Pismo-Part 1

My grandsons, Morey and Isaac, invited me and my credit card to a weekend in Pismo Beach.

A city of about 8,000 permanent residents on California’s central coast, summer visitors swell the population to more than triple that number.  The name Pismo is Chumash for tar, a natural substance that has diminished over the years, as has the once famous Pismo Clam. Monarch butterflies now take center stage in winter as they hang out in a grove of eucalyptus trees, escaping colder weather in the north.

Clamming was a serious business until the 20^th century. Like most of our natural resources, humans believed that the Pismo Clam was indestructible and that its many millions of offspring would quench the hunger of future generations of clam diggers. Photographs of horse drawn multi-pronged rakes churning up the sand and collecting boatloads of clams can be found in the Pismo archives.

When I was a young man, my family took up the tools of clamming and spent a weekend in Pismo. All that we needed was a common pitchfork and a pail. Jamming the pitchfork beneath the surface of the wet sand often resounded with a tell-tale clink announcing the presence of a clam about six inches below. A scooping action sometimes produced a clam; more often it produced a lot of wet sand.

A measuring device in the shape of the letter C was taped to the pitchfork. The lucky clammer would slide the clam through the device. If it passed through, the clam was deemed a juvenile and required careful replacement from where it came to wait for adulthood. Park rangers with binoculars were often found in the surrounding hills spying on the diggers hoping that a hefty fine might result. There are still clams in the surf, but their fate is mostly in the hands, or the flippers, of the resident otters.

Help may be on the way. Due to the laziness of the X generation and the seeding of juvenile clams, the clam is making a hard-fought comeback. Yet too small for harvesting, and with increased Clam Ranger surveillance, we may once again see the mighty Pismo Clam filling our buckets.

My Pismo trip began Friday afternoon on the 101 Freeway heading to grandson Morey’s digs in Santa Barbara. Road construction on this monster has been in progress for the last two generations, resulting in Caltrans jobs being passed from father to son with no completion date in sight. I hope that the workers will maintain their virility so that the work can go on.

An alternative approach would be to hire 300 Amish men and women who would surely complete the project in a single weekend…without power tools.

From Casitas Pass to Montecito, about 25 miles, the 101 creeps along. Creep is an overstatement of the speed of the traffic as it passes by father/son Caltrans workers who seem unaware of our presence. Squirm, wriggle and writhe are more appropriate considering the agony that is prominently displayed on my fellow drivers’ faces.

Even Siri was confused. Periodic messages spewed forth from my iPhone. “Accident two miles ahead. You are still on the fastest route.” There was no accident, and I was on a route with no viable alternative.

Five minutes later, “Accident a quarter mile ahead. You are still on the fastest route.” No visible accident and no other route available other than circumnavigation of the globe. And on it went, repeating the mantra every mile or so.

Earlier in the day I had filled my tank at my neighbor’s Chevron station in midtown Ojai; normally enough gas to make the round trip to Pismo and back. But schizophrenia kicked in as I was bombarded by Siri who insisted that I was on the fastest route. I was sure that my tank would empty in California’s first permanent gridlock. I visualized a place of honor on the freeway with a plaque that announced, “On this spot Fred ran out of gas because he foolishly trusted Siri and refused to find an alternate route.”

Construction had narrowed the normally spacious passage by closing the shoulders on both sides of the road with tall concrete barriers. It was like going through a tunnel without a roof. Drivers moved from one lane to another as they sought the faster one. There was no faster one. I often met the same driver coming and going as we alternated our search for the holy grail.

Aging by the moment, I awaited nature’s call to empty my bladder. Exiting the freeway and seeking a place to do so is a challenge even in good traffic conditions. At 4 on a Friday afternoon, it was a challenge of the seventh magnitude. Focusing on the pressure in my groin, I evaluated my options. Leave the freeway in an uncharted realm and seek a depository only to be informed of its unavailability due to Covid was one option. Gutting it out until reaching Morey’s digs was another. Feeling no pressing need, I calculated the approximate time when one might occur. Twelve miles to Morey at an average speed of ten miles per hour was doable. I relaxed and listened to Siri. 

I stared at drivers who sometimes stared back. A young man driving a shiny black Tesla pulled alongside me. We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders like comrades in arms. I thought I could read the expression on his face which seemed to say, “This is getting serious. I think my batteries are about to give up their last few watts.” Maybe he was thinking about a plaque too.

Amazon delivers everything…even Vertigo

Two months ago I was working out at the gym under David’s tutelage. Ever since Robert’s illness, I’ve relied of David to guide me as I stretch, bend, and lift myself hoping to retain some of the muscle and other manly components of this once glorious body.

My routine includes grabbing a twenty-five-pound kettlebell in each hand. I walk the length of the gym trying not to fall on my face while gazing at the lovely ladies who make the morning so much more enjoyable.

According to Google…Kettlebell use will cause your forearms to be visibly stronger, upper arms and shoulders more defined, legs and rear tighter and shapelier, and posture improved. You will appear balanced, stronger, and more graceful with a general air of healthy athleticism. Right now I’m working on gracefulness; the rest can wait.

Another component of my Summer Olympics preparation is the weightlifting bar. These come in several sizes including Mini, Midi and Well Beyond My Wildest Dreams. Devoid of added weights, I pump the Mini bar as though I were drawing water from a well. I admire my form in the strategically placed mirrors until I notice that the same lovely ladies are pumping iron equal to their own body weight.

Improving my balance is an important component of my training. I have previously described my balancing mishaps on the pages of this blog. Multiple falls from my electric bike and tripping over two-inch high devil rocks while hiking Shelf Road have taken up much space. Until a few weeks ago, these acts of imbalance happened exclusively outdoors. However, they have now sneakily moved into the confines of the gym.

Get-ups are designed to test one’s balance while delivering a workout that can leave you breathless. Lying flat on the floor with arms and legs raised, I look like I’m hugging Smokey the Bear. I roll to the left while Smokey comes along for the ride. I then lift myself on one elbow, then on one hand, and finish this Cirque du Soleilfeatured event by standing erect, to the applause of those who have taken the opportunity to view the majesty of the maneuver. Try that move six or seven times and you’re ready for a Grande café-latte and a prune Danish.

Until six weeks ago I had regularly conquered Get-ups without any visible calamity. Confidence reigned; I was the master of all I surveyed. And then, as I rose from the last Get-up in the series, my brain decided to take some time off. You probably know the feeling if you’ve stood up rapidly from your comfy chair while watching the Bachelorette on TV. You experienced a moment of light headedness and involuntarily plunked yourself down for another episode of this enlightening ABC network series.

Except, unlike the Bachelorette seconds-long move, my dizziness did not stop. I tried walking and wound up looking like Foster Brooks, the comedian who did a pretty good imitation of a falling-down drunk. It lasted two days.

While the intensity of the dizziness decreased over the next week, it did not end. A trip to the doctor, a couple of tests and some follow my finger exercises resulted in a diagnosis of vertigo and a suggestion that I go home and see how it goes.

Until now, my only vertigo experience was watching Jimmy Stewart play opposite Kim Novak in the Alfred Hitchcock movie called Vertigo. Jimmy’s vertigo stopped him from climbing flights of stairs or looking down at the ground. My vertigo has kept me off my bike…probably a good idea even without vertigo.

The Mayo Clinic has this to say about my problem…Vertigo is the false sense that your surroundings are spinning or moving. Your brain receives signals from the inner ear that aren’t consistent with what your eyes and sensory nerves are receiving. Vertigo is what results as your brain works to sort out the confusion.

Stuck on the road back to full functionality, I visited Kathy Doubleday at Balance physical therapy. My wanderings through the internet had prepared me for her recommendation that we attempt the Epley maneuver. Simply put, Epley loosens up the magic balancing crystals in your head that have become dislodged and moved to wrong place in your inner ear. Named for Dr. Epley who developed it in 1980, the procedure generally corrects the disorder for 90 percent of the afflicted in a single visit. Sure they do.

Lying on my back, Kathy repositioned my head up, down, and sideways. My immediate response was a recurrence of the condition that made my eyes believe that the room was rotating 360 degrees, much like a speeding merry-go-round. The rotation slowed gradually and then stopped. I paid to ride again, and we repeated the process with the same result. And, not satisfied with the nausea that accompanied the ride, did it twice more. It had all the attributes of a stomach-turning county fair ride, without the cotton candy.

Weak kneed and overly cautious, I returned home and gradually recovered without any more vertigo induced rides. The morning ended and afternoon kicked in. Busy writing a blog, I didn’t notice the arrival or departure of that ubiquitous brown van with the upturned penis on its side.

It was mid-afternoon when I emerged from my office, walked past the front door, and through the side glass noticed three brown boxes nicely stacked just outside the entry. Jackie and I are habitual Amazon over users. Ordering independently of one another, we often receive mysterious boxes which only heighten our expectation of what those boxes might contain.

Forgetting about my morning adventure, I opened the door, lifted the two smaller boxes, and took them into the house. I returned for the third much larger box, bent over fully to grasp its bottom, and immediately experienced what Dr. Epley had sought to cure.

I had no time to enjoy the ride. I fully lost my balance and collapsed in a heap, leaving a fair portion of my scalp flapping in the breeze having been detached from my skull by the unfriendly stucco of the exterior wall.

I’ve never seen a pig bleed, so I couldn’t fully appreciate the expression he bled like a stuck pig. But I have a better idea now. The floodgates had opened, and my precious fluid was seeking a new home. I was sure that not even Doctors Bailey and Webber of Grey’s Anatomy could save me. I expected to faint away when I was down to my last quart; Jackie would find me cold and lifeless, still clutching that unopened Amazon box.

David, my neighbor with a Porsche, risked blood-stained seats and took me to the hospital emergency room where I spent four hours, mostly waiting. I eventually returned home with Jackie, my head covered by a bandage bigger than Texas.

I can’t remember what was in the big box. All I know is that Amazon delivered it. With that kind of responsibility, the least they could do is put a warning label on it.