Ancient history

The photograph above was sent to me by my old friend Sam Williamson, whom I met at age 8 and have maintained a friendship with ever since. He found it in an old album kept by his parents (both of whom were surrogate parents to me). I think one of them must have taken the photo in 1967, shortly before or after Debby and I were married.

Forty-six years later Debby is still a knockout, but I am no longer so hirsute.

It is only mildly embarrassing to recall that only months before I was in my Camus phase, affecting a black beret and turtleneck under a brown corduroy jacket (that last is in the photo) and smoking Gauloises.

I had dreams of becoming an Author. But I soon discovered that the work was harder than I was willing to do . . . at that time.

Rehab

The Alden Estates rehabilitation center in Skokie, Illinois, where I am an inmate--oops, patient--while my new right knee recovers from implantation Dec. 1, is quite a place. Because it caters only to knee and hip replacement patients, no long lines of moribund wheelchair-bound aged clog its corridors. (Actually, the only visible difference is that the equally elderly replacement patients hobble around with walkers and canes. The level of social excitement is only incremental.)

The ambience is small-cruise-ship, the corridors artfully disguised to make you think you're belowdecks. There's a small dining room whose staff seems to have been plucked off a Holland-America liner, complete with napkin origami famous among Filipino crews, and a cheery ice cream bar. The cuisine is to hospital food as Cordon Bleu is to Mickey D's.

The nurses, aides and physical therapy staff are uniformly sunny and competent.

The idea, the staff tells me, is to provide the happiest possible atmosphere for people recovering from joint surgery. A contented and motivated patient does better down in the bilges, where the torture chamber--oops, the therapy room--is located. The dungeon is camouflaged as an upscale fitness center, complete with reproductions of 1930s European golfing and skiing posters instead of shackles and fetters. Each day brings three therapy sessions.

The physical therapists may all be cheery and warm personalities, but they do have the dedication of Torquemada in getting their victims, er, patients to confess, er, work on range-of-motion and strength issues. That's what makes good PTs: one moment you want to hug them, the next strangle them. And they can take a joke. "My husband," confided one, "calls me a physical terrorist."

So exceptional is this place that society surgeons at nobby Gold Coast hospitals are shipping in their patients. You can tell them by their togs, tans, bling and botched plastic surgery.

For a mere middle-class Medicare patient who's an amateur bird photographer, Alden has another big attraction: a roomy aviary full of colorful canaries and finches. You can view some of the results on my other blog.

Call me contented. Most of the (Ow! That oits!) time.

Beauty amid pain: Therapy birds at the Alden Rehab Center.

Bring on the belly dancers . . .

. . . and save a branch library!

The Evanston Public Library Friends, one of my favorite organizations, is sponsoring a silent auction on the Internet starting today and running through May 30.

The auction is to raise money to keep alive the city's two branch libraries and provide other vital services. The city council wants to close them to balance the budget, but a large group of concerned citizens has banded together in a grassroots effort to demonstrate that the people of Evanston value the town's intellectual heritage.

More than $80,000 of the required $200,000 has been raised so far, and the auction will push the effort a great deal closer to the goal.

You don't have to live in Evanston to bid on the goodies, some of which includes rare volumes, autographed books by Evanston authors from Joseph Epstein to Scott Turow (and including me), meals at local restaurants (and a dinner with Audrey Niffenegger), art of all kinds including spectacularly illustrated garden watering cans, and sports and entertainment tickets.

There are also "unique experiences" such as a belly-dancing party in your own home that includes three dancers and instruction in the art. Malik Turley (right), founder of the Hip Circle Studio, donated the party to the auction.

Bid. You are bound to win something useful (tax deductible as well) and gain a large measure of the satisfaction that goes with helping save something priceless -- and irreplaceable.

Off to Rochester

Today I'm heading to Rochester, N.Y., to give a talk and workshop on how a deaf guy writes for the "mainstream" (as the hearing world is known in that of the not-hearing). The lecture is to students at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, one of the colleges at Rochester Institute of Technology.

It'll be the first time I've trod the quarterdeck of a classroom since 1982, when freshmen at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism made up the boisterous but loyal crew.

This ought to be interesting. Are college students still eager and demanding? Do I still have the chops for teaching?

We will see. Back Saturday.