Biography for

Jim Frank

as published in the 2009 Pollen Count

Jim Frank (Crystal River, FL) The summer of 1959 Jim worked for Chuck Kegley at the Brecksville summer playground program and readied himself for college. Four years later in June of 1963 he graduated from Hiram College. In August of the same year, Jim married Betsy. They met at Hiram. Betsy and Jim chose to be educators and that's what they did for 70 collective years, 60 of which were in Lee County, Florida. Along the way, they earned a few more college degrees and more importantly had their two sons. Richard graduated from Cornell University and Robert from the University of Florida. Jim and Betsy retired in 2000 and moved to Crystal River, Florida. Their summers are spent at their cabin in Canada. The cabin is located about 300 miles due north of Brecksville.

"I guess that's pretty much it; well, not exactly. Actually, I have a whole bunch of 'along the way' life stories." I picked two special stories to share with you after all these years."

Story #1 - Out of Africa 2001

An eye surgeon friend of mine wanted me to be part of his 2001 Global Eye Care mission to Namibia, in our junior high days it was Southwest Africa. He wanted me to do the computer generated eye testing. Eye Camp, as it is called, is a regional event where blind people from miles around literally camp on mattresses placed on the floor of all the wards and hallways of the regional clinic in Opuwa, Ovamboland, Namibia. Many cultures are served. Some seem over dressed while others are topless. The Ovahimbas mix a sort of butter with ground stone to make a reddish paste to mold their hair styles. It is also used as a body cream and yes, it gets on everything. Many have wrist and ankle bracelets made of large plumbing washers, just as we have seen in National Geographic.

Living under a cloudless and sun intense sky for well over 200 days a year, the locals have an ongoing issue with cataracts and blindness. Imagine that Cleveland, problems due to too much sunshine. My job was testing for the curvature of the eye and the distances within the eye which can be translated into a lens Rx. After finishing the testing, I was invited into the operating room to do some documentation. I'll always remember recording an Ovihimba man with his tribal neck, ankle, and wrist bracelets, laying on the operating table, and receiving the highest tech eye surgery available. Quite a paradox. To qualify for surgery, the patients must be blind in both eyes, but they will have only one eye repaired. One particularly tense moment was when the Phaco machine (cataract emulsifier and suction device) blew an internal fuse. No spares of course, so I decided to make a fuse. I used two strands of the fine wire, cut it to size and wrapped it over the ends of the blown fuse. As I inserted it back into the Phaco machine, my doctor friend said," Can you put wire on the outside of a fuse that way?" My answer was when you are on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, in a town that doesn't seem to have the word fuse in the local vocabulary, that is exactly what you do! We then powered up the machine and it "came alive" in all of its flashing, beeping, computerized glory. Later that evening, I told the good doctors a George Grau, Ollie Davidson, and Jim Frank story of how we were forced to improvise a jeep repair in order to make it to one of Joe Vadini's pre-game spaghetti suppers. We were late, but Joe never knew.

Going to Namibia means visiting Etosha National Park. The wildlife there is beyond imagination. Yes, you can see all these creatures at the zoo, but there, they are by the thousands; interactive with one another and born free. The park is about twice the size of Lake Erie. It has some differentiation in habitat which affects species location, but still there is a general distribution of wildlife throughout the park. A central depression or pan in the middle of the park fills to about three feet of water during the rainy season which then acts as a huge recharge system for the dry season. The resulting water holes allow the wildlife to survive year around. You are forbidden from getting out of your car lest you become lunch as opposed to having lunch! As for the wildlife, here is a report I sent home for a typical day: Rhinoceros (4) Elephants (50) Jackals (25) Wart Hogs (7) Giraffe (75) Wildebeest (300) Zebra (400)+ Oryx (50) Kudu (4) Birds (hundreds of species) Secretary birds Marabou storks Red Hartebeest (4) Steenbok (25) Springbok (400) Impala (100) Spitting Cobra 1 Lion 8. I returned to Namibia in 2005 and 2006. I will go again.

Story #2 - Gracias a Dios 1999

I was traveling west on an isolated mountain road out of Copan, Honduras about 5 miles from the Guatemalan border. Refreshed from a night of sleep, I found the mountain air both clear and cool; but then, my world suddenly came crashing down. First, extreme nausea, then my arm became numb as a moderate pain began to enter my chest. I knew that I might be having a cardiac event, but not me, not now and most of all… not here. There I was, in the epicenter of the Central American frontier. This is a land where terms like 911 or telefono cellular no existe! There are places other than my Florida home where I can accept death, but Honduras was not one of them..... denial immediately set in.

"Para el caro/ Stop the car," I said. I got out and tried to vomit. The pain in my arm was intensifying and I was sweating profusely, "Quiere regressar/Do you want to go back?" my friend Elias said. "Si, es mejor/ Yes, it is best," I replied. I noticed the nausea and chest discomfort eased somewhat.

Once we arrived back in Copan, I laid down while Elias called the medico. The medic arrived on foot armed with a stethoscope and a blood pressure gauge. After using both instruments, it was announced that I might have gastro-intestinal problems. I said, "Lo siento, pero tengo las sintomas de un infarto/ I am sorry, but I have the symptoms of a heart attack!" "No no, tu corazon es muy fuerza/ Your heart is very strong, bueno pulso y bueno presion," the medic responded. You may have figured out by now that no one was speaking English. I went there for total Spanish language immersion and this is what I was getting. In retrospect, I was nudged away from my heart crisis while trying to process Spanish was probably best for my anxiety. I was given a dextrose I.V. which we hung from a nail.....on the wall. It would take a Laureate class writer to describe how afraid, alone and helpless I felt at that moment.

After a long and broken night's sleep, the nausea, chest discomfort, and profuse perspiring were gone. The pain in my arm was even subsiding. By 7:30 on Easter Sunday morning I was feeling much better. I had only been in Copan for about 36 hours. I told Elias, "Yo tengo que regressar a mi casa/ I have to go home." I was feeling much better and must use this time to travel home.

The trip to the airport in San Pedro Sula is about 100 miles. This means about three hours with stops for gas, oil, water, and taping radiator hoses and detours for washed out bridges and roads resulting from a recent hurricane. Luckily, there were seats on the 1:05 plane to Miami. I decided not to mention my possible heart situation for fear of not being allowed onboard. After arriving home, Betsy and I went to our doctor where I began failing one test after another. I indeed, had suffered "the big one." My cardiologist has told me that the obstructed artery on my heart, for some reason, reopened. "By all odds," he said, "You should have died in Honduras." My Honduran friends simply say, "Gracias a Dios" to explain my second chance. I remember clearly, when it did occur to me that death was a possibility, the only thing that mattered to me was not wanting to be alone, away from my loved ones and friends. With all of my so-called achievements, the only one that mattered was love. Love among family and friends is what consumed my thoughts. I've learned how quickly life can pass you by, often too soon to say "Good job," "Good-Day," or even "Good-Bye."

"We all need to remember, as we travel down life's road of decisions, to pause and listen to love, for its memories of the heart that will deliver your final destiny. I have returned to Copan, Honduras many times and plan to go again in February, 2009."

"In case I do not make it to our 50th and from the experience of having taught high school for many years, I want to say that BBHHS really was a very special place and we really were a very special class."