History revisions

This morning the puppy, craving attention, grabbed my freshly addressed bills and ran away. Maggie's quite fond of and adept at shredding paper, so I had to chase her down, although I try not to reward her like that. Payment on time and perforated! That's the way we like it!

After a week of research I was able to find and confirm my father's social security number. This entitled me to copies of his death certificate. I had evidence of the poor man, but nothing that counted with the Federal Government. I am evidence of the poor man, for that matter.

It's an odd thing to have a question about one's family, to think about asking one's parent, to realize again that they can no longer answer. Pieces of our history become unavailable. There was a period of time when my mother and I had some brutally frank conversations about our history together. I think Mom wanted to be sure I got the truth while she could provide it. I still have questions to ask, not the least of which was "Mom, what's Dad's social security number!"

A few years ago while rifling through literally hundreds of saved letters from my father's family I stumbled upon a letter from someone connected with a rooming house who had had a run-in with my father. In the letter, she put together some of my father's history in a way I had never heard, alluding to him as a "spoiled child, indulged, who was reckless, wrecking cars. . . and once shot another kid while hunting." The son of an insane person. My father had written a defensive note on it and given it to his mother, I suspect in response to her inquiry.

Dad was very intense and emotional. He was raised by his mother and grandmother, two world class worriers, while his father was hospitalized in an institution for the insane at Anna, Illinois. His mother, a woman in the early 1930's was assigned a guardian and given an allowance. It was all her husband's money. I'm sure Dad was a handful, and he told me about wrecking his mother's car, about swinging a shotgun around while hunting and blowing the top of a friend's head off. I recall that it was just the skin on his head and that he survived. I'm not sure, though. It was an accident and Dad did no time.

There are parts of our lives we'd just as soon not share with the oncoming generations. I'm sure not telling.

Some of my history, if I'm lucky, goes off into the mists off time unrecorded and unremembered. There'll be a lot of video of me playing in a band outside during the 80's and 90's. There's some stuff on public access video. There's a really embarrassing VHS tape of me drinking many shots of scotch in succession and sustaining an inane monologue for an excruciatingly long time (perhaps that will go un-noticed). Perhaps fairness and balance require that a little poison about us gets passed on, too. Someone's testimonial about what an insufferable shit I am. I suspect there'd be a few volunteers.

Send me some samples for review and I'll let you know.

Yum

Tye's the alpha dog here. He's nine and he was here first and for now he's bigger. Maggie's already faster, though and has the kind of nature that moves her to grab Robyn's panties and parade around the house with them.

Maggie taught Tye that cool air comes out of the grates. Tye always goes to the grate Maggie showed him. Maggie goes to all the grates.

Tye believes that as alpha dog, he has the right to eat whenever he likes and that he can stop Maggie from eating, even if he really doesn't want to eat himself. Maggie has her ways, though.

Whenever one dog wants out, the other dog goes out, too. I don't know why, but it's some kind of code, like the cliche about women and the powder room perhaps. Tonight Maggie went to the back door and barked. Tye looked up from his food and went to the back door to be let out. I opened the door and Tye went out. Maggie went to the food and started eating. I closed the door, leaving Tye outside watching Maggie eat.

I left him out there until Maggie had finished eating. You have to reward initiative.

You too could be a winner.

I spent the last few weeks going through boxes of documents, photos and papers in the basement looking for my fathers social security number. I used to have about seven death certificates for him - he died in 2002 - but for some reason I can find nothing now. I finally found an IRS document regarding my parents last joint claim that has an "ID number" that looks like a social security number, and isn't Mom's, so must be his, right?

This is all because now that Mom's in nursing care and almost through the money she got from selling her home, we are putting together something called a "Miller Trust." This trust is designed for people, like my mother, whose retirement income is steady, but not enough to cover the enormous cost of nursing care. The trust pays the care it can cover, and the rest is then covered by Medicaid. This is a good thing because it means Mom's expenses can be covered by her estate and not be passed on to her survivors.

Because Dad served with the Marines in Korea (his last message to me from his death bed was an ironic "semper fi!") Mom is eligible for support from the Veteran's Administration for part of the cost of her nursing care. After negotiating one of the least caller friendly voice mail systems I've encountered since Social Security, I got to Phyllis at the Commission for Veteran's Affairs. (The system is amazing. It says they're open, but no one answers. It give you an employee directory - not much help to a new caller - but no description of what anyone does. Phyllis called me back at one point and left me a message which did not include her extension number, so I had to go to the directory one more time. I couldn't help thinking that if I was a vet with PTSD I might have been tempted to save myself the trouble, hang up, and do something drastic.)

Phyllis was pretty helpful once she understood what I'm up to. People warm up to the only surviving son trying to provide for his dear mother who is in the last stages of an incurable progressive disease, and they should, dammit! After agreeing to send me the paperwork I needed, she hesitated and asked "Do you know how much time you have until she. . . passes?" I told her that Mom was under Hospice care, which implies a "window" of about six months. We agreed that it's really impossible to predict another person's demise, and that she could last quite a bit longer, really. Phyllis said that the thing is, it takes about nine months to go through the funding process. Once she's determined to be eligible, Mom can receive funding retroactively back to the time of application. If she survives that long. If she dies. . . no dice. You must be present to win!

This is one of a number of "systems" that depend on the ponderousness of the process to effectively limit which of many eligible recipients get the benefits to which they're entitled. Social Security Disability is another one. There's an entire industry built around the multiple denial, multiple appeal process that even a wizened quadriplegic in an iron lung must negotiate.

This morning I'm going to meet with a family that has decided to pay out of pocket for my services, rather than using the available therapists on a "list" provided by their insurance company. This company has what is called "a closed panel." The way these panels work is that insurance companies determine how many therapists they need in a given population area. They only "open" a panel when their number of therapists dips. This depends on therapists updating their own insurance information, which we seldom do, because there are a lot of different companies and besides we'd rather talk than do paperwork. In the end, this family couldn't find a therapist they felt their child could relate to, and felt strongly enough about it that they're going to forgo their insurance all together and just pay. This works if you're middle class and have a "cafeteria" health plan. If you're working poor, and happen to choose this insurance company for your Hawk-I (SCHIPS) coverage, you're ham-strung by this "panel" and therapist availability. The effect is that the company controls cost by limiting their customers' access to care. In this case, being alive doesn't necessarily help.

In the case of Mom and the VA, I'm really only going to be saving Medicaid money by going through this process. Mom's going to spend all her monthly income and Medicaid will pick up the remainder. Whether or not VA picks up a part is irrelevant to me. I'm done with those boxes in the basement for a while.

local musical culture

A sort of dormant musician myself, I nonetheless run into fellow travelers along the road. At work, a Corps Member asked me to jam. I have a cool green electric guitar that hangs out in my office. It's a signal.

I commented to the Corps Member, who we'll call Zekiel, that I'd seen him jamming with another corps member recently. Zekiel looked away uncomfortably and smiled.

"It's hard to find people who can keep a beat."

It's always been my worst thing as a musician: the beat. If I get excited, I tend, like a lot of singers, to kick the beat, trying to pull the band with me. This sort of habit confuses the groove. Because the person kicking the beat is the lead singer, anyone holding the actual beat appears slow. Rhythm is a cooperative thing. My responsibility to the groove is to recognize that I'm racing and correct myself.

My previous musical experience involved singing in choir, solo and duo work. The duos I shared (what does one do with a duo?) didn't prepare me for being part of combo. Duos adjust to each other pretty freely. There's always another note in the chord to take, another way to divide the beat. In a band, I had to learn to accept musical feedback.

This is all a part of trust, the other frequency in the groove. You come to trust that I will make space for you in our music, complement you the best I can, try to make you look good. If you're not aware of how your tendencies affect others within the groove, we can play at music together but we're not really playing together.

Isn't he pretty?












Dormant, but not deceased, thank you, one of my favorite things is local musical culture. Just made that up. Ha.

Every locality has its musicians lurking about. We need a little community and so quickly a local musical culture springs up. Some, like the amazingly talented Drollinger family in Iowa City, have been playing for generations.

We find each other. There is music in us that needs to escape. We need to sit down and play and recognize each other, fellow travelers of the groove.

I think Zeke probably has some music in him that wants to get out, too. We'll see pretty soon.

Mellow

I took 357 pictures during our kayak trip. We stayed at Volga River Recreation Area and paddled the Turkey and Yellow rivers. The Volga was too low for passage. The weather was warm and dry, crisp at night from the frosts we had last week, warm and breezy by day. I decided that having a cool camera with a zoom lens isn't any good for me if I leave it at home, so I took it along with my in my boat. There are those who assert that I am far too accident prone for such risks. I turn my back on them. We came upon bald eagles on both our paddles. This one is part of a nesting pair we saw on the Turkey. Their next was a huge platform of sticks perched impossibly high up a dead cottonwood. I try to get the kayak going in the desired direction, then stow my paddle and pull out the camera, letting the boat drift closer as I hold still. One bird seemed to notice the rapid clicking of the shutter (or whatever it is on a digital camera), but they let me come quite close. We three busy middle aged men took some time out to paddle in the last of the warm autumn air. Northeast Iowa is a little secret I'd like to keep from the outside world.
















Mr. Schaal chose to fish during his paddle, with some gratifying results, including a stickle-backed carp sucker. I did not see this alleged fish, but Carroll was emphatic.



























Mr. Rainbow trout was no brooder, but would have presented nicely with crab stuffing.





















"Dad takes pictures of flowers," my son sighs. I had to include these photos for him. There are small pieces of beauty in these extravagant late-fall landscapes. Turn the great big lens at the bank and single out a plant.











You don't have to be flashy to be beautiful. Life at stream side is the envy of any terrarium.


The Yellow River was very shallow and had numerous riffles and rapids. One of us dunked, and I won't say who (hint: my camera is dry).











We broke it up Sunday afternoon after a magnificent run on the Yellow River. We ate braunshweiger sandwiches with an old biker dude that Geof picked up. We helped him get his bike on his trailer and next thing you know Geof is consulting with him, invited him to lunch and a beer. I know it must have been an attempt to give back some of the mountainous karma with which we have been blessed. Three relaxed middle aged guys finished their sandwiches, packed our cars, and drove back to our lives.

Not quite all the way back . . . .

Dog look

Here's to the last warm morning. Weathermen all over Iowa wax philosophical about the last day of what used to be called Indian Summer. Sunny and clear with a deep blue sky as pure as a Mormon heart.

Maggie discovered burrs the other day. I discovered that she photographs well against sunny concrete.

It's going to be a long cold snowy winter. Smudge a little good karma on the people you love. Cut some slack.

When all else fails, give 'em the "crazy dog look."