BALL CAMP BOYS

My brother and I were on the golf course when he received a call. On the other end of the line was Mike Floyd, He was asking us to join him and some other men for lunch. Mike informed us it would be a “Ball Camp” meeting. Curious about what that meant, we agreed to be there. As it turned out, the time was well spent with some good folks. 

We met at Moody’s, a small restaurant on the Knoxville side of Oak Ridge. As usual, Jim and I arrived early, again proving that we believe if a person is on time, he’s late. We looked inside but recognized none of the men we were meeting. In only a couple of minutes, Mike came in with Johnny Dickens, and in a few minutes, Steve Buffalo walked through the door.  

The years have zipped by, and we, who were good friends in our elementary school years, are now old men who rarely see each other. The food came out, and the chattering continued. At first, we recalled events and occurrences that were important to each of us. I told Johnny I remember how he used to take a bag of chips and crush them before pouring the pieces on his bologna sandwich. He said that he still does that. I had earlier written about Steve Buffalo’s sandwiches of sausage on white bread with a coating of mayonnaise and how much I wanted to taste it. Steve said he has no memory of his lunches but declared that they might have been what I said since his family raised pigs.   

The truth is that when we were young, Ball Camp was considered a second-rate community. Karns was the place to live. Many who worked at the plants in Oak Ridge lived in that area. Ball Camp, Hardin Valley, and Solway just didn’t reach the level of the community just over the hill. That belief led to even stronger ties among students at the school. We fought hard in sports competitions and had our share of successes against the more highly regarded community teams. 

Other stories from so long ago had us laughing; others made us shake our heads. That sadness especially hit when the name of a classmate came up and the information of his or her passing was mentioned. Wrapping our minds around those deaths was difficult when our last memories of individuals were when we sat in an elementary school classroom.  

All of us are retired. Steve Buffalo continues to do contract work in Oak Ridge. Jim and I work in the summer mowing at Knoxville Municipal Golf Course. Yes, we’ve all had our bouts with illnesses and other maladies that accompany old age. Still, we all stay active and enjoy each day that the good lord gives us.  

Jim and I stay in touch with a high school friend who didn’t live in Ball Camp. Kenny Mills is being held “prisoner of war” in Georgia. I’m not a big phone guy, but when Kenny calls, the conversations can last for an hour or more. It’s possible that reuniting with these Ball Camp friends might lead to some long phone calls too.  

We began to list other men who lived in the community and talked about increasing the number that show up for future lunches. If you are one of those Ball Camp boys and want to come to the next get together, contact one of us for information. Heck, you can contact me at my email joerector@comcast.net. Guys like Joey Wallace, Steve Cox, and Sam Marcum have plenty of memories to share, and others do too. Let’s build our group and tighten our ties from so many years ago. We need to be expeditious in this because time is running out.  

TIME TO CUT COSTS

 Amy asked me what the benefits of having arthritis are. My answer was nothing on a personal level, but it kept the drug companies in business and rich as they develop new drugs. You know the ones about which I’m talking: the treatments that will help with the disease if the side effects don’t kill the patient. One thing is clear; the cost of drugs can easily cripple a family, even if they have the best insurance coverage available.  

I have arrythmia, better known as an irregular heartbeat. The standard treatment for it is taking a drug called Xarelto. It’s a blood thinner that helps the blood from clotting and causing a stroke. A thirty-day supply of Xarelto costs approximately $581.00. Yes, those 30 pills cost that much! If an individual doesn’t have coverage, he is faced with some hard financial decisions.  

Repatha is another one of those expensive drugs. The cost per month is $140 until a Medicare patient is in the doughnut hole. Then the cost can be as much as $600. This medicine is for those with cholesterol problems that can’t be lowered by other medicines alone.  

Not long ago, even insulin was too costly for many people. According to The Lancet, prices for the drug rose by 200% from 2007-2018. A person without insurance coverage could possibly pay as much as $1000 a month for a drug that is necessary to sustain life. With pressure from the federal government, the price for users in qualified programs is now $35. How can a medication drop from unaffordable prices to those that Americans can afford? 

The answer is quite simple. Drug companies spend piles of money to develop new drugs. When one works and is approved by the FDA, it can be sold at a premium. Not until 20 years after the patent is issued can a drug become generic. Most of us older folks won’t be around when the pill and shots that we take become generic. We’ll either have died from something else or from not being able to afford the medicines we need.  

I know that the government spends too much money on wasteful projects and programs. Yet, I can’t for the life of me understand how an elected official from either party would or could vote to deny the lowering of prescription drug prices. Doing so is a failure to represent millions of voters who voted for them.  

Our entire medical insurance coverage program is in a mess. It’s been that way for years, even before the Affordable Health Act passed. The main reason that things rarely change to benefit consumers is that lobbyists have access to our elected officials and can convince them to maintain the status quo. They can convince our leaders to keep prices artificially high, even when doing so comes at the cost of lives of citizens that can’t afford to eat and buy prescriptions. For example, OxyContin helped Purdue Pharma rake in $35 billion 2016. The company made a fortune while it turned users into addicts. 

We live in a capitalist country. That means that people and companies should make a profit from their creations and labors. However, at some point, enough profit is enough. When people depend on a drug for survival but can’t afford it, then our companies and their owners have put profits before people. America is the greatest of all countries, yet its healthcare system is an embarrassing disgrace. The time has come to restructure costs so that fair profits are paid to owners and prices for patients are affordable. To vote against that is just a slap to the faces of the American citizens.