Larry Hnetka Goes HMmmm

Out of the blue, I have been tagged by Bill Blunt to participate in a meme providing eight random facts/habits about myself.

HMmmm, I said to myself. Just who is this Blunt fellow and why is he tagging me. It turns out Mr. Blunt discovered my blog when he Googled the words “Avignon bookshelf.” One recent entry I posted was about my upcoming trip to Avignon while another post detailed by wonky self-made bookshelf.

Sorry Mr. Blunt that your search dead-ended with my blog. However, on his blog he wrote this after scanning my blog:

I think I’d like to know more about Larry Hnetka. After discovering his blog recently, I imagine he’s the kind of person who would be delighted to be tagged. He’s got some interesting things that make him go ‘Hmmm’ on his blog, so I would encourage you to drop by.

How could I not participate upon reading such flattering commentary. So here goes.

1. I have a Bachelor of Education (Secondary) degree with a major in English. I thorougly enjoyed the few years I taught school but I never continued on that career path.

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I still suck at parallel parking.

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Instead, I moved to Vancouver where, at the time, there was an oversupply of teachers. Somehow, I fell into the swirling morass of the world that is called “public relations” and made a career of it.

2. I failed my driving test several times as a result of failing to parallel park correctly. After 30+ years of driving, I still suck at parallel parking.

3. I dislike rhubarb with such intensity that even the smell of it makes me want to hurl.

4. At the age of 18, I had to re-train my esophagus to do its thing in delivering solid food from my mouth to new stomach. Long story short. I had emergency surgery at 18 during which the doctors removed the bottom ¾s of my stomach, my duodenum and a length of damaged intestine. The procedure is called an antrectomy. The reason for this drastic removal of most of my digestive system was related to an enlarged set of vagus nerves which were severed in the same operation in a procedure called a vagotomy.

These procedures are sort of like a forerunner to the current stomach stapling technique. I can assure you, I used to be very trim and lean. My nephew calls me “Uncle Chicken Legs” with a fat belly — need I say more? There’s more but I said I’d keep this long story, short.

5. I often wear my socks to bed because I hate to have cold feet. Having said that, my cold feet problem was previously exacerbated by a condition I have called “nocturnal myoclonus” (commonly known as periodic limb movement disorder) that left the bedclothes in the farthest reaches of my bedroom rather than on the bed. I don’t toss and turn anymore but I still often wear socks to bed.

6. My writings have been published in small, but yet respectable literary journals. My most nervous moment as a writer was the evening on which I was on the same program as W.P. Kinsella — the author of Shoeless Joe upon which the movie Field of Dreams was based.

I read my excerpt before him. He closed the evening’s reading program. We did not exchange one single word during the entire evening.

7. One of my major goals in the 21st century is to have sex. To date, I have not fulfilled that goal.

8. Sparing the gory details, a few years ago I went in for day surgery. On all the forms there was a note to call my home when I was ready to be picked up because my friend Kenneth was at my place looking after my dog.

By 6pm, Kenneth was still waiting for the pick up Larry call. He decided to check his voicemail. The surgeon who operated on me left this message at about 1pm that afternoon: “Well, we almost lost him but we got him back. He’s in recovery right now and you might want to drop by and see him as he’ll be there for a while.”

Yes, this is the closest I can claim to having a “near death” experience. While not technically “that dead”, the official record notes I experienced severe pulmonary edema but was successfully resuscitated. With the aid of a ventilator for a few days, the prognosis was that no permanent injury had resulted.

As we Canadians are a polite lot, I did not sue. I regret that decision to this day. But even more annoying, I did not see the Lotto 6/49 numbers which I think should be mandatory in any near death experience.

A reminder of the Rules:
One: Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
Two: People who are tagged need to write their own blog entry about their eight things and post these rules.
Three: at the end of your entry, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names/pseudonyms/blogs.
Four: Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

I’ve been tardy in posting these habits/facts about myself. I will post my eight chosen tag victims tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 7:19:43 PM and is filed under HMmmm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.