Dry Socket

SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I dearly hope and pray you never have to experience one.

It Shows

I bought some shrimp today from an old lady in Sam's. She was wearing a white coat and a white food service hat. I asked for a half pound. She said they only sell it by the pound but you can freeze it. She said, “That's what I do. I'm alone too.”

A long time ago I was given the opportunity to travel the world and have since believed that no westerner can be truly educated or grateful until he or she has traveled widely. I've now added to that the belief that no person can truly live life fully until after being broken and reduced to nothing. I'm not sure if its the process after which there is value or if its the nothingness that reveals the valuable which was obscured before by all that was opposite of the nothing. Wouldn't it be ironic if nothing is really everything? Maybe the ascetics had it right. If I live long enough to find out I'll let you know.

Ouch

So the broken tooth came out and it felt a whole lot better. I followed all the directions for avoiding a dry socket very carefully. But when it's a molar on the bottom your chances are 20 percent that it's gonna get ya anyway. And I'm in the 20. It hurt like a bad dog. Unfortunately I realized it was getting bad on Friday afternoon. My friend's office closes at noon on Friday and I couldn't get him on his cell. I gutted it out through an agonizing weekend downing massive amounts of ibuprofen and Tylenol hoping for a prescription for something much stronger on Monday. When I finally got a call back from Steve Monday afternoon, he informed me that unfortunately he can no longer call in a prescription across state lines. He would have liked to have me on an antibiotic. But it was getting a little better by then and he thought I had probably turned the corner. It is getting better. Now it's just uncomfortably painful instead of paralyzingly painful. So maybe it will go away pretty soon. It's amazing how such a little thing can hurt you so much and take away a chunk of your life.

Baseball been berry, berry good...

but not to me. I've told this to so many people it felt like I had written it down but it seems I never have before. So here it is.

A while back I tried to figure out why I disliked baseball so much. It is odd because most men, young and old, seem to enjoy playing and/or watching it or it's surrogate, softball. But as long as I can remember I have loathed it. Then it hit me. For many, if not most, American boys and men, baseball is associated with fun and challenge, with self esteem and the satisfaction of a job well done, with popularity and the admiration of girls. And perhaps most of all with teamwork and camaraderie. And then at some point is added the richness of tradition and history. With all that going for it, no wonder it is the “Great American Pastime.”

And all of the above are the reasons I don't like it. First, I come from a line of men who saw games such as baseball as, well, as games. And games were not something all that meaningful to invest a lot of time and effort in. The fact that every news cast every night of the week has a segment devoted to games has always seemed absurd to me. Not so much that it's about something people enjoy, but because the content is always one of two things: “Well, we played well and got the job done and it feels great to win!” or “Well, we've gotta work on our defensive/offensive/throwing/catching game and get out there next time and get the job done.” It's never news. It's the same words coming out of player's and coach's and commentator's heads every single time. Only the kind of ball and the names change. Who wins or looses or whatever happens has no impact on anything really, except selling tickets and hats and crap to the rabid fans who seem to think it's important for some baffling reason. (Okay, okay, don't hate me - I'm just being passionate about my lack of passion.)

With a rare exception or two, none of the men in my family on either side for at least three generations have really given a hoot about team sports. Growing up there was never a game on TV. Ever. I knew nothing of these sports. I had no exposure. I didn't know the rules or the star players or the history or anything. It's not that we didn't like to have fun, it's just that when it came time for that, my dad and I were much more interested in going out and flying an airplane or riding a motorcycle or getting out some lumber and power saws and building something. I enjoyed bicycling and running (until my flat feet put me off that), swimming and water skiing and racing go carts or motorcycles - individual sporting activities and pretty much anything that involved burning gasoline.

But nothing that had a ball. I couldn't throw or catch any kind of ball with any kind of skill whatsoever. As a result, when forced to play games with balls in grade school gym class, it took very little time for everyone to know I stunk. So I was always picked last, or almost last, when teams were chosen up. There were usually a couple of girls chosen after me, a shred of dignity I clung to. I would mess up the catch, throw short or inaccurately, strike out, never make the basket, run the wrong way with the football when I finally got my hands on it. All in all, I would make a fool of myself anytime I had a ball in my hands. So, ball sports became associated with humiliation, rejection, loneliness, and girls laughing at me. And the slowness of baseball in particular added the worst dimension; sheer boredom. It was dreadfully boring to play and absolutely deadly dull to watch. Football was just one notch better because there actually was a little strategy to it, but still not worth the time or effort as far as I was concerned.

So, my context for sports growing up was a virtual lack of context. And when something is so important to most boys and they have a huge head start knowing about it and doing it, it can be very difficult for a kid to catch up. Distinctly below-average skills doom all efforts from the start. So, I followed what I still think is some very wise advise that I gathered up somewhere long, long ago: I didn't waste my time on things I was bad at and didn't enjoy and instead found things that I was pretty good at and did enjoy. I can (well, at least could when I was younger) do some pretty athletic things and had good coordination at them. Motocross riding, water or snow skiing, sailing, scuba diving, playing the guitar - these require coordination but it is entirely different than ball-handling coordination. Hey, I can fly an airplane upside down, can you? Which brings up another point: I would rather invest my time and effort learning to do something that not everybody else does. Something unusual. I just think that's more fun.


But if the ball thing is your cup of tea, then more power to ya. Enjoy. I'll make you a deal: don't laugh at me and I won't laugh at you.

The Minors

If you read my blog way back you may remember my loathing for the game of baseball. (mmmm... Can't find the post. Maybe I just thought it.) Today I shot a minor league game in Viera, Florida for the Mid Atlantic Sports Network (whoever they are!). There is a new pitcher on the Washington Nationals team fresh out of college. His name is Ross Detwiler. I interviewed him and shook his hand. At some point in the future, when he is more famous, you may think that is really cool. I don't think Ross is a minor anymore as he's got to be 21, but now that he's not, he's a minor. Anyway, he was their third draft pick, if I remember correctly, and received a signing bonus of $1.5 million. He was the story today. It was his first start in a professional game. There were precisely 0 fans in attendance. The minor leagues are more minor than I anticipated. I was told that this was the “Gulf Coast League,” which apparently is the most minorest of the minors. I don't know how much of that $1.5 million will be amortized per throw during those two innings today, but I'll bet it's safe to say that each pitch earned him more than I made spending the day making pictures of him.

In contrast, most of the rest of the guys on minor league teams make something like $25,000 per year and they pretty much live on buses for the duration of the season. It's dues-paying big time. Many languish there. I was told that if you don't get called up within the first two years, you're pretty much through. This fellow today will likely be called up to the big league in short order.

I made a few observations today. One, in addition to the other things I dislike about baseball that I wrote about some time ago, is that it is played in direct sun in the heat of the day. In Florida in July this means it's HOT!!! I imagine that this game will be the great pastime of Hell! And they do it wearing long pants! Possibly they are fire retardant.

I noticed that few, if any, of these new young players chew tobacco. Perhaps they are more intelligent than the big league players, however, they do spit. They all do. Constantly. So if you want to be a baseball player, better work on your spitting technique. One must do it with a certain style. Speaking of style, you will also have to work on the baseball player look of disdain. The game is similar to poker in that you must never let anyone see what you are really feeling. The players can all do this look like they don't care about you or anything else. The sport is sportin' a 'tude. Well that's about half the time. If somebody makes a home run then they are all smiles and yells and high fives and it's like somebody just won a million dollars. Oh yeah... But then, that look of disdain may be them all thinking about that $1.5 million vs. the puny check they are getting every month. And the fact that I and the other three photographers there today were only interested in Mr. Golden Boy and they were just getting in the way of the good angles. Reference my post about the value of attention.

My last and probably most important tip if you want to be a baseball player is this: LEARN SPANISH! I don't care what color you are, if you want to have any idea what is going on on the field, in the clubhouse, overhearing coaches, operating the Gatorade jug, whatever, you will be completely lost if you don't know Spanish! I mean, I knew there were a lot of great Hispanic players, but I didn't know that the language had taken over the Great American Pastime completely even as it has started to take Orlando after totally consuming Miami. I guess it was dangerous to send spring training down here.

Hasta manyana, adios!

Rainbows

Traveling to the city of my heartbreak
I weep again
My body keeps driving
but my heart is laid out on the ground
My prayers spill out until there is nothing left
Empty, quiet, still
Nothing
The route makes a turn
I don't notice that the rain has stopped
Over my shoulder I catch a glimpse
I turn and yes, it is a rainbow
Just a part of one and a bit faint, but it's there
chasing along behind
Is that for me? I hope so
I ask for guidance as the city lay ahead
It turns out not as I expect
Except that I have learned to expect
that nothing will be as expected
Guidance for now is certain
The direction of the future?
Maybe

Weeks later, I leave the city of my heartbreak
perhaps for the last time
I stop to check the load
It starts to rain as I pull onto the interstate
I push a button and randomly Libera fills my ears
with the Song of Enchantment
Out my side window
through drops that run down the glass like tears
a brilliant rainbow!
It shines and shines
and moves out in front of my car
leading me on for miles and miles
The wind blows the tears from my windows
Another squall, then the bow becomes complete
filling the sky
I'm still under a dark ceiling of black
But up ahead, blue sky and fluffy white clouds
The kind that make me want to soar up to them
Is the promise for me?
Never again such destruction?
I can only hope


I am reminded of something Winston Churchill said following the victory at El Alameinin North Africa, London, 10 November 1942:
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

A Friend in the Business

I was thinking I might be able to head out to Ocala after I got back and ask Steve Saint to pull my tooth jungle dentist style. I figured that could save me a pile of money and I've been needing to go out and see Steve anyway. But the pain was getting unbearable and I decided I just couldn't wait that long. I thought I might be able to stop in to see my dentist friend in Orangeburg on the way out of town today. The only time available was 10:30 this morning and I couldn't deal with the trailer tire and the dump before then, so it was a separate trip. The dental assistant who took the x-ray said it should be a surgical extraction but he was calling it a simple extraction, which is a whole lot cheaper. She shook her head wondering why he would do such a thing. The tooth could have been saved with a lot of time, work, and money. He told me that far back molar actually does very little chewing work so it really wasn't worth saving. It took a whole lot of elbow grease, but he got the sucker out. He actually had to take a break to rest his arm two or three times. When it finally came out his forearm was pumped up like he'd been lifting weights, which he does regularly at Gold's Gym. I didn't feel anything but pressure. When he started shooting my jaw up with Novocain it was heaven! He kept shooting and shooting till I couldn't feel a thing. I didn't mind the tug-of-war with my jaw at all. He told me afterward that most guys would have put me under for something like that and most of this kind of thing he refers to an oral surgeon. He also happens to be the guy who trained Steve Saint in his jungle dentistry skills and he said Steve wouldn't have been able to handle this one. From my end, it really was less of an ordeal than I expected and $138 out the door was the whole bill. Once in a while it's nice to have a friend in the business. He told me I shouldn't be changing trailer tires out in the heat and unloading a trailer at the dump today. I didn't feel much like doing that either by the time I got back up to Columbia. So, I'm stuck here one more day. The phone rang and I have a gig for Thursday which I should make it back for. I hope. At this point I don't care about much else. The pain went away with the molar.

Pounding

“...hammering on a nail that just won't go in."

Kings X

I rode my bike back up to South Carolina to fetch my car and to run a couple of trailer loads of trash left at my friend's barn to the dump, thus finishing out the last chore left for me to take care of here. It was supposed to take just a few days. That was eight days ago. A little mistake my daughter made putting up the top of my convertible turned into one of those “for want of a nail the shoe was lost...” situations that compounded into my car sitting in the shop for five days. The monetary damage wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been and it's on the road again, but there won't be any music in my car for a while. Nobody else here has a car with a trailer hitch so the dump runs had to wait. Finally, today I could get at it. The dump is about a 45 minute drive from where the trash is. The first run went well and they didn't even charge me. The nice lady there accepted my story that I used to be a resident of the county and that was good enough for her. So, back for the second load. It was going to be close to get all the way back there before they closed. A couple of miles from the barn with the next load one of the tires on the old trailer blew out. It was completely shredded. The sidewalls looked like they had shattered all the way around. So, I made a call to my Monday afternoon gig guy telling him I was going to still be stuck here a few more days. I spent the next several hours dealing with it. I won't bore you with the details but my friend Sam who owns the barn and I were able to get it off the road and back to his place. Monday I'll have to get some tires for that trailer, make the run, then maybe I can finally get back to Orlando. By the way, the trailer I'm referring to isn't mine. It's another one that lives at the barn that will hold about twice as much trash as mine.

I have never in my life had to spend so much time and money or drive so many miles to try to throw some junk away. And I just realized there's a metaphor there but I really don't feel like going into that. I did as much as I could this evening before starting into my wait until Monday morning. I was tired, hot, hungry, and my tooth that needs pulling was sending searing pain through my jaw. I finally stopped and got some pills to try to take the edge off it. A few nights ago, while sleeping on the floor in front of my friend's fireplace, I had one of those dreams that makes you move in your sleep. I made a lunge that plowed my forehead at the edge of my right orbit into the edge of the raised brick hearth. I woke up very quickly to my head feeling like a cracked egg shell. That was hurting me tonight as well. Once the drugs finally started to kick in, I felt like I could do something about the hunger. I stopped and consumed yet another hamburger by myself. Eating alone is so depressing. That's probably why I've dropped to 182 pounds. Anyway, I was feeling crappy and frustrated and like I'd been beating my head against a brick wall. Wait a minute... yeah. My friend's kids were playing video games where I have been sleeping, so I found a quiet corner in another room and just lay down on the floor in misery.

I had dozed off when my phone rang. It was my former student, riding buddy, and good friend Keith. His wife just had a little girl about an hour ago. They named her Lily; the first child of her generation. Made a grandpa and grandma out of his parents. I smiled a deep down smile thinking about the experiences he has ahead of him. There is nothing quite like the relationship between a daddy and his little girl, which I told him, of course. After the congratulations and blessings I said goodbye so he could continue the list of calls he needed to make. I called my own little girl and left a message for her. I'm feeling better about life now. But I wish my son was finished with dental school instead of just working on getting into it. My tooth still hurts.

Critters

My old cockatiel hen once again got the yen to be a momma and laid a clutch of eggs. This has happened several other times in years past. They aren't fertile so will never hatch but I let her sit on them for a week or so before disposing of them. They are cute little miniature things. This time instead of putting them down the garbage disposal I decided they might be a nice treat for one of the critters that comes by the back yard just about every night and so I just set them out on the ground by some bushes. Within an hour or so that morning, the scrawniest, mangiest raccoon I have ever seen ambled by. He looked so skinny and hungry it appeared he was having a hard time walking. Something was hanging from his mouth like someone in a stupor.

I grew up in a suburb of Chicago. While the urban sprawl of that city doesn't generally make for a great wildlife experience for a kid growing up, some very wise person many years ago saw to it that a number of forest preserves were established throughout that area and they are the jewels of the region. Our house happened to be a few blocks away from one such preserve which became an almost sacred place to me eventually. It was the best place ever to ride a bicycle and in later years a wonderful refuge to get alone and walk and think. It was also home to a lot of raccoons. These were no country critters. They weren't the adorable little masked bandits. These were the downtown street thugs of the raccoon world. They knew precisely what nights were trash nights and they were the Mongol hoard of garbage. They would come, sometimes several at a time, tip over the garbage cans and proceed to pull out everything inside onto the ground, gorging on anything edible. With an endless, ready supply of nourishment several times every week, these animals grew to huge proportions. They were more like small bears than coons. And they were as fearless as bears. Confronting them on the patio would yield a pause and a look as if to say, “Yeah, what do you want? Can't you see we're busy?” They would leave only when you would start after them with a broom or whatever.

One season the coons were really out of control. For some reason their birth rate had soared. They were driving my father crazy. Once or twice I shot one with my .22 rifle. It was dicey because we were in the village limits and it was illegal to discharge a firearm. But a house makes a pretty good silencer. I would stand in the middle of the family room and having opened a window earlier, would have someone turn on the floodlights when the coons showed up. But the field of fire was very limited by the window opening, so getting a shot was difficult.

My father died suddenly that year and the mess the coons made was just too much for my mother. Something had to be done. A friend of theirs learned of the problem and brought by the solution: a live trap and a Benjamin air rifle. The coons crawled into the trap night after night and we had a dawn execution every morning for about a week and a half. The carcasses came in handy. There was a swampy, empty lot across the street with a stand of trees and bushes. Some ner-do-wells had hauled some plywood and old furniture in there and were using it for a dope den. I put the dead coons in and under the furniture and sheets of plywood and whatever. I figured the stench of rotting carrion would make the place a little less cozy. We never saw anybody over there again.

Okay, well enough of that. The coon that ambled by the other morning wasn't one of the Chicago coon mafia. He was this pathetic creature who really could have used a few eggs for breakfast. But he passed six feet away at most and didn't see them.

Within an hour as I sat by the patio door reading and drinking coffee, a rather small female possum ambled by, sniffing around as she went, looking for something to eat. I knew it was a female because she was very pregnant, her belly full of babies almost dragging on the ground under her. She also looked like those eggs would have done her some good. But she also passed them by so close that I couldn't believe she didn't see them. So near yet so far.

So this is going to seem like a really tacked-on moral of the story, but I swear it's exactly what I thought at that moment. I suppose it's because I was reading my Bible and was really getting some food for my soul from it. I thought about how many times I go into my day walking right past my Bible. Most days I actually read from one of several devotional books I get a lot from. But even then the Bible itself gets passed by some days. When I do read it, the spiritual nourishment is usually palpable. But so often I neglect it. It's a pity. It's right there, available, and I pass by.

I don't want to be the scrawny critter.