Category: America

oh-high-oh

Five years ago today I was a couple of weeks into 20 weeks of chemo therapy treatments. I had just lost my hair and the drugs were kicking my butt. I wasn’t scared. And that’s what boggles my mind when I think back.

I’m having my annual mammogram this week, and it’s freaking me out. I’ve had a few of those after treatment, and every time I’ve been shaking, or crying, or both. Last year I felt dizzy and had to go sit down before we could finish. (If you’re a woman you know it’s not just one x-ray either.)

Maybe it’s a delayed response, or maybe it’s just the overall knowledge that I could have died. No, that I would have died hadn’t it been for modern medicine.

Right now I’m making plans to go to a wedding over the 4th of July weekend, in Ohio. A friend of mine is getting married to his boyfriend — or, rather, they have chosen July 5 to celebrate the fact that they got married a little while earlier, in a state that recognizes gay marriage.

The two parts of this story are unrelated, more or less. I’m glad to be alive, and I’m glad Noel and Kyle can get married. Times change.

public safety

As I was driving home this evening all of a sudden I noticed a police cruiser pulled over into the center divider in the distance, ahead of me. Blue and red lights were flashing and cars moved over one lane as they were preparing to pass. I moved over too. I wondered what was going on – the lights always look dramatic. When I got closer I could see something on the ground halfway out into the left lane. The cruiser was sitting behind this object, or person?, and an office was moving towards it. As I passed I got a better look. It was a mattress, with bungee cords still attached. It was a windy day, and it had been blown off someone’s truck. The police officer, by himself, was dragging it out of the way.

And I was thinking, thank you, guy, for being strong enough to do that. Mattresses are heavy. And I was thinking, stupid people who didn’t secure that mattress better on this windy day. And I was thinking, I’m sure he didn’t go to police school for this.

where have you gone, joe dimaggio?

I’ve loved Simon&Garfunkel for as long as I can remember. And, since I was a kid all through the 1960s, I think that’s actually, literally, true. They’ve always been there. They’re part of the image I created for myself of the United States. Simon&Garfunkel, Bobby Kennedy, the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, The Lucy Show, The Flintstones, ice cream and milk in a glass, and a hand-me-down dress I  wore until I grew out of it. The dress was made from blue and white sear sucker, and it had red trim. It was American, and had been given to me by a family who had lived in the US for a while. Civil rights and Lucille Ball, a girl’s dress. I was 7.