My Father's Funeral Is Today

He died not long after my last post. Services will be held at the First United Methodist Church in Monroe, which he and my mother attended for some years. Afterward, my brothers and I will scatter his ashes at the land at Bellfountain where he and Mom lived for the last 20 years (but which Mom has just sold).

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Keep it together."\\

What a Good Boy

I'm not getting up at 4:00 to go help with my father anymore. Instead, I'm getting up at 3:45 to ride with Kathe on her paper route.
Among other things, I'm trying to learn the route so I can cover for her if need be.
I am learning things about how I learn things. I notice that I still fail to integrate verbal or written instruction with practice -- even when I have both read and done the task before. A significant difficulty if I want to go back to nursing school.
I also noticed something else that might be even more useful: I got quite upset over a series of mistakes, and noticed that I wasn't successfully calming myself. Quite the contrary, I was reinforcing it. Was I enjoying the rush of emotion?
I don't think that was quite it. I think it was that I was saying to myself, "I made a mistake. That's bad. But I am a good boy. I have to be. I am quite upset over that mistake, so clearly I know how bad it is. I had better make myself even more upset, so I can be sure I was upset enough, or else I won't be good enough."
Got to stop thinking that way. Ummm, make that, I've got to stop responding that way.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Or perhaps, 'I have to start responding differently'."

George Sherwin Burt, 1930-2011

My brother David has written this obituary for our father:
George Sherwin Burt
July 4, 1930 — March 6, 2011
George Sherwin Burt died peacefully at home in Corvallis, Oregon in the presence of his family on March 6, 2011. Despite health problems during his final years, he remained spirited and engaged with life until the end. His family and friends benefited from his presence and will miss him greatly.
George was born in San Francisco to John and Velma Burt. After graduating from high school George served in the Air Force during the Korean War, where he instructed South Korean servicemen in radio operations. George’s experiences in Korea were the beginning of a life-long love of teaching and helping others. After being honorably discharged from the Air Force, George earned a Master’s in Psychology from San Jose State University, and eventually his PhD from Arizona State University.
In 1959, George married Dorothy Cook, who remained at his side through many adventures and until the end of his life. George and Dorothy moved to Corvallis, where they would raise their three sons in 1966, when George began his 24 year employment with Oregon State University as a professor of psychology. A very engaging teacher, he involved himself in the well being of those who studied with him. He read voraciously and always viewed the world with wonder. The love of science that he encouraged in his students was more than academic and spilled over into all aspects of his life. At the same time, he never let his dedication to intellectual pursuits supersede his concern for what was going on in the world. He conveyed this profound enjoyment of life to those around him, including the many friends he made in Africa and South America.
When George retired from OSU in 1990, he and Dorothy began a new adventure when they enrolled in the Peace Corps, where they would complete two tours instructing local people in agriculture in Tunisia, 1990-1992 and in Paraguay in 1994-1996.
Upon the couple’s return from the Peace Corps, George continued to work for social, political and environmental causes in many roles and took the welfare of all those he met to heart—especially the rural poor of Benton County. He continued to assist with community food banks and other charitable endeavors until his health rendered him unable to do so.
Until the end, George possessed a love of science, the world, and other human beings that filled himself and those around him with joy and the drive to do good works.
He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Dorothy Cook Burt; his sons John, David, and Thomas; his grandchildren Walden, Mestowet, Ashnakech, Tesfaye, Sierra, Darius, Cuba, Linda, and Andrea; and his Sister Anne Hiler.
A service will be held at the Monroe United Methodist Church at 11 A.M. on Saturday, April 2, 2011
George asked that you give of yourself to some cause that is important to him or to you. He wouldn’t want to dictate to your conscience. If you have to give money instead, make it a gift to something important---by the way, there was nothing more important to George than children. They are our future.

Thank you for writing this, David, and thank you for being with Dad when he passed.

//The Magic Eight Ball says, "Everything changes and ends."\\

The Mysterious Island

Kathe and I have been watching a lot of videos from the library lately. We saw a Ray Harryhausen film awhile back, and she mentioned that she hadn't seen most of them, so I reserved all of them that the library had.

The most recent one was The Mysterious Island, and that reminded me of just how many film versions of it there have been, and how many extraneous elements each of them have had: giant crabs, a feral child, cultures of aquatic humanoids, Caribbean pirates of the 1600s in the western Pacific of the 1860s, a rival in his own submarine, an oddball tie-in with a totally different Verne novel and so on.

I suppose it's the result of the book's being a sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, one of the most famous books of all time (even in English, where it has suffered from some very poor translations), but isn't anywhere like as colorful or bombastic.

Still, invaders from Mercury...?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "The book remains unharmed, on the shelf over there."\\

Who Said That?

I don't recall who said it -- not one of those famously thoughtful or witty persons, but someone famous -- and for that matter, I can't recall exactly what it was he said, but it was something like,
If I had my way, I would start life as a little boy, following which I would be a young girl, after which I would be a young man, then a mature lady, and end my life as an old gentleman.
Something along those lines, anyway.
The other day something reminded me of that thought, and I turned it over in my mind and saw the sense in it. But my next thought was that this is rather like the way we do live today:
Pretty much everyone, regardless of gender or race or social class, has a childhood that includes riding bicycles and playing soccer and collecting cards.
Pretty much everyone spends their adolescence deeply concerned about clothing and grooming and social events.
Pretty much everyone leaves school as an adventurer: going to college or starting a business or joining the Army or doing something else reckless and glorious.
Pretty much everyone tries to arrive at "a certain age" with some measure of gravitas and respectability and if at all possible, some degree of financial security.
And pretty much everyone would like to end their lives with a few good stories to tell.
It's not a perfect model, but I do think we live closer to that now than we ever have.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Find the good in being who you are, and welcome whom you are becoming."\\

Second Breakfast

Greatly though I have always admired the lifestyle of the Hobbits of the Shire, I have never gone so far as to indulge in the practice of "second breakfast" until just now.

I get up at 0400 (I used to get up along with Kathe at 0345, but that tended to interfere with her getting ready for her paper route), eat a half-sandwich and drink coffee, and cross town to my parents' new place. I assist my father as best I am able (the last few days, I have just been giving him a bed bath and putting socks on him, because he hasn't been up for getting out of bed), and go home to get in bed with Kathe (who is usually home by then) at about 0630. We get up about 0830 or so and have (second) breakfast together -- usually for me, another half-sandwich.

Small as they are, that does still mean adding another meal to the day. My weight is probably going up. I haven't been checking lately. Too much else to worry about.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Too much to do is not an excuse for neglecting your health."

George S. Burt

Dad recovered from his bladder infection enough to leave the hospital for the nursing home, and then recovered enough to go home.

He was home two days and then when I arrived to help my mother get him up, found him on the floor. We could not between us get him into his wheelchair, so we finally called 911.

All we thought Dad needed was fore three or four burly EMTs to hoist him into his chair, but as they checked him out, they found more problems and took him to a hospital (one which was closer than his last one, but not as nice).

They had been in the process of moving from their hobby farm into town, but this latest crisis and Dad's further deterioration inspired them to move up the schedule.

It should be easier for Mom to take care of him in town, and emergency response will be faster. It will be easier for me, since instead of a half-hour drive to help get him up in the morning, it will be just a ten-minute bicycle ride. I am looking forward to having an excuse for a bicycle commute -- nothing puts me in a better mood for work.

Still, two hospitals and two homes within the span of a week is a lot for a failing old man to deal with. And Dad is going downhill all the time. There is less of him each day.

Part of the reason Mom finally bought a place in town was that Dad no longer recognized the view out the window as his own land, bought with his own earnings. The property, and the cash value of it (as real estate and as standing timber) had been a source of satisfaction to him, but if he didn't even know what it was, there was not much point in staying there.

Last week, I helped him out of bed and steadied his walker on the way to take a shower. Today, I gave him a bed bath and helped him transfer to a recliner, and in the evening back into bed. Soon, I expect, he won't get out of bed at all.

I'd been warned that it would be a very difficult experience for me, the first time my father didn't recognize me. That hasn't happened yet (though he has been a bit hazy on how he is related to me), but the other day something arguably worse happened: he asked me where he was and what the date was. When I told him, he smiled and said, "So I am George Burt!"

Well, at least he was pleased by the knowledge. And well he should be.

You could do a lot worse than to be George Sherwin Burt, and have lived his life these past eighty years.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do what you can."\\

The Ronald Reagan Centennial

Let us never forget the many ways in which Ronald Reagan changed the world forever.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Never forget."\\

Dad Goes Home

Not yet moved into the new house in Corvallis, but at least back to the old place at Bellfountain.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "A little and a little and a little...."\\

Soaking

Dear Kathe:

I love you.

I love you so much that over the last 27 years, it has soaked into every fiber and fluid in my body.

When I realized that being too emotionally dependent upon you was not good for either of us (my therapist once told me it seemed as though we had become potbound, our roots painfully intertwined), I thought that learning to stand on my own would mean that I would not love you quite so intensely and passionately. It was quite a surprise to find that actually I was able to love you far more.

Friction and frustration and defensiveness built up over years of difficult times have made both of us shy of saying what we are both thinking. This note is a small step towards reminding us both of a simple fact of life:

John loves Kathe.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Yes."\\

Now It's Dad's Turn...

...to be hospitalized*, with a new multi-species bladder infection and aspiration pneumonia.

He's at Riverbend, the same Springfield hospital where his mother-in-law stayed.

All of which means it is my turn in the barrel tonight.

Not that other people don't have it harder. Mom, for instance. Still, this gets old after awhile.

Not that other people aren't older.

Sometimes I feel nostalgic about working night shifts, and having been one of Night's Own Children is a cherished part of my identity, and to be sure if I am offered a night job I would take it so fast I'd be there the night before, but I don't think I want to actively court a night job.**

//The Magic Eight Ball says, "Stand watch through the night. Somebody's got to do it."\\

*Funny, I thought I had written at least something about Grandma's heart attack last week. Maybe later I will go back and make a post about it.

** Which means either that I am getting old, or that I no longer need to abuse myself in order to feel worthy of love and respect. Or both, I guess.

Happy Holidays*

*Whichever and however many you care to observe, and anyone who wants to be exclusive and hog all of December for themselves can go do it elsewhere.

We didn't buy a tree this year, but while we were looking for a convenient way to display our incoming cards (the mirror where we usually tape them up has been removed while we restore the living room wall -- note the nice fresh drywall in the background), we saw the ladder leaning against the wall and decided to set it up. And having once done that, it seemed like a good idea to drape a string of lights over it.

So there you have it. Our Yule Ladder for 2010.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "For goodness' sake, do please ring in the new."\\

A Narrow Escape?

A few minutes ago I was up in the lookout tower on top of the house (which these days is located in the former boys' bedroom at the top of the stairs*), working on a story I'm writing**. I had carried the laptop up there in its bag, mainly because it was still in it after I'd gotten home,*** but I picked up the computer as I usually do, tucking it under my arm and wadding up the extension cord, then picked up the carrying case and my coffee cup, and then picked up my glasses case and held it between two fingers....

And then I suddenly saw how precarious and unstable the whole arrangement was, and felt a chill at the possibility of falling on the stairs.

So I put the computer and its cord into the bag, and my glasses case into my pocket, and descended the stairs in a much more sensible and grown-up fashion.

In how many alternate timelines am I lying dead or crippled at the bottom of the stairs for Kathe to find me when she gets out of the bathtub? Possibly quite a few but hey, that's their problem, as is the loss of the laptop in the timelines where I dropped it.


//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "The one thing nobody ever gets to know is what would have happened."\\

* Kathe's grandson Dick may be moving in soon. We would both enjoy the extra company, as well as the rent money.

** I'll let you know how that works out later.

*** I spent the morning sitting up with my father while my mother attends to the closing of the house and their moving to a mobile home in Corvallis.

One, Anyway

Driving out to my parents' place this morning, the fog was very thick until I got up onto the elevation of Reese Creek Road, when it suddenly became clear. I grumbled about how I could have used to have clear driving on 99W, until I noticed how very frosty it was up there, also.

Some of these microclimates are pretty damned micro, I must say.

Also, I must say the Valley sure is flat, that the entire stretch from Corvallis to Monroe is in the same band of weather.

And one more thing about the weather this morning: as I got out of the car, I saw just one brilliant meteor. We'd have seen many more, if the sky had been clearer lately. But it almost never is, in the Valley in December.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "One can be enough, if you let it be."\\

The Last Christmas

My father's health is not improving, and my mother is not large enough or strong enough (or young enough) to take care of him without more help, especially not in a house that is not really suited to an aging couple in frail health.

So, they are moving to a more-accessible mobile home in Corvallis, to be nearer to their doctors and to emergency services.

They will be moving early in the new year, which means, among other things, that this will be The Last Christmas (cue portentous music) in the house at Bellfountain.

David and Tom and their families will be gathering at the house, and will help with some of the moving (and will take away some quantity of family heirlooms, as will Kathe and I).

It probably won't be too difficult or too tearful, but I reckon it's going to be interesting.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You can cue portentous music all you want, but it still is going to be The Last Christmas."\\

We Didn't Watch Videos Tonight

I suppose we are getting just a bit set in our ways: it really is news when we don't watch either an episode of a TV series or half of a feature film.

Tonight, we were planning to go to a potluck at the Oddfellows Hall, but as it turned out, we went first to a vigil at the mosque, to show the community's support for the congregation as they recovered from a terrorist fire attack.

So, that's what we did this evening, instead of watching Ratatouille.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Ratatouille still has a few days left before it has to go back to the Library."\\

Sphygmomanometer

I like sphygmomanometers. I like to look at them. I like to use them*. I like to say "sphygmomanometer".

*[I am gradually getting more confident in my desire to go back to nursing school again, in spite of multiple failures in the past.]

The other day, I was watching some kids playing with a toy medical kit, noticing that among other things, it included a plastic bracelet in the form of an adhesive bandage. Also noticing that they still put it all in a "little black bag", a feature almost as anachronistic as the way that toy gas pumps still go "ding-ding" as they pump imaginary gasoline.

I was intrigued by one little boy using a toy sphygmomanometer on another boy, squeezing the little bulb and pretending to read the dial: "Eighty, ninety, ten, eleven, twelve." Interesting combination of the correct and the almost-correct -- notice that he did keep the tens column straight.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Mind your blood pressure."\\

New Perceptions

Kathe:

Since I started therapy, I have been overcoming sensory inhibitions right and left: food tastes better -- and I pay more attention to its nutritional value as opposed to any emotional comfort it might give. I told you about the ground under my feet feeling more substantial. I don't know if that has led to any improvement in my posture, but I feel more balanced anyway.

But tonight while soaking I was overwhelmed by a rarer and more precious kind of improved perception: I suddenly had a powerful feeling of how much you really do value me, how much I mean to you.

I would have been unable to recognize such a feeling before, or if I started to get an outline of it, I would have recoiled from it with fear or horror or shame, feeling both unworthy and unfairly burdened.

The thing I craved like an addict was also something I couldn't bring myself to look at directly.

Oh, well, doesn't have to make sense.

But thank you for your love, admiration and desire.


-- Love, John

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Value all that you see, and see all that you value."\\

Sometimes Parking Is Difficult

[NOTE: Illustrations will be added to this post when Blogger quits acting weird.]

When there isn't a parking space available on "our" block (10th Street, between Jefferson and Adams, preferably on the east side, preferably at the north end near the house), we have to park the cars elsewhere in the neighborhood. Parking got more difficult when the medium-density apartments across the street were replaced by the high-density construction which we call the Great Wall, and more recently when a nearby area was made into a parking district, and our block was not included.

The other day, I wound up parked on 9th, between Jefferson and Adams, in between a carnation-pink Smart car with a license plate that read FLUFFF, and a vehicle with plates issued by the Grand Portage Band of the Chippewa nation.

Almost 30 years ago, while hitchhiking across the country, I got a ride through Chippewa country in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I had an interesting conversation with a Chippewa, and had the pleasure of joining him in urinating into Lake Superior, at what he told me was Whitefish Bay, a location I instantly identified as the safe harbor that the Edmund Fitzgerald did not reach. He told me that people on the lakes appreciated that song very much, and took it as recognition for all the many ships which had been lost on the Inland Sea.

But I did not know that the Chippewa issued their own license plates, much less did I think that one day I would see one in my own Corvallis neighborhood.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "And what associations do you have with a pink car named FLUFFF?"\\

Halloween 2010

We went to the Boo Belly Bash at the Old World Center and saw a number of very accomplished dancers in inventive, eccentric outfits.

I especially liked the idea behind Tibella's mad scientist outfit (complete with lab coat and chemist's goggles), but have some advice for her, should she want to wear it again in future:
* A rubber apron to take off and toss to the audience
* Thick black rubber gloves (also to toss). The apron and the gloves really go with the goggles.
* Some sciencey devices to dangle from the jangling dancer's belt: a micrometer, a glass and steel syringe, a light meter, an Erlenmeyer flask, things like that.
* Maybe something smokey inside the coat, or in a pocket...?

We only got one group of three (adult) trick or treaters tonight, which was disappointing. But they went away with butterscotch candies and copies of Mad magazine, so I trust the spirits of the ancestors were satisfied.

We had a really nifty jack o'lantern designed by a friend (we'll post a picture when we get it uploaded). Pity he couldn't come by tonight, but that's life.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Remember the dead."\\