At 98, Eddy still whistles while he works…. and what a job he’s done.
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Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
Gerard Van der Leun
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One of my favourite books is The Boy and the Bubble Gun, by Paul Gallico.
98 and still workin’. At something he enjoys and finds challenging. Take away a man’s livelihood and he starts to die.
I saw Jim back in June and was walking with a cane and had lost considerable weight. His speech was soft but clear and he had nothing but good words to say, as always. I have known Jim for 15 years.
In 1966 Jim Brester graduated from college and set up his own veterinarian office over here on 135 in Bean Blossom, about 1.5 miles from our house. We had 2 dogs and I met Jim shortly after we moved here. People came from hundreds of miles around for Jim’s vet service and the parking lot at his place was always slammed hard. There was always a several hour wait to get in. They didn’t take appointments.
I took both dogs to Brester’s to get full examinations and shots, total cost was $40. Both dogs. Once, one of our mutt’s had a problem, don’t remember what right now, but after I put her up on the table Jim stood in front of her, out s hand on top of her head and the other on her side and stroked her gently. Then he bent down to her level and looked in her eyes. Before my very eyes I saw a Vulcan mind meld occur. As he stared in Lady’s eyes his head turned slightly to the side, like he was reading an unheard message from her. The he stood upright, grabbed a glass syringe from the cabinet and triple loaded it with some chemicals, bunched up the skin on her shoulders and gave her the shot. I asked him what was wrong and he said she had an ear infection. Then he grabbed a cloth, applied a solution and deeply cleaned her ears out which were full of a brownish material. In a few days Lady was her same ol’ self and Brester had charged $15 for that service.
5 years ago an out of state woman wasn’t happy with the primitive service she received at Jim Bresters place and lodged a complaint with the state. In hours, through social media, hundreds of people jumped to Doctor Bresters defense. The state dismissed the complaint. A year later someone else filed a complaint so the state inspected his place and decided it was not up to par with where it needed to be. They didn’t have a $500k xray machine, etc. To do all the things the state demanded meant Bresters place would never again be his dream.
See, Jim Brester got up early every morning and made the rounds out through the many farms in the area, checking in on sick cows, pregnant horse, immunizing every kind of farm animals and peoples pets. He also supervised all the animals at the 4H clubs in the area as well as judged animals at the county fair for the past 40 years. The care of animals was the reason Jim Brester got up every morning.
Unwilling to “update” his made-from-scratch business to be something he didn’t want or understand, 78 year old Jim shut it down. Within a month a chain vet company bought the place, filled it with airheads in white coats and quadrupled the prices and everybody had to have an appointment. I took my mutt Shannon there last year and a basic exam and a rabies shot cost $80.
When I talked to Jim this past summer the shine was gone from his eyes. He still spoke kindly like always but I could tell things were different now. They took away his reason for living and when you stop living you start dying.
Keep working Eddie!
http://www.bcdemocrat.com/2020/12/23/goodbye-doc-well-known-veterinarian-passes/