Gangrene is my valley.
The moon’s a Roquefort blue.
The sun doesn’t shine; it staggers.
The earth’s a d.t. cesspool.
The rivers of my valley,
Silt filled and sewage choked,
Seep and ooze is sluggish morass
Spenserian dragons roam.
Baudelairean blooms tinkle off key tunes.
Chrome plated is my cottage,
A cancerously crumbly chrome,
On corporate chaos postulated,
Perpetuated by the drone.
Birds? Bees? Trees?
None of these.
The birds eat the bees,
The trees the birds.
The earth the trees.
The orchid alone can call this home.
My valley,
A cankerous coffin exuding death from its putrescent pores.

*An estimated two billion people—one-third of the Earth’s population—try to live on $2 or less per day. Some 20,000 die every day, because they cannot afford to live, while we live in luxury.

“Dave, didn’t you fight the Japs?”
“Yeah.”
“So, how could you buy a Jap car?”

The evil object is a 2004 Toyota Prius, Motor Trend “Car of the Year” in 2004. No U.S. company makes a true hybrid.

Ironically, we pick up Jap-hater Joe and his wife at the San Pedro cruise ship port the previous day—a tedious and time consuming task. We drive them in our 2000 Nissan Maxima—also made in Japan; but, apparently Joe is oblivious, or he would make some kind of scathing remark.
“What did you do in WWII, Joe?”
“I was in Navy Intelligence.”
“That’s an oxymoron,”
“We were doing important work,” he replies angrily.
“What?”
“Identifying disloyal Japanese Americans.”
“How many did you find?”

I know the answer: Zilch. Nada. I guess that information is still confidential more than sixty years later, because he declines to respond or is unable to overcome his irritation at my attack on good old Navy Intelligence. I don’t bother to ask him if he scolded his father-in-law for bringing a huge Mercedes-Benz back from Germany. You remember the Nazis?

I have a strong case. Navy Intelligence is responsible for one of my most terrifying nights on Mindoro Island—December 26, 1944, when it tells us the Japanese are mounting a counteroffensive to retake the island and we can expect thousands of paratroopers and a large flotilla of landing craft to descend on us that night and kill every one of us. By 0300 it becomes obvious no such attack is going to occur, but Navy Intelligence does not bother to inform us, so we spend a sleepless night knowing we are going to die defending Cominawit Point.

But this is not my major complaint. Seven years after I complete active duty and am briefly involved in civil rights political activities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Navy Intelligence lowers the boom, arranges a kangaroo court martial and gives me an “other than honorable” discharge for waging political warfare against discriminatory practices aimed at African Americans. It’s ridiculous. I appeal the Kafkaesque decision, not once but twice. Finally, in 1987, thirty-four years after my discharge and a disgusting display of pleading on my part. (I don’t care about myself, but I have two kids and six grandchildren.) I served honorably, worked my butt off and went through hell for several months in 1944 and l945 in the Philippines—and this is the thanks I get from the Navy. I consider “oxymoron” a light slap at a dangerous and out of control military arm that has nothing better to do with taxpayers’ dollars than hound combat veterans for harmless and legal post-war political activities.

This PT (Motor Torpedo Patrol) boat is from my Squadron Thirteen, one of twenty-six boats in Task Unit 70.1.4. Its three 1,350-horsepower engines are pushing it up to forty knots in a calm sea.We lose three boats—one to a Japanese suicide plane, because Squadron Sixteen’s commanding officer is at the wheel and freezes. I watch the Japanese Val settle down squarely in the middle of the boat and see it explode, break in half and sink. Seven crewmen die. The other two boats are blown out of the water near Luzon by the “friendly fire” of U. S. destroyers that can’t tell the difference between seventy-eight-foot long PT boats and fourteen-foot Japanese suicide boats that are wrecking havoc off Luzon ramming our ships. My good friend, Mike Haughian, is blown to bits by a five-inch shell from one of the tin cans. Some of the PT boat survivors find their way ashore behind enemy lines. They are captured and beheaded by Japanese troops. War is hell. We suffer one-third casualties and earn the Navy Unit Commendation ribbon. And for this I earn an “other than honorable” discharge.

The U. S. Navy Intelligence officer who prosecuted me saw no action on WW II, but he knows I am disloyal because of my activity in exposing Oakland police brutality from 1946 to 1949 as the East Bay correspondent for a progressive newspaper. It’s none of the Navy’s business, but in the McCarthy era of 1953 the octopus tentacles of intimidation reach everywhere.

The official U. S. Navy Intelligence logo is displayed above. I hope they don’t come after me again at 87 because of my opposition to Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq, but I’m sure to be on the TSA’s huge and confidential “Watch List.” I have sent several e-mail protests to Bush, the moron and untreated alcoholic Dick Cheney, skilled military duty evader and dangerous bird hunter who conned Bush into believing he’s the president. What we have accomplished in Iraq is not worth the life of a single U. S. soldier.

The NI slogan is “Strength through knowledge.” Tell it to the 6,800 Marines slaughtered on Iwo Jima because U. S. Navy Intelligence is unaware of impregnable, underground Japanese defenses. Tell it to my college classmate, Curly Brueggeman, who is cut to pieces within minutes of hitting the Iwo Jima beach. Tell it to my brother-in-law, Henry Hagen, who suffers near-fatal wounds at Iwo. Tell it to my wife’s cousin, Dr. Bill Murray, a U. S. Navy surgeon who treated as many as 100 Marine casualties a day for 45 days on that deadly little island. I say “U. S. Navy Intelligence” is an oxymoron.

Years ago, when I had difficulty getting to sleep I sometimes created a fantasy world in which I am a superhuman warrior, athlete, savior and lover. In recent years sleeping pills have deprived me of this imaginative activity, but the memories live on.

“I can guarantee you an NBA championship, coach.” Thus, with outrageous chutzpah, I talk Phil Jackson of the Los Angeles Lakers into letting me demonstrate my incomparable court skills at their El Segundo practice facilities.

I request a one-on-one contest with Kobe Bryant, the most valuable player in the NBA. Kobe loves a challenge and agrees to play along. I suggest a game of HORSE. I make a basket. Kobe must duplicate my shot. If he fails, he gets an “H.” Five failures and he is a “HORSE.”

My first shot is from the center jump circle with one hand. My ball swishes through the net. Kobe comes close. He gets an “H.” My second shot is from the center three-point line with my back to the basket—two hands over my head. Swish. Kobe and Phil are dumbfounded, as are the other Lakers who stayed after practice to watch. Of course Kobe fails badly. He picks up an “O.”

For my third shot I go to the far right corner, pull a sweat band over my eyes and without hesitation barely move the net as the ball snaps through the hoop. Undaunted, Kobe puts up an air ball. He now has an “R.”

Next I ask Kobe to guard me one-on-one. I double fake him off his feet, drive to the basket and slam dunk. When he attempts to drive on me, the ball ends up in my hands. A clean steal. Kobe has an “S.”

Finally, I offer my pièce de résistance—a two-handed, overhead heave the length of the court. The shot bangs off the backboard and plummets through the net.

Kobe concedes and earns the “E,” completing the shooting contest. Kobe is a gracious “HORSE” and compliments me.

Then I invite the entire Lake squad to join us on the floor for my Globe Trotter dribbling exhibition. With the greatest of ease and lighting speed I dribble through the entire team and do a 360 degree dunk.

Phil invites me to join him in General Manager Mitch Kupchak’s office where we sign a short-term $1 million contract.

Naturally, with me and Kobe the Lakers win the NBA championship breaking all scoring records and winning every playoff game by an average of 30 points. After hoisting the championship banner in Staples Center, I mysteriously disappear.

I’m not going to bore you with my NFL professional football routine. No need to embarrass Eli Manning and the Super Bowl champion New York Giants.

And the same with poor Tiger Woods, the world’s best golfer. I am sure he will eventually recover some self esteem after the trouncing I gave on him on the links.

By the time I reach the sexual prowess segment of this fantasy world with a grateful Marilyn Monroe,Morpheus takes over and sinks me into a deep sleep. What the hell. Even as fantasy, you wouldn’t buy it. Next time I’ll reverse the dream sequence.

I feel the warm drops in my aching left ear.I pass out when the sharp scalpel blade slits my eardrum. I am eight.

Osteopath Dr. Bob shoves the powerful fingers of his right hand down my throat and tears away offensive tissue.Six weekly sessions of finger throat surgery to pay off an insurance premium.Six terrifying weeks of unremitting torture, spitting shreds of flesh and blood. Barbaric. I am ten.

My kid brother wraps me up in his powerful arms, lifts me upside down and lowers me head first to the floor on my nose—all 165 pounds on my nose. Smashes it. Terrifies Fritzie. I laugh.

At 40, I wake up in my hospital room screaming with pain.A ten-inch incision to remove a gall bladder sewn up with black silk thread.
I scream again and again.Time stretches to eternity before the hypodermic needle injects morphine.Six weeks later, pus flows from an infection at one end of the incision.A half-inch of black silk stitch pops out unaided.

The nurse razors away pubic hair.Prickly pokes of lidocaine and a small groin incision.Catheter tube shoves all the way to my heart.
A flood of warm dye is injected. Photos taken.Repeat six times from November 1990 to December 2004.Balloons push against the plaque-filled coronary artery walls.

Heart attack on July 5, 2000. Kaiser doctor misdiagnoses angina as “exercise-induced ashthma.” Treats with inhalers. The more the pain, the more the inhalers. Later photos show scar tissue on heart.
Toss me in hospital gown flat on my back onto cold steel gurney for bumpy two-hour ambulance ride to Sunset hospital.Stent inserted at the blocked spot but keeps closing from cell growth. Back to Sunset.

Thirty-five one-hour sessions on consecutive week days of EECP—-enhanced external cardiac counterpulsation—-hurt. Inflatable straps around calves, thighs, buttocks pump blood from legs and butt into upper body with each heart beat. First calves, then thighs and buttocks—-378,000 pumpings. Still can’t walk around the block angina-free.

Pharmacological stress test pain unbearable, unremitting, irreversible. “Worst looking arteries I have ever seen,” says Dr. Shen.

Lumbar spondylosis with crippling lower back pain.

Tissue thin skin rips when gently brushed. Bleeds. Buy stock in Johnson & Johnson.

Basal cell cancer on nose tip sliced off and a flap of skin cut loose to cover. Barrymore nose now crooked.

Internal hemorrhoids tied off but keep bleeding.Four Citrucel capsules a day with eight ounces of HOH.

Qualaquin for night leg cramps. Atenolol to slow heart beat. Entocort for colitis. Plavix to keep platelets in their place. Lisinopril to keep arteries open. Levothyroxin for hypothyroidism. Isosorbide for blood vessel relaxation. Simvistatin to lower cholesterol. Omeprazole to shut down gastric juice flow. Fluocinonide gelfor lichen planus of gums. Proctosol with cortisone to staunch anal hemorrhaging. Nitroquick to pop for angina pain. Gaviscon to control reflux through collapsed esophageal sphincter valve.

Annual manual sodomy by primary care physician to confirm enlarged but smooth prostate.

Physical therapy by Charlotte twice a week for three months for inoperable lumbar spondylosis.I am caught in Charlotte's web.

Stress echo treadmill test with Dr. Rahman April 2.

As me: “How do you feel?”

I feel great. One evening at a Clubhouse 3 concert by the Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro John Koshak last Saturday night washes away all the pains and anxieties and sends a healing wave of pure joy through my being. Koshak’s arrangement of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” played magnificently by 86 high school virtuosos sends tears streaming down my face. I can still drive my two passengers with walkers from portal to portal. They love the music. Music is powerful medicine. And Tiger sinks a winning 24-foot putt. I am alive. I am 87. It's a miracle.

You burst forth from your mother’s womb full tilt at Kaiser-Permanente Hospital in Oakland,California on May 25, 1948.

Anne Winslow Blodgett Taub on life’s fast track—our only daughter, mother of our two oldest and most talented grandchildren and wife of our favorite rocket scientist son-in-law, Russell Peter Taub.

As these words are being penned, you are approaching the magic age of sixty—a miraculous achievement for an insulin-dependent diabetic of nearly forty-four years. You are slim and trim, a disciplined exerciser who eats properly and strives to keep blood sugar at the proper level.

The first two photos speak for themselves. In the third frame you are a high school senior and national merit scholar off to Oberlin College in Ohio.

The fourth frame is the bride I escorted ecstatically down the aisle of the children’s chapel at the Winnetka Congregational Church on January 22, 1972 to the lilting strains of Handel’s “Water Music.”
Frame five is your thriving family. Frame six: doting grandmother reading to grandsons Gavin Thomas Taub and Gavin Riley Taub of Mill Valley, California.

This is a brief prologue to the story of your three score years of indomitable life that continues to bring great joy and blessings into the lives of your proud parents.

Your mother and I certify that you are a miracle child, wife, mother and grandmother and that you have earned our eternal, unconditional love and admiration. I promise thousands more words to more fully flesh out your life, but I must put these few words into type as an overdue tribute.

I close with your mother’s favorite acronym—ARILY—always remember I love you.

Dad