We remember our brother Tommy

Tommy Shay and his dog Duke

In Memoriam: Tommy Shay 

Thomas Gerard Shay (“Tommy”), age 65, passed away peacefully after a short illness on Christmas Day, 2025, with family at his side.  He was an organ donor and willed his body to medical research. He was born in Denver on Jan. 28, 1960, and grew up in Wichita, KS, Moses Lake, WA, and Daytona Beach, and was a long-time resident of Palm Bay where he worked as a machinist for 30 years at Winchester Interconnect, Melbourne. He is survived by brothers Michael Shay (Christine) and Timothy Shay (Jen) both of Ormond Beach, four sisters Molly Shay Shakar of Decatur, GA, Eileen Shay Casey (Brian) of Winter Park, FL, Maureen Shay Martinez (Ralph) Ormond Beach. and Mary Shay Powell (Neill), Tallahassee, and his significant other, Tani Hopkins, Decatur, GA. His brothers Daniel Shay (Nancy) of Ormond Beach and Patrick Shay (Jean) of Palm Bay preceded him in death, as did his parents, Anna Hett Shay and Thomas Reed Shay. His family meant everything to him and he will be mourned by his nephews and nieces: Kevin, Annie, Meghan, Connor, Ryan, Bryce, Thomas, Michael, Katie, Maggie, Erin, Katie, Olivia, Finn, Mayzee, Sean, Maddie, Olivia, Morgan and his many great-nieces and nephews. Tommy grew up surfing in Daytona Beach and was a founding member of the “Hartford Heavies.” The family dog, Shannon, was his constant companion while he surfed.  As an adult, he spent Sundays surfcasting with friends on Melbourne Beach. He lent a helping hand to family, friends, and neighbors who looked forward to ripe avocados and limes from Tommy’s backyard orchard. He camped with his dogs Ophie and his hound Duke who passed away in 2023. He was proud of his stamp and coin collections. Tommy was a metal detector hunter and tossed foreign coins on the beach for other hunters to find. “He looked out for everyone,” said his surf-fishing buddy.  Tommy loved dogs and requested donations be made to Riley’s Rescue of Brevard County, 215 Krefeld Rd. NW, Palm Bay, FL 32907 or FL Aid to Animals/Palm Bay, 3585 Bayside Lake Blvd. SE, Palm Bay, FL 32909. Tommy was a spiritual person but at his request, no service will be held. His family has tentatively scheduled a Paddle Out on April 4, 2026 at the Hartford Avenue approach in Daytona Beach; details to be determined.

The family welcomes comments and remembrances. 

https://www.news-journalonline.com/obituaries/psar1368055

Down by the river with family, friends, and Rockefeller's ghost

There was no wedding, but one hell of a reception.

Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025. My niece Bryce celebrates her wedding to Zak. They eloped and got hitched, as my grandparents might have said. They wanted it that way, Bryce’s mom Nancy said. She is my sister-in-law, widow, high-school sweetheart of my brother Dan who died at 60 from blood cancer. That was 12 years ago. He never got to see his daughter go to college, get engaged, and set off on a new life. But I did. His older brother, his childhood pal and mentor. I saw it all from afar, from Wyoming. And now I am back on home turf.

The reception was held under a massive marquee tent on The Casement grounds along the Halifax River in Ormond Beach. It was a gorgeous November night, beautiful sunset and warm breezes. The Grenada Bridge begins at property’s edge and rises majestically west over the Halifax River and butts up against mainland Ormond and its fine library. The bridge is crowded with weekend motorists off to their own dinners and receptions. Someone is off to the ER in a wailing ambulance. It’s loud here, the most traveled stretch of Ormond Beach. But picture perfect..

That’s why John D. Rockefeller chose this site for his Florida digs. He entertained guests at The Casements, so known for its innovative window design that allowed plenty of air to circulate in the pre-AC years. Rockefeller played host to celebrities such as Will Rogers and industrialists such as Henry Ford. They too had a chance to escape their winters for a short while. Florida lore is filled with tales of snowbirds.

Across the street, Rockefeller built the Ormond Hotel. It went to seed after John D’s death in 1937. Replaced by condos, an oft-told Florida story. But The Casements remain. Its splendid lawn is where Chris and I picnic watching free concerts in the winter and spring. The spacious porch hosts the bands. Its nine acres are a historic site and the house is a museum.

To the north of the marquee tent are the caterers. They cook paella (seafood and chicken varieties) and steaming bowls of seasoned rice. I enjoyed my chicken paella and wonder why paella and not a barbecue or shrimp boil. I consider this a fine choice as I eat everything on my plate. I drink soda water and look around at this mostly young crowd most of whom are drinking alcoholic beverages. They are a spiritous and spirited bunch. Mostly strangers, but friends of the happy couple and their families. I run into my old friend Tommy who had a stroke and walks with a cane. Tommy and I reminisce about a trip we took long ago. My girlfriend and I lived in Boston and we were walking back to our apartment on Beacon Hill when I spotted Tommy walking down the street. The next day we hitched rides to Vermont to see his friend Danny who made marijuana pipes. I was 21 and so was he and we both hitched many rides in those days. When I returned to Boston, I started a new job. We were both younger then than most of the people at this gathering are now. We are still here.

My niece and her husband threw a magnificent party. We joined in Jewish champagne toasts – l’chaim! -- from the groom’s family and the bride and groom were hoisted in chairs onto the dance floor in the traditional hora ceremony.

Chris and I pose for goofy photos at my niece’s photo booth. I have to make a stop at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cart. I accompany my wife to the dance floor. I put the e-scooter in neutral and we move about. She loves to dance. We recently decided no more “sitting this one out” for me. We rock and weave to The Village People, slow-dance to Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon.” I try to match her natural rhythm to my machine glide. So good to be close.

We had a lovely time.

"Return to Sender" is more than just an Elvis song

I have got to hand it to Neil at LiquidLawn.com. He is persistent. I do not require his services at this time but there will come a time when I may. This is the fourth flyer I have received from Liquid Lawn and, really, the rare piece of mail I have personally received from anyone, human, company, or provider of services important to the Florida homeowner. My daughter receives disability and got mail from Social Security. It was sent to our Melogold address although it was spelled Mellogold but I wish they had written Mellowgold just to stop me from editing in my head JR Horton street names. On the envelope was handwritten "FWD" which means forward but why it would request forwarding when it was already destined for the right address with a slight misspelling? 

Yesterday I received a call from my former employer of 25 years. The caller asked if I had a new address as mail sent to Ocean Shore Drive had come to her, "Return to Sender," you know, like the Elvis song that got to number two on the charts in October 1962 after "Big Girls Don't Cry." The caller asked if I had sent USPS a change of address and I said yes, I dutifully did so. I did neglect to send that information to my trusted former employer, but had to wonder why they got "Return to Sender" when I had filed an official forwarding request to USPS on June 2. She was a bit stumped too but was friendly and polite as are most people in Wyoming. 

I filed an address change last August on my Wyoming address and mail seemed to find its way fine from Townsend Place in Cheyenne, to Ormond Beach but for some reason, USPS can't seem to get mail from Ormond-by-the-Sea to Ormond Station about five miles west as the crow flies. Now that USPS has raised rates on first-class mail, and has cut back on their trucks running from the big mail-gathering places to the little P.O.s on the coast, they can afford some drones to fly out our way. I wouldn't mind a drone mail drop. Really. 

I hear from The Lawn Guy but wondering about the fate of my U.S. Mail

Thanks for Neil over at Liquid Lawn for sending me some mail. This is the third flyer I've received from his company since I moved to Ormond Station. I have another service I'm using for my new lawn, They have seen to my yard but never send me mail, not even a bill. I never get any bills and I should be getting a ton as a new homeowner. I also should be getting rejections from various literary magazines. Come to think of it, I should be getting some magazines too, like the one from AARP that arrives without fail, AARP particularly fond of Florida. I expected some summer postcards -- Wish You Were Here With Us in the Tetons! -- and greetings from other companies welcoming us to the neighborhood. Forwarded mail is the biggest issue. Nice person from Ormond Beach P.O. called today, a response to my inquiry about lack of mail. She said it should be catching up to us any day. I asked if it was SOP for forwarded mail all the way from Ormond-by-the-Sea to take from June 3 to July 9 to catch up with the consumer. She said it takes time, noting that her office has done everything possible to make sure I get my stuff, that the mail delivery person is making his appointed rounds, stuffing our mail into our mail station out there on Airport Road. She said he could be a bit confused that my address is 65 but my box number is 88 and maybe 65 is chock full of my mail although the mailman has delivered a missive from the mortgage company to 88 so I think he knows what's going on numbers-wise. The P.O. spokesperson said incoming mail deliveries by truck from various locales have been cut from three per day to just one. Probably the doings of Elon and the DOGE, but she didn't say. I guess I will will just look forward to hearing from Neil over at Liquid Lawn. I mean, he's a Guaranteed Weed Killer and I can Bundle + save! Not a bad deal. Not bad at all.

Get out there and vote on April 1 in the District 6 special election w/update

Update from an old friend and reader of blogs: 

"There is a peaceful rally on Saturday, 3/22, at the west side of the Granada Bridge to support Josh Weil and the progressive anti-Trump agenda. It is from 2:30-5:30.... If you or any of your friends can come it would be great. We need a big turnout."

You heard it here. FYI, the Grenada Bridge is in Ormond Beach, possibly the most traveled thoroughfare in Volusia County. I saw a large gathering for Harris and Walz there during the November vote. They were happy and peaceful. My wife honked the heck out of our SUV in support. They have been unhappy ever since, as have I. See you at the bridge Saturday.

Chris and I voted by mail Tuesday. It felt great. This is a special election set for April 1 and I voted for Josh Weil, a Democrats in Florida District 6. I believe that Chris voted for Weil but I wasn't looking over her shoulder as she filled out the mail-in ballot. I was schooled that who my spouse or friend or neighbor voted for was none of my business. 

Me: Who did you vote for?

Someone else: None of your beeswax!

But here I am, telling my readers who I voted for. 

Weil's opponent is MAGA GOPer Randall Fine. Weil has been kicking Fine's butt on TV ads, labeling him the nogoodnik that he is. Nogoodnik now. Nogoodnik if he gets to D.C. He will join the mindless House GOP horde dismantling our democracy (OK brother -- Democratic Republic) on the orders of Trump and his favorite fascist, Elon Musk. Donny and Elon want to take away your Social Security payments to line their own already-stuffed pockets. More golf balls for Donny, more Swasticars and exploding spaceships for Elon. 

They must be stopped. So get out there and vote, District 6 registered voters. The life you save may be your own. Here's a quote from Weil in the Daytona Beach News-Journal:

"We cannot take our foot off the gas," Weil said. "We have to continue knocking on doors and continue dominating the airwaves, holding more and bigger events and getting people out."

This election is being held to replace our former GOP Rep, Michael Waltz, who resigned Jan. 20 to become T's national security advisor. When Waltz was in Congress, he was a big supporter of Ukraine but now he's towing the T line to sell out Ukraine to Putin. We need a better Rep than this or Fine. Wins in this district and District 1 can negate the GOP majority in the House. We need checks and balances more than ever.

Early voting starts Saturday.

FMI: volusiaelections.gov 

What does fog sound like in a place known for noise?

February in a place known for its noise. Race cars that roar to grandstands of screaming fans. The pounding noise of motorcycles on every city street. Crowds of collegians arrive in March, their music and noise rise from beachside hotels, their cars parade A1A. On this morning wrapped in fog, I rolled outside, watched and listened. Birds sang and I didn’t know what kind of birds but it didn’t matter. The tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker. What does a bird hear? Fog doesn’t caution the noise nor does it enhance it. It just is. A carpenter saws and pounds nails next door. I live between two north-south main roads and cars hiss on wet pavement. An SUV’s headlights glow as it drives down my street which connects the two main roads. A train blares on the Ormond mainland a mile away, a train that stops traffic daily on the main east-west road that’s a hurricane evacuation route. Neighbors pass, quietly walking their dogs. They say nothing but wave. One sound I can’t hear – the sounds of surf slapping the beach. That came through my bedroom window last night but the day’s fog stole it away. A plane flies and it’s hidden by the fog and I wonder what fog looks like through the windshield of a small plane. In ten years, will I hear any of this? Will it be lodged in my memory, that foggy February morning when I skipped the TV news and cellphone screens and just listened? Will it be a molecule among my ashes swirling in the Atlantic? Where will these moments live?

This aging M.F.A.-trained writer vs. Copilot's A.I. mind

This is my version of a prose poem that I dashed off late last night. Maybe it's not a prose poem. A ramble, maybe, or just a burst of words that flew out of my head. I've been doing that a lot lately. Words bursting from my mind with very little rewrite. It's fun, really, just to let the words flow. Freewriting is what I used to call it when teaching college composition. I would tell my students just freewrite for 10 minutes and then let's see if anyone wants to read their pieces. Don't think about it -- just write! Do as I do. And I would write for 10 minutes about any darn thing I wanted. Things like this:

So what do you think of Florida my old friends ask. I think what is it they want me to say that I find it the most magnificent spit of land in the U.S. of A.? They are friends so I can't lie. I find it confusing after 46 years elsewhere many elsewheres. Warmer than my recent home Wyoming but confusing. Old landmarks no longer exist or they exist in puzzling forms. The beach seems less magnificent maybe because it’s so managed. The 60s and 70s we drove the wide low-tide beach any time day or night. We drove high tide too with all the attendant risks. Mostly we were pushing Yankees out of the soft sand and sometimes they paid us because they were so grateful that their 1968 Buick LeSabre did not get gobbled by the salty-sea. We surf as the sun peeks over the flat line of the horizon. A tortoise surfaces beyond the breakwater and we hope it’s not a shark. The waves are surfable but just barely and it’s OK because there always is tomorrow and tomorrow after that. My old rental west of the interstate is now a development and the beat-up two-lane road is now named for a gated community called Tymber Creek and yeah that Tymber with a Y and all the timber cut down for new houses says thank you alphabet. On Hartford Ave my father is not out by the street, dressed in shorts and flapping button-down, with beer in hand, yelling at the surfers to slow down. I go to a funeral for a high school friend last week and the widower a guy who was my classmate and teammate and relies on a wheelchair post-stroke looks up and says, “You look just like your old man.” And I take it in stride because I do that’s a fact and I’ve heard that the old friend is incapacitated and it is not true not true at all. We share quips about our conveyances, him his fancy wheelchair and me my fancy spine-assisting e-scooter. We are a fine pair of ballplayers 1969 and we make scholarship choices and it works out for him and he returns hometown and I’m cast off into the cold and I don’t regret it now but I did hundreds of times. Our links to past lives are pulled until they almost don’t exist. I tell my new friends: Yes, this place is too crowded and this is a voice from the Capital City of the nation’s least-populated state. It’s a place where newcomers my students from Torrington and Hanna and Meeteetse say THE CROWDS!!! THE TRAFFIC!!! and we city-born ones say it will grow on you boys and girls it will grow. So what do you think of the new Florida my green-eyed senior citizen? I open the bedroom window, hear the waves breaking at night. The waves. 

MS Copilot rewrite: 

My old friends ask what I think of Florida now. After 46 years elsewhere, I'm confused. It's warmer than Wyoming but different. Old landmarks have changed or vanished, and the beach feels less magnificent because it's so managed. In the past, we drove on the wide low-tide beach anytime, even at high tide with risks. We helped Yankees stuck in the sand, sometimes for a fee. We surfed as the sun rose, hoping to spot tortoises, not sharks.  

My old rental is now a development, and the two-lane road is named after a gated community called Tymber Creek. Hartford Ave has changed too; my father no longer yells at surfers. Last week, I attended a funeral for a high school friend. The widower, a former classmate now in a wheelchair, remarked that I look like my father. We joked about our conveyances, reminiscing about our scholarship decisions from 1969.  

Living here in Florida, I tell my new friends it’s crowded, especially compared to Wyoming. But I hear the waves breaking at night, and that remains unchanged. 

MS Copilot is not wrong but it's bland is it not? It just doesn’t get some things. Surprisingly, it does get other things. I thought about breaking up my big block of type into separate paragraphs. Copilot detected the change and did exactly that. AI scares me a bit. There are times, usually late at night when I am writing things down, when I wonder why I write at all. Really, why?

Malcolm Fraser flies with the angels at Ormond Memorial Art Museum & Gardens

What makes a 49-year-old artist abandon his paints and go to war?

That’s the question I pondered when visiting the Ormond Memorial Art Museum & Gardens.

Malcolm Fraser was a Canada-born professional painter and illustrator who had graduated from the Sorbonne and attended Heidelberg University. In 1917, he left the U.S., steamed to Europe, and joined, after some intense training, the French “Blue Devils” unit at the Front. He was wounded five times and received France’s Croix de Guerre for his heroics. Later, he joined the A.E.F., was promoted to captain, and served with the American Red Cross on the front lines.

Fraser ended up spending most of his time in Ormond Beach. Toward the end of his life, he looked for a place to feature his artwork and one that was dedicated to veterans. A $10,000 endowment by Fraser in 1946 got the ball rolling and led to this impressive place.

Its priorities are clear when you leave handicapped parking and roll through the jungle. As Credence sang:

Better run through the jungle, 

Better run through the jungle, 

Better run through the jungle, 

Whoa, don’t look back and see.

I roll on my electric scooter and Chris walks. A beautiful space, and peaceful. I can barely hear the traffic zooming by on one of Ormond's busiest intersections. We enter the sheltered labyrinth and follow the lines on its painted multicolored surface decorated with butterflies and hummingbirds. It was designed by by Joan Baliker and the late Carol Bertrand and refreshed by Mack Sutton (artists must be named). This one is within a big gazebo and is a great play place for kids. I think about the outdoor stone labyrinth at my hometown Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, now covered with snow. 

Along the walkway is a monument by Mark Chew to veterans of the Korean War. Its streamlined silver surface reaches for the trees and beyond. It's the shape of a flame but cold as the Chosin Reservoir. Around the next turn is a bronze for Vietnam veterans by Gregory Johnson. On what looks like an old kitchen chair sits a helmet and canteen. Dog tags and a uniform shirt hang from the chair back. Its legs straddle beat-up combat boots.

I linger. This was my generation’s war, not mine physically, but it's lodged in the memories of any guy of draft age from that time (December 1968 passed Draft physical Jacksonville FL, high school deferment; December 1969 Selective Service Draft Lottery #128; Navy ROTC midshipman 1969-71; two months served on USS John F. Kennedy as midshipman, summer 1970; released from the Draft on Jan. 1, 1972). I once read this about those times: "Vietnam sucked the soul out of an entire generation."

Memories remain. 

Johnson's statue is homey, I think, the things a grunt might leave behind when he changes into civvies. Or it could be a family's reminders of a GI whose psyche never made it back home. Think of war stories: Krebs in Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” or Ron Kovic in “Born on the Fourth of July” or Billy Lynn in Ben Fountain’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (whatever happened to Ang Lee’s 2016 movie based on the book?).

We emerge from the jungle and its memories. The sun shines on a colorful "Can Do" sculpture by the late Seward Johnson, part of the public art display on Grenada by the Ormond Beach Arts District. Also on the ground is the "Embracing Peace" sculpture celebrating the famous Times Square kiss on VJ Day. Inside the museum, a bronze plaque lists more than 200 residents who served in WW2 (updated in 1999 to list African-American veterans) and one dedicated to WW1 veterans. A WW1 Doughboy helmet rests in a glass case by Malcolm Fraser’s photo and bio that greet visitors. This is a decorated soldier, and we are here to see his artwork.

(To be continued)

Our daughter Annie begins the new year by getting "washed in the ocean"

A fine day for a baptism. 

Our daughter Annie arrived with Chris and I for the Salty Church’s annual New Year’s Day full-immersion baptism. Annie was joined by 51 others who all wore the same black T-shirt with this inscribed on it in white letters: “Washed in the ocean freed from my past today I am new” (see photos). Annie, Chris, and I were joined by family members and friends and we trudged through the soft sand to the water. 

Some of us walked, I trudged. But I was prepared. I used my high-performance rollator walker to blaze a trail through the sand. The rollator was equipped with big knobby tires which, I surmised, would be a better machine for the beach than my tiny-tire-and-tennis-ball-equipped walker. I pushed it forward and then walked to it, pushed again, walked, so on and so forth. The idea was that if I pushed it as I did across our living room, too much weight would dig-in the wheels. Now I’m not saying I am too much weight but I am and my ploy worked for a time. That’s when Joe the Biker arrived to assist. Dressed in black Boot Hill Saloon T-shirt, jeans, and big boots, he was equipped for riding his Harley and to assist a handicapped old guy through the sand. He stomped down the pesky sand granules to make a runway that paved the way to water’s edge wherein dwelt the hard-packed sand. Joe said he liked baptisms and while he was not one of the baptizees, he was happy to be here and considered it a blessing that he was sober and alive and well in ’25 and praised Jesus and I said Amen.

I was mobile via my legs the last time I was on this stretch of beach 10-plus years ago for my brother Dan’s funeral or send-off is a better term. I joined a long line of mourners that had walked from the Salty Church to the Grenada approach and onto Ormond Beach. Surfers paddled out for the appropriately-named Paddle Out and airplanes piloted by Dan’s friends flew over in the missing man formation.

But today was for the living and a fine day it was. Blue skies, gentle breeze, modest waves. Annie donned her T-shirt and joined the crowd. The Salty Church preacher greeted us, said a prayer, and issued the day’s instructions. I could tell Annie was a bit nervous but also giddy with possibilities. She is the Evangelical of the family, attendee of conservative Christian churches and one who dwells within the web of True Believers. This is the last cynical thing this fallen-away Catholic will say on this post. For this day, I am not a sarcastic liberal. I have written here about my recent experiences in a Seventh-Day Adventist Hospital where doctors and nurses and CNAs and therapists worked for 25 days to save my life. I am indebted to them and to an organized religion that would build a healing place and hire healers to manage it. While in a coma, I dreamed of reaching out and touching the hand of God or someone very much like him or her. I listened to the twice-daily prayers over the loudspeaker and said some of my own prayers. I allowed others to pray for me and took communion from a lay communicant from St. Brendan the Navigator Catholic Church. I absorbed departing greetings such as “Have a blessed day.” I often repeated their blessings.

I have much to learn from the congregation of human beings.

One of those things is that my daughter, whose struggles with mental health issues have caused her much pain, will now be baptized. I watched as two church members said a prayer, lowered her into the water, and how she sputtered and smiled when she emerged. She was touched by the spirit and the fact that her aunts and uncles and nieces and family friends came out to see it happen. And then we convened at our house for cake and tea. Annie opened gifts which included earrings and necklace crosses and a giant conch shell my brother brought from Palm Bay. The cake was delicious and a chocolate phantasmagoria.

All told, a glorious day.

I didn't see any heavenly white light but someone held my hand

Aug. 18 was the last time I posted to my blog on my PC at my Cheyenne writing desk. Chris and I moved out of our house in Cheyenne on Aug. 22. New owners took over and we shuttled down to Denver Aug. 24 and got on a plane to Orlando. My PC was packed in a U-Haul trailer with many of my other valuables and my son and his girlfriend embarked on a road trip to Ormond Beach. We unpacked and Kevin and Luisa stayed with us a couple days and we took them over to the Orlando shuttle and said farewell, for now.

On Sept. 9, I made a detour to La-La Land (a.k.a. Advent Health Hospital) for a medical journey that I partly chronicled via my cellphone at https://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2024/10/homecoming-ormond-by-sea-oct-4-2024.html. I cross-posted it on my Facebook page and my friends said WTF or something like that. I had numbness in my arms and legs and urged Chris to call 9-1-1 and the ambulance took me to the E.R. where I promptly had two seizures and they coded me twice. The very good ER crew intubated me, put down a feeding tube, and stuck with an assortment of IVs. I spent the next four days in I.C.U. none of which I remember. My wife took a picture of me as I was transported and I swear I look like an old man who almost died. Which I was. When I awoke in I.C.U. the next day, I was a bit fuzzy on the month and the day of the week and struggled with my name and birthdate. I would have been scared but I was too high (Fentanyl the E.R. notes said) to be scared.

Read more in my earlier post. I had to relearn how to pick up a spoon and walk. Reality set in and I got very scared. I asked to read the E.R. notes on the hospital's MyChart. A total of 11 staff worked on me, Doctors and nurses and techs and X-ray people. My story sounded like someone else's story They gave me a big dose of antibiotics because they detected a bacterial infection of unknown origin and it caused sepsis which is really bad and sometimes people die of it -- some call it blood poisoning. If it sounds as if I was in a remote region of Indonesia and stirred up some bad juju, I was not. Cheyenne was the most exotic place I'd been and then meandered through construction at the Denver airport (I was nowhere near the giant red-eyed horse or the Illuminati types who haunt the basement), but then I did get on a plane and you know know how many germs one finds there and then I was in the Orlando airport with many sneezing children and spirits from the Pirates of the Caribbean. 

But it was none of those. The nearest I could figure was the staph infection I had in a leg wound that was treated with antibiotics and skin grafts were applied. Maybe the antibiotics didn't do their job or the grafts were somehow infected. This is all conjecture. I was a sick puppy who spent 25 days in the hospital, half of that time in the 12th floor Therapy Center which takes only stroke patients, the partially paralyzed, the fully paralyzed and some Dementia patients. I received four to five hours of OT and PT five days a week. 

A few days in, PT Adam asked me to see far I could walk with the help of my walker. 5.5 feet was all I could do. Later, he had me try again and I got my Irish up and went 10 feet. He gave me an attaboy and I kept moving the line 5-10 feet a day. I wanted to cry sometimes but I pushed those tears deep inside and used them for fuel for my damaged leg muscles. My last day, I walked 50 feet, rested, and walked 50 more, squeezing out the last few steps. 

Chris was with me the whole time although she only spent two nights with me -- the last one during Hurricane Helene which wasn't much of a hurricane at all in our part of Florida. We had to wait for MIlton for that. A big thank you to all of my family members, especially those who yearned to bring me some white shrimp from Hull's Seafood, But I passed as the tasteless hospital food was all I was supposed to eat. The infection or all the drugs took away my taste buds. They are back now after several dosings of hot salsa and Extra Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Damn, those things are hot. I loved the Cheetos TV movie, by the way.

One last thing. I talked to my Evangelical Christian daughter and told her that someone or some presence was holding my hand while I was not fully there. Might have been one of my brothers, Pat or Dan, or my parents. No, she said, God was holding your hand. All you have to do is ask and He will be here for you. I didn't ask, but he might have been there anyway.

Homecoming, Ormond-by-the-Sea, Oct. 4, 2024

I returned home yesterday, Oct. 4. It was day 25 of my stay at Advent Health Daytona Beach. The fresh air was bracing, although the temp was a warm 85. It felt like heaven to me.

Chris was driving. It will be awhile before I’m confident enough to get behind the wheel. I have my Florida driver’s license and about 58 years experience behind the wheel. I just don’t have my wits about me. I just got over a nasty case of septicemia or blood poisoning. I read all the physician and nurses’ notes in my online chart. A potent staph infection from a leg would had entered my bloodstream and propagated until it caused my body to seize up and stopped my heart – twice. Due to quick action by my wife Chris, The ER staff came running, pulled me back from the brink, and I began what I guess I can call my healing journey. It really was a giant shit sandwich that’s still going to take a couple months to recover from.

First the good news: Here I am. I need a walker to get around but I’m getting around, slowly. Seems that when my body got whacked by microscopic bugs, it forgot how to take one step after the other. I’m one of the lucky ones. First, I will walk again probably with help. Second, I’m still on Planet Earth to do so. Maybe that’s first, I still get a bit confused by priority lists. When I first awoke in ICU, I had no idea where I was nor who I was. Well, I knew my name but that’s about it.

Nurse: "What month is it?"

Me: "Uh..."

Nurse: "Do you know the month?"

Me: "August?"

Nurse: "Close. September."

The last half of my hospital stay was in the excellent Advent Health Therapy Center which occupies the entire 12^th floor of Advent Daytona.  The staff is first-rate: physicians, nurses, techs, physical and occupational therapists. When you go to the twelfth floor, you sign up for OT and PT for four to five hours daily. You’re assigned exercises to do in your room. The nurses are always there to help and a more empathetic yet stern bunch would be hard to find. I love them all.

My first task after I got out was to round up a seafood meal that was on the healthy side and sit down with my wife at home and enjoy. My choice was the planked salmon dinner at Stonewood Grill & Tavern with shrimp and scallop skewers on the side. I didn’t so much eat it as swim through it. A pleasurable swim to be sure, one topped off by Key Lime Pie. It was a big deal because Chris and I arrived in Ormond Beach on August 24 and were busy getting organized until Sept. 9 when venomous bacteria came to call. I had not had a single seafood meal nor had I been to the beach. There was a big old ocean out there but it might as well have been Wyoming’s Red Desert.

So I’m home. Now what?