From Whence (or Whom) Cometh my Help?

Good Samaritan (me) helping unidentified hiker with bad boots.

Well that's a heady title in my best King James Version of Elizabethan English; but I do have something interesting and hopefully relevant to say.  Perhaps I could have called it "Entertaining Angels along the Way".  If I used that title, I could have avoided mucking up the language of Shakespeare with my title.  But that's not how I've experienced it, or recalled it over the years.  It's almost as if I heard it once in a psalm but cannot recall the correct wording.  I also possess the tendency to hear something that I thought someone said and interpret it my own way. A Jungian would say that such an incident recalled, whether a dream or a misread psalm, was in itself relevant to the deeper meaning. The songwriter, Tom Waits, called it mis-hearing things.  He likes this because it gives him some creative inroads of thinking beyond the normal arrangement of narrative or verse.  I sometimes experience this on the trolley or El, where so many conversations can be going on at once, so that you only snatch a phrase from the Autobahn of intelligible noise...(to be continued).
Be that all as it may, I need to defer, briefly, until I address another issue that's come to my attention: This blog has been criticized by some for not containing enough "action sequences".  I've been faulted  as well for commencing episodic digressions that leave people hanging in mid sentence. So I guess you can view this as a little "housekeeping" on my part; tying up a few narrative loose ends, if you will, so that I can proceed with my plangent reporting.   I need to finish off..I mean finish up...my saga of hiking woe (see photo above) with my friend, Greg, that I began on the post of June 28th.

Meanwhile Back in the Rockies: 

Beautiful? Yes, but no walk in the park.

When we last left Joe, Greg and Jeanne, Greg had removed his self-inflicting hiking boots and donned his campsite, Birkenstock sandals to continue our trek through the Rockies.  This would make do for the time being, and as long as the terrain remained flat, but was not a permanent solution.  As mentioned good hiking boots support the feet, the feet the body and the body, the 20 to 30 kilos of supplies you need to survive while schlepping through the outback.  Well I hate to be anti-climactic but in the interest of getting this tale over with: Greg was going to bail out when we reached the Canadian border, and the town of Waterton (see map below) where there are stores and buses and civilization as we all are accustomed to.  He would divvy up the supplies between Jeanne & myself so that our vacations would not be completely ruined, while he consulted a Podiatrist about reconstructive surgery. (The Podiatrist, an experienced hiker himself, told Greg later that we were very lucky because a Grizzly can smell fresh blood for great distances, and they have been known to track wounded prey over several mountain ranges in pursuit.  In fact, he said, if it were not for his unique "foot odor problem", we might all  have been lunch for one of  the world's fiercest carnivores. Whew!)  Anyway I digress.. He would meet us in a few days back at the lodge from where we had set out.  This is not exactly what Jeanne and I wanted, but were ready to accept this when in Waterton we all came up with a brilliant idea:  Why not have Greg buy a cheaper pair of shoes with some support - like running shoes or high top sneakers - that could at least get him through the next few days, until we exited the park?

An early attempt to fix the problem.

Brilliant; but because of our budget, buying another expensive pair of hiking boots was out of the question, besides there would be no time to break them in properly, and they would cut and chafe like the other pair.  And, because we had not planned for this expense in our budget, it would mean that Greg would have to go without his share of beef jerky for the rest of the trip.  Greg agreed but immediately started beefing up on the Canadian version of donuts, quaintly called "fried dough".   The photo at left was taken at the fried dough stand (Dunkin' Fried Dough) in Waterton and is used to this day by the Park as a cautionary reminder to novice hikers of what can happen if you don't break in your boots.
Well All'sWell that EndsWell, I guess, and Greg even met a young French Canadian beignet chef with whom he struck up a relationship over fried dough at the Mountie Relief Center.  She did not speak much English, and Greg has never been considered much of a word man, himself, so they got along just fine.  Everything was hunky dory until Greg's weight ballooned to 300 pounds (136 kilo or 21.5 stone for those living above the border) and they had to end their little affair, because he was anything at the time but little anymore.  The End.

Sabbath/Sabbatical: The Baddabing

I don't know about many things these days.  My health has improved as the result of my treatments (2) and people have started to look at me with a quizzical eye.  I'm 30 pounds lighter than I was a few years back, so I've lost most, if not all, of my middle-age, mid-section bulge.  I haven't lost any hair, and what hair remains has been the subject of unsolicited critical acclaim by strangers, as I mentioned in a prior post.

Donny Brasco sighted recently in South Philly after eating his first Baddabing

 I think folks are a little surprised and maybe - just maybe - a little disappointed that I don't have that wraith-like look that many have come to expect of the cancer sufferer.  I hate to disappoint, and thought about staying up a few nights just to increase the dark rings beneath my eyes; but, like fasting, it's easier said than done. You have to have a higher purpose or calling to successfully submit to sleep deprivation, like being on guard duty along the Pakistan/Afganistan border or attending the Philadelphia Folk Festival and trying to catch every act in Schwenksvillistan.  That sort of  faithful vigilance is not the order in West Philly-stan these days (although try telling that to your friends who live in the suburbs or South Jersey and they just continue smiling at you while making a mental note to Google "delusional ideation  during chemo" when they get home), as witnessed by the recent return and production of Shakespeare in Clark Park. Another  overwhelming success, making it their eighth year in the park.

The How-U-Doin deli, home of the Baddabing

In the meantime....I have been applying for work and learning Spanish.  I am surprised at how much I remembered from high school, augmented immensely by taking up French as an adult.  Spanish comes in handy in the helping professions and especially in Chaplaincy. In any case, there are a lot of Spanish speakers in Philly and all over the region, so I thought it might open up a portal to another world for me.

Catherine McCauley, Foundress.

Honorable Mention Section:  Thought I'd take the time to thank a few individuals at this point who have been instrumental to my care and survival around these treatments.  The first is  Catherine McAuley (1778 - 1841)  who founded the religious order, The Sisters of Mercy, in Dublin Ireland.  The reason that I wanted to thank her is for all the great work that the Sisters/nuns did over the years caring for the sick and the poor.  They are the founders of Mercy Hospital, i.e. Miserecordia as we pre-Vatican II Catholics know it, where I currently get my infusions and other medical care.  When I think of the mess that our current Health Care system is in, it's nice to recall the sacrifice and dedication of these Sisters, when things were a lot less profit driven and a lot more humane.  Everyone is very friendly and the pace reminds you of an old fashioned hospital, where you don't feel like an unlucky pedestrian crossing the Autobahn in Germany on a holiday weekend.  The place still exudes the compassionate character of the order.  As an adult you realize the amount of organization and funding, sweat and tears, that must have gone into the construction and operation of this place.  The hospital is nearly 95 years old and has been serving West and Southwest Philadelphia for all of that time.  It is also part of the larger Mercy Health system.  

• I'd also like to thank my "Goombah", Vittorio, who, after the nausea-inducing effects of my last treatment finally abated, took me to lunch at The Famous Deli, on 4th street in Philadelphia (http://famous4thstreetdelicatessen.com/).   The Deli survived the many transitions of the area around South street that had been for many years the "fabric district" and was primarily Jewish.  So after the last round of treatment,  Vito (not his real name) suggested we meet there for a bite.  I was fantasizing about corned beef as my appetite returned en bonne forme (like gang busters - loose translation from the French).  Vito had just the thing to handle this situation and, as I teach my students learning English,  hit the spot.  
  
  

  Replete and restored to my old self by this unacknowledged institution of recovery, I munched on the customary chocolate chip cookie, took my hefty doggie bag and looked forward to tomorrow's lunch.   The Famous Deli was established in the same era as Mercy hospital; so two older institutions were my help and refuge during this time.  Of course the much older institutions of family and friendship continue to sustain me throughout, and allow me to appreciate these welcome strangers and events as they come into my life.  So thanks everyone for your prayers and listening in.  With Gratitude,   Joe

The Original Corned beef Special of which I could only finish half.  That's a side of latkes between the sandwich halves.