I’ve been thinking of Clint Eastwood lately. The multiple-Oscar-winning actor/director has a new movie coming out later this year. Juror #2 will be a courtroom drama, concerning a member of a jury hearing a murder trial who suddenly realizes that he, not the accused, could be responsible for the victim’s death. When the movie premieres later this summer–post-production just wrapped this month–Eastwood will be 94 years old.
But I’d been thinking of Clint in connection to one of his earlier movies, Heartbreak Ridge, which came out in 1986. In the film, which he also directs, Eastwood plays Tom Highway, a tough-as-nails Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, and a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient who is in the final stages of his career. He’s given a platoon of young Marines to train, shaping a group of smartassed slackers into a combat-ready fighting force that proves itself under fire in the invasion of Grenada. Clint had one great scene after another in the film, with this one, in which he meets the lads, perhaps my favorite: Heartbreak Ridge.
One of the things Highway teaches the kiddos is how to “improvise, adapt, and overcome.” Nobody knows the genesis of the phrase, but it’s been a standard in the Corps for some time and made its way into popular culture with Eastwood’s movie. I’ve been thinking about it because that’s what I’ve had to do in the past 11 days, since the surgery on my foot.
As surgical procedures go, this one was pretty small potatoes. Compared to heart surgery, or even knee replacement surgery–I’ve had two of those–repairing the peroneous longus tendon is easy, and recovery isn’t that hard. It is, though, rather tedious. I’m in a soft cast for at least another couple days, till I see the doc’s assistant this Wednesday. There’s a possibility the soft cast will be put back in place after the exam, perhaps for as long as two more weeks. After that, I’ll be in a “boot” for another couple weeks. And since is this is–of course–the right foot, I’m prohibited from driving until the doc gives his blessing.
Retiring from radio as of April 6 turned out to be the right move for many reasons, one of which is that now I don’t have to impose on Sue to drive me to work early every morning, and I don’t have to hang around in town doing virtually nothing for several hours while she finishes her day at the travel agency. So, I’m home. But first, I had to take a trip down to Arizona.
Saying goodbye.
My mother passed away on April 15, some twenty-four hours after I arrived from Wisconsin and my middle brother Alan from Washington. Our youngest brother, Brian, who lived near her, had been doing yeoman work as her assistant since her health problems started mounting up a year ago. He and his wife, Irene, escorted Mom on her final trip to Wisconsin last autumn. They helped her recover from a broken leg, suffered in a fall two days after their return home. Mom rallied and was able to attend her granddaughter Yvonne’s wedding in late February, and all of her grandkids and great-grandkids were there to spend time with her. Less than a month later, she went into the hospital, and finally into hospice care for her final days.
This is what I wrote on my Facebook page on Tuesday the 16th, the morning after her passing:
Mom was taken to heaven last night, with her family by her side. She would’ve been 88 this June. Her health had started to decline in the last year, but she was determined to do two things: make one last trip to Wisconsin in the fall to see her brother and sister, as well as me and Sue and her grandson, and then to attend her granddaughter’s wedding in February. She went two-for-two.
Mom taught her boys and her grandchildren many things, but the foremost lesson was to love your family and love the Lord. Her entire life was about her family, first her own as she grew up in southeast Wisconsin during the Depression and World War II, times so tough that modern generations can scarcely comprehend them. She lost two siblings to childhood illnesses. Her father once earned a living by shoveling coal off railroad cars for a dollar a ton. Her family subsisted one winter on hardly anything besides potato pancakes. Her dad became a depot manager for the Milwaukee Road, and during the war he worked seven days a week, year-round, for nearly the duration, keeping the trains running. Her mother did sewing and ironing for the town doctor to pay him for delivering her children.
My mother met Dad during her senior year of high school in Platteville, just a few months after her family moved to town. Dad had graduated two years earlier. By the end of the school year, they were engaged. She turned 18 a couple weeks later. Dad was 19. He had just joined the Army and went off to basic training for the summer. When he returned in the fall, they married in a very small ceremony. Dad wore his uniform, Mom had a simple outfit because she couldn’t afford a wedding dress. A week later, he shipped out to Germany.
You want to talk about courage? I’ll tell you about courage. Newly married but with her husband overseas, my mother worked as a telephone operator in Madison, living alone, for six months to earn money for passage to Europe. Then, while still 18, she rode a train, alone, to New York, boarded a ship and sailed across the Atlantic. When she stepped ashore in Bremerhaven, she knew exactly one person on the entire continent, her husband. She didn’t know the language. She had to keep a suitcase packed at all times in case the Russians invaded and dependents had to be evacuated to England, and with the enemy ready to use nuclear weapons, she likely wouldn’t have survived. She almost delivered her first child (me) in the back seat of Dad’s car when he ran out of gas on the autobahn.
I could go on for a long time about my mother. She was the best person I’ve ever known. Never had a bad word about anybody. She raised three boys and kept a meticulous household, always with a meal for us in the evening. Went to college when I was a teenager, earning her degree when she was about to turn 38. Worked as an accountant for the next 24 years until retiring. She was one of the founding members of her church in Sun City West down here in Arizona. Made friends wherever she went. She was married for nearly 68 years and was devoted to her husband for every minute, right up until he drew his last breath 22 months ago. After that, she lived to see her kids and grandkids and great-grandkids together one last time, fighting through illness and a broken leg and mobility challenges. She was, as she often said, “a tough old German,” just like her mother.
We wept for Mom last night, but we also celebrated her long and amazing life. We will see her again someday, and spend eternity with her. Right now she is in the arms of her beloved husband once again, with her little dog at her side.
Goodbye, Mom.
Improvise, adapt…
After returning home on the 19th, Sue and I had a relatively busy weekend, with a trip to Rice Lake and the gym Saturday morning and then church the next day. Although I can’t do a full workout with the foot in the cast, I can do a lot of things, like upper-body lifting, leg presses with the left leg, and aerobic work on the rowing machine. But what about at home? This morning, I had to call Gunny Highway’s phrase to mind once again.
After the workout, a shower and breakfast, I embarked on a relatively full day of working on writing projects, including this post, along with taking care of some of Mom’s funeral arrangements and some typical mundane things like budget work. I did have time for a couple episodes of Superman and Lois; I’m catching up with season 3 via the Max streaming service. Limiting my TV time to a couple hours a day is going to be one of my biggest challenges during this time, but it’s just another way to demonstrate that I can, indeed, deploy some self-discipline.
I’d hoped to be out of the soft cast this week, but the surgery was a little more extensive than the doc expected, so if I have to endure another week or two in it, well, other folks have situations that are far worse. Among the many things my mother taught me was perseverance. By the time I started studying taekwondo and learned it was the art’s third tenet, I already was very familiar with the concept, thanks to her. So, I will make the best of the situation. Or, as my father once said, “When life gives you a lemon, make some lemonade.” My folks taught us mostly by example, but they did have some pretty good lines sometimes. Just like Clint, a guy right out of my dad’s generation.
A Strenuous Writer's Life 