My Walk

I was in Tampa when news came of the ransomware terrorist attack on the oil pipeline was made public.  I was 400 miles from home about the limit of the Promaster's range and I wondered if we were going to see lines and shortages and the usual fuel fiasco after such announcements.

Oddly enough I saw nothing of the sort and we filled up before we left and saw no problems on the way including a refill along I-75 near Naples. I got home with half a tank and I have seen no signs of shortages since.

The newspaper says there was panic buying which caused shortages in South Florida as tankers couldn't move fast enough to supply the gas stations. All of which was unnecessary as South Florida was not affected by the interruptions to the Colonial Pipeline.

The world of Internet crime seems pervasive with all the little scams and personal phone calls and annoying messages trying to separate us from our common sense and our money. I feel as though we are moving beyond the 20th century crime sprees of theft and robbery and violence into a brave new world of binary code rip-offs. 

I get calls at work from people receiving those jaded old messages about social security number scams and as much as I try to reassure the unwary they insist the local police should be able to "do something." I wish we could. As unbelievable as it seems to me I get scam social security calls through the 911 lines. I have no idea how they get into the system but there they are with no call back number bugging me about my social security number... 

Little wonder I find relief in walking through the mangroves watching Rusty run and play and cheer me up by coming up to me with a  big grin and not a worry on his mind.

I find articles on line talking about life after the pandemic and all sorts of speculation about how things will be different or the same and how work has changed and expectations are changed and on and on. It seems a bit premature and unnecessary to wonder how life will be, and I figure it will be as it always was more or less. A bit of chaos and disorder with ordinary people trying to make ends meet as usual.

I find it rather odd that I am slipping into retirement as all this wild speculation carries on. My life is supposed to change quite considerably and no thanks to the virus! 

Meanwhile a walk among the mangroves and the mud, the roots and the old anti mosquito trenches cut into the rock is a reminder that most things don't change much. 

I got left behind as Rusty trotted to the car. I couldn't tear myself away from the stillness even though the horseflies were ignoring my insect repellent. The Citizen newspaper reports there are more vaccination doses in Monroe County than people who still need or want to be vaccinated.  Just like the oil pipeline we seem to have more trouble distributing than producing as we have too much vaccine and other countries don't have enough. It is a funny old world and every day I feel lucky to be here. Tomorrow it may be somewhere else but I'll take the stillness of the mangroves with me.

The Routine

It seems reverse shoulder surgery is a routine operation and people are getting it done all over the country all the time. That doesn't exactly lessen the impact of the individual operation when it strikes close to home but I reassured my wife I was certain it would go well and it did.

I got to walk Rusty when we got home and we both enjoyed being out in familiar haunts even if Rusty did have to undergo the indignity of a soapy bath after sitting repeatedly in the ocean. Summer is here and heat is turned up as you would expect in mid May and a dog needs a cooling dip even if he doesn't like to swim.

Modern surgery is extraordinary inasmuch as Layne was tended in the recovery room, but once breathing on her own was stuffed in the van from a  wheelchair and off we went to the hotel.  It was in my childhood only half a century ago that laying around in hospital beds after being cut up was routine. Nowadays they ship you out immediately. And it works.

The theory is that surgery leads to wellness, though it is a rocky path. The good news is the lacerated shoulder which caused immense pain will eventually be pain free with reasonable arcs of movement we are told. The best news is the path to recovery is clear and obvious and Layne was well prepared for recovery. Unfortunately shoulder surgery hurts a great deal  while the wounds mend.

I got to walk away for a while as she is in the capable hands of her sister, a retired family doctor who understands narcotics and slings and muscles and movement. I am at best a helpless bystander trying to learn the ropes. Medicare I have to report has been great, no bills no arguing over permitted procedures, no hassles.  I can't wait to turn 66 myself and get with the program.

In a broader sense this operation has started the count down to our retirement together next year. My wife said to me that while I was driving her home and she was sitting up in bed in the back of the van she was plotting new strategies to pack and store stuff for the trip next year. The next big step is her retirement in three weeks from the Monroe County School District. 

Rusty has also stepped up and this past week showed strong signs of accepting the new status of his life as a traveling dog. In order to escape the chaos of the hotel room with two loud talking Jewish women in it he sat by the door. I took him out for a walk glad of an excuse to escape and he walked me in a beeline to the van parked a block away. I slid the side door open and he jumped in and bounded onto the bed where he curled up. I opened the back doors and sat in the side door way for half an hour to allow his jangled nerves to settle and we both reluctantly went back up the room.

Home is home and   sometimes we have to squeeze our eyes tight shut to remember that better and calmer days are ahead.

D Day

5:00pm.  The surgery is done and all is well and the release from the hospital has begun. Tonight back in the hotel and tomorrow the drive home so there probably won’t be a new entry for a couple of days as I learn to manage the cripple.  Ha! My turn to boss her around and make her take her meds...

From the peace and quiet of a campground under the trees we have moved to a hotel close by the hospital where Layne gets her reverse shoulder replacement surgery.

Twenty years ago they had to do surgery on the shoulder and they promised more later when she "got older." Well the time has come and in the modern way the surgery is today and ends a couple of hours later and after one night in the nearby hotel she gets into the bed in the van and we drive home. Totally weird but it is the modern way. 

The "got older" bit is also working to her advantage in that she is on Medicare, socialized medicine for the old that is much berated in conservative circles but that is absolutely wonderful in fact- no bills, no arguing with insurance companies, no pre approvals, just medicine as needed with no fuss. Ask anyone on Medicare who hates socialized medicine why they don't go private and pay for their own insurance...

We had a vaccinated friend drop by in his van and we sat out and set the world to rights, not around a campfire, but around a mosquito repellent light, memories of college and life in Santa Cruz to round out a weekend overshadowed by surgery instructions and special soaps and dietary restrictions and queries about allergies. Modern medicine is remarkable and thorough. Modern skepticism baffles me.

I heard about the cyber attack on the Colonial pipeline from Dale who lives in the hi-tech world and he figures there will be more of the same. I told him about the ransomware attack on the city of Key West and the two months of chaos that followed the city's very proper refusal to pay. We got through it as we shall even as these problems increase. So much shouting about guns and the real weapons that threaten us are the binary codes of the all knowing Internet...

Rusty adapts to circumstances and he sits patiently by as we deal with all the issues of growing old in the modern world. He gets his walks where we find them, in city parking lots, empty fields sidewalks and hotel gardens. He breezes through it all, a sympathetic presence when and where needed. 

We came to Tampa for the operation as the Florida Orthopedic Center has a certain reputation. I am amazed by the number of people who resent driving to Miami for world class medicine and I suppose our choice to drive eight hours to a top flight shoulder surgeon must seem odd. Dr Mighell (a Celtic name pronounced oddly, "miles" ) says he has done thousands of these shoulder surgeries over decades of cutting people open on Monday mornings. What life!

Layne is looking forward to the end of pain after what promises to be a painful recovery period. I keep reminding her the worst of my four operations was the seven hour pelvic repair that was bad enough to prompt my wigeon to admit he found it interesting. That was so long ago I can't make much mileage out of it especially the countdown rolls toward the fatal moment...

I have been ordered to keep her fans posted on Facebook about her progress so I figured they deserved an education if I am to be required to post on that repulsive medium. I wrote of Dr Robert Liston so if you are a regular reader of this recently erratic page you will click the link to have a few laughs and be reminded how valuable modern medecine is to us.

Many years ago I was a radio reporter who also contributed to Monitor Radio a defunct arm of the Christian Science newspaper in Boston. One day my editor told me he was working from bed, and I wondered why. He told me he had broken his leg and I empathized and asked how long the doctor expected him to be off his feet, as one does. Oh he said, we don't believe in medicine we rely on the power of prayer. They paid very well so I took their lucre willingly but long before medical skepticism became so popular Christian Scientists were leading the way in medical madness. I have never subscribed to that anymore than I follow the advice given in mechanical matters on Facebook, and given so freely I might add. 

Thank God for experts I say and may they wield their surgical saws to great effect. 

Tampa Redux

It has been a hectic few days in my past of the world starting with a drive up to Tampa Wednesday, a day made better by a call from the Ram dealer in Tampa, Jerry Ulm, who said the van was ready to go. We couldn't get there in time to pick GANNET2 up before closing so I was resigned to driving the rental car to a hotel and getting reacquainted with van life independence Thursday morning.

The Chrysler Voyager courtesy of Enterprise is a pleasant bland and powerful minivan capable of cruising at 80 mph and returning 25 mpg so we did that after we got out of excruciatingly backed up traffic in the Keys, where winter tourist season seems to never end. 

Layne went to Publix to shop for some dinner salads while Rusty and I went exploring. He tried to blend in with the background and give me the slip but I am too smart for him.

Thursday morning early Layne had her first appointment for a pre-surgery meeting at the hospital where they managed to lost her paperwork even as she got tested variously for everything you shouldn't have before the surgeon cuts you open.  Apparently they say she has no COVID but I of course am skeptical.

As she gave blood and got stabbed up the nostril Rusty and I sweated out a pre-cold front swamp in the streets outside. A short walk and we stopped back at the Voyager to regroup and read a book. Rusty refuses to learn to read words, preferring to read people as they pass by, looking debonair and relaxed as they wonder as they walk why his paws are crossed.

Then we repaired to the doctor's office for more secret tests in a covid-free facility while Rusty and I did some more hanging around outside. It was a day off for me so naturally it rained so I sat on the floor with my companion and he chewed his bed while I plowed on through a not-too-brief history of Central Asia. I had about got to the Second Afghan War in 1878 when Britain was trying to get revenge for having their armies served to them on a platter by Afghan fighters ( does this sound familiar and modern? It should) in the first War of 1842, when the doctors were all done and finally the real van could be retrieved.

The cost to install a replacement second alternator hit the estimate precisely at $1270.41 and we were very glad to get the van back. My wife thinks she will be able to convince Nations Alternators of Cape Girardeau to cover our cost as 17,500 miles seem like a rather premature death for such equipment. The van itself is fine and the technician said Custom Coach did a first rate installation of the second alternator which gives us over 200 amp/hours of electricity as we drive to recharge our 600amps of lithium batteries with which we power the living space.

To have the van back felt like getting our lives back. It is odd how quickly one adapts to having the conveniences of life on the road with you.I now have my office back where I can type these words, my wife has a toilet within arms reach at all times and Rusty gets to go everywhere with us. Even shopping of which we did a fair bit.

Our experiment this weekend is too tay three nights inn RV park close by the hospital and the doctor's office. It's our first stay in a formal private RV Park with all modern conveniences. Bay Bayou is a tightly run ship and the facilities sparkle, the spaces are kept tidy and many of the RVs seem to be left here over the summer and used in the winter as snowbird homes. Consequently we in our ridiculously short 21 foot van sit like a cottage surrounded by skyscrapers most of which are unoccupied at the moment.

I got our clamshell out for a sitting area and we plugged in the power cord. Settling into. way of life that suddenly hit my nostalgia button: this is just like being in a marina! Suddenly the unfamiliar became familiar to me as I walked across the road to the air conditioned (!) shower block and noted the open air and well equipped laundry space, the cleanliness and the useful signage.

In a world where the middle classes like to live in extravagantly large homes I'm not sure bunking down like this would appeal much except as an eccentric adventure. For me the advantages of the RV park are not compensation enough for the restrictions necessarily. To keep. bunch of human beings looking civilized takes four pages of rules, and their enforcement is required.

So for a rule follower like me there is a slight, but overriding sense that somewhere somehow I am slipping. I had to buy a special non retracting leash to be legal here so the first night I walked Rusty self consciously, surreptitiously trying not to be obvious with a very short retractable leash. I get their point: people do mangle their skin with retractable leashes, and considering the 911 calls I get I know people are, or can be, dim. Therefore eliminate any chance of a screw up and ban the possibility of injury inflicted by a retractable leash. So we went to Lowe's and spent ten bucks on a traditional six footer to keep the overlords happy.

And yes, after my late night solo shower I turned off the lights. Ten years at Hogwarts during the British energy crisis of the 1970s and turning off unused electric lights has been beaten into my psyche.

By way of compensation the park is pretty and large and has a couple of dog parks which Rusty doesn't care for, and the people are pleasant enough, the ones that make eye contact. But clearly we are short termers, and live as I do in the Keys, I understand the lack of enthusiasm for investing in a person who is here today and gone tomorrow. A pleasant hallo and on we walk. Rusty loves the soft grass at our site and as the site next to us is empty her sits like little prince in the grass, carefully tethered (to the van, not the tree, that was my first night faux pas) and with paws crossed loves watching the activity in the park. 

For us without a towed vehicle (a "toad" in the lingo of RV life) and lacking electric bicycles in the modern fashion, we unplug the van and take it for a drive to pick up prescriptions and buy ready made meals at Trader Joe's. Fortunately a 21 foot van is an easy vehicle to drive and park, shorter as it is than many over sized pick ups. I parked under the shade a couple of blocks from the crowded Trader Joe's parking lot, and with Rusty of course, waited to receive a summons to meet the busy shopper. This was a meeting area it turned out for parents waiting to pick up children at an elementary school. When I left the place was thick with idling SUVs. I wonder what happened to the school bus concept?

Monday morning at ten o'clock my wife has a reverse shoulder replacement where they cut off her arm and stick it back with the cup and ball of her shoulder joint replaced with metal inserts and reversed to take advantage of as much bone as her arthritis has left her in the joint. It is supposed to take two hours and we should be free to drive home, GANNET2 acting as an ambulance, on Tuesday. My pelvic surgery took four goes with the longest lasting seven hours so you can imagine how much I rag her about her modest little operation. It's not really so simple but in a few weeks she should at last be pain free and able to once again use her arm. And to achieve that all this will be worth it. Then the preparation for retirement and life on the road will begin in earnest.

The cup and ball above are reversed- on the left the normal arrangement with no change in their positions, on the right they are reversed to create a stronger joint where there is less bone. All should be done by lunch time. I shall be with Rusty in the van chewing my nails.

Making Sausage

The Florida State Legislature is a part time organization which pays $30,000 a year to the elected representatives and per diems that max out at $6,000 extra dollars for lawmakers who show up to the annual part time sessions at the beginning of each year. Low paid part time work ensures only wealthy people will run for office in the Sunshine State, a situation that is leading a major South Florida news paper to despair.

Florida used to be a Democrat stronghold like the rest of the former Confederacy after the Republican Party led abolition in the Civil War. It was a centrist party in a calmer era when Governors who knew and cared about Florida grew up in the state they came to lead. Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles were my heroes from that era who steered a course that appealed to the steady center in a  state that has seen vast amounts of immigration from people seeking sunshine and not local politics.

Since 1996 the revolution initiated by President Nixon who shredded the social contract that held Democrats together, Florida has been an all Republican state gerrymandered to keep the GOP in power despite a majority Democrat electorate. I had high hopes for Governor DeSantis, a native Floridian who started out with similar political positions to those Democrats in the political center 60 years ago. Then he got ambition and switched his allegiance to a national political agenda on the radical right, which puts him in the odd position of pushing sensible environmental legislation supporting Florida's delicate ecosystems, while charging ahead with an exclusionary political agenda to support his run for President in 2024.

Florida is a pivotal state in national elections but seems oddly incapable of bringing home the bacon. Those good old fashioned pork barrels of yesteryear seem to have passed Florida by, and as someone who used to wonder critically about the give and take of politics in my firebrand youth, I wonder how incompetent are our politicians become.  Reliable, dependable support used to be worth some infrastructure dollars or education grants or something, but modern Florida is run by blowhards who never learned to negotiate. Oh well!

Back to the Sun Sentinel linked above. Granted it's the newspaper of record in the blue dot that is southeast Florida but still, their list of ten outstanding accomplishments for the state legislature this year does not speak well to Florida's state legislative process.

Where to begin? Let’s start at the beginning with House Bill 1, the No. 1 priority of Gov. Ron DeSantis. More than any legislator, the governor bears the most responsibility for this shameful body of legislative work. His fingerprints are everywhere.

‘Anti-riot’: A trifecta of stupidity: a racially motivated attack on citizens’ First Amendment rights, a national embarrassment and a disaster waiting to happen. Under the pretense of public safety, this law provides legal immunity to crazies who drive SUVs into crowds of protesters. Signed into law by DeSantis before a conspicuously all-white crowd, this monstrosity is a device to advance his presidential hopes. Floridians will suffer just so DeSantis can spout right-wing “law and order” talking points on Fox News.

Big Tech: Rubber-stamping another DeSantis priority, Republicans imposed new regulations on social media platforms with fines of up to $250,000 a day for de-platforming or censoring politicians (SB 7072). We condemn censorship, but Republican politicians are the last ones who qualify as protectors of speech (see HB 1, above). This is a distraction from the real problems Floridians face, a sop to Donald Trump and his followers, could protect hate speech and is probably unconstitutional. Lawmakers added a carve-out for any social media channel whose owner also has a theme park, which shows their real priority is deep-pocketed donors like Disney, not Fox News viewers.

Elections: Republicans won big in Florida in 2020, but they’re jittery about how many Democrats voted by mail. So they insisted on a partisan crackdown on mail ballots and the use of drop boxes that Democrats favored in 2020. The GOP shunned voter advocates and local election supervisors and silenced opponents at hearings in Tallahassee. These unnecessary restrictions will be attacked in court and should be. The state association of election supervisors said Friday the bill (SB 90) will make it harder for people to vote.

Guns: Even an NRA neutered by its own misdeeds can’t make lawmakers show any gun sanity. They legalized guns in churches that share property with schools (HB 259) and expanded a decades-old preemption of local gun regulations (SB 1884) by adding unwritten gun policies, such as verbal instructions to local police officers.

Preemptions: You name it, power-hungry politicians in Tallahassee want to control it at the expense of cities and counties, from guns (SB 1844) to energy policy (HB 919) to seaports (SB 1194) to home-based businesses (HB 403). The latter guts local oversight and makes it easier for the guy next door to open an auto body repair shop or massage parlor. It’s total overkill, a glaring contradiction to the small-government idea that government closest to the people governs best. If you want to fight City Hall, head for Tallahassee.

Transgender kids: For sheer cruelty, this one beats them all. Republicans revived a bill thought dead and used their raw power to ram through a ban on transgender female athletes competing in girls’ and women’s high-school and college sports (SB 1028), sticking it in a charter school bill. This heartless ostracizing of a marginalized community took place despite protests from Democrats, such as Sen. Victor Torres, D-Orlando, who made a deeply moving speech about his trans granddaughter. “We don’t need this!” Torres shouted. “But obviously some don’t care.” No, they don’t.

Unemployment: Despite billions of dollars from the Biden administration, stingy lawmakers refused to raise Florida’s jobless benefits. They will remain $275 a week for a maximum of 12 weeks, among the lowest of any state (HB 1463). And the long-overdue collection of sales taxes on sales by out-of-state online retailers (SB 50) won’t help working people. The $1 billion a year will replenish the fund that pays jobless benefits, making it a Republican giveaway to businesses who normally support the fund through unemployment premium taxes.

Vaping: Republicans tried to fool the public into thinking they were doing something by raising the age to smoke and vape from 18 to 21 (SB 1080). But that’s already in federal law. What the bill really does is wipe out stronger local regulations to curtail marketing and sale of tobacco and vaping products (more preemption). To no one’s surprise, makers of e-cigarettes are reliable donors to political campaigns. (more kowtowing to moneyed interests).Vaccines: Pandering to the anti-vaxxer crowd, lawmakers banned so-called vaccine passports, making a misguided DeSantis executive order permanent (SB 2006) and trampling on counties where the COVID-19 virus has been harder to control — especially South Florida. The result means that businesses, schools and governments cannot force people to prove they’ve been vaccinated.

From left, Florida Democratic Reps. Buzz Ritchie, Steve Geller and Fred Lippman watched their majority disappear for good on Election Night 1996. (Associated Press)

Vouchers: The privatization of public education continues. Lawmakers expanded school vouchers so more parents can send their children to private schools at public expense. A bill (HB 7045) consolidates two popular scholarship programs for special needs students with a third program for low- and middle-income families and expands eligibility to incomes of nearly $100,000 for a family of four. At the same time, lawmakers cut a $600 book stipend for some Bright Futures scholarship recipients.

This year marks the 25th year of Republican control of both houses of the Legislature. The GOP secured a majority in the Senate in 1994 and the House in 1996. This is no way to mark that milestone. The Florida Legislature is broken, and the only fix is at the ballot box, starting next year.

There is no real reason to expect Democrats will win, especially as the party is doing a sterling job of alienating Latino voters so more of the same can be expected in the next session next January. Until then the Cabinet governs with the Governor and only the Secretary of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs is a Democrat. Imbalance is the rule in Florida.

For me the good news is Florida is fiscally sound and has among the best funded pension plans in the country. They don't pay a ton of money but the money is there for the pay out, which seems a better outcome than a huge pension with no funds to back it in the style of California and Illinois. I feel slightly guilty that poor Floridians bear the bulk of the cuts in the budget but I have long been a  believer that term limits come at the ballot box so voting seems more crucial than ever for those seeking change.

I'd like to change the minds of people who park at trail heads in the turning space instead of parking 50 feet back on the side of the road. I will surely fail:

I suppose it's obvious that I rather like this funky strange state of mind, the place that the rest of the country makes fun of, or despises by turns. Things can always be improved and silly lawmaking can be overturned but as we wait for a change in the will of the voters we have that other side of the state to enjoy, and the weird stories and the bizarre eccentricities to keep us amused as sea levels rise and all this lovely weirdness faces the very real possibility of one day being submerged, much to the relief of strait laced people everywhere, them and those who hate mosquitoes and fear alligators.

Lane Pittman from Jacksonville Beach went viral when this picture of himself preceded a hurricane of national interest. He sent the money he made to hurricane relief. That's the other side of the Florida Man stories, the good stuff no one tells you. This is still the state where the interesting stories come to be turned into legends.