Dave Foulk Internet Flyer

So here I am, more nervous than a cat in a BB gun factory.  I'm ordered to stay off the computer and be quiet...watch TV or read...rest.  So this is a clandestine post done under the cover of a running vacuum cleaner in the hall.  The warden can't hear me clacking away right now. 

My voice sounds like that of a very old walrus, trying to sound out a call for another smelt.  And I smelt this one coming.  I knew my voicebox would get trashed by this pneumonia and what the doctor describes as "acute bronchitis".  There's nothing cute about it. 

The only reason I write about this on-line is because some of you might wonder what happened to me on the morning newscasts on WNOX.  Others have been so gracious and kind to call and check on me, and offer prayers of support.  Thank you so much. It means a lot.

I had thought a cold that had passed through the family was going to miss me.  My daughters, and my grandaughter were first with it.  And it could have been an itty bitty sneeze from Sarah that got the ball rolling for me.

As Julie's wedding approached, so did the bacteria.  They set up a base camp in my goozle and proceeded to sell off territory to a developer so it could subdivide.  The lung wasn't zoned for infection, but the bacteria had one little guy live in a cell in the precinct, and he voted "yes" to develop. The wedding party's young folks kept asking "Mr. Foulk, are you okay?" At that point I wasn't sure if they were asking me about my physical, or my fiscal condition.  Both of them not so great, eh?

Anyway, I thought the worst was over just after the wedding, and then I noticed one morning that I was holding myself up to the sink by my elbows as I washed my hands. If doing that was such a hard task, I knew I needed to get to the doctor for an audit of what was taxing me.  Soon there was an x-ray, and pulse and oxygen test, and a blood test, and an oil check of my pickup truck....and the results came in.  Yes: there was a reason I was breathing like a locomotive with a bad piston.

Baby boomers are learning a whole new thing in health care as we age: 

Home Health

This time, the home health guy brought what is called a "nebulizer" for me to use every four hours.  It is nothing more than a noisy electric air pump, and a little device that atomizes whatever liquid that is placed into a container.  There is a mouthpiece for you to inhale the atomized liquid.  My darker side sees this as a whole new opportunity for abuse of some kind here, perhaps atomized alcohol?  Boomers all over America suddenly develop breathing trouble!

So here I am- scaring the daylights out of the dogs with this thing that looks like a bong designed by an aquarium shop, unable to squeak out more than a few words, and trying like all get-out to stay silent and allow things to rest.

Then there is the steroid treatment.  Ever done a round of prednisone?  It's like putting 100 octane gasoline in a Chevette.  You get the creepy-jeebies...more nervous than a prom queen at a prison rodeo.  Sleep is difficult because your entire metabolism is cranked up as the medication fights inflamation in your body. 

You have all of this mental desire to write checks that your body is not capable of doing at the present moment:  Your brain says .."but if you stay on the line, a member of the fatigue department will be with you shortly". 

Ever wonder about the first human to take medication like that?  The same docs that came up with that treatment are the ones that give you Fleet enemas and have rest rooms with no magazines.

Uh oh, I think the vacuuming has stopped for the moment. 

I'd better get busy doing nothing.

My youngest daughter, Julia "Julie" is getting married this weekend.  Julie, who has always taken life at ninety miles-an-hour will marry a soft spoken Eagle Scout, and fellow ETSU student, Adam Wilson. 

The service will be at an Episcopal Church, so that means I will have to be on my best behavior in what some call a "high Church". I think that means they would likely not need my services as an electric bass player...ever.

I'm worried that if I kneel just one too many times, the leg I smashed by running over myself will say "enough", and it'll take a platoon of deacons, elders, or whatever kind of help they can muster to get me back in the pew.

To my eternal gratitude I will not have to wear a cumberbund, or as it is known in fat guy circles, a satin truck tire retread.  Once, when I was performing a narration at First Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Georgia, my cumberbund fastener failed, and the garment flew through the air, striking a member of the casserole committee right between the eyes. 

There's been more preparation for this wedding I am sure...than the first five Mercury Space Shots combined.  And NASA probably had fewer people working on them, too.  But it is all worth it.  My little girl, the last of the Foulk's is marrying. 

Like magnets, opposites in love sometimes attract.  And they make a wonderful couple, even though there is a height differential of around two-and-a-half feet.

Nobody will ever know if her daddy cried at her wedding.  Because of a horrible head cold I caught from any number of suspects. Now I appear to be in a continual state of uncontrolled weeping and sniffing. Because of that, I'll be the only one who will know for sure.  If I were a betting man, I would say I won't.  I tend to do those sort of things late at night when nobody but God is watching.

But if this cold doesn't improve, when the pastor asks "Who giveth this woman.." I will snort and and say "Her muddah and I..snarrrk", and attendees will think "poor guy, he's taking it hard."

But I'll certainly have ample opportunity to reflect and review during those all-too-quick moments when the "I do's", the prayers, and the music play out into the grand fortissimo of the recessional.

I'll wonder if I did everything I could have to ensure -all- of my children learned what they could from my mistakes and my triumphs.

Was I quiet at the right time, and outspoken when needed?  And was I there enough for Julie?  She was the youngest and had to live her formative years through some of the toughest financial and career times I've known.  The attitude and ability to "work things out"  because of it has served her well as a young adult.

It's really too late for all of that sort of ruminating.  Now it's a matter of showing up on time, making sure my tuxedo fits, paying the proper people, loading the right stuff to bring to the Church, all of those mundane things you get to do instead of sit down and have a nice talk with the woman who is about to forever change her name. 

So hope we had enough of those talks through the twenty-something years up to this time.

Julia Wilson.  Has a nice ring to it, eh?

But no matter what her name is, she will always be daddy's little girl.

Always.

I love you, Julie.

A hangar queen is an aircraft that has so many mechanical or electrical problems that it is under a roof more than in the sky.  There are also less delicate nouns that can follow "hangar".  I know because some of the mechanics that worked on the helicopters I rode for three years used those words and a lot more.

A friend of mine sent me this list of mechanical problem reports from a company that has scores of airplanes in the air at any given time  The pilot report is designated with a "P". The "S" is the service technician.

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
 
P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.
 
P: Something loose in cockpit
S: Something tightened in cockpit
 
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.
 
P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
 
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.
 
P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.
 
P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.
 
P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
 
P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.
 
P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.
 
P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!)
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right and be serious.
 
P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
 
P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.
 
And the best one for last
 
P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.

One of the men who worked on those Hughes 300C helicopters I rode-  Kent Hurd, summed it up for a pilot one day with this gem:  "We can teach a monkey to fly these &%$#@ things, but so far, not one of 'em has learned how to fix one of them."