When I was in the labor relations business in New York City, a pompous, Harvard-trained lawyer offered me legal advice for about five of those years. In addition to his degree from Harvard, this lawyer had three first names. Obviously, because of his training and his birthright, this lawyer was my superior in every respect, including moral, societal and ethical considerations. But when it down came down to a “brass tacks” situation, I found myself relying on my own logic rather than the Harvard-trained lawyer’s advice. He was nice to have around but when the union people on the other side of the table would demand to know “Why did you do the following?”, I could not say that I did it because I was relying on a lawyer trained in Boston.
Frequently when an issue or a question arose, this lawyer would refer to it as “the case at bar”. He used that expression on many occasions, even when the debate was whether we should eat lunch at the company cafeteria or go to a small sandwich shop outside the building.
My association with this barrister occurred at the end of the 1950s and into the beginning of the 1960s. Arithmetic tells me that I knew the pompous gentleman fairly close to 50 years ago, but nonetheless the expression “the case at bar” has stayed with me for all of the intervening years. A stroke, aphasia and the passage of time have not eroded that thought from my mind.
And so it is that the case at bar today is aphasia. A neurologist might describe aphasia in clinical terms but I am not a clinician and I will try to tell you what it means in practical terms. Aphasia results from having a stroke. Aphasia is a pretty fair trade-off when one considers that strokes can cripple the limbs and put one in a wheelchair. Aphasia sufferers usually walk like everyone else, but when they talk, sometimes their speech comes with uncommon difficulties to bring the words out of their mouths. The stroke that happened to me occurred in November of 1997, which was ten years ago.
For the ensuing decade, aphasia has bedeviled me on hundreds or perhaps thousands of occasions. I once tried to make a list of the words that gave me trouble, but in the end I had to give it up because I simply could not recall those words. In my case and in many other cases of aphasia, the disability affects the brain’s recovery of nouns. For example, there are times when I may be speaking to a person and, in the midst of the conversation, aphasia will strike and I can’t recall his name. I know who I am talking to but I am simply unable to get his name from my brain to my vocal cords so that I might say, “Thank you, Joe”.
Curiously in my case, aphasia obliterates some words that I have known intimately for years. For example, glaucoma has had a strangle hold on members of the Carr family, but on many occasions, I cannot call its name, even though it is the source of the Carr family blindness. In November of 1997, I reported to Shirley Morgenstein, the Director of Speech Therapy at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. After several sessions, I was advised by Shirley that writing essays might be helpful. When I began to write this essay or, as we say, the “essay at bar”, the word Kessler was nowhere to be found in my alleged mind. In the Chicago traffic office, I sat next to Clarence Kessler and over the years I have tried to think of him when I needed to pronounce the word of the rehab institute. But that has gone away. Now, as of this morning, I remember the Kessler name from a World War II air field of the same name in Mississippi that was known by its terrible food and draconian discipline. In the article that follows, you may see other word associations that I use to get along.
When I first became totally blind more than two years ago, I wrote an essay entitled “Sing No Sad Songs for This Old Geezer”. I ask you now to sing no sad songs for me, because thousands of other people with aphasia are in much worse shape than I am. As one example, there is a story of a man who is being berated by a supermarket clerk for holding up the line. The line was being held up because this aphasia sufferer could not bring the words “thank you” to his lips. I presume that the thank you was intended for the clerk who excoriated the aphasia sufferer.
Now it is well known that people very much like to be with other people of their own nationality, religion, and, in this case, ailment. Shirley Morganstein now runs, with her partner, a company based in Montclair, New Jersey called “Speaking of Aphasia”. It turns out that people who wrestle with aphasia every day have an organization which publishes a newsletter. Earlier this year, Shirley suggested that I might write an article for the use of the editors of the publication devoted to people who are entangled with that disability. Shirley’s wish is my command, as it has been for the past decade. And so it is that an article entitled “Dodging Bullets” (see attachment) has been submitted to the editor of the newsletter which is circulated among these birds of a feather who deal with aphasia. At Shirley’s request, her name has been eliminated from the actual submission. But she is the mover and shaker in my essay writing career.
When submitting this article, the record should show that while I cannot recall the name of the words persimmon or Kessler, I can recall instantly the thought about the case at bar. If I ever meet another pompous attorney, I will use that term in the hope that he will consider me a Harvard-trained lawyer with three initials before my family name. And if I recite the maxim of “birds of a feather flock together”, that other person will think that I am a poet. Not bad for a blind guy who can’t remember the word glaucoma.
E. E. CARR
January 23, 2008
Essay 288
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Kevin’s commentary: Does Pop still remember the business guy? Has his opinion changed at all since 2008? Was any feedback on “Dodging bullets” ever received?
Of course, Dodging Bullets has already been published and can be found here.