Have you seen Blackbeard's gold hidden in this here cave?

If your idea of a good time is dropping a roll of toilet paper down the john and repeatedly trying to flush it, then you should just love narcotics because that’s what they do to the human excretory system. How can a person even want to get high on something that makes him constipated? It just ain’t dignified. Besides, pills are for sick people.

I thought I had stopped them yesterday (two days after surgery), but pain woke me up in the wee hours this morning, so I took first one Percocet and, when that didn’t work, another. I called the physician’s assistant today, and, to my great surprise, she said that most people take narcotics day and night for several weeks after shoulder surgery. She also said that patients tend to migrate from their beds to their recliners.

I was in such pain last fall that the only relief I could find was in a recliner that Peggy bought with her inheritance from her grandmother (and even then I could only stay halfway comfortable for a few minutes at a time). Now that I’m having to sleep with my lower arm sticking straight up into the air, maybe I will have to move back to Granny's recliner.

Peggy took a week off to stay with me, and I don’t know what I will do when she goes back to work—or when she leaves on her two trips in April. It’s not just the practical help; it’s having someone to keep me company now that there isn’t much I can do with myself. I can’t lift anything; I can’t take my arm out of my sling; I can’t even turn my palm up. If I break any of these rules, I risk pulling the stitches out, and that would leave me worse off than I was before the surgery. This is a state of affairs that will have to last for at least 42 days. The worst part is knowing that, no matter how careful I am, the stitches might come out anyway.

I’m enclosing some pictures of myself in my get-up. The black thing is my sling, and it comes with a thick pad that holds it several inches away from my body. The blue thing is a bladder that I have to fill with ice water several times a day. I wear the sling and the bladder all the time. The cooler is what the ice water stays in. I don’t always carry it in my hand as if I’m so stoned on narcotics that I think I’m in a cave holding a lantern.

You will note that I look like an axe murderer who is trying to pass himself off as a friendly sort of regular guy. That is because Peggy made me smile. If Peggy didn't make me smile, I would look quite handsome, but Peggy hates me and wants me to look ridiculous, so every time she takes my picture, she insists that I smile. I always say that I don’t want to smile, but she makes funny faces and silly noises until I do, and it is then that she takes my picture. People with cameras have been doing this shit to me for sixty years, and I hope they all fall down the shaft of the mine that I’m exploring with my lantern.

The hand-carved bowl on the wall was my Granny’s dough bowl that she received as a wedding gift on Sand Mountain in Alabama in 1896. It's made of the wood of the Tulip Tree. At a little under 200 feet, the Tulip Tree is the largest tree in the eastern U.S. and is the state tree of Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It also grows where planted here in the Willamette Valley. I’ll enclose a photo of its leaves and flowers.

Title to come later

I took two Demerol tablets and went to church today, my arm in its sling and the sling under Walt’s extra large pile jacket. My midriff insisted upon exposing itself from time to time, but I could neither get my arm through a shirt nor keep my sweatpants high enough to stay covered. Fortunately—for me anyway—I am not a modest person.

We discussed prayer. “If God is all powerful, all knowing, and perfect in every virtue, is it conceivable that he would cure someone of cancer or bring an end to a war because he was prayed to, but would not do so otherwise?” I asked. Most seemed to think so, but either they didn’t understand the dilemma I posed, or they had no answer for it. In any event, it was not addressed. A few expressed faith in prayer as a means of healing, but I reflected (to myself) that, despite the prayers of millions, many a pope has died well ahead of those who lacked such an advantage.

I told the class that I think of prayer as an opening of my heart as well as a meditation upon, and a dedication to, my highest values, but it was a definition that appeared to fall short in the eyes of many if not all, and I despaired of offering anything more to the discussion. Sometimes, I go to church and contribute greatly; other times, many people—including myself—seem to think I would have done better had I stayed home.

The question of teaching children about prayer was also touched upon. For the first time in decades, I remembered being too young to take communion at church, so I would pray and serve myself Welch’s Grape Juice and Premium Saltines at home. When I was ten, my family moved into town, and I built a wooden altar under a wisteria arbor. I set our big old family Bible upon my altar, preached to the neighborhood kids, and served them communion. My mother fretted over what God would think, but a preacher told her that God wouldn't object. It was about this time that a Negro deacon who worked with my father said that the Lord had his hand upon me, and that I would become “a great man of God” someday. His name was Truly Westbrook, and I felt sorry for him because he had to put up with endless profanity from my father.

Maybe I expressed myself badly today. I meant no disrespect, yet I must confess that I am often at a loss to understand people’s religious beliefs. They often appear, to me, to echo Tertullian’s statement about the Christian faith:

“…it is wholly credible, because it is unsound…
…it is certain, because it is impossible.”

In short: Credo quia absurdum—I believe because it is absurd.

Ataraxia, the only true happiness

He’s dead, he’s dead,
Hooray, hooray;
His surgeon killed him yesterday,
But his life insurance will quickly pay,
And with his doc I’ll gladly lay.

Oh, I think we’ll go to Borneo
Where there’s little risk of seeing snow,
And the brush it grows extremely low,
And wild, wild parties will we throw!

by the former Mrs. Snow

Actually, it was by the husband of the woman who got up every hour last night to ice his shoulder. Hopefully, you knew that. Such humor sets very poorly with people who don’t get it.

After reading what I wrote on Thursday, you might be challenged to believe that I went to bed feeling positive—almost cheerful—but I did. Your support was largely responsible, as was the support of local friends. I also sought the wisdom of Epictetus. The ancient Stoics, especially Marcus Aurelius (see photo), have often comforted me, and the worse off I am, the more effective is their counsel. As we turned out the light, I told Peggy that I had found my courage, as indeed I had. I even refused the “nerve pill” that I was offered at the hospital.

The surgery lasted two and a half hours, and Peggy was told that it went well. I awoke sometime later, eager to come home.

I worry that I am expressing myself poorly because of the drugs, and I am having a devil of a time typing in this sling, but I wanted to check-in, and I surely owed it to you to do so.

I send to you my deepest appreciation for your kindness, freshly showered by tears of gratitude.