If it's physical, it's therapy

When I was a TA in the phys ed department at Swingstate U. (go bucks) one of my students wore a T-shirt to class with that statement printed on the front. She was a physical therapy major, natch, and not only was she wise, but she looked good in the T-shirt. I subscribe to it. The statement, not the shirt.

The subject of physical therapy kept coming up during a recent trip to Tennessee. The soundtrack coming out of central swingstate swung from Moby to Steely Dan to Chopin to an elevated political discussion from Miami University to "Fresh Air" from WEKU in Richmond and "All Things Considered" from WNOX in Knoxville. The surrealistic movie in the foreground features an aging son going to see his parents for a few days to see if he can help. By four o'clock he was doing qigong in the shade of their back yard facing the first fairway when they got home from the two-week checkup with the neurosurgeon. Warning: Everything in this movie means at least two things.

Dr. Justice removed the staples from the top of Charlie's head, which appeared to have healed nicely, and pronounced him fit to gradually resume his normal activities. Driving the car is okay with a passenger to keep him company, so I've done some of that, and his driving is fine. No golf for awhile, easy on the lifting, bending, getting up, twisting, and turning. Golf, it turns out, is a fairly violent game if you consider the whip-like action through the hips, trunk, and shoulders, and we don't want to shake anything loose.

The physical therapist did a kind of stress test on arms, legs, and balance, and it appears that the major motor neurons on both right and left sides are functioning, which is very good news, so no PT was prescribed. Dr. Justice will schedule a CT scan before Dad's next check-up in six weeks. Then we will see a digital image of how completely the gray matter is returning to its regular shape after the pressure of the bruise was released.

In the meantime, there was a lawn to mow, an old water heater to dispose of, and weeds to pull. In many ways, it was like any other visit with the folks, except their main job was to keep me busy doing the things they would have done if they were 100 percent. So we scrubbed some deck chairs and painted the railing, put screens in the screen doors, and took the water heater to the recycling center. It was fun hanging out together and satisfying to get a few things done.

Dad and I went for a drive around the Glade, took a tour of the new Wellness Center and its impressive array of exercise equipment, and checked out the Recreation Center next door. Charlie and Helen are pretty good driving in their neighborhood, but it can get a little tense out on the highway, so I did most of the driving outside the Glade. We did an errand at Ace Hardware and the Green Grocer, then cruised past the new Food City supermarket, soon to open in a very close and convenient spot.

Mom and Dad saw people they know everywhere we'd go, some casual acquaintances and some fast friends. They are well-connected in their community via church and golf and other social networks, and I get the feeling that people value those connections highly. I think I shook hands with a hundred nice people during the week and even remembered a couple of their names. It's easy to see how comfortable Charlie and Helen are in this small Cumberland Plateau community of largely like-minded midwestern people.

Dad keeps in touch with the guys by phone, finding alternates to fill places in the regular foursomes, and diligently maintains the records of The Mulligans league, including raw scores, handicaps, net scores, team scores, standings, skins, dues, and winnings. They count on him to keep track, and he delivers up-to-date scorecards on time. Note to self: make your OCD work for you.

Every day we would have breakfast together in their kitchen and start the day's activities. There was ample time to relax and talk in between chores, and I would duck out to the flagstone terrace in the back yard once or twice a day to do a taiji or qigong form. Mom was curious enough to spend an hour one day learning a couple of basic stances in an effort to use the pull of gravity to straighten and lengthen her forward-bending spine.

Dad was a tougher sell, although he yielded when I pushed the idea of looking into a membership at the Wellness Center. The in-your-face salespersonal trainer we talked to did not win his confidence through enthusiastic exhortation to "do something," and I had to admit that the information they presented was unconvincing. But I couldn't let the subject rest.

The day I was to leave, I was thinking outloud that ideally Max, my nephew who is the athletic trainer at the College of DuPage (COD) in Chicago, would spend a day or two with his grandparents putting together a suitable rehab program. I made the case that Max knows more than all the personal trainers put together, and we know and trust him. Charlie was open to the idea, so I talked to Max on the phone. Lo and behold, COD's seasons are over for the year, so he had a one-week window and quickly agreed to come to Tennessee for the weekend.

Pinch me.

Arriving back in central swingstate was the surreal part, so I made myself a Magritta (tequila, lemon juice, triple sec, tonic) and a salad. There is an ironing board leaning on the front of my dresser. The warm red-orange kitchen has been repainted and rearranged in black and white. Where am I? I read the paper and call the folks to tell them I am home. I think this transition will take a while.

transcendental aesthetic

Music Sunday caught me completely off guard. I was looking forward to this special annual event at the Old North Church, but I wasn't expecting it to penetrate the armor protecting the quivering mass of emotional goo inside. I must have walked in at 10:30 with a few unresolved issues, and in some ways it has been a trying couple of weeks, but by 11:30 my heart chakra was working overtime.

You could say the music got to me. It wasn't so much the choir's rousing, up-beat setting of a verse from the Heart Sutra, "Gate Gate," although that probably put me in a certain frame of mind. And it wasn't Sarabeth's soprano solo of a traditional spiritual, although that too was rivetting.

It was when Steve was turning the pages while Daniel, his nine-year-old son, played a beautifully nuanced "Fur Elise" on the piano. It was a father-daughter flute duet of Tchaikovsky's "Reverie" during the offering. It was Wade Jones, the church accompanist, performing his own arrangement of the great John Fahey guitar piece renamed "Let Music Span Both East and West."

By this time I'd dabbed a few tears, taken my glasses off and on several times, and you know what, I don't care, if you can't show some feeling in church, what's the point anyway, even if it is Ralph Waldo Emerson's uncommon denomination of almighty Reason. So when Kurt did the show-stopping baritone solo "Somewhere" from West Side Story that would have made Lenny Bernstein proud, I pretty much had to get out of there.

So instead of staying for the meet-and-greet and being all sociable and normal, I headed for the exit to get some fresh air and try to come down. They say Kant used to go for a long walk every day at five o'clock, or so the philosophical legend goes, and few more reasonable souls than him have walked the planet. Transcendental aesthetic was Kant's term for (paraphrasing horribly) the quality of deep, complex feeling found in art and other experience that surpasses any explaining.

And there I was, leaning against my truck on a windy May morning scribbling on the front of the order of service, trying to explain why a bunch of songs reduced me to a sappy slab of free association. It's the words, no it's the melody, no it's the rhythm, no it's the conviction of the performer, no it's the political message, no it's the shared personal experience, but when they all come together it's something else. When I saw Marlene, the choir director on the way to her car and mumbled my thanks, I think she knew what I meant. It's something else.

character matters

For those cynics, policy wonks, or so-called realists who don't believe "character" is an issue in an election, new light is shed by Slate on this crazy presidential race.

The LAT[imes] asks handwriting experts to analyze signatures and writing samples from Obama, Clinton, and McCain to find out what they say about each of the presidential contenders. It turns out that Obama and McCain have some things in common. They both have illegible signatures, "which suggests a need for privacy or an aversion to transparency," and emphasize their first names, which shows "a desire to distance themselves from their fathers." For her part, Clinton's signature "is readable, but lacks emotion and warmth." As for their writing, Clinton's is "disciplined" while Obama's is "flexible" and McCain's is "disconnected, forceful and intense."

Okay, on second thought, our resident graphologist hasn't told us anything we didn't already know. We've got a clear choice between the bro, the ho, and the wacko. If we unpack the euphemistic language of the experts, the written characters they inscribe in ink reveal, in turn, secretiveness, aloofness, coldness, rigidity, opportunism, isolation, and brutality.

Chinese ink painters were judged on both their mastery of the skill in handling the brush, according to the standards of their tradition, and the inherent personal qi that is expressed in every stroke. In other words, making characters on paper reveals character. A gold Cross ballpoint or a Pilot V-ball extra fine is not a rabbit-fur calligraphy brush, but still. In which scholar-official's hand do we want the fountain pen of state?

Maybe I'll reconsider the whole character issue and just focus on policy, or, as they still sometimes say, 'issues'. One thing is certain: this group is not lacking in 'issues' of their own. But if policy is to be gauged by their policy statements, what statement by the three aforementioned obsessive-compulsive paranoid schizophrenics could be believed?

hard-headed

Tuesday morning e-mail from my brother Rock Golly:

Dad is in the hospital with some kind of bleeding on the brain. He's being taken to the hospital tonight, surgery in the morning. Mom is going to call me as soon as she knows something. I've talked to A, she is calling MJ and J. Please call me as soon as you can.

When I reached Rock on the phone in Pittsburgh, I got a little more information:

When he hit his head in a car accident a few weeks ago, it caused a subdural hematoma. The dura is the lining inside the scull, and a hematoma is basically a bruise. There was bleeding and fluid buildup over several weeks between the dura and the brain, which gradually caused pressure, pain, dizziness, and minor physical impairment.

If you know the patriarch Chas Golly, you know he's too tough to let a little subdural hematoma slow him down. But in the midst of his usual routine of golf, yard work, and fixing things, he started getting headaches and feeling uncharacteristically drowsy. Mom finally persuaded him to see a doctor, thank goodness. His golf game was beginning to suffer.

The surgeon made four incisions in the scalp, each about an inch long, drilled about 3/4" holes in the skull, then made incisions in the dura to drain the fluid. Then from Tuesday night to Friday morning he had tubes through two of the incisions to drain the rest of the fluid.

By Wednesday evening, Anna Banana had arrived from Detroit and Rock was back from Pittsburgh:

He was doing pretty well today, sort of up and down, tired a lot of the time. We're hoping to talk to the doctor Thursday morning. As of now, he will not be going home earlier than Friday.

Many cell phone minutes later, all five of us had touched base and heard some version of the story. I spoke with Jo Jo Golly in Atlanta and Jeanie Beanie Golly-Gee in Florida, and finally talked to Anna Banana and Mom on Saturday. It has been a little harrowing for Mom, but fortunately Anna and Rock have been there with her. Dad was anxious to go home, but everything indicated that it might be better to spend a couple of days in a nearby rehab facility first. By Sunday evening:

In a surprise development, Dad was released today. The doctor saw him first thing and pronounced him ready to go. So in spite of what we had heard yesterday, he is home and very happy to be so. He is not 100 percent but is greatly improved from a couple of days ago. Moving around pretty well, eating well, talking well, but a little forgetful now and then.

We had Mothers' Day dinner at their house in the afternoon, and shortly after he was feeling pretty tired and went for a nap. At this point we feel like it will take some days or weeks to fully recover from the anesthetic and medication, not so much the accident and surgery.

Anna is heading home to Michigan in a couple of days, and Jo Jo is coming up to be with Mom and Dad in Tennessee during the next phase of his recovery. I will take a turn for a few days before and during Memorial Day weekend. It will be interesting, as they are so used to being completely independent and in control.

Dad is so far being agreeable to taking it easy, although we haven't really defined what that means - driving, golfing, working in the yard, etc. Over the next couple of days we'll see how active he wants to be. The doctor did not give any specific restrictions or orders for rehab or therapy. We will be following up on that Monday, along with a lot of other things. He is to see the doctor in about 10 days for a checkup and to have the staples removed.

So we have circled the wagons and rallied round the chief. I have no doubt that he will bounce back and be fine in time for his 88th birthday in August, but this is a first for this kind of thing, so we are all adjusting to being in new territory. Healing thoughts and prayers are welcome.

earth, air, fire, water

My weekend contained all the elements of a springtime ritual.

I tore myself away from some overdue garden tasks late Saturday afternoon to drive a couple of hours north. Meaning I didn't get much of anything done at home: didn't mow, didn't prep beds, didn't build coldframes, didn't turn the compost, didn't remove the pile of trimmed branches. The morning rain gave way to a clear afternoon. Traffic was light, so I got to Northeast Swingstate University in good time and met my freshman roommate RF at the Days Inn.

It was so windy that most of the candles were blown out during the candlelight vigil, but at least it didn't rain. The group that gathered on the Commons was the usual mix of old and young faculty, staff, students, and former students. Afterward, we found a carry-out - he got Bud Lite and I got Heineken - and went back to the motel to catch up. His daughter, an elementary school principal, has a new job as director of curriculum in a neighboring school district; his son, a carpenter, has been building horse barns in Kentucky all winter. His sister is a retired school librarian; his brother is a high school teacher and coach; his nephew plays quarterback at Toledo. My son works in a bookstore and lives in New York; my daughter works in a bookstore and lives at home. We watch part of a remarkably bad "Diehard" movie and a hilariously campy black-and-white thriller about a crazed scientist who keeps his girlfriend's head alive in the laboratory after a fatal accident.

We met for breakfast, per the usual routine, and the fieldhand omelette at Mike's Place was excellent, as usual. The conversation turns to politics, as it always does, and we compare the positions, political skills, and electability of Obama and Hillary. We don't agree on everything. RF doesn't like cities, for example. We do agree on having low expectations of even an election as historic as the one upcoming. Things change incrementally if at all. This is not a revolution.

It was Sunday morning, so I decided to go to church, and the UU church on Gougler St. was easy to find, conveniently located across the street from a little park along the Cuyahoga River. Since I had some time, I took a walk from one end of the park to the other, sunned myself on the rocks beside the rapids, just like the turtles, and did a taiji form on a little observation deck the city was nice enough to provide.

The church itself, an little old red brick structure facing a main street, felt very welcoming. Some of the people there knew people at my church, so I felt at home away from home. It was a lay-led service, without the regular minister, and it was Beltane, so there were scads of flowers, big bowls of water, little stones, candles, and songs about fertility and the earth.

I made it back to campus in time for most of the afternoon program on a sunny hillside. A couple of student activists received scholarships for their efforts. They gave a plaque to a couple of professors who wrote a book together and have given support to the annual event. One of them was my political science professor, a young untenured instructor who played touch football (this was before the invention of flag football) with our dorm intramural team, but he is no spring chicken now.

William Kuntzler's daughter gave a speech about her late father's work. An ex-Marine gave a fiery speech about continuing to resist the war machine that kills its own young. I bought a new baseball cap at the student center bookstore and wore it home. I took route 3 instead of the interstate for variety, and it only took an extra half hour. After a quick bite to eat, I still had time for a good 90-minute bike ride down to Inniswood and up to Plumb Road and back before the sun went down, all of which made me feel more grounded, even though I still hadn't finished my chores.