A BYPASS in DEFENSE of the FREE WORLD

Knowing that many of my friends and family had not yet experienced Open-Heart Surgery, I recently submitted to the procedure, intending to carefully document each step, so they might have some idea of what to expect. Does this make me some sort of trailblazing hero? That's for others to decide------but probably so----yes, I guess it does.

If you haven't yet read the story, "My Rude Awakening," you should do that first, as this story is what we in the publishing world like to call a "sequel" to that one. 

"Can you say, 'se-quel,' Pretty Boy?" 

But for those of you too lazy to find and read that story (most of you, I suspect) here's the gist of it: 

My family history of heart disease, high cholesterol and intolerance for statins led my Cardiologist to recommend a Nuclear Stress Test. This is a procedure in which lab technicians affix numerous electrical leads to the chest of some unfortunate chap whose coronary arteries may be clogged, requiring him to run on a treadmill until either his heartbeat reaches a predetermined target, or he expires, whichever comes first. As you may have surmised, my test was not fatal, but not for any lack of zeal on the part of the lab-techs. Frustrated that my heartbeat wasn't hitting their target, they cranked the treadmill from the "Alpine" to the "Himalayan" setting, and I managed to gasp out this question with what I thought might be my final breaths,

"How...many...patients...do you...lose on...this machine?" 

One of the techs answered, "About 25%."

"This is disconcerting," I thought, as I approached unconsciousness, "one in four Stress Test participants don't survive. This would have been helpful information to receive before I agreed to the test." (Yes, I often enclose my thoughts in quotation marks, if it's any of your business).

Later, when I questioned that death rate, which seemed a bit high, the tech explained that she meant that about 25% of their patients halt the test before completing it. This clarification provided a humorous moment for all those in the office who were not the patient.

The reason it's called a "nuclear" stress test is that some radioactive material is injected in the patient's chest during the procedure. I would have asked what percentage of radiated patients develop super- powers, but I had lost confidence in the lab techs' understanding of percentages.

My Rude Awakening

Last Tuesday I was waking from a semi-conscious state after a heart cath. I expected to wake to my Cardiologist's words, "Everything looks fine," or, "You had some minor clogging; but the stents I put in should do the trick; go home and eat more pie." But he was off script. "You have three major blockages, each at 70-80%. Imagine ten lanes of busy traffic trying to squeeze into two or three."

"I don't have to imagine it. I just drove through Atlanta."

"One of those blockages is in the Left Anterior Descending Artery, commonly known as the Widow Maker."

I didn't like the sound of that. The rural church I serve part-time already has several widows who need pastoral care. The last thing I wanted was to add another widow to the list and increase my workload, especially when I had just been informed that I have a heart condition. 

Then I heard the doctor use the words "bypass surgery." That's a relief, I thought, he's recommending that we bypass surgery; sounds good to me. I bet he's going to explain that the wizards of modern medicine have found a better way to fix my heart than by carving me like a turkey. Maybe now they can do it with lasers, or a Zoom call. I imagined him saying:

"Thankfully, you made it into the 21st Century, when the barbaric method of extracting veins from your legs, sawing through your chest and splicing those veins into your arteries is a thing of the past." 

But evidently the wizards have been preoccupied with other matters, like fighting worldwide pandemics, or helping that Potter fellow defeat Voldemort, because what he actually said was,

"You need to schedule bypass surgery."

"Rats! No stents then?"

"Your blockages are too severe."

"You idiot," I said to myself, "you should have skipped the dessert bar at Golden Corral."  

"But desserts are included in the price," I responded. "Only a fool would pay for dessert and not eat it. Would you rather be an idiot or a fool?"

"Are those my only two options?"

When Blizzards Were Blizzards

My brother Doug and his wife Nancy recently endured a Buffalo snowfall with accumulations recorded between five and seven feet----but enough about them.  Their storm can’t be compared to the one Donna and I survived when we lived there, the historic Western New York Blizzard of ‘77.  In those days, before the environmentalists got their hands on our atmosphere, America was cranking out pollutants to beat the band, and Buffalo was a major band beater.  The weather pattern then was as follows:  In Buffalo’s summer, which usually fell sometime between the first and fifteenth of August, industrial waste would block the sun’s rays and help to hasten the season we were famous for, winter.  In winter, moisture from Lake Erie would condense around the various toxins in the clouds, and the result would be the descent of huge, semi-metallic snowflakes, and lots of them. 

Yes, other cities received occasional snow pollution; my brother Kenny, who as a child in Baltimore would catch snowflakes on his tongue, still has tongue shrapnel, which along with his suspicious-sounding last name, makes it tough for him to get through airport security.  But Buffalo snow was renowned for its high metallic content.  When the mountains of snow eventually melted, almost always before the Fourth of July, our kids would earn spending money raking up the metal fragments in the yard and selling them back to one of the local steel plants. The air pollution wasn’t especially good for our lungs, but in those days, you must remember, lungs were toughened by the second-hand smoke everyone inhaled in public places.

Let the record show that the recent snow in Buffalo was comprised entirely of young, flighty November flakes.  By contrast, the Blizzard of ‘77 used only mature, January snow.  In Buffalo, January flakes are ripe and plump, and they hit like mini-snowballs.  The flakes in that blizzard were especially fat; every time three of them landed on each other they formed a snowman.  Donna and I were in Northeast Philly visiting our friends, Wayne and Phyllis Clapier (to protect their privacy, let's call them Lane and Willis St. Clair) when we heard a forecast of heavy snow for western New York, which didn’t alarm us.  If at that point they had called it the historic blizzard of ‘77 we might have been more concerned, but no one got around to naming it until later.  It’s also true that at the time I didn’t put much stock in meteorologists’ forecasts because I thought, “What qualifies someone who studies meteors to make predictions about the weather?”  It has since been explained to me that meteorologists focus not on meteors, but on meteorites, and anything that plunges into our atmosphere must have some effect on it.  So I stand corrected.

History on Wry: Columbus

Admiral  Columbus,  it’s  a great honor to speak with you.  As most of our readers know, on Earth you were a 15^th century explorer hoping to find a westward route from Europe to the Orient; but instead, you landed in what we now know as the western hemisphere. Although you were Italian, it was actually the Spanish monarchy that sponsored your expedition?

“Yes, I searched for a sponsor for ten years until the Spanish king and queen signed on.  As sponsors, they got their name and image on all the bric-a-brac we brought to trade for spices and gold----Ferdinand and Isabella coffee mugs, key chains, tee shirts, caps, visors, you name it.  Plus, they were granted exclusive film rights for the expedition; the contract clause read, ‘…in the event that motion pictures should be invented soon.’”

They provided three ships for the journey?

“Well, my ship, the Santa Maria, was the one we knew to be seaworthy; we brought the Nina and the Pinta along for parts. Oh, and they carried replacements for Santa Maria men who fell overboard or died of Scurvy on the trip.  If I had a do-over, I’d bring more oranges and fewer coffee mugs, and maybe one or two life-preservers.”

How long did your westward journey take?

“About five weeks, which any sane man would think should be long enough to get to China.  Who could have guessed there’d be a continent or two in the way?  You’d think some Viking might have mentioned it.”

You landed on a Caribbean Island, thinking you had reached the Orient. How did you determine you weren’t in China?

“Well, the people were dark-skinned, there were no rickshaws, we couldn’t find a decent Chinese restaurant, and all their music was reggae.”

Seminary Spaceships

If you’ve read A Jolly Good Time at the Cemetery, you’ll recall that my brother Doug and I attended Faith Seminary, near Philadelphia. We were there in the mid-seventies of what we called the Twentieth Century (even though every year that I can recall from that century started with the number nineteen---go figure). At the time, a NASA scientist gained some popularity in Christian circles with a book and lecture series advancing a new take on the amazing visions recounted in Ezekiel 1.

If you’re among the 99.9% of Americans who’ve never read Ezekiel (or among the rest who may have read it but have little or no recollection of it) I will hereby enlighten you. In his first chapter, Ezekiel describes a vision of living creatures appearing out of a whirlwind, each with four wings and four faces (of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle). The creatures “sparkled like the color of burnished bronze,” and they “ran back and forth, in appearance like a flash of lightning.” Then the prophet describes what he calls “a wheel on the earth beside each living creature,” and he says, “The appearance of their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel.”  

Bible scholars have long supposed that Ezekiel experienced a vision of heavenly creatures similar to the Seraphim described in Isaiah 6, or the creatures the Apostle John saw around God’s throne as recorded in Revelation 4, each of whom had one of the four faces Ezekiel described. (The meaning of that business about wheels was anybody’s guess.) But the NASA scientist proposed that Ezekiel may have actually interacted with what we call (or what Hollywood calls) aliens----extraterrestrials, life forms who traveled to earth from another planet in a spacecraft (a wheel in the middle of a wheel) far more advanced than anything yet produced by man. I don’t remember the scientist’s name, but we’ll call him Zulcan.  

“Isn’t Zulcan the name of your home planet, Rusty?”

I’ll deal with you later, Pretty Boy. 

Our seminary president, Dr. Carl McIntire, must have been impressed with Zulcan’s book or lecture, because he arranged to have him speak at a seminary chapel. His presentation included slides of an artist's renderings of Ezekiel's visions interspersed with grainy images of UFO's captured by pilots or other earthlings.  If you’re thinking that the weight of evidence that Ezekiel saw aliens who visited Earth in a spacecraft must be (of necessity) on the light side, you are thinking clearly. Furthermore, if you’re wondering what difference it makes whether Ezekiel saw angels created by God, or other life forms created by God, you’re thinking the way I was thinking in that chapel.

“At least you were thinking, Rusty. The only thing in the mind of your parishioners is usually, “When is this guy gonna stop talking?”

“Parishioners,” that’s a big word for you, Tommy, four syllables. Good boy! Who’s a good boy?  Now go get a cookie.

A Jolly Good Time at the Cemetery

Preparing for the ministry, my brother Doug and I attended Faith Theological Seminary near Philadelphia. As you can imagine, a seminary can be a rather solemn place, as learning to rightly interpret and proclaim God’s truth is serious business. (One of our visiting chapel speakers enjoyed poking fun at the somber atmosphere. More than once he began his message, “It’s an honor to be back at Faith Cemeter----I mean Seminary.”)  Thankfully, there were a few classmates who found ways to enliven things.

All our classes were taught by men, with one exception.  A required English course was conducted by an elderly, dignified, no-nonsense widow who had taught for decades in Philadelphia public schools. Dr. Dickie was on a mission to teach proper English to men before they ascended the pulpit.  My guess is, she had been scandalized one-too-many times by the grammar mistakes of young preachers, so she volunteered to come out of retirement to assist the cause. 

Her practice was to bring to class her well-mannered little West Highland Terrier Jolly and tie his leash to one of the front legs of her desk. I suspect she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Jolly home alone for several hours, so she had agreed to teach only if he could accompany her. Jolly would snooze calmly by the desk, listening to the grammar lesson with what appeared to be the same level of interest as the rest of us.  

Then came the day when my friends Phil and Al brought squirt guns to class, having determined to boldly go where no man had gone before (and where, it could be argued, no wise man has yet gone). They waited patiently through much of the day's lecture until Dr. Dickie rose from her chair and turned to use the blackboard. This was their chance. Seated near each other in the front of the room, they drew their weapons and sent streams of water in Jolly's direction, the squeaking of the squirt guns timed to be drowned out by the sound of scraping chalk. Their intention was evidently to get Jolly barking and cause a disruption, providing us with a brief respite from gerunds and independent clauses. 

At first Jolly reacted with only mild curiosity. It seemed he too was thankful for a break from the routine. Without any audible protest, he hopped to his tiny legs and looked around to pinpoint the source of the distraction. From his subdued response an onlooker might have thought (had any onlooker been thinking) that it came as no great surprise to Jolly to be sprinkled in a Presbyterian Seminary.  As the occasional carefully timed effusions continued, he appeared to embrace the fun, yipping, wagging his tail and trying to catch the water in his mouth. His restlessness drew some mild rebukes from Dr. Dickie as she continued busy at the blackboard.