A Dog's Life: My Shadow

As Inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson:

I have a little shadow that goes everywhere with me,
He’s my closest little buddy is mostly what I see.
He really, really likes me from my heels up to my head;
And the only time we sep’rate is when I jump into bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to show—
His devotion and his love for me, which never seem to slow;
For he sometimes gazes at me like a Madonna at her child,
And sometimes when he’s away from me he goes a little wild.

He hasn’t got a notion of how other dogs must play,
And can only make a friend of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he’s a fan as you can see;
I think he’d rather spend his day with no one else but me.

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
And my cheerful little shadow, like an arrant star-struck friend,
Began the summer day with me and stayed until the end.

Ouch

I’ve got an unfortunate photograph stuck in my mind. I look down at my feet, and there it is—its sinewy body with wavy, diamond-like patterns, camouflaged against the gravel walkway—the copperhead snake that bit me.

Random thoughts:

I resent my misfortune.

When asked to rate my pain, after arriving at the Duke emergency room, I answered “10" for the first time in my life.

In conversations with others, I’ve learned that I’ve experienced many people’s worst nightmare.

It’s no accident that the writer of Genesis chose a snake for his nasty mission.

This bite is the straw that broke this Yankee’s back.

Surgical Euphemisms

As an unfortunate veteran of large and small surgeries alike, I’ve come to recognize some of the turns of phrase that come between patient and doctor when the knife takes center stage:

1. When you hear the expression “just a small stick,” brace yourself for the possibility of several, painful needle insertions.

2. If a nurse tells you that you have disappearing veins, ask immediately for someone else. She won’t get your IV in place no matter how hard she tries.

3. Six-to-eight weeks of recovery usually means one-to-two years.

4. “We’ll send you home with pain medicine” doesn’t mean that you’ll get samples to tide you over. It means that you’ll leave with a paper prescription, and you’ll wait 20 minutes—doubled over with post-surgical agony—for your pharmacist to fill it.

5. Though arthroscopic surgery is presented as something simple and minimally invasive, it can generate an amazing amount of pain.

6. Ambulatory surgery by definition should mean that you can leave on foot; don’t count on this, however, if you’ve had foot surgery.

7. “You should be able to return to work in a week” may mean that, yes, technically, you can be at your desk. But how you get there and how you actually complete your tasks is another matter altogether.

8. “You will be glad you had this done,” spoken in reference to elective surgeries, may take years to realize.

9. The consent form means that you may die on the operating table.

10. That “the x-rays look good” on your follow-up visit will mean nothing to you. Your surgeon may point with great excitement to the new alignment of your bones, but you will still feel like hell.

Whose Comeback?

So Newsweek is telling us that we’re "The Comeback Country"; according to a recent cover story, America’s financial woes are overstated and we’re on our way back to the top. Does it seem to anyone else that many of our major media outlets present news from the elite, well-to-do point of view? Stocks are up, some companies are doing well—like the big banks that we rescued—no worries.

Huh?

What these kinds of reports continue to disregard is the jobless rate in America. The latest statistics show that 4.64 million Americans receive regular jobless benefits, and an additional 5.97 million people stay afloat with the help of federal emergency and extended benefits. The national jobless rate is almost at that magical number of 10%, and in North Carolina it hovers at 11.1%. These are not numbers that make us a “comeback country.”

Moreover, our state and local governments keep hemorrhaging money. Durham County faces a $10.6 million deficit, forecast to grow. Durham Public Schools expects to make $20 million in cuts, as we await dire budget figures from Raleigh. A community that has to lay off teachers, increase classroom size, and eliminate services and supplies is hardly participating in a comeback. And we’re not alone. Local governments across the country face similar scenarios.

Good news comes, though, from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. “There is clear and broad-based improvement in the economic factors in the United States and around the world,” he says in BusinessWeek. As a result, his company plans to hire about 9,000 new employees. So if you live in New York, or wish to move there, you can give this option a shot and compete with thousands of others looking for work.

But if you’re a teacher or a librarian, hold on to your hat. A strong wind is blowing, and it’s coming your way. It’s kind of like that volcanic ash from Iceland—the sky might look bright and blue to some, but way up high is a dark cloud that’s hard to see or understand. And it’s messed with the lives of people on the ground.

The current economy of “the comeback country” is doing more than messing with people’s lives on the ground. It’s outright ruining them.

Conflicted in Charleston, South Carolina

1. A city with patterned, outdoor flooring, like this tile in front of the Calhoun Mansion in Charleston, is a fun place to walk.

2. Speaking of the Calhoun Mansion: If you buy the largest house in Charleston of over 24,000 square feet, you’ll probably have to open it up to paying tourists—even allowing them to see your bedroom—to afford the upkeep.

3. You know you’re in a swanky town when the horses that draw tourist carriages wear leather diapers.

4. When a confectioner gives you a free, dark chocolate cashew cluster—and you buy nothing else—you’ve just been treated to true southern hospitality.

5. Dinner at Mercato’s with quiet, live jazz transports you to the other French Quarter.

6. With the likes of Ann Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Gucci, the shops along King Street must generate plenty of thrift shop deals.

7. Charleston understandably boasts of its origin as a haven for religious tolerance: both Unitarian and Jewish congregations are the oldest of their kind in the South—a region not historically open to either one.

8. Leading up to the Civil War, slaves constituted slightly over ½ of Charleston’s population.

9. That Charlestonians were the wealthiest colonists in British North America is not hard to imagine: the concentration of stunning homes and mansions—one after another—in the relatively small historic district is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

10. This kind of wealth requires cheap—or rather, free—labor. It’s the kind of wealth built on the backs of others.

In Honor of Miners

Every time we hear of a mining disaster, whether in our country or somewhere else in the world, I’m struck by the loss of life in this dangerous profession. I can think of no other workers—other than those who serve the public good as fire fighters, police officers, and soldiers—who regularly risk their lives on the job. While there’s nobility and honor conferred on those who serve in this way, no such honor is accorded to miners.

But miners serve the public good, too. They not only provide us with the luxuries of life, such as running our dishwashers and drying our hair, they essentially power the work of our country. And each day they risk their lives to do so. Each day their family members worry that they might not come home that night.

It’s not right that we overlook their service and ignore their working conditions. It’s time to thank them for the work they do and insist that every precaution be taken and enforced to protect them.

In Search of the Past

This Easter holiday I traveled into the past with my mother and daughter. On Good Friday, we trampled among gravestones at an old Lutheran church in Trappe, Pennsylvania, looking for ancestors named Zoller and Allabach. The next day we drove almost 8 hours to Chardon, Ohio, to visit my last surviving aunt, 92 years old and in frail health. On our way home, my mother pointed out old homes and stores that once belonged to members of my dad’s family in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

I was looking for something I think I’ll never find—the unspoken secrets of my family, most of whom are gone. I caught glimpses of my grandparents in the stories from my aunt and gleaned a sense of the tensions that must have existed in a family where one side was well educated and the other rough hewn. But people choose to remember what they wish, and choose even more carefully about which they speak. And secrets remain perhaps as they are supposed to remain, guarded and hidden, protected in the quiet of the graveyard.

We had a great time, though, my mother and daughter and I. We crossed Pennsylvania from east to west and stayed at a delightful inn with delicious food. We shared a fabulous chocolate chip pecan pie on our first night in Ohio. We laughed a lot and slept late when we could, enjoying our time in pajamas. Our view overlooking the pond and golf course was lovely, and the light on Easter Monday when we left heralded springtime.

Yes, I journeyed into the past, but I think I discovered something more important: the present. The present day, this very day, spent with my mother and my daughter. No one can take from me the memory of this day, the memory of this trip.

Secrets there may be, for I have some, too. “But today,” as my former minister used to say, “well lived, makes every yesterday/A dream of happiness/And every tomorrow a vision of hope./Look well, therefore, to this day.”

Straight-Talking Joe

Last fall when I sent letters about health insurance to my 3 government executives—Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Governor Beverly Perdue—the responses I got were revealing. The president’s letter came the most quickly and was the most comprehensive. It was a bit too long but I appreciated his thoughtfulness, until 3 days later when a second letter arrived thanking me for my comments on immigration reform. Oops.

Chalk it up to a new administration working out its kinks.

Governor Perdue’s letter was the least satisfactory. In fact, it wasn’t from her. It was from one of her aides—and while we all know that aides write the letters, I still felt slighted being shuffled to an underling. As an added insult, I was told to direct my concerns to Washington, rather than to Raleigh.

Never mind that my letter focused specifically on the problems with the North Carolina State Employees health plan, a situation that needs the governor's attention.

Joe Biden’s letter arrived just the other day, over 5 months since my letter to him. It was worth the wait. His signature looks real, and the letter looks like he typed it himself—it prints out high on the page, not centered and balanced as an executive secretary would do. And his response indicates that he, or someone, actually read my letter. He thanks me for sending him my op-ed, which I had enclosed, and then delivers a message.

“While this Administration will continue to work tirelessly to address these issues,” he writes, “we all must become more accountable in shaping our collective future. I encourage you to remain active in your government.”

A call to duty, a summons to a collective future. This is the language we’ve missed for so long. Told to go shopping, or told not to worry, or told rather to worry about color codes at airports, we’re used to government telling us what to do and working hard to keep us out.

The vice president thinks otherwise. I’m glad he’s on the job.

A Dog's Life

Ahhh.

To be a dog in a house where cleanliness is far from godliness.

Can it get any better than this? Leftover food, bits of dried egg in a house where meat is hard to come by.

Bliss.