• Nothing gets better with age other than cheese, champagne, and fresh cowpies left out in the hot summer sun to ripen. Everything else just grows older and more brittle and more decrepit.  Worse.  Including and especially human bodies and the human spirit, so don’t even THINK about wasting your youth on trivial shit that can be accomplished just as easily much further down the road.  Youth must be served when it is blossoming, or otherwise it is forfeited.   Fried eggs cannot be unfried, sour milk cannot be refreshened, and youth can NEVER be relived.

• The default position for truly ignorant people (and, trust me, these feckless people ALWAYS have their personal needle stuck in the default position) is to complain incessantly while pointing a finger of blame at nearly everyone and everything. Individuals of this ilk are basically insufferable.  Nothing is ever right; negativity runs rampant; the entire world is a disgusting mess; someone or something else is unfalteringly to blame and they are constantly the victim who is being wronged in some way, shape, or form.  And when I say blame here, I’m not even referring to circumstances that are necessarily pejorative in nature.  The proverbial glass of wine could be nine tenths full and these assholes would still bitch vituperatively about that tenth left wanting.  These people just like to whine about anything regardless of whether it even meets the standard of a true problem.  They curse the hot rays of the sun and then turn around twenty four hours later and curse the injustice of the rain.  They curse all immigrants and welfare beneficiaries even as they regularly rush to collect “their” Social Security and Medicare benefits.  They harp incessantly about the irresponsibility of the youth of today even as those same young people work hard for forty hours a week to fill the public troughs for these elderly bitchers to come along and regularly pillage.  They piss and moan about rampant godlessness nowadays even as they scorn and insult the deities which people of other colors and cultures choose to worship.  They preach tolerance while practicing intolerance.  They…..are an unfortunately large swath of our geriatric population (not all of them, mind you, but without question a large percentage of them), and these people are wholly incorrigible and as such stand in the direct way of progress and act as weighty anchors grievously holding back the ship of modern society.

• When you play Russian roulette you usually win, too, as many as seven out of eight times. However, it’s that eighth time that really matters, isn’t it?  Winning and defying the odds during a protracted lucky streak does NOT constitute a sensible prevailing strategy.  Rather, it better describes stupidity and an eventual and certain pathway to ruination if you don’t change your ways and employ intelligence as your primary weapon.  Luck invariably turns for everyone; intelligence remains constant and rock-solid.

• Not all days are created equal; some sprout wings and soar magnificently into the stratosphere—never to be forgotten—while others head in the opposite direction at a rate of speed not soon to be forgotten either. An individual has some control over the outcome of each day, but not a lot; destiny holds much tighter control over those celestial reins than even the world’s most zealous optimist would ever care to admit.  Basically, you just have to buckle up and grit your teeth and go with the flow and make darned sure to bring along a positive attitude intertwined with a cheerful smile wherever the whims of fate deposit you on any given day.  The alternative?  Guaranteed inevitable disappointment.

Loyalty

By Frederick J. Blahnik

 

The dog’s love for the man is exceeded only by the man’s love for the dog.  The affection shared between this pair of decidedly different animals is really that great, that transcendent.  Nothing could ever come between them.  Nothing could ever seriously test the sacred bond which holds them together—which has held them together for the past fifteen years.  Nothing could ever separate these two lifelong friends.

Nothing worldly, at least.

Well, maybe one thing could…..

And today…..today…..it must…..

Today one of them must die in order that the other might survive, and the only question is which it will be.  Or, alternatively, they BOTH can and will reluctantly perish today if that turns out to be their joint wish.

 

You see, both man and dog are starving to death, have been starving to death for the past three weeks in the aftermath of an ill-timed, tragic accident in the frozen deep woods.  They haven’t been blessed with so much as a morsel of food since twenty two days back on the trail.  They have been slowly wasting away—day by day by agonizing day–but now the severity of that condition has escalated dramatically.  If man and dog are not able to find and ingest some sustenance within the next twenty four hours, they will both die.  Absolutely.  No doubt about it.  The twosome will decease together in the Alaskan wilderness—unbeknownst to every other living creature on Earth–but that only seems right, doesn’t it?  After all, these two uber-loyal friends probably should expire together, just as they have lived and survived and thrived together for the past decade and a half.

That Hollywood style of ending would be perfect for the man and beast, wouldn’t you agree?

Well…..maybe…..

There is something wrong with this simple analogy, though—something that begs further explanation.  BOTH suffering creatures don’t have to die, in the sense that both are carnivorous animals, and each represents food and therefore temporary salvation for the other.  Keeping this point in mind, the dog would NEVER EVER consider ending the man’s life in order that he could eat him and thus live on until civilization was encountered and socially appropriate food became available—which will probably be three days hence if the man’s time estimate is close to being accurate.  No, the dog would never consider doing such a thing.  Domestic dogs are simply not hardwired that way.  They do not kill their “masters” under any circumstances, even the most daunting and life-threatening.

Survival?

Yes, it is true that the dog is starving to death, he full well knows that he is starving to death, and he would do virtually anything to survive to fight another day…..except THAT.  The dog would never entertain the thought of prolonging his own life and perhaps win a temporary respite from the Grim Reaper’s morbid scythe by ending his best friend’s life.  NEVER!!!   That manner of thinking is impossible for him to contemplate; that idea does not even register in the dog’s brain.  He would never do such a thing; he would never knowingly hurt the man; his friendship with the man—fashioned over fifteen years of daily camaraderie and silent admiration for each other–is inviolable.  The dog would greatly prefer dying himself than doing anything to physically injure the man, let alone kill his trusted companion just to provide a source of food for his emaciated body.

Case settled then.

The man?

The man???

Who really knows what the man is thinking at this moment…..

Obviously the man’s love for the dog runs equally deep and equally strong and the dog is undisputedly the best friend he has in this world—and it should be duly noted here that in Alaska friends run few and far between—but then there is the issue of pure survival.  Yes, survival…..the most basic instinct indigenous to every living organism.  The desire and need to survive.  The will to live.  The NEED to live for as long as you possibly can.  The man dearly wants to preserve the life of the dog, obviously, but above and beyond that the issue of his own raw survival looms exceptionally large too.  The man badly wants to survive—he would do almost anything to survive–but as things stand right now there is only a single act which he can perform that might—and remember, this is an AWFULLY big “might”—allow for that outcome.

So there you have it in a nutshell, Reader:  Pure, unadulterated love versus the primal desire to survive.  Easily the strongest human(?)emotion of all pitted against the most basic organic instinct of all.  But only one can win here in the pristine backwoods of the Alaskan interior; there is room for only one outcome.  And the man has but a handful of hours now at most to make his fateful decision on how to proceed…..

Thus, while the exhausted dog is curled up in the snow catching up on some much-needed rest, the man goes off by himself to think.  To REALLY think—to think deeper and harder and more seriously than he has ever thought about anything before in his life.  Fundamental thinking.  Anguished thinking.  Tortured thinking.  And all of that anguished thinking ultimately distills down to one horribly simple paradigm:  To live or to die.  To kill his best friend in order that he might live, or to die together with that best friend all alone out here in the vast Alaskan wilderness.  And in the midst of all that thinking the man’s brain (conscience) invariably returns to the same haunting series of questions:  Would life even be worth living in the aftermath of doing such an unthinkable thing?  Would that kind of compromised existence be worth the cost of ending his best friend’s life?  Could he live with himself after killing and eating his dearest friend?  Could he live on afterwards bearing such a humongous burden of guilt?  Should he permit love to win out when all is said and done like in one of those corny, vintage cinematic movies and pursuantly choose to die sitting next to his best friend ever?  Might that be preferable to the guaranteed atrocious memories he would be forced to carry around with him for all eternity in the wake of committing a heinous, selfish act such as theriocide, or at least until he too came face-to-face with the Grim Reaper years from now himself?

The man doesn’t know what to do.

He plainly and simply does not know what to do next.

He knows what his heart is telling him to do, but then there is this primeval instinct screaming at him and haranguing him and cajoling him and coaxing him and badgering him to do whatever it takes to maintain his unique presence on Earth’s surface for as long as he possibly can.  The voice deep inside him simply won’t go away either.  Every time his heart tries speaking up and advocating compassion, this deep-seated voice inside his body interrupts those sincere entreaties and implores him to fight like the devil for survival, to struggle like a crazed lunatic for survival, to scratch and claw and bite indiscriminately for survival, to…..to…..to…..do whatever it takes in order to prolong his life, at least for another day and then maybe the day after that too and the day after that and for however long it takes.

This voice is loud, it is incessant, and it refuses to take “No!” for an answer.  The man shakes his head dejectedly from side to side.

He has no idea what to do.

He has absolutely no idea what to do…..

 

The man sits off by himself away from the dying campfire for an additional thirty minutes as the dog continues to sleep.

The man’s eyes are closed and he is clearly deep in thought.

Clearly deep in thought…..

                Still more time creeps by—tick tock, tick tock, tick, tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock–time that is now becoming precariously scarce if the man is to entertain any reasonable thought of extending his life into the next day and beyond…..

But, wait…..…..yes, wait……….now the man abruptly stands up and sighs the biggest sigh any person has ever sighed before in their life.

Meaning?

His mind is clearly made up now.

Yes, the man’s mind is clearly made up after all that solitary contemplation…..

He sets his jaw and a steely glare of resolve ventures into the colored regions of his eyes.

The man pulls a gleaming knife from its leather sheath attached to his belt and slowly approaches the dog.  The dog is curled up into a tight circle akin to a snake in cold weather, and he is resting comfortably in the powdery, foot-deep snow.

The dog’s eyes light up and he raises his tired head to greet the man when he sees him approaching, just like he has done a million times in the past and expects to do a million times in the future as well.  The dog knows he and his “master” are stuck in a dire predicament fraught with life-threatening consequences, yet he has complete confidence the man will find some ingenious way to lead the two of them through these perilous straits and back into a sanctuary of bright sunlight and congenial warmth, just like he has done every time in the past when they faced grave danger as a pair–as a TEAM, as complementary teammates, as best friends.  The dog has complete confidence in the man to do the right thing, the best thing—complete confidence based on years of instinctive cooperation and willful subservience to his two-legged keeper.  In fact, he would willingly stake his own life based on this unwavering belief in the man’s Solomonesque judgment.  The dog’s sunken eyes continue to shine brightly like radiant light bulbs as the man draws near, and his tongue falls out of his mouth in a canine smile.

• …..and so, sadly—right before my disbelieving eyes—I was forced to watch his feet, which until then had been sheathed in glimmering gold plate, mutate into a dull, repulsive clay. That’s right, my role model/hero’s feet turned into goddamned stinkin’ molds of clay right before my fuckin’ eyes as I stood there—mouth agape—closely observing the proceedings with a combination of horror and sadness and utter disbelief.  This person who I had worshipped and sought to emulate all those years when I was growing up as a highly impressionable lad now stood before me as a pitiful figure who I would no sooner wish to imitate at this latter stage of my life than any of history’s other cunning, tragic luminaries who chose to lie and deceive and mislead throngs of people without so much as batting an eyelash.  That day was sad, I tell you, one of the most heartbreaking I have ever been forced to endure in my not-short life, but unlike some of the others which showcased similar forlornness, there wasn’t a single damn thing I could do to mitigate the horrific situation both he and I were facing during that transcendent instant.  But for the first time ever, I—yes, me, Fred Blahnik, until that point in time the serial follower, the ever-obedient disciple, the obsequious sheep to his vigilant shepherd—was the individual responsible for making a split-second decision that would either save the two of us or doom us to a grotesque fate; his judgment—yes, this fakey, fraudulent usurper’s judgment—no longer mattered a bear’s shit in the woods to me…..

• The moment came and then departed—Wham!!! Just like that!!!!!—and I was pursuantly left to deal with its full consequences.  Adverse as hell, yes, but I was left to deal with them nonetheless.  The moment of free will passed that suddenly.  And this is just a microcosm for how life works.  It happens—Oh, granted, we have a small amount of control over the rudder used to control life’s direction, but that alleged control is nominal to say the least—and then we are left to pick up the pieces that remain from any adventure or misadventure, regardless of whether those pieces are generally good or generally bad.   Yes, those damned consequences come rearing their ugly head once again!  How we deal with the consequences life throws our way is what ultimately defines each of our respective characters. Truth be told, we humans specialize majorly more in reacting than we do in acting, but that has forever been the case and is highly unlikely to ever change.  If you are perfectly content with being the nail, do not blame the hammer for all of your shortcomings and perceived “bad luck”.

Note:  The following narrative is excerpted from the book “…..in Sickness or in Health…..”, written/edited by Frederick J. Blahnik.

 

I will always carry a graphic picture in the back of my mind of those huge, foreboding “iron lungs” that stood in a separate cavernous room at Sister Kenny Institute for all passersby to see. When a patient could no longer breathe on their own owing to insidious, worsening, ever-expanding paralysis, he or she was placed in one of those hulking, cylindrical machines…..and that was where the whole remainder of their life was spent.  There were little doors located along the side of an “iron lung” that could be opened to care for a patient’s essential needs.  Otherwise, for all practical purposes, that person was locked inside the tiny enclosure and henceforth separated from the rest of society, and that was the essence of their continued existence until the day they finally perished from the face of this Earth.

Medical experts have never fully determined how polio is spread, but they feel personal contact must be one of the chief culprits. I was interrogated at length and filled out a detailed questionnaire relating to our family’s water supply, farm animals, contact with others, occupations, food sources, and general health.  Pregnant women appeared to be more susceptible to contracting polio.  If they did wind up coming down with it, they could not undergo the rigorous, comprehensive physical therapy treatment program until after the birth of their baby.  Therefore, in the overwhelming majority of instances, these same women ended up hopelessly paralyzed and condemned to spending the remainder of their life in a dreaded “iron lung”—heartbreakingly…..sans their newborn baby…..

That is the chief reason why the team of doctors at Sister Kenny Institute was so concerned about me.  After stupidly using Dad’s silverware and eating his food that one exhausting evening at our place when I allowed my good judgment to lapse for just a millisecond..….God went ahead and spared me, as he did all our children who faithfully kept Dad company during those long, tortuous hours when he was at home confined to bed.  The medical profession still remains sharply divided over precisely how the polio virus is passed along, as well as the length of its incubation period once it infects a host.  I always personally felt the wicked little germ secured its deadly grip on Dad’s body in late August of 1950, emanating from some seminal moment of transmission which only God in His infinite wisdom knows the true answer to.

 

 

Note:  The following is excerpted from the book “…..in Sickness or in Health…..”, written/edited by Frederick J. Blahnik.

 

Polio Outbreaks in the Early 20^th Century

 

“The fear of polio was a fear of something you had no defense against, something that hit without logic or reason. Yesterday, it was the man down the block.  Today it could be you or your children.”

—Larry Alexander, 1954

 

 

            Poliomyelitis was without doubt the most dreaded common disease facing the world in the first half of the twentieth century, oftentimes hastily reaching epidemic proportions and thereafter raising absolute havoc.  Effects of the malady manifested not only amongst those unlucky enough to come down with the refractory sickness, but it additionally engendered terrifying angst and fear amongst those who were NOT directly afflicted.

Polio struck hardest in the months of July, August, and September, and seemingly surfaced at random irrespective of geographic region or an area’s population density.  The disease caused tremendous alarm and generated near hysteria, principally because no one knew the means by which the ailment spread or why children were far more susceptible to contracting it than adults.  Furthermore, there was no effective antidote to combat the pernicious, fast-spreading organism which fathered polio, only some essentially medieval treatments targeted at symptoms the germ produced.

The first known polio outbreak in the United States occurred in Vermont in 1895.  In 1916 New York City experienced its first large-scale polio epidemic, resulting in 9,000 confirmed cases and 2,343 deaths.  The nationwide toll for that landmark year was 27,000 polio cases, resulting in a staggering 6,000 deaths.  The number of polio cases and fatalities stemming from this insidious disease increased each decade thereafter, finally culminating in 1952 with 57,628 recorded polio cases.

In the midst of a polio epidemic, individual rights were often at odds with the prevailing public requirement for general safety.  Travel between infected cities was closely monitored and restricted, and public health officials vigorously quarantined infected homes to ensure exposed individuals were effectively removed from all public contact. Inasmuch as these officials were dealing with the unknown and typically operating in a state of ongoing near-panic, an established protocol for length of quarantine was never firmly established, although the efficacy of sequestration as a means of retarding passage of the polio organism from person to person was never empirically demonstrated to any reputable epidemiologist’s satisfaction.  There was also frequent enforced separation between family members during the early acute phase of the polio disease process, lasting anywhere from ten to fourteen days.

Hospitals treating polio patients operated under strict, orderly regimens, while nurses enforced military-like discipline on their wards to guard against casual transmission of the deadly poliovirus.  When a polio epidemic was at its apogee, everyone associated with caring for patients was under an enormous amount of stress owing to the inherently bleak prognosis facing the sufferer.  Moreover, this morbid drama was further heightened by the pathogen’s relatively easy transmission to hospital help staff.  A depressing situation indeed, and one that was lastly exacerbated by a little voice in the background invariably whispering in everyone’s ear that the poliovirus was king, that it was omnipotent, and that there was no cure for it in sight.

That is, until the decade of the 1950s prayerfully dawned, bringing with it immunology saviors Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin and a rapturous, long-overdue end to the cruel madness. [1]

[1] The factual information found herein was largely derived from the Internet website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio Outbreaks.

• Trying to slow down the passage of time is about as futile as trying to pick up a greasy slice of daylight between your thumb and forefinger. More than impractical.  Impossible to do.  You measure the passage of time not with a clock or a calendar or a wristwatch, but with the proliferation of wrinkles on your face, the stealthy invasion of gray in the little hair that remains on top of your head, the increasing number of little holes you must skip over on your belt in order to keep your trousers hitched up and still be able to breathe, and the tectonic ongoing shift occurring within your brain as pragmatism gradually replaces youthful idealism.  Time ultimately changes us—Certainly not vice versa; not even a hint of that!—irrespective of any superhuman measures we may take to repel or even slow its surge.