Eight Feet Deep

Chopped steak. Hamburger steak. Smothered steak. Whatever you want to call it, a ground beef steak has hardly been a matter that would make me sit up and take notice. That is most likely because pretty much all the hamburger steaks I have had over the past years have been mostly a step-up (or down)from your plain old hamburger. Today, however, I had a smothered ground beef steak and I must admit that I took notice.

At noon I found myself in Nederland, originally a Dutch settlement which makes up part of what is known around these parts as “Mid-County,” (Mid-Jefferson County, Texas). Nederland is a quaint little town with its own windmill and whose citizens are dogged supporters of their local Nederland Bulldogs.

Just across the railroad tracks alongside Texas 347 at 11th Street in Nederland, I spotted a little eatery named John’s Grill. There is something attractive in simplicity and I was immediately attracted to the simplicity of the name John’s Grill. John is not a bad name either. My dad was a John. I have a brother named John. I have a friend named John who talks rather loudly. So my history if firmly rooted in the name John.

What I noticed first about John’s Grill was that they had plate lunches, or a steam table if you will. The lunches include a meat with two sides such as rice, blackeye peas, dressing I think, something and something else.

As I said previously, my past has not been filled to the gills with wonderful hamburger steaks but I thought the smothered steak at John’s Grill in Nederland, Texas, looked rather appealing. For one matter, it was of a nice size. And to be quite honest it looked better than the beef tips and the non-existent chicken fried steak. I didn’t know if they sold out of the CFSes for the day or just temporarily. Ordinarily, I might have tried the CFS. A great CFS is like the heroin of steaks. But I came, I saw and I saw no CFS so I had the smothered hamburger steak. And Lord, Lord, Lord was that one hell of a good steak.

Without a doubt, I have to say that is the best hamburger-chopped-smothered-ground beef-steak I have ever had. I had it with a side of rice and brown gravy, blackeye peas and lots of pepper sauce, a so-so cold roll and a better than average glass of unsweetened iced tea. I don’t know what their secret was, whether it was in the gravy or in the steak or what but that steak just knocked my socks off. Well, it didn’t really knock my socks off because if that had happened it would be difficult to explain. But it was a fantastic-able smothered steak.

If you are ever around Nederland, Texas, around lunchtime, go inside John’s Grill and have their smothered steak. It will make you want to slap your grandma. Well, it probably won’t because you’re grandma might slap you back. (Or in the case of my grandma — long dead — she would have shot me with her .410. What a dead-eye that old woman was.) Oh well. You get the point.

As expected, the Prez and his apologized twisted matters ever which-a-ways today to spin the conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate that showed Iran hasn’t worked on making nuclear weapons since 2003. Listening to Bush continue to his bid to sell the world on attacking Iran is like listening to a child who broke his brother’s toy in clear view of everyone and then flatly denies that he broke it. From Rush Limberger to Big Whiskers John Bolton all of Bush’s henchmen are trying to find an agenda under every rock which they hope will continue to confuse the citizenry. If the situation wasn’t so nauseating it would almost be funny.

One of the questions that many ask is, do we understand the Iranian issue well? Do we understand the consequences of Iran having a nuclear weapon, which it looks like they want to try achieve — to get. And the answer is, absolutely. — President George W. “Gee Dubya” Bush, May 2007

As much verbosity that our prez has heaped upon Iran and their alleged designs on making nuke-le-ar bombs, one would think old Amasneezingjob had a nuke ready to pull off the assembly line and fling it in a trebuchet towards the West post haste. So it strikes one as funny — and not in the “ha, ha, ha” sense — that our nation’s own intelligence community thinks that Iran stopped working on trying to build the better bomb several years ago and have not attempted to restart their supposed nuclear ambitions.

“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons,” says the preamble to a number of so-called “key judgments” derived from the latest National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran and its nuclear intentions and capabilities.

The briefing paper goes on to say that as of mid-2007, the intelligence community has judged with “moderate confidence” that Tehran has not resumed its nuclear weapons program and it is unknown as to whether they intend to do so. But wait, here is even more of a bombshell, pardon the pun:

“Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.”

So what does all of this mean with respect to our president and his Boss Hog, Vice President Dick Cheney, running around the world making us think that World War III is just over the next hill due to Iran’s desire to become a nuclear power? Well, it depends on how the White House wants to spin it and spin it they will. They will say that their pushing the international community to apply pressure to Tehran is one reason for the success — but that should give us no solace, the White House is sure to point out. That is because George W. and Dick C. and Karl R. and Rush L. and Sean H. and Barney B. all want us to get into more war. More war feeds the war machine and puts the money into the pockets of those poor rich Republicans who can barely afford to feed their slaves, er, hired help, caviar. That is a very cynical statement, I realize, but after seeing the M.O. that delivered us into Baghdad one can only imagine what these evil men and women have up their sweaty, little sleeves.

In other words, what’s the big deal that we find out Iran isn’t making nuclear weapons? They did lust in their heart for those weapons just as Saddam once used poisonous gas against his people. Therefore, says the Bushites, Iran, like the late Saddam before, is guilty, guilty, guilty. Break out the shock and awe!

To which I say: Awe s**t.

Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat. Thus, I once again I am filled with wonder over usage of the word “gay,” as in “Don we now our gay apparel.”

According to Wiktionary:

“Gay is almost exclusively used today in the sense of homosexual and the related senses. The earlier uses of festive, colorful and bright can still be found, but have fallen out of fashion and are liable to be misunderstood, though if used in a way that suggests that a fashion is common among homosexuals, the two meanings do not necessarily contradict.”

Even in a relatively modern cultural phenomenon such as the “Flintstones,” the cartoon about stone-age people trapped in the suburban mid-1960s, was the word “gay” used to denote happy, upbeat, festive, or as the song says:

“When you’re with the Flintstones,
have a yabba dabba doo time,
a dabba doo time,
we’ll have a gay old time.”

Of course, Fred and Barney did spend quite a bit of time together …

Nonetheless, when one takes a form of the word “gay” to produce a noun such as “gaiety,” or the state of being happy, then the connotation is much less directed at homosexuality than gay as happiness or festivity. One would surmise, however, that gay people could experience gaiety as could straight people but it would seem the correct term to describe the state of homosexuality with respect to the word gay would be “gayness.” But then again, don’t ask me. Who do you think I am, William Safire?

So the usage of gay in the happy, upbeat sense seems very outmoded, antiquated, démodé, passé, moth-eaten, or even downright queer.

But alas gay in senses other than homosexuality is not nearly as obsolete as some of the words one may find on the page of “23 Obscure and Obsolete Words.” Here are a few examples:

“BOANTHROPY – A type of insanity in which a man thinks he is an ox.” Perhaps this type of insanity was more prevalent when oxen were more in vogue. Today, some insane people think they are Donald Trump, including Donald Trump.

“GROAK – To watch people silently while they are eating, hoping they will ask you to join them.” Although the term itself may be anachronistic, groaking is alive and well. To paraphrase Jimmy Carter: “I have groaked in my heart.”

“PERISTEROPHOBIA – Fear of pigeons.” Hmm, one who suffers from this phobia should stay well away from Union Station in Washington, D.C.

“SUPPEDANEUM – A foot support for crucifix victims.” And we are all quite thankful that this has fallen out of modern usage.

Oh well, I guess all words eventually end up on the shelf where they stay until we accidentally knock them off and they come crashing to the floor that is humanity. Is that profound, ironic, or just plain drivel? Yes. Yes it is.

Early Tuesday morning I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I sat at this very computer trying to find something to bore me into slumber but it just would not happen. What did happen was a funny feeling in my chest. It didn’t hurt so much as it felt pressured and the longer it went on, began freaking me out.

Eventually I walked the couple of blocks to the hospital emergency room and told them I was having chest pains. I finally was put into a room and there I remained for more than six hours while doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with me. During that time, the doctors juggled other, most likely more challenging, patients. Some guy across the hall was screaming” “You’re killing me!” on numerous occasions while someone, a cop perhaps, threatened to “light you up if you don’t shut up!”

One guy — close to me in age — was brought into the bed next to me and it was quickly determined he had suffered what would be his fourth heart attack. The doctor was quick about getting him into a cardiac catheter suite to get his heart open and running smooth again.

That same doctor arrived at the conclusion after blood tests and an EKG that he was “90 percent” certain I had not experienced heart trouble but given my history — high blood pressure, former smoker, relatives with heart disease, etc. — thought I should be observed overnight. He said that if I was going to have a full-blown heart attack it would likely take place in the first 24-48 hours after chest discomfort. I agreed with his recommendation. The only problem was that I was a Department of Veterans Affairs patient and would have to be looked after at the Houston VA, about 90 miles away.

So, I was loaded up in an ambulance and taken, non-emergency, to Houston. It wasn’t that bad of a trip with the exception of a a few places in which there were some major highway rough spots. I told the paramedic riding in back with me that it was the first time for me to ride in back as a patient. I had been in the back of an ambulance a number of times while training to be an EMT and also after I had become an EMT I had made a few emergency runs with paramedics. It is kind of different seeing the world looking backwards. At least you can see where you have been!

At the VA, I spent about four hours in their emergency room before they put me into a regular room. It was maddening. There was a bell on seemingly every medical machine and/or monitor in that room and it seemed like they all made different noises. Sometimes it would be DING-DING-DING-DING, beep-beep-beep-beep, then DING-beep-DING-beep. God I was glad to get the hell out of there.

I was put into a room and the next morning had a full-blown medical TEAM a’la “Grey’s Anatomy” visited me since this is a teaching hospital for Baylor College of Medicine. A professor came in with a medical student and resident, both of whom had introduced themselves as well as give me separate, in-depth goings over the day before. Several other interns tagged along as well.

The professor amused me somewhat. He started launching into this lengthy discourse about heart sounds after listening to my heart at several different points of my neck and torso. With his lecture he began making various vocalizations as a way to differentiate between the sounds — kind of like how an internal combustion engine sounds at various states of operation and with or without a plug or two missing. It reminded me of this lawn mower repairman we had in my hometown when I was growing up named “Bugger Red.” He used to could make all these noises to point out how the mower should sound or how it might sound if a plug wire was gone or if a manifold gasket was missing and the mower had been driven into a cave full of Jello and struck with a machete.

My nurses weren’t the best in the world either. They were somewhere between indifferent and assh**e deluxe. Finally I had this test in which they injected dye into me which circulated around and wound up in my heart, along with shooting in some medicine that simulates your heart working as if exercised. I think I might have been allergic to something they had shot me with as my lips began swelling. The nurses didn’t seem to think anything about the fact my upper lip looked as if it was containing $20 worth of pennies. Even I could tell it was the result of an allergic reaction and could ultimately lead to a type of shock that can kill you dead. I finally had to call one of these nurses’ superiors, a person who is the top nurse person in the facility. She was none to pleased to hear of just how crappy these nurses were performing.

You have to think about this. I was in the hospital for three nights and none of the nurses offered me a towel with which to take a shower, something this nurse boss asked about and was appalled to find out what had not happen. Also, no one ever changed the sheets the entire time I was there. I thought, in addition to being just plain unsanitary for a hospital, it was just … I don’t know … creepy? And the nurses swab your nose when you come in and out of the hospital for MRSA, in order to track the staph superbug infections. I wonder if the state of their hospitals might contribute to incubation sites for such maladies?

Alas I found out my heart was okay. It’s likely I have an acid reflux problem and probably will be receiving one of those very unpleasant visits by video machinery crawling through my colon fairly soon. But I am okay now. And that’s what is important. Thanks for asking, if you did.