An Exclusive Club

This is a long one. Be forewarned.

If you read this blog, you know my politics. I am one of "those" liberals.

You know, those nuts that are trying to promote government spending on social programs. One of those who believes that everyone should have a fair shot at being treated for illness, whether mild or devastating. One who believes that a chance at education should not be restricted to those who can afford it. One who recognizes that not everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but may need a system which offers compassion and care. It would be safe to say that I believe in most everything that Sarah Palin does not. Are you fine with that Grizzly Mama? And yes, I probably have an agenda!

I was raised as a Southern Baptist after being tested for a period in the waters of the Pentecostals by a great aunt who feared for my hereafter. I can even quote Bible verses from memory. And yes, I attend church regularly. But I am a raving fanatical liberal. My favorite color is blue.

That entered in the record. It is time to confess something. I want it out there so that it doesn't come back to haunt me later.

I belong to a very restricted, very selective club. And I guess, since it is true confession time, I should also mention my hobby is sailing.

Uh oh!!!!!

I started this blog as an experiment at the suggestion of a friend. Its purpose was to acquaint myself with the medium so that I might impart a personal passion to those who might visit the website of an organization for which I have great interest. (www.thehomeworkproject.org) However, FOMS: Frustrated Old Man’s Syndrome has become an enjoyable adventure for me. I should be blogging more about Romania but since Oprah and Sarah continue to make headlines, I have no choice but to react. Sometimes a guy's got to do what a guy's got to do.

But I digress.

The very first entry in this series of rantings back in November of 2009 talked about dealing with atrophy and the body. It was the day before I was to go to my private, exclusive, and “toney” club.

First a bit of background information.

In February of 2009, it was discovered that I had been a very bad boy in the cholesterol department and there was some arterial blockage that could really cause a problem. So, I had angioplasty. Stents placed in the congested vessels pumping the key to life. More were added in March.

I have lived on the wildside of saturated fat.

My eminent cardiologist – and I believe him to be one of the very best – along with my general practice physician (whom seems to know me better than I know myself) both suggested that I should involve myself in a cardiac rehabilitation program offered by the hospital following the heart surgery. It is a gym-like program designed for heart patients and administered under the watchful eye of trained nurses – specialists in cardiac conditions.

But, I am headstrong. And besides, sailing season was about to begin and I reasoned that I am always very active during those many days out on Lake Michigan, so I didn’t really need to do anything more.

So I sailed and sailed and sailed. Fall came, sailing ended.

In mid-November, coming through O’Hare from a trip to see the little people, you know them as the grandchildren, and to pop into my place in Alabama, I literally thought that I would collapse somewhere between Gate F22 and Baggage Claim.

I was exhausted. I was winded. I was a bit surprised at my degree of “unfitness.”

So, contritely, I phoned my cardiologist the following day and meekly requested to be admitted into cardiac rehabilitation. I was like the drunk who had awakened in the gutter with a cheap bottle of ripple and no brown paper bag. I was desperate. The window for acceptance had closed so a “new diagnosis” had to be formulated.

But “he” is god and it happened.

Within 24 hours the phone rang and a voice that I now know well introduced herself and outlined what was involved. I agreed to begin on the following Wednesday. I had considered 7 a.m., but finally opted for 9.

Sometimes, you just have to ease into things, you know.

Now I am a person who does not like new experiences. It has to do with controlling my environment. No surprises. I abhor walking into a room as the “new kid” on the block. So going into rehab was a challenge. The walk from the parking garage seemed interminable. But I made the maze of corridors in a hospital that has “added on” quite a number of times.

Finally I was there. Go ahead dummy - hand on doorknob. It is not rocket science.

I opened the door and was greeted with people on treadmills, stationary bicycles, NuSteps, and a couple of guys having their blood pressure checked.

It was a buzz of activity.

Think Bally’s but add 40 years and double the pounds on all the participants. You don’t see a lot of spandex in cardiac rehab. Thank you Lord!

Immediately, Jean – one of the nurses – handed me a heart-monitoring device and showed me where the locker room was located so that I might “hook myself up.” Thankfully, the electrodes were white, green, and red. I could sort those simple colors out. Sometimes when I am given things that are acqua, lime, or lavender, I become lost in “color-nuance” land.

I am colorblind. That is not a statement about political correctness.

With electrodes attached, I returned to begin my new life.

Jean began logging me onto the computer program which would allow the staff to observe my heart rhythms. Before I could even sit down on the recumbent bike, I heard a “whoa!”

Now, there are things heart patients never want to hear. “Keep walking towards the light” is one. “Whoa” is another.

It seems that even before exercise my heart was in atrial fibrilation. The upper chamber was beating too fast for the lower chamber to pump the blood out. So the only exercise I got my first day was getting into the wheel chair to be chauffeured to the emergency room.

Well, I got some meds to control my racing upper chamber and returned to rehab a couple of days later.

Things went swimmingly for about two weeks. Then I heard another “whoa.”

This time the heart was beating too slowly. Back to the ER. I was about to request a free visit – you know, come twice and the third is free. You think about things like that in retirement. Its that “fixed-income” mentality.

This time, the god of cardiology decided to place a heart monitor on me and see what was happening over a twenty-four hours. I made a pledge to try to avoid driving, watching Fox News, or reading about Sarah Palin for this period.

I returned the monitor to the office so they might decipher the ways of the heart and proceeded on to rehab. Hooked up and ready to go, I heard another “whoa.”

Now Jean is a very great conversationalist, I assure you. Articulate. Experienced in her work. But with me, there was a redundancy that was becoming a bit bothersome. I was hearing "whoa" as often as a mule in cotton season in Mississippi.

Back to the ER. I guess this was my freebie visit.

The god of cardiology spoke and declared, “you are getting a pacemaker.” Oops there goes all my culinary skills right down the drain. Pacemaker = microwave. Memo to self: sell your Stouffer’s stock.

It was December 23 and I was being told to prepare to be sidelined for a couple of days by the installation of a very sophisticated device in my chest. But, as a church musician you know early on that Christmas Eve is a “never miss” event. And besides, I was flying to Alabama on Christmas Day, something I have done for years.

Well, the god of cardiology allowed me Christmas Eve but denied me going south. The pacemaker was installed the day after Christmas. Now, a computer in my chest was going to record each beat my heart makes. Say goodbye to the “swinging singles.”

I could imagine Janet, the pacemaker lady asking, “would you like to explain what was happening at 12:30 a.m. on March 18?

Following the surgery, I was instructed in great detail that my left side was to be practically unusable for six months. No lifting. No sleeping on the left side. And no raising the hand above the head. Thankfully, I am not a Pentecostal.

So I had some down time from rehab during the healing process. In early February I finally got to fly south and on to Florida to help my firstborn celebrate an important birthday. And yes, spend some quality time with the youngest of the little people, my granddaughter.

Now when we were all together in Dallas in November, she was very “stand-offish” toward me. Trying to avoid a repeat, my son had spent a great amount of effort in her looking at photos of the old guy and talking about granddaddy coming for a visit. So she came running to me with arms outstretched.

I grabbed her and lifted her up for a kiss. Bad granddaddy! Bad granddaddy!

I returned to rehab in mid-February and got hooked up on the monitor.

They say that things happen in threes. Not true. They sometimes happen in fours. You know what happened. Get ready.

“Whoa!”

I had pulled the leads from the pacemaker out of the heart muscle. The only pacing going on was the exasperated cardiologist who had never had a patient quite like me.

The pacemaker was reinstalled and I am still in rehab. I have even graduated from Phase 2 and am now an "independent contractor" in Phase 3. (No heart monitor.) I have had fewer "whoa" moments because of the great staff. They are lifesavers and they wear their mantles with great grace.

I like to think of rehab as an exclusive club. Not everyone can qualify. Some of those who do have had 911 moments. I have been fortunate to have been at the right place at the right time.

Like any club, some of our members are more driven than others. Mel, one of our guys felt quite proud of having three pieces of pound cake for breakfast. Mel is diabetic and I thought the nurse would choke him. Mel, sometimes you just got to lie.

Jean left us for a job closer to home and a great opportunity. But that great lady, Colleen, who first called me to set everything up and get me started is still there patiently shepherding us all. She is our membership chair. Our gatekeeper. She remembers the little things. She asks about sailing. We talk about her son the singer who just started college. Tomorrow we will probably talk about separation anxiety.

I cannot think about a better club to which one could belong. My kids do caution me to always say “cardiac” and not just “rehab.” I think it is a Lindsay Lohan thing.

I like to think of myself as finally finding the “purpose driven life.” (Sorry, Rick Warren.) It is nice to decide to add another ten minutes on the NuStep while discussing a good book with my friend Mike. I love discussing the South with Bennett. Larry shares my passion for social outreach. Ted and I talk sailing. Hy just keeps whistling.

You couldn’t find a nicer bunch of clubbers.

I do get a strange look from Ruthie, the quiet one, when I respond to Colleen’s question, “how are you doing over there?”

“I’m walking for Jesus!” as I go for another lap on the counter. It's good to be alive.

The Seventy-two Hour Rule

My mother and father lie buried alongside each other in a family plot in the town where I grew up in Alabama. When I go back to my home there, I generally will make a pass through the cemetery. Sometimes I get out of the car and walk around to pull a wayward weed or to adjust a bad floral tribute that has weathered poorly since my last visit.

Often, I just look from the car.

To be completely honest, the cemetery visit isn’t an important ritual to me because, in my mind, they are not there. They are not beneath the brass plaque that gives credence to their birth and to their death.

They are, for me, precisely and squarely in my mind. They are with me in every thought I have because they helped formed my attitudes and challenged my beliefs. Memories of them cause me to laugh riotously or to sometimes brush a tear. But it is all good, even the sadness that they are no longer at the other end of a phone line ready to help me feel a little more secure in times of doubt.

They are not only “in my mind,” they are often “on my mind” as well. Each day of my life I remember them and I smile. I can well understand Madame Rosepettle’s love for her husband that is so great that upon his death, she has him stuffed so that he may stay around with the family and be enjoyed.

She eventually moves on and one day her son finds "Dad" hanging in the closet.

I am not so certain that I would like either parent sitting about like a taxidermist specimen as Mr.Rosepettle was in the Kopit play. However, I would love to hear my father tell, yet again, the story of stealing the chocolates from the general store on a hot July day in Mississippi and stashing the ill-gotten treats in the bloomers being worn by his sister, Frances. Remember, it was Mississippi in July. You do the math.

Or to hear my purple-haired mom mocking Aunt Inie muttering, “my God, child you may hurry” as she attempted to get me moving. Or recalling the events which plagued the family when trying to get to Clanton for Aunt Becky Ann’s funeral.

These family stories are classics and the images they evoke are priceless to me. They are very present always.

So, I am having a bit of difficulty with all the rancor over building a mosque at 45 Park Place in New York City or one in Tennessee or Georgia or California.

Maybe I wear my grief differently.

Each of us recalls where we were when we heard the news or saw the images of planes flying into the World Trade Center. Living in Chicago, I immediately left the downtown area since I didn’t know if what was then called The Sears Tower would also be a target. So yes, there is a horror associated with the events of that September day. It was tragic in every respect.

But the souls lost on that fateful day are not at ground-zero. They are in the minds and hearts of their families – or they should be. They should be in living rooms and on patios. They should be in graduations and weddings. They are at first communions.

Bulldozers and other heavy equipment have been transforming the earth that once held those towers aright. The site is almost unrecognizable. Things have been plowed over and under.

They are not there.

A congregation seeks to build a center for worship and community over two city blocks away. It is not visible from ground-zero. It is a physical impossiblity to see from there. The buildings to be built at ground-zero will dwarf anything around for blocks, so this Islamic center cannot possibly cast any type of shadow save the shadow that exists when we throw up barriers which are products of hatred and ignorance.

That, to my thinking, is the real insult to the memory of those lost on that day in 2001.

I have given my children a guideline that I insist they follow. It is called the Seventy-two Hour Rule. It goes like this:

If I fall off my sailboat, they may look for 72 hours.

If I am lost in a collapse of a coal mine, they may look for 72 hours.

If I have fallen down an abandoned well, they may look for 72 hours.

If I fly my plane off looking for a balloon landing site and go missing, they may look for 72 hours.

The bottom line is, “don’t hold everyone hostage just because my mortal shell is missing.” Move on. Life is too short. Read my words. Listen to my music. Get involved with my projects. You will find that I am right there and we will all smile, maybe even laugh.

Many years before my parents died, I was in Alabama for a visit. My maternal grandmother had died a few months before, so mother requested we go to the old family plot to inspect the grave marker that had been recently placed but not checked by anyone to see that it was done correctly.

While we were there, I said to my parents, “I don’t know what your plans are for when you die. I need to know.” My mother said, "come with me."

My parents drove to the newer cemetery across town and took me to the family plot they had purchased. It sat very close to the quiet, wandering drive. Despite the fact that there was no one buried there, there was an impressive brass tablet embedded in the ground with both parent’s names and dates of birth. The dates of death were yet to be added.

It was obviously the first time that my father had viewed it and I could tell that it was, for him, a sobering moment. He walked away, not wishing to be confronted with his future.

I hastened to lighten the situation.

“Look, everyone passing down the highway is talking about your ‘no-good, Yankee-fied son who doesn’t even put any flowers on his daddy’s grave.’ They think you are already here and that I just don’t care.”

He smiled, even chuckled a bit at the thought that I was taking the fall and we went on our way.

Well, there are bad artificial flowers there now. Not for mother and daddy so much as for the gossips who need to discuss things like that in a small town.

Much like the Sarah Palin’s and Newt Gingrich’s need to weigh in on mosques.

Your 72 hours are up, move on. You have no monopoly on compassion or grief.

My father would laugh to the point he would gasp for air when telling about Frances and the dripping chocolate. When I knew her in later years, Aunt Frances had always seemed so proper. More like the Shott’s side of the family. Of course, she was married eight or so times for fun and profit.

Well, it is for certain she wasn’t Baptist.

Dad, keep it up, I am laughing now.

Mitch, We Hardly Knew Ye

Mitch Miller died Monday. He was 99. Truth be told, I thought he died years ago. I think I must have confused him with Mantovani, another of those who took music to the mainstream.

Mitch was the one with the goatee. Mantovani was Italian. Leonard Berstein was talented, but such a mess of emotion when he conducted. Miller seemed, as I recall, "cool."

While I may have hummed, I don’t think that I ever “Sang Along With Mitch.” I know some folks who did and they didn’t seem worse for the wear. Mitch’s music was not exceptional or complicated; there were no challenging harmonies; it was after all, unison sing-a-long.

Despite the simplicity of it, I did call upon Mitch a lot over the years. Maybe not “call upon” but evoke him.

You see, I have conducted a volunteer church choir since I was around 14. Yes, that is correct. I was a precocious nerd. The Baptist’s were in need and I answered their plea. This was along about the time when my father decided that our family was going to go to church together rather than roast in hell. Up to that signal event, his weekly Sunday “headache” had put our souls in peril. But that was an earlier blog.

Invariably volunteer choirs are small. That is, unless you are in a large mega-church, and then they are large and sloppy and sound a lot like a Mitch Miller group except for the “Blood of the Lamb” part. Mitch usually dealt with the Bossa Nova. I think the Astrud Gilburto, “Girl from Ipanema” was far too-wordy for Mitch to tackle, but I could be wrong.

So back to the volunteer choir.

Most volunteer choirs have been garnered through a lot of coercion and applied guilt. Growing up as a Baptist, I know volumes about applied guilt. Only in about 23.8 percent of the cases of “volunteerism” does the singer actually come forward and proclaim, “I want desperately to sing in the choir. I have a passion to do so.”

Many years ago, I had an alto who had a passion for singing in the church choir. She also had a great talent for being “way off pitch.” Her passion was so great that she never missed rehearsal or Sunday worship. She was friendly and the type to jump up and get a copy of music for another. But she was always a “tonal irritant.” But the choir was her outlet. The choir was her expression of her faith.

You just don’t mess with a person’s expression of faith.

With volunteers, you learn that you endure their faults and rejoice in their contributions. Mary Franklin filled a robe and a seat on the second row. She also contributed to my prayer life since week after week I pleaded, “Dear God, help MF to find the joy in arranging the altar flowers or being a greeter.” Had I had more of an entrepreneurial bent and had Mary Franklin more of a sense of humor, we could have pre-empted “Jonathan and Darlene Edwards” or gone “downtown” ahead of Mrs. Miller.

But, I digress.

With the 76.2 percent of the volunteer choir who have been recruited through coercion and guilt, they generally come with a sense of timidity.

Do you know how many times I have heard, “I only sing in the shower.”

We had a sprinkler system installed over the choir loft.

Over the years, I have often reminded my volunteers that 20 people singing sotto voce (half voice) does not garner the same effect as 80. Hence, the reference to Mitch. “Choir, this isn’t ‘sing along with Mitch time.’” I am big on mental images when I work with the choir. Ask my tenors and basses about Betty Lou and the St. Ignatius Boy Choir.

Oh, the mysterious ways of the volunteer choir.

I keep waiting for Susan Boyle to appear in my congregation and following a “rip roaring”sermon come forward and say the words that a choir director longs to hear.

“Would you have room for another singer in your choir?”

But since our sermons are more beige than “rip roaring,” I have to continue with the coercion and the guilt. Thankfully, my Baptist mother taught me well.

Years ago, I had a great teenage soprano who volunteered to sing in my Youth Choir which met on Sunday afternoon. She had an amazing young voice. However, I discovered soon afterwards that "choir" was a way to meet a rambunctuous boyfriend. Her mom would drop her off in front of the church and observe her enter the building. She missed her exit out the back.

While I could threaten to post something on the internet, I never would.

Rest in peace, Mitch.