LADIES and GENTLEMEN, THE ROLLING STONES

My pal Ray turned to me and said, "Charlie Watts is a metronome!" And he is. The Cakes who doesn't like to go to concerts was over the moon. Barbara lost her mind. And the old white haired guy never sat down. THE. ENTIRE. CONCERT. I was jumping around so much, I was stiff when I got up this morning.

Staples Center was packed last night for the 3rd of three Stones shows in LA. The two women in front of us had been at all three. This was my 12th or 13th Stones show, Ray, Jan and Barbara had never seen them. The show kicked ass, big time.

I've been listening to Stones music for 50 years, Actually longer than that, since the radio stations in Winnipeg played them before the US stations did. They did the same with the Beatles.

The band was formed in '62 and this is an interesting fact from the far distant past:

The Rolling Stones first signed manager was Andrew Loog Oldham, a publicist who was directed to the band by previous clients, the Beatles. Because Oldham had not reached majority - he was nineteen and younger than any of the band, he could not get an agent's license, or sign any contracts without his mother also signing for her son . By necessity he joined with booking agent Eric Easton. Oldham made several changes to the band. He changed the spelling of the band name from "the Rollin' Stones" to "the Rolling Stones". He removed the "s" from Richards last name saying it "looked more pop". ^{(from wikipedia)}

Concert sound has improved so much, it’s not as loud as it was in the old days, it doesn’t have to be because the sound is clean and distortion free and the ability to equalize and mix the sound for various venues is a science. My friend Vaughn, a sound guy, could explain this to you but he is on the road doing systems for theaters.

Its strange to watch the Stones in 2013, from a distance they look the same. Jagger still has all his energy, Ron Wood, skinny as a rail still plays with verve and Keith, other than white hair is still a massive presence. Charlie Watts, the oldest member of the band looks great. I’m sure up close they look like hell, but…

In the mid 60’s Stones songs were the soundtracks for milestones in my life; underlining some monumental changes I was going through, “Paint it Black” fit a nasty breakup with a longtime girlfriend perfectly. “Satisfaction” described my situation one year. Later, “Start Me Up” was the catalyst to make a change that was a long time coming.

I told the Cakes, I’ve never met a black woman who didn’t know every word to “Brown Sugar”. I remember watching Linda Battle put on a dance floor performance to “Brown Sugar” one night at radio station party that would put Tina Turner in her seat for good. Another black woman I worked with told me, the song in her mind was a celebration of the strength of black women, moving from being “sold in a market place in New Orleans”, to the celebration of and liberation of black women. She added, “and we dance and taste so good.” Hear, hear.

I got my daughter and her friends tickets to see the Steel Wheels tour when she was in school in California. She sang along with every song, her friends, all 80’s kids, asked her how she knew all the words. She said, “My Dad.” I provided her with all facets of education.

I’ve never walked into a dive bar in my life when I didn’t hear the opening of “Honky Tonk Woman” in my head. I hear the opening of “Gimme Shelter” I can see the Vietnam War.

Good memories ran through my mind as the Cakes and I wiggled and danced on Monday night for more than two hours, she has said over and over since we got home, “we had a good time, didn’t we!”

That we did!

 

 

The Boyz were Back In Town!

We had my grandsons with us all last week, great kids; they make me proud, and a big salute to their Mom Kristen for doing a great job with them. Of course, there were interesting observations to be made during the week.

We go to bed at about 10:30 or 11. Nova, the 14-year-old, slept on the daybed in our home office/den. He used to sleep in the guest room with his little brother, not anymore. On Monday night my allergies were killing me and I was coughing and hacking and the Cakes gave me the boot at about 1:30. Not having the guest bed to go to, I went downstairs to the living room sofa with my Kindle in hand. I noticed a light under the office door. Nova was watching a movie on the computer, I looked in and said, “’Hi.” I went to the sofa. He slept until noon on Tuesday; I haven’t any idea what time he went to sleep. I didn’t say anything to him, because my grandparents let me read as long as I wanted when I stayed with them.

One night we had filet mignon, mashed potatoes, sweet corn, and a massive salad for dinner followed a half-hour later by strawberries over angel food cake with whipped cream. Less than an hour later Nova made himself 2 slices of whole-wheat toast and peanut butter. They’d eat breakfast, an hour later have a snack, I’d take them to lunch, another snack midafternoon, a big dinner, dessert, and another snack before bed. When I’d get up in the morning I’d find dishes in the sink. If I ate like they eat, I’d weigh 300 lbs. Growing boys. They consumed 4 gallons of 2% milk in 5 days, 3 ½ gallons of juice, a dozen bananas, a couple of pounds of organic hamburger, steaks, chicken, pasta, bacon, eggs plus a bag of forbidden Oreo cookies. They also ate $100 dollars’ worth of Thai food, a couple of pizzas, and picked out a bunch more stuff to eat at Costco and some new t-shirts.

Both their teachers asked them to keep a journal of the week with their grandparents in addition to the normal homework. I’d check their work and kept a running commentary with them about it. Dorey, the 10-year-old, said in answering my questions on his journal, “I’m working on it every day.” On Saturday, while we were on our way to Cambria, Jan checked and found he only finished through Wednesday. He had the headings for Thursday and Friday done. His answer was, “I said I was working on my journal, I didn’t say I finished.” I always thought he’d be an engineer, now I think he’ll be a high-priced lawyer. I asked him if he knew what parsing language meant, he said he didn’t. I said, “Yes, you do.”

Both of them know more about computers, I Pads, and phones than any random group of 100 adults, including a few IT guys I know. They both scored passing grades on my driving simulators. It’s impossible to get them out of their beanies unless the temp is over 90. They do not like new clothes unless the new clothes look like old clothes. We bought Dorey new shoes twice and had to return them. The 2^nd time, I made him tell the cashier himself and apologize to Jan for having to buy them and return them in one 5 minute span. I thought the black Nike high tops with the red Swoosh looked cool; he did too until he didn’t. I guess he is going to wear his ratty hiking boots until they are too small. I offered to send him to cobbler’s school so he could make his own shoes, he declined. 

Shopping with them is a nightmare. I’d ask if they liked something they were looking at and I’d get a shrug. Their mother didn’t have that problem.

We looked at a 41-foot motorhome on an MCI bus chassis. It was very nice. They liked it for the same reason I did. It didn’t look like it was decorated for a woman who didn’t want to be traveling in a motorhome. Black leather, 50 inch TV, a generator system that would run Ardoch, North Dakota without missing a beat. 500 Horsepower Detroit diesel, six-speed Cummins transmission, etc. We planned a fantasy trip in it and they want to go for a year and a half. In the trailer behind it, they want a Wrangler, two sea kayaks, a canoe, an ATV, and private sleeping quarters with 2 bunks and their own head. They thought the built-in TV and kitchen on the outside of the motorhome was a little silly but after they thought more about it, it was a pretty cool idea. Dorey said, “We could watch Myth Busters with a fire going.”

All in all, it was a good week and interesting as always. They loved the pool and hot tub at the Sea Otter Inn in Cambria on the way home, they loved it a lot. So did grandpa! They are old enough and responsible enough to stay at the motel (with warnings not to open the door for anyone, including cops) while Cakes and I had dinner with Lana and Tom Cochrun.

Jan and I love my grandsons, we’d like to see what they’d look like in Polo shirts, khakis, blue blazers, and penny loafers, but that isn’t going to happen unless they want it to. Good for them!

Dateline Los Angeles

“Radio’s Young Turks”

                      “A morning show co-host with a better idea and the numbers show it!”

 

When I interviewed MB for this story, she asked that I not disclose her market, her station or the identities of her co-workers or her real name. I agreed.

“MB” has a master’s degree in English Literature with a specialization in 18^th century female poets. She graduated from a prestigious university and like most of today’s liberal arts grads; she couldn’t seem to find the right job. Unemployed after college, MB drifted into food service jobs, hostess, waitress and then cocktail waitress. 6 months ago in a Midwestern market she exploded on the scene in radio. I met her at a coffee shop in the market where she works. MB had on a baseball cap, her hair in a ponytail, no makeup and was wearing a pair of painter’s pants and a washed out sweatshirt, she had a pair of well-worn Chuck Taylors on her feet. In her words this is the story of her radio career.

“After I got my MA, I just couldn’t find a decent job, I had an offer from a community college in a small southern town, part time with no contract. A friend of mine helped me get a job at a cafeteria, mindless, minimum wage and no tips, I moved to small local café, I got tips, but the wage for tipped workers is ridiculous, I was broke, broke, broke. My roommate Denise suggested I start cocktailing, it was better, but I noticed the girls with big boobs were doing better than I was. I was flatter than a pancake, something I’d never thought much about to tell you the truth.”

I said, “You certainly don’t look like a pancake now, even with that big sweatshirt on.”

“Well, my great aunt died and left me a few bucks, so I took part of the money and bought myself new boobs. When I went back to work the money started rolling in, I’d bend over to serve a drink for 12 dollars and the guy would leave me a ten dollar tip. They’re idiots. Ten bucks for peek at the tops of a set of double D’s. Frankly, I couldn’t believe it.”

“Tell me how you got into radio?” I asked MB.

“Frank XXXXX, the GM of the station started coming in on a regular basis, the station had a trade at the bar and so he was a giant tipper, he’d leave me 30-40 dollars after one or two rounds of drinks. Over time, Frank started to hit on me and I’d put him off. It continued for months and months, finally out of frustration he offered me 200 dollars for a peek at my boobs. He paid and I showed them to him in the parking lot. After that he was worse than ever, he was trying to get me to sleep with him, so I lead him on a little and he offered me a job on the morning show as a sidekick. "I took it and its been great for me." MB said.

“You’d never been on the air before, right?” I asked.

“Right, but the two morons I work with didn’t care. All they wanted to do was tell dick jokes and talk about my boobs. Those idiots even wanted me to use Dee Dee Cupp as my air name. These morons would ask me questions like if I had ever kissed a girl. I’d answer, "why haven’t you? They didn’t know what to say." After a couple of weeks, I realized that the on line numbers were going through the roof because the pimple faced geeks who listen to the station were watching on line and were crazy to see my chest. If I wore a tank top the on line ratings would spike up 25-30 per cent. So I came up with a plan to capitalize on the rating increases. The idiots had never been better than 9^th in the morning. After I joined the show, we were fifth in the book and the on line numbers were the best in the market, so I cut a new deal with Frank and I couldn’t be happier.”

“You do your show from home now, how’s that working out?” I asked her.

“My friend Denise studied video production in college and she helped me wire my apartment for HD video and sound. She produces and we feed it to the station.”

“How does a typical morning go?” I asked.

“Denise turns on the camera and I’m usually sleeping in bed and the idiots from the studio call and I answer the phone at 6. I may have on a bra and panties, sometimes a station t-shirt, sometimes I sleep naked. I pretend I’m talking to them on the phone and answering their moronic questions while I roll around, showing the geeks as little as possible. Then I just go through a girl’s normal routine, coffee, juice, a piece of fruit, taking a shower, the audience loves that even though they see nothing. They go nuts when I put on lotion. They love it when I cook breakfast and do a routine about them sitting at the table with me. Frank wants to do a promotion where some jerk would actually come to my place and I’d make him breakfast. No way I’d do that.”

“What show got the biggest response so far?” I asked MB.

“The one where Denise and I were in bed together when the camera came on.”

“Wow!” How big were the numbers,” I asked.

“Through the freaking roof, Frank gave me a raise. Then Howard Stern called and wanted me to do his TV show, I told him to find somebody else to ride a sybian and hung up on him.”

“How do you get along with the guys on the morning show?” I asked MB.

She smiled and said, “Frank cut their pay to give me my last raise.”

I want to thank “MB” for her candid interview for our series. It was announced last week that her co-workers were being let go and the entire morning show would be broadcast from her apartment. MB is being paid the salaries of her former co-hosts as well as her own. Look for her show in syndication soon. She feels she’ll bigger than Stern ever was on the air. Her plans for the future, getting her PhD. Then , in her words “getting out of radio as quickly as possible.”

Some More Shit Off My Chest

Been a long time, but, I’ve been busy. WORKING! In fact I paid over 6.5k in Social Security in 2012, dammit. I’ve been paying into Social Security since I was 13, 55 years and now I’m collecting it, paying taxes on it and since I’m working I’m still paying in. Hell of an “Entitlement” I hope you kids enjoy this old Boomers investment in you and yours and I’m happy to do it.

Speaking of “Entitlements” I’ve been paying Medicare taxes since 1965; I still am, even though I’m on it. The first year I had the supplement from AARP, it was $115 a month plus co-pays, plus, plus, plus. My Doctor neighbor, who works for Kaiser Permanente, during one of our driveway chats told me I was fucking nuts and suggested I join Kaiser. I did, the Medicare Advantage plan from Kaiser is thus: $4.98 a month and 20 Bucks for any and all tests. Echocardiogram, 20 bucks, blood test, 20 bucks, colonoscopy, 20 bucks and on it goes. Here is the fucking deal with Kaiser: THEY ARE NON-PROFIT! Got the goddamned picture, Bucko? The AARP plan where the monthly was so damned high it would have paid for almost 2 years of the Kaiser Plan was from United Health care a FOR PROFIT COMPANY! Any question why our health care costs in this country are so high now? By the way, my last health insurance (non) provider was California Anthem Blue Cross, a truly fucked up organization. My drug co-pay was 20 a script, they wouldn’t allow the doc to write a script for longer than 30 days and so like clockwork I went to CVS and paid $20 a month for a generic medicine that cost 7 dollars. Once again I was tipped off by a medical professional, this time the pharmacist at CVS who also implied that I was fucking nuts. My doc wrote me 3 month scripts and I went from paying $240 a year to paying $84. I paid Blue Cross personally for 60% of the $940 monthly premium, the company paid 40%. $11,280 a year paid by somebody who consumed a physical with tests yearly, costing $855 of which Blue Fucking Cross paid 80% or $684. They made a profit of $10,596 yearly on this old, broken down but fairly healthy old bastard. If I had anything seriously wrong I told my wife to just let me die rather than be put through Anthem Blue Cross hell. Anthem Blue Cross looks for “lower medical utilization and more memberships” thats code for lots of paying “members” and low delivery of services. That’s probably the reason the CEOs of the various “Blue” units of WellPoint (the corporate owner) divided up 93 million in pay last year. One last thing on these dicks in suits and ties (skirts) they brag that they deliver 74% of premiums in care. Kaiser delivers 93%. Anthem Blue Cross of California shipped over $750 million off to WellPoint’s Indiana headquarters last year…Angela Braly who is the WellPoint CEO only made 13.9 million last year living in Indianapolis.

An interesting sidebar the guy they had running the California operation a few years ago was a piece of work. When he moved out here he left his wife and kids in Indy. He started dating a woman and had her move in with him. Then he started dating her sister. It got too hot and he bought one sister a house and got engaged to the other all while his little Hoosier housewife was living the good life back in Carmel. It all blew up when the sisters started to compare notes.

If you leave your kids in the car while you run into 7-11 to get a 6 pack of Mountain Dew you can get arrested for child endangerment, if they aren’t in a car seat you can get arrested for child endangerment. Are fucking guns so sacrosanct that you buy a five year old their own gun? Or leave your gun lying around loaded so a kid can pick it up and shoot a sibling and you have no responsibility? For fucks sake people, it isn’t a god damned accident when your gun is available to a toddler and no matter how many times you say the dead kid is in a better place up there with Jeebus it doesn’t make you innocent of being a reckless dipshit.

It must be nice to be a certain kind of Christian where the magical big guy absolves you of all your fuck ups in life!

James Porter Jr. the fat, redneck bastard who is the new president of the NRA likes to talk about the "War of Northern Aggression". Hey shit head, you guys guys fired on Fort Sumter which was a Federal property, manned by US troops, seems to me that that you assholes started it.

Bombs in My Old Neighborhood.

I have a long history with the Boston Marathon; my first in the early 70’s was a revelation to me. I was behind the wheel of the Fairbank’s owned WKOX news car. ‘KOX at the time was the only broadcast outlet allowed to have a vehicle on the course. There I was in the station’s Mustang with Bob Bruce and Bill Galvin, driving right behind the “Statie’s” motorcycles and the photographer’s truck, positioned just ahead of the lead runners from the start in Hopkinton all the way to the finish line on Boylston Street in Boston. Every town you pass through on the course has its own unique way of cheering the runners on, from the beer drinkers at the Happy Swallow in Framingham, the Wellesley girls cheering, the families along Heart Break Hill, the crowds in Kenmore Square and the final turn onto Boylston Street and the finish line…the smiles, the cheers, the encouragement for the runners, more cheers for everyday runners than for the elites who were right behind our news car.

The Marathon, almost 40 years ago offered no prize money, it was and still is run by the BAA, a lot  has changed but the people along the course haven’t. I know people who have witnessed the marathon every Patriots Day of their lives. It’s always been much more than a road race. It’s a way of life, a part of life a celebration in the only state in the Union that still celebrates Patriot’s Day.

Later, I lived and worked in the part of Boston where the bombings took place yesterday, it hit me hard. I know those streets, walked them every day, I used to get my glasses and contacts at the store that the first bomb went off directly in front of. I worked in the Prudential Tower, just across the street from where the 2^nd bomb detonated.

I read earlier today that Boston is a tough town, but “once you’re in, you’re in”, how true that is. I live in California now, but I’m a Boston guy and have been since my early 20’s. I’ve gone to see the Red Sox and the Marathon on the same day. I’ve sat in the VIP stands and watched the race’s finish. Jan and I have watched the runners on Comm Ave from our roof deck. We’ve walked through the smiling crowds to get a beer and a sandwich in the middle of a Patriot’s Day afternoon as the last runners chug down Boylston to the finish line.

The Marathon, until now has been a celebration of a 117 year old race, a city, its people and the tens of thousands of people from all over the country and the world who come to run in the “Boston” to cheer for the runners, fast and slow and to be embraced by the people of Boston and all the towns along the route. This has had an effect on me that I could never have predicted; one of my first thoughts yesterday was “good thing the fire fighters of Engine 33 are close at hand.” Jan and I thought of our friend Mary who manages a restaurant right around the corner from the blast. So many friends and neighbors, so close, including Mrs. Lee at King Lee cleaners a block away on Newbury, the guys at DeLuca’s market, so many, so close.

Boston is a tough town, but under the toughness is a big, damn heart. Boston is where our country began, where the first shots of the revolution were fired, where the tea was dumped, the city where the British fled from the guns on Dorchester Heights, the town where Ben Franklin swam in the Charles and learned to write and print. Tough town, tough people.

Go to Boston some time, walk the history on the Freedom Trail, sit on a bench on the Common and contemplate it and take a look at the people. They’ll get through this and next year, on Patriot’s Day there will be another Sox game and a world class marathon to celebrate. They are too tough and too big hearted not to.

The Day I went Blind, a few more thoughts.

Yesterday after revisiting my hour of going blind, I thought about it off and on all day. I think one of the reasons I didn’t panic was, even though I was self-employed at the time. I had good insurance. My plan paid 80% of all costs up to 300k. My bill was 80 thousand plus for the 4 days.

How would I felt if I hadn’t any insurance at all? How would I have done if I knew I could have lost my job because I couldn’t get to work? What if I knew I wasn’t getting any pay because I worked for a company without any sick leave policy? How would I felt the day I left the hospital with a 17k bill hanging over my head if I made the median household income of (In Mass) of just over 60k? It would have been a third of my income in that scenario? How would I have paid it?

A few years ago there was a new bankruptcy law passed, typical of congress the hearings heard from the corporate side and not ordinary people who were affected by the laws changes. We heard the same old folderol about; people ducking their bills, running up huge credit card balances and walking away laughing, the picture painted was one of everyday folks taking advantage of American businesses. When the bill passed the credit card companies, the banks got what they wanted and the public was screwed in the deal.

Elizabeth Warren, the Mass Senator, was teaching at Harvard law School at the time. Warren was surprised to find that an objective study of the causes of bankruptcy had never been done. All of the info was from the corporate world. Warren headed up a study that looked at the real world of bankruptcy and found a completely different picture than the one painted during the hearings. One of the things that stood out was 54% of all individual bankruptcies are caused by illness, leading to massive medical bills forcing families to make choices on whether to eat or pay bills. Huge amounts of credit card debt was run up by these families and when the bills were finally looked at in detail, the purchases were for food, gasoline and other necessities of life. When things got worse for these families, they paid car payments, rent and mortgages and utilities on credit. With the new law, the credit card debt wasn’t dischargeable, you may be bankrupt but you still owe Visa and Mastercard.

Bankruptcy in the corporate world is an entirely different story; ask my wife she went through it twice when she flew for US Airways. US Air got pay concessions, a huge piece of the employee’s retirement fund invested back into the company so the executives could “save” the company. When they got through it with the help of the tens of thousands of employees, they re-organized and as soon as they could bankrupted the company again and got rid of pension obligations completely, cut insurance and pay again, closed bases and gave the CEO a big raise and bonus. The pensions are now operated by the feds (that’s you and I, by the way) Jan’s retirement is less than half of what she signed on for and paid into for over20 years.

People in our country are more interested in Dancing with the Stars than the real issues we face.

My hospital bill was 80k for just over 4 days; did I get better care than I would have gotten in Toronto, London, Paris or Oslo? No I didn’t.

We need to pay attention and not be distracted by shiny objects and stupid social issues that lead us away from real solutions. The answer in my mind is to stop chanting USA! USA! USA! and get our representatives to pay attention to what we want and need.

The gun lobby has won on the bodies of dead children, 90% of Americans including a majority of gun owners, republicans and NRA members want tough background checks, we aren’t going to get them. We aren’t going to get them because congress pays attention to lobbyists and business, the game is rigged and we are the losers, but hey USA! USA! USA!

 

The Day I Went Blind

At 80 miles an hour I lost all vision in my right eye, the eye just stopped working. I was in the left lane on Route 128 west of Boston. I worked my way over to the right through traffic and stopped my old Range Rover on the shoulder. I turned on the emergency flashers and sat there. I wasn’t panic stricken; it just seemed odd not to be able to see at all with my right eye. No half vision, no blurred vision, I couldn’t see anything, period.

I sat there for a few minutes and then one-eyed drove to a meeting at my lawyer’s office in the Wellesley Office Park just off 128 on Worcester Road. I got there on time, we discussed an upcoming zoning meeting and I left within an hour. I said nothing to my lawyer about what had happened. During the meeting, a sliver of vision came back, a narrow slot of vision on the side of my eye close to my nose.

After the meeting, I got in the Rover and sat behind the wheel for a few minutes. I drove from Wellesley down Route 9 to my home on Marlborough St in the Back Bay. On the way, I stopped at a traffic light near the Chestnut Hill Mall and another sliver of vision opened, this time it seemed to be in the middle of my eye and was only partially open, like a window with the shade halfway down. I pulled into the parking lot of a Starbucks, bought a coffee and while I was paying for it, my vision slowly returned. Tiny individual slots appeared and slowly opened, one by one. By the time I was back in the car my eye worked normally. I felt strange, but very detached from the entire process, almost like I was watching it happen on a movie screen to someone else. It didn’t feel like it was happening to me.

At home, I took the dog for a quick walk and then sat down on the sofa. Jan was in the air on her way home from Charlotte. I decided to call my eye doctor at Mass Eye and Ear. I told my doc what happened and he said to come over right now. I wrote Jan a note, left her the car keys and gave my dog an ear rub and a cookie. Locked up the condo and took a cab to Mass Eye and Ear.

Dr. Foster did a quick examination of my eye, brought in a neurological ophthalmologist to examine me. After a half hour of tests, they determined it had nothing to do with my cornea transplant. I was on my way to the emergency room at Mass General. I had more tests.  By 4 in the afternoon I was in a bed on the neurology floor. I was being pumped full of blood thinner. I left Jan a message on her cell phone telling her where I was and what I thought was going on. She was landing in an hour.

The head resident came in to my room; he looked about 15 years old. He told me I’d had a stroke incident, a minor one. He explained his diagnosis, a small piece of plaque from an artery had broken loose and had lodged in one of the arteries that provide blood to the optic nerve or to the eye itself and had shut off the vision temporarily. He said the good news is, my eye was working. I asked him what the bad news was, he said, you had a stroke and we haven’t assessed if there is additional damage yet or where the problem originated. He left.

Once again, I felt completely detached from the situation. Never the less I was in a hospital bed, hooked up to monitors and had two IVs in my left arm. At least I was in one of the best hospitals in the country. I had a roommate, another stroke victim; he couldn’t talk or move the left side of his body. He had spittle running out of the left side of his mouth.

Just before 5 the chief neurologist came in the room, he was about my age; he looked at my chart and said in a loud voice, “How are you feeling?” I told him I felt fine. He said, “Good”, I asked how long he thought I’d be here, he didn’t answer and left the room. I looked at my roommate and he held up a note pad that said, Asshole. I laughed and my roommate smiled with the right half of his mouth as best he could. My roommate’s wife came in, introduced herself and her husband, she was Mary Margaret and he was Brian, they lived in Charlestown. She looked exhausted as she sat by his bed and held his hand.

My cell rang and it was Jan, she’d just landed at Logan. She wanted come right to the hospital, I convinced her to go home first and feed the dog, change her clothes and then come over, it took a few minutes but she finally agreed. She called again from home, I asked her to bring me a few things, 90 minutes later she was in my arms. It felt good.

Jan was more worried than I was. Maybe I would be if I felt ill, I didn’t. I had no symptoms, I’d gone blind in one eye and it cleared up in a little over an hour. I told her the docs would get to the bottom of it, she was skeptical and upset. I told her I was hungry, I’d been given a cup of chicken broth for dinner; maybe she could go ask the nurses if I could have something from the cafeteria. When she came back, she said they’d bring me something, they did, another cup of chicken broth. Brian had the Bruins game on, Jan climbed in bed with me and the 4 of us watched the game. I wanted a beer, so did Brian.

A nurse booted our wives at 10pm. The Bruins lost to the Pens. I shut off the TV, Brian laid there and I read. I don’t know what time I fell asleep, I do remember nurses coming and going off and on all night.

I was awake early, breakfast was egg whites, scrambled and a piece of dry wheat toast, I bitched that I was starving and I got a bowl of Special K with skim milk. I was drinking a cup of black coffee when the Chief Neurologist came in with a herd of residents. They pulled Brian’s curtains shut and he ran through Brian’s diagnosis at the top of his lungs, when he finished he turned to me, he shouted, “Good Morning, how are you feeling, today?” He was flipping through my chart, not even looking at me, he turned to the residents and said, “He’ll be getting an MRI this morning and later a CAT-Scan.” They started to leave and I said, “Can I ask you something?” he turned with a scowl on his face and said “What?” I said, “I had a problem with my eye, not my ears, could you hold it down. I heard your entire discussion in the room next door and my roommate can hear every bit as well as I can, you don’t need to shout.” The Chief turned and walked off with his entourage. As they left, one of the residents, a young black woman turned and gave me a thumb up. Brian was silently laughing. I had two scans that day, it was Tuesday

On Wednesday my roommate Brian was ambulanced to Spaulding Rehab hospital, I got up and walked alongside his gurney to the elevator, he was on his back and I was pushing an IV stand with wheels. I shook his good hand and wished him well. I had more scans and several neurological tests.

More of the same on Thursday, one of the residents told me they couldn’t pinpoint the cause, but I was in good shape according to the tests.

My hospitalization continued until Friday Morning, 4 days of tests, more tests and then repeats of previous tests. I never heard more than a loud “Good Morning” from the chief neurologist; my information was coming from medical students, residents and the nurses. My primary care doc was out of the loop even though he worked in another wing of the building. Dan did drop by each day and read my chart to me, offered his take and went home. In reality no one really knew what had happened to make me go blind for an hour. Plenty of theories, no hard facts.

I went home at noon on Friday, Jan was out of town, it was a beautiful day so I walked to Charles Street, had lunch at the Sevens, an Irish Pub on Beacon Hill, I had my first beer since Sunday, a small salad and bowl of stew. Then I walked 14 blocks home. The dog was glad to see me, I was happy to be home. I put all my medicine away crawled into bed and took a nap.

Now you know as much as I do about how I went blind for little more than an hour. My personal share or co-pay for this adventure was $17, 363, including the drugs I took home to medicate myself.

My personal doc’s office manager got a couple of thousand knocked off the bill for non-essential billing.

I haven’t had a problem since this happened in 2000. It scares me more 13 years later than it did at the time.