Rules for Life

My mom gave me an article about a speech my dad gave at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, MO, sometime in the mid-seventies.  She asked me to reproduce it and as I sat typing I could hear my dad's best preacher voice telling folks about his guiding principles. I think about my most recent visit with mom and dad last weekend.  It wounds my soul to see my dad's health declining daily.  He is very nearly blind and his voice is weakening.  He fell again last week.  So when I read these words, I'm comforted with the knowledge that his life has been rich and full. And I'm so very grateful that I'm a part of it.  Note:  It's lengthy...but it won't take you the hour and a half it took the audience to listen to it!

STANDING OVATION FOR SPAINHOWER AT LECTURE
By Jeani Wilson

Jim Spainhower’s “Last Lecture” received a standing ovation last night.

The Missouri State Treasurer spoke for about an hour and a half and spent very little time speaking about politics.

Spainhower was the first speaker in this week’s Last Lecture Series being held at Missouri Valley College. Tonight’s speaker is Rev. Jerry Max, pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church. The speech is at 8 p.m.

There is much speculation around the state as to whether Spainhower will run for governor during the next election. He has announced that he will seek statewide office, but is leaving his options open until January to decide whether to run for the office of Governor or for re-election to the office of State Treasurer.

You would expect a man in his position to dwell on politics.

But he didn’t. This was his assignment. He was to assume the attitude that this would be the last opportunity he would have to say what are the most important insights he has into life.

Jim Spainhower’s insights are deeply religious. And, those insights spoke to his audience of townspeople and students.

After his speech, the audience of more than 50 stayed for quite a while in the College Center to talk to one another about the impact and importance of the ideas they had heard.

One student said, “I heard some very important things tonight. He told me things I needed to hear.”

It was evident that Spainhower said many things that his audience needed to hear.

Principles
He spoke about 11 basic principles by which he guides his life.  After assuring his audience that this was not really his last lecture, Spainhower said he intended to make many more speeches in his lifetime. “But, if this were to be my last lecture, I would point out to my audience that an important thing I have learned is that I should not take myself, my job or position in life too seriously.

“I would like to quote my favorite theologian, Red Skelton, who said, “You should never take life too seriously, because you are not going to get out of it alive anyway.”

He said that this is a lesson we all need to learn – that we are all going to die. Therefore, we should not take ourselves so seriously.

We should remember that the Bible says that a thousand years in God’s sight are but yesterday,” Spainhower said.

Knowing that gives us a better perspective in our own lives, he said.

His second guiding principle is that he has learned that he must take God very seriously.

“We must take His purposes for this world and for our own lives seriously,” Spainhower said.
He said in order to do that, we must know God and his natural order in this world. He said that he has learned much about God through the works of Plat, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillick.

“However, the best way of knowing God is to become an intimate of Jesus Christ,” he said. “In Jesus Christ we see how God would have us live.”

Prayer
Spainhower stressed the importance of prayer. He said more things are wrought by prayer than the world knows.

“Through prayer we come to know God. Then we receive the strength from Him to do what we must do in this life,” he said.

He went on to say that to know God is to become his partner.

“God is working through us to make his purposes known on this earth,” Spainhower said.

His third guiding principle is that we should hold people in appropriate awe. “We human beings are created from the image of God. We should remember than and try to live that way,” he said.

Other principles he noted are:
Four – Respect for common sense. He said that although he has obtained his doctorate in political science, he is not much of an academic.

“I have greater respect for good, old common horse sense. Sometimes I think it is a gift from God,” Spainhower said.

Five – The towering importance of a sense of humor. He said that if we humans are unable to laugh, then there is something tragically wrong with us.

Six – Primacy of one’s family. When two people marry, they become as one.

“People should have the proper respect for each other in a family and have respect for the love they have for one another,” he said.

Seven – The necessary participation in the institution of religion. He said it is important that each person have a religious faith. That faith cannot find its fullest expression outside participation in a church. You can be religious without being involved in a church, he said. However, your faith will be stronger if you are involved in an active participation of that faith.

“Religion cannot be preserved from generation to generation without the institution of a church. The work of the Church is basic to a sound society. We receive our basic ideas about God, love, marriage, ethics and our fellow man through the Church,” he said.

Eight – The social need for personal political participation.

“Most people think that is doesn’t matter if they become involved in the political process. That is part of the reason we had a Watergate. When good people turn their backs on the political parties, then there are a whole host of vultures waiting to swoop in to feast on the savory meat of power that is involved in government,” Spainhower said.

Participation
He adamantly stressed that “if the good people don’t participate in government, then we are damaging ourselves and our country.”

Nine – The importance of friends. “The older I get, the more friends mean to me. There is just nothing like a friend,” Spainhower said. He noted that in his position as a state officeholder he meets thousands of people on an acquaintance level. Because of the necessity of meeting many people on a superficial level in his job, his friends from his community are coming to mean more and more to him each day.

“I like to keep in contact with the people I served her as minister of the First Christian Church and as State Representative,” he said. “Those friendships through the years have sustained me and my family.

Ten – the importance of never underestimating the power of an idea whose time has come.

“If this were truly my last lecture, I would want to tell my audience that in this world ideas do move men. And, men do move the world. So, I would say, seek out the ideas that have power for you. Do work for those ideas in your world,” Spainhower said.

Eleven – Books. Spainhower listed 14 books that have had a real influence on his life and the way he views life. He noted that these books were not really classics and that most of these books would not be listed by college professors as the great books of the world.

“Nevertheless, these books have had a great influence on the way that I think and feel about life,” he said.

The first book he named was the Bible.

“I name the Bible not just because I’m supposed to, but because it has had the most influence on my life. There is no book more fascinating than this book,” he said.

Other books he mentioned were “If This be Religion”; an autobiography of Lincoln Steffens; Paul Tillock’s sermons, “Shaking of the Foundation”; a modern text of abnormal psychology; Otto Kingberg’s “Social Psychology”; Leo Strauss’ “Political Philosophy”; Robert Mickles’ “Political Parties”; James McGregor Burns’ “The Lion and the Fox”; William Danforth’s “I Dare You”; Clyde Reid’s “Celebrate the Contemporary”; Henry C. Link’s “The Return to Religion,”; John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage”; a book by A. Cresse Morrison concerning the fact there was and is a creative mind who brought this world into being; and the books of Agatha Christie – “because each of us needs something light and entertaining to read that takes us out of our everyday world.”
In conclusion, Spainhower said that the most important thing he would like to leave with his audience is that he has found there is one overriding important fact.

“And, that is that God forgives.  And, God forgives even now as I fall short in the quest to try to tell you the most important things in my life in this ‘Last Lecture”.”

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I'm pretty sure I've used that title before, but what the heck.  If the shoe fits, right?

It's been eleven days since I touched down on the West Coast.  It has been, in a word, AMAZING!  I've seen pictures of, and movies about, Southern California, but seeing it in real time with me own eyes is another thing altogether.  As I write, I'm looking out over our street, Avenida Palizada.  It's not the quietest neighborhood, but neither is it boring.

Every night about 8:30 we hear the familiar metal rattle of a skateboard whizzing down, and then up, the street.  Our deck overlooks a lovely pinkish stucco apartment building with magnificent palms, ficus (the same kind you might have in your home, but on steroids) and two beautiful stained glass windows that are exceptionally pretty at night when lit from within.

Catty corner to our apartment is a house that regularly has wet suits tossed over the railing of the deck.  It caught me off guard at first...it looked like a couple of folks had had too much tequila the night before and passed out.

Can we talk about surfing?  It's the sport of the gods.  Every day since I've been here, I've walked on the man-made path that winds up and down the coast, with the San Clemente Pier as its center.  There are always little black dots of surfers waiting, waiting, waiting for that perfect wave.  One of these days I'm going to ask one of them what it is that they look for as they scan the approaching waves.  They'll be floating, floating, floating, riding out most of the waves when all of the sudden, they turn around (facing the shore) and start paddling like mad.  Once the wave starts to crest, they hop up on their feet and start the ride, darting to and fro, cutting and, if they're lucky, ride the wave pretty close into the shore.  It takes a great deal of patience, I'm guessing some pretty amazing core muscles and finesse.  (Side note:  if you get a chance to see "Soul Surfer" watch it.  Great (true) story about a very talented, courageous young surfer from Hawaii.)

One of these days I'll post about the people.  Variety, as they say, is the spice of life.

The adventure has not been without its anxious moments.  The night before I left Kate and Tyler were over to bid me adieu and have one last meal together.  We were all sitting downstairs and Tyler grabbed his laptop and in no time was staring intently at it.  I asked him what he was looking at and he said, nonchalantly, "Washing machines."  What? Why was he looking at washing machines.  Turns out it was because he was using our washing machine, which had inconveniently decided to overflow.  "Great!" I thought.  Just what I needed.  Phone calls were made, solutions suggested and tried.  Nada.  Apparently the "I've got enough water, stop" sensor had failed.

But that's just the tip of the damned proverbial iceberg.

On Saturday, Ron and I were walking from our apartment to the pier/ocean (about a five minute walk).  I had pretty much literally just placed one foot into the warm sand when my phone rang.  Kate.  I was excited to tell her what I was looking at.

She was hysterical.  I couldn't understand what she was saying.  Every third and fifth word was intelligible.  Apartment.  Dark.  Smoky.  Wet.  Everything.  Ruined.

After spending the morning and early afternoon with Tyler scouring the Rivermarket Antiques, she had arrived home to a darkened apartment that reeked of smoke and had about two inches of water on the floor.  She immediately called the fire department, gotten her two kitties out and into her car and then she called me.

Long story short, they think the fan in the bathroom shorted out, caught on fire, dropped onto her bathroom floor, igniting a twelve pack of TP.  It got so hot that the toilet cracked, hence the flooding.  Although the fire was confined to the bathroom, the smoke and soot damage was pervasive throughout.  Unless you've lived through it, you cannot imagine how much damage smoke and soot can do.

Kate spend the next three days cleaning literally everything she had.  Six bags of clothes were tossed.  High school art projects were unsalvageable.  A chair that had been in our family for fifty years...ruined.

Bless her heart.  She had to settle with her apartment complex, sift through all of her belongings to see what could be saved, find a new apartment, move her stuff into the storage unit for two days, wash all of her clothes (sometimes twice) then move into her new apartment and go binge shopping at Ikea to replace a bunch of stuff.

Never had I wanted to be there for her more.  My heart ached for her.  It was difficult for all of us.  But, after a few teary phone calls, Kate was on it.  Nine days later she's in her new apartment, still finding vestiges of soot in some places, but for the most part settled.

Here's a picture of her bathroom.  It could have been worse.  So much worse. Had the fire not progressed as it did, the whole apartment probably would have been torched.  In the chaotic days that followed I calmed myself by thanking God that it wasn't worse.

Amen and amen.

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Play Football, Part II

And...here's the rest of the story...

In 2006, the NFL appointed a new Commissioner, Roger Goodell, who, over the course of 24 years, had come up through the NFL ranks.  The chairman of the MTBI was replaced by Dr. Ira Casson, who would go on to be called Dr. No, so named because of his repeated "no" answers to ongoing questions regarding the correlation between concussions and brain trauma.

In 2007, an NFL summit was convened to discuss medical findings relating to concussions.  Dr. Omalu, the scientist who first identified CTE, was not invited.  Dr Julian Bailes, a former Steeler's team doctor and new believer in Omalu's research, offered to present Omalu's findings.

By this time there were two more cases of CTE to present: Andre Waters and Justin Strzelczyk. After Bailes' presentation, Casson stated that "anecdotes do not make scientifically valid evidence."

Discouraged, Omalu left Pittsburgh and moved to California.  About the same time, Dr. Ann McKee, a leading Alzheimer's researcher,was asked to join a team to further Omalu's study at Boston University.  And, a new player in the game (of research), Chris Norinski, took on the role of the Brain Chaser.  Having played college football and later as a professional wrestler, Norinski came to believe that repeated blows to his head had given him CTE.  His first clue?  A headache that lasted five years.

With Norinski's help, Boston U began receiving more and more brains of former football players to study.  All showed CTE.

In 2009, journalist Alan Schwarz received - from an NFL source - information about a study the NFL conducted with its players.  It showed that dementia and memory disorders occurred  at a higher rate than the regular community.  When Schwarz published an article about the findings, the NFL denied its own study, saying the design was flawed.

Eventually, Congress got involved, convening a series of hearings to assess the situation.  Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, could not (would not) adequately answer questions put to him; one Senator likened the NFL to Big Tobacco. 

Finally, decades after the discovery of CTE, and realizing the potentially catastrophic results of being of being lumped into the pile as the tobacco industry, the NFL took some action.  They revised their policy on head injuries:  a concussion is now a game ending injury.

Not a career ending injury.  You just couldn't go back in the game once your bell had been rung.

They also gave a million dollars to Boston University and designated BU as the preferred brain bank for CTE study.

By now, 20 brains of former NFL players had been analyzed.  Nineteen were positive for CTE.

It only gets worse.

Owen Thomas, a 21-year old college student and football player, committed suicide.  He had never been diagnosed with a concussion.  Dr. McKee began to realize that sub-concussive hits can also lead to CTE.  Even if a player is never diagnosed with a concussion, CTE can develop.

Eighteen year-old Eric Pelly, died ten days after being diagnosed with his fourth concussion. McKee was expecting to find Pelly's brain in a pristine condition, due to his youth.  Instead, she found the beginning signs of CTE.

Because brains in younger people are lighter, when the head is hit, there's more inertia so the brain hits the skull with greater force.  Researchers now say that no one under the age of fourteen should be playing tackle football.

Dr. McKee and her colleagues continued their study.  Of the 46 brains they examined, 45 were CTE positive.  McKee wonders if EVERY SINGLE NFL PLAYER HAS CTE.

In 2012, Junior Seau committed suicide in California.  Omalu asked Seau's son for permission to examine his father's brain.  As Omalu was harvesting the brain, the NFL stepped in to stop him from proceeding.  The NFL had contacted Seau's son and accused Dr. Omalu of 'practicing bad medicine. Seau's son had changed his mind.

The brain went,instead, to the National Institute of Health, not the preferred brain bank at Boston University.  Perhaps the NFL was growing weary of learning that (nearly) every former football player BU examined had CTE.   Perhaps they were hoping for a different result.

 Seau's brain was full of the tau protein that indicates the presence of CTE. A result of his 1,849 career tackles.

As late as 2013, Commissioner Goodell was still deflecting questions that link football head injuries  to CTE.  "It is unclear."

That same year, 4.500 retired football players filed a lawsuit, stating that the NFL had fraudulently concealed the risks associated with playing football.  In the lawsuit the players asked for two billion dollars.  The NFL and the players settled out of court for $765 million; the NFL admitted no liability or weakness.

Which allows them to keep denying and hiding the truth.

The NFL has made its name by marketing the violence of the sport.  There is more violence per square foot on a football field than any other sport.  The biggest cheers are, of course, for touchdowns.  The second biggest cheers are for the most brutal hits.  It has a certain Roman empire/gladiator/kill for sport ring to it.

"Everyone now has a better sense of what damage you can get from playing football.  And I think the NFL has given everybody 765 million reasons why you don't want to play football."
            - Harry Carson, New York Giants linebacker, 1976-1988

Barbaric.  Dangerous.  Deathly.

Is it worth it?

P.S.  Will Smith's new movie "Concussion" is about Dr. Bennet's fight to expose CTE.

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Play Football

As I write, the city is abuzz with all things red and gold.  Everyone's hoping for another Big Game win and a chance to converge on downtown to support their Chiefs.

Me?  Not so much.  Every time I see a promo for a football game I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach?  Why?  I'm glad you asked.

Last week I watched a PBS Frontline documentary, "League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis."  It was full of helmet crunching footage, sad, sad stories of retired football players, decades of denials from the NFL and a grim prognosis for all football players and the sport itself.

In 2002, Pittsburgh Steeler player Mike Webster died, eleven years after he left professional football. He was fifty years old.  Dr. Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist who performed the autopsy, said that if he hadn't know how old Mike was, he would have guessed he was in his seventies.

Pictures of his legs during the autopsy were horrifying.  For lack of a better description, they looked like Cabbage Patch doll legs...puffy, bloated and certainly not normal.  Mike's forehead was permanently affixed to his skull, the result of scar tissue built up due to the numerous concussions he sustained during his 17 years in the pros.  Towards the end of his life, Mike was unable to focus, had trouble finding the right words, experienced fits of rage and exhibited other signs of dementia.  Eventually, he ended up living in his car.

In 1997, believing his deteriorating condition was a result of his years in the NFL, Webster filed a lawsuit against the League's retirement players board.  His lawyer sent Webster's medical records to four different doctors for review.  They all concluded that Webster had sustained traumatic brain damage as a result of his 17 years in the NFL.  The NFL had his medical records evaluated by another doctor, Dr. Ed Westbrook, who concurred with the other findings.

The NFL had no choice but to acknowledge that Webster's condition was a result of the beatings he took during his professional career and agreed to pay him a monthly disability stipend.

The NFL did not make the information public.  For decades.

In the mid-90's, the NFL established the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee (MTBI), headed by a rheumatologist(!).  Half of the doctors on the board are NFL team doctors.  Over the next fifteen years, the Committee would conduct "research" that would state that there was no relation between hitting your head and later health problems.

After Webster's death in 2002, a close examination of his brain led to a dark discovery.  Dr. Omalu, after sectioning and staining tissue from Mike's brain, discovered the presence of tau protein in areas of the brain not generally associated with dementia or Alzheimer's.  The presence of tau protein destroys the integrity of surrounding brain cells.

Omalu classified the condition as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).  He published his findings in the journal Neurosurgery. The MTBI attacked Omalu's article, claiming that there was no evidence that Webster's brain was abnormal.

In 2005, another Steeler's player, Terry Long, died after drinking anti-freeze.  Omalu examined Long's brain and found the same tau proteins.  The MTBI again refused to acknowledge Omalu's findings, accusing him of "practicing voodoo."

Omalu was summoned to speak with an NFL doctor.  During the course of their discussion, Omalu was asked several times, "Do you know the implications of what you're doing?" several times.  Finally, Omalu says, "Why don't you just tell me."

"If ten percent of mothers in this country would begin to perceive that football was a dangerous sport, that is the end of football."

As a mother, I am incensed to think that an organization as large as the NFL would dare to put their billions of dollars in assets and profits before the health and well-being of a child.  Their lack of response and blatant denial of concussion repercussions is heinous.

Part ll to follow...

Beware the Nit Pickers

This is the email I just sent to Apria Healthcare... 

I just spent an hour and a half on the phone with five different representatives trying to get to the bottom of a billing issue, which even now I'm not sure has been properly resolved. 

It started with a phone call from a collection agency for a bill of $14.94.  "Wait a minute," I thought. "I paid that."

So I called the fine folks at the Apria "help" center. 

This was the fourth or fifth attempt my husband and I have tried to get this straightened out over the last five months.  I can't begin to calculate the number of hours we have spent trying to resolve an issue that's less than $15.  We have been Apria clients for well over ten years.  While the products we've purchased and used have been great, the customer service is, without doubt, the worst we have ever encountered.

At the end of the last conversation I had with an Apria representative (probably in November), I asked them to send me a bill for $14.94 and I would gladly pay it.  Which they did and I did.  I thought the matter was over.  After all, I hadn't received another bill from them.  How was I to know it would end up in the Nit Pick Department? (More on that later).  

Today I spoke to five representatives.  Each one told me a different story.

The first person told me I had an account overage of $14.94. 

The second one (Janet) said my money was tied up in the Nit Pick Department.  The what department?  THE most unprofessional term I've heard in a long time.  She couldn't tell me why it was in the Nit Pick Department, but said she couldn't do a thing until it was finished in the Nit Pick Department.  When I told her I was looking at the cancelled check (on my computer screen) I'd sent last month she wanted me to send me a copy of it to her.  Clearly, Apria had received it because, again, I was looking at the cancelled check. In my opinion, it's not my fault that the check was lost (or tied up in limbo in the Nit Pick Department - again, really?); therefore, I should not have to prove that the invoice was paid.  Also, if my money is in the Nit Pick Department being haggled over, or whatever it is they do in the Nit Pick Department, why was it turned over to collection?  It's there, in the Nit Pick Department.  Quit nit picking and use the money to settle my account.

The third person (a supervisor named Taylor) bore the brunt of my frustration.  She tried to back peddle the whole Nit Pick Department thing.  In my mind I was thinking, "I could bring down the whole company by letting the world know there's such a thing as a Nit Pick Department at Apria."  But then I decided I'd wasted enough time on you guys. (OK, I lied.)

Taylor finally - after at least a half hour of not being able to answer my concerns in a satisfying manner - offered to write off the balance.  She also told me that our insurance company hadn't paid our last claim at 100%, which I told her was strange, given the fact that they had been doing since April, when we met our out-of-pocket deductible.  

I told her I'd check on our insurance website.  Sure enough, the information on the website indicates that they paid the claim in full.

So...I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.  I called Apria back and - silly me - asked to speak to Taylor.  Oh, that's not possible, I was told.  I'm guessing Taylor wasn't even in the same building/state/country.  I told the representative that our insurance is on record for paying the claim in full.  She said they only received a portion of it.  Dear God in heaven!  Did it end up in the Nit Pick Department again?

As I was navigating through the insurance website I noticed that for three months in a row (probably longer) our insurance had been billed for fairly large amounts.  I asked the representative what those charges were for and she couldn't tell me.  That was the fourth person.

The last person I talked to was able to answer my questions and said she saw the check for $14.94 and that she'd credit my account and everything would be at zero.  I didn't have the strength to tell her that Taylor had already credited our account.  We'll just leave that up to the Nit Pickers.

The one good thing that came out of this is that I learned that we officially own my husband's CPAP machine, so we will NEVER EVER have to use the services of Apria Health Care again.

And, if it ends up that we actually have a credit...give it to the Nit Pick Department.