Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I was recalling a few things from the days after I had a stroke, in October 2020. First of all, I was rescued principally by the quick actions taken by Robin. She got a babbling and confused dude from the periphery of Grand Junction to St. Mary’s Hospital, where a bunch of skilled people did for me exactly what I needed and dissolved the clot that was causing all of the mischief.

A short time after discharge from the hospital, I returned for followup to see my neurologist, who talked with me for a short time, and then couldn’t wait to show me the radiologic images of what had gone on inside my head. He pointed out where the occlusion was before I was given the miraculous medication, and what it looked like afterward. As he was describing that interior landscape I was struck by two things.

First of all, there were seemingly hundreds of narrowed little vessels sprinkled around in there, like stars in a summer sky, and all susceptible to blockage at some unknown future date. And the size of the vessel that had been occluded was quite small when you realized how much trouble it had caused. That was sobering indeed.

But this was my brain, my cranium, and my bigger pool of cerebrospinal fluid, and I didn’t like looking at it one bit. No wonder I couldn’t remember where I’d put my car keys, or the name of that movie that starred what’s his name. It seemed amazing that I could still tie my shoes with that remnant of my younger brain hanging out in there like a dried-up tangerine.

So while the neurologist was gleefully pointing here and there I was becoming less and less intrigued. What I really wanted to do was to get the hell out of there and go get some ice cream with Robin before the next stroke came along. If we hurried, maybe we could get in a sundae or a massive chocolate shake before the body bags had to be brought out … .

Of course, here I am three years later and I’m fine. Fone, I tell you, just fane.

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MORE REASONS NOT TO COMPLETELY DESPAIR ABOUT THE DEPLORABLE STATE OF COUNTRY MUSIC

Amanda Shires came across my radar a few years back when she did a duet on Dave Letterman’s show, singing a Warren Zevon song. Zevon was a favorite of Letterman’s and had passed not long before this appearance. Her duet partner was her husband Jason Isbell. It’s a beautiful song, beautifully done.

Shires writes and sings songs that are generally far enough away from the dispiriting country mainstream that they might inhabit alternative universes. Thoughtful, sometimes quite raw, they are story-songs worthy of taking the time to listen to the lyrics. One reason might be that in the past few years, along with singing, playing the fiddle, touring, recording, and raising a child, she managed to obtain a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry.

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Robin and I met up with Amy and Claire at Little Molas Lake, which is a few miles south of Silverton. It’s a convenient and beautiful midpoint between Durango and Montrose. On the way to Little Molas there were two things of significance to be seen, the first being the colors of the leaves which were not quite at peak, but pretty close. The second was that above 11,000 feet we saw the first new snow of the year on the northern faces of some of the peaks.

Robin was not feeling at her peak due to a cold, so it was not a day for epic walking. At 11,000 feet, Robin and I could definitely feel the altitude when out on the hike. You sort of wheeze your way from one oxygen molecule to the next.

There was a campground at Little Molas Lake, a primitive affair that offered places to park your car, a privy, and little else in the way of amenities. Bring your own water, carry away your own trash. But the views in all directions … wonderful.

(There was one oddity. The weather was beautiful, the trails and camping areas around the lake were well occupied, but the privy was already “Closed for the season.” You can imagine the disappointed faces as one person after another read the notice in disbelief, then headed for the forest to answer the call of nature, which knows no time nor season.)

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Last night we watched the original Dracula movie, which was entitled … of course … Dracula. (I know I know there was an earlier film about vampires called Nosferatu, but that was the first Nosferatu movie)

The film starred Bela Lugosi, and the rest of the cast I never heard of. It was made in 1931, and had surprisingly good production values. Most of the acting seemed dated compared with today, but I’ll bet it creeped them out in 1931!

Here’s the basic story. A young man named Renfield is traveling by coach in Transylvania, and in spite of all the eye-rolling and crossing themselves a group of villagers can do, is determined to go on to Borgo Pass, where he is to meet another coach at midnight which will carry him to Castle Dracula. He doesn’t give much credibility to the villagers’ talk of bats and wolves, but seems to think that a midnight rendezvous in the Carpathian Mountains is a reasonable thing.

At any rate, he eventually gets to the castle, where he meets the Count, a man who is always dressed for dinner, and who speaks and walks at about half the speed of the rest of the people in the movie. A very deliberate fellow, this Count Dracula. Renfield is a sort of real estate agent who has purchased an old abbey in London for Dracula, and is there to get the papers signed. Next step is to haul a bunch of coffins on a ship to London. We never see it, but quite a bit of nastiness happens on that boat because when it get to London only Renfield has survived, and he is definitely not the same young man we met before.

I’ll abbreviate things a bit. There is a stuffy house in London where we find a doctor, a scientist, a young dolt, and two women of the sort who lounge about in floor-length silk outfits all day long. Dracula meets the women, named Lucy and Mina, and before you know it Lucy hasn’t enough blood in her to sustain life, perishes, and now is suspected of midnight nibbling on schoolchildren in the neighborhood. Dracula then turns his attentions to Mina, and a pair of suspicious-looking puncture wounds appear on that girl’s neck while her energies are being gradually sapped.

Well, the scientist knows exactly what is going on, finds Dracula’s coffin at the abbey, and drives a piece of scrap lumber through his heart, saving Mina from a fate worse than death, which is never dying at all. End of story.

My favorite character was actually Renfield, the human who was Dracula’s helper. And here is his best scene, when he is discovered on that doomed ship in London harbor. A laugh for the ages.

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