Snakes, Syringes & Alice Cooper
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
It was around 1964
that I had a friend with whom I attended philosophy classes at the University
of the Americas in Mexico City. His name has
slipped from my memory but I remember that he was a real fan of Ella
Fitzgerald. One day he asked me, “Have you heard Carmina Burana?” My answer was
an embarrassing, “No, who is she?”
In 1973 while teaching
9th graders at a Mexico City
school for wealthy Americans and foreigners I was asked, “Mr. Hayward, have you
heard Alice Cooper?” My guess is that if you have gotten this far you can predict what my answer was!
Of late I have been
suffering the random effects of an accelerated heart and my cardiologist it
would seem is attempting to have my heart accelerate on demand. They put me on
a treadmill a couple of times and they have strapped both a heart beat and
blood pressure monitor box on me. But to no avail my heart has been happily
ignoring him.
They did get my blood
pressure to go up suddenly in one of the tests. They left the room and came
back with a hypodermic needle. They say my pressure jumped. I had told them
that I had a phobia for needles.
This phobia had begun
in my extreme youth in Buenos Aires
when every year we were subjected to a diphtheria vaccine at school. This
vaccine was administered on the spinal column. When I knew of the date for this
I tried to tell my mother that I was sick. She knew and sent me to school. I
have had a pathological fear of injections since and when I have the option of
an injection or less effective pills I always opt for the pills.
My psoriatic arthritis
medicine is something called Humira which I must administer myself every two
weeks. It is an injection capsule that looks like Doctor McCoy’s but it still
hurts. Every week I must also inject myself with Methotrexate. For this I use a
conventional syringe and I am in panic for days in a terrible anticipation. This
coming week I am going back to the less effective pills.
I also have a phobia
of snakes but not of spiders except tarantulas with their singularly
independent 8 hairy legs.
It was not too long
ago that my phobia for snakes met up with my ignorance on things Alice Cooper.
I remember that she lived in Burnaby
and that’s about it.
Bull pythons, bugs & golfers
Bull pythons, bugs & golfers
