Saving Kettle – Well, Sort Of

I’ve been thinking over the past few months starting my own small business (more on that at another time) but I’ve never considered animal rescue, which makes the couple of animal adventures Amy and I have had this year rather weird.

You may recall last Christmas we bought a female rat for a woman whose beloved pet rat had died (see Act of Rat-dom Kindness). We’ve gone from rats to birds.

When we got home from dinner Monday night November 8, I heard a chirping sound not normally associated to the sparrows, pigeons and crows normally seen swooping around northern Arizona.

“We must have a canary around here,” I said.

“Okay,” Amy responded with a “the-man-has-gone-insane” tone.

 As I got near the door, I noticed what looked like a white sheet of paper between the house and flowers in the flower box under one of our front windows. Then the paper chirped again. “I really am going insane,” I thought.

Upon further review, the piece of paper was actually a cockatiel, a breed you don’t regularly see perched on telephone poles. While Amy turned a dog kennel into a temporary bird cage, I made sure our cat Kirk did not turn the bird into dessert.

Other than having feathers and being able to chirp, neither Amy nor I had much knowledge about cockatiels. Based on information from cockatiel.com, we gave our visitor a small dish of water and a dish of broken up pecans, almonds and peanuts. Amy mentioned our discovery on her Facebook page, and one of her friends mentioned a Lost Bird ad on Craig’s List.

The next day (Tuesday), Amy called the number listed and, sure enough, someone was looking for our unexpected temporary guest. Amy learned the bird’s name was Kettle and she (I did not try to verify the bird’s gender) bolted through an open door to freedom the previous Sunday. Amy made arrangements for her and me to return Kettle to her rightful owners later that day.

I started thinking about how lucky this bird was.

• She escaped being prey to my area’s predators – coyotes, javelins, hawks, eagles, cats.
• She survived a below-freezing night and 2-inch snowfall.
• She was found by two people who actually cared enough to bring her inside, feed her and search for her owners.
• A friend of Amy’s just happened to see both the Lost Bird posting Amy made on Facebook and the Lost Bird posting on Craig’s List.
• Amy was able to contact the owner and make arrangements for an exchange.

And then the bird died.

When I checked on Kettle at mid-day, she had her head tucked under a wing sleeping quietly. Three hours later, she was lying flat on the floor at the center of the cage.

“Uh, Honey? I think the bird is dead,” I told Amy over the phone.

Amy called the owner and gave her the bad news. When Amy got home, we put Kettle in a cardboard box casket and give it to Kettle’s owner as she requested.

We don’t know the cause of Kettle’s demise. Maybe she ate something she wasn’t supposed to while she was “wild”, or maybe she got sick during the cold and snowy night. Whatever the cause, Kettle took her last breaths not at her home but in a strange cage on the floor of my hallway.

Rest in Peace, Kettle. May the winds of heaven be always at your back.

Turning the Final Page

My area’s Barnes & Noble bookstore is beginning the process of clearing its selves in order to go out of business. When someone buys the last remaining book later this year, I fear the repercussion will be much worse than just another empty store front at the Prescott (Arizona) Gateway Mall.

Thanks to my dear Amy, a self-proclaimed book addict, I’m finding myself spending more time in between the covers of a hardcover or paperback book. I’ve read books on living after a divorce; guides to being a good father; and information on the criminal, educational, moral, and emotional damage children suffer when their father is absent and disinterested. I’ve read biographies of George Washington, John Adams, Grover Cleveland, John Dillinger, Babe Ruth, Harry Carey, Bobby Knight and Edward R. Murrow. I’ve read the actual letters and speeches of Abraham Lincoln and an intriguing investigation of the rivalry between John Wilkes Booth and his brother Edwin. I’ve read the autobiographies of journalism icons Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw; and how numerous television, radio, print and photo journalists reacted during the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I’ve read about the 1906 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox and the 1954 Milan (Indiana) High School basketball state championship team, the inspiration for the movie Hoosiers. I’ve learned the tricks of professional poker and blackjack players, bowlers, and magicians. I’m currently on the ninth book of an 11 book fantasy series with rangers and knights fighting warlords and robbers and I’m a quarter of the way through The Resolution for Men, the companion book to the movie Courageous (see My Vow to be Courageous).

I’ve read the works of authors John Flanagan, David McCullough, SQuire Rushnell (why he capitalizes the Q, I do not know), Laurie Beth Jones, Carl Sagan, Tony Dungy and filmmaker Ken Burns.

I’ve read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, The Quest for Character by John MacArthur, The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, Leadership Secrets from the Bible by Lorin Wolfe and the writings and recollections of John, Mark, Matthew, Luke, Paul, Moses and others printed in the Bible.

Waiting patiently for my attention is the autobiography of Charles Kuralt; the biography of Ronald Reagan; the guide to active and effective teaching by Ron Clark; the creation, characters and controversies at ESPN; the myths and facts regarding the death of James A. Garfield; and the weird and often comical plight of accused Cold War spy Judith Coplon.

Advances in technology are the supposed cause of Barnes & Noble’s demise. Amazon is selling books electronically to Kindles and Nooks. However, devices like computers and “E-Readers” are obsolete a few months after they’re sold and eventually lose their charge and “crash.” Barring fire or flood, words on pages bound in a book stand the test of time.

If literature is “Food for the Mind”, how long before our brains starve? - if they haven’t already.

My Vow to be Courageous

If you are a father; if you are about to be a father; if you someday want to be a father; if you are a man, you need to see Courageous. Women need to see it, too.

I saw Courageous on September 30 – the first day in theaters. Courageous is the story of five men – four are officers with a Georgia county sheriff’s department and the fifth is a Hispanic man working odd jobs to feed his family. The four officers each grew up in broken homes and they’ve seen the statistics of children raised in single-parent homes. Since my son, Nikolas, is growing up in a single-parent home, I’ve seen the numbers, too.

The statistics are scary. Printed in the fifth edition of Father Facts by the National Fatherhood Initiative:

·         Crime

o   In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed “greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than in boys from mother/father households.”

o   Without two parents working together as a team, the child has more difficulty learning the combination of empathy, reciprocity, fairness and self-command that people take for granted.

o   In a study using a national probability sample of 1,636 young men and women … older boys and girls from female-headed households are more likely to commit criminal acts than their peers who lived with two parents.

o   In a study of 194 white, urban boys, researchers found that … living with a single mother at the age of 10 more than double the odds that a boy would eventually be arrested, compared to children who lived with both biological parents.

o   Teens from single-parent homes are more likely to commit a school crime (possess or distribute alcohol or drugs; possess a weapon; assault a teacher, administrator or other student) than teens from intact homes.

o   In a study using national data on more than 1,600 juveniles in treatment for sex offenses, 27.8 percent were living with both biological parents, 23.1 percent were living with their mother only, and 3.2 percent were living with their father only.

o   Youths in father-absent households had significantly higher odds of incarceration than those in mother/father families.

·         Drug and Alcohol Abuse

o   Of 228 students studied those from single-parent families reported higher rates of drinking and smoking as well as higher scores on delinquency and aggression tests when compared to boys from two-parent households.

o   Father closeness was negatively correlated with the number of a child’s friends who smoke, drink or smoke marijuana.

o   According to the Journal of Marriage and Family, there is significantly more drug use among children who do not live with their mother and father together.

o   In a study involving 11,000 interviews with persons ranging from 18 to 89 … children whose parents divorced had a one-third greater chance of becoming an adult smoker, and boys living with a single parent also had a one-third greater chance of developing a drinking problem as an adult.

o   Males in “mother only” families are about 1.5 times as likely to use alcohol as males in “mother/father” families.

o   In a study of 6,100 high schoolers, living in a non-intact family increased the likelihood of becoming a regular smoker during adolescence.

·         Education

o   In a study of 157 adolescents living in Utah, researchers found that boys in single-parent families spent an average of 3.5 fewer hours per week studying than boys who lived with both biological parents.

o   Children living with two parents are more likely to be read aloud to every day than are children who live with one or no parent.

o   Half of all children with highly involved fathers in two-parent families reported getting mostly A’s through 12^th grade compared with 31.7 percent and 35.2 percent of children of single father and nonresident father families, respectively.

o   Using data from the 1990 test results of 18,000 10^th graders who took the Louisville Graduation Exit Examination … the percentage of students from single-parent families … had a strong negative relation to standardized test scores.

o   A study of 1,700 seventh- and ninth-grade South Carolina students indicated that children whose parents divorced had lower grades than their peers whose parents had stayed together.

·         Self Esteem

o   A study of 40 middle school boys from a Midwest suburb found that those who lived without their father showed poorer sense of masculinity and had poorer interpersonal relationships than boys who lived with their biological father.

o   In a study of 146 adolescent friends of 26 adolescent suicide victims, teens living in single-parent families were not only more likely to commit suicide but also more likely to suffer from psychological disorders, when compared to teens living in intact families.

o   Thirty-six percent of children with single biological mothers are living below the poverty line … roughly three times higher than the number of children with married parents.

Two of the officers in the movie Courageous, Adam Mitchell (Alex Kendrick) and Nathan Hayes (Ken Bevel), live with their wives and children; one, Shane Fuller (Kevin Downes), is divorced and sees his 12-year-old son every other weekend; and one, David Thomson (Ben Davies), has a daughter from an “interlude” with a college sweetheart and he hasn’t seen either for more than four years. The Hispanic man, Javier Martinez (Robert Amaya), lives with his wife, son and daughter.

Like many in his position, Mitchell deals with the grief of his daughter’s death in a car accident by talking with his pastor and reading the scriptures. He writes a series of resolutions to be a better father, husband and man and shares his vows with the other men. Before God and their families, each man vows to live by Mitchell’s resolutions and hangs professionally framed parchment copies of the resolutions in their homes.

As expected, each man’s vows and faith are tested. Four of the five defeat the challenge. The other is left begging for forgiveness. I’ll let you find out what happens next.

Courageous has a lot of action and funny lines to go with the inspiration.

Are you a man of courage? Are you a woman of courage? Do you want to be a better spouse, parent and person? See Courageous as soon and as often as you can.  

Do you want to answer the call? I do and I will. 
To learn more and see the trailer, visit www.courageousthemovie.com.

Last Shall Be First

Amy and her parents, Jimmie Lou and Lou

Amy’s mother, Jimmie Lou, has Alzheimer’s disease. It’s sad watching a once vigorous woman slowly lose her mental capabilities. Jimmie Lou tells others that Amy is her sister even though Jimmie Lou doesn’t have a sister; she says she’s known perfect strangers “since they were little children;” and in past phone conversations has identified her husband of 53 years as “the man in the kitchen.”

Amy’s dad, Lou (yes, Amy’s parents are Lou and Jimmie Lou), is destined for the Caregiver’s Hall of Fame. If there is a Patron Saint of Caregivers, he or she will someday be dethroned by “Saint Lou.” Lou singlehandedly does everything for Jimmie Lou. He bathes her, dresses her, makes sure she takes her medicines on time (he carries a kitchen timer in his shirt pocket), makes sure “Bonanza” or “Gunsmoke” is on the TV, and that Jimmie Lou gets to her doctor’s appointments on time. He also keeps their house clean, does the laundry, researches new treatments and medications for Alzheimer’s and handles all of their finances.

As tragic as Jimmie Lou’s condition is, she has a child-like innocence that is both sweet and adorable.

Lou and Jimmie Lou live in a suburb of Las Vegas. Every day, Lou takes Jimmie Lou to a different casino buffet for dinner. On the last day of our recent visit, Lou, Jimmie Lou, Amy and I went to The Orleans. While getting her “appetizer” plate of shrimp cocktail, salad, beets and fruit, Lou noticed the dessert bar had only one slice of Jimmie Lou’s favorite pecan pie. Fearing the buffet didn’t have a replacement should someone else pick up the dessert, Lou got the plate with the pecan pie well before dessert time.

“This is for dessert,” Lou told a wide-eyed Jimmie Lou as he placed the plate at the center of the round table.

“Oh,” Jimmie Lou said forlornly as her excitement faded.

But like a rare, brilliant gem, Jimmie Lou couldn’t keep her eyes off the pecan pie. Thirty seconds to a minute later, Jimmie Lou reached over, pulled the plate with the pecan pie toward her and took a bite.

“That is for dessert,” Lou reminded her.

“Oh,” Jimmie Lou said forlornly.

Thirty seconds to a minute later, Jimmie Lou reached over, pulled the plate with the pecan pie toward her and took another bite.

“That is for dessert,” Lou reminded her emphatically.

“Oh,” Jimmie Lou said forlornly.

When he was ready, Lou left the table to get his and Jimmie Lou’s “entrée” plate. As soon as he was out of earshot, Jimmie Lou reached over, pulled the plate with the pecan pie toward her and took four bites before Lou returned.

“That is for dessert!” Lou reminded her more emphatically than before.

“Oh,” Jimmie Lou said forlornly.

Thirty seconds to a minute later, the waitress asked if Jimmie Lou was done with her “appetizer” plate.

“Yes,” Jimmie Lou said, “and you can take this one (the ‘entrée’ plate), too” as she reached for the plate with the pecan pie.

“No! She hasn’t touched that yet!” Lou told the waitress. “That (the pie) is for dessert!” Lou reminded Jimmie Lou.

“Oh,” Jimmie Lou said forlornly.

Thirty seconds to a minute later, Jimmie Lou reached over, pulled the plate with the pecan pie toward her and took the last remaining bite. Lou just sighed.

Thirty seconds to a minute later, Jimmie Lou asked Lou, “Are you going to get dessert?”

“The pie you just ate was dessert,” Lou answered.

“Oh,” Jimmie Lou said forlornly.

Spitting on the Face of the Disabled

A pet peeve of mine since I was young was people parking illegally in handicapped parking places. Now that I’m among the disabled, I see how vast the law-breaking is.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 “recognizes and protects the civil rights of people with … a wide range of disability, from physical conditions affecting mobility, stamina, sight, hearing, and speech to conditions such as emotional illness and learning disorders.” The Act was amended in 2008 to define a disability as “impairments that substantially limit a major life activity” such as “caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working” and “the operation of a major bodily function.” The ADA Amendment Act of 2008 states that “in enacting the (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990), Congress recognized that physical and mental disabilities in no way diminish a person's right to fully participate in all aspects of society, but that people with physical or mental disabilities are frequently precluded from doing so because of prejudice, antiquated attitudes, or the failure to remove societal and institutional barriers.”

When doctors diagnosed me with Multiple Sclerosis in 1996, I knew there would be a time when I would need a wheelchair or mobility scooter to get around. I knew I would not be able to bound up and down stairs or leap over potholes or puddles of water. I knew I would need help getting in and out of locations and situations I never thought I’d have a problem with.

Most everyone I’ve come across has voluntarily helped me in some way when they’ve seen me. People regularly hold a door open for me, pick up something I’ve dropped, or reach for an item on a shelf above my head. I deeply appreciate the assistance; however I have an equal level of anger when people do not consider the needs of the handicapped when I or any other disabled person is not around.

Rarely does a week go by where I don’t see some violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. When I took Amy and Nick to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona on July 24, 2011, one of the two handicapped designated parking spaces was covered by a construction-sized trash bin from Bleekers Boxes. It has since been moved, but why was it there in the first place? Obviously, whoever placed it there either was ignorant of Federal law or just didn’t give a damn about the disabled. Or both.

I’ve found hotels to be very problematic. Officials at the Edgewater and Colorado Belle hotels and casinos in Laughlin, Nevada were told by the Nevada State ADA Director Susan Thomas to renovate all the handicap accessible rooms to comply with the 2008 standards. Thomas did not know that the Edgewater and Belle have a free room for three nights monthly promotion. Because all the handicapped rooms were “being renovated under ADA order” I had to go to a different hotel and pay regular room rate. Because able bodied people could get a free room for three nights and I couldn’t, I was discriminated against.

The lone handicap accessible room with the roll-in shower at the hotel next door, the Aquarius, is on a smoking floor. I have no options for a non-smoking floor at the Aquarius.

The Planet Hollywood hotel in Las Vegas is even worse. When we stayed there in March 2011 because Amy was attending a three-day conference there, water from the shower spilled out onto the floor in the rest of the bathroom, making the shiny tile slick. Although I reserved a non-smoking room, on the desk was an ashtray and book of matches. I was given a “smoking optional” room and my reservation “was not a guarantee.”  And elevator doors would close before I could fully get my scooter-propelled butt in the elevator.

Overtime, these ignorances become comical. In 2008, Amy was the high-bidder for an overnight stay in a suite at the El Tovar, the 100-year-old hotel on the rim at the Grand Canyon. While finalizing the reservations, we told the representative over the phone that we would exchange the suite for a handicap accessible room on the first floor.

Working the registration desk the day we got there was this teeny-bopper girl no more than age 22.

“You’ll be in Suite 263 just up those stairs and down the hall,” she said bubbly. Note that I am sitting on my handicap scooter at the time.

“We reserved a handicap accessible room on the first floor,” Amy responded.

“We don’t have any suites on the first floor,” was the answer.

In my attempt to make things easier, I told the girl that we’ll take the suite on the second floor if she would direct us to the elevator. I got this “Lost in Space” blank stare.

In each episode of the late 1960’s television show, the robot would frantically wave its arms and say, “Does not compute. Does not compute.” That is what this chicky’s face was “saying” to me.

The owners of the El Tovar used the historic structure loophole in the Americans with Disabilities Act to get out of installing an elevator. After checking with the desk manager, she looked at me (remember I’m sitting on my scooter) and said “I’m sorry. We don’t have an elevator.”

“Then how does my scooter get ‘up the stairs and down the hall’?” I asked.

“Oh we have bell boys for that,” was the bubbly reply.

“You have a bell boy who can carry my scooter – WITH ME SITTING ON IT – up those stairs and down the hall?” I asked.

Once again, all I saw was “Does not compute. Does not compute.”

“That is why we need to have a room on the first floor,” Amy said.

And “Einstein” here replied, “But we don’t have suites on the first floor.”

Shaquille O’Neal Fouled Me

One of the most well-known players and characters of the National Basketball Association (NBA), Shaquille O’Neal, announced his retirement June 1.

Courtesy: nba.com

I got an up-close and personal look at his shoulder and watched him “swallow” my hand at a restaurant in Florida one evening.

Three friends of mine and I took a week’s vacation to Sanibel Island in the summer of 1995. We spent the fourth day at Universal Studios in Orlando. Before heading back to the time-share condo we were borrowing, we had dinner at a Hard Rock Café. 

After we ate our burgers and paid our bill, the people on the first floor of the restaurant – we were seated on the second floor – started applauding and cheering. I popped out of my seat and leaned over the railing to look down onto the first floor, but I couldn’t tell what all the commotion was about. When I turned around, my face was inches away from the Superman logo Shaq has tattooed on his right shoulder. That is all I could see. Even my peripheral vision was blocked by this huge man’s upper arm.

“We’re from Indiana!” my friend Amy yelled. The Amy I’m mentioning is not – nor is she related to – my Savior on Earth, Amy (see my Thanksgiving 2010 blog entry). Amy’s comment generated a vision of Shaq pile-driving me into the floor like a hammer drives a nail.

About a month earlier, Shaquille’s team at that time, the Orlando Magic, defeated the Indiana Pacers in a very contentious seven-game series. The Magic were then swept by the Houston Rockets in the championship round. The Pacers’ game plan was, because Shaquille was a very poor free-throw shooter, if they fouled him every time he touched the ball, the Pacers could keep the Magic from scoring. The philosophy became known as “Hack-a-Shaq”, but in 1995, O’Neal thought he was being unnecessarily beat up. The Indianapolis Star newspaper ran articles about O’Neal being angry, and columnists wrote that he was “acting like a baby” and he should “stop crying and be a man.”

So when Amy yells “We’re from Indiana!”, I thought “Oh, great. This giant is going to use me to build an express elevator to the first floor of the Hard Rock Café in Orlando, Florida.”

Not thinking, I stuck out my right hand. O’Neal’s mammoth right hand surrounded my hand like Saran Wrap around a casserole dish. My hand literally disappeared.

Fortunately, Shaquille O’Neal did not release his frustrations on this skinny tourist from the Midwest with the loud-mouth friend, and you still need to use the stairs to get from the second floor to the first floor at the Orlando, Florida Hard Rock Café.