CHAPTER 164: IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POET AT THE CREST OF THE HILL LOIS THE ROAD RUNNER 1987-1988

 CHAPTER 164  LOIS THE ROAD RUNNER 1987-1988

 

The sword of time will pierce our skins.

It doesn’t hurt when it begins,

But as it works its way on in

The pain grows stronger…”*

Wilmington Trust opened the new Operations Center in the beginning months of 1988. This would mark my third business location since coming to the bank in 1980. My first office, and for most my early years there, I had a private office on the mezzanine of DuPont’s Montchanin Building facing 10^th Street. We rented the building for our headquarters, but it was already becoming cramped. Our Savings Division was on a floor of One Rodney Square, about two blocks away and our Wire Transfer Division was a block away in the Farmers Bank.

 

There was a new headquarters being built on the day I started and we consolidated all our divisions and departments in 1981 to the new Rodney Square Headquarters, a high rise build from the inside of the old post office. My own office got a little bigger and moved up a few floors in the new place.

Now less than a decade later we had outgrown Rodney Square and
a new separate Operations Center was constructed outside of Wilmington in the New Castle Corporate Commons. My offices, because now I had a main office with a small alcove, got bigger and I had a nice view of the New Castle Airport.

This new year was to be less than enjoyable. It brought a number of changes and troubles.

That suicide is painless

It brings on many changes

And I can take or leave it if I please…*

 1987 through Spring 1988 had indeed been full and busy years. Linda and I had created a whole new communications and employee development discipline throughout out Divisions. In the photo on the right I am holding some of our publications. The white volume contains copies of our ACTion News for the year 1987. This was the regular newsletter she and I edited, mostly wrote, published and distributed to the Deposit Service and Data Preparation Divisions employees.

My Lunchtime Video Training Program. I would put on courses using videos of various business practices. This training took place in our  large conference room and was strictly voluntary. Any employee could attend. and many did, even though these presentations were done during the lunch hour. People were encouraged to bring their lunch and eat during the sessions. Certificates were award at a little ceremony (with cake) to those who completed each series. The picture on the front of the paper shows Walk Whittaker, vice-president and my direct boss, during one such ceremony.  

These newspapers were written and put together by us in Linda’s apartment.  As I have said, we did a lot of work at her place during this time. The blue binder I am holding contained the Action Concept Teams Training Manual. Its section dividers are shown below on the right.

 Not only did we have to create the program, we had to train nearly 300 employees in its use. As you can see from the photo on the left it was a fairly thick manual. 

The move to New Castle Corporate Commons brought many changes. First of all, I lost my assistant. Linda went on to other projects in her life, staying mainly with  her church. This included the publication of several books: A Guide to the New Church’s Teaching Series, The Marriage Journey – Preparations and Provisions for Life Together  with Delbert Glover (although I did not know at the time that they would marry), Transforming Disciples and Pocket Bible Guide.

Linda in 2009, right.

 On March 19, Lois began working on a new job at Wilmington Trust, Automated Lockbox. On Mother’s Day, May 8, she felt too sick to join the kids and me at my parent’s. Just over a week later I was rushing her to the Riverside Hospital (left) in West Wilmington, she was hemorrhaging. The doctors decided to do a dilation and curettage (D&C) and they discovered she had a tumor the size of a tennis ball. They couldn’t operate because she had lost too much blood. They gave her a transfusion and sent her home to build herself up before they could do anything further.

She was back in Riverside Hospital at 8:00 AM on June 2. The operation was performed at 10:00 and lasted until 2:15. On the third my parents came down and we went to the hospital to see her. Lois was having pain, but they had already had her out of bed and walking. My mom stayed overnight, but my dad went home. They had removed the tumors, which required her to have a hysterectomy, one that a nurse later told her was the worse job she had seen. The botched hysterectomy would lead to other complications in the near future.

The next morning, we were up early. I took Noelle to her dance class and dropped, Mom, Laurel and Darryl off at a yard sale and I went to see Lois. I came home and dad was back trimming our rear yard with a weed whacker. I mowed the front and mom made dinner. After dinner mom and I went back to the hospital. Dad took the kids to a carnival.

Lois came home on June 6. She was getting along okay, but couldn’t do much. On the 28^th she went to her doctor. He told her she was leaking fluid from somewhere and made an appointment for her to see another doctor. She had to wait awhile to get to see him. Meanwhile, on July 6 we installed an above ground pool in the backyard.

 It wasn’t anything elaborate. It was 12 feet in diameter and could be filled to a depth of 3 feet. It was big enough to do some actual swimming, but not enough for diving. This didn’t matter. The kids loved it and it kept us all cool. It also got me out in the sun a lot, which helped with my psoriasis.

On July 20 Lois had to be at the hospital at 7:30 AM for an examination at 3:15. During this it was discovered she had a leak in the track to her liver.

She was back in the hospital for more tests on July 26.

On August 11 her doctor called and informed her she would have to go into the hospital again for another operation. She had some kind of blockage to her kidney and it wasn’t functioning correctly. The operation wouldn’t be until September. We could try and do some summer stuff before then.

Well, maybe.

 Mom came with us as we took the kids down to Wildwood, New
Jersey. It wasn’t a bad day, but by late afternoon dark clouds began rolling in above the waves and those waves were getting fairly choppy. We packed up and left. We were chased all the way back to Delaware by those dinosaur clouds and then a terrible storm hit. I could barely see the road, but we did start to see a number trees down. We had no electricity when we did get home. My mother stayed over.

Storm clouds thicken,

Darkening fastly.

Nothing to do

Till they have passed me.

Hear that wind sighing?

Dinosaur shapes cluttering the skies,

Great black bruisers with lightening eyes.

Note the earth quake. Now the

Pieces fit. There are legends that

Hint about it. Hear the rain crying?

Excerpt from “Gatherings”

17th Annual  Anthology: A Poem to Save the World

Readings Against Nuclear Holocaust

West Public Library, Ward County, July 

Kansas City, Missouri

1998

 

Lois and I slept in the living room with the kids because they were scared. No one slept well. There were sirens blowing all night. Turned out lighting had set a Purina Feed Plant on fire and it burned down. Years later I worked in Southwest Wilmington at a printers and I could see the remains of that Feed Plant a few blocks away. The electric came back at 9:00 AM and that is when my mom went home.

The next night, a Friday, I dropped the kids off at my parents to
spend the night. We didn’t pick them up again until 7 the next evening. Lois and I were both on vacation. The following Monday my mom again joined us  and we all went to the Philadelphia Zoo. Lois made spaghetti for dinner and my mom stayed the night.

The next day, the 23^rd, we tried Wildwood again. My mom was along, but Lois stayed home. She said she didn’t feel good. On the 26^th, the kids and I went to my parents to celebrate Darryl’s 7^th birthday. Again Lois wasn’t feeling well enough to come along. On Sunday,  the 28^th, we went to my cousin Bob’s farm for the Wilson Family Reunion, except for Lois. She was sick and throwing up. She had a fever of 103.

Lois went back into the hospital for an operation on September 8. They expected to remove a kidney. It was a three-hour operation. As it turned out, they didn’t have to snip out the kidney.  She had went in for the procedure at 10 o’clock AM, but she didn’t finally wake up until 9 that night. She remained in the hospital for over a week and came home on the 18^th. She seemed pretty good.

 On August 20 she became the mascot, The Road Runner, at the Darley Road Elementary School where all three of my kids were attending at the same and only time. Lois’ physical health was improving. We kidded there was nothing left inside her to take out anymore.

 

The scars on her body by now made it appear as if she had already been subject to an autopsy. There was a long scar down her from mid-chest, left from when she had corrections to her womb and her gull bladder removed. Another long scar crisscrossed this one, turning it into an inverted cross. There were other scars, who knew anymore from exactly what, the caesarian birth, the near kidney loss, the hysterectomy? But it looked like she would avoid the doctors and the hospitals for some time.

My turn was coming.

* “Suicide is Painless” (Known as “The M*A*S*H Theme)

Music by Johnny Mandel; lyrics by Mike Altman

1969