It Might Get Messy

As I excavated the file structure to dig up the early notes compiled for this week’s entry, I passed the folder of weblog and a separate health update email for the 4th of July week last year. I paid my ticket and piled into the little carnival car for the trip through the cheesy County Fair House of Horrors ride. It seemed like a good idea at the time. In truth, it turned out to be a scary visit to what ubiquitous TV commercials for “Cancer Treatment Centers of America” insist on calling a “journey”. Of course, because of basic physical laws and the enormous entropy engine that is our universe, past is prologue. We’ll revisit this point momentarily. 

First, however, I had an exchange with much esteemed Dr. Crossley, my major professor at the University of Georgia. We covered a lot of interesting rhetorical ground. We’ll revisit this conversation in a later entry to this blog. For the moment, it is relevant that DAC and I commiserated over the difficult logistics of travel here in the post-9/11 world, especially for those of us who are old and/or sick. Note that DAC is not only not sick, he keeps a prolific professional and personal schedule demonstrating clearly that calendar age has nothing to do with being “old”. He writes novels of the Olde West, with a focus on Texas, his favorite setting. His novels, including Revenge of the Texas Ranger, Guns of the Texas Ranger (The Border Trilogy), Code of the Texas Ranger, Escape from the Alamo, Guns Across the Rio, and Return of the Texas Ranger, are excellent, action-packed, written under the nom de plume DAC Crossley, and generally available via Amazon at 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3ACrossley+Texas&keywords=Crossley+Texas&ie=UTF8&qid=1436126099

At the same time, DAC continues to make frequent technical contributions, both by updating his books on soil ecosystems and by frequently publishing descriptions of new mite species. 

But that’s not why we’re here (at least not today). Today we’re here for the usual weekly update on my condition (calling it “health” at this point would perhaps be over-optimistic), with consideration of the historical artifacts I’ll be leaving behind  (almost all of them in the basement now). In particular, I’ve been attempting to sort through the several hundred 35mm color film slides I accumulated back when analog technology was all we had available. 

Among the more interesting components of the collection are a number of photos of the Soviet/Russian military hardware (tanks, self-propelled artillery, big guns, armored assault vehicles, trucks) shot up by U.S. air forces on the highway north of Kuwait City as the Iraqis attempted to retreat with their hardware intact from the ridiculous and pointless destruction of Kuwaiti infrastructure. Some of these photographs are awesome. The heavy frontal armor on Soviet main battle tanks was on the order of nearly a foot thick. Where spent-uranium anti-armor projectiles hit this heavy stuff, the metal melted and cooled in place, leaving a really frightening “splash” of steel frozen like a bad sculpture in an East Village gallery on a summertime Saturday night (nobody is in NYC on summertime Saturdays. It is prime opportunity for marginal artists…a category with whom I feel deep kinship…to display their prowess. And/or lack of same). Most of the tanks had been taken through the thinner, largely ineffective, armor on the rear surfaces. But man, there sure as hell was a shitload of beaten and broken weapons of war spread out in miles-long windrows across the dry sands of the western Kuwait desert. 

After I get these slides in to be professionally digitized, I will post some of the best here and/or at revived versions of the other 3 weblogs comprising my once-active blog empire. In the meantime, it may occur to you to wonder: “what the hell was Ludwig doing in the Kuwait desert wandering around shot-to-hell Iraqi weapons of war?” As you will discern from the following brief, that’s not even the most fun part of my adventure with armed military in Kuwait… .

On one of my trips to Kuwait (I was teaching two-week courses at the Kuwait Academy of Sciences) I got my travel screwed up. Had to arrive on the same flight but a day later than originally scheduled. Of course I notified my boss (guy from UMass who set the courses up) and hotel. So when I got off the plane there was a driver with a "Doctor Ludwig" sign. So I grabbed him and we went on into the city. Many misadventures later, it was time to leave Kuwait and head back to the real world. So I go to the airport for the midnight flight, hand over my ticket and passport, and… within 15 seconds there is a full squadron of large, leather-skinned men in body armor with carbon-fiber weapons explaining in the nicest possible tones of voice that I needed to go with them. Immediately.

Turns out, of course, that when I came into the country without my experienced compatriot, and found the driver, I completely bypassed the brief but oh-so-necessary stop at the Visa station. So here are these military guys with me, a valid passport, a return flight ticket, and, as they kept repeating, (while feeding me gallons of sweet spiced tea and reflexively slipping the safeties on the carbon-fiber weapons off and on) that they had "no record of me coming in to the country". This was a very uncomfortable position (well, except for the tea) to be in. Compounding the problem, because they couldn't assure themselves that my flight OUT of the country didn't have something to do with my successful infiltration in, they locked down the big airplane full of Brits and Aussies who were all absolutely desperate to get wheels up so they could start to drink. I had no idea what to do, although if it looked like they were going to book me, I planned to "accidentally" strip the 35 mm film out of my camera because it had a very nice photo of the sign at the Saudi Border saying "NO PHOTOGRAPHY", and I didn't think that the possibility that I had hiked up the coastal dunes after walking across the southern border would go over very well with the gentlemen with the body armor and carbon fiber weapons. 

Anyway, after a couple of hours of discussions with the KFAS people (all of whom, I am certain, were sound asleep when this problem came to their attention at around 0130 local time) the military guys relented and put me on the plane. And it was only after we had wheels up and a third glass of wine that I remembered my 35 mm film also included 50 or 60 close-up photos of the Soviet tanks, armored cars, and artillery destroyed by U.S. air forces on the nighttime highway at the end of the war. Oh, plus, our driver got us past security at the miles long windrows of twisted and melted metal by telling the guards in the concrete bunker with the Browning .50 caliber...no carbon fibers out there in the sand...that we were former U.S. Marines who wanted to relive our glory days. Realistically, I could still be in some dark, deep, dry dungeon in the desert. And I bet the tea wouldn't have been nearly as good... .

Anyway. As you know from my whining much earlier in the “cancer process”, the loss of ability to travel is one of the most difficult things for me to accept and live with. I’m gonna have to revisit travel adventures and older photographs. Good thing I have copious quantities of both. 

Once again this week, I have not had the kind of health crisis that would indicate the many incipient malignancies occupying my internal thoracic surfaces have sprouted to life and commenced the hostile takeover of my already-none-too-comfortable body. I do seem to be more dependent on the supplemental oxygen than I have been. If I forget to strap on the mask for an hour or more, I start to struggle to breathe. I do not know if this is an indicator of more serious underlying problems. My breaths remain strong and clear, which at least suggests that the partial collapse of my lungs—where dorsal and ventral surfaces have met and remained, depriving me of the benefit of such affected areas—has not gotten more severe. Among other indicators, production of thick, sticky mucous is way down in volume, and there is no blood in the phlegm or saliva. This is a Good Thing.

Almost exactly a year ago, we had made a couple of visits to an older thoracic surgical specialist, as the younger Dr. H was out on vacation. The older guy told us in a sad tone of voice that “people in your condition have lifetimes measured in months, not years”. When Dr. H returned and we asked him directly, he said the very longest I could possibly expect to live would be 13 months. With a much higher probability at the bell of the curve, on the order of 6 to 7 months. 

So, by medical reckoning, I’m well past my sell-by date and, to put it bluntly, should be dead. Of course, I should also be in a Kuwaiti black ops site somewhere in the western desert, still attempting to learn basic Arabic from the unseen and unknown guy in the adjoining cell. 

A few photos follow to reward your patience. Now I can’t wait to get these slides of the blown-to-hell tanks digitized. Because, while I don’t have many of them left, I have every intention of using them while I got them. Because they don’t keep well in the long haul. Although realistically the “long haul” is also likely an overestimate… .