Hi Ho Trigger, Away!

I've been thinking a lot about compulsive behavior lately, and discovered another tie-in with my past this morning. Actually this story has a tie-in with another story I've already recorded here and with two more stories I have yet to write, but I'll get to those other ones later.

During the terrible time when my younger brother was in the hospital comatose in 1978, my family and I had many terrible experiences. The oddest and in some ways the worst experience for me came from talking with the neurosurgeon who worked on Gene when he was brought into the hospital. Dr. Houser was apparently quite reknowned in a specialty where doctors are notorious for having terrible bedside manner. Dr. Houser was far from an exception, in fact he might have been solely responsible for the bad reputation neurosurgeons have, his manner with patients and their families is so terrible.

After Gene had been at McKay-Dee Hospital for several weeks and it was apparent he wasn't improving, and wasn't going to improve, the hospital administrator informed my parents they would have to arrange for long-term care for him. We weren't ready to be told the hospital was writing Gene off yet, but the administrator was adamant and called on Dr. Houser to bolster his opinion.

Dr. Houser told my mother that Gene was "a vegetable" and that we had to move him out to clear his room for someone with a problem the hospital could heal. His manner in saying this must have been pretty awful, because it sent me into a rage. According to my sister, I leaped at him, hands held outward, grasping for his throat. I wasn't a large kid, but I'd just started to hit the growth curve all teenage boys do, and was probably 110 lbs or so, a little over five feet tall.

The only thing that stopped me was my older brother, who grabbed me by the waist of my pants and physically controlled me until I could return to my senses. The most disturbing part of this entire episode is that I have no recollection of it, I retell the story from my sister's viewpoint. My brother and mother have confirmed the story at times, but I have absolutely no recollection of this incident, or of Dr. Houser. Or at least I thought I didn't.

Six years later, I had graduated from Weber State University, across the street from McKay-Dee Hospital. I'd found a job, as had most of my college friends, and we had begun sailing together on Steve Rosengreen's new J/35, Halcyon. Included in this group of friends was Jon Zeuthen, at least until he knocked me out with the spinnaker pole -- twice.

Jon was an ambitious young man, he had just completed a computer science degree like the rest of my crowd of friends, but he planned to immediately begin working on an MBA, seeing that as a hot ticket to a good salary in the future. The rest of us, very creative, thought this a curious bend, we wanted to go make things and achieve greater technical competency. They didn't really let people become managers before they actually learned the career, did they?

At any rate, Jon was the first of us to buy a house, just a few months after graduation. He bought a home just north of the University, the former home of a prominent local doctor. He had a housewarming party shortly after buying the house.After an hour or sharing pizza and beer with friends, Jon gave us the grand tour of the house, a curious affair since he couldn't really afford to furnish the house. He had his bed and dresser from home looking forlorn in the large master bedroom, one small couch in the living room, and a nice office chair along with his personal computer in the study, the doctor's former home office.

As we toured the house, I became increasingly uneasy. When we arrived in the study and peered into the examination room next door, I asked John "This was Dr. Houser's home, wasn't it?"

Jon was stunned, as were several in the group. "Yes, how did you know?"

"I don't know, but I have to go." I left the group without pausing to think what effect this would have on Jon, or on my friends. I walked out the front door, got in my car, and drove away, I don't recall where to. A few days later, John Kunkel, a very close friend, asked me what happened, and I told him the story about Dr. Houser. I knew I could count on John to tell everyone else present why I had gotten so freaked out and left, so I wouldn't have to explain over and over again.

I don't know if it was some lingering sense of smell, or some other sense that told me that was Dr. Houser's house. This is such a funny, weird episode in my life, I've turned it over and over in my mind a number of times, and never really been able to make sense of it. I still haven't now, but it popped into my head after I re-read the story about smelling like my father, so I wanted to record it here.

I have another tie-in to this story, but that will have to wait for later, I'm supposed to go sailing now. Wish me luck.

My Big Fat Greek Tragedy

I was speaking with a counsellor the other day, which has actually been a wonderful enlightening experience. Once you get over the shock of it and embrace the idea that you're supposed to dwell on all the painful and unpleasant experiences in your life, it's quite marvelous to have somewhere to dump all that emotional baggage, even if only for an hour.

Our conversation had moved through our most recent tragedy, the loss of our home to the recent wildfires in SoCal, to tragedies in general. I had pointed out that I wasn't a stranger to tragedy, one of the reasons this being so hard took me by surprise. I'm beginning to understand the whys and wherefores of that, but our conversation moved on to other tragedies in my life.

In my teens and early twenties, my life was touched by death much more often than is normal. In the space of 5 years, I lived through the deaths of my younger brother, a college girlfriend, and my best buddy who helped me through my brother's death. All were killed in auto accidents, which is entirely too predictable being in their teens and twenties in the USA.

We talked through that at length, but there was a tragedy we didn't get too, that has been on my mind this Mothers Day weekend.

My kindergarten year was spent in Panama City, Florida. Daddy was working at Tyndall AFB and we lived not far from the base in a little rented clapboard house in a neighborhood full of other Air Force Sergeants and their families. It was a nice place to be a kid, but the houses weren't very well maintained. Our water heater kept going out, Mama would have to go to the little utility shed behind the house and relight the pilot light in order to bathe us at night.

One night in the early summer, she once again couldn't get any hot water in the bathroom. She had us lined up ready for the bath, but I followed her into the kitchen as she grabbed a box of matches and headed out to the shed. I stood at the back door and watched as she walked into the shed. Apparently she didn't smell the gas that had accumulated in the small space. Seconds later, the shed exploded.

I don't recall the next few minutes clearly. I remember Sgt. Scarborough running over from next door, seeing me standing at the screen door screaming and pointing, then running to the shed. I saw him lift Mama's body and run back towards his house. The next thing I recall, I was being hustled into my pajamas by one of his older kids, then later was being put to bed in their house. I wanted to see Mama, to touch her, to find out for sure if she was really alive, but they didn't allow kids in hospital emergency rooms back then. At all.

Days later, I was arguing with my Father, trying to get him to take me to see her. He finally broke through to ask my why I was so inconsolable, and I told him I didn't believe she was still alive. I was certain they (all of the adults) were telling me she was OK just to keep me from crying, and that she was dead when Sgt. Scarborough carried her away. I had been to my Granny Peters' funeral the year before, and knew what a dead person looked like, and Mama looked dead in his arms.

That evening, Daddy took me to the hospital, I don't recall if it was at Tyndall or at Eglin AFB. He explained what was going on to the charge nurse, and she said I could visit for 5 minutes. That was all I needed to find out Mama really was alive, that she could recognize me and talk to me and was going to be OK. Medical science had progressed much in the treating of burns in the few short years since I had been scalded at age 3. She would not have too much scarring, mostly some flash burns on her legs and hands and arms.

Mom, if you ever read this, I'm so happy you lived through that, and through all the other trials. Thanks for everything. Happy Mother's Day.

My favorite new author, Stephenie Meyer

It's Sunday evening and I've just finished reading Stephenie Meyer's newest book, Host. I've been on quite a reading jag lately, probably mostly trying to escape from the noise and confusion in my own head, and Mrs. Meyer has featured prominently in this.

Two weeks ago, I decided to catch up with what my daughter was reading. She had just finished Twilight, so I picked it up. That was Thursday night. By Friday morning I was completely engrossed in the story. I finished the story Saturday morning, and was reading the included prelude to the sequel, New Moon, when Bailey called to tell me she had just bought a copy of it at the garage sale she was working. She brought it home and I inhaled it, reading it Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Monday morning we had a minor crisis, Bailey had misplaced a book she needed for school. We had been going through a rough patch, so I let her off the hook and took her to buy another copy of the book before school. While I was at the local Barnes & Noble, I picked up a copy of the third book in the series, Eclipse, wanting to find out what would happen to Bella.

I was disappointed that we don't really know Bella's fate yet, but excited to see that Stephenie has written a more adult book. Looking around her web site for news about Host, I found she's going to be here in San Diego this week. Last Friday I escaped from work in time to drive to Warwick's in La Jolla and pick up two copies of Host and two tickets to the book signing.

So now it's Sunday night and I've finished Host and am once again in a book hangover. This book was as quick a read as the Twilight series, but the adult characters have more complex and nuanced lives. Her character development is as good as I've ever read, her characters are fully formed, even the less likable ones. The story line in Host is a good, simple science fiction theme, set in contemporary time and on familiar (to me) territory.

At times the story seemed almost familiar; Stephenie lists Orson Scott Card as one of her major influences and I see echoes of his writing in this plot. That's quite alright with me, I've always enjoyed his writing, and his book The Folk of the Fringe had quite an effect on me earlier in my life.

It's getting late and I have an early call tomorrow, I'd better sign off. I'll write more about favorite books and literary influences, I just needed to shout out about this fine new author sooner rather than later.

The night Microsoft died

I'm sure every other blogger on the 'net has written about how stupid Jerry Yang is. I know there was a shareholder lawsuit in the works before the board voted. I'm going to stick my neck out here and opine that Microsoft needed Yahoo! more than Yahoo! needed Microsoft, and that Ballmer et al are the ones who blinked, or worse, didn't get it.

Does anyone on this lovely little Earth actually think that Microsoft sans Bill Gates is going to be more than, say, DEC without Ken Olsen? Everyone who thinks Ray Ozzie is going to lead Microsoft into the next generation of greatness raise their lower left tentacles.

Microsoft has been desperately trying to get "online" for 13 years now, and so far has flopped at everything they touch. Even the things they do well in the product world tend to suck in the online world. They just can't grasp the whole essence of "less is more." For a funny example of what I mean, see this funny video.

Only time will tell, and I don't think the road ahead is going to be all that pretty for Yahoo! The descriptions I hear of the company, from both inside and out, tell of a company bloated with competing divisions, layers of useless competing management, and money and talent and energy wasted on many things that don't get used by customers or generate revenue, but Yahoo! is still one of the bellweathers of what the Internet is becoming. Yahoo! shop sites are one of the easiest ways of creating an Internet business and they have thousands and thousands of them. Their expertise in Internet marketing, aka "banner ads," is so great that even Google pairs with them in this area.

Microsoft, by comparison, has their hapless MSDN and utterly useless Windows Live non-brands. They just keep missing the whole Internet revolution, watching it pass them by. Rots of ruck, guys.

Drink, drank, drunk

Today at work, the subject of drinking came up. One of the conversants asked me "You're not a drinker, are you? You seem like the drinking type..."

Hmm...

I'm not sure how to take that. I think he meant it in the "you're not a stick in the mud, and seem to like to have fun" type. On the other hand, maybe he meant I'd be a lot more interesting with a couple of stiff belts in me. So I bored him with the story of why I quit drinking in the first place. Take that!

I had been crewing on a J/35 that summer, racing my with good friend and boat pusher Joe Housely. (This was Joe's second J/35, Epidemic, purchased as a rebound from the trauma of selling his first J/35 Contagious. Joe, you see, had a terrible case of the sailing disease, so bad he regularly tried to spread it to other people by being the chief sales guy at the local J/Boats dealer.) Yes, this is the same Joe Housely who years earlier convinced me to squander a large chunk of my newly graduated salary on a J/22, my first true love dJinni.

So anyhow, the sailing season is finished, we've just finished (badly) in the second race on Sunday and are headed to shore. Wind was scarce that day, with the finish mark placed way out on the lake. Nobody was patient enough to ghost back in, so we folded the sails and cranked up the "cast iron spinnaker" and were motoring back in when Joe brought out a bottle of Cuervo Gold 1800. Ah, my old friend Jose. We passed the bottle around the cockpit twice, even his 16-year-old daughter Carrie took a couple of hits off the bottle. No worries about spreading diseases when you're drinking high-quality antiseptics, right?

After the second round, Joe said something to the tune of "we need some real drinks" and led the entire crew below to mix gin and tonics. To my surprise, Carrie went with them. I knew Karen wasn't going to let her drink anymore, and Carrie had a little bit of a crush on me, so I was surprised she left. I found myself standing on the tiny little poop deck at the stern of the boat, leaning against the pulpit rail and steering with my toes, holding the bottle of tequila a little less than half full.

I contemplated Jose for a minute, and then took a good, long swallow. A few more and the bottle was gone. The warmth of the tequila competed with the warmth of the sun. The boat was behaving well, J/35s tend to buck a little while motoring, but we were taking it easy to keep the sound down in the cabin, so I wasn't really paying much attention to the boat or myself or anything else and then...

Splash!

I fell off the back of the boat.

I was feeling no pain.

The water was warm, and it's pretty hard to get very wet in the Great Salt Lake. Really. I just laid back and floated and paddled a bit and got really comfy.

Epidemic motored merrily away, moving much faster than I could possibly swim, even if I was trying. I wasn't.

We were three, maybe three and a half miles out. Antelope Island lay 7 or more nautical miles to the north. Both were well beyond my range, even if I was trying, though it really is hard to drown in the Great Salt Lake. Maybe I would have made it to shore before I got sunburned to death. Probably. But I wasn't trying.

Fortunately, the wind was so light and the surface of the lake so glassy, when the boat started turning of her own accord a few minutes later, Joe got upset with the change in course and bellowed up to ask me why we were turning. When I didn't answer, he sent somebody to check out why. I imagine they were quite surprised to find the cockpit empty, helm hard over, and Epidemic circling back as if to find me on her own.

Whoever it was screamed those famous words "Man Overboard!" bringing the drunken rest of them up onto deck. Joe, calm in a storm even with a few G&Ts in him, realized he could follow the bubble trail from the prop and exhaust, and at least get closer to where I was. Some time later, somebody spotted something in the water (too small to be a whale, to big to be a brine shrimp) that turned out to be me, they motored up, paused, and Joe dropped the swim ladder into the water.

I climbed back into the boat with some reluctance, and probably a bit of staggering, to the universal derision of the rest of the crew, still gripping Jose by the neck. Joe asked how much I had wasted, and I quickly reported "None!" No wonder, huh?

Back on shore, I hosed off the salt, went back to my own little boat, and slumped into the cabin. I was smart enough to realize I wasn't in any condition to drive, so I huddled in my little dJinni and sobered up. Late that night, I woke up with a splitting headache, drove to the nearest place to get some food, and gorged myself on ham sandwiches, ibuprofen, and Mountain Dew, then drove home.

The next night, back at home, my brother asked me where I'd been. We were sharing an apartment in Salt Lake City at the time and it was unusual -- as in never happened before -- for me to stay out all night. I told him about my visit with Jose and the brine shrimp and he opined "You really are a dumbass, aren't you?"

I guess I hadn't really contemplated the enormity of what I'd done before then, but yeah, looking back on it, it was pretty stupid. Falling off a boat miles from shore is no laughing matter, doing it with nobody else on deck even worse. It turned out well not because anybody did anything right, but just because the weather was so benign.

After this little episode, I became much more reluctant to drink to excess, and was never much of a social drinker. In the next year or so, I realized that drinking just didn't fit my life anymore. Giving up drinking was one of the easiest things I ever did.

Like my Father

Last week my wife and I were asked to talk in Church. It wasn't necessarily a good time for us, but our wonderful Bishop thought it might help us to contemplate the assigned topic, "To Be Like Him." The Him in the subject was, of course, Jesus Christ, but I always like to open a talk with a story from my life that helps me personalize the message. When I thought about this topic, one event leaped immediately to mind to illustrate this point. I'd like to record it here, too.

The summer before my 24th birthday was a great time for me. I was living in Seattle, doing work I thought was very important, and doing pretty well at it. It was a job others considered difficult, though it seemed custom-made for me at the time. I was working at a testing lab inside a facility owned by Boeing, working for another company on a big government program. I had a daylight basement apartment in a beautiful house on the shore of Lake Washington, with a dock 20 steps from my front door where my sailboat was tied.

I worked the night shift at the Boeing lab, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. At 7, when our shift ended, my co-workers and I would clear our workspaces, return to the office, then go to breakfast in the Boeing cafeteria. After breakfast, we would return to the office, finish our paperwork for the day, handle the beginning of the day's email traffic, then leave for home, a 10-minute drive for me.

Returning to my apartment, I would leave a trail of clothes as I passed through the house. I would find a pair of shorts to wear, grab my sailing bag, and head for the boat. Slipping away from the dock was the best part of my day, something I did nearly every day. Normally I would sail until I was too tired to continue, then pull into home or one of the many lakeside parks that surround Lake Washington. Once safely tied up, I would fold the mainsail over the small cabin on my boat, crawl into the tiny V-berth below, and go to sleep, using a sail bag or a life preserver as a pillow. Later, when the sun sank low on the horizon, I would wake from the change in the light, motor or sail home, shower, and start my day. I was an idyllic existence for me.

On this particular day, my usual plans were foiled by a lack of wind. It was a hot summer for Seattle. I sat and bobbed with the sails flopping for a half hour before I gave up and folded them, staring at the end of my dock only a few hundred yards away. After realizing I wasn't ready to go back to my empty aparment or the loud rock band practicing in the garage next door, I scrounged in my tiny cabin and came up with a bucket, scrub brush, and bottle of boat soap.

I spent that noon scrubbing and dousing the boat, enjoying the heat of the sun and cold of the water. When I had finished scrubbing the decks and cockpit and standing on the back of the boat to make sure everything had drained, I was overcome with weariness. The end of the dock was still only a few hundred yards away, so I lowered my little motor and motored slowly back to the dock. I quickly secured the boat and headed home, wanting a shower and bed.

As I walked through my living room towards the back of the apartment, picking up the clothes I had scattered in my haste that morning, I developed the eery feeling that my father was in my apartment somewhere. Entering the bathroom, the feeling became so strong I even called out for him, looking around my small apartment and wondering if he had decided to fly to Seattle and surprise me. After searching the apartment for a couple of minutes, I returned to the bathroom to shower and it hit me why I had such a strong feeling he was there: I smell just like my father.

When I was a teen, my father did small contractor jobs for people he knew, and his 3 sons provided the labor pool. We paved driveways, finished basement rooms, and other small jobs like this. Looking back on it now, I realize it was a wonderful way to learn to work, and to draw closer to my brothers and father. My opinion at the time may have differed a bit. One thing it definitely taught me, though, was the scent of my Father's sweat.

To discover this startling similarity at this age, when I was just beginning to really see the world through an adult's eyes, was quite a revelation. Over the next two years I found many more physical resemblances that surprised me, because I have always looked so much like my mother's family. I also came to understand and respect my father much more than ever before, and we became much closer to each other. Now that I'm a father too, I have immense respect and love for my father, for the sacrifices he made for my family and for me personally.

The Gift

I've just finished reading "The Gift" by Richard Paul Evans. I've had this lying around for quite some time, my Mother gave it to me as a Christmas gift. It was signed to her by the author, not surprising since my sister works at one of Rick's Christmas Box Houses. I was quite surprised at how well the story flowed, I expected something much more ethereal and preachy. Quite the contrary, I actually devoured the book in a few hours. I've been reading a lot lately, returning to an old safe and socially acceptable refuge from a world I can't make work.

At any rate, this book brought to mind a family story. I've been meaning to write some of my family stories lately, to record them for my daughter or anyone else who might someday be interested, before I forget everything. This story is about my best Christmas gift ever, which I got twice.

A decade ago, when we lived in South Jordan, a suburb of Salt Lake City, we had a wonderful home teacher named Clint Bennnion. Home teachers in our church are pairs of men who visit with a few families each month, extending a gift of friendship and making sure the families needs are being met. I've been a home teacher for many years now, and home teaching here in California has given me two of the best friends I've ever had. It is a great way to get to know people, and a tremendous opportunity for service.

At any rate, Clint came prepared with a great Christmas question that December. We gathered our little family, my wife, daughter, and I, and Clint asked us about Christmas presents we had asked for or were expecting. Then he asked if there was a difference between a present and a gift. The question took my breath away.

In 1969, my father was a Sergeant in the US Air Force, stationed at a NATO test range at El Outia, Libya. We weren't allowed to go with him, so my Mom and the four of us kids went to live with her father, Grampa Ray, and our incredibly cool 17-year-old Uncle Karl, at "the house on the river" in Bristol, Indiana.

When then-Captain Qaddafi staged his coup and deposed the government of King Idris, all of the NATO personnel were brought to the big air base in Tripoli. Later, in December, when Qaddafi decided to oust the Americans and Europeans, my father was wounded in some of the fighting near Tripoli. We got a Red Cross telegram that said "Sgt. Peters wounded fighting Tripoli return uncertain." Then nothing. For days and days. One afternoon in early December, just before his birthday on the 12th, we got a call from Aunt Shirley, my mother's sister. She told Mom "I think Pete just called, he said he's in Detroit getting on a plane for South Bend, to come pick him up."

Mom packed the 4 of us kids into coats, threw us in the car, and finished the 30 minute drive to the airport in time to meet him coming off the plane. I don't know how, but my Mother can move mountains when motivated.

Daddy came off the plane with his head wrapped in bandages and a bag that looked like his but wasn't. He had been wearing the same uniform (and underwear) for 3 days, since somebody else had his bag with his changes of clothes. It didn't matter to us, we had him home and mostly in one piece.

So that was my best Christmas gift ever.

A couple days after I shared this story with Clint for his Christmas lesson, my sister called. Dad had been having some mid-body pain and Mom had finally talked him into seeing a doctor about it. They did some imaging but couldn't really pin down the cause, so they were going to do an exploratory surgery because the symptoms matched an aortic aneurysm, which could be very dangerous. My sister was worried, but she always over-thinks such things. Just to be sure, I put his name on the prayer rolls at the Ogden Temple, near where he would have the surgery, and took the day off to be with him and Mom at the hospital.

The next day was a typical Utah December day, gray and cold and bleak. The surgery was at the old McKay-Dee Hospital, across the street from Weber State University, my Alma Mater. My father's too, actually. I've always hated this hospital, since they day they pushed my younger brother out the door in a coma because they had a policy of not handling "terminal cases," but that's another looong story. Suffice it to say I was predisposed to worry and unkindness.

We chatted a bit as he was wheeled into the prep room. Once he was gone, we scattered around a bit, looking variously for breakfast, coffee, Mountain Dew, or something to read, then returned to surgical waiting room for what was supposed to be a 2 hour wait. When lunch passed, it was obvious something was wrong. We went to the cafeteria in shifts, me and Mom, then my sister and her husband, to make sure there would be somebody in the waiting room when the doctor came out.

Finally, in the late afternoon, all of the other families had left the waiting room when a doctor exited the surgery doors and walked towards us. My sister who is also an EMT and knows most of the doctors in Ogden nudged and and pointed to him. I met him at the door and was shocked to see him gray-faced. He must have registered the shock on my face, he immediately said "Your Father is OK."

He paused to collect himself and then continued "In 30 years of thoracic surgery, I've never seen anything like this. What we found wasn't an aneurysm, it was a 4mm hole in the wall of his aorta, covered with a weeks-old blood clot. If that blood clot had slipped even a little, he would have bled out in a few minutes."

The next Sunday I cornered Clint at church and told him how I'd been given the same gift all over again. I've always wanted to work this story into a Christmas talk, or a talk about gifts, at church, but I've never been invited to talk about gifts. Maybe this subject is just too easy for me.