The Phantom Cell Phone

Recently, my husband, Stephen, was driving to work when a police officer pulled him over. This, in itself, is absurd. My husband motors like a grandmother. He always goes the speed limit and is the safest driver—irritatingly so—that I have ever known. 

So when he rolled down the window of his 1995 Beretta to talk to the police officer, he told him that he couldn’t imagine why he was being pulled over. He knew he wasn’t speeding. He knew his car was well-maintained. He knew he hadn’t broken any laws.

The officer smugly replied that he had seen my husband texting—and that is against the law. My husband responded by laughing.

Why would an otherwise model citizen laugh in the face of the law? You would have to know a deep, dark secret about Stephen to understand why. He is not like the rest of us. He doesn’t own a cell phone.

The officer insisted he saw him texting and Stephen stated that, quite simply, that was impossible. When Stephen finally convinced the man in blue that he lived his life without a cell phone, the officer expressed shock at how he could possibly survive. Stephen said, quite well, and he had no desire to jump on the 24/7 communication bandwagon.

He drove away without a ticket—and after having received a cheerful apology. This experience, however, calls into question how valid any ticket written for texting truly can be if a man who doesn’t own a cell phone is pulled over for such an infraction. Maybe our law enforcement community could use some sobriety tests of their own—or at the very least, some eye exams.

Walking the High Line

Yee-ha! Manhattan cowboy! (Courtesy www.thehighline.org)

One of the items on my local bucket list is walking on the High Line in New York City. This past Sunday, my immediate family and I did just that.

For those of you not from the New York City area, here’s a little history on the High Line, courtesy of www.thehighline.org.

The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of an infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It was an elevated freight rail line that operated 30 feet above street level, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district.

 

The original train lines, constructed in 1847, were built at ground level. Unfortunately, from 1851 to 1929, so many collisions occurred between trains and street-level traffic that 10th Avenue became known as Death Avenue (very Goth). For safety, men on horses, called the West Side Cowboys, would ride in front of trains waving red flags (see above photo).

After years of public debate about the hazard, the City and State of New York and the New York Central Railroad agreed upon the West Side Improvement Project, which included the High Line. (Back in the day when building/maintaining infrastructure was seen as a good thing.) The entire project was 13 miles long, eliminated 105 street-level railroad crossings and added 32 acres to Riverside Park. It cost over $150 million in 1930 dollars—more than $2 billion today. 

Residents decorate windows for passers by.

In 1934, the High Line opened, running from 34th Street to St. John’s Park Terminal at Spring Street. It connected directly to factories and warehouses, allowing trains to roll right inside buildings. Milk, meat, produce, and raw and manufactured goods were transported without causing street-level traffic.

Unfortunately, the advent of the car and its corollary, the truck, had a chilling effect on mass transportation. As interstate trucking grew in the 1950s, the volume of rail traffic dropped in New York and nationally. In the 1960s, with our usual panache for disregarding history and razing everything in sight, the southernmost section of the High Line was demolished. The last train ran on the remaining tracks in 1980. Ironically, it was pulling three carloads of frozen turkeys.

Architecture along the park is fascinating.

No trains have run on the High Line since. Fortunately, a group of New Yorkers had a vision for the derelict tracks, which were under the threat of demolition in the late 1990s. What they proposed was to keep the structure, which was essentially sound, and turn it into a park. 

A drummer enjoys the day.

The project gained the city's support in 2002. The High Line south of 30th Street was donated to the city by CSX Transportation Inc. in 2005. The design team of landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, created the High Line's appearance with guidance from a community of enthusiastic High Line supporters. 

Construction on the park began in 2006. The first section, from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street, opened June 9, 2009. The second section, from West 20th Street to West 30th Street, opened in spring, 2011. 

One section of the High Line has windows out onto the street.

Elevated rail platforms are being converted into parks in other cities as well. The city of Paris successfully converted a similar rail viaduct into an elevated park called the Promenade Plantée in 1993. Projects similar to the High Line are in early stages in St. Louis, Philadelphia, Jersey City, Chicago and Rotterdam.

About one third of the remaining track remains undeveloped. While the High Line's use as a park is secure below West 30th Street, the future of the northernmost section, around the West Side Rail Yards, depends upon plans now being developed by the State-run MTA and a private developer. This section of the High Line (West 30th Street to West 34th Street) may be fully preserved, altered or removed. As someone who has had the opportunity to enjoy this wonderful park, my vote would be to expand the park rather than remove the tracks. After all, the platform is structurally sound and architecture of this magnitude is unlikely to reappear any time soon. 

The Statue of Liberty peeks through the opening to the right.

Reclaiming the Community We Always Wanted

I remember my father telling me that when he was growing up, his family—that had emigrated en masse from Hungary—grew a lot of their own food on their small lot on Washington Street in Boonton, New Jersey. They had fruit trees, they had trellises of grapes from which they made their own wine and they grew vegetables and herbs. Some of their neighbors had chickens. They kept pigeons, which apparently were good eating. They also had a root cellar for storing some of their crops for the winter. And it was a big day when the outhouse was replaced by indoor plumbing.

Dad's old homestead courtesy of Google Maps Street View.

My father said that he and his friends once got in trouble because they were caught overturning outhouses on Mischief Night before Halloween. There was no television, so people in the community used to get together for dances and socialize. He said that everyone truly wished the best for everyone else because getting by was so hard. I used to think that all of his tales of life before and during the Depression were all so strange and old-fashioned. Not anymore.

When I was very young, my father, like most people, walked every day to his local job. When the car became the norm, people ceased walking and drove to their jobs and everywhere else. They no longer needed a community. Or so they thought. Now I don’t want to upset anyone with predictions of doom. Things are happening in this country, but gradually, so there is plenty of time to make adjustments if you should choose to do so. Here are a few things you may want to consider.

“This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”–Dwight D. Eisenhower

Food

If you follow the news, you may have noticed a corn drought in the U.S. Corn is an essential staple in our country because it is used for animal feed. The prices of corn have skyrocketed since there is so little of it, so farmers who would normally grow other crops, such as wheat and soybeans, are switching to corn to make more money, thus causing shortages of other crops. Frankly, I have no use for corn, whether it is for human consumption or fed to the livestock we eat, because most of it in this country is genetically engineered (GMO), but that is another blog altogether [click here to read about that]. The point is, that due to that drought, produce and livestock food prices will be going up.

Energy

I can only remember one or two blackouts all the years I was growing up. It was a rare event. In the past few years, power outages have occurred with disturbing frequency. When the power goes out, so does the heat, hot water, light and cable internet/television/telephone. You can sit in the cold dark and twiddle your thumbs. Last October, when it was 50 degrees, our power was out for a week. Not cold enough to freeze to death, but not all that comfortable either and a lot of our freezer/fridge food went bad.

Jobs

Like so many Americans, my husband and I have jobs where there are no vacation days or holidays. I am a freelance writer and he works as a retail manager for a locally owned business. If we get sick or otherwise can’t work, we don’t get paid. So how do we afford things when our budget gets lean?

Finding Alternative Ways to Live

Our garden features high deer fence, foot-deep groundhog deterrent.

So with food and energy sources being threatened, and jobs being moved overseas, what can the average person do? Well, it’s not easy to find affordable alternatives, but a few of them are out there.

We buy most of our produce from a local organic community-supported farm. To find one in your area, go to https://www.biodynamics.com/csa.html. In exchange for buying a share of the farm in installments, we get whatever the farmer produces that year. So no matter how scarce food may be in the parched Midwest or how high transport costs are for food grown overseas, we have a supply of produce throughout the year from a local source. We also built a critter-proof (we hope) garden in our backyard this year where we will try to grow as much food as we can using non-GMO heritage seeds. We also plan to learn canning although, sorry Grandma, that may have to wait for next year. We can only handle so much transition at a time.

Meet our alternative to expensive oil heat.

“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”—Mitch Albom

We cannot afford solar or wind energy. Right now, they are not priced for the average person. We decided, instead, to get a wood-burning stove to provide us with heat when the power inevitably goes out and to lower our insane oil bills. We chose a wood-burning stove over a pellet stove because pellet stoves require electricity to work. We chose cast-iron over steel because most reviews I read by users favored it for radiant heat that was not too overpowering. You can also put a tea kettle on top of it for hot water. I hope we can learn to properly use the damned thing so that our house doesn’t fill up with smoke or burn down. Wish us luck.

I joined a nearby time bank where you can exchange your skills or talents for other people’s services to save money on, say, home repairs or pet sitting or learning how to can food. See timebanks.org for one in your area. Also, we ask our family, friends and neighbors for help when we need it, something we were too proud to do in the past (not sure why). We intend to help them as well if they ask for anything. That's what community is all about.

I used to think that survivalists were crackpots. Not any more. Our government is corrupt and our economy has been hijacked by crooks in the financial industry and by the multinational corporate mafia. People like the Koch brothers (Google them) call the shots in Washington and elsewhere. They are not great humanitarians.

One of my old high school friends who migrated to California posted a manifesto on Facebook with advice (see poster above). It may not be all that far off.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I think if the average person bands together with their family, friends and neighbors—as they did when my father was young—we can definitely learn from each other, survive quite well and rekindle the sense of community that has long been lost from our society. Maybe, in the long run, our world could end up being a better place.

Terracotta—More Than Just Cookware

Terracotta warrior stands guard over the museum.

More than 2,000 years ago, the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, decided to build a necropolis filled with life-sized minions so he would have subjects to protect him and rule over after he died (a necessity for any self-respecting despot). As the most powerful man in China, he had the clout and resources to create this city of the dead, which included more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots, 670 horses and a throng of obsequious civilian officials, acrobats, strong men and musicians.

Today, the clay army in that tomb is known as the Terracotta Warriors and fortunately, an exhibit of them is currently on loan to a museum in New York City. Steve and I decided to visit that venue, the Discovery Times Square Museum, to see this unparalleled expression of funerary art.

Mr. Ed's ancestor warily watches passing tourists.

Emperor Qin ascended to the throne when he was 13 years old and, no doubt tapping on his adolescent angst, proved to be a powerful leader. Within the space of his lifetime, he unified seven warring states into the seed of what is now known as China. 

As the story goes, the emperor was afraid of death and constantly trying magic elixirs to achieve immortality. Eventually, around 210 BCE, he died anyway at the age of 49, most likely from the mercury contained in some of those potions. But before he passed on to legend, he ordered some 16,000 workers (700,000 according to ancient historian Sim Qian, perhaps exaggerating a tad) to create his necropolis where he was buried.

Drums meant charge, and bells, like

the one above, sounded retreat.

The emperor died while touring his vast kingdom. His Prime Minister, Li Si, who was traveling with him, decided it would be dangerous to let people know he was dead because it might trigger a general uprising in the Empire. (Apparently, not everyone was a fan of his unification project.)

Unfortunately, the emperor and his entourage were two months away from the capital when he expired, so only some subtle ingenuity would cover up that fact in the sweltering heat of summer. Most of the imperial entourage was not told of the emperor's death. Only a younger son, a trusted eunuch, Li Si and five or six other carefully chosen confidants knew.

I swear this warrior's eyes kept following me.

Li Si ordered that two carts loaded with rotten fish be carried immediately before and after the wagon of the emperor. What better way to prevent people from noticing the foul smell emanating from the wagon of the emperor, where his corpse was happily decomposing in the summer heat? A shade was drawn on the emperor’s wagon, so no one could see his face. They also changed his clothes daily (must have been a fun job), brought food and conferred with him on important issues. (This may be an early competitor for the Vacations from Hell competitions held annually by certain travel websites.)

Smaller warriors from a later emperor.

Interestingly, a year before the emperor died, a large meteor is said to have landed in a province near the lower reaches of the Yellow River. On it, an unknown and perhaps hostile soothsayer inscribed the words "The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided.” Unfortunately, this got back to the emperor who was none too happy about it. He sent an imperial secretary to investigate this prophecy and when no one in the area would own up to having etched it on the stone, everyone living nearby was put to death (thus proving that old realtor adage of “location, location, location”). The stone was then burned and pulverized. Sadly for the emperor, this precaution was ineffective. He died the next year and through some treachery, his younger  son became the next emperor. The son proved to be a rather incompetent ruler and the prophecy came true.

Barbie-sized warriors from a later dynasty.

According to historian Sim Qian, who lived from 145–90 BCE, the second emperor of China decided that after his father died, it was time to do some housecleaning:

“The Second Emperor said: ‘It is inappropriate for the wives of the late emperor who have no sons to be free,’ ordered that they be put to death, and many died. After the burial, it was suggested that it would be a serious breach if the craftsmen who constructed the tomb and knew of its secrets were to divulge those secrets. Therefore after the funeral ceremonies had completed, the inner passages and doorways were blocked, and the exit sealed, immediately trapping the workers and craftsmen inside. None could escape.” Basically, it may have been good to BE the emperor, but not necessarily to marry or work for him.

Lanterns light the way at the Chelsea Market.

The tomb was planted over with vegetation, so it would resemble a nonassuming hill. As a result, it lay undiscovered for more than two millennia until a local farmer, digging a well, found it in 1974.

After wending through this fascinating exhibit, Steve and I capped off the day by having a late lunch at The Green Table at the Chelsea Market—great organic, locally grown food—and then we sat in a park and watched a man create really big bubbles. 

Nothing says New York like bubbles in the park.

Such was our foray into the city. First we spent the better part of the morning peering more than two thousand years into the past. Then we whiled away an hour watching mammoth bubbles float up into the air, pop and vanish. All in all, a day layered with the essence and absurdity of transience.

Tenacious G: Swinging With the Methodists

Tenacious G(randma) shares her wisdom.

Often, the older a person gets, the louder and less inhibited their comments tend to become in public places. They have grown old and wise, and now they want to share that with everyone within earshot.

Such is the case with my mother, aka, Tenacious G. She is 86 years old and ready to let anyone she encounters indirectly know how she feels about their tattoos, ("Why do people do that to themselves?"), mode of dress ("You can see up her shorts when she bends over, and it's not a pretty sight.") or whatever else ruffles her sensibilities.

Every Sunday during the summer, I take Tenacious G to free concerts sponsored by our town and area donors. If it's a sunny day, we take our portable chairs and sit in the park with our water bottles. Thankfully, in this wide-open setting, her sage comments fade on the wind. If it rains, however, the area United Methodist Church graciously hosts the concert in its building, which unfortunately has outstanding accoustics.

The sax player dons a stylish black hat.

This week, I took Mom to see a swing band. While the musicians were tuning up, she loudly announced that the drummer in the band looked like a woman. I quietly informed her that, no, he was a man. When she insisted that the drummer was a woman, I decided it was safer to agree. We were sitting in the pews of a church and her voice carried quite well.

Just as I was beginning to relax, she informed me and the surrounding community that the saxophone player should take his hat off since he was in a church. Then she modified her stance. He was dressed in black and wearing a black hat, so, she said, "He must be Jewish. If he's Jewish, he can wear his hat."

"No, the hat he is wearing is part of the swing dress style," I said. Big mistake. When will I learn?

"No, he's Jewish," she insisted a notch up in volume. Mind you, she is not antisemitic. Despite being an evangelical Christian, her late husband was Jewish. She just wants the world to share in her astute observations, as her mother did before her.

Finally, the band started up and played some wonderful swing classics. They were scheduled to perform from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Around 4 p.m., Tenacious G pointed to her watch. She had to get back to her assisted living facility for one of the highlights of the day—dinner.

The raucous crowd breaks out into spontaneous dancing.

We were sitting up front. I suggested that we wait until the band finished their current number before we noticeably got up and walked down the aisle of the church to the parking lot. She agreed.

On the way home, she smiled sweetly and said that she had really enjoyed listening to the band and was looking forward to the Oldies band playing next week. I was, too.

Hopefully, next Sunday, it would be a nice, sunny day in the park.

Communing With St. Thérèse

A rosary hangs near the chapel's altar.

Having grown up in Boonton, New Jersey—a working-class town—I always thought of nearby Mountain Lakes as being the place where the rich people lived. What I didn’t know was that it was also the site of St. Thérèse of the Little Flower shrine—a little-known pocket of peace hidden down at the end of a sleepy dead-end lane.

I’m not Catholic, so why bother visiting such a place? Curiosity. It was the site of a local miracle and I wanted to see the place for myself.

The Story of Achille Arci

The small shrine represents a promise kept by Achille Arci back in the 1920s. 

Arci became very sick and was told by physicians bereft of bedside manner that he was incurable. Arci didn’t want to accept that prognosis, so he prayed fervently to St. Thérèse for help. He promised her that if he was cured, he would build a shrine in her honor and visit her home in France to pay his respects. Apparently, St. Thérèse liked that idea, because after a five-year battle with his illness, Arci was suddenly and miraculously cured.

Stained-glass windows grace the two side walls of the shrine.

Keeping his promise would require the help of friends. He formed a small society of devout Catholics to build a modest shrine to St. Thérèse. The group solicited donations and volunteered labor to make the small shrine a reality. In 1933, it was erected on what was then Arci’s property.

In October 1952, Arci traveled to Lisieux, France to visit St. Thérèse’s home. When he returned, he continued tending to the shrine until his death in 1957.

A halo of bricks encircle the front door.

The shrine property ownership was eventually transferred to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Boonton. Arci’s family continues to maintain the grounds in loving memory of their father and out of their devotion to St. Thérèse.

Who Was St. Thérèse?

Not being Catholic, I had to do some research to find out about the woman behind the saint. St. Thérèse of Lisieux was born in 1873, the same year a cigar-chomping President Ulyesses S. Grant was presiding over a post-Civil War United States.

Born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin, she was a French Carmelite nun. Perhaps due to her sense of religious commitment at an early age, she is also known as “The Little Flower of Jesus.”  In 1888, at the age of 15, she became a nun and joined two of her older sisters in the cloistered Carmelite community of Lisieux,  Normandy.

During her nine years as a Carmelite nun, she wrote The Story of a Soul, a collection of autobiographical manuscripts. In 1897, she died of tuberculosis at age 24, at which time her writings were printed and distributed. They quickly spread, making her one of the most popular saints of the Twentieth Century. She was beatified in 1923, and canonized in 1925.

The Shrine in Mountain Lakes

St. Thérèse smiles down on everyone who enters.

Thanks to Google Maps, my friend, Zoë, and I were able to find Rock Lane, a small side road off of the main Boulevard in Mountain Lakes. At the entrance to Rock Lane is a modest sign for the shrine. We drove up a hill through a residential area and at the end of the road sat a small white chapel with a halo of bricks encircling the front doors.

Inside, were five or so rows of folding chairs facing an altar. And in one corner of the room was a large statue of St. Thérèse, holding a bouquet of roses and smiling down at us. A donation of 50 cents was suggested to help maintain the shrine. I lit a candle for my deceased relatives. Then I used the suggested prayer to ask for personal favors. Since I prayed for four people—asked for four favors—I left four donations.

Zoë and I sat there for about a half hour, enjoying the peace of this local, out-of-the-way gem. The names of families I had grown up with in nearby Boonton were listed at the bottom of the stained-glass windows on both sides of the chapel.

I guess it might not be the type of sight that would be listed in the entertainment section of the local newspaper, but it was a serene diversion for one humid, summer afternoon in the ritzy wilds of Northern New Jersey.

Dismembered Medicine

“Despite all our toil and progress, the art of medicine still falls somewhere between trout casting and spook writing.”—Ben Hecht, Miracle of the Fifteen Murderers

Mom makes friends with another patient.

As the official booking agent and taxi service for my 86-year-old mother’s numerous doctors’ appointments, I have noticed something peculiar about our medical system. Our doctors tend to be parts-specific. Let me explain.

I asked my mother’s primary care physician’s assistant, Karla, about intestinal bleeding my mother was experiencing.  It rightfully upset my mother. Karla recommended I take my mother to a gastroenterologist because she was not qualified to comment on intestinal bleeding. She also recommended I take Mom to a cardiologist since she has a pacemaker, and Karla is apparently not qualified to make any observations about the cardiovascular system.

“It is a mathematical fact that fifty percent of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their class.”—Author Unknown

So I made an appointment with these specialists. After weeks of waiting, we first visited the gastroenterologist, who reviewed my mother’s list of medications and looked disgusted when she saw she was being given baby aspirin once daily. She called Mom’s assisted living facility and had them discontinue the aspirin immediately. Soon the bleeding stopped.

Next, we visited the cardiologist, who read my mother’s records, then commented that she noticed that my mother was taken off of her baby aspirin—a necessity for her heart health. I pointed out to her that while my mother used to take the aspirin, due to intestinal bleeding, a gastroenterologist highly recommended that we discontinue that medication.

“One doctor makes work for another.”—English Proverb

The cardiologist strongly disagreed with this because she was not concerned with my mother’s digestive tract, just as the gastroenterologist had not been concerned with my mother’s heart health. You see, doctors only focus on whatever dismembered section of the human body that they are trained to treat.

This means that specialists don’t tend to concern themselves with the body-wide consequences of a treatment, as long as their particular section of the anatomy is following AMA guidelines. This is how my mother ended up having a brain hemorrhage back in 2004.

“Poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substance given with different intents.”—Peter Mere Latham

Her cardiologist at the time was obsessed with the statistical fact that someone with atrial fibrillation has an increased chance of stroke, so they should be given a blood thinner (which is actually a derivative of rat poisoning) to keep that clot from forming. Unfortunately, while the blood thinner effectively prevented a blood clot from developing, it caused the opposite, a brain hemorrhage, to happen. Had my mother not been taking anything at all, she may or may not have developed a blood clot, but she most certainly would not have had a brain hemorrhage. Her brain hemorrhage is what the medical profession refers to as a trade-off.

Most studies that support the medicating of patients are sponsored by drug companies. It is in their best interest to justify long-term therapies because these regimens offer a constant stream of drug revenue. Doctors tend to take these studies very seriously because they are just about the only source of science available in their field. The consequence is that people are often prescribed ongoing drug regimens that may or may not be in their best interest.

“A drug is that substance which, when injected into a rat, will produce a scientific report.”—Author Unknown

Only after many years of study, usually by the manufacturer of a competing medication or due to numerous reports of death or side effects to the FDA—do we find out that, say, certain painkillers cause strokes or certain blood pressure medications don’t really work and can damage the kidneys. Some adjunct drugs for cancer were actually shown to make the cancer worse rather than the other way around. A recent study refuted, once and for all, the theory that gum health is related to heart health. It isn’t. Period. So any doctor who tells you it is, has not read the latest studies showing that the original study was based on flimsy evidence that was essentially invalid. How many years did any of these revelations take? In some cases, up to a decade or longer.

So when my mother’s cardiologist protested that Mom be put back on the aspirin, I understood her very real concern, but told her that I would prefer to err on the side of less medications rather than more. My personal rule at this point is, if the drug causes problems, I don’t care what benefit it offers.

“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”—Erma Bombeck

Perhaps, someday, Western medicine will learn to look at the entire human body rather than pretending that it is divided up into numerous discreet sections. When that enlightened day dawns, I will relent to the advice of a holistic practitioner. Until then, as the official advocate of my family members’ health, I will be operating under a strictly patient-beware policy.