Pedestrian View

or What my wife told me in the stairs

There’s nothing about listening to Beethoven that’s usual for Sherry. It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy it; she does, but the old deaf white guy doesn’t get much play in our house. He’s currently drowned out by Death Cab for Cutie, the Grease soundtrack, and olde tyme strains from The Guy’s All Star Shoe Band - eclectic pop/Americana that will change by next week. The symphony in general is something that doesn’t rise to the top of our priority lists in the din of trying to raise three teenage daughters and stay sane in 21st Century middle America.

However, Beethoven recently provided a rare moment for Sherry and me in the middle of our basement stairway as she told me, fresh from an encounter with wonder, about the man and the rose.

When Sherry’s friend Peg called and asked her to see the local symphony’s current concert, ending with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, she accepted because it was a chance for Moms’ Night Out, which she sorely needed. It had been another week of getting elder daughter through job issues, a research paper, a major college decision, and off to D.C. for five days; of laying down the law with middle daughter about homework and responsibility; of driving younger daughter to music lessons and youth group meetings; and of keeping her chin up in spite of her husband’s unhelpful irony.

Moms are also distracted by things like a looming kitchen apocalypse. This night, it was the culinary explosion that occurred when middle daughter and her two friends decided to make fettuccine alfredo and cheesy bread for supper in our kitchen. Half way through the actual meal (which was surprisingly good) she suddenly gasped, “Argh! I was supposed to pick up Peg for the symphony ten minutes ago!”

A quick change and hair check (no pasta - all clear), and she was out the door, picking up Peg, and skating into the concert hall with a few moments to spare.

Locating their seats, they found the end seat occupied by a well dressed, older gentleman. In the empty seat next to him lay a single rose.

They minced delicately past him.

“Excuse me,” said Peg.

“No problem,” said the man.

“Excuse me,” said Sherry.

“No problem at all.”

All the while, the presence of that rose loomed, mysterious and poignant. In the chatter before the conductor took the stage, they speculated.

“Blind date?” said Sherry.

“Internet date,” Peg finally announced.

Sherry agreed, and as the concert began, she stole glances at the man, hoping for his sake that his date would soon arrive. He sat quietly, but didn’t appear to be anxious. He wasn’t looking over his shoulder, anyway. Still, Sherry was feeling his pain. Her hope waned through a violin and viola concerto, and by intermission, the man was clearly stood up.

“What a bummer for him,” said Peg.

“I wonder if he’ll leave now,” Sherry whispered as they stood, stretching their legs and backs in preparation for the Beethoven.

He didn’t leave. When they returned from their intermission duties, they repeated the elegant “excuse me” dance. Then, through the opening strains of Symphony No. 7, he began to perk up. And by the second movement, he was openly enjoying himself.

When the last strains of the timpani disappeared and the applause settled, Sherry and Peg stood to put on their coats and began to edge their way to the aisle. The man, standing facing them, was holding the rose to his chest.

“She loved Beethoven,” he said to no one in particular, smiled to himself, and walked up the aisle.

Reading along with my daughter and her AP English class, I picked up another that I have missed.  Twenty six years ago as a high school senior, I read For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms and wrote a terrible senior research comparing characters.  I had nothing to say, and no idea how to say it.  Mr. Dyrud, who’d had my brilliant sister and brother before me, said, “This is very disappointing.  I was expecting so much more,” as he handed it back to me.  In truth, it was a B (not terrible, I guess), but I knew it was bad without him having to be disappointed.  Ever a people pleaser, I just wanted him to be pleased.  At that point, becoming an English teacher wasn’t within a million miles of my plans.

How did I get here?

I digress.  This is supposed to be a book review, but I must finish w/ Bell and Arms.   I loved Bell.  Robert Jordan was cool and I felt like I knew him.  The romance and tragedy of the Spanish Civil War moved me.  I was set to head out and fight fascists myself at a moment’s notice.  I was unimpressed by Arms.  I didn’t get Frederick Henry.  The things he would say and do made no sense to me.  In my essay, I was supposed to compare these guys for eight pages.  I used lots of quotes, and have fond memories of a week’s worth of late nights in my parent’s basement with Mom’s manual Smith-Corrona clacking away.  There were moments when I felt like I was saying something.  There were other moments when I’d carefully type, “Ibid.”  Good memories, but it’s no wonder it took me 26 years to Return to Hemmingway.

I’d have to say that Sun kind of falls in with Arms.  Hemmingway’s style is detatched and journalistic, and I  had a hard time connecting with Jake Barnes.  Also 87% of the book seemed to be descriptions of drinking, with occasional eating thrown in.  The whole expatriot scene was foreign.  All of these Americans and Brits are unhappy and hang out together even though they disliked each other intensely.   And where did they get their money?  I guess this was Hemmingway’s point.  They were the Lost Generation (thank you Barnes and Noble synopsis).

I know Jake got his wang shot off in the war, and that he and Brett might have been happy if this had not been the case, but they both were pretty pathetic.  I suppose I was a little in love with Brett.  How could I not be when everyone else was?

I did enjoy the characters of Bill and Romero.  Bill was just a terrifically funny drunk.  He says, “Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs” and “I’m fonder of you than anyone on earth.  I counldn’t tell you that in New York.  It’d mean I was a faggot.”

Romero was just a terribly interesting figure.  Like everyone else, I wanted to know how he got into that green bull fighting suit. 

Finally, the fishing and bullfighting were fascinating.  In these cases, I appreciated the dispassionate but detailed way that Hemmingway presents things.  Jake never acts like he’s excited about these things, but the detail in which he presents things says otherwise.

Anyway, I wouldn’t mind passing around a five liter leather wineskin sometime with some Basques and feeling tight.

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,

O, what panic’s in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi’ bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,

Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

                    –from “To a Mouse” Robert Burns

I’m conflicted about Burns here. He has so much empathy for the beastie, an earthy field type (probably in tiny overalls and chewing on a stub of straw) turned up by Burn’s plow. Like Burns, I am generally against chasing wi’ murdr’ring pattle, but for a different reason. Mice give me the heebie jeebies. Unlike Burns, however, I faced the beastie this morning with a gleam of murder in me eye and a pounding heart in my breastie.

There’s a false ceiling in our bedroom. Former residents of this house disguised cracking plaster by dropping down a false ceiling from which 2 x 3 foot insulated tiles hang. There’s even a big translucent panel covering the light. Lying on our bed looking up, one might imagine one is at the office.

Last fall, we woke at 2:36 a.m. one morning to the scurry of tiny claws – a track meet in the space between the false ceiling and the plaster. Slumber was scant until Victor slew the beastie a few nights later. He was really a cute little guy hanging by his crushed skull from the jaws of Victor. Brown, smooth fur and a creamy white underbelly – the poor little fella was just trying to come in out of the cold; only to me he was just a miniature RAT.

Perhaps it’s unfair, but I link mice and rats, and I can’t help but remember the time on the farm that Dad discovered a rat’s nest in the old auger pit next to the granary. The pit had filled with straw and grain over the years, and a family of rats had come to nest there. “Nest” is such a sweet word, and there was a hoard of little sweeties crawling around in there. With shovels poised for smashing, my brothers and I waited while my dad prodded and dug with a pitch fork. I was never as alive as when rats hurtled straight for me, dauntless of my smashing spade. There’s an adrenaline laced satisfaction that comes with the sound and feel of making contact that cannot be duplicated, even by the Wii. There’s an even worse horror when, after that contact, rat continues to scamper on over ones foot. We killed about every other one, I think, the others making it to freedom. My memory records that there must have been over twenty of the buggars. They lay scattered about the yard - fat with grain, pink noses, whiskers. Heebie jeebie. I didn’t sleep too well for a long time, then, either.

There’s also the story of my wife’s grandfather’s encounter with the beastie. He was moving a pile of garbage when ratty shot straight up his pant leg. A better man than I am, he throttled the beastie just before it reached his groin and snapped its neck through his pants with his bare hand. From then on he tied up his pant legs when working at the garbage pile. (Note: This was in a time when garbage was not encased in Rubbermaid, but heaped, and then moved from smaller heaps to larger ones).

I digress. The fella I’d caught above my false ceiling wasn’t a rat, but cousin enough to make me his sworn enemy. That wasn’t the end, either. Victor slew two more before the ceiling went quiet and I figured we were in the clear until next fall, when cold might chase the next mouse family indoors.

Wrong. Two nights ago, Burn’s beastie was at it again. Scurry. Scurry. Scurry. Time for Victor.

2:36 a.m. this morning we were wakened by the snap. It was a solid, satisfying snap, finality and mortality in one instant. Only, wait.

Drag. Drag. Silence. Drag. (repeat)

Turns out mousie was not dead. I proposed to Sherry that I lift the tiles and go after it wi’ murd’ring pattle and a pair of gloves, but since my in-laws were in town and in the next room, she counseled that we avoid making a racket, sleep elsewhere, and tackle it in the morning. Cruel, but I figured mousie would die soon enough.

This morning when I found her, poor mousie had pulled herself up above the plaster through a hole, but Victor wouldn’t follow. Her left rear leg and tail were trapped; I suppose it was like me pulling a storm door around with a broken leg. I’m feeling pity and remorse as I write this (as you can see, mousie has morphed from it to she), but at the time, I was all about murd’ring.

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men Gang aft agley.

I expect she’ll die, which she certainly hadn’t planned. The stench will be unpleasant, methinks, but I faintly hope she returns to the bosom of her family and lives. In the mean time, on advice of my father-in-law, I’ve set the Victor cluster bomb – three traps set in a circle so that when she jumps away from the first…snap!

An’ forward, tho’ I canna see, I guess an’ fear!

Kylie turned 18 yesterday. We all woke up this morning and raced through the customary scramble to get to school as though nothing had changed, but something has. I just haven’t figured out exactly how.

The cliché regarding this passage, and it’s absolutely true, is that it seems like yesterday we were holding her for the first time. Her birth was pretty typical, really. There were 20 hours of brutal labor (which I can’t imagine). There was the relief of an epidural (which I also can’t imagine). There was my mother-in-law efficiently kneading Sherry’s back between contractions, briskly but gently humming a fight song, possibly “Cheer, Cheer for Old Grygla High,” though not “Hurrah for the Red and White.” There was the doctor who was summoned just after midnight, then called again 45 minutes later because he’d fallen back to sleep. Poor sleepyhead. He was there for the birth, so I bear no animosity. There was my first glimpse of her hairy crown, and her struggle to get past the ears which I blamed on genetically large Peterson ears (turns out her ears were of normal size, so I was wrong on that one). Finally, at 2:36 a.m. she was out, a red squawking spider of arms and legs, messy, adorable, the center of the universe, and it feels like yesterday.

It also feels like yesterday that she was about five years old, watching The Lion King or maybe Aladdin, and so mesmerized that, though she was terrified during the climactic scenes, she could not tear herself away. She’d watch the final scenes of those movies peeking out from behind the sofa, trembling but commanding her parents not to turn the movie off.

Yesterday there was also junior high, angst filled and complete with fiery email

missives regarding how unfair (aka: stupid) her parents are. Somewhere in here she discovered injustice on a broader scale, too, and cried for people she’d never met.

Then there’s been high school, real problems, real friends, real friends with real problems, real boyfriends with even worse problems, real joy, and very real pain. Did I mention tears? There have been tears. This yesterday bleeds into today, by the way.

The real yesterday, however, she stood on stage performing in Central’s competition One Act play. The brave cast was in front of an audience of boorish peers, and
Kylie was fearless. About eight minutes into the show (these things are precisely timed), she enters on heels, a short skirt, and a wig, saying, “Mrs. Smith, there’s a telephone call for you in the office.” She does this breathlessly, like she’s a gumshoe’s secretary from a 1940’s radio drama, and the boors believe her. So do I. She’s amazing. Thrilling. Terrifying. Terrific. Like the angel Gabrielle in Sunday School Musical, or perhaps Uma Thurman. In that moment, she’s the exact center of the known universe - unknown, too – and though I don’t know how she got there, I’m glad. Proud.

What happens next is even better. She gracefully steps aside from her moment of glory and helps the rest of the cast blaze, one at a time, each in his or her own moment. By the end, the constellation is just right – each star brilliant and perfectly balanced with the others.

I still don’t know what’s happened in 18 years, but it’s been progress toward something authentically wonderful.

Happy Birthday, little spider. I love you.

First I must correct factual information in my previous entry.  I don’t know what blogger etiquette is, but instead of actually editing the entry, I’m doing it this way.  I thank my mother, Phyllis, and my brother, Karl, for filling me in on this early period of my life beyond the scope of my memory.

Dr. William H. Knobloch, contrary to said misinformation, did NOT conduct my eye surgery in 1966.  I’m not sure that they did in this first surgery, but it was done by a Dr. Brochhurst of Boston.  My dad was attending Brown University on an NSF scholarship and we lived for a year or two on Ruth Avenue in Rumford, Rhode Island.  After completing his Masters there, my dad moved us to Thief River Falls, Minnesota to take a job at Northland Community College in its innagural year.  He actually travelled to TRF ahead of the family, and my courageous mother travelled by bus and train across the country with three children - Karl (6), Ruth (4), and me (2).  Family legend has it that she actually attached a leash to me for the majority of the journey.  Since that time I’ve always responded well to any training accompanied by treats - dog or otherwise.  I also answer to, “Here, boy!”

The “buckle” was added in a second surgery in 1968 in Madison, Wisconsin by a Dr. Davis.  I remember this journey.  My mother and I took a train from TRF, switching trains in the Twin Cities.  I remember the hospital stay.  There was a large and well stocked playroom, and I built a pretty impressive house of wooden blocks with my roommate.  His legs were in braces and didn’t move much.  He would push himself around on the glossy tiled floors with his hands, his stiff legs stuck out in front of him.  I built him into the house.

There was a fish tank built into a wall and I could see a conference room on the other side (the surgery was clearly a success since I was seeing at all).  I remember watching the angel fish flutter slowly past, and suddenly recognizing my mother and a doctor facing each other across a table on the other side.  They appeared to be in deep conversation.  I pressed my face against the glass, waving wildly (in my memory), but neither my mother, the doctor, nor the angel fish took any notice of me.  I don’t know how long we were there, but it must have been a good week.

I have another peculiar memory of the return trip.  My mom does not remember this, so I doubt it somewhat, but it’s always been a pillar of my early memory canon.  The train stopped in the middle of a rural area, and someone rushed through our train car asking for a doctor because a child on the tracks had been run over, cutting off his legs.  I remember seeing this boy in my imagination.  He was my disabled roommate, his legs now gone, being carried by a doctor from car to car.

I suppose I could sleuth out whether such an accident really happened between Madison and St. Paul in 1968.  Real or not, it’s always been a stark image that my mind returns to when I think of my earliest years.

Yesterday I spent some time with my eye doctor, Dr. Herbert Cantrill.  I live with a congenital condition called juvenile retino-schesis.  Among many things, this means I visit Dr. Cantrill annually.  To be honest, it had been three years.  My condition is pretty static, so I’ve been lazy.  My laziness was rewarded with a demotion to “new patient status.”  It wasn’t until the good doctor directed a screaming white light through my pupil to peer at the retina slouched against the back wall that I noticed recognition return to his voice.  “Ahh, yes…”  He never forgets a retina.

Back in 1966, Dr. William Knobloch, the only retina specialist in the midwest at the time, performed surgery on my eyes.  My retinas were detatched, and a “buckle” was buckled.  I always envisioned a shiney belt buckle glinting in the back of my eye, proping up the slouching retina.  I’ve been imagining this for 40 years. 

Dr. Cantrill and I got to discussing my condition, and I brought up Dr. Knobloch and the buckle.  He said Dr. Knobloch died this past summer.  He’s something of a giant in the world of retinal medicine, and was a big part of my youth.  My whole family made annual six-hour trips from Thief River Falls to the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital.  There, Dr. Knoblock and his lackeys would wrestle me down to a table and stab the piercing light into my frantic eyes.  My older brother Karl, who has the same condition, would get them warmed up first, so they were always ready for me.  Even today,it’s truly the thing I dread most.  Homeland Security operatives, when they detain me, will surely have better success with this than with water boarding.  Anyway, thanks to Dr. Knobloch, my condition has never really changed over the years.  God Speed, Dr. William H. Knobloch.

It’s the buckle, however, that got my attention.  Dr. Canrill said, “The buckle is really high.”

“What does that mean, the buckle is ‘high?’” I asked.  I was thinking about a brassy buckle scampering up to the roof of my eyeball.

“Do you want to see a picture?” he replied.  I did. 

It turns out that the scleral buckle is really a silicone belt wrapped around my eyeball, like a belt.  Actually it reminds me of those little rubber hands that kids with braces used to play with on their desks at school.  Since the buckle’s application, my eye has grown, “giving your eyeball an hour glass shape,” continued Dr. Cantrill.

Who knew?  Clearly after 41 years it was time to find out.  Turns out it as only one google search away.  Check it all out if you want to know more @ http://www.eyemdlink.com/EyeProcedure.asp?EyeProcedureID=52

And to think this procedure really hasn’t changed in 40 years!  More later.