Freedom, Dan and Quarters K

CDR Dan Shanower. Photo Victoria

Quarters K, the legendary Navy Exchange Gas Station closed last Friday. I stopped by on Saturday, having missed my chance to stop while it was still open on Friday.

As I have mentioned in these electrons before, the Secretary of the Army is expanding Arlington National Cemetery, and they are going to rip down the former NEX facility and re-route S. Joyce Street.

I am happy on the one side that I won’t have to worry about where to get buried, only when, but always sad to lose a source of high-test fuel and vodka.

Quarters K, RIP. Photo Socotra.

That is not the only way Quarters K will always be with me. Convenient to the vast building where I worked for years, it was the go-to stop for gas, alcohol and snacks. The manager was a long-term friend. She was a formidable woman who resembled former Texas Governor Ann Richards, and we talked about the video surveillance cameras that might have caught the images of the inbound airliner, and also informed me that Quarters K was the second-highest grossing NEX in the system. It certainly was the closest point the media or civilians were permitted to get to the Pentagon after the attack, so I always have a peculiar feeling when I am gassing up and looking over at the building. The pumps face directly at the façade behind which the Navy Command Center and the CNO Intelligence Plot (IP) were located.

Once the gas station is gone, they are going to tear down the venerable mustard-colored brick of the Navy Annex and expand the available grave sites on the Pentagon Military Reservation. That sprawl includes the navy Annex, Fort Myer, Henderson hall, the DISA complex, the Pentagon itself and of course the national cemetery. That covers, roughly, the footprint of Arlington Hall Plantation, once owned by Robert E. Lee.

I try to get over to the graves of those who were killed there that day, and if I have a particular preference for decorating the graves of Dan and Vince, it is only because I knew them.

Vince was a force of nature. He was a college running back, among other things, and a devoted family guy. My association with him was mostly professional. They named the JIOC building at Tampa after him- “The Vince” is what they call it. Vince had worked at CENTCOM before coming up to join Dan in IP as his deputy. So it was natural that the Tampa crowd would claim a special link to Vince.

I was at both funerals in the sad weeks that followed the attacks.

At Dan’s, I was in the crowd that followed the family, and the caisson that carried him to his rest. Behind the horses were 250 of us, including Admiral “Fox” Fallon, Vice Chief of Operations of the Navy.

We walked down the big hill parallel to the Navy Annex, down to Section 64, the closest to the gray sandstone of the Pentagon where he perished.

The fifteen minute service at graveside included the reading of a letter of condolences from President George W. Bush. The casket team performed the rite of folding the flag until it was a perfect blue triangle festooned with stars. The lead sailor solemnly passed it to the Director of Naval Intelligence, RADM Rick Porterfield, who in turn presented the flag to Pat Shanower, Dan’s mom.

I will never forget the color of the red Virginia dirt, freshly turned, nor the way that the tough lush green turf has grown up on the graves in the decade since.

In the face of tragedy and loss, Dan’s family has found solace in an article he wrote for the U.S. Naval Institute magazine, “Proceedings.” His 1997 opinion piece, “Freedom Isn’t Free,” paid tribute to four shipmates who died when their EA-6B Prowler crashed while attempting to recover on our old ship, USS Midway (CV-41).

In the article, Dan summed up his feelings this way: “I believe that because they died in the prime of their lives in service of their country their sacrifices take on special meaning.”

Ma Midway has a very large family. She is a memorial ship now, in San Diego, but in her active life I have heard that more than a quarter million of us served in her steel plates in all the world’s oceans. Dan and I shared a special chapter of the raffish carrier’s service in the Overseas Family Residency Program, the Navy scheme to permanently forward deploy a naval strike group in the Far East.

Dan started in the Navy the way I did- forward deployed. He joined Midway-Maru’s foreign legion in Yokosuka, and got a chance to earn the ropes as an Air Intelligence Officer, doing mission planning for contingency strikes and briefing and de-briefing the aircrews on routine cyclical operations in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. That closeness to the aviation mission is one of the things that caused him to write what he did when those Prowler kids lost their lives so suddenly.

We talked about that when he reported to the THIRD Fleet staff to work for me as when I was Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence. He had a sly sense of humor and an incredible tale to tell of his broken service. He had left active duty and worked “for the State Department,” which is the polite euphemism for those people who are emphatically NOT from Foggy Bottom.

As members of the Foreign Legion we shared something that all Midway sailors did. We had a blast in Japan. Dan climbed Mount Fuji and tried to learn Japanese, and we all have a bit of pigeon Nipponese that we still shriek when prompted, (“Hai! Dozo! Arrigato, go-zai mas! Gomen na-sai!”) and at the hail-and-farewell gatherings, or in the long hours onboard USS Coronado he would captivate the Intelligence Division with sea stories.

Dan was a smart, confident officer who loved his profession. He told me the bizarre part of his career. “Working for the State Department” in the Philippines, he found that he missed his Navy. He got a letter in the mail from the Navy Department- he was on inactive reserve status at the time- and discovered to his amazement that his record had qualified him for promotion to Lieutenant Commander.

He applied for return to active duty, something that rarely happened in those days, and was picked up as a regular lieutenant commander. I met him in 1995, and I realized within two or three sentences this was one of the funniest guys, with a dry wit and an absolutely captivating personality, and smart.  At his in-call with me I realized he read extensively, understood cultural differences and really was a student of life and the world.

He bought an old Chris Craft cabin cruiser to live on while he was with the staff. He worked afloat, and lived afloat. He was the life of the party.

But we were lucky to have a very talented intelligence team. Another of the Lieutenant Commanders on the staff was a red-haired Annapolis Graduate and recovering Bear’s fan named Bob Poor.

Between the two of them, we were in stitches for nearly two years. It is Bob who made what happened, happen.

But before we get to that, we have to go from San Diego to the National Capital Region. A few years after our time on the waterfront in Coronado, Dan got orders to the Office of Naval Intelligence in Suitland, MD, where my son works now. Dan was recognized for his competence, and selected to be Chief at CNO-IP, the most prestigious and harrowing job in the business, confronting the Navy leadership each day in the bowels of the Pentagon.

Dan’s home-town of Naperville cared deeply about their native son. The paper called to interview me as the day drew near for the dedication of the memorial to him in Illinois. “Dan was drawn to intelligence work for the usual reasons,” I said in an interview with the Naperville paper years ago.

“We all wanted to know the secrets,” I said. “Dan enjoyed the cloak and dagger, and he also had the spirit many folks in the service had that you’re doing good for your country and for the world at large.”

In 2001, Dan was chief at the CNO Intelligence Plot (CNO-IP) in the Pentagon. The massive reconstruction of the building had required the Navy Command Center to move from the grand corridor on the 4th deck with the walnut paneling, portraits of past CNO’s and the elegant glass-cased ship models.

Dan was preparing for another career shift, even as he was working the 12-hour days in IP. He was finishing his final correspondence course for a master’s degree in international studies at the Naval War College, where he demonstrated an aggressive curiosity for the subject.

I would not have expected anything else. I last talked to him at his wetting down for Commander at the Capital Brewing Company. Dan knew that to advance to the next level, Captain, he would have to take another ship’s company tour as the intelligence officer on an aircraft carrier. But he had another goal: becoming an attaché, the senior naval officer assigned to an ambassador at a foreign post, and he knew what was coming in the future. He wanted to do HUMINT, and he wanted to do it in posts like Singapore, Hong Kong or Beijing.

He asked me about it, as a scheme, I told him that if he understood he career risks- seems sort of dumb now that the business has changed so much in the War on Terror- and I told him to go for it.

So that is where we were on the morning of September 11th. We were all going to be vey different by the end of that morning. But I need to tell you what Bob Poor did this month that will keep Dan familiar to the new generation coming up.

It is pretty cool, and I will get to that tomorrow.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Witch’s Brew

A little damp snow is all we got at Big Pink, but snow it was, on the 29th of October. Photo Socotra.

I am still a little surprised to be here, in the safety and comfort of Your Nation’s Capital, and that I managed to avoid the storm.

It swept through Arlington all day; steady rain to start, and then the temperature plummeted and the wind picked up. I made a sentimental pilgrimage to the Navy Exchange Gas Station at Quarters K- the automated teller machine is the only thing still working. The sign taped on the door said the last day was Friday, and peering in the window I saw the shelves were bare.

An institution has passed.

Nothing for it but to adapt to the new reality. So I flogged the Bluesmobile  up the hill, past the great mustard-colored bulk of the future former Navy Annex to the entrance on the Marine side of Joint Base Myer-Henderson-Hall to visit the Commissary to re-stock the larder and the gas station to restock the Vodka Locker.

The wind was brisk and the rain was turning into something solid, and I had to draw my hands into the sleeves of my pull over. Damn, I thought, it is going to snow.

There was only a dusting of soft heavy snow when it was done, confined to the cars and rooflines and outlining the mounds of fallen leaves, but snow it was.

The people in New York will sniff at what we got- there was over an inch in Central Park, and it does not bode well for the coming season.

The earliest I recall getting hammered here was the highly unusual Veteran’s Day shellacking we got in 1986 or so- a one-two punch that dumped a couple feet on the capital and provided my first experience with how vulnerable the metro area is to ANY disruption, much less the catastrophic.

When I eventually got home and unpacked the groceries, I got back to the main event, which was sorting through the mail. Aha! I said, finding the $600 surprise of the month. I wondered what was going to conspire to ruin my planning, and set up the payments for that, and looked at the books for the folks. Now that we are going negative in cash flow (like Social Security) it is going to be an interesting race between the end of the money and the end of Raven and Big Mama.

I preferred to think about Willow, and the Halloween party. Back before the phone call that announced Raven’s coming eviction, the party that Tracy O’Grady and Kate Jansen were going to throw seemed like the perfect pivot to the season. Now, the day was at hand, snow was falling, and it was time to climb into my costume and get uptown to Willow.

Genghis John (with H) was waiting at the Amen Corner, his MP3 ear buds screwed into his ears. In front of him was a bubbling caldron of hard cider that sent a wave of intense apple and cinnamon smell over our end of the bar. He plucked the buds out of his ears, and I noted that he was in the seat reserved for the Dean of the Willow Barflies.

“Old Jim is not going to be here,” he said. “He is contemplating a boycott.”

“Crap,” I said. “How come?”

“They charged him for the actual number of beers he drank the other night and he took offense.”

“I don’t blame him,” I said. “I would hate for that to happen to us.”

Tinker Bell was working the bar and was channeling her N’awlins roots in dreadlocks and a bustled skirt. Her eyes were dark with kohl.

Liz-with-an-S made an impressive statement as the Wicked Witch of the West, complete with broom. Genghis John gave an appreciative whistle- “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” he asked.

Liz-S just smiled. I offered this: “If she is the Wicked Witch, she is wicked good.”

My pal Mac had his family in the dining room, and I thunked over in my lederhosen and clunky Alpine hiking boots to say hello.

After that, I just went back to the Happy Hour white, and watched Jeff flirting with Kate’s party of witches and the Viking princess. He had been an Army Foreign Area Officer in his day, and did not dress for the occasion.

“I was in a costume drama for almost thirty years,” he growled. “Enough is enough.”

“I dress like this only once a year,” I said. “Otherwise I would be invading Poland regularly.”

Satchel and her Boyfriend showed up as Bacon and Eggs, deviled eggs, I presumed, and very stylish. I think they took second place.

As it turned out, the food was great as usual, and the prize for best costume went to Ann Boleyn, the unfortunate bridge of Hank-the-8th. Her get-up featured what appeared to be her severed head held in artificial hands. It was legitimately creepy.

It turned out that my modest Tyrolian effort was good enough for third place, and a $25 gift certificate redeemable for food or drink.

“Does this wine make my nose look red?” I asked Satchel.

“Only if you drink it, Vic.”

“Bottoms up, then.”

Everyone, to my knowledge, got home safely and without untoward incident. It was nice to not have to think about anything serious at all.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Pay No Attention

The Wizard of Oz is one because…I forget. Here the Wizard, portrayed by flamboyant character actor Frank Morgan admonishes Dorothy not to pay attention to the man behind the curtain.

I could not pay attention to the ballgame last night, the culmination of what might have been one of the best World Series played since World War II. I was too tired, and too wiped from the road. I have had all the emotions drain out of me, and the mental toughness on which the Socotra enterprise runs is exceedingly tenuous. Flaccid, almost.

I did manage to stay upright for the surprise ceremony to honor my pal Mac with the presentation of a commemorative plaque honoring his service to the nation in the seventy-odd years since he marched at Northwestern University’s Midshipman Commissioning program.

It was a kick to see his three families who honored his legacy- the extended clan of family, his Navy buddies, and co-workers from Arlington Hospital. The contrast between his lively intellect and the dullness of my Dad’s fog could not have been more stark.

When the cocktail hour was done, I hauled my butt out to the Bluesmobile for the short drive back from the Cocktail Porch at Army-Navy, where the girders of the new clubhouse are rising over what used to be the tennis courts.

I was glad I made it back for that, and glad to be in ahead of the chill, dank penetrating rain that is wet here, but likely to bring up to ten inches of early heavy snow to New England.

It was just about 800 miles dead on back into the Capital, and the Bluesmobile performed flawlessly the entire way. There is, hands down, no finer interstate car than the Ford Crown Vic P-71.

Inelegant, perhaps, and technology from the last century in its final flower.

They are making everything lighter now to make CAFÉ fleet emissions and mileage standards, even the big trucks, no that strange massive sedan with the not-found-in-nature blue paint scheme is going to be a rolling monument so long as I can maintain it.

I listened to an audio book almost all the way, and paid no attention to the world away from the concrete. The Bluesmobile has no fancy satellite radio hook-up, and I drove with one ear-bud planted on the iPod as a British fellow narrated Norwegian hard-boiled writer Jo Nesbo’s fine detective novel “Devil’s Triangle.”

I don’t know how the Scandinavians managed to highjack America’s native story line, but between Nesbo and Steig Larsson, the brooding Northmen have done a fine job.

Not listening to the radio was strangely liberating, and concentrating on the story made me not think of the last glimpse I had of Raven in his wing chair, his face folding in on itself at The Bluffs, or of Big Mama with her radiant blue eyes the color of Delft porcelain, trying to figure everything out, suddenly alone.

I tried not to pay too much attention to that, and was happy I did not have to listen to any more nonsense from Washington, which was good. Soon enough I would be mired in the 1% of the Capital while the 99% of real Americans try to figure out what is to come next.

The downside of my inattention was that I largely missed the drama of one of the greatest post-WW II World Series, and the technical demonstration that might- might, I stress- change the world.

That was supposed to happen on Friday: a guy named Andea Rossi was supposed to demonstrate his Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat, for short), for an undisclosed customer in Italy. This is the latest incarnation of the concept of “Cold Fusion,” which you may recall as being right up there with the Comet Kahoutec as the Story of the 1980s.

Researchers Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishman claimed to have identified a way to generate energy through room-temperature fusion in 1989, something that defied the laws of conventional physics.

No one could replicate their results, and the whole concept was driven into the wilderness of other junk science, but Signore Rossi claims to have generated measurable power by passing hydrogen over a low cost catalyst based on nickel. His process generates copper and steam.

Yesterday, with much secrecy and fanfare, Rossi’s E-Cat produced half a megawatt of thermal power in self-sustaining mode for nearly six hours in a warehouse in Bologna.

It might just be boloney. Something that seems to be too good to be true usually is. We have made a practice of believing impossible things of late, and I am reluctant to invest much enthusiasm in this new concept, but imagine just for a moment that this actually works, and that low-pressure steam power is essentially available for nothing.

Change the world? Hell, yes.

I was trapped in snarled traffic on Route 7 out in Loudoun County when I put the detective story aside to try to identify what shovel-ready project had disrupted orderly movement, and there was a brief mention of the results of the experiment, along with the disclaimer that the customer for whom the experiment was performed remained anonymous.

All my spider senses went up at that, and I smell bunko. Still, the people who performed the work were Italian, after all, and like their Justice System, not readily understood by the rest of the world.

No less an authority than Dr. Tony Tether has expressed interest. He used to be director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency- DARPA- and is part of a tradition that brought us unlikely things like the Internet. Dr. Tether says if the E-Cat is a fraud, it is a damned good one.

So, as I drove in the last stretch of concrete on the 2,231 miles jaunt inside the Beltway, my brain began to congeal into more conventional mode. I unpacked the car at Big Pink, and collected the bushel basket of junk mail from Rhonda at the front desk. She gave me a big sunny smile and an excellent hug.

“How was it?” she asked.

“A lot of miles,” I said. “And a lot of sadness and guilt.”

“We do what we have to do,” she said. “It is all part of the journey.”

“Yeah,” I responded. “But the world might have changed today.”

She wrinkled her nose at me. “What do you mean?”

I explained about the experiment in Bologna, and the implication that power might be free.

“That could change things a lot,” she said dubiously.

“Probably too good to be true,” I nodded. “But good news, even if it is bogus, is a refreshing change.”

“I suppose so,” said Rhonda. “I haven’t been paying attention.”

“Me neither,” I said.

Then I took the elevator up to the fourth deck and dumped the bags and the mail on the dining table, and looked down at the green tarp over the pool. I thought I probably ought to go to work. Some stuff might have been happening there while I wasn’t paying attention.

Mad Scientist Andrea Rossi at the first demonstration of his E-Cat in January, 2011. Pay no attention.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra.
www.vicsocotra.com

Shifting Colors

A view of the unusual infrastructure investment in Toledo, OH, home of the Rockets, and just before the Big Left Turn out of Michigan and onto the Ohio Turnpike. Photo white-knuckled ay 75 knots in the Bluesmobile by Socotra. The mirror image of the bridge is reflected in the trooper blue paint of the hood of the Crown Vic P-71.

Youngstown, Ohio. Sad town, decent Holiday Inn Express. Matt was very kind at the front desk, and the complete uncertainty of throwing myself off the road and into a box for the night went splendidly.

Youngstown is one of several sad towns I flew through between the Little City by the Bay and Your Nation’s Capital. Saginaw, Bay City, Flint, Detroit, Monroe, Toledo, Cleveland. I am actually in North Lima, the site of a documentary made by an acquaintance that spelled it out: Lima/Lost in Middle America.

I was not lost. Pittsburgh is ahead, and soon if I get my ass in gear.

I was shifting colors from the Little Town By the Bay to home port. Just shy of 800 miles, according to the nice people at Google, door to door. It will be 2100 miles on the Crown Vic in the last ten days.

Damn, I hate that drive. And love it, when it is behind. With each mile, I thought of Raven and Big Mama, but the immediacy attenuated as the cities rose up and passed behind.

Youngstown is where the light died suddenly. It had been gray on and off all day, rain in sprits and torrents and blue skies alternating. I watched the rear-view as the salmon-and-gray horizon faded to black. I had hoped to make Cranberry, Pennsylvania, but it was not going to happen.

I liked that damn bridge at Toledo. The rest? All the same. So much sand and scrub pine, and that bedraggled old Detroit as I passed through the once-mighty industrial juggernaut north of Windsor, Ontario.

Just at the 7.3 hour mark, the blackness swept in. The Bluesmobile had performed well under my toe and heel, but needed gas at the 458 mile mark, 350 from last fill-up in West Branch, MI, just north of where that asshole Ogemaw County Mounty stakes out the northbound lanes of traffic on I-75.

Hours and hours later, 19 chapters of my MP3 audio book, I was waiting for the “Low Fuel” light to come on from my couch-like bench seat in the big Crown Vic, and the events and the turnpike construction in Pennsylvania inclined me to just get the hell off the road and give up for the day.

Baseball is pretty cool, and Game Six between the Cards and the Rangers was amazing.. I may even get to watch Game Seven- just think for a moment, when this phase of the project began, I was praying for Detroit to beat New York.

Thank heavens for small favors.

There is an event I would like to get back to this evening, at home, blessed home, and with 308 miles to go, am just going to get the hell on with it.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Mission Complete

I was tempted to think the letters “MC” could go in the log-book this morning, but that is absurd. This is not Mission Complete, but it is something. I couldn’t even really put the “MC” in the box until I actually get the Bluesmobile back into the lot at Big Pink, but close enough for government work, you know?

My chores- except for the long path south and east- are done. Well, if one counts the human chores, that is. The leaves are still piled up in the driveway and the place needs to be vacuumed and I never did get anything done on moving things out of the garage.

Maybe next month when I come back to assess the transition.

Raven is in his pleasant warehouse across the Bay. Mom is in her little one bedroom apartment. She seems to be doing well; lunch and dinner were pleasant, if weird. She seems to think on the one hand that everything is fine, and on the other that Potemkin Village and the World Hemingway Conference next year are part of the same MGM movie she is watching on the television in her living room.

Raven is not happy.

I took more clothes and his meds over yesterday after lunch with Big Mama. The attending nurse told me he “was doing fairly well on his first full day.”

“When did he get up?” I asked. Big Mama usually dragged him around on her schedule, or tried to, and sometimes they would sleep till noon.

“He was up walking at 6:30, and tried to escape through the glass emergency exit. He set off the alarm and we re-directed him. He was fine.”
He went into a couple other rooms, but we expect that,” said Sandy.

‘That comes as a relief,” I said. “Potemkin Village couldn’t stand his doing that. Probably should never have been there in the beginning, but how do you know these things?”

Sandy nodded and smiled kindly. “He is doing pretty good.”

He was not in his room, so after I hung up another load of his clothes in the wardrobe, he was seated in the little kitchenette next to the television room.

He was reading a recipe for pumpkin pie when I saw him, holding it as if the directions meant something. I fished my phone out of my jeans and snapped a surreptitious photo of him- last time I see him this trip.

He tried to say something, that he had made a mistake of some kind. I did not understand what he was getting at, precisely, though I think the general thrust was perfectly understandable.

I do not think he is happy, though he may come to be. It is definitely not MC just yet for him. There is some Raven left, but this is all I can do for him right now, and I am still driving away this morning.

My pals out west got hammered with a big snowfall yesterday, and the word is that winter is coming this way.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Raven’s Rest

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Copyright 1943 Maslow.

Well, I guess when you get to the laundry things are properly positioned on Abraham Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs. It has been chilly up here, and I did not sweat much over the last ten days, but it still was time to cycle the clothes.

I could have just replaced them, like I did for Raven yesterday. ON the way back to the Bluffs to set up his room with a rocking chair, television and a couple pictures to remind him of who he was, I stopped at Momentum, the discount place up town. I got him three sets of sweats, brand new. The shirts are all emblazoned “Lake Michigan: Unsalted.”

I did not see any fashion sense at The Bluffs on the admission trip, so I opted to make him a consistent nursing home trendsetter.

Let me back up to yesterday morning, just in case you are following this dis-jointed narrative. I was awake at four, give or take a couple minutes, and took a smoke in the garage. Spike wanted to be up at six so he could run over at the College- more complexity, since Annook cleaned out the clock-alarm in the guest room on her massive purge of the estate.

After I crushed the butt out on the cement floor- there being no flat space open for an astray in the chaos- I decided to start the coffee and deal with the business at hand. I will clean the place up before I go even if I am the next one back, I swear.

At the stroke of six I got the wake-up call to Spike by turning up the radio and lights in the kitchen. I didn’t hear anything stirring immediately, so I shouted toward the now un-haunted master suite to ask if he was awake or not.

He said he was, and I took him at his word.

He ran and I typed, and at the appointed minute we swept into the apartment at Potemkin Village.

Big Mama was hard-down on the bed, totally out. I don’t know if she had slept at all that night- she was dressed and atop the covers. Raven was upright in his chair, seated by the glass door looking into space. He had no shoes and socks on, but was otherwise good-to-go. I jumped on that, and got the top to his track suit top on him, lickety-slit.

“Warm” is right there on the hierarchy of needs, I think.

I crammed his porkpie hat on his balding pate as Spike rummaged around in the closet and threw some stuff in a tote bag, we got him in his green outer jacket and out the door we went.

Well, sort of. Raven insisted on going into the bathroom. Dropped his sweats to his knees and was contemplating the Adult Undergarments when he shuddered a bit and I realized he had probably urinated.

Screw it, I thought. Get him out before we have to do the most awkward farewell of a lifetime. We managed to usher him away from his Sweetie, still asleep, and down the corridor to the elevator.

“63 and a wrap,” said Spike. I nodded and kept a firm grip on Raven’s upper arm.

We got him downstairs and into the police cruiser. I chattered away all the way down the hill, through town and around the Bay to The Bluffs. He was quite interactive, and was a little unwilling to go into the facility when I got parked. It was good to have Spike with me. We steered him with a little emphasis, and got him into a wheelchair in the lobby.

Spike stayed with Dad while I did paperwork with Former-Four-Inch-Heel Mary, the Admissions Director. She is from Lansing, by the way, before winding up here in the Northland. Not like the long road that went through New York City like Raven and Big Mama.

“Bright lights.” I observed, as I signed another of the two dozen commitment papers for my father.

“Not so much,” she replied. “But more than Alanson.”

We were in his assigned room, surveying what would be needed to make it more cozy as Raven’s new roost. He took the opportunity to bolt. I made the move to get him, but Donna didn’t seem phased. We caught up with him in the corridor and then walked around the facility with Raven leading the way, seeking the egress.

Donna didn’t seem alarmed by his wandering, which was a refreshing change from Potemkin Village.

Raven’s Roost. Kelly tells me they are going to move him on the Weekend to accommodate a couple who wish to be together. I said “fine.” Photo Socotra. Photography of the residents of The Bluffs is strictly prohibited under the provisions of HPPA. Photo Socotra.

The Bluffs is nice and clean and all the people friendly, even the challenged, or at least those of them who were able to move around on their own. Ravens last words of the morning, shortly after trying to push open the locked glass doors at the end of the ward were:

“I gotta get out of here.” I could not have been more sympathetic.

Donna steered us into the television room where there was one recliner and three comfy padded chairs. We sat down, and the instant Raven was out cold, we split.

We stopped at the house to compare notes, find a comfortable rocking chair to put by his bed and figure out which television to take for his semi-private room.

I wish I could say that the crush of those chores- that and getting him some clean clothing- precluded me from joining Spike at lunch with Big Mama, but I would be lying to you. My nerve ends were firing randomly, and I wanted a drink or six.

I settled on heating up a can of broth, having already consumed enough caffeine that morning for the south end of town.

Spike seemed to want to assess the situation independently, and since he got to leave once lunch was done, I was happy to give him the opportunity.

I got the new clothes to take out and loaded the police cruiser with the chair and television. Spike came back to retrieve his luggage and debrief the lunch with Big Mama.

“She seems to be all right,” he said. “She told me she woke up alone in a dark apartment but that she was OK with it.”

“It is useful to be unstuck in time,” I said. “I mean, in the hierarchy of needs, the good bye was some other time. I think we lucked out today, all of us.”

“We looked through the photo book of 1947-1968 after lunch,” he said, looking at the canister lights in the kithcen. “The shots of them back in the day are amazing. Raven has those Gregory Peck smoldering dark good looks and Big Mama’s sunny Irish beauty were too much.”

“Or just enough,” I said. “She might be happier without the Big Kid weighing her down.”

We hugged and he got in his piece-of-crap Camry and drove off for Metro Detroit Airport, four hours down the road, and the all-night flight to Phoenix and the two-hour drive up the hill to his home.

I opened a window, glad I could smoke in the house again. He has a marathon coming up, after all, and I have been trying to make everyone as happy as possible in the hierarchy of their needs.

Official Bluffs photo. Rights reserved and in accordance with HIPPA.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com


Cornered

Spike and I did some good work on Raven’s last full day with his wife of 63 years.

“Friendship Center first on the way?” I asked.

“That works. Can you run back here after that and drop me? I will need a car, since I have a conference call with the Judge back in Arizona and I will need to leave lunch early.”

“Yeah, I got it,” I said.

We launched early to head up the big hill. We passed the grim façade of the Bortz Elderly Warehouse and pulled into the lot at the Emmett County Friendship Center about some enhanced care for Big Mama in the wake of Raven’s Big Trip.

Then back in the Police Cruiser to head for Potemkin Village. We talked to management, informing them officially of Raven’s imminent departure from their roost. We managed to get in to talk to The Ritas at Senior Homecare Solutions to have the Enhanced Care Package transferred to Big Mama.

It is quite confusing. The senior leadership of SHCS is all named Rita, as is the Lovely Rita from the Friendship Center.

“How do you think it is going to go?” asked the senior Rita.

“I have absolutely no idea,” I said. “This is not the same Big Mama who came here. But I think for sure she is going to miss him. But some times she doesn’t seem to care, either. That might account for what has been going on lately with his wandering.”

Spike frowned, adding, “I think she is going to miss him once she realizes.”

I signed and initialed some paperwork and then we went down to the front desk to adjust the weekly shopping order for Glenn’s Market, deleting the cranberry juice Big Mama won’t drink, and Raven’s Depends and hand soap and paper towels that she doesn’t consume, and are piling up in the pantry.

Then there was nothing for it but to go up to the apartment. Big Mama and Raven were on the couch, waiting for something to happen and naturally we obliged.

I turned on Turner Classic Movies and was rewarded with a Dick Powell film called “Cornered.” It looked noir, and the restoration of the original movie make the dark shadows stark.

“Powell is just making his post-war transition from tenor to hard-boiled detective in this film, Mom.”

Spike checked the movie guide on my iPad and gave us the synopsis: “After the end of World War II, a former Canadian Air Force pilot who was a POW returns to France to discover who ordered the killing of his bridge of only 20 days.”

We watched Powell go through his paces with a dour focus. “Says here the guys who wrote the screenplay were blacklisted after they made this film. Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy got ‘em.”

“I guess the Vichy Government in France was an easy target, once the fighting was done. Collaborators.” I mused.

“Vichy?” asked Big Mama. “I do not remember Vichy. Aren’t all these films from Germany?”

“No, Mom. It is all Hollywood.” I looked over at Spike. “It is interesting what goes and what stays, isn’t it?” Dick Powell looks good in a suit, I thought, and he was arriving in Buenos Aires to track down the Nazi sympathizers we saw it was time to get to lunch.
We organized the folks as best we could and got the parade moving toward the elevator as the plump and sinister Walter Slezack was greeting Powell at the airport.

Raven was having a better day than he has been, though we got off on a slow start with his soup. I got a call as we played with the silverware, and went out in the hall to talk to someone about the status of Task Order 73.0, back in Washington, and I kicked myself that I was supposed to be monitoring the office email better.

When I got back Spike had cut up the sandwich halves into manageable chunks, and pointed at his watch. “Gotta go talk to the Judge,” he said.

“Are you coming back?” asked Big Mama. She has expressed interest in our comings and goings with the backdrop of Raven’s Big Trip.

“Yes, Mom. I will be back for happy Hour. I have to work now, though.” He got up and gave a wave to the Cowboy and Irene at the next table.

“I want to give you a hug,” said Irene with that scary smile of hers.

Big Mama got through her sandwich and I was surprised to see that she liked her pecan pie. Normally she doesn’t do much on dessert. Raven did pretty well, and I thought that there was one more meal to go here. He did not want to stand up when Big Mama announced that she was ready to go back up to the apartment, and I went out to the hall to grab the wheelchair. By the time I got back, Raven had recalibrated, and decided to walk.

Walter Slezak was just getting shot at the end of the movie when we got back, and I watched the credits roll as the folks got settled on the couch.

“Back at four,” I said. “I have to do some meetings. We will do Happy Hour, OK?”

“At four?” asked Big Mama.

“Yep. See you soon.” I shut the door to the apartment behind me and felt the relief I always feel when the show is over. I stopped at the package store to get a bottle of Vitamin V to get through the last few days of the trip, and saw Spike’s rental car in the driveway at the house, and once in the kitchen I heard the murmur of voices from behind the closed door to the library.

I thought about a salad for lunch, and thought about raking the leaves that Autumn has deposited on the compound and then the phone went off in my pocket. I peered at the number when I fished it out of my jeans. Local number. Crap, this can’t be good.

It was Former-Four-Inch-Heel Mary from the Bluffs, Raven’s destination the next day.

“We don’t have a copy of your Father’s latest chest x-ray. We will be needing that for his admission tomorrow.”

Me, cleverly: “What chest x-ray?”

Mary’s words hit me like a jolt of adrenaline to the heart. The idea of doing something medical back home in Washington is one of awful dread: visions of the Beltway flashed before my eyes on the way to Bethesda, then no place to park, acres of shuffling retirees in the pharmacy…”Now Serving number A9!” on the PA, and looking down to see I am holding ticket F84.

“Doctor B wrote a requisition for the x-ray on the 5th,” she said. “Let me check out what we can do. I will call you back.” I thanked her and my pulse spiked. No chest x-ray, no admittance. Doctor B is going to be out of town next week. Federal Regulation loomed. The x-ray was apparently mandatory. I could be stuck here for another week. Crap.

I looked at the clock, and saw it was one-thirty. I could still pull it off. I jumped on the computer and placed the cell phone next to the mouse to wait for Mary to call back. I had no more than logged on to the company account than the phone chimed at me.

“I just faxed the requisition over to Northern Imaging. You can get the x-ray done this afternoon,” she said. “And you won’t have to deal with the hospital. There is a wheelchair just inside the front door.”

I thanked her profusely, and breathed a sigh of relief for small mercies. Then I Googled the location of the clinic, which turned out to be just around the corner on US-31. I might be able to pull this off, but that meant getting Raven awake and dressed for the chill, downstairs, into the police cruiser and across town.

I could hear my brother’s voice behind the door to the library. I jotted a note on the pumpkin-colored pad on the island in the kitchen:

“Fuck. Raven needs chest x-ray or no Admission. Launching now. If not back, handle dinner with Mom.”

I went into the library where he sat in front of Big Mama’s computer and handed him the note. His eyes widened as he read it, and nodded. Then he shrugged, pointing at the phone where the voices babbled from Arizona.

I gave him a salute and headed for the door.

The Bluesmobile roared up the hill and I did not feel one bit bad about using the handicapped placard. I hustled to the elevator, each second of he slow-motion cycle an irritant. “Don’t be uptight, I said to myself. “Do not get him upset. No not get Mom in an uproar. Will she want to go too? Crap.”

I did not quite burst into the apartment.

“Hi, Mom!” The elder Socotras were seated right where I had left them, watching a youthful Pat O’brien in a film called “Riffraff.” Raven was awake, a good thing, and he appeared dry. I opened the closet and found one of Raven’s coats from last season, the last time he had needed one. I found a sweatshirt, and stuffed him into it.

“Gentle,” I said to myself. “Be gentle. Do not get him agitated.”

“Where is he going?” asked Big Mama.

“Special haircut,” I said. “It is part of getting ready for the big trip tomorrow.”

I got him on his feet and got his pork pie hat out of the media center where the outerwear he doesn’t need resides. He liked the hat, and he liked wearing his coat. He tugged the sleeves down for comfort as I guided him toward the door.

We made it to the elevator, we made it to the lobby, and Raven began to surprise me. He said “Hello” to the gal at the front desk. He grasped the crash bar to the front door and pushed it. I could see how he was able to navigate on his missions to other apartments. There was still someone in there.

I kept up a commentary for him, explaining about the police cruiser. He likes cars, always has.

So far, so good. I did not want him to nod off, so I gave enough gas to keep him interested.

“Whee,” he said, as I accelerated out of the turn and down the hill toward the junction. My Dad always has the capability to surprise me.

There were a couple show stoppers to come, after I missed the turn to the clinic and was passing the cemetery to our right. I didn’t want to think about the symbolism, and looked in the rearview to see if we were clear to pull a big official-looking four-lane U-turn on US-31.

One of them came as we waited to check in. The nice lady at the desk asked for Raven’s picture ID.

“Sorry,” I said. “He hasn’t carried a wallet in a couple years.” I did have his insurance card, and she relented on the specific provisions of he Health Information Privacy and Portability Act.

Luck. Pure luck, just as it was with our x-ray tech, who took fine care of us in the bowels of the clinic.

“My name is Lisa, she said.”

“What?” asked Raven. The man was astonishing- he was working the room.

“Lisa-with-an-L,” she repeated, with a smile.

I had hoped we could do this without stripping him to the waist, but that was not going to happen. I found myself in a lead coverall and Raven shivering as his skin touched the cold plate against the wall. He began to slump to one side immediately after Lisa got him positioned and strode briskly to her shielded station to snap the x-ray.

We had to try a couple times, and I kept up a running commentary on who Raven had been and what he had done. He was slumping again and I was on the verge of despair when I realized something that might work.

“Lieutenant Socotra!” I said in a parade-ground voice. “Att-en-shun!”

Raven’s back stiffened and his shoulders came back.

“Perfect!” said Lisa-with-an-L as the machine buzzed.

Damn, I thought. It is purely amazing what goes and what stays.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Short Timer


Annook caught me behind the wheel of the Bluesmobile yesterday. I Heard the ring tone from the front pocket of my Levis, and I fished it out punched “accept” and held it up to my ear.

“So, you installed the ring enhancer on the phone.” It was a declarative sentence, not a question, but I answered anyway.

“Yeah, I got it hooked up. Seems to work.”

“Well,” she said. “It worked so well that Raven picked up and said ‘hello.’ Then I asked to speak to Big Mama and he just put the phone down, and not on the cradle. I can’t call back because it is off the hook.”

“So you would like us to ensure that the phone is hung up?”

“Precisely.” I told her I would, and thought about the nature of time, and the coming 25 hours, after which Raven will not be answering any further phones.

In Korea, we Me-guks kept calendars with the length of the one-year tour in neat blocks, twelve months lined up one day at a time so you could cross them off, one by one. It was sort of reverse Julian Date scheme, since we did not arrive at the neat start of a month, and all the days were interchangeable.

Various types of Short Timer calendars were used by the GIs to count their remaining days left in country. These usually consisted of a sectioned line-drawing with “color in” blocks, numbered with a count-down of remaining days (similar to “Paint by number”), and really began to kick in at the 30 to 90 day point.   When a soldier had very few days left in-country, he was considered to be “short”.

Time has moved on. In the Sand Box, my pal Santa calculated by the number of steak and lobster nights in the Mess Hall, but with a distinct lack of centralized feeding in the ROK, it was easier to just concentrate on the number of times you had to rise and go work down in the Bunker.

It was shift work, so from wake-up to wake-up it was hard to tell what time it was.

My calendar was different than that of the GI, since I was in the Navy and we took an improvised approach to how long a one year tour might be. I would have run out of my little boxes and had to tack on another couple months, but eventually, issues for my relief were settled and orders transmitted and I could look at a calendar without cringing.

But the ones for the real solders were pretty cool, with the last few weeks having references to how “short” you were getting- dangling legs while sitting on a dime, this sort of thing:

“When I jump out of bed, I free fall for 3 minutes before I open my chute!”
“It takes all day to climb out of my boots!
“I can walk on stilts under a pregnant amoeba!”
“I drink coffee with a long straw because I can’t reach the table!”
“I have to jump up to look down!”

One short-timer calendar I liked had the last week sliding out of the ordered rectangular blocks and into a sort of yellow brick road that led to the boarding ladder of a commercial jet. Many were just a picture of an alluring lady with numbers.

Orignal ROK Short-timer calendar. This one is pristine.

We would count down if someone asked: “How short are you?”

“Five and a wake-up,” we might say. That mode of counting let’s you discount the day you are in, and the one that you leave. I find myself reverting to that way of thinking when I am in the Little Village By the Bay.

Looking out at the gray steel white-capped waters of the Bay, surging left-to-right, I am thinking it is two and a wake-up for me, and just a wake up for Raven.

There are several things that need to get done today, not to mention raking the lawn, but whatever happens, it is Raven’s last day of independent, albeit assisted, living.

Spike reported he had escaped again, and was out in the hallway in just his Big Boy pants and a polo shirt, having lost Big Mama and the sanctuary of their place in the endless corridor of his mind.

Just two meals and a wake-up. It is time.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

(You Are My) Sunshine

Morning fog obscures the bay in late October at the Little Village By the Bay. Photo Socotra.

The fog is in thick this morning, forty degrees as the morning tries to come on. Standing on the deck in back of the house, the sky is connected to the gray water in wisps of cloud, the highlands across the bay concealed.

It was a good day, yesterday after an unpromising start.

Raven was out of it when the Socotra boys rolled in, all full of faux energy and enthusiasm. He was slumped on the bed, on Big Mam’s side, arms drawn up around his thin torso and legs crossed unnaturally around him.

“Yo, Daddy-o!” I boomed out. “Time for lunch!” His dark eyes cracked open, hooded on his craggy face.

“Lunchtime, Dad!” He stirred after a moment, and it took a minute for him to start to move, attempting to come upright. I don’t know how long he had been motionless, but his Depends had failed, and urine soaked his sweatpants and all the way up his shirt. He must have been motionless for some time. “Crap. Spike, we gotta change him.”

“All right, let’s find some new pants.” He began to go through the drawers in search of shirt and pants, and I looked for replacement safety underwear.

The process of changing him is straightforward enough, and while he is still able to get upright, not particularly difficult if a bit yucky. I found the scissors so we could cut off the old soaked paper garment after we got the shirt off and replaced. It would have been too much to have him nude in the living room.

One on each side, we got the old polo shirt off him, unable to avoid touching the wetness, and then got a new one on him. He has lost so much weight the skin hangs on him. We negotiated his head through the collar, and then snaked his thin arms through the sleeves. Then came the fun part. Spike got his sweats down and ripped one side of the underpants as I cut the other with the scissors. The soaked garment swung off without much fanfare, only liquid, and into the trash can.

“Here is the trick,” I said, as we got him seated on one of the wooden chairs. “Replacement pants on, then the sweats while he is seated. Then we only have to get him on his feet and everything can be hoisted at once.”

“Elegant,” said Spike. Big Mama looked on with mild interest.

Once we had Raven re-garbed, it was time for the parade to lunch. Karla was there in her tuxedo shirt and tie, and it was Saturday Cheeseburger Day at Potemkin Village.

It was not a great lunch. Raven was very foggy, not all the way back from his deep submergence, and there is something going on with him. He said his belly hurt, and squirmed at one point, and would only show enthusiasm for the slices of watermelon and the German chocolate cake. Big Mama talked about going Christmas shopping, and the Socotra Boys reminded her of Raven’s Big Trip coming up.

She took that into account, and then tried to come up with a theory for why there were not more people in the Challenged Dining Room. Not a great lunch, despite the enforced merriment from her boys.

When we got back upstairs, we turned on the television. Turner Classic Movies had a Tarzan film on, which Big Mama watched absently while Raven reclined on the couch.

“If we can’t find the purse it is going to be asses and elbows tomorrow to get the insurance information we need to get Dad admitted to the Bluffs,” I said, and we began to
to ransack the apartment for Big Mama’s purse.

The bag had gone missing at some date in the indeterminate past. “I just had it yesterday,” she said, when I asked her in desperation after the third pass through every nook and cranny.

“Of course you did, Mom.”

We looked in everything. I found all the weekly bags from Glenn’s Market in the closet, all still packed neatly with Depends Adult undergarments. I counted at least nine full packages in the closet alone, and not being able to do anything else, began to make a pile of things to get rid of: old newspapers stacked neatly in a bureau, the weeks and weeks worth of market bags from the market.

Spike came through. Two more packages of Depends were in the magazine rack, and under them was the white leather purse. “Eureka!” he exclaimed, and went through the little compartments until he found the folder that held the cards and a charge card to Kohl’s Department Store.

I took the Blue Cross card with Dad’s name on it, and sighed. That was a big deal.

We watched a little of the Tarzan movie, and then announced that we had a big meeting to attend. Raven dozed and Big Mama nodded. She is well aware that we are all engaged in a Big Project, and that we are all very busy.

We went back to the house and went back to work, Spike pounding on Big Mama’s desktop computer and me on the laptop in the kitchen. Around three I went for a bike ride down to Magnus Park, where the sun sets, and then we drove back over to Potemkin Village where things were essentially unchanged, save for the fact that Raven had gone into the horizontal mode.

We got them orange juice in wine glasses and I made cheese and crackers and handed them to the folks in turn. “Happy Hour,” said Spike. “Just like old times.”

I did not have orange juice in my glass, and I was treating this as the real thing.

Nicole, the RA with the fright-wig dark hair came in to make the dinner announcement and remind Big Mama to tow Raven down to the dining room, and we assured her we had things under control. We looked at one another and announced that it was time.

I cleaned up the crackers and cheese and glasses and Spike got the folks out into the hall.

For some reason, Bib Mama had chicken fingers and Raven had some sort of goulash dish, which he did not want, and Big Mama announced that she was having nothing to do with the fish.

“It is not fish, Mom, it is chicken.” We got it sorted out, after a fashion, though Raven did not have a good appetite. We tried everything to get them to eat, though after a while we were just goofing around like we did at the dining table years ago.

“You are my sunshine…” began Spike.

“My only sunshine,” I responded.

Duet: “You make me happy, when skies are gray…”

My voice rose, and Spike’s went low as we gained energy and intensity. Big Mama looked on with a smile as we continued:

You’ll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don’t take my sunshine away.

You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are gray.
You’ll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don’t take my sunshine away.

There was applause from Rachel and Nicole across the room. I guess they don’t get many duets in the Challenged Dining Room, any more than the flying potato nuggets I tossed across the table to Spike, who caught them deftly after Raven pushed his plate away.
“I wonder if it will work like that?” I said to Spike. He looked back at me steadily. “I mean, when we take her sunshine away?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Mom, you know that Dad is going to go on a trip in a few days, right? Is that OK?”

“So long as everyone’s happy,” she said with a smile.

In late October the sun sets over Magnus Park. In the high summer, the golden orb sinks smack in the middle of the entrance to Little Traverse Bay. Photo Socotra.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Change in the Weather

Fall in the Little Village By the Bay. The changing color brings out the contours of the hills across the bay and the nighttime chill is profound. Photo Socotra.

For there’s a change in the weather
There’s a change in the sea
So, from now on,
There’ll be a change in me.

My walk will be diff’rent
My talk and my name
Nothin’ about me
Is goin’ to be the same,

I’m goin’ to change my way of livin’
And if that ain’t enough,
Then I’ll change the way
That I strut my stuff,

‘Ccause nobody wants you
When you’re old and gray
Ther’ll be some change made.

-Benny Goodman

It is Saturday AM here and the house is slowly coming awake. It actually has more than one of us in it for a change. Refreshing. I was being sucked into the fog at Potemkin Village. It is great to talk to another grownup after nearly a week.

My brother Spike didn’t have an easy trip to get here from Arizona. He called on the cell to announce his position somewhere near Wolverine, inbound to the Little Village By the Bay. I was startled: “How the hell did you get here so early?”

“Left last night around 11:00 PM. Got to Detroit early this morning and rented a car. I should be there in a few minutes.”

Good God, I thought. He did the Red Eye with the kick-ass of the four-hour drive at the end of it. I was pleased I had pushed the vacuum cleaner around already, and the place did not look bad. Then I glanced out the front window and saw Spike talking to Nancy-the-neighbor.

I walked out and shook his hand. He looked great- silver haired now, but slim and fit.

“Hi, Nancy!” I said. “Spike, you look great!”

“Who would have thought I would start running marathons when I was almost 58,” he said with a grin.

“Wish I could say the same,” I grimaced. “Too many miles on the knees and I can barely walk these days. Should have waited until now.”

“Welcome back,” said Nancy, with a smile, “Let me know if there is anything you need while you are here.”

“Nice to see you, Nancy,” I said. “I have not run the lawn mower over your ornamental grasses in months. And thanks for keeping an eye on he place. You will be seeing cars in the driveway for the next week or two. Come on in, Spike!”

We walked in through the rehabilitated laundry room. “They did a nice job, don’t you think? I like this place.”

“Sure did. Annook pulled it off really well.”

“The only thing that scares me is the money thing. We go negative big time once we get Raven locked up.”

I sat down at the computer on the kitchen table as Spike went to powder his nose.

“You got the guest bedroom?” He called from the depths of the house.

“Yeah, I picked the one that isn’t haunted. I can move, though.”

“Nah,” he called. “Don’t bother. Do you know if we got a new mattress in the master suite?”

“I think it is all clean,” I said. “But I don’t know.” I was pretty sure that the only fate for the mattress that Raven and Big Mama share now is incineration.

I glanced at the weather report my pal in Colorado sent. He follows the climate battle pretty closely, and he wrote that he was expecting the third snowfall of the season on the mountain where he lives.

“Damn,” I muttered. The coming snow is going to make getting to Michigan even more of a pain. My pal wrote:

“Accuweather expects a typical la Nina winter, meaning that it will be dry and fairly mild in southern Colorado east of the Rockies, but with “cold shots.”  Those would be like the two sub-zero episodes we had during last year’s la Nina winter.”

“Joe Bastardi of Weatherbell (whose full product I can’t afford) says the second of two la Nina winters is colder than the first.  There is also a NOAA report projecting that this la Nina will be stronger than the last – indeed possibly stronger than any since 1917.”

Spike walked back into the kitchen and slid into a chair across from me at the circular dining table where I camp out.

“They say this is going to be a bitch of a winter,” I said, waving at the screen on my MacBook., “Up here we are going to be affected by the wild card of the Arctic Oscillation. It is hard to predict, but if it is in its negative phase, your place in Arizona will be much colder. It will be the deep freeze here.”

“The Farmer’s Almanac says the Northern tier states are going to have a rough winter in any event.  You may want to think twice about driving up here.”

“I am still committed to coming up for Thanksgiving, I said. “Annook can’t get clear of her movie gig until December.” I frowned. “That is, if I ever get out of here. How long can you stay?”

“My ticket is for Sunday night.”

“Crap. The Doctor’s appointment is Tuesday.”

“I can change,” he said, looking dubious. “I have a phone consultation, but I could manage that from here.”

The cell phone went off on the counter across the kitchen where it was plugged into the charger. I got up and walked over and looked at a local number I did not recognize. I punched the screen.

“Socotra,” I said. It was Mary-With-Four-Inch-Heels at The Bluffs.

“Can you have your father ready at ten on Tuesday?” she asked.

“Sure. We should take him to Doc B’s office at the hospital?”

“No,” she said. “You can just bring him to The Bluffs.” I looked over at my brother and mouthed “Jesus.”

“So we will actually admit him on Tuesday?” I said.

“Yes. Just bring his insurance card and the power of attorney and we will do the paperwork then.”

“Can do,” I said. “And a toothbrush, right?”

Mary laughed and told me she would see us on Tuesday.

I looked over at my brother. “You gotta stay, Man. We are going to lock him up at ten sharp next Tuesday.”

“We will do what we gotta do, I guess.”

I looked over at the clock. “Hey, time to get over there for lunch,” I said. He left his bag in the laundry room and we trooped out to his piece-of-crap Camry rental.

“We may as well break it to her together.”

“Works for me,” I said as we drove up the big hill past the old Victory Lanes bowling alley that the local band of Odawa Indians turned into their first casino. “With Tuesday set as the day of admission, we are in good shape if you can stay. I thought he had to go to the Hospital for a chest X-ray and some other formalities, and I would be stuck here until the week after this.”

“I will stay through Tuesday afternoon,” said Spike. “ With a couple hours of paperwork, Raven will be in the Back Room. I will get a flight out of Detroit that evening.”

“I will stay through Thursday, then, and see if everything is stable,” I said contemplatively. “Then I can start back and make DC by Friday afternoon before rush hour.”

“It is a plan,” said Spike.

“Weather permitting, of course.”

Brother Spike Socotra in the Challenged Dining Room at Potemkin Village. We broke the news to Big Mama about Raven's Big Trip. She expressed passing interest. Photo Socotra

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra