“Dirty Boulevard”

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My mother and her friend, Ruth Hetzel. (Photo taken 6-22-06)

Ruth was one of my mother’s best friends. They were both involved in Yoga, Tai Chi, Feldenchris, and whatever other holistically mystical movement dropped from the sky. The only difference, as I could see, was in mobility. Ruth traveled to be caned by Zen masters and stretched in Yogic Ashrams while my mother stayed home.

I seem to be putting the wrong person in the past tense. Ruth is still very much in the here and now, and lives at Holiday, Evansville’s Concord Park equivalent. Though ninety-two, she still motors around in her powder blue , 1970 something Volvo.

And like my mother (or used to be), Ruth never stops learning. Ruth’s cardiologist alerted her to her transient tachycardia about the same time a friend gave her a laptop computer. Ruth promptly downloaded heart health software and began printing her own EKG strips. At her next office visit she spoke with authority about her condition and laid out those spiky strips to prove it. Now she uses her computer as a biofeedback device to slow her heart rate.