I literally groaned when my clerk handed me the plastic reference card to place on my houndstooth lanyard. If you work for the government or a large corporation, you know what I’m talking about.

Those lovely little laminated jewels have all the answers to every conceivable scenario or crisis. Surrounded by a 10-foot wall of flames? No problem. Just remember–”R-A-C-E” (Remove, Activate, Confine, Extinguish) and “P-A-S-S” (Pull, Aim, Squeeze, Sweep).

Of course, by the time you fumble through them, find the right one and read it, the point is moot because now you’re soot.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he watched me reach around and rub my neck in anticipation of the extra weight.  “This one’s a replacement. We’re not ‘Passing the Baton’ anymore. Now we’re ‘SBARing.’”

FYI, “I Pass The Baton” stands for “Introduction, Patient, Assessment, Situation, Safety, the, Background, Action, Timing, Ownership, Next.” As if you didn’t know, “SBAR” is short for “Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation.” Yes, we pay people good money to make these things up.

I threw away “I Pass The Baton,” and clipped on “SBAR.” I suddenly felt twenty pounds lighter. Now if we could just cut deficit spending the way we are our acronyms, our grandchildren might have a future after all.

Where I work, acronyms and buzzwords are thicker than gnats on a muggy, Deep South summer evening–you practically have to brush them away with your hands in order to simply breathe. I’ve survived 17 years worth of staff meetings where the latest and greatest IDEAS! are trotted out by silently playing “BS Bingo” or else drifting away to some happy place inside my head which usually looks conspicuously like one of those chillin’-at-the-beach Corona commercials.

But I’ll admit there are sometimes when only a good buzzword or phrase will do: like “stretching your comfort zone,” or “outside the box.”

My “box” is rectangular in shape, and is approximately 1800 square feet. It’s there, inside my clinic, that I’m in my “comfort zone.” I’m the ruling monarch of a pint-sized kingdom; there’s not much I can’t make happen there with just a few words or a wave of my hand.

Other bureaucratic overlords pass through from time-to-time, and while they may pick, mettle and demand a shilling or two of tribute (because that is, after all, their purpose in being), they dare not linger too long. When it comes to eyes, they are generally in awe of the great mysteries and rites taking place within my tiny temple. I am the High Priest of Eyeballs, and they know they’re a little out of their league.

But for the next week, I will venture out of my “box” to a place where the Big Question is not “Which is better, one or two?” but instead “¿Cuál es mejor, uno o dos?” [...]

I had a very smart man, a rocket scientist in fact (we have a few in Huntsville), tell me recently that America was going to hell in a hand basket. He didn’t say it quite that way because a respectable Christian, Southern gentleman would never drop the “H” bomb in front of the ladies unless he was reading it out of the Bible. But that was the basic gist of it.

He said a lot of things, that we had strayed from the intent of the Founding Fathers to establish a “Christian Nation,” that widespread belief in evolution was the root of much of society’s evil and ills, including increasing teenage suicide rates, and that really things had grown much worse since prayer was banned in public schools.

He kept repeating how we as a citizenry have elected fools and put them in charge. He didn’t name names, but it was pretty clear whom he considered The Biggest Fool of All. He said we all really needed to “take back our country for God” before it was too late. It sounded a little like he was a recruiter for an army of some sort; the only thing missing was sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves.

Obviously, there was a lot of information and nuance that fell through the cracks. The spaces between the lines of his 32-pt Arial font were big enough to drive a Mack truck through, and I would have been happy to per her in overdrive and gone pedal-to-the-metal had he granted an opportunity for a little Q & A, but he didn’t.

In the end, there was a mixture of applause, some merely polite, some enthusiastic. I suspect most there generally agreed with the majority of his points, while a smaller number recognized his slick presentation for what it was: fear-mongering demagoguery.

But because it was fear-mongering demagoguery for a Good Cause (in the name of Jesus,) he received a free pass. And then the audience rose, shedding his ominous PowerPoints like water from a duck’s back, and grappled with the more pressing Question of the Hour: Chili’s or Logan’s Roadhouse for lunch?

Had I been able to ask questions, I might have mentioned all the biology professors at various Christian colleges and universities, including my own alma mater (Hail to thee!), who somehow manage to hold on to both faith and science and quietly encourage their students to do the same and have for decades (you have to do it quietly lest some large donor fret too much and withdraw his money in a huff).

I might have asked that if evolution, and not love of money, really is the root of all evil, then why don’t we get busy and use whatever means necessary to flush out some of those troublesome, suicide-assisting biology professors from our schools and fire them? Seems to me that if you’re going to take back America for God, a good place to start would be by cleaning your own house.

I think that I might have also pointed out that I’m too busy to join God’s merry little band of stormtroopers. Most days it’s all I can do to get up, go to work, provide decent eye care to my patients while affirming their humanity and honoring the Imago Dei in their wrinkled, grizzled faces, exercise, do right by my family (and even then, the people I love most get shortchanged), pay my bills on time, and try to generally be a decent human being.

That effort alone exhausts me. Usually by the end of the day I barely have energy left to operate a remote control, and even if I try to do the right thing and read instead, my lids grow heavy after 5 minutes, and faster than you can say “Mr. Sandman,” I’m off to La-La Land.

And you want me to spend even more mental, physical and spiritual capital by signing up to fight a Culture War? Isn’t it enough to just try to sew a few seeds of righteousness on the small patch of earth I’m fated to walk across every day? Isn’t loving my neighbor as myself and–egads!–my enemies to boot a tall enough order to keep every fiber of my being occupied?

Hmmm. Let me get back with you on that–right after my evening nap. [...]

I had a Close Encounter of the Creepy Kind with my iPhone this week. This has caused me to pause and reflect on our relationship with all our bright and shiny electronic doodads.

It happened last Sunday as Eyegal and I attended early service at a local Episcopal parish, as is our habit from time to time. It was the First Sunday in Lent (Note to my Baptist and Church of Christ friends: Lent is a 40-day period of repentance preceding Easter. It is part of the church calendar, which is actually pretty official and has been around a long, long time–like, several centuries before the founding of the United States–and has more on it besides the date of the Ladies Retreat and the next church-wide potluck. It is NOT the little white stuff that you pick off your navy blazer/skirt prior to church, and it’s NOT what you did with your “Come Hither Baby Blue” cosmetic-tinted contact lens to your BFF back in 10th grade, although we didn’t call them BFsF back then).

Lent means repentance which equals solemnity. In Episcopal-speak, that means get there early and hit your knees prior to the Processional starting on the First Sunday in Lent. Of course, we didn’t know that because we’re clueless life-long Church of Christers. Still, the usher smiled, not scowled, at us and handed us our Order of Worship. We made our way to our usual pew, right hand side, two thirds of the way back, flipped down the kneelers carefully so as not to make a racket and joined in just as the priest started to make her way (that’s right, her way–not a typo) around the sanctuary leading the Processional.

It was the Great Litany (the Book of Common Prayer, p. 148) and it lasted a long, long time. So long, in fact, that my knees started to throb a little (Good Lord, deliver us!). But that’s okay, because it’s Lent and a little self-mortification never hurt anybody. Not permanently, anyway.

Now most churches these days remind you to turn off your cell phones and pagers (Pagers? Really? Does anybody still have one of those?) prior to the start of service, usually with a prominent bullet and catchy cartoon on the ginormous PowerPoint JumboTron (or two) hung over the baptistery. Which is, you know, sort of ironic.

I usually don’t have to be reminded of this. I am very sensitive about cell phones going off at inopportune times, probably because I have so many patients pull away from me in the middle of ophthalmoscopy to take that “important call” about Bobby Joe picking up a six-pack of Natural Light for lunch, so could Rufus (my patient in the chair) get some Pabst Blue Ribbon instead? “No problem, good buddy, but I gotta go, Doc’s getting a little steamed over here.”

I then crank up the light on my scope to all the way past 10 to 11. I have vays of making them squeal.

You won’t find a JumboTron anyway near an Episcopal church. Apparently, they don’t believe in them. Instead they put the request in tiny print in the Order of Worship: “Pretty please, if you don’t mind too much, turn off your cell phones and pagers. And even if yours goes off and ruins the moment for everyone, we forgive you and love you anyway and you’re still welcome to join us in the Fellowship Hall after services for coffee and scones.”

I turned my new-fangled techno-jewel off, I swear I did. But as the Great Litany went on and on, and my knees starting to throb more and more, I must have started to fidget and squirm a little. And when I did that, I must have put the tiniest amount of pressure on the “Home” button on my iPhone which was in my front left pocket. [...]

“Have a nice weekend,” I called out to my technician last Friday shortly after 4:00 PM. “Off to get a haircut. It’s getting a little out of hand,” I chuckled. I patted the top of my crown where a shock of unruly hair shot straight up, trying in vain to press it down flat. I looked like Einstein after sticking his finger in a light socket.

When I stepped outside, I heard the sirens in full, 360 degree surround sound. From every direction came the warbling wail; if the sun hadn’t been shining I would’ve sworn there was a tornado on the ground. Still, I’m used to MedFlight helicopters hovering overhead and the sound of sirens, so I thought little of it.

As I looked left toward Madison Street and turned right on Whitesburg Drive, I noticed a flurry of activity around Huntsville Hospital near the Emergency Room entrance. Nothing unusual.

But a few minutes later when I made my customary left on to Carl T. Jones Drive, I started to see them whizz past me in the opposite direction, Huntsville Police Department units, their plexiglass bubble tops popping like disco strobe lights, all making their way north. I began to think that something big must be going down, but I held the thought only briefly, focusing instead on making it to the styling salon before closing time.

Once there, I signed in, saw that it was going to be a while, and rather than picking up the latest issue of People magazine, I pulled out my iPhone and checked my Facebook page and Twitter feed instead. That was the moment that I started to put two and two together, when the Huntsville Times started to “tweet” on the events unfolding with deadly speed at the University of Alabama-Huntsville:

“Several people shot at UAH’s Shelby Center. More details coming soon.”

“3 people dead in shooting at UAH.”

“Does anyone have any information on Dr. Amy Bishop or Jim Anderson?”

By that time, the radio station that had been playing classic rock was weighing in as well, and I rose from my straight back, plastic chair and walked closer to a speaker so I could hear over the background chatter of the salon. That’s when my faithful stylist, the only one who can consistently tame my stray mop to my satisfaction, noticed me.

“What’s wrong, Mike?” she called out as she applied her clippers to the back of another middle-aged man’s neck.

“There’s been a shooting at UAH, Shelby Center. At least 3 people killed, several injured. Shooter in custody–they think,” I responded in short, Twitter-like bursts, 140 characters or less. [...]

I’ve received quite a few compliments on my “old-timey” eye exam header at the top of my blog. Glad y’all like it. I think it symbolizes what I’ve been trying to do here at Ocular Fusion over the years (”Just looking around and trying to put it all together”).

That, plus I like black and white, old school pictures. We’ve had a blast going through Mom’s pictures since she died and found some real gems. It’s always good to be remember your roots.

Of course, any eye-savvy folks out there can immediately spot the irony: Old Timey Eyeguy is not really “fusing.” He’s doing what’s called “monocular indirect ophthalmoscopy” (MIO) as opposed to “binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy” (BIO) which is what we modern eye docs typically do. That’s the preferred method because if you use those eye drops that blow your pupils wide open for several days and make your life miserable (it’s really only a few hours, just seems like days) you get a nice 3D image with BIO. Like they always say, “two eyes are better than one.”

Two eyes are better than one because when they work together you get your money’s worth after plopping down $15 for James Cameron’s Avatar at the movie theater with the leather seats and the wine bar. I feel sorry for the poor saps with one functioning eye who handed over their hard-earned cash and eagerly put on their 3D glasses for what was billed as “alternate reality, complete immersion experience” only to discover that Pandora is flatter than one of those 14th century maps of planet Earth.

The problem for us eye doctors is that it’s not always possible to do BIO. There are some situations where only MIO will do. Like this Saturday when I do that eye screening at the health fair. I won’t have the luxury of dilating pupils, and I’d like to do at least a little something to let the patient know what is going in their retina beyond donning a turban and trying to channel Carnac the Magnificent. [...]

I would never tell my good friend Dr. Mark Elrod of Harding University (Hail!) to go to hell. He’s too nice a guy for that, plus he has this “condition”–an enlarged heart. Not the type that would cause you to keel over in the middle of a pick-up basketball game, but the kind that bleeds heavily when people are suffering. It’s a malady we could all use a little more of these days.

As for Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh, those purveyors of post-quake logorrhera, and the political dude from South Carolina who when speaking about people on public assistance used the analogy of denying animals food so they couldn’t “breed” but now “regrets” saying that even though it brought him much attention and fired up his “evangelical” base–I would wish them all straight to hell in a handbasket.

Or maybe a parachute.

Now before someone gets on here, as sometimes happens on this blog, and yells “ALL ABOARD THE TRAIN TO CRAZYTOWN!, allow me to explain. Mark, you see, has already been to hell and back. In fact, he returned from there to Searcy, Arkansas this past Monday, changed for life but still in one piece.  He surprised all of us last week by suddenly announcing that he was going to Haiti (which I think we could all agree is as close to hell on earth as one could possibly get at the moment) as a representative of Harding to scope out possible ways that the University community to assist that tragedy-torn country and her people as quickly as possible.

Philip Holsinger, Harding alum, photojournalist and missionary who has spent considerable time in Haiti prevailed upon Mark to go, and with that “condition” of his, of course Mark said “Send me!” Andrew Baker, head of the Church and Family Institute at Harding, was a key figure in arranging the trip,  and other “higher ups” approved it. Now it’s no secret that a few of those Harding “higher ups” don’t care a great deal for Mark’s personal politics. I know this may come as surprise to those of you who may have been off mining lunar rocks, but that kind of thing happens in many circles these days.

But the powers that be nonetheless figured correctly that Mark was the perfect person to represent the University on the trip. They were willing to put past differences behind them and sign off on this anyway because it was the right thing to do. We need a little more of that kind of “bipartisan” spirit these days.

Kudos, Harding. That’s the kind of pure, unadulterated religion that might shake a little contribution money out of me this year. [...]

Number One Son and I had just been discussing what could possibly be on the palms of Alabama’s new Nike Pro Combat player gloves, and it didn’t take us long to find out.

We knew that the Crimson Tide was among several teams that would be receiving the new gear, which featured a particular avatar representing the “spirit” of each team, but Bama’s was missing from Nike’s preview website.

But when Heisman Trophy-winning tailback Mark Ingram scored his first touchdown in the BCS Title Game against Texas, he flashed the new gloves toward the camera for all the world to see.

Frankly, Scarlett,  they took my breath away.

The background consisted of a subtle, houndstooth-like plaid, symbolic of legendary Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. But it was the bold, crimson script “A” emblazoned over the houndstooth that stood out the most. It’s the preferred brand symbol of a more progressive, “new Alabama,” a distinct wordmark that increasingly adorns everything from license plates, to lanyards, to university shuttle buses, to the top of the school’s official stationery.

To me, the message was clear: Honor your roots and remember those on whose shoulders you stand. But at the same time, keep your eyes up and looking forward. Don’t become so mired in the past that you can’t move ahead toward bigger and better things. [...]

If you’re going to stand in line in subfreezing temperatures in order to enter the holy of holies of college basketball, then you’d better know your stuff because every other Cameron Crazie wannabe standing in line with you sure will.

Well, mostly anyway.

When it comes to football, we were a motley crew, united only in our love for Duke basketball. Clemson, LSU, Georgia, Alabama, Penn State and Rutgers were just a few of the schools represented in our little knot of frozen fandom near the front of the line.

Kid Clemson, the guy in the Tiger hoodie in front of me, was a veritable walking encyclopedia of sports statistics. He was rattling off the dimensions of C.J. Spiller’s most recent feats and lamenting the future of Clemson football without him. When he found out Number Three and I were from Alabama, he hung his head a little and said, “The day that Alabama beat us last year was the worst day of my life.”

I told him that game surprised me a little too, but if that was the worst day he would ever have in his life, then he would likely die a happy man, old and full of contentment. He was probably about nineteen, and I’m not sure he understood the truth of what I was saying, but maybe he will someday.

Talk quickly turned to tonight’s National Championship game with Texas, and nearly everyone there agreed that if Alabama plays anywhere near their potential, they would likely walk away with The Crystal Trophy. Not everyone there liked the Crimson Tide, but Number Three and I were accorded instant respect–even from the LSU guy.

“I think Alabama has the best team this year, but I really don’t like Saban very much at all,” he said.

“That ‘betrayal’ just cuts too deep, eh?” I smiled and prodded. “Even though he brought you home The Crystal?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, “but he still has a lot of friends down in Baton Rouge. Truth be told, they’d have him back in an instant if he showed the slightest bit of interest.”

Kid Georgia was wearing a Duke hoodie and trying to explain how he could be a Bulldog fan in football season and root for the Blue Devils in basketball. “Look, I like who I like, okay? It doesn’t have to make sense to anybody but me.”

Amen, I thought, ’nuff said. [...]

I learned a very valuable lesson yesterday. If you’re going to be using an iPhone in subfreezing temperatures, make sure it’s fully charged. You might even want to wrap it up in a heated, insulated blanket between uses while you’re at it.

I barely had time to snap a photo or two of the Duke University campus when it completely flatlined. Can you believe that? Sure you can! It’s an iPhone! My itty-bitty blue United States map was lit up and everything, and then it just up and disappeared like the lost continent of Atlantis.

Guess I can’t blame that one on AT&T since it was a hardware issue. Oh, what the heck, maybe I will anyway. Wait till Verizon gets a hold of this one.

But the ramifications of this unfortunate turn of events are obvious: I would be unable to live-blog, Facebook and Twitter while Number Three Son and I witnessed our first basketball game at historic Cameron Indoor Stadium as Duke took on Clemson in their ACC opener. Tragedy of tragedies, the world would be deprived of my random brain farts (aka “Tweets”) which would mark this storied occasion. Oh, the humanity!

But never fear Fusioneers, Facebook friends and Tweeps, for I am reconstructing here on Ocular Fusion my Twitter timeline which would have appeared had my expensive, much-ballyhooed, piece o’ junk phone actually worked like it was supposed to.

I can hear future historians breathing a sigh of relief even now: [...]

The first time I saw Cameron Indoor Stadium, I walked right past it without even trying to go in. I figured anything that storied and sacred was probably locked. I was seventeen years old and too wet behind the ears to realize that in order to gain entry to the places you wanted to go in life, sometimes all you have to do is walk up to the door and knock.

Instead, I walked over to the tennis courts and watched the men’s team practice. It was September 1979, and my father was having coronary bypass surgery at Duke Medical Center on the other end of the quad.  My mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions, so I had decided to spend some time alone praying and walking off my worry. I also couldn’t help but ponder my future and wonder where I would be and what I would be doing come next year.

I played for my high school tennis team at the time, but it took less than a minute to figure out that my future would not include playing at Duke. These guys not only fired off wicked topspin groundstrokes in seemingly endless rallies, but they also called out calculus questions to each other in preparation for the next day’s quiz. Such multitasking seemed the province of young gods, not a country boy from the sticks of Virginia.

All the while, I kept glancing over my shoulder at the Gothic, gray-stoned walls of Cameron, wondering if someday I might finally get the chance to go inside. [...]

If I had a shred of innocence left in me by the summer of 1968, it was all gone by the time Mom gave me “The Talk.” No, not that talk. The one about Santa Claus.

Martin Luther King, Jr was gone and now Bobby Kennedy was dead too, and the world seem to be spinning out of control. I watched Memphis burn on TV and remember seeing the thousands of grieving onlookers who lined the tracks and payed their respects as Kennedy’s funeral train traveled from New York City to Washington, D.C.  I was a mere preschooler, but it didn’t take some preternatural sixth sense to tell that most folks thought the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

The men at church seemed especially bothered by it all. They would form a tight circle in the parking lot after services and fidget nervously as they fired up their tobacco of choice and discussed world events.  They stood there in their skinny black ties, summer sweat soaking through their white, short-sleeve dress shirts, and talked about the assassinations, war, and perhaps most distressing of all, the protesters and riots. The more they talked, the more agitated they became; the more agitated they became, the more they smoked.

“I always said that man was gonna go and get hisself killed,” one man said, speaking of King. “I guess that makes me a prophet.”

As if all that wasn’t enough, there was the whole matter of first grade, which loomed over me like a radioactive mushroom cloud. It was late June, far too early to be talking about Santa Claus, but maybe Mom wanted to break the news to her baby before some loud-mouth, know-it-all third grader on Bus #18 did.

She poked her head in the living room and stood there for a few moments trying to work up her nerve. I was watching “Petticoat Junction.”  Uncle Joe and his nieces, Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo and Billie Jo, were up to their usual antics down at the Shady Rest Hotel in Hooterville.  I was far too preoccupied with the idea of petticoats and the question of what exactly those girls were doing down there in that wooden water tank to notice her standing at the door clearing her throat. [...]

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill security officers and local police S.W.A.T teams descended on Duke University early this morning in a daring “snatch and grab” raid to round up all Cameron Crazies who have ever said, or who in the future will ever say, anything negative regarding Roy William’s Tarheel men’s basketball squad.

The Crazies, sans wigs and facepaint since they were arrested while sleeping, are currently incarcerated in a barbwire-enclosed, gulag-style holding area outside the Dean Dome while Judge, Jury and Executioner Coach Williams decides between firing squad, gas chamber or lethal injection as the method of mass execution.

This preemptive strike at the heart of his archrival’s fan base comes on the heels of the ejection of a “drunk” and “abusive” Presbyterian College fan (who admitted to having a grand total of TWO beers prior to the game) from the Dean Dome by coliseum security at the behest of Coach Williams. The fan apparently had the audacity to yell “Hey Deon, don’t miss it!” as Tarheel forward Deon Thompson stepped to the line for the second of two free throws with six minutes left in UNC’s 103-64 thrashing of the Blue Hose. (Video here.)

In the post-game press conference, Williams, still wearing his powder blue oven mitt from an afternoon of baking Christmas sugar cookies for his team, got all folksy and Jed Clampett on everybody when asked about the incident. [...]

Last year this time, I was hoping that he would be long gone by now, but the boy just couldn’t take a hint. You know, that boy: Captain America, Jim Thorpe and Billy Graham all rolled into one.

I was hoping that he would be safely tucked away on the sideline of some 2nd tier NFL team, doing whatever it is that former triple option quarterbacks do in the NFL (Hint: think headset and clipboard). Well, hope can do a lot of things, but it’s not going to stop Tim Tebow when he starts churning those Sequoia Tree trunk-sized legs of his for yet another run up the middle, and it’ll make little difference on 3rd and 5 when he flings a laser-guided cruise missile that comes screaming in, low to the ground, just past the outstretched fingertips of a cornerback and into the hands of a diving teammate.

No, there is only one thing that will stop Tim Tebow, and it’s not hope and good intentions, nor is it a Kryptonite-laced virgin daiquiri. More on exactly what that might be in a moment.

But first, let me say that when it comes to Tim Tebow, I am a conflicted man. I like the guy, I really do, and I’m sure I would be among the throng of True Believers if he had opted to don crimson instead of Gator blue. I’ve always said that if he had come to Alabama, that Mike Shula would still have a job there. That might be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your perspective.  He’s a great player (THE GREATEST EVER? Meh. I don’t know about that. There’s been a lot of those) and perhaps an even greater person. From all indications, he backs the talk by walking the walk.

I know I’m taking my chances by panning Tebow even just a little bit (in The Bible Belt, it’s a little like admitting you voted for Barack Obama), but there is still just something that makes me a little uncomfortable about all the Tebow hype. I’ve expressed my misgivings before, both here and here. But I’ve tried to take it in stride, stay above the fray, and not resort to tawdry (and all too easy) Tebow-bashing. He’s just a kid, I tell myself. Granted, one that looks like a hypermasculine, cut-from-titanium, football cyborg, but a kid nonetheless.

It’s probably not so much an aversion to Tebow himself, and certainly not to what he stands for. We wear different colored jerseys on Saturday, but come Sunday I’d like to think we’re on the same team, albeit with a different style offense. Wearing scripture-inscribed eye black and pointing toward heaven every time I nail a refraction or stop a case of blindness dead in its tracks may not be my cup of tea, but who’s to say there’s not a place for that somewhere.

No, I think it’s  probably more a phobia of hype in general. Probably comes from all those times I’ve bought into some myself, only to get burned by a poor return on my money. It’s just hype, I tell myself. It’ll go away, like hype always does. Just batten down the hatches, hold on tight, and this too shall pass… [...]

When I finally worked up the nerve to hand “Hank” some cash, he drew back as if I was coming at him with a knife. This startled me, and for a moment I wondered what kind of fix my attempted charity had gotten me into. Would he lunge back at me in self defense? Or would he start to channel the cacophony of voices inside his head and yell profanities at me instead? I braced myself for just about anything. I suddenly wished I had just left well enough alone and dropped off the money at the checkout counter, just like everyone else did.

If you’ve ever bought a Diet Coke, picked up a can of almonds or printed pictures at the Walgreens down the street from my office, chances are you’ve seen him. Once long and lanky, around 6′3″ if I had to guess, his upper back has now adopted the sloping, C-shaped bend brought on by osteoporosis and a catch-as-catch-can diet. His salt and pepper hair spikes upward like an over-the-hill punk rocker, and the wrinkles on his weather-worn, leathery face far outnumber his years. He seems to wear the same long, ratty coat whether it’s below freezing or triple digits, and he shuffles along lugging all his earthly possessions around in a large khaki pack. Occasionally, he stops long enough to converse quietly with the chattering demons inside his head.

Hank is King of the Corner of Longwood and Whitesburg, and from what I can tell, his dominion extends outward to about a 4-5 block radius from the front door of the Walgreens. But I have absolutely no idea where he sleeps at night.

On that corner, loose change from the steady stream of customers flows more freely. Like a savvy angler, he’s scoped out his “favorite spot,” and there he patiently bides his time, waiting for a nibble or two, or even the occasional strike. Sometimes he wanders inside the store, and since he never bothers anyone and always pays for his small items in cash, the employees and patrons there tolerate him and go on about their business as if he wasn’t even there.

But we see him. We’ve all gotten in the habit over the years, especially on those 100 degree days, of occasionally leaving our spare change at the counter for Hank. “Make sure he gets one of those extra tall bottled waters,” someone might whisper conspiratorially to the checkout person. “Here. Give him this bag of beef jerky,” another might add as she points over her shoulder toward the front entrance where Hank usually stands and then rushes past him and bolts for her car.

Still, that there is a pang of social consciousness at all is no small thing. In these parts, pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps is as sacrosanct a philosophy as holy writ itself. But something happens when a piece of honest-to-God, down-and-out flesh and blood shuffles past you near the intersection of the oral hygiene and feminine products aisles.
[...]

Forty-eight years ago today, I made my debut at Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Roanoke, Virginia. My arms may be too short and my back a little stiffer these days, but that building was torn down in the late 70s to make room for a new medical office complex, and I’m still standing. So I guess that’s saying something.

There was a time earlier this year when I wasn’t sure I would be by now, though. You see, I became quite obsessed with the idea of whether or not I was going to make it past 47 years, 118 days because that’s exactly how long Dad lived. So on the day in mid-March when I turned one day older than him, I took some sick leave and skipped down to the local heart center to have a cardiac CT for a mere $99, cash on the barrel head. I really didn’t need a whole day to do that, but mental health counts too, you know.

My pipes were cleaner than a dinner plate full of rib sauce after Amazing Gracie the Wonderdog is done with it (hold it down with both paws, don’t let that sucker run away). I told the cardiac nurse about the history of early death from heart attacks in my family and about how that weighed on my mind a little and he laughed and told me I had a greater chance of dying from getting hit by a Mack truck at the corner of Governors and Whitesburg.

I celebrated with a heart-attacking meal of fries and a double cheeseburger at Sonic. It felt great going down, but hours later when the acid started rising in my esophagus like scalding steam from Old Faithful, I suddenly remembered why I don’t eat meals like that much anymore. [...]