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Gordon Hayward, broken bones and Lewy body dementia

It was difficult for everyone watching the NBA game last night between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics to see the devastating leg injury suffered by new Celtic, Gordon Hayward.

I winced and touched the screw that protrudes under my skin on my shin bone (tibia).

A multimillion dollar elite professional athlete, Hayward will be treated well and getting advice from the best in the business, doctors, physical therapists and trainers.

But it might be important as well for Gordon to talk to some folks who have been through it.

Gordon could seek out other athletes such as Joe Theismann, Sam Bowie, Paul George or Kevin Ware for insight into their devastating leg injuries.

Or , you could ask me for advice..

Mike Oliver driving at Mike’s Challenge which raised $13,000 for Lewy Body Dementia Associationn (Photo by Trish Crain)

In fact I’ll offer it right now, no charge. And my experience, although gruesome had a positive effect on my game, and my life.

First off, I’m no elite athlete. I’m just a big fan of the game and started playing pick-up 35 years ago, hooping it everywhere from neighborhood playground ball, to the Y, to an occasional league here and there in Alabama, Florida and California.

So I divide my ‘career’ into two phases:

1) Before the break. 2) After the break.

But, first, let me tell you about the break.

I was in a church gymnasium in Leesburg, FL,in 1989. I was a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel. It was lunchtime basketball. We had folks from all strata of life,  from lawyers to store clerks to truck drivers to folks you didn’t ask what they did.

I was an unsophisticated player with little coaching but had a good stroke and could run a bit at age 29.

So this one day, halfway into a game,  a guy on the other team steals the ball and streaks for a fast break layup.

I turn on the jets in pursuit and leapt as high as I can, which frankly isn’t that high, but at 6’ and lanky I managed to bat the ball off the backboard from behind. It was a legal blocked shot because I hit the ball before it hit the backboard. When I landed on the indoor-outdoor carpet that covered the floor of the gym, my sneaker stuck like it hit a glue spill..  My leg bent but my shoe was intent on sticking the landing.

Whether it was torque, the angle,  the hold of the carpeted floor, or simply a lack of vitamin D in my diet,  there was no denying the loud sickening ‘crack’ as my leg bones snapped.

I went down but instinctually popped up and tried to walk. Everybody in the gym, including me, heard the crack, but in my confusion I thought I could just pop up and shake it off.

I suddenly realized that my left leg was wobbling and bending in the wrong places.  When I tried to walk, I believe, the bone tore the skin.

I laid down.

First thing my adrenaline accelerated brain was telling me: Don’t look at my leg. Keep your head. As we had no doctors in the house, someone motioned the dentist over. Hell, he had a Dr. before his name.

I later learned the dentist knelt down, looked at the bone protruding from my  leg and walked outside where he threw up in the bushes.

I stayed calm at the scene, telling folks to call my wife, Catherine, who was 7 months pregnant and caring for our 2-year-old. Tell her it’s a minor injury, I stressed, knowing that  Catherine with a nursing degree will quickly figure out otherwise.

I told someone to call my boss and tell him I won’t be in for a while.

I was rushed by ambulance to surgery where they installed an external fixation device. It was made up of a  bunch of steel rods (six or eight) half of them were screwed into the bone above the wound, half under the wound with cross beams to apply the pressure.

Like the reverse of some Medieval torture device which stretched your bones until they broke, this device pulled the bones together.

Diagnosis: compound fracture of the tibia – fibula , also called open fracture.  That means the bone popped through the skin.

Mike Oliver with daughter Hannah, 2. Mike was in the hospital following surgery to fix a compound tibia-fibula fracture. See broken leg with external fixation device in foreground.

The first few weeks were torture. My leg really hurt. I couldn’t find a comfortable way to sleep. Catherine was a kind but busy caretaker as I could do much of nothing.  I was worried I would never play again, or for that matter, even walk or walk right again.

After a number of weeks at home, I went back to work  using crutches. The erector set looking contraption stuck out of the side of my left shin. I couldn’t put any weight on that leg. And that was the instruction for about four months. Crutches, no weight.

Then I got a walking cast and it was awesome to get rid off the crutches and start walking.

An aside, the doctor who took my pins out couldn’t find the proper tools when I went in that day to have the external fixation device dismantled and unscrewed from my bones.

I knew I was in trouble when he asked his nurse to bring his toolbox from his pick-up truck..

“Aren’t you going to give me some pain medication?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “There’s nothing really that works on this kind of thing.

Ok,, I said, sitting up on the table as he took out a pair of toolbox  pliers.

The first turn is the only one that hurts, he said.

“Yeah, but there are six first turns ” I said.

It took a full year from time of injury to get back on the court again. I still carry around a 1-inch screw underneath a patch of skin with no feeling anymore.

When I did resume playing, I found my left leg very weak. In basketball, for a right-hander, the left leg is the most used. So to preserve my leg, I taught myself to go to my left hand, going up on my stronger right leg..

It opened up a whole new game for me. My left-hand coordination improved through use. I could shoot sweeping lefty hooks and even short jumpers with my left, which meant defenders had to be careful not to overplay one side.

What I did was find a workaround.

Now I don’t mean that Gordon Hayward needs this injury to work on his left hand. He’s already, I’m sure, pretty good with it.

But for me there’s a bigger lesson in my experience.

Many of you know, I have Lewy Body dementia. Read the About Me section for more details.

It’s a progressive brain disease which has symptoms like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. I wrote in an earlier piece on AL.com that there was an Alzheimer’s study of nuns who lived in isolation, which made them good study prospects because it limited the variables. While some nuns got Alzheimer’s  there were other nuns who upon autopsy were found to have  a lot of the plaques and tangles in the brain that would indicate Alzheimer’s. Yet they didn’t show any signs of the disease in life.

Researchers suggested their brains must have found ‘workarounds,’ physiological fixes.

The thread of this blog is counting down my record collection as a means of telling my story and ultimately bringing more awareness to Lewy body dementia.

The disease has affected my game. For the second time I am challenged to work with a physical deficit in my game. The only thing was that last time I could always limp away from the table, no harm no foul, “take up swimming,” my doctor would say.

This time there’s no walking away from. Lewy Body dementia.

The degenerative brain disease is the second leading cause of dementia after Alzheimer’s,and there is no cure.

But my experience with my leg, has shown me that good can come out of bad.

I’d have to agree with Theismann, the broken leg changed my life.

Get well soon Gordon.

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Chet Atkins — 666

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

Stay Tuned (1985)

Chet Atkins was a guitar legend of the 50s and 60s who could seamlessly drift from country to jazz and spice it up with a little rock and roll and even some blues.

This album was one of those high concept albums.You know one of those superstar summits where all the super heroes trade licks.

It looked good on paper. And even sounds good on vinyl or, in 1985, those newfangled things called CD’s.

Here’s the pitch: Let’s bring a few of  the new, great  guitarists of the ’80s together  and let them jamnoodle with an aging legend. You know flutter about and pick it. Let’s see what you get. The other guitarists were all good, if not up and coming big stars, in their own worlds. They included: Earl Klugh, Larry Carlton, George Benson and Mark Knopfler among others.

No, Pat Metheney wasn’t there, nor Santana. But they had a quorum for first rate guitar playing. All the build-up and, in the end, it was dinner music, good dinner music, mind you.

Champagne tinkling high end  instrumental dinner music. Highland Bar and Grill dinner music. But nonetheless, dinner music. Background cocktail partymusic. That’s too harsh. Because these guys, at that point in time, had some of the greatest guitar skills of that era and beyond.

There’s certainly a place for impeccably played strum and twang.

But, alas, if it’s after dinner music you want, If it’s into the evening, staring- down-midnight-music you want, don’t come here. Instead try something like this: Mercury Blues.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Me and My Old Boss

Jim Jacobson, Editor.

I hugged my old boss one day recently. Out of the blue we embraced.

Funny thing, my most vivid memory of Jim Jacobson is being called into his office with my colleague Rick Bragg decades ago. It was like the principal’s office only I was 26 and the year was 1985. Rick and I got into a bit of trouble for publishing the prisoner’s list of demands from a riot at St. Clair Correctional Facility in which I was somewhat involved in.

. 

How I looked in 1985 covering St. Clair riot.

Recently I went with Catherine to visit Frances, the mother of Ann, a neighbor of ours. She’s in a memory care unit in Birmingham with the same disease I have: Lewy Body dementia. She is about 20 years or so older than me though.

We had a wonderful talk and shared our experiences. She asked: “Do you ever forget what you were going to say while you are talking?”

Of course, I said. We laughed and shared some more. I noticed her hands shook more than mine. But her lucidity comforted me, even though she had her Lewy moments.

She asked: Did you see Mr. Jacobson? Such a nice man. I told her I did. Down the hall, just a bit ago.

He was sitting in a room with three other residents watching TV.

My old boss looked older of course.

I didn’t really know much about him, though I knew he was a respected journalist, who did some work overseas, including correspondence from Vietnam, and  he was an elected member of the University of Alabama communication school hall of fame.

I hadn’t talked to him in 30 years. I had left the paper in 1987, and returned in 2011. He retired in 1997.

I told him who I was; I thought I detected a flash of recognition. We talked and I believe he was telling me about the news business and how it has changed.. But I’m not sure what he said as he spoke softly. My hearing is going downhill fast. And people ask me to speak up a lot – a soft voice is one of the symptoms of my disease and many types of dementia.

We chatted a bit more as I sat there trying to process.

Things often come full circle. That circle is important for reasons I don’t know now other than I know the circles are important..

Upon leaving, he arose from his chair. He hugged Catherine.

I stuck out my hand.

I had been away all this time in Florida and California. Had three kids. I hadn’t thought about Mr. Jacobson in forever it seemed. But now here we were, me and my old boss, here at the end of a circle.

But a circle never ends.

He ignored my hand and opened his arms wide.

We embraced, me and my old boss.


Ron Ingram, Dean Barber, James Jacobson, Tom Arenberg at the Big N, Jan. 1986.

 

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Aztec Camera — 667

Knife (1984)

MCV Rating: 3.5/$$

This is a hard one to review. I like, for the most part, the lyrics, or what Roddy Frame is trying do with them. I like the easygoing acoustical music approach.

But, the opus title song, Knife at  9 minutes, is atmospheric to a fault and sounds like an outtake to Mark Knopfler’s music for the ‘Local Hero’ movie soundtrack. Excellent low-key movie BTW and excellent low-key Knopfler music on its soundtrack.. This album Knife, surprise, is produced by Knopfler.

Upon listening after many years of not digging into my collection to pull this one, I have to say some of this comes as a new found revelation. Part of the reason I wanted to do this whole Countdown thing in the first place to remember great songs that I’ve forgotten.. Aztec Camera has songs on this album that could be minor folk/ rock  classics, stuff I’d listen to all the time. Stuff played in every corner pub.

But I haven’t been. Playing these songs that is.

And I don’t feel there are a lot of club singers with this  in their repertoire. ( Could be wrong)l

Why? I think because those three or four truly good songs on the  album get lost in the esoteric Knopflersque mist. Nevertheless, there are quite excellent songs on here, starting with “Still on Fire.”

Maybe the way to go is Best of Aztec Camera. However, I just checked and it didn’t have ‘Still on Fire’ or ‘Just like the USA’ on it, which leads me to wonder about it’s direction. It reminds me of a truth that my years of song collecting has provided:  Sometimes all you  need to know about a group is in the greatest hits record, or anthology compilation. But sometimes those Best Of records are only starting points to help peel back the layers and find the truly good, even the best,  work by an artist.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Average White Band — 668

 

AWB (1974)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

Is this name a self-deprecating move? Maybe what they want you to believe is that they are pretty funky for some average white guys from Scotland.

This band is tight. They jam. They make you jump up and shake your groove thang. Dang, these average white boys.

All they did was have a No. 1 U.S. Billboard  hit,  Pick Up the Pieces that was mostly instrumental funk. Tight. Right?

I think the rest of the album suffers a bit from comparison to ‘Pick Up the Pieces’. I’m a bigger fan of that Southern fried funk country jam folk (for lack of a better description) — of someone like Randall Ramblett: That other Mile.

But Pick Up the Pieces –, gosh the song — with it changalanga rhythm guitar intro joined abruptly by hard stopping trumpet punctuation — should come with a  warning label:  May cause involuntary muscle  spasms in human and other mammals.

But again, the chance of a song in this vein breaking out to worldwide status today is nil. Heck the chances were pretty much nil then in 1974 although Top 40 radio was more diverse, or so  it seemed, in styles of music. This is the bottom line ( a cliche’ I know but given the album cover and the excellent bass playing I thought it might work. Bear with me).: AWB played like they meant it, like they loved it, like they felt it.

They weren’t about to just arbitrarily funk it up..

(back cover has this shot of this average white boys’ band.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington — 669

Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington (1965)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

This is a good old school jazz record, like the kind my dad used to play many years ago. My father had a rather large collection of Dixieland, which included an ample selection of ‘Satchmo.’

He also  had a boxed set of 45s by Bill Haley and the Comets that included Shake, Rattle and Roll and Rock Around the Clock. I would have loved that one but,  after many many moves in at least a half dozen states, those records –and my huge baseball card collection– have slipped through the cracks of time.

So I can’t remember where I obtained this particular record.  But I was surprised to find it on the Sears record label.

Yes, that’s correct, that place where you buy Kenmores is/was in the music business? Did not know that.

I kind of expected the sound of washing machines in the background. But Sears is serious. It seems. In small print on the back cover, Sears assures us that the ‘hallmarks of Sears Authentiphonic True Dimensional Sound are your tickets to a new experience in listening pleasure.”

Authenti-wha? Bah.

But the sound is fine. Vinyl well-preserved. Music good. Mood? Indigo.

Hidden gem: ‘Black and Tan Fantasy.’ (1929).

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

(Little known fact: Tom Petty’s first guitar was a Sears brand, no kidding.)

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The Best Worst Song Ever (Runner-up)

BREAD AND BUTTER (NEWBEATS, 1964)

To win the best/worst song ever, the song has to have peculiar and/or inane lyrics, so bad they are funny. And the song has to be catchy, an ear worm so strong you can’t get it out of your head no matter what. You love it. You hate it.

I’ve got two picks. The runner-up, which I’ll reveal now. And the winner, which I will reveal at a later date. (That said, I’d be interested to know if you have nominees that can knock off my runner-up and first place, but good luck with that).

The runner-up is a 1964 song called Bread and  Butter by the Newbeats.

Besides the absolutely silly lyrics,– unless there is  some double entendre going on here that’s flying over my head– this song hits all the boxes: bad lyrics, catchy but cheesy hook and, the secret weapon, the falsetto guy.

Now there was this guy in the band, named  Larry Henley, who went on to co-write the song, ‘Wind Beneath My Wings,’ made famous by Bette Midler and the movie Beaches.

Now several online stories  about Henley  say that he had a “distinctive” falsetto and one website I saw said he ‘pioneered,’ along with Frankie Valli, the falsetto style of singing. Did they actually listen to his voice in Bread and Butter? Do they want to encourage that ‘distinctiveness?’

Holy screeching seagulls, dudes.

This guy sang  like he just  inhaled some helium while being tortured in hell.

At the end of the song he goes into a series of short shrieks that sound  like  the noise Little Richard might make had he stuck a fork in the light socket..

Not to pile on, but that  dancing is so bad, it hurts my feelings.

Hard to beat but I got one even better for Best/Worst Song Ever. Stay tuned.

(Put your suggestions in comments by clicking the title  of this post and scrolling down.)

Confession: I have a 45 rpm record of this song. I’m afraid to listen to the other side.

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Paul Anka — 670

 

ALBUM: The Fabulous Paul Anka (1959)

MVC Rating: 3.0/$$ (Gained a .5 for introducing me to some obscure R&B)

The cover of this record album has 7, no less, photos of Paul Anka all in different sizes, including the big one. They are all the same floating mug of Anka with an alarming grin..

The Anka mug shots are shaded in  purple, green, pink, and red. In medium font THE FABULOUS is followed by PAUL ANKA in really large type.

And then, if you really look, in tiny little itsy bitsy type it says: “AND OTHERS.” (See where I circled it in blue under the A at the end of Paul’s name in the cover  above.)

Really? Talk about your bait and switch. Only two of the 10 songs on the 1959 Riviera R0047 album are Anka songs. AND IT NEVER SAYS THAT ON THE COVER, SLEEVE OR RECORD ITSELF.  THERE ARE TITLES BUT NO  OTHER NAMES EXCEPT ‘AND OTHERS.’

I guess folks back in 1959 had to Google for the playlist with names  like I did.. By Googling, I found out there were cuts by such obscure luminaries as Marvin & Johnny, The Cliques and Shirley Gunter& the Queens.

Now I raise this issue because I remember getting burned buying albums back in the day that were actually re-recorded versions of the originals. Of course that information was hard to see on the album without a magnifying glass.  Now that pissed me off.

But in this case, it was not so bad for me. I bought this record for 50 cents at a flea market in Fruitland Park, FL,  when I was working the area as reporter for the Orlando Sentinel.

Flea markets tend to have old records, that might be valuable if only they were in good condition. Most of the time they are not in good condition, so it’s kind of like the bottom of the barrel. In this case, the Anka album’s cover is torn and taped. However, the vinyl looks good, there are a few minor pops and crackles.

Anyway, I buy these things for the music and, despite, or maybe because of, I enjoy this record for its variety of doo-wop, teenaged 50’s music (think Happy Days) and blues. It actually has B.B. King performing a song on it. It sounds weirdly out of place, but welcomed as a side 2 ender, “Please Love Me.” On the other side there’s “Mary Lou” sung by Young Jessie:

Mary Lou (Mary Lou) she took my watch and chain
Mary Lou (Mary Lou) she took my diamond ring
Mary Lou, she took the keys to my Cadillac car
(Mary Lou) jumped in my kitty and then drove a-far

As it turns out, I don’t really like  the two Anka songs as much as most of the other stuff.

My  news story, by the way,  for the paper was a feature about a woman who worked in this ramshackle flea market. She sold odds and ends, such as used kitchen utensils and pre-worn clothing..

She had higher aspirations, though. She said she had been working on a Star Trek novel for more than a year. It was about a little prince who had been kidnapped by some alien beings. She said she started the story when her husband took their son and ran away. She hadn’t seen them in more than a  year. She wanted to get her novel published when she finished.

I never found out if she did.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

MVC Record Grades Explained
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Wow, y’all

 

Just wow!

I got a lot of love today as colleague John Archibald and others began sharing my blog on Facebook and other social media.

As you can see by this post right now, every post is not going to be an album review.

Let’s be interactive!  (take away 7 letters from that sentence and you have a Mitch Easter band we’ll be reviewing later.)

I just want you to know now and again, I’m going to stop the reviews to interject.

 (Rap interlude follows)

 Interject. If you show me some respect. And let me reflect on an imperfect text to give some perspect-ive, and be introspect-ive.

 Dad?

One of my three beautiful daughters, (or all in unison), say: Don’t sing, don’t’ dance and, pretty please, don’t do hambone. PLEASE!

Now as you have just now witnessed I don’t have a lot of rap songs in my 678 records. I’m a 57-year-old balding white guy with a 3-inch vertical  leap, for gosh sakes.

(Wait, though, and I’ll spin some Sugar Hill down in the  S’s).

So this interjection is about restating my mission and that is to bring awareness to Lewy Body dementia, which I have. I was diagnosed officially with the brain disease one year ago (October,2016).

Symptomatically, Lewy is a little like Alzheimer’s with an unhealthy scoop of Parkinson’s disease. Last numbers I saw showed the average lifespan is 4 to 7 years after diagnosis. So with 678 records (now down to 671) I’m truly on deadline.

Please read my About Me if you haven’t already. And check out the links in the stories.

I don’t want this to be downbeat. My blog will have many fun things.

What I hope is to bring hope. How do we negotiate the suffering and turn it into positive action.? The truth cuts through like a laser, a pure and holy light.

Mostly my blog is true, except for the parts that aren’t.

I mean that I’m looking for the truth but memory loss coupled with an insatiable desire to make people laugh (or cry, or feel something) can lead to selective storytelling. But isn’t that the way it is anyway? We tease out the parts we want to show. Withhold the parts we don’t.

Ultimately we seek and need that which will set us free.

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The Allman Brothers Band — 671

ALBUM: Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas (1976)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$

In hindsight I would have bought the Live at Fillmore East album, considered by many critics to be one of the best live rock albums of all time. And it had Duane Allman, who later died in a motorcycle accident.

But at age 15, I probably didn’t know all that and just bought the latest Allman Brothers release, Wipe the Windows, a collection of concert songs from the early to mid-1970’s. It may suffer from Fillmore comparisons, but it isn’t bad. ‘Wasted Words,’ ‘Southbound’ and ‘Rambling Man,’ recorded at various times and venues are tight, sometimes searing renditions.

A 17-minute workout of ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed’ brings up a comparison debate I’ve had about jam bands, specifically between the Bros and the Grateful Dead.

In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, an instrumental takes up a whole side of this double record, propelled by twin guitars and the amazing keyboards  of Chuck Leavell (later of Sea Level).

I carry the Southern banner high in this debate because if I’m going to listen to jam bands (yes the Allman Brothers were a jam band), I’ll take the Bros over the Dead any time.

One of my favorite, and possibly the best reviewer I’ve ever read, is Robert Christgau. The NY-based critic could do more in three sentences to destroy a musician’s conceits or identify or  exalt a band’s glory.

But I disagree with him on the Bros. v the Dead.

He wrote in his excellent Consumer Guide: “But even if Duane Allman plus Dickey Betts does equal Jerry Garcia, the Dead know roads are for getting somewhere. That is, Garcia (not to bring in John Coltrane) always takes you some place unexpected on a long solo. I guess the appeal here [with the Allmans] is the inevitability of it all.”

Now first off, I don’t buy the fuzzy math. I don’t believe Garcia = Duane Allman + Dickey Betts. Duane may have died before he was 30 but one listen to the album “Layla and other love songs” dispels the notion that Duane needs Dickey Betts to help him in a guitar fight with Garcia.

Now I’m in favor of going to unexpected places. But for Deadheads (and I’ve know many having lived in Marin County for a decade) every Garcia lick must have seemed a new path – that is, until the acid wore off.

With the Bros, especially when Duane was still with us, the guitar rides took us down backroads and small time Southern byways. We rolled, brothers and sisters, down Highway 41.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.