Late May update

Vincent also had an appointment with the psychiatrist that ultimately prescribed medication for him, which we got to late enough today that we had to reschedule it for the end of the month. Last time Dr. Knox said the medication he's currently on has enough side effects that he can't be on it forever. So now - at the end of June - she'll decide whether to try a new medication or have him go cold turkey. Since he's now 18, there's a little bit of ambiguity now as to whether we should be going in with him to speak with the psychiatrist and what happens if he really doesn't want to keep taking medication. The court order said he must keep on with counseling and medication unless behavioral health providers say it’s OK to quit. (It's over in Jeffersonville, IN, so maybe Stephanie and Vincent will go next month and not be late like Vincent and I were.)

Mom went to the orthopedic doctor and got an X-ray. The doctor is sending her for an MRI, recommending focusing on posture and taking hourly breaks to do back exercises, and pooh-poohing physical therapy or chiropractic medicine. They did not talk about surgery, which Mom isn’t enthusiastic about. Mom knows there are several things going on – back problems, knee problems, general health problems, also posture (and she says that sitting all day hunched over a computer is probably bad for her posture also) – but she is unsure how disciplined she can be about posture and daily exercise. The doctor, who is rather old, said that one reason he’s in this area is that he too has faced similar issues. Mom canceled her PT appointment. Doing more assessment first may be good, but I’m not a big fan of no PT or other kinds of treatment. Going in to PT at least forces you to do the exercises a couple of times a week, and to get additional instruction, which is better than nothing. Cost may be an issue here too (plus the time to go to PT – though Mom might do it on the way to or from work). This seems look progress on some fronts, but not others. (I’m not sure how much retiring would permit Mom to attack these challenges more effectively.)

(Mom said that Florida Governor Charlie Crist – hot off of announcing a run for the U.S. Senate – today vetoed a pay cut for state workers, who have not gotten a raise in four years. Pay stability restored and MRI scheduled, Mom will lead an induction of new officers for Tallahassee’s American Association of University Women branch tonight.)

Stephanie’s father will face another court hearing after Tuesday’s. His tenants are apparently suing him for allegedly changing a handicapped ramp. He can settle for a small amount or go to trial and potentially get settled with a much larger dollar amount. Stephanie urged him to settle and then sell the property. Most of his 3-4 remaining properties seem to Stephanie to be more trouble and expense than they’re worth, especially given the state of the Central Ohio economy, which means that most tenants can’t really afford to pay rent and the pitfalls are many (thieves ransacking empty apartments, tenants suing, etc.). Part of what Stephanie’s father is probably doing is carrying on a family business and like my mother resisting retirement.

(Pictured above is the Columbus South End’s Buckeye steel plant, where Stephanie’s father once worked, which – like the West Side General Motors parts supplier factor that Mom and I also drove by this past weekend - is completely shuttered now – endemic of problems with Ohio’s manufacturing economy.)

-- Perry

The Money Man

Driving through sleepy Florence, IN, minutes after Mine that Bird's miraculous victory, and turning around the bend along the river to see the towering Belterra casino (obviously a big local employer) was something of a shock. We rushed in to get tickets before the 7 p.m. show (early so people could gamble afterwards) and quickly noticed that Louisville and Jeffersonville's indoor smoking ban did not apply to some parts of Southern IN. We shifted just in time to a smallish casino concert hall. Twenty years earlier I'd seen Eddie Money (singer of late 70s hits like "Two Tickets to Paradise" and "Take Me Home Tonight" and the early 1980s MTV revolution era hits "I Wanna Go Back" and also my favorite, "Shakin'," in the famous Palladium theater. This theater - off of Union Square and scene of Club MTV - which my apartmentmate Belinda and her boyfriend danced in - for a couple of years. Although Money had been a NYC police officer before he became a rock star in the late 1970s, he and his Mr. Entertainer banter (complete with loads of mediocre jokes) seemed a tad out of place in the hip club. Although the Belterra's audience was older and spread somewhat thinly through the concert hall, he almost seemed more at ease in the casino. He talked up gambling there and had apparently played there three years earlier (when we were nearby in Louisville - this was our first trip to any of these IN casinos. I had only been in a casino some 15 years ago when I stopped in Vegas to visit with my cousin Scott and his family and they showed me around the town). (After the Grand Excursion, Stephanie and her friend Jo and two others had also been to another river casino - the one in Fort Madison, Iowa, along the Mississippi River. Stephanie had also visited a river casino boat on a trip to St. Louis with her friend Rita some 14 years ago.) I didn't really manage to get any good pictures of Eddie Money or the casino. Money performed most of his hits, a few new songs, and a Motown song from a new cover album. He talked up gifts he was selling to raise money for care for HIV-infected children. Money, 60, was backed up on vocals by his daughter, Jessi, who also sang three songs herself. His band, which I suspect had changed personnel in 20 years, was solid.

With a waitress's encouragement, we moved up closer to the front as soon as the show started. Because I didn't know if we would make it, because I wanted to avoid the Ticketmaster extra charges, and because I was told on the phone that the show was unlikely to sell out, we waited and got tickets at the box office as we arrived. But we quickly left our back-row seats (still - it was so small - there were no bad seats). But we weren't right up front and we didn't join the mainly women my age or older dancing up front - which would have positioned us to get better pictures. We chatted a little with the women who moved up near us, including one who bemoaned Money leaving out a hit from his set list.

Money periodically played saxophone in the show.

I haven't been able to find any video of this exact show on YouTube.

But here's a performance of "Shakin'" at a casino in Connecticut from the same tour - two months before we saw Money and his band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDP3PGdP2Rc

Here, from a week after we saw him, is Money performing the 1980s hit "I Wanna Go Back." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF9XEub8mDM

By the time he'd got the crowd going more at the end, Money said: "I don't do this for the money - I do this for you." - even though he'd joked earlier about money. "I sold 37 million records, but I don't know what happend to all of that money. . . . Who knew?" he asked, suggested that he had spent like he thought he was going to keep selling millions of records forever. Speaking of money: After the concert, we walked over into the casino, which shifts effortlessly to the boat. Again, Stephanie discouraged me from taking pictures, and I got no good ones. Apparently there was a vantage point from which you can look out on the river, but we missed it. Stephanie knew some of the tricks. There were lots of slot machines and then blackjack tables, including those with $100 minimums. Early on we walked through a quiet, smoke free back room where people were playing poker, and this was kind of cool to see. I've seen much more of casinos in movies (like in "Casino Royale" and "Ocean's Eleven") than in person. This definitely wasn't Vegas or even Atlantic City, but it was interesting to see nonetheless (plus this slice of Kentuckiana broadly construed - We hadn't been able to consider taking Vincent because the whole facility is apparently age 21 and up - because of the gambling.) I wasn't tempted to try gambling - though Stephanie had tried it in Fort Madison (she broke even, she said). I joked that I didn't recognize anyone from the Creation Museum at the casino and that I definitely would not expect to see anyone from our church at either of these locales. As we walked out, some people - dressed up, including women with hats somewhat like the one that Stephanie had bought for Derby but didn't get a chance to wear - were arriving on a shuttle from Churchill Downs and the race. (I had developed a whole elaborate plan to board the dog - if we had decided not to try to go to the concert but only to the mall and the museum - but we ended up leaving late neough that I thought we'd get back in time.) As it turns out, Vincent surprised us by going back home from his girlfriend's (where he'd spent the previous night) at 8:30 p.m. and so he was there to rescue the dog (and - eventually - talk with Stephanie). We headed across the street to retrieve our car and drove off to do a little more exploring (in Vevay, Madison, and Bedford). Furthest below is video I took of Money (not his real family name, I bet) and his sax solo from "I Wanna Go Back." Click on play to watch and hear.

-- Perry

Grand Excursion

In summer 2005 towns along the upper Mississippi River replicated a series of events from 150 years early - when a flotilla of ships spent days and days traveling up the Mississippi River, from the Iowa-Illinois border - very near where I lived in 2003 and 2004 - to the Twin Cities, where we lived before that. On our way to Illinois (and then to Louisville) on a Memorial Day weekend trip to the Twin Cities five years ago - just before the "Grand Excursion" - we essentially did the Grand Concourse in reverse. We left St. Paul and stopped in Pepin, Wisconsin, to see the "Little House in the Big Woods," then drove along the Mississippi, criss-crossing between the states - stopping to go to the bathroom in Winona, MN; driving around LaClerc, Wisconsin; having dinner in Dubuque, Iowa; driving back past the Davenport (Iowa) mall (where Stephanie and Joanne had shopped a year before) - unti we arrived in Macomb very late at night. Stephanie and I thought of this trip as we sort of replicated this on the Ohio River, minutes after leaving the Creation Museum (including the petting zoo and the bridge) two weeks ago Saturday. we were in a hurry, because I wanted to try to get to a concert outside of Vevay, Indiana. So we left the museum at 5:45 p.m., took the Cincinnati beltway across the river (I'd only driven this stretch once before on my way in a rented SVU - going 30 mph in the snow - when my plane got snowed in in the Cincinnati airport - on my way back to Macomb after my Louisville job interview 5 1/2 years ago in January). (Pictured above) we quickly passed one of many coal-fired electric generating plants along the river. Indiana allows gambling on boats (mostly on the Ohio River or Lake Michigan) (some of these boats actually fake). Here's the entrance to a casino in Lawrenceburg, IN - the first town we drove through in IN (along the river).

Further into Lawrenceburg we drove across a bridge, close to a Seagram's distillery.

Yet another distillary.

One of the cuter towns we drove through was Aurora, IN, where we drove past the end of a church wedding. (For some reason there is no bridge across the river between Lawrenceburg and Vevay, IN - almost an hour away. Looking at a map with indistinct bridges, I thought there should be a bridge at Aurora or Rising Sun, and we could have driven along the river on the KY side, and then crossed at one of these two towns - but, in fact, no bridges.)

We kept driving through Rising Sun.

Below is a barge - like the barges we used to see heading up and down the Mississippi River from the Shepard-Warner expressway in St. Paul - and like the ones - in fact, this could be a Louisville-headed barge - in the Ohio River passing Louisville and Southern IN.

Around about now was 6:15 p.m., when Stephanie remembered that the Kentucky Derby race was slated to start in eight minutes. We messed around with the car radio and a transistor radio for the whole eight minutes until we finally found a station that was carrying the race, which thankfully started a little late. The station faded in and out until I eventually stopped along the side of the road - mid-race - to make sure we wouldn't lose the signal down the road. We had just 15-20 minutes to get to the casino in Florence, IN - but I thought we could afford a one-minute wait. The race was awful exciting - but it was hard to figure out on the radio what happend at the end. I've watched the race several times on YouTube - with the same announcer announcing the race on TV who was announcing it on the radio - and he doesn't mention the winning horse until basically AFTER the end. Mine that Bird was dead last through most of the race - way back - and didn't roar way into the lead - sneaking in on the rail - where he's hard to see - until the last few seconds. Afterwards, we heard a little analysis that helped explain what happened (though it was even more clear to me after watching the race on YouTube - partly to see where Mine that Bird came from). Calvin Borel rode horses to victories for the second time in two days (having rode Rachel Alexandra to victory in the Oaks race at Churchill Downs the day before).

Minutes later we drove through tiny Florence, IN (town with same name as KY town just miles away across the river where we had eaten lunch) and then suddenly saw the casino. After leaving the casino three hours later, we continued with our Ohio River version of the Grand Concourse. We drove past the bridge to KY at Vevay, through small Vevay and its open bowling alley and then down the road though the very cute Madison - scene of a fatal speedboat regatta several years ago and filled with historic homes - and drove past a famous hamburger joint I'd heard about from an admissions officer at the nearby (Presbyterian) Hanover College the day before. We made an emergency city park public restroom stop for me, and then drove across the bridge and over land towards Interstate 71, though yet a fifth county seat of the drive: Bedford, KY, county seat of Trimble County (two counties from Louisville). We'd lost Vincent on the phone (who wondered where we were) in Madison (which we hope to visit again) and then called him back as we entered Henry County near 71. Stephanie talked with him during our whole freeway trip home and told him we were about to drive into KY seconds before she opened the front door (surprising him with our sudden arrival). Great trip - but it was 11 p.m. and we were happy to see Frisco and him.

-- Perry

Tuesday PM update

Vincent and I went to see his brand-new psychiatrist over in Jeffersonville Tuesday. The main purpose was to get a longer refill of his prescription for medication that he started when he was in treatment in Indiana. She did a full-blown initial visit, asking him/us a series of questions. Vincent said he did not think he needed the medication and planned to get off of it as soon as he was allowed to (it wasn’t 100 percent clear to me what he meant by allowed to). Vincent also said he didn’t think they really did anything when he was in Indiana. He described his experience in Denmark etc. as getting a taste of freedom, then being expected to come back home and still be treated as a child. He said more – which unfortunately I don’t really remember – about his mystery concussion in Georgia back when he was 10 or so.

(Later Vincent also mused about going to Indiana University Southeast starting spring semester next year, then transferring to an out-of-town school like Western Kentucky after two years of college. He hasn’t said much about this sort of thing for a while. He’s going to be acquiring a few college credits by taking some high school/college dual enrollment courses on-line – if he finishes them. Vincent also said he’s lost complete touch with his friends, because they’re treating him as a persona non grata (my words). I think he’s exaggerating this, and – to the extent to which it’s true – there are probably a number of causes, not just the one he’s mentioned: he had already shifted/ditched many of his friends in connection with the whole Danish exchange experience last year (both in Denmark and while the Danes were here), he shifted/ditched his friends even more thanks to hanging out with his friend all of the time, just by not being in school and then being under house arrest he’s lost more touch with his friends, and the persona non grata thing may be mutual: he may feel sheepish about contacting them too. Plus one more thing: Some of this is just three months early what might have happened anyway – to an extent – after graduation when he wasn’t seeing people daily anyway.)

(I also said it appeared to us that the medication was working, but with a couple of caveats. Vincent is getting along with people better and not repeating incidents like back in February, although he’s not making quite as much progress completing school work and getting a job as we’d like. Also, so many things in his life have changed – undergoing a week of treatment in Indiana, exiting his school and shifting to on-line school at home, going to weekly counseling, being under house arrest for the last three weeks, and taking medication – that it’s hard to know what’s responsible for what.)

Vincent also talked about some side effects: drowsiness (which unfortunately is a common side effect) and blurred vision right after he takes the medication.

The doctor gave us another prescription and said this was probably not a good time to make any big change (with court coming up April 21). (Shifting medications takes some time to get one out and then the other into the system, and then experimenting and adjusting dosages and medications.) But she did say Vincent could experiment with taking three pills at night instead of one in the morning and two at night. When I pressed her about the long-term side effects we had read about on the Web, she said this medication was not a good long-term solution (since she wouldn’t prescribe it much more than six months).

We scheduled a new appointment for four weeks from now.

(Vincent got a hair cut and we had lunch in Jeffersonville (restaurant pictured above)on the way home.)

Other news: The superintendent of Stephanie’s school district, who is a fan of her program, is stepping down to take a job when a former deputy of his in the IN state education department. It’s remotely possible that another friend of her program might become the new superintendent. There are some three or four superintendent vacancies in Southern IN school districts. Two elementary schools other than Stephanie’s in her school district are possibly on the chopping block through closure. Stephanie’s school is not on the list partly because her program has boosted the school's enrollment. If one or both of the schools is closed, it will help boost enrollment at her school more. That could be good, because they’ll get more teachers. But it also could be bad, since overcrowding could force Stephanie to share a room with her other English as a new language colleague (which she had to do in two long-term substitute ESL teaching jobs in MN).

My newest colleague, Gail, passed her three-month probationary period Tuesday. Focus groups I’ve been running with colleague Joelle – including two scheduled at night this week – have been going OK, although not necessarily completely as the World Mission clients we’re doing them for want them to. Also, I’m having some hardware problems with my work dockable laptop computer, which I’m a little worried about.

-- Perry

Election Day

Besides going door-to-door in the black middle class Louisville suburb of Newburg on the last Saturday in which KY residents could register to vote in October, I again this fall volunteered periodically making phone calls for the Congressional campaign of moderate Southern IN Democrat Baron Hill over in Jeffersonville, across the river from downtown Louisville (see 'Biden rally"). Although I was in the IN Democratic Party office down the street from the Obama campaign office, I was also often calling for Senator Obama and gubermatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson. Having coming back late from Ohio on election eve, I got up as early as I could on Election morning (Stephanie being in Guatemala and me having taken the day off from work for the first time) and got to the office in Jeff 20 minutes late - and missed saying hello to Congressperson Hill in the proces (he was in the camper above headed to another one of the district's many counties). below were the signs for some of the Democrats running in Southern IN. Stephanie and I spent a very memorable election night two years at the smoke-filled, free beer for everyone bingo parlor in Jeff. You might recall that Election night 2006 was a good night for Democrats, including for then former Congressman Hill, but the Democrats in Jeff were almost entirely focused on very local races, including the upstart campaign of Danny Roddan for sheriff.

I had gotten slightly acquainted with some of the campaign staff. Also there on loan from the Congressional staffs were some of Baron Hill's local district staff and some D.C. office staff, including a man I questioned about Baron Hill's relatively anit-immigrant stands. Also there was a Clark County Democratic Party vice-chair, Nancy, whose entertaining e-mail campaign-related e-mail updates we had been getting daily for the previous couple of months. Nancy had also enjoyed reading Stephanie's Governor Palin blog entry.

Making calls for Congressperson Hill this year was relatively easy, since this was not a good year for the Republican brand even in Southern IN. This was especially true after Hill voted - twice - against the financial industry bailout. I made calls that week and that bailout is all many people wanted to talk about. (Hill - a fiscal conservative and friends with my Tallahassee congressperson, fellow "Blue Dog" Democrat Allan Boyd (father of one of Stephanie's students when she taught at Aucilla Christian) - surprised me by voting for the fiscal stimulus bill earlier this week.) Mentioning Obama went OK - although one man was frank that he couldn't support Obama because Obama is black. Calling for gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson - a former Congressperson and Clinton Administration Agriculture Department official - was tougher. People didn't dislike her; they just hadn't heard of her. Republican incumbent Mitch Daniels - with a pro-jobs development reputation - was relatively popular. Since a tight primary race had decimated Thompson's campaign account, she had little money left - and now money for TV ads in the Louisville media market when probably 10-20% of IN voters live in Southern IN in the Louisville media market. She was from northern IN and - with no ads - many people just hadn't heard of her.

These folks were sitting next to me making calls.

Southern IN is a relatively Anglo, relatively blue collar, relatively rural suburban part of the metro Louisville area (and outyling counties). There are relativly small African American and Latino populations. Housing is more affordable than most places in Kentuckiana except perhaps for Louisville's West side. Baron Hill ended up winning the election easily (locked in a race for the fourth time in a row with Republican trucking magnate Mike Sodrel, who had beat Hill four years ago and had his seat for the two years after that). Obama ended up squeeking by with an IN win, including winning Jeff's Clark County, where I was calling from. Governor Daniels demolished Jill Long Thompson (and another Republican - a former official in Stephanie's school district - who had promised to consider forgiving lost Ike days and the like - squeeked by with a narrow win to become IN education commissioner.)

Below is a picture that Nancy took and put in her e-mail newsletter of me taking a break and having something to eat on Election Day! Congratulations, President Obama and Congressperson Hill!

-- Perry