Category Archives: Disability

Contemplating Life – Episode 77 – “Genetics 101”

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In recent weeks, I’ve been talking about my work as a computer programmer for the Indiana University Department of Medical Genetics. This week, we take a departure to talk about the work that we did in that department. We will take a deep dive into basic genetics, and you will learn a little bit about the genetic disorder that causes my disability.

Links of Interest

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
YouTube playlist of this and all other episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFRYfZfNjHL8bFCmGDOBvEiRbzUiiHpq

YouTube Version

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 77 of Contemplating Life.

In recent episodes, I’ve been discussing my work as a computer programmer for the IU Department of Medical Genetics. I wanted to tell a little bit about what we did in that department and how the computer database was used, but you know me. I can’t do anything halfway. So, this episode is going to be a little bit of a departure. It’s an explanation of everything I knew about genetics at the time, along with what I’ve learned in recent years. While trying to explain some of these things, I came up with questions I couldn’t answer, so I had to do some pretty hefty research to fill in those gaps in my knowledge. It marginally relates to my life story because we will also discuss how genetics play a part in my disability caused by Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

Hold on to your hats. This is going to be a deep dive into Genetics 101.

In the nucleus of every cell in your body are 46 strands of a molecule called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA for short. These 46 strands are called chromosomes.

By the way, everything I will say about chromosomes refers only to human chromosomes. Other species have different numbers of chromosomes, or their DNA may be arranged differently in the cell. So, I’m limiting our discussion to human chromosomes.

You’ve probably seen illustrations of what a DNA molecule looks like. I have some images in the YouTube version of this episode. Imagine a rope ladder that has been twisted. This shape is called a double helix. Each “rung” of the ladder consists of two molecules of amino acids. There are four such varieties of amino acids in DNA. They are adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. They are designated by the letters A, T, C, and G, respectively.

Each ladder rung is either an A paired with a T or a G paired with a C. An A cannot pair with a G or C, nor can a T pair with a G or C. This is because A and T connect using two hydrogen atoms, while C and G connect using three hydrogen atoms

The “ropes” that hold these rungs in place are made of two strands that alternate between a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule. The sugar molecule contains an asymmetrical ring of 5 carbon atoms. The phosphate groups connect to either carbon atom at position 3 or position 5. So, at the end of a DNA sequence, you always have either a 5-connected phosphate or a 3-connected phosphate. By convention, scientists read from the 5 end towards the 3 end because that’s the direction in which nature reads the DNA when it copies it during cell division.

For example, if you have a string of DNA that is AAGG because the A is always paired with a T and the G is always paired with a C, it could be just as easy to say that this sequence is TTCC. So you have to look at the end of the DNA sequence and see if its phosphate group is connected to carbon atom 3 or carbon atom 5. Always start at the end with the 5.

These strings of letters A, T, G, and C are codes that tell your body chemistry how to create proteins. They are divided into three character words called codons. There are 64 possible combinations. Each one is an instruction to create a particular amino acid. Proteins are long strings of amino acids. There are not 64 different amino acids. Some combinations of three letters produce the same amino acid. See the table linked in the description that shows which combination of DNA bases produces which amino acids.

An area on your chromosome that contains the instructions for producing one particular protein is called a gene. Not everything on a chromosome is significant. It is estimated that only 1.5% of human DNA actually does anything. The rest of it is random noise.

When a cell wants to produce a protein, it temporarily unzips the two halves of the DNA molecule, like cutting the ladder’s rungs. More amino acids connect to these broken ladder rungs to create a new molecule called messenger RNA, or mRNA. Once the mRNA is created, the DNA halves zip back together. The mRNA then produces the protein based on information provided by the DNA.

As I mentioned, chromosomes are simply long strands of DNA. Under a microscope, you normally cannot see DNA strands because they are all tangled up. However, when the cell divides, duplicating itself, the chromosomes bunch up and become visible lines. Before the cell divides, think of the tangled-up DNA as a bunch of USB cables tangled up in your junk drawer. You can’t make any sense of it. But as the cell divides and the DNA duplicates itself, each strand bunches up sort of like the curly cue cable on a landline telephone handset. When it’s all coiled up like that, you can see it under a microscope.

If you’ve seen photographs of chromosomes, they seem to have a characteristic X shape. Think of two long balloons, the type of which you use to make balloon animals, sitting side-by-side and tied together somewhere in the middle with a tight string. However, these are actually two chromosomes fastened together by something called a centromere. The centromere isn’t exactly in the center, so the short arm of the chromosome is called the “p” arm, and the long arm is called the “q” arm. When a cell completes division, the centromere breaks apart, giving two exact copies of the same chromosome. One goes into one cell and the other into the other cell. So, chromosomes are not really X-shaped except when they are self-duplicating. Normally, they are just single strings of DNA.

I learned this five minutes ago. My whole life, I thought chromosomes were roughly X-shaped because all the photos depict them that way. You learn something new every day.

Okay, let’s talk about human chromosomes, whatever the hell shape they really are.

Each cell contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, the first 22 of which are numbered 1 through 22. These are called autosomes. The longest one is chromosome 1, and the shortest is 22. Chromosome 1 is nearly 3 times longer than 22.

Well, almost. That ordering isn’t exactly accurate. For example, 21 is actually the shortest, and 20 is actually longer than 19. This is because back when they were numbering chromosomes, it was difficult to determine the exact length. They got it wrong. But by then, the labels had already been established, and they didn’t fix it.

You also have another pair of chromosomes called allosomes–also known as sex chromosomes. There are two varieties: X and Y. By the way, those labels have nothing to do with the appearance of the chromosomes; they are just labels they were given. I learned that about a year ago. I thought they looked like X and Y. But then again, I thought that all chromosomes had sort of an X-shape, and that was wrong, too.

By the way, the X chromosome is the eighth largest, and the Y is the third smallest.

In most human beings, females have two X chromosomes, while most males have an X and a Y. I said “most” because there are variations such as XXX, XYY, and all sorts of other combinations resulting in an intersex individual, but we won’t go into that right now.

You have two copies of chromosomes 1 through 22. One copy is from your mother, and the other is from your father. For the sex chromosomes, your mother gave you an X because she only had Xs to give. Your father had an X and a Y, so if he gave you an X, you would end up with two of them, and you would be female. If your father gave you a Y, then you ended up with an X and a Y, and you are male.

So, you are a mix of the genetic information from your mother and father. They each gave you one of each variety of chromosomes. But how do you pass that information along to your children?

I said that every cell contains 46 chromosomes, but that’s not entirely true. Men produce sperm, and women produce ova. These specialized cells (collectively known as gametes) only have 23 chromosomes. When the sperm and ovum combine during fertilization, that brings the number back up to the full 46.

Gametes are produced by specialized cells called germ cells, which undergo a special type of division known as meiosis. Meiosis is a complicated multi-step process that results in a unique mixture of maternal and paternal genetic material.

How do we determine which 23 of the 46 chromosomes go into your sperm or ova? Does it take a random sampling of the chromosomes given to you by your parents? Perhaps one of my sperm contains chromosomes 1, 3, 5, 9, etc., from my mom and 2, 4, 6, 8, etc., from my dad?

If that were the case, and we were sampling entire chromosomes, we wouldn’t have as much variety in human beings. Our family resemblance would be much more significant. The beauty of sexual reproduction is that we get a random mix of all of our genetic material each generation. The mix is more complicated than simply picking an entire chromosome from either grandma or grandpa.

During meiosis, the chromosomes undergo a process called recombination. Each chromosome is chopped up into random-length pieces, creating a new chromosome that contains sequences from both your mother and your father. This swapping between maternal and paternal DNA typically occurs between one to four times for each chromosome.

By the way, this creates a problem when creating sperm. Females have 2 X chromosomes, and they can be easily chopped up and recombined. However, men only have the maternal X and the paternal Y. How do you mix that up? The X and Y have a shared region known as the pseudoautosomal region or PAR. The PAR undergoes frequent recombination between the X and Y chromosomes, but recombination is suppressed in other regions of the Y chromosome that are unique to that chromosome. These regions contain sex-determining and other male-specific genes.

The bottom line is that the reason your children are not more identical than they are is because they have a truly random set of genetic material from you and your spouse–from your parents and your spouse’s parents.

This mixing of genes from both paternal and maternal sources when creating a gamete is important when you are trying to figure out if your children are going to inherit some genetic trait. Most importantly, the clients of our genetics department wanted to know if their children would inherit some genetic disorder. They might know that certain diseases, such as hemophilia, muscular dystrophy, Huntington’s disease, etc., run in their family. They want to know the odds their children will inherit the disease.

As mentioned previously, genes are instructions on how to create proteins. But there are varieties of each gene. For example, there is a gene that determines eye color. Or at least, to a certain extent, the difference between brown and blue eyes. There can be all sorts of shades of both, but the basic color is controlled by one gene. This eye color gene is in the same location, but the DNA sequence in the gene differs between brown-eyed people and blue-eyed people. Genes that have multiple varieties, such as the blue-eyed gene versus the brown-eyed gene, are called alleles.

In general, the brown-eyed allele is dominant, and the blue-eyed allele is recessive. Lots of genes have dominant and recessive alleles. So, let’s generalize this.

If we describe the brown allele as “D” for dominant and the blue allele as “R” for recessive, there are four possible combinations: DD, DR, RD, and RR. If we are talking about brown versus blue lies, then the DD, DR, and RD combinations give you brown eyes. Only people with two copies of the recessive allele, those with RR, will have blue eyes. That’s why we say the brown-eyed allele is dominant over the blue-eyed allele.

Designations such as DD, DR, RD, and RR are known as genotypes. However, your phenotype is the way you look externally, that is, whether you have brown or blue eyes.

The alleles for genetic disorders are mostly recessive. If they were not, genetic disorders would be much more common. Someone with a genotype of DR or RD is said to be a carrier of the disorder. You don’t exhibit the symptoms of the disease, but you can pass it along to your children if your spouse is also a carrier.

My disability is caused by a disease known as Spinal Muscular Atrophy. SMA for short. It is a recessive condition. So, my parents were both carriers. They had a genotype of DR or RD. If I had gotten the D allele from both of them, I would neither have the disease nor carry it. On average, there is a 25% chance of that happening. If I got an R from one and a D from the other, I would either be RD or DR, and like them, I would be a carrier but would not exhibit the disease. The odds of that happening are 25% + 25% = 50%. The odds of getting RR are 25%. Lucky me… That’s when I have. I exhibit the disease, and I naturally am a carrier. In this way, the disease can be passed down for many generations before it might appear. You have to have a mate who is also a carrier. Even if you have a partner who is also a carrier, on average, only one-fourth of your children will exhibit the disease.

Specifically, SMA is caused by a problem with the Survival Motor Neuron gene, also known as SMN1. It creates a protein called the SMN protein. This protein is essential to the survival of your motor neurons. These are the nerves that control your muscles – not the nerves for sensation. The SMN1 gene is located on the fifth chromosome at a location labeled 5q13.1. That means it’s on the number five chromosome on the q arm at location 13.1. I don’t know the details of how they came up with 13.1. It wasn’t worth it to research that.

Chromosomes consist of coded sections called exons and filler sections known as introns. The SMN1 gene consists of 9 exons. Somewhere along the way in my genetic history, the 7th exon was deleted. Something during the DNA replication process caused that section to be left out. Think of cutting a scene out of a piece of film and splicing it back together. Without that properly formed gene, the SMN protein is not properly created to feed your motor neurons. The motor neuron dies off, which eventually causes your muscles to atrophy.

The only reason people with SMA survive is that we have at least one backup gene, SMN2. Most people have at least one copy of SMN2 and may have as many as four or five copies. Unfortunately, in everyone’s SMN2 gene, there is a problem. It is identical to SMN1 except for one letter in the sequence. There is a T where there should have been a C. The end result is that SMN2 only creates the proper protein about 10% of the time. People with the deleted section in SNM1 have lower levels of the SMN protein because the SMN2 gene doesn’t work as well as it should. People with less severe forms of the disease generally have multiple copies of SMN2. Specifically, I have two copies. Even among individuals with the same number of SMN2 backup genes, there can be a variety of severities of the disease. There must be other factors involved besides the number of SMN2 genes.

For nearly 3 years, I’ve been taking a drug called Evrysdi, which makes the SMN2 genes work better. Children who begin receiving the drug at an early age can keep their motor neurons from dying off. At best, the drug keeps me from getting worse, or if I deteriorate, I will do so much more slowly than I would have without it.

Sometimes, the gene which causes a particular disorder is located on the X chromosome. For example, the most common type of muscular dystrophy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is that way. So is hemophilia. If you are female, you would have a good X and a bad X, but the good one is dominant, so you would carry the disease but not exhibit it. However, if you are male, your Y chromosome doesn’t have that section, so it can’t compensate for the bad X. So typically, only males get the disease. The females carry it.

The only way a female could get muscular dystrophy or hemophilia is if their mother was a carrier and their father had the disease. Then you can get a bad X from both. But that’s extremely rare.

Such conditions are called “sex-linked traits” because males exhibit the disease and inherit it from their mothers.

I always knew that whatever I had, it wasn’t Duchenne muscular dystrophy, but for many years, I incorrectly presumed that it was probably a sex-linked condition just like DMD. It isn’t. My disease comes from chromosome 5 and not X or Y.

Here’s a funny story for you…

One day, I was at a conference with my friend Joyce. I was trying to explain to someone this phenomenon of a sex-linked trait. After telling people about my condition, which I presumed was sex-linked, they misunderstood me. Later, Joyce overheard them discussing it, and they thought a sexually transmitted disease caused my disability.

Well… In some respects, it was. All genetic conditions are sexually transmitted. Your parents had sex, and you inherited the disease. I don’t know if this confusion has occurred in other settings, but more modern terminology is that such conditions are called X-linked dominant, X-linked recessive, and Y-linked diseases rather than sex-linked.

Okay, here’s an old Dad joke. Did you know that diarrhea is genetic?

It runs in your jeans.

Anyway… Let’s get back to the story about the work we did in the genetics department. When I worked there in the late 1970s, the state of the art of genetics was not as advanced as it is today. I don’t know if it was impossible or just extremely difficult to find out the exact sequence of A, T, C, and G in a particular location. Scientists were uncertain about the location of a gene or genes that cause a particular disorder.

Our database stored information on “genetic markers” for each person in the database. A genetic marker is a gene or other sequence of DNA at a known location on a particular chromosome. For it to be most useful, it should be something you can easily test for, such as blood type. In addition to blood types A, B, AB, and O with both positive and negative Rh factors, there are other blood types and biological serums that can easily be collected and tested. Our database included information on about 15-20 different genetic markers. I forget exactly how many markers we could track or what they were.

So, if you have a genetic trait that you cannot directly test for but you know that the gene is adjacent to something you can test for, the way that chromosomes get chopped up and recombined during meiosis means that it is highly likely that if you inherited a genetic marker from your parents, a gene near that marker would also be inherited.

Hypothetically, let’s presume your mom is blood type O and your dad’s blood type A. Your blood type will be A because that’s dominant over type O. Now, let’s presume there is a gene that is near the blood type gene on the same chromosome. Let’s presume that this mystery gene causes some genetic disease. We have no way to test for it directly. Or at least we didn’t in the late 1970s.

Furthermore, let’s say your dad is a carrier of this disease, but your mom is not. You want to know if you inherited that bad gene from your dad or if you got a good variety from your mom. If your blood type is O, that means that section of that chromosome came from your mom. It is highly unlikely that during meiosis, the recombination will split exactly between your blood type gene and the bad gene we are worried about. That means it’s likely that section of chromosome came from your mom and not your dad, so you don’t have anything to worry about. On the other hand, if your blood type is A, like your dad’s, it is highly likely you also inherited that adjacent bad gene.

Scientists also used this method to determine the location of particular genes. For example, Huntington’s disease is an inherited degenerative neurological disease. By studying the genetic markers of thousands of individuals who either have or carry the disease, scientists could indirectly determine the location of the gene that causes it. Scientists at some other universities narrowed down the location of the Huntington’s gene, and data from our database, which included a large number of Huntington’s families, was used to verify the results of their findings.

In the YouTube version of this podcast, you can see an article from the Journal “Nature” where they announced the discovery of the genetic marker for Huntington’s disease. I’ve also linked the article in the description.

One of the co-authors of the article is P. Michael Conneally, who was a geneticist at the IU Department of Medical Genetics when I worked there. He was the guy with the thick Irish accent who took my phone call when I first applied for the job.

Although this article wasn’t published until November 1983, we knew that they had discovered the gene in the late 1970s when I still worked there. Apparently, they just narrowed it down. Wikipedia reports that the exact location wasn’t determined until 1993.

By the way, I’ve also linked the Wikipedia article about Dr. Conneally, who had many accomplishments, including the discovery of over 20 human genes. He was a founding member of the department. He died in 2017. He was a great guy.

In 1990, the Human Genome Project was started. Its goal was to sequence the entire human set of chromosomes. They took samples from several donors and produced a map of all 24 varieties of human chromosomes, that is, chromosomes 1 through 22 and X and Y. They were able to sequence 92.1% of human DNA. The parts they could not sequence are the little regions where the chromosomes get tied together, called centromeres, and the ends of the chromosomes, called telomeres. But those generally are not significant.

The guesswork that had to be done using genetic markers and probabilities that we worked on in the 1970s is no longer necessary, but we did some groundbreaking work at the time.

I’m proud to know that the database I helped build was used to identify the gene that causes a serious genetic disorder like Huntington’s disease.

That was a very long, highly technical podcast just to explain what that previous sentence meant. But you learned a little genetics along the way, especially as it relates to my disability.

In our next episode, we will discuss my remaining work at the department and the circumstances under which I eventually left for health reasons.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Contemplating Life – Episode 68 – “Being There– Part 1”

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In this episode, we continue my series about my life as a race fan. I will follow that up shortly with a special episode where I read to you an article I wrote for Indianapolis Monthly Magazine about the first time I attended the Indy 500 in person.

Links of Interest

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
YouTube playlist of this and all other episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFRYfZfNjHL8bFCmGDOBvEiRbzUiiHp

YouTube Version

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 68 of Contemplating Life.

In this episode, we continue my series about my life as a race fan. I will follow that up shortly with a special episode where I read to you an article I wrote for Indianapolis Monthly Magazine about the first time I attended the Indy 500 in person.

As I have explained in previous episodes, in my early 20s my disability worsened significantly. It was no longer safe for me to go anywhere unaccompanied. That not only affected my ability to go to the movies alone or to roam my neighborhood, but it also meant I would not be safe alone all day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. My mom knew how important these visits were to me and she agreed to help me continue my tradition. She would come with me on practice and qualifying days.

She would get me up in the morning and in my wheelchair. We would load up the van and head to the track arriving around noon. There was handicapped parking available in the parking lot in front of the Hall of Fame Museum located in the infield between the first and second turns. There was a snack bar there as well as a gift shop. We would grab a bite to eat and the snack bar before proceeding to the track. I usually got a hot dog and Mom would get a hot dog or perhaps a braided tenderloin sandwich. We would split a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips and we each got a Coke.

We would then either go to the handicapped seating area in front of the Museum or walk over to the main straightaway and head for the garage area known as Gasoline Alley. Mom would sit in the grandstand and watch the cars and the activity in the pits. I would go after the garage area to shoot video. We planned to meet about once an hour at a designated spot behind the grandstand.

That system worked very well for a few years but as my disability worsened, it became more difficult for me to drive over the bumpy asphalt behind the grandstands. Inside the garage area, it was smooth concrete and I had no difficulty. So we adapted by having her escort me into the garage area and then check on me there later.

Eventually, I added one more high-tech toy to my arsenal. I purchased a 200-channel scanner radio that would allow me to listen to the drivers talk to their pit crews. I could also listen to race officials and when there was live TV and radio coverage I could listen in on those broadcasts and I could hear the directors and producers cuing different reporters throughout the coverage. It was also fun to listen to what they said during the commercial breaks as well.

In May 1993, I finally got to see my first Indy 500 in person with my mom and dad. The story of that occasion is chronicled in an article I wrote for Indianapolis Monthly Magazine which I will read to you in a special bonus episode following this one. I’ve already spoiled some of the stories from that article so I don’t want to say too much more about that first 500.

When I submitted the article, I included the title “A Race Fan’s First 500” but the editor decided to rename it “Being There”. I wasn’t too happy about the rename but I was happy that I got my second article published. Again what I wrote was too long but I didn’t care that they cut it this time. They got the essence of the story and I was proud to have my second sale.

I think it was sometime in February or March that I met with the magazine photographer to take a photo of me at the track. It was a cool gloomy day and I had to wear my heavy winter coat. It looks a little strange to see me sitting there at an empty track with a winter coat on but that was the photo they published with the article.

A few years later when I made my own personal website, I posted an online version of the article that was much longer. It includes photographs I took that day. I’ve included some of those photos in the YouTube version although many of them had been shrunk down to low resolution and I don’t have the originals to rescan.

Our seats on race day were in the new wheelchair platform that ran along the grandstand from the beginning of the third turn, down the north short chute, and into the fourth turn. Our seats were at the beginning of the fourth turn. This platform was just 10 feet or so from the steel catch fence that arose out of the outer retaining wall. It was a bit scary being that close to the action but we were at the part of the turn where the cars were already on the high side of the track and beginning to dive down low to the apex of the corner. So the cars were angling away from us. Had we been sitting at the exit of the corner it would’ve been scarier as the cars drifted outwards towards us. When they lose control in a corner, it is generally the exit of the corner where they hit the wall.

The catch fence consisted of massive steel poles embedded in the concrete worlds. They were strung with cables nearly an inch thick as well as heavy-duty fencing material. The only thing that could’ve gotten through that fence would have been small pieces of debris unless something went over the top of the fence. In that event, the people further up in the grandstand would’ve been at greater risk than we were immediately in front of the fence. So I felt relatively safe.

Again I will leave the details of that first 500 for the article I will read next time.

I have lots of fond memories of those days when Mom and I went to the track to watch practice. One especially cool thing we witnessed was the landing of several military helicopters in the Museum parking lot. The third Saturday of May is designated as Armed Forces Day. As part of those festivities at the Speedway, the military brings in helicopters, jeeps, tanks, and other equipment and puts them on display in the Museum parking. You can get up close and personal with the equipment and of course, there are recruiters there anxious to sign you up for military service.

So, one time on the Friday before an Armed Forces Day, we were at the track until it closed at 6 PM. We were headed back to the van parked on the west side of the Museum parking lot as the military was moving in on the east side. We watched two helicopters land in the parking lot and the grass east of the Museum. One was a giant twin-rotor Chinook transport helicopter. The other was a Huey combat helicopter.

The scary thing was, the Huey was landing in the parking lot between some tall lamp posts. Someone on the ground was spotting for them and waving them in. I got to thinking if one of those rotor blades hits the lamppost. It could fly 100 yards to where we were watching. I wasn’t sure we were safe. Fortunately, nothing went wrong but it was a great experience I will never forget. I’m pretty sure I’ve got some video of that event but I can’t find it right now. I probably have not yet transferred from VHS to my computer.

For the next decade or so, we not only attended the Indy 500 but the NASCAR Brickyard 400 starting in the first year In 1994. The Brickyard race was typically held in late July or early August. For several years in a row, the weather was just too hot and humid. Neither I nor my parents could handle that kind of heat. We gave our tickets to one of my sisters. Eventually, we realized we just weren’t up to seeing the race under such conditions and we quit renewing our Brickyard tickets.

I think my mom was a bit nervous going to that first race with me. Although she had been to the track with me many times in recent years this was the first race she had attended since the tragedy in 1964 when drivers Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald were killed in a horrific fiery crash. I imagine she was also ambivalent about coming to the track at all with me for fear she might see something terrible happen again. But she put those fears aside because she knew it was the only way I could get to the track and she wanted to help me preserve that tradition that I loved so much.

Unfortunately, Mom and I were there at the Speedway for two additional fatal accidents. We didn’t see either of them but we did hear them.

On May 15, 1982, Mom and I went to qualifications accompanied by her friend Georgianna who she had met through her disability advocacy work with an organization called COVOH. We’ve talked about that before. Georgianna had her 12-year-old disabled daughter Teresa with her.

For some reason, we picked a spot outside the third turn that day. I don’t know why we didn’t go to the handicapped seating area. Perhaps it hadn’t been built yet… I don’t recall.

Anyway, driver Gordon Smiley was on a warm-up lap before his qualifying run. I saw him go by me at the entrance of the third turn but did not follow him around into the short straight and into four because he wasn’t yet qualifying. I looked away to say something to Mom when I heard the crash. I looked up quickly and all I could see was a cloud of debris rolling down the track. Nothing remained that even remotely resembled a racecar. Later at home, watching the video of the crash you could see clearly that the car had completely disintegrated. You could also see the driver’s helmet rolling down the track. There was fan speculation that his head was still inside the helmet. However, I read an article years later talking about the crash. One of the officials saw a strange gray substance smeared on the track. It was human brains. The driver was not decapitated but his skull was completely crushed. He died instantly.

Gordon Smiley was not a very personable individual. He rarely gave interviews and when he did, he answered with simple yes and no replies. They didn’t have any good file footage to replay after he died. The media interviewed other drivers looking for some sort of anecdote or remembrance of him. They would struggle saying something like, “Well… He was sort of a loner. Didn’t hang out much with the other drivers and was kind of hard to get to know. But we sure are sorry to lose him.” It seemed like they were struggling to find something nice to say about him.

On May 17, 1996, Mom and I were getting out of my van in the Museum parking lot. Just as I got off the wheelchair lift, we heard a crash in the second turn nearby. We couldn’t see it. The PA announcer said that it was driver Scott Brayton. We saw a replay on a giant video board. It didn’t look like a very severe crash. He blew his right rear tire and did a half spin before hitting the wall at 230 mph. Brayton had already qualified for the pole position and this was just pre-race practice. He was removed from the vehicle unconscious and taken to Methodist Hospital. Initially, there were no reports about his condition except that he had been transported. Mom and I both feared the worst. A few hours later, I heard a race official on my scanner radio ask, “When are they going to make the announcement?”

The reply was, “They still have one more notification to make before they go public.”

A half-hour later, the PA announcer said, “Ladies and Gentlemen may I have your attention please.” The only time they ever use that wording is to announce a death. Mom had heard those words in 1964, we both heard them in 1982 and now we were hearing them again.

There was a significant contrast between Scott Brayton and Gordon Smiley. Brayton was very popular with fans and drivers alike and was active in many charity events in the community. After his death, they named an award after him for drivers who embodied his spirit not only as a racer but as a charitable person.

As my parents and I aged, the trip to the race each May became more and more difficult. It was harder on me to be out in the elements whether it was too hot or too cold. It was physically draining on all three of us.

Also, the traffic patterns changed. While we could get into the Speedway easily using a handicapped parking pass which led us in a special gate, getting out became more difficult. Rather than allowing us to turn north onto Georgetown Road and head towards our house, they would force us to turn south out of gate 9 into a line of traffic that was forced to go most of the way downtown before we could turn back towards our house. They had all of the sidestreets blocked so you had to stay in that line of traffic out of the area. One year, it took us over two hours to get back home because we were stuck in traffic going away from our house.

We eventually found a way to wait for the crowd to dissipate a bit and make our way out the 30th St. gates. From there we could get to a sidestreet. One time, Mom got out of the van and moved a barricade so we could cut through the neighborhood and get back home.

Another issue conspired to make “being there” a less enjoyable experience. As my disability worsened, it became difficult for me to hold my head up, especially with heavy headphones on. If I leaned my head backward onto my headrest, it made it impossible for me to push the buttons on my scanner radio. I would push the buttons using a small wooden stick that I held in my mouth. I needed to be able to move my head forward to push the buttons. Sometimes you want to pause the radio on a particular channel and I couldn’t do that with my head leaned back against the headrest. The wheelchair platform where I sat would bounce a little bit as people walked by behind me. This would cause my head would fall backward when the platform bounced. It was quite frustrating.

The last straw came in October 2003 when rookie driver Tony Renna was killed during a private Firestone tire test in the off-season in preparation for the 2004 race. He crashed exiting the third turn and became airborne. He crashed into the catch fence tearing down a couple of those heavy steel poles that I had counted for protecting me on for years. The steel poles and fencing collapsed onto the wheelchair seating area about 100 yards east of where my seats were. Had this accident occurred on race day, people sitting in the wheelchair section in the middle of the north short chute and they certainly would have been killed.

IndyCar made changes to the rules to attempt to keep the cars from becoming airborne and over the years there have been fewer airborne incidents and nothing else has damaged the catch fence that severely.

I struggled to enjoy the 2004 race because I couldn’t keep my head held up and couldn’t operate my scanner radio. I also had fears about the safety of the fence, and my deteriorating stamina made it difficult to endure such an event. I made the difficult decision that I would not be back again. 2004 was my last Indy 500 in person.

I still watch the race every year on TV. Even though it’s blacked out and tape-delayed here in Indianapolis for many years I was able to find a bootleg live stream online. When NBC started the Peacock TV streaming service, they were not smart enough to include the blackout online so people in Indianapolis could watch it live on Peacock streaming even though the network broadcast was blacked out. Last year they wised up and blocked central Indiana IP addresses during the event. I just logged into a VPN and spoofed my location to watch it.

The idea that you can stream the race live in high definition over the Internet is just an example of how far we’ve come technologically.

Before I started going to the race in person, my family typically spent Memorial Day weekend at our lakeside cabin on Cordry Lake about 50 miles south of here. Sometimes if the weather was right, we could turn the roof antenna on the cabin and pick up a TV station out of Louisville Kentucky, or perhaps Terre Haute Indiana, and avoid the blackout and see the race live on TV. Unfortunately, this was on a 25-inch analog TV that would get a very snowy picture and you could barely see what was going on.

A couple of years ago when they started streaming the race on Peacock, my friend Jack who bought out my family’s share of the lakeside property, sent me a photo from the lake on Memorial Day. They had carried a 45-inch HD flatscreen down to the boat dock and were streaming the race in HD using a 4G hotspot. A far cry from where we were 40 years ago.

I mentioned previously that they renamed my article from, “A Race Fan’s First 500” to the phrase “Being There” and I didn’t like the name change. But now that I can no longer be there, I have a different appreciation of how important those words are. I’m in way worse condition these days than I was in 2004 when we quit going. There’s no way I could be there now. But I try to maintain my connection to the Speedway.

During the pre-race ceremonies, there is always a military flyby. It flies over the Speedway from North to South directly down the main stretch. As it approaches the Speedway, the flight path is about three blocks east of my house. So for the Indy 500 and Brickyard, I like to go outside across the street and hang out with the neighbors as we watch the jets fly by. It’s not as spectacular as seeing them fly directly over your head at the track with 300,000 people but somehow it keeps me connected personally to the event. It’s my way to continue being there.

For our next episode, I’m going to read the article that I wrote for Indianapolis Monthly Magazine. That will wrap up this series on my life as a race fan. After that, I will return to stories about my college days at IUPUI.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Contemplating Life – Episode 66 – “I Was Nearly Murdered”

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In this episode, I talk about a harrowing experience I just had in the hospital that nearly cost me my life. We will return to my regular topics soon.

Links of Interest

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
YouTube playlist of this and all other episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFRYfZfNjHL8bFCmGDOBvEiRbzUiiHpq

YouTube Version

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to a very special episode of Contemplating Life. Episode 66.

You might have noticed this episode is extremely late. I’ve been busy trying not to die. The title of this episode is “I Was Nearly Murdered.” That is only a slight exaggeration. It was more like negligent homicide but my life was still at risk. That doesn’t include the health challenges that I’ve had recently. In the past 45 days, I’ve been in 2 different hospitals 4 different times and that doesn’t include an in-and-out trip to the ER to get my G-tube replaced on May 5.

Let’s start at the beginning… Let’s see…The earth formed, the dinosaurs came and went… No, We are not going to do that again. We will have a flashback to the day I was born but let’s start this story with Saturday, April 13, 2024. I had been having some respiratory issues for a couple of days and by Saturday it was bad enough that I thought I needed to get checked out at the hospital. I took an ambulance to St. Vincent Hospital on W. 86th St. here in Indianapolis. St. Vincent is the only hospital I’ve ever been to. Well, actually it’s been 2 different St. Vincent hospitals.

There have been four locations for St. Vincent Hospital over its history. It was founded in 1881 by Indianapolis Bishop Silas Francis Chatard and a religious order called The Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. I highly encourage you to read the article I linked in the description chronicling its history. For our purposes, my story starts with the third incarnation of St. Vincent Hospital on Fall Creek Blvd. between Capital Avenue and Illinois Street. That was the hospital where I was born as were 50% of all children born in Indianapolis between 1913 and 1974. The St. Vincent Hospital on W. 86th St. is the only other hospital I had ever been in. It was opened in 1974 and I believe my first visit would have been in the spring of 1979.

Anyway, back to April 13, 2024… A chest x-ray confirmed what I suspected. I had some mild pneumonia in my lower left lung. I was admitted to the hospital and put on IV antibiotics. Anytime I am admitted to the hospital, I have to go to the ICU because I use a ventilator to help me sleep at night. It’s not that I’m ventilator-dependent. It’s more like an overblown CPAP machine. You can’t use a CPAP when you have a trach. Sometimes I feel guilty about being in the ICU when I’m not really very sick but that’s their policy and I like the extra attention. The nurses enjoy taking care of a patient who isn’t critically ill. It was an uneventful stay and I was out two days later on Monday the 15th. I was confident I was fully recovered. They sent me home with oral antibiotics which I completed. Everything was okay after that.

The next significant event was Tuesday, May 7 when my friend Rich came over to help me repair my 3D printer. I have a Prusa MK3 that I purchased about six years ago and it has given me wonderful service up until recently. A failed print resulted in a huge glob of melted plastic spread all over the extruder. It has taken me several attempts to recover from his failure.

Several months ago, when I still didn’t have the printer working properly, it was going to cost me at least $100 just to get someone to look at it. A new Micro Center store opened on the northeast side of town. They had a Creality Ender S1 printer that usually lists for $450 on sale for $150. I desperately needed a 3D printer and it was just too good a deal to pass up.

I have regretted the decision ever since. The machine works but it just doesn’t work as well as my good old Prusa. You get what you pay for. I still didn’t have the money to pay for someone to look at the old machine. I thought perhaps Rich and I might be able to do something with it ourselves since I didn’t like the new printer.

I was pretty sure all I needed was to reinstall the nozzle in the extruder. It was leaking plastic around the edges. When we got the old nozzle out, it was in pretty bad shape so we decided to replace it completely. Fortunately, I had several in stock.

The normal operating temperature for a 3D printer is between 210° C and 230° C depending on the plastic you use. The instructions for replacing a nozzle say that you should crank up the temperature to about 270°C. From my previous misadventures with the printer, there was melted plastic all over the heat block. At that temperature, PLA plastic will vaporize into smoke. It’s possible that the PETG plastic that the printer is made from could also melt although I don’t think it did.

Vaporized PLA plastic doesn’t smell very bad, but it does tend to stick in your sinuses and you continue to smell it for a day or so. At one point we opened the window and turned on my ceiling fan. Part of the problem was that neither Rich nor I knew what we were doing. So we had to have the thing overheated longer than should have been necessary.

On a previous occasion when I tried to remove that big blob of plastic from the failed print, my roommate Josh helped me clear it by melting the plastic away with a soldering iron. That had also created vapors that stuck in my sinuses. A few days after that, I noticed that I had a lot of secretions in my lungs and I had to do more trach suctioning than usual. It was more than a week until things got back to normal. Still, it was manageable.

While Rich and I were working, we should have opened the window sooner but we didn’t. I kept thinking, “We’re almost done.” It’s harder than you think to screw in a tiny nozzle that is 270° C. When we had done this before, I didn’t have very good tools. It was still difficult even with the right size metric socket wrench.

The following day, I could still smell burnt plastic but I did not notice anything wrong with my lungs.

By the second day, Thursday, May 9, I had to begin doing excessive amounts of trach suctioning. This continued throughout the weekend. I figured this was the same thing that happened when I inhaled fumes when Josh was helping me.

My roommate Barb had been having recurring intestinal issues but woke up Monday morning May 13 with severe breathing difficulty. As my home health aide was getting me dressed, Barb’s son Josh told me that Barb needed to go to the hospital. I told him no problem. I would get someone to come stay with me. As soon as I was up in my wheelchair I began calling friends and quickly found someone who could be here in about a half-hour.

Josh called 911 and paramedics from Fire Station 31 just a few blocks away arrived. I went to the living room and found Barb sitting on the sofa gasping for air. The paramedics put an oximeter on her finger and it registered in the low 80s. It should be well above 90%. Josh had already given her one breathing treatment but the paramedics put her on oxygen and more nebulizer medication. By the time the ambulance arrived a minute or two later, her oxygen was back up to 90.

The entire incident was quite scary for me and everyone involved. It will have long-lasting consequences that we may discuss in future episodes.

My friends Stu and Pat Byrum arrived about 20 minutes later to stay with me. Josh took off to the hospital to be with his mom.

My friends and I picked out a movie to watch but it was interrupted frequently because I needed trach suctioning. Pat has done it many times before but we were having a particularly difficult time getting it cleared. I could tell she was concerned but I kept trying to reassure her that everything was okay.

Somewhere along the way, I developed a low-grade fever of just over 100. Tylenol took care of it easily. My sister arrived at about 6 PM to take over my care. My home health aide also returned to put me back to bed.

Each Tuesday and Thursday, I have a respite nurse who stays with me from 9:30 AM until 4 PM so that my roommates can have time off to go to the doctor, run errands, or just get out of the house for a while. I kept Nurse Toni busy all afternoon Tuesday doing breathing treatments and suctioning. By the time she left at 4 PM, she was worn out and I was in pretty good shape. My friend Judy arrived to stay with me until my sister Carol could relieve her. I think Judy only had to do perhaps one suctioning if at all.

There was a miscommunication with my home health aide (entirely my fault) as to whether or not I needed her for the evening shift. Carol ended up putting me to bed and by then I was needing yet more suctioning. Carol noted that my secretions were extremely thick, had turned yellow, and even looked a bit chunky. My fever had returned.

Carol suggested I needed to go to the hospital and I quickly agreed. This was more than just a little irritation from the 3D printer fumes. It was likely that whatever sent Barb to the hospital the day before was giving me fits as well. Or even if it was just the irritation from the fumes, it was way beyond anything I had experienced previously.

We packed up everything I needed to be prepared to stay in the hospital. We packed up my laptop and got my ventilator ready to transport because I like to use my own vent when I’m in the hospital. I would go by ambulance. Carol would bring my stuff in her car in case I was admitted. I was pretty sure I would be.

Anytime I go to the hospital, we have to clear out my bedroom of my wheelchair, bedside table, and Hoyer patient lift to make room for them to bring a gurney in and drag me over onto it. We also have to move a small sofa table in the living room to make it easier to get the gurney down the hallway. It’s quite a production to get me in an ambulance. It’s a good thing I’ve not had to do it in a dire emergency.

The ambulance arrived and they loaded me up for a trip to St. Vincent. Along the way, I had a pleasant conversation with the medic who rode in the back with me. She had just gotten back from a trip to Disney World. I asked, “Did your kids enjoy it?” She chuckled and said, “Uhh… I don’t have any kids. It was just me and my boyfriend.” She explained that she had family in the area and was visiting them. But the highlight of the trip was still the trip to Disney.

Whenever the ambulance is about five minutes away from the hospital, they get on the radio and ask the dispatcher for a line to the hospital ER. They report a description of the patient, me, my vitals, and what I’m coming in for. The dispatcher notified them that St. Vincent was on full diversion. They were not accepting any EMS patients.

Apparently on May 8 the entire Ascension Healthcare Network of over 140 facilities spread across 20 states was hit by a ransomware cyber attack. They had to shut down their entire network and start using paper record-keeping. They had no access to old patient records from previous visits. Although the ER was open to walk-in patients, they were not accepting EMS patients.

The question now was, “Where do I go?” As I mentioned, I had never been to any other hospital. I asked them, “What is closest?” The choices were Indiana University/Methodist Hospital or Eskenazi Hospital. I didn’t have a coin to flip so I picked Methodist because that’s where they take injured IndyCar drivers. While I had not hit a concrete wall at over 230 mph, I figured if it was good enough for the Indy drivers it was good enough for me.

I had my iPhone with me so I had the medic call Carol who was also just a few minutes from St. Vincent. We both turned around and headed for Methodist.

When I arrived at the ER, at first they were just going to put me behind a curtain but when I explained that I needed suctioning they moved me to a small ER room. I was seen by a resident ER doctor almost immediately which is unusual. Then again, I’m usually in for something minor like a G-tube replacement or a urinary infection. When you come in with breathing difficulty, you get quicker attention.

They started an IV, drew blood, and took me for a chest x-ray. At St. Vincent, they use portable X-ray machines but at Methodist, the X-ray department is right down the hall from the ER so they just roll you down there and roll you back. When I returned from the x-ray, Carol was waiting for me. She had stopped to grab a bite to eat the way. She knew it was going to be a long evening and she was right.

Carol and I passed the time talking about the day’s events and our concerns about Barb who by now had a confirmed diagnosis of pneumonia and was still in the hospital.

Finally, the resident returned to tell me there was a slight fogginess in my chest x-ray that could be pneumonia. He said, “You said you had to do extensive breathing treatments and suctioning. Do you have what you need at home to treat this?” Much to my surprise, I answered, “No.” When I thought about the difficulty that Pat had suctioning me on Monday and the excessive amount of work I put Nurse Toni through earlier that day, as well as the friends I had lined up to be with me on Wednesday, I did not have sufficient backup to deal with this crisis of my own. The doctor replied, “That’s all I need to hear. We will admit you.”

In retrospect, even if Barb had not been in the hospital and I had had all the support i usually have and I needed, I really did need to be admitted. And I don’t think I would’ve had any difficulty convincing them of that. I think it was more of a case of, “If you really really want to go home I guess I can release you but if you want to stay then stay.” I needed to stay.

Unlike St. Vincent which automatically sends me to ICU whether I’m in need of intensive care or not, Methodist Hospital has a Pulmonary Care Unit and they would be sending me there. Unfortunately, it’s a small unit and it took until the following afternoon to get me in a room in the PCU. Carol went home around 2 AM. I did not want to get on the ventilator until I was settled in the room. I didn’t want to be moved when I could not communicate while on the vent. I can sleep a little bit without the vent. I estimate and not have gotten 3 hours of sleep max.

About a year ago, I had my G-tube replaced as I do about every six months. There is a new style of G-tube with a different type of fitting on the top called ENFit. It screws on about one-half twist. It is unique to feeding systems. That is a safety feature so that you can’t accidentally put IV medication into a G-tube or worse yet put feeding formula into an IV.

Unfortunately, Methodist Hospital had never heard of it. They didn’t have any syringes that would connect to my G-tube. That meant that they couldn’t grind up pills in water and give them to me via my G-tube. They had to partially disassemble the G-tube in a way that wasn’t intended to be disassembled to give me medication. It also meant I would not be able to get G-tube feedings. The next morning, Carol brought a half-dozen or so of my ENFit syringes from home.

It wasn’t until about 2 PM Wednesday afternoon that I was finally able to get a G-tube feeding. That was 23 hours since my previous feeding. Being dehydrated and not getting any nutrition or calories is not good for the healing process.

Normally at St. Vincent, they let me use my ventilator from home but at Methodist they wanted me to use their ventilator. That was okay. I was a little bit ambivalent about it but it didn’t give me any difficulty.

A very nice nurse checked me into my room in the PCU on Wednesday afternoon. I don’t recall her name. The shift changed at 6 PM (St. Vincent changes at 7 so that was just another thing that was different about this place.)

The new night nurse seemed quite friendly. She appeared to be in her late 50s or perhaps 60 years old. She said something like, “Sorry you’re going to lose your cute young nurse. You’re stuck with an old battleax like me.” I didn’t mind. She exuded an air of confidence that in her many years of nursing, she had seen and done everything. It turns out she was a “traveling nurse.” These nurses are not employed directly by the hospital but are on contract with them for a few months at a time.

I explained that I needed to get on the vent soon because I had only had three hours of sleep. I explained to her the signals that I use when I cannot talk more on the ventilator. If I wiggle my eyebrows up and down that means “Yes.” If I twitch my mouth left and right it means “No.” If I make a clicking noise with my tongue, it means I want their attention. I was quite explicit, “If you can’t figure out what I want after a couple of yes or no questions, just call the respiratory therapist to take me off of the ventilator temporarily and I will tell you what I want once I can talk.” She seemed to understand. I explained I would not be able to use any of the various types of nurse call buttons they have available. She agreed to check in on me periodically.

Despite my lack of sleep, the tension of everything that was going on kept me awake. Around midnight she checked in and I clicked my tongue to get her attention. I was going to need to get off of the vent so I could direct her on how to comfortably put me on a bedpan. I was hoping that she would ask me a couple of yes/no questions and then call respiratory but she didn’t. She seemed hell-bent on trying to figure out what I wanted. But she was no good at reading lips. All I was saying was, “Call respiratory”. Rather than do as we had agreed, she brought another young nurse in to attempt to read my lips but that nurse had no more luck than did Nurse Battleax.

At one point they asked, “Do you want off of the ventilator?” and I signaled “Yes.”

Before we proceed, I need to explain briefly how a trach works. It’s a simple curved tube 7 mm in diameter which enters my windpipe through a hole in my neck. Normally there is a cap on the outside called a “Passy Muir Speaking Valve”. It is a one-way valve that allows air to be inhaled. But when you try to talk or exhale, it closes the trach allowing the air to come up your windpipe across your vocal cords soon you can speak. When you are on the ventilator, you remove the valve and attach a hose from the vent on the outside of the trach where the valve once was.

Air comes to the hose and into your lungs. However, it could escape back out your mouth and nose which is no good. The bottom end of the trach tube is surrounded by an inflatable cuff. There is a tiny tube extending out from the trach. You inject air into the tube and it blows up the inner cuff. This blocks off your upper airway so that the air coming from the vent doesn’t escape out your nose and mouth but is exhaled through the trach into the vent tubing where there is an exhaust port.

On the end of the tiny tube, there is a small balloon that is an indicator of how much air is in the trach cuff. When the tiny blue balloon on the outside is inflated, you know that the inner cuff is inflated.

When removing me from the vent, you have to connect a syringe to the little blue tube and extract all of the air. When the external balloon is flat, you know that the internal cuff is flat.

If you put on the speaking valve which is one way in, but you do not deflate the cuff, your airway is totally blocked. You can inhale but you cannot exhale.

The nurse removed the hose from my trach and replaced the speaking valve without deflating the cuff. I began signaling no, no, no frantically and clicking my tongue but she proceeded anyway. I was completely unable to breathe. Eventually, she sensed the panic I was experiencing and removed the valve allowing me to breathe. My airway was totally blocked for at least 20 seconds but it seemed like an eternity.

On several occasions, my dad, my roommate Barb, and I believe perhaps even my sister Carol have accidentally forgotten to deflate the cuff before putting on the valve. I just click my tongue a couple of times and they say, “Oh crap! I nearly killed you.” and they quickly remove the valve and we laugh about it. In a future episode tell you about the first time my dad did it.

That’s not what happened here. This wasn’t a, “Oh crap! I forgot.” This nurse was totally clueless about what she was doing. She had no idea that you needed to deflate the cuff first. The other nurse stood there and watched and was similarly unaware that I was unable to breathe at all because of their actions.

It was bad enough that my airway was completely blocked for nearly 20 seconds, but had they chosen to give up, leave the room, and call the respiratory therapist, I would’ve passed out. Fortunately, I was connected to an oximeter and heart monitor but they would’ve had to call the code to resuscitate me. Even if they were able to do so successfully, I probably would’ve ended up with broken ribs at least. Given my overall weak condition and the fact that I was weak from my illness, they might not have been able to resuscitate me at all.

I could have been dead.

Fortunately, they removed the valve, put me back on the vent, and finally called the respiratory therapist to take me off the vent properly. The therapist took me off the vent but I needed my trach suctioned before I could speak clearly. I insisted the nurse not leave the room until I could speak to her. When I could speak and breathe easily, I explained to her in no uncertain terms that she had nearly murdered me. I use those exact words. I described exactly what she did wrong. The respiratory therapist who was standing there was appalled.

After I said my piece, I explained that I wanted to get on the bedpan. She got me on. I did my business. She got me off. I told her I didn’t want to get back on the ventilator. I was too scared to be in that situation again.

I tried to get to sleep but couldn’t. Eventually, she came back in around 3 AM and I told her to call respiratory to put me back on the vent and keep your damned hands off. I told respiratory I wanted to get off around 6 AM when the shift changed. She agreed.

I might have gotten three more hours of sleep but maybe not that much.

The next morning I spoke to the day nurse who was the same one I had before. She was very nice. I explained to her what had happened and she had already heard. News of the incident was spreading fast. I told her I wanted to speak to a supervisor. She sent in a woman named Olivia who was the “Charge Nurse” for the unit.

Olivia had already had a meeting with the supervisor of respiratory therapy. I explained in great detail the series of events. She told me that it wasn’t just my request that the nurse should have called respiratory to take me off, it is their absolute policy that they are not to touch the ventilator and they should call RT.

I said, “That’s even more disturbing that you had one nurse doing something she wasn’t trained to do. It violated not only my instructions but also your policy. The thing that really concerns me is there was another nurse was standing there watching and was just as clueless as to what was going on. You have two nurses in a Pulmonary Care Unit who have no idea how a trach works and who violated policy watching one another. One is a mistake. Two indicates a pattern. You have a systemic problem in this unit. The bottom line is even if you promise me I never get either of those nurses again, I can’t trust this unit. I’m leaving here today and if the doctor will not discharge me I’m leaving AMA.”

By the way, I won’t bother philosophizing about the coincidence that the letters AMA stand for “against medical advice” and “American Medical Association” but there has to be a joke in there somewhere but I haven’t got the time to figure one out.

Anyway… The charge nurse was highly apologetic and very sympathetic. She understood why I felt the way I did. I told her I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to file a lawsuit or call a press conference. In retrospect, I could have called the police and I had the woman arrested. The bottom line was I wasn’t going to stick around and risk my life. Just call it a teachable moment. But I’m not staying.

I was later visited by the unit supervisor who was also appropriately sympathetic and apologetic over the incident. I gave her exactly the same speech I gave the charge nurse.

When my doctor arrived for rounds that morning, I told her what happened. I asked, “Am I okay to leave?” I knew her answer would be no and it was, “no.” Then I told her, “Under the circumstances, I have no choice but to check myself out AMA.” She said she would prescribe oral antibiotics. I explained I would be going to St. Vincent at the earliest opportunity.

Sometime before I spoke to all of these supervisors, I had the day nurse set up my laptop computer on the bedside table. I made a voice call via Facebook Messenger to my sister Carol.

“Carol it’s me. You’ve always said any time I didn’t feel safe that I should call you. Well, I don’t feel safe here. The nurse didn’t know what she was doing and tried to take me off the vent wrong. She put the speaking valve on without deflating the balloon and I couldn’t breathe for nearly 20 seconds. It wasn’t one of those, ‘Whoops I forgot.’ She was totally clueless as to what she was doing. She had no idea she nearly killed me. If she hadn’t removed the valve when she did I could’ve been dead.”

Carol has been babysitting her one-year-old grandson for my niece Alaina. My niece was off work that day because she was going on a field trip with her daughter. I told Carol, “Don’t ruin their field trip. But if you can get someone else to cover for your babysitting, can you come stay with me until we can get the ambulance to bring me home? If not, I will just go home after 6 PM whenever you can get there.”

Of course, Carol was furious at what had happened to me. She said she would get back to me as soon as possible. She contacted her other daughter Heather and Heather agreed to fill in babysitting. Soon after, Carol messaged me back, “Don’t bother with the ambulance. I’m coming up there with your wheelchair and your clothes in the van to get you up, dressed, and out of there.”

I was ecstatic.

I checked with the nurse to see if they had a Hoyer lift. They said yes and I messaged Carol.

It was midafternoon when Carol arrived. Not only had she brought my clothes, back brace, and wheelchair. She also brought our lift from home. She said, “I wasn’t sure I knew how to work their lift so just in case, I brought ours.” It was not easy to get my wheelchair and the Hoyer lift in and out of our van. It reminded me of the kind of thing my mother would’ve done under the circumstances. Carol was in full “Tiger Mom” mode and nothing was going to get in her way of getting me out of the place.

Carol is 60 years old. Although she is capable of getting me dressed and into the wheelchair, we typically have my home health aide do it when Carol is taking care of me. It is very difficult for Carol to do it. I think she did it in record time. One of the male nurses gave her a little assistance positioning me in the wheelchair once she had transferred me using the lift. That is always easier as a two-person job.

We packed up all my belongings and got ready to leave. They had said they were giving me oral antibiotics to take home. I thought they were going to deliver it to my room but I had to pick it up in the public pharmacy in the lobby. Carol, who is my designated medical representative and has power of attorney signed the release for my discharge AMA. I asked if there were other discharge papers or instructions and they said, “No. Not when you go AMA.”

I saw the charge nurse Olivia and I thanked her and my dayshift nurse for understanding. “I don’t want to cast aspersions on the entire facility”, I said. “Everyone else has been quite nice to me but I just can’t stay here.” It looked as though the nurses were all about to have a big meeting. My guess is there were lots of big meetings as a result of this incident although I haven’t talked to any of them since then. I don’t know what the end result was.

When we got to the lobby, the pharmacy where I needed to pick up my antibiotics was at the far end of the building. We had to go already over there and all the way back. We loaded up the lift and me in the van which wasn’t easy and we were finally off

Carol offered to take me directly to St. Vincent as a walk-in patient but I explained I only had at most 6 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. I wanted desperately to get home in my own bed with my trusty emergency call button and my own ventilator. I knew if we went to St. Vincent it would probably be hours before I could get to sleep. I was so exhausted and stressed I was seriously worried I would have a heart attack or something if I didn’t get directly to sleep.

When we got home, then Carol had to drag me and the Hoyer lift out of the van, reassemble the lift, put me back to bed, get me undressed, give me my afternoon G-tube feeding, and get me on the ventilator. It had to be exhausting for her considering she was up in the middle of the night two nights ago with me in the ER.

Josh was home. He left his mom at the hospital because she needed to rest and wouldn’t do so if he was there. He helped out setting up their lift and he set up my laptop.

I mentioned my own home emergency call button. It’s a little device with pushbuttons I hold in my right hand. It allows me to operate my TV, cable box, iPad, and a buzzer that rings in the living room and master bedroom when I need something. A previous version of the box had a backup battery in case of a power outage. But my latest version plugs into my laptop because I figure it’s got a bigger battery than anything I would put in my little box.

Unfortunately, when we were plugging in the power on the laptop, we didn’t get the power cable plugged in all the way. In the middle of the night, the laptop battery went dead and my pushbuttons became unusable. It was my fault for not double-checking it but I was a zombie at that point.

I had gotten my G-tube feeding, got on the ventilator, and fell asleep at about 6 I woke up around midnight to discover the buttons were not working. I should’ve had another G-tube feeding around 9 PM but she let me sleep.

My only way of getting someone’s attention is by making a clicking noise with my tongue. I could hear that Josh was still awake watching TV or playing games online. When I determined he was no longer using his headphones I tried clicking as loudly as I could from time to time. Around 2 AM he realized what that sound was. He saw it was perhaps Barb’s pet hedgehog making noises. He finally realized it was me and called Carol.

Carol had to do a breathing treatment, massive suctioning, and my G-tube feeding. All of that took about 90 minutes. We finally all got back to sleep around 3:30 AM.

The next morning, Carol had to leave to go babysit her grandson again. Josh would stay with me until about 10 AM when my friend Rich would come. My home health aide Kiara arrived around 9 AM. She gave me a bath, got me dressed, and got me up in the wheelchair. She stuck around a little longer to help me and Rich pack up everything for me to go to St. Vincent in my wheelchair van as a walk-in. She is a real blessing in my life as are all of the people I mentioned. (Except for the ones that tried to kill me.)

Anyway, It was a struggle for Rich to get me and the ventilator into the van. He is only a year younger than me. We had carefully packed in two bags. One contained my suction machine in case we needed to pull over en route to the hospital and suction my trach. The other contained my laptop. Rich would drive up to the ER entrance, unload me, and bring the suction machine bag. There is valet parking at the ER.

If they admitted me, which I presumed they would, Rich would carry the suction machine back out to the van because we would not need it. He would also take my wheelchair to the van. He would come back with my laptop bag and my ventilator.

When you go to the ER with respiratory problems, they see you quickly. It was amazing to see the people at St. Vincent using only paper records and no computers. It had been a few days now and they were getting into a routine but it was clearly difficult for them. It was just amazing to watch them work.

When I told the doctors and nurses what I had been through at Methodist, especially since I had checked myself out against medical advice, they didn’t hesitate to admit me. They warned me that they were not operating at peak efficiency because the computers were down. I told him I was aware of that. I said, “I feel safer with you guys under these difficult conditions on your worst day than I would be at Methodist on their best day.”

They had no difficulty lifting me from my wheelchair onto the gurney. I had Rich hang onto my feet as I was being lifted because in the past I got my feet tangled up beneath me when someone had tried to lift me like that and that had been quite painful. The manual lift went smoothly and they got me undressed. Another chest x-ray confirmed there was still some “opacity” which meant slight pneumonia.

I have spent so much time at St. Vincent ER there that I see familiar faces and they recognized me as well. I felt like this place was my second home. I was really happy to be there.

I was assigned a room at about 4 PM. They always bathe you when you first arrive in the ICU. By the time they finished, Rich was there with my laptop and ventilator. He left around 5 PM. He had tickets to an Indianapolis Indians baseball game that night. There was also a Pacers NBA playoff game on TV that he was recording and I would watch live. I told Rich to just leave my wheelchair and everything in the van and leave it parked in my driveway. He would then go home in his car. Josh said Rich looked pretty tired. Again I am so blessed to have someone like him in my life.

By the time I got to the ICU, they all said, “We heard what happened to you at that other hospital Chris. That must’ve been scary.” News of my misadventures reached the ICU from the ER before I did.

This was Friday, May 17. By Tuesday, May 21st, both the doctors and I felt I was ready to go home and I was released. The stay at St. Vincent was uneventful. I had wonderful nurses and I could tell lots of stories about them but that’s not important right now. It was a very pleasant visit.

I had to wait until about 6 PM for an ambulance to take me home. I wasn’t going to make Carol come get me dressed and take me home herself again.

By this time, Barb was back home from the hospital and doing well.

Back at home, throughout the day on Wednesday the 22nd, I still needed breathing treatments and significant suctioning. Way more than I had needed the previous day in the hospital. In the late afternoon, we did a breathing treatment and it broke up a bunch of congestion. We had to struggle to suction it all out. I was having serious difficulty breathing. Barb had an oximeter so we checked my oxygen level and it was in the low 80s which is where hers was when she went to the hospital.

Fortunately, after I caught my breath, it got back up to the low 90s which is where it needed to be. We also took my temperature and it was in the high 99s. I made the difficult decision I had to go back to St. Vincent. I called the hospital to see if they were open to ambulance patients and they said no. That was surprising because while I was still there, they said they were reopening completely.

I was up in my wheelchair so I could go by van. Josh agreed to take me. I offered to go by ambulance to Eskenazi Hospital. I wasn’t going to go back to Methodist. That was for sure. Josh said he didn’t mind taking me. That was a wonderful gesture. I asked if he was comfortable with leaving Barb home alone because she was still recovering. Barb had to phone in her vital signs to the hospital periodically so she was still under the care of the people at the hospital even though she was home. Josh was confident she would be okay and so was she.

Again we packed up my suction machine, ventilator, and laptop and loaded all of that and me into the van. We did the same procedure I had done with Rich. When I got to the ER, they lifted me out of my chair onto the gurney. Carol arrived around 6:30 PM. Josh took her car and she would drive the van. We still weren’t sure if I was going to be readmitted. I might have to get back in the wheelchair, back in the van, and go home. But eventually, another chest x-ray still showed some congestion and they decided to admit me again. Carol took the wheelchair to the van and brought back the ventilator and the laptop. Then I told her she could go home. I forget what time I made it back to the ICU. Another bed bath upon arrival and then I got on my ventilator and got to sleep.

The next morning, Thursday, May 23, I had the same pulmonary doctor I had before. I don’t recall his name. We talked about the situation and agreed we both we had done the right thing by sending me home. He said, “I trusted that if you needed to come back you would and in the end you did. So no second guessing our decisions.” I really liked the guy.

I had a peaceful and uneventful stay until Saturday, May 25. I told the doctors I wasn’t going to push them to send me home but I had to go either Saturday or Monday. Sunday would be the Indy 500 and the traffic around my neighborhood would make it impossible for me to get home.

The ambulance picked me up around 6 PM Saturday evening and I was home in bed by 7 PM.

My weekend home health aide Shatoya had to take an Uber to get to my house Sunday morning because she is temporarily without a vehicle. They had to fight through the race day traffic to get to my house. By the time she got me up, most of the traffic had cleared and we gave her a lift home.

The race was delayed by rain but the weather cleared mid-afternoon and they completed all 500 miles. During the opening ceremonies, there was a flyby of the Air Force Thunderbirds. I went outside to watch them but they flew very low and I could not see them because of trees in the neighborhood. Usually, I can see the military flyby but this time I only heard it.

Normally the race is blacked out in the Indianapolis area but I can watch it on streaming using a VPN to mask my vocation. Because of the rain the delay, the Speedway allowed the blackout to be lifted so I could watch it on cable on our big-screen TV instead of my computer monitor.

It was a very exciting race with several crashes. Fortunately, no one was hurt. There were multiple passes for the lead during the final few laps. Josef Newgarden was victorious for the second year in a row. This was the first back-to-back win for any driver since 2000-2001 wins by Hélio Castroneves.

I was glad to be alive to see it.

I’m recording this on Monday, June 3 and I have been doing well ever since I came home. I’m doing breathing treatments in the morning as a preventative measure but my lungs have been doing quite well.

The doctors never decided if I had some sort of respiratory virus like Barb had or if it was just the fumes from the 3D printer. I think it was the printer fumes but we will never know. Also, we discovered that my suction machine at home wasn’t working right. It could have been that Wednesday at home when we were having so much trouble getting me cleared up, that I really didn’t need to go back to the hospital. I thought we were having trouble getting my lungs cleared because they were in bad shape. It might have been that the machine wasn’t working. We called my supplier and they brought out a replacement machine on Memorial Day. That was much better. I’ve been able to get my lungs cleared much more easily. Again, I don’t know if that contributed to the problem but it sure didn’t help.

Before we sign off, I need to explain that my life is getting a bit complicated right now. Some of it involves a very exciting assistive technology project I’m working on. It’s going to take a lot of my time. Some of it involves some major life changes and tough decisions and making.

As a result, I cannot commit to producing a new podcast every week on a regular schedule. I fully intend to continue the podcast but I will not guarantee when new episodes will arrive. This isn’t the end. It’s just a new phase.

I cannot say when the next episode will be but when I return I will continue with more stories about my history as a race fan including the first time I ever attended the race in person. I had intended to get out at least 2 more episodes about racing before the race itself. That didn’t happen. Anyway, after we wrap up the racing series we will go back to more stories about my college days and my mentors Drs. John and Judith Gersting.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express. And thanks also to all the people who helped me get through this health crisis.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next week… Oh well, I’ll see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Contemplating Life – Episode 51 – “The Last Picture Show”

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This week we explore the transitions I’ve had to go through in my life as it relates to my ability to get out into the world and do ordinary things like enjoying a movie with my friends. It’s based on an essay I wrote for my writing seminar. Note there are lots of movie clips in the YouTube version of this week’s podcast so you might want to watch it on YouTube.

Links of interest

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
YouTube playlist of this and all other episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFRYfZfNjHL8bFCmGDOBvEiRbzUiiHpq

YouTube Version

NOTE: This video may be blocked in some countries because I used a tiny bit too much of a copyrighted film. It should be visible in the US so set your VPN accordingly or listen to the audio on any of my podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, etc.

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 51 of Contemplating Life.

I planned to get back to the stories about my college days at IUPUI. But this is movie awards season. The Golden Globes will have already been awarded by the time you see this. Oscar nominations come out January 27 (not the 17th as I said in the video) and the Oscars will be awarded March 10. I hope to be able to see all of the Best Picture-nominated films and review them here as I did last year. I’ve already started watching some of the contenders. To prepare for my Oscar reviews, I want to spend an episode or two talking about what movies mean to me.

Today’s episode is based on an essay I wrote for my writing seminar. We were told to write about a character in transition. I chose to write about the various transitions I’ve had to go through in dealing with my disability and the effect it has had on my independence and my ability to enjoy entertainment. My writing instructor, award-winning sci-fi author David Gerrold, had high praise for this essay and several of my fellow students had nice words about it so I hope you enjoy it as much as they did.

Recently, on the Friday between Christmas and New Year’s, I went to the movies with my friends Rich and Kathy Logan. We saw “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom”. It was pretty good but after a while, all of the superhero movies tend to feel alike. It was worth the trip to the theater and I really enjoyed the 3D but overall it probably wasn’t that great of a movie.

I guess that for most of you, going out to your local Cineplex and catching a film with your friends is something you take for granted. For me, I can’t do that. Every time I go to the movies, somewhere in the back of my mind is the idea that it might be my last time. I’m not talking about my own mortality here. Someday, we’ll all see our last picture show. We know not the day nor the hour when that will happen.

I’m talking about my ability to get out of the house and see a movie in a theater. There’s something special about seeing movies on the big screen with multi-channel digital surround sound, especially in IMAX or IMAX 3D. As the IMAX marketing phrase says, “Watch a movie or be a part of one.” Movies have the capability of transporting me to places, real or fantastic, that I could not go otherwise. It’s wonderful that we have access to so much entertainment via cable and streaming but nothing replaces the magic that happens when you see a film in a theater with a crowd of people. The reason that such an event is so precious to me is that on more than one occasion, it felt like it might be the last time I ever had that opportunity.

I’ll never forget the day back in 1979 when I had such an experience.

It wasn’t the last movie I would ever see in my life, but it was the last movie I would ever see in a theater by myself. For such a significant milestone, it should have been something great and memorable. It wasn’t. It was the comedy farce “The In-Laws” starring Peter Falk and Alan Arkin.

I was about a month short of my 24th birthday. A few months prior, I had to quit my job as a computer programmer for the Indiana University Department of Medical Genetics. My disability had worsened to the point where I could no longer work a full-time job. After two weeks in the hospital recovering from congestive heart failure and several months home in bed I was finally getting out into the world again.

Going to the mall to see a movie on my own was something I’d done dozens of times since I was a teenager. My parents would drop me off, I would see the film, and they would pick me up when it was over. Getting out of the house to the movies was my celebration that things were finally getting back to normal.

In those days, they didn’t have stadium seating in movie theaters like we do today. The floor transitioned from a gentle slope near the front to a steeper slope at the back. There were no areas designed specifically for people in wheelchairs. I had to sit in the aisle which meant that people often ran into me in the dark. It was uncomfortable to sit on the sloping floor so I always sat near the front where the slope was less severe.

About halfway through the movie, I started to slump slightly in my wheelchair. I could feel myself getting more and more uncomfortable. I feared I would slump over sideways, my hand would slip off my wheelchair joystick controls, and I would be unable to get it back again. I would be stranded there. There were very few people in the theater and they were all sitting behind me. So, when the movie was over, no one would be walking by and I could easily get their attention and ask for help. They probably would all have left not knowing that I was stuck there. I didn’t look forward to the idea that I was going to have to yell for help when the movie was over.

I was filled with anger and frustration. I thought that after recovering from heart failure I was back to normal but this was in no way normal for me.

I had to try to get my wheelchair onto level ground. I was already sitting very near the front because the slope of the floor was less severe but it wasn’t enough. I turned my wheelchair around and drove up the steep slope of the theater aisle. It took everything I had to maintain control as the aisle steepened on the way up. There was a level area at the top near the door. I thought perhaps if I sat there, I would be safe.

It took everything I had to get up the steep slope without my hand slipping off of the joystick or my head flopping backwards but somehow I made it to level ground. At last, I would be able to watch the rest of the film.

But after a few minutes, I felt myself continuing to slump over. I finally gave up. I drove my wheelchair to the theater door, pushed it open with my footrest, and drove out to the lobby of the theater in the mall. There was still about a half-hour left in the movie but I didn’t care anymore.

I sat there quietly with tears streaming down my face until my dad arrived to pick me up. I was so weak I couldn’t drive my wheelchair anymore and he had to disengage the motors and push the wheelchair himself.

By the next day, I had recovered enough that I could continue to drive my wheelchair around the house but I knew that I would never be safe to be out in the world on my own again.

It wasn’t just the end of seeing movies by myself. It was the end of the most independent era of my life as a disabled person. I’d gone to college and had a full-time job. My dad would drop me off at work or school and I would be on my own all day long.

In my college years, during the summer I would drive my wheelchair all over the neighborhood in a routine that I dubbed “The Grand Tour.” I would travel about six blocks to the local branch library and check out the latest Scientific American or a sci-fi book. Then I would drive a half-mile down 34th St. to the Burger Chef for lunch. I would go across the street from there to the drugstore, pick up a magazine or comic book, maybe a candy bar, and return home.

Each year during May, mom would drop me off at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and I would spend the whole day at the track watching cars practice. I’d tour the garage area, and talk to mechanics and drivers.

All of these expressions of my independence came to a crashing halt at that stupid little movie that evening in late June 1979.

It wasn’t long after that that I lost the ability to feed myself. I could no longer type on my computer keyboard. Driving my wheelchair around my house even on level ground with no bumps became difficult.

I sank into a deep depression. I asked myself, “Where is that well-adjusted handicapped person I used to know named Chris Young?” The answer was obvious, he died when I lost the ability to use my arms effectively.

After sulking for many days, I did what I had always done… I found a way to adapt.

I discovered that if I propped my elbow up on the armrest of my wheelchair and stood up my computer keyboard on an easel so that the keys were facing me. I could use a long pencil or a wooden dowl rod to poke at the keys on the keyboard. We wired small pushbuttons into the Shift and Control keys on the keyboard. I would type with my right hand and work the buttons in my left hand.

I also discovered that if I held this typing stick in my mouth, and held the other end in my hand, it would steady my right hand on the wheelchair joystick. In some respects, I was using the mouth stick to push my hand which in turn pushed the joystick. That gave me the ability to get around the house or to go outside if it was on smooth ground. But I wasn’t able to go anywhere alone anymore.

Shortly after that last solo trip to the movies, Dad and I went to the movies together. We saw one of my favorite cheesy disaster films of all time “The Cassandra Crossing.” It featured an ensemble cast that included Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Burt Lancaster, Lee Strasburg, Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen, and O.J. Simpson. A group of people on a European passenger train were infected with a deadly virus. Fearing that the infection would spread, no country would allow them to stop. Officials eventually routed the train onto a bridge over a deep gorge called the Cassondra Crossing where they planned to blow up the bridge and kill everyone on board. The special-effects miniatures of the train crashing into the canyon were spectacular. Dad and I both loved the movie.

Shortly after that Dad and I saw “Apocalypse Now”. Not only was I getting to season good cheesy action movies, I also got to see some quality filmmaking and it brought Dad and me even closer together to share these kinds of films.

I’m blessed by other friends and family who have taken me to see countless movies over the years and they still do so to this day.

Over the years, I’ve had to make more and more adjustments as my ability has diminished further. Eventually, I could no longer type on my computer at all. Fortunately, voice control software was developed that allows me to dictate into a computer and have complete control of all of its functions. If you’d asked me back in the 70s when I first began studying programming if computers would ever understand speech accurately, I would’ve said never in my lifetime. But for decades now voice recognition has been my only means of computer access.

Seven years ago I lost the ability to drive my wheelchair completely, but I got a new wheelchair with new controls. A tiny joystick is mounted on a collar that fits around my neck and I can push the controls with my lips. I also use that joystick as a mouse on my computer. I strap my head onto my headrest so that it stays firmly in place and I am much more mobile than I was when I was trying to control the joystick with my hand. I can now ride over bumpy ground safely. I still don’t go anywhere unaccompanied.

In December 2016 I had to have a trach installed in my throat. Periodically I need to have it suctioned. I don’t go anywhere without my suctioning machine. At first, I was reluctant to ask friends to go to the movies with me because they would have to operate the suction machine if I needed it. It wasn’t anything beyond their capability but I didn’t want them to have to be a nursemaid to me.

The first movie I saw after I had my trach was in March 2017 when I went with my friends Rich and Kathy Logan to see the Marvel Comics movie “Logan”. It featured Hugh Jackman in his last film in which he played Wolverine. I had a history of seeing Logan movies with the Logans. The first film we saw together was “Logan’s Run” back when we were at IUPUI together. More on that story another day. Anyway, for this movie we brought my dad along in case I needed to be suctioned. Rich, Kathy, and I enjoyed it but he hated the movie. Again, I worried that my moviegoing days were numbered. Trying to find a movie that my dad and my friends would all enjoy was going to be a challenge.

After that, I finally got the courage to ask my friends if they could do my suctioning. My most loyal friend Rich said, “We were wondering when you were going to get around to asking. Of course, we can do it. We’ve been adapting to your disability along with you for decades now. This is just the next phase.”

Because my stamina continues to fade gradually, I wasn’t certain I could ever go to a concert again but since I got my trach, I’ve seen some of my favorite acts including memorable concerts of Peter Frampton, The Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Steve Miller Band, The Who, and Sting thanks to my sister Carol who accompanies me. Carol and I also catch a couple of hockey games each year. Although, we try to go to afternoon games because I have a hard time staying up late.

These days, I’m still able to get out to the movies with friends and family but I pick and choose them carefully. I go for the big blockbusters in IMAX and/or 3D. If I’m willing to risk COVID, flu, RSV, and God knows what else being out in public as well as the strain on my ever-diminishing stamina, it had better be something big and spectacular. I have seen Dune, Avatar 2 twice, and Oppenheimer in 70 mm filmed IMAX. Rich, Kathy, and I have seen every Star Wars film together over the years in the theater sometimes multiple times as well as most of the major Marvel and DC movies. This latest visit to see Aquaman 2 was just the next in a long series of such films.

My life has been a constant struggle to keep up with my ever-changing ability. I’ve had to reinvent myself and my activities multiple times over the past 68 years. And I will keep adapting until I can adapt no more.

One of my good friends who went by the nickname Buz, who was a fellow Christian, once told me he couldn’t wait until we meet someday in heaven and I could run up to him and give him a big hug. I told him, “Buz, I don’t see myself walking in heaven. For me, heaven is a place where I’m disabled but it doesn’t matter anymore. To the extent that you, my other friends, and my family try to give me as normal a life as possible, you make Heaven on Earth for me.” Much to my surprise, I’ve outlived Buz. When I make that final transformation to the next phase of my existence, I’ll roll up to Buz in my heavenly wheelchair and give him a big “I told you so.”

And I’ll see my parents again and Dad and I will talk about how cool it was when that train crashed into the Cassandra Crossing that first time he took me back to the movies after I couldn’t go by myself anymore.

Until then, I have lots more movies to see. I’ve not yet seen my last picture show.

Okay, this is me about a week later after I originally recorded this. I’ve been working on editing all of the video clips of the movies into the YouTube version of the podcast. I realized something awful.

The whole thing is a lie.

Well, not the whole thing. Just the part about “The Cassandra Crossing”. When I looked up the trailer for the movie and looked it up on the IMDb website, I found out that “The Cassandra Crossing” was in 1976 three years before “The In-laws” in 1979. However, “Apocalypse Now” was indeed in 79, and now that I think about it, it really was the first film I with my dad after I quit going by myself. Dad and I did see “The Cassandra Crossing” in 76 and it was indeed one of our favorite films but it just wasn’t the first one after I quit going by myself. But as they said in the classic film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Dad and I watching that train wreck was legendary. So what if the timeline really doesn’t work out?

One more quick confession… I never have seen the 1971 Peter Bogdanovich film “The Last Picture Show”. So, certainly that part of the podcast is true I’ve not yet seen “The Last Picture Show” either figuratively or literally.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

Many thanks to my financial supporters. Your support pays for the writing seminar I attend and other things. But most of all it shows how much you care and appreciate what I’m doing. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support, please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you find this podcast.

I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Contemplating Life – Episode 50 – “It’s Not Social Media’s Fault”

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This week I go off on a political rant that was inspired by a Facebook post I saw recently. My basic thesis is don’t blame the messenger for the message.

Links of Interest

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
YouTube playlist of this and all other episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFRYfZfNjHL8bFCmGDOBvEiRbzUiiHpq

YouTube Version

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 50 of Contemplating Life.

Happy New Year to all of you. It’s good to be back after my holiday break. We left off last year with a political rant on Christmas Eve and I have one more rant before we get back to our regularly scheduled topics.

I’ve been interacting with people online since before the Internet was invented. My life online dates back to CompuServe in 1981. I’ve been thrilled to see the explosion of the Internet since then and the way it has become such an integral part of nearly everyone’s life. I saw the potential for online interaction way back in the 80s. Even in those early days, it was the best of times and the worst of times. The opportunity for interaction with people around the world was phenomenal. I’ve made lifelong friends online some of whom I’ve never met in person. But I also have seen the worst of people come out protected by the semi-anonymity that comes with online interaction.

What we now call “social media” is merely a tool. It is a medium through which people interact. It has become a scapegoat for much of what’s wrong with public discourse these days. In the early days of the Internet, you had to be a computer geek to even get online in the first place. In those early days, someone wisely commented, “When the Internet is easy enough for any idiot to use then the Internet will be filled with idiots.” That prophecy has come true a thousandfold or more.

I’ve never felt that platforms like Twitter/X, Facebook, and others deserved so much of the blame for the evil that takes place online. I blame the users themselves. I blame the inability of huge numbers of people who are incapable of engaging in critical thinking. I blame a herd mentality that encourages its followers to mindlessly repost propaganda.

I blame our education system for failing to educate people on how to think critically. I blame them for not teaching social studies or civics as it was once called so that they understand how our government works and operates or at least how it was designed to operate. I blame science education for not giving people a basic understanding not of scientific facts but of an appreciation for how scientific exploration and scientific discourse work.

Blaming social media platforms is similar to blaming a road for a traffic accident. Now to be fair, some roads are poorly designed, and that leads to accidents. But it doesn’t account for every traffic accident. In the same way, there are design flaws in social media that are responsible in part for the evil that occurs. But there are many more “accidents” that are not attributable to design error whether it’s on the road or online.

I recently saw a post on my Facebook feed from a friend of a friend. It’s someone I barely know. I won’t identify them because I don’t want to single them out for ridicule. I cite this message merely as an example to illustrate how I believe social media is abused and the lack of responsibility shown by users who are too quick to repost a message without fully understanding the consequences of what they have done.

Here is the post exactly as I found it. I have not corrected any grammar or punctuation in my online transcript of this podcast. You can see the actual message with identifying portions redacted on the YouTube version of today’s podcast.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

“Someone once told me you have to choose which hill you die on: Get ready to fill out your reports on me, ‘cause I’m going to vent here. Frankly I expect some “unfriending” to happen and that is fine too.

“I believe we all have the right to worship as we please, but I also know that our country, the United States of America, was founded on Christian principles. I believe we should be proud of our country. A quote is a quote. It should not be amended or watered down.

“The news media should not be afraid to use the “Love of Christ” part. Why they state, “Because, using the words Christ or God might offend someone!” Well, now it’s my turn to be offended!

“I’m offended that the news media would edit it out. Offended that Christians are being asked to tread lightly, so as not to offend someone of another religion. This man “Jesus,” God with us!! He loved us, loved the world, and gave his life for the sins of all people. Those who “believe in Him, and accept Him as their personal Savior, will have everlasting life!!!”

“This Founding Principle is actually embedded in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Why would the left lopsided media continue to edit this truth?!

“I hope every Christian or every person that believes in God who is NOT OFFENDED will copy this and paste it to their status…“If we ever forget that we’re one nation under GOD, then we will be a nation gone under.” ~Ronald Reagan.

“*Before you say it, I already know that a lot of you will say I don’t know how to copy & paste.* It’s easy… hold your finger on this post when the word copy appears, just touch it, then go to your home page and where it says “what’s on your mind”, touch it and hold your finger where you would start writing your comment and touch “paste”.

“If we continue to do nothing as not to offend anyone else, we will eventually be offended out of the constitution and out of a country!”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Let me start by saying it took great willpower to not respond directly to that post. However, there is so much in it that is illustrative of what’s wrong with online media today that I cannot resist this comment podcast. Let’s take it one issue at a time. The opening paragraph states…

“Someone once told me you have to choose which hill you die on: Get ready to fill out your reports on me, ‘cause I’m going to vent here. Frankly I expect some “unfriending” to happen and that is fine too.”

That sounds like something I could write. If you’ve been following this podcast from the beginning, you’ve seen me take some rather controversial issues against the way the disability community fights ableism. Although I don’t particularly want to offend anyone, if someone is offended by the truth or by my expression of my opinions I’m not going to let that stop me. So the post starts off in a way that defends free speech and controversial opinions which is a topic that should resonate with most people. It’s drawing you in saying, “We believe in the same things.”

It goes on to say…

“I believe we all have the right to worship as we please, “

Again, a factual statement with which I hope most Americans would agree and embrace but that’s only the first half of the sentence. It continues…

“…but I also know that our country, the United States of America, was founded on Christian principles.”

Okay… If this was a court of law and I was a lawyer, I would object on the grounds that it “assumes facts not in evidence.” That is an objection that I could make repeatedly throughout this analysis. If it is true that most if not all of our so-called Founding Fathers were indeed men of Christian backgrounds. Many such as George Washington believed that religion and morality go hand-in-hand and religious belief was a necessary component of moral decision-making. We can see some Christian values such as personal freedom, justice, and care for the common good embodied in our founding documents. But they are not exclusively Christian. Other religions believe in those same things.

However, I don’t recall any of our Founding Fathers specifically insisting on one particular set of beliefs. Quite the contrary. They did not intend the country to be a Christian theocracy. The First Amendment to the Constitution begins with the words “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This principle is commonly referred to as “Separation of Church and State.” So when some respects, to say that we are a Christian nation is unconstitutional and arguably un-American.

I always thought it interesting that the First of the Ten Commandments prohibits us from worshiping false gods and the First Amendment to the Constitution protects us from being forced to worship other gods. Thus, freedom to worship or not worship as one chooses is fundamental to Judeo-Christian religious beliefs and to our political beliefs. So I suppose in some respects, that argues that we are based upon religious principles but not necessarily a specific religion.

The post then continues with an inarguable agreeable sentence, “I believe we should be proud of our country.” If you suppose that you can be proud of your country even when it doesn’t always behave in ways you wished it would, there is nothing objectionable there. But here’s where things go off the rail. It says…

“A quote is a quote. It should not be amended or watered down. The news media should not be afraid to use the ‘Love of Christ’ part. Why they state, ‘Because, using the words Christ or God might offend someone!’ Well, now it’s my turn to be offended!”

Oh boy… There are so many things wrong with that paragraph it’s going to take us a while to break them all down. Apparently, the original author of this post is objecting to some statement they saw in “the media” that they believe was edited to remove religious content. They never state what it was that was quoted or how it was misquoted. Note these are not the words of the person who posted the message. This message has been cut and pasted God knows how many times. Perhaps it was in reply to some other message that gave it some context. Perhaps there was a link to an article that described some form of censorship or editing to which the original author objected. Because it is a mindless cut-and-paste statement, we have no idea what the person is actually talking about.

While our Pledge of Allegiance, unfortunately, includes the words “under God” (which were added later by the way, and not part of the original text), and our money states “in God we trust” all of which is arguably unconstitutional, I don’t know anywhere that the phrase “Love of Christ” is routinely used in any otherwise arguably secular context. So we never know exactly what it is that this original author was objecting to. Exactly where, when, and how did this unnamed media horrifically edit out the words “Love of Christ”? We don’t know. The result is, that you cannot create any counterarguments to such a nonspecific claim. Nor can you agree with the claim should you choose to do so because the claim is so vague.

At one point in my life, I was seriously agnostic if not downright atheist so I understand the atheist perspective reasonably well. I’ve heard many speeches and seen videos of people who were radically atheists and who were offended by the promotion of religion. My favorite atheist is political comedian Bill Maher. As radically anti-religion as he is, I don’t think he reaches the level where he wants all religion purged from public discourse. He thinks that faith in a supernatural deity is irrationally ridiculous but the mere mention of God doesn’t particularly offend him.

For the most part, people who are opposed to religion typically believe that you can believe whatever you want to under two conditions. First, do no harm. Second, don’t try to impose your beliefs on anyone. Beyond that, you can believe whatever bat shit crazy things you want to believe.

This post is a typical expression of the concept that there is a war against religion going on in our country. While there are many people highly critical of religion as practiced today, the idea that there is a huge conspiracy that is anti-religious or anti-Christmas or anti-Easter or other such claims is based on extremely weak evidence. The war against faith is pretty much the creation of the religious right for whatever agenda they have God only knows. I suppose it’s because they know that they can feed on people’s fears.

There is a war against misinformation, denial of freedom, and against hypocrisy. When people of faith claim to be loving people who have concern for their fellow human beings but will espouse beliefs and policies that are harmful to others so as you do not respect their rights as human beings then we have a problem. If you do that in the name of religion, you’re going to get people bashing your religion. For me, I don’t care what your religious beliefs are. I care what you do to hurt other people in the name of religion.

One of the Ten Commandments says you should not use the name of the Lord in vain. While most people interpret that to mean a prohibition against swearing or using God as an expletive, for me it is always meant, “Don’t call yourself a Christian or a person of God and then behave otherwise.” Doing so harms the entire faith community and allows critics to say, “Well… if that’s what it means to be Christian or any other faith, then count me out.” Hypocrisy causes irreparable damage to the brand. There is no war against religion. There is a war against hypocrisy and the imposition of your will upon others in the name of religion.

Anyway, moving on what else does this crazy post have to say?

“I’m offended that the news media would edit it out.”

Yet again, we have no idea what the fuck they are talking about. Who edited what? It continues…

“Offended that Christians are being asked to tread lightly, so as not to offend someone of another religion.”

Now we get somewhere. We are drawing the line between us and them. It’s not about suppressing religion in general. It’s really about my religion versus your religion. The author is complaining about religious intolerance. I could agree with that. That’s the seductive thing about such a post. You could agree with just about every other line. Pride in the country. Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. Religious tolerance. All things I could be on board with.

But in between those agreeable things are getting vague accusations of unfounded atrocities. Next, we get a statement of Christian belief. If one is Christian, there is nothing particularly objectionable about the following paragraph.

“This man ‘Jesus,’ God with us!! He loved us, loved the world, and gave his life for the sins of all people. Those who ‘believe in Him, and accept Him as their personal Savior, will have everlasting life!!!’”

It’s a valid expression of Christian theology and belief. Unless you are so religiously intolerant that someone would say such a thing or hold such a belief then there isn’t much to object to. There is an implication that anyone who is not Christian but is of some other faith is damned to hell so I suppose that could be objectionable.

Personally, I happen to believe salvation does come from the sacrifice of Christ but it is open to even those who do not believe assuming they live a decent, moral life. I think a lot of Christians are going to be surprised at the number of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and atheists who end up in heaven. To a certain extent, the Catholic Church agrees with me stating in the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 846 and following, that decent people who, through no fault of their own, have not accepted the Gospel can be saved. I tend to interpret the phrase “through no fault of their own” quite loosely. If you are turned off by the hypocrisy of people of faith that’s not on you it’s on us. It’s our failure as a faith community to not accurately present the Gospel in a way that is attractive to others.

The phrase “accept Him as their personal Savior” is decidedly a Protestant phrase that a Catholic would be unlikely to use even though they believe in Jesus. We could get into a theological debate of faith versus works as a distinction between Protestant and Catholic theology. For our purposes, we will just say that it reveals a Protestant bias that could be considered anti-Catholic but only to the most sensitive person.

Now we come to a fun one. The post continues…

“This Founding Principle is actually embedded in our Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’”

Oh boy… Here we go. They have accurately quoted the Declaration of Independence. While it is one of our most cherished founding documents, it is not the Constitution nor is it a law. My issue with using this statement as an argument that we are a Christian nation or rather founded on Christian principles is I don’t see the word Jesus anywhere in that sentence.

What if you are Muslim and believe that you are created by Allah? What if you are Jewish and believe that you were created by Yahweh? Okay, Allah is simply the Arabic name for what others might call “God the Father” as is Yahweh the Hebrew name for that same deity. In Trinitarian Christian theology, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one. I have heard it argued that when Muslims worship Allah and Jews worship Yahweh they are unbeknownst to them worshiping Jesus because Yahweh, Allah, and God the Father are just different names the same thing, and Jesus is united with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It’s not a bad theological argument. Probably offensive to Muslims and Jews but I get their point.

So even if you are calling your “Creator” by a different name, you could be talking about the same thing but that does not equate to this being a uniquely Christian statement. I don’t have sufficient knowledge of other non-Abrahamic faiths to see how the word “Creator” could or could not tie into the Christian concept of God the Father.

But let’s look at atheists. Ask an atheist, “Who is your Creator? Or how were you created?” On a personal level, the obvious answer is their fuckin’ parents – literally. But if we’re going to talk about the creation of the human race as a whole, then you get into abiogenesis, evolution, natural selection, and a whole bunch other of science regarding the origin of all life.

Regardless of the atheists’ definition of Creator, from a strictly secular, nonreligious perspective the phrase “endowed by their Creator with… rights” simply means that as a human being these rights are birthrights. They are inherent in the human condition regardless of who or what created you by what means you were created. The word “inalienable” means that it is not a right of citizenship of a particular nation but it is a right that is inherent in all people.

So the supposition that our country was founded on the principle that we have inalienable birthrights does not in any way shape or form prove that we are a Christian nation or founded upon uniquely Christian principles. Quite the contrary, the concept of inalienable rights is decidedly non-religious. Even if you could argue that Thomas Jefferson who wrote the first draft of the Declaration, or the committee that edited his draft, or the Continental Congress who amended and ratified that document were primarily Christian that doesn’t make us necessarily founded on Christian principles. And then there is little question of how Christian was Thomas Jefferson considering that he owned slaves and fathered children by them. The same could be said about other of our founding fathers who were slaveholders, misogynists, and not exactly bastions of social justice for all particularly Native Americans. That’s a different issue we won’t explore.

I have no problem with one’s religious beliefs being the basis of their morality or the use of religious principles in guiding one’s politics given the caveats that I mentioned previously in that: 1) it doesn’t harm anyone and 2) you don’t force those beliefs upon anyone. However, there is a big difference between being guided by your faith and creating a Christian theocracy.

In the November 8, 2023, Republican presidential debate, candidate Tim Scott talked about the need to restore faith in God. He mentioned that Abraham Lincoln quoted Scripture when he said, “A house divided used itself cannot stand.” He noted that Ronald Reagan described America as “the city on the hill.” which was also scriptural. But these quotes were using scriptural phrases in a way that was more philosophical than theological. There isn’t anything uniquely Christian about the idea that internal division leads to destruction or that being an example to the world of how to live is an ideal to which we should aspire. I have no problem with either of those quotes.

Scott then went on to say and this is a direct quote…

“It’s restoring faith, restoring our Christian values that will help this nation once again become the ‘City on the Hill’. When Ronald Reagan talked about the ‘City on the Hill’, he was quoting Matthew 5. When Pres. Lincoln talked about ‘a house divided’ that was Mark. Our founding documents speak to the importance of a faith foundation.

“You don’t have to be a Christian for America to work for you but America does not work without a faith-filled Judeo-Christian foundation. I would be the president helps us restore faith in God, faith in each other, and faith in our future.

“Without that focus, none of the issues, the policies matter. We have to get back to being a nation that is in fact the city on the hill.”

In other words, I’m building a theocracy regardless of issues and policies. Heathens are welcome to live here but Christians rule. In this context, “city on the hill” doesn’t just mean a beacon of democracy or freedom… it means a Christian nation. It means a theocracy in which nonbelievers are tolerated yet marginalized.

Fortunately, Tim Scott dropped out of the race the day after that debate. Businessman candidate Vivek Ramaswamy also made strong statements about faith-based governance that were quite alarming. I’ve linked a video of the debate in the description and it is queued up to Senator Scott’s comments so you can see them in their complete context.

Let’s get back to our original post. In the same paragraph where they quoted the Declaration of Independence, they concluded…

“Why would the left lopsided media continue to edit this truth?!”

Sigh… We still don’t know what the fuck this entire rant is referring to. We now know it’s an alleged left-leaning media but that’s relative. Sure it could be MSNBC which is decidedly left. What about NBC itself or CNN which I would consider fairly centrist and reasonably unbiased? These days, there are extreme alt-right media outlets these days that are trying to outdo Fox News now that Fox is occasionally critical of Trump. Relative to those media sources and websites, Fox News could be considered left-lopsided. Again, we still don’t know what was edited that the author found objectionable.

Next comes the most insidious part of the whole thing. The thing that makes such a post viral. Let’s talk for a minute about the word “viral”. A virus is a nonliving biological entity that depends upon a host to reproduce it and pass it along. It infects the host and damages it in the process. I think the word “viral” is especially appropriate in describing such a post. We get a call to copy and paste the text verbatim. Specifically, it says…

“I hope every Christian or every person that believes in God who is NOT OFFENDED will copy this and paste this to their status.”

Okay, file that under, “That doesn’t mean what you think it means.” Or at least it’s vague which is par for the course in this post. If you believe in God you should repost. That’s simple enough but then it qualifies it by saying “Who is not offended”. It says specifically it should be reposted by “every person who believes in God who is not offended.” You mean you’re not offended by talking about God or you are not offended by the alleged censorship. It should say, “If you believe in God and ARE offended by censorship then repost.” Or at least I think that’s what they are trying to say. Who knows?

They then offer a quote from Ronald Reagan. I looked it up. He really did say this at an ecumenical prayer breakfast in Dallas Texas in 1984.

“If we ever forget that we’re one nation under GOD, then we will be a nation gone under.”

I’ve linked a YouTube video of the speech in the description. He makes a reasonably well-researched case for the idea that we were founded by people who believed in God and that these men considered faith to be inextricably tied to morality and thus essential to moral governing. He is very specific however not preferring one faith over another. This is an ecumenical gathering of people from a variety of faiths and not necessarily exclusively Christian. He quite correctly accuses people who are adamant about religious tolerance of being intolerant themselves. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything he had to say. He believed way back in 1984 that there was a war on religion. I still think it is a war against hypocrisy and against the imposition of beliefs on nonbelievers. I disagree with the idea that you cannot have morality without religion.

The author of the original post is so insistent that you repost this message verbatim that they give you explicit instructions on how to do so. It says…

“Before you say it, I already know that a lot of you will say I don’t know how to copy & paste. It’s easy… hold your finger on this post when the word copy appears, just touch it, then go to your home page and where it says ‘what’s on your mind’, touch it and hold your finger where you would start writing your comment and touch ‘paste’”.

Believe it or not, I have problems with that paragraph. It means that the author is specifically targeting people who are not technologically knowledgeable. It is exploiting people who are not tech-savvy and encouraging them to repost something without thinking about it too much. I don’t mean to imply that people who lack technical skills are necessarily ignorant or incapable of critical thought. I know some brilliant people who can’t operate a computer. But the converse might be true. If you are not skilled at critical thinking or logical arguments, it is more likely that you are not tech-savvy.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Chris Young rant if we didn’t bring disability into the argument somewhere, right? The instructions on how to repost specifically presume you are using a touchscreen device and not using Facebook via a webpage. If I were physically capable of doing so, putting my finger on the screen of a non-touchscreen device does me no good whatsoever. It doesn’t tell me how to cut and paste using a mouse and keyboard. Many disabled people can’t operate a touchscreen device so the assumption that you’re using one and that you’re capable of putting your finger on one is inherently ablest!

Okay, I can’t say that with a straight face. I’m being nitpicky and accusing people of ableism where there probably isn’t any. I’m usually critical of that. But if I’m going to attack someone for an ignorant post, I’m going to give it to them with everything I’ve got in my arsenal… including ableism.

There are alternative ways to repost a message. You can click on “Share” and it will be posted to your timeline. But there’s a problem with that. That means that your readers can see the original author. It means that a reader could go back to that author and challenge their assertions or their sources. It would allow you to ask the author “What the fuck are you talking about?” By suggesting that you should cut and paste the message rather than simply share a link, it insulates the author from such feedback or criticism and it makes it look more like these are your words, not someone else’s.

In fact, unlike some such cut-and-paste requests, this one doesn’t say “I copied this from a friend and you should too.” It implies that the person I’m reading was the original author and they are asking me to cut and paste. If the original author really believes what they wrote, they shouldn’t be afraid to sign their name to it. They could still ask, “If you agree with me, Joe Smith, then feel free to forward this or quote me and give me credit for my brilliant statement with which you agree.” But that is not what happens. They want to remain anonymous and coerce you into cutting and pasting and making the words your own.

The final sentence is…

“If we continue to do nothing as not to offend anyone else, we will eventually be offended out of the constitution and out of a country!”

Again, I’m not sure if that sentence is completely clear or if it means what they think it means. It gets a little bit caught up in double negatives and questionable grammar.

In general, I agree with the sentiment that people are too easily offended these days. I was raised on the proverb, “Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me.” An alternative version was, “Words can never hurt me.”

While I agree that words have power and that such power can do damage, in general, I think people are way too easily offended these days. If you lie about someone or try to discredit them or ruin their reputation or misrepresent their position in a way that is indeed harmful… that is something different. An excellent example of that is the election workers in Georgia who had their lives destroyed by lies that they rigged the election. Fortunately, a jury agreed that they had been harmed and awarded them $146 million in damages. But words that simply offend… such offense only has as much power as we allow it. If someone says something intended to offend me, I say, “Fuck ‘em. They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m not going to waste my energy on them.”

I have no problems with social media. I follow people on Twitter/X who keep me up-to-date on space exploration. I follow a few of my favorite race drivers in both IndyCar and NASCAR. I’ve never engaged in political discourse on Twitter. I follow news sources that I trust on Twitter. I’ve never gotten a single argument.

I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family around the world some of whom I’ve never met in person. Some who I’ve known for more than 50 years and I have been able to reconnect via Facebook when I thought they were lost to me. I belong to nearly a dozen disability-related groups where I interact with other disabled people and we support one another with information and encouragement. I belong to four Facebook groups related to assistive technology. I take an online writing seminar and interact with other writers through Facebook. I belong to a Facebook group about science fiction where we engage in civil and thoughtful discussion about the genre. I subscribe to over 100 YouTube channels that provide me with information and entertainment.

Social media is what you make of it. You don’t have to engage in rancid arguments. You don’t have to be friends with anyone whose opinions you find abhorrent. There are mechanisms to block people that you don’t care to read.

Social media is blamed for being a venue for hate speech and incitement to violence. Would you blame the mailman for delivering such things in the mail? Would you blame the street corner if someone stood there and shouted such things? People say that social media has a responsibility to police its content. It is estimated that there are 2.9 billion active Facebook users. That is 36.7% of the population of Earth. It is physically impossible to monitor all of that content.

Who do you want to decide what is or is not acceptable? Zuckerberg? Musk? Trump? Besos? I refuse to hold social media companies accountable for the content that they don’t create. But you say, “They created the algorithms that promote such horrible speech.” But what drives the algorithms? You do. The algorithms are designed to give you the content that you have demonstrated you want to see. Does that reinforce the fact that many people live inside a bubble and are not open to alternate opinions? Yes, it does. But they choose to live in those bubbles. They choose to get their news from only one source. They choose to reject any criticism of their preconceived notions. They refuse to engage in critical thinking or are incapable of doing so. I have my favorite news sources but I don’t believe everything they say. I insist that they back up their claims and make reasoned, logical arguments. It’s not Facebook’s fault that some people don’t do that. I have my favorite politicians whose views closely match my own but I’m not afraid of speaking out when I disagree with them.

If you agree with me don’t cut-and-paste the transcript from this podcast. Share the link. Give me both the credit and the blame for what I wrote. Include comments on the parts that you agree or disagree with. Include a reasoned argument about where I’m wrong. Post links to your source information. Engage in civil discourse and critical thinking. Don’t take my word for anything. Think for yourself.

Haha… That reminds me of this scene from Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian”.

– – – – – – – –

Brian: No, no. Please. Please, please listen. I’ve got one or two things to say.

Crowd (in perfect unison during each sentence in the scene): Tell us! Tell us both of them!

Brian: Look, you’ve got it all wrong. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody. You’ve got to think for yourselves. You are all individuals.

Crowd in unison: Yes, we are all individuals!

Brian: You are all different.

Crowd in unison: Yes, we are all different!

Loan man in the crowd: I’m not.

Other man: Shhh.

Brian: You’ve all got to work in for yourselves.

Crowd in unison: Yes, we’ve got to work it out for ourselves!

Brian: Exactly.

Crowd in unison: Tell us more!

Brian: No! That’s the point! Don’t let anyone tell you what to do!

– – – –

Your creator, natural or supernatural, gave you a brain. Use it. You are capable of reason. You are capable of discerning truth from lies. And respect those who do the same. Speak out against hypocrisy and lies. Respect people of faith whether you have no faith or have a different faith. That is the American way.

As always, I like I say after one of my rants…

“Hey, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.”

Next week we return to our regularly scheduled podcasts.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

Many thanks to my financial supporters. I can’t tell you how much it means to me but it shows how much you care. That means more than I could ever express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience.

Don’t cut and paste! Share the link. Blame me for my message. Don’t take it as your own.

I just want more people to be able to hear my stories in my opinions.

All of my back episodes are available and I encourage you to check them out. Please leave comments, criticisms, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you find this podcast.

I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe everyone.

Contemplating Life – Episode 48 – “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”

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This week we continue my nostalgic look back at my college days. We talk about my third semester at the downtown campus where I met a woman who was the first able-bodied woman I ever dated.

Links of Interest

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
YouTube playlist of this and all other episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFRYfZfNjHL8bFCmGDOBvEiRbzUiiHpq

YouTube Version

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 48 of Contemplating Life.

This week we continue my nostalgic look back at my college days especially my third semester at IUPUI and the first woman I ever dated who wasn’t in a wheelchair.

We left last week’s episode on a bit of a cliffhanger telling you about meeting a woman who was the first able woman I ever dated, the first person in college I dated, and a relationship that lasted for decades. If you haven’t seen that episode I suggest you go back and see it first. There are some things that I set up there that pay off in this episode.

I mentioned that we met in the Hideaway Cafeteria in the basement of the Blake Street Library. I would journey there every day after sociology class. I had no trouble getting someone to open the front door to the library or pushing the button on the elevator to get to the basement. The Hideaway was a real cafeteria with cafeteria trays in a food service line offering a variety of choices at a decent price. This was unlike the 38th St. K-building lunchroom with nothing but vending machines. I didn’t seem to have any difficulty finding someone who would grab a tray for me and walk through the line with me.

I think it was about the second or third week of the semester when I was assisted by a rather short full-figured woman with long black hair. Most people just carried the tray to a table for me and then went on their way. She offered to sit down with me for lunch and explained that we were in sociology class together. There were over 30 people in the class and I hadn’t noticed her. Of course, I wore the same color wheelchair every day so I was quite familiar to her.

I learned that her name was Ella Vinci (as in Leonardo da) but she went by Ellie. She was a couple of years older than me. Reasonably attractive but not as hot as some women Himat the downtown campus. From that day forward we had lunch together almost every day.

She was very outgoing and quite kind to me. We would have long discussions about the topics in our Social Problems class. She was quite liberal politically and a crusader for social justice and women’s rights issues. Being of Sicilian descent she was also Roman Catholic. Although I was drifting away from the church at the time, I had not yet left the Catholic Church. So I considered her faith a plus.

As a psychology major, it was obvious she cared about people and was very sensitive towards their feelings. In her spare time, she volunteered to answer a suicide prevention hotline. By helping me with my lunch tray each day, she made sure I got fries with that. It took everything I had not to jump to the conclusion that she was “the one” I’d been waiting for.

I can’t say that I actually fell in love with her but I was quite attracted to her I certainly felt that the relationship was off to a great start and had lots of potential.

Soon after we started hanging out for lunch, we were joined by another of our sociology classmates – a guy named Bill. I don’t recall his last name. He was a tall lanky fellow who was extremely socially awkward. He revealed that he struggled with epilepsy which he kept mostly under control with medication. Because of his condition, he couldn’t get a driver’s license. He talked about how difficult that was during high school. Nobody wants to date a guy who can’t drive and who has the potential to fall down in fits of convulsions at any moment. Naturally, he was teased and bullied throughout his life for his condition. I could commiserate with him about the inability to drive and the adverse effect it had on my high school social life.

One day when Bill wasn’t around, Ellie sat down with me visibly troubled. “I’ve got to talk to you about Bill. I don’t know what to do. He wants me to meet his parents.”

“Do you mean like just introduce you as ‘my friend from school’ or ‘MEET the Parents?’”

“He means ‘meet the parents’ as in he wants to introduce them to his future wife.”

She went on to explain that the entire extent of their relationship outside our usual three-person lunch date was that one day when it was raining, she took him home to his apartment rather than having him wait on the bus in the rain. They ordered some pizza and either watched TV or put on some music I don’t recall. They sat next to each other on his sofa and at one point he put his arm around her and tried to grab her breast. She rejected the advance and he apologized. From that lone encounter and our shared lunches, he was already making wedding plans.

I listened attentively and tried not to show what I was feeling inside. A single sentence was screaming inside my head. That sentence was the proverbial, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

When she concluded her story and asked my advice I began explaining to her that Bill’s epilepsy was a disability. The social effects of it were not significantly different from what I had experienced. I explained to her that it takes willpower and ambition to believe that you are lovable. You operate under the assumption that if anyone was going to take you seriously as a boyfriend it would be a very rare thing. So there is pressure to make the absolute most out of even the smallest opportunity.

I don’t think I had yet thought of the joke about falling in love because the girl at McDonald’s asked if you wanted fries but I explained the dynamics behind such a situation. I told her that she was probably the first girl in his entire life who had ever shown him ANY kindness whatsoever. And so he had to jump at the situation full force and push it to extreme expectations.

The entire time I was “speculating” about what was going on inside his head, I was in fact talking about myself. I just kept thinking over and over again how terrifyingly close I had been to making a fool of myself the way he had.

Let me be clear. I hadn’t yet fallen in love with her. However, I was actively pursuing a course of action in which I sincerely hoped that someday she would meet my parents in that way. So although I had been keeping a level head and an appropriate perspective about my relationship with Ellie, the similarities to Bill terrified me.

She was amazed at the depth of insight that I had into his personality and she better understood what had happened. She had no idea that those insights were mostly based on my own feelings.

After our conversation, she spoke to Bill and made it clear to him she had zero interest. I don’t think the three of us were together again after that. I did see him once one-on-one and he explained he felt he had failed with Ellie because he had tried to put moves on her on his first date. I didn’t bother explaining to him that it wasn’t a date and furthermore, his issues went beyond that. If he wanted to believe that version of events, I wasn’t going to try to dissuade him from it.

Ellie later heard that Bill had a girlfriend. This one didn’t hesitate to take him to bed or so he claimed. The troubling thing was, that his new girlfriend was some sort of religious fanatic who didn’t believe in medicine and was persuading him to stop taking his anti-epilepsy drugs. That really concerned us both because, despite the issues, we liked the guy. We never learned what happened after that.

The consequence of this entire situation was it sealed my friendship with her. We grew much closer and eventually, I found the courage to ask her on a date. We went out at least three times and I think we got together at my house on at least one other occasion or I may just remember things we did after a date. We are talking about events 49 years ago.

Our first date was for dinner and we saw the movie “Jaws”. She had seen it before but wanted to see it again. The only time I was really scared during the movie was when Richard Dreyfus was inspecting the abandoned boat underwater and looked into the hole in the side of the boat. A dead guy’s head pops out of the hole with his eyeball hanging out. I flinched along with the entire audience but even more so because at that instant, she grabbed my arm. I said, “You did that just to scare me. You’ve seen the movie before. You knew what was going to happen.” She insisted that even though she knew what was coming, it made her jump, and grabbing me was a reflex. Yeah really.

We also went to dinner and then saw the movie version of the rock opera “Tommy” by the Who. Unfortunately, I had some bad chicken at dinner and was a bit nauseous by the end of the movie so we didn’t hang out long afterward.

We also went to see “The Godfather Part 2”. She said it was about her people because she was from a Sicilian background. Not that she had any mob connections. She was shocked at the scene when Kay told Michael that she didn’t have a miscarriage but it was an abortion. She said that was huge. Being Catholic myself and my mother being staunchly pro-life I knew actually what she meant but Ellie seemed to be especially affected by the scene.

I have distinct memories of sitting with her in my room listening to records. We speculated about the meaning of the lyrics to “Still… You Turn Me On” from the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer album “Brain Salad Surgery.” What did it mean when he said “Someone get me a ladder?” She thought perhaps, “so I can reach you.” I thought it was an interesting insight I never forgot.

Our most memorable date was when she invited me to my first hockey game. It was an Indianapolis Racers game at Market Square Arena. Now, I’ve already told you what a sweet and sensitive woman she was. But I have not said that she was soft-spoken as well. We had a very gentle personality. Except at a hockey game. At a hockey game, an entirely different personality emerged. It was quite common for a fistfight to break out at such a game. This was in the days before helmets were mandatory so the fights were particularly nasty. It was a minor league team though it seemed they allowed the fights to go on a little longer than perhaps the NHL would today. There’s an old joke, I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. This was one of those games. She would scream and yell and cheer at the fights. She would also yell at the referees and didn’t hesitate to hurl expletives. I looked at her like, “Okay, who are you and what did you do with Ellie?”

I have often described her as the woman who taught me a deep appreciation of violence on ice.

She didn’t make it easy for me to keep my perspective on our relationship. At one point, she took a vacation to Puerto Rico with a girlfriend or a relative I don’t recall which. When she returned home she went on and on about how beautiful it was and speculated perhaps someday we would go there together. She seemed completely oblivious to the challenges that would involve. It’s one thing to accept me without regard to my disability but it was quite another thing to act as though there were no real obstacles between us. The statement was so unrealistic it was painful for me. I could have interpreted it to mean she would do absolutely anything necessary for us to be together. But fortunately, I recognized it for what it was. She really had no realistic concept of what day-to-day life would be with me under normal circumstances let alone taking an exotic vacation together.

I told my dad about the conversation and he was concerned I was developing unrealistic expectations. He said that I needed to keep my perspective. He said, “You can have a really nice time with her but you have to understand the challenges you face in a relationship.” I explained to him quite the contrary that I was not getting carried away because I was realizing how unrealistic she was about what life would be like with me. She was one who wasn’t keeping perspective. I went on to explain the struggle I faced because finding anyone who would take ANY interest in me would be extremely rare. I tried to explain to him the pressure I felt to make the very best of every opportunity because I didn’t think I would get a lot of chances. He then quoted the old adage, “Girls are like streetcars. If you miss one, another one comes along in a few minutes.”

“But dad… There are no more streetcars.”

“Okay, smart ass… Then buses. It’s just an old expression.”

“An expression I’ve heard before. But ask yourself, how many of those streetcars or buses are wheelchair accessible? That’s pretty rare. I feel like I have to catch every accessible bus I can. It’s just that this bus driver thinks she can take me to Puerto Rico and I know she can’t.”

When I said, “How many of the buses are wheelchair accessible?” Dad then understood what I was saying.

She brought me a souvenir from Puerto Rico – a small brown handmade bud vase. She had placed in the vase a small sprig of artificial Lily of the Valley flowers she had doused with her favorite perfume. I swear I could still smell that perfume on the plastic flowers years later. I don’t know what it was but it was distinctly her. I recall one day going into the library waiting on the elevator and I thought I smelled her perfume. I looked around the room and she was sitting at a table several feet away.

When I returned to the 38th St. campus for my fourth semester, we didn’t see much of each other anymore. I would occasionally see her downtown and I think she took one class at 38th St. We remained friends but didn’t go out anymore and didn’t see much of one another.

In 1976, Ellie took a bus trip to New Hampshire to campaign door-to-door for Indiana Senator Birch Bayh in his bid for the Democratic nomination for President. He was one of the most liberal politicians Indiana has ever seen. He was known for his work for equal rights, the ERA, the author of Title IX, and a whole host of other liberal causes. I encourage you to read the linked Wikipedia article about him. After finishing third in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts he dropped out of the race. Jimmy Carter became the Democrat nominee and the 39th president. Bayh continued to be an influential senator until he was defeated in 1980 by Dan Quayle who benefited from the Republican landslide that year.

On that trip to New Hampshire, Ellie met a guy, fell in love, and they were married. I was invited to the wedding and attended. At the reception afterward, she gave me a big hug and gave me a small sprig of the lily of the valley flowers from her wedding bouquet. I took it home and put it in the vase with the plastic flowers. It sat on a bookshelf in my bedroom for decades. I’m not sure what happened to it. It’s not there now.

She obtained a Master’s degree and went to work as a family counselor for an organization called Catholic Charities. She and her husband were extremely active in the church. I think perhaps they had become members of a secular Franciscan order. I think she had at least one perhaps two daughters.

I ran into her once or twice at archdiocesan events and we occasionally spoke by phone. Many years after we were in college together, I took the opportunity to tell her why I had so much insight into what Bill was feeling. I confessed it was because, to a much lesser degree, I was not different from him. I said I was grateful that I had not gotten out of control as had Bill. And I was grateful for the years of friendship that we had because I had been able to keep a proper perspective. I never did tell her how upset I had been when she suggested we could run off to Puerto Rico for a vacation together. It’s

One time I called her for advice when a friend of mine needed a family lawyer for a custody issue. I thought perhaps having worked in family counseling she could recommend someone. It was then that I learned she was divorced. That really surprised me considering how devoutly Catholic she was and how difficult it is to be a divorced Catholic.

Seven years ago just as I was recovering from getting my trach installed I discovered her on Facebook. She had just returned from a vacation in Rome with her daughters. We resumed our friendship online but she had radically changed since I had seen her last.

You won’t believe this but now she was a Trump supporter.

That’s why I want you to read the Wikipedia article about Senator Bayh. You could not find two people at farther opposite ends of the political spectrum than those two. I can only speculate that her staunch Catholicism led her to be radically antiabortion and thus Republican despite the conservative positions that were diametrically opposed to all of the social justice and feminist issues she supported in her college days.

I treated her kindly online and we reminisced about the good old days but I completely avoided any political discussions with her. I knew we could never be really close again. It’s not that I couldn’t love a conservative. But I can’t respect anyone who supports irrationality like a Trump supporter. I’m guessing it was about halfway through the Trump administration that she announced she was quitting Facebook. She couldn’t handle the toxicity. Perhaps she couldn’t deal with the reality that Trump was such an irrational, misguided, narcissistic, incompetent idiot. I don’t know.

She certainly wasn’t the woman I knew in college and I miss her, the original her, very much.

I had wasted my relationship with Rosie throughout high school because I constantly lamented that it wasn’t a romance and I never appreciated Rosie’s friendship the way I should have until it was too late. That lesson bore fruit in my relationship with Ellie in that I could enjoy our friendship even though it wasn’t a romance. And thanks to that sad guy Bill, I avoided making a fool of myself by pushing too hard to try to make something happen that wasn’t there. I learned not just to allow the friendship to happen but to be fulfilled completely by that friendship rather than seeing it solely as a stepping stone to something else. It was a lesson that served me well in every other relationship I’ve had with women for the rest of my life.

At age 68, with little or no social life beyond online friends, my chances of finding romance are smaller than ever. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up. I still see and enjoy friendships with women and cherish what I have while keeping my perspective on the difficulties that would be involved in a relationship.

As mentioned previously, I’m going to take a break for a few weeks to catch up on some other projects. In early January I will return with a political rant about Facebook and other social media. Then we will resume my look back at my college days. Look for Oscar movie reviews in February and March and then we will probably explore the first job I ever had.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

Many thanks to my financial supporters. Your support pays for the writing seminar I attend and other things. But most of all it shows how much you care and appreciate what I’m doing. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you find this podcast.

I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Contemplating Life – Episode 47 – “Uptown Girls vs Downtown Girls”

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This week we continue my nostalgic look back at my college days specifically my third semester at IUPUI in which most of my classes were at the downtown campus which had notably better wheelchair accessibility and girl-watching opportunities.

Links of Interest

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
YouTube playlist of this and all other episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFRYfZfNjHL8bFCmGDOBvEiRbzUiiHpq

YouTube Version

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 47 of Contemplating Life.

This week we continue my nostalgic look back at my college days especially my third semester at IUPUI spent primarily at the downtown campus.

Before we get into this week’s episode I need to do some housekeeping. I planned to do one or two more episodes and then take a few weeks off for the holidays. I also have some assistive technology projects I want to work on and I just need to put my head down and pour myself into those projects for several days at a time. That doesn’t leave me time to write, research, proofread, rewrite, polish, record, edit, rerecord, re-edit, and upload a new episode every week. So I really need to take a break to work on other things.

When I finished this episode, it was almost twice my normal length. I went back and forth several times trying to decide if I should do it all at once or split it. Ultimately, I decided to split it and I added an extra couple of anecdotes to the first half to flesh it out.

By having two episodes already written, that will give me a further break. This episode is a bit of back story for next week’s episode which is a really good one. But I think you will also find a laugh or two this week. After next week, I will be taking a break until the first of the year. I will also be doing my annual Oscar movie reviews sometime in February or early March.

So… Let’s move along with today’s episode

For my third semester, I was stuck yet again without a computer programming course I could take so I decided to primarily focus on the downtown campus where I could pick up several liberal arts requirements and get them out of the way. I still took a calculus class in the evening at the 38th St. campus but everything else was downtown during the day.

The girl-watching at the downtown campus was far superior to that at the 38th Street campus. There was a joke that IU students told about Purdue. I think it was equally applicable between the two campuses in which downtown was mostly IU and 38th St. was mostly Purdue.

Question: “What do you call a good-looking woman at Purdue?”

Answer: “A visitor.”

Sadly the stereotype was based on reality. Purdue is an engineering and science school and its 38th St. campus was occupied by few women and the majority more closely resembled Amy Farrah Fowler than they did Penny Hofstadter. And the opposite was true of the downtown campus. Trivia question… What was Penny’s maiden name in “The Big Bang Theory” TV show? Answer at the end of the episode.

There was one particularly strange and unattractive gal in my physics class named Kat with a “K”. She always dressed quite bizarrely in lots of scarves and ponchos with dangling fringe. One day she sashayed by me as she entered the class and the fringe on her poncho got tangled up in the joystick on my wheelchair. The chair took off across the room and I crashed into a table at the front of the classroom.

I’m quite embarrassed to admit we said some very nasty things about her looks. Someone suggested she was so ugly… How ugly was she… That she shouldn’t have been named Kat – she should have been named dog. From that day forward she was referred to as Kat the Dog.

Even in those days at the horny young age of 19, I wasn’t so shallow that I felt that looks were everything. There were simply more women downtown in the liberal arts programs and especially nursing programs than there were in computers, science, and engineering programs at 38th St.

That’s not to say that there were no attractive women at 38th St. I had a lab partner in physics who was pretty easy on the eyes even though she was a little bit of a nerd. There was a guy who was a teaching assistant who came up to her and asked her out for coffee right in the middle of physics lab. She politely turned him down. One of the other girls in the class witnessed it and asked us, “Who was that guy?” We explained he was a teaching assistant. The other girl asked, “What does he do?” My lab partner who was the target of his advances replied, “Apparently anyone he can get his hands on.”Him

As for me, after chasing my first true love Rosie through junior high and high school as well as taking a freshman girl named Cheryl to the senior prom, I had sworn off dating any more women in wheelchairs. I concluded that the combination of 2 disabilities would make a long-term, happily ever after, relationship prohibitively difficult.

There were several smart, attractive women in wheelchairs at IUPUI and although I was friendly with them I never pursued a relationship with any of them. My friend Mike whom I spoke of last week dated a gal for several months who was the most attractive disabled gal I ever met.

I held out hope that once someone got to know me, I might have a chance at romance with an able woman. I knew that such a person would be very rare so I wouldn’t have the opportunity to… I guess you would say… shop around. A nursing student theoretically might offer a better chance at success. I think I was buying into that cliché that one of my Northwest High School classmates had proposed about wounded veterans falling in love with their nurses.

I had the attitude that if anyone showed any interest in me at all, I had to try to make the very best of the friendship in hopes that it might grow into something more. I had learned from my experience with Rosie not to discount the value of being “just friends”. So in the worst-case scenario, I would have good friendships with women and under the best-case scenario, one of those friendships would grow into something more.

The combination of my inexperience with the fairer sex and my desire to find a significant relationship tended to make me sense clues or signals that were not particularly real. I had to fight the urge to fall in love way too easily. Looking back on the situation years later I joked, “If I went into McDonald’s and a good-looking girl behind the counter said, ‘Do you want fries with that?’ I had to resist the temptation not to fall in love saying, ‘She must love me. She’s worried I’m not getting enough fries in my diet.’” Okay, it wasn’t quite that bad… But it’s closer than I’d like to admit.

Let’s talk about the downtown campus facilities. I previously described how difficult it was to get around the 38th St. campus but it was much easier at the downtown campus. In those days it consisted of just three buildings all of which were completed in 1971 when I was in high school. I’ve included various photos of these buildings in the YouTube version of the podcast and there is a campus map linked in the description.

First, we have Cavanaugh Hall, located just south of W. Michigan St. on University Boulevard, a five-story building that is the heart of the campus. It was the first academic building on the official IUPUI campus. It is named for Robert E. Cavanaugh, the former dean of IUPUI’s Indianapolis predecessor, the IU Extension Campus. It housed classrooms, department offices, and the campus bookstore.

Although there were four steps at the main entrance, off to each side there were standard code-compliant wheelchair ramps. Two publicly available elevators connected the five floors and the basement so there was no problem with getting around the building in a wheelchair. You didn’t need keys to use the elevators and there were plenty of people who could push buttons for you.

A few hundred feet southeast of Cavanaugh across a courtyard was a building known as the Blake Street Library. In the basement of the building was a cafeteria known as “The Hideaway.” The building is now known as Taylor Hall named after Joseph T. Taylor first Dean of the School of Arts but I don’t know when the name was changed. Blake Street no longer runs south of Michigan Street since the construction of the Business/SPEA building in 1981.

In 1994, a new University Library building was constructed east of that location. The Hideaway Cafeteria was closed in 2008 when the Campus Center was opened just west of Cavanaugh. The campus center is connected to Cavanaugh by a second-story enclosed bridge over University Boulevard. It houses food service, a bookstore, recreational facilities, and other student services.

The third and final building available when I was there was the Lecture Hall located across a courtyard due south of Cavanaugh. It contains four or five amphitheater-style classrooms of varying sizes positioned together in the center of the building like wedges of a pie. An outer concourse surrounds the entire cluster. Several ground-level entrances are completely accessible. No need for a ramp.

I would sit at the top row of the seating area with the stadium seating extending below me. The swivel seats were fastened to the floor in front of a small rail table that extended the length of the row. On the aisle, I could get up close enough to set a notebook on the table. I rarely if ever took notes but I needed something to write on during written tests. Photos of the facility today I found online have more modern theater seating with an armrest table that folds up. So I don’t have anything to show you how it looked in the early 70s.

A fourth building was constructed downtown while I was there but I never had any classes in it. It was originally called the “Science, Engineering, and Technology Building“ with the idea that all of the 38th Street programs would move into that building. By the time it was completed in 1975, the name was shortened to “Engineering and Technology.” The final move from 38th St. to downtown wasn’t completed until the early 90s.

My transcript reveals I took “Integral Calculus & Analytical Geometry 2 MATH 164” which I’m certain was at the 38th St. campus in the evenings. Downtown, in the morning I had “Sociology S163 Social Problems” in the Lecture Hall. I then went to lunch every day in the Hideaway Cafeteria. We already discussed my third-semester French class a few episodes ago. I also had “Psychology as a Social Science PSY B104”.

There was a companion course I took in my fourth semester “Psychology as a Biological Science PSY B105.” I didn’t care for the biology class much. We had to memorize lots of brain anatomy and physiology and I’m just not big on memorization. The only interesting thing that happened in that psych biology class was the instructor discovered he could create his handout materials printed on computer paper cheaper than he could with a copy machine. He would go to a computer terminal, and type his handouts using a primitive text editor called TECO. That was an acronym for Text Editor and Corrector. It was designed more for computer programming than general word processing. Remember this is the early 70s and there are no desktop computers or word-processing software. Anyway, he could print out as many copies as he wanted and the University only charged his account one penny per page. In contrast, he could type on a typewriter, use whiteout to correct mistakes, and take it to the copy room where they would charge him 10 cents per page. The end result was, that all of our class notes were in all uppercase printed on green bar computer paper. I got a “B” in the course.

I enjoyed the psychology as a social science class more. On the first day, the teacher wanted us to get acquainted with one another and had everyone introduce themselves to the people next to them. She said, “Try to remember them and don’t go by what they’re wearing because tomorrow they will be wearing something different.” I chimed in, “Yeah I’m sure if I came in tomorrow in a blue wheelchair instead of a red one people wouldn’t recognize me.” They didn’t know whether to laugh or not so when I laughed then they did.

The teacher told one of my favorite stories I heard in college. When she was an undergrad studying psychology, there were various research programs you could sign up for extra credit or to earn a few dollars. Normally they were boring things like watching for the light to turn from red to blue and pushing the button as quickly as you can. Then she saw one posted on the bulletin board that said “Psychology Majors Only.” She thought that might be more interesting so she signed up.

In the experiment, they showed her a series of drawings and you are supposed to describe what was going on. For example, a young boy was sitting on a park bench with his head down feeling sad. A man sat next to him patting him on the back.

She knew if she said that none of the other boys would play with him and his dad was consoling him, it meant that she had trouble relating to others and feared rejection. If she said the boy struck out playing baseball it meant she had a fear of failure. Other possible descriptions would reveal something about her relationship with her father. No matter what description she came up with for the scene, she knew what the psychological conclusion was going to be and she didn’t want to reveal anything about her personality. She finally picked what she thought was the least troublesome description of each scene.

When the experiment was over, they revealed to her its true purpose. They didn’t care what she wrote. They were videotaping her to study facial expressions during stress. They knew that if they gave the test to a psychology major they would do just what she did which is to second-guess and psychoanalyze every possible answer. The test was merely an instrument to induce stress. They showed her the videotape of herself and she made her sorts of weird facial expressions. She chewed on the pencil. She tapped on the table. She flipped her hair back repeatedly. They got plenty of stress-induced reactions out of her.

As I said, I enjoyed the class and was awarded an “A”. I didn’t realize at the time that years later I would be studying personality and psychology through a series of self-help seminars on the Enneagram Personality Typology. I’ll probably do a whole series on that in future episodes.

It was during the third semester that I befriended a psychology major but I didn’t meet her in psychology class. We were both in the sociology class I had before lunch but I didn’t meet her there either. We met Perhaps one fateful day in the Hideaway Cafeteria.

She was the first woman I ever dated who was not disabled. It resulted in a friendship that lasted for decades. The details of that story will have to wait for next week.

Oh… What about the trivia question? No one knows Penny’s maiden name. In 279 episodes from 2007 through 2019 they never revealed her name. See the link in the description for more details.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

Many thanks to my financial supporters. Your support pays for the writing seminar I attend and other things. But most of all it shows how much you care and appreciate what I’m doing. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you find this podcast.

I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Contemplating Life – Episode 46 – “My First Computers”

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This week we continue my nostalgic look back at my college days specifically my second semester at IUPUI and my first-ever programming class.

Links of Interest

https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
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YouTube Version

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 46 of Contemplating Life.

This week we continue my nostalgic look back at my college days specifically my second semester at IUPUI and my first-ever programming class. We’ll also recount the history of the first computers I ever used.

As reported in previous episodes, I can handle logic problems, story problems, geometry, trigonometry, and algebra with little difficulty. But if you give me a column of numbers, I can add it up three times and get three different answers. I attribute this problem to my beloved third-grade teacher Miss Holmes. She determined I was a gifted student and didn’t want to burden me with so-called “busywork” like mindless repetitive math and spelling drills. As a result, I’m terrible at basic arithmetic and I can’t spell the save my soul.

Given these academic shortcomings, getting into computers was natural for me because it required my logical thinking and I let the computer do the grunt work of arithmetic and years later things like spellchecking.

I thought I would trace my early history with computers from the beginning. Somewhere along the way I’m guessing about age 6 or 7, I was given a toy abacus. I believe it had about six or seven columns of beads. The lower portion had 5 beads in each column and above that were 2 beads. The lower beads were worth 1 each and the upper ones worth 5 each. When the lower section filled up to 5 then you would throw one of the upper beads. When both upper beads were thrown you would push them back and carry the one.

It didn’t take me very long to realize you really only needed 4 beads on the bottom and 1 bead at the top. Moving that fifth bead up and then only to immediately clearing it and pushing the 5-level bead was a wasted motion. Similarly having both 5 valued beads thrown only to reset them immediately and carry the one was a waste. I later learned that some abacuses are indeed built with only one upper bead and 4 lower beads.

I linked a couple of YouTube videos about abacus use. In one of them, a Chinese gentleman demonstrates a 2-5 Chinese abacus but you will notice he is only using four of the lower beads in one of the upper beads. I learned that the 1-4 style is Japanese and is called a soroban. I never knew what they were called I just played with it as a toy.

In high school, I took a bookkeeping class and we were allowed to use an adding machine but I didn’t have the physical strength to operate one. Of course, there were no pocket calculators in the early 1970s. I think the original pocket calculator the Bowmar Brain came out in my senior year of high school. It was a simple four-function calculator with a red LED display. It retailed for $240. One of my classmates in high school physics had one and we were all jealous.

In my high school senior physics class, I learned how to use a slide rule. That ability alone was enough to brand you as the ultimate nerd. All I would have needed was a pocket protector and a piece of tape holding together broken glasses to complete the picture. Fortunately, I didn’t have either of them.

My mom had a device that was a mechanical pocket-sized calculator called an Addiator. I have linked YouTube videos demonstrating one of these. The one I had was a little taller and narrower than the one in the video but it worked exactly the same. It was made out of metal perhaps aluminum or tin. It had several sliding pieces that you would slide up and down with a metal stylus. You would put the stylus in a notch corresponding to your number. If that notch was shiny silver you would drag it down. If it was tinted red, you would drag it up and over a hook to carry the one. There was a sliding lever at the top that you could pull out to reset all of the slides to zero. I barely had sufficient strength to operate it and if you didn’t get the stylus in the right hole and slide it as far as it was supposed to go, you wouldn’t get the right answer. If the stylus slipped out of the hole, you would get totally lost and have to start over. It didn’t help my bookkeeping grades very much because it was too hard to use.

The first digital computer I owned was a toy called DigiComp. It was mostly plastic with a few metal pieces. There were some springs that would wear out and I replaced them with rubber bands. I still have the device stashed away in a box in my room but I would have to do some restoration on it to get it working so I didn’t bother getting it out for this video. Fortunately, I found a YouTube video demonstrating it. As always, the link is in the description.

Essentially it was a programmable three-bit machine. It would teach you binary logic functions such as AND, OR, NOT, and XOR. You would program it by placing short half-inch or 1-inch lengths of plastic drinking straws onto little plastic pegs. There was a plastic tab hanging out the right side of the device and you would cycle it by pushing it in and out. It was labeled “the clock” and it stimulated one clock cycle of a CPU.

You could program it to do binary arithmetic but the most interesting thing it would do is it would count from zero through seven in binary and then recycle to zero. There were little 0/1 stickers placed on it that would appear in a little window as various pieces slid back and forth. The sliding pieces were appropriately called “flip-flops” because they flipped and flopped back and forth on each cycle of the clock. What I did not know until years later was that these were emulating an electronic circuit which is also called a flip-flop and is an essential component of computer electronics.

I already described my first encounter with a real computer when my friend Dennis carried the teletype machine downstairs at Northwest High School for me to log in to a Honeywell timesharing computer located in the Indianapolis Public Schools administration headquarters.

In recent episodes, we talked about tinkering around with the University’s DEC-System-10 computer via teletypes. However, my first programming class did not use that system. There were two other computers in the 38th St. computer center in the A-Building. The machine I used in my first programming class was an IBM System/360 Model 44. It was sold from 1965 through 1973. It was a specialized version of the IBM System/360 architecture especially designed for scientific computing, real-time computing, process control, and numerical control. I wasn’t aware it was such a strange variant. I just remember the model number and only learned of its specialized capabilities when researching this episode. I doubt that we ever used any of the advanced features.

We did not have direct access to the 360. You would type your programs on punch cards and put them in a deck. There were specialized cards already punched for you called JCL cards. That stood for “Job Control Language”. You would put a few JCL cards on the top of your deck, then the cards from your program that you had written, and then add a specialized card at the end to tell that you are done and what to do with it. You would wrap it in a rubber band and hand it to the computer operator through a window. I think you got some sort of a receipt with the job number on it so you could claim your output later. They would give you an estimate of how long you had to wait to get your output depending on how many jobs were in the queue ahead of you. You would come back in perhaps 30 minutes and they would hand you your output in the form of a double-wide green bar printout. They must’ve given you some sort of job number or something so you could claim your output but I don’t recall that exact mechanism.

You would unfold several pages of fan-folded computer printout only to find out that you made some small typographical error. You would have to re-punch that particular card and repeat the entire process.

Many of my listeners may have no idea what I mean by an IBM punch card. Let me tell you the history as I learned it with a little help from Wikipedia. It may not be 100% accurate.

1880 US Census took eight years to compile the data. Estimates were that would take as long as 12 years to compile the 1890 census at which point they would be two years behind at the time of the 1900 census. An inventor named Herman Hollerith who worked for the Census office came up with a system of recording data by punching holes in card stock. It was originally inspired by punchcards used in the Jacquard loom system for making fancy patterns in woven cloth.

Hollerith developed automatic machines that would count or sort cards depending on whether or not a whole was punched in a particular location. The census data was encoded in this manner. The original cards were the size of a dollar bill at the time because there was existing machinery available for handling paper that size. The 1890 census, although much larger than the previous, took only six years to tabulate using his machines.

He eventually formed a company called The Tabulating Machine Company. That company later merged with three other companies to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. In 1927 it was renamed International Business Machines or IBM.

The famous IBM cards used in early computers were first introduced in 1928 and quickly became the standard for all punchcard data processing. They used a smooth lightweight card stock 0.007 inches thick. They measured 7-3/8 inches by 3-1/4 inches. Vertically oriented rectangular holes could be punished in any of 12 rows by 80 columns. When we would type a computer program, each line of the program would be punished onto one card.

There were 2 types of keypunch machines the 026 and the newer 029 machines. I don’t recall the technical differences between the two. We had two or three of each of them and either one would serve our purposes. After looking at photos of the machines I found online, I remembered that I preferred 026 because its keyboard was on a short cable and you could move it around a bit. The 029 keyboard was not as flexible and harder for me to reach

The rows of holes were numbered with 12 at the top sometimes called the X row followed by 11 sometimes called the Y row followed by rows 0-9 with 9 at the bottom edge of the card. When you would load your deck of cards into a computer as we did with the IBM 1620, the rule was you put your deck face down, nine edge first. That phrase was drilled into our heads repeatedly.

I remember we had a humorous poem about a programmer who had to pull an all-night shift desperately trying to get the software to run before the deadline. All I remember of the poem was the final 2 lines…

He died of the console of hunger and thirst.

Was buried the next day, facedown, nine edge first.

I took three classes in my second semester. We already discussed my second-semester French class a couple of episodes ago. I also took ”Integral Calculus and Analytical Geometry MATH163”. It was my first calculus class I was awarded a “B”. I don’t remember much about it except that I never really understood calculus until I had to put it to use in physics class.

The programming class I took my second semester was called “Introduction to Algorithmic Proc” CSCI 220 and was taught by Dr. Larry Hunter. We learned fundamental programming techniques using the computer language FORTRAN IV which was very popular for science and engineering programming. We would write our programs in that language, punch them on cards, and run them on the 360.

I think Dr. Hunter had secret unfulfilled aspirations to be a standup comedian. He was a tall thin man whose mannerisms mirrored that of Johnny Carson during a Tonight Show monologue. He held his posture very straight with his shoulders back in one hand in his pocket. He would gesture with his right hand while lecturing. When he would turn to write on the blackboard it looked exactly like Carson turning to say something to Ed McMahon. There were plenty of jokes scattered throughout his lessons.

In addition to learning FORTRAN programming, part of the lesson was about how the hardware of a computer works. We studied the details of Boolean logic and how it was emulated using circuits in the computer. Complex layers of multiple Boolean operations are illustrated in something called a Karnaugh map. We learned how to create and read such maps.

He talked about how computer architecture was laid out. You can’t interconnect every piece of the computer to every other piece of the computer because it would be too complicated. Instead, computers used a system of parallel lines for transmitting data called a data bus. Each component would connect to the bus and communicate through it. He explained that the introduction of integrated circuits made this a necessity.

Knowing what a sense of humor he had, after class one day I told him I had come up with a pair of jokes based on his topics and told him he would be free to use them in future lectures.

I noted that some of having a data bus was necessary once computers were made out of integrated circuits instead of individual transistors. Could this be referred to as “busing to achieve integration?”

Okay for those of you too young to know, in the 1970s, district courts had ordered that children had to be bussed from predominantly white schools into predominantly black schools and vice versa to achieve racial diversity. That was busing to achieve integration

For my second joke, I wondered if Karnaugh maps would be on the final exam. If so, he was going to test our Karnaugh knowledge. If you don’t get that joke, I can’t help you.

He really liked both jokes. He said that we were getting away from using Karnaugh maps and he was considering dropping that section from the curriculum. But now that he had a good joke to go with it, he would have to keep it around a little longer.

He told both jokes in class a day or two later and gave me credit for writing them.

Can’t say that I learned a lot in that class that I couldn’t have taught myself from reading a book on FORTRAN. But that concept would be exploited in a later semester where the teacher would hand us the book and say, “Go teach yourself this course.” Much more on that situation in later episodes.

There was another computer in the A-Building that I did not use for press. It was an ancient IBM 1620. This machine was first introduced in 1959 and was popular throughout the early 60s. It was discontinued in 1970. You’ve probably seen one in old sci-fi movies. When they became obsolete, many were sold to Hollywood as props. They have a large array of blinking lights on the front console and lots of switches. It established in the 1960s media what a computer looked like to the common man. I’ve provided some photos in the YouTube version of this episode and articles linked in the description.

It was not a very powerful computer. The Fortran compiler on it was only for Fortran II and my class was using Fortran IV. We did spend some time learning the differences between the two versions of Fortran but we were never assigned any programs written in Fortran II.

The hardware used a strange format called Binary Coded Decimal. In computers today, a string of zeros and ones 32, 64, or more bits long using base two arithmetic. So for example a 32-bit memory location can store a number from 0-65535 or from -32757 to +32767. Floating-point numbers are stored in a binary format in scientific notation with the significant digits and the exponents stored separately.

The IBM 1620 used decimal arithmetic. It would use 4 bits of data to encode the numbers 0-9. Other combinations of bits were used as data separators or record separators. So in traditional computers, a 32-bit integer is limited to a maximum of 65535 but in BCD you can have a string of decimal digits as long as the entire computer memory. The length of a number was delimited by a data separator value. In theory, you could take two numbers each of which was a string of digits slightly less than half of the entire computer memory. Leave room for one instruction to add them together and it would do so.

Strangely, the computer could not do arithmetic. It would add digits by looking up the answer in a table. It also stored a multiplication table and would look up answers in that table rather than do the actual mathematics.

Because it was outdated and most people were using either the IBM 360 or the remotely located DEC-10. The machine didn’t get much use. Mostly we played around with it.

There was a program you could run on that machine that would put it into a tight loop of a particular duration. If you set an AM radio on the console and tuned it to a particular frequency, you would hear a buzzing noise. Someone had written a program to vary the frequency of that buzz and you could play music. They had several songs already programmed. There was no documentation available but I easily reverse-engineered the system they had for encoding the notes and I encoded a different song. I don’t recall what it was I think it might’ve been a Christmas Carol but I’m not sure.

Attached to the machine was a line printer that would print out your program for you or any other output. We had collections of decks that would print so-called ASCII art. That’s where you use different characters to vary the darkness of a particular square on the page. In some forms, you can overprint large characters to make them darker such as printing an “M” on top of an “X” or a “W” to make dark areas and use periods or commas to make light areas. We had all of the traditional computer images of the time including a Mona Lisa and a naked woman. See the links in the description for examples of ASCII art.

The only students who used this old 1620 for actual classwork were freshman engineering students taking “Engineering 109.” It was a course in FORTRAN II taught by an engineering professor who apparently didn’t know crap about how to teach programming. The computer science students like myself would get inundated with questions from the engineering students.

After living through this for several semesters, I developed a plan. At the start of a new semester, when one of these engineering students asked me a question, I told him, “Come back tomorrow at 2 PM and bring one or two of your classmates. I’m going to teach you computer programming. At the appointed time we found a corner of the computer center and in about 90 minutes I taught them the basics of FORTRAN programming. The universal reaction was, “Why the hell didn’t the professor just explain it that way?”

I told them they had to pay it forward. From now on they had to help other students in the class and leave the rest of us alone.

It worked beautifully. I did that for two or three of my last semesters.

Fast forward nearly 50 years later I met a young lady named Jenica who has the same disability as I have – Spinal Muscular Atrophy. I met her and her mother in a Facebook group on assistive technology. She taking electrical engineering classes at a Purdue extension campus in southern Indiana. They were teaching her C++ programming on Arduino microcontrollers the kind of which I use for developing assistive technology. She was struggling with the class. For me was déjà vu all over again. Here was an engineering student learning programming from an engineering professor who didn’t know how to teach the subject.

I spent perhaps three or four sessions with her via video chat on Facebook Messenger doing for her what I had done for those Engineering E109 students nearly 50 years ago. At one point, everything fell into place and she got it. Although I checked in with her several times, she insisted she now understood what she was doing and similarly, she was paying it forward by teaching the other students in the class.

Although it’s a bit off-topic, I have to tell you that Jenica is my hero because of a story she told me. In high school, she took an electronics course where she was the only girl among about 30 boys. When it came time to learn soldering, the teacher was concerned and asked her if she could handle a soldering iron. She said, “I got this” and had no difficulty. Meanwhile, there were boys in the class who were a bit squeamish about wielding a device that heats up to 400°. Her teacher pointed out that Jenica was having no difficulty with the device. They were embarrassed not only that they were being shown up by a girl but moreover a girl in a wheelchair. They had to grow a pair really quickly. I laughed so hard I cried and told her what is amazing person she is.

Back to my story… the next course in the curriculum was CSCI 300 Assembly Language Programming. The problem was, it is only offered in the spring semester I couldn’t take it in the fall during my third semester. That’s how they screwed me up by not allowing me to take CSCI 220 my first semester. It got me out of sync with the way the classes are offered.

I decided to primarily spend my time at the downtown campus picking up several liberal arts classes to fulfill those requirements. Next week we will talk about my third semester and the adventures I had at the downtown campus.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

Many thanks to my financial supporters. Your support pays for the writing seminar I attend and other things. But most of all it shows how much you care and appreciate what I’m doing. Your support means more to me than words can express.

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I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Contemplating Life – Episode 45 – “Earning a BS Degree”

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In this episode, I continue reminiscing about my college days at IUPUI. We pay tribute to one of my dearest college friends, the late great Mike Gregory.

Links of Interest

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
YouTube playlist of this and all other episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFRYfZfNjHL8bFCmGDOBvEiRbzUiiHpq

YouTube Version

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 45 of Contemplating Life.

This week we continue my series of reminiscences of my college days. Today’s topic is my dear late friend Mike Gregory.

If you had asked me a few weeks ago where and when I met Mike, I would have said it was in my physics classes because my fondest memories with him are from that class. My transcript says I didn’t take physics until my fourth semester.

According to my transcript, the first-semester class I have not yet described was “Principles of Sociology SOC S161”. One of the main sections of the course was describing how cities evolved. I distinctly remember Mike and I having a conversation with the professor about the 1972 sci-fi novel “The World Inside” by Robert Silverberg. The story is set in the year 2381. People live in 1000-story tall buildings 3 km high. Buildings are divided into separate cities over groups of floors and there is a sort of caste system in which the rich and powerful live on the upper floors and the lower classes live further down.

Mike and I had both been fans of the book and thought it explored some interesting concepts. We discussed those with the professor. For our purposes today, I just tell it because it verifies that I met Mike in that first-semester sociology class.

Mike had a huge personality. He was very outgoing and the kind of person that could easily be described as the life of the party. He had a big hearty laugh that could fill the room. Mike was a few years older than me. Out of high school, he did a few years of duty in the Navy and traveled the world. He was an avid photographer. One time we got together and he showed me slideshows of all the places he had been.

Mike was a consummate BS artist at his core. He loved telling a story about how he got to be a communications operator in the Navy. Military messages were transmitted by teletype between bases and even ships at sea. In order to qualify for the position in communications he had to take a typing test.

A teletype machine is basically an electric typewriter connected over phone lines. It used an ordinary typewriter ribbon. Rather than having hammers like a typewriter, there was a cylinder that would move up and down and spin around similar to the ball on the old IBM Selectric typewriter. You didn’t put individual sheets of paper into the machine. There was a continuous roll of paper mounted on the back that would feed into the machine. Typically it was very cheap paper that was sort of a cream-colored newsprint.

In order to pass the typing test, he had to be able to type 30 words per minute for an entire page with no more than two mistakes. That’s a pretty liberal standard. They gave them the text that they were going to type in advance so they could practice typing the exact words that would be on the test. He went into the room the night before the test, rolled a bunch of paper through the machine, and then carefully typed the assignment on the roll. He then rolled the paper backward onto the roll where it was hidden.

When it came time for the test, he rigged the typewriter ribbon so that it didn’t print. The instructor started the test and he began randomly banging on the keyboard. The print head moved across the page making lots of teletype noise and he had to hit the return at the end of the line. He wasn’t really typing anything but the bell would ring so he knew when to hit return. But it wasn’t printing anything. It was just making noise. When the test was over, he cranked the page up revealing his pre-typed assignment. He had deliberately included one mistake so that it wouldn’t look obvious. He passed the test. Of course, eventually had to learn to type well enough to do the job but he got his foot in the door for a noncombat position during the Vietnam War.

I previously spoke about the lunchroom at the K-building at the 38th St. campus. Mike was one of a group of about a dozen people who hung out together anytime we were not in class. A euchre game would start up sometime in the morning and would often last well past dinner. When you had to go to class, there was always someone there who would take your seat and the game would continue.

After playing for hours, someone would say, “I guess I better go do some homework or go to class.” Then after about 10 minutes, they would say, “Am I at class yet?”

“No, you are still sitting here playing cards,” we would reply. Eventually, we had to go to class or study but the euchre game was a tough place to get away from.

At one point, Mike and I developed signals to let each other know what suit we wanted to be called. If you put your knuckle down on the table, it meant you wanted clubs. I would tap my ring on the table for diamonds. I don’t recall what the other signals were. We finally got caught and had to discontinue the practice.

My fondest memories with Mike were in physics class. We were in at least three perhaps four physics classes together. I spoke previously in Episode 15 about Mike in those classes when I talked about my kindergarten girlfriend who had no arms. She grew up to have a very well-endowed chest and I talked about the principles of physics where normally when one walks you swing your arms to counterbalance your rotational energy from the swinging hips. Mike and I figured out that because she had no arms to swing, the rotational inertia was absorbed by her bouncy boobs. Mike referred to them as coupled harmonic oscillators– a term we used in physics class to describe two objects connected by a spring. I linked that episode in the description in case you missed it.

In one of our physics classes, the professor would call the role and take attendance every day. You would answer by telling him how many of the homework problems you had been able to work on the night before. Typically we had three or four problems. One day just before class began, I turned to Mike and asked, “How many problems were we supposed to do last night?”

“You didn’t do the homework?” he asked. “We had three problems.”

I replied, “I guess I must have gotten two of them right.” In the same way that he had deliberately made a mistake on his typing test so as not to raise suspicion, I didn’t want to brag saying I could do all three problems so I dialed that back one and claimed I had done two.

The professor must have decided to call the roll in reverse alphabetical order that day because I was the first one he asked. I proudly answered, “I got two of them right.”

“Very good Mr. Young,” and he continued to call the roll. Much to my surprise and distress, it seemed like the average answer among my classmates was only one problem, and several of them admitted they were unable to work any of the problems even though they had tried. Apparently, the homework that day was especially difficult.

He then chose one of the problems for someone to work in front of the class. When he called on me, I said, “That was the one I missed.”

Someone else went to the blackboard and worked the problem. When they finished, the professor turned to me and asked, “Do you understand it now Mr. Young?”

“Yes sir.”

Mike could hardly keep from laughing. He leaned over and whispered to me, “You know Chris, a few years when they hand you that diploma with the letters BS on it, you are really going to have earned it.”

“Hey… I learned to BS from the master Mr. I Can Type 30 Words Per Minute.”

Mike and I enjoyed nerdy physics humor. In order to understand these jokes, I need to dig into some pretty obscure physics principles. So bear with me.

In electromagnetic waves such as radio waves or light waves, the frequency of the energy is denoted by the Greek letter nu. The formula for computing frequency is c divided by lambda or more commonly read as c over lambda. In this formula “c” is the speed of light and lambda is the wavelength.

Whenever I would greet Mike I would ask, “What’s new?”

To which he would reply, “c over lambda.”

The other physics joke question we enjoyed was, “What’s a Joule per second?”

The answer is, “True”. The joke is that it’s not “What” W.H.A.T. rather it’s the unit of energy a “Watt” W.A.T.T. You have probably seen your electric bill measured in kilowatts. A “Watt” can be defined as one joule of energy per second. Literally, a watt is a joule per second.

Watt’s a joule per second… True.

This next one is even more obscure… so bear with me again. In mathematics, you cannot take the square root of a negative number. That is because when you multiply 2 negative numbers you always get a positive number and if you multiply two positive numbers you get a positive number. But mathematicians and engineers have found the need to deal with square roots of negatives so they invented an entirely new system of numbers appropriately called “imaginary numbers”. While mathematicians generally refer to the square root of -1 with the letter “i”, engineers and sometimes physicists use the letter “j”. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. If you take the square of that imaginary number whether you call it “i” or “j” the answer is -1. J squared is -1.

Mike seemed fascinated with the letter “j” in this context. Whenever someone was doing something the opposite of what would be expected, he referred to it as “j-squared” thinking or perhaps a “j-squared” way of doing things. The rest of us not so geeky inclined would just say something like he is doing it “bass akwards”. But for Mike, it was always “j squared” this or “j squared” that.

So… I told you that story so I can tell you this one.

One summer, Mike was visiting me and my family at our lakeside cabin in southern Indiana on Cordry Lake. We had a boat dock with an upper platform that was about 10 feet off the water. Those who dared enjoyed jumping off the upper level of the dock. That particular weekend, one of my sisters had a bunch of her friends visiting or it might have been friends from neighboring cabins, I don’t recall. They were all horsing around chasing each other around the upper dock platform and trying to push one another into the water. Occasionally, Mike would get into it, grab one of them, and toss them in the water.

I was sitting in the water in my floating lawn chair about 10 feet away from the dock enjoying the show. While Mike was sitting on the edge of the dock, one of the kids tried to sneak up behind him and dump him over the edge. Although the kid signaled me to keep quiet, I wasn’t going to cooperate. I said, “Oh Michael…” I never called him that. It was always Mike.

“Yes my good sir,” he replied mimicking my formality.

“J squared you,” I said.

Without turning around, he immediately reached behind him, grabbed the kid who was sneaking up on him, and tossed him in the water. The kid came out of the water looking at me wondering, “What the hell did you say that he knew to look behind him?”

Mike understood exactly what I was saying. In his own private parlance, j squared meant backward or behind. Saying, “J squared you” was code for “Look out behind you.” It’s not like we had this code prearranged. We would just talk to each other in geek speak and we knew what the other was saying.

Mike took a variety of jobs around campus to support himself. At one point, he was working in the basement with one of the physics professors as a lab assistant. They had built something I had never heard of. It was a gadget called Magnetic Resonance Imaging or an MRI machine. They were using it to scan lab animals. Mike told me that someday MRI machines would replace or at least supplement X-rays to help doctors look inside your body. I don’t know that the work they did produced any major breakthroughs but they were working on the technology way before it was the commonplace thing that it is today.

One day I was hanging out with him in the lab where he worked and he had just unpacked a bunch of supplies wrapped in bubble wrap. We all know how addictive it can be to pop bubble wrap. When you squeeze the bubbles in your hand they make a nice satisfying little popping sound. He had a strip of it about 8 inches wide and perhaps 6-8 feet long. I had him lay it out on the floor and aimed my wheelchair so that my left side wheels lined up perfectly with it. I took a running charge at it in my wheelchair. The heavy weight of my chair on the tile and concrete floor made a horrendous popping sound easily as loud as firecrackers. I got about 4 feet into the run and stopped quickly because it was making so much racket.

Then I had to figure out how to turn and get off of it sideways without making much more noise. We closed the door and I slowly maneuvered off of it trying to minimize the sound. We expected that people would come running any minute to see what the hell had happened. Or perhaps panic and call the police to report gunfire. Fortunately, in the early 70s, active shooters on college campuses were not a thing. Had we done it today, I’m sure it would’ve caused a panic. By the way, for four and a half years of attending IUPUI, I don’t think I ever saw any campus security. There might’ve been some at the downtown campus handing out parking tickets to people who didn’t have the proper stickers. I may have seen other officers but they were probably just Indianapolis police taking criminal justice classes and not actual school security.

Mike dropped out of IUPUI before completing his degree. I never knew if he ran out of money or if his grades weren’t good enough. He continued to work for a few months at some research institute that was housed in the A-Building on 38th St. It was mindless grunt work xeroxing the abstracts of scientific articles out of journals and then cutting them up and pasting them into notebooks. Of course, there were no searchable computer databases in those days for looking up articles.

Eventually, he found another job in Baltimore and moved there. His background in communication in the Navy landed him a job with NASA or one of its affiliate agencies. He would sit at a console and type commands to a satellite known as the High Energy Astronomy Observatory or HEAO. Scientists would bring him the coordinates of what they wanted to observe in the sky. He would prepare the commands to uplink to the satellite when it passed over a ground station approximately every 90 minutes. When the satellite would go over, he would initiate commands to download the previous data and then he would upload new commands.

That only took about 15 minutes coming and going. For the rest of the 90 minutes, he had nothing to do. He was able to make unlimited long-distance phone calls from the office so he would call me up and we would just talk for nearly an hour. Then he would say, “Well… I’ve got another satellite pass coming up. I’d better go.”

Eventually, we lost touch. Sometimes he would come back to Indy to visit family we would have a little reunion with him and a few other friends from IUPUI such as Rich, Kathy, and Frank.

At one visit, he told us he was being interviewed for a new government job in satellite communication. We wished him luck. A couple of weeks later, there was a knock at my door. A 40-something-year-old guy in a gray suit flipped open his ID to show me FBI credentials. He said he was doing a background check on a guy named Michael Leeland. Gregory. He wanted to know did we attend IUPUI together. He said he was just verifying his education and that Mike had used me as a reference. I told the guy a lot of nice things about Mike. I told him he was a standup guy and I trusted Mike with my life which was true. One day when the elevator went out in the K-Building, Mike, Rich, and a couple of other guys had to carry me down a flight and a half of stairs.

I mentioned to the FBI guy that I had just seen Mike a few weeks ago when he was in town. The man suspiciously replied, “Oh… I did not know he had been here “

Okay, that was creepy.

After he left, I called Mike to tell him about it. I said, “I never told him all the dirt I have on you such as certain typing tests you allegedly passed. I could have ruined your security clearance and said something like ‘Yeah, I knew Mike from our days in the chemistry lab making napalm for the local Communist Party’ Whoops, hey FBI… If you are wiretapping us, that was just a joke.“ We both laughed hard. Neither of us ever took chemistry.

Mike had used me as a reference when applying for the job but when I told him about the guy suspiciously saying, “I didn’t know he was here in Indy.” Mike was similarly suspicious. He wondered if the guy was legitimate. I certainly couldn’t tell from a brief look whether or not someone’s FBI credentials were real. Hell, I don’t know if I could tell if they were real from a long look. What the hell do I know about FBI credentials? Mike had just broken up with a girlfriend or a wife I forget which and he thought perhaps the guy might have been a private investigator hired by his ex to check up on him. We never did find out. Mike did get the job.

I don’t know if it was the particular job that this FBI agent was clearing him for but eventually, Mike moved to Florida working for a NASA contractor. He claimed that he had actually spent time crawling around in the lower deck and the nose of the space shuttle swapping out equipment. While Mike was indeed a BS artist and it would not have surprised me if he had fast-talked his way into such a job, I don’t believe he would have lied to me and exaggerated about that particular experience.

We lost touch for many years. He ended up back in the DC area married to a wonderful woman named Ravel. We reconnected several years ago via Facebook and exchanged regular emails and occasional video chat.

He was still an avid photographer and one year as a Christmas present he mailed out customized calendars featuring his own photographs. They were really amazing.

He also was an astronomy buff and had a very nice telescope. He was going to purchase an accessory case to hold lens filters. He discovered that the case he was going to purchase online was 3D printed. He asked if I could 3D print one for him. He sent me the dimensions and I was going to design and build it but then he got to thinking about all the other things he could do with a 3D printer and decided to get one himself. He first bought a cheap Chinese kit, put it together, and couldn’t get it to work. He gave it to a friend who eventually got it working. That kind of pissed him off. In the interim, he ordered an Ultamaker 3 which was about a $4000 3D printer at the time. I was jealous. I had a clunky old Printrbot at the time. I got him into the hobby and now he was running a better machine than I had.

I don’t know if he ever built that filter case but he got into another major 3D printed project. He built an open-source 3D-printed humanoid robot known as the InMoov robot. It consisted of a torso, two arms, and a head. It had cameras computer vision, sound, and pressure sensors. It would respond to spoken commands or commands sent via a webpage. He sent me a YouTube short of the robot where he asked it, “How do you feel?” The robot starts singing, “New York, New York” and it gestures with its arms in time with the music. I have included a link in the description.

When Mike and I first reconnected on Facebook, he was getting a new job working for the Navy writing technical documentation for some sort of Navy project. But after he got the job, he said they really didn’t have anything for him to do. I don’t know how long he stayed in that job but eventually quit because he had health problems.

Mike developed multiple myeloma brain tumors. It was kept under control for several years through medications. He would go in about every few weeks to get some sort of chemotherapy or medication that he said would make him half-goofy for several days. Of course, I replied, “Only half goofy as opposed to the totally goofy you normally are?”

“Okay, smart ass… Goofier than usual.”

We didn’t correspond a lot. It wasn’t unusual that we would not message each other for a couple of months at a time. He wasn’t an avid Facebook user.

I look back over the course of 2020 and 2021 I sent him several Facebook messenger messages saying, “I haven’t heard from you in a long time. I hope everything is okay.” They went unanswered which didn’t worry me too much because as I said, he didn’t use Facebook that much.

In July 2022 he still wasn’t answering messages. I found his wife on Facebook and sent her a private message asking about him. She replied, “Chris, I’m so sorry. I thought I had contacted you earlier. Mike passed away on January 3 (that would be 2022), after being in the hospital with pneumonia and C Difficile. He then came home to Hospice, and died at home. He fought the good fight, but the multiple myeloma was stronger.”

Interviewer James Lipton famously asked his guests, “If heaven exists, what would you say to God when you get there.” I will probably answer the Lipton questionnaire some other time but let me say today that if heaven exists, I know what I’m going to say to Mike. I will ask as always, “What’s new?” Presuming that the equations of physics still apply in heaven, I can’t wait to hear him answer, “c over lambda.”

For now, all I can do is quote Mr. Spock and say that Mike has been and always will be my friend. Rest in peace, my friend.

In the next week’s episode, I finally get to take a programming class in my second semester at IUPUI.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

Many thanks to my financial supporters. Your support pays for the writing seminar I attend and other things. But most of all it shows how much you care and appreciate what I’m doing. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you find this podcast.

I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Contemplating Life – Episode 44 – “Ce N’est Pas Facile Parlant Français” (It’s Not Easy Speaking French)

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In this episode, I continue reminiscing about my college days at IUPUI. Specifically this week we talk about my trouble learning a foreign language.

Links of Interest

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contemplatinglife
Where to listen to this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/contemplatinglife
YouTube playlist of this and all other episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFRYfZfNjHL8bFCmGDOBvEiRbzUiiHpq

YouTube version

Shooting Script

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 44 of Contemplating Life.

This week we continue my series of reminiscences of my college days. We will discuss my difficulties in trying to learn a foreign language.

I don’t remember the comedian who said, “I am a bilingual illiterate… I don’t read or write two foreign languages.” I always identified with that statement. I expected to be learning lots of languages in college and I did. Upon graduation, I had mastered, “FORTRAN II, FORTRAN IV, BASIC, IBM 360 Assembly language, Algol, Pascal, PL/I, COBOL, and PPL.” For those of you who are unaware, those are all computer languages and most of them are obsolete and no longer in use. Notably missing from the list are, “C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, PHP, HTML/CSS, and others” none of which had yet been invented when I was in school.

Unfortunately, I didn’t start taking any programming classes until my second semester. There was one other language I took in college and that was French. That’s what we are here to talk about this week.

Right after posting last week’s episode about my first days at IUPUI, I realized that my memory of events 50 years ago isn’t what I wish it was. While many of my classes were quite memorable, I couldn’t remember all of them or what semester I took a particular class. I got to thinking wouldn’t it be great if I had a list of all the classes I took? Something like a transcript? Duh. Get yourself a college transcript, Chris.

I had no idea how to go about it. The website for IUPUI still exists even though the school doesn’t. The website is transitioning to an Indiana University at Indianapolis website so it is very IU oriented. I wasn’t sure I could get a Purdue transcript. Some Google searches led me to the right pages. Step one was “Login with your IUPUI username and password.” When I went to IUPUI, the internet didn’t exist so I knew I didn’t have a password. I finally got to a section that would ask me questions to verify my identity. It was one of those multiple-choice questions where you have to pick the one that applies to you. Okay, I know my home address and that the other address listed I never lived there. I forget what the second round question was the one that worried me was “Which of these classes did you take?” Hell, if I could remember what classes I took, I wouldn’t need the damned transcript in the first place.

Fortunately, I recognized “Formal Compiling Methods-Purdue CSCI 661”. After clicking on that, it decided I was who I said I was and took my application for a transcript. Total cost $0.00. I was surprised it was free and I figured it might take days or weeks but within a few hours, my email contained a PDF of my official transcript.

I mentioned last week there was a writing course I took. Its formal name was “Basic English Composition W117” The transcript says I was awarded an “S” for “satisfactory” which means I tested out of the class.

The math class I took was “Elementary Math for Engineering and Physical Science – Purdue MATH 151” I earned an “A” and 5 credit hours. I knew that the class would not count towards my math total for my degree but I didn’t care. Spoiler alert… I should have cared. More on that in future episodes.

One of my other first semester classes was “Elementary French FR F101”. That’s going to be our primary topic for today.

I knew that I took 3 semesters of French but I did not think about the fact that the French class was taught at the downtown campus. I thought my first semester I was exclusively at 38th Street. I wish that the transcript told me the class times in the location of the class. There is probably an archive somewhere with the old course catalogs but I searched all over and couldn’t find anything that old.

I know that many semesters where I had classes on both campuses I would go to one school in the morning, transfer to the other campus around dinnertime, take more classes in the evening, and then come home. When VocRehab agreed to pay for my transportation, they would only give me 2 trips per day. CareVan wheelchair van service would take me to one campus in the morning, transfer me to the other campus around dinnertime, and then my dad would pick me up in the evening at the second campus.

The School of Science required three semesters of foreign language. Again they wanted you to be a well-rounded individual and not just a science nerd. Most science students took German because, in the third semester, they could take a course called “Scientific German” which was mostly scientific and engineering vocabulary. I seem to recall my friend Dennis going that route.

I had taken two years of French in high school and did terribly. We got report cards every six weeks. My report card went A, B, C, D, D, D… and then straight D’s for the rest of the two years. I didn’t want to start over with German since I knew I was no good at foreign languages to begin with.

The instructor was a very nice woman named Mme. Chang. Yet she was blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Married to an Asian guy. She realized quickly I already knew some French even though this was an introductory course and most of the students had no previous experience. I explained to her how poorly I had done in high school French and that’s why I was starting at the beginning. At one point she warned me I was resting on my previous knowledge and that next semester I would be working my ass off.

My fondest memories of that class were 2 jokes I was able to make in French. at first, she thought I didn’t understand the question but then I said, “That was my attempt at a French pun.”

She asked in French, “Comment trouvez-vous la musique rock?” Which loosely translates, “What do you think of rock music?” But a more direct translation is, “How do you find rock music?” In the sense, “How do you find” is like do you find it too loud, too annoying, too cool, etc? I replied, “Je le cherche dans ma chambre.” Which translates, “I look for it in my room.” I said that because that’s where I kept my record collection. She thought I didn’t understand the question. I was making a joke. Once she understood I was making a joke, she told me that the French phrase for “pun” is “bon mot” which is literally “good word” or “right word”. Google translate disagrees but that’s what I learned in French class. Maybe it’s a dialect idiom.

The other phrase I was able to use in class of which I was particularly proud was we were taught the French word for frog which is “grenouille”. In a conversation about frogs, I commented spontaneously, “Ce n’est pas facile étant vert.” Which translates, “It’s not easy being green” quoting Kermit the frog. I was so proud of myself that I knew how to translate the present participle of “to be”. I also thought it was cool that my French translation of the sentence still fit the music. I’m not going to try to sing it. You should thank me for that. Anyway, I thought about trying to translate the entire song but I never got around to it.

By the way, Google translates it as “Ce n’est pas facile d’être vert.” So I thought perhaps I had remembered étant wrong and it should have been d’être. So I googled how to conjugate “to be” in French and learned that indeed étant is the present participle. If you use Google Translate on the sentence the way I remember it from French class 49 years ago “Ce n’est pas facile étant vert.” it translates it back into “It’s not easy being green.” So I guess either way works.

Late update… I found a YouTube video of singer Andrew Bird singing “It’s Not Easy Being Green” in both French and English. Here’s a brief sample of his version. He used “d’être“ and not “étant” like I did. I don’t know if he translated it himself or perhaps used Google Translate and that’s why it came out that way. Any French-speaking people out there listening please leave a comment and tell me which version you prefer. I provided the links in the description to various Google Translate and to the Andrew Bird YouTube video.

By the way, my favorite version of the song is the one done by Ray Charles, a man who has never seen green or any other color but still sings the song with great passion. There is a link in the description if you never heard it.

Although I never translated the entire Kermit the Frog song into French, in high school I spent considerable time trying to translate the words from a Beatles song from French to English. The 1965 Beatles song “Michelle” from the album “Rubber Soul” contains the lyrics…

Michelle, ma belle

These are words that go together well

My Michelle

Okay, I already knew “ma belle” translated to “my beautiful” or “my beauty.” The song then continues…

Michelle, ma belle

Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble

Tres bien ensemble

One day in high school I sat down with my French/English dictionary and tried to translate “Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble”. It took me about 30 minutes before I realized it translated, “These are words that go together well.” Well, literally, “Are the words that go very well together.” But you get the idea. The song has already been translated for you. If I had been any good at French, I would have recognized it immediately.

One of the problems I had when studying a foreign language was that I didn’t understand some of the technical language terms in English grammar. Things like participles, gerunds, and pluperfect stuff. Throughout grade school and high school, we didn’t get into that very much. We didn’t conjugate verbs in English. I spoke and wrote proper English because my parents were reasonably good students and high school graduates. We didn’t have any ethnic or cultural background in our family that would lead me astray from standard English. So I never bothered to learn why I spoke the way I did in English. When I went to French, I had to learn all of that grammar stuff in both English and French. Then you throw in the idea that all nouns are either masculine or feminine and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to that, I was constantly struggling to figure out the gender of inanimate objects.

I wonder how they are tendering that kind of stuff these days when gender seems to be so fluid. Can tables be both masculine and feminine? What are your pronouns table?

My college transcript reports I was awarded a “B” in the first semester of French.

My second semester French wasn’t as difficult as Mme. Chang suggested it would be. I had a little old lady for a teacher whose name escapes me. She stood about 4 feet tall and could not have weighed 90 pounds dripping wet. When she walked, she shuffled her feet reminiscent of the way Tim Conway used to play that old man in sketches on the old Carol Burnett show. She was a very easy teacher. I wasn’t so much relying on my previous high school experience in French as I was that the class was simply easy. It wasn’t tough at all.

I distinctly remember that I took the class in the evenings at the downtown campus because when my dad came to pick me up one night, he had the hold open the door at Cavanaugh Hall for some little old lady who was too frail to push the door open. I told him, “That was my teacher.” He was amazed she could get around the building at all.

As part of French class, we were supposed to spend time in the language lab listening to tapes. That would’ve made me stay very late at the downtown campus. You could bring them a blank cassette tape and they would speed copy the lessons onto your tape at double speed. When you played them back, they came out normal. I persuaded them to allow me to use the tape copies to fulfill my requirements. The guy in the lab checked off my name and gave me credit for picking up the tape copies but I don’t think I ever listened to a single one of them.

One of the things this second-semester teacher praised me for was my excellent pronunciation which in her opinion was the best in the class. I suppose I was resting on my previous laurels in that regard. My transcript says I was awarded a “B”.

I remember a funny story told by a gal in my second or third-semester French class. I can’t remember which. For one summer during high school, she participated in a foreign student exchange program where she went and lived with a French-speaking family in Canada and a French-speaking student came to America in an exchange. It was an opportunity to immerse herself in a French-speaking culture. She said it was quite an enjoyable experience. Although it was in Canada, the family spoke French consistently.

On the eve of her departure, they prepared a lavish dinner as a farewell gesture. At the end of the meal, she leaned back in her chair, patted her stomach, and declared “je plein” which was her way of saying, “I’m full.” The entire family was shocked and began talking so rapidly that she couldn’t understand a word they were saying. She didn’t realize that using that particular way of saying that your belly was full was an idiom for saying, “I’m pregnant.” They thought she was making some big announcement with a smile on her face like it was something to be proud of. After being responsible for the girl’s well-being they were terrified she had gotten herself into trouble on their watch. She eventually learned that the proper phrase under those circumstances was “Je suis satisfait” which translates more directly as “I’m satisfied or “I’m sated”.

Hearing that story made suffering through those French classes worth it. It’s one of my strongest memories from my college days.

Finally, in my third semester, my luck ran out. According to my transcript, the class was called “2nd Year Conv Comp & Reading 1 FREN F203”. I’m not sure what “Conv Comp” meant. Perhaps conversation and composition. I just remember it was mostly reading short stories in French.

We had a professor named Dr. Burke who was a former Jesuit priest. He had lived and worked in France for many years. He was the most arrogant, pain in the ass, stickler for perfection I’ve ever met. Although I was top of the class in pronunciation in my second semester, he thought my pronunciation was absolutely horrible. He corrected me constantly.

He also had a horrible reputation with female students. Legend said he always picked one girl in the class who he would berate viciously. It was as though he was determined to get her to cry on a regular basis until she would eventually drop the class. Someone said they kept a stack of forms in the foreign language department that were already filled out to drop out of or transfer from Dr. Burke’s class. There was further speculation that “gender female” was already checked on those forms. That is the extent to which he had a horrible reputation with female students.

I was maintaining a “D” average on the homework and quizzes. I absolutely had to pass the class to graduate. At one point about two-thirds of the way through the semester, I stopped by his office. I told him, “You and I both know I’m not any good at this class and I have no motivation to get better. But I absolutely have to pass to get my degree. I show up every day. I do the work. I put in minimal effort. You are giving me ‘D’s consistently. Can you promise me that if I continue to show up to every class, do every assignment, and produce work at the same horribly substandard level that I have been doing you will give me a ‘D’ for my final grade?”

He said, “Yes I can promise you that.”

I thanked him. Left left his office. I continued to perform terribly in his class and was awarded my promised ‘D’. The class wasn’t that terrible. I did enjoy a couple of the French short stories we read. When it was all done, I was glad to be done with foreign language once and for all after 2 years of high school and 3 semesters of college French.

I still barely know anything of French. Occasionally when someone is speaking French on TV such as the recent season of the Darrell Dixon Walking Dead series I can pick up a word or two. In hindsight, I wish I had taken Spanish because my neighborhood and my church have a growing Hispanic population. We have mixed English and Spanish services at St. Gabriel now.

According to my transcript, the other first-semester class I took was “Principles of Sociology SOC S161”. It was in that class that I met one of the best friends I ever had. A guy named Mike Gregory. Next week’s episode will be a tribute to my dear friend who sadly is no longer with us.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

Many thanks to my financial supporters. Your support pays for the writing seminar I attend and other things. But most of all it shows how much you care and appreciate what I’m doing. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you find this podcast. Again, I am especially interested in people who speak French and can weigh in on some of the translations in his podcast.

I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.