June 19, 2023

We parked and headed for the entrance to massive Riverside High School, then to the cafeteria. The grandsons ran ahead, looking forward to the cereal and fruit juice.

The county school system offers free breakfast and lunch for students at the high school even through summer break. My grandsons like going for the fun stuff. The hot-food lines were crammed with sausages and biscuits and other things that kids don’t want. But the place was nearly empty. Before we left I saw one other adult, one other child. An excess of good intentions? Maybe the crowd gets there later. If not, all that food would have to be thrown out.

After eating we strolled down the school’s main corridors. We looked in wonder at a twelve-foot-high trophy case crammed with silver cups and plaques celebrating sports championships going back years. The three-story-high ceiling is highlighted by the Stars and Stripes and the flags of many nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa suspended from rafters. I blinked. In the first row hangs the flag of North Korea.

North Korea?  The flags of Russia and China also were displayed, along with a few others of politically repressive states, Cuba, Turkey, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia. Russia and China I could get, they’re major powers. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are non-democracies, but important players in world affairs. Again, I wondered: why North Korea?

We all know about North Korea: Kim Jong Un, political paranoia and isolation, summary executions, massive prison camps and armed forces, regional bullying, nuclear saber-rattling.

The BBC reported last week that North Korea’s chronic food shortage now may be the worst since the famine of the late 1990s. The country sealed its borders in January 2020 at the start of the pandemic, stopped importing grain from China, and halted purchases of fertilizer and farm machinery. Food markets are nearly empty. Starvation is becoming common.

Meanwhile the regime test-launched 63 ballistic missiles last year, at an estimated cost of $500 million, BBC says, enough to make up for the country’s annual grain shortfall.

The Brits say the intelligence on North Korea’s current internal conditions is provided by a South Korean organization, Daily NK, which maintains a network of anonymous sources, ordinary North Koreans who are brave enough to be interviewed. Their answers are relayed in multiple installments to avoid detection. Responses that could reveal identities are not published.

The sources report, among other things, that the government has passed a law against using words associated with the South Korean dialect.

The logic of the Riverside flag selection escaped me. A United Nations-like potpourri of color to spruce up the hallway? A testimonial to the breadth of the social-studies curriculum?

I sent an email to the school principal, writing, “North Korea is a totalitarian Communist dictatorship that forbids all freedom of expression, prevents its citizens from leaving the country, imprisons thousands of its citizens under brutal conditions. The North Korean government has threatened to use nuclear weapons to attack its neighbors and the United States.

“Displaying the North Korean flag creates the impression that North Korea, like other nations whose flags are shown, is just another member of the ‘world community.’ That is tragically untrue. I urge you to direct your staff to remove the North Korean flag from the hallway display.”

Within hours, she wrote back: “Thank you for reaching out. The flags that are hanging in our school represent a country where a student is from. We have students attending Riverside from all over the world. We have a few flags hanging where those nations restrict freedoms and are anti-American but its where our students are from and we want our students to feel welcome at RHS.”

Am I just being a grump? Is my complaining about the North Korean flag hanging in the main corridor of the local high school like an old guy yelling “Get off my lawn” at neighborhood kids? I don’t have kids in the school. Is this none of my business? While the principal was polite, she probably thought exactly that.

Parsing the rough phrasing of her email, I guessed she dashed it off in thirty seconds and didn’t look back. It’s summer break, but a principal of a large, prestigious high school is busy year-round. She didn’t need the extra chore of responding to, or even reading, a cranky email from me.

But then. We can be sure that if the North Korean students at Riverside High are refugees or escapees, they would have reason to fear for their lives if they returned to their native land.

The flag (any flag) symbolizes the political traditions and ideals of the nation, not individuals who happen to be natives. Americans raise the Stars and Stripes on Independence Day to express love and support for their country, not to identify themselves as Americans (even non-Americans wave the U.S. flag).

 Does the North Korean flag hanging from the rafters at Riverside help North Korean students and their families feel welcome? More likely it inspires fear.

I didn’t respond to the principal’s email. The flags in the school hallway may mean different things to different observers. Some may see “diversity” without political overtones. Nothing wrong with that. And then, we’re all tired of politics, in this era of Republican attacks on school officials. But the flag of North Korea as a beacon of diversity? I get a different message.

June 12, 2023

Before we left home for my appointment I walked behind the house and looked at the garden and the lawn. More weeds had shown up, thanks to the hot South Carolina sun. As we putter up the block we see “Congratulations Graduate!” signs in front yards. People are stirring about at their lawn chores. They wave, I wave back.

We headed to East Greenville, made the right turn onto Commonwealth Drive then onto International. The street is lined with beautiful landscaping, enormous shade trees, and modern medical office buildings, clinics, and one of the Bon Secours hospitals. We pull into the lot, which is bordered by a garden and a shrine to the patients.   

Everyone is friendly at the Institute. Cordiality, concern, sympathy are part of the mission. Patients wait maybe ten minutes at most for their labs, the phlebotomists get them right in. “Right arm or left?” they ask, followed by, “Band-aid or wrap?” Then back to the waiting area outside the oncology offices.

Promptly, or nearly promptly, a nurse calls the patient in and does the usual weigh-in (although you can decline it), blood pressure, and temp check. “Any falls?” she asks.

The six months of immunotherapy sessions have become a ritual. I show up, give blood. The lab checks the blood and, for most visits, sends the data to the physician-assistant. She looks at the numbers, some are always little high, others a little low. She asks me how I’m feeling. “You need to hydrate better,” she says. “Sixty to eighty ounces per day.” She then gives the pharmacy the go-ahead to mix the drug.

Last Thursday we went straight to the treatment room.

Dr. B. usually is on time. His appointments are scheduled for 15 minutes, but he’s always with us longer. He’s a young, good-looking guy with a lyrical South Georgia drawl, and he knows cancer, the big four therapies, radiation, chemo, surgery, and the newer drugs, but also the complex gene science that controls our lives. After my December 2020 operation he sent my tissue to Foundation One, the Boston lab that studies cancer at the cellular level. He wanted to know that much about my insides.

That’s where he was last week. He called up the new CT scan on the computer monitor, peered at it, and sat back. “You’ve got me stumped, Ed. I looked at these again last night.” He leaned forward and drew his hand across the shadows on the screen. “This is where we are. There’s some growth. But I don’t think we need to move to something stronger yet.”

I mentioned that the scan report showed a change in the liver tumor from millimeters to centimeters. “No, that’s wrong,” he said. He scratched out “CM” on my copy and wrote “MM” next to the number. “It’s a typo. I don’t know how they did that.” We let out our breath.

He got to his feet and turned to a white board and scrawled “Erdafitinib.” It’s a drug identified by Foundation One thought to benefit my er—situation. The disease has something to do with the mutation of a gene, dubbed FGFR3, that creates a protein used in cell functions. Mutation of the gene can cause cancer cells to multiply.

“If we decide that Keytruda isn’t working, we could go to Erdafitinib. It’s a chemo drug, taken in pill form. But it brings some toxicity—side effects—nausea, abdominal pain, others,” he said, still upbeat, smiling.

I like to think I was done with that.

The doc took his seat and leaned back, his hands behind his head. He asked about the Murph workout I did at Crossfit last week, how I broke up the sets. Then he moved on. “You’re tolerating Keytruda so well, I’m inclined to go a little longer. I’m not ready to say it’s not effective. You’ve got three more sessions, right?

“Let’s finish those. We may get you a few more, then another CT. Then we’ll make a decision. We’ve looked at your liver, no problems. Stay active. Keep doing everything you’re doing.”

I headed down the hall for immunotherapy session number eight. A decision, a path forward is what matters. The real start of decline in cancer, any cancer, is in your head: uncertainty, ambiguity, which creates the second stage, depression, followed by despair.

A smiling nurse, Becky, met me outside the treatment room. I walked with her past the other patients, some looking at their phones or sleeping, some with that blasted look of “what the heck is going on?” They’re the ones on the serious drugs, the major-league toxic medicines that kill healthy cells along with cancer, wrecking the body to save it. The room was nearly full.

“Looks like you’re busy,” I said.

“Always,” she answered.

Becky pointed at a Laz-Z-Boy next to an older lady. I sat, she inserted my IV. We waited 15 or 20 minutes while the pharmacists brewed the drug.

She picked up the plastic bag with the drug and hooked me up. The stuff flowed, I sipped water. The young chaplain, making his rounds, stopped by and exchanged pleasantries, asking if anything was new. I told him where I stood, he scribbled on his clipboard. He moved on to the lady on my left and chatted with her for a while. I was out of there in under an hour.

We headed home, into the minor-league rush hour traffic this minor-league city produces, past the lovely shade trees. We steered past pretty subdivisions and thick green pastures. As I drove, I wondered how many times I had visited the Cancer Institute. I had been seeing the doc now for two and a half years. For a couple of months he passed me to Dr. Z, the radiation oncologist, who pitched me back after radiation.

Then I thought of other things, the trip to Tennessee next month, the good, loving people around us, the cosmic events that create history, the blessings and tragedies we live through. The world creaked forward.     

June 5, 2023

Memorial Day came and went. Some folks enjoyed picnics, parades, and regular updates on the soap opera in Washington over the new bill to allow the government to continue borrowing. Others, maybe thousands, engaged in an exercise routine called Murph.

Many Americans have heard of the heroism and the tragedy of Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy and Petty Officers Marcus Luttrell, Danny Dietz, and Matthew Axelson. They are the SEALs sent on a covert mission into a death trap in a remote place in Afghanistan in late June 2005. Murphy, Dietz, and Axelson were ambushed and killed by Taliban fighters. Only Luttrell survived. Sixteen more Special Forces members en route to rescue the SEALs were killed when their helicopter was shot down.

Murphy received a posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle. Dietz and Axelson were awarded the Navy’s second-highest honor, the Navy Cross, posthumously. Luttrell also received the Navy Cross. In 2007 Luttrell published Lone Survivor, which told the story of the mission. The book became a movie in 2013.

The SEALs have their legacy. Parks, post offices, schools, and roads have been named after them. Non-profit foundations have been established in their names. A new Navy destroyer, USS Michael Murphy, is now in the fleet. Morgan Luttrell, Marcus’s brother, himself a former SEAL, was elected to Congress in Texas.

Murphy, a native of Long Island, N.Y., graduated from Penn State in 1998. He considered law school but instead entered Navy Officer Candidate School and went through the highly selective, some say brutal, SEAL training in 2000. He served in Qatar and Djibouti before deploying to Afghanistan in 2005.

Murphy developed the program named after him: a one-mile run, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 body-weight squats, topped off by another one-mile run. Murphy did the routine wearing a 16.4-pound body armor vest that he wore on missions. He called the workout “Body Armor.” Background on Murphy reports that he completed the routine in 32 to 35 minutes. It caught on among SEALs and other service personnel deployed worldwide, wherever they could find a horizontal exercise bar, doorframe, or tree branch for the pullups—and the body armor. 

In 2007 Dr. Joshua Appel, a former Air Force search-and-rescue specialist who helped rescue Luttrell and recover Murphy’s body, suggested that his Crossfit group in Albany, N.Y., attempt the Murph workout on Memorial Day. Thousands of people belong to Crossfit clubs. Many Crossfitters and others subject themselves to the Murph.

Exercising may seem an offbeat way to observe Memorial Day, America’s tribute to its service men and women who have fallen in combat. But, as if competing with the parades and solemn ceremonies, businesses use Memorial Day to hawk stuff we’re told will make us happy: cars, appliances, furniture, mattresses, beer. Today, fewer than one percent of Americans step up for military service. Of those who do, a small minority will ever face combat.

The Murph workout isn’t combat. But in some mystical way, it brings far more meaning to the Day than appliance shopping. The Murph workout is pain. Typically Crossfitters or anyone else attempting it break up the three centerpiece exercises in sets, for example, 20 sets of five pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 squats, or some similar mix.

The Murph candidate finishes the first mile breathing hard. He then grabs the pullup bar for his set then sinks to the floor for the pushups. Still gasping, he climbs to his feet for the squats. Then repeat, over and over. Somehow, he keeps track of his progress. In a gym some people scrawl on the floor with chalk. One set, then two, then three, and so on. I used a notebook.

People yelled while the Murph workout crew grunted and gasped. A few family members and kids showed up to cheer and encourage. “Good job, Joe!” “Keep it up!” A few shouted, “Almost there!” when I knew I was not almost there. Ten or so minutes in, I grabbed my water bottle, guzzled, then grasped the bar again. Up. And up. Then down, and down.

I looked around, panting and sweating. The floor in front of me was a puddle. The place was becoming quiet. Others who had finished their first mile ahead of me (most of the team) had finished their pullup-pushup-squat sets and were heading to the door to get their second mile. 

By the last three or four sets the pullups were becoming half-jumps to get my chin above the bar for a legal repetition. For the pushups the full body must touch the floor, not halfway down then back up. The squat has to be thighs below parallel to the floor, no bouncing. Then back up again, back down, one (pause), two (pause) three—the pauses get longer, the thighs feel like rubber.

By the time I finished my last squats, nearly everyone else in the group had either completed the run or was close. A few candidates lay on the floor staring upward, savoring their success. Some have gathered their gear and were staggering toward the exit.

I stumbled to the door for my final mile, which the coach measured, eight laps around the parking lot of a supermarket next door to the gym. We started at 6:30 AM, now the early shoppers were starting to arrive, I watched for the traffic. Sandy, the coach, and a few other team members who already finished stood nearby and cheered. I plodded for seven laps, then a friend, Elise, who long ago finished her Murph, jumped in and ran the final lap with me.

My shoulders felt numb. I looked for water and a place to sit down, not thinking solemn thoughts about duty and country. But the team got it done, the expression we use about these things that are so hard, painful, exhausting.

The pain I felt isn’t remotely like that endured by those SEALs, or by the millions of Americans who have stood their ground in hostile foreign places, their lives on the line. But we try, in our humble way, to share something with them, to remember them, on Memorial Day.        

May 29, 2023

I wondered about the spelling of the name of the place. “Plough” is the British spelling of the implement used by farmers to till their fields. In America it’s “plow.”

Like everyone else, every so often we go out to lunch. The stay-at-home (or workplace) routine of sandwiches or leftovers day in and day out gets old. Much of the restaurant industry is built around lunch, fast-food or leisurely. Try driving through the parking lot of Chick-fil-A at lunchtime. Businesses make deals over restaurant lunches. For some friends and couples, lunch at a favorite place is a ritual, a tradition. A lunch date usually is an easier “ask” than dinner, and cheaper.

Restaurants in Greenville and its environs are dispersed the same way as in other mid-size cities. Downtown is more expensive than the suburbs. Dozens of restaurants, maybe hundreds, are clustered along the two major business thoroughfares, Woodruff Road on the south side and Wade Hampton Boulevard to the north. Many of them are chain outlets, identical to those on any side of any town, large or small.

Typically if we go for lunch we like the so-called fast-casual places, the ones that let you order at a counter, rather than wait for a server to appear, smile, and bustle about, “Hi, I’m Dan, I’ll be taking care of you today.” Some people are pressed for time, others don’t want to add a tip. At fast-casual you shuffle forward in line, study the menu on the wall behind the workers, and at some places, watch your meal being prepared. It’s more work than dealing with a server but you have more control.

That’s what I had in mind on the first day back from my Virginia trip. It was a rest day, no errands scheduled. But the place I thought of was on Woodruff, on the opposite side of town, where rush hour first appears. So we recalculated. We had driven past Fork and Plough many times on our way downtown, along the main street of what’s called the Overbrook historical district. So that’s where we went.

Fork and Plough announces that it will “provide both neighbors and visitors alike the Upstate’s freshest and most plentiful meats, produce, and products both as a dine-in and carryout option. This concept supports the idea that farmers and chefs can make a living supplying a community with its daily necessities, while also encouraging the enjoyment of a simple meal.”

Every restaurant has a blurb. But really, they all say the same thing. Fork and Plough adds that it changes the menu twice a day, which I guess is true, since the menus were xeroxed slips of paper. When we were there, the menu featured Tuscan Bean Chili, Beef Carpaccio, Seared OBX Scallops, and Ms. Janna’s Fried Rabbit Legs.  I thought the prices a tad high, but we weren’t looking for a feast. We got salads.

Fork and Plough is in a nondescript block building that likely housed some other local business. The staff people wear shirts with the restaurant name across the front. It offers a selection of wines and craft beers.

The concept of “freshness,” i.e., not deep-frozen, no doubt adds a premium, especially with vegetables. When I worked at a church food pantry we received donations of food from grocery stores, the local markets, even Walmart. They gave away the stuff that couldn’t be called fresh, even if it was safe, because less than fresh won’t sell at the right price.

Fork and Plough, like plenty of other places, calls itself a “neighborhood” restaurant. Fresh food in a neighborhood setting is a strong sell to some people. Then add the British spelling, even stronger. They charge the premium for freshness. They get the historic neighborhood crowd, the “Plough” crowd.

A few miles away, along Wade Hampton, among the dozens of chain outlets, department stores, cell-phone places, auto-repair garages, and quick oil-change shops is another restaurant, Josey’s Chuck Wagon. It perches on a hill next to a Target and a tire shop.

Josey’s is the kind of place you call “down home.” The menu is printed on laminated sheets. It never changes. You can get a breakfast of eggs, hash browns or grits, bacon or sausage all day. Alcohol isn’t available. It offers stick-to-your ribs burgers, “hamburger steaks,” country-style steak, mac ‘n cheese, fried chicken, chicken fried steak, all with fries, and a selection of side dishes. A Route 66 medallion hangs on the wall near the kitchen.

Josey’s is a neighborhood restaurant in a very different neighborhood. The help at Josey’s wear T-shirts with slogans on the back like “Turkey, gravy, beans and rolls, let me see that casserole,” and “Y’all come back now, ya hear?” The places brings in lots of retired folks and people who work in the nearby businesses. The servers call you “sweetheart” or “hon” when they take your order or refill your coffee, iced tea, or soda. They recognize customers, because so many are regulars. Josie’s is more of a “plow” kind of place.

We sat down at Fork and Plough at the height of the lunch hour. It was about half-full. Maybe because the design is an open concept with no partitions, the noise was deafening, the din of a high-school cafeteria.  I had to lean forward to hear the server, she leaned down to hear me.

At Josey’s, most of the tables are booths, in the old-fashioned diner-type design. That’s what it is, a diner, serving its own neighborhood, its own world. Occasionally you heard a few sentences at another table, but it’s pretty quiet.

Fork and Plough thrives on the pitch of being unique—the singular place in Overbrook, maybe in the whole city or whole state where “farmers and chefs can make a living supplying a community with its daily necessities.” Josey’s, though, isn’t much different from the A&P Restaurant a couple of miles away and has a sign facing the highway that says, “Good Food.” The Lil Rebel Restaurant, also nearby, is the same kind of place. They’re not unique. But always crowded.

May 22, 2023

Rural Retreat, Virginia, is just south of Wytheville along I-81. I’ve flashed by the sign dozens of times over 40-plus years of driving Virginia’s western spine. This time I moved to the right lane, signaled, and turned.

Two miles along, Rural Retreat appeared. A side street, a church, a railroad station. I passed modest homes and large Victorian houses surrounded by brilliant rose bushes. The main street turned onto a hill topped with an enormous orange silo emblazoned, “Rural Retreat.” From the peak of the hill a panorama of vernal pastures reflected the glorious sunlight. Twenty miles out the misty silhouette of the Shenandoahs rose.

In the same way, the mountain views behind me, along I-26 north of Asheville are mesmerizing, the effect of the dark peaks magnified by the near-emptiness of the road. I headed up that way solo last Wednesday. After the Rural Retreat detour I stayed with I-81 to New Market, then U.S. 211 through Luray and for five miles through Shenandoah National Park. The road is well-kept, the climbs and descents as sharp as I remembered.

In late June we’re heading to Franklin County, Tenn., west of Chattanooga, then in July to eastern Pennsylvania.

We no longer avoid interstates, the broken white lines lead us. But the joy of the road is in the local segment as much as and often more than in the destination. The rural roads are where you find serenity, maybe memories. They’re lined with forests, mountains, meadows, and cultivated fields exploding with growth. Open roads show you the country, right now a rich, luminescent green.

We took a back route months ago that seemed like a shortcut to U.S. 11, South Carolina’s southeast-inclined state highway. The road wound through the nearby suburb of Taylors, across the busy retail-clogged highway found in every city or town. Soon we were away from traffic in Pickens County, passing lush pastures where livestock grazed, farmhouses and barns stood in the distance. I don’t remember where we were going. I remember the places we saw getting there.

It’s like that everywhere. Crossing into New Hampshire from Massachusetts on U.S. 3, also called the Everett Turnpike, the tree coverage shifts from mid-Atlantic deciduous to rough New England North, tall pine, thick dark patches of forest. A few homes here and there, then clusters of low-rise office buildings around Nashua. The past races back for me to Manchester, a grubby mill town less than 50 years ago, now still trying to be suburban high-tech.

The pine forests along Rte. 3 haven’t changed, they show up just north of Chelmsford, Mass. They connote for me that intense four-year stretch, the late Sixties, the convulsing years of the peak of the Vietnam nightmare that scarred millions, but now seems even to middle-agers like ancient history. In winter, from our college hilltop the city was hidden by the smog of oil heating, white clouds curling upward above the snow, smothering the city.

Today the mills that belched pollution are apartments, condos, and offices. Interstate 93 still runs through the heart of the city on the west bank of the brown Merrimack River that curdles into angry rapids as it rushes south to pass through Lowell and Lawrence. The forest breaks around Concord, then becomes thicker and darker again approaching the White Mountains.      

We had a family wedding a few years ago, I think near Thornton, a good hike up I-93. We could see Mount Washington to the northeast. The next day we headed southeast on a narrow, winding state road. We chugged through the old lake town of Laconia, past Lake Winnisquam and Lake Winnipesaukee and a rush of motels and cabins, then back into deep woods on a local highway to Portsmouth.

We crossed the fast-moving Piscataqua River past the naval base into Maine and took pictures at Fort McClary, which looks out over the Atlantic. It’s an odd spot, established for coastal defense around 1800, named after Andrew McClary, who died at Bunker Hill. But then Maine and New Hampshire never needed coastal defense. The fort now is a state park.

So that was thousands of country miles into the past. Now there isn’t the time, we take the highways. There’s always a medical stop, home maintenance, some other obligation or distraction, the old folks’ list. The big glamor states we haven’t seen, Alaska and Hawaii, seem right now like distant planets. Four others, Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon are farther down the list.

Awhile back Sandy wanted to visit Laurel, Miss., to see the old homes. I wanted to go to Hattiesburg, supposed to be an interesting place. I still want to see Luckenbach, Tex., which Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson sang about. We missed it by a couple of miles in 2018. We’d like to see Niagara Falls.

My 2018 road atlas lies on the living-room sofa, the non-interstate U.S. highways that span the country, routes 2, 6, 20, and 50, traced with colored markers. They seem to look up at me.

The detour to Rural Retreat took me a short way east, through a small, pretty community perched mainly on a hillside that gave a view of pristine, near-empty country. The stately homes on large lots offered clues to a prosperous history. The whitewashed rail station is the center of town. A few small businesses and retail operations line the main street, VA 749, which heads south toward a census-designated place, Sugar Grove, barely a spot on the map.

Planning travel can become a bookish, inward-looking hobby, then an excuse for not going. The journey to the unknown, the small town in the boondocks, along the winding road through forest and mountains may take the place of something else, some chore or obligation, something unnerving or uncomfortable looming in our lives. But gas prices have dipped a bit. Everyone talks about going. We should stop thinking about it, pack, and leave.