Stranded Motorist

The Stranded Motorist

 It was snowing and it was difficult to see while driving. Nonetheless I had to do my errands; to dump the cardboard piled in the back of my truck. I went to the recycling bins behind the police station and dumped the cardboard I collected from the hotel where I work. I continued my errands at K-Mart. The road was treacherous, slippery at stop signs and traffic signals. It was cold, around zero, but felt much colder with the wind.

   There were a lot of customers at K-Mart. There is always a spike in shopping activity during foul winter weather. I located the whole wheat Ritz Crackers and the isopropyl alcohol for the car and the truck then stopped at the pharmacy for one of my prescriptions. It was too warm in the store and I was dressed in layers since I spend a lot of time outdoors. I hurried to get my business done.

   It was snowing intensely now, obliterating footprints made a short while ago. I started the truck and set about clearing and scraping the windshield, thinking this is another reason I hate winter. A tune by Borodin bounced around in my head and I marveled that Aleksander Borodin was really a chemist before he became a composer.

I was jolted from my reverie by a man asking me if I have jumper cables.

“I don’t know- maybe the battery is no good. My car is over there, see?”

“I’ll gladly help you once I get my windshield clear.”

The man opened the hood of the Chevrolet.

“I can’t even find the battery,” he said.

   I had accessed the battery in such a Chevy last summer for a damsel in distress so I knew where it was. Why GM hides the battery underneath the windshield washer reservoir and surrounded by hoses and unknown devices beats the heck out of me. It was  difficult to attach the jumper cables. My arthritic hands ached in stinging fashion from the cold and the wind.

We tried several times to get it going. I peered into the space with my flashlight. I couldn’t really tell if the cables were connected solidly. It was a side-terminal battery with tiny posts. The dopes who engineered this mess should have to do this in cold weather.

I had him try his headlights and they came on brightly.

“I don’t know. The battery isn’t the trouble.” I had accepted that the car wasn’t going to start.

   “Yeah, I had trouble a couple of weeks ago. Called Greg’s Towing and he looked around under the hood then he turned the key and it started. I had the car in Greg’s shop and he couldn’t find anything wrong. I guess I’ll call a cab from a pay phone.”

   “I can give you a ride. Do you want to call a wrecker from my cell phone?”

   “Naw, that’s okay. I’ll call later from home.”

   “I live outside of Hurley so it’s kind of far and the weather is so bad.”

   “Hop up into my truck. It’s nice and warm inside.” I noticed that he wasn’t wearing gloves and he was rubbing his hands together. He was about sixty years old, too old to be out in the cold for so long.

   “Thanks for going out of your way for me. You got to drive through Hurley and my house is on the Carey stretch.”

   “Not a problem.” The problem was my stinging hands as I gripped the wheel.

   “I’m George.”

   “I’m John. Pleased to meet you.”

   “Likewise.”

He held out a ten-dollar bill.

"Naw, I can't take your money. Tell you what, just pass it on. help someone when they're in a bind."

John held out his hand. "Merry Christmas, George."

"Likewise."

A Christmas Walk

The sun's failing light, filtered through earth's heavens,
Now amber, bouncing through the ermine-clad woods,
Entreats me to pause and watch as I stand on snowshoes.
 It's a loud quiet, drowning out life's cares.

Tree limbs, stressed with snowy burdens,
Arch and form a walk-way trellis over the miner's path.
I duck as I pass, careful not to disturb His artistry.
I've seen this wonder many times but yet it's new.

I am praying but without words, transfixed
At the splendor of the moment- fleeting,
This day  will die, a victim of the night.
But sublime is this little slice of time.

Running-My new Passion

Back in the summer of 2008 I was smitten with aching hips, a harbinger of old age, I thought. I tried analgesic rubs, various NSAIDS and lessening my exercise walks; nevertheless the pain worsened and I became dependent on a cane.

Several times I found it necessary to abort my exercise walks since I could not stand the pain. My infrequent walks showed up in my blood pressure readings and I shared this during one of my regular visits with my primary-care physician. He prescribed blood-pressure medicine and he urged me to exercise as much as I could. He also ordered x-rays which showed no abnormalities.

My doctor gave me information on a local orthopedic surgeon but I did not follow through, mindful of the expected progression from the cheap pill to the expensive pill to surgery. I couldn't afford the down-time and loss of income that would result from surgery. I've also heard about unfavorable results and after-effects related to surgery.

I felt myself at the fork in the road, one option consisting of accepting defeat and that apparent old age was having its way. I was sixty-one at the time. The other option was to fight this without the expenses associated with the medical establishment that do not guarantee favorable results. 

My forays consisted of a walk around the block, aided with a cane and I fought through these. The pain was still with me into the winter and I was aware that a fall caused by ice or snow could be disastrous, yet I persisted, walking through severe wind-driven temperatures that only made me  angry and more determined. I still shoveled snow at home and at work and I judiciously applied my snowblower to the task. Fortunately the dogs were seniors, preferring short walks. I couldn't use a cane on dog walks- just too awkward. I put the canes away (at times I had used two.)

Joint pain does intensify in winter's cold and I wondered if the hospital had x-rayed the correct joints. Getting out of bed in the winter is okay. When I stood up and my hips took the load that was a different matter and my first words of the day were not "thanks, Lord for another day." Not considering the fact of pain I should have been thankful for my ability to stand and walk.

Severe winter conditions throttled my exercise walks and actually stopped them for a time. We have a treadmill but I just couldn't get into that and the treadmill has become a clothes rack in our bedroom.

Somehow I found the toughness to be the legs of the family as my wife, Lois had a knee replaced. She used a walker for a while then a cane and she fought through the rehabilitation curve. She had been using a shopping cart for a walker during her work at K-Mart. 

In the summer of 2009 I cut down on the intake of sugar and fat as much as possible without causing upheaval of Lois' meal planning. My weight dropped and my doctor was mildly alarmed as I was still in the lower range of the Body Mass Index. He said he would not urge me to gain weight as the hip pain had disappeared, possibly due to my weight loss.

I remember the trepidation I felt on my first attempt to resume my 2.5 mile walks late that summer. I stuffed my cell phone into the pocket of my shorts and made my way up the long, hard incline of the Burma Road, the way I had walked many a time before the hip pain. The other pocket held my IPOD and I tried to concentrate on the rocking of Van Halen, The Scorpions (Rock You Like a Hurricane) and other of my favorite artists. I love Bach but I needed something with high-energy to get me into an athletic mood.

I rocked right up the Burma road and continued, trying to keep in step with the music and at the top of Burma, at the Norrie softball field I abandoned my reserve and just yelled out because it  was fairly easy and best of all, there was no pain and I wasn't using a cane.

The walks continued during ensuing years and I regained strength in my legs, taking longer walks until I did a five-mile outing, a personal victory and the pain remained absent.

I did not ever think of becoming a runner, especially at the age of 64 but our family was blessed by the adoption of an orphan beagle at the Hope Animal Shelter. Skittles was young and bursting with a powerful energy. She was also less than a year old and that energy frequently got her into trouble. She destroyed some of our favorite things. I had a pair of logger's boots I had acquired more than thirty years ago. I had worn these when I worked in the woods and later for any tough job that required sturdy foot-ware. Those boots had become old friends to me and you can imagine my reaction when Skittles chewed the top off one of the boots- didn't destroy the other one, but I had to buy a new pair of work boots. The new ones weren't nearly the same.

Skittles' excess energy had to have a channel so I started running with her, on a leash. We covered a lot of ground and the running seemed to decrease, but not eliminate her in-house mischief. Skittles really grew up when we got another puppy, a Scottish terrier/Corgy that Lois names Snickers. Snickers was much more naughty than Skittles in destruction of our property.

When Skittles matured she seemed no longer interested in running with me. She had become more interested in tracking whatever critter or person had come along her path. I tried in vain to get her to run but she was doing what beagles do.

I liked running so I continued, solo, and at first I thought I was crazy, running through the streets at age 64. My legs hurt the day after running and I wondered if I was destroying them. I ran up the Burma road, barely jogging the last 20 yards and puffing, sucking air. I leaned against a stop sign and stretched my legs, which felt the burn of effort. I pressed on at a walk for about five minutes then ran some more, then walked. I did this alternation on the 2.5 mile circuit that I used to walk.

That was last year. In 2013 I have run as much as 11.2 kilometers (7 miles) although my usual run is 6.4k (4 miles). Runs are done all in running mode, no walking breaks. I have added speed bursts for hundred yard intervals, up to 5 speed bursts in a 6.4k run. 

I'm addicted to running now. My blood pressure is well below the borderline. The seasonal affected disorder which has plagued me in autumn has lessened as has my depression, practical reasons for running. But mostly I run for the fun of it.

Thank you, Skittles! 

http://www.mckevittpatrickfuneralhome.com/fh/resources/sympathy/?&fh_id=11137

http://www.mckevittpatrickfuneralhome.com/fh/resources/sympathy/?&fh_id=11137

God sends different people into our lives just when we need them. John was one of those people.

There were difficulties in my life that I shared with no one, including John,  outside the confines of family. John's friendship was salve for my anxiety and depression. When we played baseball and basketball or swiped apples from the trees at Twin City Hospital my tension eased, a God-sent relief since there were no medical treatments then, just the admonishment get over it. 

We built forts in the 'caves' area of town amid dense brush and trees and we roasted green apples over the campfire. Later we smoked cigarettes, making us feel grown-up. We played pocket-knife games for hours at my house on a cedar slab. Hot summer afternoons found us playing a table-top pinball machine I had received from Dad for Christmas.

John was the manager of the Red Sox Farm League baseball team and this team had the core of the Panthers of the previous season. The Panthers, a laughingstock lost just about all its games but a year later, with greater maturity and experience the Panthers, renamed Red Sox  dominated the Ironwood Farm League of 1959,  winning the league championship with a 13 and 2 record. I still have the team picture that appeared in the sports section of the Daily globe.

Our lives took us in different directions but I will never forget those experiences, the sharpness of a baseball against a wooden bat, the bark of Mr. Krznarich, the umpire and league Director. The awful taste of a green apple scorched over a fire on a stick, the searing cigarette smoke that made us hold ourselves from coughing. The feeling of a good friend.

I wrote a story about our exploits and John read and commented on it. It is at yooper517.blogspot.com

Sympathies to the Lewinski family,

George Nordling   toivo44@gmail.com

Gifts from God

A conversation with a lonely neighbor- I just listen,
The bright and shining faces of our young dogs,
When my wife smiles at my silly worries,
The percussion of fireworks after midnight, the Fourth of July.

Reveries during a crackling campfire,
Signing my name with Dad's fountain pen,
Eating ice cream with my wife; it runs down my chin,
A friend visiting our campsite for bratwurst and a long chat.

Tired muscles and euphoria after running four miles,
Being able to run four miles at age threescore and six,
Families chatting outside after breakfasting at the Uptown Cafe,
My wife banging a spoon on a skillet- a summons to breakfast.

A fiery sun settling over a dusty horizon,
Goosebumps when hearing a symphonic passage for the nth time,
The sound of splashing in the swimming pool that I maintain,
God speaking to me in an unexpected way.

A friend's recovery from a moribund state,
Angels watching over him,
Strawberry ice cream and smoked salmon, best medicine of all,
The gift of another day.


Realizing that a lot of my tragedies are trifles,
Realizing that there is one God and I ain't Him.

Our Maniacal Gun Society

I saw a young father yesterday with two little girls and thought that the young man must be a good father. Then as they passed I saw the bold yellow text on the back of the young man's black t-shirt, Stay calm, carry guns. I wasn't shocked but it drove home the concept of America's arrested development.

Again and again we've witnessed the horrific carnage brought about by gun violence, whether it's road rage or just plain enough rage to push someone over the edge over the injustices and inequities of society. Heartbreak is the ultimate result, deep and lifelong heartbreak that one never quite conquers.

T-shirts like these imply that more firepower is the answer, that the Second Amendment must be upheld so that believers can carry guns to church, complete with 100-round magazines for their assault rifles   in the pickup truck gun rack.

The NRA is squarely to blame. I once respected this organization. Now it is replete nutty ultra-conservatives reciting the mantra, You can take my guns when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers. Gun ownership, and by that I refer to concealed handguns, and weapons of war is crazy. There is no guarantee that the person standing next to you in a waiting line in a restaurant is a stable, armed person. No guarantee that the person living across the street does not have a killing machine with hundred-round clips.

Wayne LaPierre, of the NRA asserts that more guns will bring domestic peace. He advocates armed guards in schools as well as armed teachers. That's like saying that more alcohol will make an alcoholic sober. He stirs up fear against the government and fear that people need firepower during a natural disaster. Fear is his mantra. I can't believe he has an M.A. from Boston College!

The America I grew up with respected the law, respected education and the rights of others. We led the world in education, manufacturing, scientific research, mathematical skills and literacy, intellectual curiosity, pursuit of the arts and in available medical care.

Now we lead the world in violence. Our educational system, once, the world-leader is now a distant fourteenth. Now academics are displaced by  patriotic bluster and the idea that I will carry a gun because I can. After all this is America! It's not about peace and tolerance of those different from us but it's about personal firepower.

That defines America's collective case of arrested development. The road-warrior, gun carrying macho craziness that is supposed to restore peace and order.

His eye is on the sparrow...?

The title is reminiscent of a George Beverly Shea hymn, declaring God's protection.

Each springtime I will find a baby robin in our backyard and there will be a frantic momma robin in a nearby tree. I've made clumsy rescue efforts only to fail and push the momma to apoplexy.  In a day or so I will find the carcass of the baby, mangled by a feline fiend. It happens every year and it it probably a part of natural selection or the life cycle but I can't help think why God allows such a savage thing.

Makes G. B. Shea's words ring hollow.

My Reluctant Truck and God's Grace

Winter refreshed itself these last several days. I would that Mother Nature do it gently.  I went outside, once to walk the beagle, who started limping at the sub-zero cold, then rallied to hunt for morsels beneath the one-foot snow cover. The walk was extended, as Skittles planned her chore-walk, delaying the movement of her bowels, thus prolonging her walk.

Snickers is the puppy, a black Scottish Terrier/Corgi mix with spunk to spare. He's 7 months old and has a lot to learn regarding the protocol and strategy of walks. He does his business quickly then jumps over snowbanks on the edge of the road, into the deep snow. Most of life is play time for him and soon his paws get cold and his eyes plead that I carry him.

Snickers had the neutering appointment at the Range Animal Clinic in forty-five minutes so I set about to warm up my pickup truck. The Ford F-150 had no energy and only groaned listlessly for two seconds. The truck was not going to start. I was shocked. I've had this truck for eight years and it has never failed to start.

I made an allowance for my big buddy: this is a different kind of winter than the last twenty or so years. the kind of winter that cancels school and various civic events.  It is a psychotic winter that was so warm two weeks ago that the Sisu ski race was cancelled. Then it abruptly changed and all last night it rammed a Siberian wind through my poor truck's grille, freezing the life out of the battery and congealing the oil to resist the rotation of the crankshaft.

Nonetheless Snickers had an appointment so I put my battery charger to work and went inside because I couldn't feel my face anymore. I called the clinic and told them I'd be late by half an hour because my truck wouldn't start. The woman on the line with me said, "It's important that you get Snickers here as soon as possible."

"Yes, I realize this. I'm charging the truck battery right now. That should do it."

I bundled up again in my ski bibs and snorkel parka, put on my Sorel boots and choppers to protect my severely arthritic hands and ventured forth. The truck seat was as hard as wood. The key turned stiffly and I heard a groan, then the engine sputtered and wailed in protest. I stroked the accelerator gently and the Ford kept running. I took my foot off the pedal and said, "Thank you, Lord!"

Then my eyes gravitated to the dashboard- no charging, no oil pressure, no fuel and zero RPM. I quickly shut off the engine in alarm. Maybe if I restarted it the electronics would reset. I tried and the battery was comatose.

I put the battery charger back in business and headed for the great indoors, feeling my asthma flare.  I would call the clinic to cancel, then call Lois at work to inform her.

The wood fire probably needed more fuel so I tended to my wood-fired boiler. I paused in front of the open furnace door before throwing in the chunks of maple-wood. The warmth from the glowing coals was comforting, therapeutic to arthritic hands. A quick  visual inventory of my wood supply underscored the severity of the weather.

Staring into the fire I realized my need of expert mechanical help. I would call  Paul, a good mechanic and trustworthy, reasonable, champion of proletarians with aged vehicles. He has doctored my sick vehicles for decades. Amazing what staring into a fire does.

I told Paul of my plight.

"Bring it down if you get it going again and I'll have a look."

After another half-hour I turned the key again and the engine groaned to life again. The gauges all worked and I resisted the idea to call Paul and tell him my truck was all right. I got my frozen F-150 into Gene's Service and popped the hood. I got out of the truck and breathed in the ancient grease and oil that had permeated the concrete floor. This is the way a service station should smell.

Paul stood on a plastic crate to examine the engine inside my high-profile truck. He applied  his electrical meter to my battery and scowled.

"She's low, George- 9.6 volts." Paul's assistant hooked up their godzilla battery charger, all 100+ amps. My charger output was 6 amps.

I worried since the alternator should have charged the battery somewhat during warm-up and the drive to Gene's Service. Paul turned his attention to the alternator and instructed his assistant to 'start 'er up.'

Paul leaned so deep inside the engine area it looked as though he would fall in. He told his assistant to shut off the engine.

"No alternator output," Paul pronounced his observation so gravely that I imagined a $300 + repair bill. The dreaded, 'you need a new schitzelfritzel' popped up in my mind. Paul continued his examination of the alternator for a few minutes.

"Here's your problem-a loose field wire on the alternator, see?"

I climbed up  and saw the loose wire, the schitzelfritzel fear giving way to relief.

Paul wouldn't charge me for his time and expertise so I handed him a five-dollar bill.

"I appreciate it, Paul. Have coffee and pie on me.

Several hours later I realized that God had given me grace. I usually get excited, frustrated, angry and I had been excited and frustrated but the grace kept me from losing my temper over my recalcitrant truck. I didn't pray for it. It was just there. I can't figure it out so I'll just accept it.

Thank you, Lord.

Orwellian Text Talk

We were in a restaurant enjoying a Friday night fish fry and conversation, catching up on the day's local news and discussing deep topics as our blood pressure readings. Don't snicker, blood pressure numbers are important when you realize you aren't bulletproof anymore. My wife's eye shifted to a nearby table and my eye naturally followed. 

A young (younger than 50 ) couple was preoccupied, no, mesmerized by their phones. Perhaps the secrets of quantum mechanics or The Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant. More than likely it was texting, that strange new language which I feel is an abomination. 

The English language is important to me. Clear communication is important and I am fearful that texting is gradually usurping the English language as we know it. 

I also use the text media on my phone but I refuse to use text-talk, with it's arcane abbreviations, numbers substituted for letters, lack of sentence structure and pitiful grammar.

I hated English class as a lad but in my senior years I've developed a love for the language, the richness of adjectives and adverbs, the flow of good  sentence structure and good writing. This probably came from my love of reading.  Contrast the writings of any prominent author, John Steinbeck for example, in The Grapes of Wrath, "The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled broken dry grass..." with "hoo r u 4 pack or SF".
Decoded, 'Who are you for, the Packers or San Francisco?"

Orwell called it Newspeak in his visionary novel, 1984. Newspeak eliminated the descriptive depth of writing. It cancelled emotions, flavors, colors, fragrances, odors and replaced it with  mere functionality. There was 'good', "plus good' for better and 'double plus good for terrific or wonderful or fantastic. The English language had become sterile, dead. Omnipresent telescreens bleated out sterilized news and production reports. Music and literature were heretical and the worst part was that anyone talking in the old English would mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again.

Advertising has eroded the language as well, with intentionally incorrect spelling, sentence structure and general disrespect of the English language. Advertising inundates our consciousness as we passively stare at a screen urging us to "By now b 4 it's too late. Hey!"

I feel like Charlie Brown, "I can't stand it." 

Industrial Disease

I look out of my window and see the sad, dirty and minimized snow banks. The streets are bereft
of ice and snow. Even the rooftops are bare. Come on! this is Big Snow Country, the turf of rough, tough snowmobile-rs, athletic Nordic and downhill  skiers, snow- shoers and kids building snow forts. (For some reason unknown to me I have not seen kids participating in snowball fights in many years..)

It is a downright dismal landscape, the likes of which I've not seen during January. A wise old fellow yooper told me these January thaws are normal. Well, I'm a yooper too, maybe not so wise, and I recall many a January thaw, but each with an ample reserve of snow.

Someone told me that the warming trend of the globe is cyclical, undulating, that this is normal and mere man could not cause it with smokestack or tailpipe emissions. The person is also a 'young-earther', but I'll only say that I believe that scientific evidence points to the contrary. I believe in undulation of the earth's temperature, but not to the extent that we are witnessing now.

Horrible storms have ravaged our country, causing a wake of billions of dollars in damages. It snows heavily in the Ohio valley and in Tennessee, Kentucky and even North Carolina. The northeast has been walloped by blizzards as well as Hurricane Sandy, dubbed as a superstorm.

Something is dead-wrong when all the major blizzards go to central and southern states.

When I was a lad we had at least three snow days a year. It snowed so furiously that I could not recognize anything across the street. Blizzard wind gusts made the house crack and creak and then  when the blizzard ended the polar express roared in, chilling us to as low as minus thirty degrees.

Snow was a novelty then and blizzards exciting, seen through my youthful eyes. Until recently I groused about each storm and the hype preceding each one. Just more work to do. A nuisance until January 2013.

I would rather have had 18" of snow than the rain and the icy conditions for pedestrians. The lack of snow is crippling our fragile local economy based upon the above-mentioned sports.

My thoughts lingered on the ice core samples taken from the polar regions. Evidence of air-pollution spiked with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and has since worsened. The Greenland glaciers are melting, as well as those of the Swiss Alps. Polar sea ice is disappearing rapidly, creating an impact for wildlife with a polar habitat.

Something is dead-wrong when I pray for snow.