Jerry

I was a kid when my grandmother on my mom’s side passed away. We were out camping at the time, so word didn’t get to us until we returned from the trip. My mom was devastated. Her mother had choked on a chicken bone during a midnight snack, and Grandpa didn’t find her until the following morning.

Years passed and the tragedy faded. We moved from Arizona to California, ending up in the bay area. We were there for about a year, and then moved inland to Stockton, which is at the heart of California’s central valley. I remember this part clearly, because we were living in a duplex. At least three, probably four, years had passed since my grandmother had passed away.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, my dead grandmother arrives via parcel post.

I don’t remember a whole lot about this grandmother. She’s only a vague image in my memory, because she passed away while I was so young. Being that she was only 14 years older than my mom, she didn’t feel she was old enough to be called “Grandma” so I was instructed to call her “Nana.”

Nana and her husband, my mom’s stepfather who they all called “Spud,” were only occasional visitors. I mainly remember them from Christmas mornings. Grandpa Spud is especially vivid in my memory because of the year he dressed up as Santa and scared the holy hell out of me.

So, years later, Nana shows up at our duplex in California in a white box. She’d been cremated and these were her ashes. Obviously they didn’t wait this long to cremate her, but I’m at a loss for why it took so long for the ashes to reach us. I’d hate to think they’d been lost in the mail all that time.

The ashes arrived addressed to my father, because Nana’s will stipulated that she wanted to be cremated and have her ashes spread via airplane over a specific forest in Oregon. My father, being a pilot with his own airplane, was the logical choice. They had all lived in the same area up in Oregon in the 1950’s, back when my dad was in the lumber business. I guess this forest was someplace dear to Nana; perhaps that’s where Spud had proposed to her. My father was familiar with the place. The idea of flying up there and taking care of Nana’s last wish wasn’t a problem. However, it wasn’t a priority either. After all, she was already years dead, and my father was a busy man.

Nana’s ashes, still securely sealed in the white cardboard box, sat around the house for a while. It would spend some time on the dining room table, or the coffee table in the living room. Or I’d occasionally see it sitting on the kitchen counter. Finally during a frenzy of housecleaning, Dad took the box and put it on a shelf in the garage. There it sat for quite some time.

It was after Dad put the white box in the garage that Mom started noticing weird things going on. She’d be cooking dinner, and have the oven set to a specific temperature. She’d turn away and take care of some other detail, and turn back to see the oven temperature knob was not where she’d set it. Puzzled, she’d set the knob back to the proper temperature, then later discovered someone moved it again. This was unsettling, especially since she was the only one in the kitchen the entire time.

Then Mom noticed that someone kept changing the temperature on the air conditioner. This also was odd because it was happening while my dad was at work and I was at school. There was no one else in the house.

These things had been going on for a while before Mom finally mentioned it. She didn’t seem frightened; she seemed bemused, almost comforted. It was familiar to her, because it was exactly the kind of things that would happen when Nana was around. Mom and Nana always argued about what temperature to set the stove or oven, and Nana always wanted it colder or warmer in the house than Mom did.

This talk of Nana’s ghost being in the house scared me, but I didn’t see any of these inconsistencies of temperature settings with my own eyes. I was 10 or 11 years old at the time. My toys weren’t moving around, and I wasn’t seeing anything strange. Nana wasn’t appearing to me in a doorway or anything like that. So I didn’t really believe it. It still gave me chills but it was fun to go along with it. Mom had always believed in ghosts. Ghosts were fun. Being scared was fun.

This changed when our little dog, Taffy, started getting involved. Taffy was a long-haired Chihuahua that my dad used to call “Ten pounds of love in a five pound package.” She was a tiny little thing, but she thought she was a ferocious attack dog. Taffy had no fear, and she was on guard at all times to protect her family. She’d bark at the mailman, at other dogs and cats, and especially at visitors that she didn’t recognize.

Suddenly Taffy had begun to bark frantically at things that no one could see. Especially in the late evening, she’s suddenly start growling and barking for all she was worth at a corner in the dining room, or at a spot in the hallway. It didn’t seem to be that she was barking at something she heard or smelled, because she had her eyes fixed on a specific point and all her attention was right there, right in front of her. She was barking and snapping at thin air.

This is something I witnessed personally. It was very freaky. I remember that it even disturbed my Dad. “Taffy!” he’d say. “What the hell are you barking at? Taffy! Stop!” He’d have to bend down and pick her up, and carry her away from whatever had her so upset.

Finally, there was the time when my dad was gone on an extended business trip, and my mom and I were up late and watching the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. We were sitting together on the couch, with Taffy at our feet, and Taffy started growling. By this time she’d gotten a lot less frantic about the whole thing, having become more familiar with whatever it was that upset her. She’d just stare and give a low warning growl.

On this night, she did more than just stare at a spot in front of her. Very slowly her head turned as she was growling, as if she were watching something cross the room from left to right. It was weird. I remember sliding over closer to my Mom. Taffy suddenly stood up, still tracking something with her eyes. She was pointing toward Dad’s rocking chair.

As we watched, and as Taffy continued to growl, the chair moved slightly. Just a little bit forward, and just a little bit back, like something was trying to rock in it. I remember the look on Mom’s face. She turned toward me to make sure I was seeing the same thing she was seeing.

I didn’t have to convince her to let me sleep in her and Dad’s bed that night. We slept with the lights on. As soon as my dad got home from the business trip, Mom told him that he needed to get Nana’s ashes spread over that Oregon forest. He needed to do it now.

Dad agreed. He took me along as copilot. Back then he had a single-prop Cessna 192 and it took a while to fly all the way up to Oregon, but he navigated us via familiar landmarks to where we needed to be and then had me open the white box. Inside was a thick plastic bag. I’d expected the ashes to be white and powdery, like the ones in the fireplace, but they weren’t. They were strange flat chips colored black and gray. After all those years, there was Nana — and now, as I’m writing this, when I think about Nana this is all I can see. Not her face or her voice, but these strange looking ashes.

In an airplane, you can’t just crank down a window and toss something out. The only part of the window that opened was this little five-inch hatch, and when Dad reached across and flopped it open, the wind made an unbelievable wail and it was like a tornado had been let loose inside the cockpit. I had a hole cut in the plastic bag, and I shoved it up against the open window hatch as my dad dipped one wing low and circled. Most of Nana’s ashes made it out the window, but a good percentage of it swirled around us in the cockpit. I even got some in my mouth. My dad was yelling and the airplane bucked and jumped. The ashes stung my eyes.

There was a sudden THWAK, and the window sucked the last of the ashes out along with the plastic bag. I shut the little hatch, and continued spitting out ashes. Dad leveled the airplane, and after a few moments began laughing. We turned south and headed back home.

After that day, Taffy no longer barked at invisible things, and the air conditioner and oven ceased changing the settings on their own. That cinched it for Mom. For her there was absolutely no other explanation than it being the ghost of Nana haunting the duplex, waiting for us to fulfill her final wishes. I think my father was convinced, too.

Me? I’m not so sure. I just remember those ashes swirling around me in the cockpit of the airplane.

Back in the mid 1970’s, during a period when my Dad’s business was going full blast, we had an office down in San Diego that was being run by a crook. We didn’t know this at the time, but we should have. As Dad liked to brag, this was “one of Nixon’s old dirty-tricks guys.” He enjoyed having one of Richard Nixon’s dirty-tricks guys on the payroll. I don’t remember his real name, so let’s just call him “Dick Headley.”

I hated the guy the moment I met him, and that’s a rare thing for me. He was somehow oily, slithery, in a social way. Smarmy and smart-ass. I could just tell that everything he said was a lie. He was the type to talk to you like a best friend and then insult and make fun of you the moment you walk away.

Dad realized there was something weird going on when a big check showed up at the office for work we had no record of performing. Another thing we noticed, is every time my Dad left to go down there, our office manager would call Dick Headley and let him know Dad was on his way. She did it, said another office assistant, even after my Dad told her not to.

We found later that this office manager was having an affair with Headley. We also suspect Headley was slipping her money under the table. It was a fact that she was spying on the main office for him.

What my father suspected was that Dick Headley was running side operations, using our employees and equipment, but pocketing the money. The check sent in for work we didn’t perform had actually been performed, on the side, and the innocent customer had sent the check to the wrong place. According to Headley, business was slacking down there. During one “slack” week, my Dad called me into his office, and with the door open, said, “Hey son, how’d you like to go trout fishing with me up in Oregon?”

I gave him a funny look. It was a Wednesday. He wanted to go trout fishing? In Oregon? “Um,” I said, “sure, I guess.”

“We’ll fly up tonight,” he told me, saying that we’d stay at his friend’s ranch. “I need to get out of here and relax.”

When we left for the airport, my Dad explained what was really going on. He wanted me to go with him down to San Diego, and sneak around without the office manager tipping Dick Headley off we were in town. I was going along to photograph evidence.

I’d never seen Dad so paranoid. He acted like Headley might have spies everywhere. We got into his plane, took off and flew North as if we really were going to Oregon, but after we got away from town he made a wide circle round to the south, and we followed the coastline down to the bottom of California. When we landed, it was at an airport he never used.

We rented a car that no one would recognize.

Dad got us a hotel room and we ate in, watching TV, and then he made some phone calls. One of the calls was to Headley, telling him he was up in Oregon and would be incommunicado for a few days. Still no work? No? Got any promising leads? Yes? Great! Go get ‘em!

The next morning, we started snooping around. Dad made phone calls to some of our established customers to see if there was any work going on. Nothing was brewing, although some said they’d have work for us later in the month. Then one of the people he spoke to said he’d seen one of our trucks working at another site. My Dad inquired where and when they’d seen the trucks working. They were working that very day, down in the San Diego shipyards.

Dad and I piled into the rented car and zoomed out there. We drove up and down the shipyards until we spotted one of our white vacuum trucks, removing sandblast sand out of the inside of a ship. Dad had me sneak up and take photos of the truck and the workers with my telephoto lens. I got a lot of shots, from several angles. I recognized the guys who were working.

Then Dad walked right past me, out in the open, and crossed the yard to where they were working. I followed, feeling nervous. What was he doing? I’d thought this was supposed to be a covert mission.

Dad asked them how the job was coming along. The guys looked freaked — they all had that “Oh shit!” look on their faces — and Dad poked around and asked how long they’d been working on this job. They all gave different answers, but it was clear it had been going on since Monday at least.

“Well, keep up the good work,” Dad told them, and he walked back toward the car. He was walking so fast I had trouble keeping up with him.

He drove in a rush across town to the local office, which was a small warehouse in a shabby business park. The place was closed and locked, and Dad’s key didn’t fit — Dick Headley had changed the locks. There was a window open, though, up on the second story. “Can you get up through there?”

“Uh…” I looked it over. “Yeah,” I told him, and started climbing. I had to get on the roof of a lower building and work my way over the top of a large sliding door. Swinging one leg through the window, I found … nothing. There was no second story inside. The inside wall, however, wasn’t finished — there were beams and supports that I used as rungs to work my way down inside. I unlocked the door and let my Dad in just as someone pulled up. It was one of Headley’s guys, a shop mechanic, coming back from lunch.

“Hey!” he yelled. “What do you think you’re doing! I’m going to call the cops!”

“Excuse me,” my Dad told him, “but I own this business.”

“What?” He looked unsure. It took him a few minutes, but he changed his tune, and afterwards was following my Dad around helping him.

Dad was confiscating all the paperwork. The receipts, the ledgers — everything. He went through all the drawers in the office, all the file cabinets, all the desks. When the guy asked him what he was doing, Dad said, “I’m performing an audit.”

We piled it all into the trunk of the car, and locked it up. Before we could leave, though, Dick Headley himself came driving up, very fast, like there was an emergency. Apparently, he’d gotten a call from one of the guys at the job sight. The car slid to a stop in the gravel driveway, and he jumped out. “Jim!” he said to my Dad. “I thought you said you were in Oregon!”

“I thought you said we didn’t have any work.”

“We just got some today. I was about to call you.”

“Uh-huh.”

Dick Headley was desperately trying not to lose his cool, quick-talking a mile a minute. Dad wasn’t listening. At one point, Headley began getting belligerent, like my Dad had no business sticking his nose into what Headley was doing. Dad, in one of his rare shows of restraint, just rolled his eyes and told me to get into the car.

Dad had an accountant go over the papers and receipts, and as it turned out, there were two separate ledgers. This didn’t surprise the accountant — this was common. Usually it was one real ledger and one for the IRS. In this case, it was one for the company and one for Dick Headley. Dad was able to take this down to the DA’s office and get a warrant. They used my pictures as evidence, too.

Dick Headley went to jail. At least, he ended up there for a few hours, only long enough to get himself bailed out. He still had some strong political ties, as strings were pulled and he was let off, after paying back part of the money he stole. It was only a small fraction, though, and then Headley walked away. Smirking.

We didn’t get a chance to fire the office manager who was spying. She quit the moment she heard what had happened. She was gone by the time we got back.

This is an excerpt from my book, All This and a Bucket of Toads

Some of you who may read my articles on Medium (or are friends with me on social media) probably know I just underwent major surgery to remove cancer. I’m still recovering, and on top of that, I came down with pneumonia, also from which I’m still recovering. The pneumonia was probably a complication of being under anesthesia.

I’m okay, though. Just have to heal and do my physical therapy. It hasn’t stopped me from writing. I have almost completed the first draft of a new science fiction novel and have a new magical realism novel planned after that.

For anyone who’s signed up for my newsletter, it’s … well. Broken. When I moved it to Substack, it was just supposed to be a newsletter service with a few extra features, but since then Substack has tried to become another entire … thing. And I’m not happy with it. To make matters worse, the domain name I use for the newsletter was migrated to another platform, which broke all the settings, so I can’t even get to it now.

Needless to say, even if I can fix that mess I’m going to end up going in a different direction. I mean, really, why is a “newsletter” better than subscribing to my website news feed and getting updates via email? I’ve been told that it’s better but I just don’t see why. To me it’s the same thing, but without having to depend on yet another service.

In a world that’s getting ever more complicated, I just want to simply. What better mantra for this chaotic day and age? Say it with me now:

Simplify.

Simplify.

Simplify.

I don’t know about you, but I feel better already.

Summer mornings, my 11 year old self would awaken and jump out of my bed, eat a bunch of sugary cereal, and then jam on down the street toward the train tracks to meet my friends. I had a Stingray bike with a tiny front tire, a banana seat, and a tall sissy bar. 5-speed, straight shift. Front wheel had a drum brake like a motorcycle.

The bike was “boss.” It “burned rubber.”

I’d race down the dirt of the levy road, dodging shadows and fallen branches, then leap over a mound of dirt and rumble down a rocky trail to the tracks. Turning north I’d follow the tracks to the second bridge where the creek was wide and deep. Usually I was the first one there, but not every time.

Randy would show up, sometimes with his neighbor Philip. Sometimes Larry would be there. Other friends came and went; I don’t even remember their names. All us boys were in-between the 4th and 5th grades. Lizard hunters, proto-motocross riders. Creek swimmers. Train challengers.

The railroad bridge was a quiet place. Overgrown with trees and brush, the creek ran gurgling at a good pace. There were mini-rapids both upstream and downstream, but right around the oily, wooden bridge supports it was almost a pond. Deep enough to swim in, and if I stood it would come up to my neck. Because of broken glass, swimming with shoes was mandatory.

There were always new things to see or find. We’d catch at least one snake a day, but rarely do anything besides hold it for a while then let it go again. Only exceptionally cool snakes would be taken home so that they could escape and scare the bejeezes out of our moms. But there were also alligator lizards, and skinks (with really pretty red or blue tails), dozens of bluebellies, massive bullfrogs, and the occasional swimming turtle. They had the tendency to bite, though.

The really fun stuff was more dangerous. One of our favorites was to jump our bikes into the water. I only did this when I brought my second “junk” bike out. We would zoom down the short hill from the tracks, up a big lump of dirt, and fly 15 feet through the air and into the creek. Another favorite was to huddle under the bridge as a train went by. There was talk of actually lying down in the middle of the track and have the train go right over us, but thank God no one actually tried it.

Then one day we found the hiding place of a genuine railroad hobo. Abandoned during the day, apparently this hobo returned at night to sleep in a corrugated metal pipe that ran under the tracks. There were clothes, cans of food, bottles of water, blankets, and a pile of really nasty, dirty magazines. They weren’t like Dad’s Playboy magazines. They were true porn: lurid and sleazy; wide open and shocking. We were fascinated, like deer unable to look away from oncoming headlights.

We didn’t know what to do with this forbidden treasure. We were afraid if we simply left it, it would disappear. But no one would dare take it home. We could all imagine the nightmare of it being found. So, it was decided we had to find a new hiding place for it.

We searched the surrounding area for a likely place. There were stacks of old railroad ties, and boards under grass, and areas strewn with piles of concrete. Finally we found what we thought was a perfect place: another corrugated metal pipe on the other side of a barbed wire fence, right below a small tree. It was perfect. It was about a foot wide and hidden by the tall grass.

The next day we came out and yes, the treasure was still there. We’d all pour over it, joke about it, ask each other question which none of us truly knew the answer (though it didn’t stop us from bluffing and stating our guesses as fact). We were boys trying to fathom the mysteries of women. We were trying to integrate our knowledge of our mothers, sisters, and girls next door with what we’d learned from the dirty magazines. It was difficult and ultimately frightening.

I think we were all a bit relieved when several days later we came out to find the pipe holding our forbidden treasure was under water. As it turned out, the field was a rice field, and the farmer had come and turned the valve, flooding the area with water from the creek. The water had carried the magazines out into the acres of rice paddies and they were obviously ruined and lost. Our only consolation was that the next day we were treated to the joyous show of a biplane flying right over our heads, dropping sprouts into the fields of water. The daring of the pilot earned our undying admiration, especially after he waved at us from about ten feet off the ground.

After that it was back to normal at the bridge. Snakes, lizards, bicycles, and swimming. Seeing how long we could stand on the train tracks while a train bore down on us. Stupid boy things like that. I’m sure we spent the whole summer out there, but when school started again and the weather grew colder, the place wasn’t as much fun. Things changed, bulldozers pushed the landscape around, and the old wooden railroad bridge was replaced by a new, modern, concrete one. And for some reason they cut down all the surrounding trees.

It was over. The next summer the tracks didn’t hold the same magic, and it took many years to find a place like that again. By that time, I was a teenager in a different crowd of friends, and girls were involved, and there was not much innocence left. People had jobs and responsibilities. Car payments had to be made. It was different.

We were doomed to grow up.

This is an excerpt from my book, All This and a Bucket of Toads

I was about 9 years old when my dad took my mom and I on a business trip to Seattle, Washington, and we stayed in a high-rise hotel. I had never been in a high-rise hotel before, and I was fascinated with the view. Especially since directly across the street giant cranes with wrecking balls were smashing away at an old building.

What is so fascinating, I wonder, about the sight of a building being torn down? Especially to kids. I watched for hours upon hours. The huge ball of metal would swing, smash into concrete and brick. Dust flew, debris fell. I waited breathlessly for large sections to break loose and tumble to their doom. We went out to dinner, went shopping, I got some toys (I think that’s when I got my first Spirograph and “Barrel Full of Monkeys”) and visited the Space Needle. But all I wanted to do, really, was watch the wrecking balls tear down that building.

Back then, you could open high rise windows. You can’t do that anymore, they’re all bolted shut. When I found I could open the window, a whole new world of fun blossomed. I proceeded to take all the hotel stationary, fold it into paper airplanes, and send them flying through the air toward the deconstruction site across the street.

Again, why is this so fascinating? But to a small boy such as I was, I couldn’t imagine anything more fun. Every scrap of paper I could scrounge flew out that window as one type of airplane or another. And then, watching one, it flew right into a window across the street, right into the doomed building being torn down. In my excitement, I forgot the window was wide open, and I leaned forward and fell out.

We were about 20 stories up.

I heard my mom scream and my father jump. He caught my legs as I was going out the window. I have a very vivid memory of seeing the gray sidewalk below, my hands stretched out in front of me. Little people walking on the sidewalk and small cars driving on the miniature street. Then I was flying backwards as my dad yanked me back to safety.

That was close. I mean, if my dad hadn’t had such quick reflexes, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

This is an excerpt from my autobiography All This and a Bucket of Toads, but also, I used this at the very beginning of my magical realism novel Typewriter Repairman.

While I was growing up, my parents had two deadly kid traps in the house. One was the refrigerator, which wasn’t that bad because I had no intention of crawling into it. It was never empty enough to do that anyway. The other trap, however, was much more tempting…

As a child in the 1960’s I was a big fan of shows like Star Trek and Lost In Space. The cartoons I watched also had space or science fiction themes: Johnny Quest, Space Ghost, and the awesome Herculoids. So, when I saw that gleaming white, front-loading 1960’s washer of my mom’s, with that big round glass porthole in front, I could only imagine one thing:

A spaceship!

It seemed to be designed specifically to trap kids such as myself inside. Why else would they engineer the latch handle the way they did? It could close and latch itself, but you had to yank on the handle to open it. And there was no way to open it from the inside. Also — and this is the part that convinces me — the damn thing was nearly soundproof. It was obviously designed to be a trap. Its primary purpose was to wash clothes, but the insidious real purpose was to capture kids and suffocate them to death.

One of my best friends at this age was a black Poodle/Cocker Spaniel mixed dog named Pepper. He looked like a black Poodle with hair that was just a little too long and too straight. My constant companion, he endured whatever boyhood tortures I administered to him and still loved me completely, with no reservations, still willing to go where I went and do what I did. Needless to say, Pepper was my co-pilot when I decided to take the washing machine spaceship on a trip to Planet 12.

I climbed in first, and he jumped in right after me. Then the glass door swung shut of its own accord and locked. I don’t recall if I panicked immediately or if I built up to it, but it was clear to me that I was in deep trouble. You see, I was perfectly aware that a kid I knew when I was even younger had been found suffocated to death in a refrigerator being stored behind an apartment building. I guess it didn’t occur to me until right then that it could happen in a washing machine as well.

I banged and screamed and yelled for quite a while, but Mom didn’t hear me. Dad wasn’t around, because he was at work. It was just me and Pepper there in that space capsule, marooned and running out of air. I don’t really remember what I was thinking. I just remember being very frightened in an I-might-really-die kind of way. I also remember beginning to feel sleepy, and that means (though I didn’t know it then) that suffocation was starting to take place.

Then I remember my older brother, Hank, walking into the room, and he looked down to see Pepper and I staring back out at him. “What in the hell are you doing in there?” he said, amused. With a quick flip of his wrist he popped open the door, and I can still remember how unbelievably sweet and cool the outside air was. Pepper and I fought each other to get out first; Pepper won. I tumbled out onto the floor at my brother’s feet, saved, given a second chance. I would have been dead if it wasn’t for him. I would have been another one of those sad child-suffocation stories, a warning and a caution to others.

The really sad thing is, I’m not sure I ever thanked him for it.

This was an excerpt from my book: All This and a Bucket of Toads

In an earlier article I wrote about being diagnosed with prostate cancer and was considering all the options I’d been given for treatment, but at that point I hadn’t made a decision. I promised I’d post an update when I did.

My choice was to have a prostatectomy, and as I’m writing this I’ve gone through it and I’m currently sitting at home recovering from the surgery. This article is here to give anyone else facing this decision my personal experience so you can kind of know what to expect.

Prostate cancer is a serious health risk that affects numerous men worldwide. The treatments vary from radiation therapy, hormone therapy to surgical interventions, such as a prostatectomy. Each option comes with its unique challenges and potential side effects, but after careful consultation with my doctor, we decided that a prostatectomy was the best course of action for me.

Making the decision wasn’t easy. It involved numerous consultations, sleepless nights, and an emotional roller coaster ride. The thought of an invasive surgery and its implications was daunting, but after a full body scan that verified the cancer had not spread and was located only in the prostate, the prostatectomy seemed the most direct and absolute solution.

Here was the logic involved: If I’d chosen radiation treatment, that is what I would have been stuck with. Operating becomes very difficult after all the damage that radiation does to the internal organs. If I had been much older (I’m currently 62) radiation might have been a better choice, but being that I theoretically have 25 or so years left (maybe longer, I have multiple centenarians in my family) it’s best to go with surgery, get it over with, and still have radiation as a backup for cancer that may pop up in the future.

I met with the surgeon who explained exactly what would happen. He explained the risks involved. He also showed me the success rate. It was extremely high, and because there was a robot involved, very precise.

Treatment included a night in the hospital, recovery and monitoring the next day, and if all went well they would send me home. I would have a catheter for a while, and several interesting scars on my belly. And the cancer would be gone.

I gotta tell you, I didn’t want to do it. Part of me kept thinking, “Hey, is this really worth it? It will change the quality of my life from this point on.” Mainly I was dreading spending over a week with a catheter, and then months or years wearing adult diapers. I have an old friend who went through this years ago and he just yesterday told me it took him two years to get back control of his bladder.

I couldn’t let that sway me from the alternative: eventual death by cancer. That would be worse. Now, seriously, I had to convince myself of that, because I was feeling fine, I was not sick, nothing really seemed to be wrong except for these biopsy results that said I had cancer. It was not a tangible threat that I could see for myself — I had to take their word on it.

Ultimately I accepted the fact, and in preparation stocked up on about 4 months worth of Depends and “chuck pads.”

The Prostatectomy

This is how I remember it. I’m not sure how accurate this is, because anesthesia messes with your memory. Even now as I write this, my short-term memory is messed up and, as I was told, this is a normal side effect and will last about a week.

After checking in at the hospital, they escorted me to a surgery prep room where I met and talked with nurses, the surgeon, and my anesthesiologist. I disrobed, put on the dreaded hospital gown, and made myself comfortable on a bed as they took my vitals and installed an IV.

That took about two hours. I think. Not 100% sure because they’d already started giving me the drugs.

I remember being wheeled out and down hallways, into an elevator, down another hallway and into an operating room. It was very bright. Extremelybright. That’s when I got a good look at the robot, which unfortunately didn’t look anything like R2D2 or CP30. However, it did look extremely clean.

They physically lifted me off the wheeled gurney and onto the operating table, and the anesthesiologist gave me whatever it was that knocked me out, and it happened really fast. It only seemed a few minutes later that I was waking up in a … I don’t know where. I can’t remember where I woke up, but I do remember being wheeled on a hospital bed and into a room, and knew the procedure was over with — but I didn’t know much else. I think I drifted in an out of sleep for a while.

When I did start coming to my senses, that’s when I realized I had the catheter installed, and I was thirsty, and loved ones were asking how I was.

I was fine. I was surprised by how fine I was. Only hours later, they coaxed me out of the bed and had me walking around, but they had a belt on me to keep me from falling in case I lost my balance. A heavy duty leash, basically.

To my surprise, the catheter didn’t bother me at all. At least not while I was at the hospital. More on that later.

I had a late dinner of clear broth, etc., and the same thing the next morning. One of the pain killers they gave me caused my blood pressure to go low, but not dangerously so. It wasn’t a narcotic, or at least that was what they said, as I’d told them I didn’t want opioids if at all possible — they said it wasn’t, that it was more like an ultra-strong intravenous version of ibuprofen.

I was able to get up and walk around, being very careful with the catheter bag, and when they brought lunch, I ate it standing up. One of the weird things I noticed, though, is I had a mild sunburn on my forehead. It took me a while to figure that out: the bright lights in the operating room. They must have been ultraviolet.

After a quick discussion with the surgeon, he gave the okay, and I was discharged.

Recovering At Home

I’m still in this process, but so far so good.

I’d had a drain tube in me which they pulled out right before sending me home. It’s an open wound and kind of freaked me out for a while, but they gave me a good supply of sterile gauze and tape and showed me how to keep it clean and covered while it continues oozing bodily fluids. Eventually it will close on it’s own, and at the time of this writing it’s down to just a little cut.

Besides that, there are five incisions on my stomach which are stitched up with dissolving sutures, and glued shut. I’m to keep an eye on them, watching for redness at the edges that are larger than 1/2 inch.

I have a tube coming out of my poor abused penis leading to a bag, all of which has to be kept very clean so as to not give me a urinary tract infection. I’m to watch for clots. Also I’m supposed to get up and walk a lot, and stairs are okay, which is good because I live in a three story house. I have a list of things which, if they happen, I’m supposed to go straight to the emergency room at the hospital.

So far none of those things have happened.

The catheter is not quite as bad as I’d feared, but it really is annoying and kind of humiliating. That comes out in a few days and I’ve been warned by friends who’ve had them to bring towels and maybe even a change of clothes for when they remove it, as it may be a mega urine splat fest.

I am both dreading, and looking forward, to this event.

Because of the aforementioned short term memory problem, caused by the after affects of the anesthesia, I have to write down my medications as I take them, and when I took them, because I keep forgetting if I took them. They did give me opioid pain killers but so far just rotating ibuprofen and acetaminophen has kept the pain at bay. When I wake up in the morning and the pain meds have worn off, it just feels like really sore muscles.

Depends adult diapers are actually quite comfortable, though I haven’t actually needed them. Yet. I’m wearing them, and sleeping on chuck pads, just in case.

So far, so good.

The pelvic floor muscle control that I was in danger of losing, and having to relearn, seems to still be under my control. I’ll find out exactly how under control after the catheter is out.

Going by the literature, I can regain full control in as little as a month, or in as long as a year, or … as my old friend experienced … even longer.

I suspect in my case I’m not going to take that long. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping.

Do I regret doing it?

Nope. It’s over with. I’m already functioning again. The worst thing about the ordeal so far is the catheter, but in the scale of awful things, it’s not that big a deal. There are things far, far worse, and I’m just grateful that I’m only dealing with a catheter and not cancer.

For those who needed to hear this, I hope it helps you.

When I was about 11 years old we lived in a duplex right on the edge of town in an area being developed. Directly across the street was a large empty field, a perfect place for us neighborhood kids to play. With this huge field of dirt, all we needed was a shovel.

I provided that shovel, and we took turns digging. We all wanted to see just how big a hole we could make.

The project took weeks. At first, we called it The Hole, as in, “Let’s meet at The Hole after school.” “Mom, we’re going to go play out at The Hole.” “I did more work on The Hole than you did!”

This hole became quite large, and then someone came up with the coolest idea. With all the construction going on in the neighborhood there was plenty of wood around (scrap and otherwise) so day by day we were able to start covering this hole with a roof. As the roof was built, dirt was piled on top of it so that it couldn’t be seen. It was at this point it stopped being “The Hole” and became “The Fort.”

With the fort in place amid all the weeds and tall grass, it was the best place on Earth to stage mock battles. We armed ourselves with cap guns, squirt guns, plastic battle axes and swords, and then filled that field with wars, insurrections, rebellions and general free-for-all mêlées. The fort was a nexus for our little battles until summer, when a rival gang of kids (older and meaner) took it from us. Our interest in it waned, as we’d discovered new places to play (a creek with a railroad bridge, God help us) and so we finally gave up on the fort. We let the bullies have it.

Then I remember the day we spotted a Caterpillar tractor out in that field, lumbering and squeaking through the tall grass. I stood on my front lawn with my friends, watching in fascination as the tractor pulled its plow back and forth across the field, edging closer and closer to the fort with each pass. Then there was this magic moment when the tractor completely disappeared from our view. From across the field came a terrific Wham!

Little did we realize that we’d created the perfect tractor trap.

The tractor driver came up out of that hole hopping mad, and we ran. Later someone came door to door, inquiring about whose kids had dug the enormous hole in the field. My mom kept her mouth shut, no doubt fearing a lawsuit or something. Later it came out that the bullies who’d taken it away from us got blamed, and were in big trouble.

Ah, karma.

They had to have a big semi-truck looking rig come out and pull the tractor out of the hole. We stood on my front lawn watching that, too. Come next summer, they’d started building more houses there and soon the field was a block of brand new triplexes. It didn’t take five years for the whole area to deteriorate into a slum.

Frankly, I liked it better as a field.

This is an excerpt from my book, All This and a Bucket of Toads

Navigating the digital business world often feels like a construction project, with your website as the main edifice. The common approach? Hire a web designer, build the site, and you’re set. But truth be told, websites are more like gardens than buildings. They need constant care, nurturing, and attention to flourish. That’s where having an in-house webmaster comes into play.

Imagine having someone on your team who doesn’t just understand the coding language, but also speaks your business language fluently. This individual knows your business inside out because they’re part of it every day. They comprehend your vision, mission, and goals. As your in-house webmaster, they can tailor your website to meet your unique needs and grow with your aspirations.

A website isn’t a static entity. It needs regular updates to stay fresh, relevant, and efficient. Like a garden that requires constant weeding and pruning, websites need bug fixes and performance tuning. An in-house webmaster is always there, ready to roll up their sleeves and ensure your website runs smoothly and efficiently.

Maintaining a website goes beyond bug fixes and tweaks. There’s a crucial aspect called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is essential to make your website stand out in the crowded digital marketplace. And SEO isn’t a one-and-done job; it’s constantly evolving. Your in-house webmaster can keep pace with these changes, ensuring your online presence remains strong and gets noticed.

Then there’s the issue of design trends and user expectations, which also shift over time. Your in-house webmaster stays ahead of these trends, ensuring your website remains fresh, engaging, and user-friendly, whether your customers visit it from a desktop, a tablet, or a smartphone.

Now, let’s tackle the elephant in the room — cost-effectiveness. Hiring a web designer just to create your website might seem less expensive initially. But consider the long-term costs — hiring different people for updates, fixes, and a host of other tasks that will inevitably arise. Having an in-house webmaster can help avoid these additional expenses and keep your website updated and efficient over time.

Finally, one of the most compelling reasons for having an in-house webmaster is that they “live” with what they create. They’re not just building a website and leaving. They’re part of the ongoing journey. They’re invested in the website’s success, and that reflects on their own performance and dedication. Their motivation is to make the site the best it can be, now and into the future.

So, while the idea of hiring a web designer to build your website and then parting ways might seem like a quick and easy solution, it’s a short-term view that could lead to long-term headaches. An in-house webmaster ensures that your online presence grows with your business, adapts to changes, and provides constant support. It’s an investment that results in a robust, effective, and future-proof website — the cornerstone of your digital success.

I remember the first time I ever heard the word “prostate” I was watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Roger had confused the word “prostate” with “probate” (it was also the first time I’d heard of probate — I had to have both terms explained to me before I got the joke).

Since then, sadly, I’ve had to experience what a “probate” is, but only recently have I had to contemplate the fact that I have a “prostate.” Even now I still occasionally get it mixed up with the word “prostrate.”

As I get older, my doctor has been keeping an eye on my “PSA” levels (which I’d always joked was in relation to how loud I talk — the louder my voice, the more I’m like a “Public Service Announcement”).

Once it passed a certain level (or volume, as I continued to joke) my doctor started talking about a “biopsy.” Learning what that entailed, I wanted to avoid that at all costs, so I grabbed and held onto the fact that PSA levels often rose “in volume” as a man grows older. Also, after consulting Dr. Google, I learned there are certain foods known to help bring PSA levels down. Tomatoes, for one. And that is not a problem, because I love tomatoes.

Several months of tomatoes being part of all three daily meals did the trick. On my next blood test my PSA “volume” had gone down.

Huzzah! No horrid prostate biopsy for me. Back to life as normal.

The next year, however, it did not go down. It didn’t stay even, either.

It jumped.

My doctor referred me to a urologist. Fingers went up my butt. Yes, the prostate was enlarged, but the trained professional medical fingers did not feel signs of suspicious lumps or bumps.

Once again, a reprieve. No biopsy for me.

Yet.

But they were going to “keep an eye on it.” Now instead of checking my PSA levels once a year, it was going to be twice a year. And so they did, and my levels continued to rise. While the levels were not in the danger zone, nor even in the alarming zone, they unfortunately did land directly in the highly suspicious zone.

It was time for a biopsy.

I balked. I bargained. They’d described what this biopsy entailed and — forgive me, but — I wanted no part of it. So, they reluctantly agreed.

Okay, they said, we’ll check it again in three months.

Three months later, the PSA levels went up again. Reluctantly I agreed to the biopsy, convinced it was a waste of time. I’m a big guy. I have a big prostate. It goes to reason I’d have a big PSA level.

I’ll skip the details of the biopsy. Suffice to say it sounds like something that purportedly happens during a UFO abduction. It involves needles in places needles should never go.

The follow-up meeting with the urologist was set for two weeks later. I went into it fully confident that he’d tell me that the results were negative. That I was fine, it’s just an enlarged prostate, that at least we’d ruled out cancer as the culprit of the rising PSA levels.

Unfortunately, that is not the news I received. What I learned instead is that I have “favorable intermediate risk prostate cancer.”

So this biopsy was not a waste of time and money, and I probably should have gotten it done much sooner. Years sooner.

I was given three options for treatment:

1. Active surveillance, where we just continue watching it. (He does not recommend this at all.)

2. External beam radiation therapy. The advantages of this choice is that it avoids surgery, but the problem is that it damages a lot of internal organs, and will ultimately lead to complications and problems years later.

3. Surgery. Remove the entire prostate. It would be done by a robot, and would take care of the problem all at once. No prostate, no prostate cancer. There are downsides to this, too, not the least of which is that its surgery, but the picture he painted made it sound much better than radiation.

I’ve been given some time to think about it and to do my own research before I make a decision. And believe me, I’ve been thinking about it. And doing research.

Since then I’ve learned of some other options. There’s hormone therapy, and a drug called Provenge, and super targeted radiation.

Provenge is the option I immediately glommed onto. No radiation and no surgery? Sign me up! I had the feeling, though, it would be something my insurance wouldn’t cover. But in further research I learned the company that makes it has gone bankrupt. Supposedly you might still be able to get it, so I’ll be asking about it regardless.

Another treatment has to do with freezing the cancer, but that sounds so complicated that I might as well get surgery. I’ll ask him about that too.

I need to give my urologist an answer soon, and at this point I’m leaning toward surgery. It sounds like the most straightforward path that’s also the most proven. But then again, I have loved ones telling me to get a second opinion.

Stay tuned. I’ll keep you updated.