My mother and the Big Red Miracle
Sunday, June 15, 2008

This story is about my mother, Beulah “Boots” Riley Cannon Gibbs Yale. She just turned 84 on May 30 this year. She’s had a rough life, not a lot of marital love or fortune in it. Yet, she has persevered.

Through her good times and bad, one thing has plagued her for 20 – 30 years: she’s been sick. It was a free-floating nausea and stomach pain. She has never been able to eat a full, robust meal without tossing it back up before the night was out. She was frequently doubled over or weak and listless.

Back when I was a sprout, before this began, she had ulcers something terrible. She finally had a piece of her stomach removed because of scar tissue. She became sick after that surgery and stayed sick. She always attributed her illness to her modified stomach. “They cut some nerves that aided in my digestion,” she said.

She has been to doctors from time to time. They always told her the same thing. “Acid reflux.” Stomach’s too small to hold the food. And so on. Boots finally adjusted to a life of pain and nausea. It partially defined her. “Mom’s feeling sick tonight. Too much butter in the potatoes.”

This year, a miracle occurred. My little rural Pennsylvania village got a new surgeon. “She’s a young gal with red hair,” my mother said. My mother was being seen for chest pains. There was concern she might need surgery to fix an aortic aneurysm.

The new red-haired doctor determined my mother did not need surgery yet. During the conversation, Boots mentioned her chronic illness. She explained her symptoms for five minutes and the Big Red Miracle Worker said, “It sounds like gall bladder.”

My mother said, “No doctor has ever said that to me before.”

Big Red said, “You’re kidding. For 30 years no doctor has diagnosed your gall bladder?”

“You’re the first,” said Boots.

Within days my mother was scheduled for gall bladder removal.

She made it through the surgery OK, just before her birthday. The doctors planned a small incision originally, but they said her gall bladder was dissolved and pasted to her other organs. They had to cut her wide open and scrape it out.


She called me at school two weeks ago, which she never does, and she was crying, which she seldom does.

“What’s wrong, mom? Why are you crying?”

“Oh, Steven, Steven. I had to call you. I just feel so good. I’m not nauseous and I’m hungry as a horse.” She was barely able to speak. She said, “I had biscuits and gravy this morning, and I didn’t it throw up. I can’t remember the last time I was able to hold down biscuits and gravy.” My mother is an Oklahoma girl.

She couldn’t continue the conversation. She was too shook up. She promised to email me. I’ll close the story with an excerpt of my mother’s wonderful, rambling email, what I can fit.

In my mother’s words:

“My Dearest Steve,

“Guess you can tell I am better. I want to get out and look at the world and yell, THANK YOU GOD!! Steve. I have had so many years of embarrassment of being sick to stomach. And even Poor Whitey, we would have to stop along the road for me to throw up. Steve, I have not been nauseated ONCE, not even from the anesthetic. since that monster has been taken out of my belly. I CRY, I Thank God, over and over when I awake, when I go to bed. when I am out in the yard. I had forgotten what it felt like to be -- what do I say? Well? what? This is all a new life for me. It’s like starting over. LIVE LIVE. I know I won’t keep some of my promises to me that I am making. But I will try. I hope I don’t get grouchy --with old age, I hope I don’t criticize
Steve it’s so great to have a new lease on life.

“Sorry--(no I am not--) for such a long letter. But I just feel I want to --yes cry a bit-- and just tell everyone. I don’t have to wait now till I am ashes for everyone to know I was sick. I am not sick any more. Weak maybe. and a few lbs lighter, Tell Sue (this is to her to) I love her so much and she was so patent with me when I was so selfish and thinking of myself all the time. . No one else felt the pain but I did. I love her very much. I have my family love and more love, I am alive. I love to top off the dessert with all the love from my family and friends.. I can eat ice cream now. I can drink milk. Gotta go rest a while. Love ya. MOM”
She can be reached at beaulah@alltel.net

Ode to Summer with decking
Sunday, June 8, 2008

It’s here. Summer vacation. Started late Friday afternoon, the last day of school. A whole day of it has already come and gone. Oh, no. Panic.

Ah, summer. I enjoy tidying up my classroom on the last day of school because it’s so easy. Everything goes in the trash. Every paper on my desk has expired. No more sorting for announcements of future events. Abandoned student papers become, quoth the raven, “nevermore.” If my garbage can were wider, I could clean my desk with one firm sweep of my right arm.

Ah, summer, you wily rascal, full of potential adventures and new found friendships, campgrounds and vistas, swim suits and sandals, open highways and back country roads, sleepy villages and vegetable festivals. Oh, how you beckon.

First, I’ll be tearing out my backyard deck. The orange one. Not because it’s orange, though that thought crossed my mind. It’s because it’s structurally defective. We’ve been living with it for 30 years. It was built by the previous guy using guesswork. Joists are too far apart. The nails bounce loose. Planks are too far apart. Moisture collects between the planks and the joists, which are not pressure treated. The joists have rotten spots in key locations – anywhere.

I’ve been sanding it, staining it, reinforcing it, replacing a plank from time to time, putting lipstick on the pig, but I have never resorted to tearing the whole thing out and starting over. That would be a radical move. It’s a long deck.

Last week Gino offered to help me put a quick shade roof over part of it. I wanted a place out of the sun and rain where I could relax, read, and sip my lemonade. I wanted to buy patio chairs with cushions for the first time, and sit in them. “It will only take a few days,” he assured me. “We can have it up before school is out.”

Gino instructed me to pull up six planks so we could dig footings. That’s when he got his first look ever at the underbelly of our beloved deck.

“Oh, my God,” he said. “This is a mess. It can’t be salvaged. You can’t build a roof over a rotten, poorly made deck. It wouldn’t be worth it. It’s all got to come out.”

That was that. I got my marching orders. I came home each evening last week and pried up a few more of the 46 remaining boards. Whenever we work together, I’m always on demolition duty. I tear down the old, and he builds up the new. I have about 10 planks to go before Gino plugs in. I’d be out in my backyard right now if I didn’t have typing to do.

Ah, summer. You have not warmed up to me yet. Literally. I hope to work swiftly at this orange Magoo and be free to roam before the cool breezes from the melting polar ice caps die down and I may once again swim without horripilation.

Ah, summer. In the dog days, Barack shall battle McCain in the heavyweight championship of the free world. As Barack wins more and more rounds, speculators will sell their war stocks and buy peace stocks. Trillions will be lost by the military industrial complex. Powerful enemies will be made. Trillions will be gained by innovative, environmentally friendly companies and employed American workers. They will grow stronger. America will be respected in the world once again. New friends and well threaded coalitions will form. We will enter a new age of peace and prosperity. Then it will all come crashing down again when the dream dies.

Ah, summer. I yearn to wear shirts I do not have to iron. I long for short pants with extra pockets for sun block and flashlights. I yearn for slip-on shoes that I can get wet. I’m eager to retire my socks for the season. I long to don hats with floppy, wrap-around visors and chin straps. I want to put dry pants over a wet swimsuit and chafe. I welcome my increased need for ice. I always feel good when I’m at the store buying ice. It usually means someone is having a party.

Ah, summer. You bring tomatoes, zucchini and snap beans in your bountiful bosom. Backyard gardens all around California will be bursting with home-grown sustenance. We will be able to augment our dinner tables with our own fruits and vegetables. We will swing toward greater self-sufficiency in this difficult economy.

We need only buy the planting soil, seeds and sprouts, fertilizer, water, garden hoses, nozzles, timers, drip hose, insect deterrents, stakes, netting, fencing, bed boards, screws, stakes, shovels, hoes, rototillers, and marigolds.

Ah, summer. You hold potential for rest and vigor, calm and commotion, peace and quiet, hoots and gaiety. I hope to crawl deep into the folds and recesses of your novelty and lose myself for a spell in your embrace.

A stampede of need
Sunday, June 1, 2008


The economy is tanking? Consumer spending is down? Tell that to the shoppers at the Vacaville outlet stores. Tell it to me, who just paid $311 for a pair of shoes.

What I saw last Sunday, followed by what I did, still amazes me.

I needed shoes. It’s a necessity item. Not a shopping spree. I wanted some run-abouts. My old pair is ripped, torn, scuffed, limp, frazzled, and smelly. Susan and I were driving back from Sacramento and decided to stop for Rockport ProWalkers at the outlet stores because I have weird feet. It seems only Rockports fit me well.

We took the Nut Tree Exit and pulled into the massively huge parking lot ringed in shops. We immediately encountered gridlock, bumper-to-bumper traffic. “What’s this?”

Cars were stopped to allow throngs of bag-toting pedestrians to traverse crosswalks on their way to their next shop stops. The mall was bulging. People and cars everywhere.

We couldn’t find a single empty parking space. We threaded our way slowly, like a shoe lace being put on without gloves at 20 below zero, across the whole parking acre, clear to the back. Nothing. Worse, in each aisle sat two or three cars, idling, in gear, drivers at the wheels, waiting for someone to pull out.

“Can this be? How can this be?” we chanted. Why are so many on a shopping frenzy? What happened to the recessed economy, the collapsed consumer, the foreclosed and the forlorn?

Could it be that all these people were spending their tax refunds?

Mobius logic, Batman. That behavior runs counter to the stream of spring surveys and interviews with Average Joes and Natural Janes around the country. Those surveys concluded that most Americans intended to use their tax rebates to pay bills. Climb out of debt. Pay down Comcast, ATT and Visa. They were going to pay dentists and gym fees. Buy gas.

Could all these nationwide surveys be wrong? Were those survey participants white lying out of a sense of pride and responsibility, concealing their latent impulsivity? Could it be that Americans’ will to shop is so strong that many succumbed to temptation?

Most Americans have already gone without shopping for a long time. A lengthy list of necessary items has backlogged -- shoes, cologne, jelly beans. It could be that this phenomenon was a stampede of need.

Anyhow, we left without shoes. What to do?

Somewhere over the weekend with our kids, during a shoe and foot conversation, after thirty years of describing my sorry feet, my daughter Kristi asked me.

“Pops. Have you ever gone to the Good Feet store?”

“Never heard of the place” ended that line of questioning.

However, leaving the sold-out mall on Sunday, Susan said, “Well, let’s try a Good Feet store. There’s one near Costco at the Cordelia Exit.”

We did. Got there 4 minutes before closing. Funny little shoe store. They only had about a dozen pair, off in the corner. “Hi, I’m Terry. Welcome to Good Feet.”

“Where’s all your shoes, Terry? I need me some Rockports.”

“Sorry. We don’t carry Rockports. We’re in the shoe insert business. Arch supports.”

“Ahhhhhhh. I seeeeeee. Arch supports. I didn’t know. Hmm. Not a bad idea. Worth investigating.”

Back in college, DuBois, Pennsylvania, Gino and I were walking atop a row of abandoned railroad boxcars, planning action for a film. I suggested a dramatic leap down to a flatbed car to please the audience. My actors called me crazy, so I jumped to prove them wrong and collapsed the arch my right foot in an extremely hard landing.

“Let me see those inserts, Terry.”

“I am going to start you at the far end,” he said after taking my footprints and measurements. “I’ll set you up with maximum arch support first.”

He put beige lifts in a nice pair of black sneakers. I laced them on and walked across the floor. “Holy Toledo Ohio. That hurts so good. I feel like I’m walking on golf balls.” I sat back down. “Terry, my friend. These are great. I think I want them. How much?”

“The shoes are $100 and the lifts are $299.”

Boing. “Say what?” I asked. He smiled wanly and nodded. “Geez, oh, man, Terry. That’s steep. What else you got?”

He showed me a less radical pair, the Midflex Maintainers -- wafer thin, springy, transferable to all my shoes, “$190.”

They felt spectacular. “Terry, how can this little patented piece of hoodoo plastic cost so much?” He smiled wanly and shrugged.

I bought them. Wore them home. Used them to walk down to the Goodwill Store near the taco truck the other day and buy myself a taco and a $3.99 Abercrombie & Fitch pinpoint oxford cotton dress shirt to celebrate my new happy feet.

We haven’t got our checks yet.