It was a hot and humid Saturday night in that stretch of hot and humid days in hellishly hot and humid July. You remember it. Fertile climate for trouble.

My second-floor bedroom opens on a tiny 6’x6’ back porch I call my perch. The door was open. But what air moving there seemed only intent on stifling not sustaining life.

I slept, if you could call it that, uncovered, on top of my favorite brown quilt, a fondness almost babylike, turning and tossing as if on turbulent waves intent on ejecting foreign flotsam, and passing in and out of swirling consciousness, aware something was wrong but feeling limbless, powerless to arise.

When I finally was rattled awake, I headed, though stumbling, per usual morning routine, up to my third-floor study, up to my computer. But I couldn’t get “in.” My door to the day was closed. I felt enclosed.

But still thinking little of it. Just blaming the technology gods ever intent on exacting Trump-like retribution of this luddite professor who taught courses in the pre-digital world of the 1970s in which he avowedly treated technology “as the enemy.” I was now computer impotent. My hands felt fingerless.

I went with more ease – it was downhill – noiselessly to our living room and sat speechlessly – I could not find an in-body “on” switch -- opposite Betty, who was peacefully savoring her Sunday morning coffee and mentally tending her own rather serious health issues, unaware of my brewing tsunami, in our plush and comfy his ‘n her chairs.

Now I am a man of words. What I do is read and write. My nickname is “Edward Scholarhands.” I taught literature for over half a century. I can write poems that rhyme. But this day my words were in active rebellion, clamoring for chaotic escape from my cranial word-hoard like cattle in a pen surrounded by preying wolves.

I was conscious of “seeing” words in my mind’s eye, arranged sentence-like but making no sense. I was conscious in mind’s eye of moving the words around seeking their proper position, like pegs looking for their proper holes, in attempt to make the sentences make sense. Without success. With panic.

I now realized I had “lost it.”

I was visibly trembling.

I was conscious something was seriously, was ominously wrong. Betty was starting to sense something was seriously, was ominously wrong, too. Probably a whiff of singed brain cells in the air. During this time – was it minutes? – I refused to look at her, as if my not seeing her would shield her, would prevent her from seeing me.

Son Kevin and wife Melodie arrived. I was a poor conversationalist. For some reason, I had our possession of penne on my mind. “We have penne,” I insisted. The room could not understand what I was talking about or why. Neither could I. Melodie saw “something” not good in my eyes. “Dammit,” I snarled, “why can’t you understand me?”

I headed to the kitchen with urgency, as if on a life-and-death mission. Melodie followed. I opened the frig door, took out a bowl of grapes, turned to Melodie, virtually thrusting the bowl in her chest, exclaiming, “See, we have penne.” Melodie grimaced. She would later describe me as shell-shocked. I returned to the living room with a sense of achievement. Melodie followed, grimacing.

Kevin’s face wrinkled like an old newspaper page in a wastebasket. “Dad,” he said with love, “we are calling 911 to get you checked out.” Melodie and Betty seconded with alacrity. Betty’s face was between a tear and terror. I had been jittery, fidgety, but at Kevin’s words I relaxed. I was agreeable. I could feel a room full of love. I knew I needed help. I was coming out of “it.”

I was conscious. I think for the first time, that my words were slurred and could feel for the first time that my face was distorted, my right-side lips and cheek curled, enhancing the slurs. I knew I needed help and was in the care of loved ones.

The emergency guys were soon on scene, and in the ambulance heading across town to St. Luke’s hospital answering simple questions I felt a gradual return to normalcy as if clinging, suffocating cellophane was being removed, slowly and gingerly, from my brain as I would a bandage from a wound on my hairy arm. I felt the brain breathe.

I’m sure I wasn’t, but by the time we reached the hospital, I felt normal again.

What happened was that some nasty plaque briefly blocked an artery to my brain. I had a Transient Ischemic Attack, a “TIA,” which is similar to a stroke though not actually a stroke. The Mayo Clinic posts that 1/3 of the people who have a TIA episode will have a stroke within a year and ½ of those who do will die.

So I experienced a glimpse of mortality. I had not just a senior moment but a penultimate senior moment. I had something close to “the” senior moment. But all is good now. I have virtually no aftereffects from the TIA. I feel and function fine.

In fact, I can tell you exactly how I feel. I feel “fine and mellow.” And I invite you to feel exactly like I feel by listening on YouTube to the classic 1957 version of the song “Fine and Mellow” by the immortal Billie Holiday, surrounded by a half-dozen all-time great jazz instrumentalists. Your troubles melt away at her sound and, for instance, Lester Young’s sax solo.

I’m surrounded by love. I invite you to share my feeling that whatever happens, love done right makes our lives fine and mellow.

I like the life odds the Mayo Clinic gives me. I’m 86. I expect to be around a long time. I look forward to senior moment #43. I thought you might be interested in a tale of my latest moment, my little-known experience from the inside.