Green

What is it about painting our walls green in homes, offices, schools, and hospitals; dressing our windows, sofas and cushions in green florals; swathing our bathrooms in green wallpaper and towels; and even eating our food on green dishes, that helps the environment? I’d really like to know.

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Two Kitchen Habits, Pet Peeves of Many

I have not witnessed either of these lately, but I know they happen.

1). Putting, placing, or piling dirty dishes in the sink. It’s a good way to turn your favorite flatware into junk metal, break a fancy glass carafe against the porcelain, keep you or anyone else from using the sink for customary acts. One design for counters is to hold whatever dishes and utensils you want them to hold, like dirty dishes, pots and pans, till you can get around to doing something else with them. They won’t be there long. Ever heard of the McSmithandersonjones family? They make a point of having dirty dishes on display on a counter for someone’s dropping in unexpectedly, to give the idea that dinner is over, in which case, the caller won’t stay long. But it doesn’t work quite that way for the O’Brownwigginshiltons. Their unexpected callers think now that dinner is over, the family has time to visit. But the longer they stay, the longer those dirty dishes have to wait, so they’d better be going. No real visit.

The other side of that coin is that when a kitchen is ultra spic-and-span, with never a sign of current civilization showing, you might wonder if anyone there knows anything about really living. If you call yourself a writer but can’t write till you take care of the dishes, then you ain’t a writer, to use one of my favorite words.

2). Storing your plastic containers, that nest so perfectly, into an upper cabinet, where you can easily reach them, and then throwing their lids into a drawer under the counter where crumbs and trash do corrupt. How unsanitary, then, to place one of those lids on a clean container from the upper shelf! If you clean out that drawer every week, you are one in 100,000,069, and may not be living up to your potential. The best idea I’ve heard is the lids should go on the containers right from the dishwasher and stacked in the upper cabinet. You don’t need many. After all, aren’t several in the fridge?

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How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways.


Pine trees are whispering. Aspens are quaking. Willows are weeping their low branches across the grass. Somewhere else.

If one could die of heartbreak—the medical profession says no—I might have died yesterday. Please do not ask me why. This is to say I don’t feel like writing a blog right now.

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Part 5: Who Are You, and Why?

Last night, as I sorted books again for the purpose of giving a batch away, I came across a little volume I had not read (one of several in that category) and decided to read it now. Written by two psychologists, it maintains that your earliest childhood memories explain who you are as an adult and can help change what you don’t like about yourself, if anything. I’ll illustrate with my own childhood’s earliest memories.

At barely the age of three, I remember seeing my younger sister, Ruby Lee, barely one, standing in her crib, crying for mother to take her. She was sick, with each cheek showing a round red spot, indicating fever, I believe. She was wearing a long white dress, as babies wore in those days, even boy babies. Mother was ironing, no more than two or three feet away from the child. My position completed a triangle of our locations. The background of the room behind the crib showed a window and woodwork that was dark brown. In the memory I was not doing anything except observing. I did not feel left out, but a part of the triangle. I knew my eyes were open wide. Lee had double pneumonia and whooping cough, I learned at some point, and my second memory shows a small casket in our front room. To see into it, someone had to lift me. My third earliest memory differed from these first two by my being a performer rather than an observer. Someone, I suppose our mother, got her hands on a ukulele and decided big sister Lucy and I would entertain guests in our home. I was about four then and Lucy eight. I got the ukulele, perhaps the only time in my childhood I got something and Lucy didn’t. An inch-wide light blue ribbon was tied to each end of the instrument and hung around my neck. We sang something similar to “You Are My Sunshine” (but that was not it) while I merely brushed my fingers across the strings. It was great fun but I don’t recall an encore.

I don’t need those psychologists to interpret what those memories show. I was an observer, but not left out. Today I am an observer and don’t feel left out. (I can make my own situations with my imagination.) The first two memories were sad ones and today I cry at any tender moment in my writing, from sorrow or from happiness. If a serious story of mine doesn’t bring my tears, I know something is wrong with it and the reader won’t feel what I feel, and I rewrite. Indeed, famous authors have advised, “Make ’em cry.” As for the dark woodwork, I don't like it at all today, but prefer white trim all around. The third memory was one of performance and today I can perform. That is, I can get up on a platform and speak to a large group of writers. That ability carried me through thirty years of teaching young adults, mostly advanced high school seniors, but also college level, and mainly English.

These psychologists foretell in the book that they can help clients with their problems stemming from bad memories, even weight gain because of low self esteem. The book was advertised for writers and I recommend it to all you writers reading my blog. It is Unlocking the Secrets of Your Childhood Memories by Dr. Kevin Leman and Randy Carlson. I just noticed on the front cover Dr. Leman is the author of The Birth Order Book. I must read that too, for I’m the middle child.

One technique these experts use is to help their clients make their best memories work for them.

Another benefit is you can pass these problems and cures on to your fictional characters and let them suffer a while and triumph.

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Part 4: Vocabulary and Grade Level of Your Writing

The biographical novel about Jack London, called Sailor on Horseback, by Irving Stone, tells of London’s failure to strike gold in the famous 1849 Gold Rush, but his success in mining stories from the prospectors. But hearing their stories and writing them into literature were two different types of achievement. His plan was most likely to get rich, rather than write about other men’s getting rich. He’d been a newspaper correspondent, but again, that is different from writing literature. (Hemingway said in an interview journalism interferes with a writing career.) Anyway, Jack London found himself a bit deficient in the vocabulary he needed. So, what did he do?

According to Stone, London wrote words down with their definitions on little pieces of paper and stuck them around the mirror where he shaved his chin every morning. When he had mastered those, he replaced them with other words. That’s one way, I suppose, but if you shave in your car on your way to work, seek otherwise, for vocabulary is ultra important to the writer.

Other than the study of Latin, perhaps the best way to learn new vocabulary is wide reading of gradually increasing difficulty with a dictionary and a notebook at your fingertips. You could just make a list of those words and look them up later, but if you check them out while reading the text, you’ll have a good example of a word’s use, and understand the story to a greater extent. But successful writers are clever. You must realize when they misuse a word deliberately because of their sense of humor.

Now your own writing to date. If you blog, take a look back. Are most of your words five letters or under? If so, you need to increase your vocabulary. I realize you are not trying to write great literature with your blog, but blogging is practicing the art of writing. Why not try to excel even in it? When you have an unlimited vocabulary to select from, you don’t need to succumb to that host of four-letter words, commonly referred to as “dirty words.” Characters in your stories may use such words, if you’re writing about that sort of people, but you, as author, need not stoop in that depth, even in your blog. Respect yourself!

But be advised: the idea is not to use the longest word possible, but to use the best word possibleand it is often eight or more letters in length.

If your monitor is like mine on the Word Processor which I write these on, at the top you have a check mark with ABC above it. To find the grade level of your writing, highlight a section and click on the ABC. After its checking your spelling, you have the option for readability level and ease. Place a checkmark at that spot and up will come the grade level, the percentage of Passive Voice usage, reading ease, and more. My blog today rates a 9.0 grade level with no passive sentences, a bit low for me.

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Part 3: Write It Down

Before I got out of bed this morning, a dozen or so ideas came to me for today’s blogging. Now, after a late breakfast and email reading, most of those ideas have fled. But by just writing that sentence, I recall one. That is: Write it down. Don’t trust your memory to be available when you want that brilliant idea you had last week, last night, or even fifteen minutes ago. I think it was Virginia Woolf who said, when she had an idea for a story (while she was already working on one, of course), she jotted it down on a piece of paper and stuck it in a drawer. When she was ready to write the next story, she looked into the drawer for the idea. New beginnings come to me all the time, the exact wording of the first sentence, and even the whole first paragraph. This has its problems, unless you do what Woolf did. If I put this idea into my computer by itself, I want to keep going with that story, and I can end up with several stories started simutaneously, with the risk of not finishing any of them. I’ve decided on a better idea, which I recommend. Start a file with a label something like “To Write,” “Starts,” or “Beginnings.” When you get these great ideas for a start─the actual wording of the first sentence, I mean─type it up on a fresh sheet of paper, don’t print it, but place it in the new folder. When you get another such idea, return to that page, skip one space, and type the second idea. Etc. If you approach the matter that way, it will be less likely you will continue writing any of the stories at that time. If it is a really good sentence to start with, it should take you back to what you would have written at home plate, and you now bat for a homer. The idea should be polished enough when you type it up. I have even toyed with the idea of a book of just first paragraphs. Wouldn’t that be silly? If they were any good, someone would say, “Why didn’t she finish this story? It sounds interesting.” And what other writer would want to finish someone else’s story, in the first place, even with permission? Ah! Perhaps it could be a textbook?

Your first paragraph would do well to convey three, four, or all of the senses, but it must not be too obvious. It must be natural. When you are in a public library again, or a good book store, look for Joanne Harris’s novel Coastliners and read the first paragraph. It’s short, detailed, and has at least four of the senses, if my memory serves me right, and all while our character is aboard a boat about to land.

To compose a first polished sentence in your head at first try, you need that imagination already referred to. I don’t know how anyone could want to write and be without it. Perhaps a first sentence in nonfiction will work the same way for those less imaginative. Just be sure you don’t waste the space by telling what you are going to write about. Whatever it is, you just start writing it, without preamble.

In case anyone misunderstood the above, I do not mean writing down an idea for a story, such as, “Meg’s story about her cats,” or “When I was in San Antonio,” but the actual first sentence of the manuscript.

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Part 2: Prose Versus Poetry

Some writers are blessed with two special abilities─writing prose and writing poetry. Many well established authors testify that it’s impossible to excel in both categories at the same time. My guess is that most writers start out as “poets” during their teens, while dreaming of the great American novel they hope to write someday, not realizing a short poem can be as great as a long novel. Brevity or the lack of it, is not a judge of quality. Only a genius could write such a great poem in his teens, and perhaps in any decade that follows. Indeed, the world’s greatest authors are considered geniuses, with Shakespeare at the very top. So far as we know, he wrote only poetry. The experts' opinions on the prose bits in the plays are that other writers wrote those.

So, after the teen years, the fledging writer meets college assignments calling for prose, polished prose. And he may get an F on his first paper, after A’s on his high school writing. (This is not a fault with the college, by the way, but with the high school, and perhaps every grade below that. I’ve seen this happen too many times.) At this point the freshman must accept, consciously or otherwise, that he’s not the great writer he thought he was, and it’s time to buckle down for the real stuff. We’ll come back to poetry in some of these blogs, but now we are still working with fiction. So, how do you start to write a story of fiction? There are two approaches to it, and here is one of the biggest disagreements in the writing world.

Some experts say you should have the basic story in mind, including the ending, and then write it out as fast as you can, before you forget it, paying no attention to your misspellings and other errors, for you’ll catch those in the revision. That is, revisions, plural. You’ve heard revising the story is more work than writing the first draft. That must be because this is the method they swear by. But why write two books? If you are a real writer, you’ll certainly change the fast-written story in revising it.

The other approach is to turn over the reins to the characters right at the beginning, and you watch them and listen to them, see what they see, hear what they hear, etc. Only that. You describe that on paper. That’s my way. I never give characters names, for example, for when I meet them, they already have names, family histories, habits, jobs, dreams, whatever. As I walked down the hall to my study and toward my computer to begin my first novel—with no note cards, no notebook, no charts on the wall—I saw the house to be in the story, and the name “Melanie” came with it. I recognized her as my protagonist, but at that point I did not know her last name. Although I have a niece with the name “Melanie’ and I like her just fine (never see her; she’s in a foreign country somewhere in the States), I didn’t like the name. As I began to type, I changed her name to something else and the story did not begin to get off the ground. I switched to “Melanie” and the story took off. Eventually I learned she was Melanie Withers. I would never have chosen such a name for her. But that stuck too. Recently I noticed under my name on the Net (Who puts all that junk on the Internet?) the name Melanie Withers, and I clicked on it, to find about fourteen ladies with that name, all in England, I think. (I gave this only about two seconds.) Once I started to type the story, I loved my protagonist’s name.

Anyway, to write with this second approach to fiction, that imagination has to be on tap, doesn’t it? But the pleasure is, writing the story once, slowly if you like, but in detail, so that the reader sees, hears, smells, touches, and tastes it all. Of course, you will go back and add an idea, when you learn it, for the character didn’t tell you everything the first time, or it was there and you just didn’t notice it. This method is fun.

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For Beginning Writers, Part 1: Imagination


On the heels of the first showing of “Julie & Julia,” hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans must have begun writing blogs, some daily, as Julie did. Not a bad idea, if one has something to say. One can write about family and enjoy comments from family. Or one can write on a broader subject in an endeavor to reach numerous others not related to one. A subject I have often written about in recent years, and been nationally published on and been paid for, is the field of writing. Ergo, it’s second nature for me to see the errors that pop up in blogs (catching some of my own and changing them). Today I am starting another series, this one addressing blogs to beginning writers or to those who wish to write, even to write just one book. My opinions differ with some of the stuff found in books on writing. But they agree with other books on the subject. Sad to say, the former are in greater abundance. Now I’ll switch to the second person pronoun. And we’ll deal with fiction.

You have heard, “Write about what you know.” I defy that. Write about what you can imagine, as well as know. What we imagine is based on what we know to begin with. Does Stephen King imagine anything when he writes? Does Robin Cook? Elizabeth George? Rosamunde Pilcher? Ridley Pearson? Felix Francis? How about Thomas Hardy, Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen? All of them must burst, or have burst, with imagination coming out of their ears. Well, no, out of their keyboards and pens. When I was little and knew I wanted to write when I grew up, my imagination showed me ideas generating in my brain, traveling down my throat into my right shoulder, down my arm into my fingers and through the pencil. The only trouble with that was there was so much more generation of ideas than there were arms. After I grew up, I was surprised at the number of people I met who had no imagination. How deprived they are! They also don’t get as much from their reading as those with a good dose of imagination working for them.

You cultivate imagination during your childhood. Perhaps you build on some special gene. But don’t lose heart over it, if your imagination isn’t at the bursting point. I have good news for you beginning writers. You can write gorgeous prose without much imagination, if you opt for nonfiction. Imagination helps even in nonfiction but you can do without it and write well. Just be sure you love research and have a plethora of vocabulary.

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Lonely Sunday Afternoon

It’s seldom I experience a lonely Sunday afternoon, perhaps never have in many, many years. But today is lonely, because of disappointment. I’m glad the sun is bright and hot. I don’t want to write. But I’ve dug up a poem for you, written a few months ago. Enjoy!

The Silent Roar ©

A giant conch shell settles in my hands,
its two sharp points undamaged by
the toss and fling of waterpower.
Its meat is gone, it has no pearl,
but enough smooth pink for a dozen cameos.

The enigma is, it holds the roar
of all the seas that I have known,
a roar scientists now say has no link
with blood vessels in the ear:
it is the sound of seas from which it came.

I shall not listen to this treasure’s roar,
to feel again past floodings of my heart.
It is enough to understand the roar exists,
if I but choose. I opt to keep my heart untouched,
for remembrance is too sweet to bear.

Mere holding this temptation in my hands
may wash away the heartaches with the sands.

♥

Better Than a Trip to the Riviera

Think I’ve been away on vacation? Nah, remember Isaac Asimov and me? We’re already there and don’t need to go anywhere. But I have made several trips to Umbria, Italy, in the past few weeks. Remember that film I mentioned (I think), “My House in Umbria,” starring Maggie Smith? That movie, even with its tragedies, is so soothing after a television talk-show when everyone talks at once, that I often succumb to this particular DVD. It’s good for a writer to see certain films more than once, to drain every nuance out of them to store in one’s brain. Comedies don’t often fit into the category meant here, but adventure, drama, and the like, from which we learn the lessons of life and the psychology of humankind, a necessity for fiction writers. Some people say they get everything out of a film with just one viewing. They may think they do, but I don’t believe it. When asked about certain little, but important to the plot, elements that one could miss with just one showing, too many of them have failed the test. So I watch a really good movie several times. If I don’t understand some dialogue, I mute it and read the captions.

At one place in “Umbria,” the lady says, “That’s not even my real name.” I picked up on that. I’d heard that before in a film, and the emphasis in the voice was exactly the same as in the other voice in the other film. I fast-forwarded my thinking and recalled the other speaker, the other line, and the other film. It’s “The Day of the Jackal,” with the lady in it saying, “He doesn’t even know my real name.” This actress is a French one and I don’t know her name either, along with the murderer’s not knowing it. (Even though we are talking about two “real” names here.) So, what’s the worth of all that kind of effort? It’s an exercise for the brain, one of those little triggers that help to keep one’s memory alive. And it’s fun.

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Bet you Haven’t Heard This

Today the word “love” is tossed around as if it were a salad without its dressing, a bit here and a bit there, with not much flavor. “I love you” has become the way to say “goodbye” over the telephone, or even “Love ya.” The more the word is used, the less it means. The only kind of love worth anything is unconditional love, and that’s not in these expressions.

When my generation was growing up, love had a different meaning. We seldom heard the word, except in church, but we knew we were loved at home. Actions assured us of that and we needed no other proof. That generation, mine, was a tough one, I suppose, but also called the greatest. Today married couples can go a long time without saying in words, “I love you,” if they really love each other. It is felt by a look; in private conversation; by inexpensive gifts, just because “I saw this cute little thing and I thought of you;” by sharing something of value, such as a paragraph of one’s reading or a bite of one’s favorite food for it’s so good; and simply by touching. But if any of these actions are planned or rehearsed, they will fall flat. Love is the reason; spontaneity is the means; and reciprocation is the result. Have a nice day!

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Family and Fun

My family members who are followers of this blog haven’t commented lately, but I know they are busy getting ready to come to Idaho for their annual family vacation at McCall, and that includes getting little children ready for the trip. One of them has written in his own blog that McCall is the best place on earth to be. Maybe so, for him, but I’d opt for Sun Valley, except it might have changed too much since I was last there. According to novelist Ridley Pearson, who has a “killer” series going with the settings in the Sun Valley area, the place doesn’t seem as good as it did on my visits there. Pearson lives in nearby Hailey part of the time, and surely knows what Sun Valley is currently like. I used to take my German Club from school to the resort in the winter so that they could ski and ice skate with German spoken around them, for instructors, or whoever they were, came from German-speaking countries.

Did you know German is spoken by more countries in Europe, or parts of countries, as a native language, than any other language? Five countries or parts, I think: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein. Well, when this first got my attention, Germany was divided into two countries. So, East Germany would have been number five.

Now a note for would-be writers, or beginners. A writer, with the imagination he was born with, should never wonder what in the world to write about. Rather, the problem, if any, should be, deciding which of his many ideas to choose. But if you are not blessedor cursedwith a deluge of ideas, playing mental games can help sometimes. Here’s one to try. Imagine you’re in a modern fairy tale in a good-sized town that you know well. Select five businesses in the town that you imagine you own. Which ones would they be? Since I don’t know your choices, let me list mine (remember, it’s a fairy tale): the Lincoln car dealership, Barnes and Noble super store, Ennis Fine Furniture store, Macy’s department store, and Elmer’s restaurant on Capitol Boulevard. Now, think about each one, not for long, just a moment or two, and one of them may inspire you as the locale for a story, or even a plot. Mix them up too. For example, a man could pick up his new Lincoln, and on his way to lunch with his wife at Elmer’s, stop in at Barnes and Noble for a certain book he wants, waits for his wife to find a DVD she wants, begins to get irritated, and the last straw of this scenario is that after lunch, she wants to go to Ennis to look at the latest furniture, he refuses, then she has to stop at Macy’s, for all her underwear is wearing under, oops, I mean wearing out. He guns it away from Macy’s and a policeman gives him a ticket. See? You’re on your way. Well, this might work if you write crime fiction, but perhaps you’re more poetically inclined. What can we do with these five businesses in what is called a literary or mainstream story? Let’s try.

The young widow Clarice picks up her new Continental, drives slowly away, mourning the death of her husband who wrecked their old Lincoln when he killed himselfaccidentally, by the wayand goes to Macy’s to choose a little black dress for the funeral. She sees her old professor of library science there, and he tries to console her and mentions a certain book she should read. She thanks him and goes straight to Barnes and Noble and buys the book, can hardly wait to get into it, which she will do at Elmer’s, while she waits for her German pancake which will take some time to cook. She reads in the book, if the deceased had a room of his own, an office, or a bedroom, the survivor needs to rearrange the furniture and perhaps replace it with other furniture. Not to forget the one lost, but just to relieve the ache of losing him. She drives to Ennis Fine Furniture and chooses new items for his former office, and for the master bedroom itself. She adds a cheerful, floral chaise longue, for one thing. Because she owns the store, the furniture is delivered the same day. The writer supplies the emotions involved, the dialogue, the vocabulary, and exposition that make this story mainstream. Try it. You can do it.

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Curtain Call

In 1979 Hopkins covered many city blocks, at least twenty, if memory serves me right, with tall buildings, and some units underground. When we walked there from the Sheraton, we entered by the main door of the original building. The first thing we saw every day was a larger-than-life carving (marble, I think) of Christ. It was an inspiration to many, including me. From that point we walked much farther to get to the oncology building. We arrived there the first of November, but I recall a delightful display of many colors of coleus growing along the walks, an almost unbelievable sight of beauty. Remembering that scene brought to mind that Phil, Mike, and I had made a brief trip there in late summer, for Phil to be checked and pre-registered for the transplant, and Mike’s marrow to be tested by their own labs. During that short stay, we saw another pro baseball game, when we rooted for the Chicago White Sox.

Phil had one night with us at The Sheraton before he checked into the hospital. If you are picturing a tall, grand hotel, you are wrong. This one had only two or three stories, not located in the best section of Baltimore. But thanks to the program of Ronald McDonald House, we had rates we could afford for an extended period of time. Families of patients were instructed to call for a security car for transport to and from between the hours of 5:00 p. m., and 7:00 a. m. If desired, also at other times. This vehicle took us right to the front door of the oncology building.

Around midnight one time, when I was headed back to the hotel, a security car arrived and the driver stepped out of the car and called what I thought was “Rinard.” Three other ladies that I had been talking with and I all moved forward to get into the car. Then we stopped and looked at each other. Turned out, their name was “Rinehart,” a mother and two married daughters. Their patient was the woman’s husband and the younger women’s father, not in oncology, but cardiology. It was they who had called for this car and I waited for the next one. I might add, these ladies were such that one would not mind being related to them.

The days became routine with tests and more tests. My journal filled with numbers: Phil’s temperature, heart rate, white count, etc., some of these recorded every hour. I did not sit beside his bed all the time, and needed to find other things to do. When he had the chance to sleep, I saw a bit more of the historic hospital. In the gift shop, I bought a coffee mug for Phil, his request, though he didn’t drink coffee, and I purchased a book on the hospital’s history. I visited the medical library where several doctors and doctors-in-training studied in extreme silencevoluntary, it seemedwith a huge painting of famous former doctors who’d taught there, looking down on them. What an ambiance that big room had! It was as though all the medical knowledge in the world was in that room and momentarily, I wanted to be a doctor. I discovered an additional place to eat, besides the cafeteria. And since I was missing my regular eye check-up back home, I decided to have it done right there at Hopkins’s famous eye clinic. I did not have to wait for a later date, as I usually did in Boise, but had the check-up right then, when I first asked. The doctor wanted to know why I was at Hopkins when I lived in Idaho. I told him about Phil. At the end of the examination, the doctor said there was no charge. What a place! In a waiting room I met a lady who lived in Baltimore, and whose brother-in-law was a patient at Hopkins. We talked together every day and at Christmas time, she volunteered to purchase for us a hot-air corn popper for Phil. Some of the evenings I told Phil what I had learned about the hospital that day. When it seemed the thing to do, I sat by his bed and read to him, usually from the Bible.

One night when only Gooch was the other family there, he made contact with a man met through his job and the three of us had dinner at a large, busy, unique restaurant. It must have been famous and perhaps is there still. Every inch of the high walls that could take a painting held a painting, dozens and dozens of them. The waitresses were older ladies, I mean in their 60s perhaps, really dressed up and made up like society mavens and seemingly unaware of their own charm. Service was simple. We could choose our protein from a long list and two vegetables from a much longer list. Just about anything you could think of was on these lists. Of course, I enjoyed the evening, but every once in a while I had a catch in my throat, thinking of Phil, and what we were in Baltimore for. I could hardly wait to get back to him. That was the only time I ate “out” while in Baltimore. Meals were other times at the hospital, and once at the hotel, but that was no good and we never returned to it. As Phil could eat about anything he wanted, twice I ate with him in his room. But I tried not to smother him with my presence.

We were counting down the days till time for the transplant itself. Mike returned and went through actual surgery in giving his bone marrow. He needed a day of recuperation in hospital too. John returned, bringing Mike’s wife and three-months-old Mikey with him. The baby could not be in the oncology unit itself, but we visited him in a waiting room, that at that time of day was also a sunroom.

The transplant took place and new testings began. At times we were encouraged. Things looked good. Once Phil walked around the middle section where all the offices and labs were located, as I rolled along the IV pole. We passed an open doorway and saw his current doctor, who looked up from her work. She came to the door and said, “My, I didn’t know you were so tall.” He was six feet, two inches.

Phil was never able to make that walk again or perhaps he opted not to, for it was too tiring. Things gradually took a turn for the worse and both brothers returned to Baltimore to give platelets. A picture exists of these two big guys, side by side on separate beds, with tubes attached during the process.

Of the three brothers, Phil was the quietest, the most reserved, the one with the deepest voice, a bass voice. When he gave up the idea of being an athlete himself, he considered being a sportscaster. During his senior year of school, in the “Program for Accelerated Learners,” a local television sportscaster gave him an assignment to watch, without sound, a game on television and record his calls. His score was “extraordinarily good.” Eventually he had to give up that dream and settle for his second choice of field, architecture, which ran in the family’s veins. He pre-registered at Boise State, but before his freshman year started there, we were planning the trip to Baltimore.

With all these set-backs, Phil never complained. Not once. He was a thinker more than a talker, except, of course, if the subject was baseball. We never really knew what was going on in his mind; however, we communicated. Sometimes, as I sat beside his bed, his hand rested on my arm. Nothing needed to be said. Sometimes, and more often than the reverse, my hand rested on his. One had to be careful in touching him, for he hurt. One can assume he thought of the first doctor who told him dying from leukemia was painless. He found it not so. But perhaps the doctor did not have in mind a bone marrow transplant, surely not if the patient was to die within two months, as he had predicted.

One of the hardest sights to endure was seeing Phil on a respirator with his blue eyes opened unusually wide, seeming to ask for answers. It must have been a thousand times harder for him to endure this than for me to watch it. That possibly could have been the first assurance to Phil that he would die. But that lasted only for twenty-four hours and they took it away. Some sort of test perhaps. So our hopes were up a bit more then but were not to last.

The transplant began to show it had not worked. Perhaps the staff knew this earlier on, but they did not inform us. Their gentle care continued as usual but their summons increased. On his last Sundaystop reading here if you don’t want to hear something really bad and sadI watched as Phil vomited up the transplant or the platelets, or both, in a solid red strip about six inches wide, which the nurse cut with scissors to stop it. I knew then further medical aid was non-existent. Although the decision was difficult to make, I prayed that God would take him soon. I had no doubt as to where his sweet soul would go, for Phil was a Christian. I called John to come, and Mike and Susan were still there. I read again to him the twenty-third psalm and Phil died around twenty-four hours later with all of us there, except Gooch who could not get away to make the trip.

Now go back to my blog for June 28 to get the rest of this story. What a different mood I was in then, while now I sit here crying. I had no idea of writing this series on that date, but am glad I did, for so many of you have responded in various ways. Just writing it caused me to recall episodes I hadn’t thought about for some time. After all, Phil died thirty years ago. If he had survived, he would be almost 49 now. But I shall always see him as age 19.

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Last Chance

The day came when the only treatment left for Phil was a bone-marrow transplant. We three drove to Seattle to visit the Hutchinson Center that had a good reputation for leukemia treatment. We learned this place had a waiting list, and Phil could not wait that long. But they recommended Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, a much larger facility. The transplant itself and Phil’s hospital stay, plus even his travel, were covered by insurance. But the family’s traveling, hotel, food, etc., were not covered. Twentieth Century Lanes, where Phil’s bowling team spent their Saturdays, came to the rescue and sponsored a fund-raising drive, for the family had to be there. Phil’s brother Mike was the bone marrow donor, and Gooch and Mike both gave platelets at various times. I took leave from teaching and was with Phil all the time he was there, and John made two or three trips. Susan was in Europe, but she soon joined us in Baltimore at her own expense.

The drive included a marathon run sponsored by St. Alphonsus Hospital in Boise, all the mulligan proceeds from the Danny Thompson Annual Golf Tournament at Sun Valley (where Phil had the thrill of meeting Hank Aaron, who gave him a new baseball and autographed it), and contributions from hundreds of individuals, organizations, and companies. When we were ready to leave for Baltimore, the money was there. How wonderful Americans are, in the time of need. We received the names of the donors. A large percentage of them did not know us, yet gave generously.

In addition, thousands of people across the country were praying for Phil. Again, many were strangers, probably most of them. That sort of thing can’t be measured. I’ve no doubt these prayers were answered, for we are taught to pray, “Thy will be done.” While we mere human beings wanted and lacked reasons, God knew what He was doing when he took Phil and He did not have to give us an explanation.

Writing this tonight, July 4th, is a bit tough. I’m going to try to finish the story in one more blog. To be continued.

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Forks in the Road

During Phil’s last two years of high school, we tried all the well known treatments available to us for leukemia. One summer I took him to Kankakee, Illinois, for hydrotherapy, which was getting some good results, though we never heard the end of any patient’s story. An acquaintance from Boise, Bernice Howell, was also in Kankakee at that time, and we had lunch and/or dinner together. I prepared breakfasts for Phil and me in the kitchenette of our hotel suite. I recall purchasing a sharp knife for slicing potatoes to fry for Phil. I still have that knife.

From Kankakee, we flew to Nashville and stayed as guests at a cousin’s house for two days. Phil enjoyed spending time with his two second cousins, SuJean and Faye. While there Phil developed a terrific headache. Instructions were to call his oncologist if anything like this happened. We got the number of a Nashville pharmacy and then I called his doctor in Boise. The prescription was called in and we picked it up. That took care of the headache, but I wanted to get Phil home, closer to his doctor.

That summer we also had another trip to southern California for more Laetrile. This was a shorter stay than that of the year before. Even with regular chemotherapy and the Laetrile, the relapses continued to occur. Then we heard of a doctor in Greece who treated leukemia patients, and a friend of ours took his wife there for treatment of her brain tumor. He highly recommended it for Phil. His wife seemed to be and tested out to be so much better. We read a book the Greek doctor wrote and opted for the trip to Athens. At first, John had in mind I would accompany Phil, but I pointed out that if Phil got sick there and went into a public rest room, I could not be with him. He could faint in there. That convinced John he needed to travel.

While it was a long plane ride, with a stopover in Rome, the trip to Athens had some highly interesting features. Our daughter Susan, who was modeling fashions in Europe at the time, joined them for a few days. They discovered Athens came alive at night, when everyone was out on the streets. The first night this started when John was just going to bed. What a surprise from the noises on the street. So they began to go out and observe what was going on. People walked to get somewhere while others just stood or sat to visit friends and acquaintances. They did a little shopping too. John brought me and our daughters-in-law beautiful black vases with depictions of Greek figures (gods?) in 24-carat gold. Phil bought a gift for his bookkeeping teacher, who had given him money to spend on himself while there.

They were gone a month and arrived home on Christmas day, rather night, around midnight. I had prepared a big Christmas dinner for midnight, not knowing if they would even be interested in food at that hour. Sleep proved to be more inviting, but the food was tempting. They did eat lightly. Along with some family members, there were guests presentthe couple who had gone to Greece earlier, for the brain tumor treatment. A short time later, this lady died from brain cancer and Phil was back with his chemotherapy and Laetrile.

To be continued.

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Easy Over the Bumps

Laetrile probably did more for Phil than just avert nausea, for he went through four remissions, an almost unheard-of achievement for his type of cancer at that time, and likely now too. Each relapse brought the tragic condition back with fresh heartaches and efforts on our part to make him well. Before school opened the fall of his junior year, I petitioned the school board in the district where I taught to allow Phil to attend my school in case of relapse during school hours. We offered to pay tuition. The board replied that Phil could attend my school and without paying anything.

Twice in those years relapse did manifest itself during school hours. Others took over my classes for the rest of the day and we went straight to hospital for a new routine of chemotherapy. When we got into the car, with him lying on the back seat, he said, and only once was enough, “Mom, go easy over the bumps.” Before we first went to Mexico for treatment, Phil was allowed to eat anything he wanted. I have a picture of him, fully dressed, halfway reclining on his bed, with the first oncologist fiddling with the IV, and Phil’s supper waiting in front of him: two high-stacked hamburgers and two cartons of milk. After Mexico, he left off all meat but fish, all cow’s milk, all cheese, and gave up the favorite food of teenagers all over Americapizza. One day after school he ate six whole grapefruit. One weekend he ate most of what I think is called a flat of strawberries. He drank goat’s milk and ate bread. He laughed over the “meatloaf” I tried to make from wheat germ. But we ate it. John and I did our best to stay with Phil’s diet for ourselves and not eat in his presence such dishes as ice cream and cheese. Once a year, after the bowling season finished, Phil celebrated with his team with just one slice of pizza and a big salad. I might add, also with a big team trophy. The last traveling trophy displayed in our house was just over two feet tall.

Phil was an excellent math student and with his interest in sports and creating games, he designed and built in his shop class a chessboard table for four players, with drawers to hold the chess pieces. The judge(s) marked him down for not having a nice, shiny finish on the top of it. He was furious, for he had deliberately given it a dull finish so that a shine would not interfere with the players’ vision during a game. But a contestant was not allowed to explain anything to the judges before the competition began. Phil had a high IQ and could be impatient with the likes of those dumb judges. Isn’t October 17 under Libra, those scales, remember?

In his senior year Phil made a plain, oak wall system to hold his books, trophies, and games. Years later, I respectively gave Gooch and Mike the wall system and the chess table. I have no idea where these items are today, or in what condition they are. I would like to think they preserved them and protected them, but I am afraid to ask, for my children have moved around from city to city so often.

To be continued. It’s Thursday, the day I go out. Several appointments today.

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