A Blast From the Past 

 

Thursday, 10/26/ 2006

My sense of time is still wrecked. I know that today is Thursday, and that this whole thing went down on Monday, but all the time between is either compressed or expanded beyond recognition. 

It's easier to think in terms of distance. Colima Road, Whittier Boulevard, and Hacienda Boulevard form a triangle over steep hills that would make a great all day hike. That was the plan.

I noticed it was 9:11 when I left the house heading west down Whittier Boulevard toward Colima. Whittier hospital is on the corner of Whittier Boulevard, and Colima Road, about a mile and a half from my house, and I was about half way there when I started feeling tightness in my chest. Under normal circumstances, three quarters of a mile is not much distance, but within a hundred yards the first sensation of pressure turned to pain.

 It began to hurt. Bad. Angina was cranking up like feedback from a microphone shoved into a loudspeaker. Everything went into slow motion. I was walking in a cloud of pain that grew thicker and heavier with every step. I could see the hospital emergency room across the parking lot receding like one of those weird nightmares where you want to run but you're mired in glue and can't move. All I could do was stay fixed on that goal and force my legs to keep going. Somehow I just couldn't get enough air. I don't know how I made it up the steps, but I shoved my way through the door, and collapsed in the waiting room."I think I'm having heart trouble here".

Suddenly I was in the hands of people whose business is to save lives. I was poked with needles, stuck with patches, clipped to wires, and hooked to incomprehensibly sophisticated machines. I was processed, admitted, and wheeled upstairs. In the next forty eight hours I'd get to see high tech magic worthy of a science fiction novel. But mostly I lay on my back and waited and wondered what would happen next.

Doctors came and went. I found myself sleepless at three in the morning watching the sign of the cross form in the ceiling tiles. Holy cow, I thought, this is straight out of some some cornball religious testimonial. I should expect to see an angel any minute. But there was no epiphany, no luminous moment. Nor did I feel inclined to bargain with God- get me through this and I promise to reform my wayward ways. I tried to get a prayer out, but I couldn't concentrate. The best I could do was- "It's in your hands. Whatever you want. I'm OK with it." or something like that. 

The next day was the stress test which had me howling with pain in just over four minutes. Six hours later I had the angiogram, and the cardiologist put a stainless steel stent in one of the coronary arteries. It was 95% blocked. That's the one they call The Widowmaker. Five percent more and I wouldn't be writing this. There was no damage to my heart. Much to be grateful for.

Mary brought me home Wednesday afternoon. I've noticed this before in times of crisis. There's a weird giddiness- an almost surreal euphoria that kicks in to sustain you through the worst. That euphoria was draining off fast, and exhaustion was rushing in to take its place. My wife picked up the pills I'll be taking for the rest of my life. Four hundred bucks, and we have no insurance. It struck me then that we are now pretty much ruined financially.  

We got take out Chinese food for dinner. I climbed into bed with my wife, held on to her, and only then did it hit me what had happened. I broke down and bawled like a little kid. But it's Friday morning now. Now I'm OK, and I know that somehow this will all work out. I said a while back that there was no epiphany, no luminous moment, but I don't mean to imply that nothing happened. Only now does it occur to me that maybe I didn't need one. I guess I really have acquired some faith. Throughout the whole thing I was scared, but not terrified. I knew, somehow, that even if I didn't make it I'd still be OK. 

 

JWM

 

 Reception

My photos came out awful. These were taken by our good friend Linda Oberholtzer. 

She came with her father, Yoshio Nakamura, who is, among other things, a  WWII veteran, and an outstanding artist himself. 

 

 

 With Yoshio Nakamura

 

 

I left the Canon SLR at home, and brought the little compact.  The LED lights in the gallery are bright, but set to a warm yellow. Cell phone cameras compensate for this just fine, and the Digital Rebel does OK with a little tweaking in Photoshop, but the older compact camera needs a white balance setting, which I did not make.  So all my pics are uselessly yellow, and P/shop didn't help much. Light should be light, but LED lights are like artificial flavors, or recorded sound. There is something, well, artificial about them. I took pictures of the other artists, and their work, but none of pics I took came out worth a damn. Bummer. I'll try to get some photos later on from some of the other people who were there, and get a post up later this week.

 

 My work was very well received. It is all kinds of cool hearing people tell you how much they like what you've done.  Of course, nobody is going to walk up  and say, "Y'know, this stuff is really mediocre. Why don't you get into something you'd be good at." Nonetheless, when you hear enough people slinging adjectives, and calling your work amazing, you get the suspicion that maybe they aren't just BS'ing to be nice. Maybe I really am one of the real guys. Humility is a difficult virtue to cultivate. On the one hand, no one likes a braggart. On the other hand, the "aww, shucks, it ain't nothin" bit is every bit as annoying.  

The point of balance is knowing how good you are, and how good you aren't. If you're a world's champion, it's no brag to say so. If you're a participation trophy recipient, it's cheating to call yourself a "prize-winning" anything.

 

I had the opportunity to meet with William Ohanesian, who did a documentary film on Turnbull Canyon Road, which snakes over the Whittier Hills. Turnbull Canyon is where many of Pete Hampton's paintings were done. There are many legends, and spooky stories about the canyon, and the road. William came to the reception to meet with me, and talk about Pete Hampton's art, and the work I did with The Lost Canyon, and Lost Era projects. The folks from the Whittier Museum and Historical Society are also interested in this work. His visit gave me a chance to duck out into the parking lot for a while so I could show him the Lost Era book, and the catalogue. William seems like a great guy, and we hit it off right from the gate. I'm looking forward to meeting with him again very soon. Mary and I will be going to see the film next Saturday at the museum.

 

 

It is odd how very exhausting these events can be. All I had to do was put on clean clothes, remember my hearing aids, stand around for photos, and talk to the visitors. The reception ran for three hours. 

 

Harriett Foley, one of my favorite people. (This gal is a trip, and a half!)

 

Add an extra hour to help Mary and Harriett clean up, and we were on our way over to California Grill for dinner. Our friend, Holly joined us.

 California Grill used to be a favorite stop for Mary and me. They had a London Broil served rare with red wine gravy that just gave your taste buds orgasms. Times have changed, and not for the better. The London Broil is now a pot roast with gravy. The meat was microwaved, and the gravy came from a mix.  Holly just got a calamari appetizer. The tab for two meals with wine, plus the appetizer just barely ducked the hundred dollar mark, but I can't blame them for the prices. It's like everything else in this age and time. Sometimes I get very angry about it all; other times it just makes me sad.

We got home around nine thirty. We were both of us just dizzy tired and stumbled into bed. Joys of post-middle age. Sunday was cold, and gray, and wet, a perfect day to just flop and reflect on the Good. And despite everything, we have much, so much to be grateful for. I have been so richly blessed.

Piedmont

 Ford Motor company once had the futuristic exhibition hall called the Ford Rotunda, which at one time was one of the biggest tourist attractions in the mid-west. I’ve mentioned before that my grandfather was an engineer for FOMOCO. This was his desk plate: a never-built all aluminum concept car called the Ford Piedmont. The rendering is mounted in a piece of windshield glass, so it was hard to photograph. In 1991 I visited the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, and talked my way into the archive room, hoping I’d find some record of it. I got to spend a couple of hours looking at renderings of all the concept cars they had on file. What a treat that was. The piedmont was nowhere to be found. This is the only existing picture.

 Back At It Slowly

 This week I drilled through the cylinder, and now I'm cutting the torpedo free from the ring. It's going to get fragile very quickly, which means I won't be excavating by chisel. It's all saw blades, rasps, and rifflers from here on out.

The show at Whittier Art Gallery opened last Monday. Vicky, and her crew put the finishing touches on the displays, and dialed in the lighting. What a difference! It was like seeing a slightly pretty girl turn into a total bombshell after a Hollywood style make-over. The reception is this Saturday. I can't wait. I'll have a bunch of pics later on.

 It has been almost a month, but I'm finally getting back to being productive. I got over to Kaiser last week for blood work, and stuff. Everything came out just fine. Even so, I'm still dealing with low energy, and fatigue. I'll see  a doc this week for the first time since the Chinese bio-weapon was released on the world.

 It's easy to forget that I do have heart issues. I came ridiculously close to cashing in my chips fifteen years ago, but the urgency of such things is strangely short lived.

 Too, the China virus panic, and all that followed came right on the heels of my very, very strange breakdown following completion of The Lost Era Transcripts. Back then I'd been hitting the pipe pretty heavy, and I was just about to take a tolerance break from smoking dope. But my level of stress went so far over the top, that I just said, "fuck it."  I've been going wake n' bake to night cap for going on three years. No problem when you're young, or even middle aged, but I'm seventy now, and that ain't young by anyone's reckoning.   Kaiser drug tested me last week (assholes)- everything from aderall to xanax. Of course it all came back negative, but I still tested hot for THC even though I hadn't smoked in over two weeks. It takes a long time to work out of the system. As it does my energy level is coming back on line, but slowly.

 We had the monthly meeting of the RatRod Riders bicycle Club, Saturday. It was great to get out and ride. For the first time in over ten years we got to see The Wedge in Newport beach on a day with a decent swell. (not my pic)

 

"Scuba" Dave Shepherd invited a fellow old salt to come ride with us. Greg showed up with a little bitty dog in his front basket, and a full set of Highland bagpipes in his back pack. Now, we have seen sharks in the water at the wetland jetty bridge on our Huntington rides. One of our claims to fame is that we are the only ride in the OBC with sharks. Now we can claim bagpipes as well. No other cruise even comes close. (left to right: Penny, Jim, Greg with the pipes, and Scuba Dave)

 

  

JWM

Getting Ready for the Show

 Getting Ready for the Show

 

Lost California. The Elementals

(top, clockwise) Air, Fire, Earth, Water 

 

 

Monday 10/3/22 

Where to begin? Let's start with gratitude. I have a lot of recipients, and I'll list them in just a bit. The odd verb "to deserve" keeps bouncing into my inner dialogue, yet each time it begins to linger, I bounce it out again. I wonder what I've done to "deserve" the friends, the family, the marriage to my beloved wife, the opportunity to have my work put on display like this. But that implies a kind of a transactional Karma that rewards intentions, good behavior, and hard work, or punishes the lack thereof. It doesn't always work that way. And it takes luck and fortune out of the game, when we all know from long experience that both are heavy hitters. 

I just don't know. You know?

Figure in Seven

(Me all stoked)
 

 So let's get to gratitude. Back in the days when people had faces, Vicky Schramm, from WhittierArtists.com  stopped by the house to visit with my wife, Mary. She saw  my work, and was very impressed. Vicki arranged for me to be in this show. Because of her effort this incredible opportunity was literally dropped in my lap. 

I needed a lot of help to get all my work across town to Whittier Art Gallery (check the link!)  My friends from RatRod Riders Bicycle Club, (president)Troy Turner, Penny Stocker, and Russ Shepherd along with Mary's nephew, Evan Winans, and his wife Jennifer, and Mary's niece, Katie Winans and her boyfriend, Javi, all drove a considerable distance and worked their butts off hauling over 600 pounds of rock to the gallery. 

It is a blessing to have such family and friends. I am humbled, and grateful.