Keep Breathing, An Interview with the Author

Thank you for taking the time to discuss your new novel, Keep Breathing. I suppose we should start with the obvious. Why are you interviewing yourself?

Well Len, Oprah hasn’t called, nor has C-SPAN’s Book TV, and not a peep out of the Nolensville Dispatch. 

You’re surprised? Never mind, what’s this book about?

Two men embark on a road trip, heading south along the I-95 corridor. It’s a last gasp for Miracle Morgan. In his highly compromised physical condition, it is a dangerous, even foolhardy journey. But a letter from a lover he hasn’t heard from in 40 years energizes Miracle. She’s kept a secret from him all these years and now, out of options, she is pleading for Miracle’s help.

Miracle convinces his best friend Ray, an itinerant tennis pro, to help him make the trip. Accompanied by Tara, a beautiful and much younger woman, Ray is more than willing to help…for a price. With each mile and with every harrowing roadblock the trio encounters, Ray’s plan to get his aching bones off the tennis court for good seemingly unravels.   

As they make their way down the east coast, the complexity of Miracle’s and Ray’s lifelong friendship is revealed. Miracle also uncovers Tara’s secrets. She is about to rock the world of two men.

Why did you write this story?

I was inspired by the loss of a very close friend who had pulmonary fibrosis. 

Is your main character based on your friend’s life?

No, but I learned a lot from what I saw and we talked almost every day. He fought courageously until the very end to live his life to the fullest.

 

Is that why you’re donating 20% of the book’s net proceeds to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation?

I’m donating to the Foundation because the vast majority of donations they receive are used to find a cure. It’s considered a rare disease but the prevalence appears to be growing, in some cases due to pollution. A lot of first responders at the World Trade Center on 9/11 have been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. I believe it is a very worthy cause. If you’re interested, go to www.pulmonaryfibrosis.org

Does your story contain a message for people with pulmonary fibrosis?

As a writer, my job is to tell a good story. If someone with pulmonary fibrosis reads the book and finds inspiration to continue the battle, so much the better.

There is also a strong tennis component in your story. Why tennis?

I love the game. And I think Ray, Miracle’s best friend and itinerant tennis pro, gave me a chance to say a little something about the game, although I’m not sure I knew that when I was writing. He is a rogue but not on the tennis court. He was all business on the court. Maybe the game is a metaphor for who Ray wishes he was.    

You worked in the durable medical equipment, homecare industry for a long time. Do you think you were rough on them?

Not at all. One character made a serious mistake and the other was, to put it mildly, a jerk. As I have written previously in a homecare journal, every industry has its scoundrels. They don’t define the industry. On the whole, the thing that I hope comes across, because it’s the truth, is that when it comes to patient care, there is no room for compromise. The vast majority of homecare providers and manufacturers are patient advocates at heart.     

What are your hopes for Keep Breathing?

My hopes are completely separated from reality. That said, I hope it’s a best seller and then a major motion picture. Of course, I was hoping to win the last big Powerball lottery too.

 

Are you working on another project?

Yes, I am.

Care to tell us about it?

It’s too soon but I’ll give you a hint. It will improve your tennis game dramatically.

Last question: How can someone buy Keep Breathing?

It’s available at on line book stores like Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Or, if you prefer, via Kindle. 

Here until Christmas Day 2043!

I was reading a New York Times publication called Booming, a newsletter all about baby boomers. One of the articles referenced a Web site called Deathclock.com

Yes, it’s true. Baby boomers are obsessed with every aspect of our precious lives including the need to know the exact moment when (or should I say if?) we will actually die. Your birth date, outlook on life and body mass index is all the DeathClock needs to tell you the day you will die and how many seconds of your life remain before you meet your maker. 

            I’m a bit confused about my own demise though. I made the mistake of checking the “DeathClock” twice in ten minutes. It wasn’t that I was unhappy with my first prognosis which said I would die on New Year’s Eve in the year 2042, one month shy of my 95^th birthday. Sure, given a choice I would prefer to die early on New Year’s Day after watching New Year’s Rockin’ Eve hosted by a hologram of Dick Clark, a flute of Piper-Heidsieck Rare 2002, at the ready.

            But, in doing a quick fact check for this post, I was surprised and a bit chagrined to discover that the Death Clock may not be completely accurate. My second turn at bat revealed that my departure from earth would be Christmas Day, 2043. Either way it seems I’m destined to go out on a major holiday. Right, I get another whole year, which is wonderful, but what if I go before I have a chance to open my presents?

Note to family: Be sure to save your Christmas gift receipts for any gifts you plan to give me in 2043. Whether I get to open my presents or not, you’ll need them. On the other hand, given what you now know, perhaps a pearl gray suit and a new pair of shoes would be an ideal choice. Make sure you get me pointy black ones.

And don’t plan any big New Year’s Eve celebration for yourself that year. Considering how old I’ll be when I pass, there won’t be any money left for you celebrate. Given my entitled baby boomer status in this world, I expect an elaborate funeral service mourning my passing. I want Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder singing my favorites, live and in person.     

Naturally, I’m thrilled to know that I am going to be here another 30 years. I suspect a lot of baby boomers will be around to celebrate turning 90 and even 100. Of course the generations following us will have a substantial burden. For one thing they will be stuck in whatever middle management jobs still exist because we boomers will be holding on to our senior staff roles as long as possible…and collecting Social Security to boot.

It’s tempting I’m sure to blame us for refusing to step off center stage. Once you’ve been in the limelight though, even if it’s limited to being one in a group of millions, it’s very hard to let go.

Listen: younger people are just as prone to this disease as we are. That’s why so many reality show contestants continue to grasp at anything they can to extend their time in the spotlight. The bachelor’s Sean comes to mind. He headed for Dancing with the Stars as soon as he proffered the final rose. Then he agreed to marry his true love on the tube. That is until he may have decided to postpone the wedding. Would you be shocked if he gained 150 pounds so he could get on the Biggest Loser?

Not that I envy Sean. But I do wish I could arrange to have a camera follow me around for my 840 million remaining seconds.

Feeling Unforgiving? Try Some Berry Punch

This just in from the Harvard Business Review’s (HBR) Daily Stat: People “who were given 2 teaspoons of a bitter herbal supplement made harsher judgments of such actions as shoplifting and library-book theft, rating these behaviors an average of 78 on a 0-100 scale of "morally wrong," whereas people who had sipped only water rated the scenarios at just 62, says a team led by Kendall J. Eskine of the City University of New York. People who had sipped berry punch were even less harsh in their judgments.”

The report goes on to suggest, “the research underscores that what we think of as purely "moral" reasoning can be strongly influenced by intuition and physical feelings.” I have no quarrel with the study’s findings. What gets me is the low percentages of “harsh judgments” for doing something that is clearly wrong.

Call me naïve, but how can it be that 38% of people in a good mood and 22% of those having a bad day call shoplifting something less than morally wrong? One can only hope that the scenario described for the participants was one where the shoplifter was homeless and picking up a few things to avoid starvation. For the record, according to Business Insurance Quotes, two of the top three most shoplifted items in America are foods. In other words are we talking about absolutes or relativism?

Stealing a library book by the way, is a form of shoplifting but its worse than most shoplifting in at least one way. Its one thing to steal meat, the USA’s number one shoplifted item. There are usually plenty of ground beef packages on the shelf. When you steal a library book you are reducing, if not eliminating, the opportunity for others to learn something new or be entertained.

I realize there is also a potential upside to the far-reaching discovery that being in a good  mood has a tendency to make people more forgiving.  With any luck, entire industries that seem to specialize in hiring surly people (airlines come to mind) might now provide sweet drinks to their employees. Airlines can start with gate agents.

I wonder if defense attorneys will now use this knowledge to get better deals for their clients. “Your honor, if it pleases the court, may I offer members of the jury a spot of tea spiced with Tupelo honey while they deliberate?” Come to think of it, what were the jurors sampling during deliberations for the Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman trials? 

I am frankly troubled by research of this nature. There is a downside. In fact, the potential for mischief is infinite. In no time, news like this will filter down to children of all ages. How long will it take little Kendrick to figure out that it’s a good idea to offer mom a cookie before confessing that he broke the family heirloom vase? When newly licensed driver, Francine, wants the keys to the car, you know she is going to give daddy a sweet, delicious, Cella's Chocolate-Covered Cherry to help her seal the deal. It’s worrisome I tell you.   

It turns out that HBR’s Daily Stat is chock full of interesting studies. A recent experiment performed by Michael J.A. Wohl of Carleton University in Canada suggests that people were more than twice as likely to gamble $10 on slot machines if they first read an article warning of an unstable economic climate, poor job prospects, and higher costs. Periods of hardship can lead people to make risky and detrimental financial decisions, the researchers say.

In effect, these people are treating themselves, or at least their own self-interest, harshly. Would the results have been the same if they sipped berry punch while they read the bad news?

Progress, a Step Backward?

            My friend Paul gave me his copy of Fortune, a leading business magazine. The first thing I read was a column by Stanley Bing, a noted writer. Mr. Bing questioned whether what some call progress is really a step backwards. His leading example was restroom sinks with automatic water dispensers. Sometimes they don’t work. And there’s no alternative.

            Permit me to join Mr. Bing in pointing out a few more examples of improvements that are not progress. Shall we start with computerized cash registers? The old fashioned cash register has been replaced with computerized applications that have turned checking out from a 30 second exercise to something akin to donating blood. It takes about the same amount of time. In fact, the American Red Cross should set up in busy checkout lanes. That would be the end of blood shortages. This is true, by the way, even if you pay cash. I recently visited an appliance store to buy a replacement water filter. I explained I was in a hurry but that didn’t matter.

I had cash in hand but the guy behind the counter had to sign himself in first. Then he asked me for my phone number. He punched a few keys, scanned my purchase and then he waited for the computer to react. The receipt was next, an 8 and ½ by 11 inch piece of paper by the way. I had to sign that before he took my money. Finally the register door opened and he gave me my change. If you happen to be the third or fourth customer in line you can give blood and apply for a mortgage. There’s plenty of time.

Does anybody remember when it was common to argue over whose turn it was to get up and change the channel? That was before the TV remote was introduced. And the remote was a definite improvement over the TV knob, which had a habit of breaking off eventually, mostly because kids took turns seeing who could get from channel 2 to 13 the fastest.

Early remotes were pretty simple. They turned your set on and off. You could change the channel and adjust the volume. Some even had the ever useful mute button.  Check out your TV remote now. Mine has 53 buttons to choose from. And here’s the best part: If you hit the wrong button, now you can argue with your significant other over whose turn it is to call your cable provider.

Let’s face it. There is no way you are going to press the right buttons in the right sequence to turn that static into a picture. After you’ve spent three days waiting for the cable guy, getting up to change the channel sounds suspiciously like progress.      

How about the family car? Some of us can remember a time when anyone who was reasonably handy could change the oil, do a break job or even give the car a tune-up. With the highly advanced, technology driven cars of today, should you break down on the side of the road you don’t open the hood and have a look. No, the first thing you do is reach for your cell phone for roadside assistance. Even fixing a flat tire can be a nightmare. Quick! Tell me where your tire iron and jack are stored. You have no idea right? Maybe that’s why AAA adds 6.5 million new members a year. 

Obviously, technology has played an important role in moving our society along. The sad truth is that many of the old ways of doing things must be updated to accommodate environmental and demographic changes. Still, I wish marketers would stop telling us that all these improvements will make our lives easier. They don’t. Well, it’s time to light my barbecue grill. Now where did I put the instructions?   

Is Childhood a Permanent State Now?

            Some of us are old enough to remember when adults never wore sneakers. They didn’t play with toys either. Years ago, kids had their idols; Willie Mays, Elvis Presley and Grace Kelly, to name a few. Adults back then knew better than to idolize stars, be they athletes, actors or recording artists. Weren’t they too busy making something of their own lives to take more than a passing glance at celebrities? 

            But times have changed. Sometimes I think the difference between children and adults is mostly a matter of height, wrinkles and bald spots. I saw a man in his mid-thirties in a medical setting the other day wearing a Superman pajama top. Now I ask you, could you picture President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man who as a five star general led the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy, in such a getup?

            I also saw a woman, well into her fifties with green hair and a lip ring that looked suspiciously like a piece of jewelry that would have looked great adorning a woman’s ear. Just for a moment imagine if you will, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walking around with green, or even purple hair.  

            There was a time when kids were expected to wear baseball caps and sneakers. Kids played with toys which were often designed to emulate real life. In the 1950’s for example, reflective of the times, girls had dolls and baby carriages. Boys had fire engines and model trains. As they became adults, ball caps were traded for fedoras. Wingtips replaced sneakers. Life became serious and young adults gave up toys for jobs, marriage and family. We don’t so much give up toys as we do replace them now. Don’t even think of suggesting that cell phones and i-Pads aren’t to some degree toys for adults. Listen, would Lee Iacocca have had time for Farmville when he was running Chrysler?

            Perhaps the most obvious piece of evidence that childhood may well be permanent is the way we dress. Adults and kids today dress pretty much alike. What started as business casual is now indistinguishable from kid casual as far as I can tell. Tattoos have replaced ties. I wonder if the transition from adulthood to a more or less permanent state of childhood is in some way accountable for our growing lack of civility. As kids we threw tantrums. It was allowed, sort of. We were kids after all. Adults these days seem to feel entitled to tantrums. And there is no one to pack them off in their Superman pajamas for misbehaving. I mean when did we start heckling First Ladies? 

One of the key differences between childhood and adulthood is the requirement that we accept responsibility for our actions. It seems to me that whether you’re talking about a Jodi Arias trying to beat a murder rap by blaming the victim, or a politician trying to pass the buck, accepting responsibility is not fashionable. A lot of people old enough to know better, simply want a do over, as if life itself was nothing more than a game of stickball.  

Whether we are actually extending childhood well beyond the traditional boundaries, advertisers certainly treat us like children. I just saw a commercial for Meow Mix. Two cats are singing, “meow, meow,” and so on. Just below the singing cats you can follow the bouncing ball with the translation running across the screen. Now unless the people at Meow Mix think kids are making household cat food buying decisions, it seems clear they don’t have much respect for adults.   

How about birthday parties? We loved them as kids. If you Google “adult birthday parties” you get more than 20 million options to choose from. Think about your grandparents for a moment. Do you recall extravagant birthday celebrations being routine for them?  Would a real adult be pleased if someone threw a Superman party for him? Well, maybe the guy I mentioned earlier would like it. I like to think at least some of us would detest the idea.

Is permanent childhood a bad thing? Perhaps not entirely. Childhood is indeed short, especially now when TV programming robs tots of their innocence in one evening. And we do live a lot longer than previous generations did. Maybe an extended childhood is inevitable. Still, I think most of us feel better when there are some real adults in our midst. Don’t look at me though. All I want for my birthday is a baseball board game with dice, please.  

Mars Anyone?

Have you signed up yet for the one way trip to Mars? 78,000 people from all over the world have applied to the Netherlands based Mars One to make the one way trip. Young and old alike have decided that life on earth is not a big deal. Knowing they can never come back isn’t a deterrent to these adventurous people. They want out and can hardly wait until 2023 when the first 4 lucky winners will depart for the Red Planet. There is no maximum age for applicants, no required technical background, nationality or language. Well, astronaut candidates will have a few years to learn English if they don't speak it already. This requirement should excite members of the English only movement here in the USA. 

Of course some people question the sanity of anyone who would agree to make a one way trip to Mars. It seems a lot more people would be willing to make the trip if it was more like going to Disney World. You know, fly to Orlando, go on the rides, stay in the hotel and then head back home to Little Rock.

Had these round trippers been alive in say, the seventeenth century, it’s probably safe to say they would not have been aboard any wooden ships bound for America. They’re probably here now only because an ancestor got kicked out of London and was sent to the colonies. These naysayers obviously don’t share a bit of DNA with the Puritans who came to America. Did those brave voyagers realize they would never see their homeland again? That this was a one way trip? Certainly! And I guarantee you not one of them was thinking, “In America I can get me a wide screen TV and watch NASCAR and All Star Celebrity Apprentice on Sundays.”

And you can be just as sure that today’s scaredy cats live within a square mile of where those naughty ancestors landed. You just know when the pioneers set out to settle the west their great-great grandfathers thought the people getting on the wagon trains were fools. “Why would you go to parts unknown Clem? I hear tell there’s wild Indians and grizzly bears nine feet tall. Why, you can’t never come back here.”  

A spirit of adventure and a desire for a better life for their children was what drove the Mayflower passengers and later, the pioneers, to say goodbye forever to what they knew and head for the great unknown.        

Now some might say, “That is the difference. How could anyone have a better life on Mars than they could here on earth?  For starters, earth has oxygen, not to mention Starbucks.” Maybe it’s what Mars won’t have that makes it so appealing. No unemployment for example. Listen, it’s been rumored that the entire city of Detroit has applied for jobs on Mars. And since a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than here on earth, there won’t be any excuse for not sweating to the oldies every day. And you just know there’s at least one applicant that applied in hopes of being selected so their partner will get the message. It’s over. For good this time.

For the astronauts who do decide to go, I wonder how quickly they will lose interest in everything happening on earth. For their sake, I hope it’s quick. I mean imagine you’re from Chicago. You get to Mars in early October, just in time to find out that the Cubs are going to the World Series. Your brother-in-law Carl could easily have scored a couple of top notch tickets for you. Forget it. You decided to take a one way cruise to Mars.

Our ancestors didn’t have that problem. There were no cell phones or iPads back then. Benjamin Franklin hadn’t even discovered electricity yet. No worries and no regrets about who won the British Open for residents of the Plymouth Colony, that’s for sure.    

If you’re interested in making the trip though, be advised that there will be a minor fee associated with submitting your application. The amount varies by the gross national income of the applicant's home country. For US citizens the fee is $38. It’s a better deal than the Pilgrims had. They agreed to be indentured servants for seven years.  

An Unexpected Request for Help

I had not heard from Philip for several years so I was quite surprised to get his email yesterday informing me that he was stuck in Italy. It seems he was robbed at gunpoint, all of his valuables taken from him. I was shocked that in a country where there are fewer than 12 firearms owned per 100 people, that such a thing might happen. We’re not talking about the USA after all.

            But I digress. Philip’s situation was worrisome indeed. The manager of the hotel where he was staying wouldn’t let him leave until his bill was paid. He didn’t say so, but he was probably subsisting on chestnuts and imported Livingston Cellars Chianti. Philip was indeed in dire straits and he was asking for my help. I was perplexed that Philip would write to me rather than say, people he had actually been in touch with on a regular basis.

            It’s not that I didn’t want to help my somewhat distant friend. I just felt he was behaving rather presumptuously by assuming I was in a position to send him a few dollars. I mean I haven’t heard from him in years. The subject of money had never even come up with the possible exception of a brief discussion about Toastmasters club dues. And if I did lend him money, would he pay me back? Suppose it was a scam he was running on people he didn’t feel he needed anymore? I hate being played for a fool.

            I’m not heartless. I did respond to his email. I figured, since he was in Italy; why not ask him to pick up a few things that are hard to get here in Nashville? Let’s face it, Nashville is a great city but Little Italy here consists entirely of Buca di Beppo and the Macaroni Grill. So I sent him a list and promised him I would repay him if and when he arrived home safely with the goods. I did express a good deal of sympathy for the robbery thing of course. 

            When I didn’t get an immediate response to my request, I wondered if my suspicions that Philip was scamming me might be true. That’s when I decided to look up my old contact information for Philip. I would call him at his office. If he picked up, I would know my baked goods and Italian leather shoes were just a pipe dream.

            As will happen, the number I called was no longer in service. Maybe he changed jobs? Was he living in Italy now? I tried his home number. A woman answered. She sounded like Philip’s wife. Not knowing what to do, I hung up. What if Philip really was trapped in a hotel in Italy? Maybe she didn’t know. Who wants to deliver that kind of news? Or, since he found it necessary to get in touch with me, maybe she did know and had already refused to lift a finger for him.  

            I had a sleepless night wondering whether I should have wired him enough to at least cover the cost of the items I requested. Well, I’m happy to report that it was a false alarm. I finally heard from Philip this morning. It seems that his computer was hacked by hackers on foreign shores. In hindsight, I should have recognized the real scam right away.

For one thing, Philip is a very bright fellow. I probably should have questioned the misspellings in his original message and the odd sentence structure. I guess I assumed he was writing under a lot of pressure being broke and no doubt having to borrow someone’s laptop.

Live and learn. Philip apologized for the inconvenience which I certainly appreciated. But I really wanted those handmade shoes.