Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I've been thinking, I wonder how many people have died choking on a lifesaver, furiously aware of the irony.
Good one to start with, huh? I like that one because it provokes thoughtful examination more than, say, a video of a guy getting kicked in the nuts. Sure, I find that funny, too. As long as those nuts aren't mine.
Speaking of which, does anyone remember when a man's genitalia was called the family jewels? What was once precious is now junk. I don't like calling myself junk or parts of myself.
This is a story from back at 2014, when I was at the Pond all the time. The Pond was a much beloved bar in Latrobe here, and I had an office above that one, too.
And this was a story that came from us watching the news.
We had some unsettling local news last week that has all contemplating ghoulish fates.
A young man was riding a motorcycle that hit a pole and sliced his leg off below the knee.
Everybody read all the papers and asked all the questions. How will he cope? Will he persevere? In essence, everyone wanted to know if a d foot would lead to defeat.
I think not. It's a terrible result. But he's lucky to be alive with many productive years ahead of him.
My question was less existential.
What did they do with the foot?
I'm vicarious about anything that happens to anyone else. How would I react if the same thing happened to me?
So when I hear that someone loses a foot in a mishap, I put my feet in his shoe.
First of all, I'd want a proprietary say over its disposal.
The assumption is that they incinerated as medical waste a terribly callous judgment of a body part that's been with a man or a woman every step of the way.
Well, I guess every other step.
The thought would have infuriated Captain Augustus McCrea from Lonesome Dove. He woke up after a difficult encounter with the Indians to find a drunken sawbones had removed and disposed of his blood. Poisoned leg.
McCrae was angry because he fancied using the bones for a walking stick, which, when you get right down to it, is a rather redundant mission for old leg bones.
I'm thinking more in the lines of jewelry. I think I'd make a necklace out of mine. I imagine it would help me win a fortune in bar wagers about my yoga, like boast that I could put my foot around my neck without getting up from my barstool.
But I could see my family objecting to me showing up at things like church and school assemblies with my neck adorned with my foot.
So that would leave the burial option.
I'd find a shady place down by a creek and have a solemn little ceremony praying my foot gets to heaven.
Enough ahead of me they could save the rest of me a place.
Assuming that is my soul has some soul, then for the rest of my life I could commune with it like Union Major General Daniel Sickles did with the amputated leg he lost to a rebel cannonball at the Battle of Gettysburg.
After the war, he presented the leg bones and destructive shot to what is now the National Museum of Health and medicine in Washington, D.C.
he'd visit them both every year on the anniversary of his amputation and make small talk what I guess you'd call fascinating Small talk with a bone.
It's a pity those visits predated reality TV by 140 years.
It must be the organ donor in me that brings to life these morbid thoughts. Because when I die, my entire body eyes, heart, kidney, liver, the whole shebang will be up for grabs.
Informing friends that they may one day benefit from having one of your vital organs doesn't make them any more likely to loan you 20 bucks.
I'm hopeful that one day they'll even be able to reanimate parts of me so that my limbs will be grafted onto the needy.
In fact, that isn't as far out as it seems. A friend of mine said, besides common blood banks, there are now tissue banks, organ banks, and even bone banks.
She said bones from an accident victim, spare ribs, anyone, are being preserved for worthy research purposes.
So now I'll know not to snicker if I ever hear someone say they're going to make a late night withdrawal from the old bone bank.
My curiosity was piqued and I momentarily thought about calling a a bone bank to learn what kind of groundbreaking work they're doing, but I decided against it. They're probably too busy to deal with my silly questions.
And it's a sure thing that our nation's bone banks are staffed with skeleton crews.
From the I've been thinking YouTube channel.
I encourage you to subscribe. Subscribe, subscribe. It's getting great reaction. Folks are really getting hooked.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Being a student of word origins, I've spent the past week frustrated by Easter.
What's an Easter?
Today it's accepted as referring to the risen Christ, but there's no precedent for the word. I think I figured it out. There was once a common ingredient used for making things miraculously rise in kitchens
[00:05:22] Speaker A: all over the world.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: It made flatbread Buxom.
Therefore, I say we've fallen victim to a careless typographical error, one of biblical proportions. It's never been Easter. It's yeaster.
Brothers and sisters, let me be the first to wish you a happy yeaster.
All rise in heaven, all the cakes are angel food. Cakes, of course, when you get right down to it, in heaven, even Cheetos are angel food.
A pessimist bemoans about getting thrown under the bus. An optimist thinks, gee, one day I'll make a really swell bus mechanic.
One of these days I'm going to get around to getting a $75 tattoo of a $12,000 Rolex.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Here's a story that gets such great reaction. I put it in a couple of my books and I think you'll enjoy it. Here. It's about the time my mother almost died on Easter.
At the altar at the church on this weekend of deaths and resurrections, I'd like to talk about the one that got away.
Jesus lives and so does my mom.
Last Easter the matter seemed to be in doubt.
It was a moment I'll never forget. She nearly died the most perfect Christian death. And I was there, right there, rooting for it, praying. Actually, many will think me callous, sacrilegious, heartless, blah blah, blah.
But she's my 84 year old mother. I'm her primary caretaker. I'm the one who takes her to the doctor, the beauty salon, and along with Val, sees to all her needs. And the one thing this seven year old journey has taught me is to never judge others or myself when it comes to honest emotions. In dealing with dementia patients, I dearly miss the way she was. She's always reminded me of Carol Burnett and I got my sense of humor from her. So it's fair to say she gave me everything I have.
Since we moved out here in August, we see her nearly every day. She's enjoyed the kids school plays and performances and sitting by the family fire when it's snowy out and on the porch when it's warm. And in the moment she's always very happy.
It's just in the very next moment she doesn't remember a single bit of it. Just Sunday I took her to an old church in South Hills of Pittsburgh where she was for years a joyful fixture in the choir.
All our friends were there and went with us to a grand lunch at a lively neighborhood restaurant.
It was wonderful. She is beloved.
And not 30 minutes later she couldn't recall where we'd been, who we'd seen or what we'd done.
She's been like that for about five years, yet she's incredibly fit, with a constitution that impresses her doctor.
I can't explain it, he said, but her health is excellent. She could live another 10 years.
Hallelujah.
Her father lived in 97.
So forgive me, but I have a morbid impatience for seeing how this all ends, especially after last Easter Sunday.
She was with us in church, smiling and sweet as ever. When it came time for Holy Communion, when it was our turn, I assisted her out of the pew and up to the altar, where three generations note for our blessings a covenant that symbolizes the Last Supper. The wafer and wine represent the very body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ.
And for an electric moment last Easter, we thought it was going to kill Nana.
My daughters contend it was the wine down the wrong pipe. But I say it was the wafer because it's truly what I believe and because, sure, it makes a better story.
Either way, she began choking right there at the altar. She. She was coughing, gagging, turning red. It was beautiful.
Think about it. If mom dies there on the altar on Easter Sunday, choking on the body and blood of her Savior, could there possibly be a better Christian death?
I don't think so. I think you'd go right to heaven, where Jesus begs your forgiveness and then escorts you to a really nice balcony suite with free HBO and a stack of chips that you can use in the casino.
Just like Vegas, baby.
How you couldn't wish for a better death.
I remember my exact thoughts as I sensed mom might be choking to death. Don't anybody touch her.
My great fear was some church Budinsky was going to rush up and give her the Heimlich maneuver and save her life.
Such heroics would have left me in a terrible quandary. Do I let him or her save my mom? Or do I wrestle them to the carpet right there by the pulpit to ensure that life saving does not occur?
It was not meant to be.
Whatever the obstruction, her ever loving will to live overcame it. The drama was over. She was fine.
Still is, praise God.
I continue to spend much of my waking hours tending to her needs and ensuring her comfort. Those efforts include seeing her spiritual devotions.
That's why Sunday, I'm taking her again to Easter service, saying my steadfast prayers about her future and ensuring that she partakes in the Holy Communion.
Oh, yes, I'll see to it that she partakes of the body and the blood.
I'll do so if I have to drag her bony old ass up there myself.
It's just what any good son would do.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Chris.
The very premise may seem crass and tasteless, but the the untimely death of John Lennon probably saved the world from ever having to hear even one DJ say. And coming up next, we have one of the rare recordings from the year John and Yoko shook up Nashville with their alt, alt, alt, alt, alt country sounds.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: I wonder if guys in heaven talk
[00:10:50] Speaker B: about their Earth bodies the way they
[00:10:51] Speaker A: talked about old cars.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Man, it was bald. Had this great big ass, tiny little
[00:10:56] Speaker A: pecker, but man, could that thing fly.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Okay, NASA announces we have eight minutes until the lethal asteroid hits and destroys the planet. What are you going to do with your eight minutes? Pray? Make love to a stranger?
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Me?
[00:11:08] Speaker B: It might be a result of hyper parenting, but I'm going to brush my teeth and put on a fresh set of underwear.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: And then, yeah, I'll probably rob a bank.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Facebook is the perfect venue for keeping up with old friends. Friends, we really ought to call, but we do not out of fear that they might answer.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: And we'll talk to you next week or so. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make this better and more compelling. Thanks and happy Easter. Easter, all rise.
