Memorial Day

I received the following email from a friend who has served as President of the Board of Hospice of the Western Reserve (Cleveland, Ohio), and who continues to be very involved in the organization, including serving on the Board. I thought his reflections were worth sharing.

"At 4:00 PM this afternoon, Hospice of the Western Reserve had a “pinning” ceremony at the David A Simpson Hospice House.

The pinning is a part of a Natonal initiative called Peaceful and Proud.

Oscar, a Tuskegee Airman, was given a hospice pin in recognition of his service to his country.

Oscar’s wife is a patient and she was too ill to come to the ceremony, but his children and grandchildren were there.

Oscar was first a Marine, but his feet got flat when he had to carry a shot down pilot through a battle.

He did not know until later that the pilot had been his high school physics teacher.

Since he could no longer be a Marine, he transferred to the Aircorp.

He said his group of fighters, “never lost a bomber.”

He flew 20,000 hours and twice flew across Russia undetected.

The ceremony started a few years ago when Hospice, as well as others, discovered that the WWII vets were beginning to tell their stories as they reached their death beds.

1000 WWII vets are now dying every day.

The pinning is a simple ceremony to express our thanks.

At a ceremony at Parmatown two years ago, several vets were being recognized.

A man was anxiously pacing in the background and as the ceremony was concluding, he came up with a little chip on his shoulder and said that it is “too bad the ceremony is only for WWII vets.”

He continued, “a lot of good people died in Vietnam and all the vets that returned got was yelled and spit at.”

The Hospice people immediately told him the program was for all service people of every branch and every conflict.

They stayed and presented this man with a pin, a speech of thanks and the crowd of watchers continued to grow as he stood there with tears streaming down his cheeks.

He received an extended ovation.

He told the presenters that this was the first thanks he had received, after 40 years."

Guinness and His Mini-Me

I looked down at my dog, sleeping at my feet while I watched the Heat/Celtics game, (sigh), and had to laugh. He was sleeping on the golf club cover my friend Fern had given me because it resembled Guinness.

Guinness, our Wheaten Terrier, is going to be 13 years old next month. I have been observing his aging process with great interest, and of course, sadness. The evening walks are very short now and I no longer have a companion to drag me around the neighborhood. He can no longer hop into the car, but must instead be lifted up and placed. Getting out is becoming equally difficult and sometimes, in his haste, he ends up tumbling out. I am sure it hurts. He spends most of his time snoozing. Getting up and laying down seem to be done with forethought and his joints are obviously stiff. He cannot lift his leg very high so he pees on himself and has to be washed off like a baby.

Because he has developed a seizure disorder, he is on Phenobarbital 24/7. In fact, I am convinced he is an addict as he seems to know when the doses are due and gets quite excited for his next fix. At first, he was so loopy he could hardly walk straight but he seems to be on a mellow high now. I believe that he also has the aging disorder, "sundowners", that occurs with senile dementia in humans because when it gets dark, he gets restless and begins a circular pace around the coffee table until I sit by him and he settles. My brother does a great imitation of the lower jaw tremor that Guinness has developed, and which becomes very pronounced near food or anything else he considers exciting. His little bottom teeth jut out and shiver. I just hope we don't have a hurricane this fall because I will have to wrap his mouth with duct tape to prevent serious injury.

Food itself has become a real dilemma. Guinness seems to be starved all of the time, yet his weight is the same and there are no abnormalities in his blood work that would indicate any underlying problem. He has reverted to being a bad puppy and gets into the trash, licks the suntan lotion off of my legs, and eats the fish food off of the surface of the pond when Harry feeds the goldfish. I worry a fish will go along also in his intensity. He has almost been knocked unconscious by the dishwasher and refrigerator doors because the second they are open, he is half inside looking for any errant morsel and they can be shut before we realize where he is. My kitchen floor gets a complete wash frequently, and not by me. I have to wash it after he does.

Guinness's need to be close has increased to the point that I now have three legs and seem to be stumbling over the extra one quite often. I just hope I am not at the top of the stairs during one of these tripping episodes. Guinness was always a slut for attention, but fortunately now he is not jumping up, just living under us. He is a little more civilized, finally.

We got Guinness from a breeder in Nebraska and he was flown in a crate to us. I have no guilt that I did not "rescue" a dog. I knew what I wanted, Sam viewed the videotape of the litter and picked the runt. His breed is frisky, eternally puppy like, and shed free. I acted offended for years when the kids implied that he was dumb, but secretly I knew his charms did not lay in his intellect, but in his ability to make me laugh. He would tear through our Cleveland house so fast that he could not stop on the hardwood floors and almost knocked himself unconscious. When he jumped the invisible fence and ran away from home years ago (dogs will not cross back over them), and was missing for three days, I was so upset and riddled with guilt that I had forgotten to put his collar back on after a bath. I posted fliers, ran an ad and lo and behold, I saw an ad in the paper for a found "poodle". Wrong breed but right dog. A call verified that he had been picked up near my home on our normal walking route by a greyhound rescue person. Guinness spent three days pampered in a kennel surrounded by greyhounds. I will never forget that when I picked him up and he was spinning and jumping in excitement, all of the other dogs in the kennel (greyhounds) were calmly lying about looking at me like they were saying "thank god you have come to get this pest out of here." He never had a calm bone in his body until this past year or so.

Guinness was also "skunked" numerous times in our old neighborhood. Not one to learn the first time! (The kids were right). I would be in bed with the screens open to the cool night air and suddenly smell the signs. Dreading the results, I would open the front door and try to grab him before he could run in the house and all around every room as we chased him in the middle of the night to get him in the shower for a treatment. The house would smell for days.

Guinness may be needier now. And, he may be "taking" more than he is "giving." But all I have to do is look down and see him with his "mini-me" plopped on his head, and I laugh, and it is worthwhile.

What's In A Name

This particular orchid is called Psychopsis. I think if you look closely at it, you will understand why. In the garden, it grows at the top of a tall stalk and seems to quiver and shake in the wind, as though it has its own little anxiety disorder.

This encyclia cochleata is commonly known as the "cockleshell" orchid. It looks like a clam shell with legs.

This one is an encyclia Renee Marquesa, but I call it Jimmy Durante. It is one of my favorites. Look at that proboscis looking labellum. I wonder what exotic looking insect is attracted to it somewhere in the wild.

The name of this orchid has no bearing on its looks. I think it is named "Everglades", but what fascinates me about this one is not only is it over 5 feet tall, but also that the flowers are perfectly aligned on each stalk on both the front and back. You can view it from either side. Perhaps it should be called the mirror orchid. I just love it's yearly display which lasts for perhaps a month.