Adventures In Dentistry

copyright 2001 Dale Hansen no reproduction without permission

Another hole in the head


When I first began with my present company, I had been some time without dental insurance. My teeth had suffered for that, and I thought I should get them cared for. There was some pain spurring on that decision. I had a tooth that needed to come out.

Let me explain; I have had broken bones, I have had “blunt trauma”, I have hung by wrist from a nail (long story), I had a garage door fall on me when I was seven. I deal with pain with a scandinavian stoicism and with a great deal of denial.

If it’s not in my mouth.

If there is so much as a glimmer of discomfort, the smallest touch of pain in my mouth, I handle that with all the aplomb, dignity and restraint of an infant with colic.

I once had a dentist ask me what he could do to make my visits easier. I told him to let me mail my teeth in.

I have seen bulls with nose rings. I am told that the nose it the most sensitive part of a bull’s anatomy (yeah, that was my first thought too!) and that the ring is there to lead the bull around. I never understood why anyone would want to put their hand so close to bull snot, but I understand from the bull’s perspective. One of those horrid dental probes into a tooth cavity will make my body will go anywhere. If the tooth isn’t quite numb yet, my body will go in the first direction it can find, usually straight up.

The current dental cavity lead my body into a dentist’s chair. The new insurance required a new dentist.

1. Olga the dental dominatrix

I called every dentist within a five mile radius of my home. No one was accepting new patients. I finally found one that would take me and only seven months away. I expanded my search zone. I finally found one a few miles from my house that would take me right away. I made an appointment with Olga. I told the receptionist on the phone that I had a tooth that needed to come out.

Olga’s last name, even if I could remember it, wasn’t pronounceable anyway. She walked into the room after I had been sufficiently prepped by her staff.

In traditional Spanish bullfights, picadors come into the ring and stab the bull multiple times before the matador arrives. The bull has lost blood, and been badly injured enough to tire before the matador does. This is a more accurate description when I say I was “prepped”. My mouth had more hardware in it than my car and there was a plastic tube for suction trying to pull my tongue out by it’s roots.

Around this equipment, I attempted to garble that I had a tooth needing to come out.

She introduced herself in heavily accented english explaining she was born and raised in Russia. She then grabbed my jaw bone, pulled it down somewhere around my kneecaps, and stuck her entire head - up to the shoulder - into my mouth.

She came back out again long enough to gather a tool belt, extension cord and some plaster before diving right back in. I heard the sounds of major construction echo off my sinus cavities and her voice ringing in the background, which I took as a Russian equivalent of “Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s off to work we go…”

Pickaxes, chisels and pneumatic devices of such torturous imagination as only the dental industry can create came and went into my mouth After several lifetimes, and three more trips for supplies, she and most of the equipment came back out and pronounced final judgment.

"It will have to come out.”

When in a dental chair, with your mouth forced open, various instrumentation, cords, and tubes running mazes over your gums, one of the most unpronounceable and potentially embarrassing words you can attempt is “DUH”.

After I sponging myself off, while Olga cleaned the dental chair, she explained that she did not do extractions, that was for an oral surgeon. She did not, if fact, do anything to my teeth nor recommend anything for the pain, but she did process my paperwork and charged me my co-pay.

I left the office with a referral and a life sized x-ray in my hand and the faint taste of sawdust in the back of my throat.

2. Smile, you’re on candid x-ray

Dental x-rays are a business card sized piece of film that dentists take great pains to make and charge a great deal to develop in order to give to the next dentist for the purpose of being thrown away and a new set ordered.

I had considered walking into the surgeon’s office without the x-ray, or to create an image on the computer and print it out on a business card, just to have something to carry, but every dentist who throws away an x-ray must first study it carefully, then decide it won’t tell him anything worth knowing.

I made an appointment with the oral surgeon for the week after next. I was only able to get in so quickly because it was an “emergency”.

I spent most of those two weeks holding my cheek and moaning. This made for awkward situations during meetings and phone calls. I did not again attempt the word “DUH!”

When the day came, I proceeded to the oral surgeon’s office and signed in at the reception desk. When I stood in Olga’s office as her staff called the oral surgeon’s staff I heard someone say that there was an extraction to be performed, so I was surprised when the first question the receptionist asked was; “And what are we having done today?”

I handed her my x-ray and told her it needed to come out.

She opened the little envelope and pulled out the little x-ray. She held it against the light, hummed and murmured and grunted to herself as she studied it. “OK,” she said, replacing the film and handing it back to me, “give this to the nurse.”

Can an illiterate person spot another illiterate person? She had the same expression I did when I looked at it, and it made no sense to me. My dog didn’t care what it looked like, he lost interest when he sniffed it, but he wore the same expression as the receptionist and I both did.

On the wall near her desk, at about eye level was mounted an object whose mechanism I could only guess at, but being in an oral surgeon’s office, had to involve some torturous method of operation.
I had no idea what it was, but i was about to be introduced.

At this point the nurse arrived and ushered me into the examination room. “Have a seat,” she said, “what are we in here for today?” I handed her my x-ray and told her it would have to come out. She took the envelope, removed the film and held it up to the light. I think her ah-hums and ahs and murmurs sounded a little more informed than the receptionist’s but it may have been wishful thinking. She taped my x-ray to a lighted panel and left, while I waited alone in the room reading a flier on proper hygiene.

About 47 times.

I felt I probably should memorize it, because if I actually knew it I wouldn’t be in an oral surgeon’s office would I?

The surgeon walked in, and sat for twelve minuets and twenty-three seconds looking at my x-ray. Having fulfilled this part of dental interoffice respect, he asked for the envelop, replaced the film into the envelop and threw the whole thing away.

He wanted to get new x-rays. HIS x-rays. To accomplish this, I was escorted back to the receptionist’s area and came face to face with the mysterious wall mounted object of torment, while his nurse was standing in front of it like Vanna White showing off a new car.

It turned out this device was, in fact, an x-ray machine. It was an x-ray that took a picture of the entire mouth. How this works is the victim (sorry I mean “patient”) places his or her chin on a chin rest, and the machine whirrs around his or her head taking one long picture. This apparatus was mounted perfectly for some one about six foot two. Next to it was a box for the shorter patients. I saw nothing for someone six foot six.

I rested my chin on the strap by leaning over. This was not acceptable as the jaw needs to be level with the floor in order to get a good image, so I craned out my neck and hunched my back over to reach my chin to the strap.

The motorized x-ray camera took an image of the left side of my face and then slammed my left shoulder. Undaunted, it backed up and gathered a bit more speed, slammed into my shoulder again. It showed the same obsessive compulsive tendency twice more before the nurse was able to shut it off.

I needed to remove about four inches from my height.

To conform to the machine, I had to bend deeply at the knees. In order for my knees to bend that far, I had to splay out my legs against the wall. To keep my shoulders away from the device I had to extend my arms out along the wall. I looked like a bug on the windshield of a race car. I had the impression of trying to embrace the entire wall arms and legs, with my face strapped into rotary x-ray camera that despised my shoulder.

Did I mention that this machine was mounted to the wall in front of the receptionist’s desk? The desk in the lobby where everyone else was waiting? It wasn’t the people laughing at my posture that bothered me as those that kept trying to look away, having the same mannerisms and expressions of some one trying not to look at a train wreck.

The pictures came out nice. The surgeon brought me back into this office and ahhhed and uhmmmed at this new set for a while and declared “It will have to come out.” By this time, sarcasm had gotten the better of me and I said “Really? What a surprise! Are you sure?”

“Oh yes, “ he said and held up the x-ray and spent about twenty minuets telling me why it had to come out, and how it came out, and other extractions he had done, and work he had done in school, and how he never had a puppy as a boy even though he was really, really good, and a whole list of other things I really didn’t want to know.

I finally agreed with him that it would have to come out. He had an opening in six weeks.
I pointed out that I had a much more immediate opening, and that the pain associated with it was considerable. He prescribed me a pain killer.

Codeine.

A lot.

I don’t remember most of the next six weeks, but eventually the time for the tooth to come out arrived. I went back the surgeon’s office an laid back on his couch. The couch raised up like a barber’s chair, going a lot higher than my comfort factor. I was suspended about five feet off of the floor.

Then the hardware showed up.

There was a clamp for my right thumb to be sure I was still breathing, wires for my right wrist to monitor pulse and blood pressure, various other instruments, wires, dials and items that taped, glued or sucked their way onto my right arm leaving the left arm free. For a moment. My left arm was to have a device of it’s own; a brace, a metal device that straps to the arm, having the sole purpose of preventing the elbow to bend. I am sure that it is a vital piece of medical equipment. It looked like a tribute to the Marquis DeSade.

A suction tube was hung in my mouth like a fish hook, and large instruments of torture and discomfort where placed on my chest. I was as well and as thoroughly trapped as if I where buried under a carefully arranged avalanche.

My nose itched.

I couldn’t bend the left elbow, the right arm had more wires running in and out of it than the phone company, my chest was the keeper of instruments that I desperately wanted to remain sterile.
I tried to tough it out, I tried to extend my nose out to my shoulder, but it wouldn’t reach and the more ardent attempts threatened the stability and cleanliness of the unknown devices on my chest.

The itch got worse.

It took me several minuets to get all of the wires from my right arm to fall into place long enough to get a good nose rub out of my upper arm, several more to put it all back. Then the surgeon was ready.

I discovered what the brace was for. It had an opening into which the surgeon placed a hypodermic needle and inject a burning hot rock the size of a baseball into my arm. It hurt, it stung, it burned.
I didn’t even have time to say ouch before I was fast asleep.

I awoke in a sitting position, and saw the surgeon handing my jacket to my wife. I knew he was giving her instructions from the look of concentration on her face and they way she kept nodding., I couldn’t understand why he was giving her instructions about my jacket.

Perhaps the drugs hadn’t worn off yet. I felt so clever at having figured that out!

He insisted that I be helped out of the office, so with him on one side and my wife on the other, I was led like a small child out of the office. Me. In the prime of my life, the peak of my active and strong years, I was being treated like an enfeebled old man! I was angry, I was insulted, I wanted to rip my hand from the surgeon’s grasp, but I couldn’t quite figure out how.

I did notice that the tar in the parking lot looked rather soft and inviting. I didn’t fall after all, but I would dearly love to know how I got into the car.

Giving a little lip

To close the hole he left in my jaw, the surgeon used sutures. I had to return in four weeks to get them removed. It makes sense to me that if they were inserted while under anesthetic, they should be removed the same way. He did not have my extensive understanding of logic, however and proceeded to remove them while I sat in his chair trying not move.

After the first few tugs, I decided that the removal didn’t hurt at all. Then too, I may have been distracted by the fact that he kept putting these gems from my mouth onto my lower lip before reaching in for another. My lip became a staging area for a disgusting dental treasure hunt.

Next time, I'm leaving it in!

My Science Project

copyright2001 Dale Hansen no reproduction without permission

or How I destroyed a small village

During the spring months of the sixth grade, when I was nearly through the year and out of Sunnyside elementary, my school had a science fair.

Major universities were not about to beat a path to the school, waving scholarships in the air for our projects and there was no cash reward for winners. Participation in the fair was unanimous by all members of the fifth and sixth grades, by virtue of the faculty threatening to fail us all if we didn’t enter a project.

No muse could have provided greater inspiration than this.

The classroom was not really my comfort zone, nor was I in anyway athletic or “outdoorsy”. I wanted to be a bookworm, so to that end, I was a permenent feature of our school’s library as much as any shelf, card catalog or magazine rack.

it was here I found some wonderful ideas for my project, the benefit being they were already written out with easy to follow instructions. I found one in particular that really spurred my imagination.

PART I. LIGHNTING IN AN EASY CHAIR

Selling the idea of a working model of an active volcano to my parents, especially my mother who would have to clean up afterward, would have required a declaration of congress; countersigned by St. Peter and endorsed by Solomon. Not that I didn’t sell it with all my heart and soul! I pulled out all the stops and pouted for days. I held fast to my guns and refused to budge. Mom made peanut butter cookies and my resolve melted like sugar candy in boiling water.

I looked for something else.

I came across a tome of ancient knowledge, written fully five years before I was born, called Chemical Sorcery. It contained, among other things, a way to make wet paper burn after a few seconds contact with air! It had page after page of great pyrotechnics.

One may wonder why, having failed so miserably with the selling of the desktop volcano, I put my energy to something that created a bigger mess and cost $300.00 in chemicals (if such chemicals could be located in a town where the “fancy new movie theater” was thirty years old).

I would like to put it down to the innocence of youth, but I think I was just hoping for a project I could run step-by-step out of a book and not have to think about too much. Besides, it wasn’t my money. Again I was refused, but this time there weren't even cookies.

Having been twice thwarted on the easy way to achieve scientific excellence, I decided upon another tactic; electromagnets. My inspiration for this project was a magnet I found broken in half in the bottom of a junk drawer.

Here was the plan: take a few wires, wrap them around the magnet pieces, put some juice to it and let the magnets inside do all of the work. I didn’t know or care what might be the effect of adding electricity to it. Once again, no effort or thought on my part was required, but this time my parents did not have to pay a thing.

I gathered bits and pieces from the junk drawer; one roll of wire, one Band-Aid brand bandage box (made of tin in those days), and two halves of a magnet. I wrapped the stove pipe wire tightly and firmly around each half of the magnet. I was afraid that insulation might spoil the effects of magnetism, so I chose a wire that had none.

Now, if you don’t know stove pipe wire from a pipe cleaner, let me describe it for you. It’s the stuff used to keep hay bales together. It’s thick, solid and conducts electricity as well and as safely as a bathtub full of water.

Did I mention the old electrical cord I found in the same drawer? It used to belong to a kitchen appliance, now it was a consripted part of my science project.

There are two kinds of electricity, positive and negative. That’s why there are two prongs on an electrical cord. Even with as little thought as I wanted to dedicate to the concept of science, I knew that you did not put these two kinds together. So, I split the cord down the middle and soldered each end to a separate stovepipe-wire-mummified magnet. To make the whole thing look better, I cut the Band-Aid box in half with tin snips(it was a tin box, remember), and wrapped each half around one of my creations.

I plugged it in.

I had 110 volts running throughwhat was essentially two electrodes. They laid on the floor, deceptively innocent, waiting for me to do something incredibly stupid. I didn’t make them wait long.

I tested the magnetic field by picking one up and running it over any surface that looked metallic. I tested it over the frame of my bedroom window, over a clip on a pen, anywhere and on anything the cord could reach from the plug near my chair.

The experiment failed miserably. There was no indication of any kind of attraction. There are two kinds of electricity, positive and negative. Perhaps I was using the wrong one. I set it down and repeated the test with the other one.

It failed again. I was not able to produce enough attraction to pull a staple across the floor. I held this thing in my palm for a moment and I began to wonder if perhaps the two pieces would be attracted to each other?

There are two kinds of electricity, the kind in my right hand and the kind my left hand was reaching for. I don’t remember actually holding the other electrode, I do vividly remember the explosion.
I was blown back over the chair and struck my head on the same window sill that refused to be magnetic moments before. In a convulsive movement, I threw the electrodes away from me.

Those who have been clinically dead and those who have had near death experiences sometimes report a brilliant white light at the end of a long tunnel. I did not see a tunnel, nor do I claim to have died, but I have a good idea what that light looks like. I was surprised at the noise though.

Having been thwarted at creating a volcano, I had, inadvertently, discovered a bedroom lightning kit complete with thunder. No longer having me between them, they did indeed find each other attractive. This was not limited to soft magnetic forces, however, they found each other in a arc of pure white electricity. My world exploded in a flash of light, bright and brilliant with a loud, ominous sound.

As sudden as the flash of a camera bulb the room plunged from piercing white light into absolute darkness. I blew a fuse. The same fuse that kept my bedroom light kept the kitchen going too. Mom had company, her sister was over to visit. They were in the living room. I marveled that neither of them had heard the deafening explosions emanating from my room. I suppose that thunder isn’t quite as loud from the opposite end of the house as it is when in your lap.

I formed another plan. If I ran in to the basement, I could replace the fuse and return to my room and no one would ever know. There was a profound flaw in this plan. The basement.. The basement wasn’t simply “the basement”, it was THE BASEMENT.. It scared me to be down there alone. Of course, the other option was to go to my mother and my aunt and confess everything. I braved the basement.

I must admit to some pride at having replaced the fuse and getting power back by myself. I tried to dismantle my creation and destroy the evidence, but the two pieces had melted in the intense heat and fused solid. I buried it in the back yard and watched TV for the rest of the night.

The first time I ever saw someone on television use defibrillators, (two electrodes placed over the chest so that one actor call yell "CLEAR" while another actor shakes himself), I had my first ever body memory, and shook along with the actor.

II. THE DOG ATE MY TEEPEE

I don’t know why, but the fair changed. Perhaps I was not the only one in the school experimenting with capital punishment (but I most likely was). Thinking back on it, all science fairs have a commonality – they all cost money. These are not funds that come from the school board to further education, this money comes from browbeaten parents buying $300.00 dollars of chemicals.

I belive this is why the school did a sudden policy reversal. The threat of failure was held firmly over our heads, but instead of a science fair, they decided that we would build a model of an 1800s town.
Each of us were to take a part of the town.

I chose the neighboring Indian village. It was my own idea, though I knew about as much about Indians as I did about electricity.

There were two kinds of Indians, those that had been repeatedly ripped off, abused and rejected by our government, and those that fell off horses in John Wayne movies. Those last kind were white men in red face paint.

My mother loved yogurt. Yogurt was gaining some popularity as were the plastic containers it sold in. She emptied out half a dozen containers into a Tupperware bowl and gave me the empties.
Remove the bottom, slice up one side, roll it up like a funnel and staple it – viola! Instant teepee. No thought there either. I soon had a village of Indians of the “DANNON-FRUIT” tribe. I called the Chief “Strawberry Swirl” Mom didn’t think my teacher would appreciate the humor, so I set about painting each and every one of the teepees. Water color paint on plastic. It worked OK as long it was never touched after it dried. Each yogurt teepee was place carefully over a piece of indoor/outdoor carpeting to simulate grass.

Plastic village on plastic grass, who wouldn’t be proud? Although it didn’t take much thought, it did take up a great deal of time. It was late before it was done, well past my bedtime. The project was due the very next day (I liked tight deadlines ever so much more than my mother did), and I carefully set it on a small table in my room.

I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. It wasn’t until I returned that I realized an important step of the yogurt cup-teepee that I had neglected – rinsing out the old yogurt. My dog had found my model, and decimated four of the six teepees, along with half the grass. The project was in ruins and I had no time to create another, nor did my mother have any yogurt left. I had to walk into class the next day, empty handed and tired from being up all night and loudly proclaim, in front of the class, “The dog ate my homework.”

It was an excuse I had never heard before, but have heard many times since. I will always believe that I am the first to coin this cliché, and am a little bitter that I still do not receive royalties for each time it gets used.

III. VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED

The Indians were not to have a place in the town on our classroom table, but I was given a second chance, I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t completed the assignment. The threat of a failing grade was rattled over my head again as was sent back for another attempt
.
I had gotten an erector set for Christmas. This was the old fashion kind that could almost guarantee an injury with every purchase. It was all steel and iron, bolts and nuts and washers real and sharp and full of burrs. It was a manly kind of toy. It could slice your thumb, rip your skin, or actually amputate fingers in moments. Every piece of metal was sharp as most butcher knives. It was my favorite toy.

This was the super deluxe set with an electric motor, made to run off of a double “A” battery, but all it had were two terminals to hook up wires.

My initial experiments with a “D” size battery proved that the stronger the current, the faster or stronger it would spin..

I built a crane. It was about four feet tall and hinged with bolts, nuts, sheet metal screws and the occasional paperclip. It was a monstrosity in appearance and a health hazard in functionality. There was no end to sharp edges, points and burrs that dotted the crane. I ran a string from the base, over the top and then I put the base on a swivel.

I gave it a motor.

I intended to pick up a brick. I would lift it to the top and then reverse the wires and lower it back down. I needed a lot of power to do that. I found a “D” cell battery.

I hadn’t thought about the brick weighing five or ten times as the flimsy crane. As soon as I put the power to the motor, it wound the string running along the length of the crane in an instant. There was momentary pause before the crane crashed down and began to repeatedly beat itself against the brick. Within seconds, the top of the crane splintered and bent. This set off the rest of the crane, consuming itself on the brick, relentlessly driven by the supercharged motor. Pieces of steel and bolts flew everywhere at once, it was like being in a blizzard of razorblades. Eventually, its own gyrations disconnected the batteries.

The brick hadn’t moved an inch.

Looking over the landscape of the little village, I thought about that motor and it suddenly occurred to me what every small town needs – a mill.

I found a old milkbox and painted it up to look like a house. I had no idea what a mill looked like, and research required effort, so I based it off of the mills I had seen in old movies; a house with a steamboat wheel on one side.

I poked a hole in the side of the box and stuck the drive shaft through it. The wheel was the important part. I fabricated a wonderful wheel out of wood (Popsicle sticks), and was able to mount it to the motor. In order to make this look good, I knew that it would need enough power to spin the wheel.

I got four D cells and strapped them together with a little stovepipe wire I had left over. This time, I kept everything in a box and hidden until I got to school, in case of another dog incident.

Upon reaching school, I proudly displayed my creation to the teacher braced for accolades and praises. I didn’t tell her (or anyone else) about the hidden motor, but I had spent most of my time on it, not on the rest of the mill house.

She was less than enthusiastic.

I set the mill into place in the village and connected the wires in the back. The wheel spun! REALLY FAST! The Popsicle sticks flew off the base of the motor and splintered in mid-air. Several shards went through the train station and still others decimated a few private houses.

The motor was thrown off balance. The mill house lifted itself in the air and spun like a dolphin jumping out of water. The overloaded motor began to smoke wih a foul smelling oily substance. In mid arch, the batteries released from their wires and separated. Mill house and motor landed on the school house (the one on the table), smoke still billowing from the coils. For a short, horrifying moment, the sleepy table top village had hail the size of 55 gallon drums with the words DURACELL emblazoned across them.

The display was never shown on parent teacher night, and I never did get a replacement motor. I did pass the class though.

My Vacation

*****copyright 2001 Dale Hansen no reproduction without permission***

A lot of people have asked me “How was your vacation?” I understand that most people are being polite and don’t really care about my vacation, but there are the masochistic few that actually do want to hear a story. If you really don’t care, as I suspect is the case, then the answer is “fine.” And “Yes, a lot of fun, thanks.” You may now cease reading this.

Having come this far, I can only assume that you are of the rare “other” class of person who either really is interested or you mother read you too many bedtime stories as a child and now you look for more. Well, dig in.

My wife’s Birthday is June 1st. This will actually become important at several junctions later on. June 1 was a Friday this year and my vacation was slotted for Saturday the 2nd to Sunday the 10th. My wife and I decided to split up our vacation time and take two holidays. First we would go camping over the weekend, and then return Monday, rest, wash, fly out Tuesday to Chicago, return on Friday, have the weekend to our selves. On paper, it looked like a great plan.
Be It Resolved;

We came across a camper’s guide to spots around Arizona and decided to check out a spot near the thriving metropolis of Globe. It was on top of a mountain, 7500 feet above sea level, but it was slightly developed and limited to 14 campsites. We knew that waiting until Saturday morning might be too late, we could miss out on the camping experience of a lifetime if some one else got there first. I looked at my employee records and found out that I had just enough vacation hours left to grab that extra Friday, June 1st, my wife’s birthday. Now the hard part; to convince my boss to let me go.

When I asked, his initial response (and indeed the attitude that carried through the entire conversation) was “I don’t care.” I felt empowered! I ran to the phone in my cube and called my wife, “I got your birthday off,” I crowed, high on my own success with so delicate a negotiation. We immediately set to making plans.

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Be it resolved, and henceforth done that the parties of the first part shall, Spend Thursday night packing, ready to load up the truck Friday morning at dawn and be set up in camp by breakfast. So let it be written, so let it be done. Daytimers were updated (in ink!), plans made, purchases made. And God said, “Nah, too easy.”

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Now that you firmly understand that Friday June 1st is and was my wife’s birthday, there is another digression I must make. An introduction to my mother is required. When my mother was born, automobiles were a rarity, the most common form of transportation, other than walking, was the horse-drawn carriage or wagon. In her lifetime, she has seen the progression from horses to space shuttles and high-speed data access. Through all of this technological evolution, she best understands how the horse works. Unfortunately, she’s allergic to them.

My father passed away several years ago. My mother, in her 70s, remarried last year - a wonderful gentleman named Bob

Bob also does not understand technology in all of its subtle forms, and will readily admit it. That does not in anyway deter him from playing with the newest toys. The difference between these two people is best illustrated in the crystal bowl analogy. If I gave a beautiful hand cut lead-crystal bowl to my mother, she would put it in a glass case on a top shelf to look at and treasure. If I gave it to Bob, he’d fill it with gravy and plop it down in the middle of the table to be passed and washed.

I think they’re a perfect match.

Bob has a bit of gypsy in him. Many years of desk work staring out of windows to the great unknown have caught up to him and the only way to appease the constant itch in his wanderlust is to go and find what ever it was on the other side of the window. By preference, his permanent address is the Texas license plate on the back of his motorhome. The only thing keeping him in the same city as I am is my mother’s house. This largish home, while nice, is really too big for my mother’s needs, and to immobile for Bob. To this end, it has been on the market for several months, and they have been in constant prayer that it would sell. Finally, their requests were granted, and the house sold. I found out 15 minuets after calling my wife.

We found a deal where we could afford two Internet services, so we gave one to Mom and Bob. Now they have a laptop, internet services and email. And though Bob really likes the high tech gizmos and isn’t afraid to experiment, he did ask that I set things up for him. But the new internet service started on the first of the month, Friday, June 1st, did I mention it was my wife’s birthday? The service was changing the logon permissions Thursday night, and it was (of course) taking much longer than usual. By the time I got home it was after 10PM, we were in bed sometime after midnight.
OK....

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Be it resolved, and henceforth done that the parties of the first part shall, Spend Thursday night at Mom and Bob’s house setting them up with email on a new laptop. Then packing at dawn the next day, loading up the truck in the late morning and being setup in camp by lunch. So let it be written, so let it be done. Daytimers were updated (again, but his time in pencil!), plans made, further purchases made. And God said, “Nah, still too easy.”

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I believe it was divine inspiration that made forget to set the alarm clock. Invoking Divine inspiration means I don’t have to admit to having flaked. We awoke at about 9 or 9:30AM.

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Be it resolved, and henceforth done that the parties of the first part shall; Pack in the morning, load up the truck in the afternoon and be setup in camp by dark. So let it be written, so let it be done. Daytimers were not updated (no more room on that page!), plans made, further purchases made. And God said, “Now your getting it.”

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Around noon, we decided that it would be too dark to set up camp by the time we got there. A new strategy was formed;

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Be it resolved, blah, blah, blah; Pack up today, throw the crap randomly into the truck in the morning and finally leave the house. So let it be written, and all the rest of that. Daytimers were thrown away as useless, plans shredded, further purchases made. And God said, “YOU GOT IT!”

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Saturday morning, I watched as the bumper of the truck get progressively lower and lower as I threw more and more things on it. This is camping, after all! This is the fun of roughing it in the great outdoors. Air mattress with frame; check. This was the great challenge of man versus nature! Four pillows, six blankets; check. This is the true test of manhood, the challenge of the open frontier! One can propane, $20.00 worth of firewood; check. This was primal man at his animal best! OOPS! Nearly forgot the bagels! Where are they? AH! Over by the camp toaster

The springs on my little pickup compressed and groaned as I piled it on higher and higher. This was ridiculous! Something HAD to be done! Mustering my ire and under the intense heat of an Arizona sunrise, I spun on my heel, stormed into the house and confronted my wife. I told her in no uncertain terms and without possibility of discussion that “We … are … NEVER …going … backpacking!” and stormed out.

I don’t think that I really destroyed any backpacking fantasies she may have harbored, at least I was somewhat reassured from the amount of giggling that followed me back out of the house again.

Silly Mountain Road;

The open road. There is nothing like the feeling of blacktop rolling away from under your wheels on the open freeway. Miles of tar ahead of you, never mind what may be behind, the call of the open road is addictive and impossible to ignore.

Ok, there was a stop a block away from the house for ice. And there was the gas stop in Apache Junction and the soda refill stops here and there and even a “The dog has to pee” stop, but in general, the open road cannot be denied.

One of the things I like about driving the highways and byways is the variety of sites. The gas stations designed by Frank Lloyd Write, the towns created at random and by accident. The latter describes Superior, Arizona. An old mining town; when the bottom fell out of the copper industry, the bottom fell out of Superior.

Going from eight lanes of concrete and steel highway designed to reflect the Arizona sun straight into any windshield and blind the diver, to a single lane each way of blacktop designed to melt in the Arizona sun and stick to tires, past a holiday inn sitting in the middle of sage brush with nothing near it except a stoplight and a Walgreen’s like an air-conditioned oasis in the desert, and finally, after having passed Silly Mountain Road (which has become my new “I wish I had THAT address”), brings you to Superior. The exit for the camp site is located between Superior and Globe

Now, I am a veteran of four different camping excursions. I know many things about camping, like, the damage hail can do to a tent or how it sounds when lightning strikes trees in your immediate campground area, that sort of thing. One of the areas of expertise I have is finding little forest roads. I have become deft at locating these dirt tracks. They are almost always hidden behind a copse of trees, quietly nestled in a strand of pines, or laying serene behind a tumble of boulders. I even found one under a bush once. But this was the first forest road I ever came across that was hidden behind a junk yard. To be truthful, the road was hidden at the back of a residential district, the houses were behind a junk yard. As I drove down these little streets toward the forest road, I kept thinking about the irony of a wrecking yard so close to these houses. Frankly, I was amazed that the junk yard didn’t move to a better neighborhood.

Now, remember I said the campsite was at an elevation 7,500 feet, Globe is about 3,000 feet. The campsite is either 20 miles from Globe or 4,500 feet from Globe depending on your perspective. I had gone from eight lanes on concrete to two lanes of black top, now I was looking at a single lane of dust. I thought to myself, “At least the shrinking roads have ended, at least it won’t get smaller!” And God said “I thought you were beginning to get it! What happened?”

We began climbing the mountain. 20 miles of dirt road, which, true to the irony that was the theme of my vacation, did get narrower. The road never actually got narrower than the width of my truck, I know because I kept looking for that. You see, the view is spectacular going up that mountain. Far away vistas and rolling land stretch out before you, and the panoramic view is completely uninterrupted by visual obstacles like …oh … guard rails just as an example. The speed limit on this road is 15 MPH. There are no police, no place for a speed trap or radar zone, so, really, the only penalty for speeding is a long plunge off the side the of the mountain to a lingering, flaming death. Plus, it does go on your permanent record.

This road was well kept, but it was a single lane, narrow, twisty, with blind turns and switchbacks that made going 15MPH seem like extreme sports. So we went a little slower in most spots, never faster. 15 MPH on a 20 mile stretch of road, you do the math. I found out that after enough time, even sheer terror can be boring.

The campsite was everything we had hoped. There was a little port-a-potty on the site, and there was running water. Unlike my previous camping experiences, there was no water actually running through the camp site and under the tent, so I took this as a good sign.

We entered the area and pretty much decided on the first campsite we came to. We saw a small area that had three sites, (distinguishable from the picnic tables cemented into the ground) and a single potty. We decided to go for the campsite in the back, so drove past the obvious turn. I had to back up about a dozen feet to get there again. Remember how full I said the back of the truck was? As often as I had camped, this was my first experience backing into a tree. I was surprised how truly immovable a tree can be.

After renegotiating with the flora, we got to the road and discovered, to our dismay, that the entrance we had fought and struggled for did not, in fact reach our campsite. I therefor took our two wheel drive, overloaded, mini-pickup truck four wheeling through campsites and between pines to get back to where we were before we backed up and reformed my bumper to pine tree shape.

Once parked, we where NOT moving the truck again until we went home.

Now came the time to set up camp. Ground tarp, tent, fly, bed, nightstands (yes, night stands! Look, it’s a bit hard to explain and this is already too long, just go with it OK?), table stuff, cooking stuff, and at some point through all of this I suddenly remembered what the air is like at 7500 feet. I probably would have noticed the air a little sooner if there had been a little more of it. I began to regret not taking an oxygen tent.

Eventually everything was in place, and I had to pee.

Understand that there are many bodily functions I generally don’t write about, and this is certainly one of that category, but this was the explanation for waking up all those moths and mosquitoes. See, the port-a-potty was actually a luxury condo for hundreds of flapping, blinding, flying bugs. I felt rather like I was in a low budget version of Hichcock’s The Birds.

I found an isolated tree far away from the road. Or so I thought. It turned out that the pretty "hiking trail" near our campsite was actually a twist in the road we drove up on. I can think of better ways to meet new neighbors.

As soon as I walked back to the tent, my wife announced that she was going into the port-a-potty. I insisted she arm herself with every anti-bug weapon we brought. Thus equipped with a disappointingly small arsenal, she entered the gates of insect hell. I waited, anticipating her immediate turn around amidst many shrieks and screams. And waited. The dog fell asleep. I knew it couldn’t be much longer. I think I might have dozed off next to the dog when she finally re-emerged. I marveled at her courage and fortitude. “There weren’t any bugs in there,” she said, “I think you chased them all out.”

I cautiously returned to the riot scene only to find one little moth near the screen that substituted for a window. He looked scared. I had chased them away. I was reassured of my role as protector. After all, I did clear out the bugs for my wife right? Then I caught the smell and marveled anew at my wife’s iron constitution. I swore an oath then that I would not sit on that thing for any reason, and being a man, I was reasonably sure I could get away with it. As soon as the oath was made, God quietly began to test that resolve.

I emerged to find the dog was awake again. Apparently, I had chased all the bugs out of the port-a-potty, and they were currently swarming around the campsite, demanding restitution. It looked to be a class action suit. In fact, they had apparently called some distant relatives to come and plead their case with them.

The sunset that evening was lovely, with the streaming rays of sun cascading through the trees, back lighting a million transparent wings. I ooohed and aahhed and slapped my silly head off.

Once the camp fire was lit, the smoke kept the insects away. Understand that the bugs where only kept away from where the smoke was, the fire didn’t bother them on the side where the smoke wasn’t. Fortunately, no matter where I stood in the campground, that was where the smoke went. In addition to keeping off the bugs, though, it did add a thickness to the air that my citified, smog-ridden lungs appreciated.

That night, another couple appeared to share our little slice of paradise with us. They took a site a ways away, so there was pretty good privacy, and they were generally quiet. They had no tent, they had no baggage. They had a cooler and two sleeping bags. They slept in the back of their pickup and carried nothing with them. I could feel waves of envy coming off of my truck. Their bumper was pristine too.

The wind started up that evening. Too windy for flying bugs. As long as the wind blew, the bugs kept away and the smoke found me with a vengeance. Actually, the first day and night there was rather pleasant. I listened to the wind whispering in the trees. Then it was time for bed.

It got down into the low forties at night. As a former resident of Minnesota, and a 25 year resident of the Arizona desert, I have come to believe that hell is actually a cold place, not unlike the land of my birth, but with drafty, ill-suited accommodations, not unlike my tent. We have an air mattress with a frame, kind of an inflatable queen sized cot. My doctor suggested using it as a way to not have to sleep directly on the cold ground. This is much better. This allows the cold air to circulate freely under us. The mattress is made of vinyl, so not only did I sweat profusely, laying on a vinyl surface, but the frigid wind came under me and froze the sweat to my body. I awoke (several times) covered in salted ice. Also, at some point the mattress sprung a slow leak. By morning I was lying on a shower curtain draped over a dozen designer spikes.

I am thinking of changing doctors.

When I woke, the wind was still blowing. I listened to the wind whispering in the trees. No bugs. The temperature of the air had started to warm, the temperature of my bones hadn’t. I was still cold. By the sheerest luck, I had a jacket in the truck. I hadn’t put it away after the winter season (God bless the lazy!), and had it available in my time of need. By morning it had become a part of me.

We went for a walk through the campground, letting the dog stretch his legs and giving me a chance to warm myself. I listened to the wind whispering in the trees. On the other side of the road we came in on, there were some empty campsites. Just past them was a view that was breathtaking. It was probably the furthest I have ever been able to see outside of an airplane. The sweeping vistas, the rolling mountain sides in the far distance, turning a touch blue in the horizon, slightly more brown toward Phoenix, was incredible. And I had brought the camera! I was so proud of myself! I remembered the camera! I gave it my wife with a flourish of triumph and splendor and with full fanfare. Of course the batteries were dead. We had spares with us, but they were back at the campsite.

I lost my temper then, a bout of verbalized frustration. As I spun around, some of the salt ice fell off of my back. We decided to return after lunch with new batteries.

I listened to the wind whispering in the trees.

Our new neighbors left after breakfast and got stuck on the same road I had to come out of. Let me go over this again. An EMPTY pickup, the same size as my overloaded truck, STUCK on a piece of road the I would have to drive over too.

One of the other campers we walked by on our way to the cliff was able to tow them to the main road and then they both left the area, removing the possibility of my getting out the same way.

I listened to the wind whispering in the trees. I began imaging it was whispering about me.

I went back to the port-a-potty. I still being tested, but a vow is a vow. I swore that I would explode before sitting in there. I guess it just seemed more and more like those were going to be my options. I gritted my teeth, clenched muscles I didn’t know I had, and kept my vow.

I left my jacket on, because the wind was still whispering in the trees. I started wanting the bugs back. I tried to read The wind apparently read much faster than I did because it kept trying to turn the pages. I tried to write and it didn’t much care for my style, it ripped page after page out of my grip. About the only activity left me was listening to the wind whispering in the trees. It didn’t seem to like the fly on our tent much either, as it kept trying to pull that away with it too.

I looked longingly at the port-a-potty, but a vow is a vow, and I am good for my word. It was a stupid vow, but having made it, I was stuck with it. About 2PM my wife said, “I ‘m listening to the wind whispering in the trees.” I agreed that I too was hearing it. She replied “ I am so sick of listening to the wind whispering in the trees! It’s like a constant white noise.”

“So,” I tried to say very casually, “what do you think we should do?” Please dear lord, let her say ‘leave and go home’.

“Well,” she said, “I kind of hate to give up on our camping trip.”

I sighed and agreed with her. I took another long look at the port-a-potty, clenched my jaw and set about getting a fire ready for that night.

At about four, my wife said, “This wind is driving me crazy!”

“Well, the dog isn’t having any fun,” I replied. Do you see the genius at work here?

“I don’t want to go down that mountain road in the dark,” she wisely reminded me. “Do you think we could be ready before dark?”

I took one more look at the pot-a-potty, clenched my jaw tighter. It wasn’t exactly determination she saw in my eyes. “I can have us packed and gone in under half an hour!” I growled.

It took 45 minuets. The back of the truck was higher than before, but when I packed it at home, I was only impatient to leave the house, not screamingly desperate to find pluming. I maneuvered the truck around so that I could get out on the road at an angle, avoiding the same trap our former neighbors fell into. It worked very well, but I was left facing the wrong way. I needed to back up again. The same backwards rout that led to the bumper tree. I actually re-arranged the side view mirror, but the bumper was not re-injured, and we were well on our way, a headlong plunge 4,000 feet down a narrow dusty lane and a setting sun.

After the first few miles, I started smelling hot brakes. Even in my desperation and with regrets to the disappearing port-a-potty, I couldn’t go faster than 25 MPH down the mountain. I put the truck in first gear and let the motor keep me to a slow crawl down the face of the mountain.

An hour and change later, we were out of Superior and on our way home. Going over a mountain pass (something none of my truck’s four cylinders like to do), a man in a large pickup truck pulled up beside us, honking and repeatedly pointing at my truck. He was mouthing something I could not make out. I needed to pull over and check the load.

It was about five miles before I found a place to pull over. There was no limit to the amount of vehicular horrors i imagined during that time.

The good news; The load was fine. There was nothing lost or damaged in the bed of the truck. The bad news; flat tire. The good news; I have a spare! The bad news; it’s flat too. Thus began the epic journy of stopping every 15 minuets to refill the tire. And that is how we made the 80 mile drive back to Phoenix.

We never did put new batteries into the camera.

This was the first half of my vacation.