Hubris is an interesting quality.  In my day, they would have called you “stuck-up.”  A little too sure of yourself.  Self-confidence on steroids, perhaps.  Whatever you call it, “arrogance” is a label that doesn’t sit well with our Midwestern ethic.  To say that your cubicle neighbor might be a bit snooty is the kiss of death for him, right?  In fact, it may be a venial sin to be too self-assured in Iowa.  I don’t know.  For that, you might ask a priest.  I, on the other hand, was looking to ask a particular nurse.

On a late spring day, I headed north of downtown to Iowa Methodist Hospital.  In the heart of the hospital is Younker Rehabilitation Center.  They’ve remodeled it since my stay nearly nine years ago.   Cozy.  Warm.  State of the art.  And, most importantly, it doesn’t feel like a hospital — except, of course, it is.  Sadly, most of the nurses and therapists are gone who tended me back in the day.   But there is a familiarity even as I look at the newly created rooms, hallways, nurse stations, and an amazing rehab room with a vibrant artificial tree smack in the middle.

I came to be in rehab in an honest fashion.  I tangled with a van while riding my bicycle.  I lost.  My throat took the blow, which punched through all that cartilage and tissue we need for speaking, breathing, and eating.   And the punch still had enough strength to give my spine a love tap.  So, there I was at rehab, nine years ago, needing to figure out how to talk, walk, and eat.  Oh, yeah, and breathe.

My particular problem, and salvation, was a trach.   Formally known as a tracheostomy.  Yup, I had an emergency hole cut in my throat with a tube inserted to help me breathe.  That darn thing was a messy affair.  What would you expect?  You’ve got a brand new hole in a spot that shouldn’t have a hole.  Your body sends an army of fluid to take care of the problem.  See, messy.

After two weeks or so, it was decided by whoever decides these important milestones that it was time to try eating.  “Patient was reeducated regarding swallow strategies,” and I was off to my first meal.  One of my favorite nurses wheeled me into the dining room.

I love nurses.  Doctors come and go, but nurses are stuck with you for the shift.  Mostly women, but some men.  Tough.  Willing to brush aside with a shrug and a smile the shame of your body and its functions.  They are your shield against the night.  Many of my nurses were lovingly sassy.  So many things seemed gone, but humor was a wonderful vestige of “before accident.”  And these folks were funny, and sometimes in a raw way.  I mean, what hadn’t they seen?

As we went through the dining room doors for my first meal, the drop-down tables all had a patient with a nurse.   During my time, almost all the patients were stroke victims.   When we rolled into the room, many were gamely struggling with the lasagna on their plates.  My nurse kindly wheeled me to the far side of the room so that I could look out on the beautiful garden that is hidden in a courtyard inside the hospital.

After my own efforts to eat, the nurse wheeled me out.  In route, since I did not yet have a speaking trach, I wrote to my nurse that I was grateful for her kindness in moving me to a spot to look out over the garden rather than over the efforts of the other patients.

My friend the nurse, who had seen me through thick and thin, responded with a wicked smile:  “I didn’t move you over to the window to make it easier for you.  You were the grossest person in the room.  I didn’t want to ruin the other patients’ meals.”

Okay.  I worship at the feet of this gal.  “The grossest person in the room”? Really?  And, by the way, there’s your test.  How do you figure out if you’re being too arrogant, too self-assured, exhibiting too much hubris?  Easy.  Did you remember that you were the grossest person in the room?  There you go.  Simple.  Take that to the bank.

I looked but couldn’t find my nurse nine years later.  However, I send her this gift.  With love.  A picture of the hidden garden in the courtyard — as seen out the window at Methodist.

Joe

Remember last Thanksgiving?  Here, let me help.  That was when your mom questioned your wife’s ability to make cranberry salad and both women marched angrily out of the kitchen.  I would not call that a win-win for you.  And you remember your sister?  She arrived with her husband, which is all well and good, but, as you know, that guy was just days away from becoming her ex-husband.  Not the smartest move on your sibling’s part.  Then there was your wife’s brother who had a few drinks before he arrived and spent an inordinate amount of time in conversation with the fish tank.  Go figure.  And your kids?  All three decided this was the day to act out their existential separation anxiety from their parents by fighting, yelling, and throwing tantrums.  So that leaves you.  You were the only adult left in the room.  And, let’s be honest, even you thought about leaving for the Greenwood Lounge.

Do you have that picture in your mind?

Now, let’s extend that Thanksgiving guest list to several million folks behaving just like your family.  Welcome to the everyday world of Clint Pursley.

To find Pursley, you have to head to Altoona.  Prairie Meadows is our destination.

When you walk in, the lights are what you notice first.  The gold and the blue, the white and the red, the strange pastels. Watch what happens when you look closely.  The color from the stacked-up slot machines flows directly into your eyes, bounces off the back of your skull, then ricochets back out your pupils in a kaleidoscope of hearts and spades and silly cartoon characters, causing your brain to shout “Jackpot!”  Say, how much money did you bring?

It does seem a small step to become seduced by it all.  Is that a jingle in the background?  Has someone won the big one?  Is your body twirling around?   Are you teetering out of control?  Are you thrilled to be losing?

Just breathe.  There is only one certainty in this strange place.  You’re going to leave with less.  In any case, you’re not here for all the clamor.   You’re looking for Pursley.  You know he’s here keeping an eye on things.  He will not let this be your FAMILY THANKSGIVING GONE WILD.

But as you’re looking, you squint into the corners  and up at the ceilings, past the flashing lights, past the noises of the slots, and past the soft sounds of cards against the green cloth, and you see carefully placed cameras. You realize that in some room upstairs there are walls of computer screens.  And on one of those screens you have a starring role.  Yup, you’re getting a cameo. Last year over 3 million people visited this place.  Hard to imagine.  But it’s not hard to imagine how mixing a little gambling, with a little drinking, with a little horse racing, with a little music thrown in for good measure, and you’ve got trouble with a capital “T.”  And it’s that concern that brings  Pursley to work every day as head of security.  He is in charge of over 130 officers who keep Prairie Meadows safe and friendly.  And, thanks to Pursley and his crew, it is safe and friendly. His major line of defense is Big Brother.  “We have one of the best surveillance systems in the country,” Pursley says with pride.  “Any place the public will be is monitored.”

You understand what this means, of course?  From the farthest spot in the parking lot to the darkest corner of the casino and racetrack, if you scratch, it is being watched and recorded.  Around the clock.

“We’re a casino, we’re a racetrack, we’re an all-around entertainment facility.  Sometimes when people come out here and they drink a little bit and their inhibitions get lowered, they forget and get lost in the fantasy world of gaming and they forget where they’re at.”

I’ll translate: yes, there are even cameras in the elevators.  So behave yourself.

Besides solving real crimes, the cameras also prevent many a scam.  “We’ve had everything from cheats at our gaming tables, people trying to cap a bet or pull a bet down before it is eligible, to false claims of robbery or assault,” Pursley says shaking his head.  An odd hustle is when people claim their car has been damaged in the parking lot and want compensation.  But, sadly for this scam, the cameras will show every ding on the car when it is first driven onto the lot.  Pursley says to give up on this trick.  Good to know.

Any issues unique to men or women?  “Women have a tendency to get entranced at a slot machine and they forget about their surroundings and they forget about their belongings.  Tracking down purses is another helpful tool of the surveillance.”

Protector of women.  Thwarter of evil plots by cheaters.  Enforcer of the rules of etiquette and civility.  I’m expecting an introduction to this man as “Pursley, Clint Pursley.”  Instead, I find Pursely squirreled away in a nondescript office looking, not like James Bond, but like . . . an adult. “Listen, we want everybody to have a good time.  We want everyone to enjoy themselves.  We want them to be able to laugh and talk and have fun.  But we want them to do it responsibly.  One person’s idea of a good time isn’t necessarily another person’s.  We try to promote behavior that works for all.”

See, what did I tell you?  One adult in the room.  Thank goodness.

Joe

“Pushing  paint” doesn’t much sound like how a masterpiece is created.  You push the grocery cart at Hy Vee.  Or you push your bike up the hill.  Or you push your stalled car.  When you push something, there is a grunting sound you make, like when you are moving around heavy crates in a warehouse.  It’s what you do to get through the unruly crowd — you push.

Artists are the opposite of pushing.  They exist in a world of delicate flowers, soft sensibilities, pastel vases, and easily bruised fruits.   Artists are the beautiful goldfinches of the Iowa countryside.  They sip a little absinthe, they wear funny hats, and they are languorous in their desires.   Sure, periodically they cut off an ear, but no one would think they push anything.

Or, do they ever stop pushing?

Jim Calhoun is a big man.   He out-greets the best with his large, open smile and extended hand reaching out from across the room, and as he gets closer, you suddenly realize this greeting might turn into a bear hug that will involve throwing you into the air and twirling you around while you squeal.  You need a father figure?  You might consider his application first.

A house painter by trade, Calhoun will paint your house indoors and out.  Having done it for nearly 40 years, he knows what he’s doing.  And he looks every bit the part.  White painter pants speckled with various colored paints.  Old sweat shirt thrown over a stretched polo shirt.  Eyes creased with laugh lines and slightly squinting from too much sun.  And a bald top with shaved sides and a tightly trimmed goatee.  A typical house painter.

Calhoun’s life is settled at age 59.  He lives in a comfortable home in Highland Park.  He has a wife who still loves him, and two successfully grown kids.  He has given long stints of his life to his church.  He is a good man by any measure.  But  . . .  in 1993, Calhoun had an epiphany that didn’t involve wife, kids, painting houses, or the church.  He was visiting an artist’s studio and he decided he wanted to paint.  “When I saw the studio . . . all the latent things in me to be an artist started bubbling.”

No training in art.  No courses at DMACC or at the Art Center.  But, what the heck, it’s Iowa, he wanted to be an artist.  And as we all do when we are going to take that path less travelled in our life — we buy the gear.  We purchase a new outfit for the yet-to-be-prepared big presentation, or new running shoes for the fitness program we’re going to start once Dahl’s stops making creme-filled pastries, or a pedicure before the job interview  to drive a big rig.

Calhoun was no different.  He went to an art store.

Unfortunately, this was not a world he was used to frequenting.   “I buy paint in five gallon buckets,” Calhoun said shaking his head.  “This was crazy to pay this much for a little tube of paint.”  But being resourceful, he saw a box of damaged paint tubes in the corner.  “The owner sold me the whole box for 20 bucks,” he said with a laugh.  And so he began.

“I would paint down in the basement.  I’d sit on a five-gallon bucket and do the painting.”  Every night, he’d set it all up.  And every night, he’d put it all away.   He painted 30 paintings over the next seven years from his five-gallon bucket.

Kids grew up, left home, and an abandoned bedroom became his studio.  Calhoun needed a little elbow room, it seems.   35 paintings that year.  He was off and running.

Now he sits with 350 or so paintings from ballerinas to fishermen to golfers to portrait after portrait.   And what does he do with them?  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

“I would sell them if anyone had an interest.  I’ve never been invited to a show.  I don’t have connections.  I sometimes give these away.  The paintings find a home over time.” Calhoun smiles, a little embarrassed.

And what about all these portraits of folks?  Don’t they pay a commission?   “All these portraits are about my relationships with these people . . . when I paint them I think of the pleasure of that relationship.”  In other words, Jim Calhoun doesn’t make a nickel.

If no one is buying these, and he has no art shows, why’s he doing this?

“Listen, my enjoyment of art is simple.  I love the actual pushing of the paint . . . .”

So, there you have it.  A portrait of the artist.  In a garret in Highland Park.  On the left bank of the Des Moines River.  Pushing paint.

Joe

Secret information has to be out there, right?  Some super top-secret information that tells us how to be strong, smart, and beautiful.  Otherwise it just doesn’t make any sense.  You’re not sure what I mean?  Okay, go out to the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Jordan Creek and pick up a bag depicting a model of your gender.  Good.  Now go home and stand naked in front of the mirror and put the bag up next to you.  Now just contemplate the difference between you and the model for a moment.

See, there has to be secret information out there that we missed.

Take this whole bullying dilemma.  The schools, churches, and communities are teaching wonderful techniques to address the problem of bullying in a nonviolent manner.  But, the cultural message in movie after movie is to buck up, be a man or a woman, and fight back against the bully with old-fashioned fisticuffs.   Of course, this ignores the obvious problem — you are a 97-pound weakling who works at Nationwide, or Principal, or Meredith, and drive a van with a child seat in the back.  What is the 97-pound weakling supposed to do?  There must be secret information about how to survive in a world that allows bullies, right?

Angelo Siciliano, otherwise known as Charles Atlas, totally recognized this problem.  Mr. Atlas had a plan. Sand kicked in your face?  Well, he had secret information, the “Dynamic Tension” program, that would put an end to all that sand-kicking.  I know, because I read this in the back of comic books when I was growing up.  Of course, these same comic books also advertised small sets of dice that, when put into a glass of water, would transform into pictures of scantily clad women.   I only had enough money for the dice.  But, you understand, there was secret information out there that once obtained would change your life for the better.

Jose Mendoza seems like the kind of guy that might have secret information.    A martial artist of some repute.  He teaches Chinese Martial Arts with an emphasis on Tai Chi, Kung Fu, Classical Chinese Weapons, and various esoteric internal martial arts.  He also runs an early morning fitness program for everyone, multiple children’s programs for various ages, and a senior healthy-living program.  He must have secret information, right?

For a starter, he grew up on the tough streets of Chicago where the Jets and the Sharks existed in reality.  “Was it tough growing up in Chicago?  Well, my mom bought Husky pants from Sears because I was a little chubby, and I wore a flat top haircut,” Mendoza said by way of apology for his decidedly un-tough beginnings.

Sure, sure, that’s the classic set up for the redemption story.   But then didn’t he transform himself into a killing machine like Bruce Lee?  “Before all the martial arts training, I would seek out the tough guys in the neighborhood and pretend I was one of them.”  And after?  Did he rain mayhem upon his enemies?

“I avoided the tough guys,” Mendoza said with a smile.

Mendoza started winning martial arts tournaments in the Chicago area by the age of 16.  This success, he claims, gave him the confidence to graduate near the top of his high school class, which enabled him to win a scholarship to Drake.  Before long he had his own martial arts school up and running in Windsor Heights.

Great.  Good to know that it all turned out.  But what about the secrets?  What about the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique to take care of bullies?

“It’s not about the bullies.  Let me tell you . . . a mother came to me concerned that her son was acting like a girl.  She asked if I could change him.  Well, I can change him to be more confident.  I can change him to have the spirit of a Tiger, . . . but, I cannot change the mother.”

This is so not helping me.  What about secret killing techniques to feel powerful and beautiful?

“People are trying to eat everything on the menu — they want the end result, but they’ll get sick.  The real secret?  You have to work hard.  I can talk to you about the end result, but I can’t give it to you.  If you’re here for your anger, I would rather you punch me to see if you feel better.  It’s my job to keep things interesting, to move you forward every day, to give you an essence and a purpose — and to make you smile, which will make me smile.”

Recently, late at night, Mendoza sewed black belts for those students who trained with him over the last six to eight years and were to test for promotion.  “I smile too when I make the belt.  I reflect on the student to receive the belt.  Certainly, there are failures and setbacks, but I try to continue moving forward, . . . and by all of this I measure my life.   Not by toughness.”

So, is that all there is for secret information?  “Hard work”?  Sitting alone at a sewing machine late at night?  Where’s the public acclaim?  Where’s the adoring fans?  Where’s the Abercrombie & Fitch bag with my picture?

“I bought the Charles Atlas program when I was a kid,” Mendoza said.  “Saw it in a comic book and ordered it . . . $4.99 . . .  guess what, the real secret is that there is no secret.”

Joe

You have to love fear and its favorite step-child, anxiety.  I mean, what’s there not to love?  Here you have a basic emotion, fear, which makes all kinds of sense when it comes to keeping you safe from the invading North Koreans, but now you discover you can’t even leave your room to prepare kimchee for the marauders because the anticipation of fear, anxiety, has crippled you into immobility.  And, this is the kicker, there’s nary an angry North Korean in sight.  Nope.  Not a one.

So, what exactly is a person to do?  Where is the escape for the anxious?  Your friends might have all sorts of advice.  From meditation to cognitive therapy to immersion into the fear.  Perhaps they’ve even recommended that you cut back on lattes and eat only root vegetables grown near the Firestone plant and harvested by the full moon.  All well and good.  But think about this unsurprising solution . . . a friend with a safety rope.

Jeff Palmer is not a young man.  His creased, worn face, stringy hair, dark sunken eyes, and thinness of build, speak of hard times.   Surely, he wakes up each morning trying to get those 54-year-old muscles moving after the physical punishment from the day before.   If he was a boxer, you would say the bell for the next round has rung too soon, and my guess, . . . people have placed their money on the other guy.

But today?  Today he is that speck up in the tree — seventy feet in the air with a chain saw dangling from his waist.

Trust me, this is not your typical office cubicle.  Jeff, high in the sky on this brisk, cold day in early spring, sways back and forth with the tree in the morning breeze.  Perturbed squirrels voice their disgruntlement at the intruder with a raucous chatter usually reserved for dogs.  But Jeff can’t be distracted.  He has work to do.

“I can’t stand being inside,” Jeff explained.  “I get a lot of enjoyment seeing a tree look like a ‘tree’ when I’m done.”  And that’s what he does.  He cuts and prunes and snips, until he can walk away saying: “I made a tree look beautiful.”  Then his task is done.

But today, the broken branch dangling high above the houses, refuses to drop clear of the cable line.  So, without any cheerleading section, without coverage on ESPN, without being part of any reality show, Jeff lowered himself onto the branch and danced it clear of the line using a variation of the limbo.  No kidding.

What about fear in this crazy job?  “I wasn’t afraid of nothing,” Jeff quietly asserted.  Until seven years ago.  Almost done working on a soft maple, he was perched 40 feet up in the air with his safety rope tied off on one of the few remaining branches.  There was apparently a “bad spot” in that branch.  A “bad spot” is not a good thing.

Okay, take a break.  Look up at your ceiling.  It’s probably about eight foot tall.  Now stack five of those.  There you go.  Forty feet.

Fortunately for Jeff, the branches he had earlier cut created a cushion on the ground.  Unfortunately for Jeff, he fell 40 feet.  Jeff remembers falling when the branch broke — but still doesn’t remember the next three days.  Elbow shattered. Pelvis cracked.  Permanent notches on his back from the chainsaw.  Jeff lived, but the doctor told Jeff his tree climbing days were over.  Jeff refused to believe it.  One year of rehabilitation followed.

And then fear and anxiety hit.  Jeff could not go up a tree.  He was physically able, but he couldn’t do it.  He wanted to, but the anticipation of fear, aka anxiety, destroyed him.  And time passed.  Then Benny stepped in.  Benny, Jeff’s 77-year-old friend and boss, climbed a tree, hooked the safety rope, and threw it to Jeff.  Told Jeff it was time to come up, he had the safety rope, and all would be well.  “I was shaking like a dog and shitting razor blades.”  But Jeff climbed the tree and never stopped.

Now, seven years later, Jeff descended from on high after dancing the limb past the wire.

“At the end of any job, I’m just proud as hell.”  And fear?  “To have no fear is a bad thing.”  Jeff smiled as he reverently untied himself.  And a friend with a safety rope?  Also not a bad thing.

Joe

Act I

The Greenwood Lounge sits shadowed by a marquee on the north side of Ingersoll.  Its exterior is reminiscent of an old strip club: 60’s style siding with windows covered by blinds so the patrons, who are clearly up to no good, are barely visible to their forsaken families.

Entering through the small vestibule does not calm the concerns raised by the exterior — you’re fairly certain that you might be stepping into that stranger’s car your mom warned you about.  But then, relief.  You see the old bar, the chandelier, the Constance Depler murals of dogs playing poker, and hear the soft murmur of voices.  You’ve walked into a different time.  A slower time.  A time of gentlemen and gentlewomen.

Behind the bar is Bobby.  Bobby would put an aloof Parisian waiter to shame.  You’ll get your drink, don’t worry.   But he’s not here to introduce himself by his first name, he’s not here to ask how your drink tastes, and he’s certainly not here to be a part of your experience.  To the contrary, this is a place where the bartenders are professionals.  You’ll be tended to when the time is right.  Bobby will let you know when that time is.  And, by the way, he’ll know your name and your drink long before you know his.  He’s a pro.

Jim, standing on the other side of the bar, is the repository of collective knowledge.  Comfortably out of the limelight, he smiles and greets as people approach.  And people do approach.  They want to talk about sports and teams and restaurants and food and music and the news topic of the day.  And Jim not only knows what they’re talking about, but he knows the parents of whom they’re talking about.  You wonder if maybe Jim has dropped out of some utopian commune given his ball cap, ponytail, and quietness.  Or did you just get hustled?

And holding down the end of the bar are two curmudgeons with wicked glints in their eyes.  Treading into their territory seems definitely ill-advised.  Old Jack and Jim smile like sharks for the camera.

Act II

Pictures over the bar show bartenders past.  Bobby reminisces over a graying photo of a young man in a white, pressed shirt, thin black tie, and an easy smile, with his arm draped around a friend: “Paul had an old-fashioned respect for the job that bartenders had sixty years ago and few have today. . . .”  Bobby rubs under his glasses as he’s thinking.  “I can’t hope to follow in Paul’s footsteps.”

Paul, a relatively young man in this aging group, used to be the bartender on the shift following Bobby’s.   A private person, Paul was admired for his propriety and  kindness.  His marriage a couple of years ago was big news for these patrons who considered him family.  Then, on the cusp of all this happiness — cancer.   Horrible cancer.    Incurable cancer.  Relentless cancer.  And it took his life in late winter, when the snows still blew.

How to acknowledge this tragedy?  How to right the inequity of this death?  How to bring the universe just a bit back in balance?  Noting that Paul always dressed in a pressed shirt, black tie, and waiter’s apron, Jim had an idea: “I thought we could all show up dressed as Paul was dressed, out of respect for Paul  — who dressed that way out of respect for the job.”  And so they did, on a cold Wednesday afternoon in March.

White shirts, black ties, and waiter’s aprons ushered a life out of the community.  And glasses were lifted in honor.  Reserved and respectful.  A wake from another time.  A bartender’s wake.

Act III

And what of the curmudgeons at the end of the bar?  Old Jack, seeing a drawing of Paul that was gifted to the bar several days after the wake, leaned into his buddy Jim and said, “I’ll have to get a picture of me, and you can put it up.”  Not missing a beat, Jim responded: “They can hang it in the john.”

Life at the Greenwood in three acts.

Joe

Reading obituaries feels a little like reading the daily racing form at Prairie Meadows.  You quickly scan the page to see how many of the departed are your age or younger.  If that number is fifty percent or greater, you realize it may not be a good time to double down on the chance you will be enjoying a foot-long hot dog at the State Fair in August.  Heck, you might as well even skip that dental appointment later today and just go to the afternoon matinée.  What’s the point of clean teeth when your generation is dropping like flies?

And then there is the disturbing habit of leaving out the cause of death in the obit.  You are deprived of the comforting notion that the cause is some obscure disease only contracted between two and three in the morning on Tuesdays while eating broccoli.   Instead, you’re fairly certain the cause was death by donut.  Why else would that pertinent information be left out of the obituary?  And here you are staring at the donut bin in Donut Hut.  You are not a good bet.

Fortunately, there is a way to hedge your death with just the right planning.  Similar to the idea of Pascal’s Wager.  You remember Pascal, that crazy French philosopher and mathematician?   Well, he developed a theory based on his concern that you might not believe in a Christian God.  Okay.  He claimed, why not act as if you do believe in a Christian God, even if you don’t.  If you’re wrong, no big deal.  You’re dead.  If you’re right?  Everlasting life in heaven.   Win-win, according to Pascal’s Wager.

So, the obvious hedge to your death, using Pascal’s Wager — DON’T BELIEVE IN DEATH.  Period.  If you don’t believe in death, and you actually die, so what?  You’re dead.  But if you don’t believe in death and you live?   Wow, no wasted time reading obits and more time at Dairy Queen.  Win-win.

To scientifically critique this theory using the most stringent guidelines, I consulted with the only population that clearly does not believe in death — and, as a result, they live a wonderful life.  You could almost say a dog’s life.  How do I know this population doesn’t believe in death?  Well, they never complain that life is too short.  Ever.  There is not one peep from them about the fears and concerns of illness or disease — no matter how bunged up they are.  Finally, there is not even a belly-ache that all their old friends have dropped off the radar.  They’ll gladly fly solo.  They just flat-out don’t believe in death.

The first consultee is Lilly.  She’s helping me write today.  But really, she’s trying to catch the sun coming in the window and maybe entice a belly rub.

Whatever she’s doing, you can bank on this — she does not believe in death.  Cat treats?  Absolutely, she believes.  But even agnostics believe in cat treats.

The star of the death-denial group is Mickey.  He’s a thousand years old, and a gambler from way back.  You’ve seen his like before.  He’s the guy at Prairie Meadows who arrives at seven in the morning with an oxygen tank rolling on two wheels behind him like carry-on luggage with the tubbing from the oxygen tank threaded around his walker which has a handy cup holder and a bell.  And, yes, he has a perfectly balanced unlit cigarette between his lips as he leans over his beer to play the slots.  Forecast to die long ago, he just keeps on playing.  And Mickey?  Same same.  He was supposed to die three winters ago.  Bad liver.   But he just wags his tail and continues to eat bunny poop on his walks.  How can he do this?  Duh, he doesn’t believe in death.

There you have it.  Pascal’s Wager with a twist.  Simple.  Either you believe in death or you don’t.  I can guarantee that whatever you choose will result in the same end.  Trust me.

By the way, today only, you can now order this very program in the all-inclusive “Defeat Death Today” kit.  Three easy payments.  Offer available exclusively to readers of Cityview.  For the rock-bottom price of a latte — a large.

WARNING: Do not operate heavy machinery while participating in this program!  Preliminary studies have shown that mixing cars with people who think they will never die can reverse the effects of the Defeat-Death-Today program.

Joe

When the pain is too great, when it all is just too much, the doctors prescribe morphine.  It is an interesting substance — this derivative from opium.  In the early eighteen hundreds, a German pharmacist named the drug morphine after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.  No doubt, dreams are what morphine brings.  Dreams of a better time.  But, in the here and now, morphine cuts the pain down a notch.  It pushes on the hurt just enough that there is a small gap to take a ragged breath.  It allows an eye to open, look warily around, and see that you are not alone.

In the bowels of Broadlawns Medical Center, tucked away from everyone but the curious, sits the small institutional office of the Polk County Medical Examiner, Doctor Gregory Schmunk.  Elfish in appearance, with kind eyes, shaved head, and a white goatee that blends into his pale face, he smiles warmly in greeting.  As you sit with him, he appears to be searching for the humor that lies hidden in the conversation.  You know he has found it when his mouth broadens up and the outside corner of his eyes drop.  Something has tickled his fancy.  You don’t know what exactly, but he’s found it.  Yikes, he seems inordinately chipper for a man elbow-deep in the dead.

Don’t get me wrong, a serious man, for sure.  Forensic pathologist.  Board-certified in anatomic pathology.  President of the National Association of Medical Examiners.   He’s performed a gazillion autopsies over his long career and testified in a multitude of high-flying criminal cases.  He has seen controversy and relative calm — with himself at the center of both.  Oh, and by the way, he looks death in the eye daily.

“I started out as a pediatrician.  I wanted to take care of kids.”  No kidding.  But Dr. Schmunk loved the lab and loved the science.   He was soon courted away by the University of California at San Diego to do edgy research.  Pathology appeared to be a perfect fit.  Before long, he was doing a fellowship in the Seattle Medical Examiner’s Office.  And the future Polk County Medical Examiner was off and running.

With his love of science, numbers, and puzzle solving, it is easy to stereotype Dr. Schmunk as a man who exists only in his head.  Come on, it’s hard not to notice the items hanging from around his neck — yes, those appear to be pens-on-a-chain.   What more need be said.

But make no mistake, Dr. Schmunk is not solely about the science and mystery of the dead body on the table.  Early in his career he was brought in as the medical examiner in a high-profile multiple hostage/murder case.  After the autopsy of one of the bad guys, he went to the area reserved for family and loved ones.  The bad guy, by no means a respectable man, had about 30 family members waiting to hear from the doctor.  Dr. Schmunk was shocked.  “Even though there are bad people, there’s probably going to be someone who loves them.  My job at a minimum is to offer the family closure.  I can do that.”  And he does.

But what about the sadness?  Isn’t it overwhelming?  “I have a hard time with children and young women. Recently I had to autopsy two young women.  Both were pregnant.  That’s bad.”  However, Dr. Schmunk, a deeply religious man, has a simple philosophy about the dead bodies on the table: “They’re no longer home.”  And, to correct any misunderstanding, he adds, “Listen, this is not about the people on my table . . . this is about the survivors.”

The autopsy room is “very much a respectful place.”  Dr. Schmunk frequently plays music while he works.  And, not infrequently, he is asked by the family of the loved one to play special songs during the autopsy.  Songs of significance to the dead.  He gladly does.

Which gets us to the morphine.  A baby died.  A great tragedy by any measure.  Dr. Schmunk needed to perform the autopsy.  The young mother was afraid that the procedure would cause pain to her dead baby.   “Pain to her dead baby”?  Crazy, right?  But who are we to question the logic of a grieving mother.  The solution was obvious to Dr. Schmunk.  He obtained a prescription of morphine.  Before the autopsy, he administered morphine to the dead baby.   “And what did this do for anyone?” you might ask.  Well, nothing for the dead baby.  Remember, no one is home.  But the young mom . . . ?  The young mom was able to push the hurt aside just long enough to take a ragged breath, to open an eye, and see Dr. Schmunk by her side.   She felt less pain.  Morphine dreams.

Joe

Food courts are not the place where most folks go for spiritual renewal.   Heck, food courts don’t even count as a location for a date with your special someone — unless, of course, you’re 12.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that caramel popcorn purchased at a food court is not a religious experience.  It is.  But a food court feels a bit like a rest stop on Interstate 80 — I’m here for the moment, I’m heading elsewhere, and I’m stopping because of forces I can’t control.

On the other hand, isn’t there something about colored neon lights, the smell of fast food, and the murmur of shoppers that beckons?  It’s the State Fair without the Butter Cow.

Valley West Mall’s food court is a fine example of the genre: bright lights, garish signs, and lots of conversation (frustratingly spoken just below the level for adequate eavesdropping).   You can vaguely hear the piano player at Van Maur doing a jazzy version of Over the Rainbow.  You are easily swept up in the ebb and flow of the diners.  No squatters in this group.  People are here to do their business and move on.  If you want to hang out, go with the other cranky husbands and sit in the soft chairs in the center of the concourse.  There’s your peer group.  This spot is for moms and dads hauling their little ones, or the mall hipsters sporting funky hats, or young teenagers untethered from their parents and experiencing the wonders of fast food.

However, if you’re lucky, and you look closely, you might see Marie.

Marie is quietly and thoroughly cleaning up after you.  You will barely notice her as she keeps her head down and wipes your table.  At 51 years old, and with eight years under her belt, she knows this job.  She sweeps, wipes, and mops, all in the same conservative sequence of movements.  She has a full day to get through.  Flamboyance is not rewarded.

Marie’s English is not the best.  But she listens with tolerant amusement to my excellent Spanish, which involves pronouncing English words loudly and with clown-like facial movements.

She comes from Guatemala.  Four sons.  Three married and one still in high school.  Husband?  “It’s broken,” she says.  She works hard as a single mom.  Every day.  The mall ladies — “muchas ladies in mall” — stop her to thank her for how clean everything is.  “You happy, you good, you clean,” is how she sums up her duties.  And she doesn’t lie.  Everything is spotless.

And what about fun?  “Dance,” she says with a twinkle.  “Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, everything . . . .”

And that’s enough talk.  Marie has no more time for idleness.  She is off to clean another table and leaves me standing alone amongst the neon.

Joe

Sometimes something is just missing.  It’s weird.  You walk into a beautiful building, you are a guest in someone’s gorgeous home, or you meet an interesting person for the first time.  All good.  But some ingredient is missing between you and the architecture, between you and the warmth of the home, and between you and the potential friend.  You can’t quite put your finger on it — perhaps a touch of salt, a pinch of oregano, a teaspoon of cream — but something is not right.    Maybe you forgot the sugar.

You can spend much of your life trying to figure out who to blame for this missing ingredient.  Certainly you can blame yourself for being inherently unlikable.  Who isn’t?  This self-flagellation is well worth the time and usually leads to fruitful insights.  Or you can adopt my favorite lawyer technique of blaming anyone or everyone else for the lack.  Again, this is also tremendously helpful in addressing almost any problem and a surefire path to winning lifelong friends.  Or . . .  you can just set these concerns to one side and celebrate those times that the cake actually does rise.

In the very heart of the Des Moines Art Center, at the very confluence of the work of the three Art Center architects, Eliel Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and Richard Meier, sits a small unobtrusive restaurant.   Walk in the door.   Sure, some restaurants are decorated with flowers or pictures or statues.  Look closely.  Light is the ornament that dresses this interior.

Quietly sit.  Feel the sun.  See the flowers in the center of each table.  Smile at the wonderful waitresses.  And if your lucky, the manager/chef will glide into the room.  Lisa LaValle moves with grace.  Not a ballerina’s grace, but the calm grace of a patient mother.  Don’t expect a pirouette and a dancer’s lift, but her reassuringly firm hands may pick you up off the restaurant floor, dust you off, and put a red tabbouli salad in front of your place — all with only a few stands of white-blonde hair coming loose.   You might be home.

Lisa has a Ph.D. in mothering, by the way.  Born in Pella, her own mother died way too young.  By the age of seven, Lisa was cooking and shopping for her widowed dad and two brothers.  “Dad — now 90-years-old — was such a lousy cook.  And my Dad and two brothers will eat anything.”  Necessity and an appreciative audience.   The perfect recipe for a burgeoning chef.

Take your time to poke your head into the kitchen.  It’s small and tight and light.  Lisa stumbled onto the Art Center Restaurant years ago by “coming down to just help out.”  She was not looking for another job.  “With my first child only one year old, I finally had a good job, being a mom.”  But when you see her staff spread out around the big kitchen prep table, you’re also going to want to stir something and stay awhile.  And who does test the desserts anyway?

Three kids of her own, and a few years down the road, Lisa is soon to celebrate a trifecta of events: 20 years at the Art Center Restaurant, her last child leaving home, and a significant birthday.  It is a time of pause and reflection.

So, reflect on this.  The Dutch — you know, the rascals who live in a land of grey skies, windswept beaches, and non-stop rain — have a word for when it all comes together, for when a cosy, comfortable environment is created, for when you walk away from a person feeling warm and toasty: gezellig.   It is not all that common to find.  Think about it in your own life.  But when you do find it, mark it down in your planner — today the cake did correctly rise.

Joe