Those Darn Terrorists!

I went to Washington, D.C. in October 2001 on a business trip. Our travel policy mandates that trips over a certain distance must be by air, but for this trip I asked for a waiver. It was only a few weeks after 9-11, and I simply was not yet comfortable with the thought of getting on a commercial airliner.

So I drove the 6 hours or so to Washington. I met up with our federal lobbyist (Becky), and we made the rounds, visiting many members of the Ohio congressional delegation.

That evening I met up with a House staffer from Ohio for dinner and drinks. I won't mention his name, but he has since become infamous for his involvement with the Jack Abramoff scandal. Then it was off to the hotel for a night of rest.

Becky and I met again in the morning to finish our visits. One of those stops was at the Hart Senate Office Building, where Senator Voinovich set up shop. I was hoping to get out of town by noon, and I was feeling optimistic about making it, until word started going around about the anthrax that was found in Senator Tom Dashle's office. Dashle was located in the Hart Building, one floor away from Senator Voinovich.

By the time I heard about the anthrax, Becky and I had already separated. But before hitting the road, I tried to call her to see if there was anything for us to worry about. It took a very long time to reach her - the cell phone system wasn't able to handle the volume of calls made that day - but eventually we were able to talk. She told me that the word she had been given was that anyone who had been in the Hart Building since yesterday morning had to be tested for anthrax. I asked where I was supposed to go, and she told me the tests were being done in the Hart Building.

Now, I'm not the brightest guy in the world, but I was puzzled. Why were we going back into the Hart Building to be tested for anthrax, when that was the very building in which the anthrax had been found? But that's where I went.

After waiting in line for close to two hours, someone finally decided that we shouldn't be in the Hart Building after all. That's when they started handing out numbers to everyone in the line. We were told to go to a different building, and our numbers would indicate our places in the line at that building.

It was a mess. I started thinking that I might have to make a reservation for another overnight, because the line was moving very slowly, and there were hundreds upon hundreds of people in the line. So I took a different tack. I called a friend who knows about things like anthrax spores, and asked him how long it would take for them to start doing their deadly duty. He told me I had about 24 hours to be tested, and while waiting for results to come back, I would need to start taking Cipro.

That was good enough for me, so I walked away from the line and made my way to my car. I started back for Ohio, with plans to stop by a local hospital in the morning to take the test. It was going to be late before I would get back to Columbus, but I decided to make a stop at Antietam to see the civil war battlefield. It's less than an hour from the outskirts of Washington, and I figured that an hour or two taking a tour was not going to kill me.

The battle site is something to behold, but only if one is imaginative. It's a very large tract of land, and only with the help of a detailed visitor's guide was I able to imagine what happened there...and many terrible things happened there. Two sides were fighting for an ideal, and neither would give up easily. I thought about what had happened in a US Senate office building the day before, and at other locations a few weeks before. The irony of this situation was not lost on me. After an hour or so of touring the grounds, I headed back toward the freeway.

About that time, my friend called and said that he had been mistaken: anthrax takes only 8 to 12 hours to incubate, and I should not wait until morning.

What to do? I wasn't about to drive into a small Maryland town and tell them I needed to be tested for anthrax. Instead, I drove back to Columbus and stopped at Grant Hospital before I went home. I arrived sometime around midnight. The doctor in the ER had never done an anthrax test before, and I hope I never have to endure another. Imagine a 12 inch Q-Tip being shoved into each nostril -- as far as it can be shoved -- and you'll start to appreciate the nature of the test. My eyes water just thinking about it.

I went home and started taking Cipro as directed by the ER doctor. It took a few days for the test results to come back, but as it turned out I was not exposed to anthrax, and life went on. A memorable part of the experience was looking at the weekly news magazines the following week, seeing the pictures of lines of people waiting for the anthrax test, and looking for people I knew...and even looking for myself.

I don't think the feds are a bit closer to solving this crime than they were that day I waited in a line at the Hart building, and Washington will never be the welcoming place it used to be, or at least not in my lifetime. We have certain people to blame for that...most of them of a particular religion. And to them I say, shame on you.

Thank You

Amazing what that last push can bring about. Natalie has achieved her goal. Now go watch her run on April 14 in the LaSalle Columbus Classic. I'm personally curious to see if she can beat her time from the Columbus Half-Marathon. I'm also thinking about running myself, so I can teach her that old age and treachery will beat youth and inexperience every time.

Team-in-Training

There was a reference to this in an earlier post, but Natalie is raising money for cancer research, and she's getting down to crunch time. I don't understand how a charity can tell someone that if you commit to a certain amount, and you can't raise it, you have to pay the difference. But that apparently is the case with this event, and Natalie is a long way from her $1400 goal.

You'll note that one of the people she is running for is Kylie Gerhardstein, who is my great-niece. Kylie has something called SMA, and as I understand it, no one has lived past the age of 14 with this disease. A very sad situation, but no one is giving up on Kylie.

If you can, please copy and paste this URL and make a small donation:

http://www.active.com/donate/tntcoh/tntcohNGerha

Here is Natalie's note explaining the event - she thanks you and I thank you:

• The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is the world’s largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, education, and patient services, with nearly 75 cents of every dollar spent devoted to their mission.

• Blood-related cancers account for 8 percent of all cancers diagnosed in the United States. An estimated 747,465 Americans are currently living with leukemia, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma.

• I have decided to run the LaSalle Bank Columbus Distance Classic Half Marathon in April for this cause, on behalf of Kylie Gerhardstein and Marina Lakhman. In order to do this, I need to raise $1,400. You can help me reach this goal and help with advancements in curing leukemia. All charitable contributions are welcome, tax-deductible, and can be made payable to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I would be happy to keep you informed of my training progress over the next few months!
Thank you!

Natalie

Ready, aim...

Fire.

This story starts out when I was four years old.

We all had chores when we were growing up, and my brother Butch had the chore of taking the trash out to the barrel and burning it. I would tag along becase I was fascinated by fire. I noticed that when he lit the fire, he would light Kleenex or newspaper to get it started.

I wanted to learn how fire worked. I convinced myself that if I could just take some Kleenex and matches into the barn, I'd be able to figure out this mysterious thing. So that's what I did.

I sat on the floor of the barn, laid the Kleenex on the floor, and started lighting matches. I was mesmerized by the spreading of the flame, and I kept looking at it, hoping that somehow it would reveal its secrets. What I failed to plan for was the fire spreading to the straw that was also on the floor.

I looked toward the wall of the south stable, and the flames were already licking the bottom of the wall. I ran outside to get the water hose, and as I sprayed water on the flames, they seemed to jump under the wall to the other side. So I went into the stable and sprayed from that side of the wall. The flames, naturally, jumped back to the other side.

At about that time, my sister Toni happened to be looking out the dining room window and told Mom that the barn was on fire. Mom ran out and promptly put the fire out. She gave me a look that I will never forget, and said she couldn't decide whether to spank me or to send me to bed without any supper. So she did both.

That was the first of many fires that I either started or encouraged. My brother Thom was a master at starting fires, and we used to dump gasoline on the ground and light it, imagining that hell would look something like that.

My day of reckoning came when I was a sophomore in high school. I stayed home from school one fall day, pretending I was sick. Late that morning, I decided to make something to eat, so I put a pan of oil on the stove to make some french fries. Then I went into the living room and nodded off.

I awoke to a crackling noise, and I assumed that Thom was sneaking into the house to see what I was up to. He had been in the shop all morning grading and packing apples. Imagine my surprise when I walked out of the living room and saw billows of smoke coming from the kitchen.

The flames were far too high and hot for me to do much. There was no fire extinguisher in the house, so I ran outside and started yelling for someone to come help. Fortunately, the neighbor across the road had a fire extinguisher, and he put the fire out. But the damage was done. Mom's new kitchen was a total loss, and the entire downstairs had smoke damage. The flames had been so hot that the drapes in the dining room melted.

A reporter from the local paper came out and took pictures of our burnt out kitchen, and one of those pictures made it into the Bellevue Gazette the following day. Mom was not amused.

It didn't take long for my friends at school to start with the arson jokes. Even my history teacher got into the act. We were studying the French Revolution, and he noted that it was good thing for Marie Antoinette that I wasn't locked up in the Bastille, because I would have burned my way out.

But all is well that ends well, and Mom was able to have her new kitchen replaced with a newer kitchen, and I learned never to leave a pan of boiling oil unattended.