Perri Nelson's Website 

It's worse than I thought.

I heard on Sunday that Senator Kennedy had suffered a seizure that hospitalized him. Now it turns out to be cancer. Much as I don't like him, I still think it's a hard thing to have to fight through, even harder when it's cancer. The Senator may only have a year to live...

BOSTON —

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor Tuesday in what could be the grim final chapter in a life marked by exhilarating triumph and shattering tragedy. Some experts gave the liberal lion less than a year to live.

Doctors discovered the tumor after the 76-year-old senator and sole surviving son of America's most storied political family suffered a seizure over the weekend. The diagnosis cast a pall over Capitol Hill, where the Massachusetts Democrat has served since 1962, and came as a shock to a family all too accustomed to sudden, calamitous news.

...

Kennedy, the Senate's second-longest serving member, was re-elected in 2006 and is not up for election again until 2012. Were he to resign or die in office, state law requires a special election for the seat 145 to 160 days afterward.

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Malignant gliomas are diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year. In general, half of all patients die within a year.

"It's treatable but not curable. You can put it into remission for a while but it's not a curable tumor," said Dr. Suriya Jeyapalan, a neuroncologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

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A high point in his life came in 1980, when Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. He eventually bowed out with a stirring speech in which he declared, "The cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die." His eulogy for his brother Robert was equally stirring.

The low point was 1969, when Kennedy drove a car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island on Martha's Vineyard. The accident killed aide Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy at the time was married to his first wife, Joan, whom he later divorced. The tragedy may well have cost him the presidency.

Politics | Ted Kennedy has cancerous brain tumor | Seattle Times Newspaper

For that particular gaffe, Edward M. Kennedy will always be remembered by me as the Senator from Chappaquiddick. I hate the man's politics, and I always have.

Even so, I wish him and his family well. Here's hoping that the doctors can treat his cancer and send it into an extended remission. Some things must transcend politics.

Oregon

Last Wednesday evening my wife, my youngest son, my granddaughter, my dog and I all piled into the van and headed south. Our goal? Florence Oregon. Why? To move Betty's mom and dad from their mobile home in Florence to their new house in Lincoln City. It was an interesting trip to say the least. And of course, I took the camera.

The drive south began somewhat uneventfully. I got home earlier than I usually do, and ate a hurried dinner… hurried for me anyway. Then I went upstairs to shut down the computers — no Internet for five days — and to lock my room. There's a story behind that that I'm not going to share. By about 7:00 PM we were on the road. The trip south took about five hours, which isn't unusual at all. Most of that time I spent listening to downloaded MP3 files of the Larry Elder show and the Mark Levin show. Lucas was listening to his music and to The Art of War.

Thursday morning, Betty took her mom to Eugene to have eye surgery. She also took Lucas and Sidney with her, leaving me and her dad at the mobile home. About 9:00 AM there was a phone call from the people that were going to help us load the furniture up. They arrived about fifteen minutes later. After some logistical discussions, we headed of to go pick up a 24 foot U-Haul truck. Then we loaded it. When I say "we" loaded it, I really mean that the two guys Betty's dad hired to load it loaded it, while I helped in minor ways. Then, we went to pick up a sofa, a recliner and a trundle bed frame from a local furniture store, and some mattresses for the trundle bed, and drove the truck to Lincoln City.

When we got the truck to Lincoln City, we had to figure out "where" we were going. Betty's dad had a general idea where, and I had the address and a crude map on the front of the brochure for the place. It was a crude map. It showed several ways to get to the place, none of them quite accurate. Finally though we found the place and I backed the truck up to the garage door. Then I went off to the main building of the center to look for the people that would give us the keys and help us to unload.

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice (Douglas Adams didn't include "and men" in that phrase for a reason.)? Well, the people that were supposed to help unload the truck weren't scheduled until Friday, and it was Thursday. It turns out the move wasn't supposed to happen until Friday, but anxiety pushed the activity forward a bit. Fortunately we corralled the administrator and a maintenance person and they helped to unload the truck. This time my involvement was a bit more physical — something my torn-up shoulder would remind me of for days afterward.

That night we ate dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Lincoln City, Pier 101. The place gets mixed reviews. People either love it or hate it. Personally, I think that finding a decent restaurant on the Oregon coast is pretty tough, and I find the service and quality at Pier 101 to be mixed. Sometimes it's fabulous, and other times it's horrible. This time, the service was horrible, but the food was good. Sidney certainly enjoyed the parts she didn't toss onto the floor.

After a long day, it was off to bed, even though the beds weren't made yet… Betty and I slept on the trundle bed mattresses, on the floor. I needed to get some tools to put the frames together, so they weren't put together until the next night. Lucas slept on the sofa (it's really a hide-a-bed, but we didn't have room to open it that night). Betty and I put her mom and dad's bed together for them, so they actually slept in a "completed" room.

Friday dawned hot. Really hot, and the air conditioner wasn't working properly. Soon it was 85° inside the house, and there were no fans. It was even hotter outside. We put it a call to get the air fixed. Betty's dad stayed in Lincoln City. Betty, her mom, Sidney, Lucas and I piled into the van and took off for Florence. When we got there, Betty and her mom started packing the unpacked, and Lucas and I took off for the car show, where the best laid plans of mice went awry again.

It seems that the car show for Friday was scheduled to run from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM, and all day on Saturday. We got there somewhat early, around 2:00 PM, and had to leave by 2:45 PM to keep to our planned schedule of moving activities. That's actually not a bad way to see a car show though… if you don't mind keeping out of the way as they set up. I let Lucas man the video camera, while I took stills. There were some interesting cars coming in, including a 1959 El Camino.

I had never seen one of these before. Most El Caminos I've seen are from the later 1960s and 1970s, and lack the styling of cars from the late 1950s. This one was awesome, and I spent quite a while talking with the owner. I also saw a car I had never heard of before, a GMC Caballero. This one looks much more like the typical El Camino, but it's a GMC instead of a Chevrolet. It was in a bit rougher shape than you'd typically find in a car show, but it wasn't something you see every day either.

Probably the coolest car in the show, and there were a lot of cool cars, was a 1959 Cadillac Coupe-de-Ville. And wouldn't you know it — it was pink! It was the last car we saw on Friday, but we'd be seeing it again later in the trip.

General Motors sure went all out with the fins in 1959. The Cadillac had the largest vertical tail-fins you'll ever find on a car, and that El Camino probably had the largest horizontal fins you'll find. It's a cool styling cue that you just won't find on today's cookie cutter boxes that we call cars.

We got back to Betty's mom and dad's trailer, where we proceeded to load boxes into the van. Then Betty, her mom, and Sidney took off for Lincoln City, while Lucas and I drove her dad's truck (also loaded with boxes). Her dad's truck (for sale by the way) is a small Chevy, with a four cylinder engine and a five-speed transmission. It's got a big canopy on the back, and it was loaded down with boxes. Even so, it's fairly easy to drive. I had no trouble at all negotiating the twists and turns of highway 101 as we headed northward.  I wish I could say the same for the idiot tourists.

I don't really understand people who are afraid to drive their cars. Modern cars have really good tires (for the most part) compared to cars in the 1960s for example, and they have well engineered suspension systems that actually allow them to be driven around corners without tipping over. But modern drivers simply have no guts. The road between Florence and Lincoln City is a coastal road, winding around small coves and outcroppings, sometimes on a hillside, and sometimes quite close to the water. The speed limit for the most part is 55 miles per hour, although some of the curves are marked for slower speeds, 45 miles per hour, 35 miles per hour, and even 25 miles per hour in some places. People drive it like every curve is only safe at 25 miles per hour though, and it irritates the heck out of me. I've driven huge motor homes along that road at night during torrential rains without a problem. I've driven large trucks along that road, and never once had to take a curve at a speed lower than the recommended speed.

On Friday, and Sunday too, it seemed like I ended up behind people who couldn't figure out what the small vertical pedal on the right side of the pedal system was designed for. Mile after mile, I was stuck behind people that seemed to think that if the curve was posted at 45 miles per hour that meant you could only safely negotiate it at 35. And when the road would straighten out, people driving sports cars like Corvettes were still incapable of figuring out that the speed limit was 55 instead of 45. Oh well. There are plenty of accidents along the coast road. People that do try to take the turns too fast although that's not the typical problem. Most of the accidents are people that are busy site-seeing and don't notice that the car they're following too closely has slowed down to turn off into a wayside to look at the view from a stationary vantage point. I guess I should be grateful that nobody was blocking my travel with a car and its passengers in pieces.

Well, mostly anyway. When we got to Lincoln City, Lucas and I decided to take East Devil's Lake Road to see if it would take us to our destination. The map we had "sort of" indicated that it should. It didn't. It took us around the wrong side of the lake, and came out just north of Lincoln City. Where we encountered traffic. Flashing lights. A large tow-truck hooked up to a large pick-up truck with a travel trailer. The police didn't let us turn south into Lincoln city either. Oh-no. We had to turn north, and head up to highway 18 before we could turn around and take our place in the mile-long traffic backup headed into Lincoln City. What was that about the best laid plans of mice again?

When we got to our destination, Betty's van had a low front tire on the passenger side. We took the van out and put some air in the tire. Then we went shopping and bought some ingredients for our own recipe of clam chowder. We ate clam chowder and a huge shrimp salad for dinner that night. But the air conditioner still wasn't working and the house was still at 85°. The administrators of the facility brought a fan, so we blew hot air over ourselves to cool off.

The next morning the tire was low again, so I drove the van off to see if I could get it fixed. I found a Les Schwab tire center where I had it fixed. I guess the ownership in Lincoln City has a different philosophy of customer relations than the ones in Covington and the Seattle area. They were actually friendly, didn't try to sell me a new set of tires, and simply fixed the tire, even though it was old. The technician said it was barely fixable, but that it should be good for a little while, until we could get new tires at a later date. We spent most of the rest of the day unloading boxes and putting the house in order. The air conditioning was fixed by early afternoon, so it wasn't insufferably hot inside the house. Just in time for the temperature outside to cool off.

On Sunday, it was back to Florence. We packed and loaded some more things into the van and the truck, and watched as the Rhododendron Days parade staged just down the street. Then we took a bit of a break and watched the parade. Sidney had a blast. It was the first parade she's ever seen. She enjoyed the marching bands the most. I enjoyed the cars.

Finally, Monday arrived and it was time to head back home. It's a much shorter trip back to Covington from Lincoln City than it is from Florence. But, again the mice got in the way. The tire that we had fixed really did need replacement. Happy as I was, and still am, with the service at the tire center, it just wasn't up to potholes on the road, and we hit one after about half an hour of driving along highway 18. The patch gave way, and the tire went totally flat. There I was, with a flat tire, and no jack or lug wrench. Even so, God was awfully good to me. We pulled up on the side of the road just past a driveway. Coincidence? I think not. I walked up the driveway to the house and rang the bell. A woman answered and I asked if she had a jack and lug wrench I could borrow. She just happened to have some, and lent them to me. I changed the tire (hmm.. the spare had more tread on it than the one I was replacing…) and returned them. I also took along a bit of money to thank her with, and typical of people in the country — if not of people in urban settings — she wouldn't take it. I knew there was something I liked about country people. They certainly beat the heck out of people in big cities, especially the elitists that want to run your life for you.

Speaking of elitists that want to run your life, I saw on the television this weekend that Sen. Kennedy had a seizure and had to be taken to the hospital. I haven't read any blog postings about it yet, I've been away from the Internet for five days. Even though I and all conservatives hate the politics of the Senior Senator from Massachusetts, I hope that he recovers well and completely. I also hope that my fellow bloggers don't engage in schadenfreude over this. I've seen what strokes can do to people and would never wish that sort of thing on anyone. Not even my worst enemies. So I guess I'll close this account of my "vacation" with an offer of prayer for Sen. Kennedy and his family. May he have a speedy and complete recovery.

Now… it's back to life as normal, if I can figure out what that is.