Wellness visit

I went today for my annual 'Wellness Visit'. I love my doctor, let's get that straight, but he's a part of a nationwide G.P. group and the way they work is problematic.

First of all, I had to fill out 5 or 6 pages with answers before I went, and the largest number of questions were about my mental health and how to avoid falling.

I know those are two problems people of a certain age have--but it seems overdone.

I did fall once, three or more years ago and tore the ligaments in my knee and had surgery and a long spate of P.T. No falls since and actually I was coming downstairs and missed the next to last step.

But, my mental health is without fault. I may be happier than I've ever been. I have the love of my life in our house on Cornwall Avenue--50 years married 55 years a couple. I have two wondrous children who are successful, happy and in great marriages. And, undoubtedly, the 4 best grand-daughters in the universe.

My physical health is above average. I read 5 or 6 books a week, between my pension, both our social security checks and my part time job doing what I love to do--being part of 3 amazing communities--I make much more money than I ever make working full time.

We have a house and two vehicles long ago paid off, a sweet and precious dog and all the friends we need.

I mean it, I am a happy, satisfied, prospering elder.

I know many elders aren't and I ache for their pain.

But the best thing about my wellness visit was it made me realize how lucky and blessed and happy I am. I sometimes don't acknowledge that fully.

I will now. Every day. I will be thankful with every breath.

Did this before....

I've posted this about a year ago, but I was thinking about it today and decided to send it out again, in case you didn't see it.

Glad for Gladys

            Gladys Spinet is dying. Not that it matters much to most people, but she’s dying and that should be worth something. It should matter—make a difference.

            Elsie Flowers told me today—about Gladys dying. Walking down the main road, along Mrs. Flowers’ fence, I saw her in her garden and heard her hoot me over. She asked if it were hot enough for me and since it was I told her, “yes, plenty warm, thank you.” She brought her hoe over to the fence and wanted to hear all about me and what I was doing. When I told her, I was working on my doctorate, she thought I was going to be a physician. So, I explained I wouldn’t be that kind of doctor, not the kind that looks down your throat. Then she talked to me about her cabbages and politics and all kinds of things, and, right in the middle of something else, she said, “Oh, ya know, don’t ya, ‘bout how Gladys Spinet is dyin’?”

            I stood there, trying to remember who Gladys Spinet was and feeling profoundly sad that knowing someone was dying didn’t matter much to me—no more than Mrs. Flowers’ cabbages or Senator Jennings Randolph, who she found too liberal.

            She leaned on her hoe, as if to make it final, and said, “She is…really…dyin’.”

            A tiny necklace of dirt ringed Mrs. Flowers’ neck. Her garden and her sweat gave her a necklace like kids get when playing ball on a hot, dusty day. It reminded me of Julia, the eight-year-old girl I’d seen that morning wearing a necklace of the pop-tops from soda cans. I took her picture and asked if the tops ever cut her neck. “Jist sometime,” she said, “ain’t they purdy?”

            I wanted a picture of Mrs. Flowers with the necklace of dirt around her neck, thinking how it would look beside Julia’s picture. Julia had been leaning on her bike and Mrs. Flowers was leaning on her hoe. I imagined the photos, in identical black frames, stark against the white of my study’s walls. I was on the verge of asking to take her picture when Mrs. Flowers said, “Cancer, rite here,” pointing to the end of her dirt necklace right below her ear. “Too late to ketch it and she’ll be dead ‘for winter. It’ll eat up to that little part of your brain with the long name. Jason tol’ me what’s it called, but I forgit. Anyways, when it does, Gladys’ll die, quick-like.”

            I almost said, “you can’t ‘catch’ cancer,” since I thought she meant ‘catching it’ like the mumps or a bad cold. Luckily, I paused long enough to realize she meant “it can’t be treated.” Then I caught myself about to say that the part of the brain she meant was the medulla obbligato, but with Gladys Spinet dying that didn’t seem important enough to mention. Suddenly, all I could think of was that the next time there were cabbages in Mrs. Flowers’ garden, or a senatorial election so she could vote for the Republican, there wouldn’t be Gladys Spinet.

            And as hard as I tried, I couldn’t seem to make it matter as much as I wanted it to.

            Gladys Spinet, Mrs. Flowers told me, “went to Charlottesville las’ month.” Going to Charlottesville—to the University of Virginia Hospital—was the kiss of death where I grew up. You only went to Charlottesville when no doctor in southern West Virginia had any answers. And Charlottesville didn’t have answers either. In Charlottesville they did research on things without answers.

            Mrs. Flowers rambled on about how her nephew, Jason, worked at the hospital in Charlottesville and what a good job it was and how beautiful the mountains there were in fall. “There bein’ more maple there and maple turnin’ brite red.” While she talked, I thought about Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s house in Charlottesville, about the big calendar clock that covers a wall of that house, keeping perfect time after all these years, counting out the moments of Gladys Spinet’s life.

            When I got away from Mrs. Flowers, carrying three Big-boy tomatoes in a brown paper sack for my uncle, I stopped at a road-side grocery to buy a Dr. Pepper from a fat woman whose name I couldn’t remember just then. Her name is Mrs. Goins or Mrs. Cones or something like that. When I paid her, she asked me about her bursitis since my uncle had told her I was studying to be a doctor.

            I was about to explain Ph.D. and M.D. when Sam came in, his hands greasy black from working on cars, to buy some Lucky Strikes. Sam is my age—a Little League teammate who dropped out of the high school where I excelled. He asked where I’d been and what I’d been doing and how I came to be visiting ‘home’. And then he told me, in the matter of fact way he said everything, “ain’t it sumthin’ ‘bout Gladys Spinet dyin’?”

            For Sam, she was already dead. There’s something about cancer, something about how much we fear it, something about how some people—Sam, for one—call it ‘the big C’, that makes the diagnosis final, a death warrant.

            “The big C’ll git ya, Richie,” Sam told me solemnly, “never fear. Never fear.”

            I was on the verge of saying that ‘fear’ seemed an appropriate reaction toward cancer and death and about to tell Sam that I couldn’t remember the last time I was around someone who smoked Lucky’s when, without warning, a picture of Gladys Spinet jumped into my mind with both feet.

            I saw her, clear as day, running down the main road in winter, ignoring the icy patches on the pavement and the snow piled almost as high as the fences on the shoulders. She was running like mad, in my unexpected memory, coatless---running to her retarded brother, Casdy, who was sitting in the middle of the slippery road playing with something he’d found there: a small animal, a chipmunk or something, dead.

            I remembered Gladys’ face then. It was a soft, round mountain face—like my mother’s, like mine beneath my beard—with small eyes and thick brows, full lips and a weak chin. Sam’s face…and Mrs. Goins’ face. Mrs. Flowers’ face, and Julia’s. Gladys Spinet’s face leaped into my memory, out the mirror in my bathroom.

            Someone once told me that Gladys Spinet changed Casdy’s diapers even though he was almost fifty and very fat. Her other two brothers, I remember hearing—one not much brighter than Casdy and the other a preacher of some ilk—wouldn’t lift a finger to help. So, Gladys Spinet changed Casdy’s diapers and took the dead things he collected along the road out of his pockets each night.

            I remember Casdy the way you remember bad dreams. He is so large and so retarded, drooling a lot, that he frightened the wits out of me as a small child. I even remembered the dead things he carries around in his pockets. Dead things are always frightening to little kids…or fascinating. I’m too old to remember which.

            Standing there, talking to Sam, I remembered how Casdy isn’t afraid of his dead mice or frogs or birds at all. Casdy takes them out of his pockets to show you as if he were showing you something glowing, or a shiny quarter he had to buy some gum.

            My ‘killing time’ with my uncle, back where I grew up, suddenly seemed pointless. I had wanted a week or two way from my apartment and my thesis, a few weeks to take pictures and sleep late and walk the mountains without thinking or reading or writing. Instead, I’d walked right into the drama of Gladys Spinet’s death—a drama that depressed me because it didn’t seem to matter.

            I’m going back to Cambridge day after tomorrow. I’ve decided I actually want to be near the library. There are several things I need to know about Stephen Crane before I can finish what I’ve been working on. I won’t find out those things here. All I can find out here is more about how Gladys Spinet is dying. I realize there’s nothing I can do to prevent that, or even make it matter much to me.

            Gladys’ dying may matter to Casdy—someone else, after all, probably someone less gentle and loving, will have to chase after him and change his diapers. But he’ll most likely think of Gladys as one more dead thing he found and wish he could put her in his pocket.

            I’d like to write Gladys a note, but it would be maudlin and vain and she wouldn’t remember me or understand. I’d like to tell her, somehow, if I only could—“O God, Gladys, I am sorry you’re dying.” But for all my good intentions, it still wouldn’t matter much.

            What would matter is if I could tell her something hopeful, joyous, glorious. Like that her life will soon be still and over. Like that I’m glad for her. Glad.

Conklintown, West Virginia 7/28/74

Democratic candidates

I have a friend, Ray, who sends out by email, almost every day, a series of anti-President who will not be named cartoons and little quotes from writers that are very anti-the current President.

Sometimes at the end of the cartoons, there is a bumper sticker that reads:
                                                           2020
                                               ANY RESPONSIBLE ADULT

I feel that way for sure, absolutely, positively.

But I have some favorites.

I really like Cory Booker though I think his chances are small since the top five have so much money and such a big lead in the polls. But he's a vegan and reminds me of the joke: Know how to find a vegan at a dinner party? Don't bother, they'll find you!

But I like the top five fine: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris and Mayor Pete (I don't trust myself to spell his last name and I am sure it's not on Spellcheck.)

Pete, by the way, raised the most money last month and lots of celebrities are supporting him. Is American ready for a gay President--I'm not sure, but I am sure the current President (HWWNBN) would make such a fool of himself running against a gay man that even anti-gay Republicans would be offended.

Biden, I know, messed up the debate--or, more correctly Kamala Harris messed it up for him. But he still polls as the surest to win and that matters to me--a lot.

Warren is taking over Sanders' role. She has the most spelled out agenda and is close or ahead of Bernie in the polls. Bern, a big Sanders supporter, thinks he should drop out and endorse Warren. Warren is a little shrill for me, but I don't doubt she would make the President look silly in debates.

My personal favorite right now is Kamala Harris. Have you seen her question people in Senate committee meetings? She is beyond unbeatable in one on one debates. Some people hold being a prosecutor and an attorney general...'too tough on crime', they say. But that's what prosecutors (like my daughter-in-law before she was appointed to be a judge) do. The prosecute crime. And Harris helped reform the system in California from within.

Here's my dream: Biden/Harris or Biden/Warren with Biden promising to be a one term President and passing the mantle after four years to either woman. Then Warren or Harris for 8 years.

I'm not sure that's enough time--12 years--to restore the damage of the current administration, but I'm betting it will be.

I want to Make America 'America' Again instead of the wounded democracy it is today.

Mimi

On Sunday our baby girl turns 41!

It's hard to believe I've lived this long.

Her name is Jeremy Johanna Bradley. But the first 6 months of her life she was the world's worst baby. Crying to be held, not wanting to be held, fussing and crying over everything. If she had been our first born, we wouldn't have had another.....

Josh, who was 3, would sing to her: "Jeremy, mimi, mimi, mimi...."

So, she became Mimi.

At six months something flipped in her brain and she became the world's best baby--seldom crying, always happy, loving all of us and life itself.

She has been sweet and dear ever since. Like me, near the middle of the 'extrovert/introvert' scale, a little more introverted than me, but not much. My career and calling forces me to be an extrovert, but on my own I am deeply introverted.

Mimi is a joy and a wonder. I love her without reserve. And she has brought Tim and Eleanor into our lives to make us more whole.

Eleanor will be an only child, I assume. Like me. But I find myself drawn to other 'only children'. We share some deep and important things.

But Eleanor will have three older Bradley girls cousins who will guide her through the maze of being a girl growing toward womanhood, just like my cousins did for me growing to be a man.

Whenever I regret not having siblings, I just talk to someone who has them. That cures me of my pain!

Happy, Happy Birthday, wondrous girl/woman who is my daughter.

You have given me more joy that you could ever imagine.

Truly....

Racism is a thing

I grew up in the southern most county of West Virginia, The state split from Virginia over the civil war, but there were slaves there.

We were far below the Mason-Dixon line.

I never went to school with black kids until my senior year of high School. The next year, the schools merged. The Black school sent over 4 athletes and three smart girls to begin the transition. This was in 1964, for goodness sakes, a decade after Brown vs. the Board of Education.

I knew racism up front and in my face.

My only Black friend as a child was Gene Kelly, a 40 year old man who worked for my Uncle Russell in the H and S supermarket where I worked. His wife was Russell's homemaker and cook, so I knew her as well. But no others.

I know what racism looks like, feels like, even smells like.

And our President is a racist.

I think most of us knew that subliminally from the day he announced for President and called Mexicans 'rapists'.

Many of us knew that when he was the head of Obama's 'birther conspiracy' theory.

But after this week we all know it's true.

Telling those four women of color to go back to 'where they came from'--when three of them were born in Minneapolis, Detroit and New York--was beyond racism and sexism to utter nonsense.

AOC, one of the 4, represents the district of the President's birth and childhood.

Good Lord, what are we to do?

The House of Representatives, with 4 Republican (brave people) and one Independent joining all the Democrats, passed a non-binding condemnation of the President tonight. Slim chance the Senate and the quaking, frightened Republicans will approve.

Something needs to happen.

I've been hesitant on Impeachment.

But no more.

Impeach him, for the Good Lord's, and our sanity's sake!

Now....

I learned my lesson well

I haven't been to Costco for so long I had forgotten why I hadn't been.

But we need a new air conditioner soon for my office, which, with the help of a fan, cools the whole downstairs and I had a $230 Costco cash reward because I charge every thing I buy on a Costco Visa card. So off we went.

The Costco in Waterbury usually has two winding roads up a hill to the sprawling parking lot. One was closed to traffic. I felt resentment since the one that was closed is the one I always used.

The parking lot was a nightmare. Don't any of these people have something they should be doing on a Monday late morning?

We parked about a quarter of a mile from the store and trooped over. As soon as I showed my credit card and went in, I remembered why I haven't been in so long.

The huge, huge building and the absolute glut of 'stuff' made me instantly claustrophobic. I know that's supposed to be for small spaces, but it's my fear of large spaces. I just remembered, what I have is agoraphobia--'fear of wide spaces'.

I grew up in the mountains where there were few places wide enough for a football field. The first time I drove through the mid-west I thought I was going to cry I was so scared of the endless vistas. I've always lived in cities or hilly places so it doesn't often strike--but Costco brings it on.

I could hardly breathe for the crowds and the open space-enormous. It bothers Bern too, so we found and air conditioner as fast as we could. But she wanted to see if they had the expensive dry dog food we feed Brigit. She knew I was freaking out, so she left me in an aisle and went looking. She was gone maybe five minutes but it felt like 15. I couldn't think straight but knew I had to go to the bathroom.

Costco literally scares the s*** out of me!

On the way home she told me while I was in the bathroom, she almost freaked out. Seemed to her like half-an-hour when it was less than 10 minutes.

I could breathe again when we were out of the parking lot.

Part of it is the crowds and enormous building--but another part is that it is all a cathedral to consumerism.

Hard for me to bear.

If you needed proof....

If you needed proof that the current administration, headed by He Who Will Not Be Named, is callous, racist and un-American, all you need to know is that they scheduled an ICE raid for a Sunday.

ICE has a job to do, I know that--they need to keep bad people out of our country. But this raid is not against "bad people", it's against people who came here fleeing for their lives thinking this was still the "land of the free and the home of the brave". They just want a better life--like my ancestors, and probably yours, did.

And to choose to do this on a Sunday--the day of worship and rest for Christians of all stripes--is outrageous.

Do do it at all is an insult to my ancestors, and probably yours, but to do it on a Sunday is an outrageous black eye to people like me.

Some Democrats want to abolish ICE. I'm not sure I do. I just want them to 'do their job' and remove undocumented criminals from our midst--not people like my Great Grandfather Jone or Great-Great-Great Grandfather Bradley who came to this country to find a life worth living.

I am out of my mind that the administration and ICE is doing this. But I am out of my mind and heart and soul that they are doing it on a Sunday.