Today, my father sat in front of the desktop PC in the patient lounge of the Mountain Home VA CLC, spending nearly 1.5 hours trying to correctly spell the word “computer.”

That is an accomplishment worth mentioning and celebrating.

Not only that but he still remembers how to use a computer mouse with a scroll wheel and can move cards in a computer Solitaire card game (although red and black colours are a problem for him).

In Microsoft WordPad he knew most of the major functions, including font size/colour, bold/underline features and highlight/copy/paste.

That is what ALS, bulbar option, gives us — a man who cannot walk, speak or write well but who can still operate a decent HID/UI combination with which he was familiar as professor and retired emailer/surfer/Solitaire player.

I thank Frank and his EMT driver at Johnson City/Washington County EMS for transporting my father back-and-forth from/to the VA CLC to/from the JCMC. Also, Lavonna, Tanya, April and Dr. Reddi (sp?); Jay, Pat, Amanda, Patty and others at the VA CLC; Pal’s in Colonial Heights; Hannah at Krispy Kreme in Johnson City; Home Depot in Kingsport; Evelyn and David Carpenter in Rogersville (and their great crew); Dawson Fields and Debbie at Martin’s Greenhouse; Patricia Rhoton; Tuesday Morning.

Speaking of Tuesday Morning, I picked up a Sena ZipBook iPad black classic leather case, MSRP at $99, for $14.99 this afternoon. I thank the cow(s) and bovine processors for the privilege of using this handcrafted genuine leather stand/cover to protect my overpriced 10-inch tablet PC (a/k/a iPad 2).

More to thank later. The medical staff at the VA CLC are a great understanding bunch, letting my father explore the hallways in his wheelchair in order to familiarise himself with his surroundings and hopefully get to know his hallmates, fellow military veterans that they are.

His current roommate, nicknamed Moses, is a Korean War veteran who served two years of active duty as a Marine helicopter mechanic, aged 81 and 98 pounds (half of it in his beard and long hair). Couldn’t ask for a friendlier man to share a room with my father.

Time for dinner with my mother — fresh vegetables from the fine folks at the Market in Rogersville — green beans, corn, sweet potatoes and ham.

Time to compute trajectories in the evening hours while connected to clandestine supercomputer networks hiding in plain view (do you know how much data storage we keep in the power lines outside your home?!).

Leaning back in my father’s chair, typing on a Bluetooth keyboard, the iPad in a landscape position, my mother reviewing my sister’s handwritten notes from visits with medical personnel in hospital, rehab and at the VAMC, deciphering the need to set up a heal-the-vet (no, I mean Health-e-Vet) online account, I wonder about the [conscious] thoughts, if any, flowing through my father’s body.

After all, he’s not the sound mind and body man he was this time last year.

We can thank the vast wonders of the universe — the interplay of sets and nonsets of states of energy — for that.

Meanwhile, the scenic suburban setting out the dining room window calls attention to itself and its property definitions divided by manufactured/commercialised/grown chainlink, PVC, wood and shrub fencelines.

Toward what are we setting goals and attaining them?

I thank many of you and your ready participation in our globally-connected society, creating the opportunity for me to be here wondering about the longterm costs to, and benefits for, our health of y/our ready participation in all that we do.

We can see poisoned water or burning rivers and say, “A-ha! Factory pollution and sub/urban waste!”

But what about what we cannot see? What is the what we don’t know how to ask for?

The luxury of being here, watching an American eastern robin bob through mown grass for insects to eat is hard to fathom today. My father’s ability to comprehend why the image in front of him changes — a red-and-black blob [bird] bouncing across green [grass] in many [tree] shades of an [sunlit] afternoon — is harder to imagine. Being mute makes it so.

Birds don’t have health clinics or physical therapy rooms.

Fortunately, we do.

Instead of pondering further, I personally thank some of you [again] — Jennifer, Mary, Sue, Tina, Ethan, Michael, Benjamin, Amanda, Dr. Little, Barbara, Heather, Robin, Heidi, Dr. Province, Dr. May, Dept. of VA, Heather, Leigh Ann, Kristine…