Observations of the Day!

1. After my near near death experience last Sunday, I thought about this yesterday.  I went to Costco and was walking around and the thought occurred to me,"What if I would have left the earth last Sunday, I would not be here and the other people there would have been walking around just as they are". It is proof the world goes on with or without you.

2. Gosh I've got a lot of people who care.

3. One of the hospital doctors name is Dr. Warm. Could his nurse be Fuzzy?

4. I've been in a number of ICUs, Coronary Care Units and regular hospital rooms. Coronado Sharp Hospital ICU unit could use some serious upgrading. My room was more cubby hole than room. The staff, however, was marvelous.

5. I love my friend girls. They all were there to cheer their Papi up.

6. With all the years in medical science you would think they. would have found away to walk down the Hall without your butt showing.

7.Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

8. God loves you, and so do I.

9. It's raining today and I'm not bitching.

Have a nice day!

Sam

I Can See It From Here!

There is an old expression that when people are in a small town in the middle of nowhere,"It's not the end of the earth, but I can see it from here.

As many of you know, I had a heart incidence this week. I spent my fun day doing my usual stuff. I went to 8 o'clock service at the Rock. I look forward to this service more and more every week. I then came back over the Bridge to Coronado to the Firehouse for some breakfast and some football with my friends. The Chargers played the second game, so I watched two NFL games. One beer only, for those of you who are counting. I went home about four. and laid down and watched part of the SNF game and a couple of other shows and surfing around. At about 10:15 I took my pills and went to bed. I began to feel something's a little off in my chest. When you have had heart disease as long as I have, you know and listen to your body. I still didn't think too much of it, but something was going on, and I kind of sat up on one elbow. That's when it hit me. BLAM!, It was like a shot and someone hitting my chest with a 2x4. It was like a bolt of lighting. It all most seemed like it was outside.  For a nano second I said, "What the h??? wa.... I realized my defribilulater had fired. I'd never felt anything like it. I had asked my doctor once what happens after the first shock, just wait for the second? I wondered how my feelings might be if I got the first shot. It was just that. Wait to see if there is another fire in the hole. In about 10 or so minutes BANG! There it was. The doctor once told me, if you have one shot, it may have been just a miss fire, but if you get the second, go to the ER.

Like an idiot, I dressed and drove myself to the hospital. Probably stupid, no not probably, was stupid. I think it was not wanting to draw the attention of my neighbors because in Coronado you get not only the ambulance, but the hook and ladder sirens blaring, shaking the earth.

I walked into the ER. They attached the usual attachments BAM! Number Three. I noticed the RNs watch the monitor. They would watch and then look at me because they knew what was about to happen. BAM! Number Four. That was a dozy. They finally took control of my heart through medications.

I was admitted. I was hoping to be released next day, but they wanted to keep me one more night.

After I realized what the initial firing was, I had to ask my self, "is this it?"

Ever since Mark and Jeff's deaths, and reading a couple of books on near death experiences giving us a glimpse of heaven, I wondered at that God selected minute, before you see the light, what would the the near near death experience would be like. I had that thought, as I contemplated if this was my moment of transition. I wasn't at the gates of heaven, but I could see them from here.

I lived to see another day, but I was close to seeing what that moment would be like.

What I read in those moments: Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 and Psalms 23.

I am the most blessed man on earth. I believe in God and Heaven. None of us are getting out of this thing alive.  I continue to ask myself, why have I been so blessed? What does God want me to do? For sure I thank him everyday for the blessings he has bestowed on this kid from Indiana.

Have a great day, and I am on my way home to live another day of my extraordinary life.

Sam

The Death of Captain Waskow

Ernie Pyle was one of the greatest war correspondence of WWII. His reports were beautifully written and captured a war and its soldiers of a different time. On this Veterans Day, 2013, as these old soldiers are dying away, we are reminded of those who gave their lives in the service of their country.

The Death of Captain Waskow

By Ernie Pyle

AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY -- In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them.  But never have I crossed the trail of a man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Tex.

Captain Waskow was a company commander in the 36th division.  He had been in this company since long before he left the States.  He was very young, only in his middle 20s, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him.

“After my own father, he comes next,” a sergeant told me.

“He always looked after us,” a soldier said.  “He’d go to bat for us every time.”

“I’ve never known him to do anything unkind.,” another one said.

I was at the foot of the mule train the night they brought Captain Waskow down.  The moon was nearly full at the time, and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley.  Soldiers made shadows as they walked.

Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules.  They came lying belly down across the wooden packsaddle, the heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked.

The Italian mule skinners were afraid to walk beside the dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night..  Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift the bodies, when they got to the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself and ask others to help.

The first one came early in the morning.  They slid him down from the mule, and stood him on his feet for a moment.  In the half light he might have been merely a sick man standing there leaning on the other.  Then they laid him on the ground in the shadow of the stone wall alongside the road.

I don’t know who the first one was.  You feel small in the presence of dead men and ashamed of being alive, and you don’t ask silly questions.

We left him there beside the road, that first one, and we all went back to the cowshed and sat on watercans or lay on the straw, waiting for the next batch of mules.

Somebody said the dead soldier had been dead for four days, and then nobody said anything more about him.  We talked for an hour or more ; the dead man lay all alone, outside in the shadow of the wall.

Then a soldier came into the cowshed and said there were some more bodies outside.  We went out into the road.  Four mules stood there in the moonlight, in the road where the trail came down off the mountain.  The soldiers who led them down stood there waiting.

"This one is Captain Waskow,” one of them said quickly.

Two men unlashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid in the shadow beside the stone wall  Other men took the other bodies off.  Finally, there were five lying end to end in a long row.  You don’t cover up dead men in combat zones.  They just lie there in the shadows until somebody else comes after them.

The uncertain mules moved off to their olive orchards.  The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave.  They stood around, and gradually I could sense them moving, one by one, close to Captain Waskow’s body.  Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality to him and to themselves.  I stood close by and could hear.

One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud:

“God damn it!”. That's all he said, and then he walked away.

Another one came, and he said, “God damn it to hell anyway!”  He looked down for a few last moments and then turned and left.

Another man came.  I think it was an officer.  It was hard to tell officers from men in the half light, for everybody was grimy and dirty.  The man looked down into the dead captain’s face and the spoke directly to him, as though he were alive.

“I’m sorry, old man."

Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer and bent over, and he to spoke to his dead captain, 

not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said:

“I’m sorry, sir.

Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the captain’s hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face.  And he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there.

Finally he put his hand down.  He reached up and gently straightened the points of the captain’s shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound, and then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight all alone.

God bless our Veterans, both living and dead. God Bless America.

Samuel Arnold

LTJG USNR

Memories From My Honeycomb

The mind is a magnificent human computer, storing millions of bits. It is a storage vault of big things and little things, and you wonder why they even remain in your memory. Your brain is like a honey comb with many little storage cells, each containing a tidbit of your life.

As we get older, we tend to spend more time going through the archives of our minds. Sometimes you run across things, and you can only ask, 'why do I remember is insignificant event?' One of these nuggets has been around in my mind for many years ago. I think I was about five or six years old. I know WWII was in progress. I had a little metal Piper Cub airplane I loved to play with. I can still remember where I was playing with it next to the house. Apparently, I left it outside one day. When I looked for it the next day, I went back to the exact spot where I had been playing with it, and it wasn't there. I looked and looked every place and came back to the original spot several times over several days expecting it to appear. But it was lost forever. Why is that memory stored in the early combs of my life and still surfaces from time to time? My mind is flooded with these meaningless tidbits that sneak out to remind me of my momentary moments.

My nephew died last year of a brain tumor. During the last part of his life he would hallucinate and say things that were strange and unconnected. It came out jumbled. I believe it was these little nuggets of stored memory that all came out at the same time and were linked together because they appeared together, not because they were together.

The actress, Marilu Henner, has a rare condition called H-SAM. Only 11 other people in the world have it.  She can recall every moment of her life. She can remember when and where she met a person, even if it was years before. I wonder if it is a curse or a blessing. Maybe there was a time when we all had this skill of memory, or perhaps it's a dimension we will aquire, as we pass to the other side.

Before Mark died he appeared on Celebrity Apprentice. One of the celebrities was Marylu Henner. She was on the team that was learning about the technical aspects of the LG appliances that Mark was demonstrating. It kind of neat to know that if I ever meet Marilu, she will a remember my Mark.

I love these tidbits. They were not big deals. They were moments in my life. When these memory moments are put in the context of the bigger things in your life, they encompass your whole life. Maybe they are part of the life that is said to pass by when you die.

So I will go on making the memories of my life for the final video.

Have a nice day,

Sammy Carl

Teachers!

What makes a great teacher? Great preachers are great teachers. Even though one is secular and the other more spiritual, they share a common denominator, the ability to relate and motivate their students on a basic level.

Great teachers are charismatic. Real down to earth people. You want to listen, participate and learn from them. They know there subject intimately, but can bring it down to the fundemental understanding for the student. When a foundation is fundamentally sound a great structure can be built. Ask any successful sports coach, and they will tell you, first teach the fundementals and winning will come. Watch a good team and a bad team sometime. You can tell the difference.

Perhaps the greatest teacher was Jesus Christ himself. As people gathered around, he most always taught lessons in the form of parables. Parables are stories that the common man can understand, relate to and learn from. We know he changed lives.

We have all known brilliant people who are at the top of their profession, but cannot teach a lick. They should stick to the lab and the library A good teacher's education never stops. A good teacher wants to learn from other great teachers. A good teacher never stops teaching. The teaching of a subject may transform into a teaching of life's lessons. As they say" a teaching moment." Think of a person that took time and interest in you and taught you from their experience and knowledge.

.

Take a minute think about those teachers who changed your life. I still know the names of my elementary teachers. Mrs Renbarger taught senior English. 100 spelling words a week made me a good speller. Two of my sister-laws are great teachers. Professor Proulx was an inspiration at Michigan State. Thinking of those teachers is a pleasant journey down memory lane. They made a difference and that's all you can ask.

Never miss an opportunity to teach and mentor. This insures that down the road, your students will remember how you helped them along life's journey. There is no higher honor than to pay it forward.

Have a nice day!

Sam

Before You Are Alone!

I actually wrote this poem about my great-aunt "Tie".  She passed away at 99, never married. She was the proverbial old maid aunt.  As an old lady, she lived with our family. no one paid too much attention to her. She was the genealogist of the family. I actually used some of her research, when I did my own. I often thought, if I could just be able to ask her about her life and the stories she could tell.  I had so many unanswered questions. We always wait too long. Now I find this applies to me as well. This poem is now about me and any older person with stories to tell. don't wait until it is too late.

Sam

I sit quietly, patiently, out of the way,

Ready to answer the questions, that nobody asks.

You’re too busy to ask,

Please see me as a whole person, not just an old person.

Look deep behind my eyes,

Beyond the wrinkled and sagging and spotted face.

See a person who lived your life in another time.

Playing, going to school, falling in love, raising a family,

Wars and depression, turning points, hard times, glad times.

I am a resource to your life,

A living witness to a history of a time -- mine.

Please let me search my softer memory and tell you my stories.

Someday in the dark corner of the attic, you will turn to ask,

And you will be alone.

For now, I will sit quietly, patiently, out of the way,

Ready to answer the questions, that nobody asks.

Have a blessed day.

Sam

Honest Smoke!

Despite the fact that the Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health showed no evidence that smoking early in life is a symbol of growing up, nearly every smoker my own colleagues and I have interviewed over the past ten years reported, that this was indeed the original reason for taking up the custom.

Arthur Homer Cain

 I was an early experimenter in smoking.  I started smoking in the open and in front of my parents at the ripe old age of sixteen, but I was sampling the vice long before I came out of the smoking closet or in the case at Beaver Dam Lake, a two holed out-house.  I didn’t do drugs or drink alcohol in high school -- smoking was my sin of choice. 

Smoking today is viewed quite differently than it was in the days of my youth.  Smoking is now viewed by society as the mother of all vices and no-smoking policies are enforced by non-smoking, holier than thou, mostly reformed smokers -- the smoking police.  You can see the poor smoking wretches huddled outside their office buildings on very cold, blustery days trying to keep warm, but always serving their personal demon.  It’s the price they pay for their sin.  And I must say I don’t really care.  It’s a rotten dirty death dealing habit.  However, coffin nails are still a matter of personal choice -- this is America.

Most everybody, particularly in the fifties and sixties smoked.  Most of my friends smoked in high school.  My old Ford must have looked like it was on fire, as smoke from our before school cigarettes poured out of the car as we stepped out to go into the school building.  Cigarettes and cigars were advertised on television.  In every movie, actors both men and women all puffed away on the screen.  I saw an old clip of Janis Joplin, the legendary rock star who eventually died of a heroin overdose, on a Dick Cavette show in the sixties, and she sat right next to him smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke his way.  Smoking was considered cool, sophisticated and just normal.

One warm summer day, with way too much time on our hands, my neighborhood friends, Frank Wilson, Jerry Weisenauer and I decided we wanted to have a smoke and spent some time trying to figure out where we could get the tobacco.  I came up with the solution to our nicotine dilemma.  I knew that Uncle Jake, our next door neighbor, kept his cigars in a smoking cabinet in his living room.  It was in the afternoon, and I figured I could perhaps sneak into his house without anyone knowing and steal a cigar.  I was right.  There was nobody downstairs.  I figured that if I were caught in the house I would just say I had come over to visit.  The cigars were right where they should be.  I quickly grabbed one and silently sped out the door with no one being the wiser.  Ha! Ha! What a clever boy was I.

We disappeared under a big leafy bush tent that served as both our hide-out and the left field fence of the back lot baseball field.  We lit up and passed it around.  My brother, Terry, joined us a little later to share a few puffs.

Mom called that it was time to come and get washed up for supper and everybody went home.  As I passed her on the way into the house, she smelled the cigar smoke on my breath and clothes.  Why did I think she could not smell the smell of a smelly cigar?  She asked if I had been smoking.  I quickly admitted the crime with a quiet and mumbled, “Yes”.  How could I do anything but admit the truth with the evidential smell clinging to every part of me? 

“Where did you get the cigar? 

”We found it.  It was all wrapped”.  Honest!

Mom was mad, of course, but this was not the first time I had been caught using the forbidden “weed”.  I fully expected she would tell Dad, and there would be some level of punishment administered.  Based on past smoking convictions, I wasn’t too worried about what punishment might be handed out.  I could take it like the man I was pretending to be.  However, this was a crime of a repeat offender who had perjured himself under questioning by my ultimate judges -- my parents.  As I found out, I was subject to larger crimes and punishment and a life’s lesson learning event of most epic proportions.

When Jerry got home, his mom asked the same motherly smoking question, as to where we got the cigar, and he was too quick to say, “Sam stole it from Uncle Jake’s house.”  (Uh-oh!)

Of course, Mrs. Weisenauer was not one to keep a secret, so she called my Mother and told her the truth, according to Jerry.  Terry and I were quickly banished to our beds without supper, a frequent form of punishment for rather serious offenses.  I could live with it, although I was hungry.  A little later I heard Dad coming up the stairs -- Clomp! Clomp! Clomp! (Uh-oh!)  As he entered our room, I could see that he held his house slipper in his hand.  He whacked my butt good, and then moved to the other side of the room to administer the same punishment to my brother.  Although I’m sure there were other spankings, this was the only spanking I ever remember my Dad giving me.  It hurt, but I could live with it.  I figured that my punishment was over, and I had made it once again through the sentence.  (Uh-oh!)  The paddling was a good one, but not nearly the punishment that was still coming.

He said,  “That was for smoking, but that’s not the end of it.  (Uh-oh!)  For stealing and for lying about where you got the cigar you, Jerry and Frank are going to go over to Uncle Jake’s tomorrow and tell him that you stole one of his cigars, and you are to do the talking.  (Uh-oh!)  “What about Terry?”, I asked.  “He wasn’t in on the stealing, so he doesn’t have to go”, Dad replied.  I guess in legal terms, he was considered an accessory after the fact.  I thought to myself, “Boy, that doesn’t seem fair (I knew enough to keep my mouth shut though).  This has gotten way out of hand.  This is really serious.  I’m not sure I can take it.  Another house slipper whack would be better than this.”

The three of us walked into the Campbell’s house about noon the next day.  They were all seated around the table in the kitchen getting ready for lunch.  I did the talking, as instructed, and told them what I had done and that we were very very sorry.  There were even a couple of tears shed.  We were forgiven, but in retrospect, they must have had to do everything possible to keep their snickers muffled at our obvious pain.  It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.  I suppose that was a secondary lesson learned.  Do what you have to do and get on with it.  This experience made me more of a man than any cigarette or cigar ever did. 

It was lessons learned about honesty and confession.  It didn’t stop me from smoking for a long time, but it did teach me about the importance of honesty and a personal code of conduct that I have carried with me all of my life.  The consequences of dishonesty and lying are too great, and it had nothing to do with a spanking.

Honesty is at the core of my soul, and my parents lovingly placed it there.  They understood how and when to teach the most important lessons of life.

Honesty is always the best policy; confession is good for the soul, and the country still needs is a good five-cent cigar.

Have a nice day!

Little Sammy Carl