"Almost dying is interesting"

"I was born in the 1940’s, a long time ago."

My name is Mike Baizerman and I grew up in what became the Civil Rights Movement, in New York, so I did a lot of stuff in the Civil Rights Movement and then I got drafted. Instead of going to Vietnam, I went into the public health services, and I ran the mental health programs at two Indian Reservations (1). I was a public health officer in a navy uniform and I was a commander, which can be fairly high up. I went from New York to Montana. When I got drafted, which was in 1966, I was 26, I lived near Coney Island (2) so it was about 40 minutes away [from New York City] on the subway and I lived there at a wonderful time when the world was cracking open, and I was a kid there and it was wonderful. I worked in the city, until my dad got sick in 1956 and died in ‘59. I was just a kid who was working and then I really had to work. So I’ve been working since ‘53 continually. When I got drafted, I didn’t believe in the war but I wasn’t willing to go to Canada (3) like some of my friends. I was both lucky and clever. I was lucky I heard about being a health officer for the Native Americans. I didn’t do very well back then on standardized tests, I was a little bit dyslexic so I couldn’t [do well] and I didn’t grow up in a culture where I knew a lot of stuff so I would’ve tested really low, and I would’ve gotten put in the infantry and I would’ve likely gotten killed. This way I spent time in Montana for two and a half years and on the reservation.

"I had a heart attack a couple years ago, I should remember right?"

Let's see [my granddaughter] Tasha was 12, it was at Salt Lake in Utah. We were going to Jimi Hendrix’s (4) grave, my wife was teaching in an isolated place in northern Canada. My son was into Jimmy Hendricks, and he wanted to go there, and my daughter said “alright why don’t we go”. So we jumped in the car and headed to San Francisco, and we were camping out, and doing stuff along the way and umm then I had a heart attack on the lake, when we were driving across. So that made life different, both physically different and physiologically different. You realize you could be dead; the other time was just an abstraction. When I get old I’ll die, and that ain’t an abstraction, you can’t breathe, your body turns purple. Ya know? With medics flying over the mountains to get you to a hospital, and after that moment there are other moments in which my heart didn’t do what it was supposed to do. So part of it is this, my scar (5), which is a daily reminder...  don’t be stupid.

Photo of a pacemaker scar

And when you have this, you're older and other things happen, you get cancer, you get diabetes. Just typical for you when you get older. I had cancer, and diabetes which I [still] have now, and then your eyes stop working, and everything thing just breaks down. And all the [other] stuff that happens when your body starts to ware down which it does when you get older. So umm, I’m certainly not yet at the decrepitude, but things are working less well, a better national diminishment. You lose the fat on your hands and on the bottom of your toes, your toes can curl in so it's easier to snap your ankle. So it's you know, something to attend too, and here’s the hook, by being with people your age and by being around the university (6), age has a different meaning. Out in the real world nobody knows how old I am, most people don't care. So the fact that I’m 75 doesn’t show on my body, it shows inside my body when I’m trying to climb a mountain or something. But in the university I can be [seen], the fact that I'm older and studied along time ago, that I know a lot of stuff. That may not be of interest to people now, but it's in there. 

"...I'm not giving away books, I'm giving away my biography."

Photo taken by Olivia Ferrer on September 24th, 2015

All the books upstairs are mine, I may have 80, 90, 100 cartons of books, and I've given away like 60 of them so far. A lot of them are from being in school in the ‘60’s, so there's a lot of knowledge that most people are not interested anymore, because there are different versions. But I know how that version came from this version, so age works differently and then being with people who are willing to play, intellectually play, is fun, so then I can play. So students that have been around along time are boring because they know how to do the game, its like having a map through the city. So what, big deal? So age matters, and it matters because my memory of names isn’t that good, I’ll sometimes lose track of where I am, and if you’ve seen the movie “Still Alice” (7), it wouldn’t bother people your age [18] to see it, it would bother people my age to see it. So it's part of the games that you play with yourself when you get older and try to understand the breakdowns in my legs, my hand, my eyes, my heart, also beginning to be a breakdown in my head, and it means to give away those books, was enormously difficult, and is enormously difficult, because I'm not giving away books, I'm giving away my biography. I’m giving away metaphorically all of the hours and years, since 1946. They have a part of the ideas that belonged to me, part of me doesn't matter so much, it's sharing the idea because the idea was exciting when I met it the first time. Some of them I never understood, some of them were not of interest when I got into them, the cover and topic were of interest, and some of them I knew as well as my brother’s name. They were very intimate.

“I’m so resilient because it’s interesting to me.”

Photo taken by Olivia Ferrer on September 24th, 2015

I recovered so well from my heart attack. From my cancer. I’m so resilient because it’s interesting to me. Ya know? The result isn’t always so interesting, but the experience of being there- you say- “Hmm… is this what it’s like to almost be dead?” That’s interesting. Ah- in the real world, you could die from it. But in the experience of it, it’s the opportunity to be in another space, a different reality. There are multiple realities and the reality of being hooked up to machines and stuff isn’t the pleasant reality in that sense, but it’s interesting! Yeah… it’s different. And then after a while it gets [old]- I’ve been in this hospital for a while, hooked up to these machines 10 times, I know how this thing works. Let’s see if I can mess with them a little more and make things interesting. Now let’s see if I can squeeze this or that and set off an alarm and see what happens. If you gotta be sick, mise we’ll enjoy it (laughs).

Footnotes:

1. An Indian Reservation is a legal designation for a specific area of land given to a Native American tribe.
2. Coney Island is a peninsula bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the southwestern borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It is a leisure/entertainment destination well known for it's amusement parks and seaside resort.
3. Some American’s (also known as “Draft Dodgers”), would seek refuge in Canada during the Vietnam War. This would allow them to avoid getting drafted.
4. Jimi Hendrix was an American rock vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter. He made it in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and died in 1970.
5. A pacemaker is a small device that is placed underneath the skin near the heart to attempt to control the heartbeat. Photo of pacemaker scar in picture 2.
6. Mike is a professor of social work at the University of Minnesota.
7. “Still Alice” is an Oscar-winning movie about a linguistics professor who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. It revolves around her and her family when their bonds get tested and she struggles to stay connected to who she once was.

Story Facilitators:

Olivia Ferrer, Verona Deenanath, Jack Sadek