Quantcast
Channel: The Myeloma Beacon
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 660

Manhattan Tales: Historical Reminiscence

0
0

I am writing this column on Friday, November 22, as I try to distract myself from a bunch of medical procedures scheduled for the Tuesday before Thanksgiv­ing: a bone marrow biopsy (ouch!), a skeletal scan, and a host of tests in preparation for enrollment in a clinical trial.

This clinical trial (my second) has prompted me to learn yet another new bio­log­ical term – “kinesin spindle protein” (KSP).  KSP, I have learned, is involved in the division of cells, and in particular in the division of multiple myeloma cells.  The drug that is being tested in the clinical trial inhibits KSP from forming.  The biochemistry of the drug is far beyond my ability to comprehend, but I am hopeful (and not too fearful of the side effects).

This week marks two major events in American history.  I have spent many hours in the last few months reading up on them and watching movies and videos on the Internet about them.

First, November 19 marked the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

When I was young, I read the text of the Gettysburg Address at least a dozen times at the Lincoln Memorial, which was a few miles from my childhood home in Washington, D.C. and to which my family frequently took out-of-town visitors. The words are carved in giant letters on the interior wall of the Memorial, just to the left of the giant statue of Lincoln.

This year I tried to memorize the Address. It’s only 270 words long, but I consistently stumble over the last two sentences, which probably contain half of the whole text.  They are quite beautiful:

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us … – that we here highly resolve that these dead have not died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

I jokingly blame my memory lapses (like my baldness) on my four years of chemotherapy.  Of course both are just as likely to have been caused by old age.  But the chemotherapy is a less embarrassing target.

I don’t think I will have enough nerve to try and recite the Address at Thanksgiving dinner in Washington, though it would indeed be, in Lincoln’s expression, “fitting and proper.”  For Lincoln was the first president to proclaim a national day of thanksgiving in 1863.  If I do try and recite it, I will definitely provide a copy to my wife to give me prompts, especially for those last two sentences.

The other major historical anniversary this past week is John F. Kennedy’s assassination, which occurred 50 years ago on Friday, November 22 — the day I started writing this column.

Like virtually every American who is old enough to remember that event, I have a vivid memory of where I was when I learned of the shooting: I was emerging from a math exam in 11th grade.  I also have clear memories of sadly watching the Kennedy funeral on television the following Monday.  Those were a cataclysmic and dreadful four days.

Since I was brought up in Washington, D.C., national politics, presidential inaugurations, and the Kennedy funeral had a special immediacy.   I remember going with my family to watch Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1957.   Kennedy’s inaugural I watched on our small black and white television.  I particularly remember Robert Frost, who was in his late 80’s, having great difficulty in reading a poem on that bright, cold, and windy day.

Living in Washington brought American history to the forefront of our family life.  In August 1963, I took the bus downtown and heard Martin Luther King give his famous “I have a dream” speech.   I worked one summer as an intern in a senator’s office.  And I clearly remember my mother taking me to Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln was shot, and the house across the street where Lincoln died, and seeing the bloodstained pillow on the bed. 

Though history does not appear to be marking John Kennedy as a president of Lincoln’s stature, Kennedy’s assassination intertwined him in my mind with Lincoln.

I, like many young people in the 1960’s, was inspired by Kennedy’s flowery oratory (“ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”).  I wanted to work in the “public interest.”  I ultimately chose to work in New York City and found a terrific job as a litigator representing New York City’s municipal government.

It does make me smile to realize that I litigated at times against ‘public interest’ lawyers who viewed city government as ill serving the public interest.  But my thought was that if I could make government work a little bit better, that was a sufficient way to serve the ‘public interest.’  Certainly working for New York City gave me a tremendous amount of intellectual stimulation and personal satisfaction. 

Now that I am retired, I spend most of my efforts trying to keep myself in reasonably good physical shape to deal with my chemotherapy regimens (and the challenges of old age).  I kindle my intellectual fires with historical books, newspapers, and periodicals.

And of course I also get to spend energy on the joys of family life, which this year will take me back again to spend the Thanksgiving holiday in Washington.

Perhaps this Thanksgiving I will make yet another visit to the Lincoln Memorial.  If so, I will re-read the Gettysburg Address, as well as Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, which is carved on the right-hand wall as you face the giant stature of Lincoln.   It too is one of the most beautiful and moving essays ever written.

Happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

Stephen Kramer is a multiple myeloma patient and columnist at The Myeloma Beacon. You can view a list of the columns he has written here.

If you are interested in writing a regular column for The Myeloma Beacon, please contact the Beacon team at .


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 660

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images