Tractors and Music

It’s been busy these last few days. Thursday was the start of the Bryan County Antique Tractor Club show out at the Choctaw Event Center. There was to be a parade at eight that evening, and I didn’t want to miss that. I was in a couple of parades in Winnemucca, both in a Candy Apple Red 1966 Cadillac Coupe De Ville Convertible with United Way sponsorship, and on my restored 1949 Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor with the local antique tractor club there.

I sold the Cadillac before I came to Oklahoma, but I was able to bring the tractor here, with the help of my brother John. 

My problem with getting the tractor to the parade was the lack of a trailer, which got stolen the day after I arrived here and unloaded the tractor. I could drive the tractor there (it’s only five miles) but then I would be stranded there for the whole three days of the show. 

I figured out a way to get my tractor and my car there at the same time. I put the bicycle rack on the back of the car, loaded the bicycle up and drove to the display area. I parked the car, unloaded the bike and rode back to the house. I left the bike there and drove the tractor out to the display area at the Events Center.

I got to be the first tractor in the inaugural parade for the antique tractor club. Since I converted it to electric drive four years ago, it makes almost no noise. All the tractors that followed made up for it. Several “Popping Johnies” made a lot of beautiful noises behind me. It was a short parade. Many tractor owners were still working at their jobs and couldn’t get there until Saturday.

There were three belt buckles for awards for best restoration, oldest tractor and a “People’s Choice” award. I was hoping for that one, and I talked to a lot of people who looked the tractor over and were interested in the electric conversion. I invited folks to seat their children on the tractor seat and take pictures, too. 

I spent most of three days out in the sun, getting lightly roasted and tired. Darlene told me my nose was getting red, so I put sunscreen there, too. Carolyn used to tell me that at the Reno Air Races every year. I don’t know why I remember to cover my arms but forget my nose.

The awards were passed out on Saturday at four o”clock, and I didn’t quite make it for an award, although they said the vote was close. I kidded them about getting a sound system for my tractor. Every time they started those John Deeres people would come over to see and admire those old noisy tractors. I could start around the area on my quiet electric tractor and nobody noticed, most of the time. 

Just before the awards were announced, I noticed some dark clouds to the north, coming at us really slowly. The weather radar showed a band of heavy rain and thunderstorms moving south, but still a few miles away. When I’m sitting on my tractor my head feels nervously like it might make a good lightning rod, so I immediately got on the tractor and motored for home. It only goes about 6 miles an hour, so it took the better part of an hour to get to the house. I put it in the garage, took the bicycle out, and closed the garage door.

The squall line from the approaching storm hit just as I got pedaling south, making a thirty or forty knot tailwind that blew me back to the show area in a hurry. It was high gear all the way. I put the bike on the car carrier, and then went back to watch them load about ten old Caterpillar tractors onto trucks for the ride home. 

It’s always exciting to watch those old clumsy tracked vehicles try to stay on the center of the trailer as they go up the ramps in back. It is not without danger, as now and then the tractor slips or skids to one side and sometimes tips over on the ground. YouTube has lots of videos of such things happening.

As I tried to start the Mazda, the engine would not crank. I felt around to make sure the key fob was in my pocket. It wasn’t. So I got back out of the car and started searching the area, knowing I must have dropped it somewhere. One of the tractor owners came over to ask it I was looking for something, and I told him my problem. He said his daughter had found a Mazda key fob and had given it to the policemen to put in lost and found.

I went inside the building and got there just in time to see them put it on a table for filing away. I told them those keys were mine and I had just lost them. They took my name, and asked if I had gotten fully charged. They remembered me asking if I could plug my tractor into the RV plugs on the side of the rodeo building. Yeah, one night on the charger and it was full of electricity.

I went to the car and drove home. The thunder clouds had slid by us on the west side and we never saw a drop of rain or heard any thunder at all.

I was bone tired and my eyeballs felt cracked and it sure felt good to shower up and crash into bed. No, that’s not how it happened. That wasn’t the truth. I was so tired I went straight to bed and showered up the next morning. I’ll wash the sheets later.

Today at church the music director had the whole program, and it was a joy. This is the Unitarian Universalist church, and they don’t do sober and glum very much. Some of the music was with jazz percussion, and when it was time for the offering gifts, he played some bossa nova. In this church they don’t pass the plate—the people get up and walk to the offering plate at the back of the room, where the donations are taken. Some folks were dancing as they made their way to the back.

During the program he mentioned the power of music, and how just hearing Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” made tears flow down both his cheeks. I share that emotional response. The opposite is also true. “Oh Happy Day” by the Edwin Hawkins Singers will lift my spirits instantly.

I was given a list of three songs I should practice for a special program in a couple of weeks, which will be live streamed to a conference meeting of the church. This will be for singing in a choral group, not on keyboards yet, although I will be asked to fill in there in the future. I just need to find a good bass line for the songs. The songbooks are written for the piano, with arpeggios and such, without four part harmony. I’ll have to get that figured out myself.

I practiced one of the songs on an electronic Casio keyboard at home, and then I thought I would look up “Adagio for Strings” on YouTube and listen to it. Yes, it still made me cry, It’s a gray day today, so since I’m here, in this mood, let’s try “Meditation” from Thais by Massenet. Yep, more tears fell. Felt good. Maybe I should do some more.

It’s not just classical music—let’s try “I’m not Lisa” by Jesse Colter. Oh man, the tear ducts are wide open now. For the final number I found the original recording of “The Dance” by Garth Brooks. We played that as the last song at Carolyn’s funeral. Yeah, I’m sobbing now. Needed that. 

I think I’ll drive out and talk to her tonight.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll play, “Oh Happy Day.”

Abortion

Abortion

Well, as usual, I got lost in a discussion on abortion again. I got sucked into debating whether life begins at conception or some other time. I know the history, the Bible texts, on and on, ad nauseum. That doesn’t cover what I really feel about abortion at all.

The truth is, I don’t care when life begins.

The truth is, I could meditate on a fertilized ovum in a Petri dish, or in a Fallopian tube, or implanted in a womb, all day long, day after day, and I will never feel a smidgin of empathy, or compassion for that ovum. And I believe it would feel the same about me. 

I don’t have enough imagination to believe that “clump of cells” is a cute chubby little baby, worthy of my concern. I know many claim to believe that, but I think there is more than a little pretense there. 

Several clichés come to mind: straining at a gnat; seeing the mote in another’s eye; counting mint leaves; etc. Jesus said all these were useless, even if perfectly true, because they did not have love. 

I can’t love an ovum, or a blastocyst, or a zygote. I don’t believe anybody honestly can, without a lot of elitist fantasy. I can shed tears over a dog with a hurt paw, or a cat who lost a fight. But I can’t summon even one iota of compassion for a fertilized ovum. To me, the idea that that is a human being borders on pedantic sophistry.

But I can empathize, have compassion for, even love a woman in anguish and pain. Even if it’s her own fault. Who among us can claim to have never done the same?

I could lead her into a clinic to have an abortion, even at the risk of violence from “fine Christian” people lining the sidewalk. I could easily drive her across the state line for an abortion, even risking years of jail time. Because of love for another human being. Not a fetus.

I have no time for moral judgement. Neither did Jesus. Millions of people, (mostly women) were stoned to death for adultery. Jesus showed love and compassion, not moral judgement. 

The apostle Paul continued Jesus’ message of love. He vehemently argued with James about it. He got up in Peter’s face about it, and called him a hypocrite for it. What was it? Keeping the law and ignoring the need for love.  

This is what Paul said, “Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loves another has fulfilled the law.” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” “Love does no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as noisy brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” “Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could move mountains, and have not love, i am nothing.” “Though I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.” “Now remains faith, hope, and love—these three. But the greatest of these is love.”

I believe God is love. I believe God dwells within me, not out there in the sky somewhere. I must allow love to grow in my heart and crowd out the judgement that comes so naturally to the human mind. It is my life’s work, and it coincides with my Buddhist beliefs in the oneness of all humanity.

Just love everybody, and quit worrying about the small stuff.

First Mother's Day alone.

Today is the day I've been waiting for all week long. This week has been thunderstorms, tornados, flash floods, and not much sunshine. We had to relight the pilot lights on the furnaces in the house, because we had a couple of cold nights. Did I mention it rained all week?

I woke up early this morning. I had been thinking about Mother's Day the night before, and I wanted to put some flowers on Carolyn's grave. No, she was not my mother, but she was the mother of my children, and I still miss her terribly. This is my first Mother's Day alone.

I have been attending a church in Denison, Texas, for over a month now, and I'm getting to know some of the people, I'm learning more about their values and beliefs, and they are learning some about me. One woman asked me today which religion I was raised in, and I told her I was raised Seventh-day Adventist until I was eighteen, and then I quit that one and by the time I was drafted into the Army I had agnostic embossed on my dog tag. I told her while I was stationed on Okinawa I studied Buddhism at a temple there, and have considered myself Buddhist since that time.

She laughed and told me I would fit right in. The church is the Red River Unitarian/Universalist church. This is from the church bulletin:

"We are people from many backgrounds who have different beliefs, but shared values...We are Unitarian Universalists, and at the same time we may also be agnostic, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, humanist, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, atheist, believers in God, and those who just let the great mystery be."

I think I will fit right in. I asked them last week if I could join, and today they had me sign the membership book. Next week will be a simple induction ceremony with an introduction to the congregation.

The church asked everyone to bring a flower to the service this morning, so as I was buying flowers for Carolyn's grave, I kept one out for later. The rest of the flowers looked good by her grave. I buried a vase there last year, and I was sure it would be filled with water. Did I say it has been raining all week?

When I got to church with my one red carnation, I found that they have a traditional ceremony on Mother's Day, where in each person, one at a time, goes to the center of the room and puts his flower into a large vase. When all have given their flower, a short homily was given on "The Secret of the Garden" and then we all, one at a time, go to the vase and extract one flower, but not the one you brought.

When the Flower Communion is over, we all have given a flower, and we all have received a flower.

I put in a red carnation, and I received a red rose. I took it to my sister-in-law Wilma, and she added it to a bouquet they were building at home for Mother's Day.

Since the weather is sunny and beautiful today, when I got home I changed clothes and rode my bicycle to Caddo and back. Next weekend is the Magnolia Tour, and I am far from ready.

The roadside are resplendent in all colors of wildflowers this year. Maybe all the rain? The Indian Paintbrush came up first, then the Bluebonnets down by the Red River. They are now fading, to be replaced by millions of buttercups and daisies, and some stunning blue tubular flowers that look a little like foxgloves. I don't know if there is a wild variety of those or not.

A couple of weeks ago I had been planning to drive my GMC motorhome down to a rally of like RVs down in Abilene, Texas. When I looked at the weather prognosis, I called and cancelled. In good weather I would have chanced it, but I really don't like repairing an old vehicle beside the road in the rain. I know there is a small coolant leak somewhere. Until I chase that one down and fix it, I'm staying pretty close to home.

I moved my Allis-Chalmers tractor into the garage next to the house, and have been taking it apart for cleaning and repainting. It's a 1949 Model G that I converted to electric drive four years ago, and I've been encouraged by the local Antique Tractor Club to come on out and drive it in the parade on the 30th for Memorial Day celebrations.

Monday morning I go to the dentist's office for impressions of my implants so they can make a bridge. I will be so glad to get rid of this partial plate that no longer even fits because of the protruding implants. Monday evening I will go to the UU church to help with the garden. It's actually going to be a Monarch butterfly way station when we get it finished.

Just to fill in the empty days, I went to my primary care physician last week and got the good news the my blood pressure is wonderful at 122/76, my cholesterol is 140, my heart and lungs are working great, and best of all at 75 I take no medications for anything now. For many years I had to take immunosuppressants to keep my Ulcerative Colitis in check, but evidently as I aged my immune system is suppressing itself now. I am in complete remission.

But I didn't get off scot free. The doctor gave me some Kegel exercises to help with my prostate problem. Like most old men, I have something in common with basketball players. I dribble before I shoot. And he scheduled me for a colonoscopy next week, since I haven't had one in about five years.

My life hasn't been boring. I almost don't have enough days to get done all I have scheduled to do. But that is good. Busy keeps the mind from brooding on dark thoughts, and reduces the crying time considerably.

Life is what you make it, and I'm keeping busy.

Populism for 2020

I have a confession to make. I have been the beneficiary of white male privilege.

I didn’t get any scholarships to college. In fact I had to quit college and go  to work, and therefore didn’t get to be a mechanical engineer. But the college class I was in for 1963 had just one black guy and two women out of probably a hundred studying engineering. I don’t remember any of Mexican or Indigenous heritage at all.

But I have lived a very successful career as an auto mechanic first, and then after an apprenticeship at a factory in southern California, a machinist, with the benefits of also having engineering and mechanical knowledge.

After working for peanuts in little machine shops and inventor’s startups, gaining a lot of experience in how the real world works, I got lucky and found work in an electric generation plant in Colorado. When that one shut down after nine years, I found a good job in another power plant in Nevada.

So if I include the year working in the small power plant in college, I have a total of thirty five years in electric power plants, all but the first year working under union contracts, with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, known as the IBEW. In Colorado it was with IBEW Local 111, and in Nevada it was with the IBEW Local 1245.

Consequently, when I retired in 2006, I got a fair defined benefit retirement pension, which includes paid medical benefits. Barring an economic catastrophe on the order of 1929, I should be able to eat until I die. Using my retirement benefits and the Social Security checks for both me and my wife, I could afford to keep her in a beautiful assisted living facility for two years as she died of Alzheimer’s disease. 

At this juncture in my life, I should be happy and grateful for the life I have been able to live. But I am also aware that I am lucky to have lived in the era made possible by the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the old Democratic Party. The New Deal protections for unions and the working class made my life possible.

Now most of those benefits are going and gone. Retirement pensions have been replaced by 401Ks, which puts those funds into the hands of Wall Street gamblers. It’s 1928 all over again. Conservative politicians all across the country are cutting programs to help children, poor people, and single women. Education is on the chopping block, with fewer teachers and larger classes the goal of the Department of Education. 

The population began to wake up to the fact that our representatives don’t represent us anymore. It’s not just Republicans. They have always been against unions, minimum wage laws, workplace safety laws and such. The Democratic Party, which used to be the party of working class and poor people, has abandoned that demographic entirely. 

President Clinton slashed benefits for single mothers and children with his Welfare Reform legislation and threw hundreds of thousands of poor people and people of colors besides white into long prison sentences with his crackdown on crime laws. Before that, we used to point out how terrible the Soviet Union was having all those prisoners in the Gulag. Now we have outstripped them as they closed down their prisons and freed those prisoners.

When the economy was crashed by George W. Bush in 2007, a plan was hatched to save the national economy. When Obama was elected millions of us waited in anticipation of another chance for a Liberal Democratic president to save the poor and working class, just as FDR did under nearly the same circumstances.

Instead, my heart sank as he poured billions into saving the banks, allowing them to consolidate and get bigger, instead of closing them and breaking them up. Then he basically stood by as those same banks foreclosed on millions of families across the nation, evicting those families onto the street with no help at all.

On top of that, medical expenses were growing much faster than wages, and the predatory extortionate practices of the insurance companies made a large segment of the population prepared for anybody who promised real change. Obama had promised that change, but we were sorely disappointed there, too. His Affordable Care Act removed the cap on benefits and allowed people with preexisting conditions to get insurance if they could afford it, but there was no effective means in the legislation to reduce costs. 

Worst of all, it made buying insurance mandatory, with fines if you didn’t buy an approved medical insurance policy. If you are a single Mom trying to keep food and the table, clothe your children and pay the rent and the light bill every month, and you are already working two or more jobs, it was insult to injury.

A huge opportunity was apparent for a politician who could promise these people real relief. A politician who claims to be for “the people” is called a Populist. I can think of only three in the 2016 election: John Edwards, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump. The rest of the crowd of candidates ran mostly on tweaking the “status quo” or even worse, on their youth or good looks.

John Edwards took himself out of the race by getting caught cheating on his wife while she was dying of cancer.

On the Democratic side then, that left Sanders and Clinton. And all I heard from the Democrats is is she “nice“ enough, or is he too old? Maybe he’s too “grouchy”, or she wears the wrong pantsuits. We just had our first president of color, now it’s time for a woman, kind of like there is a checklist. 

If issues were mentioned at all, it was how extreme Bernie’s proposals were, even though he was just espousing getting back to what we had with the New Deal seventy years ago. Hillary was pretty vague on how she would help poor people cope with the bills, and offered no help at all for college students buried in unremitting lifetime debt. And a living wage was out of the question. It took her a long time to finally acquiesce to $15.00 as a minimum wage.

On the Republican side, it was Trump against all the rest. He made a lot of promises to working people - to bring back jobs, make wages higher by banning immigrants from the southern border, and fix the medical coverage so everybody would have perfect coverage for almost nothing. The rest of the candidates made fun of him, called him names, and then when he trounced them all in the primaries, swallowed their pride and kissed and made up in the general election.

So in the general election in 2016, it became Clinton, who narrowly won over Sanders, by hook or crook, I don’t know. I do know that his followers were the enthusiastic ones, who out organized everywhere across the country, but could not overcome the power of the party establishment to sideline a usurper of the “status quo.”

On the other side it was Trump, who by dint of his promises for change to working class people, to be the one who was looking out for their interests, to bring back good wages and jobs, who easily overcame the other mainstream Republicans and got the nomination.

The mainstream media and the Neo-liberal establishment were horrified. They were blinded by their preconceived notions of the voting population. Pollsters were proved wrong time and time again, as they massaged their questions to favor mainstream voters, and ignored the rising populist vote.

Trump tailored his speeches to the crowds he spoke to, and as usual with any politician, nobody noticed or cared if he said one thing to this group and another thing the next group. Meanwhile Clinton ignored the issues pretty much everywhere, and based her campaign on disparaging the populist voters, calling them “deplorable”, and refusing to even campaign in a few states she thought were reliably hers.

Hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of voters who had voted for Obama twice, came out to vote for Trump this time. They were still looking for the change they had been promised and didn’t get. The pollsters were confused, Democrats were shocked and despondent, and even Trump seemed amazed that he had won.

The years since the election have amazed me. I believe Trump won because he saw the populist discontent in the country and played to it, and Hillary ran against Trump, which had the same effect as running against the populist tide sweeping the country.

Today, two years later, I watch in fascination and wonder as the Democratic Party is choosing its next candidate for 2020. In the midterm elections several upset victories brought forth new, unheard of progressive candidates, including a lot of women playing to the poorest of the base, espousing single payer medical plans, higher wages, and free college tuition. 

Reliably and dishearteningly, the Democratic establishment is trying to sideline and disparage the new progressives as too radical and naive. I believe if Democrats don’t wake up and recognize the populist tide swelling in the country, they will be left in the dustbin of history.

It’s not enough anymore to just be the party of professional women, people of color, and the LGBTQ. Nothing wrong with those demographics, but they won’t win you any elections. Young people understand that without big changes, their future looks pretty dim. They are selling the issues. 

Democrats are still selling the hierarchy - “It’s my turn now.”  If they don’t open their eyes to the populist yearnings in the electorate, they will give the presidency to Trump again.

It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again. Nobody can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like a Democrat.

Women in Congress

This week has been a revelation in how far women still have to go to get close to parity with men in the political realm. Just when you think that maybe they are making progress by winning seats in Congress, a lot of people are comparing them to sheep and the KKK because they chose to wear the colors of the suffragette protestors from a hundred years ago.

I’m seeing lots of ridicule and demeaning posts on social media, which doesn’t surprise me. What surprises me is the number of women who I thought were aware and enlightened who are joining in the merriment.

One in particular surprises me, because I know her well enough to believe if she had been of the right age one hundred years ago she would have been in the vanguard of the women who tore off their hoop skirts and girdles, put on white blouses and bloomers and marched in the streets by the thousands to get the right to vote.

Now she criticizes the women’s caucus for wearing white in unity for women’s rights at the State of the Union speech last week. I think their demonstration on the floor was a great display of their anger and intent toward the “pussy grabber” in chief of the country. There are still those who believe all women should remain barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.

“Well behaved women seldom make history.”  Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Carolyn and I through the years spent many days walking from house to house in Nevada, registering people to vote, encouraging them to make the effort on election day, and make a difference in the country. I have volunteered in two different political parties to try to wake people up to what the rich and powerful are doing to the rest of us.

It is too easy to sit on the sidelines and snipe and criticize those who are actually out there on the political stage trying to make a difference. I seldom agree with every political stance of every politician running for office. I can’t think of any that I totally agreed with on everything. But I will fight for those I think best represent my wishes and needs.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

I am very proud that my former state of residence, Nevada, has become the very first state to have a female majority in the state legislature. I don’t know if women will do better at governing than the “old white men” who have had a monopoly until now, but they sure can’t do much worse.

I was also proud of the thousand of teachers who demonstrated in the Oklahoma state capital last year. It was a good demonstration of the power of unity. If one teacher at a time asks for a raise or school funding, they get brushed aside. But if they organize and fight as a group, people in power notice. 

Unfortunately, school history books are written by people who don’t want people to learn of the pitched battles, bombs and machine guns and bullets it took to get workers organized into unions and get working conditions and wages up to respectable levels. Nobody understands that until Franklin Roosevelt got the Labor Relations Act passed in the Thirties, it was illegal to form a union, and you could be shot for trying.

Unless people take it upon themselves to read and discover what they don’t want you to know, they will continue to fight for their rights as individuals, and be picked off one by one. 

The coming election will be a bellwether of the direction the country is going in the future. Neither political party seems to represent the will of the people anymore. That’s why populism is taking over on both sides of the political spectrum. A large percentage of the population realizes that the government no longer represents their interests. Both parties are bought and paid for by Wall Street banks and corporations, Nobody is defending the small businessman, the homeowner, the tradesmen, or the family farmer. 

Right now it looks as if the country is bitterly divided between left and right, liberals and conservatives. I think the truer divide is between elites at the top and serfs at the bottom. The elites like the left/right divide. They fear the day when the serfs at the bottom figure out what’s going on and unite to take back their country. 

If this nation doesn’t find a leader who can unite the people for freedom and prosperity, we will fall into the Fascist trap of military rule. Donald Trump, with his disdain for the Constitution, his ignorance of history, and his penchant for executive action, scares hell out of me. 

Hard times are coming. Hang on.

What a Week!

It’s only been a week, but it seems like a month. This one was a rough one.

Last Sunday I decided that I needed to get out and ride my bike a little, just to keep in some form of shape. I dressed up warmly in long sleeved shirt, safety green vest and helmet, and started riding north on First St.

It didn’t seem all that cold until I turned to ride up the hill toward the  high school. 

Suddenly there was a bitter chill wind in my face, pushing me backwards and biting my face. By the time I got to the top of the hill my throat hurt from breathing the cold wind. I abandoned any idea of getting even to Armstrong and back. I turned around and rode quickly back to the house.

I had a small cough now, and didn’t feel very good, so I went in for a long hot shower. Then I put my clothes on and drove to CVS for some of their super cough drops. They really seem to sooth my throat better than the cheap brands. 

I stayed indoors the rest of the day, and I noticed that as the sun set, I felt weaker by the minute and my forehead was hot to the palm of my hand. I was getting dizzy and stumbling around, so I took another hot shower and bundled up in bed.

I washed some Ibuprofen down with Gatorade, and putting a cough drop in my mouth, I wrapped up in bed and prepared to sleep the night away. I noticed that I was unable to relax my body at all, and I just got tenser until I realized I was shaking. I’ve known chills and fever before, but never had it come on this fast, except for that time in the Army they gave me a flu shot.

 I reacted very badly to it, with soaring temperature and violent, bone rattling shakes. My sergeant called for an ambulance and they trundled me over to the base hospital on Ft. Ord in a hurry. They had just reopened the base training facility after losing eleven trainees to meningitis. They went to panic mode when they saw my symptoms.

All night the first night they force fed me aspirin, washed down with copious amounts of ice water from one of those iconic stainless pitchers, and I think I got an alcohol sponge bath, but I’m not sure. I was drifting in and out of consciousness.

They released me on the third day, still nursing a headache from the spinal tap, and I went back to training. I worked hard to keep up with the rest of the company, because I sure didn’t want to restart the training again. And I got a special shot record card with big red letters on the cover that said, “ALLERGIC TO FLU”. Never had to get one of those again.

But that’s enough digression. Sunday night my throat got rapidly sorer and my cough became almost continuous, making it difficult to catch my breath. Just before midnight my stomach began rocking and rolling, and I rapidly sat up in bed and grabbed the wastebasket, which had a new plastic liner in it. I uploaded most of the food I had eaten in the last couple of days. But there was no relief at all. I spent the next hour or so with dry heaves. I tried to sip a little Gatorade, but was not able to keep any of it down.

My chest hurt so bad I was afraid I had cracked ribs. I kept hoping for relief but relief didn’t come. At a couple of points there I would have welcomed death’s angel if he would make it stop. 

Around three in the morning, I found some TUMS and chewed them up, which seemed to settle my stomach just enough to allow me to take a couple more Ibuprofen and a small amount of Gatorade. I coughed spasmodically the rest of the morning, and I just stayed in bed. I got up to pee once and noticed that the grapes and bananas on the table were all gone, and figured I must have kept my nephew Joe awake all night coughing, so he just spent the night eating everything he could find, I think.

I spent Monday in bed, and I thought I was on the mend, which suited me, because I was supposed to take Darlene, my daughter, to her class for CNA certification. I managed to get dressed for the trip, but then she called and said the class that night was cancelled due to sickness. Guess whatever this is, it’s getting around.

I got undressed and flopped back to bed, hoping for a better night’s sleep. I was not hungry, and hadn’t eaten anything, just little sips of Gatorade about every six hours to wash down a couple of Ibuprofen. I couldn’t remember if Ibuprofen lowers a fever or not, but I soon found out by holding off until the fever came back, then taking the Ibuprofen as needed. It worked well, both at relieving fever and making my aches go away.

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday. I just stayed in bed and slept all day. I still had no appetite, the very thought of food made me cringe, but I got up to take Darlene to her class again. I dropped her off about 5:15 and went back home until time to pick her up about 9:00. I was afraid I would fall asleep and miss her pickup time, so I got in the car and drove out early, parked in the parking lot, put the seat back and dozed an hour early. It worked out nicely, because the teacher let the class out early and I was right there to take Darlene back to her apartment. 

Wednesday was a no class day, so I got to sleep almost the whole day through. Darlene called and offered to make some potato soup for me if I wanted it. I still abhorred the thought of food, so I told her not yet. 

This bug seems to have photocell sensors. I get almost feeling well during the day, but when the sun goes down, so do I. 

Thursday Darlene had class again, but once again the class was cancelled due to sickness. This is some mean bug.

Thursday midnight a glimmer of hope appeared. I woke up wanting something to eat! I searched the kitchen and found some Schwans mashed potato buds, so I nuked them with a little milk and butter, and gingerly ate little bites. I didn’t eat much, but it was the first food in three long days and nights. 

Somewhere about three in the morning, I found myself humming an old song that Carolyn and I used to sing when we were asked how we felt. Right after we were married we bought an album by a group called The Fugs. The music was terrible but the lyrics were hilarious, and the line that we remembered for years after came from the song title, “My Baby Done Left Me.” The last line of each verse was, “I feel like homemade shit!.” That kind of became our rallying cry when we were sick. If you could sing that line, you must be getting better. It’s on YouTube, but you will have to look for it yourself.

Friday morning Darlene called and offered to buy me breakfast if we could go to the ALDI grocery store down in Texas. The prices are heavily discounted, because they have maybe three employees in the whole place, I think. You have to rent a shopping cart for a quarter, but you get the quarter back if you bring the shopping cart back. They also don’t sack the groceries, so you need to bring your own bags and pack them yourself. It’s an interesting concept, but cheap.

We stopped at our favorite restaurant for breakfast, which tasted good, and as we were eating, a song came over the sound system. It was ,”The Tennessee Waltz” by Patti Page. Suddenly tears ran down my face, and I struggled not to break out into sobs. Darlene saw and knew why. It was a favorite of Carolyn’s, as her Daddy Dan Wright used to sing it to her as she sat on his knee. I just wasn’t ready for it yet.

The rest of the day went well. Next to the ALDI store is Harbor Freight Tools, and I found some machinists measuring tools I have been needing since I left all mine in Nevada, I think. I can now start working on airbag adapters for my GMC RV. Have designed a system using truck overload airbags between adapters. I think it will be a big improvement.

I got nowhere to go but up. I think I’ll listen to “I feel like homemade shit.” again. I’m ready to laugh. 

Some things that ought to be in the news.

Here are some things that ought to be in the news…

I was reading in the January 12th issue of The Economist magazine and ran across an article on Australia’s immigration problem.

I had assumed that the nationalist, nativist, racist norm throughout the world was to ban foreigners and close the borders everywhere now.

Not Australia, it seems. The country is offering inducements to immigrants who will live in the outback and restore population to little towns that are in danger of disappearing. They have run into a problem with lack of workers and farmers outside the big cities.

The town of Wagga Wagga has a new population of hundreds of Yazidis from Syria, who are delighted to find a place where not only are they safe from wartime annihilation, but now live in a place where housing, food and other material goods are all around them.  

Another little town enticed hundreds of Philippinos to move there years ago, and now the town is booming, and they have had to build new schools and hire teachers for the new population.

To my surprise, I found there is a town in Australia named Walla Walla. I would have bet there was only one of those in the world, up in Washington state, where I went to college. They are offering inducements to people who live in Sydney to move out to the rural town and help the economy boom again.

The story reminded me of driving east of Bakersfield last year and seeing miles of orange trees with the ground under them covered with oranges that weren’t harvested because they can’t find enough workers anymore.

Maybe someday we will remember when immigrants were a considered a blessing to the country, and a good way to make the economy expand. Businesses knew that every new worker in town was a potential customer and went out of their way to make them feel welcome. 

Maybe someday…