Big Ed

My father-in-law and I were about as opposite as you could get. Ed Lisoski was a night owl, always finding a reason to stay up well past midnight. I was a morning person, trading late-night merriment for pre-dawn runs and sunrise solitude. Whenever my wife Sherry and I stayed with her mom and dad, I always had some version of this conversation with him around 11 p.m.

Ed: “You want some roast beef, Al? How about a shot and a beer?”

Me: “I just brushed my teeth and was heading to bed.”

Ed: (Surprised): “Oh ... sure ... ok, old buddy. See you in the morning.”

I always felt like a party pooper around Ed, which underscores another notable difference between us: He loved a big party, I liked small get-togethers, especially ones that ended by 11 p.m.  During my first few years in the family I was repeatedly distressed by outings that stretched on way past my stamina and hunger for revelry.

One particular Elks club dinner epitomized the pattern. The night started out with a crowd of about 200 people, a live band, open bar and enough food to stuff a herd of actual Elk. I ate, I drank, I even danced. At some point, I noticed the crowd was thinning out as the evening cycled down. I was ready to join the exodus. Ed had other plans.

“Everyone’s leaving, why are we still here?” I asked Sherry despairingly.

“Dad’s having a good time. He wants to be here when they end the evening with the Elks’ absent brothers toast and sing Auld Lang Syne.”

“They’re putting all the chairs on the tables and vacuuming,” I pointed out, embracing my role as a wet blanket.

Oh me of little faith. With Ed leading the search party, an authorized Elks officer was rounded up and the handful of us left at the lodge did the toast and sang Auld Lang Syne like it was midnight, New Year’s Eve.

Ed: "How about a shot and a beer, buddy?"

Me: “I was thinking more like a bed and some shut eye.”

Ed: (Surprised): “Oh ... sure ... yeah, you look tired. Better get some sleep.”

Ed was a man of big appetites and one of his cravings was the daily news. He was a newspaper junkie and, in addition to the paper he had delivered to the house, he would pick up an assortment of local rag sheets in his travels. Often, without any obvious relevance to other people in the room, he would read some random story out loud.

“Thief Steals Wooden Sign From Local Park,” he’d announce, broadcasting some yawn-inducing headline.

“Is that a park you go to?” I’d ask, expecting a connection.

“No, no. I don’t know where that park is,” he’d say, looking up at me blankly.
 
I finally realized over the years that Ed was just the kind of guy that wanted to share with you whatever he had. Sometimes it was a shot and a beer. Sometimes it was the Pizzelle cookies he was so fond of making for friends and family. Sometimes it was a Polish song he loved ... or just a story in a community paper.

Ed passed away on July 27, 2013 after battling various ailments and physical setbacks, including six years as a dialysis patient, having one of his legs amputated, and being confined to a wheelchair for the last three years of his life. He was 92, but even as his body wore out and frailty diminished his once robust presence, he never stopped being the larger than life Big Ed that marked the majority of his time on Earth.

Ed packed his life fuller than most. He was a proud ex-Marine who served his country as a Master Tech Sergeant during World War II. Before retiring, he relished his work testing new car design enhancements at General Motors. He loved his Polish heritage, music of all eras, dancing, hunting and fishing. He was devoted to his wife Leona, daughter Charlene (a.k.a. – Sherry), son Dennis, and his many nieces, nephews and godchildren.

I was Ed's son-in-law, but that description is way too formal to capture how he treated me. Ed had a way of making everyone feel special, and he always made me feel like his other son. He called me "Aloosh" or "Old Buddy" and even in his downward spiral toward the end always wanted to know what was going on in my world.

Big Ed was a people person with a great curiosity and zest for life. I'll always remember him that way and admire his courage and fighting spirit when times got tough. Love you, Dad L. I will miss you every day.

Ed: "How about a shot and a beer, old buddy?"

Me: “I was hoping you’d ask again. Count me in.”

The BBQ Meatloaf and Bavarian Cream Puff Diet

It sounds bizarre, I know. In fact, it makes no sense at all. A classic example of mystical new age mumbo jumbo. The stuff of Internet exaggeration and word of mouth gone wild. Surely there’s not a single shred of truth to it.

Well . . . that’s what I thought, too. But the thing is, The BBQ Meatloaf and Bavarian Cream Puff Diet has changed my life. And it can change your life, too. Let me explain.

Seven months ago my world was in a shambles. I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and what I saw filled me with shame and hopelessness. That bright young man who once burned with such passion and promise had been replaced by a middle-aged zombie with a gut big enough to house Reese Witherspoon.

It would be a long road back, but I was convinced that my path to redemption had to begin with reclaiming my body. I started with the well-known diets that had produced big headlines and small waistlines. I tried them all – Atkins, The Zone, Jenny Craig, The South Beach Diet. In every case, my results were less then dramatic. So I kept searching, venturing deeper and deeper into more obscure dietary terrain.

I tried the Henry Winkler Grilled Cheese and Tomato Diet, but the melted cheese didn’t melt away the pounds. I tried Connie Chung’s “Fish Kabob Your Way to a Fabulous Body,” but couldn’t keep up the kabobing.

 I ate free-range Cornish game hens raised in Santo Domino by Benedictine monks. For awhile, I lived on potato pancakes handmade by a German farmer’s wife and shipped FedEx from Frankfort. I tried eating three big meals a day, then six small ones, then, as a last resort, just one large raisin a day topped with Cool Whip. Nothing seemed to click for me, until the improbable happened.

I was standing in the magazine section at Barnes & Noble flipping through the quarterly issue of a lesser known medical journal when I saw it. There, on page 83, was a report on the results of a five-year study conducted by nutrition researchers at the Crabtree University of Medicine in Shawshank, New York. Their findings were at once shocking and inspiring.

 A group of 217 chronically overweight heart patients who were fed nothing but BBQ meatloaf and Bavarian cream puffs from June of 2007 to April of 2012 had reached and maintained their target weights. What’s more, all 217 had overcome every trace of coronary heart disease and diabetes and were living lives of optimum health and well-being. Three had even won Pulitzer Prizes and two had become Supreme Court Judges, though none of them had any formal education beyond high school.

What, I wondered, could account for such an extraordinary resurgence of body, mind and spirit in people who had once been so desperate that they agreed to be guinea pigs in such a controversial experiment?

 These words from lead researcher Dr. Lamont Meredith put it all in sharp focus:

“The fats found in BBQ meatloaf are considered essential fats, because our body cannot manufacture them. BBQ fats in particular are used by the body to create “signaling molecules” that when balanced with the meatloaf as a protein source and the sugar in the cream puffs as a quick source of energy, work to stabilize insulin production, accelerate the metabolism, and safely burn body fat at record rates.”

 For me, it worked miracles. After only four months on The BBQ Meatloaf and Bavarian Cream Puff Diet, I’ve dropped 30 pounds, taken up kayaking, learned to play the Didgeridoo, built my own hot tub, and made the cover of Zesty Guy Magazine. Twice.

Can a diet consisting of BBQ meatloaf and Bavarian cream puffs really change someone’s life for the better you ask? I’m here to tell you: It changed mine. So get that sour taste of defeat out of your mouth and say “yes” to a yummy new way of life. 

Fueled by BBQ meatloaf and Bavarian cream puffs, you’re sure to find health, happiness and a world of exciting possibilities ahead. Maybe even a seat on the Supreme Court.

I guarantee you, no one on the Connie Chung Fish Kabob diet ever made it that far.

The Stoning

The human body is a mysterious thing. One minute it can be lying comfortably in bed without a care in the world. The next, it can be mimicking the feeling of a knife in the back, causing its owner to stagger into a bathroom, clutch a towel rack like a boxer on the ropes, and debate whether to die quietly or cry out to others.

But what exactly should I yell?

“I’ve been stabbed – please come quickly!” (That wasn’t really accurate, and the request for assistance felt halfhearted.)

“Someone help me – it’s an emergency!” (Using the universal someone allows everyone to tune out, and one man’s true emergency is another man’s search for toilet paper.)

“Help – I’m in pain!” (This is a plea that lacks context, inviting a range of off-target responses from “Can I get you some antacids?” to “Here’s my therapist’s card – she’s easy to talk to and very affordable.”)

By the time I finished debating what to yell the pain had subsided. So I took some aspirin, continued on with my morning, and chalked it all up to a strained back muscle.

Bad diagnosis, Dr. Alan.  

On average each year, kidney stones are responsible for more than 600,000 emergency rooms visits in the U.S. Two nights after my mysterious back pain first surfaced, I became part of that stone cold stat.

“You have a 7 millimeter kidney stone in your right ureter,” the ER doctor confirmed.

“Is that considered big?” I asked, not sure if I should picture a poppy seed or pop corn.

“Anything below 5 millimeters usually passes on its own,” he explained. “Above 5 millimeters and it’s less predictable.”

He had that right. After those first few hours in the ER, I was hospitalized for three days; put on IV fluids, morphine and nausea meds; released from the hospital with new pain meds; given home care instructions to flush the stone out naturally; and endured four days of excruciating discomfort and nausea as the pain would ramp up before the next doses of meds could be taken. And still, the stone loitered stubbornly in my ureter making my life a living hell.

Finally, a week after my trip to the emergency room, my urologist scheduled me to undergo shockwave lithotripsy, a procedure where you’re hooked up to a machine that generates high intensity sound waves to shatter the stone into smaller pieces inside your urinary tract. Sound like fun? Not unless you consider your body a video game battleground where the one who bags the biggest rock collection wins.

“How’d it go?” I asked back in the foggy ambiance of the recovery area. “Did the shockwaves work?”

“The stone wouldn’t shatter that way, but I nailed it,” the urologist reported with the cocky air of a video game scoring champ.

“You used a nail?” I probed uncomprehendingly, still dopey from the anesthesia.

“I put in a catheter and attacked it arthroscopically,” he clarified.  “After I pushed it back into your kidney, it fragmented into a pile of powder and gravel.”

“Clutch move,” I murmured. “Sorry I slept through it.”  

My post-procedure homework assignment was to carefully strain my urine for a week so I could bring in my game-winning gravel for analysis. I don’t mean to brag, but after handing over a sample for the lab tests I had enough left over to start my own line of kidney stone jewelry and collectibles.

The brochure the doctor gives you says that once you’ve had one kidney stone there’s about a 60 to 70% chance you’ll have another. The good news is that you can greatly lower the odds of recurrence by taking certain preventative steps. Having been through one stoning and lived to tell about it, I’m in.

Reduce animal proteins? Done deal.

Cut down on sodium? No sweat.

Watch my oxalate intake? A-okay.    

Drink enough water each day to fill the killer whale tank at Miami Seaquarium? Gulp ... I’m working on it.

Hey, if it will dilute my urine enough to keep crystals from gradually building into a rock-like mass that can send me back to kidney stone purgatory, I’m all for it.

Which reminds me. I need to find a bathroom. Wait, who am I kidding? With this kind of fluid intake, I need to find every bathroom.   

Be Our Guest

“Your room is waiting,” my wife cheerfully tells friends and relatives in far-flung corners of the country. It’s part of her ongoing “Southern Hospitality” campaign to tempt someone into a trip to Fort Lauderdale so she can coax them into spending a few nights in our seldom used guest bedroom.

“We never have house guests,” she says disappointedly. “And we live in a vacation paradise.”

 “House guests,” I hasten to remind her, “are like fish. After three days they start to stink, and after a week they stink in a way that makes fleeing in the night seem like a reasonable option.”

Still, living in a bona fide “vacation paradise,” we find ourselves making the obligatory open invitation to whoever’s on the other end of the phone. The wholeheartedness of the offer differs slightly, depending on whether it’s being issued by me or my wife.

Sherry: “Come on down. You’ll have your own bedroom and bathroom, a key to the house, and you’re a mile and a half from the beach.”

Me: “It’s hot as hell here but you’re welcome to come. The foldout’s not too painful, the bathroom has a door on it, and you can help yourself to what’s in the fridge -- barbecue sauce and seltzer.”

 It’s a natural fact that, by their very presence, even the best house guests disrupt the normal ebb and flow of their hosts’ daily lives. Prolonged visits can set free powerful feelings, including anguish, grief, loathing, rage, and finally, intense longing that the ordeal will eventually end.

To ensure that everyone maintains a protective layer of comfort and no one gets hurt, I find it’s a good idea to set down a few house rules before guests arrive. Mine are as follows:

 1)    No asking “if you’ve been having trouble with that toilet in there.” I haven’t. You’re on your own.

2)    No suggesting “we all go to that big flea market we heard about.” I’ve been and lived to tell about it. Now it’s your turn.

3)    No offering to “treat” if we go to some tacky tourist attraction with you. It won’t work. Just go, and leave the money on the dresser.

4)    No talking during any television show I’ve described as “one of the few things I look forward to watching every week.” In other words, “at the sound of a commercial, please give me your name and a brief message.”

5)    No walking around in your underwear before midnight.

6)    No walking around in your underwear after midnight.

7)    No walking around in my underwear at any time.

Make no mistake. We welcome guests at our home . . . we really do. I just know from experience that unless precautions are taken, there comes a breaking point that shatters the fragile harmony of a habitat holding too much humanity.

In retrospect, our guests should have seen it coming. My flushed face, my trembling lip, the festering hostility of a thousand frustrations coming to a head.  Maybe next time they’ll think twice about asking me where the fire extinguisher is while I’m watching Amish Mafia.

My Facebook Family Reunion

It was a Wednesday night and Modern Family was coming on in two minutes, which meant that the only place you’d normally find me would be on the sofa waiting for the show to start. Except I wasn’t there. And things were far from normal.

 

Instead of settling in to catch one of my favorite sitcoms, I was in front of my computer scanning a picture of an old family pet that everyone had long since forgotten so I could post it on Facebook. Why would I bother to do this you ask? Well, if you really need to know, it’s because my brother Jim had posted two other old photos of family pets on Facebook leading my cousin Dawn to speculate about the name of a dog that we kept in a coop outside a corral fence by the barn in our backyard.

So there you have it. I had a perfectly logical reason for my actions . . . or at least that’s what I tell myself. But then, you tell yourself a lot of things to justify your bizarre behavior once you’ve turned into a love slave of the Facebook gods.

Facebook addicts will confirm that it all begins innocently enough. When I first started, my Facebook profile sat frozen for months – just another lifeless mannequin posing in the cyberspace storefront. I was on the brink of pulling the plug on it when the following short sentence posted to my wall caught my eye:

Alan is now friends with Andy McGrane.

Hello. It was my good buddy Andy. The Andy I had struggled to keep in touch with in the years since he moved away. Facebook’s potential to connect and keep up with friends and family hit me like a pie in the face. A slew of similar messages followed.

Alan is now friends with Eric Williamson.

Alan is now friends with Kristen Williamson.

Alan is now friends with Marjorie Bornkamp Williamson.
(Hi Mom.)

Alan is now friends with Dawn Bornkamp Barbacci.

Before I knew it, I had an entire family reunion at my fingertips whenever I wanted it. And boy did I want it. I wanted to see the rare picture my brother posted of our long-gone grandfather and Great Aunt Shirley. I wanted to see (and poke fun at) the profile picture my mom posted of her as a patriotic four year old saluting the photographer. I wanted to trade wisecracks on family photos from years gone by showing alarming hair styles and drop-dead hilarious fashion statements.

Most of all, I wanted to enjoy the new world of quick and easy conversations that Facebook made possible with relatives I hadn’t had contact with in years. Consider this exchange with my cousin Dawn after I posted a picture of me running a 5K race during my college days.

Me: This showcases my ability to pass older, heavyset guys and young children during the home stretch.

Dawn: r u wearing JOX sneakers?

Me: I don’t think so – back then I wore Pumas.

Dawn: Classic blue suede-ish style . . . nice.

See? Nothing earth-shaking or newsworthy. But that’s precisely the beauty of it. With Facebook, suddenly you’re sitting at a family reunion and that dusty old photo album that someone flips open starts the quips and comments flying.

Which brings me back to that Wednesday night when I almost missed an episode of Modern Family while posting a photo on Facebook of a dog my grandmother Bessie gave us because he was eating all her furniture. The dog’s name was Thor and we kept him in the backyard by the barn where furniture was scarce and the chances to bark at horses and whiffle ball-playing kids were unlimited.

Somewhere, in that big dog coop in the sky, I’d like to think Thor is looking down at his Facebook photo album and thinking:

"Nice family reunion guys – thanks for remembering me. And while I have everyone’s attention, I just want to set the record straight: I only ate furniture when Bessie forgot to feed me."

 

The Twelve Days of Christmas

(Based On A Christmas List By Alan Williamson)

 

On the first day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

A 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the second day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the third day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the fourth day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Four lobster claws,

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the fifth day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Five... fiber... optic... chimpanzees,

Four lobster claws,

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the sixth day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Six singing lessons,

Five... fiber... optic... chimpanzees,

Four lobster claws,

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the seventh day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Seven pounds of Starbucks,

Six singing lessons,

Five... fiber... optic... chimpanzees,

Four lobster claws,

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the eighth day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Eight wines from Napa,

Seven pounds of Starbucks,

Six singing lessons,

Five... fiber... optic... chimpanzees,

Four lobster claws,

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the ninth day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Nine nights in Naples,

Eight wines from Napa,

Seven pounds of Starbucks,

Six singing lessons,

Five ...fiber... optic... chimpanzees,

Four lobster claws,

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the tenth day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Ten robotic butlers,

Nine nights in Naples,

Eight wines from Napa,

Seven pounds of Starbucks,

Six singing lessons,

Five... fiber... optic... chimpanzees,

Four lobster claws,

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the eleventh day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Eleven labradoodles,

Ten robotic butlers,

Nine nights in Naples,

Eight wines from Napa,

Seven pounds of Starbucks,

Six singing lessons,

Five... fiber... optic... chimpanzees,

Four lobster claws,

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

On the twelfth day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

Twelve Hawaiian print shirts,

Eleven labradoodles,

Ten robotic butlers,

Nine nights in Naples,

Eight wines from Napa,

Seven pounds of Starbucks,

Six singing lessons,

Five... fiber... optic... chimpanzees,

Four lobster claws,

Three tanks of gas,

Two talks with God,

And a 62 inch HDTV.

 

Don't Just Sit There

There you are. I see you sitting there in your comfy chair, in your air conditioned room, with your fancy digital devices and your empty box of Mr. WaffleHuffle breakfast waffles now with real cranberry. Life is pretty sweet, right? Well, don’t be so sure, waffle breath.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news – you better sit down for this – but it turns out sitting is bad for you. Sorry to dupe you into sitting just now; I mean you no harm. In fact, I urge you to please rise, because the more you sit, health experts say, the worse things get.

Spend too much of each day sitting, and you could get critically fat, have a heart attack and even die. And then there are the dangers of second hand sitting, with your motionless mass causing major hardship and hazard to those who have to maneuver around you to turn lamps on and off, water plants, or dial 9-1-1.