Larry Brody's "Live! From Paradise!"

Although Gwen the Beautiful and I live in Paradise, it’s not much of a vacation spot. Our slice of heaven is home to hard-working men and women trying to make ends meet. When they want to relax and have fun, they head out of town.

Last weekend, Gwen and I decided to dive into the tourist season and hang awhile at the home of our friend, Sharon, who lives on the outskirts of the nearby holiday haven called Eureka Springs.

A hilly, 19th century Victorian town that looks the way San Francisco would if San Francisco hadn’t grown up, Eureka Springs is all about festivals and art.

There are music festivals. Film festivals. Classic car rallies. Motorcycle shows. Even canoe extravaganzas. If you can celebrate it, Eureka Springs will schedule a weekend you can celebrate it.

The art comes in a million different varieties too. Folk art. Southwestern art. Modern art. Paintings, sculptures, photographs, ceramics — you name it and it’s showing in a gallery in the historic part of town.

Sharon’s gallery sells South American weavings. As it turned out, she wasn’t going to be home because she had to go to Ecuador on a buying trip. She told us where the key was hidden, though, and we still didn’t lack for company because another friend decided to come along.

Our dog, Emmy, bulled her way into the truck as we were packing it up and refused to be left behind with the other Cloud Creek animals in Burl Jr. the New Caretaker’s excellent care.

“If she wants to come with us that badly let’s take her,” Gwen the Beautiful said.

“If she comes with us, we won’t be able to do nearly as much nothing as we intend to,” I pointed out.

“And if I’m feeling bad about how bad she’s feeling back home, do you think it’ll be any better?”

And that was that

Gwen, Emmy, and I rolled onto Sharon’s property early in the afternoon and settled into the cozy cottage. Gwen and I had dinner at Sparky’s, a great local hangout. Then, it was back to our vacation retreat, where we slept soundly.

Until about 5 in the morning. When Emmy jumped off the bed and began barking.

She raced downstairs, going from window to window. Growing more and more frantic.

I grumbled.

Then I groaned.

Finally, I got up to see what the noise was all about. I looked outside.

And saw a heifer.

Another heifer.

Half a dozen more. Moseying through Sharon’s flowerbed. Grazing on her previously immaculate front lawn.

“Uh, Gwen? I think we’ve got a problem here.”

Now it was Gwen doing the groaning. I realized she was muttering some words: “The neighbor’s phone number’s on the kitchen wall. Sharon said if there was a problem to call there.”

Call I did, and a wide-awake woman’s voice answered. I told her where I was, why I was there, and why I was calling.

“Hold on,” she said. And, after a moment: “You’re right. We’re missing about half a dozen head. They’re pets, you know. Haven’t got the heart to raise anything for sale. I’ll come fetch them right away.”

I hung up. Went to the front door, opening it to get a better look.

And Emmy pushed past me like a flash. She stopped on the porch for a second, grinning like the happiest kid at a party, then barked and gave chase.

The cattle practically flew into the woods, Emmy in gleeful pursuit.

I called the neighbor again to say her pets were heading back her way. Then I went outside and called Emmy.

No answer.

I called her again.

Nothing.

The city boy in me started worrying. We were on strange turf. Would Emmy be able to find her way back? What if she got lost? I remembered other losses and felt my chest knot.

Then I glanced over at the flowerbed. There lay the dog, merrily rolling in what the cattle had left behind.

Unexpected lessons arise constantly in life, and one came to me that morning. I’ve written about how my deteriorating eyesight suddenly improved not long ago.

What I learned during the weekend goes hand in hand with that miracle.

It’s something I could swear I heard Emmy say as she gave me a wink. “Gotta keep your eyes open, bud. Seeing doesn’t help if you forget to look.”

Larry Brody is an author, veteran television writer and producer and creative director of Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts. He, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion County. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise reside in his imagination, however, and any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Originally published June 28, 2006

One of the reasons I write this column is that I live a life where I’m constantly amazed and I figure that by reporting this amazement I’ll find out if it’s just me … or if the world seems wacky to everyone.

This week, Gwen the Beautiful and I had not one, not two, but three small but mighty This Can’t Be Happening! It’s Impossible! moments, all in one lunch and some shopping at Wal-Mart.

It started in the Mexican Restaurant right here in Paradise. We eat there at least once a week out of sheer gratitude for having found a place that gives us the exotic flavors we used to love back in L.A. without making us have to go back there and put up with everything else that we didn’t love at all.

What happened was that I finished my coffee and decided not to bother Lyndie the Waitress, who already had her hands full keeping up with the packed room. Instead I picked up my cup and walked to the coffee urn, where I poured myself half a cup and started back to the table.

I took what I think of as a “Great Circle Route” and didn’t go back the way I came. But about halfway back, I saw two women frowning at me.

“You spilled,” said one. She pointed to the floor near where they sat.

Sure enough, there it was, a splotch of coffee. With another beyond it, and another, all the way back to the pot.

All I could do was shrug. “And here I was trying to make life easier on a wonderful gal,” I said, and continued to Gwen.

As I sat down, I realized something. I looked back behind me. The spilled coffee spots weren’t on my trail from the urn. They were on the one to it. The path I’d walked with an empty cup. My return path was spotless. I hadn’t spilled a thing.

Because I’d had nothing to spill.

Gwen’s not all blind, only half. She saw the look on my face and asked what was wrong. I told her, and she turned her attention to the spills.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “Your cup was empty when you walked over there.”

“Ah,” I said. “Good. Then I’m not crazy after all.”

A little later, when I went over to the counter to pay, I fished around in my pants pocket for some change. When I didn’t find any, I left a $10 bill, and Gwen and I continued on out.

It bugged me, though. I clearly remembered dropping way too many quarters into that pocket when I’d put on my jeans that morning. So, when we got to Wal-Mart, I checked again as we walked through the parking lot. Sure enough, the quarters were there, along with a few almost useless nickels and dimes.

Where were they just 15 minutes ago?

When we got home, and I took the bags from the truck bed, I discovered I’d hit the trifecta. Gwen’s 50-pound bag of wild bird seed was nowhere to be found. Wondering how I could’ve left it behind, I carried some cleaning supplies over to the storage shed, but when I opened the door the first thing I saw was the bag of seed, fat and sealed and ready for its mission of mercy.

Yes, I know. Each of these experiences has a possible explanation:

• The coffee was spilled where it shouldn’t have been? “Probably my cup wasn’t as empty as I thought and it slopped over.”
• I had no change in my pocket — and then I did have change? “Probably the coins were blocked by a fold in the fabric the first time I looked.”
• The bag of bird seed was put away before I took it out of the truck? “Probably I brought it in earlier, but got distracted and forgot.”

All those explanations are reasonable. But to come up with them I had to ignore the evidence of my senses. I had to assume that what I saw, felt and remembered was wrong.

That seems to me to be going to a lot of trouble just to hew to a rational view of the universe that’s not necessarily any truer than — well, than what? I haven’t got a clue.

How about it, readers? Any strange experiences like this you’d care to share? Better yet, any explanations of what’s really going on?

Larry Brody is an author, veteran television writer and producer and creative director of Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts. He, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion County. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise reside in his imagination, however, and any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Originally published June 21, 2006

About two years ago, at the age of 48, my wife Gwen the Beautiful was blinded by a stroke. She sees something, but only to the left in each eye. The right half of what should be her field of vision is inky blackness.

Or, on days of beauty and wonder, a sight that’s not there. Images of gardens. People. Animals. Plugged directly into (and by) her brain.

I’ve written about all the medical rounds we’ve made, trying to learn what caused the stroke so we can take the right steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and what we can do to help her see completely once more.

Until yesterday, no doctor anywhere, no matter how highly regarded, ever had said anything about the cause but, “We’ll probably never know,” and, about the possibility of a return of Gwen’s vision, “Very unlikely. The brain cells that interpret the right side of your vision are dead.”

Both statements followed by, “Take these blood thinners, and try to adjust.”

A couple of months ago, Gwen left Paradise and went to Robert Superko, a San Francisco-area doctor who’s an expert in “cardiac risk.” She spent half a day giving blood for a series of tests, including DNA tests no one else had given her.

Yesterday, we got the results. They’re complicated, and neither of us understands them well enough to go into detail, but the gist is that Gwen’s DNA has an extra molecule on its strand that has caused the level of a cholesterol lipid called “El Pea Little A” and spelled “Lp(a)” to be twice what’s considered normal.

What does this do? Why, it throws a whole mess of stuff out of whack — and causes blood clots. Like the one that smacked Gwen on the back of the head one December evening and dropped her to her knees with half her lights out.

Wait, the news gets better. Not only do we now know the cause, we also know how to prevent another stroke. Dr. Superko’s able nurse practitioner, Pam McDonald, has designed a program for Gwen to follow right here in Paradise. And which can be supervised by Dr. Ted, her Paradise M.D.

Three elements are involved. Regular cardiovascular and strength-building exercise. A balanced diet. And laboratory-quality niacin, a thousand milligrams a day.

That’s right. No drugs. No stints. No shunts. None of the usual medical marvels. Instead, a big-time cardiovascular doc has recommended — alternative medicine. In this particular situation what some people disdain as “naturopathy” has, in effect, become part of medicine’s cutting edge.

A dash of common sense. A sprinkle of knowledge. Stirred by experience and wisdom. Based on a recipe that’s totally high tech.

Who says the new and the old can’t co-exist? That times can’t change in a way that lets today and yesterday embrace?

At first it seemed too easy to Gwen.

“Are you sure I can do the exercise?” she said. “It’s not going to hurt me? And that kind of food … it’s all right for my body?”

Pam told Gwen to take a good look at the page after page of test results she’d already sent. “You’ve had the most complete physical exam anybody can have anywhere. See those numbers? What they add up to is that you’re as healthy as they come. One genetic defect, that’s all you’ve got. And after six months of taking care of yourself, you’ll have kicked that defect’s butt.”

“You mean I’m a healthy woman?” Gwen said.

“You’re a healthy woman,” Pam said.

Over the next several hours, Gwen said it again herself. And again. And again. And as she checked the tomatoes in our garden yesterday afternoon, something wonderful happened. She stopped questioning and instead asserted, as strongly as anyone can:

“I’m a healthy woman!”

And, after more than two years, she felt healthy at last.

This isn’t the story of a miracle. Gwen’s sight hasn’t returned. But she’s already started her new regimen, and is looking at life a new way.

Today, when we woke up and kissed good morning, she greeted me with a smile.

“Wow,” I said. “Haven’t seen one of those this early in a long time.”

“There’s no reason for me not to smile,” Gwen said. “After all, I’m a healthy woman.”

“Yes. Yes, you are.”

“And,” she said, “do you know why?”

“Why?” I said.

“Because I’ve got hope.”

We kissed again. It was everything any couple could hope for.

Larry Brody is an author, veteran television writer and producer and creative director of Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts. He, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion County. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise reside in his imagination, however, and any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Originally published June 14, 2006

There are billionaires among us.

I first found out about some of my more better off neighbors shortly after I moved to Paradise. My old acquaintance, Phil the Film Financier, called me excitedly. “Whoa!” he said. “Did you ever score!”

“I know,” I said. “It’s beautiful here.”

“I’m not talking about beauty,” Phil said. “I’m talking about money. Did you know that five of the 10 richest people in the world live within 40 minutes of you? You’ve got it made.”

Since then, no matter how much I say I’m not interested, Phil has called regularly with updates on the fortunes of those he calls “The Paradise Five.”

Last week, he was pushier than ever.

“This Old Billionaire who practically lives around the corner from you just made a deal that puts him in striking distance of Bill Gates. Call him right now, and make something happen.”

After Phil hung up, I looked at the name and number he’d given me, and the local area code kicked my indifference in the pants. I called and talked to the Old Billionaire, a soft-spoken man with a slight drawl and could hardly believe it when he said, “When do you want to get together?”

I came up with a time and place. The Old Billionaire countered with another. Finally, we agreed.

“I’m happy with this if you are,” the Old Billionaire said. “One thing I’ve learned about life is that both sides always have to be satisfied with the deal.”

Yesterday, the two of us sat down together in the Mexican Restaurant across from the Paradise County courthouse. With his short gray hair, rumpled jeans and “Go Razorbacks!” T-shirt, the Old Billionaire looked like just about every man over 50 out here.

But I spotted him immediately because he was the one person in the place I’d never seen before.

As we sat down together, he looked me over. “You look OK to me,” he said. “I was a little worried about you being a friend of Phil’s. But when I heard that you live here I knew you couldn’t be all bad.”

He smiled and picked up the menu. “What’s good?”

Lyndie the Waitress came over and suggested the lunch special. “Twenty-five cents less than if you order everything separate,” she said. “Plus rice and beans.”

The Old Billionaire nodded his approval. After Lyndie left the table, he turned back to me. “What can I do for you? I’m happy to help however I can, but tell me now so we can get it out of the way and go on to other things.”

“There’s nothing you can do for me,” I said.

“Nothing?”

“Well, you can enjoy the lunch. And maybe we can swap a story or two.”

“I don’t have much to say,” he said. “I was born in the next county. Started my first little business there. Watched it get lucky. Put some money into another business. Saw that get lucky, too.”

“You sure it’s that easy? There’s nothing else that you did?”

He started to shake his head, then stopped. “Well, maybe one thing. Not only have I been lucky, I’ve been able to recognize my luck. I can tell when the good things are happening. And go wherever they lead.”

An hour and a half — and about a hundred stories — later, the Old Billionaire and I shook hands again out on the street. “I want you and your wife to come over to our place sometime soon,” he said as he got into his mud-spattered panel truck.

“We’ll take my plane to Tunica and let the ladies pull the levers on some slots. My wife’s lost so much money there I bought a casino just to stay in the game.”

The Old Billionaire pulled out onto the highway. Behind me, I heard a familiar voice. “Man! I didn’t know you had such rich friends!”

I turned and saw Brannigan the Contractor walking toward me from the barbershop.

“How do you know he’s rich?” I said.

“I was up at the Chevy dealer last week. Saw that old boy’s truck get towed in. Sucker needed a whole new suspension! Five hundred bucks! When they told him he just nodded and said, ‘If that’s how it is, reckon you’d better go ahead.’”

Brannigan put an arm around my shoulder.

“Between you and me, bud, if a man can afford to repair his vehicle when he needs it … these days that’s rich!”

Larry Brody is an author, veteran television writer and producer and creative director of Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts. He, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion County. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise reside in his imagination, however, and any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Originally published June 7, 2006