Things I Miss - Part 1

Without regard to season, this list showed up in my head.

1) Wearing arm warmers and shorts on my bike on a 55-60 degree day. The coolness is so ideal.

2) Running through the North Branch Forest Preserve over crunchy snow.

3) Running 20 miles along the lakefront in any weather, except maybe 85 or greater.

4) Riding on my trainer in my basement while listening to music on the iPod. How could I miss this? Go without and you'll know.

5) Looking ahead late in a race and seeing people who are slowing just as I am getting my second wind and then hammering past them.

6) Walking barefoot along the beach with my kids with my feet in the freezing cold July, Lake Michigan water.

7) Walking the dog in an actual pair of shoes on even ground that isn't ice covered.

8) Driving with the windows open and feel a comfortable breeze.

9) Breaking into a run when I am a little late going somewhere.

10) Stopping halfway through a 45-50 mile ride for a double espresso.

11) The smell of new rubber, either new running shoes or new tires for my bike.

There's more. To be continued.

Time to Reboot

I hate that there are times when your computer doesn't work, a program acts hinky -- you name it -- and the solution, invariably, is to reboot the PC. Well, my foot hasn't healed. It should have. Using the most conservative date for when I fractured it, say, November 25 (after the Turkey Trot, the day I think I cracked the damn bone), it has been nearly 90 days. I was told to get the boot (read earlier posts) and wear it for 6 weeks. I resisted at first but have been very compliant ever since. Very compliant.

So the 6 weeks goes by and my doctor says I can take the boot off. I may have written about that, but maybe not because my father died (one month ago today) and I just lost track of time. I took it off and was absolutely overjoyed. My plan was to walk around for a couple weeks to let my foot get used to walking and then try some light, easy cycling and treadmill walking. My shoes, so long apart, clicked heals and greeted each other like two lovers long apart. (Perhaps, too dramatic, but it was close). I wanted to run, walk, anything. But . . .

A couple of nearly glorious, boot-free weeks go by and then the foot starts to feel, well, I am going to say "ouchy." Not awful, no sharp pain, just not right. If a foot is not right you know and I knew. So I contacted my doctor and he sent me for another MRI. I have lost count of the number of times I have had an MRI. Despite my worst fears, the giant MRI magnet doesn't pull the fillings out of your teeth. Boy, that would suck.

The result? Here's the email from my doctor:

"[A] little swelling remains in the third foot bone called the
3rd metatarsal, everything else is almost resolved. You really bruised
the tarsal and metatarsal bones in the first go-around. We need to keep
you in a boot for 4 more weeks, NOT NEGOTIABLE.
It is almost healed but no messing around."

Reboot.

Follow the bubbles up

I haven't posted since my father died, haven't really been sure what to write. I am going to try today.



I read somewhere yesterday that it's not your fault that you are down or depressed, but it is your fault if you don't get back up. So that's what I get to face now because I am down and I am pretty sure that wasn't the button I pushed on life's elevator and yet here I am -- in the basement. And it isn't the bargain basement and it doesn't appear to be the root cellar. What is that? First things first, I want to dump the load of crap I am carrying around first and then I will get to how to clean it up. Wind the clock back to the best things I can remember before the move down began.



October 2007 comes, I put on running shoes and say this time things will be different. Two and a half years had gone by since my knee injury. My odometer on my bike showed 2,500 miles between April and October 2007. I was fit, I was strong and after attacking Wisconsin hills in a September century, I felt ready to run. Slowly, you know, but run. And run I did, first for 15 minutes, then 20, then 30. And it didn't hurt, so I kept running and I started to dream again, of races shorts and long of marathons and everything in between. I pulled out the calendar and found a race, in Fort Wayne the same weekend as my high school reunion. I wrote about it here. It was a reaffirmation, a rebirth, a reawakening in me of my ability to run and run fast (sort of).



November came and October's high point was under siege. I ran a trail race, mentioned here somewhere and captured in the photo at the top of the page. At the time of the photo, I had already stepped in one of the two holes that would sprain by ankle and lead, in my humble opinion, to the fracture of my third metatarsel. Another hole near the finish and my ankle did its characteristic roll of 90 degrees, foot in, leg out. Ouch, that %$#@ing hurts. And kept hurting.

The funny thing, looking back with the boot once again on my right foot as the healing hasn't, is that I thougt it a good idea to run another race two weeks later. Iwanted to run it because the entry had been free. The signs were there telling me not to run. My foot wasn't perfect, it was a 20 degree November day on race day with icy snow blowing and pelting north to south, but like all competitive runners -- I was an idiot with a bib on my shirt. So I ran and my foot fractured. Beginning of story.

I wore the boot, also pictured and documented here, somewhere, from early December until the third week of January. My doctor reluctantly allowed me to remove it but that story didn't end there.

And then the pneumonia came. I went to work Monday through Wednesday alternating between extreme chills and volcanic sweat. On one day, I wore my hat indoors at work -- that just isn't normal. It took until Friday of that week with my fever nearly melting me at 103 degrees to get a diagnosis and to get medecine to bring me back to normal temperature.

And then January 25, 2008 came. I left my house at noon to go to the doctor. I fought snow and ice as I drove on a day when few were on the roads. I waited for the doctor, he took blood and urine (they don't give it back) and then sent me to the mall for a chest x-ray (funny but not worth detailing), and then called me back to his office to get a prescription. From there it was on to Walgreens where I sat for an hour to get my meds. And then, finally, over three hours later, I got home, took the medecine, put on all my warm clothes, sweat pants, fleece shirt, hat, wool socks, gloves and climbed into bed. I took my temperature and saw 103 again and then, my wife was at my side, on the phone with my mother, screaming:

"Your dad is on the floor, I think he is gone."

And he was gone.

And he is still gone.

All this is a very long way of saying that since November I have felt lousy about most of what life has thrown my way.

Now I just have to figure it out. I am greiving for my father. The pain has lessened, it feels less immediate, but no less real. I still want to call him, I just want to hear his voice.

My osteoporosis is being managed. I have cut my coffee intake. Some days that doesn't cause problems, but not always. I take supplements all day long, it seems, but others do to.

Now, it's on to my foot. The boot is back on, an MRI is scheduled for later this week. More information should make a solution more possible even if it isn't immediately within reach.

Like so many stories long and short, to be continued.

Honest Sam

My parents' previous rabbi, Jonathan Katz delivered a stirring eulogy of my father drawing parallels between my dad and his hero -- Abraham Lincoln. The eulogy is below.

A couple of months I attended a bat mitzvah in Chicago at Anshe Emet, one of the most prominent conservative congregations in the country. When I faced the sanctuary from the pulpit, after being called up for an aliya, I beheld a pleasing yet somewhat surprising sight. There, etched on a large stained glass window above, was a stunning image not of one of the patriarchs, nor of Moses, but of Abraham Lincoln. It seemed a bit odd, but also wonderfully refreshing to have President Lincoln present at every service of the congregation. I began to think how much he did indeed belong because in so many respects, he embodied Jewish values.

Maybe that’s why, when you visit the Fogel home, you see so many figurines of Abraham Lincoln on mantles and tables and in book cases. Sam Fogel so admired our 16th president. I am told he read everything he could about him. I can imagine him poring over Carl Sandburg’s classic six volume biography, one of the many works about Lincoln Sam was no doubt familiar with.

I can imagine Sam being drawn by Lincoln's honesty, integrity, humility, and wonderful dry sense of humor. What a model Lincoln was for public service, protecting the rights of all people, for decency, compassion and righteous action in the face of daunting circumstance. Maybe Sam had Lincoln in mind when he ran for the Indiana State House, when he took the lead in an unprecedented product liability case that changed Indiana law, when he always made sure his children were safe on their bikes, in the neighborhood, in the car, in the world.

Maybe Sam had Lincoln in mind making the trip from Huntington to the Temple on snowy Sunday mornings for religious school when kids who actually lived in Fort Wayne stayed home because of the weather. Okay, it wasn't in the category of Lincoln walking all those miles to school, but it still represented Sam's determination to get there, to make good on a commitment to learn.

Lincoln was always well-dressed, as was Sam. Though Lincoln knew so much, he didn’t make a show of his learning. That also sounds like Sam, who was extremely well-read, on any number of topics. As you’ve heard, books were his true companions, they went with him everywhere. I was always impressed how informed Sam was on things. But he didn’t try to impress me with his knowledge or lord it over you. There was no sense of “Gotcha, see how much know more I know about this than you.” No, his self-esteem and self-security didn't require him to make sure you knew how much he knew.

Perhaps, that was because for Sam true, authentic knowledge wasn't reduced to how many books you’d read, how many advanced degrees you'd acquired, or by how many people were impressed by how much another individual ostensibly knew. Rather, knowledge for Sam was only important if it led to wisdom, knowing when to speak and when to hold your tongue, when to express criticism without being mean or vindictive, how to distill knowledge into real insight, sincere action.

I’m sure Sam knew a heck of a lot more about certain things than I did, even Jewish things. But he was always respectful of others no matter their learning level. He was never so learned, so sure of something, so caught up in his own opinion of things, that he wasn't interested in the ideas of others.

I recall talking to him about Martin Buber. It wasn’t on the level of being able to recall a particular a book Buber had penned. It wasn't a competition. It was the overall concept of Buber. He respected that we both had come to know Buber, not in merely an academic sense, but a human one. Again, that sounds like Lincoln too.

Like Lincoln , Sam had no stomach for pomposity. He wasn’t looking for admirers. He was so much inclined to talk about religion but personally manifest its values. Sam didn’t wear his religion on his sleeve. He didn’t have to. He didn’t need to parade his Judaism, but he took great pride in it, its cherished principles were etched in his very being.

Yes, Sam was a great lawyer but not the best businessman. Fine, but maybe that accrues to his character. He always put his clients first, did all he could on their behalf. Okay, maybe Sam wasn’t Mr. Social. But he had a quiet, steady certainty that made you recognize he was someone of substance.

In the last few years, there has been speculation that Abraham Lincoln may have actually been Jewish. The community from which his family originated in Lincoln , England has an interesting Jewish history because it was given special protection during the Crusader riots at the end of the 12th century. The Bishop of Lincoln taught that Jews should be loved and respected. When he died, Jews mourned him. It has been suggested that when Lincoln's Jews were later expelled from England some of them remained behind in secret and that Abraham Lincoln’s family was one of them.

Lincoln ’s great-grandfather was named Mordechai, and he was the only President not to have a formal religious affiliation. He was apparently not raised in a church nor belonged to a church.

I’m sure Sam knew this and was also aware of Lincoln ’s positive relationship with the Jewish community. He would not, under any circumstances, brook anti-Semitism. He appointed Jews to important posts. He personally revoked an anti-Semitic order given by General Ulysses S. Grant that Jews had to evacuate certain areas because of military profiteering it was claimed they were engaging in. Lincoln wrote, “To condemn a class (of people) is to condemn the good with the bad. I do not like to hear an entire class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners.”

When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, whole Jewish communities sat shivah. The founder of our movement, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, commenced his eulogy: "Brethren, the lamented Abraham Lincoln believed himself to be born from our bone and flesh. He supposed himself to be a descendant of Hebrew parentage. He said so in my presence."

In talking to Sam’s family you realize just how central the law was to Sam’s life. Everything, he felt, depended on it. There was just so much at stake. No wonder then that he entered the legal profession. He obviously seeking to both fulfill and safeguard it.

When Lincoln was asked about his religious beliefs he always mentioned the 20th chapter of the Book of Exodus, the Ten Commandments, The Law. How ironic and fitting that this was very same Torah portion we were reading when Sam passed.

Let us recall Sam with appreciation and respect. He deserves it. Amen.