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Tuesday, September 26, 2017

The Race of the Age

I slept-in, today.  I didn't get up until after 10:30.  That is about four hours later than usual.  I believe it was because yesterday really tired me out!

Yesterday started with my usual 06:30 wake-up, the awkward struggle to get into my T-shirt, jeans, socks and sneakers, replete with foot-brace, and breakfast of oatmeal and a sausage patty.  Then I drove to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) for an 8:30 appointment to have blood drawn at the lab.  DHMC is just over an hour's drive away... and I was there essentially on time, in spite of dense fog on the mountains along Route 118, which runs about 20 miles southward, from Rumney to Canaan, NH. Then, I moved my car around the complex from the Parking Garage to the main parking lot, to shorten my walk to my 9:30 appointment at Dr. Turco's Endocrinology Department.  This was a diabetes visit, entirely unrelated to my strokes.  Dr. Turco is a great man, in my sight.  He has been helping me with my Type II diabetes since 2005, and has brought my A1C test scores from above 10 (dangerously high) to 7.0, which, he told me yesterday, is very good.

After a fine visit with Dr. T., I let the OnStar Navigation System in my new Chevy Equinox guide me to the NH Veterans' Cemetery (NHVC) in Boscawen, where I planned to stand a flag line for a fallen veteran at 2:00 P.M.  Of course, I know well how to find that cemetery, having served as a flag holder at scores of burials over the past 11 years.  But I suspected that OnStar, in choosing the shortest route from Lebanon to Boscawen, might take me through some parts of NH not often, if ever, seen.  In fact, it did just that, guiding me across from I-89 to U.S. 3 via U.S. 4, which is a lovely rural highway over much of that stretch.  I drove past a batch of elegant white buildings in the village of Andover, admiring their bright appearance, then saw that I was passing Proctor Academy, a private boarding and day-school with which two of my sons used to compete in athletics, when they were at Holderness School.

Ariving at NHVC 90 minutes prior to our mission's rendezvous time of 2:00 P.M., I drove on down to have a good lunch at Alan's of Boscawen, just a mile south of the town's center on Rt. 3.

After eating a fried clam strip roll with cole slaw and chips, I took my insulin, went back to NHVC, parked in the shade, and napped for 30 minutes-or-so, awakening at 1:59 (on my phone) to find several fellow NH PGR members also parked there.  As I had been leaned back in my seat, they had not seen me, though Flag Line Captain Lauri Flannery Wayne said, "We noticed that the engine was running, so we figured someone was nearby."

Lauri then led us in a good mission to honor the late Robert R. Rivard, Command Sergeant Major in the U.S. Army National Guard, a veteran of 35 years' service to our country.

Marching away from the grave site, I was again in the lead, with my flag this time in the hands of my comrade, Bruce Beckley.  I used my cane on the deep grass, but once on the pavement, picked it up by its shaft, and strode as normally as I have been able to do yet, at any point since my May 13th "bleeder."  At the NH PGR pickup truck, where we furl our flags, Bruce said to me, "You did well."
That beats the heck out of tripping, falling, and dropping a flag!

After returning home at about 4:00, I showered, then napped for an hour or so, rising to eat a frozen pizza and watch the Red Sox game on TV.

Can't understand how such a day might tire one out!

In my life, these days, the recovery process is in a race with the aging process.  Dear God, Please, may the former process be the winner!

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Amazing Grace

Biserica in Piața Unirii, Cluj-Napoca

I've been home from Romania for ten days, and am only now able to tell you the impact that much-needed and truly beautiful vacation has had on me.


While in Cluj, at Hanul Dacilor for dinner with my former dean (now pro-rector of UBB) Mihaela Luțaș and our FSEGA colleagues Alexandra Muțiu (and her daughter Ingrid), Moni Zaharie (and her daughter Anamaria), Monica Silaghi, as well as our former student Raluca Tarcea, Mihaela told me that she was pleased to see that I had returned to Romania with my intellect intact, following my strokes.  What a relief her remark brought to me!

View from our hotel in Bicaz
While in Bucovina with Alexandra, her daughter Ingrid Love, and Ingrid's friend Georgiana, we visited Manastirea Putna, where we met monk Ambrosie, who had read my earlier Putna posts, and had invited me back. While there, we went into the biserica (church) and reviewed the magnificent iconography which had been painted only a few years ago by Master Mihai Moroșan.

With M. Ambrozie

Then, we all spent a wonderful night in Suceava with my dear friends Mihai and Waltraudi Moroșan.  On the drive back to Cluj, Alexandra expressed the thought that she felt her soul to have been healed.  I felt the same.
A 2017 view of Shirley's and my old building, in 2008-09
Back in Cluj, God sent me the realization that the most important decision of my life was to propose marriage to Shirley, back in 1973.  Our four wonderful offspring are one result... but also, how many husbands have the freedom to live such a life as I have been blessed to live?  Dear Shirley is my wife for life.  Praise be to God!