Authentic Experience, Faves

Budweiser and Lard for Longevity: The Farmer’s Diet

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Randy Schlenker, owner of Aubry’s Automotive in Longmont, has the secret to longevity. He sits on a stool behind the counter of his shop where the railroad tracks cross 9th. The place is an authentic mechanic’s lair: short on janitorial service, long on evidence of real work. The row of repair manuals behind Randy, once phone book yellow, are grubby brown from actual use by actual mechanics. Randy’s goatee is white, his face largely wrinkle-free, his frame generously encumbered. Tomorrow his grandparents celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary.

Randy says his grandparents still smoke close to three packs of cigarettes a day. Grandpa has one Bud, sometimes two, every day at exactly one o’clock. No matter where he is, 1:00 is Budweiser time. Grandma joins him with a vodka and Sprite. Sometimes two or three over the afternoon, but rarely more than that.

They were farmers. Before that, after his schooling, Grandpa was a jockey and broke horses. Back then he was as short as he is now, but ripped: he looked like he could break horses (over his knee). Grandma in her 30s was a house mother for a fraternity in Boulder. Randy saw a photo of her and Grandpa in Hawaiian shirts and leis, “chaperoning” a party. They both looked bombed. Randy asked if they were as blitzed as they looked. Grandpa answered: “Yup. Them college kids kin drink!”

Grandpa ate butter, bacon grease, and lard his whole life like it was going out of style. He smoked and drank the way he does now (or more) his whole life. Same for grandma. When they preside over tomorrow’s festivities, they’ll be fit as fiddles. They are among the last seven survivors of their class from the original Longmont High when it was at 9th and Main. Those classmates will be there tomorrow, along with some of the old fraternity boys— now doctors and such— flying in to see this venerable, beloved couple.

Grandma once gave Randy advice that he remembers to this day. It was when he married her daughter: “Always try to avoid going to bed angry.” It can be tough, she said, and nobody’s saying you can’t slip now and then— but if you make an effort to not hit the pillow mad, it’s always worth it.

His grandparents always had a good time. It wasn’t about the outrageous drinking, but about people coming together for fun. Music, dancing, lively conversation— those are their keys to longevity.

But what about their eating and drinking habits? Doth the fountain of youth runneth over with Budweiser and lard? Randy says he discussed this with his doctor. The doctor asked him if he worked like a farmer. Randy said he worked hard, but not like toiling in the fields for 8-12 hours a day. The doctor said: “Then you can’t eat like a farmer.” It takes a lot of effort to turn bacon grease to fuel. Sitting at a desk doesn’t git-r-done. So us desk jockeys probably can’t do that much smoking, drinking, and eating of heavy farmer fuel without ill effects.

There’s simple takeaway here: eat that heart attack burger and deep fried slab of whatever. Smoke that cigarette and drink that lunchtime beer. And then go plow the field all day. I’ll see you for dinner.

Thanks for reading. Cheers,
Greg

Photo by Gianni D.

Authentic Experience

Held Together by FiberWire and Firewater

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What better way to head into tax day than with residual anesthesia working its way through my system, fat Percocet pills every four hours, and a stack of medical bills that will be large enough, for once, to deduct on our tax return? I know celebrating the tax benefits of an injury like this is akin to calling your beer glass “partly full” when there’s just a splash of backwash in it, but hey, I’m a rosy guy.

Doc says the tear in my Achilles was more significant than guessed from the MRIs. The four “slices” of MRI indicated a tear over maybe 50 percent of the tendon and a comparable amount of damage to its attached muscle— the soleus. Once in there (Dad said based on the planned incision point, the surgeon better have long fingers), Dr. Dolbeare said the tear was more extensive. In other words, good thing I decided on the surgery.

From what I saw on the MRI, “torn” is an awfully friendly euphemism for something that looks a lot more like “blown to bits.” While potentially well over half of my tendon was shredded in that way, the doc says there was one good strand left, which gave him an effective platform to work from. He stitched up what he could with FiberWire* and It should heal nicely— if I behave for the next two months.

For the first time in my life I have a genuine empathy for all those people I’ve wished well on their surgeries. I don’t mean to woe-is-me, but it’s no small undertaking. When my surgery nurse said the couple hours I was going to be knocked out would feel like five minutes, it didn’t really soak in. Five minutes later I woke up with stitches and an ache in my calf. Pretty cool, if you think about it. Of course I knew this is how general anesthesia worked, but it’s a whole ‘nother thing to experience it. Kind of like hitting the “fast forward” button on life, as in that awful Adam Sandler movie, Click: clever premise, lame story.

But in some respects, I don’t want to fast forward past all of this. The workings of the body (even when my recent snowboarding technique seems to have worked against my body) are truly fascinating. Over 15 years ago I pondered what ski injuries contribute to the world and now I have the opportunity to find out, first-hand.

So with a couple sips of McClelland’s single malt (earmuffs, Doc) to celebrate the beginning of my healing, here’s to medical technology and the foolish snowboarders who put it to the test. Cheers,
Greg

* Had to namedrop a bit of the technology that’s holding my Achilles together: “FiberWire suture is a new generation of polyester suture with a long chain polyethylene core. FiberWire has greater strength than similar sized polyester suture with superior feel, smooth tie ability and lower knot profile. FiberWire is the ideal suture for most orthopedic soft tissue repairs, virtually eliminating suture breakage during knot tying.” Fun stuff, right? I asked Dr. Dolbeare if he was a fisherman, figuring the same knot-tying skills might apply. He chuckled to humor me.

MRI by Boulder Community Hospital

A New Ambivalence

Should You Read ‘Should You Leave?’

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I know you. You’ve been reading a few of my blogs and now you’re curious how much of my own marital dirty laundry I’m going to wave beneath your nose. Or perhaps you’ve come across this book review through a web search and hope that I’ll get to the point in 800 words or less— so you can decide whether it’s worth reading this book from the author of the bestselling Listening to Prozac. Either way I’m happy to oblige.

The book’s full title is Should You Leave? A Psychiatrist Explores Intimacy and Autonomy— and the Nature of Advice. I came to it antsy for swift advice. Before a counselor recommended it to me, I even asked him something like: “Isn’t there something as quick as a Cosmo sex survey that will tell me if I’m making a mistake?” To his credit, and that of author Peter D. Kramer, I have been slowed in that sense of urgency. If you’re having some marital issues that you want to address before they get out of control, Couples Retreat Michigan can be helpful.

The book’s opening chapters were, for me, as thick and convoluted as the opening of a Tom Robbins novel (“This is the room of the wolfmother wallpaper“? What the?!). Like my spurious tribute in this entry’s opening paragraph, Kramer tests out a disturbing—but eventually disarming— second-person point of view: he addresses me the reader directly. In Chapter 2 I am Iris, a “young middle age” magazine exec fed up with Randall, my frumpy husband. I’m sitting here before Dr. Kramer and I expect his clear advice in the space of our single one-hour introductory session. In Chapter 7 I am Asa, the eminently reasonable husband of the utterly frustrating Bianca. Or perhaps in Chapter 7 I am Bianca.

As presumptuous as his writing style may sound, this is more than just a clever conceit. In the first few chapters I found myself forced into a gender-bending empathy for a dozen or more different people, each of them— err, me (us?)— struggling in their/my (our?) relationships. Willing readers will find this a challenging journey akin to the actual process of marriage counseling: wives must walk a mile in their husbands’ stinky sneakers; husbands must don their wives’ strappy sandals for the journey.

Of course, “willing” readers is the key there: I suspect Kramer’s dense style and cerebral enthusiasm weeds out the most impatient readers before his technique pays off. And that may be OK: advice is not for everyone.

In essence, Kramer seeks immediately to calm the impatience that accompanies most requests for advice. He deduces what might bring a reader to his book—and there is indeed a singular level of commitment in someone who would risk being caught reading a book on relationship advice. Myself, I waited till my wife was out of town before checking it out from the library. Emboldened by the optimism I was building (from contrasting my situation to those of Kramer’s patients— and classic cases, such as those of Dr. Freud), I eventually brought the book out in the open.

Well, actually, I kept it face-down on the nightstand. Discussing this stuff openly takes time.

That is perhaps one of the book’s triumphs: for those who aren’t comfortable airing their intimate foibles with others (even with a counselor), this book attempts to replicate that process from the utter privacy of the typeset page. If you make it through the book (no small assumption), you will have journeyed through something like several sessions with a psychiatrist or psychologist, including sharing a few cups of coffee or pints of beer afterward.

This book has plenty of insight for an incredibly broad range of struggling relationships. Its advice is all the more salient because it is tempered with the author’s own ambivalence about the pitfalls of books, friends, or even professionals doling out advice. That irony might be said to be the central dilemma of advice-giving professionals: All advice is presumptuous; but without presumptions we might still be Neanderthals. Or, as William Hazlitt wrote, back when fountain pens and absinthe were all the rage: “Without the aid of prejudice and custom I should not be able to find my way across the room.”

My greatest personal takeaway from the book was its reassurance that seeking to be exceptional was OK. In psychiatry, a field that seems to be about normalizing the abnormal, it’s refreshing to hear from an expert who reveres your/my (our?) free-thinking ways:

You with a relationship substantial enough to be worth consulting over, surely you know the conventional wisdom. That assumption leads immediately to another: … you hope to be an exception. At least this is a likely reason that a person who knows the rules might seek advice. — Should You Leave, p.39

Kramer does much more than simply pat us freethinkers on the back and say it’ll all work out. Every reader will find different advice for their particular situation, and certainly some may find cause to walk away. If you accept the inherent riddles of advice— that you’re probably the only one who can answer your questions, but you sure would like a little guidance— then you’ll find gems here.

Thanks for reading. Cheers,

Greg

Photo by You – err, Iris (me?)