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Nothing Quite Like a Florida “Orange”

09 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by ADHD Powered in ADD, ADHD, Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Health, Humor

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

biology, Elvis, Florida, Gotye, Henry "Hank" Buntin, Loch Ness monster, Nick Vujicic, Pentatonix, snakes, Terminator

Imagine yourself in a multiplex movie theater. Curiously, no walls separate the half-dozen theaters that form the multiplex. Miraculously, you are watching six different screens all at once, thoroughly understanding and enjoying every scene, word, character.

Welcome to ADHD. 

[You in the Real World, be sure to click on the red underlined hyperlinks!]

Deckert's rat snake(No, I’m NOT sure this is the same Florida species, but he’s big and orange!)

As our daughter Leah and I drive at high speed along a toll-free road in good ol’ Orlando –

Correct me if I am wrong, says Screen Four, but I think Florida has just three no-cost roads. One of them is your driveway.

– very late, and somewhat lost –

Normal so far, quips One.

– my headlights momentarily catch something on the roadway ahead that is large and –

Orange, shouts Three, amazed. Did you see the brilliant orange on that …that … what was that big thing?

Leah and I both know already what the screens do not. The creature is a snake, and no small specimen. It is time for the two of us to mentally don our capes and cowls …

Turtle Patrol rides again! shouts Six.

In the midst of the screens’ cheers, One interjects. Do the readers even know Turtle Patrol is your effort to save reptiles and small creatures from certain death beneath tires?

Tell ’em, coaxes Two, that it was born when selfish Blackie did NOT stop his car and move a defenseless little turtle to safety.

“Hey, Two – easy on the unkind adjectives! I was giving a stressed co-worker a ride and she, sure we were late, insisted I pass on rescuing the turtle.”

Three continues, Upon Blackie’s return home that eve, he saw the turtle smashed to bits, having made it just one-third of the way across the busy road.

Actually, clarifies Four, some turtle parts made it almost halfway. But sad Blackie still launched the Patrol.

turtle_patrol_shirts-r81074e14f562482eb41c29ef58cc48a6_8naem_324Our trusty Volvo, standard equipment for Turtle Patrol people everywhere, carefully backs up to avoid crushing the snake we’re supposed to save. I reverse far enough for my high beams to outline the reptile.

Pick him up, coaxes Three. So orange!

And so big! says Five, slightly awed.

And so dead, scoffs Six of the motionless creature.

“We’re too late,” I say. Leah jumps in the car and shouts, “Oh, well, Dad – let’s go!”

She’s doing a good job of hiding her tears, whispers Two.

I peer closely at this serpentine giant, head rolled back at an ungainly angle –

Doesn’t that hurt your neck, Black? asks One.

– snake’s head rolled back at an ungainly angle, as I search for any sign of hope. I find only Death’s telltale sign: the snake’s tongue hanging out one side of its mouth.

“Leave it there, Dad!” says my daughter, eyes wide. Instead, I hoist this serpent, stretch the corpse across both my shoulders and weave the huge head back and forth in snaky movements with the right hand while my left tries to hold the big tail.

More drivers encounter our grisly scene, played out in rising swamp mist and garish lighting. They slow their vehicles, stare wildly, point until I step toward them, then stomp the gas and disappear.

Mourning the death of the brilliantly colored snake, I respectfully place him in the Volvo’s trunk and head for the home of a friend.

Or one who is until your next stunt, reminds Three.

“Dad,” Leah asks slowly, loudly, “why are you pulling into Hank’s driveway?”

But I am already out of the car so Leah steps out, too, and sees me lean halfway into the oversized trunk. “Hmm,” I say, groping in the darkness, “I must’ve turned the last corner a bit sharply. Think I slid the snake into a wheel well.”

Leah murmurs (in sub-Dad-can-hear undertones) and backs way off. My fingers finally connect with that huge, tubular body I’d picked up five minutes earlier. With a mighty grunt –

Oof! declares Six. That snake’s heavy!

– I retrieve the Loch Ness monster and swing him out into the coolness of the night. Triumphant, I run to Hank’s front porch, stretch Nessie to full length, prop his sizeable head up on a stone and jump back in the Volvo.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Leah moans as I back the car out and, headlights unlit, quietly drive to the end of the block, where I pull over and call Hank’s home.

“Hey, Krystal,” I greet Hank’s phone-answering wife, “I just drove by and somebody’s out on your porch.”

“Why doesn’t he ring the bell?”

“Too short,” I reply, smothering a small laugh.

“Well, why doesn’t he knock?”

 “He’s, uh, armless. Might’ve had, like, an accident or something.”

Horrible lines, says Three. You’ve got all of us and still you spew horrible lines.

 “Just answer the door and help him, will you? Call you back in five.”

Three hundred seconds in an ADHD head are a thousand minutes in yours, only not as boring. I call within two minutes.

janet-screamAn answering click brings only screaming. I shake the cell phone, but only get more screaming and a stressed “Blackwell?”

“What’s all the noise?”

“What’s all the noise?” Krystal needlessly repeats at extremely high volume. And pitch. “You know! The huge snake on our sidewalk!”

Doesn’t she mean porch? corrects Four.

I laugh uncontrollably. “Hahaha! The snake is dead.”

Krystal’s voice grows distant, almost muffled. “Use the hoe! The rake! Chop its head off, Hank – hurry!”

They’re trying to kill a dead snake, says Five. If these two were dogs, they’d chase parked cars.

A deeper voice warns, “Get the kids back!” then adds, “I’m trying to kill it. It’s too fast!”

More shouts. Four says with a laugh, Did you hear what he just said? “No, wait – it isn’t trying to get away. It’s attacking!”

Screen Five gulps. There is that old bit of reptile folklore, he says, and I repeat his question to Krystal. “Wasn’t the snake’s tongue flopped out one side of its mouth?”

“Yes – until Hank went to touch it. Then it snapped to life and now” – she pulls the phone from her mouth – “watch out, honey, he’s coming!” and returns to me – “now it’s chasing my husband around the yard!”

Four suddenly recalls what Five is suggesting. Uh-oh! New Providence High School biology teacher (and swim club coach) Henry (another “Hank”) Buntin talked about snakes – remember the hognose? – playing “possum” to repel danger.

Five picks up. Once the predator leaves the area, the “dead” reptile pulls its tongue back in, closes its mouth, springs to life, and goes on its merry way, fanging mice and Blackwells.

“That must be what’s happening now,” I say, contemplatively. “Big Orange stopped playing dead because it feels safe.”

And you are not, warns One, hearing the steady stream of mouthpiece mutterings. Wisely, we hang up. I try to explain the situation to Leah, but she just shakes her head.

The next day I hear rumors that Hank has learned the species I draped across my shoulders is one of Florida’s top five wildlife dangers. Incredibly aggressive when disturbed, he – the snake, not Hank – goes postal, a legless Terminator hunting down its victims.

Intrigued by what Hank may know of the monster, I call his home. No answer. I e-mail. No reply. I snail-mail a letter. “Return to sender” is stamped upon the envelope the postman brings back. Being a quick study, I take his lack of response as a signal he may be unhappy.

Tough to accidentally lose a friendship, admits Six. But you did it with orange – classy! Now he’ll never forget you.

Screen Shot 2013-04-26 at 6.52.03 PM

Postscript – We lost another great musician this week in the passing of Phil Everly. He, along with his brother, Don, formed the legendary and long-popular Everly Brothers, a long string of hits to their credit.

I am thrilled Don even realizes he has an older brother. This is much different from the situation in the Blackwell household. My twin sister, Dianne (lately known as DiAnnie Oakley for her sharpshooting comments), forgets she has a slightly younger brother.

No lie? asks Two, stunned. She literally does not acknowledge YOUR portion of the birthday? How do such unspeakables happen?

I write her on OUR special day about a humorous card sent by my sister-in-law Sharon. The day after the worldwide celebration of our birthday, Dianne lamely writes:

I was showing your note to the girls and we were laughing. Then we started talking and then we left the house and then…

AND I NEVER WROTE BACK AND SAID HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!  I SWEAR MY MIND IS GONE! [My kids would swear THAT happened 10 years ago! 🙂 ]

Apparently, comments Four, your twin’s not the brightest bulb in the box.

“No worries. I made sure Dianne caught MY birthday this year, and early.”

Smart move, chirps One, you sending her that text before she even woke up.

* * * * *

We may hunt this way if much more snow falls!

This recycling is “instrumental” in young lives

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Paul, Pearl and a Pinky – Part I

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by ADHD Powered in ADD, ADHD, Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Health, Humor

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Bob Dylan, Joe Muffaw, Oreos, Paul Bunyan, Pearl Harbor Day, Pentatonix, The Piano Guys, Wilson Memorial Hospital

Imagine yourself in a multiplex movie theater. Curiously, no walls separate the half-dozen theaters that form the multiplex. Miraculously, you are watching six different screens all at once, thoroughly understanding and enjoying every scene, word, character.

Welcome to ADHD. 

[You in the Real World, be sure to click on the red underlined hyperlinks!]

New knee 4[Bizarre photo above absolutely unrelated to great story below. But I just knew you were dying to see how my post-physical therapy titanium knee is doing!]

9 When you work in a quarry,
stones might fall and crush you.
When you chop wood,
there is danger with each stroke of your ax.

– Ecclesiastes 10:9 (NLT)

Bob Alexander – or “Knobber” (Kuh-nobber), as he’s more commonly known – waits outside in the cold December wind for me to help him split wood.

Actually, he’s fine by himself, informs Screen One. He just thought you might enjoy the experience.

“And I will,” I respond. “Growing up in New Jersey, it wasn’t often that I got to split wood, so I’m ready to show him what I’m made of.”

Six proudly says, Courage ties in perfectly with today’s Pearl Harbor observance.

“Um, Six?” I say, hesitantly. “Pearl Harbor didn’t go all that well for us. It’s not exactly a time of celebration.”

I step outside and see Knobber stamping his frozen feet, standing beside a strange machine and surrounded by many huge oak chunks. “Where,” I ask him, “are your axe, your wedge and your splitting maul?”

“My what?” he says with a snort.  “What –

Boss, whispers Two, who keeps in mind our family-oriented readership, you may want to tone down his actual words.

“ –  are you talking about?” Knobber asks.

Wow! says Three in admiration.  You took an extremely colorful response and drained it of any life whatsoever.

“I mean, sir, where are those three tools? That’s what I always used for splitting wood when I helped my dad.”

Go get ’em, Paul Bunyan! cheers Six.

“You’re not helping your dad,” snarls very trim and apparently ageless Knobber, despite now being much older than my dad will ever be. “And I ain’t got all day.”

Three chokes on my editing of Knobber’s phrases.  He never in his life said a complete sentence you could repeat in polite company.

Kickball pitch

Unrelated, too, but my new knee helps my pitching!

Knobber and I look at the machine between us. “This here’s a hydraulic log-splitter,” he says. “It’ll kick your axe and your – ”

“Point made,” I interrupt.

Crude but clever play on words, sighs Four. Do you remember when mean Joe Muffaw’s modern logging machine beat Paul Bunyan’s manual tools in the wood-cutting race? You being Mr. Bunyan on Pearl Harbor Day seems a doubly bad idea. Just sayin’ …

“Got 13 tons of pressure,” continues cocky Knobber. “You’re gonna put the log on this” – he points to a thick, black bar – “and then this hydraulic arm here” – he touches some giant screw-looking part – “is gonna push the log into that stationary wedge welded onto the bar and cut it right in half.”

“What?” I say, amazed. “That’s it? How do you get any kind of workout?”

Comments Screen Four, You’d think that would hurt, the way he’s slapping his forehead.

“Boy, I ain’t standing in the bitter cold for a workout. I’m here to split several cord of wood in a hurry and get my frozen backside in the house again.”

Five suggests, Start placing logs on the splitter. Now.

We move along nicely until one log does not break apart. The splitter whines a moment, kicks out of gear, and dies. Knobber grimaces and, in deeply edited comments, says, “Well, darn. Run it through again.”

But Four scoffs. I’ve been studying the setup. Because these logs are so fat – they are mighty oak, after all – don’t feed it the same way. Flip the log, then run it through again.

Knobber starts to protest this modified arrangement but quickly sees it works well.

Three, who had no part in the process, fairly sings, We ADHD screens always improve existing systems.

Sure, says One. Until we hit the really thick oak.

Even with Knobber having chain-sawed the lengths down to woodstove-stuffing 14 inches, I struggle to lift the pieces. At least one-third of the time, the high-powered splitter cannot work its way through this dense wood on the first attempt. We battle constant re-starts with not a key but a lawnmower-style pull rope.

“We’re way behind,” Knobber says in menacing tones that warm the chilly air 10 degrees.

Four again says, I’ve been studying the setup. I’m about to kid him on his memory troubles when he suggests a different idea, which the other five screens applaud.  As the logs go through the splitter, reach in and pull the two halves apart.

So I do just that, shocking a spluttering Knobber.

“You’re – you must be nuts! Reaching in like that? Know how fast you lose a hand to that machine?” Loudly, slowly, emphatically he says, “Thir-teen … tons … of … pres-sure.”

“Worked, didn’t it?”

Hoo boy, marvels Three. Look at the fire in his eyes!

“Suit yourself,” he says and shakes his head. “Don’t blame me when fingers go.”

And you don’t, proudly notes Six, when that very thing happens just four logs later.

Seeing the splitter fail to split the huge oak, I plunge my hands in just as the hidden knot in the log’s middle snaps, allowing the halves to settle for a moment. My right hand bounces off the unexpectedly repositioned log; my left hand misses altogether and dives into the yawning midsts of the splitter itself.

Two halves snap back together and take my hand through the machine.

That’s gonna hurt, observes Five and, for a nanosecond, he is correct. Worst. Pain. Ever. But as quickly as the pain arrives, it leaves.

In disbelief, I scan my intact gloves and shout out, “I – I’m fine! It’s OK!”

“No, you’re not,” contends Knobber, looking as if he could hurl his cookies, though Oreos were not on that morn’s breakfast menu. “Take off your gloves.”

I do. Stuck to my hand is a white paper, blowing in the wind. Knobber goes Casper-white, fights retching.  “Relax,” I assure him. “That’s not a finger. These are new gloves – y’know, paper inserts, like with shoes. That’s all.”

I tug the paper to reassure him. The paper stays put.

countingCount your fingers, suggests One.

“Look,” I say soothingly, “one, two, three … um, four.” I hesitate because the flapping white paper rudely commandeers the place reserved for my fourth finger.

Count them all again, says One. Name ’em this time.

“Hmm. Thumb, index, middle, ring finger and –

Rocks, scissors, paper, says Five. Or paper pinky, which now is six inches long, two inches wide, and credit-card thickness.

“ – dang, is that my pinky?”

The answer, my friend, sings Three in dismal Dylan, is blowin’ in the wind.

Knobber doubles over. Three friends who joined us moments earlier double, too. All four suggest the hospital. Knobber demands they carry me up the eight steps to the back porch. Embarrassed, I tell the quartet I am fine and start to climb the steps myself.

My main man! cheers Six.

Great plan until step five, says Four. Nice blackout. The Russian judge gives an eight on your back flip. Good thing all those boys caught your body as it tumbled backward from pain and shock.

I am driven to tiny Wilson Memorial Hospital in equally tiny Sidney, Ohio. Screen Two asks, Do you observe Pearl Harbor Day this way to understand the sadness of that time?

The sympathetic nurse welcomes us and introduces me to the doctor who holds the future of my hands in his hands.

All six screens laugh out loud at seeing this man, an unexpected reminder of today’s Pearl Harbor observance: He is Japanese.

Screen Shot 2013-04-26 at 6.52.03 PM

You’ve never heard “The Little Drummer Boy” this way!

Another timeless carol by The Piano Guys

In remembrance of Pearl Harbor

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