Thanksgiving 2016

      “Go home, take the cow into your house to live with you,” said the elder.  It was the next-to-last piece advice the elder would give the Chinese peasant.

      In preceding sessions, the elder advised the peasant to take in the dog, the cat, the goat, and the pig, into his house with his wife and three children.  This was a Chinese fable we read in our “reading” book in second grade (I think second grade).  We might have called the peasant a “Chinaman”, but that’s probably politically incorrect, so “peasant” will do for now.

      The fable started with the peasant calling on the wise old elder to ask his advice.  His wife had just brought another child into the world and she was complaining vociferously about the crowded conditions in which they lived.  The peasant didn’t have the wherewithal to build a new house (or maybe he was just “thrifty”).

      Thus the advice to take the animals into the house, starting with the dog.  Each time the peasant returned to seek advice and to explain that the addition of the animal only made his wife complain more, the elder suggested adding another animal, the cat, the goat, etc.     

     When adding the cow to the household made living conditions intolerable, the peasant returned to the elder.  The elder advised him to go home and turn all the animals out of his house, put them back in the barn, sty, etc.

    With the animals gone, the wife set to giving the house a good cleaning.  She did so merrily, exulting in all the room she now had to care for her family.  The peasant returned to the elder once more to report on the change in his wife’s attitude and to praise him for his wisdom.

     I had occasion to think of that fable in the days approaching Thanksgiving.  We hadn’t hosted either the Thanksgiving or the Christmas family gathering for years.  It was about our turn.  I sent out the email inviting family members to our place for Thanksgiving.

      Our family now numbers in the 50’s.  We thought maybe twenty-some or even thirty-some might accept our offer.

     We had 44 positive replies.  With us two hosts, we would have 46 people in our house on Thanksgiving afternoon.

     We debated the logistics.  Two or three turkeys?  Two hams?  Tables and chairs?  Roaster ovens?  Silverware or plastic?

     We decided two turkeys would be plenty, and they were.  Two hams left us with a whole ham left over.  We managed to borrow everything we needed, including our neighbor’s refrigerator.  (He was gone to Pennsylvania.)

     The next challenge was where to put the borrowed tables and chairs.  The answer was to move chairs from the family and living rooms into the bedrooms.  Then there was ample room for tables with 48 chairs.

     The food, all but ham and turkey supplied by the guests, was abundant.

    

     The weather cooperated with temperature in the 50’s.  The kids could play outside, or inside.  The favorite place seemed to be the storeroom in the basement, however.

      For as many people as we had, it did not seem that crowded.  Everybody seemed to be happy.  We even had time for a short jam session at the day’s end.

     Just like in the fable, when everybody left, we were in a big house with lots of room, echoing room.  That’s not to compare any of our guests to the Chinese peasant’s livestock, of course!

     Once the tables and chairs were removed, we took advantage of the empty space to spruce up the floors.

      The furniture back in place, there remains the borrowed items to return.  Then our job will be done.  

Thrift

 Thrift, thrift, Horatio.  The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

      Good ol’ Hamlet cynically excuses his mother for her marrying his uncle in a month after his father’s death.  Her quick marriage was all in the name of economy.  The left over roasts served at the funeral dinner made for good cold cuts at the wedding reception.

     Thus an early reference (by Shakespeare, no less) to the Scandinavian reputation for being tight.  However, I think my own “economy” came more from the non-Scandinavian side of my heritage, from my maternal grandfather. 

     I remember him sitting in the chair by the south doorway, where a disabling stroke landed him.  Within his reach were ashtray, matches, blanket, and a rope-and-pulley device he was supposed to use to rehabilitate his arm that was paralyzed by the stroke. 

     Mostly, he tended his cigar.  One cigar lasted him a long time.  When it went out, he would relight it.  When I visited, he would ask me to reposition his ashtray.  When I got it where he wanted it, he would say, “That’s the stuff, son.”  (That same ashtray still stands in the farmhouse basement.)    

     He would relight and smoke his cigar until it was too short to hold between finger and thumb.  Then, he would stick a toothpick into the butt and smoke it down to a nub.  If you don’t consider the number of matches he used, there wasn’t much waste there.

     I seem to have inherited his thrifty habits.  Someone near and dear to me usually says I am “cheap”, sometimes changing that to “thrifty” when are among lesser-known acquaintances, when she is trying to put a good face on things.

     In my singing hobby, we sometimes are required to download and print copies of music.  (Supposedly, we have paid the fee to make the copies, thus staying within the bounds of copyright laws.)  I always print front and back of the page.  Many other fellows simply print one side, avoiding the hassle of printing front and back, but using twice as many pages.

     Once while rehearsing with my quartet, I shared my copy of the music with a fellow singer.  He turned the page, searched for the continuation from the first page, and realized page two was on the back of page one.  He remarked about the use of both sides of the page.

     In reply, I was tempted to say something about saving a tree for tomorrow.  Instead, I shared with him Grandad’s using a toothpick to get the most out of his cigar.  I explained I was by nature, thrifty.

      At the time, I was still driving the old Dakota pickup with its six feet of glass pack muffler that didn’t do a lot of muffling.  The boys said they always knew when I was coming because they could hear me a mile off.  They gently suggested I should look for a new pickup.

     I protested that the old gal still ran great, even if it was a little loud and looked pretty sad.  Ted said, “Yeah, you have a lot of toothpicks left in your box, don’t you?”

      I laughed heartily.  When you tell someone something, you never know if they are truly listening.  I knew Ted heard my Grandad story and had taken it to heart.

     Yes, I still have a lot of toothpicks in my box. 

     Once, a nun’s siblings noticed how sincerely she had taken her vows of poverty, as her robes were threadbare and patched.  They decided to go together and buy her new clothes.  They were surprised some time later when they found her wearing the same old clothes while the new outfit hung in her closet.  By way of explanation, the sister told her siblings, “Old habits are hard to change.”

      I concur.

      

It Once Was Green

      It once was green.  Now it is peach. 

 

     And egg shell.

      Some of it was green, then peach, and then egg shell.

 

     One of the Munsters (was it Lurch?) showed up above the stairwell.

 

     That is as close as I’ll ever come to drawing a portrait.  It happened because I had to stand the ladder on a stair step and lean it against the wall to get to the peak high above the bottom of the stairway.  I painted a bit below the ladder top on either side.  The Munster revealed himself when I took the ladder away.

      When we were first looking at this house, both girls looked at the green walls in the kitchen-family room and said,” Mom isn’t going to like that.”  Of course, they were right.

     The color change has been under consideration for some time.  A year ago, we were putting on a new roof.  This year’s project was covering up the green monster.  No more will our northwest wall be confused with Fenway’s left field wall.

      The project wasn’t without travail.  The first attempt proved too light, almost white.  Can’t have that.  Back to Home Depot, where the lady darkened it to peach color.  That worked for a while, until we ran out.

     The second gallon turned out a little lighter than the first.  By the end of the first gallon, I had both west walls done and most of the stairwell.  You could see a line between the two gallons.  I repainted a few square feet when the word came down, “Since we have to repaint it. . . .”  Time for a color change.

     This time “we” tried to match the southern kitchen walls.  The Goodwife took a switch plate cover from the south wall and went through the color samples for thirty or forty minutes trying to match colors, without success.  Finally, one of the paint people told her they had this machine which would tell her everything she wanted to know about the paint on that switch plate cover. 

      It turned out to be eggshell.  At my suggestion, she got a small one-cup sample to try on our still-green wall.  At first, it looked too light.  After agonizing in the afternoon sunlight, she finally decided it was a close enough match, in the artificial light.

     Back to Home Depot for a gallon of the stuff.  Soon the last green wall was covered and the now-peach stairwell turned to eggshell.  There remains the touchup to do.  That means putting up the “scaffold”, a 2 X 12 between a stepladder on the landing and a ladder standing on a stair step and leaning against the wall, again.

     Touchup, replace switch plate and outlet covers, reinstall stair handrail and this project will be done.  Well, there is the green curtain for the kitchen window, now no longer usable.

 

CDL

CANCELLATION EFFECTIVE DATE  11/07/2016

“If you fail to regain medically CERTIFIED status the Department will cancel your Commercial Driver License (‘CDL’) on the CANCELLATION EFFECTIVE DATE shown above . . . and it will be unlawful for you to operate any motor vehicle.”

      There were three or four other paragraphs, citing various and sundry laws, but the meat of the letter was in the forgoing sentence.  It certainly caught me by surprise.  My license doesn’t expire until my birthdate 2018.  I have to have a physical every two years to maintain my CDL.

      I have held a CDL ever since the federal law that unified all 50 states’ commercial driver’s license requirements.  Before that, I held a chauffeur’s license. 

      When the federal law went into effect, two things led me to pursue a CDL.  At first, “they” said farmers had to have a CDL to transport anhydrous ammonia and other such hazardous materials, including some pesticides. 

      Second, all those holding a chauffer’s license had only to pass the written portion of the CDL test.  We didn’t have to go through the pre-trip inspection and driving test.  IF we took the written test by the deadline.

      As the deadline approached, farmers flooded their local driver examiners’ offices.  “They” then said that farmers were exempt from the CDL requirements as long as they didn’t transport hazardous materials outside of a hundred mile radius from the farm.

     It was too late.  Many farmers had studied the book and were ready to take the written test.  They probably reasoned the same way I did:  what if requirements changed and down the line, you had to have a CDL?  Then you would have to take the driving test which included the dreaded pre-trip inspection.

      The driving test was dreaded because you had to supply the rig.  There were horror stories of guys taking their trucks in to take the driving test and not getting past the pre-trip inspection because their truck had too many safety violations.  It cost thousands of dollars to get the truck up to par before the applicant even got to demonstrate his driving skill.

      In Kansas, you can renew your license at the county court house.  If you had to take a test, you have to go to a bona fide driver examiner.  The closest to us was in Colby.

     So I joined twenty or thirty other folks standing in line waiting to take the CDL written test before the “grandfathered” deadline for us chauffer’s license holders passed.  In a few hours, I walked out with a little piece of paper that said I now possessed a CDL.  The actual license came in the mail in two or three weeks.

      I renewed that license a few times by taking written tests.  I never had to take a physical exam.  Until I exchanged my Kansas license for a Colorado CDL.   I didn’t have to take a written test.  But I had to pass the “CDOT physical”.

      The physical exam went pretty well until it came to the vision check.  I had to identify three colored dots.  I missed the first one.  It was red and I said green, or maybe vice versa.

     To pass the physical, I had to call on an optometrist who would verify that my vision, in spite of my color blindness, was good enough to qualify for a CDL.  The local optometrist would probably do that for $50.

     I had within the preceding month had my eyes examined at a place in Denver.  I had to revisit that clinic, but the optometrist lady agreed to write a letter for me once she understood what was needed.  Since I was there within sixty days of my original examination, the service was free.

     She wrote and faxed the letter to the clinic where I had taken the physical.  I had to go back to the clinic to get the rest of the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.  The official papers had to go back to the driver's license examiner.  Finally, I was good to go, until 2018, at least so I thought.

     Then in October came this letter.  Somebody probably told me I had to renew the physical in two years, but it didn’t make a very deep impression.

      This time, I knew I would have problems with the eye exam, with myasthenia gravis and all.  I took an eye exam in Ft. Collins.  This time, the optometrist lady would not agree to write my letter.  She said I needed to get that from the ophthalmologist.

       I contacted the ophthalmologist to ask her opinion, is my eyesight good enough to keep my  CDL?  She replied in the affirmative and agreed to write the necessary letter.  She gave me a phone number to call when I got the specific requirements.

     I made the appointment with the clinic in Hugo.  I should have done some investigating.  I later found some places where they only do CDOT physicals, charging less than $100.  Mine cost $250.

      Armed with my ophthalmologic phone number, I entered the clinic and completed the paperwork.  Then came the actual exam.  We started with the eye exam.  I was able to read the rows of letters adequately with either eye and with both eyes, though truthfully, I was using only the left eye when I was supposed to be using both eyes.

     Then came the color test.  “What color is this dot?” asked the examiner as she pointed to the dot in the upper left hand corner of the eye chart.

     “Red.”  She didn’t miss a beat.  She moved her pointer to the upper right corner.

      “This one?”

     “Yellow.”  Of that I was sure.  She moved her pointer to the lower right corner of the chart.

      “This one?”

      “Green.”  The eye exam was done.  I passed the color test!

      It wasn’t until she looked at my medical history that the examiner brought up my eye problem.  When she expressed reservations about passing me because of the myasthenia gravis I whipped out the phone number from my pocket and asked her to contact the ophthalmologist, who was willing to vouch for the accuracy of my eyesight.

       She left the exam room, to contact the ophthalmologist, at least so I thought.  She never came back.  Instead, her understudy came in about ten minutes later and rechecked my blood pressure.  It was too high, 150 / 80, she said.

      Instead of a two-year extension, I got a three-month extension.  I have to go back in January to see if my pressure has receded.  No mention of myasthenia gravis or eyesight, or anything like that  

      Off to the courthouse where the driver examiner practices.  I removed belt, suspenders, cell phone and passed through the metal detector.  In a matter of minutes, my medical certificate was copied and registered.  It was only good till January, the examiner cautioned me.

      This week, the ophthalmologist’s nurse called me to let me know my recent blood tests had all returned with normal readings.  So I asked about the blood pressure.  Could it be caused by the Prednisone?  She didn’t know.  Consult your family physician.

     Rather than go  off on the problem with modern medicine being all the specialists who only know one thing about the body, whose advise and prescriptions may conflict rashly with the advice and prescriptions of other specialists treating that same body, I wondered if she had heard from the CDOT examiners.  I don’t think they had been in communication with each other.

      Suspicion reared its ugly head that the medical bureaucracy, like the government bureaucrats, don’t think they have done their job properly unless they have required you to come back at least twice.

     I thought I had outsmarted them by having the ophthalmologist ready to testify.  But they found another reason to cause a second visit.  I can’t help but wonder if they had been able to “get” me with the vision issue, if they would have brought up the blood pressure issue at all.  I shouldn’t be so cynical.

       Between now and January, I will have to call on the family physician to address the blood pressure issue.  I will return to the clinic and apply for an extension of my CDOT physical.  Whether that is granted or not, I will have to return to the driver license examiner to either register the extension or to convert the CDL to a regular license.  Red tape wins again.

     I should be grateful that someone is making me address the blood pressure problem.  I have been to the ophthalmologist and the endocrinologist in October.  Both took my blood pressure.  Neither mentioned it.  I guess I’ll have to ask why.

      In the meantime, my CDL is still valid--until January.