Glad to Be Here

Be like Bud. Stop your goddam whining.

Please welcome today’s guest cook at Bob’s Diner, my former editor and longtime pal, Bud Meyer.

I’ve known Bud for the better part of 50 years, and I’ve never once heard him bitch about his aches and pains and ailments. And, as you’ll read, he has a boatload of them, having come down with rheumatoid arthritis when he was 14.

You know how it is with way too many folks. Ask them “Howya doing?” and it unleashes a laundry list of misfortunes and a litany of “Woe is me.” As if all of us don’t have something going on that ain’t the way we’d like it to be. It gets tiresome.

So spend a few minutes here with Bud and be thankful you’re breathing air.

***

I’m Glad to Be Here

I’m glad to be here, having recently hit 70. A speed-limit age. Geezerhood’s entry level. It’s the august achievement my fellow Missourian Mark Twain described as “a new and awful dignity.”

I know whereof he speaks. My bent frame belongs to someone who’s turned 100. That seemed funnier at age 40, when it projected to: Body of a 70-year-old.

Some indicators of age can be hidden. Going bald meant going big on baseball caps. That explains the six-tier hat rack just inside our front door. Right there next to the collection of canes.

Age has been kinder elsewhere. I see no sagging jowls in the mirror. I have all my teeth. I’m near my preferred weight. I’m down to three – no, four – prescriptions a day. I get by with three pairs of eyeglasses, though I’m always losing them.

In my sun-blown life, much of it spent in Florida, I’ve somehow avoided big-league skin cancer. Still, I bear countless scars and stitches. My sterling silver wife Anne says the frequent biopsies donated to my dermatologist are the best diet I’ve found.

***

Still, I’m glad to be here. In encounters with folks I know well, and those I don’t, the intonation of their umm, queries about my listing appearance tells all. It’s the emphasis on the last word: “How are you?” How are you doing?”

“Well, I’m glad to be here,” I say. Repeatedly.

Sure am, though I lead the league in conditions ending in –Osis and –Itis. I’m a potential Hall o’ Famer. I have a triple crown of spine issues: Stenosis. Osteoporosis. More recently, Kyphosis – the stealthy Old Man’s Disease. All of this started with the erosion of ball-and-socket joints brought on by juvenile arthritis, my companion for 56 years now.

I’m a compendium of surgical work. That includes, as of this writing: Eight vertebrae in two back operations; two replaced hips, three new knees (that’s no typo); the left elbow, and the right thumb. All of that has helped, though not nearly as much as the brain transplant.

Someone shoulda punched my Irish nose long ago for wearing out “Glad to be here!”

“Glad to be here” is my mantra, an all-occasion evasion, the cheery deflection that has introduced me throughout my midwestern boyhood, five decades of Florida, now here in Virginia’s foothills. It can be tiresome. At a reunion several years ago at The Miami Herald held in advance of the wrecker’s ball, four former colleagues shouted as I hobbled around a corner: “Glad to be here!”

I went on stage a few years back to describe the early days of small town life in Hannibal, Mo., and the pivotal year of 1968 when I went from just another athletic bro to gimping spectacle in school hallways. It forged my sense of what made me tick. Vale la pena. Worth the pain.

Bud Meyer, aka, Rickety Man

I am glad to be here, though, given what’s obvious to others. For three weeks in the late ‘70s, I vacationed in Jamaica with my boyhood pal, Kenny “Fat Boy” Norman. We roamed the north coast with locals Mikey “the Fish” and Georgie, “Rasta Man.” Ganja and Red Stripe beer were implicated. When I griped that I didn’t have a nickname, Fat Boy said, “You do. We call you RickMon. Short for Rickety Man.”

Like Jimmy Buffett, I wasn’t meant for glitter rock ‘n roll. Nor disco, or bicycles, or rollerblades. In the 1970s and ‘80s, before the Era of Rebuilding Bud, and new to the editing ranks of Miami’s morning newspaper, I dealt with frequent bouts of “water on the knee.” Nice euphemism, that. The doctor inserted a 12-inch needle in my cantaloupe-sized knee, withdrawing a half pint of amber fluid.

As I swam up the chain of orthopedic evaluators, each cautioned me to bide my time. I hadn’t yet hit 40.

My new hips were installed in 1992, along with a replacement right knee, all at once, all during a three-week Miami Beach hospital stay. That right knee would never again bend properly. It remained that way until both knees were redone in 2008. The left knee works OK. The right is the size of a grapefruit.

Those new hips, remarkably reliant, turned 32 years old in December. On meeting someone from Gen Z, I smirk: “I have hip replacements older than you.”

***

I’m glad to be here, often reliant on those canes by the front door. Old Man’s Disease affects the vestibular system – those teensy rocks in our ears – inducing vertigo and dizziness. I use a cane when pragmatism overrules vanity. Canes do lend a gent a certain gravitas. They help fend off groupies.

My gait features a right foot that flies out to the side wonkylike, recalling Batman’s foe the Penguin. I twist from the trunk awkwardly, just like C-3PO or the Tin Man. Wearing molded arch support inserts from the Good Feet Store have restored some of my balance (“Man, it’s like I’m 65 again!”). I walk regularly on dusty Long Mountain Road, covering perhaps a mile at a time. My hiking sticks keep me upright, eyes focused on the horizon.

Defying the Osteo omens, I’ve mostly avoided tripping, going on three years. Haven’t fallen. Knock on wood. Let’s credit physical therapy, seniors’ exercise classes and daily routine. Those magical therapists attack my taut back and neck muscles, those given the impossible task of keeping me from slumping.

I introduce myself to P.T. therapists as a Repeat Offender. In response to their query about pain levels, I kid them that I’m a walkin’ 3 out of 10. But their checkmark scale – burning, throbbing, aching – lacks the one word that best describes the constantly firing nerve ends of my tailbone.

At parties, I introduce Anne and add “I’m Bud, her Pre-Existing Condition.”

***

I’m glad to be here, though my head lists forward and portside. The therapists and their protractor-like goniometer track a steady decline in my ability to bend my fused neck. I’m at 0 degrees. Thus a new era. Introduced to any six-footer, I grin and say: “Hurts my neck just to look up at you.”

That neck thing was a benefit during that solar eclipse.

***

I’m glad to be here, though my whole Upper Left Side assemblage – left shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers – is in disrepair. The left shoulder is so restricted, I can’t touch my nose, can’t tip my ball cap. Can’t turn my palm up. Fortunately, the “good” right side still works. For now.

Lying down, both forearms vector up and out, locked at 60 degrees. Going back to 2017, we considered installing a new left shoulder and elbow. The right shoulder continues to function, though I throw underhanded. My opponents on the bocce courts had better watch out. Those semi-locked elbows give my bocce shots the right arc.

My fingers gnarl like mangrove roots. When I press my hands together as if in prayer – as if – it resembles nothing like what the Notre Dame nuns of Blessed Sacrament taught us. I do pray that Anne, hugely tolerant for some 30 years now, continues with patience.

I’m here, at this writing desk in the predawn, rising at 5:04, awakened by a throbbing right shoulder. When I get around to it, my literary output includes a comic novel, Mother Fracker, and the launch of a local news nonprofit. I’ve got my coffee, a country ham biscuit, and the view of the dogwoods outside my alcove window. Winter’s view is bleak, but April’s blossoms beckon.

I’m wearing black knee braces, always visible below my shorts. I wear a lot of black T-shirts. They help disguise my black back brace. My Dr. Scholl’s shoulder harness arrived last summer. It’s black, too. I’m embracing my inner Goth.

I take the stairs one at a time, left leg only, using a handrail. Going up is easier than going down, a result of that recalcitrant right knee.

***

I’m glad to be here, though to remain an Upright Citizen and achieve Rectitude, I need a nightly stretch. My stretching kit starts with a blue yoga mat and matching yoga ball. I lie head-to-tailbone, resting on the Daisy Torture Mat (another euphemism; dozens of hard plastic flowers said to increase blood flow). In the mix are multi-hued stretchy bands, rubbery cranium supporters called “still point inducers,” and a rolling device called The Stick. Don’t ask. Bent over as I begin a typical one-hour stretch, I finish by standing … straightish. Temporarily Rectified.

I’ll take it.

***

I’m glad to be here, though I can’t touch my toes. Not even close. I need a plastic sock tube, the Socker, to don socks. And those knee braces. I estimate I’ve tossed out a dozen, too-easily-broken Sockers. A crack is growing in the one I use now. Mother fracker!

Gladly, I don’t need to dress up for work anymore. Way back, I lost the ability to button the top button of a dress shirt. My Cuban-American tailors fashioned shirts for decades with a false top button. Pieces of Velcro secured closure before I knotted my tie.

During Covid, I needed help to loop a mask around both ears. St. Anne was there, as always.

***

I’m glad to be here, though I increasingly drop things. I spill wine glasses and break coffee mugs. I have a colorful array of assistive implements. My toys. Hand spreaders and stretchers. I have gripper-grabbers and tongs staged throughout the house to pick up after myself. Two – no, three – long-handled shoe horns. My toy chest is bigger than most toddlers’.

I bedevil St. Anne, alternating between: “I don’t need help!” and “Help!” She does, but I don’t make it easy. She leads the league in empathy; a first-ballot Hall of Famer. She loves baseball. She keeps score using her own color-coded system.

I do the laundry and sometimes the dishes. We share cooking; she’s far better. Chef Anne has rearranged the kitchen shelves so I can reach things on the first shelf and store things gingerly on the second. Reach the higher shelves? Fuggedaboutit, even after getting Rectified.

***

I am glad to be here, because medical science and a battalion of doctors and specialists and nurses have kept me out of the wheelchair they predicted for me by 55.

I appreciate that care.

In return, I foist these jokes on ‘em.

***

I’m glad to be here because I still am. Because I choose to.

I‘ve gotten here with the aid of those toys and a support network of friends, family, therapists and doctors.

And St. Anne.

Pot and an ocean of wine are also implicated.

***

I’m glad to be here, as the last thing I am is disabled.

I diss that label.

Call me that, and I’ll punch your nose. Expect the blow from the right; the left has retired from nose punching.

I consider myself able-bodied even though some extremities have stopped reporting for duty.

There’s a narrow space between capacity and incapacity, between independence and dependence. Rather than sit on the sidelines, I’ve taken the field and taken my lumps.

None of this accounts for my many faults and failures. I have done many cringe-worthy, regrettable things in my life and career. I have let down people I admire and respect. I dropped the ball. The fumble wasn’t physical.

***

I’m glad to be here because I never thought I’d make it. Some might view a diagnosis of a joint-destroying disease at age 17 at Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic as a death sentence. It may wind up being so. It hasn’t gotten me. Yet.

I bank upon a vast reserve of optimism, seasoned with fortitude. This “new and awful dignity” Twain described feels more like an achievement. I’m not looking for a medal. Don’t want no stinkin’ badges or blue hanging tags. No sainthood, either; I’d rather lobby for St. Anne’s canonization. And as I recall, my martyred namesake, St. Lawrence, got himself barbecued.

I’m glad to have arrived at 70, despite life’s curveballs. I’m here, bent physique and all, one less resembling an exclamation point, more like a question mark.

But there’s no question.

I am glad to be here.

(This essay originally appeared in the Rappahannock Writers’ Journal, Issue 2, 2024)