Feeling High

I have begun to receive feedback on Rain In The Afternoon, and it has been really good. Yesterday I interviewed at the newspaper, and that gave me a real lift. Some feedback about my blog has confirmed what many of my teachers know, and God knows, I do. I don't spell well. Let me apologize.

Tomorrow the Hawks meet the Sharks. "Do you know the way to San Jose?"

Son Mike writes there for the San Jose Mercury. We have not discussed this encounter.
The Sharks smell blood in the water. The Hawks are cool and love the job. I'm a Hawks fan, but I've got to bet on the hungry Sharks for this one.

A Picture Is Worth, Well Maybe Not a Thousand ...

A photographer came from the newspaper today. He was here because the publication of Rain In The Afternoon has been announced. I'm realy hoping that everybody will enjoy the book. It's about a Green Baret who quits soldiering to become a Capuchin. He is sent to Latin America as a missionery, and there he needs his soldier's skills as much as his priestly ones.

The book is available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, as well as eventually, independant book stores. Or ask for it at your public library.

A new Lease on Life

Five years ago I lost a kidney to cancer. It was one of those stories with a providential ending. We were enjoying our family reunion on the Outer Banks. I had spent the afternoon with my sons at the shore, drinking beer and eating oysters. That night I woke with shortness of breath. That's a sign of heart failure. In the "business" we call it nocturnal dyspnea. It was eased by getting out of bed, but never completely went away. The following night it returned, and at that point I asked Tim, my son to drive me to the hospital.

The hospital was two hours away. After enough Lasix to turn me into a prune, the dyspnea was gone. The hospitalist of this small 19 bed institution told me that "the protocol" said that I should remain hospitalized over night.

I felt fine the next morning. The hospitalist was ready to discharge me, but "the protocol" suggested that, before leaving the hospital, I have a spiral CAT scan of the chest to rule out a pulmonary embolism.

The lungs were clear, he found, but there was a soft ball sized tumor of my left kidney.

Renal cell carcinoma grade III. This tumor is rife with vascular malformations that cause cardiac overload and heart failure.

Tony Bennet lost his heart in San Francisco. I lost my kidney at Loyola University Medical Center. I've had no more heart failure and no recurrance of the tumor these five years. However, the remaining kidney chuged and chuged along as well as it could, but that became less and less functional as the months went by, and I got sick.

That's why I have that big gap in the blog. Now I'm fine, thanks to robo-kidney at Loyola, and it's time I got back to business.

The new book,RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON has arrived from the printer, and it's a thing of beauty. Once you've read it, you can decide whether it's a thing of beauty on the inside. More about the story next time.

At Last

Rain In The Afternoon is ready to print! It has a gray cloth hard cover and a beautiful dust jacket. Just wait till you see it.

The sun has emerged and the snow has begun to melt. It's MARCH:

Another March, ambivalent,
Winter, summer, sun or wind,
Rain or snow.
Just six of one
Or of the other,
Never really warming, never freezing cold,
Like the Marches of our lives,
Never merely child nor fully grown.
Life's so easy in October
When we know what's coming next.

What a Wnter Olympics

I was held in awe as I watched the final game. One was impressed, I think that the Cannadien were a slightly better team. Still I pulled for the American guys to come through. But alas, it's their game. They invented it--well, actually, it was Brittish sailors stranded for the winter in Nova Scota that invented it and played with a ball rather than a puck. The college kids in Montreal took up the game, and gradually a puck replaced the ball. It was a while before professionals took over the game that today we share with our friends to the north.

And aren't they friends! I'm so fond of them. They're honest, trustworthy and peaceful. They are also very good at winter sports--14 gold medals--the most gold for the games. Good for them.

Our folks did very well too, a source of pride, a good feeling. There's still something about the Star Spangled Banner that sends me. Makes me forget the cabbage heads in Washington for whom the Insurance industry money is more important than the people who are going to suffer and die for lack of health coverage. They're mostly poor, they don't vote for them. Who the hell cares! There's trial lawyers' money too, but nobody's going to die on account of it.

Republicans say that we have the best healthcare in the world--out of touch, maybe--we are number 37 just ahead of CUBA and just behind Costa Rica. Our system costs the most, but it's the results that count. At least the GOP has given up tax cuts for the unemployed as a solution to healthcare.

Rain In The Afternoon is getting a dust cover as we speak.

At Last!

RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON only needs a cover, and we're raring to go. Wendy will design a dust jacket, and I've given her some suggestions about that. Then all systems should be GO!

Feedback

Bill Crotty from the St. Louis area called to ask where I did my research for THE FERRY TO AMERICA. Dr. Hal Sadin called from Washington. Mr. Sadin in the story is based on Hal. He said he didn't mind that his character wasn't called Doctor, but he hated the idea that he never got any sex. Great feedback from readers.