There is a reason they are called the greatest generation.

Michael Haz said...

I spent part of the day with the old man. He has cancer now, abdominal mesothelioma. Not curable and the treatments available are mostly as bad as the disease. He's chosen to skip the treatments and let the cancer run its course.

He's lost 15 pounds in the last month. He was strong and muscular six months ago; the muscles seem to be melting off of him now.

We've had the long talks about his will and plans for funeral and burial. He's filled out the DNR form with his MD and hospital, gave me a copy, and posted one on his refrigerator door. Next week we'll sign him up for one of those emergency call button services, and he wants to pick out a walker because he's a bit unsteady on his feet now.

He hasn't uttered one word of complaint. Hell, he spent two damn years on Guadalcanal and never complained about that or anything else in his life. All he said about being in the South Pacific was that he learned to like papaya and guava and still likes to eat them.

When we discussed whether or not he'd have treatment he said that he believes the when we are born each one of us is given a number of days to live. Some are given more days, some fewer, but our days our numbered and his time is up. He'd rather live out the few days he has left in the way he chooses, not what some well-meaning physicians might suggest.

We've invited him to move in with us. Maybe he will, maybe not. it's his choice. I do know this: I won't outsource his care to strangers during the last months of his life.

I'm a fatalist by nature. Maybe that's because I'm RC to the bone. Maybe because that's how I was raised or maybe because I'm a realist.

When you scrape away all the other stuff we fret over, the only purpose of this life is to get to the next life, and to do some good stuff along the way while we're on earth.

What kind of cars we drive, how many "followers" we have, which social circles we are admitted into are all meaningless in the end. What matters is leaving our loved ones with good memories of us, for as long they are alive.

"Why should I have a big funeral?" he asked me. "All my friends are already dead. I want a small service, then take everyone out for lunch. All I am is what you remember. I'll be gone, and I'll see you on the other side."

Here's hoping we'll all see each other on the other side someday.

Our pickles are at half mast because a hero has passed.

He was the man who turned the overstuffed pastrami sandwich into a New York landmark.
And the Broadway legend who could bestow the ultimate accolade on the city's celebrities - by creating sandwiches named after them.
Milton Parker, owner of the Carnegie Deli, who died last week, was a man who lived large and did his best to make sure his fellow New Yorkers did the same.
"Milton didn't know what cholesterol meant," recalled his son-in-law, Sandy Levine, the Carnegie's manager. "The doctor would say, 'Milton, you have to drop 30 pounds.' He'd say, 'Yes, yes,' then come in here and eat and eat. But hey, he lived to be 90."
Parker had great fun deciding which bold-face names would appear on his menu.
There's a Woody Allen special ("lotsa corned beef and pastrami"). And one named for the late comic Henny Youngman (Nova Scotia salmon and cream cheese on a giant toasted bagel, with lettuce and tomatoes).
In 2006, talk-show host Jerry Springer got a pastrami, corned beef, tongue and Swiss cheese creation in his honor.
"I have a general rule: I never eat anything bigger than my head," Springer told The Post yesterday.
"But I broke the rule when I ate the sandwich he named for me."
Parker was a presence at the front of the deli on Seventh Avenue near West 55th Street, greeting old-time customers and hungry tourists with the same warm smile.
"He created the gargantuan sandwich," recalled Levine. "One pound of meat, piled six to eight inches high. You got the quantity and the quality."
When Parker sat down to dine, however, he'd always start off with a foot-long frankfurter.
At his memorial Monday at the Riverside Chapel, Parker's daughter Marian placed one on his coffin.
"I said, 'This hot dog is for you, Dad,' " she recalled.
In 1976, Parker bought the Carnegie with a partner, Leo Steiner, who died in 1987, and helped turn the place into a showbiz hangout. Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason and half the members of the Friar's Club were regulars.
Parker wrote a book called "How to Feed Friends and Influence People: The Carnegie Deli," explaining his deli management style.
Among his rules: Keep it simple, do not be greedy, and have fun.
"He loved to eat," remembered waitress Rosie Ruenanukool, a 24-year employee.
"His wife was always saying she didn't want him to eat so much, so he'd live longer. So he'd hide the food under his napkin."t

The man ate a freakin' hot dog and deli every day of his life and lived to be 90 freakin years old.

Screw you health nazi's.

I want a hot pastrami on rye two knishes a plate of pickles and Dr Brown Black Cherry soda. Stat.