Cancer Ward

Scott has had cancer surgery. He had a testicle removed. He woke up from surgery and Ed talked to him on the phone. "Hey, Scott, look out the hospital window. " Scott does. "Is there a Corvette out there?" Scott: "No." Ed: "Shit. I thought there would be. You always said you'd give your left nut to have a Corvette."

The ice was broken. Now Ed and Scott could talk about cancer.

Bruce has melanoma. Scott just had cancer surgery. They arrived with Ed in Portland for our first Thanksgiving weekend blowout. We arrived at our Marriott suite. Someone had to sleep upstairs. I said, "Scott, you and Bruce can have the cancer ward upstairs." The ice was broken. We could talk about their cancer.

Cancer is prevalent in the Silver Valley. My father died of it. My mother is in remission. My mother taught at Silver King school, located about a quarter of a mile right below the Zinc Plant. Almost all the teachers she worked with at Silver King have died of cancer. Dolly, Alene, Sylvia, Betty, we rattled them off one night. I expect to develop cancer. When I was nearly killed working to help overhaul a flash roaster at the Zinc Plant, what nearly killed me was inhalation of sulfur dioxide and zinc/cadmium/lead and other mineral dust. I listen to my upper chest rattle, the way it has for over thirty years now and I listen to my chronic cough and clearing of my throat and I can't help but think a cancer will grow in there some time.

It's serious business for those of us who have lived or do live in the Silver Valley. The mining of ore and the smelting of it meant economic stability for a relatively short period of time. Looked at even in relation to the short life of the USA (230 years old this past July 4th), the times of stable employment in the Silver Valley didn't last long. Sixty, seventy years tops. The impact of that short period of time, however, is much more long lasting. Health concerns remain.

This all came to mind over the weekend when the news broke that sportscaster Steve Lyons had been fired by Fox Sports. On air, Lyons joked, after fellow broadcaster Lou Piniella constructed a wallet metaphor, that his own wallet was missing, suggesting that Piniella had stolen it. Fox fired Lyons' for making statements that were "racially insensitive" and "inappropriate."

If Lyons joking was "inappropriate"(rather than wrong) , then those comments must also be appropriate if said in a different setting. In what setting would his comments have been appropriate? The baseball clubhouse, a place familiar to both Lyons and Piniella? The hotel lobby? The water cooler?

And, under these restriction upon speech, would Ed have been fired had he joked on the television airwaves about Scott and his Corvette? Would his joke have been oncologically insensitive? Testicularly inappropriate?

In the Silver Valley, everyone joked about everyone else's ethnic background or their disabilities. My father was blind in one eye. Dad's friends blamed everything he did wrong from missing a putt on the golf course to not having sex to his blind eye. His nicknames were Cyclops, Rooster Cogburn, and you fat, one-eyed son of a bitch. Called fat, my dad would retort, "You laugh now, pup. But at midnight this big old gut turns into cock."

Joking about cancer, about Italians with Italians, about Bulgarians with Bulgarians, about blindness, about religious convictions (he wouldn't say "shit" if he had a mouthful), made the Silver Valley a place, for me, of free speech.

I understand hateful speech exists. I understand that racial slurs and attacks are violent and aggressive and dangerous. I also understand that not that long ago, when a cancer patient underwent radiation treatment, the radiation irradiated the cancer, but often burned healthy tissue, too. I think we are at a stage of trying to erradicate offensive speech that is similar to the old radiation therapies. We are unable to pinpoint the cancer. We are not always accurate. We discourage and erradicate joking around and healthy teasing because we cannot distinguish between speech that is racially inflected and fun and that which is harmful. So we erradicate it all. As with cancer therapies, when it comes to speech, we have to be asking ourselves just what is the cancer and what is the cure? Could the cure be causing more longlasting damage than the cancer it sets out to eliminate?

PS (Added on October 17th. Piniella comes to Steve Lyons defense:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2006/news/story?id=2630050