Independence Day and a New Birthday

The heavy-duty Chemo treatment happened on Wednesday. Two days later I received my own stem cells, newly regenerated, without the pesky cancer cells. Friday, June 30, 2017, became my “new” birthday.

I’ve never been particularly wary of germs. I’m one of those who will contentedly eat food that has fallen to the floor, or a week-old refrigerated pizza that has a similar cellular make up to the box it came in. I’ve eaten alligator, rattlesnake and crickets, in quirky restaurants. None were particularly tasty, but I ate them.

Through the years, I’ve had infections, viruses and stomach ailments, but nothing dissuaded me from eating whatever I chose.

I may now have to reconsider. As I understand it, all the diseases that I have developed an immunity for, are back in play.  I will have vaccinations for measles, mumps, chickenpox and whatever malady’s may have been cured during my lifetime.

Additionally, I have no on-board immunity for the cold that I had in 1969, the flu during the winter of 1983 and the stomach ailment from 2001. (I don’t really remember the dates, but there have been a lot of them.)

I’ve been in isolation on the eighth floor of the hospital for 6 days. I have wandered the halls (with my facemask) and peered out all the windows. Each patient room has a window, but per my recognizance, there is no view of a single blade of green grass. From the community kitchen window, I can look up and see a small triangle of blue sky. Other than that, all we can see is other high-rise buildings.

It’s Independence Day, so there will be fireworks at Herman Park this evening. There’s a good chance that I will be able to see the colors reflect in the sky.

On the Fourth of July, 1986, my daughter Stefannie was six years old. Her mother Lori and I, were visiting my parents in New York Harbor. We were staying on board the Blue Lady, my Dad’s 52’ Tayana cutter rigged sailboat.

The Statue of Liberty had gone through a two-year reconstruction process and the unveiling was to be that night. Apparently, the three major fireworks companies that had heretofore, been unable to speak to each other, laid down their animosities to create the biggest fireworks display in history.

There were north of 10,000 vessels in New York Harbor that day. Included were the Eliza sailing ship from Galveston and the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier that looked like a small city on water.

Boats of all varieties, conditions and ages were trying to settle in for the big show. We dropped anchor mid-afternoon and waved at the neighboring boats.

Later, a fancy Cigarette boat rumbled in close. He rounded up into the wind, went to the foredeck and threw out a small anchor on what appeared to be about 40’ of rode. He grabbed the fantastic piece of eye-candy in the skimpy bikini and went below. We assumed that he had exhausted himself and needed a nap.

Any sailors reading this story that have knowledge of New York Harbor, started laughing a couple of sentences ago.

I said that he threw out an anchor on 40’ of rode (rope). New York Harbor has an average depth of around 50’ and our spot had about 70’ of water. That meant that the Cigarette Boat anchor was gleefully hanging below the boat making no contact with the bottom.

The boat began to slowly drift down-wind and ten minutes later wrapped his anchor line around that of another boat. Now, the two boats started drifting toward a third boat.

The third boat was a 30’ cabin cruiser with an owner that appeared, from my perspective, to be the quintessential Jewish New Yorker. The language and volume and creativity were priceless.

The Cigarette boat owner, now rousted from his activities, was doing his best to understand what had happened. It took another half hour for all the bumpers to get untangled, all the insurance and owner information to be exchanged. The Cigarette boat rumbled off to a different spot.

Stefannie had an exciting day. She managed to stay awake, engaged and alert until about 30 minutes before the biggest fireworks display in history.

Then…she fell asleep.