{"id":44927,"date":"2012-07-08T15:24:36","date_gmt":"2012-07-08T23:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=44927"},"modified":"2012-07-08T16:04:32","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T00:04:32","slug":"from-sickness-to-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=44927","title":{"rendered":"Sickness & Health, Totem & Taboo"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Spring semester of 1986 at Sierra Community College<\/a> in Rocklin, CA, I came down with mono<\/a>. I was sick for most of those four months.<\/p>\n

When June rolled around, I wanted to get strong.<\/p>\n

I took a job in landscaping. I love working in the open air. I met a spunky girl<\/a>, Rebecca Hanzlick, the daughter of my boss, Doug Hanzlick of Dominion Enterprises, and she cheered me up. <\/p>\n

In the fall of 1986, I dropped all of my college courses but two to concentrate on my construction work. I liked being a foreman. I liked ordering people around. I liked feeling hard.<\/p>\n

As the weather turned cold, however, the work became miserable.<\/p>\n

On weekends I worked in the news department of KAHI\/KHYL radio where things were warm.<\/p>\n

My neighbor, Bill Murphy, was a graduate of Stanford University. His brother Bob<\/a> was the color man for Stanford’s football games and the play-by-play guy for Cardinal basketball. <\/p>\n

One Saturday afternoon that fall of 1986, Bob invited me to Stanford to watch a football game. <\/p>\n

Stepping on to this elite college campus and seeing all the pretty girls made me realize all the more keenly the severity of my wrong turn in life. I had to get myself pronto to an elite college campus where I’d be sure to lose my virginity. <\/p>\n

I watched the game from the stands (unless the press box at Candlestick Park where I covered 49er games). Just in front of me was what I imagined was a faculty couple. They were well dressed and handsome and they appeared to have the kind of life I wanted. <\/p>\n

The next semester, I took 18-units at Sierra College and almost got straight As. I decided to go to UCLA to major in Economics. <\/p>\n

When I got sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome<\/a>, it felt like a return of the forever mono, and I had to quit UCLA in June of 1989 and go back to my parents home on 7955 Bullard Drive, Newcastle, CA, 95658.<\/p>\n

Over the next few years, I did the odd house-sitting jobs for Bob Murphy and his wife. They didn’t mind if I boinked girls in their bed as they always washed the sheets when they got home. <\/p>\n

In August of 1993, I left Newcastle for a woman in Orlando and recovered much of my health later that year with the medication Nardil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Around 1998, Bill died of a heart attack. <\/p>\n

I returned home for a couple of days in the Spring of 1999 and 2000 and then my parents moved back to Australia. I haven’t been to Sacramento or its environs since. <\/p>\n

In 2004, Rachel Derkits, a PhD student in Anthropology at Stanford, did this paper<\/a> on me.<\/p>\n

Growing up on college campuses, I’ve always felt I belonged in academia so these little brushes with the bigs have filled me with sentiment.<\/p>\n

On an open-road vacation in May of 2007<\/a>, I stopped by Stanford for a couple of hours.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Spring semester of 1986 at Sierra Community College in Rocklin, CA, I came down with mono. I was sick for most of those four months. When June rolled around, I wanted to get strong. I took a job … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44938,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44927\/revisions\/44938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}