Not Looking For Mr. Goodbar

While I was in yoga class, I noticed that everybody else could sit cross-legged, but I could not.  I had to kneel.  That made me feel wimpy, but it was the best I could do.

Kneeling instead of sitting cross-legged did not seem like a good reason to see a doctor.

Looking in the mirror, I noticed that the vertical lines on my checked shirt have stopped being straight; they have become wavy.  It appeared that I had become wavy.  I could easily avoid the wavy lines by wearing solid-color shirts.

Being wavy did not seem like a good reason to see a doctor.

Getting in bed, I noticed that my right leg felt like it was on fire whenever I lay down.  I could find a less painful position, but never one which made the fire go away.

Pain seemed like a good reason to see a doctor.

I downplayed my wavy spine, which is caused by scoliosis. 

I did not want to stress my wavy spine because of Diane Keaton.  

In the movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar, Diane played a schoolteacher with a slight case of scoliosis.  Her scoliosis made her terribly insecure and drove her to haunt the singles bars of New York City in the 1970s.  My scoliosis is much more obvious than Diane’s, but it has not made me feel insecure.

I went to a chiropractor, who checked me out and said that the fire in my leg was caused by stenosis.  I went to a medical doctor, who checked me out and said that the fire in my leg was caused by stenosis.

After an MRI scan, I went to a surgeon who took me on a journey down my spine.  Starting at the neck, the MRI showed vertebrae that looked symmetrical and happy.  Working the way down my spine to my lower back, however, there were some unhappy vertebrae.  They were scrunched, as if I had been hit by a small battering ram.

I asked the surgeon how he could fix my vertebrae.  His eyes lit up as he described how he would move some of the bone on one vertebra.  His eyes lit up more when he described how he would shave some of the bone on the next vertebra.

The shine in his eyes meant that I had found the right surgeon.

On Wednesday, I will get my stenosis fixed. 

However, I will not bother to fix my scoliosis since it is easy to switch from checked shirts to solid-color shirts.  I will not be looking for Mr. Goodbar.

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A three-and-a-half-minute intro trailer for the 1977 film Looking For Mr. Goodbar, which makes New York seem ominous and sleazy and a bit like Paris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp1Lb694uag

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Keeping It Quiet

The sign on our local gas station/convenience store says “Thank You, Veterans.”

This seems ironic - outside the business world veterans can be thanked, but inside the business world, veterans are supposed to keep their veteran status quiet.

An employer should not be asking for your veteran status, especially during a job interview…the same way they should not be asking for your age or your religion.  By law, a company cannot discriminate on the basis of age, cannot discriminate on the basis of religion, and cannot discriminate on the basis of veteran status.

My employer did not ask me if I was a veteran during my job interview.  But they did ask me after I was hired.  Revealing the status is voluntary, and the list of veterans in the company is kept confidential.

I decided to tell the company that I was a veteran.  I wondered how many people around me were also veterans, so I decided to write an article for the company newsletter.

To solicit requests for veterans’ stories, I could not look at the confidential list; Human Resources had to send out a request for me: if you are willing, please tell me about your military service.

The responses were eye-opening.  Maybe only veterans with eye-opening experiences wanted to be in the company newsletter, but it did make for a good article.

One guy survived the 1967 fire onboard the USS Forrestal.

One guy, after 64 weeks of intensive Russian language training, was stationed in Scotland to intercept Soviet submarine communications.

One guy was a Nuclear Weapons Officer.

One guy surveyed roads in Vietnam.

One guy was a helicopter pilot who helped rescue a crew of Apollo astronauts in the Pacific Ocean.

One guy ran an airfield in Kosovo.

One guy talked about how he couldn’t wait to get out of the military, but looking back he realizes that the military taught him teamwork, and how to do things he didn’t want to do, and how to treat others the way he wanted to be treated.

Walking around the office, I see that these guys, just like me, have blended into the company just fine.  It seems odd that we are supposed to keep our veteran status quiet.

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Veterans Day: it is time to remember the people who never lived to tell their stories to a company newsletter.  Here is a 3-minute video of “Lullaby For A Soldier (In The Arms Of The Angels)", a song written by Dillon O’Brian.  It is sung by Maggie Siff during an episode of Sons Of Anarchy.  Maggie’s photo is the first one you see, followed by photos of the other cast members:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmucVmr60HQ

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

I Do Dassn't

When it came time for the Sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina, to fire Mayberry's school crossing guard, the guard told Andy Griffith, “You dassn’t!” --- and Andy Griffith replied, “I do dassn’t!”

I was very surprised to find out that someone besides my grandmother used the word “dassn’t”.  Grandma was the only real person I ever heard use the word.  As far as I was concerned, Grandma owned that word.

I was in junior high school when Mom and Dad came in the door one afternoon with Grandma and a couple of suitcases. “Grandpa is in the hospital, and Grandma is coming to stay with us.”

Grandpa died that night.  In the morning, Dad pulled me aside and gave me instructions: go give your mother a hug and tell her you are sorry that her father has died.  

I did as instructed.  Years later, I still think was the most important fatherly advice I ever received.

Grandma stayed with us for many years.

She had wonderful sewing skills and many people came to her for alterations. She always made time to sit down and read the daily newspaper, which arrived in the afternoon back in those days.

She helped out the household by loading and unloading the dishwasher.  When loading the dishwasher, she scrutinized every utensil.  She was unwavering in her belief that if a utensil had not been used during a meal, it should never go into the dishwasher, it should always go back into the silverware drawer.

  

She probably would have said: "You dassn't wash a clean spoon".

Dassn't was a contraction of “dare not”, but it really meant “should not”.  You dassn’t do this = You shouldn’t do this.  You dassn’t do that = You shouldn’t do that.

I heard that word a lot as she gave me grandmotherly advice.  But her most memorable use of dassn’t was for a soldier in a World War Two documentary.

Grandma and I were watching a black-and-white documentary about the Burma Campaign in the Southeast Asian jungle.  The campaign began with the British retreating long distances.  The British lost 50,000 men before finally managing to regroup and push the Japanese back.

Besides facing enemy gunfire, the soldiers faced malaria, monsoons, dysentery, heat.

At one point, the documentary showed a British soldier hacking his way through the jungle underbrush with a machete.

Grandma could not resist giving the soldier in the documentary some grandmotherly advice: “Oh, he dassn’t use that big knife --- he could cut himself”.

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So much more to fear and to endure: a 58-minute BBC documentary in color about the longest campaign of World War Two --- The Burma Campaign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9bvTrK-130

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Exactly 3 Hours To The Kentucky State Line

The ad in the paper said: 
COME VISIT PADUCAH, ONLY 3 HOURS AWAY.

Ever since I first saw Paducah on a map as a kid, I wanted to visit a place with such an intriguing name.  So, I took a day off from work.  I left our house at 7:04 AM, and I crossed the Kentucky state line at 11:04.  The ad in the paper was correct.

What I found is that Paducah is a city of architecture, a city of history, and, most of all, a city of art.

Paducah is lucky to have a large number of 19^th Century buildings still gracing its downtown.

The American-German National Bank:

Another bank:

The grand downtown commercial hotel:

Shop Historic Paducah:

Paducah is where I found out about America’s first sojourn into government health care.  President John Adams knew that America’s prosperity depended on merchant ships, and in 1798, health care was provided to merchant seamen.  It was then extended to the men who worked on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

Paducah was the site of a Confederate raid in the Civil War.  The town displays its history in public, on its flood wall.  Over 50 flood wall murals describe the history of Paducah, including its industrial history.

Paducah was the home of Vice President Alben Barkley.  Barkley captured my imagination because of his moment of death.  He was giving a speech and quoted Psalm 84:10, saying "I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty."  He died on stage just minutes after saying that quotation.

Art abounds in Paducah.  The biggest tourist attraction in town is a museum of quilts and fiber arts.  But the city has deliberately sought artists to boost its economy.  They have an artist relocation plan, and pay artists to move to Paducah.

The artists get low-cost houses in Lower Town.  The house serves as a studio, a gallery, and a residence.  I talked to artists who had moved from Michigan, Vermont, California, and the State of Washington.  They were all ecstatic to be in Paducah.

Before heading back to St. Louis, I had to visit the town's piece de résistance for a fan of architecture: the Paducah Post Office.  It is a midcentury modern building designed by Edward Durrell Stone.  It is a small-scale version of the US Embassy that Stone designed for New Delhi, India.

Paducah, Kentucky,which I had wanted to see only because it had an intriguing name, proved to be a city with intriguing architecture, intriguing history, and intriguing art. 

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A 4-minute YouTube tour of Paducah:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y55ikhMl45g


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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Gesticulating In Gratitude

The roads in Hawaii are mostly two-lane.  

We were on vacation, driving from Kailua-Kona to Hilo, when the car behind us wanted to pass.  We slowed down and pulled to the right to give the car lots of room to pass.  After the car passed us, the driver stuck his arm out the window and gesticulated at us.

What was that?  Was he mocking us?  

The driver had extended his thumb and his pinkie and had curled his middle three fingers to his palm.  And he shook his hand.  I started to get annoyed, but then I remembered something I read in a travel book about how Hawaiians use a certain gesture as a way of saying thank you.

The guy who passed us was giving us a Hawaiian thank-you wave.

St. Louis has a thank-you wave.  You simply extend all five fingers into a flat palm and move it right and left, like a windshield wiper.  The Hawaiian wave is more dramatic, probably because you can drive with your car windows open all year round in Hawaii.

I like being courteous to my fellow drivers in St. Louis.  And I like to have my courtesy acknowledged, but I only get a thank-you wave about fifty per cent of the time.

Every morning when I drive to work, I get an opportunity to be courteous.  There is a Mobil On-The-Run convenience store at a busy intersection.  If the light is red and there are six cars waiting for the light to change, the entrance to the On-The-Run will be blocked by the sixth car.  People who just bought their gas, coffee, or breakfast cannot leave the On-The-Run.

Unless the sixth car is me.  If I see five cars waiting for a red light, I will stop early so there is a big gap between the fifth car and me.  That way people can drive into or out of the On-The-Run.

Many people recognize my act of courtesy.  They wave their hand at me as they drive through the gap I created.  One driver, however, was busy consuming his breakfast as he drove, so he waved his breakfast as me: a 16-ounce can of Bud Light.

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A favorite Bud Light commercial: "The Clothing Drive":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8znLXlD33No



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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

My Wish On Yoko Ono's Tree

Three of us entered the restaurant and started walking down a long hallway to reach the hostess stand.  The hallway was decorated with black-and-white historic sports photographs.

There was a woman in the hallway pointing to a photograph and asking a busboy to identify the person in the photo.  The busboy had no idea; he spotted me and told her: "The man in the beard will tell you who this is."

The woman turned to me in anticipation.  

I looked at the photo and told her: "This is Lou Gehrig, who was born in 1903 and lived at 307 East 94th Street.  My father was born in 1903 and lived at 329 East 94th Street.  My father and Lou Gehrig were boyhood friends.  At that time, New York City allowed students to choose their high school, and my father and Lou Gehrig both chose the same high school.

Lou Gehrig joined the high school baseball team and my father became the manager of the team.  Their friendship continued beyond high school; Lou Gehrig would send the Schneider family a Christmas card every year, even when he was playing exhibition baseball in Japan.

                          (This photo shows my father standing in the back row, 1st on the left.
                                                     Lou Gehrig is sitting, 3rd from right)
                                    
The woman in the restaurant hallway was fascinated by everything that I told her.  She told me that she walks in the yearly ALS fundraiser because she has a friend with ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's disease).

It was four years since I had set foot in that restaurant.  I certainly did not know that busboy.  There were three of us walking down the hallway; what would explain how the busboy picked out the person whose father was Lou Gehrig's childhood friend?

My high school classmate, Liz Bogen, had an explanation.  Liz Bogen once said “Doug Schneider leads a charmed life”.

I spent many years not believing what my classmate said.  I viewed my life as simply a life that just happens, not as a charmed life.

I am now in the last month of my 69th year --- it is a time to look back.

Looking back on: Growing up in a town with salt water on three sides.  Attending an Ivy League college.   Getting to teach in the most interesting school in the most interesting city in West Africa.  Being sent by the US Army, not to Vietnam, but to the West Coast, where I had never been before.  Living in Europe.  Getting into Information Technology just as it started to become a driving force in American society.  Following my heart and finding love and settling in Missouri in a house with a white picket fence and two dogs in the yard.   

Now, as I am about to begin my 70th year, I am ready to admit that my classmate Liz Bogen might have been right.  Ready to admit that there was something cosmic about a busboy singling me out to answer someone’s question about a black-and-white photograph hanging in a restaurant hallway.

Last summer I went to the St. Louis Art Museum, and headed straight for Yoko Ono's wish tree.  I wrote my wish on a tag and tied it on a branch.  Yoko took all the St. Louis wishes to Iceland, where they are now interred at the Imagine Peace Tower.

The tag that I hung on the wish tree said: "Wishing to continue a charmed life".

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Here is a 6-minute video filmed at the London Palladium.  Neil Hannon, the lead singer of The Divine Comedy, sings a tender song about his wish that his daughter will lead a charmed life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csef7e_2SUA

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

The Dewey Decimal System Is Not Kind To Africa

I worked at The School For Arabic Studies in Kano, Nigeria, for a number of years.  The school was like a Muslim seminary, turning out religion teachers.  However, Nigerian law said that you could not teach unless you were proficient in English, principles of education, and mathematics.

Mathematics – that is why I was on the staff of The School For Arabic Studies.

I volunteered to help out in the library, which had books in English and in Arabic.  Many of our staff members had graduated from al-Azhar University in Cairo, and they told me that our school had the finest collection of Arabic literature in West Africa.

I helped the librarian with the books in English.  I quickly discovered that the Dewey Decimal System is not kind to Africa.  American literature gets a whole range of Dewey Decimal numbers:  going from 810 all the way up to 819.  Nigerian literature, however, gets a little slice of the one Dewey Decimal number that all of Africa has to share: 896.

I was a little grumbly as I helped process the new books in English.

When not processing books, I wandered through the library stacks, where I noticed books that were irrelevant to the students at the school.  I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw The Yachting Handbook on a shelf.

How could The Yachting Handbook ever be relevant?  In order to sail a yacht, you needed a body of water.  Kano is a-hop-skip-and-a-jump away from the Sahara Desert.  Kano has no lakes.  The Kano River appears on maps, but it has water in it for three months a year during the rainy season (see photo of the river below).

So, somebody must have donated this book, and the school library took it because "an irrelevant book in English is better than no book at all".

I discovered an obscure storeroom in a corner of the school campus.  I gathered all the irrelevant books and stashed them there. 

As I stashed them, I wondered who brought the book about yachts to Kano --- probably a yacht enthusiast from Britain coming to work in Kano for a couple of years.  What a surprise when that person found a landscape of sand and camels instead of a landscape of sand and beaches.

When I moved back to the United States, I got some disturbing news.  The library at The School For Arabic Studies had caught on fire one night.

When the students heard about the fire, they flocked to the school, with one goal in mind – they wanted to save the finest collection of Arabic books in West Africa.   The Fire Brigade kept them at bay, and the books all turned to ashes.

Then the school had to rebuild its collection both in Arabic and in English. 

I had a nightmare:  someone stumbles upon that obscure storeroom in the corner of the campus.  That person would see books in English, and think “an irrelevant book in English is better than no book at all”.

In my nightmare, The Yachting Handbook winds up back on a shelf in the library of The School For Arabic Studies in Kano, Nigeria --- just a-hop-skip-and-a-jump from the Sahara Desert.

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Here is a 5-minute video about Kano's history, architecture, and government.  The soundtrack begins 18 seconds into the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_dMOYjmSS0

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com