Blog #10 What a Profile!

Death and the Jester

February 2007

Evening: Steve just walked in with the mail.  I’m in the kitchen trying to get dinner ready so I can escape for an evening out with my girlfriends.  He’s carrying a yellow manila envelope; the book he bought on eBay.  

South Dakota Magazine is doing a profile on my great-great-grandfather, Edward Anders Lysaght Griffin, and they want to use some of his unpublished work.  My grandmother, who holds the copyright on his published writing, asked Steve to research the copyright issues. During his search he came across a rare copy of Rhymes of a Rancher, written and illustrated by E.A.L. Griffin, published 1924. 

It’s a slim volume.  On the cover is a sketch of a cowboy sitting against a tree, smoking a pipe and writing; his horse looking on.  The book smells dusty and old.  It looks like it’s never been opened, but the description on eBay said it was signed by the author’s widow.  Sure enough, on the inside cover in heavy script it says “to Mattie Jennings from the author’s widow Georgiana Lysaght Griffin.” 

Steve thumbs through the book while I continue chopping vegetables.  He makes me stop to look.  There on the blank pages in the back is a handwritten poem.  The script is ornate and difficult to decipher.  There’s a title, “Death and the Jester” and a date, February 9, 1937.

February 9, 1937

Morning:  Edward, the boy who would become my grandfather, was fourteen and living in Hot Springs, South Dakota with his grandmother, Georgiana, and his grandfather, Ed.  For generations the oldest son in the family was always named Edward Anders Lysaght Griffin.  My grandfather would abandon the practice when his oldest son was born, perhaps to avoid the confusion of so many family members with the same name. 

Ed, according to Georgiana’s journal, was “called ‘Lysaght’ mostly as a child and as a young man.  Here, in America, he was called ‘Ed’ by his intimates, or ‘Griff’ and that name, ‘Ed’ is what (she) usually called him.”  He often signed his name E.A.L.  His grandchildren called him Daddam. 

I imagine Edward sitting down to breakfast with his grandparents that morning, just like any other day.  It would have been cold.  There would have been snow.  It would be the last meal he would ever eat with his Daddam.  I wonder if there was any hint of what would happen later that day.

February 2007

Morning:  Last night, after I left for drinks with my girlfriends, Steve scanned the handwritten poem and emailed it to my grandmother, Barb.  This morning I hurried to get the kids out the door to school so I could look at the poem my great-great-grandfather wrote and see if I can figure out what it says.

“When Old Man Death drops in to make a call

And leaving turns his head and beckons me
I trust that I shall falter not at all,
But heed his summons unconcernedly.”
 

The script is challenging.  The blue ink is still clear on the yellowing pages, even after seventy years, but the handwriting loops and scrunches and letters don unusual shapes.

“I fair would greet him with a cheery smile

(As ever I’ve been want to greet a guest)

Then bid him doff his cloak and stay a while

Before proceeding on his journey West.” 

I’ve heard the story of my great-great-grandfather’s death.  As I work to make sense of the text, I’m beginning to feel sick to my stomach.

“I’d show no sign of terror or dismay

Whereby his weak compassion I might earn

But with some pleasantry I’d start my way

Upon that trip from which there’s no return.” 

The phone rings.  It’s Barb.  Her voice sounds strange, high pitched, somewhere between crying and laughing.  “It’s dated the day he died.  Your grandfather always said he left a note.”

The truth begins to sink in.  It isn’t just a poem.  It’s a suicide note. 

“To flout his call would be of no avail,

Death grants no respite; it were therefore best
That men should say of me; he did not quail,
But made his exit with a parting jest.
----------
Written in morning and ….. that afternoon he passed away
Feb. 9 – 1937”

 

Blog #9 Get on the Bus Gus

The clicking of the mouse and keyboard almost drown out Kyle’s voice as it crackles through the speaker phone.  “You know what would be a cool creation?  The Eiffel Tower.”

“Yeah that’d be great.  It’d be hard though.”  Jonathan agreed as he typed away. 

“It’d be a good creation.”  Kyle’s voice fades into a series of noises and then breathing like Darth Vader.

Jonathan and Kyle are both eleven.  They’ve been friends since they were two and they were virtually inseparable before Kyle and his family moved to Arizona a year and a half ago.  A year, maybe six months before the move the boys discovered the online multi-player game Minecraft.   The game has saved their friendship.  When Kyle moved they might have written a few letters, made a few phone calls, and then moved on to other friends.  Instead, they play Minecraft.  Every day.  More often than not they’re not only on the same server, they’re also on the phone talking distractedly while focused on their virtual world. 

Kyle:  “I’ve used up two three stacks of cobblestone.”

Jonathan:  “I have a stack and fifty-five left.”

Kyle:  “I think that’s the last of our cobblestone.”

Jonathan:  “Why don’t we stop here?  Why don’t we go gather some glass?  Why……..  How much do you have left?”

Kyle:  “Did you just take some?”

Jonathan:  “Nope, I just took some wood.”

Kyle: “It looked like it multiplied it, but really didn’t.”

Minecraft looks a bit like a computer version of Legos.  The players use blocks to create their worlds.  Diamond pick axes mine for red stone and other materials they can build with or trade.  They design “skins” for their characters and spawn animals or plant crops for food.  The game can be played in creative mode or survival mode where players steal from each other and kill for resources. 

Kyle hums.  Jonathan types frantically.

Jonathan:  “Dude.  There’s Citizen and Kit Check.”

Kyle:  “Huh?”

Jonathan:  “There’s, oh that’s you.  I thought that was a person.”

Kyle:  “Would you kill me?”

Jonathan:  “I would have if you were just a random person.”

Kyle sings.

 

 

Blog #8: 1 Stranger Project

The swim-a-thon is total chaos when my daughter and I arrive.  The swimmers from the earlier time slot are finishing up and Natalie’s group is scrambling to get registered and dressed down.  Coaches, parents, and volunteers are lined up three of four deep at the perimeter of the pool.  Each parent is responsible for counting their swimmer’s lengths, so the parents of the incoming shift are jockeying for position at the end of the lanes.

Her coach puts Natalie in lane three.  I squeeze through the crowd to find a spot to count laps.  Before I can identify her with any certainty amongst the bodies face-down in the water wearing matching swim caps and identical black Speedos, one of the dads asks if I have a child in that lane.

“Yes, she’s the first in line on the right of the lane.” I cheerfully announce.

“No, that’s my daughter.” He says clearly unsure about my fitness as a parent.

I look again and laugh, “Oh, she’s third in that row.  I swear once they’re in the water I can never tell who’s who.”

He smiles; apparently satisfied I’m not totally insane.  His daughter Claire, he explains, is a 5^th grader and it’s her first year on the swim team.  He isn't much taller than me at 5’2” and he’s round, clearly softening into middle age.  He’s dressed in jeans and a raincoat both for the gray clouds and the splashing from the pool.  He has on burgundy Converse shoes and a poor boy cap more suited for downtown Portland than poolside in the suburbs.  His goatee is 3 or 4 inches longer than his chin and he has a tendency to stroke it when he talks.   

Counting pool lengths for two hours is mind numbing, so having someone to chat with is a necessity.  I would have worked to keep a conversation going with anyone, but thankfully he’s incredibly easy to talk to.  In no time I've learned his vital statistics; married, four kids (boy, girl, girl, boy) aged first grade to middle school, grew up in East Portland, lived in Milwaukie for years, recently moved to Hillsboro.

“What do you do?” I ask.

He hesitates.  I worry he’s been laid off or something.  “I’m a pastor” he says, sounding shy for the first time.  I don’t know what reaction he expects or may have gotten in the past.

“That’s great, which church?” I ask.

We chat about his church and the challenges of an aging congregation and trying to appeal to a younger generation, our kids and their activities, his wife’s scrapbooking, applied theater, and even philosophy.  Friends now, he volunteers to count Natalie’s laps for me when I go to get her another bottle of water.   

An hour or so into the swim-a-thon, my friend Anne comes by to say hi and when I turn to introduce him, I realize I don’t know his name.  I touch his arm and ask.

“Jeremiah.”

“I’m Karla and this is my friend, Anne.”  I say and we all shake hands.  

After Anne leaves we pick up where we left off and talk until the end.

The two hours fly by.

Blog #7 Research and Voice

My great-uncle Merril died this morning.  He was ninety-six.  He was a kind, intelligent man who was fascinated by history and loved to tell stories.  He was a teacher, not a mechanic or farmer like most of the men in my family from that generation.  He was a teacher, a less physically taxing profession, because he had polio.  The virus left him partially paralyzed on one side and having to wear leg and arm braces.

The 1952 polio outbreak was the worst in U.S. history killing 3,145 and leaving 21,269 with some level of paralysis.  Some were so severely paralyzed they had to be placed in an iron lung to help them breathe.  Polio primarily affects children and I can only imagine the fear parents must have felt during the summers when polio epidemics were most likely to occur.  There is evidence the disease has wreaked havoc for centuries, but thankfully it has become less and less common since the polio vaccine was developed in the 1950’s. 

Polio epidemics profoundly changed those who survived them.  They also changed U.S. culture.  The disease was well publicized during the epidemics of the 1950’s which sparked grassroots fund-raising campaigns similar to the breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, leukemia, and heart disease campaigns of today.  The scientists who contributed to finding the vaccine were venerated as heroes.   Polio survivors are one of the largest disabled groups in the world and have played a major role in the disability rights movement.  

I don’t know if my great-uncle Merril was ever formally involved in the disability rights movement, but he lived his life it such a way that I never considered him disabled.  He was passionate, enthusiastic, and interested in everything from politics to geology.  He was a loving husband, father of five, grandfather and great-grandfather.  He was a beloved teacher and a great story-teller.  

Blog #6 On Legwarmers

The little girl line ahead of me is adorable.  She's walking in circles around a pole and during each rotation she peeks up at me through her white sunglasses.  She can't be more than eighteen months old, but she looks more put together than I ever have in my almost four decades.  Her jet black hair is cut in a bob with fashionable bangs.  Her dress is pink and brown, feminine, without being too precious.  She's wearing matching brown tights and when she bends over I can see there's a bear's face on her diapered back side.  Her perfectly coordinated shoes are pink with little brown flowers.  And, wait for it, she's wearing fuzzy brown legwarmers.

That's right legwarmers.  And she's rocking them!  This cutie looks like she just stepped out of a baby fashion magazine.

At home I Google legwarmers and learn that the fad I thought died before I entered junior high school has been reborn as the latest in baby fashion.  Images of babies in onsies wearing every conceivable color of legwarmers flood my computer screen.  The light blue legwarmers worn by a giggling baby boy remind me of the legwarmers I wore in the 1980's over a royal blue full body leotard.  I'll wait a moment while that image sinks in.

Here's the best part, my Barbie had a matching outfit.  Well almost.  Her legwarmers were Barbie striped, you know, baby blue, yellow, and pink.  She had a matching blue headband.  I had to borrow my dad's sweaty headband to complete my ensemble which I wore when I worked out in my bedroom to my Mousercise cassette tape or did Jane Fonda with my grandmother at her house.    

As cool as I thought I was in my legwarmers, I've never found fashion all that understandable.  I've always felt like I was a day late and a dollar short when it came to clothing choices, but even I knew the eighties were a bad decade for fashion.  When legwarmers went the way of the dinosaurs, I firmly believed it was for the best.  So, I'm surprised that I find these infant legwarmers cute.  Thankfully, my kids are old enough to make their own fashion choices or I might be out looking for legwarmers to match all their outfits.  Or then again, maybe not. 

Blog #5 On Earlobes

When my daughter was eleven she and her best friend got their ears pierced together.  They were giggly and excited and feeling very grown up as we arrived at the mall.  Natalie started looking nervous when she was picking out the earrings that would be used to pierce her ears.  She squeezed my hand when the moment came.  Her earlobes were bright red when it was over, but her smile was huge. 

Some think earlobes may help warm the ears and maintain balance, but most studies show that ear lobes are soft, fleshy, bulbous appendages with no major functional purpose.  They are filled with nerves and considered an erogenous zone.  They may be kissed, licked, or nibbled in love.  They may be pierced, gauged, or stretched. 

Earlobes are torn often enough that earlobe repairs are considered a common surgery.  They stretch over time due to the weight of earrings or just due to age.  Earlobe lifts are available just like face lifts or breast lifts to tighten pendulous flesh and disguise the passage of time.

Carole Burnett used to close her shows by tugging on her earlobe- a secret message to her beloved grandmother.  Earlobes with expensive diamond earrings can send the message of wealth.  In some areas of the world the longer your earlobes have been stretched is a sign of status.  Earlobes can be pierced multiple times or gauged as a sign of non-conformity.  Earlobes can be pierced as a rite of passage.

Blog #4 Working the Scene

Diabetes is a slow persistent killer.  It took my grandfather from us one piece at a time.  I was in elementary school when he lost his first leg to gangrene.  The blood wasn't circulating in his foot and leg properly anymore.  The diseased tissues were slowly dying.  To save his life he would have to lose his leg.  The surgeon cut off my grandfather’s leg just below the knee.  He sawed through skin, muscle, tendons and ligaments to prune away the dying tissue like my dad pruned the weeping willow in the backyard.  The one with the tire swing.

My grandfather comes to visit us after the amputation.  Scared and excited, I want to see what his artificial leg will look like and how the stump of his leg will look.  I picture flesh torn apart like a raw chicken being prepared for dinner.    

Grandpa Ed sits in my dad’s lazy-boy chair in our small living room and my little sister, Sarah, and I wiggle as we sit on the floor at his feet.  He looks almost normal sitting there with his brown cotton pants covering the artificial leg.  His real foot rests flat on the floor, but the artificial foot angles up unnaturally.  His pants are rolled up slightly revealing the sagging sock on his artificial leg.  Grinning, he pulls his pant leg up and reveals his new leg.  The fake leg is molded in the shape of an actual leg, peachy pink like the piglets at the County Fair.  The leg is smooth, but not hairless.  He’d drawn black hairs all over it with marker. 

Sarah and I cover his leg with stickers and he jokes about letting us tattoo him.  He shows us how he takes his new leg off and puts it back on. The leg is incredibly heavy.  The actual stump remains a mystery.  It’s covered in athletic bandages and a sleeve of some spongy material that provides a cushion between his stump and the leg. 

He loses his second leg a couple years later.  We visit my grandparents in Buffalo Gap, South Dakota that Christmas.  He is still recovering from the surgery and stretches out on the couch with his latest stump propped up.  I plop down in the space his leg used to fill and he swings the stump over as if his phantom leg were in my way.  His artificial legs no longer look anything like legs.  They’re metal poles with toe-less feet to fill his shoes.  They’re much lighter.  I miss that first leg, but it isn't there anymore, instead it hangs as a conversation piece in the Buffalo Gap bar.  I hope it’s still covered in marker.

Blog #3 Don't Tell it on the Mountain; Show it Instead

I love books.  As a child I dreamed of having a library of my own.  A few years ago we hired a contractor to add a room to our house.  It is a small office with floor to ceiling bookcases along two walls.  It's my favorite room in the house.  The shelves are filled with books and books are beginning to spill over into stacks on the floor.  I have piles of books in my bedroom and next to my favorite chair in the family room.  There are books everywhere.  Each book is a memory, a reminder of a class or a particular time in my life.

There are two books that I've never really considered mine.  I've never put them on a shelf.  I've never reread them.  I feel guilty even looking at them.



My friend, Alka, and I stuff my huge backpack into her tiny car and drive from Hanover to Hamlin.  Hamlin is the setting of the Pied Piper.  It is a picturesque German village and Alka's parents' house is like nothing I've ever seen before.  It's old.  White stucco walls support a wooden shake roof.  It's a large L shape with one wing for her parents and one wing for her grandparents.  Her family has lived here for generations.  The longer side of the L also includes a barn.  There are smaller outbuildings too.  The rooms are small with low ceilings.  The woodwork is beautiful and the furnishings are warm if a bit outdated.  The kitchen is cozy with a well worn family table in the corner.  In the small adjacent room they use as a pantry her mother has a machine for slicing meat for sandwiches.  It looks like something you'd only see in a butcher shop.  Alka's mother makes pizza in honor of having an American guest.  The crust is thick, there's no sauce, and one of the toppings is potatoes.  I can't stop smiling.  I appreciate her effort more than I can express.

Alka and I stay for a few days.  Her mother takes us shopping in the village and her father takes us to visit their weekend house.  It's only 20 minutes away.  Her older brother ignores us.  Her grandparents speak no English, but smile and hug me frequently.

After Hamlin, I was heading to visit another friend.  I'd packed as lightly as possible for the  almost two months I'd spend in Europe since much of my trip would be spent backpacking and camping.  I didn't bring any books.

Alka shares my love of books.  She offers to loan me something to read while I travel, but of course most of her books are in German.  There is a sagging bookshelf in an upstairs hallway.  She pulls out two books from an English class she'd taken in high school, "The Lord of the Flies" and "The Wave." Not my usual fare, but English at least.  "The Wave" is a small red text with a study guide. It includes tips for reading in English without using a dictionary.  According to the prologue, it is used to teach students about fascism.  Her copy of "The Lord of the Flies" has a white background with a black and white pig bleeding red from one eye and out both sides of its mouth.  It looks like the head is on a stake.  These don't look like anything I read in high school.  She hugs them to her chest and tells me how much she'd loved the class and how much these books mean to her.  I take them and promise to mail them back to her before I leave Europe.



I didn't keep that promise.  When I arrived back in the States and unpacked the books, I set them aside with every intention of mailing them to her.  I sent her a thank you note.  I sent her pictures.  I kept the books.  For sixteen years I've told myself I would send them to her, tell her how they filled the hours I spent alone in another friend's apartment in former East Germany, apologize, lie and tell her I'd misplaced them, use it as an opportunity to reconnect, catch up.  I recently added the books to a stack on the floor in the office.  They will eventually make it onto a shelf.  Maybe I'll even reread them.

Blog #2: My First MRI

My neurologist reminds me of Einstein.  He has crazy curly hair.  He makes geeky attempts to calm me with magic tricks and his eyes light up when he starts talking about the diseases that have to be ruled out in order to get to a diagnosis.  He looks at me like I’m a puzzle to be solved.

The first MRI he ordered took place at a clinic.  Subsequent MRIs would be at the hospital, but this first test was in the clinic nearby, kind of like a warm-up.  The tech who greeted me ran through a list of questions I could tell he’d asked a thousand times before.

Tech: “Are you on any medication?”

Me: “I took a Valium about an hour ago.”
Tech: “How are you feeling?”
Me: “Pretty relaxed.” I slurred.
Tech: “Any metal?”
Me: “No.”
Tech: “No underwire in your bra? No zippers, no snaps, no metal jewelry?”
Me: “No metal.”

He led me into the MRI room.  The machine didn’t look as scary as I’d imagined. It was just a big white tube with a platform in the center for the patient to lie on.  I’ve never liked small spaces and I could feel the sweat running down my sides.  I took off my shoes.  The floor was freezing.  I gave the tech my glasses and lay down on the platform.  The tech slid the pillow under my knees and covered me with a blanket.  Lying still for so long would be difficult, he warned, but without my knees up, it would be painful. 

“The machine can get pretty warm, so let me know if you want the blanket off.”  He said as he guided my head into the right spot on the head rest.  A cage-like structure was lowered over my face and strapped down.  Once the straps were in place, I couldn’t move my head at all.  The cage-like structure over my face included an angled mirror. The tech explained that the mirror was angled in such a way that I would be able to see out the end of the machine.  Without my glasses I could barely see two inches in front of my face much less out the machine.  I planned to keep my eyes closed.

He handed me headphones to block out the noise of the machine and to allow him to communicate with me.  He asked which radio station I’d like to listen to. “Just something soothing.” I said.  In the future my answer would be NPR which forces me to really listen and generally allows me to keep my mind from racing. 

He pressed the button to slide me in to the machine.  I squeezed my eyes closed and took a deep breath.  The tube is big enough that I fit inside, but my shoulders were squeezed together and I felt the sides of the tube hugging my whole body.  The patient must hold completely still and the tube is small enough to make moving pretty impossible. 

It is loud inside the MRI and it shakes in a way that reminds me of a washing machine spin cycle.  I listened to the music in the headphones.  The tech’s voice would break in every few minutes to give me instructions.  His constant interruptions included things like “Don’t move your head at all; don’t even swallow, for the next two minutes.”  As soon as he said that of course ALL I wanted was to swallow.  There were even a few minutes when I wasn’t supposed to blink.   

I wanted to know how tight the tube really was.  I opened my eyes once for about two seconds.  The smooth white tube was only inches from my face.  I didn’t open my eyes again.  I didn’t want to think about how little space I had.

I can’t remember if that first MRI lasted 45 minutes or an hour.  Subsequent MRIs, and there would be many, would last an hour and a half or so.  Halfway through I was slid out of the machine and I got to stand up for a moment while the tech adjusted the machine.  I didn’t have my glasses, so I really don’t know what he did to the machine, but soon enough I was back on the platform.  I felt lightheaded and dizzy after twenty or thirty minutes of not moving. 

It was time for the contrast dye.  In an MRI the pictures are taken and then the patient is given contrast dye and the pictures are all taken again.  My veins are always hard to find and it took the tech three tries to get the needle in. Once he found a vein, he pushed the plunger in slowly while watching my face for a reaction.  I tasted metal which apparently is a normal reaction.  As long as I didn’t get nauseated the tech seemed satisfied.  Then I was moved back into the machine for what felt like another eternity.

 

 

The internal conflict for me was the experience of being just another patient to the tech.  What was routine for him was terrifying for me.  My doctor had prescribed the Valium to help me deal with any claustrophobia, but really I think it just helped me be compliant.  You want to give me a shot that could cause kidney cancer later on?  Sure, knock yourself out.  I’ll even lie really still and not make a sound as you stab me three times.  Ultimately my neurologist did come up with a diagnosis, but it took months and lots of tests.  The first MRI was the moment I began to understand how it was going to be to navigate the machine of modern medicine as I learned to deal with chronic illness.

Bog #1: To tell you the truth....

When I was five or six I ate a raw clam.  Or a raw oyster.  

In the basement of our military housing, in the back of the laundry room, there was a large sink my parents used for cleaning seafood. This was Alaska and the basement was always cold. I remember sitting on the hard counter next to the sink watching as my dad cleaned the clams. Maybe they were oysters. He told me some people ate them raw and maybe to prove how grown up I was I put one of the cold slimy creatures in my mouth and swallowed. I remember the grit in my teeth.

I think this really happened, but maybe not. I know cleaning seafood in the basement sink was a regular occurance during the years we lived in Alaska. I know I sat on the counter and watched. I can imagine my dad joking about eating raw oysters. I know was naive enough to actually try it. I certainly believe this is true and I the only way I can eat a clam now is in clam chowder or deep fried or in some other way totally disguised. I won't eat an oyster or mussel. I had to disect a clam in high school (no, there's not much to disect) and I told my friends I had eaten a raw one with absolute faith that I was telling the truth.

It is hard to imagine my dad actually allowing me to eat a raw clam. Or a raw oyster. I do agree with Joan Didion that "if you remember it, then it's true." For me this story is true.