Len's Memory Blog

The View from the Ceiling (entry for 7/31/2024) When I was growing up, I was given to understand that my soul was not some separate part of me— that it was me, the whole me. “And God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Didn’t get one— became one. And I did believe them. The people who taught me that had convinced themselves, and they convinced me. The soul wasn’t something that could leave your body. It was part of your body. When you died, it died. If there was a resurrection, then it was of the whole you, body, mind, soul, everything. Alive, then dead, then alive again, and nothing that stayed conscious in between. While you were dead, you were dead . It made perfect sense to me. And yet . . . When I was ten years old, I had my tonsils out. They had been getting sore and swollen every few months or so, and I would toss and turn at night with a fever and with a burning throat. No medications would help. Cough drops didn’t help. Aspirin didn...

Ginger (entry for 7/24/2024) When we moved from Greeley to Montrose in the fall of 1949, we first lived in the Queen Chipita Motel for two weeks while looking for a house to rent. The motel room was small and crowded and dark. We got a bit desperate. The first few rentals we heard about were either falling down or filthy or both. Then my dad was told about a really nice house for rent at 1147 South Second. It wasn’t advertised and there was no sign in front that said it was available, but he heard about it somehow, I think at work at the Montrose Medical Clinic, where he had started a good month before we moved. (He was already staying at the motel when the rest of us joined him there.) The owner’s name was Brosch, and there were huge initial ‘B’s on the shutters, dark blue against the white shutters. (Not visible in the more recent photo below.) He had lived in the house for years, having had it built for him and his wife when they were first married. She had recently passed away, an...

Mr. N (entry for 7/17/2024) [ Warning: This post contains references to bodily functions and bodily activities. If you are under the age of 25 or so, or are easily offended by written works intended primarily for people at that age or above it, you may want to skip this one .] If you look up the word ‘Naïve’ in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of me.  Actually, you’ll see several pictures of me, at various ages including age 84, which is what I am now as I write this. (To illustrate how naïve I am, let’s take the example of the ‘Warning’ above. I do know perfectly well that that sort of thing is going to attract more people than it is going to put off. But I wrote it anyway. As a warning. I’m Mister N.)   It has always been thus. When someone knowledgeable says something meaningful, I’m always the last to know what was meant, and sometimes I never do figure it out. It gets worse. If the knowledgeable someone who is speaking says something that has overtones of sexuali...