David R. Gross's Blog: Docdavesvoice

The first automobile I had the use of was a 1940 Chevy two-door sedan. My folks let me drive it when I was a junior in High School, 1953. It wasn’t much at that point. My Dad bought it new and drove it from Cleveland, OH to Phoenix in 1944, forty miles an hour on re-tread tires. When I got it the running boards and rear fenders had rusted and fallen off. The upholstery was worn and torn so my Mom made slipcovers out of a variety of patterns and colors of upholstery fabric samples.

Since that time I think I have owned at least seventeen or eighteen vehicles. Wish I had all the money spent purchasing and operating them still in my pocket.

I’m not certain when we started naming vehicles. The first I can remember was a 1985 Chevy S-10 pickup. The thing always had problems with the fuel injection and oxygen detector systems. It got named “Lurch” for obvious reasons. In 1997 Rosalie decided she would be most comfortable getting in and out of, and driving, a van. The gray Dodge Caravan was the first car we had with her name on the title as the owner. She called it “Gray Baby”, but rarely put more than six or eight thousand miles a year on it. In 2011 we decided to purchase our “last” vehicle prior to being too old to drive anymore. This time we went upscale, a new previous year’s model Chrysler Town and Country, “fully loaded”. Rosalie called her “Gray Baby Too”. I was driving a 2002 Toyota Tundra 4X4 that I called the “Green Monster Truck”. After Rosalie passed I couldn’t get into Gray Baby Too without crying, so I traded her and my old truck for “Big Blue”. Naming vehicles is a little weird, but at least we didn’t conjure a literary reference few people would recognize today. Steinbeck’s truck was named Rocinante (Don Quixote’s horse).

We stayed in a KOA campground in Lincoln City, OR. The people were nice, the place average. Frog’s hot water heater didn’t work, nor did the combination radio, TV and DVD player. Frustrating.

Charlize has decided I belong to her and am in need of both comforting and protection. About four AM I woke up thinking about Rosalie’s last minutes and started crying. Charlize jumped off her bench and came over to stick her nose under my arm determined to comfort me. It worked. The next day in Old Blue she barked when a highway construction flagman approached to kibbutz about Frog. Not incessant yapping like some dogs do, just a sharp warning to let the person know she was on duty.

We stopped at a RV sales, service and parts store in Newport to find out why the water heater wasn’t working. Just a case of my ignorance. I knew there are two switches but found out the one accessible from outside Frog, controls the propane gas flow. Another switch, inside, controls the electricity for the starter. While Frog is in use I am supposed to leave the gas switch on. When I am ready for hot water I have to turn on the electrical switch inside, under the sink. When the later switch is turned on a red light goes on that says: “reset”. I thought something was wrong and spent three days trying to read the owner’s manual and figure out how to reset the thing. It cost me twenty bucks to find out I was just too impatient. After awhile the burner ignites and the red light goes off. Now I have to find the manual for the DVD, TV and radio device and figure out why I can’t make it work. Before this trip is over I’ll be a qualified RV mechanic.

We stopped many times today to stare at the amazing scenery. Wave follows wave, long lines separated by time and space. Some break over, spilling white turbulence, before arriving at the rocks. Others crash against those stalwarts. Not all of the huge rocks constitute the shoreline cliffs. Some stand out in the Pacific, as outposts, forward observers, battered, ceaselessly battered, fighting against inevitable erosion. A few of the outposts defy reason. From those sprout one, sometimes more, ridiculously determined evergreen trees. I have no idea what kind of trees they are. Probably, as my ten-year old granddaughter advises, I can Google it, but where’s the fun in that? Too easy.

True to my obsessive, head down and push until the task is complete, nature I sat at my computer and printed out Google maps for nine days of travel. So far I have managed to ignore everything I worked out by stopping to take in anything that catches my interest. Charlize is just happy to be participating. I find I special joy chatting with the helpful folks handing out pamphlets, maps and advice at small town Chamber of Commerce information offices.

Sunday morning Charlize and I walked portions of the Discovery Trail then tacked on a rather difficult mile or so with me struggling up and down the steep trail to the North Head Lighthouse. Just a few years ago those trails would have been a piece of cake, not now with my arthritic ankle. We were just killing time until the Interpretive Center opened at ten, but we had been up since five-thirty so we had a lot of time to kill.

The Interpretive Center was interesting but only provided a cursory review of what I learned from more than a dozen books I have devoured about the great adventure of the Corps of Discovery. They have some nice artifacts though. Charlize had to stay outside, tied up, but the volunteer lady at the front desk told me she greeted each new visitor by barking while wagging her tail and was happy to be petted by those brave enough. She has a classical German shepherd’s look, but is small, only sixty pounds, most females will weigh in over seventy-five.

Inside Frog, the back end of the camper consists of a U-shaped bench around a small table. The table can be lowered and the back cushions are used to make another double bed. The first night out I woke up about three AM but couldn’t find Charlize. Then I saw her peeking out from the starboard side bench, apprehensive about being on the furniture. I told her she was a good girl and could use the bench for a bed. It keeps me from tripping over her when I get up during the night. During the day she is not allowed on it, and has adjusted to my weird rules.

We visited the reconstructed Fort Clatsop, south of the Columbia, where the Corps of Discovery spent a miserable winter. Even in nice weather it was easy to imagine how uncomfortable they must have been. We were on the101, the Pacific Coast Scenic Byway, about one in the afternoon.

I’ve decided to change my eating habits, at least while on this adventure. We’ll see how that plays out once I’m home. Oatmeal for breakfast instead of a bagel and cream cheese, big meal at noon, usually in a restaurant, then a light dinner, maybe some soup or an omelet, maybe a sandwich.

I’m re-reading Steinbeck, the inspiration for these musings; “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, as well as two of his other works I somehow missed; “The Winter of Our Discontent” and “The Log from the Sea of Cortez”. Steinbeck’s Charley was a Standard French Poodle, with an American name. My Charlize is a German shepherd with a French name.

Day two started at five AM, I am still unable to sleep more than two or three hours at a time, with hours of being awake in between. Not unusual, I am told, for this stage of grief. Charlize and I got away early enough for me to eat breakfast at the Quinault Lodge on the edge of Lake Quinault. I ate sausage and eggs, over easy, with breakfast potatoes. So much for the new diet, it seemed to be a sterling idea at the time but the mantra for this trip is spontaneity. I'll try again tomorrow.

After breakfast I hobbled over the half-mile long nature trail, a sign-guided tour of a small corner of the Quinault rain forest. Charlize did at least two miles, up and back, side-to-side, a myriad of new and unusual smells to catalogue. I wonder if she remembers them or if each time she smells something it is a whole new experience?

We stopped for a late lunch at South Bend on Route 101, only four miles from Raymond. I spotted a chef in front of his restaurant grilling fresh oysters over a wood fire. I watched as the oysters cooked in cedar smoke, at least twelve inches from the flames, while being basted with the chef’s secret marinade. I collaborated with a nice lady and her husband, who were sitting at an adjoining table, to try and identify the ingredients. We decided it contained lots of fresh, coarsely chopped, garlic, green onions, fresh green herbs, maybe basil or parsley or something else, maybe a combination, in a vinegar base, probably a malted vinegar, not Balsamic. Chef was not sharing any ingredients. We probably left out or miss identified some but he wasn’t giving anything away, and certainly did not share proportions.

About four in the afternoon we arrived at the Lewis and Clark National and State Historical Parks. Clark named the location, the first true sighting of the Pacific, Cape Disappointment, because of the lousy weather the Corps endured for several days running. The campground is owned and operated, by the State of Washington. Frog was all set up with electrical power and fresh water, but no Wi-Fi, no cell phone service and no TV. Still roughing it.

Played fetch with Charlize for half an hour, she’s insatiable. She retrieves with the enthusiasm of a Retriever. When she was panting hard we went down to the beach to watch the sun go down while standing on the same black sand walked on by L and C. Awesome, since the sun was out all day, temperature in the high fifties.

Saturday at six AM, Charlize and I walked the Kalaloch campground in the dark. It wasn’t really dark. A half-moon was out, bright but not as bright as the moon I remember growing up in Phoenix, long before that place became the megapolis it is today. The winter moon of the desert, that I remember, was bright enough to read by, or maybe my eyes were young enough to see by.

Thirty feet west of where Frog is parked there is a sharp drop off to the beach, guarded by a split rail fence. Relentless waves work their way onto the sand. The sound they make is similar to a busy highway. A vez en cuando, (the English translation of this expression would be “from time to time”, but in Mexico in 1967 when we lived there for a year, it conveyed a connotation of inevitability, an inability for a human to change events). A wave much larger than its brothers breaks over, roaring his delight.

I was up at five again, walking Charlize. It was cold enough during the night for a sheet of ice to form on Old Blue’s windows. I had to scrape them before we could leave. The moon, still bright before dawn, illuminated the stark silhouettes of Douglas fir, various pines, Sitka spruce and western red cedar all in stark relief. Their trunks bent slightly east, towards the Olympics. Their tops, sheared by high winds blowing in from the ocean, pointed at the mountains.

Charlie and I ate our breakfasts. I cleaned up, with her close supervision to make certain everything was done properly, and we were ready to leave before seven. All the other RV’s were still dark, their occupants sleeping in, I presume.

The frustrations of the last four days before my obsessively determined departure date are over. Who would believe that a newly single adult male and his dog could experience so many problems trying to get out of town? But all came together and Charlize and I, comfortable in Old Blue and pulling the Frog, were the last to board the Edmonds-Kingston ferry.

Old Blue is the 2012 Dodge Ram 1500 in charge of making our journey possible. The Frog is my brand new, excellent and comfortable, albeit slightly crowded with both of us in attendance, R-POD camping trailer. Frog pulls like a dream sticking close to Old Blue’s tail.

The purpose of this road trip is to try to understand what I will do with my remaining years. I’m seventy-six years old and was married to the only girl I ever truly loved for fifty-two of those years. I’m not accustomed to making decisions on my own and Charlize, my just adopted three-year old rescue German shepherd, is a good listener but doesn’t contribute much, except enthusiasm, to the decision-making process.

We traveled familiar roads, taken previously with Rosalie, to Port Townsend, Sequim, and Port Angeles. Once west of Port Angeles we were in new territory. We took a short detour to see what the destruction of the dam had wrought to the Elwha River, now flowing grey with silt and debris, but I hadn’t seen it prior to the return to a more natural state. Undoing our well-meant but destructive “improvements” to Mother Nature may take some time.

Decided, at the last moment to forego the civilized amenities of an RV park in Forks and pressed on to the Kalaloch campgrounds, where my Senior Pass to all the National Parks and Recreational Lands bought a night for only $7, there are sone advantages to being “senior”.

We are about fifty or sixty feet above the beach, where gentle breakers provide soothing, monotonous background to my day of calm healing, away from the reminders of our house, her things and a previous life. Charlize keeps close watch on me. She seems to need respite from her previous life as much as I do.

Half the campground is closed, the road barred by a red and white-stripped railroad-crossing-type gate. I suppose only those seeking solitude find their way to this place, normally rain soaked but now dry. There are thirty odd camping spots in the open half but when I went to bed last night only seven were occupied.

Charlize and I walked the place before and after dinner and not a single person greeted us, everyone holed up in their campers. In the fifties my family used to do a lot of car camping, with a luggage trailer and big umbrella tent. The only type of vacation my folks could afford. My sons and I backpacked. Rosalie wasn’t much interested in camping, preferring modern plumbing. I remember campgrounds as friendly places.

The Start

I was holding her close, cradling her head in my arms when she died. As I write this, it was thirty days, three hours and thirty-six minutes ago. April 23rd we would have celebrated fifty-three years of marriage. I’m coping, sort of.

“Well,” she said, pulling the nasal tube flowing oxygen out of her nostrils, “pretty soon you’ll be able to get a dog.” That happened the week before she passed.

Bear, our last German shepherd died six years ago, we didn’t get another dog. That is the only period in my life that I can remember, being dog less. Rosalie developed balance problems and we were worried that she would trip or fall over a dog, thus dog less. She knew I missed having a dog and her statement out-of-the-blue was an example of her dark sense of humor. I told her to stop talking nonsense.

The last six months all my prayers were that the end would be fast and with as little pain and discomfort as possible. The diagnosis was stage four-lung cancer. It came on January 4, 2012. The oncologist told us the average statistics were survival for three to six months. We practiced positive thinking and prayer and with her typical quiet determination, Rosalie made it to six months, then eight, then ten and counting. She tired easily but appeared normal to all but me, and our two sons. She needed supplemental oxygen in mid-December and on Dec. 27 the oncologist suggested home hospice care. The hospice people showed up and enrolled her on Jan. 2. She died two days later.

Charlize, pronounced Charley, is a rescue dog, another German shepherd, about three years old. She’s been with me since January 15. We are two injured beings who need each other. The first two days she was apprehensive and distraught but every day since we have bonded more and she is calming. I keep her with me all the time. She is housebroken and vehicle broken (yeah), and fetches a tennis ball like a retriever, good exercise for her and saves my gimpy ankle. On February 1 Charlize and I will embark on an extended road trip. We will meet new friends, both people and dogs, and should have some interesting tales to tell. You can follow our adventures here.

Rosalie and I married on April 23, 1960. I graduated from veterinary school the first week of June and we embarked on a road trip from Fort Collins, Colorado to my first position in Sidney, Montana, camping out along the way, the only honeymoon we ever had.

After a night in the Medicine Bow range in Wyoming, and a second night at the Coulter campground in Jackson Hole, we arrived in Yellowstone Park. That evening, after using the outhouse, I stood at the water pump, brushing my teeth. There was a loud metallic clang, as a garbage pit lid ripped open. Rosalie screamed, and our German Shepherd Mister erupted into furious, angry barking. I grabbed the ax I had brought along to gather firewood, and ran down the gravel road, toothbrush clenched between my teeth, toothpaste foaming out of my mouth. My towel flew off my shoulder. My toes grabbed frantically, struggling to keep my unlaced boots on my feet as I ran. I saw Mister’s silhouette, clawing at the tent flap.

A small black bear was standing over the garbage pit at our campsite. Through the fabric of the tent, back lit by the lantern, I saw Rosalie. She was screaming while trying to hold Mister back. The bear looked over its shoulder as it reached down into the garbage bin for more of my famous chili. I spat out the toothbrush and started shouting.

“GET OUT! TAKE OFF! ...YEEOUH!”

I squatted down and unzipped the tent flap that was starting to tear from Mister's attack

“Let him loose honey. It’s just a small bear.”

I grabbed the dog’s collar as he lunged through the opening. The two of us now faced the bear, the dog growling, me waving the ax.

“GO ON, GET OUT …SCRAM!”

The bear moved to face us. He was nonchalant, now able to watch us directly instead of over his shoulder. He continued to fish out and eat the chili. When finished he turned, glanced over his shoulder, then strolled away, unconcerned by antics of man or dog.

Rosalie came out of the tent and stood next to me hugging me around the waist with her left arm and patting Mister with her right hand.

“My hero, and my hero,” she murmured.

The Holstein bull raged in the steel stanchion, two thousand pounds of fury jumping, kicking, pushing, and throwing his head from side to side. The banging and clanging of the stanchion echoed in the barn. The bull’s eyeballs bulged, his pupils dilated and snot spewed from his nostrils. He jerked his head up and to the side ripping the nose tongs from my hand. Dr. Schultz jumped back as the steel tongs flew past, grazing his forehead and knocking off his Cubs baseball cap.

“Damn Dr. Gross that was close. Can you grab him and hold him or should I let Don do it?”

I wasn’t making much of an impression on the man I hoped would offer me employment.

There was a six-foot long rope attached to one handle of the nose tongs. The rope passed through a hole in the other handle. When you pulled the rope tight, the rope was supposed to hold the tongs closed.

I grabbed the tongs and returned to the fray. Wrapping my left arm around the bull’s neck, I grasped his lower jaw and pulled my body into his head. He easily lifted my two hundred plus pounds off the ground but I held on while he did his best to shake me off. I replaced the tongs in his nostrils, clamping down hard. I slid my free hand down the rope keeping the tongs closed tight while I wrapped the rope twice around the steel bars on top of the stanchion. Putting all my weight into the effort, I pulled the bull’s head back up and to the side.

All we were doing was getting a blood sample for a brucellosis test. Don Gordon, Dr. Shultz’ technician, helped the dairy farm owner bring the milk cows into the barn and locked them, six at a time, into their stanchions. We finished thirty-five cows. The bull was last.

In 1960, Veterinary medicine was male dominated and macho. Patients had a monetary value and nobody expected veterinary care to exceed that value. Chemical restraint of animals was in its infancy. Choices of antibiotics were limited. Clients expected their veterinarian to be tough, wise, skilled and able to handle any animal, any disease or injury, and any situation. There were no board certified specialists and advertising in any form, except for a modest listing in the yellow pages of the phone book, was malpractice. In my class of sixty-five students, there were only three women. All but a few of my class came from agricultural backgrounds. Today’s veterinary school classes are 75-85% women and almost everyone comes from a suburban background.