An American Hero

A little something different for this Memorial Day. I wrote this piece about five years ago and truth be told I meant to post it again a few weeks ago on the first anniversary of Jim's passing. Memorial Day seems like a good choice for a second chance.

Today we remember the one small step for man and that giant leap for mankind. Rightfully so we celebrate Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins. Their voyage to the moon and back is legendary, the stuff of American heroes. Much will be written and spoken about them today. In-between all the where are they nows and the looking backs, I’d like to take a moment to talk about someone else entirely. 

I’d like to talk about another American. His name is Jim Freshour and he didn't go to the moon. Instead in the mid 1960’s he got to pack up and move from Sunnyvale California to Huntsville Alabama. The mid 1960’s. Huntsville Alabama. He didn't go to the moon, he went to a whole new planet. And he took his family along with him. 

Those of you my age or older may recall that Huntsville Alabama was dubbed “Rocket City USA” back then. From all over the country came young engineers and scientists to work on the absurd challenge that a martyred president had put forth; to put a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth by the end of the decade. And as if it weren't crazy enough that all these over-educated, underpaid, slide rule gunslingers were plopped down in the middle of the segregated South, they ludicrously were led by a group of former Nazi bomb makers who had just a few years earlier been trying their best to bury London under a blitz of V2 rockets. The whole lot of them were met by a welcome wagon of race baiting, fifteen year olds in the sixth grade, tobacco chewing, George Wallace loving, reddest of redneck natives. 

The Cold War meets Jim Crow. What a sight that must have been. 

Jim did his job. Every morning he went off to work and every afternoon the ground around Huntsville would shake with the testing of the thunder he had created. Every evening he would come home and play with his children and avoid talking about what he had done at work all day. Like everyone else imported to Huntsville, Jim couldn't talk about what he did. The constraints of national security made the merest whisper of what was said or done in the buildings behind the fencing on “that side” of town not simply local gossip, but a matter of treason. 

Everyone knew what those rockets with their red glare were really about. Oh getting a man to the moon was nice, a good story to tell the kids, but what we were really saying to our vodka swilling competitors across the ocean was “Don’t mess with us. If we can put one of these on the moon we can sure as hell land one in Moscow packed with a multiple kiloton nuclear surprise.” 

It’s a beautiful day in Dr. Strangelove’s neighborhood. 

So secrecy ruled the day. Scientists and engineers are not by nature communicative types. The guise of the absent minded professor is a socially acceptable way to avoid human interaction and they like it that way. It’s easier to appear to be lost in the clouds thinking great thoughts than to have to hold a conversation with the next door neighbor. However deep down inside, even the professor needs to reach out to other humans; being unable to can make a life difficult. When life turns difficult there are any number of coping mechanisms that we humans have. Some find comfort in religion. Back then it was hard to be a Baptist in the deep South. Having a Catholic wife made it even more difficult. Compromising on Presbyterian didn’t seem to do the trick. But there is something about that communion wine… 

Alcohol is another coping mechanism. The history of the space program (on both sides) is filled with a roster of Bill W.’s friends and unfortunately many who should have been but never made it to the meetings. Jim fell into that vat and it took many years, a divorce, and many tears for him to finally crawl out again. Still he never talked about what he did. And as the years passed and his kids wanted to know just what it was he did for a living, the simple answer was “I work for (insert name of military contractor)” followed by silence. Asking what he did for (insert name of military contractor) would elicit no further communication. When asked who built the ships that made it possible for men to scramble across the surface of the moon the answer was always (insert name of military contractor).

So while the fly-boys got the cover of Life Magazine and the visits to the White House, Jim and all the thousands of other Jims just like him sunk into the anonymity of the corporate structure and national security. They never got the recognition for their accomplishments. They didn’t get to ride the rocket. They didn’t get the parade. Their names weren’t household; their faces didn’t adorn the front pages. Yet without them Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins wouldn’t have made it to Sea World let alone the Sea of Tranquility. Their sacrifice, and the sacrifice of their families, needs to be remembered today. They are the heroes too. 

Here’s to my father-in-law Jim Freshour. Forty years ago today he put a man on the moon and returned him safely to the earth.

Just a Spoonful of Sugar....

I've been to physical therapy a few times now and as much as it would be comedic to report that I've been folded, spindled (does anyone still use a spindle?), and mutilated, I really haven't. The exercises I've been doing are mostly centered on loosening the muscles and ligaments of my foot in order to regain range of motion. It's a lot of toe lifts and heel extensions, resistance training on the foot ("Point down, now point up, now to the side, no the other side, use just your ankle") and finally Julian the PT assistant bending my foot further down then I've ever had it bent. Not that I haven't always, but I now have a new found respect for ballet dancers who are on point. Oh dear god, you voluntarily bend your foot like this? But oh how it feels so good when it's brought back to normal position.

Of course it also feels so good when the guy hitting you with a ball peen hammer stops doing it.

As well I do a fair amount of time on the stationary bike to get blood circulating better through my leg and to get me back into something of a shape I might have been in prior to all of this. Julian hasn't asked me what kind of shape I was in prior to the surgery and I'm certainly not going to volunteer that information. It's on a need to know basis and he doesn't need to know.

In addition I have been following the news stories surrounding the release of the movie FED UP and I've decided to make some changes in the way I eat. No, that's a little too nice. I have decided to take back control over what is in the things I eat. Specifically sugar, an addiction I have to admit I have been in the throes of since childhood. Reading these reports and seeing even the trailer for the movie I've gone through a Kubler-Ross style progression: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

At first I denied it could be true that sugar is as powerful an addiction as cocaine. Then I looked at my own life and realized how true that comparison is. I always thought my craving was for carbs, but look at most breads, pretzels, chips, etc and prominently in the ingredients you will find sugar. Whether you call it refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup it's feeding that addiction.

So I moved on to anger. I was angry that I'd been duped by large corporations into thinking even supposedly "healthy" processed food was good for you when in fact it's just as loaded with sugar as a can of Coke. So called "diet" products are just as filled with sugar as their regular versions, it's just sugar under a different name. Food you don't associate as having sugar in it, a can of soup for instance, is loaded. Why? Because sugar is a cheap preservative. And it makes you crave that product again. Which will make the producer more money. And who cares if our citizenry becomes obese and lethargic and 33% of them have diabetes cause that's gonna keep the health care companies the food producers have invested in making, you guessed it, more money! Hey all you food companies, why are you acting like the tobacco companies when we found out their products were causing cancer. "Oh our products aren't loaded with sugar. Well maybe they are but it's not a public health risk. OK it is a public health risk but people make their own decisions and it's just a lack of will power on the consumer's part. Yeah that's it, let's blame the people we've addicted for their addiction." Is it shocking to find out that many of our largest food producers at one time or another were tobacco producers?

Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid.

Let's make a deal. I won't eat the stuff that has obvious sugar in it. Ice cream, sweets, that kind of stuff. Just let me go on with the soups and the frozen egg rolls, and the other stuff that's down the middle aisles of the local Safeway Nob Hill Lucky's. I'll eat the fresh fruit and vegetables, just give me an occasional pass on the frozen pizza. What the hell do you mean it doesn't work that way? I'm trying to change, be healthier, give me my occasional frozen pizza for chrimeny sake.

Oh man how am I ever going to get through this? Everything I like to eat will be gone. I want to crawl underneath the covers and come out when they've replaced all the sugar with something not addictive. I want the food companies to suddenly realized how wrong they've been and change their ways. Yeah, like that's gonna happen. Leave me alone, I'm gonna sit here in the dark.

All right, all right. The only way to beat an addiction is to go cold turkey, I accept that. I'm getting off the sugar carousel. Fresh food only. More trips to Segona's and fewer to Safeway. I'm gonna read labels on anything even remotely processed and put it back on the shelf if it contains sugar. Fruits for breakfast, nuts and berries for snacks, gulp, no frozen pizzas for a quick dinner. Club soda. Shh, once in a while a bit of bourbon, heck that's natural sugar. All right maybe not.

When it's time for a change, think fresh fruits and vegetables. It might just save my life.

Let's Get Physical

I started physical therapy today. I had been warned by Dr. Knee that the place she was sending me to was going to be Hans and Franz. She was mistaken. Instead of getting Hans and Franz, I got Mr. Miyagi.

Wax on, wax off.

First of all the therapy took place in a gym on Valencia Street in San Francisco called Mission Fitness. For those of you not familiar with Valencia Street in San Francisco, once upon a time tough men would not walk down the street in fear of the even tougher women who frequented the local bars. But that was long ago and far away in a time known as college. Today it is Ground Zero, the capital of Hipsterville. Got a trend? It's a pretty safe bet it started around here. Gourmet toast. I'm not kidding you can look it up. It's also where old time residents and tech nerd newcomers duke it out over rising rental prices, gourmet restaurants replacing coffee shops, and high end clothing stores replacing the local shoe repair.

Mission Fitness (named so because the entire area is called the Mission, not because it's a play on words name) falls squarely in the old resident column. It's an old style place, crammed full of  equipment that hasn't been updated in years. Don't call it "retro", there has to be a small amount of nostalgia for something to be that. No, Mission Fitness isn't "retro". It's a dump. The smell of sweat and lineament wafts through the place, encouraged on by the giant fans blowing constantly. The carpet is torn and stained, the desk is two filing cabinets with a plank across them, and I can't be certain but I'm pretty sure the hot water in the showers is at best tepid. No fancy individual TVs or juice bars or a girl walking around refilling your water bottle here. This is a place to work out, to sweat and groan under the weight of heavy objects or the exertion from climbing a never ending staircase. It's population is longtime locals unconcerned about looking good in the mirrors combined with those like me looking for physical therapy. Paris Hilton would be appalled to be seen in here.

I fell in love with it right away.

In a side room off the main floor resides Orthopedic Physical Therapy. I was ushered in by an assistant therapist who took my info and did all the basic work up. Then in came John Soriano PT. I am not exaggerating when I say he looks exactly like Pat Morita's Mr. Miyagi from THE KARATE KID, right down to the small pony tail and the Fu Manchu beard. Even the accent is the same which is strange since it's obvious he's Philippino and not Japanese. I'm talking the real one, not that crappy remake.

He studies my foot for a moment, then asks if he can smell the wound. He assures me this is not out of some fetishistic desire, but to determine if there is an infection. I place my foot on a chair and he bends down, breathing deeply of what I can imagine is nothing that smells anything like pleasant.  His verdict is that there is a small infection, not too bad, but the wound should breath more and makes me promise to not wrap it in all the gauze that it's been wrapped and re-wrapped in for the past several weeks. Just use a large band-aid over the gauze inside the wound. Well he didn't have to tell me twice, I've fought the Battle of the Gauze far too long.

From his expressions and body language I was sure the next step was going to be him running out to the local herbalist to concoct some lethal smelling plaster for my foot to live in, but instead he outlines a course of exercises and massage therapies they I will do over the next several weeks. Then he hands me back to his assistant Josh and off he goes.

Josh puts me through some pretty basic exercises and stretches informing me that oh yeah tomorrow you're not going to be loving life. At least for the moment I'm doing okay. And next week I go back again.

Maybe this time I'll try the gourmet toast.

The Future is Yesterday

I love technology.

Here I am sitting by the gently flowing fountains of my northern California home while I listen to the New Orlean's Jazz and Heritage Festival via an internet stream from WWOZ.org and at the same time watching on my giant television screen a football (soccer to some of you) game from Turin, Italy and composing a piece of writing that will be available to anyone in the world with an internet connection. Meanwhile at the ever ready is my mobile phone with more computing power than was used to develop the atomic bomb and a tablet computer capable of giving forth to me all the literature the human species has ever produced and oh by the way all of it's music as well. All of this possible at this moment because a surgeon sliced out a piece of my heel bone and  tightened up some tendons necessitating a convalescence that would have been twice if not three times as long just a few years ago. I didn't even have to use something called a wound vac that apparently was considered and dismissed by the doctor as counter productive. Reading up on it I am kinda glad she did.

Which brings us to today's noontime update from the bridge (a nautical term we who frequently voyage upon the open sea use).

Dr. Knee is pleased with the process of the major wound healing, enough so that she's given me the go ahead to start physical therapy. Hans and Franz here I come.I'm able to walk a pretty good distance without the assistance of the cane, but I'm holding onto the cane as a reassurance against unforeseen problems. This morning I went to our little workout room and did two fifteen minutes sessions on the stationary bike, broken up by a few minutes on each of the two leg press machines. While I've been so concentrated on my foot, the thigh and calf muscles of that leg have been neglected and need toning.

On the negative, I'm still not ready to go back to work. Dr. Knee won't sign off on that till the wound is completely healed. Were I the type who worked in an office and sat at a desk all day she might agree to half days, but since I am on my feet all day in a retail environment work is going to have to wait a few more weeks.

That's okay. I suppose not everything can be as we want it. In the grand scheme of things this is but a short interlude, an intermission. Everyone knows it's the second act that produces the thrills. Meanwhile I'll let the music of New Orleans wash over me while I enjoy a sip of Kentucky's finest.