Drifting

 It is like "A Little Bit of Emotion" a 1979 song from the Kinks, Low Budget album. There are things we see on the surface that we show all the time. There are also pieces of us that we will not show. At 25 years old, we get stuck in the trivial life, just existing, always believing that tomorrow, next week, month, or year will be different. At 35, it is the same thing, as is 45 and 55. But of course, by now you realize that it is happening.

If I could have the 58-year-old perspective at 21, everything would be so much less messy. At 58, all of the days that I have just settled for mock any kind of wisdom I might think to turn over as cards to win the game. I lament how my generation and the one before it was solving everything, but we have only made things worse. I do not feel sorry for me but for my kids. 

As I look in the mirror, in my eyes I see the person who has looked back decade after decade. Secretly I wish to send messages back to him. Nothing too deep, just a practical slap to wake up.

If I think about it too much, I become agitated. The longer I dwell on it, my anger grows, and I want to just start screaming and not stop until it clears away all of the superficial cobwebs that I no longer have the patience for.

Anger has always been a tool for me, a matter of propulsion to get motivated. I do not know any other way. I somehow know in my heart that I would not even exist without it. Each according to our gifts I guess.

I have mentioned this many times in writing that I have an associative memory. Things that I see and hear that have nothing to do with things in my life actually hold pockets of memory of my life. It would also seem that there is no expiration date on said pockets of seemingly lost memories.

When we leave the house, we put the TV on for the dog, she is more calm if she cannot hear every noise outside while we are gone. We used to do YouTube but it will time out after a while. Roku Live will play indefinitely. So we have been putting on Little House on the Prairie for her. Something happened to the whole Little House-watching world sometime around the year 2000. We forgot about all of the fun, warm, and wholesome moments the nine seasons of this show gave us and only remembered the horrible personal disasters that were also laced into the show. Alice Garvey and Mary's baby dying in a fire, Laura's baby dying from illness, the plague that wiped out part of the town due to rat infestation of the food supply, and of course, Mary going blind.

Inevitably, with this show just playing in the background, it has pulled us in and we end up watching whole episodes from time to time. Some nights, instead of surfing through the disgusting lack of quality that exists in modern-day streaming, we just let Little House roll. I noticed something. I am finding that some of my personal memories are attached to scenes of that show that aired especially during the times that I was between the ages of 9 and 15. The show began in 74 and we lived in Torrington, Connecticut. Torrington was a unique small industrial city in a valley in the northwest hills of Connecticut.

Fragmented memories of my 5-year stay in the mid-1970s Torrington have drifted in and continue to do so. Sixth grade, standing in the woods behind Torringford School face to face with Michelle Deleo and her saying the line to me, "Knowing you." Instantly when I think of that point in space and time Abba suddenly shouts out at me: "Knowing me, knowing you, ah haaa, there is nothing we can do..." because my brain did that in the moment we were standing there. A couple of days ago, I did a Google Street Level drive around Torrington and looking at the backyard of the school into the woods, I can see the exact spot that happened 47 years ago.

About this virtual drive around Torrington. I see sadness and decay. Yeah, we had the Keep America Beautiful commercial with the crying Indian from 1970 telling us that we ruined everything, but let me tell you something. The houses were more beautiful, the roads and sidewalks were not crumbling, and the bridges were not falling apart. Today, despite great efforts at restoration and repurposing, there is still a sad post-apocalyptic feel to the drive.  I am sure this is not the case for someone from a later generation.

The vinyl siding revolution of the 80s and 90s took away the beautiful character of the homes built throughout the 1800s during the Industrial Revolution and placed upon them all of the architectural charm of a latex glove. I lived in 3 such homes in Torrington. We moved into the 2nd-floor apartment on James Street in 1974, Main Street in April 1976, and East Main Street in February of 1977. In April of 1979, we moved back to Bristol, never to live in Torrington again.

It is the world that was so different though. It was a world in which radio and newspapers were the pulse of everything that was happening. It is different for me than for many people in the world. As my life changed, so did my permanent geographical location. So, I do not and have not seen anyone I went to school with. It is like all of that is on a different planet for me. Even in my adult life, I have had 4 separate existences. Different places to live, different jobs, different family, different friends. 

It was on James Street that I made my first individual claim to music, to having a voice as a person. It was in the attic of Main Street on July 13, 1976, when I discovered WKBW in Buffalo, NY. It was at 541 East Main Street where I got my first job working for the landlord, sweeping hallways and sidewalks, mowing the lawn with one of the old manual push grass cutters, raking and shoveling snow, whitewashing walls, and building cement walls. The Hartford Civic Center roof collapsed while we lived there. We endured the blizzard of 78 there and also did not have a car for 2 years, and for a while, we had no refrigerator either. 

During that time, some nights the only option was from the Burger King down the road from us. I would walk down there and get our food to go. Two double cheeseburgers, two Whopper Juniors, 4 large fries, 3 medium cokes, and 1 medium rootbeer. With tax, $6.14. I knew it by heart.

There was a real coming of age period in the latter years for me hear. One night in the fall of 78 I discovered my attraction to alcohol, as well as my addiction to cigarettes. When I hear Paradise By the Dashboard Light it takes me back to a crazy night back in 78.

My last spring in Torrington was 1979. Heart of Glass by Blondie was riding high on the charts as was Rod Stewart’s DaYa Think I’m Sexy. Mork and Mindy, and Saturday Night Live were top of the top. Times were changing though. By March everything that had been the way it was began to unravel. This was not a bad thing either. There were old habits that just needed to stop.

We left Torrington in a very different way than we had arrived, although our arrival was also unorthodox.

The associative memory always intrigues me. It can be such a rabbit hole. Thanks to that I can remember so many days of my life 50 years ago as if they were yesterday. Liam and Noah have this exact thing too. I think it is a gift. It helps me to understand things better, and appreciate the people in my life more fully. 

I am not sure who gave me this. I have conversations with my mother and she has a remarkable memory, I wonder sometimes if both she and my father were the perfect storm that could cause this amazing phenomenon.

Falling Down

I guess you could say that I am a guy who fell down the hole.  16 years ago in the summer of 06, we were just discovering the depths of my 6-month-old Noah’s chronic asthma. Those days were like learning that there was a threat and then later you learned the threat belonged to you. During those early late-night ER runs to DHMC, I noticed that there was something wrong with me. I had pain, I was limping and some of it seemed to be lower back related. I blew it off because I figured this was something residual from when I had back surgery back in 2000. Noah had something serious to deal with. This needed all of our attention.  I wanted denial to make it go away but it was becoming clear that it was not going to happen that way. 

The summer progressed and things began to get even weirder. There was an ill-fated trip to camp in Maine (without reservations) that did not work out.  We ended up driving all the way back home through the night.  I recall having to stop for 20 minutes at one point and noticing this strange almost tendril-like resonation wrapping like fingers around my skull that started at the back of my neck. so many of these oddities I kept dismissing since raising a seven-month-old and a three-year-old was distracting enough. I started to notice that my fingertips to halfway up my arms I had this tremendous pain as if I had my arms submerged and 200° water. It grew and became center stage. I began to wonder if carpal tunnel was like this and if it was, then I have not understood how severe it was or taking things seriously enough! As the weeks went by, all of my joints began to burn and swell. I started to suspect that I had Lyme disease. I made a VA hospital appointment. They referred me to rheumatology, six weeks out. They took blood and sent me away to fend for myself for the next six weeks. 

As we crossed into the fall of 2006, I could not exist in a day unless I ate ibuprofen like it was candy. My range of motion quickly closed in on me and before I knew it, I could not move. I REALLY could not move! It took tremendous effort to get out of bed. I had to take a steaming hot bath to start my day. I could not dress myself anymore. My joints would dislocate with minimum impact. I was just about to turn 41, and my life was over. We had a baby and now, I was going to be this huge burden.

 I worked on a dirt road in Weathersfield Vermont. On a crisp clear fall day, you could look east from that road and across the river at Claremont New Hampshire. I could actually make myself walk 3 miles during lunchtime. At first, I could not walk at all, but each day I would force myself to walk as normally as I possibly could. After a while, my stride and range of motion would open up and for that hour in the brilliant autumn sun, I was normal again. The fall colors and the smells surrounded me. Sadly, 20 minutes after I sat down at my desk, I was 110 years old again. 

When I look back on this, I think I took some chances, like hiking my little family down to Silver Lake up in Goshen Vermont where my family and I used to camp in the late 60s and early 70s in an old bus. 

Finally, six weeks passed of me dealing with this mess every day. On that day of my appointment in rheumatology, I wanted them to see it for what it really was, without any painkillers, or anti-inflammatories. I brazenly did not take any of these things and even worse I was told to fast after midnight. I spent the day up there, full-on flare from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. It was brutal! We had to wait for results to come in from the lab and then meds. 

It was confirmed that I had rheumatoid arthritis. I was to immediately start steroids and then a cancer drug called methotrexate. RA is when your immune system malfunctions and your white blood cells get overactive and identify your joints as a threat and eat away at them like acid. You were left with degraded joints, bone on bone, crippled and disfigured. Methotrexate suppresses your immune system, makes half your hair fall out, and makes you more susceptible to catching viral infections. 

After doing everything I needed to do at the VA, my body was one giant scream, like the painting. Of course, I did not have any money on me and with my sugar levels in the basement, I needed to find food fast. My careful scientific analysis determined that a #2 value meal at McDonald’s would probably fix this quick, fast, and in a hurry. I also needed ibuprofen and water. My plan was fairly simple. I went to Walmart in West Lebanon, got a bottle of Dasani, and wrote a check for $20 over the amount. This would buy the food I needed and put something into my stomach with the ibuprofen. 

I got out 800 mg of ibuprofen and went to open the bottle of water. My compromised joints just hurt and flexed in unhealthy ways. I was this close to the first step of not wishing I would die right here and right now. I could not even open a simple bottle of water!

 I found a young cashier. I felt very odd asking for help. At face value, I looked like I was capable and still looked like I was in my 30s. I held the bottle out to her, “I know this seems like a strange request, but could you please open this?" She opened it right up and I was so grateful. I then went on to McDonald’s and by the time I got home, I was pretty close to my usual in-pain self. I started the steroids at night and within a couple of days, it was like the thing never happened to me. 

In the weeks, months, and years that followed, I learned how to manage this alien thing that had control of me. I played with medication times and days. There are so many people who cannot handle methotrexate. My new limitations were something that I had to come to terms with. In my first year, I could not imagine making it another 20 years. There were not a lot of long-term studies about RA so it all seemed pretty hopeless. I really thought that I was doomed and this was not going to end well.  The meds scared me and I had to really force myself to start them in the first place. I observed other people who had what I had and tried other methods of dealing with it and even some who chose surgical options. It was really not a good thing. 

I decided a couple of years into this thing that the only way that I was going to live with this was to handle it the same way I handled all serious challenges. Anger and rage beat my greatest demons. I knew this was how I would survive. I would not lie down and just let it take me. 

In my life, I have gleaned some of the best methods from the most abstract of sources. For me, it was the words of the outlaw Josey Wales that made such a difference in my life.“When things look bad and it looks like you’re not going to make it, then you got to get mad, I mean plum mad dog mean, because if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is."

 With those words, I made it out of my 20s alive, I quit smoking for good and they are what allow me to do anything even when I feel that I cannot. When the pain is too much for me, my rage pushes me hard to move on through it, like a car driving through a showroom window. It may not be the most eloquent solution, but it has allowed the 16 years with RA to be possible and on my terms. Most importantly, it has allowed me to not be a burden on my family and for my sons to have a father.  I cannot put a value on that and I would not change it for anything.