Back to Seidman Cancer Center

Seidman Cancer Center
Chagrin Highlands

 June 29, 2021

Tuesday, mid-day, Joyce drove me up to Seidman (just off Chagrin Blvd. & I-271), where I had my quarterly chat with my oncologist—and also got my two quarterly injections.

Anti-Covid protocols were still in place there: masks, temp and questions at the entrance. (We passed!). And then, three hours later we emerged.

Most of that time was waiting—to see the oncologist—to get my shots—to schedule next time. To think and worry (you know).

My cancer numbers remain good—though as I've said here numerous times, tis all temporary. This current major med I'm on (Xtandi) is an effective testosterone-killer (the food of prostate cancer), and, for the nonce, is winning the battle. My PSA remains undetectable.

That's good.

But my options are running out. So once Xtandi quits working (as it will), we're not sure what we're going to do next.

There is a new treatment for guys like me, a treatment I read about in the New York Times last week, but it's not yet FDA-approved, and until it is, it's useless for me.

I really like my oncologist. We talk a lot, speculate, even laugh a bit. And Joyce is full of questions, which he answers quickly and—sometimes—painfully.

Oh, I was in a wheelchair at Seidman. Even a walker, which I use on other, shorter excursions, is not quite good enough for me for a long time. My fragile balance just does not care about it, and I will fall if I use it for too long a period.

After the consultation and discussion with the oncologist, it was downstairs to the Poke Department, where a kind young nurse stabbed me twice: once in the rear (Trelstar, another testosterone inhibitor) and in the arm (Xgeva, which increases bone strength).

And then, at last, we were rolling out of there.

As usual at Seidman (during my waiting time) I noticed the many other patients who were there, patients who, as I’ve observed before, are a perfect spectrum of human beings: race, gender, age. Cancer doesn’t care much about any of that. If you’re human, the disease is interested in you and will consult your genes to see if it has a way into your system.

I try to talk with other waiting people—without intruding—and those other people are invariably grateful for the talk and encouragement (as I am)—for the good-luck wishes as we head back to the examination and/or treatment rooms.

Anyway, I don’t have to think about it for another three months, when, once again, I’ll head off to the lab to get my bloodwork and worry feverishly until the results come back.

And Joyce, of course, holds me together in the meantime, reminding me every day of the wonders of life, of the miracle of love.

Summer Camp

Vesper Spot
Camp Christian, Ohio

I see a few FB posts these days about kids going to summer camps of various sorts. The photos of some reveal a variety of emotions, emotions shared one way or the other with parents.

I went to summer camp a few times when I was a kid—church camp—Camp Christian down near Delaware, Ohio. It’s still in business, I see (link to website for the camp). I started in junior high when I was in Chi Rho (a Disciples of Christ youth group), and I attended a couple of other years when I was in CYF (Christian Youth Fellowship).

I generally had a good time because lots of my friends went, too, though the camp administrators, apparently, scattered us around among the cabins so that we’d experience “fellowship” with kids we didn’t know.

I found this alarming—and funny. Alarming because there were Big Kids who did what a lot of Big Kids do in junior high: be threatening. And funny because there were some Wackos there—odd-bird little kids who said and did the strangest things.

Example: In my day there was a place called the Vesper Spot where we would go before heading for bed. It was a lovely place off in the woods, and we were supposed to be absolutely silent there. One evening, in line heading out there, one of the wackos, a kid named Jerry from another town, was right behind me, and as he entered the clearing, I heard him whisper from behind me: “And somewhere, from out of the gloom, ....”

I cracked up. It wasn’t that funny—but it was so unexpected that I couldn’t  help myself. Everyone looked at me as if I’d just committed a mortal sin.

The counselor in charge spoke some sharp words—I didn’t dare tell him that he was supposed to be silent. I think I had to do some odious chore the next day in atonement.

But I generally enjoyed the camp, even though I learned two difficult truths: 1. I sucked at crafts (my lanyard, woven, looked more like a hangman’s noose); 2.the pretty girls were not very interested in me.

But I was something of a whiz in the Bible classes: My grandfather and uncle and father were all ordained Disciples of Christ ministers. Take that, Jerry!

Leap ahead a few years. One of my best friends in high school was a kid name Paul Misch (sadly deceased now). I was telling him the story about the Vesper Spot and Jerry.

He perked up. 

“Jerry [the same one from Camp Christian]!?”

“Yeah, why?”

And then Paul told a story about when he’d once been in the hospital; sharing his room was Jerry, who had a long piece of knotted string with which he would snap Paul now and then. And Paul couldn’t do anything about it: His leg was in a cast.

Despite Paul’s direst threats (and he was a tough kid; Jerry, not), Jerry kept snapping until he went home the next day.

Paul never got his revenge, as far as I know.

Unless, you know, he’s done so ... Down There.

Another Persistent Night Visitor

 

It’s happening to me more and more these days: I wake in the night, my head thrumming with a song from my youth, a song whose lyrics I can only partially remember. Whose performers remain hidden by the night.

Good-bye, sleep.

It’s usually not until morning when I can consult Mr. Google to dissipate my frustration.

Last night it was the song “Sugartime” by the McGuire Sisters (see pic at the top of this post), which topped the charts in February 1958. I was in eighth grade (link to the performance of the song).

As has been the case with all of my similar Nocturnal Song Visits in recent years, this one brought back memories of Hiram School dances and sock hops. The awkwardness, the enormous importance of who was dancing with whom—it was very popular then for girls to dance with girls (I have no idea if it still is).

I’d taken dancing lessons back in Enid, Okla., but they didn’t “take” very well (as Joyce would discover at our wedding reception).

Anyway—as has also been the case with these Night Visitors—I could not remember the performers, not until, as I said, Mr. Google woke up.

As I listened to the song on YouTube this morning, I was struck by the simplicity of it all—by the innocence (is there a better word?) of it all. The 1950s were such a simple time in popular music—lyrics that were all G-rated, all emerging from the lips of singers in perfectly understandable fashion. Friendly guitars and other instruments. Nothing too roiling and boiling as I recall.

As the decades went on, that became more and more difficult—at least for me. I couldn’t understand the words of many songs, and guitars seemed to slice and attack.

(Just an Old Guy talking.)

I’m actually happy to receive these nocturnal visits. It’s as if part of my brain has loosened up, allowed me access (well, partial access)—or perhaps my brain is simply leaking memories, and it’s the leakage I’m pursuing into those dark recesses that are low on words, high on images.

LYRICS TO THE SONG

Well
Sugar in the mornin'
Sugar in the evenin'
Sugar at suppertime
Be my little sugar
And love me all the time

Honey in the mornin'
Honey in the evenin'
Honey at suppertime
So by my little honey
And love me all the time

Put your arms around me
And swear by stars above
You'll be mine forever
In a heaven of love

Sugar in the mornin'
Sugar in the evenin'
Sugar at suppertime
Be my little sugar
And love me all the time

Well, well

Sugar in the mornin'
Sugar in the evenin'
Sugar at suppertime
Be my little sugar
And love me all the time

Honey in the mornin'
Honey in the evenin'
Honey at suppertime
So be my little honey
And love me all the time

Put your arms around me
And swear by stars above
You'll be mine forever
In a heaven of love

Sugar in the mornin'
Sugar in the evenin'
Sugar at suppertime
Be my little sugar
And love me all the

Now sugartime (sugartime)
Is anytime that you're near (that you're near)
'Cause you're so dear
So don't you roam (don't roam)
Just be my honeycomb (honeycomb, honeycomb)
And live in a heaven of love 

Sugar in the mornin'
Sugar in the evenin'
Sugar at suppertime
Be my little sugar
And love me (love me)
All (all all all)
The time

Sugartime
Sugartime

Walker

 

My son and his family bought me a device (very similar to the one in the pic) a few months ago. I use it a lot—though generally not inside, where I can grab or lean on familiar things as I move through the house.

Outside, though, all the time. Most of my "outside time" is taking a trip to a Dr.'s office. I don't drive anymore, so Joyce loads the device in the car, I wobble out, holding onto the car till I get to the passenger side and ease myself into the front seat. Then when we arrive, she sets it up for me—and off I roll to find out things I don’t want to find out.

PAUSE

I wrote the previous two paragraphs just before lunch, and as I headed out of my study, I fell. When I fall there’s no Oh-I’m-falling! Instead, it’s Oh-damn-I-fell!

It took awhile for me to get my equilibrium back—for Joyce to struggle to get me to my feet. She did, and then she was able to help me into the family room, where I flopped on the couch for about fifteen minutes, at which time I was able to help a little with lunch.

Fun.

RESTART AFTER LUNCH

I’ve noticed now, being mildly disabled, that not everywhere is “user-friendly” for folks like me.

Public restrooms, for just one example.

Some are fine—wide, automatic doors, plenty of space once I get inside. Bars to hang onto, etc.

But others—like the one I had to use this morning—are nightmares.

No automatic door is the worst. Using a walker, I have to kind of force my way in, hoping my balance will not desert me.

Occasionally, someone will see my situation and help me out. But rarely.

But that leads me to another observation—a more positive one. Lots of people are kind. They hold a door for me, let me go ahead, ask if I’m all right, etc. And I can’t tell you how comforting that is. Even more: how necessary most of the time. Sometimes I can’t avoid a tear ... or ten ...

I never thought I’d be like this—dizzy all day except in a chair or lying down.

Why would I be? I’ve worked out most of my life—I eat only healthful food. I neither smoke nor drink (having dropped both activities decades ago). I’m one of the Good Guys, right?

My body doesn’t give a damn.

And so here I am—wrestling with restroom doors, hoping a kind stranger (and, as I said, there are many) will give a guy a helping hand, the hand that Joyce employs, 24-7.

Getting Out of Date

At our Father's Day celebration yesterday, I learned from my grandsons (and son) that kids don't use email anymore—or text messages. Instead it's Instagram (or one of those platforms I don't use or know much about).  And that, I realize, is why they seldom reply to those out-of-date ways I send messages to them. I might as well have written a letter—or sent a telegram—or sent smoke signals.

There are lots of other ways I'm sort of expired in this world, but one of them struck me again this morning when I was reading a 2004 memoir by a celebrated writer. (I'll mention nothing specific about the book—or the author's name.)

In the first 100 pages I've read a few things in her agile, eloquent prose that were definitely no-no's Back in the Day. She made a who-whom error; twice she has said one another in situations where I was taught one should use each other; she wrote “feel badly.”

Now, I realize that grammar/usage rules are continually changing. I know that we made up our "rules" before we even knew what grammar and usage were. They evolved gradually before they were ever codified.

(I just broke one I'd been taught, a particularly silly one: Don't use the passive voice.)

I learned many/most of those rules because of the home I grew up in. My mother was an English teacher, and she was constantly teaching us—if sometimes in a less-than-genial manner.

When one of brothers or I would make a mistake, her custom was to repeat a version of what we’d just said, with an emphasis on the correct way.

Danny: Me and Jim are going down to the park.

Mom: Jim and I are going down to the park.

I would never follow with You are? That’s why I’m still alive today.

Other rules I learned in later classes—and many I learned when I was teaching—some I’ve learned recently.

I’ve also lived long enough to watch them fade away. When I was a kid, the teachers tried to show us the differences between may and might, between will and shall, between may and can, between like and as.

Now, many of those are gone—or going.

Here’s one I’ve seen professional writers use: He’s a wiser man than me.

I would still write wiser man than I because I learned long ago that this is what’s called an elliptical construction: wiser than I [am]. So when you drop the am, you do not drop the I.

The differences between who and whom, I know, are heading south. Some people incorrectly use whom (this is called a hypercorrection) because they think whom sounds more correct than who in some constructions—even though it ain’t.

Accelerating these changes, I’m sure, are social media, which, I believe, diminish the importance to the writer (and the reader) of “correct” English.

Sometimes, for stylistic or humorous reasons we make mistakes on purpose—like the ain’t I plopped into the previous paragraph.

For the same reason many writers do something I often do: write intentional sentence fragments. Like this one.

But I confess I’m still surprised to see formations that I’d learned were errors in the otherwise flawless prose of professional writers—not in dialogue, of course, where anything goes.

When I was reviewing books, I saw such things more and more frequently.

And my response, generally, is not the grammar-Nazi sniff of disgust and disdain and superiority. But instead the Dylan (Bob) line “The times, they are a-changin’.”

As they ever will ...

"Many a tear has to fall ..."

In the fall of 1958 (I was starting 9th grade), Tommy Edwards, a performer whose name (until a recent Google search) I'd totally forgotten, released the song "It's All in the Game." (Link to video.) It was, of course, popular around the country (reached #1), not just at Hiram High School (where it was often played at our school dances and sock hops).

That song popped into my head recently because I had noticed that I'm a bit more (okay, a lot more) weepy than I used to be.

When I was a kid, running around, I rarely cried—just when I hurt myself or in a sad moment in a movie. As for the latter, I fought fiercely against my in-a-movie weeping: not manly, you know?

But I couldn’t help it. Pinocchio became a real kid, Cinderella married a prince, Davy Crockett died at the Alamo, etc.

Books, too, made me weep. Bartholomew saved himself from death by wearing 500 hats, Davy Crockett died at the Alamo, etc.

Later, I still wept in films (Midnight Cowboy, Camelot, Much Ado About Nothing) and in so many books I can’t begin to remember them all.

Lately—as I drift daffily into that good night—I find myself weeping almost every night as Joyce and I stream shows in bed before we drift into darkness. At the end of one season of Schitt’s Creek, the principal characters are gathered in a bar, celebrating; at the end of another, Moira shows up at Alexis’ high-school graduation unexpectedly. And in another show, The Cafe, we’re streaming—and loving—the two of us weep almost every night.

Tonight we’re going to watch the final episode of that one, and we will definitely have tissues in bed.*

In another way, I often wake up crying at night—a dream, or thinking about my parents (both gone now), friends who are gone, former students and colleagues ...

And, of course, I weep as I think about the losses that lie ahead. It’s sometimes unbearable, such thoughts. I know we all have our turns—I’d just like to skip mine, if I could. Which I can’t.

Shakespeare knew it, of course, as he reveals movingly here in one of his sonnets, the last line of which is a dazzler.

Sonnet 64 

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

*This show, by the way, like many others, was recommended to us by our friend Chris Cozens.

Humility: A Personal Journey (Part Nine)

I was going to end this Humility series yesterday—with the post about the humility my teaching career gave me. I knew perfectly well that there was a much more obvious and powerful source of it—but I’ve written about it a lot on this site, so I thought I’d give it a pass.  Found out I couldn’t.

Age and Health.

I’ve been lucky in my life: Throughout much of it—most of it—I’ve been healthy and able to do the things I’ve wanted to. Until I started into my 60s I never had a debilitating illness or injury, just the occasional common cold, flu—that sort of thing. I did have the childhood illnesses: measles, mumps, etc. But that was about it.

But then came my sixties with a sequence of medical problems that are now clearly winning the competition between living and not.

Bell’s Palsy was first. Then, in late 2004, the diagnosis of prostate cancer that has resulted in a prostatectomy (removal), two rounds of radiation, immunotherapy, and a sequence of increasingly potent medications that have greatly diminished my physical life. (We’ll return to this.)

Some skin cancer and surgery—oh, my careless boyhood in the Oklahoma sun!

The last handful of years it’s some kind of weird neurological disorder that has stolen my balance—multiple tests and specialists have not discovered what it is. All they know (knowledge that has been obvious to me) is that it’s getting worse.

As I said, the cancer meds have gotten more and more powerful—with more and more odious side-effects.

As I’ve progressed through the sequence, the medical choices have diminished. My cancer is metastatic: The cancer has moved into my bones, and I am what I never thought I would be—incurable. All the meds can do is delay the inevitable.

I’m currently on one called Xtandi, which has been working (for the nonce), and when it no longer is effective, I will move to the final drug available (I forget the name). When its effectiveness declines, all that’s left is chemotherapy.

I’m not sure I’ll pursue chemo. It won’t save my life; it will just diminish it some more. I don’t really see the point.

So ... humility? Nothing quite like medical issues—especially incurable ones—to teach you that final lesson—to administer that final proficiency test that everyone fails.

Well, on that happy note I’ll close this series, grateful that I’ve done it, grateful that I won’t have to do it again!

And, meanwhile, I’ll enjoy my time with my son and his family, with my friends (most of whom I see only remotely now), and, of course, with Joyce, that remarkable woman whom I met—quite by accident—in Satterfield Hall in the summer of 1969 at Kent State University. Neither of us wanted to be in the class we were in—but the others were closed (and they weren’t the same). This December 20 will be our 52nd anniversary.

So how can I possibly complain about the arrival of something I knew would show up done day? Something I’ve ignored for as long as I could.

Humility: A Personal History (Part Eight)

 Teaching, continued.

We’re nearing the end of my “Humility Journey” through this life. There are some categories I have not explored (and will not explore). Principal reason? None of your beeswax. They’re too embarrassing—I’d rather not think about them—I’m too ashamed—etc.

In the previous post, I outlined my teaching career, but I did not get into the humility I learned throughout my forty-five years in the classroom.

There was a lot—humility, that is.

A lot of it I went through in my Kindle book Schoolboy: A Memoir (2012). I told a lot of stories in that volume about my early career when I made, oh, a mistake a minute—and about my later career when I made, oh, a mistake about every two minutes.

That’s right: Throughout my career I said things I wish I hadn’t—did things I wish I hadn’t. I guess the best lesson I learned was the necessity of Apology.

I hardly ever apologized in my early years—much more often later on. The kids in those later years seemed to appreciate it. Apology seemed to soften the atmosphere, reduce tension. Perhaps.

In my early years I learned the value—the immense value—of learning from my colleagues. At the old Aurora Middle School (where I started in the fall of 1966) I was fortunate to have some terrific colleagues. Eileen Kutinsky (6th grade science), Jim Wright (8th grade math), Willetta Thomas (reading), and so many others.

They were all quite different from one another—and from them I learned that good teaching comes in a variety of forms, a variety of styles. I had to try not to imitate but to find my own strengths and ride on them.

I learned to avoid sarcasm. Early in my career I used it a lot—so much, in fact, that when I heard a kid say one day “Mr. Dyer can put anybody down,” I was flattered. I shouldn’t have been. It makes just about anyone feel bad (me included), and I tried to cut it out—though still slipped up from time to time.

The better prepared you are, in general, the better the class will go. I soon became obsessed with the literary works and authors I taught. In the summers Joyce and I would travel all over the country in search of authors’ homes, graves—and the sites that were key in their work. I went to Europe a few times for the same reason. Shakespeare, Anne Frank, Mary Shelley, and others—all sent me hither and yon in what, of course, is an endless quest.

Listen to your students—you get a lot of ideas. Near the end of my career I found, teaching Hamlet and other works, that the students had often thought of things that I hadn’t. I began writing in the margins of the text who that kid was and what his/her observation was. I would give them credit in subsequent class periods—and years.

Try not to hurt anyone. Use authentic praise whenever you can.

Laugh—especially at yourself. One day, late in my career, I was talking to a class about how few of them wore wristwatches. The kids were looking weirdly at one another. “What?” I asked. A girl said, “You said that same thing to us about 20 minutes ago.” I laughed and replied, “If I ever do that again, lead me out into the deep woods and leave me there.”

There’s much more ... okay, one more. When I began teaching, corporal punishment was still common. (I had been paddled in high school and thought it was “normal.”) Lots of teachers had paddles they hung over the blackboard. I paddled more than a few kids, and I’ve regretted it ever since.

After two or three years I quit doing it—among the wisest choices I ever made. All it does is create a lasting bitterness.

Finally ... relax and laugh. Have fun. Teaching is fun, and once I realized that, the years flew, and the next thing I knew, I was emptying my desk and heading for home the final time.

I am so grateful for those years—the things I learned, the people I met (I’d say about 95% of my FB friends are former students and colleagues), and, yes, the mistakes I made, the humility I experienced. Humility, I learned, has been one of my finest, most honest teachers.

Humility: A Personal History (Part Seven)

Re: Teaching

I had  no plans to be a teacher, really—did not want to be a teacher. Yes, I'd earned my teacher certification at Hiram College, but that, in my mind (though not in the minds of my parents), was a fallback plan. Just in case.

I'd applied to grad school at the University of Kansas and had been accepted into their American Studies program (lit, history, the arts, etc.). Good news: I was accepted!

Bad news: no financial aid.

So ... I fell back.

I applied for two teaching jobs: one in nearby Garrettsville, Ohio, where my mom had taught for ten years and now, her Ph,D. completed, was heading to Iowa to teach at Drake University with my dad.

The other: at the Aurora Public Schools in Aurora, Ohio—just eleven miles from Hiram.

I took the first job offered: the Aurora Middle School—even though my supervising teacher during my student teaching (West Geauga HS) had warned me: "Whatever you do, don't get stuck in a middle school!"

Oh well.

And "stuck" I was—for about thirty years. 

The problem was that I loved it there.

True, I left for four years in the late 1970s. I'd completed my Ph. D. (as Joyce had) at Kent State, and we had accepted jobs at Lake Forest College, up the North Shore a bit from Chicago.

I thought I'd like college teaching.

I didn't. 

I missed the middle school kids, missed my colleagues, so I resigned after only one year and headed back to Ohio, but Aurora had no openings.

So ... Joyce and I both took positions at Western Reserve Academy, where I taught for two years (Joyce for 10). Our son would graduate from the school in 1990, whereupon Joyce would head off to teach (with great distinction) the rest of her career at ... Hiram College.

I left WRA after two years (a salary snit), thinking I would quickly find another job. I didn’t.

So I ended up working part time at Kent State (frosh English—our son is now teaching frosh English at the U of Akron!) and part time at the local book store, The Learned Owl.

In the spring of that year, over at the KSU Library, I ran into former Aurora colleague Denny Reiser, who told me there was an English opening at the middle school.

I made a couple of calls, applied for the job, and after a resounding vote of approval from the Board of Education (3-2: I’d made some enemies), was rehired for the fall of 1982, and there I stayed until January of 1997, when I retired.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Humility: A Personal History (Part Six)

And next was tennis ...

Before we moved to Ohio in late summer 1956 (I was about to turn 12), I don't think I'd ever played tennis. But not long after we arrived, Johnny Kelker (who would die of ALS) befriended me. He played some tennis, and his older brother, Norman, was quite good.

My dad had an old wooden racquet whose head was in a wooden frame, and he let me borrow it to play with Johnny. (I never once saw Dad or Mom play tennis.)

I got a little better.

Hiram had lots of events on the Fourth of July, and for a few years, when I was in junior high, they had a Portage County tennis tournament—with various age groupings. My age group had two who entered: friend Paul Misch (who would die of cancer) and I.

Paul beat me fairly easily and I broke down in tears up at the net. Paul consoled me.

The next year there were four, a girl who could barely play at all (whom I beat), Johnny Kelker, some other guy, and I. As I said, I easily beat the girl, beat Johnny, and became Portage County champion. I still have the wee medal I got that day.

I didn’t play often in high school—but now and then in the summer.

When I went off to Hiram College—and knew I couldn’t play on the baseball team, had quit the frosh basketball team—I thought I’d try tennis. The team had a few good players, and I thought I might at least get some exercise.

The team decided to let another frosh, Steve Dix (who would die a few years later in a small private plane crash), join me and play 3rd doubles. Steve was better than I, and I learned a lot from him.

As the college tennis years went on, I advanced to 2nd singles, didn’t win a lot (not many of us did), but by the time it was over, I had four varsity letters.

After college I worked in a couple boys’ camps a couple of years, the first, Camp Idylwold in upstate New York (near Schroon Lake). They had a pro, Joe Fishbach, and his two sons, Peter, about 17, and Michael, 9. All three of them could beat me. Yes, a 9-year-old could beat me.

After that, tennis just became exercise for me. An indoor tennis club lay between me and Harmon School in Aurora, Ohio, where I was teaching, and I joined their Early Bird program and for several years would play there from 5:30 to 6:30–then shower and dress and head for school.

This ended when son Steve was in sixth grade: I started taking him with me to Harmon, where he had a wonderful three years, I must say.

Oh, earlier (1979-80) I was an assistant coach for the girls’ tennis team at Western Reserve Academy, where Joyce and I were teaching. A couple of the girls could beat me.

And then it faded away. I sometimes would hit with our son, who had a mild interest in the sport. And at Harmon I started a Tennis Club that met during lunch period (but I mostly just supervised).

And then tennis drifted out of my life. I don’t think I even have a racquet now.

No matter. If I now were to take a swing at a ball, I’d promptly hit the ground and wake up in the ICU with a doctor looking at me and saying: “What were you thinking?”

Clearly, I wasn’t—which is no surprise.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

 

Humility: A Personal History (Part Five)

 More re: Basketball

And then it was over—and quickly so.

In the fall of 1962 I headed off for Hiram College expecting I would have a basketball career there.

I didn't.

I did make the freshman team, though I was already realizing that I was not up to the level of some of my teammates.

The coach put me in an early game, and I confidently headed out to the court when, within minutes, a guard from the other team had twice stripped me of the ball and headed downcourt for an easy lay-up.

Time out.

Danny to the bench.

Where I pretty much stayed, moving farther and farther down it until I was at the end, and, as I've written elsewhere, I became a transitional figure: both fan and player—and neither.

Soon, I quit. A dream deferred—no, dead.

I did play some intramural ball, Played in a couple of alumni games back at Hiram High. Coached the 7th grade team in my first year at Aurora Middle School (1966-67). Played in a teacher league.

Then—that was over, and I next played with our young son out in our driveway at 114 Forest Drive in Kent, using a fine hoop a kind neighbor had put on the garage roof for us. I still remember son Steve making his first basket: It was as if he'd sunk the winning shot in the NBA championship—to him, to me.

We would play off and on until he got into school and found himself on teams where he did fine. But then he, too, gave it up.

Next ... our grandsons, Logan and Carson. Down at their home in Green, Ohio, they had a hoop, and I remember one day that we were all just shooting around when I suddenly got on a hot streak. I stood about key-high and sank shot after shot.

Logan was shaking his head.

I said, "What's up?"

He said, "Old guys aren't supposed to be any good."

And I wasn't. Not really.

As far as I can remember, that is the last time I shot baskets—and I won't be shooting any more of them. My advancing dizziness and imbalance have ended all of that.

But there were moments—back then—when a play I made, a game I had—when I'd convinced myself that I was really headed for the NBA.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Humility: A Personal History (Part Four)

 

I'm not sure I ever tried to play basketball until my later elementary school years. On the playground behind Adams School (Enid, OK), there was a sad, net-less hoop where my friends and I would play now and then.

By "play" I mean that we would try to shoot baskets. We weren't very good.

But I did almost kill someone.

After we'd played one day, some of us walked toward town to Weibel's, a little ice cream store with soda fountain that we frequented. As I walked into the store that day I was tossing my basketball up and down. I'd forgotten that above the door was a ceiling fan.

The ball hit a blade. It broke off and whirled across the room like a helicopter blade and smacked into a booth toward the back.

No one was sitting there, or I'd probably still be in jail for manslaughter. Decapitation.

I sprinted for home—never entered Weibel's again. My friends—such friends!—told me the FBI sought me (ha!), but, oddly, there were no repercussions—though I did not get my ball back. Fair trade-off.

The first team I played on was at the Hiram School in Ohio, where we moved in the late summer of 1956, just as I was about to enter seventh grade.

No one had to try out (thank goodness), and I got to play in every game though I had no real idea what I was doing. We played a zone defense, so I would sprint to my spot, raise my hands, try to look intimidating.

Which I didn't.

I just hoped no one would come my way. But, of course, they did.

By the way the best player on our 7th and 8th grade teams was Lester Detweiler, a small but very quick and intelligent player. He was an Amish boy (we had two in our class—the other was Melvin Yoder) and, like Melvin, Lester would leave school at the end of 8th grade and return to the farm.

Lester liked to comb his long hair into a popular style but always had to remember to comb it back down before he got home.

Anyway, I got better at roundball, tried hard. And became a starting guard on the JV team my freshman year.

I remained on the JVs my sophomore year, but at the end of the year, Coach Barnhart put me on the varsity for the end-of-the-year conference tournament. Not only that, he made me a starter. I played the entire game.

We actually won the opening round, and I got praised (as “little Danny Dyer”) in the local paper. A highlight!

Coach Barnhart rewarded me with a varsity letter. I was shocked—and pleased. Some others, I am sure, had no such feelings whatsoever.

I was a starter both my junior and senior years, and during the latter (see pic below) I played well enough to earn All-County status (second team). Lots of praise at the athletic banquet that spring.

Little did I know that my basketball career was virtually over. Only some sadness remained ahead of me.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Humility: A Personal History (Part Three)

In college, as I think I said, I did not join any vocal groups. But my junior year I roomed with Chuck Rogers, who has become a life-long friend, and he had/has a very fine tenor voice.

I had a guitar, which I could sort of play.

We tried singing some folk songs together (it was the mid-1960s), and I was able to harmonize with him. We learned a bunch of songs—Kingston Trio; the Brothers Four; Peter, Paul, and Mary—that sort of thing.

We got to feel pretty good about what we were doing and performed here and there around the campus. People seemed to like our sound.

We took jobs one subsequent summer out at a boys’ camp on upstate NY’s Lake Paradox—Camp Paradox (RIP). Some years ago Joyce and I drove up there: totally gone—no sign of its former presence.

Anyway we rehearsed a lot up there and on a day off drove down to NYC to audition for Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour, a long-running show on both radio and TV (1934-1970). (Link to info about the show.) It was kind of a poor man’s America’s Got Talent.

We entered the audition room—something like a dance studio (wooden floors, etc.) which held but a bored looking guy on a piano and a judge.

We did a couple of songs, then drove back to Paradox.

Heard nothing, and after the camp was over we drove back to Ohio. Chuck was about to head off to grad school (psych, U of Wyoming; I, to the Aurora Middle School to continue my teaching career).

Then one day that fall, I got a letter from Chuck, a letter which included a date we were to appear on the show! But the date had passed: The letter had chased him around, eventually found him in Wyoming. Too late.

Sigh.

For me, it was probably a good thing: My playing was simple; my vocals, passable.

I realized I probably would have bombed like an Air Force B-52. 

Every now and then Chuck has tried to lure me out of retirement (class reunions and things), but I’ve always declined. I’d rather remember when I thought I was adequate than discover that I’m not.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Humility: A Personal History (Part Two)

And then it was music's turn ...

When I was in elementary school, I had a fine soprano voice—got picked for solos for parent programs, and the like. One of those I did not like: dressed up like Tom Sawyer or someone, holding hands with a fine girl singer (dressed like Becky Thatcher, I guess), and singing "School Days" with her—to a fine response—but I could not drop her hand fast enough—and I'm sure she felt the same, if not with more venom.

When we arrived in Hiram, Ohio, in the late summer of 1956, the voice was still there. And then one day it began its departure. We were in music class—7th grade—and singing a song I really liked ("I Know a Green Cathedral"), and suddenly my voice cracked.

I coughed. Didn't help. And it took about a year and a half for my voice to settle into the mediocre baritone, where it has remained.

Suddenly, vocal music was not one of my favorite classes.

We did have a wonderful vocal music teacher at Hiram High School: Mrs. Ruthana Dreisbach, wife of one of the chemistry professors at Hiram College, where my dad was now teaching.

She was ambitious for us, too, and did three operettas while I was there—slightly diminished versions of The Mikado, Die Fledermaus (called Masquerade in Vienna), and Trial by Jury.

I wasn’t going to try out for Mikado my freshman year, but my older brother, a fine musician, encouraged me. I auditioned for Pish-Tush, a minor character—but who had a solo.

I didn’t get the part.

But the guy who did quickly quit, and suddenly I, a frosh, had a minor lead in the high school musical! And I had a tremendous amount of fun, began to think of myself as a singer again (I was wrong, of course).

The show went over very well, and I’ve recently realized I ought to have been ashamed to wear yellow make-up, as all of us did. That would not go over well at all these days. But back in 1958? I never thought one second about it.

I played the male leads in both the other two operettas later on.

And I had some other good fortune—chosen for the all-county choir my freshman year. Each year the three groups—all-county chorus, choir (a more select group), and band put on a performance at the college in the spring—well-attended.

But I knew by then—by the junior or senior year—that I was not all that good (I sang near guys who were far better than I).

When I got to college, I didn’t even join the vocal groups. I knew.

But I did have one vocal experience my senior year—but we’ll save that for next time ...

TO BE CONTINUED

Humility: A Personal History (Part One)

Those of you who have achieved "a certain age" know that life, especially later life, is chockablock with lessons in humility. But all of life—beginning to end—is discovering that you cannot do some things you thought you could, of banging into doors that are locked to you (and have no key), forcing you to look for other, perhaps less appealing ones.

I'll share with you some of my more memorable and even stunning ones.

In first grade (Adams School; Enid, OK) I learned I was no good (i.e., I sucked) at art. When I saw the crayon drawings (on manila paper!) my classmates had done, I knew I was hopeless. One day, when a table-mate was up at the classroom pencil sharpener, I took a brown crayon and drew some things descending from the rear of a nice figure she'd drawn.

Our teacher, a kind soul, showed us how to convert those "things" into a fence; Now her graceful figure sat on a very nice fence. So, in self-defense/justification, I could have said: See, I improved your drawing! 

A couple of years later, one Sunday morning, Shirley Williamson, a classmate at Adams, beat me, easily, in a foot race the length of the long sidewalk in front of University Place Christian Church in Enid.

Then I had to go into church for the service and pretend to be sin-free though my thoughts were homicidal and/or suicidal. (I think I loved Shirley, later, but then we moved away—off to northeastern Ohio.)

A couple of years later, in the spring, it was time for Enid’s annual Little Olympics—a city-wide track-and-field meet pitting all the Enid elementary schools against one another. It was a gender-free event. Boys and girls competed against one another.

I was sentenced to the shuttle relay, but I was the lead runner. Bang! went the starter pistol, and off I zoomed (!), but there was a girl from some other school in the next lane. And she was ahead of me. 

And she stayed there. Our team eventually came in second, and I still have that red ribbon somewhere.*

This is how I learned that girls can be better athletes than I.

One more, for now ...

In my day we numbered our girlfriends, just as the girls did their boyfriends.

Our Enid music teacher taught us square dancing and chose me as one of the Lucky Eight that would be performing at some event for the parents. She also chose Linda Clinesmith, #1 on my list.

The teacher then surprised us by choosing a new kid whose name I can’t remember.

And then ... disaster. The teacher let the girls pick their partners. Linda chose the New Kid. I don’t think I was the fourth boy chosen, but it well could have been. I was devastated.

I thought about a fight after school—but knew it was one I’d lose in a New York minute.

I practiced hard, danced my heart out.

But Linda had eyes only for the New Kid.

So she became my #2.

TO BE CONTINUED

*I just checked: The schools are still holding the competition, still sponsored by the Kiwanis Club.

Too Tense

One of the things I’ve noticed about my, uh, psychological stability in recent years is that I can no longer tolerate tense movies and TV shows. (See image/metaphor above!)

’Twas not always so. Although I was never a fan of pure horror films (heck, the Disney cartoon of Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was enough to send me crawling under the covers when I was a kid). I guess I saw a few Stephen King films, but generally Joyce (also not a fan) and I avoided the horror genre during our decades of going to at least one film a week.

But I had no problem with other kinds of tension, the kinds that occurred in cop and detective movies, in Westerns, in sci-fi, etc.

Not today. Hell, I would now Pause High Noon and Shane and Star Wars, which are hardly bubbling with terror.

I can’t say exactly when this happened—or how—but I noticed that Joyce and I were going to see more and more rom-coms and comedy-mysteries. Or films where people sat around and talked most of the time (My Dinner with Andre and the like).

Now that our film-and-TV viewing are all of the streaming variety, I find myself clutching the remote, ever ready to push Pause and switch over to a comedy special when screen-things get too tense for me. Joyce tolerates this—just as she tolerates a bit (not a lot) more tension than I.

I think that’s why we’ve both come to favor the lighter British mysteries—Death in Paradise, The Mallorca Files, Doc Martin, and the New Zealand one, The Brokenwood Mysteries. Sure, they get a bit tense now and then—but the tension often happens in the first five minutes when the murder occurs.

Ensuing that are detective work, humor, warm and communal moments in a restaurant, etc. And I can still tolerate that sort of thing.

As I said above, I’m not sure how this has happened. I don’t know if it’s just yet another wonderful feature of aging (and there are so many of those!)—or if my own ever-more-evident mortality has made me realize that death is neither funny nor interesting. Especially not mine.

I really can’t stand torture. We’ve started watching a new (and interesting) Britbox series called Grace (the surname of the lead detective), and I’ve had to endure scenes of a guy buried alive, a guy getting his finger cut off, etc.

So it’s going to take us a L-O-N-G time to get through it: I keep Pausing and shifting to a Netflix comic we’ve just discovered and love—Nate Bargatze.

The 1960s Me sometimes emerges late at night, waking me, asking me: When did you become such a WUSS?!?!?

I Was Afraid of Them in Junior High

Yesterday, I started reading this 2018 collection of stories by McGuane, who writes often about the West (where he lives) and about the down-and-out. (I’d love to sit at a table conversation with characters from McGuane and from Henry James!)

One story has some high school scenes, and it takes place about the time I was there (later 50s, early 60s), and the narrator mentions taps that some boys wore on their shoes. 

That took me back.

For the same was true in the junior high and high school that I attended in Hiram, Ohio.

Taps weren’t the only part of the costume worn then by “hoods,” as we called them. They wore their shirt collars turned up, their pants slung low, as they clicked their way through the halls—all with wooden floors. Defiant and threatening.

I was afraid of them, the hoods—but at least I could hear them coming.

I was a small kid and couldn’t do a thing about what they did to me. For a while I was a crossing guard at the nearest intersection to the school. I liked it (I got out of school early); I feared it (the hoods who walked by).

One of those hoods (I’ll call him Hoody) totally ignored my flag and my instructions. What he did not ignore was the pair of white bucks I wore to school for a while, my attempt to imitate popular singer Pat Boone, who was noted for such shoes.

Hoody would click his way up to me, stop, grab a shoulder, and wipe his shoes on my white bucks, which I would then have to clean that night. Soon, I wearied of that and started wearing tennis shoes again.

I couldn’t do a thing about it. Protest? (Hah!) Report him? (Certain death.) I just quietly went along with it—saying nothing, doing nothing (except, of course, cleaning the shoes later on).

Then (9th grade) we got a new athletic coach and gym teacher. Mr. Barnhart, whom I quickly admired, even loved.

Part of that was his coaching and teaching; part was what happened one day in the study hall he was supervising.

I was there; Hoody was there. Hoody was in the back, screwing around, ignoring Coach Barnhart’s clear signals to cut it out.

The coach moved toward the back. “Cut it out, Hoody,” he said sharply.

Hoody ignored him.

“Down to the office!” he barked. And moved to grab Hoody’s arm.

Hoody realized he was out of his league—Coach had been a star football and baseball player.

He started clicking his way down to the office with loud and patent disdain.

“Don’t make me haul you down there,” said Coach. And then ... one of my favorite lines in my life. 

“I eat guys like you for breakfast!”—this uttered with a quietly fierce sincerity. A promise, not an empty threat.

The clicking grew more quiet; there was absolute silence in the study hall.  And I felt I had a new hero.

I Can Still Lose Myself in a Book—or on a Page

 

Amid all the unpleasantness (a weak word) these days the good news is: I can still lose myself in a book.

Doesn't matter what kind—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, etc. If it's good—if its hooks are sharp—I am snagged, and the writers, like adept fishermen, pull me along behind their boats and, fortunately (so far) release me when they’re done.

Sometimes the fisher is so adept that when his/her hook releases, I yearn to get hooked again by the same person (i.e., a different book). Those of you who venture to this site now and then know that I love to read everything by authors I like.

Doesn’t matter what the genre or subject is (usually): mystery, “serious” fiction, popular science and history (I’m not much for getting into “deep” versions of those subjects—didn’t pay good enough attention in high school and college). I’m a pretty eclectic reader.

Throughout most of my life, these literary addictions were supplements to my life. In those (relatively) carefree days I was teaching, directing plays, writing essays and book reviews for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Kirkus Reviews. I was researching and writing books, jogging 4-6 miles most every day, being a husband and father, celebrating today (now yesterday, of course) with friends and family ...

But then mortality arrived—I’d thought it hadn’t even known I was here! I was wrong.

Suddenly—and it was relatively suddenly—I could no longer do most of the things I’d long loved. Biking, jogging, going to the health club to exercise, walking over to the coffee shop to visit with friends and do some work, going to films and plays, driving across the country with Joyce in search of literary sites—or to see family and friends. Oh, I learned so much in my mobile days!

About all I can do now is post pictures of those trips on Facebook—and watch with astonishment the advancing time. Yesterday, for example, I posted some pictures of some Walt Whitman sites Joyce and I visited—in 2002. Nearly twenty years ago (for those of you who, like me, are arithmetically challenged)!

But weren’t we there just last week?

Now I don’t drive at all—and don’t go for “rides” with Joyce as I used to—except to medical facilities.

In the last year—this wonderful Covid Year—I have become intolerably dizzy. I never know each morning whether I’m going to move around much at all that day. I know that I will not be taking a walk: Even on my best days that is impossible.

All kinds of doctors have looked at my situation—scans and blood tests galore. No answer. I want to say “No answer yet,” but I’m really not sure if yet is applicable.

But there are aspects of my life that I continue to love, aspects that keep me (usually) sane. Joyce is the principal reason I’m still here. Without her help every day I could not be living at home. We laugh all the time, talk about books we’re reading, end the day with an hour of streaming bits of shows we like.

And, of course, some fine friends, family members, and hope (the thing with feathers).

But also—and so important—readin’ and writing’. I’m still reading about 100 pages a day (portions of about a half-dozen books), still discovering new writers I love, still learning so much from them. (I read on Kindle and on “real” pages.)

I still write, too—trying to keep this blog going, sending silly poems to my son and his family every day, writing a sestina for Joyce every day (well over 300 of them now!). I don’t post much of my verse on Facebook anymore—just older  pieces from my more agile, energetic days.

Oh, and I still love to nap (I take one in the morning, one in the afternoon). When I’m asleep, I almost invariably transform into my more youthful, energetic self and, in the haze of those dreams, still believe I will always be that boy sprinting for third, sliding (safe!), always be that man playing tennis early in the morning, then teaching all day, directing plays afterward, going home to my wife and son ... oh, was that life fun!