I am used to bad traffic, having lived a year in Columbus. I REFUSE to EVER return to OSU campus, which is a separate megalopolis to which I traveled at least six times (four hours in the car) for a fruitless clinical cancer treatment. I also refuse to travel to Cincinnati, where my Ford Focus is dwarfed by herds of semi’s. In Dayton, every summer for 40 years they have orange-coned Smithville Road. Jeez laweez, engineers, you coulda recarpeted every street in Dayton in that amount of time! Oh well, it’s just government [taxpayer] money.
My disease takes a greater toll on me each day, but I was determined to hit the local gym. The first blockade was my own street being closed (and there’s only one way out). So were THE NEXT TWO streets. Eventually I crept onto Third Street at the curve where making a left turn poses, oh, an 85% chance you’ll be hit by oncoming traffic you cannot see.
At the gym I encountered MORE blockades. A few weeks ago, they posted warnings that, due to recent thefts, we should all LOCK our LOCKERS (duh). NOW they have their own padlocks – the sissy type you could cut with a pliers, unlike mine which would required an 18” bolt cutter – and you MUST be accompanied to the locker room every time you come to the gym. Why? Because it turns out the “thefts” involved a GYM MEMBER who ransacked lockers, took people’s car keys and stole their cars.
The gym management decided to address this issue by installing the sissy-locks and requiring that you (1) take an employee with you to unlock a locker, use your own lock, then return the “borrowed” lock key, or (2) PAY THEM $1 EACH TIME YOU “RENT” their lock. I. Am. Not. Happy.
When I got home I noticed four large rental trailers in the park abutting my home. I walked down to find out what was going on: a sort of non-denominational revival…for former heroin addicts. So my daughter had to stay home, since my expected delivery of medications through Medicare/Hospice, which are thrown onto the porch, could hardly be left unattended.
BUT, I got to spend 90 minutes – more time than I usually last – visiting my favorite cousins at my sister’s house. Neither of them lives in the area but made a point of coming to see me, and Kathy (a year younger) never stopped smiling. It was much more than “nice” to see them.
About eight other people who live away have come to see me before the curtain closes. Although I have so little energy left, I very much appreciate this. For two years at Comfort Keepers, I took care of an elderly couple I visited four times weekly. I was told that 200 people showed up for the gentleman’s funeral…but I had never seen one of them visit him in life.
My blunt assessment (and I’m dying at 61, thank you, so I’ll speak as I please): Pay your respects to the living, because the dead don’t give a damn.
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