A Discovery of Biblical Proportions

I have found the Tower Of Babble!

Actually, it wasn’t that hard to find, really.

I work there every day.

It’s the offices of the Federal Emergency management Agency in Algiers, Louisiana.

And no, I didn’t misspell that. But with all due respect to the Bible, my discovery has striking similarities to the Tower of Babel described in the book of Genesis.

For instance; the Tower of Babel was built by descendants of Noah’s flood survivors. My Babble came to be because of the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.

In the story of Babel, the Lord God Jehovah (or Yahweh, if you prefer) saw that humanity was getting pretty full of themselves and perhaps distancing themselves from proper worship. So he (or she as I suspect) in yet another display of divine stand-up comedy opted to make them all speak gibberish. And, for a final giggle, God had everyone speaking different dialects of gibberish.

Since the land of Gibber had not yet been discovered, Gibberish made no sense at all to anyone and thus, construction on the tower was doomed to failure.

Really? I mean… if I wrote this into a sitcom I wouldn’t need to write a blog again…ever! By the way, I may have also found the land of Gibber. It’s in southern Louisiana. But everyone there calls their language Cajun.

In my modern day version, the Tower of Babble was established to circumvent and overcome the impact of a hurricane, commonly a force of nature or Act Of God. I suspect that there may be a direct lineage between those original survivors of Noah’s flood and the world’s government agencies, which would explain why said agencies are (like their ancestors) also full of themselves. It would also explain God’s reaction which, keeping on a theme, was to confuse communication. But in a rare stroke of efficiency, God had the agencies confuse themselves.

This freed up God’s schedule to work on his advanced logistical plan (something involving the Mayan calendar).

And so, granted a moment of God’s divine inspiration, the government invented acronyms.

Okay, it’s starts to get complicated here, so I’ll try to go slow. But do try to keep up.

I work with the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness, (GOHSEP) as a State Applicant Liaison, (SAL). My office in Algiers is located in the Louisiana Recovery Office (or LRO). I review Requests for Public Assistance, (RPAs) that are submitted by Points of Contact (POCs) at local agencies (with their own acronyms) and Private Non-Profit agencies or PNP’s as we lovingly refer to them.

I’ll pause here so you can re-read the previous paragraph 2 or 3 times.

Ready?

After they are granted eligibility to the Public Assistance (PA) program, applicants document their damage claims via Project Worksheets (PWs). If there is a problem with their claim, they can request information via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or informally via a Public Assistance Expedited Information Request (PAXIR). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is also in the building. They assign a Public Assistance Coordinator, (PAC) and Project Officer (PO) or Project Specialist, (PS) to work with the POC of the agency or PNP to document the PW which includes the Damage Description & Dimensions (DDD) and Scope of Work (SOW). To determine appropriate costs of repairs, FEMA may utilize the Cost Estimating Format or CEF.

It helps if you’re sitting down while reading this….really.

Once this is done, the SAL (me) and the PO and the PAC will meet with the POC of the PNP to present the PW and discuss the DDD and SOW. We then forward the PW to Quality Assurance & Control (QAQC). If the Katrina PW passes QAQC it gets entered into the National Emergency Management Information System (NEMIS), where it gets processed thru a queue of reviews including (but certainly not limited to) Environmental & Historical Preservation, (EHP) which will also include a signoff by the State Historical Preservation Officer or SHPO.

And this is the condensed version. For sake of your sanity (and mine) I’ve left out a multitude of other potential steps. But you get the idea.

As you can easily see, it is quite possible, in fact an almost daily occurrence that I can have a complete conversation without uttering a single actual word.

Somewhere in heaven, God & Daniel Webster are laughing hysterically.

One final note, for anyone who doubts the logic of attributing acronyms to God’s wrath & warped sense of humor, I submit the following;

According to Wikipedia, the Tetragammaton transliterates the Hebrew word & symbols for “God” into YHWH….

(LMAO)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall...

Call me slow, or maybe just blissfully unaware of the obvious. But I just discovered today that my birthday suit doesn’t fit anymore. Not sure when it happened, but somehow the damned thing got stretched out in the front, sags in the back, and has so many wrinkles my steam iron just laughs at me (hysterically).

Add to that, it hangs in places it shouldn’t and very obviously doesn’t hang in places it used to (embarrassing). The feet now look like a hobbit/duck cross-genetic experiment gone awry and the knees have permanent Lewinsky pads…you may recall the whole Bill & Monica affair? Shortly thereafter I was installing some ceramic floor tile and christened my knee pads “Lewinskys”. My wife thought it was disgusting, of course. But my kids thought I was pretty witty at the time. They’re a better (and more forgiving) audience than my spouse, so I tend to believe them more than her.

Making matters worse, I sneezed this morning…repeatedly. Sneezing by itself is an all-encompassing experience, but generally without lasting impact. Unfortunately, I was shaving at that particular moment. So the result is that I have a mangy looking beard to go with my decrepit birthday suit.

Continuing on the theme, I then scratched my eye while putting in my bi-focal contact lens which promptly tiger-striped the white of the eye a vivid red.

I forgot to mention, over the last few days I had sequestered myself on the 9^th floor of my hotel, safe from any rising flood waters that may have been forthcoming as a result of Hurricane Isaac. Needless to say, the flood waters didn’t happen, for me at least. But we did lose power. Consequently, every trip for a meal was accompanied by a death march, (down & up) 18 flights of stairs. Two days of this and I now kind of hobble from one side of the room to the other, listing slightly to the left and correcting the list with an occasional lunge to the right.

The resulting combination of the sagging suit, mange-ridden beard, blood-laced eye and stagger-lunge gait have left me looking not unlike one of the walking dead I see in so many movies and TV series these days. So I shouldn’t have been surprised by the horrified glances I received from passersby on the street this morning.  The good news is that only the tourists were horrified and, truth be told, I may have hammed it up a bit with them just to get a better response.

The other good news is the locals just assumed I was another homeless wino. And in the short course of one hour, I had collected twelve dollars and thirty-37 cents.

At this rate, in a few more days I’ll have enough money to maybe get a new birthday suit!

Blackjack

For me writing is a Sunday drive with no specific direction in mind. I cruise along, mindful of my intended passenger/reader (that would be you), asking “Are we there yet”? But still, I selfishly enjoy the journey for its own sake. I’m just in it for the moment and somewhere in the myriad of left, right, and U-turns encountered on my keyboard, I chance upon that intersection where that one feeling that’s longing to be expressed meets my fingertips and…

I find the destination I didn’t know I was headed for.

Last January, my youngest and only son, Richard and his fiancée, Lynn tied the knot. Richard, never one to rush into things, had taken 12 years to figure out what Lynn had known in the first 12 minutes… that they were made for each other. For a really bright guy, my son is sometimes a bit slow. But it’s an inherited trait that I believe comes from his mother’s side.

Deb will say it’s all my fault, of course. But she’ll have to make that argument in in her own blog.

My somewhat global family arrived in various stages for the wedding, with Jen & Phil from Tasmania just before Christmas and Cathy & Sam coming in from Texas a week before the nuptials. It was a great, if somewhat hectic, holiday season that I’ll always cherish. And, trust me; it gave me scads of new material to write about.

One evening I watched as Phil & Jen passed the time by playing Blackjack with Jen’s grandmother, Gert. It was an especially poignant moment for me and it took me back to September of 1985, when Hurricane Gloria downed power lines across the state, leaving us without electricity for 11 days. It was during that period when Gert, in an effort to keep them engaged, first taught Jen & Rich how to play Blackjack.

She explained the rules and helped them shuffle and deal, patiently waiting as they tallied the points in their hands. It was a simple enough game for the kids to grasp with the objective of getting as close as possible to 21 points without going over. More than 21 points meant you were busted and you lost. Simple, to the point, and no second chances like in draw poker. Blackjack meant you placed your bet and played the hand you were dealt, made your choice to hit or stand and let the chips fall where they may. I didn’t realize then the significance of those rules and how they would relate to our lives in general.

And now I watched quietly as Phil & Jen set about to teach her grandmother how to play Blackjack. You see, Gert had survived a stroke a year or two back, and the result was she had lost some of her most precious skills. Crosswords were now a struggle for her and simple arithmetic was a total mystery. But somewhere inside, the significance of the cards remained. And now it was Jen & Phil who worked to keep Gert engaged. They quietly coached as Gert would struggle with the simple act of dealing the cards and they lovingly assisted her as she counted the point values of her hand. And I wept a bit inside. Not from sadness so much. But from the sheer magic of that moment, when a gift given over a quarter century past was now being returned in such a beautiful way.

We all play the hands we’re dealt. And sometimes it’s not about the winning, but the fact that we just keep playing, no matter what.

(And yes, dear passenger/reader, we’re finally there!)

Maximum Love

Maximum Love

“Dad, are you feeling okay?” My father in-law was sweating profusely and his coloring was off, not his usual florid pink….more gray.

“I’m fine”, he said, “just a bit tired this morning.”

He wasn’t fine, though. Even as oblivious as I can be, I could see he was in trouble. So I called Deb down from upstairs to have her take a look at him. She was an E/R nurse and it only took her a minute to say “call 911”. Her father was in the throes of a full blown heart attack. Not surprising, considering how active he was for a man of 75. Bill was a force of nature, a bull of a man who somehow managed to navigate through our china-shop lives without getting more than a bruise or a scratch, or maybe the occasional cold. But today he was in trouble.

I could go into the details, but since this story isn’t really about Bill (his tale comes later), I’ll just tell you that he managed to make it to the hospital and went through the angioplasty procedure there with flying colors. He was home a few days later and ready to resume his normal rigorous routine of home repair and yard mowing. You’d be tempted to say “All’s well that ends well”…..but you’d be wrong.

“Dad, are you feeling okay?” (Deja-vu all over again). Once again Bill’s coloring was off. But this time, instead of the healthy pink or ashen grey, Dad was yellow. Not a yellow tint, but a blatant taxi-cab yellow. Another dash to the hospital confirmed that somehow, during his angioplasty he had contracted Hepatitis C, a nasty blood borne illness. The hepatitis was attacking his liver and throwing his blood chemistry off, causing his skin to have that yellow glow. The bad news was, except for the heart attack, he had been a perfectly healthy man. However, this hepatitis was incurable and would eventually kill him.

The weeks and months that followed were nightmarish for us all. Dad, who was normally the life of the party and raring to get going on any new project, had overnight become a frail old man, unable to navigate across the room, or sometimes not even able to dress himself. He endured the cruelty of his condition as best he could. And as we cared for him at home, we all did our best to deal with the level of care he needed, choking back our outrage at the injustice of his being saved from his heart attack only to have contracted this horribly debilitating disease.

The days stretched into weeks, and months as Dad’s condition continued to deteriorate. With his liver under attack, his blood chemistry would swing violently one way or another, and this began to affect his ability to think clearly. This marvelous man, this husband and father, would forget how to dress himself. Never at a loss for words before, Bill couldn’t find the words he wanted anymore. And so, was often unable to express his thoughts or needs to those of us, his family, who now cared for him night and day.

My own efforts were mainly limited to emotional support for my wife, her mother, our kids, and yes, for Dad too. Dad and I would sit together as he tried to describe his day, his feelings, or the details he wanted me to handle after he died. The lion’s share of Dad’s care fell to his wife of fifty-five years. Gert began and ended her days taking care of Bill, helping him dress, bathe, eat and move from bed to chair and back to bed. When Deb returned from work at the end of her shift at the hospital, she’d fill in for Gert as best she could and more than once provided her mother a shoulder that Gert could lean and cry on.

As time dragged on, our days became a never-ending series of Dad’s mishaps as his mind and body gave way to the ravages of his disease. Each day was a replay of the previous one, with his condition worsening in an excruciating day by day manner. And over time, the pace and quality of our existence slowed to match that of Dad’s. So much so that we all descended into a hellish depression and it became a struggle to console each other anymore.

I realized then, that as Dad’s condition was only going to get worse, something would have to be done to change our focus and (hopefully) his.

And so I now come to the subject of this story (finally).

It was the 1^st Christmas since Dad’s diagnosis and the dark cloud of his condition had kept any light of the holiday season from warming our home. I arrived one night after work and walked into my in-law’s living room where Dad & Gert were seated. Their inability to deal with their situation (or each other) anymore was palpable. How do you deal with your life or your loved one’s life when there’s just too much pain and not enough hope?

But I was going to give it a try anyway.

Unzipping my jacket in showman-like fashion, I presented them with the tiniest ball of fur they had ever seen. The little Shih-Tzu puppy was all of 8 weeks old and weighed about a pound and a half. Two large Marty-Feldman-like eyes peered out of the little ewok face, taking in the new surroundings with a very serious gaze. I had belabored my decision about getting a puppy, knowing that everyone already had their hands more than full with taking care of Dad. But my instincts told me that if we were going to pull out of our depressions, all of us (including Dad) needed to focus on life, not death. And there are very few things in this world that say “LIFE” more than children and puppies. Since another child could not be arranged (at least not quickly), I figured a puppy was just the ticket. And it would have to be a puppy that was so immediately loveable that no one would be able to object to my new family addition. Hence, I chose this little champagne & white Shih-Tzu. And it was obvious from everyone’s reaction….I was right.

Gert, who had been sitting with a deadpan expression, pretending to be watching some TV program, suddenly broke out into a huge smile and started gushing baby-talk at my little companion. Dad, who had spent the last several days in a silent depression, sat up, grinning from ear to ear, and started chattering away about the size of our new family member. And in that split second, that’s what he had become, our newest family member. The puppy was unimpressed with the adults in the room and while they gushed and ooh’d and ahh’d, he commenced perusing the room, sniffing this and that. When he was satisfied that our home was marginally acceptable, he expressed his satisfaction by squatting on the carpet and having a pee, this much to the delight of my mother in-law.

I was amazed! This from a woman who fussed over every little spill or coffee cup ring, and she was positively in love with this miniature mutt who had just whizzed on her floor. (Go figure)

Deb determined that our new addition would be named Maximillian, “Max” for short. Although I argued at the time that we should call him Murphy since he never barked, but just “mrrphd”. Max didn’t seem to mind though and took to his new moniker like it was meant to be.

And suddenly, the world changed for us all. Dad was still sick and still facing death. He still required the same level of care. But somehow, our focus (and Dad’s) was no longer his care. We were all too taken with life with this little charmer. Max of course was fine with all this attention and was quite happy to be the recipient of the occasional doggie treat or piece of cheese. Dad would gleefully watch as Max displayed his prowess at hunting down and terrorizing the multitudes of stuffed toys he began to accumulate. Max would “grrrph” and “mrrrph” and Dad would cackle with laughter as Max pounced on a fuzzy squirrel or his favorite, a little white sheep. But when Dad began to tire, Max was more than happy to curl up in his lap and take the occasional nap.

It wasn’t all fun and games for Max, though. It’s not an easy task, being a micro dog in a macro world. When he was fully grown, he didn’t weigh over 3 ½ pounds and only stood 8 inches high. The winter after we got him brought snow 2 ft deep. To help the little guy out I dug a random track through the back yard to accommodate his basic needs. Stubborn as he was though, he would try to go off the track to do his business somewhere his nose said would be more appropriate. Introduce 8 inches of dog to 24 inches of snow and you get the idea…

Likewise, he had “socialization” issues. Being king of the hill at your own home doesn’t mean squat to the other dogs in the neighborhood, i.e., the boxers, labs, etc… Max must have had bad eyesight, because he would invariably bark warnings at the neighbor’s dogs, only to have them approach in all their massive girth and send him into a yipping panic attack.

It’s tough to have a lion heart in a chipmunk body, I guess.

In Max, Gert found a friend that she could give and receive affection…something that sadly, had become a rare event since Dad’s diagnosis. It’s hard to open up to love when it’s accompanied by so much pain and regret. So most of us will end up walling off the bad things not realizing that the bad things are the cost of admission for all the good we could receive if we just allowed ourselves to accept what life gives us. And finally, Dad was able to focus on life and love in its purest form. Cause that’s what dogs give us.

And then came that day in June of 2003, when Dad had finally had enough, when he just couldn’t fight it anymore, and we all said goodbye. And though we were all saddened by our loss, we were thankful for the time we had with Dad. And even more thankful that Max had been able to bring our family together prior to Dad’s parting.

Max helped carry us through some very tough times. Dogs do that for us, don’t they? Somehow, their love transcends everything. That wonderful, unconditional love is the gift they bring and we gratefully accept.

That July, less than 2 months after Dad’s death, Jennifer was married in our backyard. Max was there, embarrassingly dolled up for the event. He endured the indignity of it all with his usual aplomb. And he was quite willing to defer much of the attention to the bride, seeing as it was her day after all.

In the months that followed, however…we began to notice Max wasn’t moving quite as well or as often as he usually did. His scampering gradually reduced to a slow walk and he tended to list toward one side or the other. A trip to the vet showed that Max had a degenerative bone disorder. His hips had never fully formed as a puppy and now were getting worse. He was slowing down because he was in a lot of pain. So we gave him the pills the vet prescribed and took him home to care for him as best we could.

Now that Dad was gone and Max no longer had to look after him, it was our turn to take care of our little guy. And this we did gladly. Max was looked after and cared for and treated with all of the dignity and loving care we could muster. Instead of Max running up for a treat, we’d have to seek him out. We’d pick him up, oh so very carefully, because any movement was painful for him.

But eventually we had to make that last trip to the vet. Max had deteriorated to the point that we weren’t sure if he’d see another sunrise. The vet offered little hope and said that she could put an end to his misery or she could try one last time to turn him around, but it would be expensive. Deb and I looked at each other, we didn’t have a lot of money, and Max was probably too far gone at this point. But he was “family”. He had been there when we needed him. And we couldn’t walk away without trying everything we could to save him now.

So we gave the vet the go ahead, praying that whatever treatments she had would be enough to bring Max home to us again….But in the end, Max had to follow Dad.

And so we experienced Max’s “Maximum Love”.  But it came at a price.

A price that I’d gladly pay again…and again…and again.

For Braxton's Dad

I'm a little late getting this entry posted. But it's still a nice read, I think.

Father’s Day…(For Braxton’s Dad)

It’s raining in New Orleans this weekend. And I’m here on yet another Disaster Recovery assignment to help Louisiana settle their FEMA claims from hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike. There’s not much to do on the weekend when it rains, but watch TV, read….and remember. I compensate by mingling with the hotel guests, observing their family dynamic. And, almost without exception, I marvel at how so very much alike we families are. Road-weary dads are all lugging bags full of God knows what, while moms run herd on the little ones. There’s usually a bored looking teenage daughter with a cell phone permanently attached. And maybe a pre-teen son magically navigating the lobby with his eyes glued to the video game he’s playing.

This morning I met Braxton, a handsome and well-mannered young man all of two years old, though he looked almost four. I watched as Steve (his dad) loaded their SUV with the bags, cooler, stroller, and more bags, while mom Kelly set about making sure Braxton’s curiosity didn’t lead him too far away. Nice people. Talking to Kelly, I learned about Braxton’s age and about his soon to be little brother who looked to be about a month or so away from his debut appearance.

As Steve packed the car, Braxton was led by his inner navigator to wander around like little boys must. It’s a purely male phenomenon that boys must always be in a state of perpetual motion. I remember my own son, Richard, sitting but never still, with his legs swinging back and forth, frantically trying to move him…

Somewhere…

Anywhere…

But where he was supposed to be.

While his sister would sit with the immobility of the sphinx, Richard would itch, twitch, sprawl and crawl, all within the 18 inches of the chair seat.

I envy Steve and Kelly. This year will be my 42^nd as a father. Forty-two years of summer ball games, fishing, chorus recitals, band lessons, trips to the doctor, and trips to the beach, and all of them were magical. I remember having the presence of mind at the time to say, “I must remember this moment”. Because I realized even then that those moments were flying by more quickly every day. But for Steve & Kelly, their magical adventure is just beginning.

Before they left for home, I ran back up to my room and grabbed a hardcover copy of my book, “For What It’s Worth, Love Dad”, and inscribed it to Braxton’s Mom & Dad. They thanked me and Braxton waved bye-bye as they drove away.

Happy Father’s Day Steve…

Forty-Two Father's Days

This year I’ll celebrate my 42^nd Father’s Day. Cathy, 42 has three kids of her own and Jen, who lives in Australia, will be thirty-three. And Richard (the baby) just turned 30. He's as old as I was the day he was born.

When did that happen?

Wasn’t it just yesterday we were chasing each other through the house with their mom yelling for us to “take it outside”? Didn’t we just put that final coat of paint on Richard’s pinewood derby car? And it couldn’t have been that long ago when Cathy received her high school award for sewing. She’s still a domestic diva, by the way. And didn’t Jen just floor me and her mom, announcing she was moving to the other side of the world?

Forty-two Father’s Days!

Damn!

I’m old!

But since the only folks that don’t get older are sx feet under, I guess being of advanced age isn’t so bad.

I was just 18 when Cathy was born…not much more than a kid myself. Lucky for me she didn’t know what a novice dad she was getting. Lucky for me I had no idea that there was a car out there somewhere, waiting for her to turn two years old… and then cross its path.

I gained a few years that day.

I gained a few more years later, when a pickup truck broadsided Jen in her little Plymouth. But those are stories for another day....not today.

Yep, forty-two Father’s Days can include some pretty scary times.

But in between those horrors there were so many more moments of magic. Every year brought 3 birthday cakes, complete with gifts & smiles, photos of 42 Christmas’s with tree hunting, trimming (and taking down afterwards), 3 kids, each having their first day at school, each learning to ride a bike, 2 learning to water ski, 1 learning to snow ski. Three graduations and 3 grandchildren!

Three lifetimes for me to share!

How blessed am I?

Forty-two times (so far)

Happy Father’s Day to all you Dads and soon-to-be Dads out there!

Father's Day....(Seriously)

My son, bless his heart, credits me with the wisdom of Solomon, so much so that he has dubbed me “The Bruce”. For him, whatever “The Bruce” says must be the gospel. The truth of course, is that whatever insights I may have, didn’t accompany my birth certificate, but were learned from a lifetime of my mistakes. I guess the wisdom part is that over that time, I learned from my mistakes. Maybe that’s what he sees.

The irony of fatherhood is that while we are teachers to our children, we are all students of parenting. And while I didn’t get any wisdom with my birth certificate, I also didn’t get the manufacturer’s instructions that should have accompanied my children. And together my wife and I learned about the “some assembly required” aspects of building each one’s character.

We learned how to focus on each child according to their need, to be as honest with them as we expected them to be with us. To be fair, to wield authority without being an authoritarian, to judge without being judgmental, to counsel but never preach, to be ready to scold when it was called for, and to be equally generous with praise when it was deserved.

According to my kids, we did this reasonably well.

Looking at the adults they’ve become, I’d have to agree.

Personally, I’m still working on many of those traits I tried to instill in my offspring. But in order to be a success as a father, I had to lead by example. And in setting that example, I ended up learning a lot about life… and myself. In the end, I’m proud of my children and the adults they’ve become. And I’m almost as pleased with the man they’ve made of me.

This Father’s Day, I’ll celebrate every moment with my kids, every laugh, every smile, every memory revisited, and be thankful for the time (and the love) we continue to share.

For What It’s Worth,

Love,

Dad