Everything You Like Is Bad

As part of recovery from cardiac bypass surgery, I attend Cardiac Rehab sessions three times a week.  These consist mainly of working out on the treadmill, the elliptical thing, those recumbent rowing/bicycling contraptions, and other instruments of mild torture.   This is accompanied by oldies from the ’50s and ’60s, and some pleasant geezerly banter with my fellow heart patients.  We wear heart monitors and have our blood pressure checked a few times to make sure… well, just to make sure.  While I don’t much enjoy exercise, I feel great after the sessions, and I’m getting stronger and more healthy by the day, so the effort is well worth it.

On Thursday mornings, though, we have to be there early for what they call “Education Day.”   On those days, pleasant instructors present lectures on such subjects as Cardiac Medication, How your Heart Works  (or doesn’t, as the case may be),  Cholesterol (it’s a bad thing), and Why Everything You Like To Eat Is Bad For You.

Earnest, wonderful people give these presentations, and, while they’re well-meaning, some of the things they suggest are just completely ludicrous.  Not only that, but many of the dietary lectures are the same things you hear from local TV “news” people beginning weeks before any holiday.  You know what I mean.  They always bring on a Registered Dietician with such profound words of advice as, “When attending that holiday buffet, you can lose weight and stay heart-healthy by shunning the Prime Rib and eating a lettuce leaf instead.”  Why didn’t I think of that?  Probably because I’m not a Registered Dietician!  Or maybe it’s because I’m not entirely divorced from reality.

Yesterday, for example, our lecturer said,  “When you go to McDonald’s, instead of having a Big Mac, try some oatmeal, or a yogurt parfait.”  Uh-huh.  Right.   Now, I rarely go to McDonald’s but when I do, it’s not for a  yogurt parfait.  It’s actually not for a Big Mac either because I just don’t care for them.  Well, I don’t think I like them.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a Big Mac in my life.  I don’t like special sauce, I don’t like pickles, I don’t like those insipid, soggy onions McDonald’s uses, and I don’t care much for bright yellow mustard, so a Big Mac is pretty pointless for me.  What I do like, though, is their Angus burger with Swiss cheese and mushrooms.  And a small order of fries.  Ain’t no WAY a yogurt parfait packs the same sort of satisfaction.

Let me clarify:  There’s nothing wrong with a yogurt parfait.  I like them.  But if an Angus Mushroom Swiss McBurger is calling my name, then a  yogurt parfait can raise its little hand and yell ooooh! ooooh!  pick me!  pick me!  until it’s blue in the face, and it will be ignored.

This is something Registered Dieticians and Cardiac Rehab instructors just don’t seem to get.

In the lecture on Why Salt Will KILL You, we learned that we shouldn’t eat as much salt as we do.  Duly noted.  But then they suggest that we substitute for salt stuff like herbs and citrus juice.  Again, herbs and citrus juice have their places.  But squirting lemon juice on an ear of corn is just plain silly.   French fries (okay, I know they should be avoided like the Ebola virus, but again: get real) with a sprinkling of tarragon and some kumquat juice would be great food for the garbage disposal.

“When you go to the movies, and get a big tub of popcorn,  the butter-flavored oil it’s doused with has the fat equivalent of eight Big Macs!”   That was the shocking statement during a recent session.  And that really is just terrible.  But so was this suggestion:  “Instead, have some air-popped popcorn, with NO butter and NO salt!”  Again, where’s the reality?  Air-popped popcorn with no butter or salt is very similar to snacking on those styrofoam packing peanuts.  So I guess I’ll just pass on the popcorn, and choose the healthful alternative:  Milk Duds.  “Remember…. always choose the skimmed milk duds!”

Another thing I wish Registered Dieticians and Cardiac Lecturers would understand:  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A HALF-CUP SERVING OF ICE CREAM.  A half-cup of ice cream is a good start, but it does not exist in nature, any more than a steak the size of a deck of cards does.  And these nice, earnest people seem to have gotten the idea that a half-cup of ice cream or a 3-ounce steak is going to be just what you need.  Actually it is what you need if what you need is frustration.

I say if you’re going to have a pizza, HAVE a pizza.  Enjoy it in all its hot, cheesy, pepperoni-y goodness.  Then, for the next couple of days, have the healthful stuff.  It can be great too:  grilled chicken, baked salmon, salad (remember, just dip your fork in the dressing and then spear the salad, or YOU’LL DIE!), or some fruit.   Don’t try to substitute pretend food for real food, or you’ll never be satisfied.

But what do I know?  I’m not a Registered Dietician.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition…..

Did you ever have one of those dreams in which you struggle toward a goal — maybe a mountain in the distance — and every time you take a step forward, the mountain gets a little farther away?  And then you’re at church and suddenly realize that you forgot to put any clothes on?  No, wait.  That’s a different dream.

Well that dream is what it feels like sometimes in the job acquisition process.  The receding mountain dream I mean, not the naked at church dream.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my frustrations with the North Carolina DMV.  They demanded a pile of medical information and clearance from my cardiologist, or not only could I not get a license to drive a school bus, but they’d also revoke my plain old driver’s license.  Well, that seems to be on its way to resolution.  I supplied the information they needed, and now I’m just waiting for the folks in Raleigh to give me the green light.  Of course, at this point I’m not going to take anything for granted.  For all I know they might send me out on a scavenger hunt or require that I complete a series of tasks, each of which will result in a clue that, when assembled, will give me the instructions on how to not get my license revoked.

But I may not need the CDL after all.  Last week I was was offered a job that, frankly, I’m hesitant to reveal until it becomes official, what with prospective employers sniffing around social media posts and all.  Suffice it to say it’s a good job, with great benefits.  It’s with  a large, well-known company.   I’m excited and enthusiastic about it, so you know it’s not radio.  And it involves four weeks of training classes.   And I also have been offered a part-time job, demonstrating consumer electronics at a large retail store.  Good times!

Both jobs require a background check, and a drug screening.  No problem on either count.  But the background checkers for the full time job called on Friday to tell me that they called my high school, and were told that getting a transcript of my graduation would take ten days.  They wanted to know if I had my diploma and could send a copy.  With all the moving around I’ve done, I don’t have any idea where my diploma is, so I called the school and pleaded with them to please hurry things along.  I’m unemployed, and want to get in the next training class.

The background checker was very nice, but adamant.  And of course, I was just as nice and cooperative as I could be.  What I wanted to do, though, was shout, “Since high school, I’ve lived in Florida, Hawaii, New York State, Illinois, Pennsylvania and North Carolina!  I’ve covered presidents and hostage situations! I’ve worked for a major university!  I was present when Ronald Reagan gave his famous ‘evil empire’ speech!  I was there when Challenger exploded!  I’ve had lunch at the White House! I’ve interviewed politicians and celebrities!  I’ve been a disc jockey, news anchor and talk show host! I’ve written and produced thousands of commercials, some of which have won advertising awards!  I’ve owned my own business!  I’ve been a contestant on Jeopardy!  AND  YOU WANT PROOF THAT I GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL FORTY YEARS AGO?????”

But of course, I meekly and politely said, “I’ll see if I can get that expedited for you.”

So now, I’ve provided proof, for both jobs, that I’m a citizen of the U.S., eligible to work in this country, lists of all my previous employers, my addresses for the past seven years, the names of everyone I’ve ever met including the guy next to me in line at the WalMart pharmacy last week, my world famous meat loaf recipe,  my favorite Seinfeld episode, the names of my goldfish when I was six (Goldy and Blackie) and a genealogy chart going back to when my ancestors emerged from the primordial ooze.   I’ve given up cups of my precious bodily fluids to be screened and analyzed.  And I’m prepared to do whatever else they ask me to do.

I just hope it doesn’t involve spending the night in a haunted house.

 

One Step Forward…

…Two steps back.  Sigh.

I try not to be full of hate.  And I’m not.  But I now have a deep and abiding hatred for bureaucrats, and the bureaucracy from which they come.  I would gladly attend an event during which bureaucrats were boiled in oil.   Let me tell you all about it, okay?

A month or so ago, I took three days of state-sanctioned classroom training in school bus driving.  The idea was, of course, to get a job driving a school bus.  And in the bargain, I’d get my passenger certification which would allow me to drive any passenger conveyance in the state of North Carolina.  This would open my job possibilities considerably.  But when I was filling out the forms in class, I made a great big mistake:  I answered the questions honestly.  See, if I’d never mentioned that pesky old quadruple bypass surgery I had in July, I’d probably be driving a bus full of apple-cheeked, well-mannered children, eager to learn, to school every day and life would be a bowl of cherries.  That, by the way, is probably the first and last time I’ll ever use two fruit-themed metaphors in one sentence.

Anyway, my instructor told me that because of the heart thing, I’d have to get my cardiologist to fill out a form that would then be sent to Raleigh, where someone in an office would undoubtedly stamp it APPROVED!  And then, I’d be able to take my roadwork, then get the CDL and then start my new career.

An adorable kitten because I could't find a picture of a bunch of bureaucrats being boiled alive

So my cardiologist filled out the forms, assuring the folks in Raleigh that my heart was not likely to stop during a bus run, and we sent them in.  Oh, there’s one thing I forgot to mention:  Because of the way things are set up, if these forms were not sent in in a timely manner, or if they came back with the REJECTED! stamp instead, not only would I not be able to get my CDL, but my regular, plain old North Carolina drivers license would also be revoked.

Today, a couple of envelopes came back from the Ministry of Cars and Trucks, or whatever it’s called, in Raleigh.  I was excited, thinking it was my clearance.  But it was not.  One was a letter demanding more information in the form of three blood pressure tests within a ten day period.  No problem.  But the other one demands that I have an echocardiogram and/or a stress test.  Without these tests, I’ll not only give up hopes of getting my CDL, but my regular drivers license will also be revoked!!

Now, do you have any idea how much an echocardiogram costs?  It runs into the thousands.   We have no health insurance.  I now owe close to 150 grand for my heart surgery, and I’m unemployed.  But unless I can file an appeal of some sort, or get a cardiologist to do a test pro bono, I won’t have much choice other than to order up that echocardiogram and have them put it on my tab.  Really, in the scheme of things, what difference will it make?

Two things strike me about this:  Thing 1.)  I could have avoided all this by being dishonest on the application.  They’d never have known and everything would be hunky-dory.  Thing 2.)  I’m a lot healthier now than I was a year ago.  And a year ago, I could’ve gotten the license with no problems at all.

So, what I’d really like to do is to drive a school bus.   A school bus full of bureaucrats.  A school bus full of bureaucrats from which I could leap to safety just before steering it over a cliff.  With the bureaucrats still in it.  Just thinking about that makes me smile.

Knit Wits

A few days ago, out of the blue, my wife asked me if my sister knew how to knit.  I, of course, had no idea whether my sister could knit or not, but she doesn’t strike me as the knitting type.  The reason for the question was to ascertain whether she might have any knitting needles, or possibly any instructional books on the subject floating around.  Turns out I was right.  It seems that I actually do more knitting than my sister does, and that’s only because my rib cage is still knitting itself together after cardiac bypass surgery.

This, though, was the first indication to me that my wife had any interest in knitting at all.  She’d done some crocheting, and I’ve seen some of her work.  Seems very nice.  But until recently, I had only been vaguely aware that there was any difference between knitting and crocheting.  I know that in crocheting, one uses a dangerous-looking object with a hook on one end, while in knitting, one employs two dangerous-looking objects with pointy ends.  And they both produce similar-looking results (to my untrained eye anyway.)

I don’t know where the sudden interest in knitting came from, but who am I to discourage creativity?  Besides, maybe she’ll knit me a sweater.  Or a pair of pants.  Hang on a second… I’m trying to picture what a home-knitted pair of pants would look like.  Okay, got it, I think.  I’d better not ask for that.

Anyway, I was on my way out to do a few errands yesterday when Tammy said she had some yarn,  asked me if I could find a pair of knitting needles for her.  I said, of course, that I’d be happy to get knitting needles.  But I know less than nothing about knitting and asked whether there was any particular size or style that she needed.  See, whenever I try to find something for someone else, I run into unexpected problems  unless I’m armed with some basic knowledge.

I fully expected that I’d go into… uh… the knitting needle store…. and ask innocently for a box of assorted knitting needles (or however they come) and then be asked something like what sort of kneedle flux are you looking for…. is there a particular needle gauge you need… do you need one with extillator hoops or would you rather have the new ones with pointillators instead?

But good customer service people apparently are hard to find, even in the current job market.  I went to a well-known hobby store and asked a woman in the fabrics department where I might find knitting needles.  Now, I’m distinctly uncomfortable in fabrics departments.  I’d so much rather be on my own turf, which in this case would have been in the electronics section at Best Buy (where, come to think of it, I haven’t been in a very long time due to having no money with which to purchase said electronics).  I used to date a part-time seamstress and I have memories of being dragged kicking and screaming into Jo-Ann’s Fabrics, and sitting quietly at a table for what seemed like months at a time while she perused patterns and cloth and other fabric-related stuff.  So when I enter a fabrics department, voluntarily or not, my eyes glaze over and my mind goes numb.

Anyway, there I was in the fabrics department and, of course, I asked the lady there where I might find knitting needles.  She pointed me down an aisle, and a few seconds later came after me.  “Sir!” she said.  “Are you looking for the needles that go in a sewing machine?”

“No,” I replied, “As I said, I am looking for knitting needles. The kind of needles you use for, y’know, knitting.”  She looked at me with a confused expression on her face and said — and I swear I’m not making this up — this helpful fabric department lady said, “You mean the kind of needle you use to sew on a button?”

This is like walking into the aforementioned Best Buy and asking to see dryers, and having the customer service assistant ask if you mean the kind of dryer you use to check your email.

“No,” I said, “The kind you use to knit a sweater.”  She looked at me with that odd expression on her face again.  Then she led me a bit farther down the aisle and pointed.  “You mean these?”

I meant those.  I bought a pair of what seemed to be moderate-sized knitting needles… nothing fancy or ostentatious (there was actually a pair of rosewood knitting needles in there with mother-of-pearl inlays).  I proudly took them home.  My wife was pleased with my selection.  I looked at them last night, and there is some yarn attached to them now.  The yarn is in a configuration that seems to indicate the formation of something that may some day become something recognizable.  If it turns out to be a pair of pants, though, I hope it’s for someone else.

Happy Medicine People

I’ve started thinking of them as the Happy Medicine People.  You’ve seen them.  There’s no escaping them.  They live in TV commercials for prescription medications.  They live in brochures about foot care.  They live in big posters in the Wal-Mart Pharmacy.  They’re the Happy Medicine People:

They’re smart.  They’re active.  They’re multicultural.  And they are these things because, it is implied, they take medicine!  Why, just one look at them, and  you think, “Hey!  Maybe if I take medicine, I can be happy, smart, and multicultural too!”

Sometimes they’re alone.  Sometimes they’re in groups.  Big, happy groups.  Frequently, they’re middle-aged couples.  But they’re happy.  They’re active, and they’re smart.

So… is it just as simple as taking medicine?  Well, no, apparently it’s a bit more complicated.  Sometimes there are other things you can do to become a happy medicine person.  This man, for example, apparently became a Happy Medicine Person by learning about strokes.

 

And these two became Happy Medicine People by having their Ketones tested:

This guy, I am led to believe, became a Happy Medicine Person by asking his doctor if Medicine was right for him.  Apparently it was.  See what a Happy Medicine Person he is now.  And smart?  Well, he does have his hand in that thoughtful “hmmm” position, and if that doesn’t say “smart,” then what does?

And there’s the ubiquitous When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple Happy Medicine Person, just like loveable, ditzy Aunt Rose

Now, just so there’s no confusion, these Happy Medicine People are not the same sort of Happy Medicine People some of us were in the 70s:

Me as a Happy Medicine Person, circa 1978

Nope, it’s a whole different concept.  So, how do you become a Happy Medicine Person?  First, ask your doctor if becoming a Happy Medicine Person is right for you.  Then, take your medicine.  And before you know it, you’ll be a Happy Medicine Person too!  And won’t that be great?

You bet it will!

So NOW Who’s the Cool One?

When I was a very little kid… about five or six years old… I was, for some reason, fascinated with buses.  City buses, Greyhound buses, school buses… any buses.  I have no idea what it was about buses that so captured my imagination, but, well, they were just the coolest thing in the world.  My next door neighbor Gary, who was roughly the same age, had a different obsession: Garbage trucks.  He couldn’t wait to get up on trash day and wait for the garbage truck to come.  One year for his birthday, he got a big Tonka garbage truck, and it became his most highly-prized possession.  For all I know it still is.  If you asked Gary what he wanted to be when he grew up, he always answered that he wanted to be, of course, a garbage man.

Anyway, I was similarly obsessed with buses.  And helicopters and airplanes.  To me, they all had roughly the same glamorous cachet.  Bus driver = pilot.  If anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would answer bus driver!   Or astronaut.  Again, not that far apart in my mind.

In 1960, I entered first grade at White Street School in Springfield, Massachusetts.  And my 4-year-old sister, who was two years behind me, had to wait until her turn, which, apparently did not sit well with her.  She would hear my tales of adventure, which began and ended with an actual school bus ride every day, and, not to be outdone, she came up with her own tales.  Knowing my obsession with buses, she spun stories of how, every day while I was at plain old school, she was going to bus school.  There, in her telling, kids like her, of three and four years old, were spending the day driving buses.  And, apparently, flying helicopters.

Her stories were so convincing that I found myself half-believing them.  For awhile, I thought that, as soon as I left for school in the morning, my sister was whisked away into this wonderful world where she got to drive a bus (or fly a helicopter) every day, until just before I came home.  Eventually, I guess, I realized that the stories were fanciful, and that she was just making up stuff because she wanted to go to first grade too.  At least I think she was making them up.

Now, I’m 57.  I’ve spent more than 35 years in broadcasting, and have had a pretty interesting career.  And now, as I’ve explained before, I’m unemployed, and for various reasons, unlikely to be back behind a microphone any time soon.  So, this week, here in North Carolina, I’m taking a course in school bus driving, so I can get my passenger and school bus certification, and my CDL.  These certifications will enable me to drive any passenger vehicle in North Carolina.  There are some hoops to jump through:  because of my recent heart surgery, I have to get a doctor to certify that my heart won’t stop while I’m driving the bus, thus conveying a bus loaded with kids over a cliff to their fiery doom.  And, since I’ve held licenses in two other states in the past five years, I have to plead with Florida and Pennsylvania to sell me my driving record in order to be certified here.  And I have to do all that before I can actually drive the bus in training.

But that doesn’t change the essential fact.  For the next two days, in class, I’m in bus school.  Finally.  Yesterday, on my way home, I thought of those days, now more than fifty years ago, when my sister rained on my parade with the stories of how she and her fellow four-year-olds were spending the day driving buses.  And I started to laugh.

Me, driving a school bus (artist's conception)

My sister is a successful insurance executive here in High Point.  Of the two of us, she’s the one who always made the right decisions, stayed on a career track, and done quite nicely for herself.  I was the one who generally made the more boneheaded life decisions.  Like going into radio, for example.  Anyway, last night she dropped by, and I finally had my moment of triumph.  I looked at her and said, “So NOW who’s the cool one?  NOW, who’s in Bus School, HUH?  HA-HA!”   It was clear that she knew immediately what I was talking about.

She just smirked and changed the subject.

Ten Years Later

Millions of words have been written about the events of September 11, 2001.  And now that the 10th anniversary of that atrocity (Some call it a tragedy, but it was not.  It was an atrocity.) is here,  there are millions more.  So I can’t really add anything new to the mix.  I have nothing profound… nothing that hasn’t already been said.  All I can do is to throw in a couple of personal observations.  You may or may not find them interesting.

Those of us above a certain age remember where we were and what we were doing on days of great happiness, of great sadness… of monumental events.  When President Kennedy was assassinated,  I was in Mrs. Spelt’s class at Elizabeth Greene Elementary School in Newington, Connecticut.  When Challenger exploded, I was a few miles up the road from the Kennedy Space Center, watching.  Now, this is not primarily going to be a Where-I-Was-And-What-I-Was-Doing memoir, because you don’t care any more about where I was than I care about where you were.   But when the first plane hit the first tower on September 11, I was just getting ready to leave WBUS Radio in State College, PA, having just finished the morning show with my buddy Jeff.  We watched the second plane hit… and then we didn’t leave for many hours.

It’s almost impossible for me to believe that it really was ten years ago.  So much has happened in my life since then that it must be ten years… but still, it’s difficult to fathom.  In the intervening years, I lost a marriage, a home, a job, and my parents.  I’ve gained new understanding, knowledge and insight, new coronary arteries, and a new and wonderful wife.  Since 9/11, I’ve lived in Pennsylvania, Florida, Pennsylvania again, North Carolina, Illinois, and am now back in North Carolina.  On 9/11/01, I was 47, and feeling pretty young, all things considered.  Now, I’m 57, unemployed, and, frankly, feeling pretty old.

My most vivid memories of that day were the utter sense of shock and deep, deep sadness.  I remember watching that second plane hit, and saying to my friend Diana, “That’s the worst thing I have ever seen in my life.”  It still is.

I remember feeling as though we were all in a daze…. a bad dream… just going through the motions… for  a couple of weeks post 9/11.  I remember buying that little flag to clamp on the car.  Where did they come from all of a sudden?  Where did they go?  I remember spontaneously bursting into tears for what seemed like days.  I became aware that this shared experience was, in essence, a bad wound… a terrible scar… and we all had to recover from it together.  Unfortunately that spirit of unity, epitomized by US Senators and Representatives, from both sides of the aisle, coming together and singing “God Bless America,” didn’t last.  We went right back to the sniping, and the polarization that existed before.  And it got worse.

I remember marveling at how various people handled it:  Humor columnist Dave Barry, for once, could not be funny.  It was okay.  We didn’t want him to be.  So he wrote a serious column.  Dave Barry being serious must have meant this was really, really bad.

I wondered how the parody newspaper, The Onion, would handle it.  And they were absolutely brilliant.  With headlines like, Not Knowing What Else to Do, Woman Bakes American Flag Cake, Hijackers Surprised To Find Selves In Hell,  and American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie, The Onion nailed it.  Even now they’re pretty powerful.  I’ve heard that there was some talk of a Pulitzer… seriously.  But their NSFW graphic pretty much put the kibosh on that.

The writing, like I said, was brilliant.  If you’re offended by profanity, and you choose to click on those links, I hope you can overlook it, because they really captured how we were feeling at the time.

So where are we now?  How far have we come?  I’ll let all the others do the commentary on that.  I just know this:  We all changed in some ways that are quite observable, and in some ways that are probably less so.  We’re ten years older.  Some of us live lives that are essentially the same as they were then, some of us live quite different lives.  Some who were there then are no longer with us… and some who were not yet with us then are now in elementary school.

Ten years from now?  September 11, 2021?  I’ve learned in these past ten years to never take anything for granted, so I won’t venture a guess.  But whatever it’s like then, the one thing I’m quite sure of is that it will be considerably different from the times in which we now live.

And again:  Never forget.