Affairs of the Heart

First published in The Camden Chronicle November 15, 1989

If I have been abnormally quiet lately, it is because of affairs of the heart. No!! Not that kind of affairs of the heart. I'm still living at the same address, still consorting with the same woman.

The heart affairs I'm talking about are the kind that wake you up in the middle of the night with pains in the chest. There's a quick ride to a nearby hospital where they do an EKG, compare it with one taken last year during a regular check up and announce there have been changes in the graph. Then, on to Intensive Care for 72 hours.

After this, I'm transferred to another hospital where a four-way heart bypass operation* is performed. Oh, the wonders of modern science!

Twenty years ago, I probably could have looked forward to spending the rest of my days in dull servitude to pain and shortness of breath. Instead, my surgeon tells me that in three months or less, I can go back to work.

The surgeon is a remarkable person. He breaks open the chest in much the same way that a coal miner breaks open the earth to extract ore. The surgeon and miner know exactly what they are looking for: the miner has his eyes out for a seam of coal, the surgeon is looking for the heart valves that are plugged, the ones he must pass. When he fines them, he strips a vein from the leg or other part of the body, cuts it into short pieces and sews them into the heart to bypass the blocked section.

The patient, of course, knows nothing about what is going on inside his body during the operation, which is a good thing. This patient would have died of fright if he had been aware of what was happening during surgery.

The first 48 hours after surgery, the patient is treated in much the same way as a wood cutter treats a log. There are so many pipes, valves, and wires emanating from the body, the patient looks and feels like a cut of wood before the small limbs are trimmed off.

Vital signs and bodily functions are checked constantly. Doctors gaze and grin, proud of the work they have performed. Nurses poke, prick and pluck, taking blood, smoothing bed clothes, and speaking encouraging words to prevent the patient from lapsing into a blue funk.

Therapists come three times a day to beat the patient's back. This is to keep congestion from building up in the lungs; pneumonia is always a post surgery danger with this kind of operation.

On the third day after surgery, I'm transferred to a ward with three other patients like myself. Now the monitoring becomes much less severe. I'm permitted to walk to the bathroom. This is progress. The pipes, valves, and wires have been reduced to two lines and a tube which is built on wheels and rolls with me as I walk.

After five days in the ward, I'm sent home. I slept better, felt better and thought straighter.

My doctor says he's pleased with the progress I've made so far. But it is slow at best. Patience has never been one of my virtues. There is only one word that can be used in a family newspaper to describe this confinement. That word is ORDEAL. All other descriptive words border on profane. I'm glad it's over. I'm glad I had it done. But I sincerely hope you never have to go through it.


*Editor's note:
The terminology sounds a little archaic now, but in the 80s, when the surgery was new, this was the common term for a quadruple bypass in the area of Michigan where Jim lived. 

Quick Draw McBush

First published in the Camden Chronicle August 22, 1990 

It takes seven days for a copy of the The Chronicle to reach our hearth. While I am reading last week's copy, you are reading this week's copy. I've never experienced jet lag, but the feeling I get reading seven day old news must be something near to a jet lag feeling.

Our postal system claims to be the fastest in the world. I sure am glad it's not the slowest. I just looked it up: in 1860 the Pony Express carried a message from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California in just over seven days. One would think that with all the high powered equipment and educated people available to the post office, they could negotiate the distance between Camden and Dearborn a little faster. The ad that was used to recruit Pony Express riders is interesting. It read:

"Wanted... young men and boys, small in stature and wiry. Must be skilled horsemen and good shots."  Apply, etc. 

All we ask of today's postman is to be able to read, write and move. Maybe movement is too much for them.

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera,
1st aired week of January 23, 1961

By the  time you read this, it may all be over but at this moment oil laden war clouds are rising in the Middle East. Iraq has moved into Kuwait and is making threatening gestures towards the Arabian Peninsula. Mr. Bush, like a presidential Quick Draw McGraw, is yelling, "Hold on thar, Mr. Saddam Hussein!" and is rushing into the fray with his rocket tipped Kabongers to stem the tide of the world's best supply of crude. 

Meanwhile, TV and news reports are awash with middle eastern experts who tell us why Mr. Bush is right or why he is wrong. Take your choice. Which brings up a  couple of questions: What do experts do when there's nothing to expert about? And, why is someone an expert when he sees only one side of the question? 

I am enjoying Alma Oatsvall's journey into old time religion. She talks about baptizing in a creek, rather than a church baptistery. I was baptized in a creek, but I don't remember which one. It probably wouldn't be hard to find; there would still be a dirty spot in the water where my sins were washed away. 

Why doesn't someone write a letter to The Chronicle about the old time box suppers and Sunday socials? I attended a couple of these functions but was too small to participate. 

Eulogy for James Parker

[Editor's note: this eulogy was written by and read at Jim Parker's funeral by his daughter, Connie Parker Harrison. Jim died January 20, 2000; he was able to see that the dire predictions for Y2K were all a bunch of hooey, something that tickled him quite a bit.]

It was about two months ago that my father stood where I am now and gave a eulogy for his mother. I never thought I would be doing something similar so soon.  

As we drove out to Flatwoods Cemetery behind Berthie's hearse, my father said he thought funerals should reflect who the person was and sometimes ministers can't really convey all of that, perhaps out of ignorance or maybe out of discretion. 

As I planned this eulogy, I thought about some stories that I could tell, about times my dad was profound and others when he was funny and those incidents when he was infuriating. I thought about retelling some of the stories that have been told to me about my dad and the ways that he affected other people. But finally, I decided the best way to honor my father's memory would be to use his own words.  

About 10 years ago, my father had open heart surgery and his life, which had seemed to stretch so far into the future, became finite. My dad had talked for years about wanting to move from Michigan back to Tennessee, and I think it was at the time of his surgery that his need to move back home became more urgent.    

I'm glad that he had so many years here to spend with his family, to make new friends, and to enjoy time with his old friends.  I'm grateful that he travelled, lived in a home he loved, and had enough opinions to fill two newspaper columns and then some.  But most of all, I'm glad that he was loved and appreciated by the people who meant as much to him. I found a poem my father wrote in June, 1998 that I think sums up how happy he was to be home.

(The poem, "Tennessee" was read. Click on this link to read the post.)

Jim at the Joe (Joe Louis Arena, Detroit), he may have
moved home but he never left the Red Wings

No Way, Lady Luck

[Originally published August 30, 1989 in the Camden Chronicle.]

It was six o'clock in the afternoon.

"That's it," said the woman I consort with. "That's the motel we stayed in on our way out. The rooms are clean, the beds are firm, and I'm tired. Let's spend the night here."

We had been driving since ten in the morning from central New York state where we had spent a week visiting, among other places, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. But that's another story. At that moment, we were driving west on the Queen's Highway, Canada 401.  It runs, with the aid of Canada 403, across southern Ontario from Windsor to Buffalo, New York.

I pulled the Chevy into the parking lot of the hotel chosen by the consort. With nary a thought of rejection, I approached the check-in desk to register for a room. The young lady behind the counter smiled as sweetly as a person can.

"Sir, " she said, "We are ALL full up and I've called every motel within fifty miles. They're full, too."

And then the fun began.

We stopped at a restaurant to eat. The food sat a little heavy on my stomach because of the uncertainty about where we would spend the night. For the next two hundred miles, we stopped at every motel along the 401 only to hear the same story, "All full up."

At 10:30 PM, the woman I consort with, who had been short-talking me since 7:00 PM, muttering something about nuclear weapons and Canada.

"Any nation that provides room and board for pigeons (she was talking about the world renowned Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary in Kingsville, Ontario) and doesn't provide enough motels for people, doesn't deserve to exist."

I tried to explain to her that Canada, though large in land mass, is small in population with only 25 million people. They can't afford, nor do they need, a motel every few miles on their freeways the way we do in the United States.

She refused to be comforted. It was at that time we saw a sign, Ridge Top Ontario Food and Lodging. [Editor's note: don't try looking for them, they're out of business.] We stopped. The price was too high. The room wasn't clean. The bed was spongy. We grabbed it like it was the Taj Mahal.

After a shower and a little TV, we were able to relax and get a reasonable night's sleep. The next morning, after pancakes and coffee (compliments of the motel), the consort was willing to discuss a reprieve for Canada.

"Perhaps," she mused, "if they will do studies concerning the feasibility of more motels, I will let them off with just a dusting of DDT."

We learned a lesson. The next time we go traveling, we will call ahead for reservations. We'll not accept what Lady Luck wants us to have.

Editor's Note:

When the hotel clerk explained the local event taking place in that area of Ontario, the lack of hotel rooms all made sense. This is Jim's version of their cranky trip. While Norma ("the consort") and Jim had a consistently strong relationship, they had a regular habit of bickering like two teenage siblings on car trips. For years, I had a front row view of their squabbles and sighs from my perch in the back seat. It should be noted that I was with Jim and Norma on this trip to Upstate New York, but had the foresight to hop on an Amtrak train running from Utica to Manhattan, making for me a far more peaceful trip.

Also, the "consort" was a huge fan of Canada and throughout my teenage years regularly crossed the border to explore the shops and tea rooms of Windsor and London, Ontario with her friends. She would never have threatened the country; that's more Jim's style.

The Non-Fiddling Campbellites, The Mary Parker Saga, Part 2

[Originally published in the July 11, 1990 issue of the Camden Chronicle]

Dear Editor:

There are a number of reasons why I write these letters to the Editor. First, I enjoy writing them and, if the letters and phone calls I receive are a true indication, there are some subscribers who enjoy reading them. That pleases me to no end. Then, sometimes other rewards come in surprising ways. Two days ago I answered the doorbell to find a man standing on the porch.

"Are you James Parker?" he cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. Since he carried no net nor wore a badge, I admitted that I was.

"I'm Shannon Parker and the Mary Parker you write about, the one that escaped from her grave at Mt. Zion Cemetery, that was my grandmother." I invited him inside and there followed an hour of animated and enjoyable conversation.

Shannon Parker said he was born in 1919 and spent his early years in Carroll County, mostly in Bruceton. Later, he went to high school in Holladay in Benton County. In 1940, his family moved north, first to Ohio, then to Michigan and, except for a few years making war on the Germans, he has been in the Detroit area since.

He talked of his immediate family.  His wife's picture showed a motherly looking lady with features that must have made her a stunner as a teenager. He passed me pictures of his son, daughter and grandchildren -- beautiful people, blonde and intelligent looking young folk you would claim for your kin, whether they were or not. Only one flaw showed up in Shannon Parker's otherwise perfect character: he belongs to the Church of Christ. A Campbellite! Or, if you remember the vernacular, a "Camelite!"

Now, most Parkers are Methodists, defending and promoting that religion from the rising of the sun til the bats go to roost. Shannon was probably influenced by his wife, who is an English girl and strong-willed, as English girls are wont to be. I can say this because my earliest recollection of going to church was to the Cedar Grove Church of Christ!

Alexander Campbell, ca. 1855

The Church of Christ was founded by a man named Alexander Campbell.  In 1906, a rift over music developed among the adherents of the faith. One group said only the human voice could make a joyful noise until the Lord. Others maintained that the noise would be a lot more joyful if accompanied by an organ or a piano. They split with the No Instruments group referring to the Musical Instrument group as "fiddling Campbellites."

Cedar Grove Church used no instruments; all singing was a cappella. My mother belongs to the faith and was determined that the souls of her children were going to be saved without music. "She believes," said my father, "that music-saved Christians will have to sit on a nail keg in the back row of the Heavenly Church."

They went round and round about that issue, but neither gave in. Dad died a Methodist and Mom, though old and unable to attend the services, still retains her beliefs and her joyful noise is all her own.

I didn't get Shannon Parker's sect affiliation but the next time we meet, I'll ask if he plays a fiddle or uses a tuning fork.

Basketball. Pfft.

Originally published in the July 4, 1990 edition of The Camden Chronicle

Well, guess who won

If there are some Benton Countians whose lives are so dull and uneventful that they are interested in professional basketball, they know that the Detroit Pistons (a team that does not play in Detroit at all, but in the far northern suburb of Auburn Hills) and the Portland Trailblazers (a team that represents a small town in Oregon) are currently locked in a play-off contest to determine who is the best there is in that game. This might be likened to to a contest to see which creek bed is rockiest, which waterfall is the spillingest, or which dandelion patch is the yellowest.

The basketball season and play-offs last for such a Methuselah-like period and the games are so much alike in execution that the sportswriters in this town are running out of cliches and redundancies to describe the action and events. No doubt the problem is the same in that one horse town of Portland, so writers in both cities have stopped writing about the games and the players and have begun to insult the locations to which each team ostensibly belongs. One Detroit paper referred to Oregonians as "Californians who couldn't cut the mustard." That same writer said Portland was so foggy that on a clear day you could see the bathroom and "Oregonians didn't know what a baked potato was until Mount St. Helens exploded." The same article referred to Portland as a suburb of Seattle, while calling it a "jerktimber town" rather than a jerkwater town.

The small town writers from Portland were not intimidated by our Detroit scriveners. In an editorial, one Portland paper described Detroit as a halfway house on the way to Houston. The same editorial said that Antoine Cadillac was accompanied by an Indian when the transmission gave out on his canoe. Cadillac, this writer asserted, had to stop at a place that later became Detroit before continuing on to Montreal, leaving the Indian behind to start the city. Another writer said, "Henry Ford was prospecting for rust when he struck a Model T. He convinced the world it was a Toyota and the Tokyo of the West was born."

I find reading this far more enjoyable than reading about "post ups" and "technical fouls." Reading about setting the picks and scoring triple doubles excites me not at all.

The best line I read was by a man who was asked if he would watch the play-offs on TV.

"Watch the play-offs?!" he exclaimed, "if they were playing in my backyard, I wouldn't raise the shade."

Siblings

[No date noted.]

My sister was on the phone. She is a little older than me and, like most people, still retains childhood jealousies when anything good happens to a younger sibling.

"Saw your picture in the paper," she said, trying to sound disinterested.

Scan of Jim's column headline, circa 1990

"Yes, what did you think of it?" I asked.

"You're looking older, more gray in your hair." She paused. "More wrinkles. And you're putting on weight. How much did you pay them?"

"I didn't pay them anything," I protested. "The paper asked me for the picture, said they wanted to see what I looked like. Is that so hard to believe?"

She ignored my question. "I have to admit when I first saw your picture, I thought you had been arrested and I was glad Daddy is not alive to see it. You know what a law and order man he was, it would have broke his heart."  She hardly stopped for breath. "I bet you didn't read any other story that was in the paper. I bet you just sat and looked at your picture all week."

"I did too read some other stories in the paper. There was a story on the front page about a mussel diver who said he contacted a body while working in 22 feet of water in Kentucky Lake, but then he lost it, then he found it again. But couldn't bring it to the surface."

The thought occurred to me that the body could have been that of our kinswoman, Mary Parker, who escaped from her grave at Mt. Zion Cemetery some months before. Mary had lived down near Harmon's Creek. Maybe that high ground at Mt. Zion was just too dry for Mary and she decided to go swimming.

"Don't go making jokes about a dead person." She sounded pained. "So you read the front page and nothing else?"

"Sure!! I saw the pictures of all the high school graduating kids. A lot of names sounded familiar, I probably know most of the fathers and grandfathers. And that's not all, in the "Liberty News," Andrea Madden wrote about a preacher who had hit the happy trail because he wasn't being paid enough.  In her "Chalk Hill" column, Nell Morrisette mentioned a lady from Ooltewah, Tennessee. That sent me scuttling for my atlas. I never heard of that town before. Sure enough! There it was, in the Southeast corner of the state, a few miles east of Chattanooga. And there are only two people in the obituary section this week, which is a considerable improvement over the last issue."

My sister seemed not to have heard. "I hope," she grunted, "if they print your picture again, they do it in color - not black and white - so the wrinkles will stand out more."