In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger

 

In My Time of Dying is the fifth book I have read by Sebastian Junger since I met him almost a year ago. He was the opening keynote speaker at the Hannah Arendt Center Conference in October 2024. 

In all of Junger's books and films, death hovers in the background when it is not the main topic. As the title says, this book is about Junger's near/almost death from abdominal bleeding. The cause is complex and rare.  He was close enough to death to have the haunting experience of his (dead) father beckoning him into the world beyond this life.  

Reading the book, made me look at my own brushes with death differently. I thought before reading this book I had three near-death experiences. Now I think it was one. Two of them, a missile explosion and a 75-mph motorcycle crash, left me badly injured and temporarily unconscious, but I was still (painfully) aware.  The 50-mph bicycle crash in which I broke my neck, I have no recollection of and near total memory loss for months.

And each of my brushes with death was a sudden bone-breaking crash or explosion. I have never had brush with death that was from disease or internal organ failure.  

Life gone wrong in an instant brought me to death's door, not a slow aching internal failure as was the case with Junger. The book is precise and vivid on the small arteries and ligaments that conspired to nearly kill Junger. It also chronicles current research and experiences of those who are near death or actually dead for a short time and revived.  

Shortly after finishing the book, I had elevated heart rate in the night for five days.  Two of those days I woke up feeling my heart pounding in my chest.  After the second night, I went to the emergency room and then to a cardiologist.  It was probably a virus--I had very high rest heart rates when I had covid. I might not have gone to the emergency room, but after reading how Junger put off finding the cause of his abdominal discomfort, I decided to get checked by doctors.  Also in my mind was a friend whose rest heart rate raced to more than 150 beats per minute for no apparent reason.  

I strongly recommend In My Time of Dying as a story very well told and a cautionary tale if you have any tendency to ignore medical problems.

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Junger's other books, as I noted above, have the life/death theme:

War about a year with several months at the most dangerous forward outpost in Afghanistan. Junger also co-produced the documentary Restrepo about that year in Afghanistan.

Freedom about a long and occasionally danger walk along hundreds of miles of railroad tracks in Pennsylvania.

A Perfect Storm about a fatal shipwreck.

Tribe about, among other things, who we will give our life for.

The next book by Junger I will read is A Death in Belmont about murder in a small town near Boston when I was a child.  

 

I Dumped T-Mobile Because of Their Extreme Roamer Policy

 

I was a fan of T-Mobile even before I was a customer. Until this year I had very  reliable service fromT-Mobile.  

Then I ran afoul of the T-Mobile "Extreme Roamer" policy.  If a T-Mobile customer is out of the country more than two billing periods in a year, all international roaming service is blocked for a year. 

Once the restriction goes into effect it is for a full year.  In my case from February 28 of this year until February 27 next year.  

I could have avoided the problem by unlocking my phone or getting a differentphone with an international plan.  But unlocking would have cost several hundred dollars at the time, and I assumed I could get around the restriction.  

I couldn't.

It turns out even Canada is overseas. I was in Canada in June and had no service. So I changed my cell phone service provider to Verizon. They have no restrictions on international usage although their overseas plans are a little more expensive.  

In 2026 or 2027 I was thinking about spending a month or two in South America.  Depending on the dates of the billing cycle, I could end up in T-Mobile extreme roamer jail again if I continued with their service.  

By the way, the reduced service from T-Mobile did not reduce the monthly bill. 

Full price, no service.  

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

I grew up near the sea, several miles from the Atlantic Ocean north of Boston.  While the sea was always near, it was also remote for me. Our family went to the beach once or twice a year. I did not learn to swim until I was 59 years old.  Until I retired, the ocean was something I flew over.

Then a friend told me that the movie Master and Commander was based on a series of 21 novels.  I started reading them and was hooked. I read them all.  I am slowly re-reading the whole series on the Kindle when I travel.  

Then we moved to Panama for a year.  The Panama Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I rode along canal or the Pacific shore almost every day.  

In Panama I met Roger who retired at 51 and spent 21 years sailing around the world on a sailboat.  Roger loves the Master and Commander series, but his favorite sea novel is the Old Man and the Sea. I had never read it, but I had a copy with me. I read it and loved it.   

The old mariner goes far out to sea, alone. In his 80s he is still strong enough to fight the great fish day and night, a fish so big he can't get it in the boat. A fish torn apart and eaten by sharks so he returns with only a skeleton. But everyone knew he caught a great fish. 

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Only once did I go fishing on the ocean. I was seven years old. A neighbor who had a boat took me.  We fished form mackerel by dropping lines with a half-dozen hooks wrapped in orange tape.  I cleaned dozens of fish.  We took a couple barrels of fish back to Stoneham and cooked fish on a grill.  To this day I love mackerel.

My oldest daughter Lauren became obsessed with fishing when she was 11 and 12 years old. I would take her to a farm pond to catch carp which we always threw back.