Truck Wisdom from Esther’s Wise Grandpa

By Esther L. Roberts

          (Note: Esther Roberts and I are members of the Tennessee Bar Association. I saw this reflection she wrote about some wise advice from her grandpa, and it touched me; the tone sounded just right for the Monkey’s Eyebrow site. She gave me permission to use it.)

          My first full-size truck was a 3/4 ton flatbed Chevy that had obviously made its way down to a used car lot in Tennessee after several hard winters up north. The running boards were long gone and the lower half of the cab and doors resembled rusty swiss cheese.  The flatbed, once solid white oak, was now a splintery tabletop for termites.  The benefit, of course, was that one needn't crawl beneath the bed to inspect the rear axle – just look between the boards.  But after owning a couple of used cars, and having to bum rides from horsey friends whenever I wanted to haul my horse somewhere, that old Chevy "bondo special" was a beautiful thing.

          Three years and three transmissions later, I got tired of losing reverse first and having to drop it in neutral, step around to the grill, push it backwards, then run and jump in to control the roll before it picked up too much speed.

          Grandpa thought I was crazy to go looking at brand new trucks, but "stubborn" runs in the family and he knew there was no changing my mind. So he sat me down and said, "If you're gonna go into debt for a vehicle, you must do three things.

“Number 1:  Get exactly what you want – don't compromise – or you'll wind up trading it in and having to start all over again. (Sound advice for choosing a spouse, too, I've since learned - but I digress.)

“Number 2:  Pay it off as quickly as you can.

“Number 3:  Take excellent care of it: Change the oil, rotate the tires, fix things that need fixin' without delay.  You take care of that truck, and it'll take care of you."

I had no brand loyalty, so I went around all the local dealerships and looked at GMC, Chevrolet, Dodge, and Ford. Grandpa didn't go with me. "Your loan; your business."

There were no GMCs of the right sized engine to be found, "but we can order one for you, little lady."  I learned a long time ago never to buy a horse sight unseen, and I wasn't about to buy a truck without seeing it and driving it first. The new Chevy seats were designed for a hunchback. I felt curled up into a ball.

The Dodge dash was so high I could hardly see over it. (Remember, this was back in 1996, when trucks were built to fit the Marlboro Man and nobody could conceive of some neon-colored, four-door vehicle with a 4' by 4' box tacked behind the cab that can carry exactly three bags of mulch for some weekend yuppiecowboywannabe – as being considered a truck! That's just an El Camino on steriods.)

But then I looked at the 1996 F250.  7.5L v8 460.  Extended cab. Longbed. Off-road 4x4 suspension.  Dark Teal.  Grey Interior.  With the slight modification of a t-shirt over the driver's seatback and a pillow stuffed under the t-shirt, even 5'2" me could reach the pedals
just fine and have great visibility.

I've replaced the t-shirt a time or two, but other than the small stain on the passenger side carpet where the leftover sweet potatoes spilled one Thanksgiving, that Ford looks pretty much like it did the day I drove it off the lot.

Grandpa insisted that I learn to handle the new truck in all sorts of tight spots. His philosphy?  "If ya can't drive it, park it!"  Then he'd wink and say, "And if ya can't park it, don't drive it."  And out would come the hay bale "cones" and we'd practice.  These days, when I see someone pass by a parallel parking space in downtown Knoxville, I whisper a quiet, "thanks, Grandpa" as that F250 slips sideways into place.  I'll always prefer angle parking, but sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

He taught me to back all the way around the church – four blind corners – as well as drive in reverse the entire length of a football field, carefully serpentining the whole way. "Gotta be able to steer, child, a-comin' or a-goin'."

"Change up the engine for the first 1,000 miles so it doesn't break in at a set speed."  Some stop-and-go city driving, some out-on-the-highway. Five miles at 55.  Five more at 65.  Five more at 75.  On up to 85.  Down to 65.  Up to 75.  Down to 50.  Back up to 80. Five miles at a stretch.

Grandpa wasn't with me the first time I pegged that 460 out.  (He wasn't with me anytime I've pegged out!)  lol

A horse trailer was sure to come along shortly after buying the truck, and Grandpa had wisdom to share there, too.  "Hitch it to your truck and haul it everywhere you go – empty – for two weeks. Everywhere." Church.  Grocery.  School.  Work.  Tight parking lots, little winding roads.  Places I could only back out of.  Best way in the world to learn to pull a trailer.  After two weeks, I was eager to load up. Schoolhouse Gap Trail was waiting!

But Grandpa had one more trailering lesson to teach.

"Child, you're hauling livestock, not wood.  And, for you, it's more than ‘just livestock’.  You're hauling your pet and he's your best friend.  So here's a glass of ice water.  Set it in the cupholder in your truck.  Take a little drive with your rig.  When you can make all your turns, stops, starts – every movement – without spilling any water, you're ready to haul your horse."

Wow.

Fortunately, water doesn't stain.  :)

Two more weeks, and several glasses of ice water later, I loaded my horse and headed out for the very first time.  Just me and him.

And that Truck.  :)

Copyright 2008 by Esther L. Roberts

What about a Fortunate Accident?

          Yesterday (today being the day I’m writing this) I got a call on my cell phone. The screen said the caller’s ID was unavailable.

          I don’t dodge calls so I answered anyway.

          Turns out the call was from a representative of a financial company with which I’ve done business. The caller read from a script.

          After the first sentence, it was obvious this person had intruded into my cell phone in order to sell me some type of insurance that would pay all my bills.

          She was telling what it would do for me. She started a sentence, “If you should meet with an unfortunate accident, God forbid, this will ….”

          I interrupted.

          But first ... have you noticed that when anyone says “God forbid,” he or she is trying to sell you something? It might be a product, or it might be merely a point of view. But it is a sales pitch.

          “If ‘something should happen to you,’ God forbid ….” Two things stand out in that pitch. One is that the salesperson is avoiding the concept that you might die. “If something should happen to you” is avoidance talk for “When you die.” Second, it’s a sales pitch. “God forbid” always is a sales pitch.

          Now, back to the story:

          “But what happens if I meet with a fortunate accident?” I asked her.

          “What do you mean?” she stammered.

          “Well,” I said, “you were about to tell me what I would get if I should have an unfortunate accident. I want to know if I also receive benefits if I have a fortunate accident.”

          “I don’t understand what a ‘fortunate’ accident’ is,” she said.

          “Well, I’m not sure I do either,” I continued, “but you said that whatever you’re trying to sell me applies to an ‘unfortunate’ accident, God forbid. When you use an adjective in that way, it’s because you’re singling out a particular type of event that’s covered. That implies that the opposite kind of event might not be covered. For instance, if you offered insurance that covers ‘natural death,’ it would be reasonable for me to assume that it does not cover ‘unnatural death.’ Therefore, when you start out talking about an unfortunate accident, I can only conclude that the fine print contains exclusions so that if I should have a fortunate accident, you would try to get out of paying for anything.

          “Now that I understand that you’re trying to cheat me out of benefits before we even do business, I don’t want to talk to you any longer.”

          And I hung up.

A Punny Thing Happened on the Way to …

           Bad puns assail me. Frequently a sentence or a single word that someone says triggers the kernel of a really bad joke or pun – I call them “groaners” – that quickly develops into a full-blown story.

          I can’t decide if it’s a gift or a curse or just a thing that is.

          Here’s an example.

          I don’t remember what triggered this one, but I do remember that it grew into this story in a matter of seconds. Please bear with me through the whole story and then feel free to groan aloud or send threatening e-mail.

          Here goes:

          Surgeon Warren DeLord was regarded as one of the most skilled cardiovascular surgeons in the country. People came to him from hundreds of miles away because of his reputation.

          There came a time, however, when he lost several patients. There seemed to be almost a plague of aneurysms in the country, and many of these burst before he could operate or while he was operating, and he could not save the patients’ lives.

          Because of his genuine concern for his patients, Warren DeLord took time away from his practice and devoted that time to developing an effective way to treat aneurysms.

          After discarding several ineffective approaches, he found the answer he was seeking.

          He developed a type of adhesive material, reinforced with crisscross patterns of fibers he invented, fibers which in fact were synthetic spider web strands.

          The adhesive backing on the tape was a blend of gel from horse hooves and the secretions of certain shellfish which lived deep in the ocean.

          A skilled surgeon could open up a blood vessel at the site of the aneurysm, insert the tape inside the vessel, and then sew the incision. The tape allowed blood to pass freely and eliminated any danger posed by the aneurysm.

          Because he had developed the tape for humanitarian reasons, he did not seek to profit financially from his invention. He licensed it without cost to several manufacturers of medical equipment.

          He did, however, have one condition.

          Every company which manufactured the tape would have to agree to print his last name onto the tape. It gave him a feeling of great satisfaction knowing that every patient whose life had been saved by his invention would be walking around with his name inside.

          It turned out that the tape was effective primarily in arteries, less effective in veins and, in fact, sometimes dangerous if placed inside a vein because it could come loose and lead to other problems. Medical folks weren’t sure why that was, but they speculated it probably had something to do with fluid dynamics and one of Newton’s laws about the application of force. It really didn’t matter that the tape wasn’t effective in veins because most aneurysms are in arteries anyway.

          But because of the lack of effectiveness in veins, medical schools always emphasized to the students that there was this limitation on the use of DeLord’s tape.

          They would tell the students, “Do not tape DeLord’s name in veins.”

          Okay. It’s time to groan.

You’d butter try a glass, and a mess of catfish

          It’s surprising how many people don’t appreciate a glass of good, cold buttermilk.

          Buttermilk may be a southern thing. I’ve noticed that folks from Up North don’t seem to know what you’re talking about if the conversation happens to turn to buttermilk.

          Of course, conversations rarely turn to buttermilk. There are too many depressing things that folks seem to find more interesting. Hurricanes. Members of Congress. Sickness. Forest fires. Floods.

          Something as joyful as buttermilk has to take a backseat in discussions.

          I remember that my grandmother Edna Culver sometimes made buttermilk, but I can’t remember how she did it. Anyway, it’s a lot more convenient to buy it already made. I frequently get into a buttermilk mood and drink about a quart a day.

          A couple of years ago I rode the lab’s shuttle from our site in Morgantown, WV, to our site at Pittsburgh a couple of times a week.

          The shuttle service consists of two vans. One leaves Morgantown, the other leaves Pittsburgh, and they meet roughly halfway between at a store, where the drivers swap vehicles.

          On hot days, I often would go into the store on the afternoon trip back to Morgantown and get a quart of buttermilk to drink on the back half of the trip.

          Ron Grubb, who drives the Morgantown leg of the shuttle, and I would have conversations extolling the virtues of various foods we had enjoyed.

          I often talked about the buttermilk, how good and refreshing it is, and what a treat it is to get some authentic, old fashioned, homemade cornbread, crumble it into a glass of buttermilk, and consume it.

          A friend who was on the shuttle one day watched me drink my quart of buttermilk and listened as I extolled its virtues. It sounded so good that he said he was going to try some.

          I saw him a few days later and asked if he had tried it yet.

          The look he gave me was all the answer I needed. Obviously he had, and obviously he hadn’t liked it.

          I should have expected that. He’s from Up North.

          Most folks from Up North turn up their noses if you talk about buttermilk.

          They turn them up even higher if you talk about an all-you-can-eat dinner of cornmeal-rolled fiddler catfish.

          It’s no wonder they had to attack the South back in the 1860s. They figured that any people who would eat a catfish didn’t deserve to have a confederacy of their own.

          Oh, and if you get into a discussion with one of those catfish-deprived folks from Up North, don’t talk about eating fiddlers. They’ll think you’re into some kind of musical cannibalism.

          Whatever you do, don’t force them to try a mess of catfish with some sliced onion and white beans. They might find out how good they are and that would leave less for those of us who deserve to have them to ourselves.

          You won’t believe this but I swear that it’s the truth. I’ve had some of those people tell me they wouldn’t eat a fried catfish, but they have tried them baked or grilled.

         That’s disgusting. I think maybe it’s in the Bible that catfish are supposed to be rolled in cornmeal and deep fried, preferably in a large cast-iron kettle if you’ve got one setting around full of hot grease.

          Anyone who would grill a catfish probably would put tartar sauce on it. Makes me sick just to think about it. 

 More on the Joys of Fine Food

          There’s a story in this section about the fine dining offered by catfish and buttermilk, not necessarily together because the proper etiquette of eating catfish calls for liberal doses of sweet tea – for those among you who don’t understand southern, sweet tea is iced tea with sugar added during the preparation, not after it has been brewed.

          I was thinking about food this morning as I went to the grocery store and got the makings for rosemary cornbread as featured at the House of Blues. I encountered that type of cornbread on a trip to New Orleans where I ate at least two dinners every night. You can look up the recipe online.

          It’s nothing like Pod’s sour cream cornbread (check out that recipe on this site). In fact, it’s nothing like any real cornbread, but it’s a good alternative, especially when you pour some maple syrup over it. Anything that you bake in a skillet lined with sugar is going to be good.

          I made a big pot of chili last night. Nothing spectacular or unusual about it, but it was mighty fine. I used a couple of pounds of ground beef, two onions, a couple of large cans of kidney beans, one can of whole stewed tomatoes, one can of diced tomatoes with onion and garlic in them, a couple of cloves of garlic which I whopped with the cleaver I bought just for that purpose, a jalapeno pepper, a bell pepper, lots of chili powder, and some salt.

          It must have been good because we ate the whole pot.

          We also made sour cream cornbread which we baked in a cast iron skillet, which may be the only legitimate way to bake cornbread. It’s gone, too.

          People go to fancy restaurants and pay big money for meals when some of the finest eating is also some of the least expensive.

          A pot of white or pinto beans, seasoned with a ham hock, and a skillet of cornbead … it don’t get no better than that.

          Someday I would like to open a restaurant that features nothing but beans and cornbread. Instead of smoking and non-smoking sections, I will have farting and non-farting sections.

          After reading the earlier story about catfish and buttermilk, my cousin Jackie Faye, who grew up with our grandmother Lannie Crice at the Ballard County Jail and later in other houses when grandmother stopped being jailer, sent some thoughts on the subject of catfish, beans and buttermilk. Here’s what she wrote from Florida, where she lives today:

          "I probably told my grandmother at least once a week that when I get big, I’m never going to eat great northern beans, pinto beans, cornbread, or drink buttermilk. I'm going to have Coke and ice cream and 3 Musketeers candy bars every single day.

          “Now we have those beans, onion and cornbread at least every two weeks and I bought a half gallon of buttermilk last week. I forgot how good it is when it is really cold.

          “I can't get those fiddlers here. They only have those pond-raised catfish fillets. Your story made my mouth water. And it is so true!

          The only person I know at work who understands this food is a girl who has family is Poplar Bluff, Mo. She spent her summers there. Probably has more to do with the Delta than the South. Those carpetbaggers never understood the virtues of good food.”

Going Nuts at Christmas

          I was in a grocery about a month before Christmas and several bins of a variety of nuts caught my eye.

          There were Brazil nuts and hazelnuts, soft-shelled walnuts of the type we called English walnuts, pecans and other varieties.

          Christmas seems to bring out the nuts among us.

          It made me remember growing up at a time when, I assume, every family had one of those round wooden nutcracker bowls with tree bark on the outside and a round cracking block in the middle. The set came with a metal gadget you could use to crack nuts manually, and a set of some pointed picks for use in trying to pry the kernel out of the cracked shell. Maybe most people still have one of the sets.

          Nuts were and apparently still are a staple at Christmas.

          As I retreated into memory of Christmas nuts past, I also began to think about nuts and berries we outdoors types of people were familiar with.

          There were lots of wild black walnut trees growing around Ballard County, and hickory trees and even pecan trees, especially down in the river bottoms.

          I still think the black walnut and the hickory nut – or hickernut as we called it – are two of the best tasting nuts there are.

          Unfortunately, both are next to impossible to enjoy in quantity because the shells not only are very hard to crack, but they hold onto their kernels like super glue.

          Walnuts also compound the difficulty by having that green outer part that surrounds the nut and is removed only at the risk of staining everything it touches. Walnut stain, like a diamond, seems to be forever.

          I tried to cope with walnuts several years in a row. I tried putting them on our driveway and stomping them while wearing rubber hip boots. The result? Stained boots and stained driveway.

          I put an old tire on the ground and placed walnuts inside the part that would have fit around the rim, and jumped up and down on them to remove the green part. One misjump and you risk turning an ankle and falling.

          Out of bushels of walnuts, I might wind up with a couple of dozen de-greened.

          After the exposed nut was dry, it was a major struggle to crack it open and pick out a few flakes of kernel. Tasted good, but maybe not worth the effort.

          Hickernuts, I believe, were even worse. I never believed Eull Gibbons when he claimed that a cereal tasted like wild hickory nuts. How did he know? There’s no way to reach the kernel of a hickernut.

          Has anyone ever held an intact black walnut or hickernut kernel? Is there such a thing?

          There are some foods I enjoy but have decided they aren’t worth the trouble. Crab legs are one. I’ve made a vow not to eat any seafood I have to beat with a hammer or crack with a pair of pliers. My theory is that there’s a net loss of nourishment: The effort of eating requires more energy than is replaced by the meal. I’ll take one of those Hardee’s thickburgers instead.

          Any of you ever try wild persimmons? They taste very good and you don’t have to beat them with a stick or a hammer, but eat one before it’s totally ripe and you wind up with a permanent pucker.

          I was told as a youngster not to eat a persimmon until after the first frost. I’m not sure that even a frost depuckers a persimmon.

          How about mulberries? Did you ever try them?

          I think mulberries taste good but you have to examine them carefully because many harbor tiny bugs.

          And you have to compete with birds for mulberries.

          Birds like to fill up on them and then sit on a telephone line right about your just-washed car so they can aim purple droppings that hit every time onto the roof or hood. Birds filled with mulberries are uncannily accurate.

          When I move into my house at Monkey’s Eyebrow, I think I’ll plant a mulberry tree.

          I’ll get there before the birds, eat as many as I can, and then find a bird’s nest. It will be awkward and probably a little dangerous, but I will climb the tree, hang onto a branch while I perch above the nest and get my revenge.

          ADDDENDA:

(From my sister Janie, with the magic solution to walnut cracking):

I made many a belly ache eating tons of black walnuts, each hand cracked by me and Harvey Karlovack from our tree at the Oak Ridge house. Apparently, you haven't realized that you have to take a hammer to each one and each time you swing, you must yell at the top of your lungs, Kersmasheo. That is the magic walnut shell cracking word.

Nobody told me to wait until after the first frost before eating a persimmon. In fact, as I remember it, I was encouraged to try one off the tree near our house. Yuck!!! Do people really eat persimmons? I've always thought that only naive little kids would ever fall for that and then only once. 

(From Jim Brent, who was a classmate at the University of Tennessee College of Law. Jim has some readable stories on his myspace site at http://www.myspace.com/lpjim ):

Never had much luck with black walnuts either. First, the squirrels resented me harvesting them and made noises at me every time I walked near the trees.

Someone told me to put the walnuts in a burlap sack and run over them with the car. Of course you still have to deal with the mess.  If the outer shell's turned from green to black and that stuff gets on your clothes it never comes out. Guess that's why its popular as a dye.

You're right.  It's not worth the effort.

 (From Wickliffe friend Tommy Ryan)

I can relate to that story, Joe. Mom used to make a wonderful white cake filled with hickory nuts, so in the late ‘80s, I explained to my skeptical wife, Linda, that she had to bake one for us.

Since I vaguely remembered helping mom shell and pick the nuts, I gathered up a bunch of hickory nuts and at mom's suggestion got her very heavy "hand iron" people used to use to press clothes and smacked my lips in anticipation.

When I got home to Jackson, I floundered with the iron and found that I had more success with a hammer. Unfortunately, I had nut shells scattered all over the kitchen and darn few nuts in my bowl. I finally gave up and to this day have never again enjoyed a hickory nut cake....

 One Certification I Didn’t Need

You’re staring mortality in the face already. You’re spending much more time thinking about the inevitably of taking that last breath which begins your transformation to ashes and/or dust.

You don’t need the State of West By God Virginia twisting the knife into your aging body. At the time we’re discussing, I was living in West Virginia where I worked as a science communicator.

I became a great grandfather on July 4 of the year, a month and a half before my 60th birthday.

I went home after work and checked the mail.

There was an envelope from the State of West Virginia, Office of the Governor.

“What’s this about? Surely the governor isn’t drafting me into the National Guard.”

I felt something inside, like a credit card.

There was a letter and a gold-colored plastic card.

“Dear Fellow West Virginian: Enclosed is your new Golden Mountaineer Discount Card.”

Well ain’t that sweet. The state is sending folks a discount card.

Reading on: “Show your card to participating merchants and businesses all over West Virginia to get the discounts you deserve as an older West Virginian.”

Suddenly it hit. “Older West Virginian!”

I had been identified, recognized and certified by the state as being a little old man!

“I don’t need this right now!”

“I’m sitting here minding my own business when out of nowhere you reach down and call me an older West Virginian. I don’t need you to tell me that. I know I’m getting old. I don’t have to carry a Golden Mountaineer Discount Card to remind me.”

After ranting for a couple of hours – we older folks like to rant for a couple of hours but no longer because a three-hour rant saps our energy – it was time to start thinking about it in a different way.

“Okay, so they came right into my house and came right up to my face and said I’m an old West Virginian. That’s insulting, but discounts aren’t bad things. You don’t even have to be old to enjoy a discount. Maybe I should go online and see where I can get some of these discounts.”

There’s a website that lists pharmacies and other merchants who participate in the program.

Atop the list of merchants was Lang Monument Company!

Arrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!I

It was bad enough that they called me a little old man, but now the State of West Virginia is telling me it’s time to receive my discount on a tombstone.

Sorry folks, but I’m not taking this senior citizen status very graciously.

Just before it’s time for my last breath, I plan to take a journey to some place like Alaska where there are big chunks of snow and ice and avalanches. I’ll lie in the path of one of those avalanches so that it covers my dead body in ice.

A thousand years from now when a team of archaeologists is digging in the ice, they’ll come upon my mummified body.

I will become the much-studied remains of computer-age man.

I’ll be wearing a pair of Liberty bib overalls, with my Cadillac keys in the right front pocket. The paradox will puzzle them. I’ll have a couple of kernels of dried corn in the left pocket, and maybe a piece of beef jerky so they can study the eating habits of Homo Humiliatus.

My right hand will be clutching a piece of yellow plastic, which scientific investigation will determine is a Golden Mountaineer Discount Card.

A science writer from one of the leading internet sites will interview the archaeologists.

“We are learning a little about the diet and the transportation habits of this early species,” the archaeologists will report. “We don’t know a lot about this individual yet. We do know he was recognized by something called the Governor of West Virginia as a mature and wise old person, who deserved some special level of recognition known as a discount. He was holding a piece of colorful, flexible material in his hand which certifies this status. We believe he was a shaman or some other respected leader.”

So many flavors, so little time

           I stopped at a store near Pittsburgh that specialized in what it called homemade ice cream. I frequently get a craving for ice cream or milk shakes.

          One of the women working inside the store came to the service window and asked, “May I help you?”

          "Yes,” I told her, “I’ll have a sugar cone and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream.”

          “Single?” she continued.

          “Well, yes I am,” I told her while maintaining a perfectly straight face. “Are you coming on to me, or are we talking about ice cream?”

          She was rendered speechless for some measurable amount of time. Of course, being a gentleman, I didn’t measure the amount of time. Nor did I comment on the choking sounds she made.

          That reminded me of a time several years ago, probably back in the 1960s. I was working at the Cairo Evening Citizen, which at that time was a daily newspaper in Cairo, Ill., on the other side of the Ohio River.

          There was a drug store with a small lunch counter just across Eighth Street from the newspaper office. 

          The store offered light lunches – sandwiches, soup, ice cream.

          Four of us from the paper had lunch there on this particular day.

          Marie, the woman who worked at the lunch counter, took away our dishes and asked if we wanted dessert.

          Ray Owen said he thought he would have some ice cream.

          “What flavor would you like, Ray?” Marie asked him.

          It’s difficult to choose a flavor of ice cream. There are just so many fine flavors to consider, even at the most basic ice cream counters. Chocolate. Vanilla. Strawberry. And when you go to a bigger store where they have 20 or 30 flavors, the decision is almost impossible.

          I’ve often thought life would be much simpler if restaurants offered only one food item and one dessert.

          But back to the story. Ray pondered all the possible flavors he might order. Eventually he decided on one.

          “I’ll have chocolate,” he told Marie.

          “We only have vanilla today,” Marie explained, completely oblivious to what had just happened.

          Three of us howled in astonished mirth while Ray sat for a moment in slack-jawed paralysis.

Don’t Mess Around with My Heart

I guess the worst thing about my heart attack was … well … getting soaked in urine.

Okay, maybe that was one of the least dangerous aspects of the experience, but certainly it was the most unpleasant.

And I’m not sure they were telling the truth about it being a heart attack. I think maybe they had bought more stents than they needed so they decided to sell me a couple instead of having to claim them on inventory.

The story starts around 2 a.m. on Thursday, January 3, 2008.

I woke up feeling like I’d been immersed in a tub of ice water. It wasn’t a chill. I’ve had those before, and they are odd creatures because I feel very cold even while the sweat flows.

But that morning, I was just cold, like someone snuck into my room, threw a bucket of December into my face and it trickled down my entire body.

And my left arm hurt.

I got up, moved around, sat in my recliner, went back to bed, got up. The arm continued to hurt.

I’m not a total idiot. I know that pain in the left arm can signal a heart attack, but I thought it would be sharp pain accompanied by chest pain and/or chest pressure.

This one was more like I had been doing some physical work and the strangeness of actually working had made my arm ache a little.

I eventually took two acetaminophen tablets and the pain diminished.

By then it was around 4:20 a.m. I usually get up at 4:30 to get ready for work so I stayed up and took a shower. I went through my regular morning routine of reading various online news sites while having a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal.

At work, I was doing fine. I walked across the hall to talk to my friend Bob Clonch, as I do most mornings. I got around to telling him about the pain and he started crabbing at me about how I should go to our medical unit and have them do an EKG.

“Bob, it’s just a sore arm. It was probably just my arm muscles getting back at me for shoveling snow yesterday morning.”

He kept it up so I finally gave in. We walked to the occupational health unit and the nurses did an EKG. It looked okay.

“See Bob, I told you so.”

At lunchtime I picked up another friend, Damon Benedict, and we went to a restaurant with a buffet featuring Asian food, including Chinese, Thai, and probably some countries I haven’t heard of.

My arm started hurting again. It kept hurting.

When I sent back to the lab, I went to medical again and told them my arm was hurting again.

The nurses insisted that I should go to the hospital emergency room.

“It’s just a sore arm. It will go away.”

But they kept after me and I eventually gave in. My car was parked in the lab’s parking garage and if I didn’t get back before we closed for the night it would be difficult to get it. I told them I could drive but they didn’t want me to.

They agreed to keep my car keys and turn them over to Bob Clonch so he could get them to my children if I was running late.

One of the nurses insisted on walking with me to my workspace where I would pick up my bag with wallet and the other stuff I carry to work each day.

Two of them took me to the emergency room at Monongalia General Hospital. Some guy was there with a wheelchair and he wheeled me in.

It took only a couple of minutes and they did the check-in and sent me back to a room.

Things get fuzzy there. I guess they took blood or did some kind of test and within minutes they told me, “You’re having a heart attack.”

I got on my cell phone, called Bob Clonch and at least one other person to let them know I wouldn’t be back that day.

One nurse finally told me, “Put that phone down. You’re having a heart attack!”

Another woman, who I later learned was a physician’s assistant for the cardiologist, asked how I was feeling.

I told her I would be feeling better if I was somewhere besides the hospital.

“How can that be,” she teased, “with all the attractive women who work here?”

“Well, send some of them up here to take your places,” I teased right back.

In retrospect, that might not have been the best thing to say to someone who’ll be doing things to your heart.

I don’t remember much after that until I woke up in the cardiac care unit. The cardiologist explained later that they don’t put people to sleep when they’re doing the catheter thing because they need to ask questions and the patient needs to be able to answer, but they give a drug that induces amnesia so the patient doesn’t remember what was going on.

They told me later that I had three blockages, almost completely blocked. One was old, two new. They put stents into the two newer ones and decided to treat the other with medication.

Now the bad part. The male nurse in the cardiac unit explained that I would have to keep my right leg still for about six hours because there was still some kind of tube in it and if I moved around it could cause me to bleed to death internally. That’s damn good incentive not to move.

But bodily functions don’t get put on hold. I had to urinate.

You’ve been in the hospital or visited someone there, so you know that the urinal they give men is a plastic device with a snap-on lid.

It’s not really designed for easy use by someone lying flat on his back.

But I finally maneuvered around – moving only my left leg – until I could use it. After I finished and lifted it to put it back on the food tray, I saw right away that there was a hole in the bottom of it. I was drenched and it was running all over the tray. Wonder if that was revenge for my “send some of them up here” comment?

That was not pleasant.

Some hours later after they removed the thing from my leg they moved me to the stepdown unit. I stayed there until around noon on Monday. I walked out, got into the car and went home. I returned to work on Tuesday.

I never had chest pain, never had chest pressure, not felt any nausea. All I had was a pain in the arm.

There ought to be more to a heart attack than that. It’s still hard to believe I had one even though I take the blood thinner and other medicine they gave me.

But isn’t it amazing that you can have a heart attack, they can cut or bite a hole in your groin, run a catheter up, look at the heart arteries, insert stents, and within just a few hours you’re feeling okay?

I made a point of thanking Bob Clonch and the nurses at work for nagging me into going to the ER. Maybe that saved my life. Maybe it made the heart attack much less dangerous than it could have been. Maybe it didn’t make any difference. But it probably did.

Now that I’m in a position to give advice, let me recommend to any of you with anything that could suggest you’re having a heart problem, don’t shrug it off. Get it checked. It might just be the difference between life and death.

How many is a Cuppla?

           One of the units of counting used very frequently is the cuppla. I’ve been debating with myself whether it’s a precise unit or an indefinite one.

          I come down on the side of indefinite.

          You’re familiar with the cuppla.

          The policeman pulls over the driver who is weaving on the road.

          “Have you been drinking?” the policeman asks.

          “I had a cuppla beers,” the driver always answers.

          Both the drunk driver and the cop understand that the driver is using cuppla not necessarily to mean “two beers.”

          The only real issue is for them to reach some agreement on the precise quantity of a cuppla as used in that context. It can be anywhere from one beer to the entire output of the Budweiser brewing system.

          The only number it can’t be is zero.

          So we learn from this that a cuppla might be as few as one but it can be a number quite a bit higher.

          I think seven should be the limit. Anything more than seven shouldn’t be a cuppla. It should be “a few.”

          This means that when someone stops by Monkey’s Eyebrow for directions to the Ballard County Wildlife Management Area, it’s all right to say, “It’s a cuppla miles that way.” I don’t think it’s more than seven miles. 

          A couple, however, is two.

          There was a news story in an East Tennessee newspaper a year or two ago after a woman helped a man escape when he was brought to the courthouse. An officer was shot and killed during the escape.

          The two fugitives were captured and brought before the court, where, according to the story, "… the couple was read the warrants charging them with first-degree murder."

          A cuppla things bother me in that phrase. One is that if a couple “was read,” shouldn’t the pronoun be “it” instead of “them”? Our system of grammar instructs us that a singular verb – was – should take a singular pronoun.

          Perhaps the bigger issue to me is whether or not authorities can charge a couple with a crime. I think individuals are charged with crime. A couple isn’t. Or aren’t. I would have preferred the story to report that “the two fugitives were read the warrants.”

          While we’re speaking of such things, I saw a story recently about the death of the fourth child who was one of a group of sextuplets.

          The headline said, “4th Minnesota sextuplet dies.”

          Can you refer to one person as “a sextuplet”? Seems to me you have to be referring to them collectively, not individually, to justify the use of sextuplet. Otherwise, the child is one of sextuplets.

          Can you be “a twin”? Isn’t that like saying, “I am a two”?   

Technology in the eye of the beholder

          Unlike most of the stories posted here, the one that will follow isn’t true. It’s more along the lines of a joke. Something made me think of it today and I think you may enjoy it.

          I told it in May of 1998 when I was guest of honor at the International Hall of Fame Awards meeting of the Inventors Clubs of America, held in Atlanta.

          I shared the dais that night with Dennis Weaver, TV and movie star who played Chester in the first Gunsmoke episodes, was McCloud in his own series on TV, and also appeared in many other TV shows and movies. He was being honored for his active role in ecology and economy issues.

          I told this story to illustrate how different people have different perceptions of inventions and new technology.

          You can tailor it to your audience.

          Here goes.

          Abner and Sally were an elderly couple who had spent their lives along the Ohio River, catching catfish and other types of river fish to eat and sell. Sally did some sewing and ironing for people in the neighborhood, and Abner occasionally repaired a chain saw or a lawnmower to earn a little cash.

          They rarely went anywhere, and when they did it was just to go to the nearby small town – nearby meaning about fives miles down a gravel road – to get sugar or flour or other such things.

          One day they went with their 40-year-old son, John, to a larger town because they hadn’t seen a big town and they needed something that wasn’t available in the nearby small town.

          John had lived with his parents all his life and, of course, he didn’t get out much either.

          When they got to the large town, they were amazed at the sites. Some of the buildings were as much as five stories tall. There were more cars moving up and down the streets than they had ever seen in their entire lives up to that point.

          They went into a department store and stared at the mannequins, the clothes, the shoes, the appliances and the tools, and their faces reflected the wonder they felt.

          Sally hobbled away to look at some woman things, while Abner and John tried to see everything there was to see.

         One thing that particularly caught their attention was a set of shiny doors with some numbers above them. You and I would recognize it immediately as an elevator, but they had never seen an elevator.

          While they stared, an ancient woman walked to the doors, using a cane for support. Her hair – what was left of it – had turned white, her arms had brown spots on them, and her skin was wrinkled.

          She pushed a button, the doors opened, and she walked inside.

          The doors closed, and the numbers above them lighted in sequence.

          Abner and John continued to stare.

          Moments later, the numbers began to light in descending order.

          The doors opened again and out walked a young woman with long blonde hair. She was wearing a low-cut top and a miniskirt.

          Abner turned to his son.

          “John, I don’t know what that thing is or how it works, but go get Ma and let’s run her through it.”

Supernatural, but Not Super Hearing

(Paraphrased from a story that appeared in a book written by the late Ed McBain, one of my favorite authors.)

          The lecturer was speaking about supernatural phenomena, such as UFOs, extra-sensory perception, spirits.

           At a certain point in all his lectures, he would ask the audience about personal experiences they or their friends might have had.

           “How many of you have seen a ghost or have a friend who have seen a ghost?” he asked.

           More than half the people in the audience raised their hands.

           “Let’s see, one, two, three …,” he counted. “That’s about 60 percent of you, which is about normal for an audience at my lectures,” he said.

           “Now, have many of you have ever heard a ghost speak?”

           Only a few hands went up.

           “That about 10 percent of the audience,” he said, “and that’s about the normal percentage.”

           “Now,” he said, “how many of you have had intercourse with a ghost?”

           Only one hand was raised, that belonging to an elderly man near the rear of the auditorium.

           “Will you come forward sir,” the lecturer invited the elderly man.

           As the man hobbled forward, using his cane for support, the lecturer spoke.

           “I’ve asked that question at more than a hundred lectures,” he said, “and you’re the first person who’s said he had intercourse with a ghost.”

           The elderly man stopped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you said ‘goat’.”

Signs of a Topsy-Turvy World

Observed painted upside down across the back of a large dump truck: If you can read this, roll me over.

Monkeying Around in a Musical Moment

          They aren’t monkeys, but the chimps and orangutans that produce, direct and perform in this musical video are close enough to earn a posting on the web site. Enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWHf_vYZzQ8&feature=related

Health Care Principles

A good friend, one of the best surgeons I’ve known, sent me a list of five principles a person should consider when making health care decisions. 

Here they are:

1. Stay away from HMOs and PPOs and any plan that limits choices.

2. Don't believe anything a family practitioner tells you.

3. Find an appropriate specialist when you need one.

4. Make your own health care decisions by becoming knowledgeable about your disease, medicines, choices.

5. Stay away from surgeons unless you need surgery.

You Should Know Better

But Here’s a Reminder Anyway

We have several cars assigned to the government facility where I work. Employees can reserve a car for official trips.

We have our own car fueling station onsite because all of our cars run on ethanol.

The station is a big above-ground tank, probably a few hundred gallons in size. The tank is painted white. There’s also a sign painted on the side that cautions: Do not drill holes in tank.

I saw that warning today and I wondered why would they need to tell people not to drill holes in an ethanol/gasoline tank. Sure, we’re government employees but even we know better than that.

Then I wondered why, of all the things we could be warned not to do, someone chose that one.

It would have made about as much sense to have a sign, “Do not throw grenades at the tank” or “Do not drink the gasoline from this tank.”

I’m convinced that people who write notices don’t think about what they’re writing.

I was driving in a small town one day during Fire Prevention Week. The local fire department had put up a banner that read, “Prevent fires before they start.”

I thought, “When else could you prevent them?”

Odd ways to put on weight

My ears can’t distinguish if someone is saying “wait” or “weight.”

That’s why, at a couple of restaurants lately when the food took a little longer than might be expected, I heard the server say, “I’m sorry about your weight.”

To which, on at least one occasion, I replied, “Thanks, but I’ve been chubby for a while and I’ve gotten used to it.”

I've fought a losing battle with weight for several years. Sometimes I gain quickly, sometimes I lose slowly. I never lose as much as I gain, nor lose it for very long.

I knew eating too many catfish would make me gain a pound or two.  I knew loading up on chocolate desserts would have the same effect. Either of those is worth a couple of pounds.

What I learned recently, however, frightens me. It frightens me because I didn't know it, and because it's not nearly as satisfying as a good meal.

I learned that you can put on some pounds simply by being on hold on the telephone!

You don't believe me?

Well, I have it on such unimpeachable authority as the U.S. Government, the IRS to be precise.

I called with a question. You never reach a person directly or immediately if you call a big organization. First, you struggle through a dozen or more levels of phone menus hoping to find the one button that matches the reason you called. There never is one that matches.

Then you go on hold for a period of many, many minutes, waiting for a person to pick up. But you get to hear pleasant music, occasionally interrupted by a voice that says to keep holding.

The message is usually about the same: “Your call is important to us. Please remain on the phone and you will be served by the next available agent.”

But this call was different. It was threatening. It warned me that if I hung up I was going to gain pounds.

I was baffled as I pondered how that would happen, but I was afraid to risk hanging up.

The voice said, every 30 seconds or so, "We appreciate your patience. Please do not hang up. Your call is important to us. If you hang up and call back now, this may increase your weight …."

I hung up and ate a candy bar. If I'm going to gain weight, I want to enjoy the cause.

One Last Drag Before I Die

          My friend Damon Benedict and I eat lunch a few times a week at the small cafeteria in Ruby Memorial Hospital, the one behind the cancer center.

          We parked in the hospital’s parking garage one day recently and were walking to the side doors which lead to the cafeteria.

          Just before the doors, there’s a smoking shack on the right hand side of the walk where patients and visitors go to smoke.

          On this day as we walked past, I looked over and was astonished to see one particular occupant. She wore a hospital gown, and had pushed or pulled her IV stand from the hospital all the way to the smoking shack.

          Three or four IV pouches hung from the stand, dripping into her arm.

          A cigarette dangled between her lips.

          I have no idea why she was a patient but I’m pretty sure that the cigarette wasn’t doing her any good.

          I’ve seen similar things at the hospital before. I’ve seen patients in wheelchairs, holding their oxygen tanks in their laps, sitting out front and smoking cigarettes.

          But on this day, the incongruity of the patient smoking a cigarette beside the IV stand was particularly startling.

          You have a choice: A cigarette or death. Which do you choose? C’mon, I don’t have all day.

          Many of you remember Jack Benny. One of his skits was responsible for what was one of the longest laughs on radio.

          The scene has Benny accosted by a robber, holding a gun. 

          “Your money or your life,” the robber demands.

          Benny, who played the part of a skinflint, didn’t respond. There were seconds of silence on the radio. The audience laughed.

          The robber said, "Look, bud! I said your money or your life!" Without a break, the deadpan Benny snapped back, "I'm thinking it over!" The audience erupted.

          In the old movies when someone stood before a firing squad, he was offered a last cigarette.

          It’s pretty amazing that we had become so indoctrinated by the cigarette companies regarding the importance of smoking that a bit of tobacco would assume such stature as to merit being the last thing a person did in his life.

          Many restaurants have banned smoking. Some cities have passed ordinances banning smoking in public places.

          Isn’t it really unbelievable that hospitals designate smoking areas?

 Just Another Small World Story

          I grew up in and near Wickliffe, which is the county seat of Ballard County and at the time was the most heavily populated town in the county, boasting a census count of around 900 people.

          When you’re from a town that small, you don’t expect to run into anyone from there if you travel more than 50 miles from home.

          You certainly don’t expect to find homefolks if you’ve managed to wind up in a foreign country.

          But it can happen.

          When I was in the Navy, I was assigned to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where I worked as editor of the base newspaper.

          The public affairs officer to whom I reported was Michael E. Cherry, who hailed from Princeton, Ky., just a few miles up the road from Wickliffe.

          Mike was a lieutenant commander at the time. He retired from the Navy a few years ago and moved back to Princeton. Today he’s the state representative representing the district in which Princeton is located.

          I guess he’s doing a good job; at any rate, I see him quoted often in the Paducah Sun, which I read each morning as part of my internet routine.

          I worked at the paper years ago, when it was still the Paducah Sun-Democrat. The owners dropped the Democrat from the name a couple of years after I moved to Oak Ridge, Tenn. At least, they haven’t added Republican to the name yet.

         It turned out that Mike and I were fans of Lester Roadhog Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys, the alter-ego of the Statler Brothers. We frequently greeted each other with classic Roadhog lines, such as “Mighty fine!”

          I signed up for a class at the Gitmo extension of Old Dominion University to pick up some more college credits. The class happened to be taught by Gale Cherry, Mike’s wife.

          We talked, she learned that I was from Wickliffe, and she told me that she also had Wickliffe roots and visited the town often when she was growing up.

          Her grandfather was Mr. Rudd, one of two pharmacists in Wickliffe. The other was Holman Boyd.

         Mr. Rudd was the druggist at the Rudd-Wear Drug Store in town. His partner, Archie Wear, did the non-pharmacy end of the business.

          Mr. Rudd was well respected in town. In fact, I was talking to some folks at the Wickliffe reunion a week ago and people had a hard time coming up with his actual name. Mostly, we just called him Mr. Rudd. Someone finally decided that his full name was V.P. Rudd.

          I thought it was pretty amazing that I met his granddaughter at Guantanamo Bay.

          Tommy Ryan, who contributed some stories that appear on this site, shared a memory of the regular morning greeting that passed between Mr. Rudd and Tommy’s dad, Bill Ryan, who ran the Standard Oil filling station in Wickliffe.

          The station was in a lot on the corner. The drug store was two doors down, just past the City Meat Market owned by George Williamson.

          Here’s what Tommy remembers:

          Mr. Rudd was a big fan of the Chicago Cubs. (Note from Joe: Most people in Wickliffe were fans of the St. Louis Cardinals. That was partly because the Cardinals were the closest team to Wickliffe. It also was partly because during World War II when gasoline was rationed, the major league teams couldn’t get all the way to Florida so they trained closer to home. The Cardinals had their spring training for two years in Cairo, Ill., just across the river from Wickliffe.)

          Mr. Rudd walked with his crutch by the station every morning to work. If the Cubs lost (as usual), dad would yell, "You lost, Rudd!" and Mr. Rudd would smile, cackle loudly, keep walking and say, "We can't win ‘em all, Willy."

          Dad would say, "That's for certain," and Mr. Rudd would cackle more. It was the exact same conversation every time except occasionally dad would yell, "You got lucky last night, Rudd," to hear that cackle.

Odds and Ends

Signs of Progress 

I was in Mississippi on a business trip recently.

On the second day there, I had a call from someone I work with, asking how things were going.

“I’m seeing lots of signs of progress,” I replied.

“I pulled into a rest area. The last time I was in Mississippi, the rest area consisted of a stand of trees. This time, there are two stands, one labeled ‘his’ and the other ‘hers’.”

That’s not fair, but it was fun to poke fun.

Speaking of rest areas

          Returning from a trip to Tennessee, I drove back by way of Virginia.

          I didn’t really need gas at Wytheville, but because I usually stop there at the Truckstops of America because the price of gas is low, I pulled in to fill up and take a restroom break.

          There were plastic bags over every pump handle for unleaded plus and premium. The station had only unleaded regular, which I can’t burn in my car. I haven’t run into anything like that since the great gas shortages of the 1970s.

          Since I wasn’t in great need of gas or restroom, I decided to continue on.

          A few miles up the road I came to a Virginia rest area and pulled in.

          The restrooms were closed. Several portapotties had been set up. I didn’t see any stands of trees.

Speaking of Portapotties 

We recently completed and moved into an energy-efficient building where I work. Not only does it use less energy, but it is also designed to conserve water.

Among the water-saving techniques, the men’s rooms have waterless urinals.

“They remind me of being a child back in West Kentucky,” I told one senior manager.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“We had the same technology, only we called them outhouses.”

Speaking of tips

Well, we weren’t speaking of tips, but I used that header to be consistent with the ones above.

Each of the eight Thanksgivings since I’ve lived in West Virginia, I’ve taken my family to the nearby Lakeview Resort to enjoy the Thanksgiving buffet.

We went again this year.

When the server brought my statement, there was a charge for “Bqt Service Charge.” It was just a bit more than 20 percent of the food charge.

At the bottom of the statement there was a section called “Suggested Tip Amounts” which listed amounts for 15 percent, 18 percent and 20 percent gratuities.

I signaled to my server and asked what the bqt service charge was, and he explained that it goes to him. He agreed that it is a gratuity, or tip.

The food at the “bqt” (which I think stands for banquet) is good, but that’s pretty sneaky to try to get diners to pay two gratuities.

I think restaurants need to be very explicit when they add gratuity charges to the bill, but I can’t recall ever being told when the bill is handed to me that a service charge is included. That’s probably deliberate.