November and December went too quickly!

I have much catching up to do on my blog!  The months of November and December went by very quickly as I finished my physical therapy for my bionic left knee, scrambled to get a lot of firewood split for my many customers (including a couple new ones), and attended a bunch of Epworth United Methodist Church events.  Oh, yes!  And we celebrated Christmas.

It is the church events that I am going to write about the most. The Christmas season at Epworth begins with the family style dinner at Friendly Farm Restaurant located in the middle of farm country. It truly is a friendly farm that started doing meals many years ago and it has become a tradition for us at Epworth.  A couple hundred folks turn out for terrific fried chicken and roast beef with all of the fixin's and celebrate with prayers, contests, and prizes. And Santa!

This year, we were blessed with the addition of a new choir director, Elaine Gradowski.  Even though she arrived quite late in the year, she was able to expand the choir and perform a lovely Cantata.  The children's choir sang also. It was truly a highlight of the Christmas season and it dovetailed nicely with the theme selected by our clergy to tell the background stories behind traditional hymns.  It turns out that quite a few of our favorite hymns have very meaningful back stories.

The children performed a family service at 5 p.m. and they told the Christmas story through a narrator, songs, and drama.

And at 11 p.m., we had our traditional candlelight service with communion and we added pre-candlelight service music for 30 minutes featuring several members of our congregation.  We have some very talented musicians in our midst and this was an opportunity to hear them.  The sermon focused on the story behind "Silent Night" which,  if you have never heard about it, has to do with a broken organ...a poem...and the need to have special music quickly for Christmas night.  What a great story.

Finally, on Christmas Day, we went to visit my mother who is in a memory care unit at Symphony Manor in Roland Park.  The care they provide is impressive.  Mom can't remember much these days including that she had been visited by Pegg and Sue earlier in the day, but she was in good spirits and had a ready smile for us. Symphony Manor had a musician with a guitar perform for the clients and a good time was had by all.


But the real highlight of our Christmas was the opportunity to spend time with Matt and Mary Louise and Rob.  And we are hopeful that we will have the opportunity to spend time with Rob's fiance, Vera Alcorn, this summer!

An emotional church men's retreat

I just returned from a men's church retreat at the extraordinarily beautiful Summit Lake Camp in Emmitsburg, Maryland with ten other men from my church, Epworth United Methodist Church.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything that was said and experienced at the retreat.  This will be a report in progress.  There can be no doubt that it was a highly emotional, powerful experience for a group of men who previously knew each other casually.

First, there is the matter of the setting at Summit Lake Camp.  We stayed in a unique facility called "Marguerite" that was perfect for small groups.  We were able to have rooms together, but also have our meetings together and recreational time together.  The camp features a lake with paddleboats, ducks, and geese.  There was a large campfire pit where we made s'mores.  Also, there was a large dining hall where our group and other Christian students from five local universities were fed.  The camp has several other cabins and large meeting facilities.

Our assistant pastor, Rev. Bill Jones, had built his three-day program around an independent film called "Courageous" which follows the lives of four police officers in Albany, Georgia who meet life's challenges in various ways.  It culminates in the men taking a "Resolution" together to follow Christ and be the best husbands, fathers, and friends they possibly can be be.  We will be taking the same pledge in church on November 16 as an act of solidarity together.  Our wives and our children will be invited to join us in the ceremony.

Part of our discussion was the nature of men's friendships.  I told the story of Dr. Geoffrey Greif's book,  Buddy System, which examined male friendships. Dr. Greif is a professor in the University of Maryland School of Social Work and explains that men have "shoulder to shoulder" relationships whereas women have "face to face" relationships.  Men are good at working side by side on projects or watching sporting events side by side, but women are able to relate to each other "face to face" and are much more able to express themselves emotionally. He writes that men have must, trust, just,and rust friends. A must friend is the best friend a man absolutely must call with earthshaking news. A trust friend is liked and trusted but not necessarily held as close as a must friend. Just friends are casual acquaintances, while rust friends have a long history together and can drift in and out of each other's lives, essentially picking up where they last left off.

Rev. Jones had asked a series of men from our group to give presentations and they were all excellent.  Sometimes, they were very emotional as the men told their stories of growing up and what they had experienced.  Since returning, I also wrote on our Facebook web site about the difficulty of older men (Baby Boomers) being able to open up because of the experiences they had when they were growing up and the stoic nature of their fathers who were the products of the Depression and World War Two.

While I was deeply moved by the things I heard this weekend and will greatly value my insights into my "brothers", there is still a large part of me that is distrustful of things that are too emotional.  I have yearned for greater spiritualism.  But I find myself studying spiritualism and not fully embracing it. The lessons of "Star Trek" find myself still siding with Spock and his Vulcan reasoning and not Captain Kirk and his hot-blooded human emotions.  I still have a way to go.

My 68th Birthday

Today, October 12, is my birthday and it has been exactly one month since I wrote my last blog entry. It seems like a good time to do an update.

Tomorrow marks five weeks since I had my full knee replacement on my left knee.  The surgery went well, but the return home was difficult as I had problems with my pain medication.  Eventually, those problems got resolved and these days I am just taking Tylenol for the pain and using ice packs three times a day for 30 minutes each.  My sister Pegg lent me a recliner chair and it has been perfect for using the ice treatments. Thanks, Pegg!

I am resuming many of my traditional activities, but I don’t have the stamina that I once had.  For example, I will use the log splitter for 45 minutes and then I’m exhausted and have to come inside.  I’ve been trimming back some apple trees in our back yard and, similarly, I find I can work for 45 minutes and then I need to take a break.

The other thing that has changed is my sleep patterns.  I just can’t find a way to make the knee comfortable at night and allow myself to go to sleep.  I end up taking cat naps instead.  This morning, as an example, I was awake all night and then when it was time to go to church, I laid down on our bed for a brief nap and several hours later I awoke and realized that I had missed church entirely.

I am in my second week at the Hereford Physical Therapy Center and I have discovered several friends are there also including my neighbor’s granddaughter who is training to become a physical therapist.  They have a bunch of folks who push you to the limit, but they are very nice about it.  I go three times a week for an hour and we have seen substantial progress in the two weeks that I have been attending.

Meantime, there is the matter of the missed 50^th Catonsville High School reunion.  I really wanted to go but it took two months to get on the surgeon’s schedule and I needed the surgery.  None the less, several of my classmates did things to help me “experience” the reunion in various ways.  The biggest event was a dinner organized by my friend Paulette Geisenkotter Hammond in which she invited several other classmates who also missed the reunion.  And then there was the concluding meeting of our reunion committee which Rick Webb organized at a Hunt Valley eatery for my convenience.

These are memories that I will cherish forever.

http://edfishel.blogspot.com/

My left knee replacement

I normally try to illustrate my blog with pictures.  I'll skip that this time and just use words.

On Monday, September 8, 2014, I entered the University of Maryland St. Joseph's Hospital at 1:30 p.m. to have my left knee replaced.  The surgery was scheduled for 3:30 p.m. but actually occurred closer to :4:30 p.m. and was performed by Dr. Scott Tarantino.  He already was pretty special in my mind because he remembered everything I said from my first appointment until my second appointment two months later without looking at his notes.

I had injured my knee, ironically, while using the treadmill at the Maryland Athletic Club.  My knee was sadly deteriorated and the meniscus, in the middle of the knee, was in really bad shape.

Everything about my treatment at St. Joseph's Hospital went well...especially my experience in the operating room.  A long time ago, I had spent several summers as an operating room technician (scrub nurse who hands instruments to the doctor), so I knew what to expect.  I just don't remember any of it.  I went into the OR, sat the table sideways, and that's the last thing I remember before being awakened by two angels in the recovery room. It was amazing.

About 45 minutes or an hour later, I was transported to the 6th floor recovery wing and arrived at Room 608B.  That was about 8 p.m. or so.  I can't remember all of the names of the nurses and the techs who cared for me, but I remember the high level of care that I got from all of them and how many of them attended community colleges to get their degrees.  It was virtually all of them...Harford Community College, Carroll Community College, Baltimore County Community College, and so forth.  They must have been doing something right at those community college levels.

And then there was the matter of the pain. Oh, boy, was it painful but the staff did their best to keep me comfortable and I was very grateful.  One of their tricks was to run cold water over the knee to keep down the swelling and the sensitivity to pain.  They had a little pump that ran the cold water over the knee in a series of pipes in a pad. Very effective.

Two days later, after I had proven to the satisfaction of the physical therapists that I knew how to get in and out of bed, in and out of the bathroom, and various other tasks,  I was discharged on Wednesday morning at 11 a.m.  I was very happy to go.

UPDATE: the return home did not go well at first.  I was taking a narcotic for pain relief and it was making me nauseous and loopy.  I stopped doing my physical therapy. I was a mess.  Finally, my home nurse (Doug) and my physical therapist (Bob) both recognized that I needed to switch to a different pain killer and things have improved greatly.  I missed my 50th reunion, but at least I know that I am on the road to recovery.

50th Catonsville High School reunion

In just a few weeks, on September 12 through September 14, my Catonsville High School class will be having its 50th reunion. There is something really special about the 50th reunion.

Our reunion committee, chaired by Rick Webb and our class president Richards Steinboch, has had eight meetings over the last eight months to prepare for event.  The planning started when Rick discovered that Catonsville would have a home football game Friday night (against Dulaney) on September 12 and that got the ball rolling.  Where could we have a "before and after" reception, we asked?  After much serious research, we settled on Matthews 1600 on Frederick Road.  It was the first of many decisions that turned out very well.

Friday is also the day we traditionally held a little golf tournament and this year, the ladies are fielding more golfers than the men!  Thank you, Barbara Sheetz Kight, for making that happen.  The main event will be a Saturday night dinner at the Rolling Road Golf Course and Barbara is a member.  But I got a little bit ahead of myself.

One of our traditions is a tour of the high school provided by the Honor Society.  Paulette Geisenkotter Hammond organizes these tours and they are always terrific...and sometimes a little embarrassing for the high school students as we tell them that this is what they are going to look like in 50 years.  It's all in good fun and we get to see our classrooms again and the library and gymnasium.  All have been kept in good condition and its a pleasure to visit.

Saturday evening is the main event, the reunion dinner at the Rolling Road Golf Club from 6 p.m. until 11 p.m.  We will have hors d'oeuvres from 6 until 7 p.m. and then a lavish buffet with two carving stations the rest of the evening.  A professional DJ is providing quiet music during the first three hours, but after our president, Richard Steinbock, has his remarks at 9 p.m.,  we will crank up the volume for the dancing.  A professional photographer has been hired to take pictures of each individual when they arrive and then lots of pictures when the reunion really gets underway. The cost of this is $100 per classmate and $75 for their guest and that's why it has worked out so well that we have multiple events at various locations and that classmates can attend many of these events for free.

The weekend will conclude with a farewell brunch at Dmitri's International Grille, also in Catonsville.  Our president, called "Steiny", is a professional graphics artist and he has put together an awesome book for the reunion that includes high school pictures and updated information about our classmates. There is a memorial section for the nearly 60 classmates who have passed away from our class of approximately 530 students.  Too many have been lost.

My role in the reunion has been as a communicator;  setting up the e-mail and US postal mail systems to be in contact with our classmates.  There are so many classmates that I have gotten to know through the reunion activity that I didn't know before.  It's been demanding, but very rewarding.

And finally there is an ironic note to all of this.  I have needed to have my left knee replaced for a long time and incidents over the last three months have caused the surgery to become imminent.  So, I'm having the surgery on Monday, just six days before the reunion dinner.  I've been warned about the pain, but I wouldn't miss the dinner.  It just means no dancing by me.

Epworth UMC Mission Trip and Baltimore County Christian Work Camp

July has been devoted to two week-long endeavors that were very much alike.

The first project involved a couple dozen members of Epworth United Methodist Church traveling to Cherokee, North Carolina in the western mountains to the Cherokee Indian Reservation to do various types of mission work including painting, cleaning, and building a deck.  We stayed at the Cherokee United Methodist Church in the heart of the reservation.

While it may not be obvious why it was necessary to do mission work, in light of the huge casino in downtown Cherokee, there are many families which do not meet the criteria for membership in the tribe and these are the families that, in the words of the pastor, "fall through the cracks". These were the families that the church identified for us to help.

My project was the construction of the 10 foot by 20 foot deck.  I found a design for the deck online and originally we were told that it would be 10 foot by 10 foot, but when we arrived the plans changed.  There was also intended to be a roof over the deck because the homeowner has contracted cancer and needed to be protected from the sun.  Another mission team, to come after us, will be building the roof.

Our mission team was inter-generational which means it was the responsibility of the older members of the team to teach our youth how to operate the power tools and how to construct the deck.  This was one of the joys for me.  These youngsters had so much energy and enthusiasm that I loved being around them.  And, yes, they constantly reminded me to "Drink water, Mr. Ed!"  It was very hot and dehydration was always a concern.

The mission trip was also an opportunity for cultural awareness and we learned a lot about the Cherokee Indian tribe...specifically the "Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation."  One of our featured speakers was this tribal elder who also gave us a lesson on how to use a blowgun.  He had dinner with us at the church hall and afterwards everyone gathered around to hear him tell stories about the early days of lacrosse and hunting for small animals with blowguns.  Later in the week, we attended a pageant telling the Cherokee history and a Pow-Wow that included fireworks and dancing.

A week after we returned, our church participated in the Baltimore
County Christian Work Camp.  Unlike the mission trip which involved going to a far away place to help people, this was an opportunity to make a difference right here in our backyard.  Because our church is particularly adept at building ramps, we were selected for three ramp projects.  Other churches, however, do other things such as painting, cleaning, plumbing, etc.

Our first ramp was a relatively small project which we got done in a day. The homeowner had suffered a fall...was in the hospital...and needed a ramp constructed so he could get around.  This project was in Woodlawn and despite some surprisingly large rocks, it went very smoothly.  I came back the second day to make some final adjustments on the sidewalk in front of the house (added sand and a couple pavers) but basically it was all done.

The next project involved part of our team working with a handful of people from another church and the effort went very smoothly.  They were delightful to work with and, again, our youth...now highly trained...were a big asset to the project.  There is no replacement for youthful energy.  This project was in Middle River.

The final project, however, was very complicated and took three and a half days to build. This was a ramp that included two "switchbacks" (sharp turns) to construct in the limited space we were given.  The good news is that we got it done and it turned out really well.

One other aspect about the Baltimore County Christian Work Camp that is very important to mention.  We began each day at the Hunts Memorial United Methodist Church in Ruxton and we ended each day at another church.  These meals (and the lunches) were provided by the church volunteers and we can't thank them enough for the difference they made in our lives.

Grand Canyon and Sedona vacation

It's been awhile since I posted anything and I need to catch up!  Barb and I have had an extraordinarily busy couple of months and we have much to report.  First, I'm going to write about our vacation in Arizona in which we took a train to the Grand Canyon south rim and later visited Sedona (red rocks) and Phoenix.  It is important to note that our niece (http://thedestinationdesigner.com/) Mackenzie Melfa had a major role in booking the trip and finding out about Sedona which was a wonderful surprise for us.

This tale actually begins a year ago when we took AMTRAK across the country to visit our son Robert in Portland.  One of the couples we met on the train, Tom and Carol Lee, told us about this wonderful train from Williams, Arizona to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  They wrote the information on an AMTRAK table napkin and we kept it in a folder until several months later when we decided we wanted to go.  We still have that napkin.

We booked an early morning Southwest Airlines flight to Phoenix on Sunday, June 8.  That's Barb in the airport shortly after we arrived. We picked up our rental car and started driving four and a half hours to Williams, Arizona to the Grand Canyon Railroad Hotel.  It was the biggest thing in town; a source of many jobs.  This hotel is the former Sante Fe Railroad hotel built circa 1908 and it is said that as many as five U.S. presidents have taken the train to the Grand Canyon.  It certainly is the most fun way to travel.

Prior to our 9:30am Monday morning departure, we and hundreds of others were treated to a cowboy show just outside the hotel and adjacent to the train.  There were the usual bad guys and "the Marshall" who had to keep order.  This would be a recurring theme throughout our trip on the train and on the return trip when the bad guys would rob the train and the Marshall would have to come to our rescue.  We suspect the actors trade the roles to keep it fresh. It was a lot of fun.

Arriving at the Grand Canyon, we were greeted by several tour buses which were part of our package (including very good meals) and we were immediately taken to the rim of the Grand Canyon.  I'm sure you've heard this before: it's impossible to describe the enormity of it all. It's huge.  We were at 7,000 feet on our side of the rim and it rises another 1,000 feet on the other side of the rim.  We elected to spend a night in the Maswik Lodge at the canyon rim so we could catch that late evening and early morning light.  My sister told me that was a "must".

My sister was right. The color is dramatically different in the evening and in the morning. (That's the crack of dawn in the picture to the right).  You really begin to see the various trails leading down to the bottom of the canyon and the astonishing number of people who are trying to make their way down.  One thing you must remember:  take a lot of water. Everywhere we went, there were reminders to re-hydrate yourself.  The national park provides many sources of water, but they don't sell the water bottles.  You must bring your own.  Now, on to Sedona....

This was the view outside of our hotel balcony in Sedona, known for its fabulous red rocks and mountains.  In some ways, Sedona is more "approachable" than the Grand Canyon which simply overwhelms you because it is so big.  You can't take it all in.  But Sedona (named for one of its earliest inhabitants) sweeps you off your feet with its beauty and history.  We stayed there two nights, but it easily could have been a week.  We took the famous "Pink Jeep" tour to the Indian ruins and saw artifacts from the era 1,000 AD to 1,200 AD.

These are the remnants of Indian housing built adjacent to a stream which was their source of water.  These houses were built with stones and mud against a mountain wall.  Pink Jeep offers many tours and this was just one of them, but we were so glad that we picked this tour.  You can still see the drawings on the walls on the back side of their housing.  The sun was a frequent subject of their paintings so we suspect it had a role in their religion.  As mysteriously as the Indians appeared, they disappeared 200 years later.  Possibly the water dried up.

Our final stop was in Phoenix which some have described as "low rise and 40 miles across".  We found very few high rise buildings and the town seemed to empty out on Friday night, so this seemed to be accurate.  That left us free to roam the light rail from end to end on Saturday and visit the historic Heard Museum (picture left) which is dedicated to preserving southwest U.S. culture and artifacts.  When we visited, they also were featuring a "Lego" exhibit; hence the statues in front of the building.


In short, we loved our Arizona adventure.