the bricks in the doctor's fireplace.  Oh by the way, in her introductory remarks Mary said that Elvis had had a house built for Doctor Nick.. a mansion I think she called it.  The interviewer then asked me about my rationale for asking that question and I said that I had been prescribed many pain killer over the last two years and that I suffered from occasional regularity, which evoked a laugh from both Mary and the interviewer.  In short,  what's fecal matter got to do with it? Mary did reply that her husband had been in a terrible bike accident and that he commented that he'd rather have the pain than the constipation.  So my question wasn't answered directly she didn't know.  I also asked if she knew what weight or amount of feces does the average person have in them at any one time or at the time of death.  She didn't have an answer for that.. but no matter.  I got to talk to Mary Roach today!  I've spoken with Michael Crichton,  Judy Collins,, John Sebastin, and a few other famous people but nothing so pleased me as my brief conversation with Mary Roach.  I think I may have a secret crush on her.. which is now not a secret.  I have a crush on her mind, her sensibilities, her frank open manner, her writing and her strange subject matter.

After the brief conversation I took a long walk.. I've been building up my endurance by walking every day.  The first week I walked a mile a day, the second, two miles a day and this Sunday I pushed it up to 3 miles... After which I came home and took a shower, but only after ridding my alimentary canal of as much as I could. Don't strain.. it just might kill you.  It killed the king and that's what fecal matter has to do with it!

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.