From Love to Hostility

We had a much better than anticipated time with Dad at Camp. Lincoln and Greta were great with their great-great. The Tuesday night when we came home he slept for over 8 hours without interruption. Then yesterday he was hostile all day. Swore at everything and just never got happy. We went to bed at half time last night and he was up at 3,5,7. At 3am he marveled at how well the corn was growing this winter and how high it will be in the summer. At 5 the wall got sworn at because it was holding up his walker with the brakes on. Another rainy day today. Let's hope he gets some internal sunshine.

Feel the Love

The blackboard is from the one that Dad taught on in the Rodman school. Great Grandson Lincoln is practicing his algorithms.

Greta often went to Great Grandpa Bob, woke him up and gave him a hug.

Work

We watched a late ballgame until 12pm. Oh Boy, a full nights sleep. Wrong again. Up at 1am calling, "Jerry, are you asleep yet?" There was a new insurance problem that demanded our attention now. I bragged that I was on the case and would take care of it, rolled him back into bed and went back to my own fantasy which did not include insurance or anything else that came close to work. Up again at 5am for a nature call. Back to sleep until 6:30 when we got dressed and started the coffee.

Back to the brain studies. Emotions go direct for action. Survival may be at stake. Other inputs may take other routes that take longer to process or think about. Is that why we tend to remember problem situations, traumas, unpleasant happenings more vividly than pleasurable happenings?

Memories

According to my latest reading we take in information and then rearrange the data to fit our own brain. Memory is then triggered or forgotten or rearranged to suit our changing understanding of who we are. Therefore we all remember differently.

Bill C. is the head of our local artist' group. He was the paper boy for Stinard Ave. in Syracuse in 1965. Joe Biden lived on Stinard then while he was going to law school at SU. Mrs. Biden taught at Bellevue school where Bill C. was a student. (The VP, Hubert Humphrey, spoke at my SU graduation in 1965.)

My recollection of that year is a red Triumph spitfire that I drove to North Syracuse to teach 6th grade. We rented the upstairs to a small house that had a steep driveway. I would stop at the corner and Pat would come out in the winter to push the car up the slope for the night.

Pat described in detail the apartment, our first. The furniture, floorplan, colors, etc. I remember none of this even after she told me. She says I drove her to the hospital to work and she would take two buses home.

I asked Dad what he recalls about that time. I even tried to trigger a few thoughts, but nothing came of it.

We watched the Celtics implode until 10pm and then slept until 6:30. The perfect night (except for the Celtics.) This is Dad quessing what day it is and hoping for warm sunshine.

Remembering

"Proust was a Neuroscientist" by Jonah Lehrer was given to me by Sara. It is about Artists who understood about the brain about 100 years before science could explain and prove their experience. Auguste Escoffier understood the experience of food beyond the four tastes on the tongue. Marcel Proust wrote of his life thinking. His thoughts on memory; "We bend the facts to suit our story, as our "intelligence reworks the experience." "Our recollections are cynical things, designed by the brain to always feel true, regardless of whether or not they actually occurred." The more you remember something, the less accurate the memory becomes." "Memories appear and disappear. They obsess us precisely because they disobey every logic, because we never know what we will retain and what we will forget."

At 4 am Dad was collecting firewood on a beach in preparation for the group that was coming to build something. Where does that come from? Yet he could recall from 70 years ago some facts that were agreed on by the visitors who also were there. But I also notice that Mom is approaching saint hood and their marriage is getting happier each year.

Visits

The Cramers visited Dad yesterday pm. Meg fed them goodies while they swapped stories from the past. Herb is only in his late eighties and golfs regularly.

Brenda took Dad to Coopers Landing for dinner where he remembered that he should drink a manhatten with supper.

First at 2am and regularly four times since I traveled with him to the the ceramic throne to complete the food cycle.

Resting

By the end of a long day entertaining, Dad needs the news hour to rest. Then he wakes up to watch some TV before bed at 10-11.

?

We watched TV until midnight and slept until 6am. Back to bed for an hour and up and dressed. A large breakfast and a glance at the paper. Then back to the living room chair to watch the morning news on TV. I told him I was leaving to give Meg a ride in the rain. He asked, "Where am I, at Judy's house in Rye?"

Lunch

At 4 am Dad was planning lunch. He was having Albert Gilmore and a few others and wanted to call in for the meat. Would I get the number for the meat market? And then there was the problem of how we should cook it. On the grill perhaps. This discussion took about 30 minutes while I continued to physically guide him into bed. Once prone and covered he slept another 4 hours.

Tuesday

Another good day in Rodman.
I told him about a friend's father who fell, had an operation on his hip, and could not live at home any longer. He listened sympathetically and waited until I had left the room to stand up by himself. Kids nowadays.
The Tylenol PM works to induce sleep and confuse thought for about 10 hours. While trying to get up from the john this morning, I told him to move forward. He swore and informed me he only had two hands.
From the book on how come humans make errors was the common mistake mentioned before. Pat & I saw two horses shoulder to shoulder coming down the road in front of the camp gate. New facts of no harness, long noses was then processed into the unusual recognition of two large moose.
We received the pontoon boat from storage yesterday and I think that Dad is looking forward to some time at camp this summer.

Thinking

Things are different now than then. Time used to be linear and took longer. What you saw was real or at least close to the saying, "Don't believe anything you hear and only half what you see." Now what you see may be edited in many ways. This is especially true during the NBA games. With highlights from the past, replays from 5 camera angles, comments from announcers, etc. Dad is getting really confused. "How come they made five baskets and only got credit for one?"

All the same he will ask me for a name and when I give it to him he will accept it or not until I come up with the one he was thinking about. And he is still surprised and thrilled when the Celtics get lucky.

Brains

"Bozo Sapiens" is about humans making errors. One of the reasons is that we have created patterns in our thinking that we quickly try to plug new information around. If the new data does not readily fit we try to make it fit our way of knowing rather than asking why it seems out of sync with our perception of the world. For instance a pilot who is highly trained in all kinds of probable emergencies suddenly has something unusual happen and will react according to the training rather than question the unusual new data. "The more we can do with our eyes closed, the larger our blindspot when they are open.

Dad is getting more stories out of less data using this method. He will hear a fact, wrap it into his reservoir of old stories, philosophy, wisdom, experience, etc. and voila, a full blown tale. So when you hear one of his tales, try to find the fact that generated the stuff.

Dining Out

Dad took Heather in her new outfit to dinner. The restaurant owners made an appropriate fuss over her and how lucky he was to have such an escort. I heard all about it from 6-6:30 at which time the manhattan drink put him away until bedtime. He was choosing his restaurant for tonight when I ruined it by telling him it is only Thursday. I think today he is watching Meg bake.

Pat stayed with Dad on Monday night while I went to camp to put the dock in the water. He slept well for her. And then again last night it was almost a 9 hour run. He tries to entertain or be entertained during the day so when the party ends about 7 he goes to sleep. So even after a three hour nap last night he slept soundly for nine more hours.

I got my latest ink drawing framed this morning. He is admiring it.

No News

Dad is enjoying Meg's cooking, Heather's laugh, and singing with Brenda. He watches the NBA, but seems to understand less of what the game is about. His arm strength seems weaker. And his legs work less well each day. And the Tylenol extra strength PM works to make him sleepy and out of it in about 45 minutes. During the night he pushed all of the bedding to the foot when he got up. When he went back to bed he tugged on the bed cover under the sheet. When questioned, he got mad at my stupidity. He needed to be warm and wanted the covers. My standard response now is, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it." With that he settles into sleep.

Ladies of all ages

Last night at dinner a lady next to us asked, "Is that Bob Merrill?" After many inquiries we established to both their agreement that her name was Lucina Drake. That did not mean much to Dad but you could see the gears turning. "You mean Lucina Kenfield, the dancer?" She was. They used to cut a rug about 70 years ago. She was married to a Kenfield who wouldn't share much of his wife, but it was OK to dance.

Heather has been telling Dad about looking for a new outfit to go to a dinner. He insisted that she bring it to model.