A life review is a phenomenon widely reported as occurring during near-death experiences, in which a person rapidly sees much or the totality of their life history. It is often referred to by people having experienced this phenomenon as having their life “flash before their eyes”. The life review is discussed in some detail by near-death experience scholars such as Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring, and Barbara Rommer. A reformatory purpose seems commonly implicit in accounts, though not necessarily for earthly purpose, since return from a near-death experience may reportedly entail individual choice. ~Wikipedia (and if it is on the Internet, it must be true)

What the hell is a “near-death experience scholar” anyway? Ok, never mind that …

I have been doing a life review lately, not so much because I have a fucking cancerous tumor in my bowel (have I mentioned that?) but because it need to clean up my life a bit. Yeah, because of said tumor. If When this is over with a happy ending, some things will be cleaned up and behind me. When If it is over with a less happy ending, I won’t be leaving Inanna with a mess. At least I have my porn-buddy for that cleanup.

For many reasons I stopped being interested in my (successful) high-tech company a few years ago. It was around the time of Pearlsky’s incident at the high school, my partner retired, and I was in an interesting relationship with a special education director. I became an advocate at the urging of many and let the high-tech company just ride. I kept the office alive for way too long and have been cleaning it out over the last month or so, about 23 years worth of stuff. I am finding some incredible things (if you are a geek) that partially define who I am. Other things the last few days have brought about different memories.

I found this book in my office and explained to Inanna … In 1978 I was a college student and a registered Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). When the blizzard of ’78 hit (Boston) I volunteered with an ambulance service since school was closed, as was the entire city. I was riding in an army jeep that was enlisted as an ambulance and at one point we were flagged down by a lone woman in the street, around 9 or 10 in the evening. It is a good thing I sat in on the curly-haired-girl’s sign language classes because this woman was deaf. She was pregnant, that much was obvious. My pidgin sign, along with some politically incorrect pointing, got us to understand her water broke and she had some bleeding. That was my first delivery. And, under the category of circle of life, I unfortunately watched a building under the elevated subway line burn in a raging fire that night. Fighting cocks came flying out, and two children, who we saw in the windows, never made it out. Their mother, in an orange teddy, was hysterically screaming while encircled by burly cops and firemen, in snow two feet deep. I was stationed between the first firetruck and the house when a fire hose broke at the coupling and as only one fireman was on the hose, it ended up snaking wildly when he lost his grip and the full force of the water slammed me against a firetruck. It took two weeks to fully recover from the asthmatic bronchitis that followed.

I happen to hear a couple of Carol King songs on the radio yesterday. I turned to Pearlsky and told her that Carol King’s father hated me. Inanna overheard and looked at me quizzically. I explained to her that in my youth I ran a religious youth group and Carol King’s dad, Sidney Klein, was head of the Ritual Committee. Let’s just say we did not see eye to eye on things in the early 1970’s.

Intel developed a computer chip in the early 1980’s called the 8080. They did not really know what to do with it so they sent a sample to every engineer they could find. I got one with a data sheet; at that time I was working on a blood analyzer for Eastman Kodak and teaching at Rochester Institute of Technology. Oh, by the way, never play basketball against a team composed of deaf students. Just say’n. Anyway, I took the chip and in my spare time put together a very simple little computer board, pretty much to prove I could. I did nothing more with it. A couple of engineers at IBM did the same. Well, up until they proved it could work. Then they turned it into the original IBM PC and kind of sort of changed the world. A few more cups of coffee and that could have been me. But I digress … in my office I found these two items. As a geek, trust me, they are really cool.

On the left is the chipset from Intel before the 8008, it is the 4004 (really). The first real microcomputer. I always wanted to see if I could make a system with them, never got around to that pointless endeavor. (Click on the image to read what it says.)

On the right is a block of core memory from an IBM 360. When I was a student the university was upgrading the mainframe and I found this in the trash (yes, a dumpster diver in my youth.) Over four million of those blocks equals one thumb drive.

I have found a trove of old family pictures. Yes, me as a young hatchling, but more importantly, my grandparents and great grandparents. Showing Inanna my ancestors from eastern Europe, some who did not make it out alive, and explaining why my father is one of four first cousins with the same name.

As I do some house cleaning I think about my firearms. All licensed and locked. I had a license to carry in the big city years ago (and reasons to) and was a member of the oldest continually running gun club in the country. Figuring out what to do with my Walther PPK, I had flashbacks of the time I was standing over a guy, my gun pointed at his head, and police from all over the city converging on us … having no clue who I was. It is a great story in one of the most powerful posts I ever wrote, but it made me relive several things, not all the easiest (emotionally) to remember. And I need to find a new home for these.

I have the pins from my surgery when I had a spiral fracture of my tibia in 1971. My high school girlfriend’s picture (porn-buddy’s mom!) and several birth announcements, mine! Every note ever from my pediatrician starting the week I was born in 1958. A great 8×10 of me and Pearlsky’s mom at our wedding (kept face down on top of the bookcase, but nonetheless …).

With two severely disabled children, no nieces or nephews, I have to come to grips that I am the end of the line, so to speak. Whatever I can’t take with me when the holy one, blessed be He (or my tumor) decides it is time, will either go to a museum or a land fill. That’s a bit tough for me, not sure why.

Does any of this even matter? Am I the only one that has a connection to it all? Yeah, I am.

Memories. Connections. Adventures. Almost as personal and lonely as cancer in many ways.