Category Archives: Personal

Two bikes

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When I started at Georgia State University in 1971, after the first quarter I roomed with my friend Tom in an apartment a few miles from the campus. Georgia State is in the heart of downtown Atlanta, not far from the capitol building. There is no parking anywhere near the campus. At that time, students were allowed to park in lots near the stadium, about a mile away. If you wanted to park on campus, you had to ride a bicycle. So I did. I bought a cheap, heavy 10-speed from Sears. It was about as crude as a bicycle can be, but I rode it almost every day until I graduated in 1973. I rode it rain or shine, cold or hot, in heavy traffic or light.

After graduation in the spring of 1973, I got a job as a newspaper reporter in Augusta, Ga., on The Augusta Chronicle (the “The” is part of the name). I started running then, but I still wanted to ride a bike, so I got some bicycling magazine review editions and decided on a Peugeot PX-10E. It was a nice, mid-level bike, not the cheapest and not the most expensive, not the best and not the worst. But it rated pretty highly, and I liked it. So I saved my money. That summer I found one and paid $270 for it, exactly twice my weekly salary.

Here it is.

My old Peugeot, without a front tire

My old Peugeot, without a front tire

This was a pretty serious bicycle at the time. It had tubular tires, also called sew-ups or glue-on tires. They were the lightest bicycle tire you could use. The tire had thin edges instead of a hard bead that holds it to the rim. It was sewn up around an inner tube that was so thin you could almost see through it. And then, since it didn’t have a bead, the tire was glued to the rim. I read that it was possible to repair a flat on one of these tires, but I never tried. I always just got a new tire and glued it on.

The seat was made of the hardest leather I have ever felt. The bicycling magazines said this was the best type of seat. They said if you rode enough, it would soften and shape itself to your own shape. I do not believe this. I soaked it in oil, pounded it with a hammer and drilled holes into it. It was still as hard as a block of wood. If I had tried to ride on that saddle long enough to soften it, I am sure I would have had serious, permanent nerve damage in my groin. I gave up and replaced it with a softer saddle.

Since it was French, it could have only French components. The derailleurs worked well enough as long as they lasted, but eventually they just sort of fell apart. Since they were French, of course a modern Japanese rear derailleur wouldn’t just bolt on. I had to jury rig it.I’ And eventually I got tired of replacing tires, so I switched the rims for clinchers, the standard type of bicycle wheel and tire that you see on virtually every bicycle today. It’s hard for me to believe now, but I actually laced the spokes to the new rim, tightened them and trued the wheels all by myself. I did a pretty good job, too.

I rode my Peugeot for a long time. When I quit the newspaper business and went back to school at Georgia Tech, I found a place to live that was only a few miles from school, and I commuted on my bike again. When I got a job in Huntsville, Al., in 1986, I brought my bike with me. When my knees started giving me problems, I started biking instead of running. At that time I rode a 20-mile course and at times actually averaged 20 mph over the course. It was nothing compared to a real bicyclist. I knew one at work who put more miles on his bike than on his car.

After riding my Peugeot for 20 years, I bought new bike. I got this Trek in about 1993.

My "new" bike

My “new” bike

I can’t remember how much I paid for it. I’m sure it was several times what the old Peugeot cost, but I guess spending the money then just didn’t make as big an impact on me as it did in 1973.

It has an aluminum frame instead of steel. When I first rode it I was surprised at how much better it felt than the old Peugeot. I haven’t ridden since summer before last, but I’m sure when the weather gets warmer again I will pick it up. This area is very popular with bicyclists. They like climbing Fouche Gap Road, and the ride around Texas Valley is nice.

As you can see, I kept the Peugeot. I haven’t ridden it since I got the Trek, but I just can’t bring myself to get rid of it. The Trek is my current bicycle, and I’m pretty sure it will be my last. Maybe one day when I get old and decrepit and I’ll sell both of them. Or maybe not.

Big Yellow Taxi

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Updated: See below

My parents were married 70 years ago today on November 23*, 1943, right in the middle of the United State’s participation in WW II.

I don’t have many pictures of them together during the years before and after they got married. I have posted a couple, but this is my favorite. I’m not sure when or where it was taken, but I think it was after they were married because I think I can see a ring on my mother’s ring finger. I guess it was after the war, possibly when they lived in Akron, Ohio.

Bo and Doris sitting on a tree

Bo and Doris sitting on a tree

They were young when they got married. My father had turned 26 in August, and my mother wouldn’t be 21 until January. Today I think of people that age as kids.

Here is a really blurry picture of my mother lying on a bed. It’s possible this was taken in one of the disreputable apartments they had to live in while my father continued his military training.

Lounging around

Lounging around

She’s just a kid.

The only time I ever did anything for them on their anniversary was for their 50th. I was living in Huntsille, Al. On that day at work I called a florist in Rome and ordered 50 roses for them. My mother said they thought the delivery guy would never stop bringing in roses.

They had been married 56 years when my father died.

It’s hard for me to internalize the fact that they got married that long ago. Of course I showed up only about six and a half years later in 1950, so I have memories that go back almost that far, uncertain though they may be. But since my mother died earlier this year, they both seem to be fluttering away like a yellowed newspaper clipping that slips out a car window. They are disappearing into a faded and dim history, and they are going fast. I can remember them but I can’t hold on to them.

At the same time, distance and my own age let me think of them not as Mother and Daddy, but as individuals who had a life independent of me. (Despite the fact that I am the center of the universe, they were around and doing things before I even existed.) That’s one reason I like to look at old photographs of them, long before they got old and sick and weary.

Maybe what Joni Mitchell sang is true: You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

* My parents had a good-natured, running disagreement about the date of their wedding anniversary. My mother always thought it was on November 22 or 24, but my father said it was on November 23. Or maybe she thought it was November 23. I can’t remember.

UPDATE

I had intended to call or email my brother before I wrote this post to ask whether he remembered the true date of our parent’ anniversary, but I waited around until it was too late. I spoke to him today (Nov 23) and it he said he would check to see whether he could find their marriage certificate. He did.

The evidence

The evidence

It turns out that I got sucked into the running disagreement. Their marriage license shows that they were married on November 24, 1943. So, please reread this post on Sunday, November 24.

It is a little strange that the license says “as appears on record in my office in Marriage Record book … April 1946.” That’s three and a half years after they were married. Did they lose the original license? Did they not get it when they were married? Did the marriage record book have a mistake, and the true date was, say, November 23? Was there some delay in getting the information to the county ordinary’s office? Did my mother mistakenly fix November 23 in her mind during the three years they apparently didn’t have a license? I guess we’ll never know.

By the way, the name of the county ordinary at the bottom of the license is Harry Johnson. I went to school with his son, Harry Johnson Jr.

Captured on film

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Once upon a time, long ago when young men wore beards, pumpkins were much larger than they are today. One day I went hunting these great pumpkins with my friend Dan. We found one in a back yard in Rome, far from its natural habitat of fields and farms, and we documented it so that no one could doubt our find.

Dan, behind a great pumpkin

Dan, behind a great pumpkin

The quality of this photograph is degraded because of the primitive printing process of the disreputable underground newspaper in which it was printed, to a certain extent because of the scanning process required to extract the image from a yellowed cutout from the paper, and also because the original image quality was not great. That last was because the skittish nature of great pumpkins in the wild did not allow for much time to calculate the optimal exposure.

No pumpkins or people were injured in the production of this image. The pumpkin was released as soon as we got the photograph. It was last seen hiding in a pie crust.

Dan went on to become a surgeon and my brother in law, probably not because of but in spite of the widespread dissemination of this image in the questionable media. I went on to leave the newspaper, come back again, and then leave again, finally and for good. I have never again seen a pumpkin of this size, although that does depend at least in part on one’s perspective.

 

Zoll

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Zoll Lifecor Corp. is the manufacturer of the wearable defibrillator that I got on Thursday. Here I am wearing it.

The defibrillator, hidden

The defibrillator, hidden

I’m wearing my doberman shirt. The picture looks a lot like Bella, my second dobie. All you can see of the defibrillator is the control unit at my waist and the wire that goes from it to the bra.

Here it is, revealed.

Peek-a-boo

Peek-a-boo

It’s like a bra, only backwards. You can see a wire on my right leading to one of the sensors. One of the shock units is over my left chest.

Here it is from the back.

Back view.

Back view

You can see the other two shock units on the upper part. One of the sensor units is on my left side. It’s a round puck.

And here’s the control unit.

Control unit at my waist

Control unit at my waist

The control unit has a thin, adjustable strap that I’m wearing around my waist. It’s almost the right size, but just a little long. It can also be lengthened and worn over the shoulder. I have been doing that occasionally, but it’s not comfortable. In fact, the unit is not at all comfortable. It’s bulky and it makes my back feel pretty warm, even on what has turned out to be two fairly cold days. Its bulk makes driving uncomfortable. And, of course, I have to do something with the control unit in order to get my seatbelt around my waist. I have been unhooking the strap and putting the control unit on the center console.

Thursday night was the first night I spent in the vest. There’s no forgetting that it’s there. If a woman’s bra is anywhere near as uncomfortable as this thing, I don’t see how women can wear them.

Zoll is supposed to send a second vest, because they recommend washing the one you wear every couple of days. I understand why. As I said, it’s pretty warm even when I’m not moving around. When I am active, it gets even warmer. That means sweat.

And now I’m itching underneath it.

I’m thinking this is not going to get much easier. If it were something I had to wear for a week, I would probably be fairly good natured about it. But it looks like this is going to be my full-time undergarment for about a month and a half. That’s when I get my next echocardiogram, which should tell us whether my heart function is improving. If not, I give up the wearable defibrillator and possibly get an implantable device. If so, I give up the vest and get medication for the rest of my life.

All the medical people I have dealt with seem to think this is a wonderful invention. Zoll seems quite proud of it. In principle it does seem like a wonderful thing. For people who are at risk of some kind of sudden, deadly cardiac arrhythmia, it provides a reasonable, immediate, always-there chance of the kind of life-saving electrical stimulation that a portable defibrillator gives. What’s not to like?

I remain skeptical about my need for it. From what I have read online, I have at least one major indicator of a risk for the kind of cardiac event this equipment is supposed to treat. But everything I read about this wearable unit also seems to refer to its use by people who have already suffered such an event, or who are in actual heart failure. I haven’t, and I’m not. I am also just a little bit cynical about it. If it works as advertised, I am pretty sure it could save a life, maybe even my own. But I also think it’s an expensive treatment option (which I assume my insurance will cover), and the cynic in me suspects money may be part of the motivation.

But maybe that’s just me being extra grumpy.

If I have to fly, which I don’t expect, this unit is going to be a problem. Zoll gave me a patient ID card for that kind of thing. This is what it says:

“The card bearer is wearing a LifeVest wearable defibrillator prescribed by his/her physician because he/she is at high risk of dying suddenly. The device is intended to automatically treat sudden cardiac death events, which occur with no warning. The LifeVest should be worn continuously, only being removed for a short shower.”

That’s reassuring. And I don’t even get a long, hot shower.

 

 

 

Not nearly as sexy as you’d think

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I got fitted for a bra tonight.

Of course it was special, unisex bra, with an electronic control unit, batteries and electrodes. It sounds way kinkier than it really was.

You may remember that I posted earlier about a heart rhythm problem, an echocardiogram and a heart catheterization. Today I saw the cardiologist who did the heart catheterization, and he ordered a wearable defibrillator for me. Tonight at about 8, after Leah and I had finished our dinner but were still cleaning up, there was what might have been a timid knock at the door and the dog alarms went off. I didn’t think anyone was really at the door, so I opened it to show the dogs that no one was there. Only someone was there. It was a nurse who moonlights fitting wearable defibrillators.

When I told the nurse that I was surprised that she had shown up the same day as my appointment, she said that if I had been an in-patient, they would not have released me without this device. The doctor said he knows at least one patient whose life was saved by one.

The doctor had called it a vest, and then said it was really more like a bra. And it was. It looked a lot like a bra, but one designed for either a secret agent or a cyborg. It has three rectangular, metallic pads that fit into pockets on the back. These apparently are the shock pads. It has four round pads that fit onto the front. These apparently are the sensors. It also has a bulky control unit that I guess hangs from a shoulder strap. All of these components are wired to the control unit. When the control unit senses a dangerous fibrillation, it sends a signal to the pads, which produce a shock, thereby, one hopes, causing the heart to resume a more regular rhythm.

The doctor said, and she repeated, that this defibrillator is supposed to be worn 24 hours a day, taken off only to change the battery once a day and when I take a shower.

The doctor said that some types of exertion might fool the control unit, so it gives a warning before it shocks. He said that if I’m conscious and feel OK, I’ll have a chance to cancel the shock.

The control unit looks way too big for a piece of modern electronic equipment. I was trying to think of some common object that’s about the same size, but I can’t. It’s a lot bigger than, for example, an iPhone; maybe it’s about the size of four iPhones. It would benefit from a little engineering by a company like Apple.

I like to think of myself as a rational person, and I suppose I am fairly stoic about unpleasant necessities. There are a lot of things that happen that simply cannot be changed, so there’s no practical reason to worry or complain about them.

But I have to admit that this is kind of getting to me. When my father used to complain about all the pills he had to take, I would tell him he should consider himself lucky that all that medication is available today. The doctor told me that if he were in my condition, he would wear one of these defibrillators. And now I understand why my father didn’t want to hear what I told him. I didn’t really want to hear the doctor say he would wear one when it’s not even a remote possibility that he will have to.

I don’t want to wear the damned thing. It’s going to be like wearing a fishing vest and carrying a pair of binoculars around all day long, and then sleeping with them. I think it’s also at least partly coming face-to-face with my own mortality. No one has ever told me before that I need to have some kind of medical intervention because of the imminent possibility of death. It’s too sudden, and too different, and too unexpected. Heart disease has always seemed like a problem that old people, and especially other, people have. I’m not an old guy, and I used to be a runner. Doesn’t that count for anything?

I’ve also always had the understanding that I was going to be the first person not to have to die.

And then after all this, the control unit was defective. I have to wait till Thursday to get a replacement.