Rave for Honesty

Last Sunday as Donna left work at the airport, she lost her phone. She tried all the usual places for lost and found, re-traced her steps and still nothing. At about 1:30 PM I received a call from her phone and I didn't get to it in time so naturally I called back only to get voice mail. At the time I didn't think much of it since it was slightly past her usual time to get home and I was guessing she was close.

Well she was but without her phone. Of course I called our service provider Verizon and temporarily suspended service. All of our current contracts are fairly new so this could have been expensive.

Around 9:30 PM I received another call and someone on the other line said is this bear? (my nickname) I said yes it is. The woman on the other end said we found Donna's phone. Can you pick it up? Of course I said sure but then they gave me the address to meet and 67th Avenue and Van Buren was a bit far to go after 9:30 PM from Chandler.

We arranged to meet her mother at 6:00 PM at a Burger King on the corner. She arrived and handed me the phone and all I could say to her was gracias, mucho gracias over and over. I pressed $20 in her palm and she tried to give it back but I insisted. Honesty should be rewarded and I pointed to her grandchildren in the back seat and said take them for pizza. She smiled and we parted ways.

It truly feels good to know some people are willing to go an extra mile to return something as important now a days as a cell phone. So here is a big rave for an honest grandma and her daughter.

Mucho gracias!

Rave Chandler Regional Medical Center OR Staff

Recently I underwent a surgery for a hernia. It was scheduled for 10:30 AM on Feb. 29th at Chandler Regional Medical Center. Well sometimes things happen that push schedules askew. As in my case, my room for the surgery was booked but taken because of availability for an emergency. Such is life I thought as it happened. My Doctor, Dr. Bodzin, really great also, came by to tell me the news personally at about 10:15 AM. He offered me the chance to come back or stay for the surgery. I opted to stay. After all I had been there since 8:00 AM and fully prepped since about 9:30 AM and I might as well get it over with since all the preparations had been made.

Dr. Bodzin left and was actually assisting in the emergency surgery so I lay there watching others getting wheeled into their OR room for about 5 hours. Yes I was on the table for 5 hours before the surgery actually took place. This is why the rave for the OR staff at Chandler Regional Medical Center. The folks that took care of me were kind and gracious from the very beginning. One of them was even there when I awoke in post-op. She had a wonderful smile and I knew I was okay. Lisa even wheeled me out to the car later.

Before surgery Josh, who prepped me at the beginning, walked by once and offered Donna and I a beer while we waited. He was full of funny jokes even if they were not directed to me. Of course this was just a joke too as no beer was allowed in the pre-op.

Finally about 1:45 PM the anesthesiologist came by and Dr. Bodzin a minute later. I knew then the time was close. A nurse followed a few minutes later and wheeled me into the OR leaving pre-op with the nurses station cheering and waving me on. I can remember her saying "2 o'clock on the nose" as we entered the room. I switched tables and saw the team moving about. A couple of small talk jokes later and I was out.

This Rave goes out to the entire staff of Chandler Regional Medical Center OR staff. I can't remember all the names but everyone there made my stay and surgery a success. From downstairs to upstairs, on the OR floor, the check in window and all the nurses and techs, I can't thank them enough.

I also have to thank my wonderful wife Donna who stayed with me through the entire morning. She was more worried than me and I think the staff's attentiveness to me helped ease her mind also. 

Kurt Vonnegut Gets a Rave for Mother Night

I re-visited Mother Night after a 30 plus year separation. I could not appreciate the words he so carefully laid before me at the time. I had not aged enough or seen enough of the world to really grasp the depth he was crafting in those few pages. In those days I never read the preface, never glanced at the introductions and never batted an eye towards any acknowledgements be they further than the opeing pages of 'This book is dedicated to...'. I truly wish I had read them as I do now. Perhaps working for the Library has opened my eyes to allow my mind to see the meanings in these beginnings.

Kurt opens Mother Night with his account of being a prisoner of war during World War II. I had always had a feeling of the affect the war had had upon him as he visited the topic several times. But I never, sadly I admit, had enough curiosity to explore the reasons why. This is something I now regret and I am ashamed to admit. To have read as much as I have and not know who is behind the words other than their name and a few simple facts.

It is with this admission that I begin this rave, this review if it may be called by that term, of Mother Night. Kurt was an expert on the human condition. He manages to engage the reader on every page, every sentence and every well placed word in Mother Night bringing the enormous range of the human existance in clear view. Disgusting, vile, dirty, loathesome, vanity, hatred, compassion, fear, peace and loving are words that can describe Howard W. Campbell, Jr. Traits that are found in many of us at some point in our small lives.

Writing about World War II from the point of view of Howard W. Campbell, Jr., leads the reader into believing the story is true. After all we are told the story many times in history and in other mediums. Yes it is in the cover pages that all accounts and characters are fictious, but I found it very clever to begin the intro as the editor of a manuscript and giving us an account of how it came about. This lends some credibilty to the narative which I for one enjoyed as a reader. It is not an easy task to wrtie about nor easy to read the accounts of the genocide of Nazi Germany. Kurt holds back only the gruesome details leaving the reader their own memories of what they had learned whether it was in school, from books and other media or first hand accounts of those who survived. I cannot in good faith praise the actions of history but I do praise Kurt's skill at triggering my own memories both good and bad.

Our character Howard has been seemingly incoculated to the genocide around him. He knows what is going on but lives as if nothing is going on. How can that be we ask? If one thinks about the question long enough, we will arrive at the answer. We are living it just as he did in the story. Genocide is nothing new to the world but the world had not seen anything of this magnatude in what we know as modern day. But history shows us many examples of entire races wiped away from the Earth as if a bothersome fly. By no means am I condoning or trying to make light of this time in history, but more to be a messenger that genocides have been a part of the workd long before Hitler and remain so today. The very nation I call my own very nearly wiped a race of people form the sight of the Earth simply because they were not considered people. Savages, loathesome savages were what the American Indians were called and many were slaughtered. I bring this up only because it happened on the very soil where we are supposed to believe all men are created equal. Think about that for a moment and then join with me in praising Kurt Vonnegut to have the courage and skill to write about the events of World War II.

Kurt has led Howard through the war and into freedom. A freedom without feeling. A solitary confinement of peace. And as such, this peace is rewarded, as in real life, real war, the peace is broken bits, fragments of ourselves. We are exposed for forever who we truly are. Inside these pages are everything humans have longed for, fought over and died for, as does Howard W. Campbell, Jr..

If you read to discover then this is a book for you. I am glad to have returned to Mother Night after all these years and I promise not to skip the preface and inroductions ever again. In the preface for Mother Night I finally have come to realize the profound impact World War II had upon Kurt's life.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts on Mother Night. Please share yours too in the comments.