Going for a ride in the car, car . . .

As Chairman Kaga would say, if memory serves me correctly, out of the two hundred fifty some times I have been hospitalized (such an odd word—sounds like I was made into a hospital, but I digress) I have only been in an ambulance twice.

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When there's too much of nothin', no one has control . . .

I have been mulling over this post for quite some time. Not simply because it is embarrassing. If I stopped telling stories just because they were embarrassing I would have about four and a half minutes of not quite boring material. Nor is my reluctance cause by the subject matter. With a bit of finesse the subject can be presented in a manner that is only slightly offensive and mildly scatological. No, the reason I haven't gotten to it, like the reason we don't do so many things is: it's hard.


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Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, be prepared . . .

I have already talked about the unfortunate semester I spent at St Elizabeth's when I was in the third grade. Believe me, I only scratched the surface. There was, for example, "Spelling Period." This was not a part of the day devoted to studying spelling, and perhaps having a quiz like any normal teacher might have devised. It was a period, usually about thirty minutes long, during which Sister Rose spelled every word she would normally say; and you, if called on, were expected to do the same. When your sentence came to a punctuation mark like 'comma' or 'period' you said the appropriate word.

I hated Spelling Period. I have learned over the years that I do not assimilate things as quickly when I hear them as I do visually, and I spent most of Spelling Period wondering what the heck was going on. Sister Rose would be up there yammering on, "A•N•D•W•H•A•T•I•S•T•H•E•C•A•P•I•T•O•L•O•F•M•I•C•H•I•G•A•N•comma•G•U•Y•question mark"

When I heard that "comma•G•U•Y•question mark" I knew I was in trouble because I didn't have the slightest clue about what the question was. I got very good at spelling out, "I•D•O•N•O•T•K•N•O•W•period."

But as much grief as Sister Rose gave me, she was not the worst person I ran into that year. And like the good Sister, this man also felt he had God on his side.


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See the man with the stage fright . . .

It happened when I was nine years old, which would make it the summer of 1955. Having been fed lunch my brother and I were invited by our mother to spend the rest of the afternoon outside. Actually, it wasn't so much an invitation as a declaration of what was going to happen. She had cleaning to do; soap operss, Queen for a Day, and Liberace (the last two were different) to watch; and she didn't need two young boys doing their best to distract her.

To be honest, Mom did not really have to say very much to get us out of the house. The last thing nine and seven year old boys wanted to do on a nice summer day was stay inside. We had ants to watch, a tire swing to break our arms and/or necks on, and a cardboard rocket behind the shed to fight invading Martians in. At the very worst we could sit on the back steps and watch our cat taunt our dog by staying just an inch or so beyond his reach.


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First thing I remember . . .

I was born in 1946 in Hailey, Idaho. My memories of the event are fuzzy at best, but my parents told me it was in a clinic/hospital on the second floor of the Fox Building which also had the town's dry goods/general store. I believe Bruce Willis owns it now, but that has absolutely nothing to do with my story. The house my parents lived in at the time was a natural foods boutique when we were there in 1981, but that also has no bearing on anything unless, of course, you are in the market for some organic legumes.



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Until they take it away . . .

A few years ago, which is old fart talk for ten or twelve, my wife got an assignment in New York for ten weeks. Unfortunately they didn't see the need to send me too, so I was left here to feed the cats. One Saturday after about four weeks I decided the apartment needed a really good cleaning. The plan was to clean everything, take a shower and reward myself with a really good lunch/dinner.



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The old, familiar sting . . .

Hemophilia can be a truly nefarious condition.

One of its more nefarious aspects is that it can lie low for generations, quietly getting passed from mother to daughter but not calling attention to itself by taking any side trips into the male branches of the family. (Yes, I know it's all governed by genetics and chance, and the condition does not, indeed cannot, take any active interest in how and when it manifests itself. It's just sometimes easier, for me at least, to talk about it this way.) The family goes along minding its own business, and with each generation one or two of the daughters are carriers, who grow up and have children and again the luck of the draw gives them a son who is not hemophiliac and a daughter who will quietly, secretly, unknowingly pass on the genes. Eventually so many generations pass that the family forgets about great-great-great-great grandfather Sheldon who was said to be a cripple and died young bleeding into his stomach.

Then it happens.

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It seems like a mighty long time . . .

It was in 1965. I'm pretty sure it was on a Sunday morning, but I can't remember if it was in late April or early May. Early in the morning my mother dropped me off in the circle drive in front of the main entrance of the high school. She took my suitcase out of the trunk for me, and put it on the side walk next to those of my classmates. She asked me one last time if I was sure I would be all right, and then got back in the car and drove home.

I stood there in the early chill with a couple of my buddies, and we tried to appear cool and nonchalant while I secretly wondered if the doors to the school were unlocked because I was so excited I was about to pee my pants. Most of the senior class of 1965 was there gathered into little clumps. We had spent the last couple years selling magazine subscriptions, washing cars and running the refreshment stand at football games to earn the money for this trip, and now it was actually happening.

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Running Bear jumped in the water. . .

For the first few years of the camp I was its Waterfront Director. The first year the camp was only for one week, and we had rented an entire private camp for the period. There had never been a summer camp for hemophiliacs before. (New York claims to have had one a year or two before ours, but theirs was a day camp and to our minds did not count. Our boys would be staying there all week, without their parents.) And to tell the truth we were secretly very nervous about the whole thing.



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They say it's your birthday . . .

I really don’t remember the ride to the hospital. In fact the whole episode might easily have become one of those sharp but separate scenes that make up, as if from a previous life, the memories of my early youth; but it’s where my life takes on a certain continuity of thought and memory that gives it structure, or more to the point, it’s where I begin. I consider it my birth.


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