FLAG PROTOCOL

FLAG PROTOCOL

  

       This morning, Irene and I went to Middlebury’s Memorial Day parade, then we went to the Middlebury Inn to talk about the flags they had on poles facing the green.

       Irene, than whom there are few more observant, had noticed that the American flag was not at the center of the three flags, the others being those of Canada and Vermont. She wanted to talk about with someone in the hotel management, to make sure proper flag protocol was being observed.

       So had a fair number of other people, said the man to whom we spoke, so he looked up the dos and don’ts of displaying the flag, on the Internet. He didn’t say which site.

       What he found was that the Inn should probably switch its Canadian and Vermont flags, but that the American flag was correctly placed on the left of the line—assuming that the town green was the place from where people would be looking. When another country is involved, the American flag takes precedence, then the flags of other sovereign states, then those of smaller entities. Had no other country been in the line, yes, the American flag should be in the center.

       He went on to say that from what he sees and from what he had read, flag etiquette seems to matter less to people nowadays. For instance, you see young people wearing clothing that has the American flag on it, and the flag is not supposed to be worn. (My mind flashed back to Sixties demonstrations, where people would sometimes come wearing Uncle Sam costumes prominently decorated with the red, white and blue—a political statement like the rarer but more-remembered flag burnings.) The young people don’t mean disrespect by it, he said, it’s just that the old rules about flag displays either aren’t taught or they care more about showing their patriotism that way.

Dare I say it? I think our national attention is flagging.

       It’s been a while since I was in Boy Scouts, where the subject is taught, so I, too, decided to look up “flag etiquette,” as Google termed it. I settled on  www.usa-flag-site.org. They had a shorter version of how to show respect for the flag, which I’ll quote here, and a more comprehensive version that I’ll leave my readers to click on as needed.

       The following is said to be based on the section of federal law known as the Flag Code:

--“The flag should be lighted at all times, either by sunlight or by an appropriate light source.

--The flag should be flown in fair weather, unless the flag is designed for inclement weather use.

--The flag should never be dipped to any person or thing. It is flown upside down only as a distress signal.

--The flag should not be used for any decoration in general. Bunting of blue, white and red stripes is available for these purposes. The blue stripe of the bunting should be on the top.

--The flag should never be used for any advertising purpose. It should not be embroidered, printed or otherwise impressed on such articles as cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins, boxes, or anything intended to be discarded after temporary use. Advertising signs should not be attached to the staff or halyard.

--The flag should not be used as part of a costume or athletic uniform, except that a flag patch may be used on the uniform of military personnel, fireman, policeman and members of patriotic organizations.

--The flag should never have any mark, insignia, letter, word, number, figure, or drawing of any kind placed on it, or attached to it.

--The flag should never be used for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.

--When the flag is lowered, no part of it should touch the ground or any other object; it should be received by waiting hands and arms. To store the flag it should be folded neatly and ceremoniously.

--The flag should be cleaned and mended when necessary.

--When a flag is so worn it is no longer fit to serve as a symbol of our country, it should be destroyed by burning in a dignified manner.”      

 

       Looking at the May 27 issue of one of Middlebury’s weekly newspapers, to see if any advertisements had misappropriated the flag, I didn’t have far to search. The paper’s own announcement of their Memorial Day deadlines and office hours had the image of a windblown American flag, stars and stripes together, occupying the top third of the space.

      

       To repeat the theme of this morning’s Memorial Day speaker, “lest we forget.”

 

 

DRINKING THE ANTIFREEZE

DRINKING THE ANTIFREEZE

 

       Since the Jim Jones cult’s bungle in the jungle in 1978, “drinking the Kool-aid” has become a phrase for making a final commitment to something, for well or ill. I would like to offer “drinking the antifreeze” as a capsule description of undergoing a colonoscopy.

       Referring back to my blog of two days ago, it’s all done. One moment I was talking with the medical people in the OR and the next moment I was talking with them only I was being informed it was all done. Later I learned the results were good: no polyps like the last time, no diverticulitis, nothing more troubling than hemorrhoids, which I knew about already and think of every time I read that a historic building is a noble pile. Big sigh of relief, then home and on to the project of restoring the digestive tract to something like normalcy. Yes, buy Depends, or Poise, or whatever it is you fancy.

       I managed to drink the prescribed four liters of polyethylene glycol, trade name Trilyte, after doctoring it by adding quite a bit of aspartame. The company had put in saccharine, which is cheaper, and tastes it. Because it was a hot day, close to a record for Vermont, I lost a lot of water sweating, and that helped by creating thirst. In fact, after the evening three liters I downed a quart of Gatorade (recommended in the medical instructions) because my gut feeling, so to speak, was that I wasn’t adequately hydrated. Later, a nurse would tell me this was the right thing to do---that is, helpful in producing diarrhea.

       As I said in the last blog, Trilyte is not as cathartic as the last colonoscopy’s “Fleet enema” laxative. This is a mixed blessing. You wonder if it’s really doing its job of cleaning things out so the probe can see what’s going on inside your colon. The diarrhea, for me, correlated pretty much with drinking fluid: in one end, out the other. So how was my body going to get rid of the last liter of Trilyte? To repeat: yes, buy some protective underpants, and wear them going to and from the hospital and until you have gotten back to normal. Otherwise, when you try to sit up or get out of the car or otherwise squeeze your stomach muscles, you’ll squeeze out the postdigestive equivalent of mucus—as if your intestines were shedding lining to get rid of the yucky stuff.

       I learned in the hospital that some people throw up their Trilyte, and some can’t get all of it down. Do your best, it’s for a good cause.

       Don’t plan anything that matters for the rest of the day, even if it seems, to look at the scheduling, as if a colonoscopy is a simple in-and-out process. (Colonoscopies seem ideally suited to sardonic  humor; when I got up the morning of the operation, the phrase “Let’s get moving” came irresistibly to mind, for instance.) At one point during my glycol binge, I thought, “This stuff is making me sick to my stomach,” then realized, “That’s the whole point, to make you so sick to your stomach that your stomach gets sick of the stuff and evicts it.” The aftermath isn’t as bad, but the combination of leftover laxative and leftover anesthetic unsettles the whole metabolism.

       Between the day of fasting on nothing but clear liquids, the day of the procedure, and the day of clearing mind and body, a colonoscopy realistically takes three days. Employers should realize this, and should be generous about giving that amount of time off, especially if there’s a company group health plan. Some things happen, inevitably, but colon cancer doesn’t have to be among them.

GRADUATION LYRICS

GRADUATION LYRICS

 

In case you’ve never heard them, here are the words that graduation favorite, Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance”—technically the “Land of Hope and Glory” section of No. 1 in D of six Pomp and Circumstance Military Marches, Op. 39, composed in 1901 by Sir Edward Elgar.

 

We are walking like robots

Though we’re supposed to be smarter,

Doing our best to look sober

Though it gets harder and harder.

People are taking our pictures.

Someone is giving a lecture.

Meanwhile we’re stinking, not thinking,

Under these caps and these gowns.

Only a couple more hours

Under the thumb of these clowns.

 

WHERE THE SUN DOESN’T SHINE

WHERE THE SUN DOESN’T SHINE

        Prevention, we are told, must occupy a larger place in our lives if health care costs are to be reduced. Colonoscopies, for instance, help people avoid colon cancer, one of the most prevalent types of cancer in this country.

       Four years ago, I had my first colonoscopy. The doctor found enough precancerous growths called polyps to recommend having another after three years, rather than the more usual five.

       Anyone who has been through this medical equivalent of a rotorooter job will understand why I haven’t been religiously diligent about having the second one done. It isn’t the procedure itself that’s a deterrent—few people can recall the event because the anesthesia level is so high—and even the cost, $900 for the last one, isn’t much for anyone with health insurance, at least compared with other things that happen in the operating room. Nor is the aftermath particularly unpleasant, though it can be challenging for some to find a driver willing to sit and wait through it because the scoped are doped to a point where it’s not safe for them to take the public transit bus or a taxi.

       The howl comes with the bowel. For the remote probe that enters the territory where the sun doesn’t shine to see anything, all the usual contents must be evicted, evacuated, eliminated—taken to the point where push comes to shove and shoveled out.

       The last time, this involved something called a Fleet enema. The name made me wonder if this would be a bag of liquid with a tube to send it to its appointed destiny, but instead it was a fairly small bottle of a salt solution. Not table salt—sodium chloride—but something in the same general family of chemicals.

       The body doesn’t like these substances. Mark Twain once wrote that after he drank warm salt water, he felt as though he had thrown up his immortal soul. Something of the same sort is true for the Fleet enema, except it has to do with the other end of the gastrointestinal tube. Out West, under the big skies, it is possible to watch a distant cloud unload in a downpour. Pictures of this phenomenon irresistibly remind me of the aftermath of taking a Fleet enema.

 

       Under normal circumstances, you can feel the urge and know that true urgency will come later, or it might even be a false alarm. With a Fleet enema, there are no false alarms, and there is no such thing as waiting for someone else to finish in the bathroom. Is it a good idea to wear protective underwear? Depends.

       This time around, I have been prescribed a gallon—repeat, a gallon—of something called ______. At the pharmacy, you get a plastic gallon jug with white powder in it and several packets of flavoring, in case you think polyethylene glycol would go down better if it tastes like the chemical imitation of pineapple, cherry, raspberry, and so on. As I recall, ethylene glycol is antifreeze. Ah, the indignities. But it beats going around wearing an ostomy bag.

       The larger point here is that a shift toward prevention in health care will only come with a shift toward less harried lifestyles, which in turn depend on a redistribution of this country’s wealth. Not a sudden grab from the rich, but policies and programs that reverse the well-documented erosion of the middle class during the past several decades. A colonoscopy takes time, predictable circumstances, and a degree of freedom from stress, as well as adequate income or insurance.

       Saying the only freedoms we need are those in the Bill of Rights—a bundle of amendments that constituted an admission that the Constitution as originally written was not adequate to the needs of this nation—ignores or slights the degree to which our development has resulted, like any natural development, in expanded differentiation and increased needs for coordination. Freedom from stress gets no mention by the drafters, who lived at a time when it was possible for Thomas Jefferson to envision a future in which small farmers would predominate. But the erosion of this freedom has been cancerous, literally as well as figuratively.

 

HEAR, HEAR

HEAR, HEAR

        Like good berry patches or good picnic ledges, good echoes used to be prized places in Vermonters’ personal landscapes. For some reason, particular vantage points made it possible to yell something into the distance, wait, then have it return, fainter but clearly the same words in the same voice. At some point I want to see if the one south of the Eddy Farm in Middlebury still answers the call.

       But for those whose ears have not been damaged by loud music, loud machinery, or loud anything (if it’s loud enough to hurt, it’s loud enough to cause damage, says one general rule), the rewards of taking precautions include hearing subtler echoes. Or the lack of them: visiting the Houston area with my first wife, who had gone to high school there, I was struck by the way sounds didn’t return. As a New Englander, I expected to be surrounded by neighborly heights, not to have sounds fall into nothingness, answered only by tremulous far-off sounds that seemed stretched to cover the distances.

       Coming back to New England, I remember one barn that changed sounds as a person walked toward it. It had a clapboarded back wall three stories high, and each clapboard edge reflected sound back from a slightly different distance. Noises twanged back.

       I’m reminded of all this because a few nights ago, I decided to take a walk around midnight on a cool, moonlit night, and heard something utterly unexpected. Here in Middlebury, there’s major bridge and road construction going on in the business district, and the contractors try to do as much as possible at night to avoid impacting the shops, restaurants, and so on. So in the distance, I could hear the steady roaring of heavy machinery.

       At the same time, I could hear a massive, high-pitched sound from a different direction. “Massive” may seem like a strange word to employ here, but it was a massed sound, like that of a swamp full of frogs—but this was a very cool evening, and no critters were courting. Turning in other directions, I couldn’t hear the sound. What could it be?

       Finally, walking back to the house, I realized it was our willow tree. It was tall enough to catch the construction noise, and dense enough with thin branches and twigs to bounce that sound around in enough directions to send a discernable noise toward the house.

       I am talking about something very high-pitched, well above anything on the piano keyboard. Tinnitus, ringing of the ears, was a possibility, I realized, but that wouldn’t account for the clear directionality of it. Had I not decided to start using earplugs back in high school, and had I not continued to so since (always while sleeping or driving or when surroundings get loud) probably I would have missed this phenomenon entirely.

       Life magazine once carried a microphotography picture of the inside of the ear. Sounds create pressure waves in fluid, and the fluid bends things that stick up almost like tuning fork handles—a forest of them.  Clearly, a hurricane in the fluid would buffet those projecting sensors and probably break some of them. That convinced me that using earlids, as I sometimes call them, makes as much sense as having eyelids.

       Take good care of your tuning forks. I’ll be hearing from you.

 

LOOKING BACK, LOOK FORWARD

 LOOKING BACK, LOOK FORWARD

      After a total hip replacement, which took place for me on March 23, the six-week visit with the surgeon marks an important stage in the process of recovery. That visit went well, because rehab has gone well. It will continue for six months or so, to final healing and mobility, according to Dr. Eric Benz, but I can walk unassisted if I want, drive locally, pick things up from the floor, and enjoy other of life’s little delights that younger people take for granted.

     They'll take their turn getting bionic hips, knees, and shoulders-and they shouldn't be fearful or ashamed of doing so. The procedures aren't as routine as, say, getting glasses because eyesight isn't what it used to be, but they're among those with the highest rates of success. And the followup physical therapy, if taken seriously, amounts to an education in how the body works that could benefit anyone.

     Of course it's important to recognize that people differ in their personal circumstances. Like farmers, said by Benz to be disinclined to follow the safety rules meant to keep new hip joints from dislocating. Independent and ornery and possessed of or perhaps by a legendary work ethic, they just go right back to bumping haunches with Holsteins. A quote from an article in a local paper about a farmer: "He wore out his first hip replacement in six years."

     "You'll wish you'd done it sooner," someone advised me, and he was right. Here we have a real advance in medicine, one that will prolong people's years of productivity and satisfaction. Also, we have another challenge in the area of medical costs. The hospital bill alone for this adventure was $33,000; we had met our deductible for the year, so CBA Blue, through Irene's job at Middlebury College, paid every penny of it. Benz said the insurance will pay as well for the second hip replacement, tentatively scheduled for June 29. Looking at how many people hobble through the aisles of the supermarket, I wonder whether their needs are being met. I can't prescribe a remedy for cost containment, but I'll make this observation: to me, there is nothing wrong with having medical care become a larger percentage of the Gross Domestic Product. It's money spent on necessities, by and large, with much of it going to people who by earning good pay are supporting the housing industry, higher education, and much more. Is it equally productive to spend so much money on military might?

     Hip, hip but no hooray in the case of my late father, who did not have the option of bypassing his osteoarthritis pain by having stainless steel ball-and-socket joints installed. Thinking of how I was walking before I went into the hospital, I recognize his gait; and when I think of his dour expressions in those years, I think of my own pain and insomnia before the operation and can't blame him. Not least, I think of his courage in facing those troubles alone, and wish I could somehow let him know how much I admire his endurance.

     For the record, I have now been operated upon behind the eyes, in the eyeball, in the nose, in the throat, in the large intestine, in the hip, and on the big toe. If there is indeed a heaven, does there come a time when God steps in as umpire and says "You've been hit by enough pitches--take your base"?