August 26, 2024

Phil Brady knew America. He was born and grew up in Minnesota, a place with a couple of big cosmopolitan cities, but with a rugged pioneer edge to it. As a young man he headed west. He worked on the Empire Builder-Great Northern Railroad. Later, after college, he worked in mines in the big Western states. He knew this country by its roughest edges.

Although he came from St. Paul, he was not a big city guy. His life was formed by his experiences in tough places far from cities.

For a couple of years Phil taught high school history and coached football in Winnemucca, Nevada. He moved on to teach and coach in Caldwell and Marsing, Idaho, home of a community of Basque people, who work as sheepherders. He lived with a Basque family for a while. Decades later he and his wife, my sister Regina, attended the funeral of the wife of one of his former students. The entire community remembered him.

He studied metallurgy at the University of Arizona. He knew about copper mining, railroads, big machinery, tools, and fishing. In his forties, he came back to the Twin Cities and married Regina. He worked in industry and taught school. They stayed in St. Paul for a few years then relocated to the Seattle area. Seven years later they came back to Minnesota.

Phil passed last week after a long fight with cancer. He was close to home, a blessing for the family. St. Paul, really, was the right place for him.

Like many Minnesotans, Phil was an outdoors guy. He took Scout troops north to Isle Royale National Park, a large island in Lake Superior. They camped and hiked and fished. He knew the wild places north of Duluth, beyond Minnesota’s Iron Range, in the cold country. Phil also was a shrewd finance guy who liked picking stocks. He gladly passed on tips, although I never got around to following his advice.

While in Washington State he hiked the gorgeous Cascades. He and Regina visited Alaska and Mexico. They took some overseas trips, to England, Ireland, France, Italy, Thailand.

But I knew him mainly as a guy who loved the road. He drove many times across the country, over the lonely open spaces of Washington, Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota. He and Regina drove to California, Missouri, Louisiana, Florida. They saw everything, including the world’s largest nickel mine in Sudbury, Ontario. “He loved rocks,” she says.

Phil knew the highways. I recall him explaining, in scrupulous detail, points of interest (to some) that could be found along U.S. 2, the isolated road that crosses the country from Seattle to northern Michigan. Route 2 is way up there, shadowing the Canadian border through the far-north no man’s land of those big near-empty states.

He knew the little settlements, the rises and descents, the hazards, the long, long empty stretches. To him, roads like highway 2 were, well, America.

Yet Phil also could be a homebody. He had a gentle touch with nature, and could make flowers and vegetables bloom. He cultivated bountiful gardens in St. Paul and at Regina’s and his place in Redmond, Wash. Five years ago we visited them out there, around March. It was chilly and damp, but Phil already was preparing his plot, raking and pruning.

He loved taking his grandkids fishing and hiking. He showed them the Cascades and glorious Glacier National Park. He understood the decline of the salmon population in Northwestern rivers as a result of industrial and urban pollution, and explained it to me and to anyone else who showed interest. But he never stopped fishing, and occasionally hauled in a big one.

Phil and Regina returned to St. Paul from their first retirement home near Seattle for a mix of reasons. One was, I thought, the call of Minnesota, known for the Twin Cities, beautiful wilderness lakes, and brutal winters. St. Paul, the state capital, also can be called the capital of the Upper Midwest. It’s where Phil grew up, where they met 30 years ago.

They understood, after giving Seattle a chance, that it was never going to be the home they left.  Phil could take those rough Minnesota winters and maybe preferred them over the rainy Northwest. He didn’t mind attaching an engine-block heater to a car’s battery to keep it from freezing.  

Phil developed mesothelioma, one of those cancers that does not get better. Sandy’s dad, William Harper, after years working in heavy industry, also contracted mesotheliomia. It took him quickly 25 years ago. Victims measure out their time left.

Phil fought hard. He was treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., one of the country’s great hospitals. But we know one thing: cancer keeps showing up. He and Regina made one more trip last year, to Montreal and Quebec.

We all flew up to St. Paul to see Phil off, cramming ourselves in those cramped United seats.

But my first thought was to do what Phil might have done, take it on the road. We could have driven the long interstates through the country’s midsection, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin. Phil might instead have taken the state highways and local roads that wind through small towns, past farmland, over rivers, hills, and mountains, getting another taste of the country.

Friends and family came to St. Jerome’s church. Son-in-law Robert Valaas spoke. He talked about hiking Logan Pass in Glacier with Phil. “I found that day … encapsulates the quintessence of this faithful, curious, humane, devoted, and caring man.

“Phil let the best beliefs of Christianity—justice, kindness, and humility—guide his life,” Robert said. “And never was Phil happier than when out in nature, appreciating the beauty and wonder of God’s creation. … So now there is a big, Phil Brady-shaped hole in our part of the universe.

“It’s up to us to pick up some of the slack. So get out and explore the world, on its back roads, its hiking paths … the mountains, forests, seas, and islands. Honor God … strike up conversations with people you don’t know … . Learn and remember the history of your family. … eat some good food, savor some good Irish whiskey.”

The priest rose for the blessing. “In fishing and hiking, being with nature, Phil connected with God,” he said. “He knew there is a time for everything. Today is a good time to give thanks.”

Phil’s and Regina’s seven grandchildren, Nora, Margaret, Eliza, Matteo, Juliana, Ben, and Jonathan came forward with the gifts. We rose in remembrance and gave thanks, and went on our way.

August 19, 2024

It was about time we saw Myrtle Beach. After three years in this state we drove down to meet a niece and her young son, Rachel and Joseph, who had flown down from New Hampshire. It had been a couple of years since our last visit with them, we jumped at the chance.

At some point, if you live in these parts, South Carolina’s pseudo-tropical Low Country is an inevitable place. Charleston is for the history and architecture fans, Hilton Head is for the golfers and country clubbers. There are chic places among those three, Kiawah, John’s, Folly, Pawley’s Island, dozens more, specs of affluence and sand. Myrtle is up the coast, near the North Carolina state line.

Thousands make the drive to Myrtle every year from all over Yankeedom, thousands more from our neighborhood, the Upstate. The trip is across mind-numbing interstates, 385, 26, 20, 95, then a maze of state roads. The capital, Columbia, 90 miles into the trip, is at the junction of 26 and 20. Nothing else engages the human brain en route, the roads sink lower into Low Country, bogs, swamps, scrub forests, the odd auto-repair garage, burger joint, or church.

Visiting new places has not had much appeal lately. We were hitting Myrtle for one night then getting out. Your choice is the real beach or “Broadway at the Beach,” a promenade of attractions set along a manmade canal a mile or so from the real beach. Hotels provide a brochure: “Prepare to make magical memories as you enjoy a winning combination of shopping, dining, entertainment and attractions!”

For sure the summer visitor can find all those things at “Broadway”: deep-fried seafood, cotton candy, tee-shirts, ballcaps, sundresses, Trump 2024 banners, and more tee-shirts, thousands of them.

We had the fish dinner then strolled past Christmas at the Beach, Hollywood Heroes and Villains, two life-size plastic dinosaurs, a glittering five-story-high Ferris wheel, an equally tall waterslide, high-end restaurants and fast food, a stand that emitted a stream of bubbles and sold $20 caps. Kids climbed on the dinosaurs, parents snapped photos. We crossed the canal and watched a speedboat roar through sharp turns, thrilling the paying passengers.

On the other side we found more of the same along with three or four abandoned restaurants. Recrossing a second bridge we glanced down to see hordes of large koi, a type of carp, jumping to snap at scraps of food tossed by tourists.

It was the hard-core summer scene, throngs of visitors in tees and tank tops, tired and hot, slogging hand-in-hand with their tired kids, lugging plastic sacks of their purchases. I recalled the same setting along Atlantic Avenue in Virginia Beach, which we visited many times years ago, the tee-shirt and beachwear shops, the fast food, the low-rent bungalows and upscale hotels, the gridlocked traffic, the sunburned crowds.

The glitter and kitsch of the “Broadway on the Beach” spectacle seemed to explode before our eyes, every shop and marquee an urgent come-on to spend money on stuff you don’t really want that would end up forgotten in a closet or garage. As usual in these odd fixes, I thought of something else, this time the lonely, beautiful beach of eastern Long Island, New York, at a place called Amagansett, where my folks took us for two weeks each summer. Now, as then, not a souvenir stand within miles, wide beach and beach grass only, heavy surf crashing against the sand.

In the morning we made it over to the real beach. With Rachel, Joseph, and Rachel’s mom, Barbara, we padded across the warm sand and looked out at the sea. The tide was low. The surf showed a brown tint, the aftereffect of Tropical Storm Debbie. The waves rolled quietly up the sand. A few folks stood knee-deep in the water.

To the south a long row of beach umbrellas stood in a tight formation, sheltering people from the sun’s oppressive glare. Sunbathers sprawled on blankets, mostly looking already well-done. On the horizon a thin haze hung over the beach and the water. Across the span of sand the crowd was in the hundreds, and growing.

This was North Myrtle Beach. In both directions the high-rise condos and hotels, twenty, maybe thirty stories high, stood as if at attention as far as we could see. The impression was of a huge, bustling city of concrete and stucco, an intense urban infrastructure put up over decades to accommodate the desire of untold millions to visit the seashore.

It’s the same at Virginia Beach, maybe more of the same, and at the few other popular beaches I had visited in New Jersey, Florida, and Maryland. Just off the beach, the tourist support system offers mini-golf and fast food. Seafood restaurants and more souvenir places line the main artery, U.S 17.

Myrtle Beach, like those others, is an excursion into a peculiar world. In nearly all those places a hundred miles of near-empty rural countryside transforms into beach-resort business enterprise. Thousands and thousands come, creating massive traffic jams on summer weekends and holidays. People love the beach, wading in the waves, lying on the sand, buying tee-shirts and cheap stuff to take home.

I get it, we all do. Decades ago, the Jersey Shore was the place to be in summer. My New York City grandparents, always dressed as if for church, visited Asbury Park and Atlantic City and strolled the boardwalk, taking the sea air. My high-school friends and I drove to Long Branch Beach after senior prom.

My Long Island aunts and uncles, as kids in Brooklyn and Queens, loved Rockaway Beach with its Playland amusement park, an early touch of Myrtle Beach now turned into condos. They loved Jones Beach and Coney Island. These are famous places, New York institutions. You could ride the city bus or subway, no interstate travel required.

We watched Joseph stomp in the water and look for shells. Sandy took off her sandals and got her feet wet. The three of us talked about other things, about family, about visiting New Hampshire and maybe Maine. We were thinking of cool, crisp autumn weather, small towns, deep-blue lakes, pine forests, mountains. We didn’t think about Myrtle Beach.

August 12, 2024

The Turtle Trail meanders for a little more than a mile. When your situation demands a walk, the humble Turtle Trail, at Paris Mountain State Park in Greenville, is one place. It’s not the only place, but good enough.

The trail branches off the Mountain Creek Trail, which extends just shy of two miles from the lake near the park visitor’s center. It winds quickly into semi-swampland. A slow-moving creek gurgles alongside, amidst cattails and lily pads. Thick fronds of underbrush hang low over the ripples created by dragonflies. You wonder, do turtles swim there? 

The stands of oaks and maples, and some sycamores are impenetrable. Although this is the Upstate, where the Blue Ridge descends from North Carolina, there’s still a hint of Low Country wetland. The air is heavy and pungent.

It’s a gentle place decked out in deep vernal green. The forest closes in quickly, enforcing silence. The four of us stepped forward, small steps, careful steps around the rocks and roots that snake across the trail, polished by the feet of thousands. The surface rises slowly then descends and turns sharply with the rolling terrain of Upstate.

We had no grand purpose. The Turtle transit was not a retreat into wilderness, not a heartsick plunge into trackless country. We saw no hikers shouldering giant packs. No breathtaking mountain vistas lay before us.

It was time to go back to that quiet place. We all sensed something beyond ourselves. It was not about the Turtle Trail, or about any trail or any place. It seemed, a day or two later, a hint of welcome, much-needed isolation, momentary and fleeting, at this point in this year of stethoscopes and procedures, on a walk into the unknown. Which is where we all are going. Nothing changes.

Nothing changes, which is the whole point of the Turtle Trail. The sameness reassures and inspires. I thought of the countless analogies to the forest as cathedral, or chapel, where a perception of serenity and peace may lift the visitor to another realm of consciousness—contemplation of the Almighty, maybe, something sublime, beyond the world’s grittiness.

The imagination may build on all that to the thoughts and images created by Wordsworth in Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey:

Wordsworth, England’s greatest Romantic poet, wrote Tintern Abbey in 1798, a hard time in Europe. In Paris he fell in love with a French woman, then witnessed the atrocities of the revolution. Yet his spirits rose to compose Tintern Abbey and other verse that place him in his unique domain as a passionate explorer of the beauty and mystery of nature. The poem is five stanzas, 160 lines, but only 19 or 20 sentences. He could not contain himself.

Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

… The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

Wordsworth never showed any disloyalty to the Church of England. He studied the Bible and graduated from St. John’s College, Cambridge. His brother Christopher became master of Trinity College. His oldest son John became a vicar.

Yet Tintern Abbey contains no reference to the Christian God or any god or church. Wordsworth found an intense, deeply felt lesson in walking the meadows, the fields, the forests. It’s a lesson of passion and then joy, at discovering his own truth in the sweetness of the natural world. 

He wrote at a time of vast suffering of the poor working people of England and the threat of war with France. But those tragedies subside, if only briefly—for the time it takes to read his lines and to walk the humble Turtle Trail, a wisp of a place almost no one outside this town has ever visited or heard about.

The point of our coming was to catch a break, to slow the grind of scheduling and planning and everything else. The heavy air, the silence, the dapples of green can become in the nervous imagination a bulwark against chaos, subtle hints at the power of faith and acceptance of the strength it brings.

Four years after Tintern Abbey Wordsworth completed Ode on the Intimations of Immortality: Recollections from Early Childhood, a haunting reminiscence that merges with reflections on man, God, redemption. Ode is another wistful self-examination, although a far different setting from Tintern.

The Romantic era is now ancient history. Outside English graduate-studies classes, Wordsworth’s lyrical sentences would clang oddly off modern ears, laughed at, even. Our public figures mock and slander each other, the disease spreads everywhere.

Thoughts and impressions come to us as we walk the Turtle Trail, although not likely from lines of Wordsworth. But we may find something like the message of Tintern Abbey here, and the same everywhere in wilderness, where the braces of full-growth trees are columns to the sky, and the paths wind through and under thick canopy.

August 5, 2024

Ventricular Tachycardia is a problem for your heart. It isn’t a household name, not in our household. But we want to keep our hearts beating. Then V. Tach, as our daughter Katheen, an R.N., calls it, came up. She monitors my health adventures from northwestern Wyoming, near Yellowstone.

The journey to understanding V. Tach isn’t a long one. It begins with recognition that the heart is, or should be, an efficient and powerful machine. Few manmade devices last as long. We’ve all heard the medical guidance, captured in a few words: healthy diet, hydration, exercise, adequate sleep.

The heart is a pump that, we’re taught, should beat at 60-100 times per minute to keep enough blood flowing through the body. When blood pressure drops the flow diminishes, endangering vital organs. The heart may try to compensate by lurching into V. Tach, which increases the heartrate, potentially injuring the heart.

Here in the choking, sticky Southern midsummer, none of this comes up in conversation. Instead we struggle with twin afflictions, Trump news, a cacophony of lowlife piggishness, and the throbbing heat.  Here and elsewhere the sun casts a hazy, suffocating pall, shriveling trees, lawns, crops. Local governments, schools, and private groups have canceled outdoor activities. Exposure to the brutal temperatures has taken human lives.

Suddenly I was sprawled in a hospital emergency room, getting fluids through an IV. An Urgent Care physician sent me there after declaring my blood pressure too low. The nurses fitted me with a “fall risk” bracelet, led me to a room, and attached sensors to my chest to read heart signals. A device behind the bed, attached to my arm, recorded blood pressure every few minutes. The BP improved, but instead of sending me home the supervising physician admitted me to the hospital.

“You’ve had two episodes of ventricular tachycardia,” she said. “We need to know what’s going on with you. It could be just a heart flutter, or it could be significant.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

She jotted the term on a Post-It note for me. The distractions of summer faded. An assistant packed me up and wheeled me out of the ER wing into the flow of traffic, past other patients, doctors, nurses, staff people. We made a couple of turns and rolled into a large room with a bed and fitted out with monitors, cables, and switches. I got off the transport cart, sat on the bed, and signed some paperwork. The nurses attached me to the equipment.

I looked around. The duty nurse tapped on a computer on wheels. “Hit the alert button if you need anything,” she said. “Don’t try to get out of the bed, an alarm will sound. We don’t want you to fall.”

Sandy sat with me, both of us in a daze. She recalled the family doctor had put me through a “normal” electrocardiogram or “ECO” a couple of months ago. The hospital couldn’t find the data. She headed home to look for the records.

Through the night the staff awakened me to take pulse, temperature, blood pressure. I stared into the darkness and listened to the muffled voices of the evening shift. Eventually soft daylight peeked through the window.

Sandy returned, daughter Marie arrived. A nurse appeared to perform another ECO, rolling her sensor over my ribcage as she watched the image on her monitor. I slumped, half-asleep. Another nurse conducted an EKG. Heart data flowed into computers.

Someone brought breakfast. The lead physician came by, parsing his words. “I think this probably was an isolated event,” he said, meaning the V. Tach. “But low blood pressure can indicate a number of things. The cardiologist will look at the data and talk to you. Then we can get you out of here.”

The cardiologist, a young good-looking guy, showed up with his assistant. “We did see a couple of things on the ECO, some irregular waves. Maybe nothing, but I need a closer look. We’ll have to get a trans-esophageal electrocardiogram. It’s called a TEE, done under anesthesia. We insert a tube down your throat containing a sensor that will show your heart from another angle. Just a precaution.”

We stepped out of the refrigerator-cold hospital into the late-afternoon heat.  An evening thunderstorm knocked out the power at home, we sweated until midnight. In the morning the storm clouds were gone, the heat returned. Forty hours of intense cardiac surveillance seemed like a dream.

The old buzzwords, diet, hydration, returned. You may think you’re doing the right things. Whether you’ve taken seventy-plus trips around the sun or not, you need to pay attention. When something goes wrong, like V. Tach, you want to know why. The TEE is set for this week.

We persevere, finding sustenance and strength in the good people around us. V. Tach and its mysteries showed up, but nothing else has changed. Sandy and the kids bring their strength and love. Close friends in this town have stepped up to offer kindness and compassion.

We have been thinking about Alaska, that’s back on the shelf. Maine is a maybe. We’ve kicked around another big road trip, replicating the 2022 drive to Wyoming. We have friends in Albuquerque and Austin from the old Virginia running groups. Our New Hampshire cousins are coming to Myrtle Beach. We’ve never been there, maybe it’s time.        

July 29, 2024

The sun blazed down on the hospital parking lot.  It was nearly full, I had to park a half-dozen rows out. Sweating, I walked inside and inhaled the cool indoor air. I checked in for my 22nd CT (computed tomography) scan in five years.

This one was supposed to be decisive, the first scan since I started an oral chemo drug four months ago. I now wear sunglasses everywhere to protect my red, irritated eyes, and can’t taste vegetables or fruit.

The reception area was crowded. I got in line, the receptionist gave me a digital disc, the kind you get at restaurants that blinks to let you know your table is ready. I took a seat. In ten minutes the device glowed red.

A clerk gave me a paper bracelet, I signed a form. She led me to the outpatient waiting area. A half-dozen patients stared at their cell phones. I completed another form. A nurse called my name.

“How are you this morning?” she asked. We walked to a tiny exam room.

“Which arm?” she asked. I showed her both. She poked at a vein in my right arm. “This is good.” She pushed the vein, it moved under the skin. “Uh-oh, it rolls. We’ll go with the left.”  In a few seconds she had inserted the IV link. I felt nothing, she was that good.  

“Back in here,” she beckoned. I followed her, as I had followed others for the dozen CTs I’ve had in that cramped chamber. I’d met a lot of nurses at the hospital, but didn’t recognize her.

 “Looks busy,” I said.

“We’re always busy,” she said with a smile. “Day and night, 24/7.”

I emptied my pockets and slid onto the bench fitted to the CT device, which is a giant donut. She covered me with a blanket.

“Have you had a CT?” she asked.

“I’ve had around 20,” I said. “Here and in Virginia. We moved here three years ago.”

“Oh? Where in Virginia? I used to live in Centreville. We moved here 17 years ago when my husband got a job at GE. I’d never go back to Virginia.”

“We lived in Woodbridge.”

“Whenever we visit I’m amazed at the traffic. It’s awful.”

She hooked my link to the tube through which a saline solution and a dye flow to enable the CT device to illuminate your organs. I stretched my arms above my head.  She started the dye flow, I felt the warming sensation as it ran through my veins.   

“All set.” She disappeared into the control room. The bench slid me into the donut for a test run. The nurse revved it up, it hummed. “Hold your breath,” a computerized tone commanded. I puckered as it scanned me. Half a minute later it said, “Breathe.” I exhaled and gasped.

It was the same drill as the last time, and all the times before that. Two passes through the donut and I was done.

“The radiologist will look at the scan and send it to your doctor with his report,” the nurse said. “You can read it on ‘MyChart’ probably later today.”

I stuffed my wallet, phone, and keys in my pocket.

“Drink plenty of water to get the dye out of your system. Have a great day,” she called. She already was moving on to the next patient.

The visit had taken under an hour. The routine now is much faster than just a few years ago, when patients had to drink two quarts of metallic-tasting liquid and wait an hour until it “painted” their organs. The pre-scan fasting is down to two hours from six.

The CT is easy, once the patient is on the bench and prepped it’s over in a few minutes. It creates a ghostly black-and-white image of your insides. PET scans and MRIs are harder and take longer, although in most cases are more precise. If the doc orders a PET the patient knows they’re on track for the next step, a biopsy.

The scan report was posted on the “My Chart” site that evening. It showed some reduction, a few centimeters, in the liver and pleura tumors. After six years of cancer: biopsies, surgeries, chemo, two months of radiation, a year of immunotherapy, and all those scans, some good news. Helped along by prayers of hundreds of people, many I know, many I don’t know.

Two days later Sandy and I showed up at the Cancer Institute, where the oncologist and I first met nearly four years ago. The phlebotomist drew three vials of blood for his inspection. We walked to his office. He extended his hand and grinned, “How are you feeling? Scan looks good.”

I mentioned the tired, bloodshot eyes. He nodded and turned to a computer monitor and pulled up the scan image. “The drug is working,” he said. “That’s big, because it’s experimental. Labs are great. Creatine is a bit high.”

I knew the drug is intended for cancers that I don’t have. No drug exists specifically for thymic carcinoma. I’m an experiment, the doc’s only patient with this problem.

 Sandy brought up the low blood sugar, the loss of taste, the optometrist’s prescriptions.

The doc said, “Lay off the drug for two weeks, see if that makes a difference. If you’re still doing well I’ll reduce the dosage. We know the drug is working. So I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Lay off the drug”: I wondered. Health care almost always amounts to more drugs, more tests, more side effects. Let’s try going the other way. Then too, some of us are blessed, gifted in ways we do not earn. Some other Power is in charge.

The pills are in a drawer, two unopened vials next to the four empty ones. The two weeks will fly by. This guy knows his cancer. I’m a test case. We all have our tests. We soldier on.