The View

A long time ago I was visiting my dad in a nursing home after his last amputation. I had left my bride, but brought our young dog Henry. We drove from Aspen to Phoenix in the big brown bomber, the '84 Landcruiser with big mud bogg tires. It was a rough time those tears when they took his toes and then his foot and then finally the leg just bellow the knee. The heartbreak and the strokes were bad enough, but when he lost his balance and his feet started dieing things really started to spiral. I was there for ten days with the secret mission of getting him home to mom's home-cooking so he would eat and stay alive. He had gotten so skinny. That skeletal kind of skinny. I think his weight when he was a freshman at Maryland was probably a buck 50 with dark eyes that had seen action in the war (I picture in my mind the team picture from his freshman year yearbook that I had looked up online when I first started this blog, I thought he looked skinny and haunted). Now he was far below that weight in bed, missing a leg, greatly diminished in size and looking skinny and haunted). He still had a presence about him. Here was a real man, but most of the time that first day he seemed like he really wasn't sure where he was and he much preferred being asleep than awake trying to figure it out. Most of his awake time was spent getting used to the idea of only having one leg. He was not himself, but Henry recognized him right away. Jumped his front paws up on th bed and sniffed the stub. He gave his knee a friendly little lick. Henry loved what I loved and I loved my dad more than anything and man did I love that dog. Henry was a golden retriever with an incredibly old soul. He could out run, out jump, out fetch or swim any dog alive. He was eighty pounds of mountain bread muscle and had a blond silky main with red highlights you could just bury your hands into. All this mattered little to the patients and staff of this institution, what matter to them was his huge heart and ancient soul. We'd visit my father first thing in the morning and then we would go all around his floor.

When we entered the nursing home for the first time Henry understood right away that this was a very special place full of very sick, very old people and one of the sickest was ours. He was always very serious when we were there. With my dad He would sit up right close to the bed and his chin would rest on the mattress, my dad would roll on his side and they'd nearly be nose to nose. They would look into each others eyes and Henry would give him a little head tilt. My dad would drift off to sleep, open his eyes and sort of mumble, is he real? Is he really here? Yes, dad this is King Henry! Once when he was looking at Henry he said to me, "You aren't Jay are you?" I said no I'm the other one. He'd pet Henry a few times on the head then drift off to sleep again. Henry and I would go visit some old people to brightin up their days and brighten them we did. One very old woman would slide to the edge of her bed so she could rest her hand on his big wide head. She would look at him under her hand and say, my lovely, my lovely, my lovely. The nurse told me she had not spoken a word in 2 years.

Most of the time my dad's mind was suffering from delusions and he would wake up talking about needing to drive to Alabama because he was going out for baseball in the Spring. But he would see Henry and then he'd look at me and then look back at Henry. Then he'd be back with us again and we'd talk and I start asking some tough questions. I had this theory about using tough question to challenge the brane and spark new connections across infarcts and damaged grey matter. I would say tell me about the war or what was it like playing football at Maryland or about your parents and he do the best he could answering and then drift off to sleep. I onced asked him if he had ever been scared. He said he was afraid of being a terrible husband or a crappy father. He said he was afraid of turning out like his old man. I would ask him about his dad, my grandfather and he would try and change the subject or close his eyes and loose consciences, to say go to sleep isn't really accurate. He would just decide to not be awake anymore. 

I'd be sitting in the chair by the window with Henry laying at my feet. He'd wake up and realize we were there and ask me, "How's the view" I'd say best view ever. You should get up and see it. He'd say, "I've already seen the best view ever." I'd say you haven't seen this one. I would say the view's so damn good you can see the ocean from here. And the beach. The deep-sea fishing charter boats are heading out the inlet to ketch sea trout and blues. The sun's climbing up on the horizon and the boats are cutting through rolling, sparkling swells of glass. And the beach, just look at all those bikinis. You don't get to see that everyday. Now that I live in Aspen don't get to see the bikinis or the beach except in my dreams. This views so good you can also see the bayside. Look at that Welcraft plaining-off and cruising too fast under the Rte 50 draw-bridge that kid's probably get in a whole lot of trouble some day. And look at that Sea Ray shooting through the Rte 90 bridge heading into Assawoman Bay like a bat out of hell. Look how it's cutting through the glass with its bow in the air and it's ass in the glass, the wake slowly spreading out for ever destine to splash both shores on either side. Must be high-tide because it's tacking a straight line for the channel with no regard for the sand bars. At that speed he's probably only drawing two feet, should be fine, I remember thinking that a thousand time. He'd say something like, thought it wrong a few times too. He'd said, "We sure hit a lot of sand bars that weren't supposed to be there didn't we? We had some pretty great summers in OC didn't we?" We sure did Pops, we sure did. He'd be asleep before saying much more, but at least he was starting to try and stay awake.

So how's the view? Best view ever Dad, you should get up and see it. He'd say, "I've already seen the best view ever." You haven't seen this one. The view is so good from here I can see all the way to Aspen. The snow capped peaks and the deep blue green of the pines and the golden reds and golds of the Aspen trees turning. The sun is just breaking over the ridge line and melting the frost sending up whispers of steam like little mini dust devils, wow the air's so clean and clear and thin. Reminds me of my wedding day. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said now that was a special day, very special. He'd ask how's Suzy and whether or not I was being a good husband. I'd ask him, are you?

I talked to him about what the doctor had said about starting the process of fitting a prosthetic leg. Even if you weren't planning on getting up and walking around it would be really helpful in getting from the bed to the wheelchair or more importantly from the chair to the toilet.

He'd change the subject by asking about the view. I'd tell him it's the best view ever. You should get up and see it yourself. He'd tell me he's already seen the best view ever. Not like this one. The views so good I can see the lights of Las Vegas all the way up and down the Strip. Remember when we'd play single deck 21 and you'd let me play with your winnings and we'd run the table almost all night long. Those were some good times bittybuddy he'd say. 

By the end of my time in Phoenix he'd gotten that new leg of his. He was able to stand up out of bed and lean forward on the walker and take a few baby steps. My last morning visit he was already up and was sitting in the chair in front of the window, unthinkable only the week before. I asked him if he was enjoying the view. He said it was the best view ever! I asked him what he saw and he said, "I see the way home." I asked if that was the best view ever that you kept saying you already saw? "No son. That best view ever is when I'd see you come through the door." 

The Hero's Story

I've been wondering what this is all about lately and I have to admit not knowing. Deep inside me there is this need to tell the story. Not just any story, but his story. My dad's story. I love this blog because time and time again I've come here and tried and failed. I share a picture or a memorie that stirs in me some inspiration to give it another try. 

Recently one of those memories has surfanced from when I was really young. This memory is a faded picture. One of those 4x4 inch, rounded on the corners, 1970s, faded color photos, that may have never existed, but I think it did. Carol shooting the picture or maybe Karen took it but both are there. In the memory one of them took the picture with one of those little rectangular cameras with the plastic cartridge film that was easy load and not expose the film. One of the ones you could stick a little square disposable flash cube on and shoot 4 flash pictures with and the cube would rotate on quarter turn each time you pushed the film forward with the thumb slide thingy on the bottom. If I actually saw the picture it would have been over 40 years ago. 

We were in Birmingham, Alabama, where my father was born. It wasn't for a funeral which seem to dominate my memory of that place, but for a convention. An AMSA convention. The American Metal Stamping Association's annual convention, my dad wast the Executive Director. We were in the Presidential Suite on the top floor of the nicest hotel in town across the street from the Convention Center. We were looking down and across the street at the big sign out front of the Convention Center and it had a big flashing marquis that ran through the middle of it. The words would roll out and stop, "Birmingham Welcomes Home..." the words would roll off then the next line would follow, "Her Favorite Son..." then in all caps, "JEFF KEITH!!!"  I remember my sisters timing it so they could snap a shot of each of the sections of the message. 

That's about it. A snap shot memory. Of  my sisters taking a snap shot of my dad's hero's welcome home. There had been others before I was born. I remember a news clipping of when he came home from the University of Maryland before going off to play in the Sugar Bowl the honored him with a parade. Hard to imagine, but that's what the newspaper clipping had said. I'm sure when he came home from the war before going to Maryland there must have been some kind of hero's welcome then too I imagine. 

I remember him being a little uncomfortable about seeing his name up on that big sign. I vaguely remember him grumbling something like I'm really going to hear it from the board that that's why we're here in this sweaty little town instead of Las Vegas or New York or Cleveland. It's probably one of my earliest Penthouse Hotel Suite Convention in a big city memories of which there were a lot. Until I became a teenager and they stopped and my dad's life started getting a little rough. 

Telling the Hero's story is tough. It isn't easy to get right. You have to start in the right place. Here again I have failed. I needed to start at the beginning him leaving home a down-trodden son of an alcoholic ,16 years old, off to become a Marine, but being found out too young having to ride banana boats up and down the Panama Cannal as a Merchant Marine for two years before becoming a real Marine in the Pacific Theater during the Big One. Overcoming one adversity over another, achieving one unbelievable level of success after another and finally returning home the hero. Well, maybe I'll get it right next time. 

I remember one time we were at a convention in Dallas and Jay and I were up on the sun deck of this sky scraper hotel fooling around on these massage tables when one of them fell over and crushed my ankle. It was all swollen and black and blue but I still got to go out to the dude ranch and shoot shot guns and ride horses. Good times. Funny how writting about a memory somehow unlocks a few others. 

The Rabbit

Emma was chasing a rabbit and closing in on it as they reached the crest of a ridge.  Didn't capture this on film, but the image is blazin on my mind. The rabbit leaped its body fully extended slightly arched with the curvature of its tragrectory. Emma leaping a split second later. Jumping higher fully extended arcing with a trajectory, depending the length of flight would intersect with that of the rabbit. From my perspective below the ridge the rabbit sailed over the edge about three to four feet off the ground and Emma crossed over at least six feet above the edge. As they sailed the arc of a double rainbow over the cliff and out of sight I literally lost my breath. I saw it in slow motion the prey and the hunter the rabbit mid-flight turned an eye back and saw his nemisis flying in his blind spot. Then they float out of sight over and down the ridgline. I ran to the top and saw Emma about fifteen feet from the crest with her head fully jammed down a rabbit hole. For a second it looked like the rabbit maybe landed a Bullseye directly into his hidie hole and Emma just shot directly in behind her jamming her face so deep into the hole she was stuck. But she backed out and looked back up at me with a did you see it dad look? Yeah, I Saw it Em. Looked like Superman and Mighty Mouse or a sene from Mutual of Omaha. I know, Emma, your too young to know what any of that means, but trust me, it was cool. Way cool. Ask Tyler, he saw it too.