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