What I Take From the Dead Jay Kerner Publisher/Hoarder
Everybody dies. Differing beliefs about what happens to you after that, is the number one reason for war in the history of our species. The number two reason is the fighting over your after you’re gone. Somebody is getting grandma’s buffet. And the china. And the silver. Somebody has grandpa’s checkbook and safety deposit box key. The jostling for position starts before the body cools to room temperature. Often, way before that. I’ve seen family squabbles over ratty old tables and chairs, causing rifts that never healed. The toxic mixture of grief and greed brings out the worst in us all. I like to think that I’m immune to all that, but mostly I just don’t care about the same items as most folks. When someone close passes, I get out of the way and let everybody else do what they will. Then, once the “valuables” have all been claimed, I move in for the screwdrivers. And the scissors. And the garden tools. I guess I like to remember people through the things they used. Like I’ll be turning a screw and suddenly wonder if I’ve finally used the tool in my hand as many times as my grandfather did during his lifetime. (In our time of cordless screwdriver drills, not likely!) Or I’ll dig a little flower planting spot for the Queen with her Aunt Sissy’s ancient spade. It’s probably a century old, but still does the job it was made for, as dependably as it did when new. I replace missing buttons from the big jar I got from grandma, who added to it over a lifetime, after getting it from her own mother. Now I’ve added to it myself with buttons from my mother-in-law and other relatives. I like to think about all the garments held together by the contents of that jar. The petticoats and the school clothes. The flour sack dresses, the coats of many colors and the teddy-bear eyes. I like to think about a time where folks of modest means held the simplest of appliances in such high regard. Back when home sewn clothes were handed down till they were only good as rags, but not before the buttons were carefully salvaged for the next project. I have a glass pie pan from my Aunt Roonie who made the second best lemon-meringue pie in the universe. (After her mother’s!) I tried to make one myself, and clearly the pie gene can skip generations.
I have my father-in-law’s rickety step ladder, every rung a testament to his life’s maintenance chores. Drips of white paint from every coat he put on the house. (Every five years, over as many decades.) Speckles here and there of the gray from their porch. I’ve added my own meager contributions, with the green from my garage door and a touch of blue from our guest room. I have some of my late brother’s hand tools. His framing hammer is so big I have to use two hands to swing it unless I choke way up. I know he is making fun of me every time I use it, wherever he’s watching from. I have so many carving knives I forget where they all came from. I couldn’t possibly have a use for them all, but I don’t like the idea of them passing from the family. I don’t get bogged down with the math, but just think of all the Thanksgiving turkeys rendered by the implements in that drawer. All the Christmas hams. I have my stepfather’s glass eyes in a tiny box in my desk. His good one and his backup. I wanted to put them on my baby granddaughter’s forehead and say, “Don’t you think she has great-grandpa’s eyes?”. Daughter was not amused. I have everyone’s ice cream scoops. Silly I know, but once you have three, it’s a collection. From there it just kind of happens. You might be surprised to see how many different types there are. I love some of the most basic designs but some of the others are downright ingenious. We own lots of hand-made family items. Intricate quilts from a century that didn’t touch this one. Needle-point and crochet projects from the middle of the last century, holiday scenes and days of the week, the most popular themes. Handmade lace doilies, out the wazoo. Because really, can you ever have enough lace doilies? I picture generations of my wife’s family’s womenfolk, all in rockers by the fire. Listening to the radio and embellishing their simple lives stitch by stitch. Each adding a layer of her own efforts to the old cedar chest that lives in our bedroom. You can dig down through it like an archeologist and track the timeline of her family, clear back to before they came to this country. I suppose at my age, all of this should inspire me to be more proactive in how I deal with what I will eventually leave behind myself. Probably, but I may just let the family divide my treasures however they want after I’m gone. Seems a shame to break up the odd taxidermy collection but between that and the ugly sport-coats, there should be something for everyone.
Levi Parham and John Calvin Abney at Magoon’s Deli Sept. 26th With a raspy soulful voice and a delta blues finger-picking style, Southeast Oklahoma native Levi Parham conjures the image of a hard traveled bluesman. There’s no denying Parham’s clear southern roots, his songwriting steeped in delta blues, country, folk, soul and gospel; his formative years spent absorbing vinyl trunks full of Muddy Waters, The Band, Van Morrison, Woody Guthrie and Townes Van Zandt. Parham’s debut album An Okie Opera was released in May, 2013, catching the attention of Currentland Magazine, which named it one of the top Red Dirt Albums of the year alongside Samantha Crain, The Red Dirt Rangers, and Jason Boland . The release earned Parham - who has shared stages with Blues Traveler, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, and Junior Brown - a spot at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. Parham’s follow-up release, 6-song EP Avalon Drive - which was produced by Nathan James Dohse, mixed by Nicholas Frampton (of The River Monks, Field Division, Pageant), mastered by Brooks Edwards at Peachtree Studio in Nashville, and features backing vocals and fiddle by Megan Palmer - was released on CD and digital formats on December 9th, 2014. On lead single “Never Coming Home To Me,” Megan Palmer joins Parham with buoyant backing vocals and fiddle. Parham says of the song: I had almost forgotten about “Never Coming Home To Me.” I wrote it about 7 years ago when my daughter’s mother and I separated. We hadn’t been together long, were never married, and separated not long after my daughter was born. I had sort of locked it away and forgotten about it. When I started working with [producer Nathan James] Dohse, I started making demos of a bunch of different songs to see what stuck. Nathan immediately brought “Never Coming Home
To Me” out of the pile. I think he saw its potential, and we started breathing new life into it. When we got into the studio, it was like I was learning the song for the first time. Megan Palmer was gracious enough to lend her voice and fiddle talents to a few tracks on the record, including this one, even though we recorded the day after she got off the plane from Alaska from a tour with Tim Easton. I’m sure she was very tired and jetlagged, but she came anyway. A whole group of great talented people helped put this album together, and being a solo performer for the past year, it was such a blast to create music with awesome musicians. “Ruby” picks up where “Never Coming Home To Me” left off. Says Parham: “Ruby” is about a single mother raising her young child, Bear. We were inspired to follow Bear’s imaginative exploration of the new life carved out for him by the efforts of the mother, Ruby, while the lyrics are about the mother’s struggles. She deals with depression over raising her son alone. She’s motivated by raising her baby, yet still caries with her the emotions and desires of a young woman. The video is connected to “Never Coming Home To Me,” as in the first video, it’s implied that Ruby and Bear are moving out of the house, while “Ruby” shows Bear dreaming of what his new life will be like.
High-Resolution Retinal Photography Detects Vision and Nerve Problems “Behind the Scenes” When it comes to your vision, what you don’t see really can hurt you – and August may be the perfect time for a new kind of “selfie” photo that could save your vision. The optometrists and professional staff at Dr. Rosenak’s Optical Options are urging community members to recognize National Eye Exam Month by getting high-resolution digital photos taken of their retinas and the nerve area behind the eye, a process that has made an impact on people in the St. Joseph area by detecting complex vision problems early-on. Retinal photos can identify diseases and eye problems before they lead to vision loss, such as infections, diabetic retinopathy, hypertensive (highblood pressure) retinopathy, precancerous and cancerous lesions, glaucoma, macular degeneration or risks for optic strokes before they can be detected through other symptoms. “Retinal photography is important for every patient because the doctor can view eye problems around the nerve area that cannot be seen by other means. With digital retinal photography, patients can see and discuss the photos the day they are taken, so they can be more involved and educated about health decisions for themselves and their children,” says Dr. Steven Rosenak. “It’s one of the tools that has evolved across optometry that truly makes an impact for people.” Individuals with pre-existing health problems (or undiagnosed health problems) have discovered serious vision threats using retinal photography that may not have been detected for weeks or months otherwise. Patients with Type 2 diabetes sometimes have localized leakage of blood or fluid that reduces vision
and leads to long-term damage, and have used retinal photography at Dr. Rosenak’s office to identify these changes early in the process. In another example, a patient’s rare fungal infection linked to poultry farming (Ocular Histoplasmosis) was identified through retinal photography showing damage to the optic nerve head. Other patients have used the tool to identify damage from untreated high blood pressure, which can lead to optic nerve atrophy and blindness. Dr. Amy Fitzgerald, one of two trained optometrists at Optical Options, highly recommends retinal photography for patients of all ages. “It provides an excellent opportunity to get baseline information on a patient and monitor eye health more closely,” says Dr. Fitzgerald. Dr. Rosenak explains that the retinal photography process takes only a few minutes and is painless. Images are visible immediately, and it doesn’t affect a patient’s vision, so adults can drive themselves to their appointment. “This test is especially important for those with a history of headaches, high blood pressure, diabetes, floaters, flashes of light, retinal diseases and those with strong prescriptions,” he adds. Dr. Rosenak’s Optical Options is one of the first and only optometry offices in the St. Joseph area to provide retinal photography for patients. To learn more about retinal photography, visit http://drrosenak.com/ your-needs/.
Training Camp Photos by Howard Words