Welcome to the Love Tunnel

(If you want to start this tale at the beginning, go here: In the Beginning)

A nurse led me away from the X-ray department down the corridor toward two large swinging doors.  She pressed her badge to the security pad and the doors swung open revealing a small examination room and a larger room swathed in low lights that contained the machine.  About the only thing missing was soft music playing in the background.  There before me stood the MRI.  It was a large blue and white cylindrical tube with a small hole in the middle and sliding table connected to the front.  Of course your first thought is whether you were actually going to fit into this contraption.

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The Opening Round

(If you want to start this tale at the beginning, go here: In the Beginning)

This past Monday, February 6th, I had an appointment with my GP for my six month checkup.  We both chuckled over the fact that I had forgotten why I had the appointment but proceeded with the normal poking, probing and listening.  Everything seemed to be in order but it was time to update my blood work so that appointment was scheduled for the next day.  Our discussion then turned to my left hip and the continued discomfort.  We talked about this earlier in our relationship and had said that if we could not figure things out we would go to the next steps of an MRI and some more X-rays. Continue reading

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It’s February and It’s Eighty – Not a Good Omen

(If you want to start this tale at the beginning, go here: In the Beginning)

Early in February, the Big C roared into our lives unannounced and uninvtied.  Of course if you think about it, you really don’t send out invitations to diseases as they do show up as unannounced guests anyway.  Now that the shock and anger has worn off I have decided to chronicle this challenge as I wade through it. Continue reading

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In the Beginning

In The Beginning

The Country and Western singer Tim McGraw as a song out called, “Live Like You Are Dying”.  Normally this is just another tune on the radio, background music as you go about your daily routine; then one day, WHAM! the lyrics suddenly become real. Continue reading

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Fly Navy

W&L for all of its tradition and revelry offered no practical education. Professors had taught only theory and mostly uninteresting theory at that. With Vietnam awaiting anyone who quit the dull game, frat boy Ansel Head had focused on perfecting his social graces and maintaining his draft deferment with gentlemen’s C’s. He knew so little, he thought that work important. Despite the fact that in four days any boy could have learned everything practical being offered during the four years, graduation had been unclear for the three Natural Bridge renters until the final grade from the last exam. Two of the three made it. Head was one of them.

Fly Navy

No young man who had wasted four years on a four day course could resist the recruiting poster showing a Navy F-4 Phantom jet armed to the teeth, poised on the catapult, engines at full throttle, steam escaping from behind the shuttle, the catapult officer on one knee, arm extended, pointing straight down the deck. To be a Navy fighter pilot, now there was a practical education. Continue reading

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Ansel Larry’s Whims

An Ansel Larry Original

Ansel Larry makes and collects things. Casa de Ville at Loon’s Lake has been transformed into a studio for pursuing his eccentric whims. And Larry’s whims have given Ansel Head objects to photograph. It’s a win-win for the Ansel boys. 

Head published a collection of his photos, appropriately named “Ansel Larry’s Things“. What could folk guru Pete Seeger, who provides the audio, and Ansel Larry have in common? Both believe Nixon has to go. Poor Tricky has been dead for almost 20 years; but seminal figures are defining figures and provide surety to one’s place in society. 

Flaunting solidarity, Ansel Larry is now sporting a pony tail. Do not fret, though, for in the jungle, the quiet jungle next to his house, the lion sleeps tonight.

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The Young Photographer

Ansel Head has always liked pictures. Appreciating them required little intellect or psychic energy which befits his non-superior traits. Perhaps his interest came from having seen early on what have become iconic images: The sailor kissing a nurse in Time Square on V-J day, the Black accordion player with tears in his eyes as FDR’s body was passing, humbled Japanese officials lined up in front of MacArthur on the USS Missouri, or the blank stare of the wife of an Alabama sharecropper in front of her wooden shanty. Continue reading

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Aunt Charlotte

Ansel Head thought he might have to give a eulogy at the passing of his favorite Aunt. He composed one knowing his mother would also be present. Fortunately for those attending the service in Lake Forest, IL, they were not forced to suffer through it. But since these two ladies were an integral part of Head’s education and what he retained from it, the reader will now be offered the opportunity to review it. In Ansel Head’s own words:

 “The younger sister of my father and the mother of my best friend has died and we are saddened by it. Continue reading

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Smiling

Ansel Head’s father always smiled and spoke to people, even strangers. He used to tell his non-superior son that being cordial was a great joy in life because people always smile back and make the day brighter. It was an easy task to perform when growing up in the South; everybody acknowledged each other with a nod and smile. To fail to do so would raise antennas and create suspicion.

At Washington & Lee, gentlemen were required to speak to each other as they passed; Continue reading

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Why The Generals

Towards the end of his McCallie years, Ansel Head knew he had learned all that the authorities could put in front of him. Along the way, there had been small glimmers of a practical education which had seeped through the lock-downed religious walls surrounding the cadets, but the brief glimpses were woefully inadequate for educating the would be leaders of the opening salvo of the baby boomer onslaught entering colleges.

Attending college was a given. Continue reading

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