Gracie Gruesome and her Mighty Schnauzer

I wish it would rain. Hard!…because a skunk came to his demise on the road leading to my cul-de-sac and every time I come home from some place Levi asks to go out to his yard but instead he’ll take a detour round and round the car in the garage until I get all huffy with him and chase him inside or out. He’s pulled this shtick before, but since the skunk died nearly two weeks ago Levi has been more militant, persistent and devoted to his mission. It won’t do any good to go to the car wash until someone removes the carcass from the road and it rains. If the skunk had died in front of my house, I would have bagged it up and thrown it in the trash. How hard could that be? But, no, I’ve had to watch it go from a beautiful animal through various stages of sadness and yuckiness as time and traffic takes a toll on the body. Yesterday when I noticed a rabbit had bit the dust on the same curve it dawned on me that I’m driving past a “body farm” for critters, not unlike where some people who donate their bodies to science end up. 

We have seven body farms in the United States where people taking forensic science courses or training K9 units can study decomposing human bodies left out in the elements. I’ve always thought it was curious that all the body farms are located in southern states---people don't all get murdered and dumped where stuff doesn’t freeze in the winter---but last May our governor signed a bill that will allow a 2½ acre body farm next to the Marquette Branch Prison to be used by Northern Michigan University’s new forensic anthropology program. Isn’t that a perfect location, or what! Body farms are a necessary evil to train crime solving units, coroners and cadaver sniffing dogs but I like the idea of prisoners having to live next door to a place like that. What does that say about me?

The 76^th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor is coming up on December 7^th and I went to lecture about it. The presentation had a different twist because the speaker’s aunt and uncle were there and they were his springboard to putting a human face and emotions to the bombing. The aunt had taken an ocean liner over to Hawaii where she was met at the dock and taken directly to the Justice of the Peace where the couple was married. Then they went to the married housing area of the base and the next day the attack happened. Can you imagine having that honeymoon story to tell and document in black and white photos? The speaker also had aerial photos taken by the Japanese and plenty of before and after shots of the fleet. The young couple stayed on the base for the next four years, helping to restore the harbor and fleet.

Aren’t I Ms. Gracie Gruesome today! I did do something light-hearted and fun this week. After cardio drumming class I met a friend for lunch. We always have good conversations and lots of laughs but I did have an alarming incident happen. She was asking about my work history and I said something that wasn’t factually true. I corrected myself right away but it shook me up just the same. I had the same thing happen at the doctor’s office and it scares the freaking stuffing out of me that my brain misfired and missed part of my personal timeline like that. I can’t help but worry that it’s the beginning of the big ‘D’ word. And that leads me to the burning question of why did the word ‘senility’ fall out of fashion and the word ‘dementia’ is taking its place? Both of them refer to a mental decline associated with aging but I guess we’re supposed to be less insulted if someone says, “she has dementia” rather than “she’s senile?” I'd rather be called 'daffy' or 'she's out to lunch' when I'm not. Euphemisms. You've gotta love them.

I just started reading a book written by Effie Leland Wilder titled Out to Pasture. She was eight-five when this book was published and there 750,000 copies in print plus she wrote four since. I wanted to read it because its fiction written “journal-keepers” style and she’s supposed to be funny and wry with her elderly main character’s observations of living in an assisted living place. One observation had me mulling it over in agreement. “Many of us seem older than we are,” she wrote, “because we absorbed our parents’ memories.” She went on to explain how our generation grew up listening to the stories and conversations of our parents and their friends. How true is that! Younger people don’t do that anymore. They’ve got their noses buried in their devices and seem to have no time or interest in the experiences of their elder's. If the guy who gave the Pearl Harbor lecture hadn’t been listening to his family’s stories growing up he never would have developed an interest in researching the day that lived in infamy, as President Roosevelt correctly labeled the attack on Pearl Harbor. May the 2,403 people who died that day rest in peace. ©