Rangers

I was behind a car with an interesting logo that took me a couple of stop signs to make out. It was in honor of, a memorial to a Ranger, dead in the line of duty. I glanced down and saw the license plate announced a Gold Star family. I wished them peace.

There always have been rangers, in the definition as the men ahead, finding the way, forestalling trouble, mediating. I realized that definition when I was eight or nine, and allowed into the “adult” section of our public library. Having no idea how to assimilate all those books, I decided it best to start at A and read them all.

In short order I reached Altscheler and his series on the Ohio and Kentucky frontiers. Astounding to learn Ohio was wooded across, buffalo (bison) were here when the French priests came to proselytize the natives as long ago as the sixteenth century. I devoured every book I could find, and followed the exploits of mostly white men conquering the country. Jim Bridger, a hero, John Fremont not so much. Probably because Fremont was a politician, too.

The flip side of settlement didn’t escape me. I especially followed the history of natives in my state. Ohio has fascinating local history. The Delaware tribe was a loose association of smaller tribes that intermingled freely. One young man fell out with his clan and joined another. He rose to be that clan’s chief, but always was the newcomer, and Ohio has a town named for him, Newcomerstown.

The history of our natives, people too, was heart wrenching. Those of us past middle age know the story of the Trail of Tears or the Battle of Broken Knee, which was the same kind of massacre as the shooting at the Florida night club, but not preserved in history as a terror attack by our government.

I was much longer understanding what the movement of peoples did to the land. The prairie sod had to be broken, a job unlike tilling most anywhere east of the Mississippi. The “breaking plow” broke the farmers who set out to claim the west. That migration was relentless. One of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books dealt specifically with Pa, realizing he’d homesteaded in a reservation portion of Nebraska, and moving the family back to Minnesota.

The damage to the land didn’t occur to me until junior high school, when we learned about contour plowing, to conserve lands from wind and rain. I think that was the aha moment that set me rethinking what I knew. So, plowing caused the dust bowl!

If I had it to do over, my ideal life would be anthropology, archeology, history, ruminating over what I know. Then I had a family to care for, and so I’ve come out the other end, older, probably wiser. I think back on that first book, reading about the fictional ranger, Henry Ware, and his exploits in my part of this country. A simple little book, but it set my pattern of reading all these years.

I wondered how long “Rangers” have been a branch of our army, and looked it up. Wickipedia says the United States Army Rangers were established in 1943 (the year I was born), and are headquartered out of Fort Benning, Georgia, home of my dad’s army career. But, their history predates the Revolutionary War. There is mention of Army Rangers as early as the French and Indian Wars (another fascinating chapter of our history.)

The first name of the young man on the memorial logo was Benjamin. I wish his family peace.

My Uncle, Henry Rolf. One of the few World War II pictures I have. Uncle Hank was Transportation Corps, and moved supplies in convoys, over the mountains. I think he posed this picture for his family, back home. This was in France.

You know, I'm thinking this was still stateside. Those boots are too new.

A surprise look back

A card from my neighbor, Cathy, came in the mail yesterday. It’s our year captured in a picture on the 4^th of July. We were invited by my friend to watch Fairlawn’s parade from the comfort of the front yard of her husband’s office. My friend and her husband have suntanned faces because they eschew social media, but the smiles started with Cathy, and went all the way down the line.

The card made me smile, and not because I have more than half a head of hair now. It’s the blazing smile from Laura, on the 4th of July. Six months ago. At her therapist appointment this week Laura mentioned Grandma had been angry with her one time the whole year, and it was because her clothes were all over the floor.

How I laughed. Her clothes have been ankle deep on her bedroom floor since we moved in. I could not care less. I was “angry” that day I could not pull her back from social media. “Oh, Grandma had a flashback,” said Mrs. A. “What’s a flashback?,” from Laura.

I took a big breath and said “Driving an hour to see you in a locked ward. No shoe laces, no belt, and, God forbid, no chap stick.”

“Oh,” said she. “I don’t remember that. Was that the hospital where they gave me Vaseline to use? They were pretty nice there.”

Laura thinks it’s OK her phone lives in my room half of every day, though she also says she’s busy enough now to only use it when she needs it. Knowing she puts it up to go to work and turns it off to go to meetings makes me think the same.

Tonight the birthday girl is in the kitchen with her friend Victoria, making pasta alfredo for supper. Then they will make cheesecake for the birthday party tomorrow. Victoria can’t make the party, so she came along tonight. The two of them can be up most of the night, laughing. That’s what sixteen year olds do.

And, I got a haircut today. My hair is still recovering from being half gone, but it’s getting there. And, that’s another day in our normal life.

After lunch with Ruth

Monday I took Toby to the vet for booster shots to allow him a week at camp while Laura and I fly to Wisconsin. On tip toe I nudged the carrier down from the top shelf, and landed it on the washer. I found the cat, stashed him, and left the laundry room, to his howls, to finish up to leave. Went back to retrieve the cat, and found him glaring at me from the kitchen floor.

I told him what will happen to his special, and expensive cat carrier. He walked away. Getting him to the vet in half a carrier was no picnic.

Tuesday Laura’s psychologist asked me into the session at the outset, intending to schedule out a dismissal program for Laura. But, we told her about spending a year abroad, commencing in six or seven months, and Mrs. A was as pleased as I am. We worked out everything I should know about a support system wherever she may be. We’ll see Mrs. A monthly, until Laura goes, and all will be well.

Yesterday I saw my lovely rheumatologist, who now has an x-ray of my decrepit shoulder, so she “would know what to do.” After discussion of all the failed options to date, I now have an appointment with a shoulder orthopedic surgeon to discuss his take on arthroscopic removal of one large and many small bone spurs in residence in my shoulder socket.

Today I had lunch with Ruth. Ruth would make a bad week good and a good week over the moon. We had so much catching up, we were in the restaurant almost two hours. It’s a new one for both of us, Lager & Vine. How about that for two old ladies, though I know Ruth will have her martini at four. I miss lager, but that’s the price of decent drugs. Al Franken is on the television, resigning.  My clay footed god.

I took my first selfie with the new camera. Far easier than the last phone, after I found where not to put my fingers. Next time I’ll work out the glamour part.

On the way home I stopped at Ace, the Place with the Friendly Hardware Man, and bought a bottle of gorilla glue with an applicator brush. Tonight Laura and I will modify Mr. Razor Toes’ travel abode. I’m thinking a strip of gorilla glued fabric, inside and out, and you know who will not get through the old slit. If he keeps slitting the screen, I have lots of fabric and know where to buy glue. He’ll wish he never planned an escape from Alcatraz.

Speaking of Laura, tomorrow is her sixteenth birthday. What a difference a year makes! All the egg shells I walked on last year are gone; a whole new person lives here, now. I spent the rest of the afternoon at Cathy’s, planning pizza and a movie for six. The six will see Coco; Cathy and I will be next door, watching Murder on the Orient Express. Cathy gave me three napkin choices; I picked the one on top. It seems so right.

A word or two about slogging on

Perhaps the real methodologists among us will throw up hands and leave at the end of the next paragraph--or not.

I have resigned myself to seeing no more spectacular results until this time next year. But, fifty six weeks down, forty eight to midterm elections is a sterling hall mark; a continuing rally cry for the way forward. This business of inching forward, carrying on, moving up seems relentlessly slow.

In spite of our gains in the November ballot, the GOP mowing machine moves on. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryon did stick with Trump’s coat tails just to get the tax bill passed, and it was done. The bill will be reconciled and effected, and no matter the small concessions to humanity, the huge scope of the bill is not for decency, but strangulation of the middle class on down, to their last penny.

It will be another year before we can go back to the polls and regain our ability to begin a decade of cleaning up. But, the year will send even more to the polls who find they must repeal Trump’s tax cuts and use the revenue to expand Medicare, strengthen Social Security and revitalize the social security net. Those last words are straight from Slate magazine, together with the notion the Republicans have delivered, and now will pay their piper.

No question I am sending up the same flag, singing the old song. But I do want to add a personal note to why I know we can finish this.

In the last seven years I suffered two major, potentially life ending brain injuries. Life ending. Final curtain. Hasta la vista. And I’m still typing today. The reason: medical intervention, medical treatment, and, finally, dogged determination, complete resolution to reach a reasonable outcome.

I know it is possible to regain speech, thought, physical coordination, balance, mobility. It doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, it is an inch by inch by inch, never ending struggle. In fact, it never ends. In fact, I still struggle for words and look up synonyms for a word I hope is close, until I find a good one. If this were twenty years ago, believe me, I would be looking in Webster’s, not on line. But, I would be looking.

The day after the day after the last presidential election, I quoted Woody Guthrie and Joe Hill. “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as he could be. ‘But Joe,’ said I, ‘you’re ten years dead!’ ‘I never died,’ said he.” Organize!

Keep up our good work of calling, writing, protesting, supporting our elected representatives. Just don’t quit. Some of us may not get to the finish line of this long recovery, but most of us will. Don’t quit. Carry On.

Whirlwind for a week or two

It’s Sunday night, I understand. We just had supper, and are grateful. Both had mighty slim pickin’s for lunch. Last week a whirlwind. The upcoming week spinning faster.  Today we were dropped into the interviews for Laura’s year abroad.

Saturday generally is peaceful, collected. Some shopping. Some cleaning. Some interesting other stuff. But yesterday I decided, time to bite the bullet, go to the phone store and pay a bazillion dollars to replace Laura’s broken phone.

She dropped it and shattered the top, which she kept together for months with clear packing tape. However, the phone loses charge quickly. Actually, that works well, since the phone lives in my room twelve hours a day, because with absolutely no other diversion, Laura sinks into the phone.

Social media is a siren song, and I bet the worst problem parents deal with. After my last scare, early this summer, when I couldn’t think my way through either of our problems, I simply confiscated her phone twelve hours a day. She gets it from six a.m. to six p.m. I’ve been told it was brilliant. I know it saved both our sanities.

The phone needs replaced, and sooner rather than later. Saturday was the day. I had her research what she wanted. I relinquished my card first to buy out the remainder of her phone. That hurt. The young man came from the stock room with her heart’s desire. Oh, yes, and mine, too, as my old phone is out of contract, and I figured I might as well upgrade to a MotoZ. Oh, yes, and the Hasselblad, too.

Laura’s new phone is like hobnailed boots. Apparently three interlocking cases and a gorilla proof screen protector is the new teenage rage. That plus ten extra dollars a month will prevent future problems. The extra money doesn’t sit well with me, but will replace the phone.

We cleared that store with exactly enough time to drop Laura for her ride to an overnight of Outbounds and Inbounds, at the Rotary Camp. Who knew the Rotary had a camp! It’s on Turkeyfoot Lake in southern Summit County, and it’s lovely. When I was young, and we all know how long ago that was, my parents brought us there for all sorts of picnics.

The Outbounds are going next year. The Inbounds are regular students who spent a year abroad and were there to share their experience. There were some foreign exchange students on hand, too. 

Today was interview day. I’d told Laura she should be thinking of everything she might be asked and how she would answer it. The couple of times I checked in, she seemed quite prepared.

We compared notes on the way home, and found we answered identical questions, different points of view. Our answers were the same, but our chat in the car about homesickness potential put a little twist in my heart. Our answers, essentially, she’s never had a “home sweet home” home. Her answer included “grandma is my home.” Don’t be teary; that just means grandma will be there for her and take care of her.

Ever one to push a point, I asked if any place she’d lived was the place her mind always would come back to, and she said, “Oh, the grey house, now that we have Kay in it.”  That did suck the breath out of me, and I’ve told the universe a hundred and one times now, thank you for sending Kay to buy my house.