Health – Mostly From Memory

Dementia

“Mr. Zane, that little old lady back there doesn’t even know her name. All she does is mumble, but she just sang I Saw The Light along with you.”

I have been blessed with a unique opportunity to sing at the nursing home as a part of my job. I have lost count of how many nursing homes I have visited. One of the most interesting and moving experiences I have had so far is singing in the memory care units. The memory care units I have visited have been in assisted living centers, not nursing homes, and are for residents who are dealing with memory loss due to Alzheimers or dementia. These units are usually locked down so the residents won’t wonder off and get lost. As I am being escorted through the halls, the workers always try to mentally prepare me for what I might expect as they punch in secret codes that take us deep into heart of the building. They don’t realize that that kind of stuff doesn’t bother me. I’ve probably been to more nursing homes than they have, and even preached at the Methodist church. I always keep my eyes closed while I’m singing anyway.

I’m not a licensed music therapist, but I have seen the power of music first hand. When the director of the unit walks up bawling after a concert and says things like, I’ve never seen that man talk before after the man just talked to me for three minutes. Or There is a little old lady back there that doesn’t even know her name. All she does is mumble, but she just sang I Saw The Light along with you. This kind of thing happens often. I cannot tell you what these people are diagnosed with, but I can tell you that there is a moment when the light comes on in their eyes. And it is a moving experience.

I often leave from these brief concerts thinking about those people, locked up in a wing of some multimillion dollar facility. Each person represents a heart wrenching story of children coming to grips with a parent whose mental state has deteriorated to an unrecognizable point. When did the children notice? Did their parent, who once possessed a sharp intellect and a profound pool of wisdom become foggy in their memory and erratic in judgment? Was there a sudden change in personality from a caring and compassionate nurturer to a mean and selfish miser, or was the change gradual? At what point did a brother call a sister and say, I think something is going on with Dad? And I wonder about perhaps the hardest conversation of all, Dad, we’re concerned about you, I think we need to get you some help.

I imagine a lot of that depends on the state of the relationship between children and parents. Disfunction, strained relationships, and estrangement is the sad reality for many families, and would make an already extremely difficult situation nearly impossible to navigate.

I have talked to quite a few people who have had this experience with a parent. They tell me that looking back they could remember odd changes in behavior from years before that now made sense. They talk about the parent leaving long before the body expired. And the sense of relief after their parents’ death, accompanied by a slight sense of guilt for being relieved. They also speak of the relief of knowing that the unkind words spoken to them were the disease and not the parent.

These are all the things I think about when I tune up my guitar in a memory care unit. I look for that light to come on. I try to sing a wide variety of hymns and gospel songs in hopes that one of them will resonate with a lingering memory behind a set of blank eyes. I also am painfully aware that I may not be able to reach someone if they have no memories of any of these spiritual songs. Or maybe the music has already died and there is no recalling them.

I sing anyway. I never know who is listening.

Diabetes: A Health Topic

“November is Diabetes Awareness Month. Maybe you could a talk on Diabetes for us.”

I was asked to speak at the Senior Center about Diabetes because November was Diabetes Awareness Month and that would be a good “Health Topic.” When the lady said that over the phone I had a flashback to the fifth grade when I was assigned a body system to do a research report on. I don’t remember what my assignment was, most likely because my Mother probably got carried away “Helping” me, but I do remember Amanda Giovanni’s* topic. She was assigned the respiratory system. There came a day when we were to present our projects orally and with visual aides before the entire combined classroom of 4th and 5th graders and more importantly before Mrs. McManus and Mrs. Battle. I’m sure I did adequately on the oral portion, and my Mom’s artistic hand on the visual side either landed me some extra points or counted against me depending on whether or not my teacher’s were fooled into thinking that I had mastered the art of hatching and cross-hatching at the ripe old age of ten.

I wish Amanda would’ve had a little help from anyone. The poor girl was unprepared. When it was her turn to stand and deliver, she held up a crumpled piece of wide ruled paper with a pencil drawing of a pair of quickly drawn lungs. I can remember her anxious posture while standing before her peers. I have transcribed-from memory-the entirety of her presentation.

“My report is on the Respiratory System. Our lungs help us breathe. Without our lungs, what would we do?”

Utter silence fell over the room. I think we all learned a lesson far more valuable than any fifth grade research could tell us about the respiratory system. It was Mrs. McManus who broke the silence. She was disappointed that the child was unprepared, but there was also an element of understanding of what the girl may have been experiencing at home. Not everyone had a Mom who would drive to the BP gas station right after church to get a piece of poster board and then come home and free hand the circulatory system with H Encyclopedia Brittanica opened to Human Body while you were tucked in bed.

“You’ve had weeks to prepare for this project. You could’ve asked me for help.”

I want to say we had a whole month to procrastinate on this project. I haven’t changed all that much since 1996. I still wait til the last minute on a lot of things because I work better under pressure.

Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.

-Parkinson’s Principle

So here I am in the prime of middle-age, writing a quick article instead of researching Diabetes. I’ll get around to it-I’ve still got plenty of time. But I did think about just drawing a picture of some cookies covered by a general prohibition sign and saying something like, Diabetes is bad. 0/10 would not recommend and just hoping for the best. I might not get asked back, but I would almost guarantee that someone in that room will probably still remember that speech vividly in 30 years.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

How to Acquire Taste

Have you ever wondered what it takes to acquire a taste? People are always eating weird stuff and telling you how good it is and then you work up the nerve and taste it and it tastes exactly how you thought it would taste: nasty. I tried Goat Head Soup once and it was as bad as it sounds but better than it smelled. My friends-who had grown up eating it- were just wearing it out, laughing at me. They had acquired a taste for this through early introduction. When you’ve grown up eating something weird all of your life you don’t know it is weird.

Its good if you like it.
Bo

Fried chick livers and gizzards was the first acquired taste for an odd food by early introduction for me. I don’t remember not liking them, or even realizing that most people don’t like them. I still wonder why a lot of people don’t like them. I just remember having them from time to time and Dad being real excited. If you put enough ketchup on anything fried you can make it taste good. But now I genuinely enjoy eating chicken livers, even though I know it is like eating the oil filter out of a car. And part of that is nostalgia. I eat chicken livers and I am transported back to the old kitchen and I can hear the sizzling iron skillet and the happy voices interrupted by bursts of laughter.

Sometimes nostalgia will make you acquire a taste for a dish that was always around but you never ate as a child. This happed to me with sauerkraut. I never really bothered with sauerkraut as a kid and my parents never tried to force it on me. But it was around quite a bit. I just ate the ribs, pork-chops, or weenies that were usually cooked in sauerkraut. I rarely if ever, just went in for a big bite of nothing but kraut. I think I was out of high school when I first helped Nonna make some sauerkraut in the churn. Uncle Freddy used to help her. I remember him sitting on the hearth and packing the cabbage into the churn with the wooden dasher that Nonna would get on to us grandkids for playing with. He was recently gone. I think that is why I wanted to help her. Here was a recipe and ritual that I felt like I need to learn. It turned out to be fairly simple. I don’t know how y’all’s family made sauerkraut but Nonna just used cabbage, salt, and water. You grate the cabbage as fine as you like and then layer it in the churn, packing it down with that wooden thing and salting each layer. Then you cover the top layer with a few whole cabbage leaves and make sure it is covered with water. Then you set it in the well-house to rot for a few weeks. After it is sufficiently fermented you can it. Then you eat it. If you have a taste for it.

There is no accounting for taste.

After helping make the sauerkraut, I really wanted to like it just out of nostalgia. So I tried it again with an open mind. I don’t remember if I liked it right away but I pretended that I did until I didn’t have to pretend any more. Sauerkraut is the gateway dish to acquiring strong taste. Or is it coleslaw? If you can learn to like coleslaw, then you can learn to like kraut. If you learn to like kraut you can learn to like kimchi. If you can like kimchi, you can like just about anything.

I’m not sure if this is what the Koreans intended, but I like kimchi on my hot dogs.

If you want to acquire a taste for sauerkraut, I suggest that you try ribs and kraut. Which was one of Nonna’s frequent dishes. Braise some ribs in a large skillet-make sure you season them however you like. Then once you have the ribs seared on each side you pour a whole jar of kraut in the skillet and then rinse the jar and add that water as well, you don’t want waste any of that kraut essence. Then you cover and let those ribs simmer in that kraut until they are done. Then you eat everything. And honey them is some of the best ribs you’ll ever have. That’s what Nonna-who had also been present at all of the family barbecues where dozens of hogs gave their life for our holiday weekends and I once made myself sick eating barbecued ribs-told me when I asked her about the recipe for ribs and kraut. This is one of my favorite dishes. And I may not like it more than barbecue ribs, but I like it as much.

Ribs and Kraut. I could eat some right now.

You can also acquire a taste for something just because you are feeling adventurous. If you want to like bleu cheese try it on a Ritz cracker with a little drizzle of honey. This is the kind of thing that rich people serve at Christmas parties. Or people like me just eat at their office desk.

You can logically and accidentally acquire a taste. Sardines are a good example of this. If you want to like sardines, you have to first get serious about eating healthy and exercising. Then you’ll start doing a lot of research about foods that are good for you and all that nonsense and you’ll soon discover how healthy sardines are for you. And you’ll get a can of sardines just to try not because of how they may taste, but because you know that they are good for you. And you’ll close your eyes to eat them, and realize that they aren’t half as bad as you thought they would be. Then you keep eating them because you’re on a diet, and the next thing you know you have acquired a taste.

O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Psalm 34:8

Some things cannot be described or explained, they just have to be experienced to be understood.

I have lost culinary credibility due to my many acquired tastes and now some of my closest friends no longer trust my food recommendations. This is simply the high price of have a refined palette. It isn’t easy be cultured among a bunch of friends with the taste preferences of prepubescent cave men. I used to be just as picky as them though. Until one day I was hungry. I was visiting my brother at college and for dinner they served chicken fettuccine alfredo with mushrooms. And there were a lot more mushrooms that chicken. But because I was genuinely stomach growling hungry I just ate those mushrooms like I had been eating them professionally for years. And I liked them. And I still like them. Even so, if they’d have been serving pork brains and eggs I’d’ve probably acquired a taste for them that day.

My mom used to tell us this story when we said we were hungry and then refused whatever she offered. “You aren’t really hungry” she would say. Then we’d hear it again.

When I was a little girl I was at Fat Momma’s house-or was it Aunt Dale’s? I wish Mom was here to tell it again.

“I’m hungry.”

“I’ll make you a tomato sandwich.”

“I don’t like tomatoes.”

…real hunger doesn’t take a break…

“I’m hungry.”

“Baby all I have is a tomato sandwich.”

“…Ok. I’ll try one.”

Then Mom would tell us how good that tomato sandwich was and how she still loved tomato sandwiches.

The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. Proverbs 27:7

Thanks for reading! I’m fixing to go make an egg salad and anchovy sandwich.

Dieting

“I’m going on a diet, starting tomorrow. By summer I’m going to have to introduce myself. I’ll be so skinny y’all won’t recognize me.”
Mom. Circa 1998.

My Mom was a serial dieter. My Dad was not. The first time she tried to make them go on a diet Dad would just swing by Nonna’s house and eat with them on the way home from work. When he got ready to go on home he’d say something like, “I guess I better go home. It’s time for my salad.” He gained weight on that diet.

Sometimes Mom would go grocery shopping after she got fired up about dieting and she’d buy a bunch of SlimFast shakes, and those chocolate devil’s food cake snacks. And then us kids would promptly eat all of her desserts in the next two days.

Have you ever noticed how many trendy diets there are? When I was just a lad the Low Fat Diet was popular. That one just sounds like it makes since. Then the Atkins Diet seemed to be the rage when I was a teenager. Later on there were a bunch of diets that I never really fully understood because I was not dieting at the time. Like the Paleo Diet, the Keto Diet, the Carnivore Diet, and the Tight Rope Diet. I just made that last one up. These diets are like a bunch of religions. Sooner or later you’ll run into someone that is spreading the good news of this diet-whether or not they have been changed by it. The funny thing is all of these diets have a “prophet” that did lose a bunch of weight and now you can too. The problem is only the people who are sold out enough to actually make the diet a lifestyle see any progress. The bottom line is any diet works not because you are eating all organic Vienna sausages, or gluten free cabbage steaks, but because you are burning more calories than you are consuming. I don’t care how you want to slice it, that is hard. It is also not fun.

I believe the main reason most of us don’t enjoy dieting-even though we know it works-is because it does not work fast. It’s that time of year though. A lot of us are thinking about dieting whether we are talking about it or not. If you are interested I’d like to share some weight loss tips that have worked for me in the past.

The most success I ever had losing weight was getting the stomach flu. It was the first or second Christmas that Sarah and I were married. She got it first and was having a horrible time. I wasn’t feeling great either. I told her that I didn’t think that she could hold it as well as I could. I would like to thank the Lord for allowing me to get back home-we lived 11 hours away at the time- before it really hit me. I think this method worked so well because I had no control over it. No seems like an insufficient word. At any rate, I lost 15 pounds in less that a week on the flu diet.

I also had pretty good success losing weight when I had my first kidney stone. It was so uncomfortable that I hardly had an appetite. On top of that, once I found out that it was a kidney stone I quit drinking all the sugary drinks and starting drinking about five gallons of water a day. When I finally got rid of the stone I had also gotten rid of some extra weight I had been carrying.

The most practical way to lose weight though is to get rid of your car and cycling everywhere like my neighbor does. It seems like he didn’t really have any input making the final decision about not driving so I don’t know if he is enjoying it. But he is skinny.

If you have kept on a diet this far into January I am proud of you. I want to warn you that Chick-Fil-A is probably going to be giving away free breakfast in February and that might shake your plans up a little bit. They do that on purpose. That’s why I’m waiting til after February to start dieting for real. By Summertime y’all ain’t going to recognize me.

Spring Water

On the winding road to Nonna and Pop’s house, just after you crossed the railroad tracks, there is an iron pipe that sticks out from beneath the parking lot of an ancient store and gushes crystal clear spring water. Dad would stop there occasionally when we were rambling and we’d drink with cupped hands out of that rusty cast iron pipe. The water was always freezing cold, and on a hot day there was nothing that could compare in taste.

HR Justice Store. The spring is on the opposite side.

I remember going to that store, the HR Justice Store, with my Dan-Dan, but for most of my life the store has set empty. A memorial of time past. I do remember that the store had hardwood floor, and a there was an old man behind a counter who talked with my grandfather. I was too young to pay attention to what kind of merchandise the store stocked, I only remember that they carried Grapico. I think it was once a genuine general store.

Until today, I’ve never really thought about where that water came from, I just new that it was good to drink. Long after the store had shut down, folks would still go there to fill up old milk jugs with the refreshing water flowing out of the pipe. It seems strange now to think of doing that, especially in a world where many people only ever drink water out of a plastic bottle. If you close your eyes and think hard, you can remember a time when buying bottled water at the grocery store seemed ridiculous. And maybe it still is, but we’ve just gotten used to it. It makes me wonder what else we’ve gotten used to.