A Thief In The Night

So, here I am back on my blog after a long absence. Got it all spruced up with a new look, paying tribute to my English heritage with the cool red British phone booths. I’ve recently made a decision to start writing again. I thought the phone booths might serve as a visual reminder that I come from good stock. After all, some of the greatest writers, both new and old, are English, i.e., Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Jeffery Archer, etc. Not that I’m from England, but I did trace my linage once and three Plumlee brothers decided to make the trip across the pond to the new world some time during the 18th century. I don’t know why they left the fair island of Albion and I don’t care to know, because the reality of why they left would probably shatter my illusions of coming from good stock. It’s a given that they were probably not aristocracy. But they were English, and that gives me some hope, delusional though it may be.

I never meant to stop writing. It’s just that I got so busy drumming that I had neither the time nor the inclination to do so. Neither did I aim to get that busy drumming; I only started doing it again for physical exercise. I was in truth, getting old and fat, my blood pressure and cholesterol were through the roof. I’ve always been an extremely intense drummer, fancying myself after the likes of Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa, so I figured drumming would help me lose some weight. I lost 40 some-odd pounds and went from a size 41 waist down to a 31. But life is a constant trade off; you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Beating drums with that intensity also means beating them loudly; therefore, while my heart attack risks decreased, my hearing loss increased. So much so, that I can rarely understand what my six and eight year old granddaughters are saying anymore. While I might be young at heart, they surely think of me the “old man” who always asks my wife, “What’d they say?” But, I kept drumming because I like being skinny.

A recent close encounter with blindness made me re-evaluate my decision to drum. On April 14, 2011, I had surgery on my right eye. The doctor inserted a tube in that eye to relieve pressure caused from glaucoma. I had to have this done because I lost quite a bit of eyesight between January of last year and February of this year. Glaucoma is a dastardly deceiving disease; you can coast along for a few years thinking you might not lose anymore vision and then WHAM BOOM BANG, it steals a bunch of eyesight when you’re not looking for it to happen. That’s why they call it a thief in the night.

Looking back at it now, I suppose the surgery was successful; the pressure in my right eye, the one my doctor put the tube in, is down to nine, which is where she wanted it. But for the first several weeks after surgery, my vision was extremely blurry in my right eye. Imagine squirting KY Jelly in your eye and maybe you’ll get a clue as to what half of my world looked like. I’ve lost about a third of the vision in my other eye and that was all I had left to navigate my way through this world. I spent weeks stumbling over the toys my granddaughters left in the floor at our house, and trying to listen for the sounds of people’s voices or footsteps as I made my way through Wal-Mart, so as not to run straight into them. It was a rude reminder that I’m slowly going blind and that I also have progressive hearing loss. I joked with my doctor once that I was on the Helen Keller Highway. She worriedly replied, “Please don’t joke about that.” Sometimes I think she’s more worried about me ending up being blind and deaf than I am. She says I have one of the worse cases of glaucoma she’s ever seen. It’s a blinding disease. I hate to be a fatalist, but unless God intervenes, which He might do since I’m such a lovable guy, I will go blind unless I get drunk and fall off a cliff first. My hearing loss is more speculative, no one knows for sure why I keep losing hearing. But one thing’s for sure, beating drums like a madman is like playing Russian roulette with the main sense I will have to depend on when I do go blind. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that drumming will only hasten my hearing loss.

So that’s it, I’m through, I quit drumming! Fate has forced me to return to writing. To be truthful, I’ve felt guilty for drumming for quite sometime now. I knew I was hurting my hearing, and I also knew I was neglecting my other gift, writing; the one I went to school for and got a degree in journalism. I believe that willful neglect made me bitter, mean and angry. In the past three to four years, I’ve been way too quick to challenge to a facebook duel anyone who opposed my political views. But that’s fodder for a later post. So I hope you and I both enjoy the foolish words that follow.

Cheerio.

America The Beautiful

The frost covered the fields across from our house as we pulled out the driveway just past dawn. The mostly-full moon shined bright in the pale morning sky. I turned the stereo on and "A Whiter Shade Of Pale," by Procol Harum filled the air. I sipped coffee from a go-mug and looked at Leslie, her skin smooth against the mist rising from the land. The thought of how fortunate I am did not escape me.

We drove slightly uphill till we reached the peak of a small rise on the highway toward Russeville. When the road leveled out, a panoramic picture of rolling land lay before me, reminiscent of the English countryside; trees sprinkled the fence lines and filled the far-off hills framing the horizon.

There were signs of commerce along the route amidst the country homes dotting the landscape. I wondered what it'd be like for someone from Europe to see this part of Kentucky for the first time. I often complain about living in Kentucky. "I'd rather be in Europe," I've told my friends upon many a gathering. And if the truth be told, I entertain this thought almost daily.

I like Europe because the people there seem to me to be much more broadminded. But then again, I've never lived in Europe; I've only visited there. No doubt that it's not as grandiose as I make it out to be. I'd imagine it's much like America; views change as often as the scenery. Certainly the French, with their love for wine and insatiable appetite for sex, would be much more accepting of the liberal minded than the Italians who live in the shadow of Roman Catholicism. They, much as we who live in the southern states of America, never escape the all-seeing eyes of the church; ours, of course, is Southern Baptist.

The English have conservative and liberal political parties, as we do. So they too, must be fraught with frivolous arguments of who-knows-best. But I must admit, there's a great advantage to having a pub on every corner, as England does, and trains and buses in even the smallest of villages. So, I cannot totally escape the fantasy of owning a farm in the English countryside. But what would an Englishmen think of this view I'm seeing right now, or a Frenchmen or an Italian? No doubt that they would be no less enchanted watching a beautiful woman drive them faithful toward Russellville. And when they'd return home, they'd tell their friends America is beautiful. And yes, I can verify she is. I'm lucky to have known her.