Lift Glass and Pull Lever

Lift Glass and Pull Lever

If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget the indelible memory of those simple instructions, first read in my youth. I don’t exactly remember my age at the time but, because I was old enough to read, I’d say about eight or nine.

Back in the day, being without a driver’s license didn’t keep my mother from getting around town. On a particular Saturday, the day I learned a little more about the workings of the grownup world, my mother rounded up her small tribe of three kids for a bus-ride into the city and a day of shopping. The plan had been to take the bus into town, spend the day shopping and then, later in the afternoon, catch a bus that could drop us off at my dad’s shop. Then we’d simply ride home with him in the car.

I don’t remember much of that day before the event occurred. I’m sure my behavior earlier in the day had been saintly, knowing how my two younger siblings looked to me as an example of pristine behavior. It was when we were waiting for the afternoon bus that I found myself like many kids with nothing to do and too much time on their hands: bored.

People—some shoppers and others workers—waiting for buses, in order to leave the city, crowded the corner where we stood. As we waited with them, I became aware of a red metal box with a glass cover situated on a pole next to me. Having nothing better to do, and with the curiosity of a youngster attempting to expand his horizons, I moved in for a closer look. Printed across the top of the box were the words, Lift Glass and Pull Lever. As one never to be put off by a challenge, I did just that. When I pulled the lever the box began buzzing. Confused, I examined the box for further instructions. Just below the glass cover, printed in bold letters, were the words, In Case of Fire.

As my chest constricted, forcing the air from my lungs, I couldn’t think of anything better to do, so I started bouncing up and down where I stood. A million thoughts went through my head all at once, and every one of those thoughts ended with me being killed by my dad. And where were we headed? To see my dad, that’s where.

I don’t know if I came to my senses and ran to my mother or she noticed me going into cardiac arrest, but somehow she had figured out what I’d done. As the sirens of the approaching fire trucks grew louder, my mother directed me, along with my brother and my sister, into the alcove of a furniture store and pretended we were window shopping. All I could manage as I stood staring at furniture through a thick plate-glass window and seeing none of it was a sense of impending doom . . . my dad was going to kill me.

Several fire trucks had rolled into the intersection nearest the buzzing fire alarm and a squad of firefighters, dressed in fire fighting gear, had exited the trucks and begun searching for a fire. After an exhaustive but futile search for the blaze, the Chief made his way to the center of the intersection and announced, false alarm, folks.

A short while later our bus pulled up providing us a means of escape. All I can remember of that ride was the anxiety associated with having to face my dad and give an accounting of what I’d done. When we arrived at our stop, I didn’t want to get off the bus, but what choice did I have? It had been a good life and, at eight or nine, I felt as though the end of mine was just across the street in my dad’s shop.

As soon as I walked into the shop, I immediately knew fate was laughing in my young face. Across the room and pinned to the wall, a poster declaring National Fire Prevention Week urged responsible citizens to observe fire safety. If the people in my dad’s shop thought enough of fire safety to hang posters, none of them would be too forgiving of a little miscreant setting off fire alarms. This was it, the final nail in my youth-sized coffin.

As it turned out, when my mother told my dad what I’d done, he laughed. He didn’t get angry at all. However, he did put a fear in me that lasted for months after that day. He told me that I’d better hope those fire trucks didn’t run over anyone as a result of me pulling that fire alarm. It seemed, according to my dad, if anyone had been hit by a fire truck on the way to my false alarm, the police would go to the fire alarm box, retrieve my young fingerprints, and then come to the house and get me.

I guess the one good thing that came from the whole ordeal: I learned to pray.

Diabetes: It’s Not Your Friend

Hello.  My name is Don and I’m a diabetic.  I’ve been a diabetic for five years, now.  I suppose, according to what I’ve been told, I can look forward to being a diabetic for the rest of my life.

Although I was diagnosed with this disease several years ago, today, I attended my first diabetic education class.  The first half of the class was administered by a dietician who gave me the wonderful news that, although I’m a diabetic, I can still eat cake: as long as the cake measures two inches square.  I thought, that’s all right, I’ll just make sure it’s a three-layer cake.  Wrong.  It seems the cake can’t be over two inches tall, either.  And by the way, scrape off all the icing.  I don’t know about you, but that’s just enough cake to make me mad.

In my opinion, this herald of nutritional deprivation seemed to get a slight thrill showing us little pieces of rubber food—cake, baked potato, steak, chicken, half a banana, spaghetti, . . . et cetera—that were proportionally correct for a diabetic’s daily dietary needs.   To give you an idea of the sizes of these mock morsels: I could hold the contents of my recommended evening meal in the palm of my hand.

If any of you, reading this article, see me in the next few days and I don’t seem to be in the best of moods, it’ll be because I’m starving.

Eating is something I’ve grown quite fond of.  I’ve been practicing the art of caloric ingestion for fifty-two years and I’ve actually become somewhat of an expert.  From potatoes to pot roast, apples to ziti, I can eat it all . . . with one exception.  There is a food group that renders me as powerless as Superman in the presence of kryptonite: vegetables.  And guess what my thin friend, the dietician, has asked me to add to my daily meal plan?  That’s right . . . you guessed it: crispy, crunchy vegetables.  It seems that now I’ll not only be able to plate my meals on a saucer, a portion of that tiny plate will contain some sort of loathsome, green plant, grown in dirt.

After Mr. Get-thin-like-me left the room, the second half of the class was taught by a registered nurse, who happened also to be a diabetic.  Her part of our diabetic education consisted of informing the class that each of us would find it more difficult to control our diabetes as we grow older.  I was so pumped up by that bit of news I could scarcely wait for what was coming next.  I didn’t think it could get any better.  It did.

It seems that getting the heart pumping harder is good for controlling blood-sugar levels.  Of course, this means exercise.  Oh boy!  I remember the last time I walked a mile on the treadmill; I thought my lungs would explode.  And that was after eating, what I consider, a good meal.  I can only imagine how much fun I’ll have working out after ingesting less food than I feed my cat.

Well that’s the crux of what diabetes education is all about.  At the end of the course, we were asked to rate our instructors.  The last time I’d had this much fun, I was sitting in an auditorium with my grandson and a thousand screaming five-year-olds, watching Sesame Street Live.  So of course, I gave them both a superior rating.

The bottom line is: diabetes is a friend to no one.  Education is certainly the key to making healthy decisions if you or a loved one live with this disease. 

Got to go . . . I’m preparing a pot of gruel, and I think I hear it boiling over.

Will We Live Long Enough, Big Blue?

As a boy, I remember sitting on the kitchen floor with my dad, listening to University of Kentucky basketball being called on the radio by Cawood Ledford.  Norman Rockwell couldn’t have had a better scene to put to canvas: A dad passing on the love of Kentucky sports to his son.  I can’t say, at that young age, I understood a great deal about basketball; however, listening to those games with my dad planted the seed that established me as a loyal fan of the University of Kentucky’s athletic programs.  That commitment to Big Blue sports has endured from then until now.

Today, these many years later, I’m still a dedicated, but frustrated, fan of Kentucky athletics.  My frustration, as I put down these rambling thoughts in the early days of November, concerns football.

For years, now, my brother and I have journeyed many times to our football Mecca—Commonwealth Stadium—with the single hope that, like the mighty Phoenix, rising reborn from the flames of destruction, our Big Blue gladiators will overcome the adversity of the mighty SEC opposition, and rise from the dismal cellar of defeat to stand alone atop the division, proudly displaying the banner of victory.  But alas, as my dad has often said, Kentucky can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, every time, filling the empty void left at the bottom of the SEC by the Florida’s, Alabama’s, Tennessee’s and LSU’s of the world.

Doing my best to remain optimistic, I must remind myself of the positive aspects of Kentucky sports.  Of course we have basketball and its storied tradition, but basketball is really a different topic for another time and another place.  And we have fans: thousands upon thousands of fans spread throughout the Bluegrass, and beyond.  And we have hope.  Hope that each new season has delivered just the right mix of football talent to best the competition in what is arguably the greatest football conference in the country: the SEC.  We have the venue: Commonwealth Stadium, the grassy battleground where, throughout the years, our pigskin pugilists have elicited the cheers and jeers, laughter and tears, high-fives and low-down moments from the faithful following.

And still, I, and my brother, whom the fans call “Coach” for his intuitive play-calling—usually shouted out as the opposition is short-circuiting the actual play that’d been called in from the side-line—, climb into the thin air of section two-twenty-eight in order to support our Big Blue brothers as they battle for the day’s bragging rights.  We go because we love University of Kentucky sports.  But we also go, so that on that bright and glorious day, when the Kentucky Wildcats finally break free from the bonds of defeat, to stand aglow in the warm adoration of those naysayers across the football nation, my brother and I will rise to our feet, each thrusting a clenched fist toward the heavens . . . we’ll stand and we’ll yell in our best Scottish brogue, “FREEEEEDOM”.