Rendevous

Ronald Reagan was diagnosed as having cancer in the summer of 1985. The announcement of the president's short flirt with a terminal illness was televised world-wide, interrupting the entertainment of millions to broadcast the news of his cancerous bowel.

A few weeks later on a bright summer day, the phone rang. It was Mom.

"Hold it a minute, Mom," I said, after greeting her, "I have to get it quiet around here so I can hear myself think." After reminding my daughter, Andrea, and her little girl friends to get their sun screen on, I chased them outside to play and turned to the phone.

"My doctor tells me that I have cancer," she tried to sound cheerful.

She had been feeling ill for several weeks and was seeking medical help to determine the source of the problem. I wasn't surprised by the news. After working for decades in hospital intensive care units and emergency rooms I've learned to be prepared for the worst. Her symptoms were ominous: weakness, fatigue, and out of whack blood tests. In a tone that made me think she had already given up, he told me more about the illness and plans for treatment.

As I turned from the phone the cries of children playing outside seemed far away. I stared out the window. The sunlight, so bright and luminous moments before, now appeared covered with a dirty film... or was it just a window needing to be cleaned.

"Multiple" myeloma they called it. As if one wasn't enough. "A malignant type of widespread bone destruction" was the briefest of definitions. I remembered a bone scan I had years before. A hard lump on my leg was suspicous. An IV was started. A technician, clad in a chalky white uniform pushed a radioactive substance from a leaded syringe into my vein. I waited an hour for it to circulate while trying to direct my thoughts. On the scan, my skeletal system was outlined in pinpoints of light generated by the radioactive substance. Abnormal areas had a brighter concentration of light, like a faraway comet, or a cluster of stars seen through weak binoculars.

The president's cancer was a polyp in the bowel, which could be neatly cut out. But who ever heard of removing malignant bones? What kind of human would a person without a skeletal system be?
-----------

We began to make plans. Karen, my wife, was six months pregnant, so we couldn't do any traveling before the baby came. We poured over calendars and travel itineraries. Thanksgiving was the earliest we could cover the twenty-eight hundred miles east to visit Mom. We calculated the airline fares over and over again. It was just too expensive. So we bought tickets on Amtrak and I began to get excited. I love trains.

Things were happening. At Reagan's wish, Contras were killing Sandinistas in Nicaragua. In Illinois, a young woman who had been born again confessed that she lied about being raped, a lie that put an innocent man in prison for six years. And somewhere beyond the solar system, Halley's Comet was headed for a winter rendevous with Planet Earth.

Like most kids, I had heard of Halley's Comet from the earliest grades in school. Teachers would show students pictures of it and I figured out the distant year it would return again. Calculating when Halley's Comet would return was one of the few mathematical problems that made sense. It had purpose and meaning for life. Iwanted to see it for myself, and that time would soon be here.

--------------

Mother was getting worse while everyone seemed to have forgotten about Reagan's cancer. Debate raged across the country. Were the Contras a legitimate fighting force or a band of terrorists? Reagan's cancer was losing the fight to destroy his body as his Contras lost support in Congress, but in Mom the cancer was winning. The chemotherapy only made her sicker. She spent several days in the hospital. It was hard to imagine her incapacitated. She was a woman of endless energy. I remember her working all day, six days a week. She spent hours in the garden pulling weeds or picking vegetables, bending over in an upside-down U shape with her knees straight to do the work. She didn't kneel or crouch there, claiming that she had a weak knee and was afraid that if she knelt down, might not be able to rise again.

Karen arose from the chair. " I think we better go." she said. A quick phone call and we had child care. Our three daughters had no desire to witness the birth, although we offered the experience to them. The baby came quickly. The time from beginning of labor to delivery was just a couple hours. A friend brought our girls to the hospital and they took turns sitting in a large spongy chair with thick armrests for a chance to hold their new sister. They stared at her in awe and she squirmed uncomfortably at being passed from arms to arms. It was late at night. The next morning I called my mother to tell her the news.

"We named her Lindsay Rebecca," I said.

"Oh, I like that!" was Mom's reply.

"I don't know when I'll get to see her.... if ever," she added.

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The train was late. It was after midnight when we left Boise. The children dropped off to sleep in their reclined seats, but I stayed awake for hours . I like the connected feeling I get from trains and railroads. Like a personal letter or an unexpected gift, the tracks join people who are otherwise separated by large distances. When I was younger and living hundreds of miles from family, I would occassionally drive to the nearest airport and hang out for a few hours watching planes come and go and studying the lists of arrivals and departures. It made me feel closer to home. Trains with their visible tracks on the Earth's surface do it even better.

At noon the next day, I wasn't hungry. Lindsay, now a little over two months old, was sleeping and the others wanted lunch. I offered to hold her. They headed for the dining car and I reclined my seat with the sleeping baby on my chest. My hand on her back rose and fell with each tiny breath. I felt the warmth of her body against my shirt and marveled at how much heat an infant can generate. My tired head relaxed against the headrest. I dozed and entered my parent's home in Pennsylvania one summer morning. Fresh sunlight chased me through the door. It was quiet - too quiet. Mom and Dad should be up by now. Perhaps they were getting a little extra rest. The day was young. Let them sleep. There was plenty of time. I sat down on the friendly worn sofa and opened a magazine.

What was that? It sounded like an alarm clock. I waited, but it kept ringing. Usually they turned it off so quickly you weren't sure the ringing had been real. I dropped the magazine and walked toward the stairs. This was not an open stairway, like new houses have, but an enclosed one. A rectangular tunnel with steps and a thin handrail. I climbed them, the ringing getting louder as I neared the second floor. The half-opened door to my parent's room was to the right. I cautiously entered the room. They were in the bed, apparently asleep. The alarm clock rattled on, next to their pillow. I reached down and lifted it, pushing on the metal switch behind the 12 to turn it off. My finger met only the flat back of the clock. I turned it over and looked at it. There was a metal knob to wind it up, another to set the time, and one to set the alarm, but no switch to turn it off when it started ringing. The ringing went on and on, changing slowly to a dull hum with motion as I awoke in the speeding train. Lindsay was awake, too, and had slid off my chest toward the floor. She squirmed uncomfortably on my abdomen, her tiny feet dangling between my thighs. Concerned looks from other passengers turned to expressions of relief as I
reached to halt her slide.

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That evening, a Mormon couple offered to buy dinner for our family. They said our daughters reminded them of their grandchildren. We ate together in the brightly lit dining car, exchanging crucial information about our families. Outside, the darkness of early winter, nicked with small chips of light, rushed by the window. After the meal we thanked our new friends and returned to our seats. On the way I found a used newspaper. The train was like a spaceship isolating passengers from television and radio. I was hungry for information. The news was not uplifting. A judge in Illinois could not understand why someone would apologize for telling a lie six years before. The innocent "rapist" would not be freed. The news from outer space was disappointing also. Halley's was coming, but the view would not be great. It wouldn't get very close to earth this trip. Those who wanted a better view would have to wait until 2062.

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On the train, we waited. The brown, open spaces of Nebraska in winter swept by the windows. I calculated our speed. The little white mileposts were 42 seconds apart. That meant we were going about 86 miles per hour. The comet's speed was measured in thousands of miles per hour. In Chicago, we used the hours between trains to ride the elevator up the Sears Tower. The view was stunning from the top even though limited by clouds and smog. I wished for a clear dark night so I could check the skies.

The trains east of Chicago were noisy. The aged and crowded passenger cars clattered and clanged over the rails. We almost didn't get seats together. It was a relief to arrive at our destination.

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We walked down the corridor toward my mother's room. I checked the dark room numbers on the white wall by the side of each door. Room 641. I entered the open door crowding my father just ahead while the others trailed behind. The tortured face of the woman in bed was the face of a stranger. I lifted my hand to touch my dad's shoulder and tell him we were in the wrong room, but he kept going. I stopped to look for something to recognize in her features. She looked thirty years older than the healthy mother who had visited us in Idaho earlier in the year. Her breathing was labored and her eyes closed. We tried to visit with her that day and each day for more than a week, but she was too ill. Perhaps she knew who we were, but couldn't respond. It was impossible to tell. Without her, we feasted on Thanksgiving Day and connected with family in a reunion haunted by the shadow of her terminal illness. Others celebrated. The governor of Illinois released the falsely accused prisoner and no sign of Reagan's cancer reappeared. Even the besieged people of Nicaragua received a reprieve as Congress cut funding for the Contras.

----------------

Weeks later, after mother's funeral and back in Idaho, I went to see the comet. It was late at night and out in the desert away from city lights. Telescopes had been set up for public viewing. Everyone wanted to see. Streams of cars, nearly bumper to bumper, trailed each other away from town. From a distance their lights looked like the tail of a comet. Shivering people stood in long, dark lines to peer through a telescope. To the north, a silhouette of mountain peaks interrupted the sky line, but did nothing to block the arctic winds, and to the east Halley's Comet hugged the horizon line like a malignant growth in the night sky, hopelessly trying to hide.


(Previously published in a 1994 Boise State Univ. class publication: "Just About Noon at Two Dudes Nacho Hut")

NOTE: There have been no new entries lately because our computer died over a week ago Hope to get it fixed next week.

"HOPE has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage: anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are."

St. Augustine

Hyde Park Mennonite Fellowship, Boise

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Words of The Zach (my five-year-old grandson)

One morning after slowly and sleepily dragging himself out of bed
and down the hall to the kitchen...

Zach: "I just want my dream back."

Papa: "What was your dream about?"

Zach: "I don't know, but it was a nice dream and I just want it back."

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Hyde Park Street Fair...where you can find some great bargains..Now just what is free, the fence, the yard, or the house?

Hyde Park Street Fair.. Dogs are allowed, but thankfully they are not allowed to smoke!

Boise - North End

Hyde Park Street Fair 9/13/08

Hyde Park Street Fair - 9/13/-08

Hyde Park Street Fair, Boise, ID, Sept 13, 2008

Art in the Park, Sept 6, 2008

Art in the Park - Boise Idaho - Sept. 6, 2008

Rose Garden- Julia Davis Park - Boise (Photo by Zachary Branam, Sept 6, 2008)

Art in the Park - 2008

Art in the Park - 2008

Just Paying Attention...

Overheard on the sidewalk in front of the Flying M, June 14, 2007.

" I don't understand why you're blowing in my ear, Jason, but over the phone
it doesn't do a lot."

Zach at the Western Idaho Fair - Aug. 2008

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men (and good women) do nothing."
Winston Churchill

"Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence."
Leonardo da Vinci

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among these fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes and they come back to us as effects."

Herman Melville

Sarah Palin and the "Country First" slogan

Like other US citizens I watched Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's speech on TV. I also saw the hoards of Republican delegates at the convention waving their "Country First" banners.


Let's look at a few of the things that Palin said, or didn't say, about concerns that should be of interest to US citizens. No mention was made of protecting the environment or of the threat of global warming. Since environmental degradation and global warming may be the most serious problem the human race has ever faced, the vice-presidential candidate for the Republican Party, the party that has traditionally ignored environmental concerns, failing to address those problems is an ominous omen for the health and safety of our citizens, and for the health of the planet.


Palin did address energy concerns but tacked the solar, wind, and geothermal options to the end of a list that started with oil, coal, and nuclear thereby clearly indicating where her priorities reside.


In one sentence Palin, referring to a pipeline, said the following; ...when the last section is laid and its valves opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart." Does Palin expect other countries to have US interest's at heart? Does the US have the interests of other countries at heart?


She criticizes Obama by saying when "Victory in Iraq is finally in sight...he wants to forfeit." This raise the following question. Just how does Palin define "victory" in Iraq? How many innocent civilian deaths does it take to get one "victory?" If Palin doesn't realize that killing children and innocent civilians for oil is despicable behavior no matter which country does it, she is too dangerous and irresponsible to be a heartbeat from the White House. I'm always appalled at professing Christians who claim to be against abortion and pro-life and at the same time advocate killing children in other countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran by waging war against those countries. Palin put a plug in for war against Iran by criticising Obama for being willing to meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. She referred to Iran as a "terrorist state." The last thing this country and the world needs is another US instigated war against a Middle Eastern country with oil deposits. The next administration should be willing to talk to any enemy or potential enemy nation as a way of preventing war. We should only apply preconditions to those talks if we are willing to accept preconditions from them. In light of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, and Iraq, as well as our use of depleted uranium, I'm sure more people in the world see the United States as a terrorist state than see Iran as any threat to them.


In another paragraph Palin said. "Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America...he's worried (referring again to Obama) that someone won't read them their rights. " This is clearly a reference to Guantanamo. Since most of the inmates who were imprisoned there were not guilty of any wrongdoing and were badly mistreated by the US, this comment by Palin demonstrates support for torture and a continuation of the violation of human rights as practiced by the Bush Administration.


Palin mentions nothing about one of the biggest threats to US citizens and that is the lack of affordable health care or adequate health insurance. That seems to say that she has no plans or workable ideas for solving the problem. Other problems she did not address are job outsourcing, the current economic crises, and immigration. You may argue that neither did Obama or Biden mention those problems, but Republicans have been in control in the White House for the past eight years, so its more imperative that the Republican candidates assure us that they will not continue making the same mistakes of the current Bush Administration.


In one of her last statements she said, "There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you...in places where winning means survival and defeat means death...and that man is John McCain." That, of course, is inaccurate. Every US citizen who goes to work and does a good day's work is fighting for his/her country. The idea that the only people who "fight" for their country are soldiers is absurd. Teachers, health care professionals, production workers, miners, truck drivers, students, etc., etc. are all "fighting" for their country when they do good work at what they need to do to survive, learn a skill, or make a living. I don't question the fact that McCain was subject to and survived a serious ordeal in Vietnam, and the time he was a prisoner of war certainly took courage and resolution. But he never would have been a prisoner of war if he hadn't participated in that unjustified and illegal violence against Vietnam. The Vietnam War had long since been discredited by history, by Republican and Democratic leaders, as well as by most citizens, as an unnecessary and foolish waste of lives and resources. Most Americans believe that getting involved in Vietnam was one of the worst mistakes this country ever made. It's time to quit making heroes out of those who made that mistake. If McCain were a responsible citizen the first thing he would do is publicly acknowledge that, whether as a draftee or a volunteer, it was a mistake for him to participate in the violence against Vietnam.

Several times during the convention people in the audience were seen waving placards with the
selfish, narrow-minded, and myopic "Country First" slogan on it. It seems as if most Republicans still think that the US is the only country that matters. As responsible citizens we must realize that decisions and choices we make as a government and country have to take into consideration the impact we have on other countries. We share this planet with billions of other people, most with different languages, religions, cultures and citizenship. Their lives are as important as ours. They have as much right to live in their homelands free from foreign military or economic attack as we do. They are every bit as brave as we are. Many of them are as free as we are and an increasing number have more freedoms than US citizens, since their governments provide them with more choices and better support than the US government provides its citizens. Other industrialized countries as well as some poorer countries have some form of universal health care. That's an enormously liberating benefit to both individuals and families because, with universal health care, people are freer to change jobs and living locations. Universal health care makes for stronger family units. Many other countries provide their citizens with more transportation options. An increasing number of countries are ahead of the US in protecting the environment, and developing clean alternative energy sources. Many countries have more than two major political parties and therefore have more options for citizen involvement unlike the two powerful, but very similar and both very conservative parties in this country. Some countries provide their citizens with a free college education. Most Western European countries are much more supportive of family life than the US is in that they provide longer terms of maternity and paternity leave with a significant percentage of pay. The list is growing as more and more countries surge ahead of the US in advancing civilization. It looks as if a Palin and McCain win in November will simply result in the United States falling further and further behind other nations in having an advanced and supportive society and civilization.

Gas Prices (part two)

Solutions to the relative high cost of gasoline have been proposed. President Bush has advocated more drilling for oil, even in environmentally sensitive areas. The same solutions have been proposed by Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Both McCain and Palin are strong supporters of building more nuclear power plants. On the other hand Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama supports some drilling as a temporarily stop gap measure to carry us into an era of cleaner energy. Obama doesn't entirely dismiss nuclear generated electricity but reminds us of ongoing safety and radioactive waste storage issues that are decades old and show no sign of soon being resolved.

There is more than one issue that has to be taken into consideration. One is the need for more clean sources of energy. Another is concern about the environment and global warming. Drilling for more fossil fuels is unlikely to make a dent in the energy cost any time soon. Burning more fossil fuels is counterproductive to stopping the human assault on the climate and the environment. It doesn't matter where the oil comes from. Burning it pollutes the environment, even if we didn't have to drill for it and it just bubbled out of the ground and was dirt cheap. We still have to reduce our use of fossil fuels. So solutions that include drilling for more oil are not solutions at all but simply expensive ways of perpetuating and exacerbating the problem. The money, resources, and drive for energy should be diverted from fossil fuels and aimed in the direction of sources that are renewable and do not pollute, or cause only minimal pollution. Any politician from any party who suggests that we should expand drilling for oil is suggesting that we move backwards into the past, that we disregard the environment, that we worsen the problem of global warming, and that we leave our descendants with dirty energy sources, a poisoned earth and atmosphere, and ongoing military violence against women, children, and other civilians who had the poor judgement to be born in a country with large oil deposits.

There are solutions to the energy crises. Some like hydrogen are on the distant horizon and may not be available for decades. Others like solar and wind, which is a form of solar energy, are available now, and expanding rapidly. We haven't heard much about conservation lately, but many people can save energy by making changes in their life style. Drive less, walk and peddle more. Reduce the energy demands of your work and leisure by making decisions that take energy use into consideration. Live close to your place of employment. Buy food that was grown locally. The list is endless. In part one I suggested that people can save gasoline and money by simply driving slower. There's another change that should take place to help reduce the use of energy as well as improve the environment. On Monday, Labor Day I was driving home from work (no bus service available on holidays) and again I was impressed with how empty the roads were. I could have driven on State Street from downtown Boise the few miles to Collister or Ellen's Ferry on the wrong side of the street without hitting anyone. Normally on week days it's heavy traffic most of the day. The solution, of course, is more holidays. Fifty year ago most businesses were closed on Sundays. Plans for travel on Sundays had to be made carefully because it might be difficult to find open gas stations for fuel. Usually you packed a lunch to take along, because restaurants were closed on Sundays. Today many businesses are open Sundays, but some are closed for the main holidays such as Christmas, New Years and Labor Day. More holidays with three days weekends would reduce fuel use and help keep the air clean. Businesses should be encouraged to close on holidays and Sundays. More holiday weekends would also be great for families and family life. If the conservatives in this country were as pro-family as they want us to think they are, more holiday weekends would have been at the top of their agenda for decades. I suggest an official holiday every week, but we can start with twice a month and gradually expand it to every week. It would be a great way to save energy, improve air quality, and enhance family life.

Gas Prices (part one)

A few weeks ago gas prices in the Treasure Valley area of Southwestern Idaho temporarily peaked at a little over four dollars a gallon. Most of the country was having a similar experience as gas prices reached new highs nearly everywhere and the news media focused on the increasing cost of gasoline for many days. Some blamed the president while others said that speculators were the cause. Of course the oil companies are always at fault when gas prices increase. Still others blamed the Democrats in Congress. In addition we can't forget the environmentalists who are nearly always at fault, whenever concern is expressed about the poisons from burning fossil fuel being released into the environment, and how they contribute to illness and global warming, as they have always done.

On the positive side, the news media also reported that the number of miles driven in the country compared to similar time period last year was significantly less. That is hopeful news considering the reduction in mileage driven took place rather quickly and apparently without the need for legislation. In the meantime motorists of Western Europe are paying seven to ten dollars a gallon for gasoline (or the equivalent Euros per liter for petrol), and I highly suspect that there were few if any stories in their news media about their citizens complaining of high gas prices. If fact, American complaints about the cost of our much cheaper gasoline was probably a bigger news story in Europe, as well as a source of humor for Europeans.

However it seems as if most news media outlets in this areas missed the easiest and quickest method of reducing the cost of gasoline. Next to using mass transit or some form of transportation that does not use gasoline, the easiest way to cut your cost of gasoline is to simply slow down. Although I usually take the bus or walk, when I've driven in the past couple months I've tried this solution many times. I've driven 40 MPH on West State St. between Collister and Glenwood where the speed limit is 45 mph; 30 mph on Glenwood, Chindon, and other streets where the speed limit is 35 mph. Without exception the minute I slowed down, I was passed repeatedly by others going the same direction on that street. Although nearly everyone was complaining about high gas prices, very few people were actually doing the simplest thing anyone can do to cut their gasoline cost, and that is "drive slower." In fact many of them were exceeding the speed limit. Unless you're driving an emergency vehicle, try slowing down. If you're still driving the speed limit or faster, you have no legitimate reason to complain about high gas prices. Since people are continuing to drive as they did when gas was cheaper, apparently the price of gasoline is still not high enough.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

William Faulkner

Thursday Morning Zach

"To be avoided at all cost is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought."

William Sloane Coffin

Monday Morning Zach

"As I've gotten to know the many beautiful people of faiths and their teachings, I have come to learn of our common principals of peace, justice, humility, and that we are truly ONE humanity, all praying to the same God in our different ways."

ANI; from the web site www.a-n-i.net

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"Words Of The Zach" (my five-year-old grandson)

A couple weeks ago on our way downtown to Alive After Five, while sitting at the back of the bus, Zach was holding his two hands up in front of him making a rotating motion. I looked at him and this is the dialogue we had:

Papa: "Are you pretending that you're driving the bus?"
Zach: "No. The bus driver's pretending. I'm driving the bus."

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Last Wednesday at 11:30 pm, night time with a full moon while on the way home from the Caldwell Night Rodeo on Chinden Blvd in the context of a conversation about the moon, stars, and the sun:

Papa: "Zach, did you know that the moon is 238,000 miles away?"
Zach: "From our house or from our car?"
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"There is a powerful contemporary Christianism that admires Dives (Latin for rich man) and emulates him, and regards Lazarus as burdensome and reprehensible. Indeed, the supposed Christian revival of today has given something very like unlimited moral authority to money, though Jesus did say (and I think a literal interpretation is appropriate here if anywhere), "Woe to you who are rich!" (Luke 6:24). If this seems radical, dangerous, unfair, un-American, then those who make such criticisms should at least have the candor to acknowledge that their quarrel is with Jesus."

by Marilynne Robinson
from The Best American Essays, 2007 Edition, Page 219

The Gap (Part 2 of Looking At Workplace Psychological Abuse)

(For those who expected Part 2 to be entitled "Tell Everyone!" stay tuned, it's coming.
Part one was entered on this blog on April 11).


Most large businesses and corporations today have written statements spelling out rules or standards that employees are expected to follow. These standards go by a variety of names. There is often a "Mission Statement" and a "Basic Conditions of Employment." In addition there may be "Standards of Conduct," "Customer Service Standards," Principles of Conduct," or maybe the word "philosophy" is used in the title of a statement. Frequently these statements deal with ethical guidelines, or how employees are expected to behave. These documents may govern or provide guidance for actions and speech by employees in their interactions with each other, or with customers. They are written for a variety of reasons, including attracting customers and employees, preventing conflict, and especially protecting upper level management from legal action for problems that may occur.


Over the last few decades workplaces in the United States have experienced some troubling changes. While the salaries of CEOs and other top executives have skyrocketed, wages and benefits of the average worker have gone in the other direction. The average family with two full time wage earners today actually has less discretionary income than a family with one breadwinner a generation ago (Mark Ames in "Going Postal" Page 101). In one year, 1999, the average CEO salary increased by 37% while the average worker salary increased by only 2.7% (Ames, Page 91). Health insurance, pension plans, and vacation time are also diminishing, and in some places, disappearing altogether. Lay-offs, downsizing, and outsourcing has made employment for many Americans very unstable. This contrasts sharply with the trend in most other industrialized countries. Other industrialized nations have universal health insurance for their citizens. Minimum annual paid vacation in France is five weeks, and most western European countries are, in many ways, much more pro-family than the US. One example is that they offer new parents longer maternity and paternity leave, usually with a significant percentage of their pay. The average American works 350 more hours each year than the average European.


In spite of this trend of decreasing compensation and support for workers in the US, the written statements and standards of companies are more impressive than ever. Many corporations have written policies and standards governing the interaction of employees that sound almost New Testament Biblical in their stated concern for the employee. Unfortunately those are only written statements. In reality there is a massive gap between what is written and the actual behavior of management toward employees. My own experience is a powerful example of this gap.


From 1976 until 2006 I was employed as a respiratory therapist at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center (SARMC) in Boise, Idaho. Saint Alphonsus is part of the Trinity Health system headquartered in Novi, Michigan with facilities in seven states. Trinity Health is the fourth largest Catholic Health system in the United States. For the last 28 of those 30 years I was a shift supervisor providing job assignments, and communicating changes in physician orders and many other responsibilities, usually for two to eight people per shift, as well as caring for respiratory patients myself, often in the Emergency Department.

Let me point out that I think the average person who goes to Saint Alphonsus probably gets excellent care. But that care comes from the employees who directly care for the patients. The vast majority of those employees are committed, dedicated, hard-working people who sincerely care about their patients and often go above and beyond the call of duty to provide timely and appropriate care, and they usually do it without necessarily expecting anything in return, often not even charging for overtime if they miss lunch or stay over to complete their care. In the thirty years I worked there I did that thousands of times, just out of commitment to the cause, to the place, and to my job, and I know many others have done the same. But with management, especially upper level management, the story is somewhat different.


In January of 2004 I became the target of a workplace "bully," an adult version of the school yard bully that many of us had to deal with in grade school, junior high, or high school. This psychologically abusive co-worker began to target me with chronic misbehavior that included among many other things, withholding information I needed to do my job and refusing to communicate with me. Refusing to communicate with a co-worker in a hospital setting endangers patients, since clear, succinct communication between health care workers is necessary to provide timely and appropriate care. In so doing she intentionally created and maintained a hostile, high-stress work environment.


To keep this entry as short as possible I will simply add the following three facts about this ordeal. First: Her "bullying" continued for over two and half years until I was forced to resign because I was seriously injured and becoming disabled by the chronic abuse. Second: She adamantly refused to participate in any kind of resolution process to try to resolve the problem. I offered to participate in any kind of process involving either direct or indirect communication including the use of a professional mediator, but she refused to participate and continued to behave in an abusive manner toward me, jeopardizing patient care and causing serious injury. Third: Management intentionally gave her permission to refuse to participate in any resolution process. At no time did any member of management require her to discontinue the abuse, or change her injury-causing behavior toward me. Therefore nothing was done to address the problem or to provide me with a safe working environment, relative to the occupation.


The problem should have been very easy to resolve. The bully was violating multiple "Customer Service Standards" every shift we worked together. These standards include encouraging employees to discuss problems with co-workers before reporting them to management and instructing employees to listen to anyone who wants to talk to them. The "standards" include strong statements such as "treat each person the way you want to be treated," and treat each person as if he/she is the most important person in the facility." Anyone who acts as a bully is violating numerous Customer Service Standards as well as the Basic Conditions of Employment.


Trinity Health has their own Standards of Conduct with equally clear and positive emphasis on respect, kindness and also requiring honest and clear communication. However for the purpose of this entry I want to look at just a small portion of the 20 plus pages of the Standards of Conduct which you can find at http://www.trinity-health.org/ under "Organizational Integrity."

This section is on Page 13 and entitled "What Should I Expect from Trinity Health?"
It includes the following statements.

...you should also expect Trinity Health to:

1. Treat you with honesty, dignity, fairness, and respect.

2. Provide you with a meaningful work experience.

3. Provide you a safe and supportive work environment free for harassment, intimidation, or
violence

4. Provide a respectful work environment that allows you to freely ask questions, seek
clarification when needed, and raise issues and concerns in good faith without fear of
harassment or retaliation

5. Have your requests for information, input, or assistance responded to in a timely manner.

(I added the numbers for easier reference)

Sounds great, doesn't it? Reading that list would give any employee a sense of security, hope, and optimism about working for Trinity Health, right? Now read what happened to me and you will recognize the significant gap that exist between these promises and the actual practice of management at Trinity Health.

I was the target of a bully for over two and a half years. By the time I left I was partially disabled by the chronic psychological abuse. Although I'm no longer dealing with any disability I still have to cope with the effects of PTSD over four and a half years later. The bully jeopardized patient care every shift we worked together. Her intentionally malicious behavior toward me started abruptly when she found out that I did not share her religious and political beliefs. A year after the problem began I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of the work abuse. The diagnosis of PTSD was made by Saint Alphonsus, as occurring on the job at Saint Alphonsus, and I have that in writing from Saint Alphonsus. There was never any question about the cause of the PTSD injury.

I reported the patient endangering behavior of the co-worker and the discrimination against me to management numerous times. Nothing was done to address those problems. I reported the PTSD injury to management more than two dozen times over a period of approximately two years. The respiratory care department manager specifically told me, both verbally and in writing, that my injuries were "petty," even though PTSD is a potentially life threatening and disabling injury, as any veteran of Vietnam or Iraq can confirm.

The CEO and the chairperson of the Bioethics Committee never responded to my reports of being abused and injured, this in spite of the fact that the Bioethics Committee chairperson was a surgeon whose patient I had been at least three times in the past!

All three managers from department, human resources, and senior management ordered me to not talk about the injury with co-workers, even though telling others what happened to me is an excellent way to raise awareness and thereby help prevent others from also being injured.
A vice-president told me to just let the abuse "pass over me;" whatever that means.

The employee relations manager was especially toxic in his behavior toward me. I met with him three times to try to discuss this problem, and the injury, but he refused to listen to my side of the story even before I met with him the first time! He conducted two investigations, both clearly manipulated to obtain pre-determined results. He promised me a written report of the first investigation, then refused to provide it even though I requested it several times. He promised me a meeting with the department manager to discuss the results of the first investigation. It was never scheduled. He promised me I wouldn't have to work with the abusive co-worker anymore. The promise was broken in two months. In July of 2005 he even threatened to fire me for reporting the PTSD injury to him! In the third meeting with him on October 4, 2005, red-faced and bellowing at me across the table in a tiny office, he ordered me to lie about the PTSD injury if anyone asked, and threatened to fire me if I reported any more problems with the abusive co-worker to either him or the department manager, or if I discussed the PTSD injury with anyone in the department.

Those traumatic experiences with the employee relations manager demonstrate a few facts about Saint Alphonsus and also Trinity Health. One: at that point not just the co-worker, but management also was engaging in the abuse and aggravating the PTSD injury. Two: denial is a chief tool of St. Alphonsus and Trinity Health when it comes to dealing with problems management does not want to address. Three: this experience also demonstrates that Saint Alphonsus is a "punitive authoritarian system," that is a system of management in which one or more people in management actually derive pleasure and satisfaction out of hurting those in the hierarchy below them.

From my experience that's the reality of how Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center and Trinity Health responds when problems occur in the workplace. The statements above are the promise and the ideal, but there is a massive chasm or gap between the promises in the written statements and the actual reality that one experiences in the workplace. The gap is so large that, in reality, there is no connection between the two. From my experience there was no sincere attempt made by anyone in department or upper level management to address the abuse I was targeted with, and provide me with a safe working environment. The statements and the entire Standards of Conduct are just a public relations stunt to attract employees and customers. I know of others who've been treated the same way at Saint Alphonsus including people who were fired for reporting unethical and patient endangering behavior by a physician, for being injured on the job, and also terminated for having to be on bedrest due to a difficult pregnancy. Firing someone for those reasons may not be illegal, but it is injury-causing behavior and should not be a part of any Christian organization, or the part of any responsible health care business. It also violates their own standards. Even before I reported the abuse and the PTSD injury to the employee relations manager, another employee warned me that I would be retaliated against, simply for reporting the problem. That's exactly what happened. I also reported the problem and the PTSD injury to a vice-president at Trinity Health and received no assistance, not even a response for months.

I was abused and injured on the job at Saint Alphonsus and it occurred with the knowledge, approval, and participation of upper-level management, including senior management.

The problem of management at Saint Alphonsus and Trinity Health not only allowing employees to psychologically abuse and injure their co-workers, but actually participating in the abuse and adding to the injury is every bit as serious a problem for the Catholic Church as the pedophile priest problem. Texts on bullying and psychological abuse in the workplace document that the emotional harm done when one is the target of a workplace bully as I was, can be just as severe as the emotional harm done when someone is raped, tortured as a prisoner of war, or shot at repeatedly in a war zone.

Let's look at # 5 above for a minute. That's the statement that promises "a timely" response to requests for assistance. I first reported the PTSD injury to management the first week of January, 2005. It's now more than three years and eight months since and I have yet to receive a written or verbal response from any member of management addressing the PTSD injury. See what I mean by a "gap. " Or perhaps they just have a different definition of "timely."


Leonard Nolt

"Listen to your critics, but never let them be your judges."

Linda Nafziger-Meiser

You've probably heard the quote, "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind," by Ghandi. Here's my expanded version of the same concept: "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth only ends up making the whole world blind and on a liquid diet."

The Exit (Fiction)

Room 518 was nearly dark. The only colors visible were on the monitor. It hung over the still form on the bed with instant vital sign information, even if Doug Hale didn't want to know. The green line was the heart rate sprinting along at 150, blue, the breathing pace, also too fast at 40. The red blood pressure line was faltering, as was the purple line recording the oxygen levels. For several minutes both had teetered on the bottom edge of normal. If we could just average them together, thought Doug, they could all be normal.

Doug glanced out the window toward the parking lot and noticed his gray '78 VW bus parked in a corner under a street light. Then, exhausted from the long drive here, he sat down in a chair near the foot of his father's bed and dozed with his head against the flat hard wall. He wore the same jeans, sweatshirt, and new running shoes he had on when he left home over 24 hours before.

On the wall beyond the foot of the bed hung a large round clock over a small gold-plated crucifix. The space above the head of the bed was filled with the business end of IV poles from which hung the soft plastic containers dripping fluids into his dad. Also suspended there was the monitor.


Doug's father, Holland, was attached to the monitor. He lay on the bed between the shiny side rails, his chest rising slowly with each breath, and then collasping toward his spine as if the effort to fill his lungs was exhausting. The colored lines on the monitor continued their rhythmic dance across the screen as Doug stared with bloodshot eyes. A few minutes ago his father had returned to Room 518 after three hours of abdominal surgery and an hour in the recovery room.


"I removed the necrotic section of his bowel," the surgeon, Dr. Ash said, running his fingers through his curly black hair and glancing briefly toward the door. "He should do okay." His voice hesitated a moment, then added, "But he is seventy-five."


He looked at Doug as if expecting a response. Then the operator's calm, clear voice came out of the ceiling, "Dr. Ash, call three-eight-seven-one stat." The surgeon quickly walked out the door and to the nearest phone.


For the next couple hours Doug sat by his dad's bed. Again he propped his head against the wall and dozed. Morning sunlight began to brighten the room. Every fifteen minutes the nurse came and checked his father's vital signs. She wore blue surgical schrubs even though she had introduced herself as an intensive care nurse. The black capital letters on the white tag spelled out the name, COURTNEY. She stared intently at the monitor for a few seconds, then wrote something on a sheet attached to the clipboard she carried. Then she took a small hand-held plastic instrument with a funnel-shaped end, stuck the small end gently into Holland's left ear for a few seconds, removed it, glanced at the digital readout, wrote on the clipboard again, and left as quickly as she had arrived.


Holland stirred in his bed. His respiratory rate quickened and his eyelids flutered. One eye opened briefly. Doug leaned toward his father's ear.


"Dad, it's me, Doug. How are you?'


After a pause, his father's head nodded slightly, then his eyes opened. "I'm hurting, " His voice came out hoarse and weak. "Can you get that nurse to give me some more morphine?"


"Is it bad?" Doug asked.


"Like sandpaper on the eyeball," his father said.


Doug slipped out of his chair and walked to the nurse station where Courtney was talking on the phone.


"Did you tell him that?" Doug heard her assk and then he voice trailed off as she saw him approaching. Putting her hand over the mouthpiece, she asked, "Can I held you?"


"My father would like more pain medication." Doug said.


She glanced at her watch. "I'll be right there," she said, then turned back to the phone.


Doug returned to the room and Holland opened his eyes. "Did you find her?" he asked.


Doug nodded. His father looked relieved and closed his eyes. Doug slipped his left hand through the side rail and gripped his father's hand for a moment. He felt a weak squeeze in return and saw a brief smile come to Holland's face.


A minute later Courtney walked into the room, a loaded syringe and needle in her hand. After a brief glance at the monitor, she located the inlet port on the intravenous line, wiped it off with an alcohol swab, and with two fingers, kinked the line above the port. Then she inserted the needle into the port and slowly emptied the syringe. After increasing the flow from the bottle to send the narcotic to its destination, she reset the drip to just keep the line open. Then she placed the used syringe and needle in a red container with the warning label, SHARPS, attached to the wall, and left the room.


Soon Holland rested easier and appeared to be in a deep sleep. Doug suddenly realized that he was hungry. He hadn't eaten anything in more than a day. He rose from his chair, glanced out the window at the parking lot where fresh sunlight glared from the shiny polish of a hundred cars, checked to make sure his father was still sleeping, and then left the room.


He walked down the hall toward the elevators. The place was busy. Dietary aides carried trays from food carts to the patients. A large muscular man with a ponytail was carefully stacking perfectly folded towels in a linen closet. Doug had to squeeze past four nurses standing in a circle intently discussing some information on a patient's chart. He didn't see Dr. Ash or Courtney anywhere.


He pushed the elevator button for the second floor cafeteria and got off when it stopped. It took a few seconds before he realized his mistake and tried to get back on the elevator, but the door had squeezed shut and it was gone. This was a patient floor also, not the cafeteria. He looked down the hall and saw, at the far end, the bright exit sign indicating a flight of stairs.


That'll be quicker than waiting for the elevator again, he thought, and started toward the sign. Halfway down the hall he saw a thin man approaching. The man was wearing only a pair of loose white shorts. Doug's pace slowed as the thin man got nearer. His hairless skin was pale and ghostly, but shiny, almost translucent, as if lit from inside. Doug thought for a minute that he could almost see the outline of the man's skeleton through his skin. He had a yellow band around one wrist and a purple one around the other. His step was hesitant, but determined, like one who should use a cane, but refused to. Doug started to nod in greeting, but noticed that the man had a faraway look in his eyes, as if focused on some distant goal.


Doug reached the exit, glanced back to take one more look at the thin man, but he was nowhere to be seen. Doug paused a minute searching with his eyes, but the hall was as empty as if no one had ever been there. Doug opened the exit door and went down the barren concrete steps.


On the second floor he checked the vending machines in the snack bar for breakfast. The only thing they contained was some overpriced yogurt of questionable age. On a wide shelf between the sandwich and snack machine sat a ruined microwave. The door was open. Someone had turned it on with metal inside, and the melted plastic hung in blobs from the top of the interior like stalactites in a cave.


Doug left the snack bar and entered the cafeteria, but his appetite had disappeared. He bought two granola bars and a cartoon of milk and ate, sitting alone at a table in the corner of the cafeteria. In the ceiling over his head was a speaker and from it came the saccharine music heard in hospitals, frequently interrupted by the measured cadence of the operators's voice calling for doctors, nurses, or therapists.


Doug returned to his dad's room. deliberately retracing his steps through the same stairs and hall, but did not see the thin man again. In Room 518, a small woman dressed completely in white from her shoes to the large bow in her coal black hair, and holding a small silver tray in her hand, had arrived to draw blood. Doug watched closely as the sun shining in the window reflected above the silver side rails like a rectangular halo suspended above the sleeping form of Doug's father. The woman circled the bed, breaking the sun's rays, and placed her tray on the narrow bedside table. After turning off the monitor's alarms. she took two small needleless syringes from the tray in her gloved hands and withdrew the plungers on both. She attached one to a port on a tube inserted in an artery in Holland's left arm. Then she attached the other syringe to another port on the same line, turned a stopcock, and filled one syringe, then adjusted another stopcock, and filled the other. She moved the second syringe from the line, capped it, and briefly rotated it in her hand. The she pushed the blood in the other syringe back into the line, flushed it with fluid from the IV bottle, and turned the stopcock again before removing the syringe and discarding it.


As she left, Holland slowly opened his eyes and whispered in a husky voice, "What did she want?"


"Some of your blood," Doug said.


"Vampires," Holland said.


"Feeling any better, Dad?"


Holland nodded. Then he motioned for his son to come closer. Doug leaned over the rail.


"I'm not going to make it out of here," he said.


"Nonsense," Doug said. "Even you said you were feeling better."


"I am, but that's not it, " Holland said, "I just know."


He paused a moment to catch his breath. The red line on the monitor jerked upward into the path of the green one. The screen switched to a row of white numbers and a square red light began to blink. An alarm shrilled out a series of four high-pitched beeps, then became silent as Holland relaxed, and the screen changed again to the rows of colored lines, realigned to their normal paths.


"My keys are in the bag," Holland said, and gestered toward a brown leather pouch lying on the broad windowsill.


"What keys?" Doug asked.


"To the ranch house," Holland said. "There's a chest under the bunk bed with some things in it for you."


"You'll be back there in a couple days, " Doug said. "You'll need those keys."


Holland shook his head.


"Just remember what I told you," he said.


A volunteer walked into the room. She was an elderly woman wearing a pink dress. Her gray hair was curled tightly close to her scalp. She smiled at Doug without speaking, handed him an envelope and continued on to the next room. Doug glanced at the envelope, started to speak to his dad, but noticed that Holland seemed to have fallen asleep. He tore the envelope open. In side was a get-well card. On the cover was a crude caricature of a frazzled nurse trying to give a shot to a patient who was lying in bed with traction attached to each arm and leg. Doug barely noticed the verse which said something intended to be funny about nurses, shots, and hospitals. The card was signed, Bobby.


Holland stirred and opened his eyes.


"Hey Dad, you got a card, " Bobby said, He held the card up for his father to see. "It's from Bobby."


"Who?" Holland asked.


"Bobby," Doug repeated.


"Who's Bobby?" Holland asked.


"How would I know?" Doug asked. "The card's addressed to you, not to me. Do you want to see it now?"


Holland closed his eyes. Soon his breathing relaxed and he was sound asleep. Doug sat in the chair and rested. On the wall at the foot of the bed the second hand of the clock silently clicked from second to second quivering each time it stopped, as if nervous about the future, before moving on. Doug noticed that sometimes it took six jerks of the hand to cover five seconds on the dial and other times only five.


He glanced out the window. A cherry red pickup truck was pulling into the parking lot five floors below. It came to a stop between two of the diagonal white parking lines. A man, woman, and a small girl got out of the truck. The man was carrying something. He bent over and made a series of up and down movements with his arms and back. Next to him a flat object inflated into a large yellow beach ball. He handed the ball to the girl, then loped an arm around the shoulder of the woman and, without looking back, they walked to the edge of the parking lot and laid on the grass under a small tree.


The girl bounced and chased the ball around the parking lot. At one point the ball ricocheted between two parked cars, and then bounced into the path of a black van accerating as it headed for the exit of the parking lot. For a second Doug thought the girl would run into the van, and opened his mouth to cry a warning even though there was no way anyone on the parking lot could hear him. But the girl halted just in time and stood still as the ball careened up from the van's fender, its shadow passing over her, and then bounced off the roof of a parked car before rolling across the lot. The van stopped, and Doug saw a person step partly out the door, make some wild gestures with an arm, then retreat into the van, disappearing behind the tinted glass, and the van sped off. Under the tree the man and woman lay still.


What kind of people, thought Doug, would let a small child play on a busy hospital parking lot? Exhausted from watching the scene below, he turned from the window and sat in the chair, resting his head against the wall again until he fell asleep.


He slept for a couple hours, dreamed of food, and woke up realizing that he was hungry again.


Holland was still asleep. Doug dropped the card and envelope from Bobby in the trash can as he walked out the door. He took the same route to the cafeteria. A physical therapist who though he was lost, pointed to a more direct way. Doug thanked her and without changing directions, kept going.


He bought a full meal of broiled halibut with rice and cooked broccoli and finished it off with a couple chocolate chip cookies. While drinking lemonade, he overheard snatches of conversation from a table of hospital employees nearby.


"Did you see that one's x-ray?"


"I gave him enough to make his bones soft, but the doctor still wanted him more relaxed."


The sounds of he conversation were interrupted as a food aide slowly pushed a cart of empty trays through the room.


"He's circling the drain," said one.


"Not long for this world," said another.


Another employee approached the table and the conversaton turned to words of greeting. Over the intercom the calm voice of the operator came, "Code Blue, ICU, Code Blue, ICU." Two people from the table nearly left in a hurry, their trays abandoned, food uneaten.


Doug finished his meal and left the cafeteria. As he approached Room 518 he saw a couple nurses run into the room. A third pushed a large cart into the room. A tall breaded man dressed in wrinkled green scrubs with a black stethscope around his neck dashed by. A nurse recognized Doug and walked quickly toward him.


"Your father's taken a turn of for the worse. He quit breathing," she said.


She tried to direct him into a small lounge nearby , but Doug brushed past her and walked to the glass door of the room. The room was full of people. One nurse was trying to start an IV in Holland's arm. Another was injecting something into another IV. A respiratory therapist at the head of Holland's bed was helping him breathe with a large blue bag attached to a mask covering his mouth and nose. Another nurse was standing on a stool and pushing on Holland's bare chest, moving up and down in quick jerks, his fingers interlaced on Holland's sternum. The nurse's hairy arms quivered each time he compressed the chest. Still another was writing on a clipboard.

Doug was startled at the color of Holland's skin.. HIs father's usual dark tan had a yellow tint to it. The door to the room was closed so Doug couldn't hear anything. The bearded man walked to the head of the bed, picked up a metal object with a hinged curved arm, opened Holland's mouth, and slipped the curved part into it, then another person handed him a plastic tube which he inserted into the opened mouth and anchored it with tape.

For a few seconds everyone stopped and stared at the monitor which displayed a few shallow wavy lines, then they continued the resuscitation effort. Doug became aware of someone's hand on his shoulder. It was Courtney.

"Would you like a chair so you could sit down?" she asked.

He nodded, still staring into Room 518.

A few minutes later Dr. Ash walked past Doug and into the room. He consulted with the bearded man, listened to Holland's lungs, peered into his eyes with a small falshlight, and looked over a piece of paper containing a heart tracing. Then he motioned for everyone to stop. The green line on the monitor undulated irregularly across the screen and then settled slowly into a straight line. The bearded man shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

For a long time Doug sat and stared into theroom. After arrangements were made and the body removed by the mortician, Doug picked up the brown pouch and a small opaque plastic bag containing Holland's things and walked slowly to the parking lot. It was beginning to get dark and two stars had appeared. The crescent moon curved toward the silhouette of a mountain range in the west. Doug unlocked his VW bus, got in, and sat there with his head on the padded steering wheel for several minutes. Then he turned the motor on, and steered out of the parking lot to I-40. The familiar whine of the acclerating engine increased in volume. He fingered the keys in the pouch and then took the next exit toward the ranch house.

(previously published in slightly different form by
Boise State University in the 1997 cold-drill)