Bodies on the Cold Ground

I heard an interesting   story from a man from Toronto at dinner. We had chatted a bit about history, the American Civil War, etc. I had mentioned how I along with my ancestors and offspring had fought in every American conflict. He then began his story about his father's participation in WWII.  It seems his father was shot in the head by a German sniper.  This was during the invasion following Normandy. It was the winter of 1944 and the snow covered ground was occupied by the Germans He was left on the ground for dead in a puddle of his own blood. Bloody white fragments of his skull punctuated the snow.  The temperature was freezing .  When they were gathering up the dead, the frozen bodies gave new meaning to the word, "stiff". The Canadian's father was discovered to be breathing. A sharp-sharp-red young man noticed the breath of a seemingly dead soldier condensing in the frigid air.They gathered  some of the bone fragments from the back of his head before transporting him to a field hospital. Believing that death was imminent the doctors stuck an IV in his arm and pushed his bed over the corner and waited for him to die. But he refused to die. When asked about it later he said that he was in a snow covered field one minute and then he woke up in the hospital a month later. After realizing that he wasn't going to die they placed a steel plate in his head and sent him home. The right side of his body side had no feeling in it. His mother was over protective. He was wheelchair bound and she waited on him hand and foot. After all he was her baby boy. One day, while visiting, the family priest, who was probably with Noah on the ark, convinced her that she had to let him go through lengthy rehabilitation. And that if she continued caring for him hand and foot, he would remain in a wheelchair the rest of his life. At first he could barely stand and then he sought himself to walk by pushing a chair around. With improvement he managed to get a job  and managed to have a good life with a good wife who presented him with ten children.  However, the memories the war remained and he ways wondered how he had gotten off that battlefield.  Late in life he attended a reunion of the members of his old army unit. He was surprised to hear a voice from behind announce, "You look a lot better than the last time I saw you!"Surprised, the handicapped veteran exclaimed, "Who arenyou? I don't know you!"

"I'm the man that put your butt in a wheelbarrow to get you off the field when you were shot many years ago." A Iife long friendship began that day. 

A Drive in the Mountains

A drive in the mountains

 ‘Turn here,” I said.  We had  been driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway west of Asheville, North Carolina. It was a crisp fall day and the mountain foliage was full color.

“Here?” she asked.  “This doesn’t look like much of a road.”

“According to the GPS, it’s the fastest way back to Black Mountain,” I responded.

“OK, but it doesn’t look like the road we came on,” she said in a voice tinged with doubt.

She steered the Toyota on to the narrow road on the left. As least it was asphalt. I thought. 

“This doesn’t looked like anyone else has been on the road,”  she said.

I chose to not comment on her observation because I was remembering an “unimproved” road in northern New Mexico many years ago. I had insisted that we take said road while on vacation. This was in the very early years of our marriage. It was in the spring after the snow thaw and the road was muddy with deep ruts. The first indication of a problem should have the been the four wheel drive truck we saw abandoned in a ditch. But we continued on until passing by a barricade to a highway announcing that the road we had just traversed was closed to through traffic. I did not need to experience a repeat in the mountains of western North Carolina. 

The asphalt on the road only lasted a few hundred yards and was replaced by pea gravel and hard packed clay. The foliage was beautiful as we descended  on the winding road.I was expecting to see some turkeys or maybe a grouse. Hair-pin switchbacks were common. There was a build-up of mud in the turns which hid some very deep pot holes. We were moving at a snails pace.  Claudette was driving and I cautioned her about the danger f the potholes. On our previous car with low profile tires we had punctured two by hitting potholes. I am sometimes admonished for my suggestions to my significant other’s driving style but this was not one of those times. 

“If I burst a tire, I guess we’ll have to call Triple A,” she said.

“I doubt if a cellphone signal can make it out of the mountains,” I said.

“I’ll be careful,” she assured me.

“What was that?” she exclaimed.

“Where?”

“Off to the left!” she said excitedly.  “I think it was a bear!”

“I don’t think so.  It’s winter and bears hibernate.”

“I before we left home I read in Wikipedia that in the south bears don’t hibernate!”

“Well, if you read it on the internet it must be true…” I said in resignation.

“oh, yeah! Julie said she had found some errors in Wikipedia!”

I dared notcontradict Julie and let the subject drop.

We continued downward. In some places it was a rub board road and I was sure some of my dental fillings were being loosened as it reminded me of a road in Utah. The road worsened as a creek was visible far below. As we slowly made it around a switchback without having to back up she brought the Toyota to an abrupt halt. There was a fallen tree across the road.

“We don’t really need this,” I said.  “Can we go around?”

“I don’t think so.  I know I can’t and I don’t want you to try!’

I knew I could drive the car around the obstacle but did not feel that it was the proper time to test the strength of our marriage.

As I opened the car door, I said, “I think I can move it!”

“Let me help, you know you have a bad heart.”

“Alright…” I said in resignation. I found a branch from a hickory tree that we used as a lever to move the tree trunk from the road. I took a long swallow from our final bottle of water as we continued down the mountain road.

It seemed as  though  we had gone only a few hundred yards when I heard the driver make a sound of despair. 

“Oh no!”

“What now?” I said.

“The low fuel light came on.”  There was desperation in her voice.

“We’ll make it to the nearest gas station I’m sure,” I hoped I sounded optimistic.  But I knew this girl could read me like a book. “Let me check the the GPS again.” My good old Samsung S5 displayed the flashing message, “Searching for signal”.

We rode along in silence. I am remembering when I gave out of gas at 2 AM in a Volkswagen bug.  But I remind myself that a couple of guys in and old VW had picked me up carried me to a gas station. I glance toward the dashboard instruments.  The low fuel indicator light looked like a one hundred watt bulb and was getting brighter. 

I remind the driver not to accelerate down hill and maintain forward momentum at a snails pace.  A slower speed would use less fuel. We were beginning to see cars and trucks pulled off the sides of the road. We saw no people.  I thought maybe we could borrow a gallon of gasoline from someone. We were now on flat land in a valley beside a mountain creek. Fast moving cold water. We passed a campground and decided not to ask for help. After all the low fuel light was not getting any brighter. Eventually, and it seemed like forever, the tires grabbed asphalt and in a few minutes we were in Old Fort, NC. I was happy to see that the gas pump at the first gas station we found had a card reader. I filled the tank and found we had one gallon left.  Would that have taken us 30 miles? Nah, probably not.  I wonder if It had been a bear?

Airplane! Airplane! Airplane!

When I was a small boy I would go out into the back yard and while she was hanging up clothes  I would  look up in the sky and say,”Airplane! Airplane! Airplane!”  And the one I remember was the “Flying Boxcar” because of its unique twin-boom design.

The C-119  “Flying Boxcar”, which was developed from the Fairchild C-82  “Packet”, which was designed as a transport plane. Transport planes move cargo, whether men or material. The Flying Boxcar had huge clamshell doors at the rear of the fuselage to easily facilitate the loading or unloading of cargo.  It was also a good platform from which paratroopers could jump. Occasionally, the rear doors were removed so that cargo could be easily dropped by parachute. The C-119 was designed and built by Fairchild.  The plane first introduced in 1947 ceased production in 1955.The Fairchild manufactured C-119s were powered by the two huge Pratt and Whitney 4360 engines.  With these the plane had a cruising speed of 200 mile per hour while carrying twenty-seven thousand five hundred pounds of cargo or 95 fully equipped troops. These huge 28 cylinder engines produced 3,500 hp each. The C-119s manufactured by Kaiser had the smaller Wright R-3350-85 engines and were designated  for Marine and Navy use.  The Navy department designation for the C-119 was R4Q.  They were used extensively in the Korean War particularly as troop transport and for paratroop drops.  In the French Indochina War they were loaned to the French but flown by American pilots employed by the Central Intelligence Agency.  Later in that same area, during the Vietnam War, some C-119s were converted to flying gun platforms as the AC-119K “Stinger”. In later years these airplanes were frequently outfitted with auxiliary jet engines to carry additional weight. This was called the “Jet-Pack” modification.  The civilian versions mounted a turbojet on a pylon atop the fuselage while the military version carried a jet engine under each wing.  Many C-119s saw service as tanker planes with the US Forest Service. 

The Flying Boxcar last flew for the US military in 1974.

Interestingly enough the most memorable rendering of the aircraft on film was probably in the 1965 film, "The Flight of the Phoenix".  The film starred Jimmy Stewart a former Army Air Corps bomber pilot in World War Two. There is considerable discussion about the film in the comments regarding my video, "Corncobs & Boxcars" .

Internet Portal

Are you using a patient portal.

If you regularly visit a physician or just get periodic health check-ups, patients portals provide a unique insight into your healthcare. 

What is a patient portal?

A patient portal is a secure online website that gives patients convenient, 24-hour access to personal health information from anywhere with an Internet connection. Using a secure username and password, patients can view health information such as:

• Recent doctor visits
• Discharge summaries
• Medications
• Immunizations
• Allergies
• Lab results

Some patient portals also allow you to:

• Securely message your doctor
• Request prescription refills
• Schedule non-urgent appointments
• Check benefits and coverage
• Update contact information
• Make payments
• Download and complete forms
• View educational materials

With your patient portal, you can be in control of your health and care.  Patient portals can also save your time, help you  communicate with your doctor, and support care between visits.

I’m 74 years old and have congestive heart failure. Through my patient portal I can see record of all medications I take and when they were prescribed and income cases removed from my medication schedule. After each doctor visit I log on to my patient portal and check to see the results of the test I was given.  this way I can see trends in my health.  By looking at this data i can determine if any changes in life style have affected my health. My next appointment is also indicated and I can request prescription refills if necessary. The portal also gives me direct access to my doctor via email and I can schedule and appointment if needed.

My general practitioner brought  patient portals to my attention several years ago and I use a portal with each doctor I visit.  It is simply a way modern technology can make our lives better. 

Ask your physician about a patient portal.

The Entertainer

This past weekend I was sitting on the porch of a mountain lodge in North Carolina talking with a friend. It was a lazy kind of day as two friends spoke of the impending rain, and other subjects of similar significance, to the sound of rocking chairs. A gray bird flew across in front of us and I, having been the class ornithologist of the third grade, identified it as a mockingbird. 

“I’ve seen them chase crows,” I exclaimed.

“You think that’s something? I saw a couple of mockingbirds attack a snake one time!”, my friend said.

“Really!”

“Yep, one of ‘em was at his head keeping his attention while the other was pecking at his tail!” 

I decided to not relate how I had seen a mockingbird chase a yellow cat away from a bird’s nest once. 

The mockingbird’s  name describes it well. The bird weighs less than 2 ounces and is 10 inches or less in length. Lacking in colorful plumage, it is gray and white with a small head and sharp beak. Its stellar characteristic is its ability to mimic other birds, amphibians, and insects. 

I once heard of an incident which further accentuates the mockingbird’s ability to mimic. 

My friend Larry, like many men my age, served in military service during the Vietnam War.  Like me, Larry joined the Navy and was trained as a radioman. Radiomen aboard ships operate the radio equipment and send and receive messages. My job in the Navy was to repair radio equipment, but that has nothing to do with this story. Larry was sent to San Diego, California, for radioman training. Radiomen must be proficient in sending and receiving Morse code. An audible version sounds like a whistle that has two distinct tones. The combination of these tones represents a letter of the alphabet or a numeral. In practice sessions trainees would listen to recorded Morse code messages and interpret the code and write it on a pad. 

One day after a particularly long and trying session, when the class was over and the equipment shut down, an interesting thing happened. As they were closing the windows (It Is quite warm in San Diego in the summer.) they again heard the recorded Morse code messages. The Chief Petty Officer who was the instructor immediately approached the trainee responsible for shutting off the audio equipment  with fire in his eyes. When you have been in the Navy only a few months and a CPO with nearly twenty years is about to chew you out, you are indeed intimidated. Larry was. After Larry cringed and took his tongue lashing the Chief asked Larry to show him how he shut down the equipment. Much to the Chief’s surprise Larry had followed procedures to the letter. The Chief was beside himself and ordered that the windows be opened while he solved the equipment mystery. When Larry opened the window the Morse code message was heard again just like before. The code was coming from outside. Close observation determined that a mockingbird was the source of the Morse code message!

It's all in the name.