Posted on

Happy 40 and 30: Celebrating the old, the older and the odd.

This year marks my 40th anniversary for graduating from high school. I could say the same for marking 40 years ago that I joined the Navy. On the other hand, I received my bachelor of arts in communication 30 years ago this year. That’s a lot of anniversaries for one year.

In a year that saw physical difficulty with a ba for a major portion of 2014, it sadly also saw two of my four brothers pass away within two months of each other. That is the way it goes sometimes, triumph and tragedy, or vice versa. The last time I saw my Dad was at my college graduation. I suppose that if there is a time when it is right for someone to last see one another, perhaps that time should be on the upswing.

But I sit here not to sound a melancholy note. Nor do I write here to praise one milestone as opposed to another.

The fact is I have been a bit more involved in the planning for my high school reunion than for that of my college reunion. The reasons include simple arithmetic. There were between 80-to-100 students in my high school graduating class. I wouldn’t venture a guess for the numbers who graduated with my college class. I do know that that during the spring semester of 1984, when I graduated from college, saw a record enrollment that has since been broken once or twice. About 11,800 enrolled during that semester at Stephen F. Austin State University. The college is tucked away among the “pine curtain” of East Texas. “Home of virgin pines and tall women,” we would joke.

I have a fairly simple role in my high school reunion next month. It is our entry in the parade. Yes, parade. Survivors of my class get to ride on a trailer of some sort pulled by some mean machine. My friends involved in the locomotion aspects are in the forest products industry and so the ride itself doesn’t seem like a difficult part to pull off. The hard part is to find out where we should meet our chariot and how should it be decorated. Oh well, it’s a small town. We will likely figure that all out by the time the parade actually takes place.

As for my college reunion, I have no immediate plans. The reasons for that is that my college friends seldom were in the same graduating classes. Most of these friends were younger than I was. I doubt many of my friends will attend festivities at SFA. There are varying reasons for that as well including wives, kids, and/or living in far away places like Tokyo.

My college days were not what you called traditional, to be honest. The fact that I was in the Navy for four years before going to college is a big factor. It wasn’t so much I was “an older guy.” I also got a job before starting school as a firefighter. All but two of my final semesters were spent working. I also didn’t worry much, if any, about finances. That was fairly odd for most of my college friends. Tuition was cheap back then. I received a stipend of around $200 a month from the GI Bill for those semesters I was enrolled. I didn’t do much in the way of summer semesters. It would have been too difficult to manage working and going to school every day, which basically entailed one’s day in summer school all five days of the week. I wasn’t a typical firefighter either, for that matter. Most guys got off work and would go to a second or perhaps even a third job. I worked one summer off-duty, before school had even started. It involved moving mobile homes and getting dirty, not exactly in that order. When I decided to take a week’s vacation, I recruited my best friend, Waldo. I finally left this part-time mess. Waldo, who wasn’t exactly working in his master’s in speech field, stayed on for a little while.

Even the days moving mobile homes was something to look back upon with, while not exactly fondness, amused memories.

All in all, I could not have asked for a better college experience. Oh, my final semester was sheer hedonism. I wasn’t working and we, as was the saying back then, partied like the proverbial big dog! There are lots of differences between looking backward at high school and taking the same long look at college. Especially when you come from a small town, school is literally growing up. It’s tribal. Although I haven’t seen some of my high school friends since we graduated 40 years ago, we are bonded by years, age and place.

But for college, it will always be about walking out into the field on a hazy, warm December morning and hearing Canned Tuna playing on the gigantic Klipsch stereo speakers a friend brought over for the weekend-long party. Or that girl who, no matter what happened between us, will always be your friend. And of course, throw in a couple of fires some that were to be celebrated and others to be extinguished …

Posted on

Giving blogging the finger and my sleeping health

Live from tablet world! I don’t yet have a wireless keyboard to, hopefully, make this more blog-like. I have also not figured out how to get my WordPress platform–if that is the correct terminology–working on this particular Android operating system. It is a real pain in the ass to train my opposable thumbs to work on this quote-unquote “virtual keyboard.”

So what does a quote-unquote blogger do? Hellafino. I have to later shower, eat and drive uptown to a private medical facility for a sleep study. It has been about 14 years after I covered my own sleep study at a VA-DOD center out near Fort Hood and discovered that, yeah, I indeed have sleep apnea. My picture was on PI above the fold and everything.

A look at the computer chip in my head CPAP machine by the VA revealed I wasn’t getting as much sleep as was thought during the pregnant pauses in my breathing during night-night. An echocardiogram recently showed I have a slightly enlarged heart. The heart doc at the VA said it can be a byproduct of sleep apnea. So we will look and see eventually. If you see me writing about a stress test some later, you too will know. I kind of wonder about the VA sending me to a local private mini-hospital and that happening PDQ. Is it me or the scandal nationwide that this sudden burst of medicine is about?

My fingers or finger, one, index, right, is about to give out. So it”s off to hopefully a good night’s sleep, with a touch of weird science.

 

Posted on

Rainy day tales from a pissed-off semi-retired journalist

Ann Coulter, the attention-seeking missile, has managed to finagle her way into the American conversation once again with her rant against soccer and the World Cup. Pttttewwwie. That is my spelling of a spit that comes from me. I know that spit is not good for my computer so I will just spell it, and not spit it. What I will not do is give that, well, I can’t use the word I would like, but I will not give her any more of my attention.

So it’s a rainy Friday afternoon. CNN is on my screen but the volume is not engaged. Wolf Blitzer is on TV talking to a Republican House Ways and Means Committee member about some missing IRS emails. “GOP outrage at missing e-mails,” is the “Developing Story” headline. This, in these days where every little happenstance is a “Breaking News” story.  Boy, they set the bar so low.

I once received a corporation-wide monetary award that I shared with another reporter. Both of us are gone from the paper and in the government sector. Well, I’m just part-time. Here is what happened:

I wasn’t Cops reporter anymore but I got to the paper an hour early so I could, usually, leave an hour early. I was the only one in the newsroom. I heard a call on the police scanner, a sheriff’s department dispatcher said there had been a helicopter crash. I called the sheriff’s department and got what information I could. An Army Black Hawk, on a foggy morning, crashed into a TV tower out in the countryside. It turned out bad, all seven on board including a brigadier general were killed.

The editor came in pretty soon and I told him what was going on. Best I can recall, he sent the other reporter at the scene and told me to “rewrite.” The latter term is now sort of a dinosaur. In the olden days — before I was even a reporter — a newspaper would have reporters in the field calling in their stories or pieces of story by land-line phones and the rewrite men (and women) would craft the story together. I only did it a couple of times and both times I just saw what was happening and took off from there, figuratively speaking, after a few seconds of direction from the editor. The other story was about a fatal charter bus crash out on the interstate. We had three or four reporters on that.

This rewriting of breaking news, or deadline reporting as it is called in the business, was not something I really trained for but rather something I seemed to take on instinctively. I knew about the award before I left the paper — I don’t know if my confidential agreement is still in effect, maybe some day I may tell the story, there isn’t much to tell anyway — I collected my share after I began freelancing. I think maybe it was only $50. That is more than the average newspaper award.

You’ve no doubt heard the term “award-winning journalists.” Well, in some ways, journalism awards can be a dime a dozen. There is something really wrong with you if you haven’t won awards. I had collected, jeez, I don’t know how many awards from regional and one state press association in my first two years as a journalist. And I pretty much learned about running a small weekly on my own.

Awards are nice to have. I won a couple of Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Assn. awards, first places for my size of daily newspaper, which was below a major metro. I won environmental writer of the year from the statewide Sierra Club. I did okay in my job, in other words. The latter and the company award meant more to me personally. Regional and state press clubs are, while nice to have personally (like on a resume), more a bigger deal to the newspapers and its managers.

Back to Vulfenzblitzer, as I like to call him, I detest CNN making every other story “Breaking News.” Technically, they are correct but it cheapens the really big stories that reporters write or broadcast every day in different cities around the world. A Facebook friend of mine, a network radio reporter, is traveling around the East with Secretary of State John Kerry.  She and I met covering the court-martial of former Army Spc. Charles Graner, the alleged “ringleader” of the Abu Ghraib saga. Those are real stories and, of course, I have my Gee Dubya stories from interviewing him alone by ourselves when he was campaigning for his “Poppy” to I don’t know how many press conferences as governor and a few as president.

Really, I am not bragging as there really isn’t much to brag about. I just spent some incredible years as a journalist who was just doing his job, and then some as a freelancer. CNN’s repeated versions of “Breaking News” kind of cheapens my personal history. And I don’t like it very much, see?

Oh, “Breaking News” now about the VA. The Department of Veterans Affairs? I’ve written about it for years. I’ll save that for another day.

–30–

Posted on

Shinseki gone. It’s time for the VA to heal itself.

My high hopes for Gen. Eric Shinseki taking an already overburdened and poorly-managed Department of Veterans Affairs were dashed early. Oh, I suppose I gave him more time than was warranted. But just because I continued to see the VA healthcare system imploding from the ground up didn’t mean that a total collapse had yet made it to the top of the food chain. Regardless of my poor vision of the cluster f**k of a bureaucracy that is the VA, the situation has progressed even beyond that state expressed in the old military acronym SNFAU. For those of you unfamiliar with the term — for those of you returning visitors from Zimbawe — it means “Situation Normal All F**ked Up.” Shinseki resigned today and many talking heads were a bit too timid to bury the retired four-star in their disgust. The general did, after all, have half of his foot blown off in the Vietnam War. And from the political and pundit class who might call their target of opportunity a “sonofabitch” they are sure to add “But we thank him for his service.” Such is similar to the way veterans are treated by the VA these days. Oh, not all of them, for sure. Not even the majority of them. One may be certain, though, when more than a thousand, who knows for certain even how many, maybe tens of thousands, are used in a numerical shell game when all they seek is medical treatment there remains a certainty that these veterans are not treated in the respectful manner in which even an injured dog would receive. I had erroneously believed the hiding of veterans seeking appointments was for specialty treatment. Specialists have, for at least the past 20 years I have used the VA for health care, been the scarcest of medical commodity. It is not uncommon to see residents, physician assistants or even nurse practitioners when attending specialty clinic appointments. It’s the luck of the draw. Oh, if you are sick enough or suffering from a critical injury, you’ll likely be attended to or at least overseen by a board certified specialist. It seems though, the veterans in the news are those that were seeking primary care however. That boggles my mind as bureaucratic insanity at its worst.

The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Medical Center in Houston.
The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Medical Center in Houston.

The VA bureaucracy is like this: Washington–>three separate administrations for Health, Benefits and Cemeteries–>Regions–>Regional benefit offices–>Regional-to-extra-regional systems called “VISNs” for Veterans Integrated Service Networks–>Health care networks based on a large VA hospital system (mine is the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Medical Center in Houston)–>Community-based outpatient centers–>Vet Centers–>The veterans. That’s not even including the National Cemeteries the VA oversees.

Now don’t you think at least one level somewhere in this wicked matrix could be eliminated? I had two dealings with the VA this week. One was concerning an appointment. The other relating to a complaint from an appointment last week. I had scheduled an appointment for a clinic for which I went almost 15 years without a follow-up. I will not say which one. I can understand long wait times because of the particular clinic and will say part of the reason for the failure was situational. Nevertheless, my appointment was Wednesday, 80 miles away in Houston. There is a toll-free phone number on which patients may hear their appointments as well as manage their prescriptions. I called the night before to make sure the time was what I was last told. The clinics usually send letters with appointment information at least a few weeks before. They also give automated calls within a week of the appointment during which one can confirm, cancel or reschedule. I did not receive a letter for this clinic. I do not remember receiving a call. This month I had an unusually high number of appointments in Houston. It was just how they happened to fall. When I called to check on this clinic, it was not listed. I called the “Telecare” staff in Houston and the notation they had on their computer indicated that I had cancelled the appointment. They didn’t know when or why. I had taken a day of leave, which have become scarce lately because of various medical and other problems. I was livid and wrote a very scathing letter to the department that oversees customer complaints. I didn’t hesitate to drop a few names either. I hate when I do that, but unfortunately one can only receive relatively quick response unless some kind of “enhancement” is employed. I received a call early the next morning saying the clinic responsible would be contacted. They were and I was called by the clinic. The person who called told me once again that I had cancelled the appointment by phone. I have seen some of these specialty clinic top people in Houston go directly into their best “Cover Your Ass” mode when such a problem happens. I told the person who called that what she said sounded like someone who was trying to “cover their rear ends.” I’m so nice. Well, I came away with a rescheduled appointment in two weeks. Later, I received a call from the VA Police Department in Houston. I thought, “OMG, they think I’m a nut and are going to give me the third degree!” Instead the officer was following up a complaint I left in a “suggestion box” regarding parking. I mentioned quite succinctly that the medical center had incessantly bragged as to how they have eased the parking problems at the hospital. Steps have been made including a free valet service. However, I am not comfortable with someone else driving my pickup, at least someone I don’t know. Parking lots have supposedly been expanded for patients and employees. But during my last visit I spent some 30 minutes trying to find a place where I would not have to walk too far to the hospital. I continue to have knee problems, especially when walking for a distance. Well, the officer was quite thorough explaining where parking has been increased and it was mostly on the side that I didn’t want to park. However, she said there now are shuttle vans that drive through the parking lots which will pick up patients and take them to the lobby. Apparently, these vans aren’t well advertised but if I can indeed flag one down to get it to drive me to a close entrance then this entire exercise will have been worth it. This is just one small example of how the VA can fix things when they put their minds to it. It looks as if now is the time for great minds to converge and not at just one medical center. The whole system has needed help for years. It is time to fix the VA.

Posted on

VA-Shinseki thoughts drafted. For now I think about knees and trees.

My thoughts on the resignation of Gen. Eric Shinseki as Department of Veterans Affairs secretary is in draft form and in the cooler. I’ve been sitting here writing for awhile and my knee has begun to bother me as it has more and more during the last couple of days. Hopefully, I will get back to my draft and publish it tomorrow.

I haven’t written a whole lot lately because I’ve gone to physical therapy several times a week around the time I usually write after work. My knee has become more painful in the last week. I was hoping surgery and some therapy would help. Something doesn’t seem right about it so my therapist said he would try to talk to my surgeon. He said it could be that I need a brace that puts less pressure on the part that is giving me trouble.

My normal routine in physical therapy has been to wire me up with a TENS-like electrical stimulus and place a heating pad on top of it. And when I say a heating pad, I mean that mother is HOT. I also have undergone some ultrasound and dry laser therapy as well as numerous leg lifts of several types and a leg lift while lying on my stomach. Usually, I have them ice down my knee for about 10 minutes before leaving. The results I have experienced have been mixed.

Now I am at a point where I wonder how long I will have to wear a brace? Is the problem I had not fixed? Will I need a knee replacement? I have already “wasted” what I consider to be four months since I first injured my knee to surgery and up to now in two weeks of physical therapy. It seems so long ago that I was hiking through the Big Thicket or the Angelina National Forest. I can’t even imagine what is in store in the future. In part, I don’t want to think about it.

If you haven’t read this blog before, then you know it is mostly for me to indulge myself in one of the main past-times I enjoy and which also has been, in the past, a living. At least I can still write. Now if only I can walk out among the pine trees again and listen to the wind whistle its song through the tree tops. That would be about all I could really ask for. That and to not end sentences with prepositions.